Union Minister of State (MoS) Railways, Suresh Angadi on Sunday accused Congress and other opposition parties and also held the teachers of Shaheen School responsible after the students participated in a play against the Citizenship Amendment Act and Register of Citizens. Suresh Angadi alleged that the teachers of Shaheen School are giving wrong teachings to the children. His statement came after Karnataka police sealed the offices of Shaheen School after its students participated in a play against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and Register of Citizens (NRC) on Republic Day. "A case has been registered against the school. They are giving wrong teachings to the children because of congress and other opposition parties. The children are innocent and they were not aware of what is happening. We have initiated an inquiry on the teachers," Angadi told ANI. "The children should be taught good things about the country and investigation should be carried out against the people giving information against the country," he added. When asked about Anurag Thakur's slogan 'Desh Ke Gaddaro Ko, Goli Maaro Saalo Ko' (shoot the traitors), Angadi said, "There are many times when you are emotional and you tend to say wrong things. There is nothing like that he means." While addressing a public meeting in Rithala on January 27, Thakur had made the gathering raise the slogan 'Desh Ke Gaddaro Ko, Goli Maaro Saalo Ko' (shoot the traitors). (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) 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Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe Russias Roskomnadzor watchdog wants to fine Facebook and Twitter after they refused to store data of Russian users on servers located in the country. Russias telecommunications watchdog Roskomnadzor has instituted administrative proceedings against Facebook and Twitter after they refused to store data of Russian users on servers located in the country. On January 31, 2020, Roskomnadzor instituted administrative proceedings against Facebook, Inc and Twitter, Inc ,. These companies did not provide information on meeting the requirements for localizing the databases of Russian users of the corresponding social networks on servers located in the Russian Federation, as provided for in part 5 of Article 18 of the Law on Personal Data No. 152-FZ. states the p ress release p ublished by the Russian watchdog. Administrative p roceedings were instituted on the grounds of an administrative offense in accordance with part 8 of article 13.11. Administrative Code of the Russian Federation, which provides for an administrative fine in the amount of 1 million to 6 million rubles. Russias Roskomnadzor revealed that the proceedings protocol was signed in the presence of a representative of Twitter, while no Facebook representative was present to sign it. Anyway, Facebook will receive a copy of the Protocol within three days. Both companies could be condemned to pay a fine ranging between 1 million rubles (approximately $16,000) and 6 million rubles ($94,000). You can bypass bans, but if the company works [in Russia], itll have to pay, Deputy Communications Minister Alexei Volin told the state-run TASS news agency Thursday. The Russian government has already blocked the p rofessional social network L inkedIn in 2016 under the data-localization legislation. This week the Russian government has blocked the ProtonMail end-to-end encrypted email service and ProtonVPN VPN service. Roskomnadzor explained that the services were abused by cybercriminals and that Proton Technologies refused to register them with state authorities. The Russian government asks all Internet service providers and VPN providers operating in the country to provide information about their users. On January 29, based on the requirements of the General Prosecutors Office of the Russian Federation, Roskomnadzor will restrict access to the mail service Protonmail.com (Switzerland), reads a press release published by Roskomnadzor, the Russias telecommunications watchdog. This email service was used by cybercriminals both in 2019 and especially actively in January 2020 to send false messages under the guise of reliable information about mass mining of objects in the Russian Federation, Roskomnadzor decided to block the Proton Technologies after the company refused to provide information about the owners of the mailboxes used to send the bombing threats. Pierluigi Paganini (SecurityAffairs United Nations, hacking) Share this... Linkedin Share this: Twitter Print LinkedIn Facebook More Tumblr Pocket Share On The increase in people feeling isolated comes amid a rising mental health crisis in America, which is leading to burnout in the workplace, said Sara Konrath, an associate professor of philanthropic studies at Indiana UniversityPurdue University Indianapolis. People are pushing themselves so hard when it comes to work-related topics ... and what this does is push away our time for relaxing, Konrath said. Not just [watching] Netflix but hanging out with people. ... This is stuff we know from research that is really good for our bodies. People often use social isolation and loneliness interchangeably, but they differ, experts say. Social isolation is the objective physical separation from other people [living alone], while loneliness is the subjective distressed feeling of being alone or separated, according to the National Institute on Aging. You could be in a room of 100 people and still feel very lonely, AARPs Allen explained. Social isolation can lead to a slew of health problems, including high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity, a weakened immune system and even death. 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. John Cleese enjoyed a low-key outing with his wife Jennifer Wade and 14 of their pals on Saturday night. The actor, 80, cut a casual figure as he enjoyed dinner at The Ivy restaurant in Chelsea, with his spouse, 47. John's outing comes after he paid tribute to his Monty Python co-star Terry Jones, following his death at the age of 77. Jovial: John Cleese, 80, enjoyed a low-key outing with his wife Jennifer Wade, 47, and 14 of their pals on Saturday John seemed to be in good spirits as he left the restaurant in a fur-collared woollen coat, despite an apparent injury to his foot. Wearing a brace on his left foot the actor waited for wife Jennifer to hail a taxi on King's Road. Fellow Monty Python star Terry died on January 21 at the age of 77 with his wife by his side after a battle with a rare form of dementia that robbed him of his speech. The actor and comedian directed some of the comedy troupe's most-loved works, including Life Of Brian. Catch up: The Fawlty Towers star seemed to be in good spirits as he left the restaurant in a fur-collared woollen coat, despite an apparent injury to his foot John said of his friend Terry: 'It feels strange that a man of so many talents and such endless enthusiasm, should have faded so gently away. 'Of his many achievements, for me the greatest gift he gave us all was his direction of Life of Brian. Perfection.' He added: 'Two down, four to go.' Another of the famous comedy group Graham Chapman died of cancer in 1989. Father-of-two John has been happily married to former model wife Jennifer since 2012 - but famously had to fork out 25million in divorce settlements across three failed marriages. He married first wife, American writer and actress Connie Booth, in 1968, and the couple went on to have a child together, daughter Cynthia, 43, three years later. Slim and chic: Jennifer tries to hail a taxi on King's Road in Chelsea, south west London Connie wrote and co-starred opposite Cleese as waitress Polly Sherman in the hugely-popular Fawlty Towers. The couple were divorced before the second series of the BBC comedy was written and aired, but they remained close friends in spite of their split. Cleese then went on the tie the knot with American actress Barbara Trentham in 1981, with the couple welcoming their daughter Camilla into the world in 1984. The pair divorced in 1990, and the actor left the UK in favour of a move to the bright lights of Los Angeles. In 1992, he married American psychotherapist, Alyce Faye Eichelberger, but the pair went on to divorce in 2008. Web Toolbar by Wibiya Self-publishing companies are now a dime a dozen. You will find them everywhere you go and while there are a handful of really good ones, most self-publishing companies do not care about how your book turns out. For this reason, many writers are always doubtful about self-publishing. To curtail this problem, the Toronto Book Expo is supporting the literary community in Canada, by hosting a book fair that encourages and allows established and aspiring authors to pursue their goals through self-publishing. The Toronto Book Expo is sponsored by Agora Publishing and a handful of other companies. Unlike many self-publishing companies that you will come across,Agora Publishing provides an unlimited amount of helpful information for aspiring self-published authors. The company offers countless workshops and informational guides to self-publishing to fully prepare writers for the challenges of self-publication. The goal of the Toronto Book Expo is to encourage and enable authors and aspiring authors to pursue their goals through self-publishing. In true support of the literary community, the Toronto Book Expo has made sure that authorswhether published or aspiring, are aware of companies like Agora Publishing. The event aims to introduce a better path toward publishing your work using reliable self-publishing companies like Agora Publishing. The presence of the self-publishing service will inspire aspiring authors to take a shot at self-publishing. Aspiring and established authors alike are advised toapply to be an author at the Toronto Book Expo in 2020. The literary industry is very competitive and even though hundreds of thousands of books are self-published regularly, a lot of these books face failure on a daily basis. What are the chances that your book would stand out in the midst of millions of books already available on bookshelves globally? The only way to improve your chances would be to work with a reliable self-publishing company. Of course, there is always the choice of going to a traditional publisher with your book. However, you must be aware that there is only a small chance that your work would get selected to be published by a traditional publisher. Many authors wait years before their work gets publishedif at all. In the chance that your work is published by a traditional publisher, you would lose a lot of control over what happens to your book after publishing. Traditional publishers have been known to reject perfectly good books, based on the fact that the author is unknown or that the authors views do not align with those of the publishing company. Traditional publishers also often limit an authors rights to their work. This includes creative authority from the books cover to the way it is promoted and most importantly, royalty from book sales. Self-publishing provides a solution to these problems posed by traditional publishing. When publishing with Agora Publishing, the writer is given complete creative control over the work on top of being able to retain all the rights to your intellectual property. What are you waiting for? Book your ticket to the Toronto Book Expo and get a chance to have a one-on-one chat with the self-publishing professionals at Agora Publishing. The United States is not yet ready for the final lifting of sanctions against Belarus, but the meetings held in Minsk with the President and Foreign Minister of Belarus bring a solution to this issue. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stated this after negotiations with President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko and Belarusian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei, TASS reported. "We will consider what sanctions can be lifted. So far we have not reached this point. But such moments as today bring us closer to this goal," the US Secretary of State stated. So he answered the question about sanctions, linked to the situation with respect for human rights in Belarus. Pompeo said this issue was addressed at a meeting with Lukashenko. Belarus has made significant progress on these issues. Further progress is the only way to lift sanctions, the Secretary of State said. According to him, the United States sees an opportunity to expand relations with Belarus. "The United States was among the first to recognize the independence of Belarus. We remain in the same position and we hope for deeper relations," Pompeo said. Pompeo notes that the parties need to work to overcome obstacles and more free access of American business to the Belarusian market. At the same time, Pompeo emphasized that Belarus should independently choose the development path, not succumbing to any force. As we reported, during his visit to Ukraine, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited wounded Ukrainian soldiers at the Kyiv Military Hospital. Source: Xinhua| 2020-02-02 17:05:36|Editor: Xiaoxia Video Player Close NEW DELHI, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- Two paramilitary troopers and two civilians were wounded on Sunday in a grenade attack in restive Indian-controlled Kashmir, police said. The grenade attack was carried out in Srinagar city, the summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir. "Today militants threw a grenade in Lal Chowk (red square) area of Srinagar. Two civilians and two personnel belonging to Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) were wounded," a police official in Srinagar said. According to police, the grenade aimed at paramilitary personnel exploded with a bang triggering panic among the pedestrians. The wounded personnel were immediately removed to the city's main hospital. Following the attack, additional contingents of police and paramilitary rushed to the spot in a bid to find attackers. A separatist movement and guerrilla war challenging New Delhi's rule is going on in Indian-controlled Kashmir since 1989. Kashmir, a Himalayan territory divided between India and Pakistan is claimed by both in its entirety. The two countries have fought three wars, two exclusively over Kashmir. Thank you for reading! Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue. The senior members of the royal family have been extremely busy working out all of the details of Megxit in recent weeks. Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and Prince Harry will be making some major changes, doing everything from not receiving any public funding to giving up their royal titles. Although everyone was extremely surprised and even a little blindsided when they announced that they would be stepping back as senior royals, fans realize that Meghan and Prince Harry have to do what they feel is best for themselves and their new son: Archie. The couple has been under an intense amount of media scrutiny for what seems like forever, and Meghan even admitted that she finds royal life to be unfair. Fans can only hope that after Megxit is a done deal that they will have the privacy and happiness that they deserve. Naturally, whenever anyone resigns from a position, they lose a number of certain things, which is something that everyone is talking about. So, is Queen Elizabeth demoting Meghan from duchess to countess? Meghan Markle and Prince Harry made a surprising announcement Although royal fans were well aware that Meghan and Prince Harry were having a tough time, the announcement that they would be stepping back from their royal roles was still completely unexpected. According to Fox News, we learned early in January 2020 that Megxit would be happening. Since then, all eyes have been on royal news in order to keep on top of every update. At this point, it has been revealed that Meghan and Prince Harry are going to be paying back the taxpayer funds that were used to renovate Frogmore Cottage. They are also going to be splitting their time between the United Kingdom and North America. In addition, the couple plans to become financially independent and that they are hoping to live more privately as they focus on the next stages of their lives. Meghan and Prince Harry have made it clear that they will still be supporting Queen Elizabeth. But they wont be officially carrying out any further royal duties after the spring of 2020. Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are giving up their royal titles Meghan Markle and Prince Harry | Toby Melville WPA Pool/Getty Images Now that they have decided to step back as senior royals, Meghan and Prince Harry are also going to be giving up their HRH titles. The Daily Mail reports the Duke and Duchess of Sussex will no longer be referred to as Their Royal Highnesses. We can only imagine that this is a small price to pay in a decision that was so huge and life-changing, and chances are, Meghan and Prince Harry suspected that it would happen. While there are still plenty of questions surrounding Megxit, royal fans will miss recognizing Meghan and Prince Harry by their HRH titles even though this is one of the smallest changes in the entire situation. Is Queen Elizabeth demoting Meghan Markle from duchess to countess? Meghan has only had the honor of being a duchess for a few short years, yet many royal fans may wonder if she will continue to have that rank after Megxit. After all, Queen Elizabeth has the power to demote her from a duchess to a countess, and it is completely up to her whether she chooses to do so. So, will Meghan now be called the Countess of Sussex? According to E! News, she wont. While the queen may have considered the possibility of demoting Meghan, she ultimately decided against it, because, of all things, she didnt want to seem petty. Even after the split is complete, we can all rest assured that Meghan will still be known as the Duchess of Sussex. File image Lashing out at the people protesting against the new citizenship law, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Saturday alleged that those who supported terrorists in Kashmir were staging protest in Shaheen Bagh and raising slogans of 'azadi'. Addressing a series of rallies in the national capital, Adityanath also said that "their ancestors divided India", so they have a grouse against this emerging 'Ek Bharat, Shrestha Bharat', and slammed the AAP government, saying it "supplies biryani" to protesters in Shaheen Bagh. At his first poll rally of the day at Karawal Nagar Chowk in support of BJP candidate Mohan Singh Bisht and Mustafabad's sitting MLA Jagdish Pradhan, Adityanath said the anti-CAA agitation was "against India" and an attempt to "malign the image" of the country. "It is a roadblock in realising the dream of 'Ek Bharat Shrestha Bharat'," he said. The UP chief minister also attacked his Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal, alleging he and his party were siding with protesters at Shaheen Bagh and that a Pakistan minister and AAP were speaking in similar terms. "How did it happen? We don't know where all their (AAP's) links are," he said, referring to a tweet on Friday by Pakistan's Minister of Science and Technology Fawad Hussain on Delhi polls. Kejriwal responded to him on Friday, saying the Delhi election was an internal matter of India and any interference by Pakistan, the biggest sponsor of terrorism, will not be tolerated. "People of Delhi, you have to decide, whether you want better health, better education facilities, better environment, metro services or whether Delhi needs Shaheen Bagh. I am here to tell you that," Adityanath said, amid chants of 'Yogi, Yogi' and 'Jai Shri Ram'. At another rally, the senior BJP leader sustained his attack on AAP, saying, "Kejriwal cannot even provide clean drinking water to the people of Delhi... According to a (BIS) survey, the Delhi government is making its people drink poisonous water. But it is supplying biryani to those protesting in Shaheen Bagh and elsewhere in the city." Hundreds of people, including women and children, have been protesting in Shaheen Bagh since December 15 against the amended law and the National Register of Citizens. They say the citizenship law is discriminatory and fear it targets Muslims. During the assembly poll campaign, BJP leaders have been urging people to vote for the party to show their disapproval for the ongoing anti-CAA protest at Shaheen Bagh. At a third rally in support of BJP candidate Vijender Gupta in Rohini, Adityanath claimed Mahatma Gandhi had said India should provide citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians fleeing atrocities in Pakistan, and "therefore, it (the citizenship law) should be welcomed". "Those who supported terrorists in Kashmir have come and sat on a dharna in Shaheen Bagh against the CAA and are raising slogans of 'azadi'," Adityanath said. "You should understand what they want, what they think about India, where are they taking it. If they indulge in rioting or arson...In Uttar Pradesh, I told the administration to make them pay for the damages and we seized their property," the firebrand BJP leader said. In December, Adityanath declared that his government would recover losses due to violence during protests against the law by seizing the properties of those involved in vandalism. The UP CM also said that since Narendra Modi became the prime minister, "we have been identifying every terrorist and feeding them 'goli' instead of biryani". "Let Kashmir remain in peace ... If you will speak the language of Pakistan, in favour of Pakistan, the soldier's gun will show you the way to hell," he said. At the Karawal Nagar rally, he also said, "The protests (at Shaheen Bagh) have disrupted daily life, we cannot condemn it less," the senior BJP leader said. "These protests are not about CAA, it is happening because those people are questioning how can India emerge as a major power in the world, and to stop that rising India," he claimed. Adityanath also asserted that his party and the central government will not allow a rule that divides the country into segments and "will not allow terrorism, insurgency and Naxalism in India". On the Ram temple issue, he reiterated that it was a "grand dream" of crores of Indian and Congress was a "blockade", but the Supreme Court has cleared the way for the temple. He alleged that the Kejriwal government is no different than Congress, as they are "trying to ensure the Nirbhaya convicts do not get hanged". He also alleged that AAP government has not given NOC to a Delhi-Meerut- Haridwar 12-lane expressway project, despite approval by the Centre and funds allocation by the UP government. On Thursday, the Election Commission banned Union minister Anurag Thakur and BJP MP Parvesh Verma from campaigning for 72 and 96 hours, respectively, in view of their provocative comments at an election rally in the city earlier this week. In the 8th Council district, a "Committee on Behalf of Working Families To Support Tunua Thrash-Ntuk For Council," Sponsored By Labor Organizations," the campaign is funded with $75,000 in two Jan. 27 contributions: $50,000 from "United Food and Commercial Workers Active Ballot Club (California)" based in Washington, D.C. and $25,000 from "Dignity California SEIU Local 2015 PAC (based in Sacramento.) Eighth district Council incumbent Al Austin, seeking a third term, faces challenges from Ms. Thrash-Ntuk as well as Reform Ticket candidate Juan Ovalle. As previously reported by LBREPORT.com, in the 6th Council district, an organized labor PAC has surfaced funded by the UniteHere! union for an independent campaign run by the L.A. County Federation of Labor to support electing challenger Suely Saro.. The common element: in both races, incumbents Austin (8th) and Andrews (6th) cast Sept. 19, 2017 votes against Council enactment of "Claudia's Law," a hotel-worker protective ordinance that would have assisted labor efforts to organize unrepresented LB hotel workers. The measure was opposed by LB hotel industry/hospitality interests, narrowly failed on a 4-5 vote (Yes: Gonzalez, Pearce, Uranga, Richardson; No: Price, Supernaw, Mungo, Andrews, Austin). Councilman Austin's vote infuriated a number of his traditional organized labor allies (he has long-time labor ties and is currently a business agent for AFSCME (a government employee union.) Like Andrews, Austin retains the endorsements by LB's politically active police and firefighter union PACs and Mayor Robert Garcia and his political allies. Oil companies request more Mozambique troops: ExxonMobil and Total have asked Mozambique to send more troops to guard their operations in the far north of the country after a surge of attacks by Islamist militants, an industry source and two security consultants said. Mozambique's northern province of Cabo Delgado is home to one of the world's biggest gas finds in the past decade, and both oil majors are working on massive liquefied natural gas projects that could transform the economy. The Government is placing temporary entry restrictions into New Zealand on all foreign nationals travelling from, or transiting through mainland China to assist with the containment of the novel coronavirus and to protect New Zealand and the Pacific Islands from the disease. This will take effect from tomorrow, Monday February 3, and will be in place for up to 14 days. This position will be reviewed every 48 hours. Any foreign travellers who leave or transit through mainland China after February 1 2020 (NZ time) will be refused entry to New Zealand. Any foreign travellers in transit to New Zealand on February 2 2020 will be subject to enhanced screening on arrival but, pending clearance, will be granted entry to New Zealand. New Zealand citizens and permanent residents returning to New Zealand will still be able to enter, as will their immediate family members, but will be required to self-isolate for 14 days on arrival back in the country. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has also raised its travel advice to New Zealanders for all of mainland China to Do not travel, the highest level. Cabinet convened last night to discuss the most up to date public health advice and recent developments in the spread of the virus. We have been advised by health officials that while there are still a range of unknowns in the way the virus is being transmitted, we should take a precautionary approach and temporarily stop travel into New Zealand from mainland China, and of people who have recently been in China, says Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. It is critically important that we both protect New Zealanders from the virus and play our part in the global effort to contain it. I am particularly mindful that we are a gateway to the Pacific, and must factor that into our decision making. We have been in close contact with our partners in the past 24 hours, and I have spoken on multiple occasions with Prime Minister Morrison to ensure we are each aware of any changes to our systems, and the wider impacts given the frequent travel between our two nations. The decision of the US to put in place similar restrictions to those decided by Cabinet has had a knock on effect in terms of travel, leading Air New Zealand and other airlines to stop their flights from China. The Cabinet is acutely aware of the economic impact of the virus, including on tourism, the primary sector and education. I have asked Ministers to make contact with industry leaders to mitigate some of these impacts as much as possible, says Jacinda. Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters stressed this is not a decision that has been taken lightly. Ultimately, this is a public health decision. The outbreak has been well managed by China, and these temporary measures are to reinforce work being done to try and reduce human to human transmission. New Zealand has not had a confirmed case of the virus and the risk of outbreak is low and we want to keep it that way. The health and safety of New Zealanders is our main priority. I have been in close contact with my Chinese counterpart on New Zealands decision and have conveyed New Zealands willingness to assist with Chinas efforts to control and defeat the virus, says Winston. Health precautions finalised for Wuhan flight Comprehensive health measures will be in place to prevent New Zealanders returning from Wuhan spreading the novel coronavirus, Health Minister Dr David Clark says. An Air New Zealand charter flight is on track to evacuate dozens of New Zealanders, Pacific Islanders and Australian citizens in coming days. Final timing of the flight and passenger details are still to be confirmed, in consultation with Chinese authorities. The Government is doing all it can to help those New Zealanders at the centre of the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan to return home as soon as possible, says David. We know this is a difficult and stressful time for those people stuck in Wuhan and their families. Its important they receive the best possible care, but also that effective public health measures are in place to ensure the welfare of both passengers and crew. A key part of the process is now complete, with health planning finalised for pre-flight checks, in-flight safety measures and isolating passengers for 14 days upon arrival in New Zealand. Chinese authorities are already conducting temperature checks for all passengers who are departing from Wuhan. In addition, New Zealand St John staff, which includes a Medical Director and two paramedics, and an Air New Zealand Doctor will conduct further health checks prior to boarding. These checks will ensure all passengers are fit to fly. Measures are also being taken to ensure the safety of all the staff on the flight. Infection control gear will be worn whenever they come into close contact with passengers. Health staff will monitor passengers (who will be provided with facemasks) and give them advice during the flight. The charter flight will land some distance from the main terminal in Auckland, and further health screening will be conducted. Standard border control measures, such as biosecurity checks will be completed as a matter of priority. It is expected that any Australian citizens and residents will be transferred on to a dedicated flight (with its own health measures in place) across the Tasman in coordination with the Australian government. Returning New Zealanders and Pacific Island citizens will be transported to a military facility at Whangaparaoa, where they will spend 14 days in isolation. The training camp has been chosen because of its size and facilities, as well as its location and secure nature. It also has its own medical facilities. During the isolation period the returnees will receive daily medical checks. Families will be kept together where possible, but will remain isolated from other returnees. Efforts will be made to ensure they can maintain as normal a life as possible while in isolation: working remotely, meeting education needs for children and providing for leisure activities. Managing the return of people from a region experiencing an outbreak such as this is a major logistical challenge, but with meticulous planning and a precautionary approach we are now ready to bring New Zealand citizens home, says Dr Clark. Many readers will have reacted to the global headlines of the last week about Billie Eilish and Kobe Bryant by asking 'Who?' Both are global names in online households - but relatively unknown to users of traditional media. Each type of household will react with amazement upon learning about each other's knowledge or ignorance. We increasingly live in a world of two types of media, traditional print or broadcast on one side with social media on the other - each has a diminishing overlap with the other. In the US, for instance, since 2018 social media has been used by adults more than newspapers as a news source. Most people have an awareness of the controlling reputations of traditional media magnates like William Randolph Hearst, Robert Maxwell or Rupert Murdoch. But who has control of social media? Much attention is focused on the activities of the owners of companies such as Facebook or Twitter - but what about the huge numbers who, in turn, use social media to attempt to influence public opinion in general and democratic elections, in particular? Who will be trying to influence your vote in the forthcoming General Election and how will they try to do it? Placing political advertisements is the most obvious type of media influence. It is reasonably transparent and can be regulated. But this is just the tip of the iceberg - the real action in modern campaigning is to try to persuade and form opinions in ways that are indirect and not often obvious. Traditional and new media are the target of many groups who specifically seek to influence public policy by ensuring the election of candidates who will implement measures that will further their aims. We call this activity 'lobbying'. The activity is well recognised and heavily regulated in more mature societies. Many can have blinkered views about the identity of lobbyists - usually imagining they are exclusively employed by large businesses and other groups who are assumed to be uncaring about the common good. Many good people can be blissfully and almost naively unaware of the scale, expenditure and influence efforts of organisations that promote 'good causes' - often classifying themselves as charities or Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs). These unelected and unaccountable groups can have access to the highest levels of international agencies, such as the United Nations and the European Commission, often to the dismay of hard-won representatives of democratically elected national governments. Access by activists can even take the form of partnerships near the heart of government, often going completely unrecognised or regulated, despite being lobbyists. Significantly more vigilance is needed to regulate this reality. Taking environmental lobbying, as an obvious and topical example. Many voters, especially the young, hold deep and passionate views about the need to protect the environment from human activities. In many cases they may be unaware that their activism is based on carefully constructed narratives that have been drawn up and promoted by surprisingly large and well-organised international environmental NGOs. Organisations that spend millions annually trying to influence policy are assumed to be multinational industries and businesses. The cute panda logo is on the front of the World Wildlife Fund's annual international report; it details how over $300m was spent in 2019, while Greenpeace had a 2018 turnover in excess of 80m. Single-issue groups, such as Birdlife, spent over 20m the same year. Very large amounts of these funds are spent on activities that the organisations describe as public education, policy development or awareness raising - lobbying. Farmers trying to explain their case in Brussels or Washington need to remember the size and wealth of the opponents who have visited before them. Lobbying for environmental causes is big business, yet many environmental organisations are horrified to be described as 'lobbyists' despite their extensive attempts to influence public policy. They prefer to be called 'campaigners' or 'activists'. The dangers of well-meaning 'activists' has been long recognised. One of Cork's most famous orators, John Philpot Curran, said in 1790: "It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance." This is usually remembered as the political slogan, 'The price of freedom is eternal vigilance', however, the most important advice is often overlooked. Curran was warning against 'the active'. We need to extend that vigilance to those who seek to influence us - being especially vigilant about 'good causes'. We need to continue to confront attempts by activists to engage our hearts with emotions, rather than our heads with facts, by demanding the truth - the whole truth. We need to confront homelessness campaigners with the truth that rough-sleeping numbers and homeless figures in Ireland are falling, and with the whole truth that these are issues in every country and that we in Ireland are dealing with this very well compared to other countries. Dublin's 90 rough sleepers are rarely compared to London's 9,000. Ireland's 10,000 people in emergency accommodation are rarely compared to the UK's 320,000, which includes 127,000 children. We need to confront environmental campaigners with the truth that most recorded extinctions took place prior to 1900 and that the majority of these occurred on long-isolated islands. We need to confront activists with the reality that over 15pc of land on earth is already protected - compared to the 11pc that is used for agriculture. We need to continue to confront activists with the increasingly rare currency of boring facts and truth - especially the whole truth in the fullest context. There is hope. There is good news, at least in Ireland. This country is estimated to be one of a handful of countries in the world with high media literacy. Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden, Estonia and Ireland were ranked at the top the Media Literacy Index 2019. These countries are considered the best equipped to withstand the impact of fake news due to the quality of education, free media and high trust among people. This is not a reason to be complacent. In a world where news is increasingly infiltrated by misinformation from activists, it is becoming apparent that media literacy needs to be actively supported. Finland, the country with the highest media literacy score, has taught media literacy in primary and secondary school since 2016. These students learn skills that were once thought to be the sole preserve of newspapers - fact-checking, information evaluation, and critical thinking. The key is to sustain an awareness of the potential 'to become a prey to the active' - as Curran warned back in 1790. The online world is raw, unchecked and unedited information - most of it devoid of context, much of it comprising partial information and some of it is just wrong, through either ignorance or malice. We must not respond with cynicism by avoiding engagement with news. Critical thinking and vigorous questioning are the antidote. Critical thinking is a habit that needs daily practice. What better chance to do so than to develop skills during this General Election campaign? Ask lots of hard questions on doorsteps, ideally in a Cork accent, to honour John Philpot Curran. Just say, "Who told you that?" Latest News MFAA calls submissions for 2022 Excellence Awards The association also reveals a new award Playing it safe? Here are 50 of most consistent suburbs to invest in Hotspotting founder claims investors should look into stable markets, not booming ones Due to the changing lending landscape, there is a strong demand for private funding in Australia. Kevin Wheatley explains to Australian Broker how this could impact brokers Founder of Sydney-based Bayside Residential and Commercial Mortgages Kevin Wheatley works predominantly with clients from across the globe to deliver and maximise investments in property development. He established the company back in 2009, bringing to it years of experience as a logistician by trade, having worked on projects such as shipping ports and waste-to-energy facilities. During his time as a logistician, Wheatley one of MPAs Top 10 commercial brokers for 2019 says he developed a passion for the financial industry and the way it could make a difference to peoples lives. He says: In logistics, theres a very high level of procurement, and procurement requires funding." This led him to take a natural step towards offering financial services. Ive taken Bayside Residential and Commercial Mortgages from a one-man operation to what it is today, and this is just the beginning, Wheatley says. In 2018, the volume of residential and commercial funds that came through Bayside totalled $249m. The volume for 2019 is also estimated at around $200m. Wheatley is also currently looking to provide about $1.9bn in development funding for three projects in Australia, including one in Port Melbourne and another major development in Cronulla. Our core focus this year will be on raising the capital required for AusCity Capital, to take it to the next level, he adds. AusCity Capital is the private business arm of Bayside Residential and Commercial Mortgages. It aims to provide debt funding for construction development, stable income-producing properties, unlisted and listed property securities, cash and fixed-income securities. It gives investors access to premium construction and development projects that are not available on the public market. Access to private debt Wheatley explains that because banks are applying unyielding disqualifying criteria, such funding opportunities are usually fulfilled by non-conforming lenders who offer premium rates and fees to their clients, knowing that institutional lenders are rigid in their financing requirements. But through the establishment of a debenture issuing company, he says the AusCity Capital fund is able to raise private funding for strong projects with time-sensitive needs, as well as those projects that have been unable to raise funds from banks due to overly prudent regulation stemming from the royal commission. Our investment vehicles allow us to compete with non-conforming lenders by offering commercial mortgages to institutional clients at more competitive rates, he says. Another key focus for Wheatley is on AusCity Capital eventually becoming a non-bank. Non-banks are here to stay. Theres demand now more than ever because of the lack of competition thats been in Australia, allowing the big four to monopolise the industry, he explains. What has been found by the royal commission now is only the tip of the iceberg youll see a lot more class action cases in the courtrooms this year because of banks misleading and deceptive conduct. If anything, this has given a lot more credibility to our business, because were the ones now that are constantly finding an alternative funding solution for disgruntled borrowers. He adds, The private funding opportunities are going to be there for a long time. However, Wheatley points out that his business could be negatively impacted if the government was to go ahead with plans to scrap trail commissions. The future of trail commissions The biggest threat to Australian brokers is going to be the disruption that will come as a result of the 76 recommendations made by the Hayne royal commission, suggesting a crackdown on mortgage brokers. Wheatley says, Josh Frydenberg, the treasurer, is proposing that by July 2020 he is going to cut trail payments. Do you think thats not going to be detrimental to the industry? Trail payments are designed to cover the time that brokers spend keeping an eye on their borrowers. Because we want to make sure the borrower stays with the bank, explains Wheatley. Private funding opportunities are going to be here for a long time Kevin Wheatley, Bayside Residential and Commercial Mortgages Commission payments are not worth nickels and dimes; my residential division actually loses money because of the time it takes to process home loans, and you get very little remuneration for it. So if we have to rely on upfront commissions, which theyre talking about cutting back as well, to a fee for service, no ones gonna pay that. This is a complete backflip to what Frydenberg said in the lead-up to the elections, Wheatley says. Thats going to be the biggest disrupter in the industry over the next six months, and we are preparing for that now. But for borrowers, he argues, it is cheaper to keep making trail payments than to carry the fixed costs of banks, which will have to find alternative resources to the third party channel. If they cut trail payments, there will be three people here [in this company] that wont have a job. We cant survive on commissions alone, he says. The government has not spent enough time talking to the industry leaders. Instead, Wheatley says what is needed is a two-year moratorium period for the government to consult the industry across the board. These people need to come back to the table and talk to us, he says. This will impact the whole broking industry, because they wont be able to afford to operate. Where will their cash flow come from? It takes some two to three months to do a home loan, so how do we pay our staff and provide the services that the Australian community now expects? The only way to find a pragmatic outcome will be on the back of sensible discussions and, hopefully, by negotiating a result thats going to work for the entire financial industry. Looking ahead Aside from new regulations and proposals to scrap trail commissions, the year ahead is looking really exciting, Wheatley says. Not only with the development that weve got here in Australia but the projects Ive got offshore; I pick the eyes out of what I want to do offshore. Because you could end up wasting a lot of time. So, in between raising capital for major construction projects in Australia, the company will also be providing logistics support for a new waste-to energy plant in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Weve already started, and it will take about two years to complete, Wheatley says. Another reason 2020 could be an exciting year for Wheatley is that a number of venture capitalists in the US have expressed a strong interest in AusCity Capitals fund. Were really excited about where AusCity Capital is going and the interest it has attracted, he says. It will be a very niche managed investment trust where we are going to handle the projects we fund directly with the capital we raise, primarily from our high-end borrowers those that we have been working with for years. These financiers really have the capability and capacity to start a project and finish it, whether that is property development or infrastructure projects like the waste-to-energy and port facilities. In the Australian market, Wheatley expects to see steady economic growth and opportunities as the nation heals from the devastating impact of the summers bush fires. Now, more than ever, the world needs trustworthy reportingbut good journalism isnt free. Please support us by subscribing or contributing today. Two youths who had made a bid to cross over to Pakistan to join a militant outfit were arrested and handed over to their families after counseling, the Army said on Saturday. "It has been the constant endeavor of security forces that the misguided youth be brought back to the mainstream and be prevented from joining militancy. In one such endeavour, two youths intending to cross the LoC have been brought back and reunited with their families today," an Army spokesman said. He said the youths -- both 16 years of age and hailing from south Kashmir -- were influenced by the false narrative and the rhetoric created by anti-national elements to lure them to join a militant outfit. After the security forces learned about their intention to cross the LoC, they launched synergised and concerted efforts to apprehend them, the spokesman said. "Their movements were tracked closely and all our teams were instructed to apprehend them alive so that they can be brought back to the mainstream," he said. The spokesman said the Army received an input of their presence in Uri, near Police Vehicle Check Post (PVCP), and their plan to cross over to the other side. The youths sensing tight security at Uri were returning to Baramulla to exploit other routes to cross over, he said. Based on the input, the security personnel was deployed at Ganthmulla Colony on the Baramulla-Kupwara national highway and were instructed to exercise absolute restraint so as to apprehend the youths without any harm, the spokesman said. The two youths had boarded a bus from Uri to Baramulla. Around 2.55 pm, the bus was intercepted and both the youths were apprehended, he said. The youths have been counseled and have been handed over to their families with an aim to facilitate their joining in the mainstream, he said. Parents of youths were thankful to the security forces for ensuring the safety of their children and bringing them back to the mainstream, he added. (Image Credit: PTI) (CNN) In China, Wuhan used to be known as a city of cherry blossoms, an economic engine of the central heartland, and the birthplace of a century-old revolution that brought down the country's last imperial dynasty. But now, the metropolis of approximately 11 million people in Hubei province has become the face of a deadly new coronavirus outbreak a stigma the people of Wuhan increasingly find themselves unable to shake off. With the death toll surging past 300 and 14,300 confirmed cases spreading all over China, local authorities across the country have activated the highest public health emergency response, stepping up screening of arrivals from Wuhan. However, fears over the spread of the outbreak have fueled resentment and discrimination against people from Wuhan. Some have become outcasts in their own country, shunned by hotels, neighbors and -- in some areas -- placed under controversial quarantine measures. Wuhan officials estimate about 5 million people had left the city for the annual Lunar New Year holiday before authorities canceled all outbound flights, trains and buses in an unprecedented lockdown on January 23. Many of them are migrant workers or university students returning to their hometowns for new year family reunions. Others are holidaymakers taking advantage of the long annual break. China only declared that the coronavirus could be transmitted from person to person on January 20, following a sudden jump in confirmed cases. Until then, authorities had said the outbreak was "preventable and controllable." "Many of my friends who left Wuhan did not realize (how severe) the situation was," April Pin, a Wuhan resident, wrote in a widely circulated open letter pleading her countrymen to forgive those who left without knowing. Pin, one of the millions of people who had stayed in Wuhan, told CNN she wrote the letter because "there are too many comments online hurling abuse and denunciation at Wuhan people." "I feel wronged," she added. Persona non grata Following the lockdown, Wuhan residents traveling in other parts of China soon found themselves no longer welcomed by local hotels and guesthouses, nor were they able to return to Wuhan due to the newly imposed travel restrictions. They were stranded in their own country. On social media, posts of Wuhan tourists seeking help for a place to stay sprang up. One user on Weibo, China's Twitter-like platform, claimed in a post last Sunday that she was kicked out by her guesthouse in Changsha, Hunan province, because guests from neighboring Hubei province were no longer allowed. "I'm only asking for help here because I'm really at the end of my rope," wrote the user, Ludougao, who said she left Wuhan on January 20, three days before the lockdown. She went to the train station, only to find out that no trains will stop at Wuhan anymore. She called the police, but was told to go to a "relief station" -- shelter for homeless people. She called the Wuhan mayor's hotline, to no avail. She even went to the hospital to get a health check, but still no hotels would take her. By then, she had already contacted more than 10 hotels and guesthouses, but was rejected by all, according to her post. "I don't understand it. Even if all of us Wuhan people are 'walking dead,' to contain the outbreak's spread, shouldn't I be allowed to stay indoors? Now I'm forced to go out, and I've got nowhere to go," she wrote. The post which was later deleted went viral, so much so that it drew the attention of the Changsha "internet police," or censors, who then alerted authorities about her case, the city's internet regulator said in a statement on Weibo. She finally managed to check into a hotel later that evening, according to the regulator and her own subsequent posts. When contacted by CNN, Ludougao said she stood by her deleted post. She declined to comment further, saying she has been contacted by the government. Ludougao's plight was echoed by many others across the country. In southern Yunnan province, popular for its balmy weather and nature, there were so many Hubei tourists with nowhere to stay calling authorities for help that the provincial culture and tourism bureau issued a notice last Sunday ordering every city to designate at least one hotel to accommodate them. Other provinces and cities in China, such as southern Guangdong and Guangxi provinces, soon followed suit, reserving hotels for tourists from Wuhan and other parts of Hubei province, according to state media. The Wuhan Culture and Tourism Bureau also complied a list of hotels designated for Wuhan tourists acriss the country. But it remains unclear how many travelers from Wuhan know about them. With a growing number of international airlines canceling their flights to Wuhan, many tourists from the city have also been stranded outside China. As of January 27, there were still more than 4,000 Wuhan tourists overseas, according to the Wuhan Culture and Tourism Bureau. China's foreign ministry announced Friday that charter flights will be arranged to take them home. "In view of the practical difficulties Chinese citizens from Hubei province, especially Wuhan, have faced overseas, the Chinese government has decided to send charter flights to take them directly back to Wuhan as soon as possible," foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in a statement. According to the ministry, two flights chartered by the Chinese government landed at the Wuhan international airport on Friday night, bringing Hubei travelers home from southeast Asia. One flight from Bangkok, Thailand, carried 76 passengers, the ministry said. it is unclear how many people were aboard the other flight from Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia. Authorities had earlier said that the two flights were expected to carry more than 200 Hubei residents. Blocked roads, barricaded homes Apart from tourists, local authorities have also been on high alert for people who have returned to their hometowns from Wuhan for the Lunar New Year. In some cities, such as Shanghai and Guangzhou, neighborhood committees have been tasked with searching for Wuhan returnees door by door, and reporting their information to authorities, according to state media. Eric Chen, a 33-year-old from Jingzhou, Hubei, This story was first published on CNN.com 'Outcasts in their own country, the people of Wuhan are the unwanted faces of China's coronavirus outbreak' She's the reality star who has relocated from Melbourne's inner-suburbs to Sydney's Bondi Beach. And on Sunday, MAFS star Martha Kalifatidis proved that while she may have started to unpack her designer wardrobe in her new luxury pad - she's still missing a few essential items before she can truly call it home. Taking to her Instagram, the 31-year-old brunette shared a selfie as she posed on her new blow-up mattress. Four Seasons to a blow-up mattress! MAFS star Martha Kalifatidis (pictured) took to her Instagram to share a bedside selfie from her new Bondi apartment on Sunday evening 'I just went from the Four Seasons to the blow up mattress real quick. Now this should be just stunning for my posture!' she wrote alongside the snap. It comes after Martha and her boyfriend Michael Brunelli were spotted unpacking her extensive wardrobe on Saturday morning. The brunette bombshell was spotted carrying a number of unusual garments, including leopard and snakeskin print cocktail dresses. Everybody needs good neighbours: It comes after Martha and her boyfriend Michael Brunelli were spotted unpacking her extensive wardrobe on Saturday morning She was aided by her doting boyfriend and mother Mary, who was also put to work as she carried a number of odd household items from the car inside. Moving to Sydney is the latest in several big changes for Martha, who also recently opted to chop her long raven hair off. During the lengthy car trip from Melbourne to Sydney this weekend, Martha spoke of her stylish new hairstyle on Instagram. Road trip! Moving to Sydney is the latest in several big changes for Martha, who also recently opted to chop her long raven hair off Speaking on the car trip, Martha said she was interested in having kids sooner rather than later. 'Yeah, I do want to have kids. I don't know when,' Martha said after a fan asked her about her family plans. She added: 'I know I'm 31 and I should probably get a move on. But I don't think I'm ready to.' The chances of him spreading the disease is very low, said Mr. Rungrueng, noting that the space between beds in the general ward was more than a yard. Our medical staff always wash their hands in and out. It will not be communicable to others. Yet in Wuhan, the coronavirus has infected medical workers, including a doctor who had raised the alarm about the mysterious virus in December, only to have the local government berate him for illegal behavior. As the virus has spread across the region, some governments have remained in denial. At one hospital in Yangon, the largest city in Myanmar, a slide show during a presentation on preventing the spread of coronavirus said: Dont be so afraid of the coronavirus. It wont last long because made in China. Health is not a joke, and the virus is not a joke either, said Aung Aung, a surgeon at Mandalay General Hospital. I dont think Myanmar has the modern techniques to know whether the virus is here. On Friday, Myanmar announced its first suspected case, involving a Chinese man who had arrived by plane from Guangzhou. Myanmar does not have the capacity to test for this specific coronavirus, said U Zaw Htay, a government spokesman. Any samples will need to be sent to Thailand or Hong Kong, which could take up to a week. Even high-level officials have been trading in folk remedies. After a Facebook user in Myanmar wrote a widely read tribute to onions as a way to prevent transmission of the coronavirus, the chief minister of Tanintharyi Division, U Myint Mg, shared the post on his Facebook page. The Chinese government has announced that people should consume and have on hand as many onions as they can, the post read, with no basis in fact. 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 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. Community Hospital of Anaconda continues to expand its role as a topflight regional healthcare facility for southwest Montana. CEO JoEllen Villa said that the hospital "continually assesses the healthcare environment, seeking to enhance and expand the services we provide." With a payroll north of $35 million and more than 425 providers and employees, the hospital's mission and strategy make it one of Anaconda's most valuable institutions. "Because we serve an area much larger than Anaconda, Anaconda and surrounding areas have also experienced a positive economic impact due to the influx of visitors, students, and relocating employees. This population is naturally drawn to area businesses and, therefore, has a positive impact on the Anaconda and regional economy," Villa said. Current areas of expansion for the hospital include its Hospice House, ear nose and throat care, behavioral health, and pediatric and adult psychiatry. According to CFO Meg Hickey-Boynton, the hospital is constantly assessing its facilities "for opportunities to improve space for our providers, staff and patients." She added that "With the implementation of new technology, there is continual need for both renovation and innovation related to staying ahead of the curve in industry best practices." Hickey-Boynton said that serving as a clinical rotation site for many medical specialties has created a "a natural pipeline" for recruiting physicians and practitioners, aided by "the active lifestyle our area offers, the diverse patients we serve, and opportunities to learn and advance." In 2019, newcomers to the hospital included Dr. Kelly Irons, pediatrics/pediatric psychiatry; Dr. Roger Pafford, family medicine; Alisa Sullivan, family medicine; and Alicia Foley and Jamie VanderLinden, licensed clinical social workers. This year, they are welcoming Dr. Bridgette Baker. family medicine; Dr. Sheena Ray, adult psychiatry; and Drs. Silddy Atilano and Andy Bognanno, obstetrics and gynecology. "We are very fortunate to have the nursing program locally at Montana Tech and host students every semester," Hickey-Boynton added. "The students are an asset to our facility, providing a unique perspective on the ever-changing healthcare environment. It is also a great resource for recruiting." Obstetrics and gynecology have been a consistent growth area for the hospital, she said, and the addition of Atilano and Bognanno, both board-certified OB/GYN providers, beginning in April and May, respectively, continues that trend. Behavioral health and psychiatry are also areas of focus. "We are fortunate to have board-certified psychiatrists on board with additional providers coming this spring," Hickey-Boynton said. Also, "Family practice continues to be a primary opportunity for growth, as are the specialty areas of oncology, urology, endocrinology, rheumatology, orthopedics, general surgery, neurosurgery and interventional pain management." Recent recognition for the hospital includes being named top 20 Critical Access Hospital in America by the National Rural Health Association; 2019 iVantage Healthstrong Top 100 Hospital; 2019 Quality Achievement Award, Mountain Pacific Quality Health Foundation, 2005-2019; 2019 Innovation in Healthcare Award, Montana Hospital Association; and Healthgrades Five-Star Recipient for Total Knee Replacement, 2016-2019. Asked about its recent sheriff's-sale purchase of the Copper Bowl property at 1500 East Park Street, Hickey-Boynton said the hospital "was interested in acquiring the property due to its size and location at the east entrance of town and in an effort to maintain local interest in the property." She said that recently the hospital fenced the property for safety because of the condition of the parking lot, which cannot be repaired during the winter. She added that the hospital will be "evaluating options" regarding the property and is "committed to engaging with the community regarding future plans" for the location. She said the hospital "is mindful that the east entrance of Anaconda is a gateway to our community, and will carefully assess all options prior to making any decisions." CEO Villa said the hospital "is committed to providing the highest quality of care to our patients, which requires a great deal of coordination and teamwork from our providers and staff." Love 17 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 Saudi Arabia has more than $1.1 billion worth of projects planned for the next decade with a special focus on its key retail, tourism and residential sectors, thus giving a major boost to the kingdom's facilities management (FM) sector, said a report released ahead of FM Expo Saudi and Saudi Clean Expo in capital Riyadh. The kingdoms only FM and cleaning event, FM Expo Saudi and Saudi Clean Expo, will run from February 11 to 13 at the Riyadh International Convention and Exhibition Center. Demand for FM services is expected to rise as a result of the massive Saudi project pipeline, stated the event organiser, dmg events. The announcement comes as demand for FM services is increasing on the back of thriving construction activity in the country. Citing Saudi Vision 2030 as a major driver for the kingdoms construction plans, event manager at dmg events, Paddy ONeil said: "The Saudi governments vision has prompted development of mega-projects across multiple commercial spaces be it in the retail, tourism or residential sector, all of which will soon require expansive facilities management services." "In line with the sustainability pillar of Saudi Vision 2030, completed and upcoming properties are also expected to withstand the test of time, stay cost effective, and run with minimal impact to the environment, making it even more important for asset owners to carefully consider which operational and maintenance solutions to invest in," he added. Bringing the best of the FM and cleaning industry together under one roof, the upcoming expo will present an unmissable opportunity for building stakeholders to find all they need to maintain their properties to the highest standard, and with the newest processes, said the event organisers. Products on display at the event are expected to be the latest and most cutting-edge in the field, displayed by over 30 of the markets leading brands. Heavyweights signed up to exhibit at the event include the likes of Chbib, Al Majal, Nilfisk, Essity, and Reza Hygiene to name but a few, it added. Mohannad Zughayer, the area sales manager at exhibiting company Rothoblaas SRL, said: "Saudi Arabia is developing very fast towards the FM industry to assure functionality, comfort, and safety of the built environment. The pedigree of the kingdom within the region also plays a huge role, and for this reason it needs to be preserved in its state of majestic modernity." Designed to enrich the sector, FM Expo Saudi and Saudi Clean Expo will also feature a free-to-attend workshop series made up of 20 sessions. Visiting professionals will be able to benefit from CPD (continuing professional development) certification points through these workshops, whilst getting to know the latest facilities management trends and techniques. Organised by dmg events, FM Expo Saudi is sponsored by Al-Hajry Overseas (Titanium Sponsor), Infor (Lanyard Sponsor), Enova by Veolia (Headline Workshop Sponsor) and Tamimi Group (Registration Sponsor), and is proudly supported by Riyadh Chamber. The event is co-located with HVAC R Expo Saudi and Stone & Surface Saudi. The events are held from February 11 to 13 at the Riyadh International Convention & Exhibition Center.-TradeArabia News Service Arlene Foster has called on Boris Johnson to protect security force members living in Northern Ireland from vexatious claims. Following the British Prime Ministers pledge to prevent vexatious prosecutions of British soldiers who served in Northern Ireland, Mrs Foster urged Mr Johnson to consider troops still living in the North. The First Minister told Sky News: I hope that he (Boris Johnson) does it in a way that recognises not just soldiers and British soldiers who live on the mainland but also he takes into account those people who continue to live here in Northern Ireland. Security force members who continue to live here in Northern Ireland need to be protected as well from vexatious claims. Mrs Foster also called for a review of the Stormont House Agreement regarding proposals for victims of the Troubles and the remit of the Historical Investigations Unit (HIU). The Stormont House Agreement is five years old now, nearly six years old, its important that we look at all of the consultation responses that came in from various victims groups to see what they want, she added. I think we need to revisit the Stormont House Agreement because what is being proposed, and we made this clear in our consultation response at the time, is not acceptable to the victims groups here and its certainly not acceptable to us. There needs to be a re-look at the Stormont House Agreement , particularly in relation to the remit of the Historical Investigations Unit, the HIU, which is there to look at historical cases. She added that the British Government is aware of how serious the issues are. There is a need to deal with these issues but it has to be done in a way that recognises fairness and recognises what actually happened here in Northern Ireland over 35-40 years, the fact that we did have a terrorist campaign and there were so many innocent victims as a result of that, she added. Asked about Mr Johnsons support for a bridge linking Northern Ireland and Britain, Mrs Foster said the idea should be scoped out. Mr Johnson told British politicians to watch this space when questioned about his support for the bridge idea just days after last months British general election. Mrs Foster added: I support the Government in putting money into infrastructure, but it has to be done in a way that we get value for money, and it has to be done in a way that is project managed in the correct fashion. I think it should be scoped out, I think we should be ambitious. Sources said that if Speaker Om Birla does not allow the motions to be taken up, the party will disrupt Question Hour. In the Rajya Sabha, the Trinamul Congress has given notice under Rule 267 for suspension of rules to discuss the raging anti CAA-NRC-NPR peoples movement in India. (Photo: PTI) New Delhi: With the Union Budget over, the Opposition parties are now gearing up to corner the government in Parliament over the protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act across the country. These parties, including the Congress and the Trinamul Congress, have given notices to move adjournment motions in both Houses for a discussion on the issue. Not to be outdone, the ruling BJP is also ready for a confrontation and has fielded West Delhi MP Parvesh Verma, who was recently barred from campaigning by the Election Commission for his communally divisive remarks, to move the motion of thanks to the Presidents address. Sources in the Congress said former party chief Rahul Gandhi has been requested to open the debate on the Presidents address from the Opposition, but if he does not it would be the Congress Lok Sabha leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhary. Congress chief whip K. Suresh and Assam MP Gaurav Gogoi will, meanwhile, move adjournment motions in the Lok Sabha to immediately discuss the anti-CAA protests. Sources said that if Speaker Om Birla does not allow the motions to be taken up, the party will disrupt Question Hour. The party will also demand that Prime Minister Narendra Modi speak on the anti-CAA protests while replying to the motion of thanks, failing which they would stage a walkout, the sources added. In the Rajya Sabha, the Trinamul Congress has given notice under Rule 267 for suspension of rules to discuss the raging anti CAA-NRC-NPR peoples movement in India. Also, for the first time the since the party was formed in 1992, the TMC will move amendments to the Presidents motion of thanks address. Sources said TMC parliamentary party leader Derek OBrien and chief whip Sukhendu Shekhar Roy have moved six amendments in the Upper House and thus amendments would be moved in the Lower House too. While Saugata Roy and Mahua Moitra would speak from the TMC on the Presidents address in the Lok Sabha, in the Rajya Sabha it would be Sukhendu Shekhar Roy. The CPI(M) too has moved amendments to the motion of thanks in both Houses. By Express News Service KOTTYAM: As bloodshed continued on roads in Kottayam, five members of a family, including three women, were killed when the car in which they were travelling rammed a wood-laden lorry at Kalikavu near Kuravilangad on M C Road in the early hours of Saturday. The deceased were identified as Thampi, 68, of Ullattilpadi, Thiruvathukkal near Kottayam, his wife Valsala, 65, their daughter-in-law Prabha, 40, Prabhas son Arjun alias Ambadi, 19, and her mother Usha, 58. According to police, the accident occurred around 12.15 am. The family was returning from Chalakkudi after visiting a relatives house there, police said. The car collided head-on with the lorry, which was heading to Perumbavoor from Pathanamthitta. Police suspect that Ambadi, who drove the car, might have dozed off. At same time, passengers didnt get the protection of the air bags as they didnt wear seat belts, according to MVD authorities. The car was completely destroyed in the impact of the collision. A Fire and Rescue Services unit from Kaduthuruthi, with the help of police and local residents, had to cut open the mangled remains to take out the passengers, who got trapped inside it. All five persons died on the spot and the bodies were shifted to the Government Medical College Hospital, Kottayam. Traffic was disrupted for nearly 45 minutes along M C Road following the accident. Thampi was doing lottery business in Kottayam town. Prabha, who was working as a nurse in Kuwait, is the wife of Thampis son Bijoy alias Praveen, who is also in Kuwait. Bijoy returned home from Kuwait by late evening. The funeral of the five persons will be held at SNDP cemetery at Veloor near Kottayam at 11 am on Sunday. The mangled remains of the car, which rammed a wood laden lorry at Kalikavu near Kuravilangad in Kottayam on Saturday | Express India on Sunday temporarily suspended e-visa facility for Chinese travellers and foreigners residing in China in view of the coronavirus outbreak that has killed more than 300 people, infected over 14,000 others and spread to 25 countries. "Due to certain current developments, travel to India on e-visas stands temporarily suspended with immediate effect," the Indian Embassy here announced. This applies to holders of Chinese passports and applicants of other nationalities residing in the People's Republic of China. Holders of already issued e-visas may note that these are no longer valid," it said. All those who have a compelling reason to visit India may contact the Embassy of India in Beijing or the Indian consulates in Shanghai or Guangzhou, as well as the Indian Visa Application Centres in these cities," it said. India has evacuated 647 Indians and seven Maldivian citizens by special flights from coronavirus-hit Wuhan city. Air India's jumbo B747 made two flights to Wuhan city - the ground zero of the coronavirus epidemic. In the first flight on Saturday, 324 Indians were evacuated and on Sunday another 323 Indians and seven Maldivian citizens were flown back. The e-visa facility for Chinese nationals was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to China in 2015 as a confidence building measure as well as an attempt to ease visa restrictions to attract more Chinese tourists. With the spread of the coronavirus, a number of countries have temporarily stopped issuing visas to Chinese nationals and have imposed travel ban on visitors from China. The US has imposed a 14-day travel ban on all visitors from China, regardless of their nationality. US citizens arriving from Hube province will have to undergo 14-day mandatory quarantine on arrival, while those traveling any other part of China will face screening and monitoring. Singapore has stopped issuing all types of visas to Chinese travellers, while Vietnam has halted tourist visas. Russia announced Saturday it would halt visa-free tourism for Chinese nationals and also stop issuing them work visas. It had already stopped issuing electronic visas to Chinese nationals. Similar visa restrictions have been imposed by the Philippines, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and the African nation of Mozambique. The virus that emerged in early December and traced to a market in Hubei capital Wuhan that sold wild animals, has now spread to 25 countries, including India where two cases have been confirmed in Kerala. The Philippines on Sunday reported the first death outside China from the deadly virus. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Hours after the country airlifted the second batch of 323 people stranded in China on Sunday, second case of Coronavirus has been detected in Alappuzha, putting the state on high alert. Three days ago, the countrys first coronavirus case was reported in Thrissur. Like the first patient, the second is also a medical student from Wuhan, who returned to India on January 24. His condition is stable, said state health minister K K Shailaja. The minister assured people that there is no need to panic and the state will overcome the challenge like it did when nipah virus struck two years ago. Kerala had contained Nipah virus within two weeks, but failed to prevent the death of seventeen people. A special care is needed but there is no need to panic. Isolation is the best way to contain the secondary infection. Both cases are stable and they are responding well to treatment, she said at a press conference in Kollam shortly after the Union Health Ministry confirmed the second case in Delhi after obtaining the report from the National Institute of Virology, Pune. The second patient is in an isolation ward in Alappuzha medical college hospital. A team of doctors are monitoring his health. We want people to avoid roaming around and talking to patients for the time being, she said, adding that the virology centre in Alappuzha will start testing samples Monday onwards. The minister also said the government would strictly enforce quarantine periods to prevent the virus from spreading. People who are on home quarantine have been asked not to come out for 28 days, she said. Life is important, not social functions or gatherings. The government will do everything to contain secondary infection, she said after reaching Alappuzha. She said she was not surprised by the two patients who tested positive. Such a situation was expected as thousands of students from the state study in China, she said, adding at least 1,800 people are under surveillance at homes across Kerala and 50 have been admitted to isolation wards. There was no need of any stigma over coronavirus because it is like any other contagious viral outbreak, she said. However, the government will not lower its guard, she added. The minister also urged the Union health ministry to ensure that tests for Cornonavirus are carried out expeditiously and reports made available to the state as soon as possible. The first patient, a woman, is in an isolation ward in the Thrissur medical college hospital and she is responding well to the treatment, said a medical bulletin. At least 64 persons who came in contact with the first patient have been quarantined. At least 100 isolation wards have been opened in hospitals across the state. The government has decided to start awareness campaigns in all schools and control rooms have also been set up in all 14 districts. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON ABOUT THE AUTHOR Ramesh Babu Ramesh Babu is HTs bureau chief in Kerala, with about three decades of experience in journalism. ...view detail Express News Service NEW DELHI: Given that the ongoing India Art Fair (IAF) at NSIC Okhla is situated close to Shaheen Bagh and Jamia Millia Islamia, a few brazen contemporary artists have gone on to directly address the CAA-NRC political climate through their artworks. We profile the prominent four: Mithu Sens by-products (what she calls her artworks) in the recent years have come along with strict contracts for viewers to abide by. At IAFs 2018 edition, the Delhi-based blackened two of her artworks to protest incidents around then that stifled the artists freedom of expression. Over time, shes mastered the tricks of self-censorship, to express it all, nonaggressively. The byproduct she specifically created for IAF 2020 is a collage of 50 drawings dominated by reds, chronicling her reactions to episodes that questioned democracy and free speech over the last year. Im extremely disturbed by whats happening and dont know how to deal with that. When I do these things [draw] I can breathe, but something happens and again I dont feel good, its a loop Like on the way to the fair [on January 30], we heard about the shooting at Jamia. Her byproducts here involve two birds with pellet wounds to signify birds at the border, a pregnant woman seated on a jagged fence, someone holding a black flag her drawing on Republic day, also her last addition to the collage. Here, the handwritten contract (not the one printed on government stamp paper that hangs alongside) is her actual artwork. To evade prestige buyers ignorant about the context in her works. The gallery has a more detailed contract. So, if you buy three small works, you get one more free, and such..., and only if you buy the whole thing, you get the contract, which is my actual artwork, for free. At: Chemould Prescott Road booth While Probir Guptas works vocalise his activism (his last show, Family is Plural, saw Vemula, Mevani and other Dalit voices as Biblical icons), with A Poem of Instruments he pays ode to the women of Shaheen Bagh. The sculptural assemblage of a comb, juicer, microphone, typewriter, photo frames mechanical components which are voluntary contributions to energise and keep in check the nutritive levels of the women protestors, so their dharna continues, unabated. contract document the recent political happenings Im extremely proud of these women who are not known to exercise their rights, but are being vocal against CAA-NRC, which [similar Shaheen Bagh protests] is now taking off in other parts of India minorities mobilising us is very unique. At: Anant Art Gallery booth Debashish Mukherjees sculptural column top half sandstone- bottom half fabric is a beautifully puzzle in balance. Note that 1,000 layers of handwoven cotton were stitched by Muslim weavers from Benaras for the fabric base. While his works mostly highlight societys apathy towards heritage structures going, for the first time, he references Gandhi with this dual- material sculpture being symbolic of the leaders attempt to unite Hindus and Muslims during the Noakhali riots. The two religions if united can create a strong foundation, he feels. When viewers prod Mukherjee into revealing what material signifies which religion, he playfully messes around with them. So, if a Hindu tells me the fabric base represents Hinduism, I tell them, then, this makes you a softie... he chuckles. At: Akar Prakar Gallery booth Environmental activist and founder of NGO Toxic Links Ravi Agarwal, also an artist and curator, has created a photographic diptych of two hands cupping miniature busts of Gandhi and Ambedkar. His Two Indians (archival photographic inkjet prints 24x24 inches each) is indicative of how the decision to abide to the ideals of democracy and diversity is in the hands of the masses. Renu Modi of Gallery Espace says she decided to display his work because it doesnt criticise any ideology. These are his own hands [in the photographs], to signify how the Constitution needs to be nurtured. At: Gallery Espace booth Several thousand people today marched from the Creggan to the Bogside to mark the 48th anniversary of Bloody Sunday. Thirteen unarmed civilians were shot dead by British paratroopers on January 30, 1972, during a demonstration organised by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Associaiton. Fourteen others were wounded, including one man, John Johnston, who later died of his injuries. Today's Bloody Sunday March for Justice was the first since it was announced that only one British soldier was to be charged in connection with the killings and the wounding of the injured. While several court hearings have taken place since it was announced by the Director of Public Prosecution in March last year that the former paratrooper, known as Soldier F, was to face two murder and four attempted murder charges, he has yet to appear in person in court. Headed by 14 people carrying large white crosses, yesterday's march as did the previous 47 - retraced the original route of the ill-fated 1972 march, from the shops at Central in Creggan to Free Derry Corner in the Bogside. It took march just over 10 minutes to pass a particular spot. A total of six bands took part, including the newly-formed Roberts-Mellon Republican Memorial Flute Band and two bands from Glasgow. As a mark of respect, the bands ceased playing on reaching the City Baths at the top of William Street and continued with a single beat until passing the Bloody Sunday monument on Rossville Street. Kate Nash, whose 19-years-old brother, William, was one of those shot dead on Bloody Sunday and with whose murder - and that of William McKinney - Soldier F is being charged with, told those present 'the road to justice is like crossing a field of broken glass'. France will deploy 600 more soldiers in the fight against Islamists militants in Africa's Sahel, south of the Sahara, French Defence Minister Florence Parly said on Sunday. The reinforcements would mostly be sent to the area between Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, Parly said in a statement. Another part would join the G5 Sahel forces. France has about 4,500 troops already operating in the region. Search Keywords: Short link: President Moon Jae-in speaks during a meeting at Cheong Wa Dae on Jan. 31. Yonhap By Do Je-hae President Moon Jae-in is exerting all-out efforts to ease mounting public concern over the spread of the new coronavirus. Moon presided over a meeting with quarantine experts Sunday morning, according to Cheong Wa Dae. The meeting was arranged urgently to discuss ways to contain the spread of the virus after Korean residents of Wuhan, China, were evacuated from the epicenter of the virus on chartered planes and brought to Korea last week. Most have been quarantined in government-run facilities. The virus has quickly emerged as a key test of the Moon administration's crisis management capacity. Failure to properly deal with the virus could dent the public's trust. Ahead of the April 15 general election, Cheong Wa Dae is moving to assure the public that the government is on top of the situation. Moon has been initiating related meetings regarding the response to the coronavirus since its outbreak, including one on Jan. 27, the final day of the Lunar New Year holidays. "Cheong Wa Dae is the control tower for disaster and public safety," a presidential aide told reporters last week. The emphasis on "control tower" is seen as the presidential office's attempt to avoid facing the high level of public indignation toward the government during a time of crisis. Mindful of the Sewol disaster that led to the downfall of his predecessor Park Geun-hye, Moon has repeatedly stressed the role of the government in public safety. "There can be no compromise in the safety of the people. We need to be prepared for every situation, and we need to do everything we need to do. We need strong preemptive measures. The central and local governments should increase their response to prevent secondary infections," Moon said during a meeting last week. But the virus has already started to show some negative impact on public sentiment toward the Moon administration and the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK). The latest survey on Jan. 31 said Moon's job approval rating had fallen to 41 percent. Support for the DPK had decreased to 34 percent, down 4 percentage points from the previous week. On Sunday, the government announced measures to limit the entry of all foreigners who had visited Hubei Province, China, in the past 14 days, effective Tuesday. It is similar to measures that have been imposed by countries such as the U.S. and Japan. The announcement came even after Beijing expressed concerns about entry bans, reflecting Seoul's commitment to containing the spread of the virus. "Just as the WHO recommended against travel restrictions, the U.S. rushed to go in the opposite way," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hua Chunying said on Jan. 31. "Certainly not a gesture of goodwill." GENTLEMEN of the Fourth Estate of the Realm, we called for this media briefing on a Sunday which ought to be our rest day but it is because of the gravity of the issues that worry us as a platform for the promotion of civil liberties of Nigerians and working for the enthronement of good governance in Nigeria that instigated this patriotic intervention. The essence of constitutional democracy is the defence of the fundamental rights of the citizens as encapsulated in chapter 4 of the grund norm We are disturbed by the unprecedented rise in the cases of professional misconduct and indiscipline amongst the ranks and file of the Nigerian police force and the attendant adverse consequences on the enjoyment of the fundamental human rights of the citizens. We call your attention to the numerous cases of police extrajudicial executions all across Nigeria. Recently in Port Harcourt a group of mechanics were rounded up by the police and physically tortured even as one of them was shot dead by the Nigerian police force whilst in detention. In Enugu, a human rights activist probing the case of sexual violations of a teenager by a sun of a rich man was physically molested by the police as already documented by the group of HUMAN RIGHTS activists led by Professor Joy Ezeilo. In the FCT there have been at least three major cases of police extralegal killings at the checkpoint since last year and these killers in police uniforms are roaming the streets free. Whereas cases of professional misconduct by the police operatives are on the rise phenomenally and the hierarchy seems not to be bothered about all of these, there is a more sinister issue that worries us and should worry all Nigerians. This is the near dead situation of the POLICE SERVICE COMMISSIONwhich is the OMBUDSMAN that ought to check the excess of the police. This body is busy engaging in a war of attrition with the POLICE INSPECTOR GENERAL over who has the right to recruit constables. Whilst they are in court struggling for supremacy, individual cases of indiscipline amongst NPF operatives and officers are seemingly unattended to or swept under the carpets of impunity against the extant powers and functions that the POLICE SERVICE COMMISSION is imbued with by the Nigerian Constitution as an independent commission and the extant POLICE SERVICE COMMISSION ACT which clearly spell out their functions and powers as follows: FUNCTIONS AND POWERS OF THE COMMISSION 6. - (1) The Commission shall- (a) Be responsible for the appointment and promotion of persons to offices (other than the office of the Inspector-General of Police) in the Nigeria Police Force: (b) Dismiss and exercise disciplinary control over persons (other than the Inspector-General of Police) in the Nigerian Police Force; (c) Formulate policies and guidelines for the appointment, promotion, discipline and dismissal of officers of the Nigerian Police Force; (d) Identify factors inhibiting or undermining discipline in the Nigeria Police Force; (e) Formulate and implement policies aimed at the efficiency and discipline to the Nigeria Police Force; (f) Perform such other functions which in the opinion of the Commission are required to ensure the optimal efficiency of the Nigeria Police Force; and (g) Carry out such other functions as the President may, from time to time, direct. (2) The Commission shall not be subject to the direction, control or supervision of any other authority or person in performance of its functions other than as is prescribed in this Act. 7. The Commission shall have power to- (a) Pay the staff of the Commission such remuneration and allowances as are payable to persons of equivalent grades in the Civil Service of the Federation; (b) Enter into such contracts as may be necessary or expedient for the discharge of its functions and ensure the efficient performance of the functions of the Commission; and (c) Do such other things as are necessary and expedient for the efficient performance of the functions of the Commission. 8. The Commission may, subject to such conditions as it may think fit, Powers of the delegate any of its powers under this Act- delegation (a) To any officer in the service of the Nigeria Police Force; or (b) To a Committee consisting of such number of persons, one of whom shall be named as Chairman, as may be prescribed by the Commission. PART III-STRUCTURE OF THE COMMISSION 9. - (1) There shall be establishment in the headquarters of the Commission the following Departments- (a) The Department of Administration and Personnel Management; (b) the Department of Investigation; (c) The Department of Finance and Supply; (d) The Department of Planning, Research and Statistics; and (e) The Department of Legal Services. Establishment of Departments Functions of the Commission Powers of the Commission. Gentlemen, we appeal to Nigerians that they need to ensure that the PSC must not be allowed to die. We had for instance forwarded a petition to the Police Service Commission since October last year from some group of people in Enugu who had called for the removal of ACP FIDELIS OGAREBE from Enugu state police command for alleged violations of their human rights and for interfering in the enjoyment of their right to own property. But the PSC has not bothered to respond or even asked that those who raised the allegations should show up to back their allegations with facts with a view to providing redress. We waited for three Months before writing a REMINDER LETTER ABOUT THESE ALLEGATIONS AGAINST A SERVING POLICE OFFICER. The below are the wordings of the allegations made by the persons who sent series of petitions to our desk which we have since forwarded to all relevant authorities for their action. They said as follows: "We write to call your attention to the urgent need to remove ACP FIDELIS OGAREBE, the current Assistant Commissioner of police , Criminal intelligence and investigation Department, Enugu state on numerous ground worthy of consideration, in line with equality, good conscience and effective policing under the regulations of Nigeria police force. Our forum has observed with dismay and great concern, that ACP FIDELIS OGAREBE has been serving in Enugu state police command Since 1996 when he was commissioned into the Nigeria police force till date without being posted to any other state or geo-political zone in line with the regular practices in the force . The over stay of the ACP in Enugu state has led to the manifestation of a number of disturbing issues putting the security of lives and property in the state at risk -something our forum deems expedient to call your attention to ; in the spirit of patriotism. Among these issues are dispositions that inhibit Peoples access to justice, unlawful exercise of authority and tacit support for oppression. It is the observation of our forum that the ACP has unprofessionally attached himself to some royal personalities within the state who are given to the oppression of their subjects and less privileged members of their communities for the goal of underserved and coerced submission. As a result, communal and individual lands are converted, disposed of allegedly and the proceeds there from allegedly diverted and allegedly shared amongst themselves for their selfish and personal gains. Numerous cases from Akpugo, Nike, Ugwuaji, Umuede Achi, Amechi-Uwani, Awkunanaw, Abor and a host of other communities in the state are pointers in this regards. Other parts of the state are not spared from this trouble as almost every community in the state has lost parcels of land in this royal- styled battle facilitated allegedly by the ACP. To our chagrin, we have observed that the citizens of the state find it difficult to get justice whenever they report cases at the command, as the CIID section would do everything possible to confer the Igwes" with automatic ownership over whatever disputed lands. Resistant complainants are detained baselessly, in an attempt to intimidate them to run away from the issue. Investigation at the State CIID by dauntless and dispassionate officers from your office would reveal the number of villagers who suffer this fate on a daily basis. Sir, you would recall the purported protest and ultimatum to the office of the IGP by a Student's union in Enugu state for the removal of the then Commissioner of Police, Mr. Suleiman Balarabe, which many security and political analysts believed to have informed the decision of the IGP to redeploy the CP and to replace him with CP Ahmed Abdulrahman. Our findings incontrovertibly prove that the protest against Mr. Balarabe was stage-managed and orchestrated allegedly by the ACP because the then CP reportedly refused to accede to his whims and caprices (these are subject to investigation). Virtually all commissioners of Police posted to Enugu state from the ACPs days as CSO,Enugu state government ho use somehow become subjugated to him. His bindings, however illegal, must be done invariably. It is therefore the understanding of our Forum that ACP FIDELIS OGAREBE, the AC CIID, Enugu state has stayed for far too long in the state which is naturally against the ethos of professionalism that the Nigerian Police Force has been known for. Besides the pointed-out security Laguna created by the negative development of the ACP's overstay, familiarity and acquaintances with criminals in the state, he has the tendency of buying up the security structures thereby inducing compromise as herein above illustrated. Senior officers of the Force are reshuffled and redeployed to instill a sense of versatility and professionalism in personnel of the Force in service, but the case of the ACP has defied this logic, wisdom and spirit. The citizens in Enugu state now die in silence because no one is bold enough to speak. It is in view of the above circumstances and the stance of our Forum in assisting the Nigeria Police Force in fighting illegality, corruption and indiscipline that we deem it proper and apt to make this call by way of petition for your consideration, investigation and prompt action, in the right direction. We are aware that ACP Ogarabe has friends in high places and would deploy his resources to resist any attempt to have him redeployed, but his record of service and diaries would refute him without difficulty. Accordingly sir, we do hope that your respected office will act on this, to save potential victims as well as innocent citizens of Nigeria from further trauma and injustice occasioned by the activities of the ACP. Conclusively, we pray you to redeploy ACP Ogarebe from Enugu state as well as cause a discreet investigation into his activities from his days as the CSO to the governor till the day of his redeployment. Please accept our esteemed regards. For: The Forum. EMEKA EMMANUEL NNAJI. PRINCIPAL OBSERVER.CHIEF IKEM OKORO; SECRETARY We appeal to Nigerians through the media to call on the National Assembly and President Muhammadu Buhari to ensure that the POLICE SERVICE COMMISSION is not systematically killed because as it Is, the mounting cases of police indiscretions could lead to people taking the law into their hands if they can't find redress whenever their human rights are wantonly violated. It is in the self-enlightened interests of all Nigerians that the POWERS AND FUNCTIONS OF POLICE SERVICE COMMISSION are not undermined by power seeking persons. The Governing Board of the PSC must wake up and defend the integrity and powers of the PSC. * Emmanuel Onwubiko heads Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria. Huriwnigeria.com 02/20/2020 USAFE welcomes Poland to European F-35 User's Group By Mr. Jeff Kelly and Capt. Erik Anthony, U.S. Air Forces in Europe and Air Forces Africa Public Affairs / Published January 31, 2020 RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany (AFNS) -- Gen. Jeff Harrigian, U.S. Air Forces in Europe and Air Forces Africa commander, presented a letter to Maj. Gen. Jacek Pszczoa, inspector of the Polish Air Force, welcoming Poland to the European F-35 User's Group, in Deblin, Poland, Jan. 31. Poland is the ninth member of the European F-35 User's Group, and the first country in Eastern Europe to transition to the F-35 Lightning II. Other participating nations include the U.S., Belgium, Denmark, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and the United Kingdom. The European F-35 User's Group is a formal and persistent venue where members share information, lessons learned and best practices as aircraft are acquired and fielded. "Poland's decision to acquire the F-35 demonstrates confidence in the aircraft, but more importantly, the strength of our relationship," Harrigian said. "I look forward to the day the first F-35 arrives in Poland, and we pledge our support to help integrate this fifth-generation fighter capability into the Polish Air Force." In the years since the release of the U.S. military's newest fighter aircraft, the F-35 has provided pilots unprecedented levels of lethality, survivability and situational awareness, allowing warfighters to engage and win in hostile environments. With the formal signing of the Letter of Offer & Acceptance in Deblin, Poland commits to the purchase of 32 F-35 aircraft. Col. John Echols, USAFE-AFAFRICA chief of 5th Generation Integration, echoed Harrigian's appreciation for Poland's commitment to the F-35 program and detailed how the addition of the aircraft in Eastern Europe will bolster NATO's deterrence posture. "Fifth generation fighters represent a revolutionary leap in technology and capability for the U.S. and our allies in the European theater," Echols said. "The F-35's ability to integrate and connect with forces across all domains is a force multiplier. Information is a critical commodity and the F-35's ability to collect data, then connect and rapidly share that information with allied surface, maritime, space and cyber forces is a game-changer for 21st century coalition warfare." The delivery of future F-35s will strengthen the Polish Air Force, which currently operates a fleet of F-16 Fighting Falcons and legacy Mig-29s and Su-22s. The legacy aircraft are set to be replaced by the F-35, giving the Polish Air Force greater interoperability with NATO allies. The F-35 is a fifth generation, multi-role fighter, with superior combat capability that is designed to integrate with fourth generation aircraft and complement the technology already in place. The next meeting of the European F-35 Air Chiefs is scheduled for spring 2020 at Ramstein Air Base. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Many U.S. investors never stray far from home when they pick stocks. It's easy to buy shares of the companies you know and love in your everyday life, and a lack of familiarity with overseas businesses can make foreign businesses seem risky as investment picks. However, emerging market economies have some of the best growth prospects in the world, and that can make emerging markets a great place to invest. Rather than picking individual stocks, many investors feel more comfortable with exchange-traded funds in the emerging markets space. The following three are among the largest in the area, and although they have slight differences, they all stand to benefit if emerging markets perform well in 2020. Emerging Market ETF Assets Under Management Expense Ratio 1-Year Return Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets (NYSEMKT:VWO) $65.4 billion 0.12% 10% iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets (NYSEMKT:IEMG) $61.9 billion 0.14% 8% Schwab Emerging Markets Equity (NYSEMKT:SCHE) $6.7 billion 0.13% 10% The biggest fund in the business Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets has been a low-cost option in the emerging markets space for nearly 15 years. The fund includes stocks from across the world, with roughly half its assets invested in Chinese stocks and shares of companies in Taiwan. India, Brazil, and South Africa round out the top five in terms of country-level exposure, but you'll find a wide array of other countries represented in Latin America, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. With more than 5,000 stocks in the portfolio, the Vanguard ETF offers the ultimate in diversification, with even more stocks than you'll find in the fund's benchmark index. The fund's performance has lagged the returns that most U.S. investors are more familiar for domestic stocks, but that's in line with how emerging markets have done recently. Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets has demonstrated itself as an industry leader among emerging markets ETFs, and it's still a solid choice for those looking for the broadest possible exposure. Building on an innovator iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets isn't all that old, but another iShares fund was the first to enter the emerging markets space back in 2004. The core version of this fund was designed to minimize the ETF's expense ratio, making it more suitable for long-term investors. The MSCI index that this ETF tracks is arguably the most popular index of international stocks, and when Vanguard chose to change its benchmarks in recent years to save on licensing costs, that left iShares as the sole leader following that index. The iShares ETF's portfolio has fewer stocks than Vanguard's, but at nearly 2,500 holdings, there's plenty of diversification. The MSCI index includes South Korean stocks in its benchmark, and that represents the biggest difference between the iShares and Vanguard offerings, accounting for much of the performance difference over the past year. Fees are only a bit above what Vanguard charges, making this a perfectly good entry in the emerging market ETF space. An up-and-comer in the emerging ETF world Schwab Emerging Markets is the newest of these ETFs, having gotten its start in 2010. But it's made a good showing in breaking into a market dominated by its larger rivals. The ETF tracks a FTSE index of emerging markets, which it has in common with the Vanguard ETF. The Schwab portfolio closely resembles Vanguard's, but Schwab only invests in roughly 1,200 to 1,300 stocks in its fund. The Schwab ETF has done a good job of tracking its index, delivering returns in line with what most emerging markets investors have seen. As part of Schwab's broader ETF strategy, the emerging markets ETF helps flesh out the broker's overall lineup to let clients cover as many of their investing needs as possible with Schwab's own funds. Take a look at emerging markets U.S. stocks have done well in recent years, outperforming many international markets. But relative returns between U.S. and foreign stocks tend to run in cycles. If you're looking to diversify into emerging markets, any of these three ETFs can give you broad-based exposure that will let you participate in the growth of these small but fast-growing global economies. Last week, CBS reported that a high school student in Texas named DeAndre Arnold was suspended by his school, and was threatened not to be allowed to march at his graduation because of his dreadlocks. The Barbers Hill Independent School District claims that the issue is not about race. "There is no dress code policy that prohibits any cornrow or any other method of wearing of the hair," said Superintendent Greg Poole. "Our policy limits the length. It's been that way for 30 years." People sided with DeAndre on the matter, citing how the school's rule clearly caters more to non-POC students. Black Lives Matter activist Ashton Woods told CBS affiliate KHOU-TV, "The dress code is designed by white people for white people and is damaging to black bodies." After hearing about his story, celebrity couple Gabrielle Union and Dwayne Wade, and the rest of the team behind Oscar-nominated animated short film "Hair Love," decided to invite DeAndre to the Oscars this year. "We love the way that you carry yourself and we wanted to do something special for you," Wade told the high schooler. "You and your mother Sandy are the official guests of the Oscar-nominated team behind 'Hair Love' at the 2020 Academy Awards." "We've all been so inspired by your story and this is the very least we can do to thank you for standing up for yourself and for your right to wear your natural hair at school," filmmaker Matthew A. Cherry told DeAndre. Cherry told CBS that DeAndre's story is precisely what "Hair Love" wants to stand and fight for. He also wants to shed a light on the CROWN Act a law, which has been passed in California, New York and New Jersey, that bans hair-based discrimination. "Just hearing his story, it really just represented everything we were trying to do with the short film, 'Hair Love.' We really wanted to just normalize black hair, normalize us," Cherry said. "If this law was in Texas, this situation with DeAndre wouldn't happen." Watch "Hair Love" below. A RadioShack location going out of business in Laguna Hills, California. Scott Mlyn | CNBC Last month, many New York City residents awoke to surprising news that could change their shopping routines as well as the items in their refrigerators. The local grocery chain Fairway, known for its no-frills atmosphere and extensive selection of items like cheese and seafood, had filed for bankruptcy not just for the first time, but for the second. It's a scenario that's getting more common for traditional retailers as they find themselves under pressure from a sea change in where and how people are shopping. Retailers like Barneys and RadioShack have found themselves on the brink twice going through a bankruptcy filing once, emerging, and then heading back to court, again. In cases where the company files specifically for Chapter 11 twice, the scenario is referred to as Chapter 22. "We deal with the sick industries, and retail has been a sick industry for a while," said Stephen Selbst, chair of the restructuring and bankruptcy group at New York law firm Herrick Feinstein. Overall, the number of retail bankruptcies is rising. There were 22 retail bankruptcies in 2019, compared with 17 in 2018, according to a tracking by CB Insights. The firm has tracked over 80 retail bankruptcies dating back to 2015. Part of the problem is that it is only becoming more difficult to remain relevant as a retailer in an age where Amazon is dominating more categories online as consumers shop from their couches instead of in stores. Many two-time bankruptcy offenders are names that relied too heavily on foot traffic in malls, like teen retailer Wet Seal and shoe store chain Payless. For such companies, filing for bankruptcy is a lever pulled to break leases on stores when they have too much real estate and need to close some shops. And then there are those that have other specific underlying problems in the business. Fairway for instance took on too much debt and expanded too fast. For retailers, getting shoppers back in stores post-bankruptcy can be a challenging proposition. "Retail is a tough business," Selbst went on. "If you lose that connection with shoppers, it is really hard to get them back." Here are some of the retail chains that have been through bankruptcy two times either filing for Chapter 11 protection twice, or filing for Chapter 11 once and later filing for a Chapter 7 liquidation. Fairway Market Adam Jeffery | CNBC Fairway Market first filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2016, roughly three years after its IPO, after reaching a deal with lenders to slash about $140 million in debt. The company faced heightened competition from the likes of Trader Joe's and Amazon's Whole Foods. Fairway had also grown too large too quickly, and it failed to boost sales enough to pay down debt. This time in bankruptcy court, Fairway only closed one of its stores. It emerged just a little more than two months later, in July 2016. Last month, Fairway filed for Chapter 11 protection, again. This time, the company has entered into a stalking horse agreement with ShopRite owner and operator Village Super Market for up to five of its stores, and a distribution center, for $70 million. And Fairway says it will look for buyers for its other locations, which are in the New York area. Payless ShoeSource Daniel Acker | Bloomberg | Getty Images Payless first filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in April 2017, with more than 4,000 stores in more than 30 countries. Following a leveraged buyout in 2012 by private-equity firms Blum Capital and Golden Gate, Payless still struggled with a heavy debt load of $847 million amid poor sales. This time in bankruptcy court, Payless eliminated nearly 700 stores and roughly $435 million in debt. It emerged in August 2017. In February 2019, Payless filed for bankruptcy a second time. And this time, the company said it was going to begin winding down all of its more than 2,500 U.S. stores. The 2019 filing said Payless had about $470 million in outstanding debt. The retailer had been seeking a buyer for some of its real estate, hoping to keep some stores up and running, but no deals were struck. Payless last month said it had emerged from bankruptcy again, with a renewed focus on its international operations and with plans to grow in the U.S. It doesn't have any stores open in America, currently, but has more than 710 stores, including those with franchises, in more than 30 other countries. It also has a new management team in place. Barneys New York Pedestrians pass in front of a Barneys New York retail location in Chicago. Taylor Glascock | Bloomberg | Getty Images Barneys' first bankruptcy filing came more than two decades ago, in 1996, after a squabble with its Japanese owner, department store company Isetan. The filing was, in part, a move to renegotiate its deal with Isetan, as well as cope with what it viewed as excessive rent. Barneys then narrowly avoided another trip to bankruptcy court in 2012, when Perry Capital, a hedge fund run by New York financier Richard Perry, took control over the company through a $540 million debt-for-equity swap. But Barneys New York found itself back in bankruptcy court in August of last year. Its troubles as a high-end department store operator in an increasingly crowded space were only made worse by sky-high rent payments, amid slumping sales. Barneys was also coming up short on cash to pay its vendors. The company was ultimately acquired by Authentic Brands Group, which plans to license the Barneys brand name to other chains such as Saks Fifth Avenue. Barneys' website is now redirected to Saks'. All of its seven stores have since kicked off liquidation sales, with some already completely shut. Gymboree Pedestrians walk past a Gymboree store in San Francisco, California. David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images Children's clothing retailer Gymboree filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for the first time in June 2017. It said it planned to cut its debt by more than $900 million, shuttering roughly 375 stores. It had more than 1,300 locations at the time of this filing, including those under the Janie and Jack and Crazy 8 banners. The filing came after Gymboree missed a major debt payment. It emerged a few months later, however, in September 2017. Gymboree filed for its second bankruptcy in January 2019, planning to shut roughly 800 of its namesake and Crazy 8 stores across the U.S. and Canada, and aiming to sell its Janie and Jack brand. It later sold the rights to its flagship and Crazy 8 brands to rival The Children's Place, for $76 million. And Gap purchased Janie and Jack for $35 million. The Children's Place has since announced it will be relaunching Gymboree.com this year and adding Gymboree shops inside 200 of its North American locations. Charming Charlie Shoppers walk past a Charming Charlie store in Manhattan Source: Charming Charlie Accessories and apparel chain Charming Charlie filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for the first time in December 2017. At the time, it said it planned to shut about 100 of its more than 370 stores. The company said in court documents that slumping sales could be attributed to "merchandising miscalculations, lack of inventory [and] an overly broad vendor base." It emerged, in April 2008, with 264 stores and lenders taking over a majority of ownership. Charming Charlie was back at the brink in July 2019. And that's when the company said it planned to shutter its remaining stores. Charming Charlie said that although it had been able to reduce debt after emerging from its prior bankruptcy, it still didn't have enough liquidity, and its leases on stores became burdensome. The holidays were especially tough, without a lot of fresh inventory, the company said in court documents. In September of last year, Charming Charlie's intellectual property assets sold for roughly $1.1 million in an auction to a real estate investment company owned by Charming Charlie founder Charlie Chanaratsopon. The retailer's current website says Charming Charlie will be "making a comeback" later in 2020. RadioShack A pedestrian looks into a Radio Shack store about to go out of business in New York. Scott Mlyn | CNBC RadioShack filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in March 2015. At the time, having not turned a profit since 2011, the company had struck a deal with Sprint and a hedge fund that agreed to purchase 1,500 to 2,400 of RadioShack's roughly 4,000 company-owned locations. It was increasingly lagging behind behemoths such as Best Buy, Amazon and Walmart. General Wireless Operations in July 2015 said it purchased the RadioShack brand for $26.2 million, keeping over 1,700 company-owned stores open. In March 2017, RadioShack filed again. It had about 1,500 stores left. The company said in court documents that it had been able to slash its operating expenses by roughly 25%, but that hadn't been enough. Mobile phone sales were also dropping off at its stores, as more people turned to Apple. It emerged, again, in November 2017, saying it planned to operate primarily online with a slew of stores across the U.S. Its website is still up and running today. RadioShack said in court documents, when it emerged from bankruptcy for a second time, that it was expecting to generate gross revenue of $12 million in 2017, $15 million in 2018 and $17.5 million in 2020. Wet Seal Getty Images Teen apparel retailer Wet Seal filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January 2015. Just prior to the filing, the company had said it closed 338 stores, leaving it with 173. Wet Seal's trip to bankruptcy court came as a slew of other mall-based businesses, including apparel chain Delia's and Body Central, had recently taken a similar path. So-called fast-fashion players, which are known for speedily replicating styles straight from the runway, such as Forever 21, H&M and Zara were increasingly seen as stealing market share from older apparel players in the mall. Wet Seal was purchased later in 2015 by private-equity firm Versa, in a deal that kept about 140 stores open. Wet Seal filed again in February 2017. It had already in January of that year, however, started liquidating its business and shuttering all of its remaining stores. It hadn't been able to bounce back, in part because of heightened competition in the mall from the likes of Abercrombie & Fitch and American Eagle. In March 2017, investment and advisory firm Gordon Brothers bought the Wet Seal brand name for $3 million. Wet Seal currently operates a website but doesn't have any bricks-and-mortar locations. American Apparel he American Apparel logo is displayed outside of a store on October 5, 2015 in New York City. Getty Images He telephoned the banks toll-free number and spoke with Emily James, a senior officer at a call center in Portland. She spent an hour on the phone with Eugenio, trying to get some money released so he could at least get home. She soon realized that he had been misled, and that money wouldnt reach his account any time soon. Feeling bad for a customer stuck on Christmas Eve, James offered to drive over from her call center and personally hand him $20. The Congress party has pinned its hope on free electricity and water plank along with its opposition to the Register of Citizens (NRC), the Population Register (NPR), and the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in their current forms, to win the Assembly polls in the city-state. In its manifesto for the Delhi Assembly elections, which was released on Sunday, the Congress has promised free electricity up to 300 units and a further discount of 25 per cent to 50 per cent to be given on the consumption of 600 units of power. A cashback of 30 paise per litre has been announced for spending less than 20,000 litres of water. The Congress has also announced Rs 72,000 per annum to 5 lakh poor families, Rs 5,000 to Rs 7,500 per month allowance to unemployed youth and Rs 5000 per month as pension to the elderly, differently-abled under the 'Justice Scheme'. Apart from the main manifesto, a separate manifesto on the issue of environment has also been released, which promises that 25 per cent of the budget will be spent on improving traffic system and pollution management. The Congress has promised to buy 15,000 electric buses and give a metro pass of Rs 300 per month to the students if voted to power. The elderly people, who are over 65 years, have been promised free travel in the metro. In view of raging over the CAA, Congress has announced that this law will be challenged in the Supreme Court on behalf of the Delhi government if the Congress comes to power in the city-state. The Congress promised not to implement NRC and NPR in the capital. It has also said that a strong Lokpal Bill will be passed in the Assembly within six months of the formation of the government. Along with the promise of free education for girls from nursery to PhD, 33 per cent reservation for women in jobs has been promised. It has also been announced to give Rs 1.10 lakh as 'shagun' in the marriage of a graduate girl of a poor family. Women's helpline 181 will be re-started. 100 Indira Canteens to provide food for Rs 15 per plate will be started. In its manifesto, the Congress has also laid stress on health care and has promised to build 10 super speciality hospitals in the next five years. It has also promised to fill vacant posts in six months and confirm the temporary employees. The Congress has further announced to regularise all unauthorised colonies and will spend Rs 35,000 crore on their development. The party has also announced to provide electricity to businesses and industries at the rate of Rs 6 per unit. Chairman of Manifesto Committee Ajay Maken said: "The manifesto has been prepared with complete research. All the announcements that have been made will be implemented like other Congress-ruled states." Delhi unit Congress president Subhash Chopra has claimed the people will vote in the name of development and the Congress will come to power. Releasing the manifesto, senior Congress leader Anand Sharma had targeted the BJP, saying that the BJP is trying to polarise Delhi polls. "The election will be over but the atmosphere will be left completely spoiled," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Repeating the cliche, data is the new oil, the Finance Minister said the country needs to take advantage of Analytics, Fintech and Internet of Things (IOT). In this regard, she proposed to bring out soon a policy to enable private sector to build Data Centre parks throughout the country. Chennai: The Union Budget presented in Parliament Saturday proposed to take the country one step ahead in data management and quantum technology. It mooted data centre parks throughout the country and apportioned Rs 8,000 crore over a period five years for the National Mission on Quantum Technologies and Applications. Repeating the cliche, data is the new oil, the finance minister said the country needs to take advantage of analytics, fintech and Internet of Things (IOT). In this regard, she proposed to bring out soon a policy to enable the private sector to build data centre parks throughout the country. It will enable our firms to skilfully incorporate data in every step of their value chains. Our vision is that all public institutions at gram panchayat level such as anganwadis, health and wellness centres, government schools, PDS outlets, post offices and police stations will be provided with digital connectivity. So, Fibre to the Home (FTTH) connections through Bharatnet will link 100,000 gram panchayats this year, she said. The Budget proposed to provide Rs 6000 crore to Bharatnet programme in 2020-21. Further, the minister found that there is a growing need for the Indian statistical system to meet the challenges of real-time monitoring of an increasingly complex economy. The proposed new National Policy on Official Statistics would use latest technology including AI. It would lay down a road-map towards modernised data collection, integrated information portal and timely dissemination of information. The government also finds IFSC, GIFT City to be having the potential to become a centre of international finance as well as a centre for high-end data processing. Union Budget 2020 is a defining moment for the Indian IT industry. It brings in proactive policy measures on emerging technologies such as AI, ML, data analytics and quantum computing. In addition to this, the policy on establishing data centers across the country will strengthen the necessary IT-grade infrastructure required for discharging services to the remotest parts of the country while bridging the digital divide, revolutionizing the digital economy and significantly playing a catalytic role in securing data sovereignty of the nation. Eventually it will also bring enormous FDI into this sector, said Omkar Rai, director-general, Software Technology Parks of India (STPI). Similarly, quantum technology is opening up new frontiers in computing, communications, cyber security with wide-spread applications, said the minister. It is expected that lots of commercial applications would emerge from theoretical constructs which are developing in this area. It is proposed to provide an outlay of Rs 8000 crore over a period five years for the National Mission on Quantum Technologies and Applications, she added. Academy Street in Kildare town has been included for consideration in the 2020 roads programme for the Kildare Newbridge Municipal District._ Local councillor Suzanne Doyle requested an update on the resurfacing of that street and road safety improvements for areas in the vicinity of St Brigid's primary school campus at this month's area meeting, which was held recently. Members heard that the road programme for 2020 is currently still under examination and the Municipal District Office will update them once the programme is confirmed. Cllr Mark Stafford asked whether the council could confirm that Irish Water and utility works have been carried out along the street and was told that no further impediments exist regarding the resurfacing of the road. The report to his query stated that it is the understanding of the Municipal District that the Irish Water works are complete. A second motion tabled by Cllr Doyle meanwhile requested for a footpath link from Ridgewood Manor on Melitta Road in Kildare town to Maryville, this would require a short new footpath to the front of business park adjacent to housing estate to achieve a seamless pedestrian link for residents. Members were informed that there is approximately 220m of footpath required at this location, the council can prepare a cost on this and include for consideration as part of the LPT/Paid parking funding for 2020. NEW YORKNew York City health officials announced Saturday that a patient at Bellevue Hospital Center may have the novel coronavirus. If confirmed, it would be the first known instance of the virus in New York City. Local authorities are unable to test for the virus, so they are sending a sample to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for confirmation. Based on the patients symptoms and travel history from China, they are taking it seriously. This is the first time that city officials have sent a sample to the CDC for testing. Another reason health authorities suspect it is the novel coronavirus: They have tested it for influenza and other common illnesses, and those tests came back negative, health officials said. Health authorities said the individual is under 40 and is in stable condition. They said they do not expect to receive results from the CDC for 36 to 48 hours, possibly longer. The virus is believed to have originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan and has been confirmed in nearly 20 other countries. There are now eight confirmed cases in the United States and more than 12,000 worldwide. More than 250 people have died. Chinese authorities have tried to lock down Wuhan as well as a number of surrounding cities. But millions of people had already left Wuhan between the time the virus began appearing late last year and the imposition of a travel ban. In the past week, health officials across New York state have sent samples taken by means of an oral swab, nasal swab and by asking a patient to spit from at least 10 people to the CDC in Atlanta to be tested for the coronavirus. Local laboratories do not have that capability for now. Public health officials have been urging anyone with flu-like or respiratory symptoms who have travelled to Wuhan recently or been in contact with someone who has to seek medical care immediately. Officials have also said that patients found to have the new coronavirus may be sent home to ride out the illness if the symptoms seem relatively mild. Patients more severely affected would be hospitalized. Read more about: BJP leader and former Maharashtra minister Babanrao Lonikar has landed in a spot after an audio clip surfaced on social media in which he purportedly called a woman tehsildar a "heroine" during his speech, although he did not take anybody's name. During his speech at a function in Karhala village of Partur tehsil in Maharashtra's Jalna district on Saturday, he also said that a "heroine can be roped in" for a planned farmers' rally. The comments by Lonikar invited ruling NCP's ire, with the party saying that his "unacceptable" remarks amount to outraging the modesty of a woman. However, Lonikar defended the use of the word saying that 'heroine' was not an abusive term and he only wanted to convey through it "leader who does good work". In the audio clip of his speech, Lonikar can be heard saying, "If farmers want aid of Rs 25,000 from government, then we can plan the biggest rally in Marathwada here in Partur. We can involve 25,000 to 50,000 people in it. If Zilla Parisad and Panchayat Samiti members decide then we can have the biggest march in the state in Partur." "We can call (former chief minister) Devendra Fadnavis, (former ministers) Chandrakant Patil and Sudhir Mungantiwar. You tell who should be called...We can call a heroine for it. If not, then we have our tehsildar madam as heroine," he said. When contacted on Sunday, Lonikar said that through the word 'heroine', he meant to say "leader who does good work". "I have not insulted our tehsildar through my statement. The word heroine or hero is used for a leader who does good work. You can check the dictionary. This is not an abusive word and it does not have a negative meaning," he said. "We planned to take out a rally over the issue of aid to farmers," he added. BJP spokesperson Shirish Boralkar said that Lonikar was speaking about development of farmers. "His statement was presented in a twisted manner by the media," he added. Senior NCP leader and MLC Vidya Chavan criticised Lonikar for his remarks. "Lonikar's comments against the woman tehsildar are completely unacceptable and it reflects the BJP's mentality. Instead of respecting the working women, the BJP leader is bringing shame to them by making comments on their looks," she alleged. "Making such remarks about woman's looks amounts to outraging the modesty," she added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) ROANOKE Following a series of favorable plea deals in a related case, the suspected leader of a Danville gang also is set to see a reduced sentence. Dashawn Romeer Anthony pleaded guilty in February 2019 to racketeering charges related to being the leader of the Milla Bloods in Danville. As part of that plea deal, Anthony was facing a sentence of 35 years to life. In federal court in Roanoke on Thursday, Anthony took a new plea agreement that cuts that sentencing range from 25 to 27 years, according to the agreement. The new plea agreement includes two of the three charges Anthony originally pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy and use of a firearm in aid of racketeering but does not include a charge of violent crime in aid of racketeering (assault with a deadly weapon) he originally pleaded guilty to. Prosecutors said in court this plea deal is in order to have Anthonys sentencing range be consistent with other defendants, according to the minutes of the hearing. Brian McGinn, spokesperson for the U.S. Attorneys Office in the Western District of Virginia, said via email the prosecutors were referring to defendants in the Rollin 60s Crips case. Of the eight co-defendants in that case which deals with many of the same events and includes similar charges to the Milla Bloods case seven of them took favorable plea deals. One, Marcus Davis, went to trial and a jury found him guilty of racketeering crimes that could lead to him spending life in prison. The seven other defendants were offered plea deals after a major mishap from prosecutors. After a jury had been sworn in, it came to light that Danville Commonwealths Attorney Michael Newmans office failed to provide key state grand jury transcripts to defense attorneys. At the time, it wasnt clear how many transcripts were unaccounted for, and Newmans office continued to find transcripts that could have been valuable to defense attorneys cases. As the case unraveled, prosecutors worked with defense attorneys to iron out plea deals. Five of the seven co-defendants who took plea deals were facing possible life sentences, but their plea deals whittled the sentencing range down to 13 to 15 years. Anthonys sentence is more severe, but his plea agreement is different in one major way. Anthony is a non-cooperating witness, according to both of his plea agreements, meaning he will not testify against other defendants in the case and will not assist the government in its case. Other plea deals include the possibility of defendants getting reduced sentences for testifying. Anthonys agreement does not. The reduction in Anthonys sentence falls in line with federal sentencing guidelines 18 U.S. Code 3553(a) states that judges should avoid unwarranted sentence disparities among defendants with similar records who have been found guilty of similar conduct. As Anthonys charges are similar with the key difference being he is not cooperating with the state he now will receive a similar sentence. In court, Anthonys attorney Christopher Leibig requested a sentencing hearing happen as soon as possible, according to the clerks minutes of the hearing. Prosecutors and U.S. District Judge Michael Urbanski agreed, according to the minutes, and Urbanski asked attorneys from both sides to confer and find a sentencing date for as soon as possible. Other co-defendants of Anthonys are scheduled to go to trial Aug. 24, after Urbanski pushed it back becasue of pending appeals from prosecutors in the case. Many of the charges in both the Rollin 60s and the Milla cases deal with the Aug. 20, 2016, shooting death of Christopher Motley. According to charging documents and plea deals in the cases, members of the Milla Bloods and the Rollin 60s conspired to kill a rival gang leader. When they fired on a car they thought was carrying the gang leader, they killed Motley, according to plea deals and charging documents. The transition to kindergarten is an exciting step into lifelong learning. Winona Area Public Schools offers outstanding and comprehensive programs with proven results. Our kindergarten classrooms inspire creativity, collaboration and critical thinking with an emphasis on learning through play. We are strong believers of individual learning and recognizing every childs unique potential. Registration is now open for the 2020-21 school year. Go to winonaschools.org/kindergarten to learn more about the programs and resources available, or for help on registering your student. An enrollment brochure will be sent to families. In addition to the website and brochure, WAPS will host several events to help families navigate the process. Future Winhawk Registration Night is Monday, Feb. 17, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at Winona Middle School, 1570 Homer Road. Superintendent Dr. Annette K. Freiheit and other district administrators will be on hand to greet families. You can speak with elementary principals and receive information on mandatory early childhood screening, school nutrition, transportation, after school care and other services. School secretaries and district tech support will be available to help families register their student for kindergarten using computers in the media center. Future Winhawks can take a picture with Herky and win a special prize. There is no official program, so feel free to come and go as your schedule allows. The Rios Spanish Immersion program will be accepting applications from Feb. 3 to March 2 for incoming kindergarten students. The program provides educational experiences, beginning in kindergarten, that support academic and linguistic development in two languages and that develop students appreciation of their own and other cultures. For more information, or to apply, visit winonaschools.org/rios. Kindergarten Open House night is Thursday, March 26, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Future students are invited to visit their new school, meet teachers, tour classrooms and become part of the Winhawk family. The open houses will be held at the elementary school locations. In the summer, there are two events that will help acclimate incoming kindergartners. Kinderhawks Camp will be held on Monday, Aug. 17. Get a taste of what kindergarten is like at Kinderhawks Camp! Families of incoming kindergartners will sign up for a two-hour session (location of camp to be announced), and the future kindergartner will get a chance to interact with their classmates, do an art project, play outside and more. More details will be sent to families in the future. The Winhawk Welcome orientation event for all students in Grades K-4 will be held on Thursday, Sept. 3. Students can visit their school, meet their assigned classroom teacher, drop off supplies, tour the schools and attend a presentation from the principal. The first day of school for the 2020-21 academic year is Tuesday, Sept. 8. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Visiting U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday that Kazakhstan is a reliable partner of the United States in Central Asia and pledged to foster the "Enhanced Strategic Partnership" between the two countries, Trend reports citing Xinhua. Speaking at a joint press conference with Kazakh Foreign Minister Mukhtar Tleuberdi in Nur-Sultan, Pompeo said the United States fully supports the reforms rolled out by Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev to boost economic development and increase public confidence in the government. Pompeo appreciated Kazakh work on peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan and repatriating Kazakh citizens from Syria and Iraq, including terrorists and their families. The U.S. official also posited the United States as a strong business partner for Kazakhstan. For his part, Tleuberdi said Kazakhstan considers the United States as a source of investment, new technologies and knowledge, and welcomes high-quality cooperation to diversify its economy. "There is significant potential for cooperation in IT and other knowledge-intensive industries," Tleuberdi said. The two sides will continue to strengthen cooperation in the fight against international terrorism and extremism, and the spread of radical ideology, said Tleuberdi, adding that Kazakhstan actively supports the regional format C5+1 dialogue (Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan plus the United States). Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa on Sunday said the Karnataka cabinet will be expanded on February 6 with 13 new MLAs set to be inducted. "The Karnataka Cabinet expansion to be held on February 6 at 10:30 am," Chief Minister Yediyurappa told ANI. The leaders to be inducted include three senior BJP leaders-- Arvind Limbavali, C. P. Yogeeshwara and Umesh Katti, whereas the other 10 include those of the 17 disqualified MLAs in Karnataka. According to the sources, MLA R Shankar is also likely to be included in the cabinet later. Last year in November, Yediyurappa had said he promised R Shankar, one of the 17 disqualified MLAs in Karnataka, that he would appoint the latter an MLC and a minister in the state cabinet. Before being disqualified, Shankar was an Independent MLA from Ranibennur. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) New Delhi, Feb 2 : A second case of the novel coronavirus has been confirmed in Kerala, the Union Health Ministry said on Sunday. The patient has been kept in isolation and is currently stable and being closely monitored. The patient has a travel history from China, the ministry said. On Thursday the first ever case of the virus was confirmed in Kerala's Thrissur. A girl student who returned from China's Wuhan, tested positive in Kerala. She was being kept in isolation in a hospital. Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said the Centre was making all possible efforts to deal with the coronavirus. At least 324 Indian nationals have been evacuated so far from China. The Union Health Ministry informed that since January 18, passengers are being screened for fever at the airport. They are also being given self declarations forms. Apart from China, passengers coming from Singapore, Hong Kong and Thailand are also being screened, said the Health Ministry. According to the Health Ministry, at least 52,332 passengers from 326 flights at 21 airports have been screened for the virus till January 31. The ministry is also doing community surveillance of passengers in 26 states. 130 samples had been taken out of which 128 tested negative. Only two have been confirmed for being infected with the virus. The first case is stable and being closely monitored, said the health secretary. The ministry also informed that the evacuated persons are being kept at camps set up by the Army and ITBP. At least 104 people are kept in ITBP camp and 220 at the Manesar army camp. Their samples are being collected. The health secretary also said that a special Indian flight from China has departed carrying 321 Indians and seven Maldivian passengers also. The novel coronavirus outbreak was reported from Wuhan city of China. The disease has SARS-like symptoms of fever, cold, cough, body ache, pneumonia and shortness of breathing. Chinese health authorities on Sunday said it received reports of 2,590 new confirmed cases of novel coronavirus infection and 45 deaths on Saturday from 31 provincial-level regions. The overall confirmed cases on the Chinese mainland had reached 14,380 by the end of Saturday, they said, noting that a total of 304 people had died of the disease so far. Meanwhile, India's first patient of coronavirus who is admitted in Kerala's Thrissur Medical College, is recovering and her condition is stable, said Kerala Health Ministrer K.K. Shailja. However, on the second confirmed case, she said that the state government was yet to receive a written intimation from the Centre. The Union Health Ministry's release had confirmed on Sunday that a second confirmed case has been reported in Kerala. Shailja said: "Presently 1,793 people are under observation in the state of which 59 samples have been sent for testing. Out of the 59 we got the results for 24, of which one is positive." "We have told health authorities in Delhi that the results should be speeded up. Even though our testing centre at Alappuzha is geared to do it, the health authorities in Delhi is not allowing us to do it," said Shailaja. "Our plea to all in Kerala is there should be full cooperation as all those who returned from China have to report to the authorities. This has to be done, as such people have a responsibility to themselves, their families and the society at large. If this does not happen, then it's not fair," said Shailaja. "It has also been decided that those people who are being evacuated from China will be kept in Delhi and all those would be allowed to return to their home states after the prescribed quarantine period. Our only objective is to contain the spread of the virus and for that everyone should cooperate," she said. A top medical professional from the Indian Medical Association said there are possibilities of a few more people currently under observation turning positive, but there is no need to panic. "The Kerala government is doing everything possible to see that this does not spread. It has been proved that coronavirus is less dangerous than even dengue fever, which Kerala witnessed in the past and hence just because a few more turn positive, no panic buttons need to be pressed," he said. Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19) What if you get stuck on the highway in a storm? Here are some tips Two persons, who returned to Mizoram from China in early January, have been put under house quarantine in wake of the outbreak of the deadly coronavirus in the neighbouring country, a senior official said on Sunday. Though they did not show any symptoms of being infected with the virus and both of them tested negative for the deadly virus, they were put under house quarantine as a precautionary measure, the Deputy Secretary of the state health department, Lalngura Tlau, told PTI. The government has set up a screening counter at Lengpui airport and constituted a state-level task force as a precautionary measure to prevent the spread of novel coronavirus in the state, Tlau said. A medical team has been deployed at the airport to screen passengers and collect samples (throat swab) from them. "The Centre has directed us to screen passengers who returned from China after January 14. We will check all passengers coming from outside," he said. The state government has not yet received any report of anyone being infected in the state till date, Tlau said. He also said that the government is in close contact with Mizo students in China. "We have created a Whatsapp group for students from Mizoram for speedy information. We have been in close contact with them," he said. Meanwhile, the state government has no plans to take back the student as the matter rests with the Union External Affairs ministry, the official said. The health department has received a report that a student, who is returning from China has already reached India, and will land at Lengpui airport on Monday. He will be screened again, the official added. Tlau also said that the state task force team and chief medical officers in all the eleven districts are ready to handle any situation. During a high-level meeting on Thursday, state Health Minister Dr R Lalthangliana instructed the state home department to set up screening points at inter-state and internal borders. The government has set up a 25-bedded isolation ward at state Zoram Medical College (ZMC) for treating infected persons. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Steven Bergwijn (center) scored Tottenham Hotspur's winner Sunday against Manchester City on his debut for the club. (John Walton/Getty) Sundays meeting between Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City lived up to its billing as the most hotly anticipated match of the weekend in the Premier League, but the drama wasnt solely down to the players on the field. As has been the case time after time in Englands top flight this season, officiating once again played a central role in a high-profile match not that it took anything away from Spurs 2-0 win over 10-man City in London. Tottenham deserved the victory, even if its two goals came on its first two shots in the contest, and even if both of those shots came after referee Mike Dean had sent off City defender Oleksandr Zinchenko for a second bookable offense. The hosts took advantage almost immediately after Zinchenkos red card, with newly signed Dutch winger Steven Bergwijn scoring a peach of a goal on his debut for the club: Son Heung-min would double the lead just eight minutes later, effectively sealing the three points: The Video Assistant Referee, or VAR, was front and center from the start of this one. Early in the contest, Dean showed Citys Raheem Sterling a caution for a studs-up challenge on Dele Alli. Spurs manager Jose Mourinho was livid after seeing the replays, but VAR determined after review that the ugly tackle didnt warrant a red card. Later in the first half, Spurs defender Serge Aurier took down Sergio Aguero inside the penalty area. The visitors appealed for a penalty, but Dean signaled repeatedly that Aurier had won the ball. Play continued for close to two minutes before the video assistant alerted Dean that Aurier had in fact clipped Aguero, sending Ilkay Gundogan to the penalty spot. Hugo Lloris dove to his left to make the save was he off his line? but more controversy ensued when Raheem Sterling beat Lloris to the rebound, prompting another round of penalty calls from the visitors while Spurs players and fans admonished Sterling for diving. This time VAR favored the hosts, with a second spot-kick not given. Sterling somehow still avoided a booking for simulation, much to Mourinhos chagrin. Little did he realize the match had turned. Story continues City never really recovered after squandering the penalty. Pep Guardiolas side was unusually sloppy on the day. Had they been a bit sharper, this one wouldve been over early. Not even the benefit of some 50-50 calls was enough to get them over the hump. Spurs, meantime, hung in there and were rewarded for that determination, with Bergwijn and Giovani Lo Celso slotting into Mourinhos team seamlessly. Thats also one of the big storylines in this game. Thanks to Dean and the VAR crew, its just not quite the biggest one. More from Yahoo Sports TikTok restores pro-life group's account, blames 'human error' for ban Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok has reinstated the account of Live Action, which has the largest social media presence of any nonprofit pro-life organization, hours after banning it for violating the apps community guidelines. It was removed due to a human error, the app now says. We received an email from TikTok apologizing for what TikTok is calling human error. They admitted that our account is not in violation of any of our Community Guidelines, Lila Rose, the founder of the leading digital pro-life organization, said in a statement, urging TikTok to improve their training and oversight to ensure that such dramatic human errors like this arent made in the future for us or any other pro-life organization. The platform, on which short music videos are shared and has over 800 million active users, blamed it on a moderator. The pro-life groups account was banned late last week after it posted a 15-second educational video featuring baby faces, highlighting lives saved by our content and raising awareness of the importance of speaking out on abortion, Rose said. TikTok is a platform for creative expression that welcomes diversity of users and viewpoints, TheWrap quoted a TikTok spokesperson as saying. Following a review, we have determined that there we no violations of our community guidelines and the issue was the result of a human error by a moderator. We apologize for the mistake and have reactivated the account. After her group was censored, Rose said, Immediately after being notified of the violation, we appealed the removal. And at 3PM EST (Thursday) Live Action was completely BANNED from the platform. TikTok stated this account was banned due to multiple Community Guidelines violations. In the educational video, Live Action shared the beautiful personal stories that some of our followers have shared with us about choosing life for their babies. Rose stressed that her group contacted TikTok asking for an answer and resolution and only after we escalated the problem, did they finally reinstate the account. She added, Not every pro-life American has the reach that Live Action has to sound the alarm on censorship and viewpoint discrimination. What we saw today is the power of social media, the pro-life movement, and news outlets in doing their job to report pro-life viewpoint discrimination. Live Action created an account on the platform last summer and managed to gain more than 21,000 followers. However, this is not the first time the pro-life group, a nonprofit with over 4 million followers on social media, has faced censorship. Last year, Live Action experienced similar censorship from Facebook, Pinterest and YouTube. Late last year, the U.S. government launched a national security review of TikTok owner Beijing ByteDances $1 billion acquisition of U.S. social media app Musical.ly, according to CNBC. U.S. lawmakers suspect that the Chinese company might be censoring politically sensitive content, and have therefore called for a national security probe into TikTok. Questions about how the platform stores personal data of its users have also been raised. A father whose young daughter claimed she was groped by a delivery driver has expressed his anger over the not guilty verdict. A relieved Dinakar Tayi, 45, broke down in court on Thursday after a jury found him not guilty of intentionally sexually touching a teenage girl while delivering a parcel to her home on Sydney's upper north shore in late 2018. He had been accused of grabbing the teen's breast and trying to push his way into the home. The girl, then aged 13, was home alone at the time. A jury found Dinakar Tayi (pictured) not guilty of groping a 13-year-old girl on the breast A NSW District Court jury found Mr Tayi not guilty of intentionally sexually touching a child and aggravated enter dwelling with intent on Thursday. The girl's father, who was in court for the verdict has since broken his silence to express his anger and shock. He believes his daughter didn't get justice. 'No way did I imagine he would be given not guilty on both accounts,' he told Seven News. 'There's no way the world she would try to intentionally get someone into trouble.' The distressed girl's frantic triple zero call was played during Mr Tayi's trial this week. 'Hi, there's like, um, a child perv or something. He was touching my boobs and I need police here right now,' the girl told a police operator. 'I'm so scared right now, I just need the police here. 'Please, I'm shaking ... I don't know if he's still here ... he had his foot in the door and I was having to force it shut.' During her police interview several days later, the teenager claimed the man was 'laughing awkwardly' as he touched her breast for seven seconds over the top of her shirt, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. 'I felt really sick and disgusted by it,' the teen said. 'As I was trying to shut the door he was trying to push the door back to me. He was yelling out 'the parcel, the parcel'. I just slammed the door and locked it. Then I ran down to ring the police.' Dinakar Tayi (pictured) was found not guilty of intentionally sexually touching a child and aggravated enter dwelling with intent Mr Tayi was arrested eight days after the incident in December 2018. His police interview was also played in court, where he claimed it was a misunderstanding and that the back of his hand accidentally brushed the girl's chest as he handed the parcel over. 'I was holding the parcel. Like this, I was holding, right? So this hand touched here. She doesn't have any breast, or something frankly speaking and my intention was not at all that way,' he claimed. He added he put 'maybe one foot' inside the door to stop it from closing. Tayi (pictured during his police interview) told officers the incident was a misunderstanding Following the not guilty verdict, it's since been revealed Mr Tayi previously faced court for a similar incident. He faced court in October over a separate allegation of touching a woman's breast while delivering package to her in May 2017. He was found not guilty of assault with an act of indecency. Meanwhile, the teenager's father urged other young girls to report inappropriate conduct. 'If there's anyone out there who has been in a similar situation, then please come forward,' he said. High above the city, in a style that would be ideal, perhaps, for a James Bond movie, sits a $3.595 million co-op for sale with a renovation story that likely will top any you've heard. The current owners purchased 947 Green St., #6 to house not only themselves, but their collection of bronze, glass, and antiques. The artifacts are tucked into alcoves and displayed on built-in shelving, lit up to complement the glittery skyline views. To get this completely custom interior, the sellers employed Craig Leavitt and Stephen Weaver, two interior designers "perhaps best recognized for their work at the Getty residence nearby," according to the official listing. The original floor plan for unit #6 was more traditional utilizing squares and rectangles with rooms separated from other rooms in a way you'd normally experience a home. According to listing agent Harry Clark, "the full floor was gutted to the perimeter rectangular walls" for the renovation. The transformation replaced the original rectangular form "with curvilinear wall surfaces and finishes throughout." This, in itself, isn't the astounding part, though the results are certainly impressive. More impressive is how the renovation took place. Clark told SFGate that, "in order to reduce disturbance to neighbors, a warehouse was rented off-site where a full-scale replica of the flat was fabricated. It was then delivered to the property and moved by crane, piece by piece, through the sixth-floor front windows." The result is uniquely contemporary. Touches of Deco and Mid-Century Modern blend into something completely original. Bronze, an artifact on display, is also a constant refrain throughout the home. Curved walls of polished teak and "a golden palette of wood and bronze" are offset by mica-sheathed wood panels. Wenge plank flooring features bronze inlays. There are two bedrooms in the space, as well as 1.5 bathrooms. In the living area, there are banquettes covered in leather, mohair, silk and velvet, with panoramic views (though anti-reflective windows) that extend past San Francisco, across the water, all the way to Marin. Metal and bronze trim enhance the burnished gleam of the interior space. With subtle curves that don't quite seem to close, the unit flows from living room through library/office/den space, though the kitchen. All of these enjoy iconic Russian Hill vistas. In the master suite, also with those vistas, there is room to sit, sleep, store a plethora of clothing, and enjoy a soak. Items that might disturb the sleek curves of this co-op are cleverly hidden. A walk-in closet as well as the guest bath are concealed behind lacquered wall-panels. Inset wall storage conceals a sound system. The washer and dryer units hide in a closet adjacent to the kitchen. With its heart-of-Russian-Hill location, 947 Green is across the street from Ina Coolbrith Park, within walking distance to Washington Square, and convenient to some of the city's most popular offerings. The HOA is $2,914.36 monthly, which covers maintenance and some utilities. There is also additional storage and on-car parking included with this unit. See the complete listing here. Anna Marie Erwert writes from both the renter and new buyer perspective, having (finally) achieved both statuses. She focuses on national real estate trends, specializing in the San Francisco Bay Area and Pacific Northwest. Follow Anna on Twit ter: @AnnaMarieErwert. Puducherry Lt Governor Kiran Bedi on Sunday hailed the proposal to set up a National Police University in the union territory. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharman had made the announcement in the budget presented on Saturday. "The long-awaited national police university is now part of the Budget. This will go a long way in meeting the research needs of vital security concerns and will also fill the existing vacuum for a single platform for academics, thinkers and scholars in policing," Bedi said in a WhatsApp message to mediapersons here. She said such an institution was always in the pipeline and was much needed, but earlier the focus was different. "Moneys and human resources were found wanting," the former IPS officer said, adding she was a "witness to these during my service as DGP of the Bureau of Police Research and Development. Announcements were never seen to match available resources and they were mere announcements." Bedi thanked the Centre and said "it is interesting to see the current government gifting the police service a Police Memorial inaugurated by the Prime Minister (in 2018) to now a National Police University (a project of the Union Home Ministry). (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) HELSINKI, Feb. 1 (Xinhua) -- Finnish Minister for Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade Ville Skinnari on Saturday underlined the importance of the freight rail connection between Finland and China for Nordic cooperation. Skinnari said so when commenting on Finnish national radio Yle the discussions at the Arctic Frontier conference in Tromso, Norway this week. The minister said that Norwegian and Swedish industries are interested in cooperation in logistics with Finland. "This cooperation has now been prepared. They want to deliver products to China and Russia on rail, and now we have this channel for fast delivery of products down to China by train." Noting said that it is strategically important that Nordic countries "view together the transportation alternatives", Skinnari said "when speed in transports to East matters, then Finland is the solution." He said the trains are important especially for highly developed products that have to be transported fast. Train services between southeastern Finnish city of Kouvola and northwestern Chinese city of Xi'an were opened in 2017. Jukka Holsa, Vice President Logistics at UPM Forest Products Company, said earlier to Finnish media that UPM follows with interest the development of the rail route connecting Kouvola to China. He said UPM has used the rail route a few times so far and everything went according to the plans. "Our expectations and demands were met," he said. In Kouvola, a freight terminal is under construction that will be able to handling the loading and offloading of trains more than a kilometer long. The city has said that the terminal will serve the connections both to China and Russia. Besides Kouvola, container rail freight from Finland to China is also handled at Vuosaari, Helsinki, by logistics company John Nurminen. - Nigerian cross-dresser Bobrisky has asked Tonto Dikeh to post recent picture of herself or she would do it for her - Bobrisky made the threat because the Nollywood actress has gained weight and has refused to post any recent picture of herself - Tonto and Bobrisky are best of friends who are fond of each other Nigerian cross-dresser, Bobrisky has threatened his friend Tonto Dikeh that he would post her recent picture on Instagram, saying that the actress has gained weight. Recall that Tonto Dikeh complained that she had gained weight and vowed not to post any any picture until she loses the fat. Legit.ng gathers that Bobrisky threatened Tonto to post the picture herself, otherwise she would help her with it. Below is Bobrisky's post: Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that popular Nigerian male barbie Idris Okuneye, known as Bobrisky, took to social media to reveal that he was heartbroken by Maryam Sanda's incident. Sanda was recently sentenced to death by hanging after she was found guilty of killing her husband due to jealous rage. Sanda's death would leave her only child orphaned. A Federal High Court in Abuja sentenced Sanda on Monday, January 27. Bobrisky, who sympathised with the late husband and the wife's incident reacted to the outcome of the incident. The cross-dresser noted that he was heartbroken by what happened to the couple. According to him, the couple that was supposed to spend the rest of their lives together till they were old and grey, are now going to join each other soon. The cross-dresser also used the opportunity to talk about marriage plans. He stated that nobody should ask him when he plans to get married. Bobrisky said he would swear for the person's family if they do. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read the best news on Nigerias #1 news app After the court sentenced Maryam to death, Nigerians began to react to the court judgment on social media. Actress Toyin Abraham also reacted to the sad incident. The talented actress expressed sadness over the court sentence given to Maryam after she was found guilty of killing her husband. The actress reacted to the court case on her Instagram page by sharing a photo of the couple and an old video of them on their wedding day. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng We have updated to serve you better Bobrisky's Birthday: Nigerians condemn Police over disruption at party venue - on Legit TV Source: Legit.ng By Express News Service BALASORE: A 12-year-old boy from Madhupura in Basta block has been invited for tea by President Ram Nath Kovind at Rashtrapati Bhawan for his innovation, which aims to make farming a less tedious task. Biplab Kumar Ghosh, a Class VII student of Upendra Nath Nodal Upper Primary School at Madhupara, after seeing his father Susanta Kumar Ghosh work in the field under scorching heat, decided to come up with a machine to reduce manual labour, save time and cut down on expenses. He took the help of a few teachers and classmates to come up with the multi-tasking equipment called Seeds and fertiliser application by spending Rs 10,000. The machine can perform six different tasks simultaneously, including preparation of land before sowing of seeds, ploughing, sprinkling of water and pesticide, sowing of seeds and applying manure, he said. Biplab has exhibited the equipment at the district, State and national level science exhibitions and won medals. He has recently conferred the INSPIRE AwardMANAK (Million Minds Augmenting National Aspirations and Knowledge). Headmaster-in-charge of Biplabs school Chinmay Kumar Nanda said the machine designed by the youngster was among the seven projects selected for INSPIRE Awards MANAK. Taking note of his innovation, the Presidents office invited the boy to attend a tea party in Delhi. Though the exact date of the event is yet to be fixed, the event is scheduled to be held in March-April, he said. Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research (INSPIRE) is one of the flagship programmes of the Department of Science & Technology (DST). It aims to motivate students in the age group of 10-15 years and studying from classes VI to X. Ministries need to analyse the impact of coronavirus on both international and domestic markets, then deliver short-term and long-term solutions, Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Tuan Anh said on January 31. A worker fumigates a classroom in the southern province of Soc Trang before students return school after the Lunar New Year holiday The analysis and solutions must stick with the development of the Vietnamese economy so that the economy increased its competitiveness, quality and productivity, he said. It is time we hastened the restructuring of all sectors, the minister said, adding it was necessary to look for opportunities in other markets, especially those with potential for further penetration. According to officials at the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the restriction that nations are deploying to prevent a global-scale outbreak of the disease would slow the growth of the retail sector down. In addition, the number of foreign tourists, especially the Chinese, will fall down in the future while bilateral trade between Vietnam and China will be jammed. The border gates between Vietnam and China in Lang Son province are being shut down as the Chinese government has taken drastic measures to control and prevent the coronavirus from spreading. The shutdown is jamming Vietnamese container trucks, which are filled with fruits, vegetables and other short-term agriculture products. According to the Agency of Foreign Trade, the outbreak of the deadly coronavirus has lowered retail sales in China. In addition, the Chinese government has carried out measures to strictly control the infection, leading to the extensive shutdown of the border gate. Vietnam and China had planned to open the border gate in Lang Son provinces Cao Loc district on January 31 for the continuance of bilateral trade after the Tet (Lunar New Year) holiday. However, the spread of the disease forced Chinese officials to extend the shutdown until February 9. The Ministry of Industry and Trades foreign trade agency has asked logistics firms to help Vietnamese agriculture producers following Chinas decision to temporarily stop importing local farm products. The consumption of agricultural products had fallen in China while trade activities between the two economies was also badly affected, the agency said in a request sent to the Vietnam Logistic Business Association (VLA) on January 30. The agency asked the VLA and member companies to pay attention to new developments and assist exporters to store agricultural products while waiting for the border gate to be re-opened. Local firms are also advised to look for alternate consumers in both domestic and overseas markets. The Ministry of Industry and Trade also asked local companies to keep close watch on trade activities between Vietnam and China amid new developments of the current event to avoid negative impacts on their business. The ministry will also work the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to encourage local firms to produce dried products and fruit juice to raise the product value and extend the product expirations. VNA Are you a techie who knows how to write? Then join our Team! English native speakers welcome! Update: Owners of the AT&T model of the LG G8 ThinQ are also confirming receipt of the Android 10 update. That means only the T-Mobile model is yet to receive Android 10. ------------------------- LG's software update performance may have taken a turn for the better. The company sent out the Android 10 update to the G8 ThinQ in its home South Korea back in December, and is now rolling out the update in the US. Source: Xinhua| 2020-02-03 04:34:33|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close AMMAN, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Mideast peace plan challenges the internationally agreed parameters, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell said here Sunday. "Jordan plays a very special role in the efforts to resolve the conflict," he said following a meeting with Jordanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Ayman Safadi. "We share the commitment to a two-state solution and respect for international law," said Borrell. Safadi reaffirmed Jordan's firm stance on the Palestinian issue and the two-state solution, adding that the issue has been at Jordan's top priorities. "We want just and comprehensive peace that realizes the legitimate rights of the Palestinians," said Safadi, according to a statement by the foreign ministry. New Delhi: India on Sunday airlifted the second batch of 321 stranded Indians and seven Maldivian citizens from China's coronavirus-hit Wuhan city, taking the total number of people evacuated to 654, Indian officials said. Air India's jumbo B747 made two flights to Wuhan city - the ground zero of the coronavirus epidemic that has killed more than 300 people, infected 14,380 others and spread to 25 countries, including India, the US and the UK. In the first flight on early Saturday, 324 Indians were evacuated and on Sunday another 321 Indians and seven Maldivian citizens were flown back. Vikram Misri, Ambassador of India to China: The 2nd Air India flight from Wuhan (China) has taken off for Delhi with 323 Indian citizens on board. 7 Maldives citizens also evacuated. #CoronaVirus https://t.co/Lxax67eJs2 ANI (@ANI) February 2, 2020 "The 2nd #AirIndia flight from #Wuhan has just taken off for #Delhi with 323 Indian citizens on board. 7 Maldives citizens are also being evacuated. Grateful once again to @MFA_China and local authorities all across #Hubei for their assistance," Indian Ambassador to China Vikram Misri tweeted on Sunday. "Want to thank my team at @EOIBeijing which mounted a non-stop almost 96-hour long operation to coordinate a complex airlift under challenging circumstances for us, the passengers and local authorities in #Hubei and #Wuhan," he said in another tweet. "A special word of appreciation for two of our officers who are on board the plane - Deepak Padmakumar and M Balakrishnan - they showed exemplary fortitude and a real spirit of public service by travelling to ground zero in #Wuhan to coordinate airport arrangements. Kudos to both," he tweeted. Among those evacuated, 227 were men while 94 were women. At least 282 were staying in China as students while 36 were employed. At least 3 were minors. Here's the state-wise division of Indians evacuated from China on Sunday : Andhra Pradesh: 02 Bihar: 42 Delhi: 16 Gujarat: 04 Haryana: 16 Himachal Pradesh: 01 Jammu & Kashmir: 29 Jharkhand: 02 Karnataka: 04 Kerala: 73 Madhya Pradesh: 06 Maharashtra: 14 Odisha: 01 Punjab: 05 Rajasthan: 14 Tamil Nadu: 28 Uttar Pradesh: 53 Uttrakhand: 02 West Bengal: 09 Four Indians could not board the second flight after they reported high temperatures, Misri told PTI. On Saturday, at least six Indian couldn't board the flight as they were stopped by the Chinese immigration after they reported high temperature. They may be quarantined to undergo tests to determine whether they have symptoms of the coronavirus, officials said. Twenty-five others stayed back, Misri said, adding that there may still be about 100 Indians who remained in Hubei province for which Wuhan is the provincial capital - the city where the virus first emerged in late December. Ahead of the evacuation, the Indian Embassy had informed its stranded citizens that they have to undergo health tests before boarding the flight and also undergo a 14-day quarantine in special camps after reaching India. Misri said that it was one of the most complex operations for the Indian officials as the entire evacuation process had to be conducted in Wuhan and Hubei province, which were under total lockdown with all transportation including private vehicles banned as part of measures to curb the virus. The entire operation needed to be conducted about 500-km away, he said. In the meantime, the Philippines reported the first death outside China from the coronavirus that has killed over 300. The fatality is a 44-year-old Chinese man from the city of Wuhan, where the virus was first detected, and appears to have been infected before arriving in the Philippines. Even as India is carrying out a massive evacuation of its citizens from Wuhan in China, a second positive case of Novel Coronavirus has been detected in Kerala. Second positive case of Novel Coronavirus patient, has been reported in Kerala. The patient has a travel history from China. The patient has tested positive for Novel Coronavirus and is in isolation in the hospital. The patient is stable and is being closely monitored, the Union health ministry said in a statement Sunday. Kerala health minister K K Shailaja said the second patient is in Alappuzha. The second patient returned from Wuhan on Jan 24. He is stable. He is also a medical student, she said at a press conference. The state government has raised the level of alert after the detection of the second case. The government has readied 100 isolation wards ready in case of any emergency. Isolation wards opened in private hospitals also. From Monday, the government plans to launch awareness sessions in all schools in the state. Keralas health ministry said no personal information can be divulged as per the World Health Organisation (WHO) emergency guidelines. On Saturday, the state government had said that the countrys first coronavirus-infected patient, a woman who returned to Kerala from China last week, was recovering fast. According to a medical bulletin the first patient who is also an isolation ward in the Thrissur medical college hospital, was responding well to treatment. Kerala has mounted a huge operation where 1793 people are under observation while 50 have been admitted to different hospitals. Health authorities have also alerted Kolkata international airport, where the woman spent four hours in transit after landing on December 23 before taking a flight to Kochi. On Saturday, an Air India aircraft evacuated 324 Indians from Wuhan and flew them to Delhi. They were taken to two quarantine facilities. Officials later said one of the evacuees has shown symptoms of being affected by the virus. Those quarantined will be observed for any signs of the infection for at least two weeks by a team of doctors and staff trained at the facilities. The coronavirus death toll in China has gone past 300 while more than 14,000 cases of infections have been reported. The WHO has warned that other countries need to be prepared in the event the disease spreads among their populations. Dear Reader, Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance. We, however, have a request. As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed. Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard. Digital Editor Amit Singhania and Gouri Puri, Partners, Shardul Amarchand and Mangaldas & Co. The middle class cheered as the Honble Finance Minister announced significant cuts in personal tax rates for individuals and HUFs. The government vocalised its underlying intent to boost peoples income and stimulate demand and growth. However, the tax cuts are accompanied by a cost where taxpayer electing the lower tax regime would need to forego specified personal tax deductions and exemptions. Such give and take is reminiscent of the tax cuts offered to companies in September 2019 and plausibly justified in light of the fiscal deficit. Total Income (INR) Extant Rates (per cent) Proposed Rates (per cent) Up to 250,000 Nil Nil From 250,000 - 500,000 5 5 From 500,001 750,000 20 10 From 750,001 1,000,000 15 From 1,000,001 1,250,000 30 20 From 1,250,001 1,500,000 25 Above 1,500,000 30 The new tax rate regime is summarized below. While offered as a simple tax relief, many from the astute middle class are left pondering as to whether they should buy in to the new low tax regime. For the salaried class, the key deductions and exemptions required to be foregone include house rent allowance, leave travel concession, standard deduction, interest on housing loans, etc. For the business class these deductions also include tax incentives provided for special economic zones, incentives for investing in specified business, additional depreciation claims, etc. As such there is no bright line test to make this election and for the salaried folk the simplest way forward is compare previous years tax outflow with the tax computed under the new regime. The possibility that a taxpayer with heave entitlements to personal tax deductions ends up with a lower effective tax rate than the new regime cannot be ruled out. The Bill provides for two separate timings for taxpayers to voice their election for the new lower tax regime. In case of the salaried class, the Bill proposes that the election should be made at the time of filing the tax return. It will be interesting to see how the timing of such election marries with the employers obligation to deduct TDS. Employers are likely to deduct TDS at the higher of the tax rates on a more conservative note, in which case individuals will need to claim refund of excess taxes withheld. Salaried individuals can make a new election each year where they may choose between personal tax cuts versus personal tax deductions and exemptions. On the other hand, individuals and HUF with business income are required to make an election while filing their tax return for AY 2021-2022. Such election is permanent and may only be withdrawn once. Once an individual/ HUF withdraws from the lower tax regime in favour of deductions and exemptions they cannot revert to the lower tax regime thereafter. Needless to say the simplicity of moving towards a lower base line tax rate as against a host of personal tax deductions and exemptions is inviting. However, it is recommended that each individual or HUF makes a reasoned decision on running his tax computations post due analysis. Add CoolSocial badge. Show it by adding this HTML code on your site: Signintoyahoo.org scored 40 Social Media Impact. Social Media Impact score is a measure of how much a site is popular on social networks. 2/5.0 Stars by Social Team This CoolSocial report was updated on 7 Jan 2014, you can refresh this analysis whenever you want. Add a widget like this on your site: click here The total number of people who shared the signintoyahoo homepage on StumbleUpon. This is the sum of two values: the total number of people who shared, liked or recommended the signintoyahoo homepage on Facebook + the total number of page likes (if signintoyahoo has a Facebook fan page). The total number of people who shared the signintoyahoo homepage on Delicious. The total number of people who shared the signintoyahoo homepage on Google Plus by a google +1 button. This is the sum of two values: the total number of people who shared the signintoyahoo homepage on Twitter + the total number of signintoyahoo followers (if signintoyahoo has a Twitter account). Basic Information PAGE TITLE Sign in to yahoo DESCRIPTION Sign in to yahoo, unofficial blog where you' ll find the best guides sign in to yahoo. KEYWORDS Sign in to yahoo, www.yahoo.com, Yahoo, Sign in OTHER KEYWORDS yahoo, sign in, sign in to yahoo, sign in to, in to yahoo, in to, to yahoo The title found in the head section of the homepage. The URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is the address of the site. The description meta-tag found in the head section of the homepage. CoolSocial advanced keyword analysis tool is able to detect and analyze every keyword on each page of a site. The keywords meta-tag found in the head section of the homepage. Domain and Server DOCTYPE HTML 5.0 CHARSET AND LANGUAGE English (United States) UTF-8English (United States) DETECTED LANGUAGE English English SERVER LiteSpeed OPERATIVE SYSTEM Character set and language of the site. Represents HTML declared type (e.g.: XHTML 1.1, HTML 4.0, the new HTML 5.0) Type of server and offered services. The language of signintoyahoo.org as detected by CoolSocial algorithms. Operative System running on the server. Site Traffic trend during the last year. Only available for sites ranked <= 100000 in the world. Referring domains for signintoyahoo.org by MajesticSeo. High values are a sign of site importance over the web and on web engines. Facebook link FACEBOOK PAGE LINK NOT FOUND The URL of the found Facebook page. A Facebook page link can be found in the homepage or in the robots.txt file. The description of the Facebook page describes website and its services to the social media users. Facebook Timeline is the new layout of Facebook pages. The total number of people who tagged or talked about website Facebook page in the last 7-10 days. The total number of people who like website Facebook page. The type of Facebook page. Twitter account link TWITTER PAGE LINK NOT FOUND A little known Fulani group that calls itself the Fulani Nationality Movement, (Funam) may have stoked ethnic nationalism in Nigeria with its claims of Fulani ownership of the country and its giving notice of planned conquest of the entire territory. FUNAM, which made a similar provocative statement in 2018, following the Benue massacre by herdsmen, returned to its familiar territory in a statement that further sharpened the ethnic cleavages in Nigeria. While the statement was a reaction to recent killings in Plateau state by armed Fulani herdsmen, its claim of the existence of a Fulani Strike Force that coordinated what it called a retaliatory attack against Birom people in Barkin Ladi, in Plateau state may ignite an arms race by Nigerias various ethnic groups. President of the group Badu Salisu Ahmadu was unapologetic about the killings, in which 14 people died. He said the killings were justifiable as the Fulani had been attacked before the counter-attack. And he laid an operating philosophy of the ethnic nationality: For the avoidance of doubt, our heritage is that ANY ATTACK ON A SINGLE FULANI IS AN ATTACK ON ALL. ANY OF SUCH ATTACKS MUST BE COUNTERED WITH TRIPLE MEASURE Ahmadu claimed that Plateau-Benue and the rest of Nigeria is an indigenous territory of the FULANI people. But his claim is a pure distortion of history as the Fulani migrated into Nigeria around the 18th century and set off the Jihad in the 19th century. We are the first to settle in Plateau-Benue axis thousands of years ago. We shall take and possess every inch of this land; A conscious attempt to rewrite history and distort, manipulate or destroy our past will be resisted with all the might at our disposal. We have said it over and over, that Nigeria is the only inheritance we have in Africa and anywhere in the world. This land belongs to us, from Sokoto to the banks of the Atlantic Ocean. This was the destiny bestowed on Uthman Dan Fodio which would have been fulfilled since 1816 if not for the obstruction of this great assignment by the British. It is no longer time to play the ostrish(sic). Our men are waiting. We are eager to fight. We are boiling with the zeal to actualize our dream; enough of double dealing and ambivalence by FULANI political leaders who unfortunately think the FULANI can only take back what belongs to us through appeasement and elections destined to reflect cultural values antithetical to the preachings of Uthman Dan Fodio. Read FUNAMs threats: That there is a clear agenda to divide Nigeria and exterminate the FULANI people. We are long aware of this plot. We call on FULANI all over Africa to prepare for this inevitable war and set our people on an offensive path rather than being weaklings that choose a defensive strategy in warfare. We have said it over and over, that Nigeria is the only inheritance we have in Africa and anywhere in the world. This land belongs to us, from Sokoto to the banks of the Atlantic Ocean. This was the destiny bestowed on Uthman Dan Fodio which would have been fulfilled since 1816 if not for the obstruction of this great assignment by the British. It is no longer time to play the ostrish(Sic). Our men are waiting. We are eager to fight. We are boiling with the zeal to actualize our dream; enough of double dealing and ambivalence by FULANI political leaders who unfortunately think the FULANI can only take back what belongs to us through appeasement and elections destined to reflect cultural values antithetical to the preachings of Uthman Dan Fodio. We warn that nothing will be able to save those raising their voices against us and Allah. Nothing will be left behind, from the East, West and Middle Belt except those who accept the creation of Allah and the leadership place of Fulani in fulfilling this destiny. Since this irresponsible Western notion of democracy was imposed, the Fulani have been shortchanged and maligned. The Middle-Belt, the West and the East should be prepared. We are already here. Let the Birom and the ethnic minority invaders in the entire Middle Belt leave our territory or be prepared to accept our ways of live. It is time for them to savour their wounds. It is just the beginning. Many more will come and nothing can stop us. Insha Allah, we shall take this battle across the sea, on the land, in the air, on the mountains, in every territory currently occupied by the Kafirs. This is our position. This is our destiny. For those who think they can stop or continue to conspire against us, we wish them good luck. Economic costs of the coronavirus and impacts of drought and bushfires for 2020 are yet to be seen but will surely be high. While policy processes in managing pandemics in Australia and across the developed world are highly evolved, Australia is seen as having its head in the sand over the role of climate change and its relationship to events such as bushfires and drought. We are seen as a policy backwater on tackling climate change, and there is a quickly growing consensus that as a nation, we need to do more to reduce our carbon emission footprint, the main cause of climate change. Prime Minister Scott Morrison at the National Press Club last week. Credit:Sitthixay Ditthavong Despite Prime Minister Scott Morrison telling the National Press Club that climate action would be driven by technology, not taxation, technology alone will not be enough. Now is the right time to look again at a new carbon tax model - one that leaves taxpayers better off and puts downward pressure on emissions. You have permission to edit this article. Edit Close The US government is trying to return memorabilia from Second World War codebreaker and computing pioneer Alan Turing that was allegedly stolen more than 30 years ago. Government lawyers recently disclosed in a court filing that investigators seized the items during a search of a womans home in Colorado in 2018. They say she took items including an OBE medal. After a lengthy international investigation, the US government is asking a judge for ownership of the items so it can return them to Sherborne, the boarding school Mr Turing attended in England. The woman said she was visiting England to do a study of Alan Turing, walked into the prestigious boys school and asked to see a collection of his memorabilia. She was given a wooden box with items that once belonged to Mr Turing, who helped crack Nazi Germanys secret codes and whose story inspired 2014s Oscar-winning film The Imitation Game. Expand Close Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, announces that Alan Turing has been selected to feature on the next 50 note (Peter Byrne/PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, announces that Alan Turing has been selected to feature on the next 50 note (Peter Byrne/PA) Inside the box was his PhD from Princeton University, his Order of the British Empire medal and other mementos. When she left that day in 1984, the box was empty. The only thing left inside was a note asking for forgiveness and promising to return the items someday, according to a recent court filing by government lawyers. More than 30 years later, the US Department of Homeland Security in Denver has the items that were seized from the home of the woman, who later changed her name to Julia Turing. The Princeton degree was found behind a dresser in 2018. The OBE was found in a briefcase behind a wall in a bathroom. Her offer to donate the items to the University of Colorado had launched a lengthy international investigation to sort out the rightful owner of the items, according to a forfeiture action filed on January 17. The action is the first of two legal steps to return the memorabilia to Sherborne School in Dorset. Julia Turing had letters from Sherbornes treasurer, Col A. W. Gallon, thanking her for previously returning most of the memorabilia and saying she could keep the diploma, according to court documents. They suggested she could show the correspondence to police if she was questioned. But school officials told investigators that giving away any school property would require the permission of its board of governors, which did not consider the matter, according to Sherborne documents. The school said some items that Julia Turing previously returned were not the original items that were taken. It noted that the OBE medal she sent back was tarnished and did not include its miniature version and the kings letter. Expand Close Alan Turing worked at Bletchley Park (Chris Radburn/PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Alan Turing worked at Bletchley Park (Chris Radburn/PA) According to court documents, Julia Turing told investigators that she had bought OBE medals online, and several were found during the search of her home, along with the original discovered behind the bathroom wall. In diaries and letters seized by investigators she wrote of her tremendous love and devotion to Alan Turing and how she wished she did not have to hide his things. In one diary entry, addressed to Alan Turing, she worried about a museum forcing her to give up the items by claiming they are stolen, court documents show. The US government is asking a judge to give it permanent custody of the items so it can begin another legal process to return them to the school. Julia Turing has until March to file an objection to the forfeiture. Her lawyer, Katryna Spearman, did not return messages seeking comment. She has not been charged with a crime. Sherborne School headmaster Dominic Luckett declined to comment on the items removed from the schools archives, because authorities are still dealing with the matter. Sherborne officials are proud of their distinguished alumnus and seek to preserve and promote his legacy, Mr Luckett said in a statement to The Associated Press. As part of that, we take very seriously our responsibility to look after those items in our archives which relate to his time at Sherborne School and his subsequent life and work, he added. During the Second World War Alan Turing helped crack Nazi secret codes by creating the Turing bombe, a forerunner of modern computers. After the war he was prosecuted for homosexuality, then illegal in England. He died in 1954 aged 41 after eating an apple laced with cyanide in what was ruled to be suicide. He received a posthumous apology from the British government in 2009 and a royal pardon in 2013. If you're interested in submitting a Letter to the Editor, click here. Submit Gilles Desaulniers moved to San Francisco 40 years ago, settling in the friendly, quaint and affordable city after running out of cash while driving from Canada down the West Coast of America. Today he runs a grocery store filled with fresh fruit, vegan snacks and organic wines typical of this famously liberal Californian city. But Gilles has shut one outlet and would sell up entirely if anyone wanted this one, his remaining shop. Each day, up to 30 people stroll in and openly steal goods, costing him hundreds of dollars. A street cleaner showed me a box filled with used syringes that he had collected, then I met two charity workers picking up needles from the pavement. How many do you find a day, I ask? Between 300 and 600, depending on the weather, one replies. A homeless man is pictured second left using a syringe to inject drugs in the city in June 2018 He has been bitten twice recently by people in his shop and he also found a woman turning blue in the toilet after a drugs overdose, a hypodermic needle still stuck in her leg. He showed me a metal door that is corroding due to people urinating in his doorway, then spoke of finding a man relieving himself in full view of infants playing in a child centre next door. Our society is falling apart, says Desaulniers. If people do not play by some rules, society does not function. But it feels like there is no order, there is no shame. He uses two apocalyptic movies to illustrate the state of his adopted city: Living here feels like A Clockwork Orange and Blade Runner have both come true. I could grasp his despair. I had just passed dealers selling drugs beside a police car parked outside government offices, and seen their customers openly smoke fentanyl, an opioid 50 times stronger than heroin, then collapse on the street. Yet true to form, San Francisco has just elected as district attorney a radical called Chesa Boudin, whose parents were infamous militants from a far-Left, anti-war group. They were jailed for triple murder when Chesa was a toddler, leaving him to be adopted by the founders of the organisation All cities have their seedy sides. But this is the very centre of San Francisco, by an upmarket Westfield shopping mall thronged with people in designer clothes perusing Rolex watches, Louis Vuitton handbags and Tiffany jewellery. The beautiful city by the bay, where Tony Bennett famously left his heart and which poses as a beacon of progressiveness, has more billionaires per capita than any other on the planet. Not long ago, a seven-bedroom home here recently sold for $38 million (29 million), while at the Michelin-starred Saison restaurant, the kitchen menu starts at $298 a head and reservations require a $148 deposit. The city authorities have a huge $12 billion budget, handing their 31,800 staff average annual pay and benefit packages of an astonishing $175,000. Yet the tide of homeless, addicted and mentally ill people washing up here has become so severe that a global expert on slums claimed San Francisco may be more unsanitary than some of the poorest parts of Africa and Asia. Oracle, one of the technology giants based in the nearby Silicon Valley, has switched a conference for 60,000 people to Las Vegas due to the toxic combination of poor street conditions and costly hotels. This followed a medical association moving its $40 million convention out of San Francisco amid safety fears because of sordid tent encampments and overt drug use. Other events are being affected. Indoors, people are making deals, talking about healthcare and networking. Yet in the streets, I witnessed homeless people injecting cocaine, tweeted Kistein Monkhouse while attending a recent J. P. Morgan conference for 9,000 people. As one prominent academic tells me, it seems a cruel irony that so much squalor and despair is found in the Californian base of all those billionaire technology titans seeking to reshape the world in their image. San Francisco has always had hobos but weve never seen anything like this. Its become a vision of some kind of strange dystopian future, says Joel Kotkin, a widely respected professor in urban studies. He can reel off damning statistics to back his claim that San Francisco symbolises the Golden States descent into high-tech feudalism including Americas highest poverty levels, its worst rates of property crime and its biggest gap between top and middle incomes. But one statistic stands out: almost half of homeless people in the United States are in California, according to a recent White House study. And San Francisco, a comparatively small city that is home to tech giants such as Twitter, Uber and Airbnb, has the highest rate of unsheltered citizens at ten times the national level. All cities have their seedy sides. But this is the very centre of San Francisco, by an upmarket Westfield shopping mall thronged with people in designer clothes perusing Rolex watches, Louis Vuitton handbags and Tiffany jewellery Downtown visitors cannot fail to witness the distressing evidence. Almost instantly after I arrived, I saw three people smoking crystal meth through glass pipes, then others with the facial scabs and sores associated with this destructive drug. One man with matted hair sat slumped in a stupor wearing just grubby underpants. Another, clearly under the influence of heroin, had nodded off and was static on a childs bicycle. A third urinated on the street. A woman changed her clothes from a tatty suitcase on the pavement. Others shuffled pathetically or rolled slowly along the street in wheelchairs. Some were clearly suffering mental distress, such as a man in his 50s begging for cash who told me he was waiting for his air force pension. A street cleaner showed me a box filled with used syringes that he had collected, then I met two charity workers picking up needles from the pavement. How many do you find a day, I ask? Between 300 and 600, depending on the weather, one replies. So if you are going to San Francisco, feel free to wear flowers in your hair but local women say avoid sandals on your feet. Dog owners complain they have to wash human faeces from the legs of their pets after a walk. One fed-up resident showed me Hondurans handing out socks filled with wraps of drugs in front of a building being turned into an upmarket Whole Foods store. The dealers displayed little need for concealment. After a while, you become desensitised its like everyone here is wearing blinkers, says my guide, a man in his 30s. All my friends with kids have moved out of the city. The city and state have some of the highest tax rates in the country, but his area of SoMa West voted to back a fresh charge on firms to fund a new community group to clean up its streets. It is the 17th district to pass such a measure. You have to develop a thick skin, says Sonya Lee, 24, supervisor in a Starbucks branch surrounded by bustling boutiques, expensive hotels and smart restaurants. Every day, people come in and take stuff. Its dreadful but we dont know what to do. San Francisco, a comparatively small city that is home to tech giants such as Twitter, Uber and Airbnb, has the highest rate of unsheltered citizens at ten times the national level Official data, based on one nights count last year, claimed 8,011 homeless people in this city of 884,000 people a rise of 17 per cent on 2017. But a record of those receiving healthcare found numbers twice as high and rising faster. City authorities claim their key problem is the high cost of housing combined with past failures to build enough properties. But many blame something simpler to solve: the lack of law enforcement. When you tell vagrants that anything goes, it leads to the anarchy you see on these streets, says Heather MacDonald, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute think-tank and a conservative essayist. She believes we are witnessing a real-life experiment into what happens if society stops enforcing bourgeois norms out of sensitivity to vulnerable people. MacDonald argues that the city authorities are culpable, fuelling drug addiction by doling out 4.5 million needles a year when there is nothing compassionate about giving addicts and mentally ill people the freedom to decompose on the streets. Much of what she says is backed by Thomas Wolf, 49, who lost his job and family after becoming addicted to opioid painkillers following foot surgery, then moving on to cheaper heroin and ending up homeless in his native city. It is a cycle of despair, he says. I was heartbroken at losing my wife and kids but all I cared about was drugs. I hated being on the streets but I loved the easy access to drugs. Yet theres such denial that if youd have asked me if I had a problem, Id have said no. Wolf, who now works for the Salvation Army helping homeless people rebuild lives and has just been appointed to a specialist civic taskforce, sees untreated addiction as the root cause of the citys problem. He says most people living on the streets are hooked on either drugs or drink. If you see someone shouting at the wall, it is crystal meth, not mental illness although meth might have destroyed their mind. Wolf claims that while the city distributes drug paraphernalia, he was never asked to quit or offered help. He says many users sell their monthly welfare $190 food stamps on receipt to go on a binge. And he wants to see generous welfare benefits almost $600 a month in return for 12 hours of voluntary work slashed. His own time as a homeless heroin addict ended after police caught him holding six socks filled with drugs for Honduran dealers. His brother bailed him from jail on condition that he went into rehab. He was lucky. Last year there were 234 deaths from fentanyl and heroin in the city, more than double the previous year and five times higher than in 2016. Wolf believes that the decision by a state ballot six years ago to reclassify thefts of property below the value of $950 as misdemeanours has backfired badly, leading to a huge increase in shoplifting. It is a disaster, he says. The idea was sound to reduce jailing that is predominantly of minorities but the side effect was to embolden people to commit crime with impunity. Everyone knows you can go into shops and steal up to $950. Even shampoo, deodorant and toothpaste are now locked up in chemist shops to curb thefts. The police declined to speak officially. But one officer sitting in his car beside blatant street-dealing said there was no point arresting people as they would simply be released, even if they were carrying drugs and cash valued at several thousand dollars. I find it very frustrating and lots of my colleagues find it very frustrating, he says, adding that officers only intervene when there is violence. We get the blame because people think were doing nothing. But its not our fault. Wes Tyler, manager of a family-owned hotel, told me a man high on crystal meth smashed a $5,000 window one Sunday afternoon then repeatedly ignored court dates and probation orders despite being seen in the neighbourhood last week. If City Hall does not start to take these issues more seriously, well see businesses impacted, says Jay Cheng, spokesman for the local Chamber of Commerce. Yet true to form, San Francisco has just elected as district attorney a radical called Chesa Boudin, whose parents were infamous militants from a far-Left, anti-war group. They were jailed for triple murder when Chesa was a toddler, leaving him to be adopted by the founders of the organisation. The beautiful city by the bay, where Tony Bennett famously left his heart and which poses as a beacon of progressiveness, has more billionaires per capita than any other on the planet. Not long ago, a seven-bedroom home here recently sold for $38 million (29 million), while at the Michelin-starred Saison restaurant, the kitchen menu starts at $298 a head and reservations require a $148 deposit The 39-year-old, who studied at Oxford University as a Rhodes scholar and later worked as a translator for Venezuelas former leader Hugo Chavez, a Fidel Castro acolyte, campaigned on moving away from prosecuting quality of life offences to focus on serious and corporate offences. The San Francisco Police Officers Association spent heavily campaigning against Boudin, saying he was the choice for criminals and gang members. But Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the charity Coalition on Homelessness, argues city residents should get angry over systemic neglect that sparked this crisis rather than blaming people on the streets. No one wants to live like this, she says. Weve tried locking people up before but that didnt work. Friedenbach insists that the problems stem from a lack of affordable housing, a significant reduction of emergency shelters and the slashing of spending on treatment programmes. She says, rightly, that issues of homelessness, mental health and addiction are often linked. The citys mayor, London Breed, whose younger sister died of a drug overdose and elder brother was jailed for robbery, declined to comment. In her inaugural speech, Breed said the twin troubles of homelessness and housing affordability were the big challenge. She is boosting grants for shelters, treatment and street cleaning. Yet those desperate sights staining this one-time hippy nirvana are ultimately the sign of abject political failure. Her new fiefdom is, after all, so populated by millionaires in their exclusive enclaves that it is the second richest city in the worlds richest nation. Considering the citys wealth, it smacks of callous and uncaring hypocrisy. As one local resident says: Are they really being progressive to that poor guy in the street with a needle in his arm who is going to die tomorrow? The Jamia Millia Islamia University student who was shot by an armed minor three days ago has said that the Vice-Chancellor and varsity administration were just as much to blame as the Delhi Police for allowing the incident to happen. The Jamia Millia Islamia University student shot by a gunman at an anti-Citizenship Amendment protest on Thursday released a statement saying the Vice-Chancellor and varsity administration are "as much to blame" for the incident as the Delhi Police. Shadab Farooq Najar, the 21-year-old mass communications student, in a Facebook post, claimed had the university earlier taken action against "police brutality" this incident might not have occurred. He further said, "Not only Jamia or Jawaharlal Nehru University, but it is also the responsibility of every university run by people who are currently in power at the Centre to take care of its students and be accountable as well as answerable to them." In the statement, Farooq claimed he first saw the attacker walking around with a pistol while he was about to join the protest that afternoon. "As I saw some of my friends standing there, I immediately ran towards him to calm him down. People were asking the police to stop him. They were continuously shouting that he's holding a pistol but the police didn't listen. Instead, they kept on recording videos. I asked him to put the gun down twice. He shot me on my left forearm when I said it for the third time," he said. Najar also cautioned Jamia administration, saying, "If the administration still doesn't take any action on it (the shooting) and if it fails to reach out to its students, then tomorrow there will be another Shadab standing in front of a bullet while the police keep their hands in their pockets and record videos rather than take actions." He also clarified that while the shooting was "a result of hyper-nationalism", his own action was not an act of heroism. "I did what I felt was right, and you should also stand for what is right," he said. According to the Indian Express, Najar, who hails from Bhaderwah town in Doda district of Jammu and Kashmirs Chenab Valley, has been at Jamia for the past four years. It is traumatic to even think of it it was a close shave, he told the newspaper. Najar, who received bullet wound on his left hand, was admitted to AIIMS and was released on Friday. Tensions spiralled in Jamia Nagar on Thursday after a minor opened his fire on anti-CAA protesters, injuring Najar, before walking away while waving the firearm above his head and shouting "yeh lo aazadi" amid heavy police presence in the area. Before the shooting, the 17-year-old attacker had written a post on Facebook before firing, in which he said that he intended to avenge the death of Chandan Gupta, who was killed during the Kasganj violence that took place in January 2018. He had also live-streamed videos recently, in which he was walking around the Jamia neighbourhood, where people have been protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act. Other posts on the attacker's Facebook profile also show that he was hinting at carrying out such violence for quite some time. One of his posts reads, "On my last journey, take me draped in saffron and shout slogans of Jai Shri Ram." Yet another of his posts said, "Shaheen Bagh...Game over!" He further wrote on his Facebook profile on Thursday, "I am the only Hindu here", "There is no Hindu media here" and "Ye lo azadi" (Here's your 'freedom'.) He also made an appeal to people to take care of his family. Just three days after this firing incident near Jamia, another man opened fire in Delhi's Shaheen Bagh area on Saturday. According to eyewitnesses, the man shouted "Hindu Rashtra Zindabad" and fired two rounds, PTI reported. No one was injured and the shooter has been taken into custody. With inputs from agencies US Middle East peace plan 'lopsided', says independent UN rights expert 31 January 2020 - A United States plan released this week to resolve the decades-long conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is "lopsided" and will only entrench occupation, an independent UN human rights expert said on Friday. President Donald Trump announced his administration's 'Vision for Peace, Prosperity and a Brighter Future' at the White House on Tuesday, which would legalize Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Israel also would be allowed to annex around 30 per cent of the West Bank. In response, the UN underlined its longstanding commitment to realizing a two-State solution, with Israelis and Palestinians "living side by side in peace and security, within recognized borders, on the basis of the pre-1967 lines." However, what the US plan offers is "a one and half state solution", according to Michael Lynk, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory. "This is not a recipe for a just and durable peace but rather endorses the creation of a 21st century Bantustan in the Middle East", he said, referring to the homelands established for black South Africans during the apartheid era. "The Palestinian statelet envisioned by the American plan would be scattered archipelagos of non-contiguous territory completely surrounded by Israel, with no external borders, no control over its airspace, no right to a military to defend its security, no geographic basis for a viable economy, no freedom of movement and with no ability to complain to international judicial forums against Israel or the United States." Mr. Lynk deplored the proposal to legalize Israeli settlements, and he urged countries to condemn any call to annex Palestinian territory, which is prohibited under international law. "This unilateral act undermines the Palestinians' right to self-determination, and it threatens to drag the world back to darker times, when conquest was acceptable, borders could be redrawn and territorial integrity was regularly undermined", he stated. Under the Trump plan, Jerusalem would remain Israel's undivided capital, which, Mr. Lynk called distressing as it "recognizes the conquest and illegal annexation of East Jerusalem, which remains occupied territory under international law, as embedded in scores of United Nations resolutions". The rights expert also took issue with proposals that would prevent Palestinian refugees from returning to their homes in Israel. "Nothing in the Trump plan alters the continuing prevalence of the laws of occupation, the human rights of the Palestinians under occupation, and the absolute obligation on the international community to redouble its efforts to achieve a just, equitable and durable solution on the basis of equal rights for Palestinians and Israelis alike," said Mr. Lynk. "International law remains the Northern Star, the only guide to a sustainable peace." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Pictures of Princess Mary's controversial private Swiss ski chalet that she rented out for $14,000-a-week have been made public for the first time. The incredible luxury wooden lodge boasts three bathrooms, a sauna, spa and heating room for guests to dry out their ski gear after a day on the slopes. Australian-born Princess Mary of Denmark and her husband, Crown Prince Frederik, last week revealed they have owned the luxury lodge for a decade. The couple are staying in the chalet for 12 weeks to be nearer to their children, who are spending three months in a nearby boarding school to further their international education. The Verbier property can sleep up to 10 people, and was rented on Airbnb prior to the revelation it was owned by the royal couple. The secluded chalet features a fireplace, timber walls, ceilings and floorboards, as well as large windows looking onto the ski resort The Australian-born Princess and her husband, Crown Prince Frederik, last week revealed they have owned the luxury lodge for a decade Pictures advertising the property surfaced after a spokeswoman for the couple confirmed it would no longer be available to rent Pictures advertising the property surfaced after a spokeswoman for the couple confirmed it would no longer be available to rent. The secluded chalet features a fireplace, timber walls, ceilings and floorboards, as well as large windows looking onto the ski resort. Mary and Frederik have owned the chalet, located in one of the world's most exclusive ski resorts, for a decade and rent it out when they're not using it. The Danish royal family live on a public allowance paid by the taxpayer of around $4 million a year. Thee money is only supposed to be spent on foreign assets with the approval of lawmakers. They have since announced they will no longer advertise the home as a rental due to privacy concerns. The Danish Royal Communications director, Lene Balleby, said 'the conditions for rent are no longer the same' because it is 'no longer an anonymous property'. Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary of Denmark, pictured with their children Prince Christian, Princess Isabella, Prince Vincent and Princess Josephine, have come under fire after revealing they have made money from a private Swiss ski lodge they have secretly owned for 10 years The incredible luxury wooden lodge boasts three bathrooms, a sauna, spa and heating room for guests to dry out their ski gear after a day on the slopes When the property was purchased, Princess Mary registered it under her maiden name, Mary Donaldson, The Daily Telegraph reported. Her husband referred to himself as Prince Frederik of Denmark on documents pertaining to the property, the publication reported. The couple announced they would head to the lodge to be closer to their children, Prince Christian, 14, Princess Isabella, 12, and nine-year-old twins Prince Vincent and Princess Josephine, who began spring term at the Lemania-Verbier International School in Switzerland. The children usually attend the Tranegard School in Gentofte, Denmark, but are attending the boarding school for three months in Bagnes, Switzerland to further their international experience. At the beginning of January, the couple's children began spring term at the Lemania-Verbier International School in Switzerland. Pictured: the family on January 6 in Switzerland Member of Parliament Mai Villadsen told Danish media: 'I was very surprised when I found out that the family does not just have such a house, they have had such a house for 10 years, without any ordinary Danes knowing about it. 'We are the ones who pay the money so we must know about the house.' The Royal House initially refused to comment on the matter, claiming it considers the purchase of the property a 'private matter' - to which Ms Villadsen retorted: 'I find it very difficult to see that a royal estate can be a private matter. To my knowledge, the appanage has just increased.' According to Danish magazine Billed-Bladet, the Crown Prince and Princess' property is a 'traditional Swiss wooden chalet with a nice, large terrace, located in a child-friendly neighbourhood and within walking distance of the children's school'. Homes in the lavish Verbier resort can cost up to 1.5million. According to Danish magazine Billed-Bladet, the Crown Prince and Princess' property is a 'traditional Swiss wooden chalet with a nice, large terrace, located in a child-friendly neighbourhood and within walking distance of the children's school'. Pictured: stock image of Swiss chalets in Verbier While their secret residence drew criticism from one party within the Danish political sphere, Conservative member of parliament Birgitte Bergman said she can't see 'anything wrong' with the couple owning the Swiss home. 'My party support the royal family 100 per cent and the dispositions they now make, as long as it is within the law,' she said. 'We cannot see anything wrong with that at all. This is also to be regarded as an old case. This happened 10 years ago and has no relevance today.' The annual grant received by the Danish royal family is funded through taxes in the country and set by parliament. Queen Margrethe II will receive 87.6 million kroner ($AUD19 million) in 2020 and the crown prince and his family will receive 21.6 million kroner ($AUD4.79 million). AE team leaders can tell many amazing stories of redemption, and its not often that we have an opportunity to hear about their own journey, and what underpins their life-long commitment to evangelism. In this article, we cover the early life of African Enterprises Bishop Guide Makore and his pathway to evangelist and team leader of African Enterprise Zimbabwe. Guide Makore was born on the 14 Nov 1967, in the city of Gweru in Zimbabwe. Born third of five children, Guides earliest memories are of the care of his maternal grandmother, who raised both him and his siblings while his mother was a resident house carer on a nearby homestead. His father lived apart in a distant village, and rarely came to see his children and did not provide financial support. To help earn money for his family, which was largely living in poverty, Guides grandmother would brew traditional beer to sell at the markets. Not wanting to waste any of the bi-products of the brew, shed mix in the left over fermented home brewed traditional beer with his lunch, served in a disposable plastic container, I remember that cup so well, Guide reflects. I didnt realise that at a young age I was basically intoxicated as a result of these fermented herbs and I was constantly sleepy. At the time, people in his village were also under threat from guerillas and national forces fighting the Rhodesian War. For his own protection, his mothers employer, who served in the airforce, invited her family to live at the homestead with his wife and children. The location of the homestead also happened to be the home town of his father, and as a result of the new close proximity with his dad, he started to form a relationship with him and miss him greatly when he was away. To satisfy his yearning, he pleaded to be able to travel to be with his dad, and after a couple of years of this, his dad decided that Guide could come with him. However the idyllic perception of being close to dad did not come close to reality. On his first trip away, he was left to live with his paternal grandmother and did not see his father again for almost a year. Also, as a result of inter-village family issues, he did not see his mother or maternal grandmother again for the next 6 years. Understandably, the situation came as a complete surprise to Guide, being abandoned for the second time by his father, but this time it was a far worse situation, now being raised by a new family and without contact of his mother and grandmother. I thought my father was hiding somewhere in the house at first, Guide said. But as the weeks went by I asked my grandmother if he was coming back, and she said that he wasnt. As months went by, his new grandmother enrolled him in the local school and life started afresh as an eight year old. In his new home he had access to more food, and a slightly better quality of life, however the situation eventually took its toll on the young Guide, and he found eventually that he was crying day and night over his situation. It was his constant distress that eventually came to the attention of villagers, and through their intervention, his father eventually visited on occasion, but did not reconnect him with his mother. Around 6 years later, Guide into an apartment his father owned in the capital city Harare and he finally made contact again with his mother during school holiday periods. Aged 14 at this stage, Guide started to become influenced by drinking and escaping the daily grind with his friends. However God soon intervened in his life to prevent further escalation of his issues. Coming across a tent crusade in the city he finally heard about the loving fatherly nature of God, whod come to save him through His son Jesus Christ. The words affected him powerfully, and at that meeting Guide accepted Christ into his life! Following the meeting, all the new converts met weekly at the tent church, and they were provided with a minister. Next time we will reveal what occurred. More details about AE evangelists and their countries of operation are found here: https://africanenterprise.com.au/our-locations/ A woman held off US marshals in a months-long, armed standoff along with her husband in protest against their convictions for non payment of $1.9 million in taxes, is being released from prison later this month after serving more than a dozen years behind bars. Elaine Brown, 78, was spared another decade in prison when a judge re-sentenced her in federal court in New Hampshire on Friday after US Supreme Court decision last year affected her case. The tax evader was originally supposed to stay behind bars for more than 30 years. In this 2007, file photo, Ed and Elaine Brown talk to reporters during a news conference at their home in Plainfield, New Hampshire. Elaine, now 78, was re-sentenced in federal court in New Hampshire on Friday after a US Supreme Court decision last year affected her case The home of Ed and Elaine Brown in Plainfield, New Hampshire, as it looked 2007 A charge that she was originally arrested on, and which had carried a mandatory minimum 30-year sentence, was vacated. She is scheduled to be released on February 28. When Brown, who appeared by video from a prison medical center in Texas, heard the decision, she put her hands to her mouth and began to cry. Her daughter, who pleaded for her mother's release, also shed tears. 'Her true self has come out,' Bethany Hatch said in court before her mother was re-sentenced. 'She's apologized profusely to my family. ... It takes a lot of courage to realize when you have done something wrong, and how many people it has affected,' the daughter said. Brown had been sentenced to a 35-year term on conspiracy, weapons and obstruction of justice charges, on recommendation of the US attorney's office. Judge George Singal, who presided over her and her husband's case years ago, recalled how the couple showed disrespect for the law in comments made at press conferences from their Plainfield home. But Singal said he believed that Brown, who worked as a library clerk in prison and took many classes, including a faith-based program, was deeply repentant, had rehabilitated herself and would not be a risk to the public. He mentioned how she had written an apology to her local paper in 2014, years before she had any hope of a sentence reduction. Elaine Brown speaks during a news conference in front of her husband Ed Brown at their home in Plainfield, New Hampshire, in 2007. A judge recalled Friday how the couple showed disrespect for the law in comments made at press conferences In sentencing her to time served, Singal said the strength of the system is that it can provide mercy, as well as punishment. 'I wish you all the best in your remaining years,' he told her. Brown, her voice breaking at times, told the court the faith-based program compels participants to look back on their lives and take responsibility for their actions and realize there's no such thing as a victim-less crime. Brown said she didn't think about how her family would be affected by her choices. 'I am ashamed and embarrassed by my actions,' she said. Brown is seeking a divorce from Edward Brown, who awaits resentencing. She said he has refused to sign any government document and that she should just consider herself divorced. When released, her plan is to live with her son in Massachusetts. Brown and her first husband, her daughter Hatch's father, divorced before her marriage to Ed Brown. Her daughter said when her mother met Brown, she became isolated and lost friends and clients at her dental practice. She said Edward Brown, who often spoke out against the government and had guns, manipulated her. Brown and her first husband, her daughter Hatch's father, divorced before her marriage to Ed Brown. Her daughter said when her mother met Brown, she became isolated and lost friends and clients at her dental practice The Browns became anti-government celebrities when they held federal agents at bay for nine months after they were convicted of tax evasion and refused to surrender to U.S. marshals The Browns were initially convicted of failing to pay taxes on $1.9 million of income over eight years, with the couple arguing then that the government charging a federal income tax was unconstitutional. Their argument, repeatedly rejected by the courts, was that no law authorized the federal income tax, and that the 1913 constitutional amendment permitting it was never properly ratified. The Browns declined to appear in court and retreated to their fortress-like home. They were sentenced in absentia to five years in prison. Anti-tax crusaders and out-of-state militia groups rallied to their cause. Among the visitors was Randy Weaver, whose wife and son and a deputy US marshal were killed during the infamous Ruby Ridge shootout with federal agents in North Idaho in 1992. Supporters waved 'Don't tread on me' flags and 'Don't Murder the Browns for Money' signs. In October 2007, U.S. marshals posing as supporters gained entry to their home and arrested them. The marshals discovered weapons, explosives and booby traps. When the home was auctioned off years later, federal agencies couldn't ensure the entire property was free of booby traps. It has changed hands several times. Source: Xinhua| 2020-02-02 12:13:11|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close WUHAN, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- When millions of Chinese returned to hometowns for family reunions during the Spring Festival, Hu Xuemeng had to part briefly from her furry family member -- Wangcai the corgi. When the 34-year-old programmer departed from central China's Hubei Province to her home in the eastern province of Shandong on Jan. 17, she had to leave behind her pet dog, as one of her relatives is allergic. "The Spring Festival used to be the saddest time for me. In the past, I could only leave Wangcai at home with enough food and water," said Hu, adding that when she came come home after the week-long holiday, she would find excrement on the floor and the furniture chewed. But this year, to Hu's relief, a newly-opened pet store in her neighborhood took care of Wangcai. At the "Cute Pet Helper," the 8-year-old dog enjoyed the treatment of a retiree, with nutrient-supplemented meals and daily video calls from Hu, as well as a bath with rose essential oil, during the holiday. The one-week stay cost 1,220 yuan (about 176 U.S. dollars), while Hu paid over 2,000 yuan, about one-sixth of her monthly income, to enrich Wangcai's holiday with extra snacks, health care products and toys. Niu Shasha, manager of the pet store, said the number of dogs and cats put under their care during the holiday doubled due to the inconvenience of bringing pets into the world's largest human migration known as the Spring Festival travel rush. Apart from the huge pet foster demands during festivals and holidays, Niu also testifies to the trend of wealthier Chinese families forking out more money on their pets. "More and more people are treating their pets like family members, and catering to their demands, pet stores have started to introduce more products such as pet snacks, insect repellents and pet toys," said Niu. According to a report released by a Chinese pet service portal goumin.com, the consumption of pet snacks and medicines in Chinese cities and towns increased by 8 percent and 4 percent, respectively, in 2019. The consumption of pet foster care, diagnosis, treatment and other services also saw rapid growth. Long Jiayu, a professional Labrador breeder, said when she entered the career of pet breeding six years ago, few pet stores were seen on the streets of China and only a few pet health products that are common abroad were available in the domestic market. "There has been an increasing number of services and products for pets in recent years. It has become easier for my clients to safeguard their fur friends both physically and mentally," Long said. According to the report, China's market for dogs and cats reached 202.4 billion yuan in 2019, up 17.8 percent year on year. The expanding middle class, rapid urbanization and other demographic changes, including the aging society and the trend of people getting married and having children at a later age, have all boosted pet consumption, said the report. "When I first started working, high-quality dog food and nutrients were not easily available, and I would balk at the prices as I only earned 5,000 yuan monthly back then," Hu said. "I have earned and saved more in recent years. And giving Wangcai better food and care is like making up for the past," Hu added. Kim In-chul, president of Hankuk University of Foreign Studies newly elected chairman of Korean Council for University Education. /Courtesy of HUFS By Bahk Eun-ji Kim In-chul, president of Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, has been elected the next chairman of the Korean Council for University Education (KCUE). The council held a regular meeting for 2020 at The K Hotel in Seoul and elected Kim as its new chairman. Kim will serve for the next two years from April 8. The president showed his ambition to carry out his duties, especially with regard to the university evaluation system and financial issues. "We will collaborate with related education authorities such as the Ministry of Education to expand the autonomy and free discretion that the universities should enjoy as all universities nationwide are struggling with financial problems and the implementation of the new evaluation system," Kim said during the meeting. The college evaluation system is a key policy of the education ministry to structural reform of private universities amid a decreasing number of school-age children. When colleges get a lower rating through the evaluation, the education ministry cuts government subsidies which can create financial problems for some schools. "I will dedicate myself to serve as chairman of the council to find a breakthrough for this difficult situation in cooperation with the relevant authorities," Kim said. The KCUE is a consultative body of the country's four-year universities, established in 1982. Regarding major issues such as college degrees, finances and facilities, the council reports to the government with suggestions on policies and various matters necessary to improve university education. Kim has been serving as president of Hankuk University of Foreign Studies since 2014. He earned a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in public administration from HUFS and a doctorate in political science from the University of Delaware. He joined HUFS as a faculty member of the public administration department in 1988, and later served as department dean. He also headed the office of planning and coordination, the office of academic affairs and the Graduate School of Political Science, Public Administration and Journalism, before serving as HUFS' vice president for external affairs. He was also an inspection commissioner at the Board of Audit and Inspection of Korea, inspection commissioner at the Supreme Prosecutors' Office and president of both the Korea Fulbright Alumni Association and Korean Association for Policy Studies. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Its Groundhog Day! For those Staten Islanders who want to watch a furry prognosticator besides Staten Island Chuck, you may be interested in Punxsutawney Phil. It all started with the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club, founded in Punxsutawney, Pa., in 1887 by a group of groundhog hunters. The editor of the Punxsutawney newspaper was a member of the club, and he claimed that Punxsutawney Phil was the only true weather-predicting groundhog. Today, tens of thousands travel to Gobbler's Knob, the location in Punxsutawney where Phil makes his prediction. THE TRADITION'S ORIGINS The Groundhog Day tradition can be traced to Candlemas, an early Christian holiday where candles were blessed and distributed. Those who celebrated Candlemas decided that clear skies on the holiday meant a longer winter. The Germans eventually began to believe that if the sun made an appearance on Candlemas Day, a hedgehog would cast a shadow -- predicting six more weeks of harsh winter weather. And it was the Germans who brought this belief to the United States. When German immigrants arrived in Pennsylvania, they found a large number of groundhogs. And they tasked the groundhog, which resembles the European hedgehog, with the job of predicting the weather. WATCH PHIL'S PREDICTION Those interested in seeing Punxsutawney Phil make his prediction on Sunday can view it here. The live stream will begin at 5:45 a.m. All passengers and crew on the Qantas evacuation flight bringing home Australians stranded in China because of the coronavirus outbreak will wear surgical masks during the flight. A number of other precautions have been implemented to manage the risk of transmission of the virus during the flight, according to sources briefed on the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The masks will be changed hourly and all passengers and crew will be provided with hand sanitiser to use. The jet left Sydney early Sunday afternoon with a volunteer Qantas team of four pilots and 14 cabin crew. For every rupee in govt kitty, 64 paise come from taxes, borrowings contribute 20 paise India oi-PTI New Delhi, Feb 02: For every rupee in the government coffer, 64 paise will come from direct and indirect taxes, while states' share of taxes and duties is the single-largest expense head accounting for 20 per cent of the total spending, Budget documents showed. According to the Union Budget 2020-21 presented in Parliament by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday, goods and services tax collections will contribute 18 paise in every rupee revenue. Corporation tax will contribute 18 paise to each rupee earned. The collection from borrowings and other liabilities will be 20 paise, while income tax will yield 17 paise to every rupee collection. The government intends to earn 10 paise from non-tax revenue like disinvestment, 7 paise from Union excise duty, 4 paise from customs duty and 6 paise from non-debt capital receipts out of every rupee collection. Budget 2020: Startups hail tax changes, say will help attract, retain talent On the expenditure side, the biggest outlay component is the states' share of taxes and duties at 20 paise, followed by interest payment at 18 paise. Allocation for the defence has been reduced to 8 paise from 9 paise. Expenditure on central sector schemes will be 13 paise, while the allocation for centrally-sponsored schemes will be 9 paise. The expenditure on the Finance Commission and other transfers is pegged at 10 paise. Subsidies and pension would account for 6 paise and 6 paise, respectively, in each rupee spending. The government will spend 10 paise on other expenditure. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Sunday, February 2, 2020, 11:52 [IST] Uzbekistan to be 'Partner Nation' at Surajkund Mela Chandigarh, Feb 2 (UNI) While showcasing the culture of Uzbekistan participating as the 'Partner Nation at 34th Surajkund International Crafts Mela in Faridabad, the artists from Uzbekistan have been impressing the visitors with their stalls and display of artefacts. While stating this here on Sunday, an official spokesman said that every day, thousands of people have been visiting the stalls of Uzbekistan which is being showcased in front of Choupal by the artisans of Uzbekistan. At the stall of Uzbekistan, an artisan said that she has been visiting the Mela for two last years and presenting the finest handlooms of her country to the people of India. She said that they have been getting a lot of love and affection from the people of India. Australians will not be charged $1000 to be evacuated from the Chinese city of Wuhan, in a stunning federal backflip blamed on "incorrect advice" given to Prime Minister Scott Morrison last week. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg revealed on Sunday morning that Australians would be airlifted from China and flown to quarantine on Christmas Island without having to pay the $1000 fee the government announced days earlier. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has revealed the government will no longer charge those fleeing Wuhan $1000. Credit:AAP "Theyre not going to be charged," Mr Frydenberg said on the ABC's Insiders program. "Its very clear that the advice that we got originally was incorrect." San Francisco, Feb 2 : Reiterating the commitment to develop its own ecosystem, a Huawei executive has said that the company may not use Google Mobile Services for its future phones even if a trade ban limiting its use is lifted, the media reported. According to a report by Austrian publication DerStandard, Huawei executive Fred Wangfei said the main reason Huawei does not want to go back to Google Mobile Services even after the ban is lifted is that there is no guarantee such a ban would not be imposed again. However, the world's second-largest smartphone seller may continue to use the open source Android platform. As a replacement to the Google Mobile Services, the Chinese giant is building the Huawei Mobile Services (HMS), while its has also developed HarmonyOS, an operating system. Under the terms of the previous US trade ban, Google was barred from selling Android license to Huawei, meaning its phones could use the base open-source code, but would not have access to the all-important Play Store and Google apps. A temporary licence was issued which allows Google to support and update the Android OS currently running on existing Huawei devices. However, the trade ban has affected the development of future products. "An open Android ecosystem is still our first choice, but if we are not able to continue to use it, we have the ability to develop our own," TechRadar quoted a statement from the company as saying. The Huawei P40 series, expected in March, could come with Huawei Mobile Services, said the report this week. If HMS rolls out in future phones, Google may make its suite of apps such as Gmail, YouTube, Maps, etc. available on Huawei devices via this new shopfront just as the American search giant offers its suite of apps on the Apple App Store. A second passenger train traveling to and from Saint Paul to Chicago, with stops in Winona and La Crosse, is very nearly a likelihood, but there are still many pieces that need to fall into place. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz announced Jan. 10 that $10 million in funding for the Twin Cities-Milwaukee-Chicago Second Train project is included in his 2020 bonding proposal. The Great River Rail Commission, a group of officials from 18 cities and counties including Winona and La Crosse who advocate for additional rail service, said the money would be used in creating an additional service that complements the Amtrak Empire Builder service and runs on existing tracks. Aside from the cities listed in the projects name, stops between Saint Paul and Chicago include Red Wing, Winona, Wisconsin cities La Crosse, Tomah, Wisconsin Dells, Portage, Columbus, General Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee, Sturtevant and Glenview, Illinois. The need for a second train comes with the amount of travel between areas like the Twin Cities and Chicago, and is being proposed to alleviate stress that comes from traveling and avoid the congestion in those areas. Theres a great deal of travel between the Twin Cities and Chicago, Milwaukee and other cities in between. Airports are crowded, highways are busy, said Kevin Roggenbuck, senior transportation planner for the Great River Rail Commission. Theres a lot of congestion around the cities, and a train could get you in and out without dealing with a lot of that congestion. Roggenbuck said a second train would provide more service and give people another option for travel should another train be full or sold out. Mark Vaughan, chairman of the Great River Rail Commission, said Walzs proposal is a good first step implementing a second train, but there is still much that needs to be done. We have a lot of work ahead of us during the upcoming legislative session to make the second train a reality, Vaughan said. We will continue to work with our House and Senate members to include this project in their respective bonding proposals. Vaughan added that he believes a second train would also have an economic impact and increase tourism in the cities and counties it would stop in, something Winona City Council Member At-Large Paul Schollmeier is sure of at least for Winona. A second train would more than double the passengers moving through the corridor, Schollmeier said, referring to a study administered by the Minnesota Department of Transportation Passenger Rail Office. Those additional 15, 16,000 visitors to Winona a year thats estimated to add $180,000 in visitor spending annually. Theres definitely an economic impact. Peter Fletcher, executive director of the La Crosse Planning Committee, said a second train for the La Crosse area has just as much support and would be more accessible for people than the current regional service that is in place. Theres been real strong support here at the La Crosse Planning Committee and other agencies for a second train, Fletcher said. A second train would really just open up more opportunities for train travel making train travel more accessible for daily and overnight trips versus more of a regional service. Fletcher said having just one train going in either direction is not conducive for people to use and that a second train would increase travel and benefit students in the La Crosse area, as well. Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers gave his support for the second train, as well as his hope that Wisconsin will contribute to its implementation. Im a supporter of all sorts of mass transit, (and) passenger rail is certainly one of them, and were looking into that, Evers told the La Crosse Tribune Editorial Board. I believe our next budget will have some resources to plan for that. Evers added that Wisconsin had begun developing engineering plans for additional rail service in the past before his predecessor put a halt to them and turned back $810 million in federal funding for the development of a new high-speed rail link. The engineering behind it is already done, Evers said. Those plans still exist, so we wouldnt be starting from scratch. But its something we have to have a conversation about in the state of Wisconsin. Rep. Ron Kind, D-La Crosse, said the chance of being involved in a second trains route is something Wisconsin cannot miss out on. My concern is that if the state continues to reject even the idea of exploring (a second train), I fear a Chicago-Iowa-Twin Cities connection, and we get bypassed, Kind said. We cant afford to be outside the regional economy like that. Kind said this would be a great opportunity for Wisconsin, but that efforts need to be made to get involved. If other states are interested and its going to be a collaboration, we need to be in the middle of that and take advantage of it, Kind said. This is something we could possibly work into an infrastructure bill if we could get our act together in Washington and have a federal cost-share, as well as the states kicking in to make this a real partnership. A federal cost share is something that Roggenbuck would like to happen, saying: If the state of Minnesota provides $10 million for the second train, and Wisconsin is looking for the amount of money we can use that money to leverage federal money basically as a local or state match to a federal grant. We could use that federal money to build the track and signal improvements that we need to build in order to accommodate the second train with existing freight traffic. Minnesota Rep. Gene Pelowski, DFL-Winona, said the biggest issue Minnesota, and possibly Wisconsin, can face in regards to adding a second train is the railroad companies themselves. Since they were deregulated, they dont have to really do anything the government says, Pelowski said. So we can appropriate, but the ultimate resolution of this is going to be with the railroads. Pelowski also noted the challenge of trying to coordinate with another state and ultimately reach the same goal. That adds another element of complexity to it, Pelowski said. Theres no guarantee when youre working with another state that theyre going to follow through. It makes it much more of a complex issue. Funding for the second train is being sought from the Minnesota and Wisconsin legislatures to complete planning and match requested funds from the federal government for infrastructure improvements. Love 19 Funny 2 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 3 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. These are the most-read letters from last week. Listing of insurance behemoth Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) may be done in the second half of the next financial year, Finance Secretary Rajiv Kumar said on Sunday. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman while presenting the Budget 2020-21 on Saturday proposed to sell a part of government stake in LIC through an initial public offer next fiscal. There are a number of processes which have to be followed and some legislative changes would also be required for the listing of LIC, Kumar said. "We will follow the extant procedure for listing and for other things including the legislative changes it requires in consultation with the Ministry of Law and that process we already started ... listing in the second half of FY21 seems logical," he said. Listing of LIC will help bring in greater transparency, public participation and also deepen the equity market, he told PTI in an interaction. Asked about the quantum of dilution, Kumar said, it could be 10 per cent but no decision has been taken so far. Later speaking to media, the finance minister assuaged concerns of policyholders of any breach of sovereign guarantee as ownership stays with the government. "We have only said an IPO (initial public offer). We have not given complete ownership to somebody," she said. The government aims to garner Rs 90,000 crore from the listing of LIC and stake dilution in IDBI Bank in the next fiscal out of total disinvestment target of Rs 2.10 lakh crore. The government currently owns 100 per cent in LIC, while it holds around 46.5 per cent stake in IDBI Bank. "Listing of companies on stock exchanges disciplines a company and provides access to financial markets and unlocks its value. It also gives opportunity for retail investors to participate in the wealth so created. The government now proposes to sell a part of its holding in LIC by way of Initial Public Offer (IPO)," the Finance Minister had said in her Budget speech. Market participants are quite bullish about LIC and said it could be "IPO of the decade" akin to the Saudi Aramco listing. The 60-year-old state-owned firm, LIC, is the country's largest insurer, controlling more than 70 per cent of the market share. The insurer has a market share of 76.28 per cent in number of policies and 71 per cent in first-year premiums. LIC has many subsidiaries including IDBI Bank. It acquired controlling stake in IDBI Bank last year. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) WASHINGTON - As the U.S. steps up its response to the coronavirus outbreak, the Department of Homeland Security is warning airline passengers that their flights may wind up rerouted if officials discover mid-flight that someone onboard has been in China in the last 14 days. And Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said a handful of flights will be heading to China to bring Americans back home from Hubei Province, which is at the heart of the outbreak. The exact timing of those were still co-ordinating with the Chinese government, Pompeo said at a news conference Monday in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. We anticipate that they will happen in the next handful of days and well return those American citizens. Pompeo said: We may well end up bringing some citizens back from other countries as well. Were working through the details on that. And he said the U.S. may try to deliver some medical supplies to the region. Were working closely and hand-in-hand with the Chinese government to try and resolve what is now this global epidemiological challenge, and so well have more details exactly on when those flights will depart and when they return and how theyll return to the United States before too long, he said. The DHS guidance on airline flights was included in a notice released by the department Sunday as new travel restrictions officially go into effect for flights commencing after 5 p.m. EDT. Under the new rules, U.S. citizens who have travelled in China within the last 14 days will be re-routed to one of eight designated airports, where they will undergo enhanced health screening procedures. They eight are: John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York; Chicago OHare International Airport; San Francisco International Airport; Seattle-Tacoma International Airport; Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in Honolulu; Los Angeles International Airport in California; Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport; and Washington-Dulles International Airport in Virginia. Starting Monday, Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport and Detroit Metropolitan Airport will be added to the list. U.S. citizens who have been in Hubei province within 14 days of their return will be subject to up to 14 days of mandatory quarantine. The outbreak originated in that province. U.S. citizens who have been in other areas of China within the last 14 days will undergo proactive entry health screening and up to 14 days of self-quarantine. Meanwhile, most non-U.S. citizens who have travelled in China within the last 14 days will be denied entry into the United States, except for immediate family members of U.S. citizens, permanent residents and flight crew. While the overall risk to the American public remains low, funneling all flights with passengers who have recently been in China is the most important and prudent step we can take at this time to decrease the strain on public health officials screening incoming travellers, said Chad Wolf, the acting DHS secretary. We realize this could provide added stress and prolong travel times for some individuals, however public health and security experts agree these measures are necessary to contain the virus and protect the American people, Wolf said. Asked in an interview aired Sunday on Fox how concerned he was over the outbreak, President Donald Trump said that we pretty much shut it down coming in from China. Weve offered China help, but we cant have thousands of people coming in who may have this problem, the coronavirus, Trump said. So were gonna see what happens, but we did shut it down, yes. Consumer Reports has no financial relationship with advertisers on this site. Do you need a bidet seat? Well, that's a matter of very personal opinion. More people are answering yes. If you haven't tried one, it replaces your existing toilet seat, attaching to the bowl. It draws water from the toilets supply line and electricity from a nearby outlet. With the press of a button on a remote, a wand extends beneath you and trains a stream of water powered by an electric pump to clean your underparts. Some have fancy options, such as dryers. The bidet has come a long way since it first caught on among 17th-century French aristocracy. You can still find the classic porcelain basin that looks like a toilet but sprays clean water, providing a rinse for your backside. The primary benefit manufacturers tout for bidets is an easier-than-wiping cleaning experience. Kohler, the kitchen and bathroom fixture manufacturer in Wisconsin, reported an eightfold increase in bidet seat sales this past March compared with the same time last year. Tushy, one of a group of startups that offers a less expensive product, says its sales more than doubled this past year. Toto, one of the largest players, is based in Japan and has sold more than 40 million bidets worldwide since 1980. It says demand is growing rapidly from customers in a wide range of income brackets. "Consumers are expressing their opinion on e-commerce and social media with words of love," says Bill Strang, Toto USAs president of operations and e-commerce. "Its better than a television commercial." A medical expert told CR that bidet users should make sure they pat themselves dry after using one. This protects the skin in potentially sensitive areas from problems associated with excessive moisture, says Allen P. Chudzinski, M.D., a colon and rectal surgeon who is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons and the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons. Story continues Here are some considerations for anyone considering a bidet seat. Below that, members can read on for a selection of top-rated toilets. Bidet Seats: What You Need to Know Cost: Prices range from $30 on Amazon for a Brondell bidet seat that simply sprays water to $1,900 for Totos top-of-the-line S550e bidet seat with washlet+, which features a warm air dryer and personal memory settings for two users. Some bidets are mechanical rather than electric (using just water pressure, like your toilet does to flush). Size: To determine fit, all you need to know is whether your bowl is round or elongated; there are only two types. Installation: Some manufacturers, like Toto, offer DIY YouTube videos (and in-home service if you arent sure about installing). Bidet seats will work with toilets from any manufacturer, but some might not fit perfectly on the bowl, though they'll still work. Check with the bidet seat manufacturer to make sure that the model you're considering is compatible with your setup. Really, that's all? A bidet that's a separate ceramic fixture requires you to remodel and replumb your bathroom to install it. You can also buy a toilet with a built-in bidet and hire a plumber to install it, or buy a bidet seat and install it yourself. By far the easiest and least expensive way to bring a bidet into your life is with a bidet seat. Bidet Seat Features The following are popular features you may want to look for. Remote control. Bidet toilet seats can be controlled by a small panel on the side of the unit, by remote control, or both. Some users prefer a remote control because they don't need to turn and look down at a control panel. Tankless water heater. Most bidet toilet seats are outfitted with mini water tanks that heat and store water until its needed. Tankless bidet seats heat the water on demand, which means they can provide a limitless warm spray. (Tank models can run out of warm water in under a minute, but thats enough time for most users.) Tankless models also usually have a more streamlined profile that some consumers prefer. Automatic open/shut lid. Some high-end models have a seat lid that raises automatically when a user approaches, then closes when the user leaves the bathroom. One-button operation. Many models have buttons on the remote to adjust temperature, water pressure, water direction, and other functions. Some models also have a one-button option that washes and dries for a set time at a set temperature for ease of use, and so that guests wont require a tutorial. Oscillating spray. This function provides a short-motion oscillating spray for wider cleansing. User presets. These allow people to program the remote with their preferences for water temperature, pressure, and spray position so that they dont need to make adjustments with each use. What about toilet paper? You'll probably still need to use some to pat yourself dry, albeit less than usual. Some manufacturers, like Tushy, claim that their bidet seats result in less toilet paper waste and water use. Aren't wipes an easier option? Wipes are cheaper and less of a hassle than a bidet in the short term, but they'll almost certainly add to your toilet clogs. And many colon and rectal surgeons advise patients to avoid wipes because many contain drying agents, such as alcohol, that can lead to itching and other problems. Best Toilets From CR's Tests If you're considering a bidet, you may also want to buy a new toilet. Many of the newest models save more water per flush and have coatings on the interior of the bowl that can help reduce soil and odor. The toilets featured below are compatible with bidet seats. Just make sure you buy a seat for the appropriate bowl shape. (Most toilets made today have an elongated bowl shape.) More from Consumer Reports: Top pick tires for 2016 Best used cars for $25,000 and less 7 best mattresses for couples Consumer Reports is an independent, nonprofit organization that works side by side with consumers to create a fairer, safer, and healthier world. CR does not endorse products or services, and does not accept advertising. Copyright 2020, Consumer Reports, Inc. Telangana Minister for IT and Industries K T Rama Rao has been invited to a two-day conference at the Harvard Business School, an official release said on Sunday. The theme for the 17th edition of the India Conference, which will be held on February 15 and 16, is "20/20 Foresight", it said. Rama Rao has been invited to be a part of a panel discussion on 'Smart Cities in India'. The conference is jointly conducted by the Harvard Business School and the Harvard Kennedy School. It is the largest conference focussing on India in the US with over 1,000 attendees, including students from both within and outside Harvard, faculty members, young professionals and industry leaders of Indian descent from the region. Former chief economic advisor Arvind Subramanian and former Union ministers Suresh Prabhu and Jayant Sinha are among the key speakers at the event, the release said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Punxsutawney Phil predicts an early spring after not seeing his shadow originally appeared on abcnews.go.com Punxsutawney Phil, Pennsylvania's most famous groundhog, awoke this morning and did not see his shadow which means that -- according to legend -- an early spring is on the way. Every Feb. 2, thousands of people gather in the town of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, to see whether or not the famous groundhog sees his shadow or not. Legend has it that if he sees his shadow then winter will continue for another six weeks but if Punxsutawney Phil does not see his shadow spring will come early. Punxsutawney Phil's top hat-wearing inner circle revealed the prediction at sunrise on Sunday morning. MORE: Incumbent mayor Lincoln the goat gets challenge from Sammy the police dog in Vermont mayoral race PHOTO: Groundhog Club co-handler Al Dereume holds Punxsutawney Phil, the weather prognosticating groundhog, during the 134th celebration of Groundhog Day on Gobbler's Knob in Punxsutawney, Pa. Sunday, Feb. 2, 2020. (Barry Reeger/AP) MORE: Pigeons wearing cowboy hats are roaming Las Vegas, and nobody knows why While people gather in the town of Punxsutawney to hear the announcement, Phil's actual prediction takes place ahead of time in a place called Gobbler's Knob, a small hill just outside of the town. The formal declaration is made, however, with much pomp and circumstance in the town. 2020 marks the 134th time the event has occurred, according to the Pennsylvania Tourism Office. Phil's predictions have been fairly even over the past five years from 2015 to 2019 with the groundhog predicting a longer winter three times and an early spring twice. But overall, dating back to 1887, according to the Associated Press, Phil has predicted six more weeks of winter more than 100 times making this year's prognostication a rare -- but welcome -- one. The Philippines on Sunday reported the first death of a new virus outside of China, where authorities delayed the opening of schools in the worst-hit province and tightened quarantine measures in another that allow only one family member to venture out to buy supplies. The Philippine Department of Health said a 44-year-old Chinese man from Wuhan was admitted on January 25 after experiencing fever, cough, and sore throat. He developed severe pneumonia, and in his last few days, "the patient was stable and showed signs of improvement, however, the condition of the patient deteriorated within his last 24 hours resulting in his demise." The man's 38-year-old female companion, also from Wuhan, first tested positive for the virus and remains in hospital isolation in Manila. President Rodrigo Duterte approved a temporary ban on all travellers, except Filipinos, from China and its autonomous regions. The US, Japan, Singapore and Australia have imposed similar restrictions despite criticism from China and an assessment from the World Health Organization that they were unnecessarily hurting trade and travel. (Image Credit: AP) If I will die, let it ... Faith-based radicalisation as distinct from ideological or ethnicity-based motivation behind militancy, is at the root of the new global terror of our times that has unfortunately got linked with the so-called 'Islamic world'. In the Indian context, this threat had overtaken the challenge the state faced in the Naxalite belt or the North East. Invoking the war cry of Jehad -- a mandate of Quran to the faithful to fight for the defence of Islam and the Ummah in danger, till the last breath -- has been used in a facile way by many Ulema and the leaders of the community who were striving to retain their political power. Socio-political and economic grievances have been turned into a cause for Jehad -- a 'win win situation' painted by its protagonists coming in handy for them to recruit the young for this 'war cry' in Kashmir and elsewhere. In any insurgency or militant movement, youth -- for reasons of their vulnerability to indoctrination and loyalty to their leaders -- tend to be on the forefront with a degree of daring that often made the task of bringing them back to the path of normalcy difficult. In the Valley many of them got into a role of collaboration with the Pak terrorists infiltrated from across the LoC making counter-terror operations more arduous. Radicalisation of youth, that led them to a blind acceptance of Jehad, is a known project of Pak ISI and its proxies in India engaged in an ongoing 'proxy war' against this country. What should cause concern is their determined bid to exploit the 'Minority issues' here. The environ created by the anti-CAA stir, with its no-holds-barred communal propaganda, must be receiving the closest attention of our national security set-up. Radicalisation is now a serious long-range threat to India's security because Pakistan is unabashed about giving safe haven on its soil to terror outfits having linkages across the spectrum of Islam and is determined to use all clandestine channels available to it, in Kashmir and elsewhere, to radicalise local youth including teenagers. Pakistan wants the sleeper cells of terror recruits to support the covert offensive of the Mujahideen infiltrated from across the LoC in the Valley or sent in clandestinely to other parts of the country. De-radicalisation of misguided youth has, therefore, emerged as a prime strategy for India's counter- terror effort. Our security forces, led by the army, have to continue eliminating terrorists in Intelligence-based operations. However, apart from the hardened local militants, who accompanied the foreign Mujahideen and ran the risk of getting targeted in such operations, there could be some youth in varying stage of radicalisation falling into the hands of the army personnel. It should be feasible for the civil administration to take them on for a non- coercive programme of 'corrective education' -- using the outreach to the families wherever possible -- for getting them back on the constructive path. It may be mentioned that the army has evolved the practice of running health camps and other outreach programmes to build an image of friendliness towards law abiding citizens in the affected areas of Kashmir. This should strengthen the above endeavour of the government. De-radicalisation initiatives are, however, greatly dependent on the capacity of the entire administration, including the police, to act as the eyes and ears of the state to detect youth who were vulnerable to radicalisation attempts of the adversary. Many of the identified stone pelters of Kashmir would need this approach of a corrective response. As part of a de-radicalisation educational programme, there may be incentives from the government for mainstreaming the youngsters by way of exploring the means of fixing them in jobs, facilitating their entry into a higher study programme or rendering a much needed financial help to their family. Any programme of reeducating the 'radicalised' elements through interactions would call for the right content that highlights the value system of a democratic society, importance of religion as a source of social unity and advancement of peace, opposition to political misuse of freedom of religion and so on. Competent communicators should be able to bring out how all religions believe in one God though they may call Him by their own names, explain that religion is a matter of individual faith and point out that it was an important contributor of good social conduct involving respect for another person's faith. Importance of showing reverence for symbols of the nation, considering national identity as the source of unity of all citizens and appreciating the greatness of democracy based on 'one man one vote' that worked for development of all and equal protection of law to all, has to be put across convincingly. A clear message should be delivered to the youth that any indulgence in public violence under the misguiding influence of someone else can permanently damage the career for the life and that it was never too late to abandon the path of disruption and return to the sensible course of putting forth one's demands in a peaceful manner. In the context of Kashmir, it should be explained that post-370, the Centre had taken full responsibility for the development and protection of all the people of J&K as one state without discrimination between Valley and the Jammu region, that the state had suffered because of the corruption of the Valley parties who encouraged separatism for their own political gains and that Kashmiris will now see better opportunities of growth throughout India and will also be better protected against Pak-sponsored terror. At the same time, it is extremely important that the security & intelligence set-up of the centre and the state identify the preachers and the hidden masterminds -- within India and abroad -- furthering the enemy's agenda and take them on legally and operationally. Equally vital is to scan the social media channels and websites used by the enemy agents to reach out to the targets for trapping them for recruitment in sleeper cells for terror activity. A lot is being done in this direction but data collection and analytics for fixing the originators of the activity need an ongoing consolidation. Our intelligence set-up would, of course, use the tradecraft to gain access to the adversary's network getting over the 'community' barriers if any -- infiltration through 'plants' is successfully achieved by many agencies of the West. (The writer is a former Director Intelligence Bureau) It is an exact replica of Article 78 which defines the Prime Ministers duties towards the President. Kerala governor Arif Mohammad Khan has deliberately set himself on a collision course with chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan ever since the distinguished historian Irfan Habib rebuked him at the Indian History Congress. But the issues he has raised should be considered on their merits. They concern the right of the head of a state in a parliamentary system to be informed of the affairs of the state by the head of the elected government. Article 167 of the Indian constitution says: It shall be the duty of the chief minister of each state (a) to communicate to the governor of the state all decisions of the council of ministers relating to the administration of the affairs of the state and proposals for legislation; (b) to furnish such information relating to the administration of the affairs of the state and proposals for legislation as the governor may call for; and (c) if the governor so requires, to submit for the consideration of the council of ministers any matter on which a decision has been taken by a minister but which has not been considered by the council. It is an exact replica of Article 78 which defines the Prime Ministers duties towards the President. They codify the conventions that govern the relations between the Queen and her prime minister in the UK. Beneath those conventions lie a political culture which demands discretion, decency and rectitude. The present controversy is a repeat, in a worse form, of that which developed in 1987 between president Zail Singh and Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi (from whose cabinet A.M. Khan resigned). The Presidents right to know became enmeshed in a wider plot and remained unresolved until Singh demitted his office as President. Relations between Zail Singh and Rajiv Gandhi soured first; the issue of the formers right to know arose later. In A.M. Khan though it is hard to keep track of the political parties he joined and left the BJP found one of its few Muslim poster boys. His appointment as governor of a state ruled by a party opposed to the BJP was itself wrong. He was sent to make things difficult for the Kerala government, a pattern followed in all states ruled by non-BJP parties. Distrust grew as a consequence of Rajiv Gandhis arrogance and ineptitude, and Zail Singhs ambition and passion for intrigue. Amendments to the postal bill provided a flashpoint. Singh argued that it violated the right to privacy and that he would not give his assent if the bill was passed. Neither did his successor. He leaked to the press, as some governors do; a vice not confined to BJP appointees. A.M. Khan detected a window of opportunity in the Kerala governments opposition to the notorious Citizenship Amendment Act. On Jan 20, it was reported that a top source within the governors office said that it has sought a report from the chief secretary for not informing him about the states move to approach the apex court against the CAA. On Jan 13, the Left Democratic Front government had moved the Supreme Court challenging the CAA and had sought to declare it ultra vires the constitution. Attacking Vijayan, governor Khan had earlier said rulers were to be respected and that the whims of an individual or a political party could not influence public affairs and government business. Kerala was the first state to pass a resolution in its Assembly against the CAA. If Zail Singh leaked to the press, A.M. Khan talks in gross impropriety. Even if the chief minister was wrong, the proper course was for the governor to write to him in confidence, in remonstrance. Singh was at the end of his political career. Khan fancies he is at the beginning of a new chapter in his career whose contents would be written by his mentor Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Khan is out to please him. But the three clauses of Article 167 do not support him. The first merely requires the chief minister to communicate to the governor decisions of the council of ministers and proposals for legislation. On the one hand, Khan challenges the validity of the Kerala Assemblys resolution to say it is no legislation. On the other, he demands its notification to him as if it was a proposal for legislation, which it is not. It is an expression of opinion. The next clause requires the chief minister to furnish to the governor such information as he requires on the points the clause mentions, namely administration of the affairs of the state and proposals for legislation. The state governments decision to challenge the CAA in the supreme court which sent Khan hopping mad falls into neither category. A petition in the apex court is not a matter that affects centre-state relations either. They are filed a dime a dozen. The governor has made himself ridiculous by his conduct. He could do worse if he does not stop now. By arrangement with Dawn The Vietnamese diaspora in Western countries are being discriminated against as fears mount over the new coronavirus that has spread out from China. Ngan Linh, 25, was walking on a Paris street to get back to her office after lunch when a local man walking towards her panicked on seeing her, covered his mouth and bolted. "I stood frozen in shock for a while before the anger hit me." Linh yelled out at the man but "that was because I was with a friend. If I was alone, I wouldn't have known what to do." In three years of living in France, this was the first time she had ever experienced such explicit discrimination. Vietnamese woman Ngan Linh on the street of Paris. Photo by Ngan Linh. After she shared her story on forums of overseas Vietnamese students, Linh found out hundreds had similar anecdotes to relate. A trend of discriminating and staying away from Chinese and Chinese-looking people has risen ever since the new pneumonia virus, nCoV, spread to other countries from China's Wuhan City, a domestic and international transportation hub. Tran Phuong Vy, 23, an economics student in Paris, had been suffering a sore throat for several days. On the morning of Thursday, Vy coughed as she walked up the stairs at her school. "When other local students saw me coughing, they walked away immediately. Everybody looked annoyed and some even took out their handwash gel." That was not the end of Vy's discomfiture. That afternoon, as she took the metro back home, a local man entered and sat next to her. Then, when he noticed that she was Asian, he moved right away to the opposite chair. "For now, we cannot do anything to change their thought. I did feel sorry for myself at first, but now it does not bother me anymore," she said. Businesses hit These days in Paris, Asian restaurants in general and Vietnamese ones in particular have been losing customers. "The Vietnamese restaurant I work part-time at has lost up to 30 percent of customers. We normally close at 11 at night but in these times, we have had no customers by 10 and staff have been allowed to go home early. However, take-away orders have remained stable," Vy said. Also staying in Paris, Nguyen Anh, 32, took a cab on Thursday afternoon with a Vietnamese friend. Though it was raining and cold, the driver insisted on keeping open the side windows at the front. "At first I simply thought he wanted some air but then it felt really strange because the rain made both his seat and the front passenger seat wet, but he did not roll up the windows." "Later, from what I read in the newspaper and what other overseas Vietnamese shared, I believe that driver was afraid that he could catch the infection from us." Anh deployed wry humor to look on the bright side. "There will be much less pickpocketing and I would easily find a chair for my own on trains that are usually overcrowded." However, Anh also decided he would limit his time outside in the coming days as a precaution against both discrimination and infection. In France's Lyon city, Vu Thu Phuong, 60, is worried that her 18-year-old daughter, Minh An, is being mistreated although she was born in France and has never been to Asia yet. "For the past week, other passengers have always stepped around her when she rides the bus. They remark she could be Chinese and have come from where the epidemic outbreak happened. Even in the schools restroom, other kids gossip about her and stayed away from her," Phuong said. On Friday, An told her mother she had a headache and wanted to skip school. Phuong let the girl have some medicine but she thinks her daughter might have been psychologically affected by what she has suffered at school. "I asked her if she is upset but she denied it, saying she really feels sick. But if she keeps skipping her classes like this, I will go to the school and see for myself what is going on." Keeping their distance Tourists from an Air China flight from Beijing wear protective masks as they arrive at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, France, January 26, 2020. Photo by Reuters/Benoit Tessier. Nguyen Thu Ha, 27, has lived on the outskirts of London for seven years. An employee of a financial company, Ha feels quite offended when some locals make it a point to stand far away from her, deliberately. "Last weekend, when my husband and I went to the supermarket, some people stared right at us and when we waited in line at the cash counter, other buyers kept a long distance from us." On Friday, when the U.K. confirmed two infection cases of the new coronavirus, Ha said she was worried the discrimination will get worse. Another instance of how widespread the discrimination against Asians has become was related by Lynn Le, 40, in Melbourne, Australia. "I went shopping at a Chinese store several days ago. The cashier already wore three surgical masks and had gloves on, yet unlike normal days when she always greets me and says thank you, she did not say a word and even used just two fingers to hand me the change." Asian markets and restaurants in Melbourne wear an empty look and some Chinese stores have even shut down temporarily. "I dined at a Vietnamese restaurant inside a community of Chinese and Vietnamese people yesterday and there were just three tables with customers. Normally, we have to wait in line for a table," said Lynn. With the Wuhan pneumonia virus yet to come under control, most overseas Vietnamese say they have no choice but staying quiet and accepting the discrimination. Aside from China and Vietnam, Hong Kong, Macao, Thailand, Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, Japan, Australia, the U.S., South Korea, France, Germany, Canada, the UAE, Nepal, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, India, the Philippines, the U.K., Russia, Finland, Nepal, Sweden, and Spain have confirmed infection cases by Sunday. Le Anh Nguyet, a post-graduate history student at the prestigious Sorbonne University in Paris, said the Vietnamese diaspora should not stress themselves out, because in most cases, the unjustified discrimination comes from those with little knowledge about the ongoing epidemic. She said she has not experienced such a situation among well-educated communities. Unproductive, unwarranted The Business Insider publication in Singapore has cited public health experts as saying that for the most part, panic over the Wuhan coronavirus outside of China is "unproductive and unwarranted." It stresses that the most effective preventative measures "are everyday actions like increased handwashing and not touching your face." The article quotes Amira Roess, a professor of global health and epidemiology at George Mason University, as saying fear would not stop the spread of the virus and could cause negative social impacts. Roess notes that the spread of an infectious disease and the spread of panic have "very different mechanisms." The Business Insider further cites Roess as saying that in the early stages of an infectious-disease outbreak, much of the panic is "fear of the unknown." For Ha, in the U.K., this fear means that "people will keep staying away from us as if we are the outbreak." By Sun Xi After several rounds of "tough" negotiations over the past two years, the long-expected "Phase One" trade deal between the U.S. and China was eventually signed at the White House in Washington by U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He. Negotiation is the art of compromise. Clearly, both sides made certain concessions to reach the deal. On China's side, it agreed to increase purchases of U.S. manufacturing, energy and agricultural goods and services by at least $200 billion over two years, to enhance protection for intellectual property, to root out forced technology transfers and further open its financial market, etc. To save "face," China emphasized that those compromises were actually in line with Chinese consumers' growing appetite for U.S. products and the nation's general direction of deepening reform and opening-up as well as its inherent need to promote high-quality economic development. In other words, China did not give in simply because of U.S. pressure, and the deal was equal. On the U.S. side, its compromise seemed to be simpler reducing both existing and planned tariffs on Chinese products. In fact, the biggest concession Washington made was to leave those thornier issues of government subsidies and state influence in China for the next phase of negotiations. In the deal, both nations also agreed to abide by the International Monetary Fund's principles on avoiding the manipulation of exchange rates. Just before the signing, the Trump administration revoked its decision to label China a "currency manipulator." Some said that the "Phase One" trade deal was not a real victory for either China or the U.S. However, it is much better than "no deal". The deal was clearly welcomed by the business community, and most stock markets rallied because of it. Chinese President Xi Jinping called the deal "good for China, for the U.S. and for the whole world," while President Trump called it "a momentous step, one that has never been taken before with China, towards a future of fair and reciprocal trade." As Deng Xiaoping, the chief architect of modern China, wisely predicted, "The China-U.S. relationship can never be too good or too bad." Even without the trade war, there will be other conflicts between the two ideologically different nations, such as recent struggles over Huawei, Hong Kong, and Xinjiang issues. President Trump will travel to China "at a later date" to begin talks on the second phase of the trade agreement before the coming presidential election in November. That is good, as dialogue is always better than confrontation. The writer (sunshinelkyspp@gmail.com) is a China-born independent commentary writer based in Singapore. The general election is three-quarters done and dusted. Not just in terms of the actual duration of the campaign - we are about 75pc through the 26 days on the hustings - but in the actual number of seats we can now confidently allocate. In every general election, there are a couple of freakish bolts from the blue. But we can say with confidence that around 120 seats are now pretty much nailed on. From Michael Healy-Rae in Kerry up to Pearse Doherty in Donegal across to Declan Breathnach in Louth and down to Brendan Howlin in Wexford, there are the best part of 120 politicians across the 39 constituencies who, though they'd never admit it, know deep down they're going to be in the next Dail. But that still leaves 25pc, or 40 of the seats, still to play for. Forty shades of grey. Forty individual battles to decide the formation of the next government. Here's what we know six days out from polling. Unless Fine Gael pulls off the biggest electoral comeback since polls began (yes, bigger than the late FF push in 2007), Fianna Fail is going to have the biggest number of seats. The Greens are going to have their best ever general election. Sinn Fein will do better than seemed remotely possible last summer, when the party nearly imploded in the local elections. Labour only has two, at a push three, bankers. Solidarity-People Before Profit has maybe one. The 40 seats still in the mix will dictate whether Fianna Fail can push towards 60 TDs; if Fine Gael can get to within seven or eight seats of FF and maybe stay in the mix for government formation; if Labour has a future in Irish politics; and if there really is a surge towards Sinn Fein. And that's where the 'Big Mo' - the phrase first used in a political context by George Bush 40 years ago - comes in. Which party, if any, will have momentum in this final week? Sinn Fein has had some of it, boosted by a decent campaign and good (though possibly inflated) poll figures. Fianna Fail and the Greens have been solid, if not spectacular. Fine Gael has resembled a team playing into a stiff wind, struggling to make any impact on the opposition and then conceding a couple of entirely avoidable own goals. Two weeks ago, I went through each of the 39 constituencies and came up with a prediction of 55 FF seats; 46 for FG; 17 for SF; 11 for the Greens; 8 for Labour; 2 for the Social Democrats; 2 for Solidarity/PBP; 1 for Aontu and 18 Independents. But the ground has shifted since then. The big mover is Sinn Fein. A fortnight ago I wasn't giving the party seats in Carlow-Kilkenny, Dublin West, Limerick City, Sligo-Leitrim and a second in Donegal. All now look likely. The party is well in the hunt for second seats in Louth and Dublin Mid-West, possibly even Cavan-Monaghan. Even outliers like Meath East are now genuine targets. It now looks set to equal, and possibly better, its 2016 tally of 23 which, given some high profile departures over the past four years, had seemed out of reach even a fortnight ago. What of the big two? At the start of the campaign it looked as if the two parties between them would garner 100-plus of the seats. The strength of Sinn Fein means that figure could be down to 95, possibly less. While there's still a week to change that, I'm more pessimistic about Fine Gael now than two weeks ago. At that point, I was giving Fine Gael two seats in Cavan-Monaghan, Clare, Dublin Bay South, Dun Laoghaire, Galway West, Laois-Offaly, Wicklow and Mayo. How safe are those seats now? Not very. Heather Humphreys will be first or second in Cavan-Monaghan but TP O'Reilly, though odds-on with the bookies, is not safe if FG is at 23pc nationally. In Clare, Joe Carey is under serious pressure to hold the party's second seat from Independent Michael McNamara. But Fine Gael is confident of doing that. I think they're probably right. Galway West is wide open with five from two Fianna Fail, two Fine Gael, two Independents, a Green, a Social Democrat and Sinn Fein all in with a shout of a seat. Anyone who can confidently predict the winners here other than Eamon O Cuiv and one FG is spoofing. But two for FG looks doubtful. As is the case in Dublin Bay South, where one of Eoghan Murphy and Kate O'Connell is under threat from Labour's Kevin Humphreys or Chris Andrews of SF. At the start of the campaign I thought FG's Jennifer Carroll MacNeill would edge out Richard Boyd Barrett in Dun Laoghaire but, with the latter shining in last Monday's leaders' debate and FG struggling in the polls, that now looks out of reach. There's skin and hair flying between the FG candidates in Mayo, however, the lack of a serious rival - both SF's Rose Conway-Walsh and the Greens' Saoirse McHugh look long shots - means they should hold the two there. Marcella Corcoran-Kennedy must be under threat from FF in Laois-Offaly and there's an outside chance Andrew Doyle in Wicklow could be caught by a Green wave in Wicklow. The party is confident of holding two seats in Carlow-Kilkenny. It could, but I wasn't convinced a fortnight ago; I'm even less so now. In Meath East, despite a strong ticket with ministers Regina Doherty and Helen McEntee, there is a real threat from Sinn Fein. Doherty was only 1,000 votes ahead of SF's Darren O'Rourke in 2016 - if the FG vote is down a couple of points nationally and SF's is up a couple, the maths suggest that seat could go. And the prospect of the party winning no seats in Sligo-Leitrim and Cork South-West cannot be ruled out. With the bounce of the ball in most of these constituencies, Fine Gael could hit the mid-40s seat wise. But unless the party's focus on the economy pays dividends in the coming week, 41/42 seats looks a more realistic tally. It could even be worse than that. Labour has also found the campaign tough going. Brendan Howlin is guaranteed in Wexford. Sean Sherlock (Cork East) and Alan Kelly (Tipperary) should be fine, as should Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal). After those four, it's a lot tighter. I think Aodhan O Riordain and Ged Nash will make it in Dublin Bay-North and Louth respectively. Mark Wall (Kildare South) and Kevin Humphreys (Dublin Bay South) are in there for the final seat. But the odds are against both Joan Burton in Dublin West and Jan O'Sullivan in Limerick City. What of the Greens? Climate change has barely featured in the national debate but that doesn't mean it isn't a priority in homes, particularly in urban areas. A fortnight back, I had the Greens in contention in 17 seats, winning 11. Of those 17, six are bankers - Dublin Bay-North, Dublin Bay-South, Dublin Fingal, Dublin Rathdown, Dublin South-West and Dun Laoghaire. Another three are very likely: Dublin West, Dublin South-Central and Dublin Central. But with the Greens struggling to get out of the shadow of FF, FG and SF nationally, their chances in the other eight constituencies (Carlow-Kilkenny, Limerick City, Waterford, Wicklow, Louth, Galway West, Clare and Mayo) though still very much alive, have perhaps receded a bit. But it is clear the Greens are going to have a very good election. As, it seems, are Fianna Fail. But how good? The bookies have the party at 53 seats (nine up from 2016, but two below where I had FF two weeks ago). That would see it as the biggest party but a long way off the 80 seats needed to form a government, even with the Greens and Labour factored in. Party strategists believe that if they can generate a bit of the aforementioned 'Big Mo' this weekend, the party can move towards 60 seats. Of the marginal constituencies, I'm still (tentatively in some cases) backing them to win three seats in Carlow-Kilkenny and two in each of Clare, Cork North-Central, Cork North-West, Donegal, Kildare North, Limerick City, Longford-Westmeath and Wicklow. Second seats in Sligo-Leitrim and Kerry are doable but more 50-50 territory or worse, as is a third in Kildare South. I think they might sneak a second seat in Dublin South-West with comeback 'kid' Charlie O'Connor. Elsewhere in Dublin, the party is on course to gain seats in Dublin Central, Dun Laoghaire, Dublin North-West and Dublin South-Central. Jim O'Callaghan should hold on in Dublin Bay South. On a good day for FF, Shay Brennan will edge out Shane Ross in Dublin Rathdown and a third seat could be even be on in Wexford (though probably not). If they win those last two, then the party will be at, or close to, 60 seats and with a good chance of forming a stable coalition government. But so much hangs on these last few days. Don't believe the polls - a good chunk of voters still haven't definitely made up their minds. The last few days of the campaign will put a definite colour on our 40 shades of grey, and, in turn, on the next government. A South Korean passenger has passed away due to health issues during his flight from Seoul to Hanoi. The passenger, 56-year-old M.J., was aboard flight VN415 operated by national carrier Vietnam Airlines, which traveled from Incheon International Airport to Noi Bai International Airport on Saturday. He suffered a health-related problem about two hours after the plane took off. Following a request for assistance from the chief steward, a doctor, who was among the passengers, volunteered to help the patient by giving him first aid using medical devices and supplies on the plane, including a pacemaker. Despite the efforts, M.J. passed away 30 minutes later. According to a representative of Vietnam Airlines, the South Korean man did not show any abnormal health issues when he checked in and boarded the flight at Incheon airport. His body has been handed over to competent authorities at Noi Bai airport. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Khao Lak stands apart PHUKET: Increasing hotel supply in Khao Lak with stable tourism growth reflects a destination market entering a new cycle while the upcoming second gateway Greater Phuket airport is expected to push the destination to diversify offering in a more mature tourism scenario, reports Bill Barnett, founder and Managing Director of hospitality consultancy C9 Hotelworks. tourismChinese By The Phuket News Sunday 2 February 2020, 10:00AM Khao Lak, located in Thailands Phang Nga province, differentiates itself from Phukets mass tourism as it is dominated by Western travelers, Mr Barnett noted in the Phang Nga & Khao Lak Hotel Market Update - January 2020 report released by C9 Hotelworks this week. As of year-to-date November 2019, the province recorded a total of 970,692 guest arrivals at accommodation establishments with most of the hotels concentrated in Khao Lak. Tourism demand remained stable last year with a slight 0.7% growth year-on-year as of year to date Nov 2019, Mr Barnett explained. The existing hotel supply in Khao Lak has 154 properties, representing 10,606 keys. Half of the developments are focused on the beach areas located at the center of Khao Lak, namely Bang Niang (20%), Nang Thong (23%) and Khuk Kak (7%), he said. The hotel market continues to be dominated by the wholesale segment with long-haul travelers. Thomas Cook was traditionally one of the largest wholesalers in the market before the company ceased trading in Q3 last year. The impact is expected to be short-term with new bookings redirected through other wholesalers or distribution channels, he added. Aside from stronger destination awareness contributed by existing and upcoming international branded hotels, the Andaman International Airport which is under development north of Phuket is expected to drive a new market cycle for Khao Lak, he said. Mr Barnett noted among the current trends for the Khao Lak market that the total number of visitor arrivals to Phang Nga was estimated to surpass 4.88 million last year, indicating a compound annual growth rate of 6% between 2014 and 2019. Phang Nga continues to experience an increase in demand during low season, especially in Q2 2019 with visitor arrivals uplifted by 2.5% y-o-y, he said. Meanwhile, Mainland China had the highest growth among all top five source markets with a 13% increase as of 2018 according to the latest available data compared with the previous year, he added. Looking forward, Mr Barnett noted, The upcoming airport located in Khok Kloy, Phang Nga will shorten the travel time to Khao Lak by one hour, which will enable the destination to attract broader visitor demographics. The widening of the current road connecting Ranong with Phuket is contributing to benefit the tourism sector with shorter travel time, he added. Looking at the hotel supply segment, he also observed, While 74% of the hotel pipeline in Khao Lak is brand affiliated, independent projects developers have a legacy of success in well-performing independent properties. To download the Phang Nga and Khao Lak Hotel Market Report, visit c9hotelworks.com Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. Flash Arab foreign ministers voiced rejection on Saturday to the recently released U.S. Middle East peace plan, while expressing their support for Palestine which emphatically refused the new peace plan upon its announcement. "Rejection of the U.S.-Israeli Deal of the Century comes as it does not fulfill the minimum rights and aspirations of the Palestinian people," said the final communique issued by the foreign ministers following the meeting. The statement described as "unfair" the peace deal, announced on Jan. 28 by U.S. President Donald Trump in the presence of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The U.S. vision of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process includes annexing the disputed holy city of Jerusalem as Israel's "undivided capital" while the Palestinian capital will include areas on the outskirts of East Jerusalem. The U.S. president outlined the 80-page plan, saying it proposes a "realistic" two-state solution. The Trump administration has postponed several times the publication of its "Deal of the Century," a proposal that has been criticized repeatedly by the Palestinians who had little engagement in it. The final statement of Arab foreign ministers agreed to boycott the U.S. "unfair deal" and not to cooperate "in any way" with the United States in its implementation. The U.S. plan "violates the references of the peace process based on the international law and the relevant United Nations resolutions," the Arab ministers added. They also highlighted the Arab Peace Initiative endorsed by the Arab League in Beirut in 2002 as the minimum acceptable limit to achieve peace "through ending the Israeli occupation of all Palestinian and Arab territories occupied in 1967 and the establishment of the independent, sovereign state of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital." The final statement agreed on "sticking to peace as a strategic option to settle the conflict," underlining the necessity of the two-state solution as the basis of the peace process. They warned Israel against implementing the Trump-proposed deal unilaterally, reaffirming full support for the struggle of the Palestinian people and its leadership. Speaking at the meeting, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the Palestinian Authority informed the Israelis that it will "not have any relations with them or with the United States, including security relations." Abbas said his authority sent two letters to both Netanyahu and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to convey the Palestinian rejection of the deal. "The U.S. deal is completely rejected once they announced annexing Jerusalem to Israel," Abbas told the Arab foreign ministers at the meeting attended by Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul-Gheit. The United States is a biased mediator, said Abbas, noting he will head to the UN Security Council to protest the deal and find a solution. He condemned that Washington wants to abolish former UN resolutions and international legitimacy decisions related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and use the new U.S. plan as the only reference. The Palestinian president said he declined the U.S. requests to receive a copy of the deal, nor letters and phone calls from Trump after the deal was announced. "We have the right to continue our legitimate struggle through peaceful means to end the (Israeli) occupation and establish our independent state," said Abbas, calling for international and regional support for the legitimate rights of the Palestinians. Abbas urged the formation of an international mechanism to implement the resolutions of international legitimacy and the Arab Peace Initiative endorsed by the AL in Beirut in 2002. "We will not accept the United States as the sole mediator of the peace process," Abbas added. Washington's role as an Israeli-Palestinian conflict mediator has been questioned with the Trump administration's pro-Israeli policies in the past three years such as recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital, moving the U.S. embassy to the city, and slashing hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars in humanitarian aid to the Palestinians. The Palestinians seek to establish an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital in the light of the UN-proposed two-state solution based on the 1967 pre-war borders. The Legislature will become the next front in the battle to ban all flavored nicotine vaping products in Oregon now that the governors attempt at a temporary ban has failed. Sen. Laurie Monnes Anderson is making another try at what for her has become a cause since she was a nurse at Oregon City High School in the 1980s and helped students try to quit smoking cigarettes. She said she saw how cigarettes controlled students even when they wanted to quit. Preventing a new generation of kids from getting hooked on nicotine is one of her top priorities for the 35-day session that starts Monday. Once youre addicted, youre always addicted, she said. Monnes Andersons bill would bar the sale of all flavored inhalant delivery system products, meaning any nicotine vape liquid that tastes like anything except tobacco. Violators would be fined up to $5,000 per violation. The ban wouldnt include cannabis vapes or products approved by federal regulators for helping people stop smoking. The proposal -- and one in the House that would ban internet, mail and telephone sales of vape products in Oregon -- are part of a concerted local, state and federal effort to target the explosion of teenage vaping. Last year, more than 1 in 5 Oregon 11th graders said they had vaped a nicotine product in the last 30 days, an Oregon Health Authority survey found, a 66% jump from 2017. The vaping industry will fight the bill, even as it fought and beat Gov. Kate Browns 180-day ban in October. That attempted ban was part of the executive order the governor signed in the wake of Oregons second death in the vaping-related lung illness epidemic. Most of the lung illnesses so far are connected to black market vape oils with THC, the chemical in marijuana that gets people high. Federal health officials say vitamin E acetate, a chemical used to cut these products to sell more of them, is very likely the leading culprit in the epidemic. But there are also some victims who appear to have vaped only nicotine products. Its not yet clear what chemicals exactly may have sickened them. The calls to regulate vaping in particular for young people predate the lung disease outbreak. Critics say the widespread availability of vape products, especially those with flavors like mango and mint, entices teens. This is a moral issue, said Monnes Anderson, a four-term lawmaker from Gresham who tried to pass similar legislation in 2015. This time, she said she likes her bills chances to successfully compete with a slew of other pressing issues during the short legislative session. Shes chair of the Senate Committee on Health Care and has a partner on her bill from the other side of the aisle, Bend Republican Rep. Cheri Helt. Helt, a first-term lawmaker who served on the Bend-La Pine school board, said vaping was such a serious issue that teachers asked for a special restroom design at the new high school to allow them to detect the smell of vaping fumes when passing by. She said that all vaping flavors must be banned to ensure kids stay off nicotine no exceptions. I dont think we can legislate by the type of delivery method, Helt said. We need to legislate by the outcome we are trying to accomplish. *** But opposition is lining up from the state vaping industry. Store owners say the bill will destroy their businesses. A ban also risks sending people back to smoking cigarettes, they say. Smaller measures would strike the right balance between industry well-being, consumer needs and kid safety rather than an all-out ban, they argue. A customer visiting Vape Spot, a shop on West Burnside in Portland, typifies the warnings. Mary Leslie of Seattle said she quit smoking cigarettes and switched to vaping last summer. When Washington banned flavored vape products, she said she tried a tobacco-flavored one. It was just so gross, said Leslie, 35. It made me nauseous. Having no good options, she quit nicotine altogether. But she has smoked cigarettes twice while out drinking with friends, she said, and that concerns her. The fear of slipping back is part of what brought her to Vape Spot this past week while on a work trip to Oregon. She bought a small bottle of Cool Blue Razz vape juice. E-cigarette vapor has fewer harmful chemicals than cigarette smoke, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Jason Weber remembers switching to vaping nine years ago he settled on a flavor called black honey tobacco that got him off of the Marlboro Reds he smoked. Weber now owns two vape stores in Roseburg and is on the board of the Oregon Vapor Trade Association. As owner of Smokeless Solutions by Vape Crusaders, Weber sued the state after the governors ban on flavored nicotine products went into effect. Within days, a judge put the ban on hold. The state suspended the ban altogether earlier this month and the judge dismissed the case. It was exciting, Weber said. But we were under no false hope that that was it. We knew that legislation was coming. The Governors Office said in a statement that Brown believes the threat of vaping to general health and to young people calls for long-term solutions. The office is still working to understand the full impact of the flavor ban bill, spokesman Charles Boyle said in an email. Gov. Brown appreciates the efforts of the bill sponsors in bringing forward their ideas for how Oregon can strengthen state statutes with respect to vaping, Boyle wrote. Brown will consider the findings of the task force she created as part of her executive order. The group of about two dozen experts, called the Vaping Public Health Work Group, is analyzing the evidence surrounding vaping-related lung injuries and making policy recommendations to her by June 1. *** Weber said he has met with Monnes Anderson and other lawmakers to plead his case that he has helped adults quit smoking. He has asked for smaller changes, such as requiring age verification technology at stores to make it harder to sell to people under 21 the current legal minimum age to buy nicotine products and putting in place three-strike policies to deter such sales. He also has asked the state to wait and see whether a federal ban will succeed. Starting Feb. 6, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration wont allow making or selling flavored cartridge-based e-cigarettes in the United States -- except for menthol and tobacco flavors. For some reason, our state is saying that its not enough, Weber said. The federal ban applies to products like Juuls mango and mint flavors, but not to the tank-based systems that Weber sells. The ban also does not apply to disposable vape products. Stores like Webers and others offer dozens of flavors of vape juice, which customers pour into tanks that allow for customization of heat and intensity. Theyre akin to connoisseur shops, like cigar shops for tobacco, where people can browse broad selections of flavors. The devices that use the flavors are generally much heavier and larger than the wildly popular devices like Juul. Health experts have attributed the recent rise in youth vaping addiction primarily to Juul and similar cartridge-based products, which are relatively cheap, easy to conceal and can contain extraordinarily high concentrations of nicotine about a packs worth of nicotine per Juul pod, for example. Monnes Anderson said shes not moved by the industrys arguments. She plans to add a layer of regulation to her bill in an amendment that would create a statewide tobacco retailer licensing system. That would allow the state to track and license every store that sells nicotine products. Right now, only some local governments, like Multnomah County, have that kind of oversight, vital to enforcing nicotine-related laws. I dont have much sympathy for the industry, like the tobacco industry and vaping industry, that is not looking to the health, the overall health outcomes that people will have once they become addicted to their products, Monnes Anderson said. *** But there is one bill that lawmakers and pro-vaping lobbyists like Weber can agree on: banning online nicotine vape sales. Rep. Pam Marsh, D.-Ashland, said she got the idea after a group of Ashland High School students told her thats how their peers get their vapes. It was the fact that the students were observing this among their peers. They know best whats happening to their age group, Marsh said. The bill would simply add vape products to existing laws that ban internet and telephone sales of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco. The online sales ban, Marsh said, would not apply to retailers like Weber. Weber said he and the Oregon vaping association is on board with the proposal as a way to curb minors access to vape products. I think at least theyre looking at the problem, Weber said. Theyre trying to do something that makes more sense. -- Fedor Zarkhin fzarkhin@oregonian.com desk: 503-294-7674|cell: 971-373-2905|@fedorzarkhin Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories. A Brockton man was indicted on a manslaughter charge after authorities said he supplied fentanyl and cocaine to a fellow patient at Bridgewater State Hospital who later overdosed and died. The Plymouth District Attorneys office said 35-year-old Kevin Malette was indicted by a grand jury recently on charges of manslaughter, drug distribution and possessing or delivering drugs to prisoners. On Sept. 19, Massachusetts State Police responded to Bridgewater State Hospital to assist Massachusetts Department of Correction staff in an overdose investigation. Around 12:30 a.m. that day, while conducting a routine check, staff at Bridgewater State Hospital said a man was found in a cell not breathing and unresponsive. Staff made entry into the locked cell and performed life-saving measures until paramedics from the Bridgewater Fire Department arrived on scene and assumed control, the district attorneys office said. The victim, identified as 51-year-old Jeffrey Link of Fall River, was taken to a hospital in Taunton where he was pronounced dead. The investigation found that Link allegedly exchanged four bags of canteen items, including food and coffee, with a monetary value of more than $100, in return for narcotics, the district attorneys office said. The canteen, which is used as a form of currency in correctional institutions, ended up in the possession of Malette, who resided in another building at Bridgewater State Hospital. An investigation into the overdose showed Malette supplied Link with the drugs, authorities said. Malette is in custody at the Bristol County Jail and House of Correction. He will be arraigned at a later date. Shes famed for her flawless red carpet style and Scarlett Johansson did not disappoint at the BAFTAs tonight. The actress, 35, arrived at the Royal Albert Hall in London in a gorgeous blush pink gown by Versace. As well as a form-fitting silhouette that showed off her curves and tattoos, the dress also featured dazzling sequin detailing and a beautiful feather train. Finishing off the look, the star - who was up for two gongs, including best actress for Marriage Story and best supporting actress for Jojo Rabbit - wore her hair in an elegant up-do with natural make-up and diamond earrings. Scarlett Johansson looked pretty in blush pink on the BAFTA red carpet [Image: Getty] The actress opted for a gorgeous Versace dress [Image: Getty] READ MORE: Duchess of Cambridge re-wears dazzling McQueen dress to support sustainable ceremony at the BAFTAs 2020 Scarletts head-turning outfit drew praise on Twitter from fashion fans. One person wrote: Stunning! Another commented: Wow. A third person, who was particularly impressed, shared: Im no Scarlett Johansson fan but this LEWK. READ MORE: Emilia Clarke, Margot Robbie and Scarlett Johansson lead best dressed celebrities at the BAFTAs 2020 The star joined a host of other well-dressed celebrities at this evenings BAFTAs who also opted for a pink-hued ensemble. Renee Zellweger, 50, looked pretty in a baby pink off-shoulder dress, while Florence Pugh, 24, stood out in a bright pink mini dress with statement puff sleeves and a dramatic train. Additionally, Laura Dern, 52, wowed in a fuchsia gown by Valentino with a sash neckline and diamante detailing. Florence Pugh wowed in a bright pink mini dress with a dramatic train [Image: PA] Laura Dern wore a beautiful Valentino gown in fuchsia [Image: PA] READ MORE: BAFTA 2020 guests asked to rewear or hire outfits in bid to create sustainable ceremony Another famous attendee at tonights glamorous event to receive praise for her look was the Duchess of Cambridge. Arriving with Prince William, the royal mum-of-three slipped on a dazzling floor-length gown with gold embroidery by Alexander McQueen, which she first wore in Malaysia during a 2012 tour. Kate, 38, refreshed the look with glitzy gold accessories, including a pair of sparkly Jimmy Choo Romy pumps and a matching clutch bag. Story continues She also didnt shy away when it came to jewellery, opting for some major bling in the form of a statement clover leaf necklace and matching drop earrings by Van Cleef & Arpels. Her repeat outfit came as it was announced that this years BAFTA guests were asked to rewear or hire outfits in an effort to create a carbon-neutral ceremony. They were given a sustainable fashion guide created by the London College of Fashion to help them navigate the new environmentally-conscious dress code. Another adopter of the trend was Renee Zellweger in baby pink [Image: PA] READ MORE: Best BAFTA red carpet outfits, from the Duchess of Cambridge to Angelina Jolie As well as wearing something already hanging in their wardrobe, they suggested guests opted for second-hand or hired an ensemble. They recommended pre-owned outlets such as Vestiare Collective and Depop, or rental sites including Hurr Collective, By Rotation and My Wardrobe HQ. Should guests insist on making a fresh purchase, they highlighted Stella McCartney and Reformation as sustainable brands who use eco-friendly materials. Kaduna kidnappers are getting deadlier and more ruthless as the corpses of two of their Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, February 2) Authorities seized 4.08-million worth of shabu in a buy-bust operation in Quezon City Sunday. A report from the QC Police said Jamael Hzainal, Nabel Makabato, and Ricondaya Magarang were arrested in an operation in Barangay Teresita around 10:30 a.m. after an undercover operative bought 20,000 worth of shabu from the suspects. Around 600 grams of shabu were seized from the suspects, amounting to about 4.08 million. Also taken were a Toyota Fortuner, a Honda Civic, the buy-bust money, and two cellular phones. Hzainal was listed in the drug watch list of Brgy. Culiat where he is a resident. Case for violation of R.A. 9165 or The Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002 will be filed against the suspects. The confiscated illegal drugs will be turned over to the Crime Laboratory Office. The Air Force said Saturday that it would quarantine around 1,000 Americans evacuated from China and at risk of contracting the coronavirus at four military installations in the United States, one of them Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland. The Department of Human Services and Pentagon agreed to house at least 250 people at the base, home to Air Force basic training. Three other bases likely will house evacuees as well. Evacuees are expected to arrive in San Antonio in days and will remain here through the end of the month. As of Saturday, there were eight confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the United States: two in Illinois, three in California and one in Washington, Massachusetts and Arizona. This action is a precautionary and preventative step to maximize the containment of the virus in the interest of the health of the American public, the Centers for Disease Control said in a statement. A Joint Base San Antonio spokeswoman, Maj. Kim Bender, said the evacuees would be quarantined at hotel rooms on Lackland, home to Air Force basic training. Citing the CDC, she said those coming out of Wuhan, China, where the virus originated, would remain under quarantine for 14 days, starting when they fly out of the country. An Air Force statement said base personnel would not be in direct contact with the evacuees, and that those flown from China to the United States will not have access beyond their housing. Mayor Ron Nirenberg said in a statement he is comforted by the extra precautions being taken by federal, state and local health officials regarding the plans to house the evacuees at Lackland. "We have been told that these individuals have no symptoms of the virus and pose no risk to our community," Nirenberg said. He also noted that there are no individuals diagnosed with the coronavirus here in San Antonio and that the city's Metro Health Department will continue to monitor the situation and "exercise an abundance of caution." So far, more than 60 million people in China have been quarantined, CNN reported. The coronavirus outbreak has killed at least 259 people and infected close to 12,000 people globally, as it continues to spread beyond China. In a statement, the Pentagon said evacuees could be sent to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar and Travis AFB, both in California, and Fort Carson, Colo., as well as Lackland. The Pentagon statement went on to say that the four bases would provide housing support while Department of Health and Human Services would manage care, transportation and security for those evacuated from China. The statement also said that anyone falling ill with the virus would be transported to local civilian hospitals. HHS will be responsible for all care, transportation, and security of the evacuees. sigc@express-news.net We were notified that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Defense have decided to evacuate American citizens from China and quarantine them at U. S. military installations, including Lackland Air Force Base. We have been told that these individuals have no symptoms of the virus and pose no risk to our community. We should all be comforted by the extra precautions being taken by federal, state and local health officials. We do not currently have any individuals diagnosed with the coronavirus here in San Antonio, and our Metro Health Department will continue to monitor the situation and exercise an abundance of caution. As the nation's eighth case of coronavirus was confirmed on Saturday, Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield was tapped to be one of four U.S. military bases on standby to house overseas travelers who may need to be quarantined. The Pentagon approved a Department of Health and Human Services request for facilities capable of housing at least 250 people in individual rooms through Feb. 29, according to announcement Saturday on the base's Facebook page. Travis will only provide housing - the housing agency will be responsible for care, transportation and security of evacuees, according to the base's statement. The other three installations selected to house evacuees are the 168th Regiment, Regional Training Institute in Fort Carson, Colorado; Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas; and the Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, California, according to a statement from Jonathan Rath Hoffman, assistant to the Secretary of Defense for public affairs. There are now eight confirmed U.S. cases of coronavirus, including one in Santa Clara County that was announced on Friday. Health officials announced the latest U.S. case on Saturday in Boston, Massachusetts, of a man in his 20s who had recently traveled to Wuhan, China. The virus, which presents with flu-like symptoms, is thought to have spread from animals to humans, perhaps at a large seafood and animal market in Wuhan, China. Fire crews have contained a 1-alarm fire at a residential structure that forced crews to rescue two people in San Francisco's Visitacion Valley Saturday night, according to fire officials. The blaze, reported some time before 11:30 p.m. Saturday, charred a significant portion of a residential structure per a video provided via San Francisco Firefighters Local 798 on Twitter. It was contained some time early Sunday. No update on the condition of the two victims or any information on residents displaced was immediately provided. Sonoma County Sheriff's detectives are investigating the death Saturday of an inmate at the county jail in Santa Rosa, deputies said late Saturday night. The inmate, a man whose name was not released, was booked into the jail Saturday by Santa Rosa Police Department officers, according to a Sheriff's Department news release. At about 5:18 p.m. Saturday, the inmate suffered a medical emergency while in the jail's booking area, deputies said. Jail personnel performed CPR, and an ambulance soon arrived to take the inmate to a nearby to a nearby hospital, where he was later pronounced dead. The Napa County Medical Examiner's Office has been called in to perform an autopsy on the victim's body to help determined why he died, Sonoma County deputies said. The age of the inmate wasn't immediately released, nor was the reason for his arrest. The Concord City Council could on Tuesday start the process to find someone to rehabilitate, use and maintain a historic building and grounds on the city's north side. The council's Committee on Recreation, Cultural Affairs and Community Services had already asked city staff to prepare a "request for proposals" seeking qualified parties to rehabilitate the Don Fernando Pacheco Adobe building and grounds, on Grant Street near Olivera Road. The adobe, built in the mid-1800s, is considered an important Concord historical landmark, and is on the National Register of Historic Places. The city acquired the building and surrounding property in 1979 from Contra Costa County with the proviso that the property be used "for the purposes of public park and recreation and for the preservation of the historical aspect of the site." From 1940 until this past October, the Contra Costa Horsemen's Association had leased the property, maintaining it and using it for equestrian events. After 105 years of Shell ownership, the Martinez Refining Co., LLC is, as of Saturday, the new owner of the refinery on the Carquinez Strait just west of Interstate Highway 680. PBF Energy Inc., headquartered in New Jersey, will now operate the facility under the name Martinez Refining Co. LLC, and the $1 billion acquisition became official Saturday. The deal was struck in mid-2019. The Martinez refinery employs approximately 700 people. It produces gasoline, jet fuel, diesel fuel, petroleum coke, industrial fuel oils, liquefied petroleum gas, asphalt and sulfur. It also has a "coker" unit for processing heavy crude. PBF Energy also operates a refinery in Torrance, in southern California, as well as in New Jersey, Delaware, Ohio and Louisiana. Berkeley police were searching Saturday night for a 67-year-old woman last seen Thursday at a University Avenue motel. Elaine Young-Igie was last seen about noon Thursday at the La Quinta Inn in the 900 block of University Avenue. She is considered at-risk because of "memory impairments," Berkeley police said. Young-Igie is 5-feet-7-inches tall, and weighs about 100 pounds. She has brown hair and brown eyes, and was last seen wearing a black head wrap, a black leather jacket and green-and-black leggings. She has frequented the Berkeley Marina area in the past, police said. Anyone who has seen Young-Igie or who may have information about where she may be is urged to call the Berkeley Police Department. This spring, Las Positas College's Adult Education Project will bring seven college courses to women inmates at the Federal Correctional Institute prison in Dublin. While not earning college credits, inmates who complete the seven nine-hour courses over 16 weeks will be eligible to receive to "career certificates" - customer service and small business management - in the fall. The Adult Education Project was conceived when its manager at Las Positas reached out to Loanne Tran, the federal prison's educational director. Officials from the college and the prison then met several times to discuss how the project could be implemented. They explored the Las Positas class catalog courses that could help the inmates and had faculty interested in teaching. The initial spring 2020 cohort of LPC's Inmate Education Project will serve as a pilot program that LPC hopes to build upon in the future. Forums featuring the candidates in two Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors races are scheduled for this coming week, and both will be live-streamed for those who cannot attend. Both forums are being hosted by the Contra Costa County Library, which is joining with the League of Women Voters of Diablo Valley and the West County League of Women Voters, the Contra Costa County Elections Department and Contra Costa Television (CCTV). On Tuesday, Feb. 4, the candidates in the supervisors' District 5 race will discuss the issues from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at the Hercules library, 109 Civic Dr. In that district, which covers the northern part of the county from Pinole through Crockett and east to Antioch, incumbent Federal Glover faces challenges from county Assessor Gus Kramer and from Sean Trambley, a city of Martinez planning commissioner. The Brentwood Community Center, 35 Oak St, will host a forum Thursday night from 6:30 until 8 p.m. featuring incumbent District 3 Supervisor Diane Burgis and challenger Paul Seger, a board member for the Oakley-based Diablo Water District. The Pittsburg Library, 80 Power Ave., will host a viewing party for the District 3 forum, in the library's community room. That also begins at 6:30 p.m. Thursday East County residents can also interested in watching the District V forum can attend a viewing party at the Pittsburg Library from 6:30 to 8 p.m. in the library community room. District 3 covers far eastern Contra Costa County, and part of the Dougherty Valley. Both forums can be viewed live on the Contra Costa County Library Facebook page at www.facebook.com/ccclib/. The forums will also be archived on the library's YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/user/theccclib. All forums will re-air on Contra Costa Television (CCTV), available on Comcast channel 27, AT&T U-Verse channel 99 or Astound channel 32. For a full schedule, visit www.ccclib.org. At least one person has died following a multiple-vehicle traffic collision involving a big rig on northbound U.S. Highway 101 in unincorporated Santa Clara County early Sunday morning, according to the California Highway Patrol. The collision was first reported at 12:41 a.m. just north of Bailey Road, and near San Jose's southern city limits, the CHP said. Multiple lanes are closed with no estimated time of reopening as the CHP investigates the collision. Sunday will be mostly cloudy in the morning, then becoming sunny and very windy. Highs will be in the mid 50s. Northwest winds will be 30 to 45 mph. Sunday night will be clear and breezy. Lows will be in the lower 40s. Northwest winds will be 20 to 30 mph - with gusts to around 45 mph - before becoming north winds at 15 to 20 mph after midnight. Monday will be sunny. Highs will be in the lower 50s. North winds will be 10 to 20 mph. Copyright 2020 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. NORTH RIDGEVILLE, Ohio -- A math game and a music competition are coming up for students from school districts in Avon Lake, North Ridgeville, Amherst, Sheffield-Sheffield Lake, Oberlin, Perkins and Firelands. According to contest information, the 24 Game is a card game designed to test students math skills and is part of the countywide gifted programming from the Educational Service Center in Elyria. Cathy Fischer is the gifted supervisor at the center. The participants are the top performers from their school districts. Students sit around a table with a card at the center of the table. The card has four numbers on it, and the goal is for the students to tap the card in the center before their peers do, then use all four numbers on the card to make the number 24," Fischer said. "They can add, subtract, multiply and divide. Its a multiple-step process that tests students accuracy and speed. The students compete in 10-minute rounds and, at the end, awards are given to the top finishers in each grade. There are also consolation awards. Teachers from the districts tout the contest as good competition, beginning in their own schools, but it also is an opportunity for students to have fun with math. The 24 Game will be held from 10 to 11:30 a.m. Thursday (Feb. 6) at the Educational Service Center, 1885 Lake Ave. in Elyria. Music competition Students in grades four through 12 who have an interest in music can compete from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Feb. 29 in the Lorain County Solo & Ensemble Contest. Debbie Hunt is the contest administrator. The competition will be held at Brookside Middle/High School, 1662 Harris Road in Sheffield. Approximately 700 students are expected to participate from various districts in Lorain County. By registering for the contest, students are volunteering to play a solo or ensemble, preparing the music, working very hard alone or in a small group, and playing in public for an adjudicators comments, according to the rules. The students can choose from five different categories, according to Hunt. We have a variety of entry categories designed to challenge the talents of (student) musicians and expand their musical interests," she said. The five categories include: Four-hand piano/piano duo Barbershop quartet Composition-arrangement Jazz ensemble Strings category To register for the Lorain County Solo & Ensemble Contest, visit www.loraincountyesc.org or call 440-324-5777. Read more news from the Sun Sentinel. (Bloomberg) -- Uber Technologies Inc. has suspended 240 user accounts in Mexico to contain the potential spread of coronavirus. The users suspended had ridden with two drivers who came into contact with a possible coronavirus case, according to a statement posted to the companys Mexican Twitter account. To date, there have been no confirmed cases of the virus in the country. We will keep users and drivers informed with respect to any update of their accounts, the company said in the statement, adding that it will work in a coordinated manner with authorities. Mexico Citys Health Ministry confirmed that an Uber driver had carried a passenger from Los Angeles infected with the coronavirus, based on information from U.S authorities. The ministry said that of the suspected cases related to the passenger -- hotel personnel and from the driving company -- none have developed symptoms in 10 days since contact. Cases will be monitored for 14 days, a statement added. Researchers are still trying to understand how the infectious virus can spread from person to person in an attempt to dispel fears about the illness. Individuals in some countries have avoided shopping malls and areas believed to have been visited by patients suspected to have tested positive for the countries, although a Singapore government advisory said in a Facebook post that the risk of spreading the illness from transient contact, such as in public places, is low. To contact the reporter on this story: Justin Villamil in Mexico City at jvillamil18@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Carolina Wilson at cwilson166@bloomberg.net, Fabiola Zerpa, Kevin Miller For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source. 2020 Bloomberg L.P. CEDAR RAPIDS, Ia. In the closing days of the Iowa caucus race, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders turned his back on the crowd. Otherwise, he couldnt get a photograph with himself and all 3,000 assembled people in it. Sanders was surrounded by some of his highest profile surrogates, as a campaign photographer counted down the shot for the crowd in the background, and band Vampire Weekend waited to play for the crowd. Sanders spoke for about 30 minutes, after people including Dr. Cornel West, U.S. Reps Ilhan Omar, Pramila Jayapal and Mark Pocan introduced him. Sanders didnt deviate much from a campaign speech hes delivered dozens of times this caucus cycle pledging universal health care, the most comprehensive climate change plan, a rejection of President Donald Trumps agenda, and more. But he pointed to a bank of media in the back to highlight the moment, 48 hours from when Iowans will gather in precincts all over the state for the first-in-the-nation nominating contest. The bank of TV cameras werent just from Iowa, or just the United States, Sanders said, but all over the world. The whole world is asking if the people of Iowa are prepared to stand up and fight for justice, he said. All over the world, people are watching to see if the people in Iowa are prepared to help create a government and an economy that will work for all of us, and not just the 1%. Sanders continued, We are taking on Wall Street, and the insurance companies, and the drug companies, and the fossil fuel industry ... he said, as the crowds cheers nearly drowned him out over the concert PA as they erupted into a Ber-nie chant. Earlier in the day, his campaign announced it hit its goal of knocking on 500,000 doors in Iowa in the month of January, hoping to fuel an unprecedented turnout on Monday. As he repeated from the campaign trail on Saturday, his victory here depends on turnout. Dr. Cornel West speaks to thousands of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders' supporters in Cedar Rapids on Saturday. Abbi Cobb, 24, of North Liberty, has supported Sanders since 2015 and has been to more than a dozen of Sanders events between his two presidential campaigns. She almost didnt come to the one Saturday night, feeling like she has seen enough and was already secure in her support of Sanders. But being around 3,000 fellow supporters and being star struck by Omar, and hearing from Linn County Supervisor Stacey Walker felt like a boost. Story continues Im very happy I did come out tonight, she said. Its not that I wasnt excited, but I just feel (it) a little more. While Vampire Weekend played their set, Sanders supporters waved signs reading Sanders campaign slogan "not me, us," behind the band, and people in Bernie 2020 shirts danced in their chairs and the floor. After they wrapped up their song Unbelievers, frontman Ezra Koenig noted the irony of one of the lyrics. That song says, Im not excited, but Im pretty excited, he said. How are you all feeling about Monday? And the audience roared. Nick Coltrain is a politics and data reporter for the Register. Reach him at ncoltrain@registermedia.com or at 515-284-8361. This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Iowa caucus Bernie Sanders brings out Vampire Weekend, Ilhan Omar Jim Carrey was blasted for a joke he made about Margot Robbie's appearance while on Friday's episode of The Graham Norton Show. But Australian radio duo Kyle Sandilands and Jackie 'O' Henderson have hit back at outraged fans, saying they are 'overreacting' and lack a sense of humour. 'That's Jim Carrey being complimentary and joking, that's what he does. That's not insulting!' Kyle said on his KIIS FM breakfast show. Scroll down for video 'That's what he does. It's not insulting!' Kyle and Jackie O have slammed 'easily offended' fans who 'overreacted' to THAT Jim Carrey joke about Margot Robbie The American actor, 58, was branded 'rude' when he joked that Margot, 29, had a successful Hollywood career thanks to her good looks. 'Its incredible that you've got as far as you have with your obvious physical disadvantages... It's unbelievable, it's really something. That's pure talent right there!' he said. Margot appeared to take the joke in good humour, but viewers were not as convinced as they branded the interaction 'awkward' and 'creepy'. Radio host Jackie read aloud some of the reactions, including: 'Poor Margot. She copped it on the chin. What a champion. I would have slapped him in the face.' However, she added her own two cents by saying: 'I feel like people are really overreacting to this.' 'I feel like people are really overreacting to this!' Kyle and Jackie O (pictured) agreed that people had overreacted to Jim's joke 'Rude and downright embarrassing': Jim was blasted by fans for making a joke that implied Margot's successful career was thanks to her looks. Pictured in The Wolf of Wall Street 'I would have slapped him': The feedback on Twitter was ruthless, with people saying the joke was 'rude' and 'condescending' 'I don't think what he said was bad at all,' she added. 'It's a joke. Come on, people. Can't anyone say anything these days without people twisting it and getting offended?' Kyle agreed, replying: '[Margot] wouldn't give a s**t - it's the outrage era.' 'She wouldn't give a s**t!' Kyle (pictured) said that Margot wouldn't have been upset by the joke Support: The reaction to Jim's joke wasn't all negative though, as some viewers defended it and said he was 'commending' the actress, rather than trying to offend her The reaction to Jim's joke wasn't all negative though, as some viewers defended it and said he was 'commending' the actress, rather than trying to offend her. 'If he was scorning anyone, it was Hollywood, of whom Jim is famously critical - not Margot, whom he was clearly complimenting,' tweeted one supporter. Another wrote: 'The fact it was said in jest makes it a joke? One Margot Robbie herself laughed at but one you are feeling you have to be offended on her behalf for?' The suspect in the organizing a criminal group that committed the murder of Ukrainian volunteer Amina Okuyeva and two other people, illegally obtained Ukrainian citizenship. The press service of the National Police of Ukraine reports this information. During the investigation of several serious crimes, the police found that a native of the Russian Federation organized a criminal group that committed three contract killings. In particular, this was the murder of director of the Caparol Ukraine subsidiary, the director of the advertising department of the Kyiv Metro and participant in the war in eastern Ukraine (...) Amina Okueva, the report said. It is noted that the man had a passport of a citizen of Ukraine, and subsequently received a foreign passport. Police investigators in the Kiev region investigated the procedure for obtaining citizenship in detail. Now, the investigative department of the police of the Kyiv region has begun criminal proceedings under Part 4 of Art. 358 (falsification of documents, seals, stamps and letterheads, sale or use of fake documents, seals or stamps) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. Now, at the request of the investigator, the State Migration Service of Ukraine invalidated the passports of the detainee. As we reported, Kyiv's Svyatoshynsky district court has arrested Ihor Redkin for two months. The man is the suspect in the murder of Amina Okueva, the Ukrainian combat volunteer and medic. The judge granted the motion of the prosecution team, as it requested that Redkin stays in custody until March 11, 2020. Former Kaduna Sen Shehu Sani described the RCCG Pastor Enoch Adeboyes protest march as throwing caution to the wind after a long while of dilly-dallying and sitting on the fence. Pastor Adeboye finally disembarking from the fence of caution, moderation, and neutrality and leading a match against insecurity is commendable. Protest gives wings and wheels to prayers, Sani tweeted on Sunday. According to him, Adeboyes protest march will give wings and wheels to prayers in the country. The march had commenced from the churchs National Headquarters in Ebute Metta, Lagos Statein finalizing a three-day fasting and praying programme that CAN organized for the government and the military. Adeboye and his members were protesting against the constant killing of Christians in the North and other parts of the country. PV: 0 US House passes measures seeking to pull war powers back from Trump Iran Press TV Friday, 31 January 2020 12:13 AM The US House of Representatives has passed two pieces of legislation aiming to contain President Donald Trump's war powers. In a 228 to 175 vote on Thursday, the Democratic-led House voted to pass one measure that would forbid military action against Iran unless approved by Congress. While four of Trump's fellow Republicans joined Democrats in supporting the bill, three Democrats sided with most Republicans in voting no. In addition, the House voted - 236 to 166 - to repeal the 2002 Authorization for the use of Military Force for the war in Iraq, which US presidents have long used to justify several military actions, with 11 Republican lawmakers voting yea and two Democrats voting nay. "The Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the power to declare war. And with President Trump taking steps toward dangerous conflict with Iran - without any consultation with Congress - we need to reassert the responsibility given to us," said Democratic Representative Eliot Engel, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee. There is uncertainty, however, as to what might happen to the legislation in the Republican-led Senate, where a similar effort to pass an Iran-related war powers resolution has been stalled during Trump's impeachment trial. Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said ahead of Thursday's vote that "members of Congress continue to have serious, urgent concerns about the president's decision to engage in hostilities against Iran and about its lack of strategy moving forward." Congress' power to declare war "has been, shall we say, usurped by administrations both Democratic and Republican, and now to an extent that practically abrogates whatever is in the Constitution," she added. A day earlier, Trump took to Twitter to express opposition. "With Votes in the House tomorrow, Democrats want to make it harder for Presidents to defend America, and stand up to, as an example, Iran. Protect our GREAT COUNTRY!" he wrote. This comes following the US' assassination of Iranian senior anti-terror commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani earlier this month. General Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), was martyred alongside fellow Iraqi commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and some others in a set of drone strikes ordered by Trump that targeted their vehicle at the Baghdad International Airport on January 3. Both commanders enjoyed deep reverence among Muslim nations over their endeavors in ending Daesh's territorial rule in Iraq and Syria. In retaliation, the IRGC fired volleys of ballistic missiles at Ain al-Assad air base in the western Iraqi province of Anbar, which housed US forces, and another US-run base on January 8. The Pentagon announced days later that 34 troopers had received traumatic brain injuries in the attack on Ain al-Assad. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address A police dog is recovering at a Brisbane veterinary surgery after suffering "a large stab wound" to his chest during the arrest of two men on Brisbane's northside overnight. Police were called to Victoria Terrace in Gordon Park, six kilometres north of the CBD, about 1.30am on Sunday after a suspicious vehicle was seen in the area. Police dog Kaos was stabbed during the arrest of two men in Brisbane's north. Credit:Queensland Police Service When the officers arrived, two men allegedly fled from the vehicle, while three other people were arrested at the scene. Seven-year-old police dog Kaos and his handler pursued the two suspects and found them about 15 minutes later in nearby Burnaby Terrace. During the arrest, Kaos was allegedly stabbed in the chest. Maldives foreign minister Abdulla Shahid thanked India and its leadership for evacuating seven Maldivians from China along with Indians aboard an Air India flight on Sunday. The second Air India flight carrying 323 Indian citizens and seven Maldivians landed in New Delhi on Sunday morning after it took off in the intervening night of February 1 and 2 in the wake of the novel Coronavirus outbreak which has claimed over 300 lives in China as per the latest reports with the number of people infected crossing 14,000 across the country. 7 Maldivians in #Wuhan are on their way to Delhi on a special #AirIndia flight. Upon arrival they will be housed in Delhi for a period of quarantine. Deep gratitude to PM @narendramodi and EM @DrSJaishankar. Special thanks to Ambassadors @VikramMisri @sunjaysudhir and their teams Abdulla Shahid (@abdulla_shahid) February 2, 2020 READ | Influencers Under Fire For Using Unrealistic Coronavirus Photos To Garner Fame In his tweets, Abdulla Shahid expressed his gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar. He lauded efforts of India's envoy to China Vikram Misri and to the Maldives Sunjay Sudhir. He also thanked Chinese authorities for their assistance. Grateful to @MFA_China, @AmbassadorZhang and local authorities in #Hubei for the assistance. A very special thanks to our Ambassador in China Ms Azeema and Ambassador in Delhi @aishamdidi and their team. Thank everyone at @MoFAmv for the hard work. Abdulla Shahid (@abdulla_shahid) February 2, 2020 READ | Second Air India Evacuation Flight Carries 323 Indians & 7 Maldivians From Epicenter Wuhan The World Health Organisation (WHO) had initially played down on the severity of the pandemic citing fewer cases outside China, however, later called it a global health emergency on Thursday. Evacuation amid pandemic fears The government of India started evacuating its citizens from China with its first Air Inda flight bringing back 324 citizens on Saturday. Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Turkey, Germany also evacuated its citizens on Saturday. Multiple countries across the world have not only started evacuating it's citizens from the country but have also started imposing travel restrictions for Chinese nationals and those coming from the country. Countries such as Russia, Australia and the US have imposed a travel ban and have also closed borders for those coming from China. READ | Russia Imposes Various Restrictions On Chinese Citizens Over Deadly Coronavirus READ | Amid Coronavirus Outbreak, Sri Lanka & Turkey Evacuate Their Citizens From Wuhan (Image credit: PTI) Dancing On Ice has been thrown into chaos just hours before Sunday's live show as Libby Clegg has been forced to pull out. Paralympic runner Libby, 29, had been struck down with a vomiting bug and will not take to the ice this week with professional partner Mark Hanretty. Meanwhile, Love Island star, 29, Maura's place on the latest show was in jeopardy after she caught gastroenteritis and had to cancel training this week. Week off: Dancing On Ice star Libby Clegg has been forced to pull out of the latest show after being struck down with vomiting bug With two of the contestants hit with illness, bosses are reportedly worries that other stars will fall ill too. A source told The Mirror: 'Libby fell ill early in the week and hasn't been able to skate. 'Now Mauras sick and it could be the same thing. Shes trying to get herself back to full fitness in time for the show but it hangs in the balance.' While an ITV spokesperson confirmed to MailOnline: 'Unfortunately Libby will not be able to skate on this Sundays show. We all wish her a speedy recovery and hope to see her back on the ice next week.' Poorly: Paralympic runner Libby, 29, had been struck down with a vomiting bug and will not take to the ice this week with professional partner Mark Hanretty Support: 'Unfortunately Libby will not be able to skate on this Sundays show. We all wish her a speedy recovery and hope to see her back on the ice next week' (pictured with Mark Hanretty) On Friday, Maura revealed her fears that she may not be able to take part in the latest show after being struck down with illness. The reality star was unable to train with her skating partner Alexander Demetriou on the day after suffering a high temperature. Taking to her Instagram story, Maura revealed that it 'might take a miracle' to see her perform live in two days time, as she is concerned she may have to sit out from Sunday night's show. Sick: Meanwhile, Love Island star, 29, Maura's place on the latest show was in jeopardy after she caught gastroenteritis and had to cancel training this week Sharing a bare-faced selfie of her wrapped up in a fluffy robe, Maura looked downcast as she broke the news to fans on social media. She admitted she was feeling 'absolutely dreadful', as she wrote: 'My training was cancelled today as my temperature was too high!' Maura added: 'Praying I'm good for Sunday but might need a miracle.' However, a spokesperson for ITV confirmed the Irish beauty will take part in the show as they said: 'Maura will be skating on tonights show.' Under the weather: Maura was fearful she'd have to pull out of Sunday night's live show after cancelling her training session on Friday due to a 'high temperature' And Maura herself confirmed the news as she shared a clip on Instagram stories of herself getting ready in the make-up room alongside fellow skate Ian 'H' Watkins. Meanwhile, Libby isn't the only one who won't be in Sunday's line-up as Caprice Bourret has quit the show. The model's rep told MailOnline on Sunday: 'Its true that Caprice is no longer participating in Dancing On Ice. Its been a hard few months and shes had to keep silent for contractual reasons. 'Her mental wellbeing has been affected over the last two months and recent stories leaked to the press are not only salacious but extremely hurtful. 'Now shes taking some time to recover and look after herself and her family.' ITV confirmed to MailOnline: 'Caprice will not be taking any further part in the series.' Back at it: Maura herself confirmed the news as she shared a clip on Instagram stories of herself getting ready in the make-up room alongside fellow skate Ian 'H' Watkins It's official: Caprice Bourret confirmed that she has quit Dancing On Ice and hit back at her former pro partner Hamish Gaman in the process Caprice, 48, parted ways with her skating partner earlier this month, and apparently failed to turn up to rehearsals recently after Hamish broke his silence on the split and claimed 'the truth will out' on Friday on Instagram. A source close to Caprice said of this: 'She is deeply disgusted by the recent post from Hamish on his Instagram. It is a clear indication that not all is well on the western front. 'He has been made out to be Mother Theresa and Caprice has been horrifically vilified and slandered unfairly. Hamish said "the truth will come out" - and Caprice very much looks forward to this. 'She and other members of the show have had to keep quiet for contractual reasons, which unfortunately means that much of the reporting has been one-sided and unfair.' Before the drama: A source close to Caprice said - 'She is deeply disgusted by the recent post from Hamish on his Instagram. It is a clear indication that not all is well on the western front' Airbus, Europes largest aerospace multinational, has admitted paying huge bribes in order to secure contracts in Ghana, under the erstwhile Mills-Mahama administration. Airbus was found guilty by a High Court in London and is to pay a fine of 3 billion pounds (3bn) as penalties. Anti-corruption investigators according to The Guardian Report, has described the court's decision as the largest ever corporate fine for bribery in the world after judges declared the corruption was grave, pervasive and pernicious. The Serious Fraud Office's (SFOs) investigation related to bribery offences in Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Indonesia and Ghana. The PNFs investigation related to bribery and corruption offences in China, Colombia, Nepal, South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia (Arabsat), Taiwan and Russia. The joint investigation team (JIT's) investigation was vast in scale and in scope. It covered all of the BPs engaged by the Airbus divisions until 2016 - more than 1,750 entities across the world. The JIT focussed particularly on about 110 BPs for which red flags had been identified, from amongst which the JIT selected several investigation priorities. The French Parquet National Financier (PNF) focused its investigations on Airbus and/or its divisions conduct in the United Arab Emirates, China, South Korea, Nepal, India, Taiwan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Japan, Turkey, Mexico, Thailand, Brazil, and Kuwait. The SFO focused its investigations on Airbus and/or its divisions conduct in South Korea, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Taiwan, Ghana, Colombia and Mexico. Within this scope, the PNF and SFO selected a representative sample of the markets and concerns involved. The planemaker agreed to pay the penalties on Friday after reaching settlements with investigators in the UK, France and the US to end inquiries that started four years ago, the report stated. Dame Victoria Sharp, who is the President of the Queens Bench Division, approved the settlement struck with the UKs Serious Fraud Office (SFO). She stated: The seriousness of the criminality in this case hardly needs to be spelt out. As is acknowledged on all sides, it was grave. She noted that the scale of the wrongdoing demonstrates bribery was endemic in two core business areas within Airbus." Airbus is reported to have used a network of secret agents to pay large-scale backhanders to officials in foreign countries to land high-value contracts." Allison Clare, for the SFO, told the court the company had paid bribes in Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Taiwan and Ghana between 2011 and 2015. Ghana under late President John Atta-Mills in 2011 and former President John Mahama in 2015, acquired three Airbus C295 planes from the company as part of an effort to augment and modernize the fleet of the Ghana Armed Forces. It emerged that the first order of the military aeroplane arrived in the country on November 17, 2011, followed by a second on March 19, 2012. The last order arrived in the country on December 4, 2015. President John Dramani Mahama, in November 2014, announced that Ghana was to acquire an additional C295, in addition to other aircraft, including five Super Tucanos, Mi-17s and four Z-9s. A total of about $150 million was spent in acquiring all the three aircraft, one of which overshot the runway recently. Ghana's Ministry of Defence stated that the accident happened because the aircraft had not gone for its scheduled maintenance. Prosecution on Ghana The full dossier on Ghana is outlined in paragraphs 52-56 in a deferred prosecution agreement with Airbus. Count 5: Ghana 52. The fifth count alleges that contrary to section 7 of the Bribery Act 2010, between 1 July 2011 and 1 June 2015 Airbus SE failed to prevent persons associated with Airbus SE from bribing others concerned with the purchase of military transport aircraft by the Government of Ghana, where the said bribery was intended to obtain or retain business or advantage in the conduct of business for Airbus SE. 53. Between 2009 and 2015 an Airbus defence company engaged Intermediary 5, a close relative of a high ranking elected Ghanaian Government official (Government Official 1) as its BP in respect of the proposed sale of three military transport aircraft to the Government of Ghana. A number of Airbus employees knew that Intermediary 5 was a close relative of Government Official 1, who was a key decision-maker in respect of the proposed sales. A number of Airbus employees made or promised success-based commission payments of approximately 5 million to Intermediary 5. False documentation was created by or with the agreement of Airbus employees in order to support and disguise these payments. The payments were intended to induce or reward improper favour by Government Official 1 towards Airbus. Payments were eventually stopped due to the arrangement failing the due diligence processes required by the Liquidation Committee. 54. Airbus, through one of its Spanish defence subsidiaries, conducted two campaigns to sell its C-295 military transport aircraft to the Government of Ghana: the first campaign ran from 2009 to 2011, the second from 2013 to 2015. Intermediary 5, a UK national with no prior expertise in the aerospace industry, acted as the BP for Airbus in both. Company D was the corporate vehicle through which Intermediary 5 and his associates provided services to Airbus. His associates were Intermediaries 6 and 7, also UK nationals and there is no evidence they had any aerospace experience either. In August 2011, the purchase agreement for the sale of the two C-295 aircraft was signed by the Spanish defence subsidiary and the Government of Ghana, and it contained a declaration of compliance with the 1997 OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions, as well as a declaration that no more than 3,001,718.15 would be paid to BPs in connection with the contract (broadly, a 5 percent commission). 55. After Company D made a formal BP application to Airbus in May 2011, Airbus commissioned an external due diligence report. In September 2011 this report identified Intermediary 5 as a shareholder of Company D. The report raised the possibility that he was a close relative of Government Official 1 and concerns that there was a risk of non-compliance with the OECD Convention. The reaction of a number of Airbus employees, including senior employees, and those involved in compliance, in an email chain in October 2011, is set out at para 188 of the Statement of Facts. In short, it was that the business should be conducted through a new third party, a company, already audited and engaged in the same area. A Spanish company, already an Airbus BP (Intermediary 8) and which had no previous links or experience of working in Ghana for any Airbus entity, was duly selected. A number of Airbus employees (two of them senior, and one involved in compliance) thus agreed to deliberately circumvent the proper compliance process by falsely representing that the work in the First Campaign had been done by Intermediary 8, which could, in turn, make the money available to Intermediary 5 and others. Further, the sum paid to Intermediary 8, and then by Intermediary 8 to Intermediary 5 exceeded (in the latter case by about 850,000) the agreed commission amount set out in the declaration of compliance referred to above. 56. Similar false representations to those detailed above were made in February 2014 and then in May 2015, in respect of work allegedly done by Intermediary 8 in respect of a further proposed purchase by the Government of Ghana of a C295. In this case however, the Liquidation Committee requested further due diligence before any payments were made; an external due diligence report was completed in respect of Intermediary 8, and Intermediary 8 declined to participate in interviews by external counsel Airbus had engaged to conduct extended due diligence interviews. Intermediary 8 therefore failed due diligence; Airbus did not enter into a second written contract or make any further commission payments (disputing Intermediary 5s later claim that he was owed 1,675,000). Key actors in Airbus corruption scandal in Ghana 1. Government Official 1 (high ranking and elected) 2. Intermediary 5 (British national and close relative of Government Official 1) 3. Company D (corporate vehicle for Intermediary 5 - shareholder) 4. Intermediary 6 (British national and associate of Intermediary 5) 5. Intermediary 7 (British national and associate of Intermediary 5) 6. Intermediary 8 (Spanish company and front for Intermediary 5) Source: Peacefmonline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video India on Sunday reported a second case of novel coronavirus with another person from Kerala, who recently returned from China, testing positive for the infection. The condition of both patients was stated to be 'stable' and not serious, officials said. The second patient is also a student from Wuhan in China, the epicentre of the epidemic. The patient had returned to Kerala on January 24, the state government said. The country's first novel coronavirus case was reported from Thrissur in Kerala on Thursday with a woman medical student who returned from Wuhan testing positive for the infection. READ: First 1000-bed Coronavirus Hospital Is Close To Completion, Video Shows 'Chinese Speed' Confirming the second case, Kerala Health Minister K K Shailaja said the condition of the student, currently admitted to the isolation ward at the Alapuzha Medical College Hospital, was "stable". Earlier in the day, the minister said in Kollam that the state was awaiting the results of tests conducted on the patient from the National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune. "Now, we have got the test report of the patient. There is a positive case in Alapuzha," she told reporters here on Sunday evening after chairing a high-level meeting with senior health department officials. The first patient, a woman medical student, is in an isolation ward at the Thrissur medical college hospital. "We are trying to ensure that the virus does not spread. The two patients, who have tested positive for the virus, are stable. Their condition is not serious. But we are monitoring them closely," she said. Since the coronavirus outbreak in China, Kerala, which is thickly populated, has been on high alert as a large number of students from the state are studying in the University of Wuhan. The Kerala health minister said they had started the process to identify people who may have come in contact the two virus-infected patients. She said police were helping in the process. With the second case being reported from the state, people need to be more vigilant and follow all precautionary measures, Shailaja said. A meeting with officials of private hospitals in Thrissur was held and they have kept aside around 87 beds for isolation wards. A similar exercise was required to be undertaken here in view of the need to arrange maximum number of beds (to meet contingencies), she said. She said those who have returned from the virus-affected areas of China, besides Sri Lanka and Nepal, must inform the health department as they will have to be home quarantined for 28 days. "We would like to keep them under quarantine for double the duration of incubation period of the virus. We have followed the same protocol earlier during the Nipah, chikungunya and H1N1 outbreak". Those under observation at home should keep away from public functions and should not participate in any events during the incubation period. Till date, a total of 1,793 people, who travelled from coronavirus-affected countries, have been identified and placed under surveillance in the state. Of this, as many as 70 have been admitted to isolation facilities and others are under home isolation, a medical bulletin had said on Saturday. An audio recording purporting to be from the Islamist militant group Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) claimed responsibility on Sunday for a fatal shooting in December at a U.S. naval base in Pensacola, Florida, but provided no evidence. "We congratulate our Muslim nation and embrace the operation of the martyr hero, the daring knight Muhammad bin Saeed Al-Shamrani," said the audio, released by Al Qaedas Yemen branch. Three people were killed in the shooting. Reuters was unable to verify the authenticity of the recording. Search Keywords: Short link: This was Iowa caucus night back in the mid-1970s. And these are members of the national media covering the voting. It was so unusual to see national media in Iowa back then that people actually paid to watch them. The Democratic Party charged $15 a head for people to watch the media watch the people. See, in previous years, Iowas caucuses just hadnt attracted national attention. There are 3,000 frozen media members in downtown Des Moines Just over a decade later, Iowa is the place to be. Its Iowa caucus night. Lets party. [shouting] The caucuses are now a key part of the presidential election cycle. Bush, 57. Theyre the first chance to see what kind of support candidates have among voters. So how did we get here, from caucuses that only Iowans seem to care about to the national spectacle we see today? Turns out, a lot of it was accidental. For most of Iowas history, its caucuses were dominated by political insiders. There was little room for input from rank-and-file members. An historian writing in the 1940s put it like this: The larger number of party voters were deprived of a voice. But the old ways start coming to an end in 1968. The countrys in turmoil, and so is the Democratic Party, mostly over the Vietnam War and civil rights. Basically, the party establishment wants to handle things one way, and many rank-and-file members have other ideas. All this comes to a head as the Democrats hold their national convention. Protesters gather outside. So do police. Inside, the mood is also tense. All this division leads the Democratic Party to rethink the nomination rules to include the voices of all party members in the process. This is how we come to the moment when Iowa becomes key to electing a president, basically by accident. First up, how Iowa became first to hold a presidential contest. It starts with new rules to give everyday members more of a say. So by 1972, winning Iowa now involves four stages. Iowans choose their top candidates, first at the precinct level. These are the caucuses at the heart of this story. But technically, theres further voting at the county, congressional district and state levels. The new rules make things a lot more inclusive, but this creates new delays. Committees need to be formed, and everyone needs to have up-to-date party materials. The problem is, the state party only has an old mimeograph machine to make copies of all this. Its really slow. So because of an old machine and a bunch of new logistics, the party decides it needs at least a month between each step to do it all. The national convention is set for early July, so youd think that the state-level convention would happen about a month before, in June. Except, the party cant find a venue thats available to hold everyone. That little detail helps push everything earlier in a chain reaction. See whats going on here? The precinct caucuses now have to happen early in the year. The party chooses a date that makes Iowas the first presidential contest. The New Hampshire primary has been the first kickoff contest since the 1950s, but Iowa Democrats arent necessarily looking for national attention. They just think itll be fun to be first. Still, attention is what they get. The story begins with George McGovern. People didnt know much about the Iowa caucuses. As a matter of fact, there wasnt a great deal of interest in them. Hes the long-shot candidate. Hes been at the bottom of national polls. He often walked the campaign trail alone, little known by the voters. Most people think this guy, Edmund Muskie, is going to be the big winner in Iowa. That challenge is great, but we can meet it. Then comes caucus night. As the people vote, state party officials gather at their headquarters. Richard Bender is one of them. And we had about 10 or 12 press people show up. These press people included one guy, Johnny Apple. Johnny Apple, a 37-year-old political correspondent for The New York Times. Iowas Democrats arent ready to publicize the results right away. They hadnt expected much demand. According to Bender, only Johnny Apple asked for them that night. I happen to be fascinated with such things, so I made it my business, beforehand, to understand it. Bender sets up a phone tree to gather results from across the state. He adds them up himself with a calculator. And the next day, Apples article helps swing the national spotlight onto the caucuses. Hes got quite the story to tell. Muskies won, but just barely. Not the runaway win people were expecting. And McGovern comes in a strong second. No one expected that, either. The reformed caucus rules helped a long-shot candidate rise to the top. And because this is happening so early in the election now, and because Apples article gives the results national coverage, something else happens. That got picked up by some of the national news shows. The Democratic front-runner has been damaged in Iowa. And wow, all of a sudden, we were being paid attention to. McGovern eventually wins the Democratic nomination. I accept your nomination with a full and grateful heart. He loses the presidential election, but some havent forgotten what those early caucuses did for McGovern, including Georgias former governor, Jimmy Carter. Three years later There was a major headline on the editorial page of the Atlanta Constitution that said, Jimmy Carters running for what? [laughter] And the What was about this big. [applause] Im running for president. Carter heads to Iowa before any other Democratic candidate. Hes got no national profile. He didnt have hordes of press following him around. It was a very lonely campaign. Washington pundits call his candidacy laughable. I remember when we couldnt find a microphone. Jimmy Who? becomes a catchphrase. Carters own campaign film plays it up. Jimmy who? I dont know who he is. But as long as Iowans come to know him and like him, Carter bets that the media will start paying attention, just like with McGovern four years earlier. Carter campaigns as locally as possible. One day, he learns that hes been invited on a local TV show. And I said, that is great. I cant believe it. I said, What are we going to do? He said, Do you have any favorite recipes? And I said, What do you mean, recipes? He said, Well, this is a cooking show. Well, they put a white apron on me and a chefs hat. That was my only access to TV when I first began to campaign in Iowa. His opponents are in Iowa, too, but they spend far less time there. Carter wins. Surprisingly top of the class after his win in a somewhat obscure race in Iowa against the others. You cant tell until we go to the other 49 states, but its encouraging for us. A year later I, Jimmy Carter, do solemnly swear he becomes the 39th president. Now we need to head to 1980 because we havent talked about the Republicans yet. Heres the states Republican chairman that year. Hes asked why Iowas caucuses have become so important. I think because Jimmy Carter got his start in Iowa in 1976. The Republicans in Iowa are keen to copy the Democrats success, and one candidate in particular gets inspired by Carters underdog win: George H.W. Bush. Hes running against Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole and others, and hes near the bottom of the pack. Your name isnt really a household word, but Ronald Reagan can But Bush goes big in Iowa. He gets a surprise win. Its a far cry from just months before. I was an asterisk in those days. And my feelings got hurt. And now, Im no longer an asterisk. Bush is now the third underdog to get a boost from the caucuses. The next morning on CBS, he distills the essence of this new Iowa effect. We will have forward, Big Mo on our side, as they say in athletics. Big Mo? Yeah. Mo momentum. Bush loses to Reagan, but becomes vice president. And the desire to capture the Big Mo from Iowa has only grown, thanks in large part to Iowas embrace of being first, and the media storm that descends every four years. Thats despite the fact that most candidates who win This is a job interview. dont become president. Plus, many point out that the states overwhelmingly white population doesnt reflect the countrys diversity. I actually think that we can find places that represent that balance of urban and rural better. But the race to get the Big Mo out of Iowa persists because its the first chance to upend expectations, and put political fates in the voters hands. We are experiencing a political onslaught fueled by corporate greed that is endangering the health and safety of present and future generations of Americans. Just a few weeks ago, as reported by the Associated Press, the White House unveiled a plan to greatly reduce environmental oversight on a wide array of commercial projects. This proposal, which now requires a 60-day period for public input, will limit the review impacts of the National Environmental Policy Act, signed by Republican President Richard Nixon in 1970. The existing legislation, in place for nearly 50 years, requires federal agencies to consider whether a project would harm the air, land, water or wildlife. It also gave the public, including people living in neighborhoods/areas around a proposed dam, pipeline or other big project, the right of review and input. Congress said at the time that the nation was moving to fulfill the responsibilities of each generation as trustee of the environment for succeeding generations. So much for Congressional promises! And it gets much worse. Since the election of 2016, with little publicity, the federal government has been rejecting the worldwide scientific consensus re climate change and has also been restricting and prohibiting scientific research as well as the publication/use of scientific information. An expose by The New York Times offered this summary: Political appointees have shut down government studies, reduced the influence of scientists over regulatory decisions and in some cases pressured researchers not to speak publicly. The administration has particularly challenged scientific findings related to the environment and public health which had been opposed by industries such as oil drilling and coal mining. It has also impeded research around human-caused climate change, which the president has dismissed despite a global scientific consensus. The disregard for scientific expertise by the federal government is worse than its ever been, summarized Michael Gerrard, director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University, which has tracked more than 200 government efforts that have ignored or distorted scientific findings in the past two years. Since 2016, many top government positions, including those at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of the Interior (DOI), have been headed up by former lobbyists connected to the industries that those federal agencies are supposed to regulate. Scott Pruitt was appointed as EPA director three years ago, ironically after building a long career while attacking the EPA. He has since resigned under a cloud of ethics violations, but not before he had rolled back numerous regulations involving environmental protections for Americas citizenry. His replacement, Andrew Wheeler, the latest EPA director, is a former coal lobbyist closely aligned with climate change deniers, who has been prioritizing more deregulation of EPA rules that govern environmental safety. The Department of the Interior, which is charged with the management and conservation of federal lands, has been plagued with scandals. Former director Ryan Zinke, the initial Trump appointee, has now departed after a series of federal investigations. His replacement, David Bernhardt, is a former lobbyist for oil, gas, agri-business and mining interests. Are the interests of corporate greed now being served by Department of the Interior? There is a growing list of disturbing examples of these government actions which misrepresent/refute scientific reality. This current federal government movement, influenced by corporate money interests, is a dangerous and irresponsible pathway. Continuing to reduce and/or curtail environmental protection will have serious consequences and will impact the health and safety of our nations citizens now and into the future. 12 members of a child trafficking syndicate which specialized in stealing little children from their homes and selling them to waiting buyers have been arrested and six children recovered. Members of the syndicate include a couple, Ifeoma Ebony and Emmanuel Onyekwere, who goes around the country stealing the children and sell to middle-men, who then sell to people in dire need of children. It was learned that Ebony, a mother of two, and her boyfriend Onyekere, abducted several children from their homes in Abia, Enugu, Abuja, and Edo state, which they sold to their buyers identified as Blessing Nwankwo, Chioma Nike and one Onwa, whose real name were yet unknown. They sold the children for prizes ranging from N250,000 and N450,000 each depending on the gender and Physical Condition Of the Child. Other suspects arrested are Onyinye Benjami, Ngozi Okoli, Nwokocha Okoli, Ndiya Kalu and Esther Ihiediwa. READ ALSO Jailed Billionaire Accused Of Child Trafficking Commits Suicide In Prison Ebony, 32, from Enugu State, blamed her involvement in child abduction and trafficking on her inability to get a proper education because her father married two wives and couldnt send her to school. On his part, Emmanuel Oyekwere, 32, from Abia State, said his quest to build a house for his mother got him into the business. What we know and don't about Long Islands suspected serial killer case originally appeared on abcnews.go.com PHOTO: ABC News In-depth Feature (ABC News Photo Illustration) It has been nearly 10 years since police were searching for a missing sex worker, Shannan Gilbert, and made the grisly discovery of 10 other bodies on a stretch of beach on the south shore of Long Island -- a chilling revelation that shook the greater New York area and made national headlines. To this day, mystery shrouds the cases. The killer (or killers, by some accounts) has not yet been caught and five of the victims have not been identified. The way in which the victims who were identified, most of whom police say were sex workers, were killed is still not clear, but a Suffolk County police spokesperson told ABC News investigators are working under the assumption that a serial killer is to blame in some, if not all, of the killings. And while police do not believe Gilbert's death is connected to the other murders, questions remain about how she died. A lawyer for her family, in fact, believes that she may also be a victim of the possible serial killer, based on an independent autopsy that could not rule out strangulation. "Unquestionably, I believe it's a homicide," Gilbert's family lawyer, John Ray, told ABC News. Suffolk County police recently released new evidence in the investigation of the deaths, which are being treated as one case, and announced the launch of a website dedicated to providing updates and collecting tips, in hopes of coming closer to solving the murders. Yet even with the newly-released piece of evidence -- a photograph of a belt that was collected at the initial stage of the investigation but was withheld from the public -- many questions remain unanswered. Here's what is known, and unknown, about the murders. MORE: Police reveal 'significant' evidence in unsolved Gilgo Beach serial killer case Bodies are found On Dec. 11, 2010, authorities were searching in a weedy area off Ocean Parkway, which runs through a remote stretch of beach on a barrier island between Jones Beach and Robert Moses State Park, for Shannan Gilbert, a 24-year-old sex worker from New Jersey who had been missing since May of that year. Police did not find Gilbert during that search but found the remains of a woman later identified as 24-year-old Melissa Barthelemy. Story continues Two days later, during another search in the same area, authorities found the bodies of three more victims: Amber Lynn Costello, 27, Megan Waterman, 22, and Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25. Three months after that, in March 2011, the remains of 20-year-old Jessica Taylor were also located near Gilgo Beach. Other parts of Taylors body had been found nearly eight years before in Manorville, New York (about an hour further east). PHOTO: An aerial view of police cars near where a body was discovered in the area near Gilgo Beach and Ocean Parkway on Long Island, April 15, 2011, in Wantagh, New York. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images, FILE) All the women who were identified worked as prostitutes, police have previously said. Three more bodies -- an unidentified woman, a 2-year-old girl and an unidentified Asian male believed to be between 17 and 23 -- were found April 4, 2011. A week later, the last two of the 10 victims were found in neighboring Nassau County, including the toddler's mom. All of the remains were discovered in the search for Gilbert and in relatively close proximity to each other along Ocean Parkway. Some were found as close as .5 miles of one another. Gilbert's remains were finally found in December 2011 in nearby Oak Beach, which is also along Ocean Parkway. Police do not believe her death is tied to the others because she "doesn't match the pattern of the Gilgo Beach homicides," but have also said that her death is part of the active investigation into the Gilgo Beach murders, Suffolk County Police Commissioner Geraldine Hart said at the Jan. 16 press conference announcing the newly-released evidence. Gilbert's family lawyer believes that she is a victim of the possible serial killer. Attorney John Ray has long been fighting to determine exactly what happened to Gilbert and believes police are hiding information regarding her death. Police have not said exactly how the Gilgo Beach victims died. The circumstances surrounding Gilbert's death also remain unclear. The late Suffolk County Police Commissioner Richard Dormer initially suggested that her death was an accidental drowning. However, former Chief Medical Examiner of New York City Dr. Michael Baden who conducted an autopsy for the family in 2016, did not rule on her cause of death, but indicated that she may have died by strangulation, according to reports at the time. The assertion was made because of the condition of the hyoid bone in her neck, which is commonly found broken in strangulation cases, Baden said, according to those reports. "There is no evidence whatsoever that Shannan Gilbert died a natural death," Ray said in 2016. Gilbert disappeared after making a 911 call to authorities at the home of a new sex client and screamed, "they are trying to kill me," according to Ray, who says he was briefed on the call by police sources and Baden. Police have said that Gilbert began "acting irrational" during her encounter with the new sex client, who contacted a driver to have Gilbert leave his home. Gilbert refused repeated attempts to leave the location with her driver and instead fled on foot, knocking on several doors in the community before disappearing, according to police. Ray told ABC News police have refused to release the tape, citing an active criminal investigation into Gilbert's death. Yet he also said the notion that there is a criminal investigation into Gilbert's death goes against what authorities had originally said: she died due to an accident. Serial killer in our midst? There is little to nothing known about whoever may have committed the murders. There have also been discrepancies over how many suspects may be involved. In December 2011, Dormer, who died in April 2019, and then-Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota engaged in a heated debate over the number at a legislative session, according to Newsday. Dormer continued to say he believed there was only one killer involved, while Spota, who was convicted late last year in a police-beating cover-up, "openly criticized him," Newsday reported, and stood by his theory that at least three were involved. Adding to the confusion was Dormer's attempt to assure the public in 2011. "I don't want people to think that we have a Jack the Ripper running around Suffolk County with blood dripping from a knife," Dormer said a the time. "This is an anomaly." In the Jan. 16 press conference, Hart skirted around the issue, saying "It's important as a team we keep our mind open to all avenues and don't marry ourselves to one theory of the investigation. We go where the facts lead us. We do not speculate." But in presenting the new piece of evidence, she did refer to only one suspect" who handled it. Brad Garrett, an ABC News contributor and former FBI agent who has worked on dozens of cold cases and has been following this case for years, said that based on details of the killings, he believes whoever committed these crimes has a connection to Gilgo Beach. "He knew that Gilgo Beach was there. He knew it was remote. Did he grow up there? Does he live there?" Garrett said. Garrett also believes there is a single killer and that person is a male because of calls reportedly made to at least one of the victim's families by the suspect. PHOTO: Pictures of women, whose bodies were identified among 10 bodies found near Gilgo Beach since December 2010, are seen in this Suffolk County Police handout image released to Reuters on September 20, 2011. (Courtesy of Suffolk County Police via Reuters, FILE) The killer is said to have used Barthelemy's cellphone to call her sister and make derogatory statements about Barthelemy, according to reports at the time. The person who made the call had a male voice. Yet even with the characteristics Garrett laid out, he said "it doesn't really help you get any closer to him." Other law enforcement officials familiar with the case have in the past speculated that the possible serial killer may have been an ex-cop or other law enforcement officer, according to a 2011 ABC News story. The officials said it was a possibility because the suspect may have understood investigators' procedures and known how to hinder authorities' efforts. New evidence The new evidence, presented by Suffolk police in January, was a photo of a black leather belt embossed with the letters "WH" or "HM," depending on how it's held. The belt had been collected at an initial stage of the investigation, though Hart would not say exactly where it was found. Hart said at the press conference she believed the suspect in the murders "handled" the belt, but would not elaborate. PHOTO: The locations where eight of 10 bodies were found near Gilgo Beach since December 2010 are seen in this Suffolk County Police handout image released to Reuters, Sept. 20, 2011. (Courtesy of Suffolk County Police via Reuters, FILE) When asked why she was releasing the image now after having had it for all these years, Hart appeared to dodged the question, speaking about technology and saying "Now is the time to release this information," without providing details. A new website has also been created, gilgonews.com, to give the public an outlet to easily leave tips. "There has been a tremendous amount of effort put into solving this case and I can tell you that everyone involved is motivated by one goal: to deliver justice to these victims and to give them some sense of peace and some sense of closure," she said at the press conference, which was held at Suffolk Police Headquarters in Yaphank, New York. In the time since the new evidence was presented, authorities have not released any new information on the case. Omicron like viral fever, no need to panic: Yogi Adityanath UP Election 2022 Opinion Poll: BJP, SP eating into BSP's votes, Yogi projected to become CM again UP Election 2022: From which seat should Yogi Adityanath contest? Here's what voters say UP assembly polls will be about '80 per cent vs 20 per cent'; BJP will win: Yogi Adityanath UP Election 2022: BJP panel meet today to decide candidates for first phase Delhi polls: AAP demands campaign ban on Adityanath over Shaheen Bagh remark India oi-PTI New Delhi, Feb 02: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Sunday demanded the Election Commission (EC) to ban Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath from campaigning in the Delhi over his alleged provocative speeches about the Shaheen Bagh protest. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Saturday alleged that those who support terrorists in Kashmir are staging protest at Shaheen Bagh and raising slogans of 'azadi'. Shaheen Bagh protest sponsored by AAP: BJP delegation to EC AAP leader Sanjay Singh also demanded an FIR against him for his remarks. Sanjay Singh told a press conference here that it has been 48 hours since the AAP asked the Election Commission time to meet them but it has not been granted. "If the EC does not give us time, we will stage a sit-in in front of the ECI office on Monday," Singh said. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Sunday, February 2, 2020, 16:09 [IST] Gene J. Puskar/AP DES MOINES, IowaOn Friday morning, Cyndi Conards home at the end of a snowy road was alive with pre-caucus energy. As Conard, a precinct captain in Sen. Elizabeth Warrens presidential campaign, removed quiche from her oven, Warren staff instructed volunteers how to persuade undecided voters to join their team, handing out door hangers, clipboards and hand warmers, the hum of human activity interrupted only by the squawk of Conards cockatoo Derby Doo. They were preparing for the arrival of Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), one of Warrens several designated torchbearers there to help the campaign as the impeachment trial continued to keep the candidate in D.C. But Conard was nervous. Theyve done a good job, I will have to say, getting out there, she said of Warrens team. I think his group has too. So its kind of hard to know whats gonna happen. The his she was referring to is Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and in the dwindling days before the Iowa caucuses, the energy among his supporters has propelled him to frontrunner status. An hour west of Conards home, packed tight in the basement of a split-level home, two dozen Sanders supporters who gathered to canvass for the Vermont senator werein the words of one volunteer, as he piled into his car to canvass the town of Greenfield, Iowaeffing pumped. The Never Berners Race to Make Up for Lost Time Sanders may have lost both the Iowa caucuses and the Democratic nomination in 2016, but after four years rekindling the passion that he inspired, years filled with political organizing, proselytizing the need for a bottom-up revolution and advancing his progressive policy platform into the Democratic mainstream, Sanders supporters were ready. Plus, one canvasser told The Daily Beast, Trumps election, traumatic though it was, had lifted the veil of impossibility for an avowed socialist to win the White House. There already has been a revolution in this country in the last 40 yearsit has been a revolution of the top against the bottom, said Paul Rubin, a resident of San Francisco who, at age 71, had come to Iowa to volunteer for the one presidential candidate he has ever volunteered for in his life: Sanders. Story continues Sanders, Rubin said, is leading a movementthats become a phrase, its getting worn out, but its very true. It's not about him, its about everybody here. It's about people who have been divided and broken up into smaller and smaller more powerless and more powerless groups coming together and saying, We deserve better. As the canvassers awaited the arrival of Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), a Sanders endorser and the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, they went around the room, sharing slices of breakfast pizza and the reasons why theyd come to this small town in the dead of winter to boost Sanders chances in Mondays caucuses. Theres people in rural West Virginia and theres people in the inner city who both dont have a fair shot, and neither party, the Republican or the Democratic establishment, want those people to be on the same side, said Chris, who had travelled from Oakland, California, to volunteer for Sanders campaign but who had declined to give his last name. And until those people come together and say, Hey, were all getting screwed here, we all dont have a fair shot to make it, until those people come together and really fight together, nothings going to change. And thats what Bernies trying to do. Dems Bank on Star Surrogates in Last Iowa Days Jonathan, a young man from New York who also declined to provide his last name, called Sanders campaign a nearly spiritual thing for me. I came in 2016 during a bit of a period of a rut, Jonathan said. Id just graduated from a college that is like, notorious for like breaking the backs of people [with student debt], and a lot of my friends had to drop out. To a person, prospective canvassers at events in Greenfield and Des Moines told The Daily Beast that Sanders was the first person to bring them into the political fold, and though they stressed that the movement hes inspired isnt about him, they believe he is the best person to lead it. Its not that Warren supporters lack that passion for their candidate. In Ames, Iowa, Jamie Otto, a student organizer for Warren at Iowa State University, told a group of about 100 people how her family lost everything when she was an 8-year-old in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, which had left her homeless for a time. After learning about the Consumer Protection Bureau years later, she became a devout supporter of Warren, who was the driving force and intellectual godmother behind the agency.. I'm 19 now, she said. I'm a senior at Iowa State University and Elizabeth still gives me the strength to keep fighting education and go to law school, so that I can get into the fight to make sure that no corrupt banker can ever get away with their crimes again, so that kids like me don't have to worry about being in debt for the rest of their lives. Among those listening to Otto was Dolores Day, 68, a retired teacher from Ames. She makes me the address my fears and gives me confidence, she said of Warren. I think she can do it. Bailey Warren, Elizabeth Warren's golden retriever, led by her husband Bruce Mann and son Alex, arrive for a meet-and-greet at the Waterloo Field Office in Waterloo, Iowa. Jim Watson/Getty Dennis Dake, 77, a retired Iowa State University professor who spent all day Friday making calls for Warren, was hoping for the best. Having followed Warrens career since she appeared on Bill Mahers show in the wake of the 2008 crash, he was thrilled when she decided to run. I'm most confident as I can be, he said. One thing that feels to me is that she's so positive. She doesn't run down other candidates. She was truly hurt after that last debate when Bernie essentially called her a liar. I thought she was right that the media made it into a big, big argument between them. That apprehension was nowhere to be found at an event back in Deerfield, where canvassers commonly framed Sanders election in terms of life or death, which helps explain the dedicationand, to some, fanaticismto the Senator and his revolution. I get off the highways, go to the small towns, and theyre shuttered. They are, excuse me, effing shut down, said Rubin. Theres one diner and one fast food joint, but empty Main Streets. Empty Main Streets. Towns are killed. Rubin, sporting the gold Sanders-silhouette lapel pin, told The Daily Beast that the United States has already undergone a political revolutionjust one of the top against the bottom. There has been a terrible revolution and people in the bubbles, people in the big cities who are doing OK, dont get it because they dont see it, Rubin said. Even Iowans Are Worried About Pete Buttigiegs Lack of Black Support Sanders supporters frequently express frustration with other candidatesamong them, former Vice President Joe Biden and former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigiegwho have remarked that the end of the Trump presidency will return Americans to some semblance of normalcy. For them, as Jayapal said in her remarks, Trump is both a symptom and a cause of an economic, political, governmental system in crisis. Santos, whose mother is an immigrant with no savings and whose sister is in medical debt, told The Daily Beast that the sacrifices theyve made make them feel robbed of the life they would have been afforded if, for example, their mother had access to Social Security, or their sisters medical costs were covered under a government program. The fight ages you, Santos said. Im a 21-year-old whos thinking about retirement and not even retirement for myselfretirement for my mom who, odds are, Im gonna have to provide for. Im a micro version of a wave that is coming. That esprit de corps will be critical to getting Sanders over the finish line in Iowanot that his supporters think that his revolution will have been won in a single election. We all know that the fight doesnt end hereits going to be a long journey, said Parvati Santos of Miami, who arrived at the Greenfield event sporting a Warhol-style Bernie scarf that they got on Etsy. All of his policies will take at least years, at least, to be fully implemented. So we all recognize that this is literally just the beginning. Its only going to get harder from here, but were all here for our families, were all here for our future. This is the honestly fight of our lives, at least I know it is for me. Read more at The Daily Beast. Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now! Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more. The Glass-Glen Burnie Foundation plans to sell 20 acres where 70 single-family homes are planned. (Duncan Slade for The Washington Post) Some Winchester residents say the project violates the wishes of the late Julian Wood Glass Jr. and the mission of the foundation created with his wealth. By Express News Service THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Two days after the first case of Coronavirus infection in India was confirmed in Kerala, the state reported its second positive case. As per a statement from the Union Health Ministry, the second positive case has a travel history to China. However even as the Union Health Ministry issued a statement regarding the second confirmed case of novel coronavirus (nCoV) in Kerala, the state health minister KK Shailaja said that it is 'only an assumption as per the preliminary report' and that the state will officially confirm the same only after receiving the detailed test result from National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune. "The state could only confirm the case after receiving the test result from NIV Pune. The institute also informed us about a possible confirmed case. I had talked to Union health secretary Preeti Sudan for making the test result available in a fastpaced manner," said Shailaja. ALSO READ: Air India's second flight from Coronavirus-hit Wuhan lands in Delhi with 323 onboard ALSO READ: Novel coronavirus - Kerala issues revised guidelines In a press meet convened at Kollam, state health minister KK Shailaja said that the second positive case is reportedly from Alappuzha. The patient is said to be a medical student who had returned to Kerala from Wuhan and has been admitted to the isolation ward of Alappuzha Government Medical College. The patient's condition is said to be stable. She added that to oversee the preparedness of surveillance and preventive aspects at the Medical College Hospital in Alappuzha, National Health Mission state director Ratan Kelkar has been asked to convene a high-level meeting at Alappuzha. Further, the minister stressed that though there was no reason to panic, and that people should remain vigilant and cautious as nCov, has spread to 23 countries and claimed over 300 lives. A high-level meeting to address the crisis was chaired by health principal secretary Rajan Khobragade at Thiruvananthapuram on Sunday. Earlier, the first confirmed case of nCoV was reported from Thrissur and per the daily bulletin of the department, the health status of the patient remains satisfactory. Kerala has put 1,793 people who had arrived from corona affected countries under surveillance, of which 1,723 are under home isolation and 70 are admitted in selected isolation facilities. Meanwhile, the Centre had on Saturday said that it had decided to screen all passengers from Thailand and Singapore at airports in addition to travelers coming from China and Hongkong in the wake of rising number of nCov cases. Till February, over 52,000 passengers from 326 flights had been screened at airports in India. So far, nearly 105 samples have been tested for the virus in India and two have tested positive, officials said. After jumping the woman and child fell through a plastic sheet. Photograph by Declan Roughan A woman will require surgery after jumping from a first floor window with a three-year-old boy to escape a racist attack. The incident took place at a property in Saint Patrick's Terrace in Omagh on Saturday night. Police are treating it as a hate crime. A 50-year-old man arrested in connection with the incident has been charged with a total of eight offences including making threats to kill, grievous bodily harm with intent, possession of an offensive weapon, criminal damage and harassment. He is due to appear before Enniskillen Magistrates Court on Monday February 3. As is usual procedure the charges will be reviewed to the PPS. At around 10.25pm police received a report that a man armed with a bat had attacked the house, shouted racial slurs and attempted to force his way past a 34-year-old man who lives in the property. The 22-year-old woman and the three-year-old boy were so "in fear" as a result of the attack that they jumped from a first floor window to try and get away. After jumping they fell through a plastic sheet and as a result the woman sustained pelvic injuries that will require surgery. The child was not harmed. The woman is from Ukraine, while her partner is from Pakistan. The Ambulance Service attended the scene and transported the woman to Altnagelvin Hospital where she is receiving treatment for her injuries. "We received a call at 10.40pm of an incident in the St Patrick's Terrace area involving a woman and sent one crew to the scene," a spokesman said. Sinn Fein MLA Catherine Kelly condemned the racist attack. "The community is shocked after a woman and child had to jump from an upstairs window during a suspected racist attack," she said. My first thoughts are with the victims of this attack and I hope that the woman makes a full recovery. There is no place for any form of racism or discrimination in our society and I would urge anyone with information to bring it forward to the police. Detective Sergeant Robinson has appealed for witnesses. "Hate crime has no place in society and should be rejected and reviled by everyone. If you can help our investigation, please get in touch by calling 101, quoting reference 1876 01/02/20, he said. We have nothing. We dont have that kind of money they are asking for. Those were the words of one of the nephews of couple Narine Maraj, 62, and Mattie Maraj, 52, who were kidnapped on Saturday evening after leaving their Madras, St Helena, home to tend to their animals at a family-owned farm in Piarco. The Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture's Central Administration for Combating Agricultural Pesticides said on Sunday that it is intensifying efforts to curb the advance of locust swarms through the southern Luxor and Aswan governorates. Swarms of locusts coming from Sudan appeared on Friday night in the southern border region, prompting the governor of Aswan to deploy pest control teams in Abu Simbel city and in areas east of Lake Nasser. The governor has ordered all administrative facilities in Aswan to offer the necessary logistical assistance to the pest control teams. "The Ministry of Agriculture is taking all necessary measures to control the locusts' advance into Egypt through 54 bases and central operation rooms," said Mohamed El-Qersh, spokesman of the Ministry of Agriculture. Ahmed Ismail, director of Locust Control in Aswan, said that control teams have been deployed in Abu Simbel to inspect all crop plantations and determine the locations of the swarms. Ismail attributed the appearance of the locust swarms to the start of their breeding season in the summer, from May to September. The worst locust infestation in Egypt's modern history was in 1954, which resulted in the loss of nearly 250,000 tonnes of wheat. Egypt witnessed other locust swarms coming from the Arabian Peninsula between 2007 and 2011, but they did not cause significant damage. Search Keywords: Short link: Fine Gael and Fianna Fail are this weekend preparing a ground war to halt the onward march of Sinn Fein. With less than a week to polling day, Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin has told Independent.ie that he would not rule out entering into a confidence and supply arrangement with Fine Gael if Leo Varadkar's party was in opposition as the smaller of the two parties. It comes as a Red C poll published in today's Business Post recorded a surge in support for Sinn Fein heading into the final week of campaigning - with the party level with Fianna Fail, having overtaken Fine Gael for the first time. Fianna Fail is on 24pc (down 2 points) as is Sinn Fein (+5), with Fine Gael on 21pc (-2). Among the other parties, Labour is on 5pc (+1), the Greens are on 7pc (-1), and Independents on 12pc (-2). Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has reacted to the opinion by saying it will be "quite difficult to form a government over the next couple of months". He said the election will be "very tight" and despite slipping into third place he believes it is "all to play for". Mr Varadkar was asked on the BBCs Andrew Marr programme this morning what it would mean if the British government had to work with a Sinn Fein minister during the next stage of the Brexit process. He said he hoped voters would consider the need for a stable government next week, reiterating that Fine Gael will not do business with Mary Lou McDonald under any circumstances. The Taoiseach said Sinn Feins policy would be "enormously damaging for the Irish economy, for peoples jobs and incomes and livelihoods and businesses." "So thats definitely not going to happen." Speaking about Brexit, Mr Varadkar called on the UK government not to "repeat some of the errors that were made in the past two and a half years". "Lets tone down the nationalist rhetoric," he said in response to reports in the British press that Prime Minister Boris Johnson is to take an extremely hard-line in the trade negotiations. As Fianna Fail and Fine Gael continued to clash on tax promises and each insisted there would be no role for Sinn Fein in the next cabinet, Mr Martin said he was confident he would be able to form the next government without Fine Gael's input. But when asked about the possibility of a confidence and supply arrangement underpinned by Fine Gael, he said: "I haven't ruled that out." So great is the concern at the rise in Sinn Fein support that pressure will grow in Fianna Fail to consider asking traditional Fine Gael voters to 'lend' them their support to keep Mary Lou McDonald's party out of office - a reversal of the move made by Fine Gael's Phil Hogan before the 2011 general election. Former Fine Gael leader Alan Dukes said an alliance between the two largest parties, including a possible grand coalition, could be the "only viable option" after the election if they continue to rule out Sinn Fein, whose support Fine Gael and Fianna Fail are privately acknowledging is rising across the country. "You could conceive of a situation where that would be the only viable option but whether it would apply or not I don't know," Mr Dukes said. "I think it's conceivable." Mr Martin has emphatically ruled out any engagement with Sinn Fein over forming a government after the February 8 General Election as he warned there is a deep anger amongst his party's voters with Sinn Fein and their lack of contrition over what happened during the Troubles. Mr Martin, speaking as he canvassed in Cork today, also predicted that his party will secure significantly higher than the 24pc indicated by the latest opinion polls and are in contention to elect second TDs in constituencies stretching from Dublin to Limerick and Cork. The Fianna Fail leader bluntly dismissed attacks from Taoiseach Leo Varadkar that a FF-SF government alliance was now in the offing. "I know what he (Mr Varadkar) is at - he is trying to frighten people away from Fianna Fail. I would simply say that I have been very clear - judge me by my actions," he said. "The same thing was said about me and Fianna Fail in 2016 but, in the aftermath of the election, I did not engage with Sinn Fein. I engaged with independents but we did not have enough seats to form a Government. That is life - but I did not engage with Sinn Fein. "He (Mr Varadkar) is underestimating the depth of anger in Fianna Fail both in terms of not just the parliamentary party and the membership but the voters of Fianna Fail - they have made it crystal clear to me they do not want Fianna Fail to go into Government with Sinn Fein. "That is it - a lot of people over a certain age remember what happened (in the Troubles). They are really annoyed by the lack of contrition, the lack of acknowledgement that what they did was wrong. Sinn Fein are still trying to shove it down people's throats that what they did was right. That it was a just war. "That angers people - the families of Gardai, families in the military who lost people because of this terrible thing which divided communities." Mr Martin said Sinn Fein's economic policies also rule them out as someone Fianna Fail could work with. "Also because of the economic policies of Sinn Fein - they are talking about 4 billion in taxes? Irish businesses will be choked out of existence because the big hike in employers PRSI? Big hike in taxes on any profits they make? Why would you set up at all in business? Why would you set up a company and employ 15 or more people only to see, at the end of your life's work, to see it taxed out of existence? "Our economy is an enterprise economy - we export the bulk of what we make. But Sinn Fein oppose free trade agreements. There is a sense that Sinn Fein just don't get the enterprise agenda. "Sean Lemass opened up this economy in the 1960s and that is my philosophy. He got us to join the European Union - it was all about opening up Ireland, to stop us being only inward-looking. "Sinn Fein don't get that - he (Mr Varadkar) is scaremongering on that." Mr Martin stressed that there is a diversity of opinion within all political parties. "No party is a monolith - there are lots of people with different views in all parties. We are not Russia but we are not like Sinn Fein either who tend to have a from-the-top-down (policy) and everyone does as they are told. "I think it is healthy that in a parliamentary party you have lots of people with different views. But be in no doubt - people have supported me in my message on Sinn Fein and that is how it is going to pan out." The Cork TD said he is convinced the recent polls are underestimating the surge in national support for Fianna Fail. "My first interview after the election was launched was on Sunday when we had another opinion poll which had us way ahead - I said then we didn't accept that poll. I said there would be many polls up to February 8 which would vary. "As far as we are concerned, we are doing well, we are very competitive in constituencies and far more competitive in our ground campaign that we were in 2016." "Just to give you an example - take Cork North Central. Tony Fitzgerald, Padraig O'Sullivan and Sandra (Murphy). We are running three candidates but we only ran one the last time. "We have two strong candidates in Cork South West, two in Limerick West, in Dublin South West we have three - this is a much stronger Fianna Fail team on the ground. "We will poll higher than that (24pc) in the election - of that we are confident. But it (the poll) is just one snapshot. "I am not fazed by the polls because we were here before. In 2016 one poll had us on 19pc a couple of days before the election and we ended up on 25pc. We are holding our nerve on that." Mr Martin said the polls do reflect the hunger of Irish voters for change - and what he termed the "relentlessly negative and arrogant" approach of Fine Gael. "The one disappointing aspect of this campaign - people want us to talk about the solutions to problems in housing, healthcare and the economy. Fine Gael have been relentlessly negative in their campaigning - it is attacking Fianna Fail, it is attacking everybody else. "They have this superiority complex that they are the only ones who can be in Government and nobody else - I think that is wrong. I think they have stopped resonating with people - I think they are insulting people. People want change - and the battle is on for who captures that vote for change. We think we have a sensible, do-able, achievable alternative with other like-minded parties and that is where we are." Two senior Fine Gael cabinet ministers told Independent.ie they would be open to the idea of a confidence and supply or grand coalition arrangement. But the Fianna Fail leader has firmly ruled out a grand coalition and the party's deputy leader Dara Calleary yesterday also said: "There's no logic to that outcome. People want Fine Gael out of office. We would be ignoring that need for change." Mr Martin also said he did not see a repeat of the confidence and supply deal that saw Fianna Fail facilitate the minority Fine Gael government "arising". But he said other parties "have to play their part after the next election". Read More As well as not ruling out a confidence and supply deal, when asked how he felt about a rotating Taoiseach, the Fianna Fail leader said: "I don't think it is a sustainable option at this stage." Meanwhile, both parties clashed on tax policy yesterday as Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe suggested that Fianna Fail's manifesto proposal could threaten Ireland's 12.5pc corporation tax rate. Fianna Fail finance spokesman Michael McGrath dismissed it as "scaremongering". In his interview with Independent.ie, Mr Martin also launched his most strident attack on Fine Gael to date, saying: "They come from a more privileged background and they never really had that feel for working-class people." Mr Martin said his own working-class background and opportunities through free education "sums up Fianna Fail". "The working-class person who wants to aspire and get on in life. To create opportunities - no matter what your background. I don't think Fine Gael come from that milieu," he said. He added Fine Gael has a "huge sense of entitlement", a sense of "privilege" and believe "they have a divine right to rule". "It is more instinctively a party who always looks after the wealthier classes and always has since its very foundation. It has a sense of privilege." Meanwhile, a senior Sinn Fein source said the party would be open to talks with all parties after the election but signalled the party's preference to work with Fianna Fail. "People want change," the source said. "They want Fine Gael out, it's nine years they're there and do they want Fianna Fail in there on their own?" On the campaign trail yesterday, Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald dismissed as "stupid, silly and childish" the row between Fine Gael and Fianna Fail over which of them would ultimately do a deal with her party. Her party yesterday published legislation to reduce the age of retirement to 65 which Ms McDonald said it would introduce in the first 100 days in government. Read More Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, speaking as he canvassed in Cork, insisted everything remains to fight for in the final week of the campaign - and warned that senior Fianna Fail officials believe they already have "this election in the bag" and are preparing for ministerial offices, advisers and Garda cars. Mr Varadkar insisted that a Fianna Fail-Sinn Fein coalition would be an economic disaster. "Is it change for good, which is what Fine Gael has been delivering, or is it change for the worse which is what Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein would deliver?" Mr Varadkar insisted that Fine Gael can bounce back in the final days of the election campaign - despite the indications of numerous polls - when people realise what is at stake for Ireland given the challenges of Brexit and global trade. He also claimed that some within Fianna Fail are behaving as if the February 8 General Election is already won. "I think there are elements in Fianna Fail who think this election is in the bag for them," he said. "They are probably measuring up [Dail ministerial office] curtains, appointing advisers and talking about bringing back Garda cars. "That is the kind of arrogance we are seeing from Fianna Fail - I hope they get a surprise next weekend." One of the TDs who Mr Varadkar name-checked as supporting a Fianna Fail coalition with Sinn Fein last night said the Taoiseach was wrong. "That's a definite no from me," Waterford TD Mary Butler said. "My position has always been the same." Fianna Fail deputy leader Dara Calleary claimed that a vote for Sinn Fein was a vote for a vote to return Fine Gael to power. "People want change and that's what you get. You can vote Sinn Fein and get Leo. "Mary Lou will do a deal with Fine Gael. I'm not convinced that Leo won't do a deal with Sinn Fein. He hasn't proven that he wouldn't whereas we have with Micheal in 2016," Mr Calleary said. Information about the make and model of the helicopter that crashed Jan. 9 in Cumberland County -- killing two businessmen from Buffalo, New York -- revealed that the aircraft started falling apart in the sky before what was left of [it] hit the ground, according to the National Transporation Safety Board. An initial report of the NTSBs findings was published Friday. This isnt the first time the Robinson R-66 Turbine has had the same feedback about its helicopter and that it has fallen apart midair, the Buffalo News reported. Their report points to a search of the federal regulators incident database, as well as published news reports, that note there have been at least three "in-flight break up crashes reported to the NTSB. One was in South Dakota in 2011, one in New Zealand in 2013, and one in Arizona in 2016, the Buffalo News reported. The pilot involved in the Jan. 9 fatal crash, Mark D. Croce, was flying his R-66 back to Buffalo from the Baltimore-Washington area. He and his passenger, Michael Capriotto, 63, died in the crash. Croce was a "high profile Buffalo developer and businessman, and Capriotto was an Orchard Park businessman, according to the Buffalo News. 21 Helicopter crashes in backyard of home in Silver Spring Twp In the NTSB report, investigators said they recovered pieces of Croces helicopter, including a section of the main rotor blade, tail rotor assembly, tailboom, and main rotor mast. The Robison-R66 helicopter went on the market in August 2010. Since then, it has been involved in 32 incidents across the globe that led to accident investigations, according to the NTSBs Aviation Accident Database. "Of those 32 investigations, there were 16 crashes in which 35 people were killed, the Buffalo News reported. "Not every crash was fatal. The report continued: 13 of the investigations were for incidents that happened in the United States; five involved crashes. Thanks for visiting PennLive. Quality local journalism has never been more important. We need your support. Not a subscriber yet? Please consider supporting our work. Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced on Saturday a reduction in basic customs duty on imports of newsprint and lightweight coated paper from 10% to 5%. Addressing the Lok Sabha while presenting her second Union Budget, Sitharaman said she had received references saying that the levy on newsprint has put additional burden on the print media at a time when it is going through a difficult phase. I, therefore, propose to reduce basic customs duty on imports of newsprint and lightweight coated paper from 10% to 5%, she added. In the last budget, the government had imposed 10% basic custom duty on newsprint and lightweight coated paper. The budget has also proposed to abolish anti-dumping duty on PTA (Purified Terephthalic Acid). PTA is a critical input for textile fibres and yarns and its easy availability at competitive prices is desirable to unlock immense potential in the textile sector which is a significant employment generator, news agency ANI quoted the minister as saying. The Indian Newspaper Society (INS) had earlier urged the government to save the newspaper industry by scrapping the 10% duty imposed on newsprint and uncoated paper used for printing newspapers, and lightweight coated paper for magazines. The total consumption of standard newsprint in India is 2.5 million tonnes and indigenous mills have a capacity of just 1 million tonnes, the INS had said. The Executive Committee of the Indian Newspaper Society, had, at its emergency meeting last year, urged the Centre to withdraw the 10% customs duty which was announced by Sitharaman during the budget speech on July 5 last year. Publishers are reeling under financial pressure due to lower advertisement revenues, higher costs and digital onslaught. Newspapers will go into deeper losses due to this imposition, the INS had said. (With agency inputs) Alleged al-Qaeda Leader Arrested in Phoenix on Murder Charges A man who is suspected of being a leader in the al-Qaeda terrorist group was arrested in Phoenix last week on murder charges filed by the Iraqi government, the Department of Justice said in a statement on Jan 31. Ali Yousif Ahmed Al-Nouri, 42, was apprehended by officials on Jan. 29 and faces extradition to Iraq to face two counts of premeditated murder committed in 2006 in Al-Fallujah, in Al Anbar Province, according to the statement. According to the information provided by the Government of Iraq in support of its extradition request, Ahmed served as the leader of a group of al-Qaeda terrorists in Al-Fallujah, Iraq, which planned operations targeting Iraqi police, the DOJ said. Ahmed and other members of the al-Qaeda group allegedly shot and killed a first lieutenant in the Fallujah Police Directorate and a police officer in the Fallujah Police Directorate, on or about June 1, 2006, and October 3, 2006, respectively. The DOJ added that if Al-Nouris extradition is granted by the court, the decision of whether to surrender him to Iraq will be made by the U.S. Secretary of State and the case will be handled by the U.S. Attorneys Office for the District of Arizona and the Criminal Divisions Office of International Affairs. Al-Nouris arrest comes after the United States reportedly conducted a strike targeting Qassim al-Rimi, the leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, an affiliate in Yemen that has repeatedly threatened attacks targeting the United States. The New York Times reported that three current or former U.S. officials expressed confidence that Rimi had been killed in a January airstrike in Yemen. While we are aware of the reports alleging the death of AQAP leader Qassim al-Rimi, the Department of Defense has nothing to offer on this matter, a Pentagon official told CNN. President Donald Trump also shared several reports on Twitter regarding al-Rimis purported death, but didnt comment further. Al-Rimi reportedly became head of the al-Qaeda affiliate group following a 2015 drone strike that killed former leader Nasir al-Wuhayshi. The U.S. government, through its Rewards for Justice program, had offered up to a $10 million reward for information on him. His death, if confirmed, would be the latest in a string of successes for U.S. counterterrorism operations, after Qassem Soleimani, an Iranian general who had planned and orchestrated attacks on American troops in Iraq, was also killed by a U.S. airstrike on Jan. 2. WHO excludes emergence of deltacron strain Indian Defense Minister tests positive for COVID-19 NEWS.am daily digest: 10.01.22 Pashinyan appoints Hayk Mkrtchyan as Deputy Governor of Kotayk province Blast in eastern Afghanistan kills nine children Pashinyan: One of key priorities of Armenia presidency at CSTO is strengthening of crisis response mechanisms Internet cut off in Kazakhstan Armenia, Kazakhstan ombudspersons confer on Armenian communitys rights Armenia, Russia defense ministers discuss Kazakhstan Turkey defense minister meets with their envoy in process of normalization of Armenia relations Iranian Foreign Ministry reports progress in Vienna negotiations Dollar continues going up in Armenia New attempt by migrants in Belarus to storm Poland border Skat Airlines resumes Yerevan-Aktau and Aktau-Yerevan flights New Covid-related restrictions to be introduced in Armenia Karabakh police: Firefighters also targeted by Azerbaijan shooting (PHOTOS) Artsakh Defense Army has not fired on Azerbaijan positions Azerbaijani military are protesting amid military awards deprivation Azerbaijanis open fire in Nagorno-Karabakh Karabakh MFA: Events in Kazakhstan are result of actions planned by Turkey Armenia army General Staff has new deputy chief Australia to buy US $ 2.5 billion of armored vehicles Artsakh emergency service: Search for soldiers remains continued during holidays Kazakh Colonel Nazanov dies after heart attack Australia begins to vaccinate children aged 5-11 with COVID-19 vaccine Putin: Peacekeeping contingent to stay in Kazakhstan for a limited period Armenia 2nd-President Kocharyan v. premier Pashinyan lawsuit court session is closed Azerbaijan commandos conduct military exercises Part of the Great Wall of China collapsed due to earthquake Armenia MP: Turkey, Azerbaijans regional calculations have mixed up Copper prices decline Armenia ex-President Kocharyan v. PM Pashinyan lawsuit trial resumes Gold is getting cheaper EU is ready to support in addressing Karabakh crisis 126 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia Fire in residential building in New York leaves 19 people killed National Center for Infectious Diseases Yerevan branch employees protesting outside center Karabakh President: Radical Pan-Turkic circles are actively involved in process in Kazakhstan Oil is getting more expensive Mars helicopter Ingenuity preparing for difficult 19th flight Interior ministry: About 8,000 people detained in Kazakhstan Earthquake hits Armenia-Azerbaijan border zone Researchers create substitute for egg whites from fungus Kazakhstan official information channel removes message about 164 casualties EC says construction of new nuclear power plants in Europe will require 500 billion in investment Ghost ship that sank 343 years ago discovered in US Post-COVID-19 antibodies may attack healthy cells, scientists say Pope says he was praying for Kazakhstan Media: 164 people die in Kazakhstan during riots Peskov: CSTO session does not plan to sign documents yet Criminal cases launched after bomb threat in Armenian, Belarus embassies in Moscow Norwegian military surrender panties before demobilization Iranian MFA says Tehran is ready for talks on downed plane of UIA Ukraine Russian defense minister says information war is on all fronts Several strategic objects in Kazakhstan transferred to CSTO contingent under protection David Minasyan elected head of Armenia's Parakar community Bloomberg: US is considering issue of limiting supply of high-tech products to Russia Armenia reports 142 COVID-19 new cases Council of Elders meeting continues in Armenia's Parakar White House speaks on Blinken statement on Russian peacekeeping troops Armed people detained at border in Kazakhstan Kazakhstan talks stabilization of situation in all regions of country Azerbaijanis demand Armenian soldier change his faith by taking away his cross, Ombudsman says Armenian painter Mher Mansurian dies in France At least 17 killed in Egypt road accident NATO chief announces Russia forces continued buildup in Ukraine Armenian militarys transfer to Kazakhstan is completed Azerbaijan opens fire on military positions near Armenia village Unidentified persons report threat of explosion at Armenia, Belarus embassies in Moscow Putin confers with Pashinyan, Lukashenko on situation in Kazakhstan Zakharova: OSCE has not provided real assistance to reporters who were attacked in Kazakhstan Lukashenko, Putin discuss situation in CSTO member countries Russia's Putin has telephonic conversation with Kazakhstan's Tokayev Quake hits waters off Chile President Tokayev declares national mourning in Kazakhstan on January 10 US diplomats do not leave Kazakhstans Almaty yet 1 more person dies of coronavirus in Karabakh Artsakh resident, 91 found dead near village Russia MFA reacts to Blinken's words about Russian military in Kazakhstan 195 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia Kazakhstan security committee ex-chief detained Kazakhstan interior ministry: There are foreigners among those detained in Almaty region Russia continues transporting its peacekeepers to Kazakhstan Kazakhstan launches investigation into 180 retailers of liquefied petroleum gas BMW introduces concept vehicle that can change colors Shootings continue in Kazakhstans Almaty Lenovo reveals Legion Y90 gaming smartphone Germany to impose tougher rules for visiting restaurants, bars 10 bodies found inside SUV left in front of Mexico state governors office France fines Google and Facebook EUR 210 million NATO Secretary-General calls on Russia to de-escalate, withdraw its forces French journalist names regions where military conflicts may erupt in 2022 Taliban appeal world for humanitarian aid for Afghanistan Liturgy served in the Artsakh Diocese Armenian PM and Tajik President discuss Kazakhstan situation by phone Bulgaria to adopt euro in 2024 Units of CSTO peacekeeping forces arrived in Kazakhstan Armenian servicemen awarded state and departmental medals Exchange rates in Armenia Moscow court arrests activist supporting protesters in Kazakhstan US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo held talks with Kazakhstan's top officials on Sunday. Pompeo was in the Kazakh capital, Nur-Sultan, where he held separate talks with Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and his predecessor Nursultan Nazarbayev. During his meeting with Tokayev, Pompeo hailed Kazakhstan's role in assuring security in the region, especially in Afghanistan. Tokayev said his country would never forget that the US was the first nation to recognise Kazakhstan as an independent state after the fall of the Soviet Union. Pompeo's visit to the Central Asian nation was aimed at convincing its leadership to be wary of Chinese and Russian investment and influence. Bringing a message similar to one he has delivered repeatedly to other countries, Pompeo told senior Kazakh officials on Sunday that the attractiveness of such investment comes with a cost to sovereignty and may hurt, instead of help, long-term development. He urged them to continue reforms that would allow greater US investment in the country and join calls demanding an end to China's repression of minorities. Nigel Farage tore into hardline Remainers today over their refusal to use new Brexit 50p coins, saying they were now the 'fruitcakes and loonies'. The Brexit Party leader returned the insult first fired at Brexiteers by Remainer prime minister David Cameron, less than 48 hours after the UK left the EU. Approximately three million commemorative Brexit 50p coins have entered circulation as part of efforts to formally mark the departure. The coins, bearing the words 'peace, prosperity and friendship with all nations' as well as the Brexit date of January 31, 2020, have sparked a furious backlash among pro-EU campaigners. Appearing on the BBC's Andrew Marr programme this morning, Mr Farage raised their objections, saying: 'Who are the fruitcakes and loonies now?' Appearing on the BBC's Andrew Marr programme this morning, Mr Farage raised their objections, saying: 'Who are the fruitcakes and loonies now?' Solid-gold Brexit coins (left) priced at 945 each sold out by lunchtime on Friday today after going on sale that morning. Also pictured are the silver coin (centre) and the 'brilliant' coin (right) Mr Farage outside of the BBC with a commemorative 50p coin. Approximately three million s have entered circulation as part of efforts to formally mark the departure. The jibe echoed comments made by Mr Cameron when he was opposition leader in 2006. In an assault on Ukip - led then by Mr Farage - he described its members as 'fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists' in a radio interview. Among those poo-pooing the coins was uber-Remainer Lord Adonis, a Labour peer who has consistently fought to reverse Brexit. He tweeted: 'I am never using or accepting this coin.' Meanwhile, Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's former spin doctor, echoed a similar sentiment. He said he will ask shops for alternatives to the coin if he is handed one in the future. Solid-gold Brexit coins priced at 945 each sold out by lunchtime on Friday after going on sale that morning. The commemorative coins - sold by the Royal Mint - were part of a limited edition of 1,500, but Brexiteers looking for memorabilia faced a queuing system to access the Royal Mint's website. Mr Farage told the BBC that the prospect of Britain being a competitor 'terrifies' Brussels. 'I got the sense (before leaving the European Parliament) that, for the first time since 2016, they are a little bit more frightened of us than we are of them,' he said. 'What they fear more than anything - and bear in mind Italy is in recession, Germany is very close to being in recession - what they fear is a competitor on their doorstep. That terrifies them. 'What we should be doing, in our national interest, is to make sure we are a competitor on their doorstep.' Mr Farage confirmed the Brexit Party will remain active as an 'insurance' against a slip-ups from the Government on the trade talks. The Oluwo of Iwoland, OOba Abdul-Rasheed Adewale Akanbi, has charged the southwest governors to ensure that Amotekun, is also made to fight ritual killings. This was made known to the newsmen by the press secretary of the monarch, Ali Ibrahim. Also Read: Nnamdi Kanu Berates Ohanaeze For Supporting Amotekun The monarch pointed out that ritual killing is deadlier and more recurrent than herdsmens heinous activities in the region. Describing traditional corruption, especially ritual killings, as rampant in the Southwest, Oba Akanbi expressed concern about the daily reported cases of killing of humans for rituals. The monarch insisted that the politicians should be held responsible for trading their game with kidnapping. Chinese citizens wear face masks to protect against the spread of the Coronavirus as they check in to their Air China flight to Beijing, at Los Angeles International Airport, California, Feb. 2, 2020. The number of confirmed coronavirus cases climbed to nearly 15,000 on Sunday, while the number of deaths rose to 305 worldwide, among them a 44-year-old Chinese man in the Philippines, a recent arrival from Wuhan and the first death outside China's borders. The majority of the 14,637 people infected with the novel coronavirus -- called nCoV-2019 (Wuhan) by the World Health Organization (WHO) -- remain concentrated in the central Chinese province of Hubei, of which Wuhan is the capital. Hubei -- where local residents have told RFA that those who get tested, diagnosed and treated in hospital are only a small proportion of suspected coronavirus cases -- had reported a total of 9,074 cases and 294 out of 305 deaths worldwide by Sunday. But the epidemic, which has been designated a global public health emergency by the WHO -- continues to radiate outwards from Wuhan, with more than 600 cases confirmed in Zhejiang and Guangdong provinces, and more than 400 each in Hunan and Henan provinces. In Hong Kong, thousands of public healthcare workers said they would go on strike starting Monday after the city's government refused to respond to their demands to close the border with mainland China to prevent a further influx of coronavirus cases. "We declare that talks have broken down, and industrial action has officially begun," Winnie Yu, chairman of the Hospital Authority Employees Alliance, told journalists on Sunday. "If there is no full border closure, there wont be enough manpower, protective equipment, or isolation rooms, to combat the outbreak," Yu said. Strike vote The announcement came after more than 3,000 of the union's members voted for strike action on Saturday. "We hospital staff are being forced into taking this desperate move of taking industrial action by those in power," Yu said, offering to resume talks with the Hospital Authority at any time. One of the eight confirmed coronavirus cases in Hong Kong could have been locally transmitted, raising fears that the epidemic may have made the jump from being an illness carried only by those traveling from China to one that is transmitted among the local population. University of Hong Kong microbiologist Yuen Kwok-yung told government broadcaster RTHK: "Hong Kong [could] become another Wuhan." He called for increased border restrictions to reduce the flow of people, regardless of their nationality, coming to and from the mainland. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte approved a ban on the entry of all non-citizens from China on Sunday. The U.S., Japan, Singapore and Australia have imposed similar restrictions. Much of China remains under lockdown, with the Lunar New Year holiday break extended and the start of the new semester postponed until further notice. In the eastern province of Zhejiang, Wenzhou city was the latest to shut down, with businesses, government departments and schools remaining shuttered. Schools and government departments are also staying closed in Shanghai, Beijing, Heilongjiang, Shandong, Guizhou, Hebei and Hunan. Authorities in Wuhan on Sunday released local resident and citizen journalist Fang Bin after detaining him for posting video of several Wuhan hospitals to social media sites on Saturday. Restrictions on travelers from China One video he posted showed eight dead bodies leaving one hospital in the space of a few minutes. He was released with a warning after an outcry on social media against the ruling Chinese Communist Party's suppression of free speech. While tens of millions of its own people are confined to their homes with roads blocked and public transportation shut down, China has criticized the United States and other countries for imposing restrictions on travelers from within its borders. New Zealand on Sunday announced a temporary ban on travelers from China, with the exception of New Zealand residents. South Korea, India, Indonesia, France, and Saudi Arabia each flew hundreds of their citizens out of Wuhan over the weekend. The Group of Seven health ministers are preparing a teleconference to discuss how to handle the coronavirus. But President Donald Trump's national security adviser Robert OBrien said there was no need to raise the alarm in the U.S. -- for now. "Right now, theres no reason for Americans to panic," he added. "This is something that is a low risk we think in the U.S." Reported by Wang Yun for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by the Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie. File image Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharamans Union Budget 2020-21 lacked the animal spirit which D-Street investors were looking for to help Asias third-largest economy get back onto a growth path. Most D-Street experts gave thumbs down, by giving the Budget an average rating of about 2.5 out of 5. D-Street gave a thumbs down to Budget 2020 as Sensex crashed by about 1,000 points while the Nifty50 saw a drop of over 300 points posting their single biggest single-day fall in nearly 5 years. The expectations were running high in the run-up to the Budget, which pushed the benchmark indices to record highs. The S&P BSE Sensex hit a record high above 42,000 while Nifty50 climbed above 12,400 levels. But, the policies tabled by the finance minister were not exciting enough for D-Street, as it lacked significant measure to stimulate demand and did not provide any relief on capital gains tax which was widely expected. The fiscal deficit number was largely in-line with market expectations but the plan to reduce the fiscal deficit for the next financial year by LIC IPO was something which shook investors confidence, experts suggest. Gaurav Garg, Head of Research, CapitalVia Global Research who gave two out of five to Union Budget 2020 said that it was a mixed bag as there was no major big bang reform while the expectation was very high as this is first full-time Budget of Modi 2.0. We were hoping for deduction allowed u/s 80C to be increased but there was no direct announcement. The Budget lacked stimulus for growth and the governments plan of action to reduce the fiscal deficit, which shook investors confidence, he said. Personal income taxes which are being cut, do not make a substantial difference to consumption, the rich tax which has essentially with surcharges brought the effective tax rates to 42 percent for the highest bracket continues to be a big deterrent to consumption, experts suggest. Amid expectations of a possible tweak in the long term capital gains tax or LTCG as well as Security Transaction Tax (STT) was not touched by the finance minister in the Union Budget 2020 which played a spoiler for D-Street as well. I would rate it at 2 out of 5, the economy needed stimulus, this budget can be summarized with the word hogwash, and nothing effectively changed. Nothing substantial seems to have changed, for the government to expect a 10 percent nominal GDP growth rate continues to sound like hubris, Nikhil Kamath, Co-founder, Zerodha & True Beacon told Moneycontrol. The situation on the ground is a lot worse, the need of the hour might be to recognize the issues at hand and transparently deal with them. Personal income taxes being cut do not make a substantial difference to consumption, he said. Kamath further added that no word on a reduction in long term capital gains will push foreign capital to similar geographies in South East Asia, which do not tax long-term capital gains. We also didn't hear anything about Security transactions tax as STT continues to be the biggest deterrent in making our stock markets robust by adding a significant barrier to transacting frequently and thus increasing the impact cost around trading equities, he said. Amit Gupta, Co-Founder and CEO, TradingBells told Moneycontrol that it was not a bad Budget, but not a Budget that can cheer the market and boost economic sentiment immediately because there were high expectations from the it to boost the economy as the prime minister was very active while preparing Budget 2020. No change in LTCG was another big disappointment for the market. We will rate this budget with a rating of 2.5 out of 5, he said. The views and investment tips expressed by investment experts on moneycontrol.com are his own and not that of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions. The Election Commission on Sunday removed south-east Delhi deputy commissioner of police (DCP) Chinmoy Biswal from his post, citing the ongoing situation, a day after a 23-year-old fired two rounds at the Shaheen Bagh protest site where people are demonstrating against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act. Hundreds of protesters have gathered at the protests site since December, when Parliament approved the new citizenship law. Two days before the shooting at the Shaheen Bagh protest, a 17-year-old also opened fire at a group of protesting students near Jamia Millia Islamia, injuring one of them. Both the areas come under Biswass jurisdiction Chinmoy Biswal IPS (2008), DCP (South-East) stands relieved from his present post with immediate effect and shall report to MHA [ministry of home affairs]. In view of the ongoing situation, Commission directs Kumar Gyanesh, DANIPS (1997) shall take charge as DCP (South-East) immediately, the Election Commission said in a statement. The Ministry of Home Affairs or Delhi Commissioner of Police may, however, immediately send a panel of three names to the EC for posting a suitable officer as the regular DCP (South-East), the statement added. Experts said the handling of the recent incidents of firing at Shaheen Bagh and Jamia Nagar appeared to be the reason behind the action against Biswal. Biswal, the chief of the south-east district police, was also criticised for entering the Jamia Millia Islamia campus with his force and lathi-charging students after clashes between the police and anti-CAA protesters outside the campus. The police later faced heat over initially blocking Road 13A at Shaheen Bagh on December 15, which led to residents gathering and holding a sit-in protest on the street. Delhi Police commissioner Amulya Patnaik was not available for a response to calls and a text message. A second Air India flight carrying 323 Indians and seven Maldivians from Wuhan in China landed at Delhi airport on Sunday morning. In the first flight on early Saturday, 324 Indians were evacuated and were admitted to the two quarantine facilities set up by the Army and the ITBP, though none of them have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, according to officials. Wuhan is the epicentre of outbreak of novel coronavirus, which has killed more than 300 people in China. Two Indians, both from Kerala, have been tested positive for novel coronavirus. Due to the outbreak, IndiGo has suspended all three flights between India and China. Air India has suspended its Delhi-Shanghai flight and curtailed the flight operations on the Delhi-Hong Kong route. An Air India spokesperson said at 9.45 am, "323 passengers and seven Maldivians were there in the second special flight from Wuhan, which landed at Delhi airport just now." Five doctors from the Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) Hospital, who were onboard the first flight, were also present in the second flight, the spokesperson said. Out of the 324 people that have been evacuated through first Air India flight, 56, 53 and 42 are from Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, respectively. Air India has done such evacuations earlier also from countries such as Libya, Iraq, Yemen, Kuwait and Nepal. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) 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United Arab Emirates United Kingdom of Great Britain & N. Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe Veteran ITV newsreader Alastair Stewart 'offered to apologise privately' to his accuser before bosses forced him out, it has been claimed. But the channel's longest serving presenter was allegedly told this would not be enough to save his job of more than 40 years. The 67-year-old's feet were held to the fire by bosses after viewer Martin Shapland, 34, complained about his tweet quoting a Shakespeare passage that contained the phrase 'angry ape'. He has since tweeted that a private apology from Mr Stewart would have been 'more than sufficient'. Fellow presenters have rallied around Mr Stewart with BBC broadcaster Andrew Neil declaring that 'the only explanation can be the ITN suits wanted him out - and seized their chance'. Alastair Stewart, 67, was told by bosses that his private apology would not be enough However his accuser Martin Shapland, 34, a lobbyist from east London, has tweeted that a private apology would have been 'more than sufficient' Mr Stewart had asked bosses whether he could apologise to his accuser privately, a friend told the Sunday Times, but they said this was not enough. A friend also told the paper that despite ITV accusing him of 'errors of judgement' he had not previously received a single official warning from HR. Mr Shapland, a lobbyist from east London, had said that 'a private apology would have been more than sufficient' and that he 'takes no pleasure' in the resignation. Stewart's decision to step down comes after a black Twitter user claimed he 'called him an angry ape' three weeks ago. Martin Shapland later branded Stewart a 'disgrace' Presenters have rallied to support Mr Stewart and claimed ITV has hung him out to dry. He is pictured above with broadcasters including Emily Maitlis, Katie Derham, Mary Nightingale, and Natasha Kaplinsky A petition to get Mr Stewart re-instated has received more than 70,000 signatures Presenters have come out in support of Mr Stewart including Ranvir Singh (pictured) Stewart is the latest big name to join TV news disruptor GB News Andrew Neil will lead new 24-hour news channel to rival BBC and Sky aiming to reach those who feel 'unheard' by the media. He will present a show four nights a week. And it has brought in big names ahead of its launch, including new signing Mr McCoy, Sky News anchor Colin Brazier and new MailOnline columnist Dan Wootton, formerly of The Sun and talkRADIO. The broadcaster will be the face and chairman of GB News, announcing its birth last year while also signalling the end of his relationship with the BBC, where he has been one of the most respected political interviewers. It had been due to launch on Freeview this month, but has now been delayed until later of the year. Political interviewer and former Sunday Times editor Mr Neil recently dismissed speculation that he was in the running to be the next BBC chairman, saying on Twitter that he has 'no interest in the job'. At a time when the BBC and commercial media companies are cutting jobs, GB News said it hopes to create at least 120 positions. Advertisement The Shakespearean quote used by Mr Stewart references how a person can lose their sight with anger and refuse to listen to others, as opposed to making racial comparisons. A change.org petition demanding Mr Stewart gets his job back and that his accuser makes a public apology has already been signed more than 70,000 times. 'Alastair Stewart has been ridiculously forced to quit his role on ITV after 40 years due to Martin Shapland accusing him of calling him 'an angry ape' after quoting Shakespeare,' it reads. 'Despite no direct conversation on Twitter between the two and with Martin using racism as an offence. 'Its not racist either, Martin needs to take account the evolution of apes to humans of all races. Martin needs to publicly apologise and Alastair needs to have his job reinstated!' Mr Shapland tweeted on January 30: 'I consider the matter to be closed, accept Mr Stewart's expression of regret and wish him the best for the future.' One on the UK's best known news broadcasters, who asked not be named, told MailOnline on Thursday: 'It's an absolute shambles and a disgrace. 'I don't know if this is cover for something else - if someone wanted him out anyway they should have allowed a more gracious retirement - but it gives our industry a bad name and a bad look. Intolerant, obtuse, disloyal and illiterate'. ITV bosses are said to have been nervous about the presenter's social media activity, after he also tweeted followers on issues such as anti-Semitism and the environment. MailOnline has contacted ITV for comment. Im going to vote to acquit, Alexander said in an interview on NBC Newss Meet the Press. Im very concerned about any action that we could take that would establish a perpetual impeachment in the House of Representatives whenever the House was a different party than the president. That would immobilize the Senate. GAC Motor's flagship MPV GN8 was launched in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, during an event participated by a delegation from the Guangzhou Municipal Government. Over 300 guests from the Chinese Embassy in Saudi Arabia, the Guangzhou Municipal Government and outstanding enterprises from Guangzhou, international and local media, and others from all walks of life attended the event. The Guangzhou Municipal Government representatives narrated Guangzhou's evolution from an age-old business hub to an international metropolis teeming with modern vitality from the perspectives of culture, tradition, science, technologies, etc. Guangzhou Automobile Group Co (GAC Group) is a leading manufacturer in the Greater Bay Area. Zeng Qinghong, Chairman of GAC Group, addressed the event and announced the launch of GN8 in Saudi Arabia. Qinghong said: "Looking forward, GAC Group will continue to offer more quality products and premium services to our Saudi Arabian consumers. We will continue to bring the two places closer to each other. Meanwhile, GAC Group hopes to move part of its production to Saudi Arabia as soon as possible to contribute to local economic development." GAC Group has been listed in the Fortune Global 500 for seven consecutive years since 2013 and ranked 189th among the Fortune Global 500 enterprises in 2019. As a leading manufacturer in the Greater Bay Area and a symbol of high-end manufacturing in China, GAC Group attributes its achievement to the top-notch business environment in Guangzhou. Zeng Hebin, General Manager of GAC Motor International, introduced the highlights of the GN8 model. He said: "It took the R&D team years to create this flagship MPV model. With its elegant and luxurious design, spacious and comfortable interior, user-friendly driving experience, and high standards of intelligent security, GN8 meets the diverse needs of Saudi Arabian consumers for both business and family use." Last year GAC Group set up the International Business Unit to strengthen the management of its international business. So far, the automaker has established presence in 24 countries. In 2019 its overseas sales grew by 98%, said the statement. GAC Group regards the Middle East as one of its key strategic markets in the world. So far it has set up 14 sales outlets in nine countries, including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait. In 2020 GAC Group plans to introduce more advanced models to this market, join hands with its strategic partners to adopt localised management, as well as improve sales and after-sales services. It is also preparing to set up a local office in the Middle East, it said. - TradeArabia News Service By Express News Service BENGALURU: Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa on Saturday termed the Union Budget as pro-people, pro-farmer and pro-poor.For the first time, the Union government has discussed agriculture in detail in the budget. This means that the Prime Minister has decided to restore the glory of Indian agriculture system, the CM said. Yediyurappa said the programmes announced for the agriculture sector complements the PMs vision to double the income of farmers. He said providing Rs 2.83 lakh crore to the sector is a major deviation from routine budgetary allocations. Kisan Rail and Kisan Udan will facilitate speedy transportation and export of perishable agriculture products, which, in turn, will boost farmers income. Conservation measures in 100 water-stressed districts, which form one-fifth of the country, will help farmers in areas where underground water has almost been exhausted, he said. The CM said encouraging production of solar energy and PM-KUSUM, the scheme to energize pumpsets via solar energy, will help more than 20 lakh farmers. Providing training in Desi skills will boost small and cottage industries under the MSME scheme, he said. He thanked the Finance Minister and the Centre for approving the suburban rail project. This will boost infrastructure facilities in Bengaluru, which has turned into a favourite investment destination for MNCs. This will help us solve traffic congestion in the city, the CM stated. Former New Zealand Prime Minister Mike Moore died early this morning at the age of 71, said his wife Yvonne Moore. Moore was at his home in Auckland when he passed away. Moore was the Prime Minister of New Zealand for 59 days before the October 1990 general elections. Moore was also the leader of the opposition for three years following the Labour Party's defeat in the election. Despite not receiving formal education, Moore went on to become the Director-General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Read: Mike Pompeo To Visit London In 'historic Week' Amid Heightening US-UK Tensions Look back at Mike Moore's life Moore was born in Whakatane, Bay of Plenty, New Zealand, in 1949. He was educated at Bay of Islands College and Dilworth School. Moore, however, left school at the age of 14 to find a job and worked as a labourer and then a printer. Moore became an active trade unionist and at the age of 17, he was elected to the Auckland Trade Council. Moore entered electoral politics and began his parliamentary career at the age of 23 when he became the youngest MP for Eden in 1972. Moore then moved to Christchurch and eas elected MP for the north Christchurch until his retirement in 1999. Read: Video Of Prince Charles Snubbing Mike Pence Surfaces, Palace Refutes Rift Rumors Moore has also served as the Commissioner for the United Nations Commission on the Legal Empowerment of the Poor and Commissioner for Global Commission on International Migration. Moore then became the Director-General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 1999 and he oversaw the entry of China into the global rules-based trading system in 2001. Moore also oversaw the entry of Jordan, Oman, Croatia, Lithuania, Estonia, Albania, Georgia and Moldova into the global rules-based trading system. Moore was credited for launching the Doha Development Round in 2001 which was aimed at lowering trade barriers globally. Read: Mike Pompeo Loses Cool At Journalist When Asked Questions About Ukraine After his stint at the WTO, Moore became New Zealand's ambassador to Washington from 2010 to 2015. Moore reportedly suffered a stroke in 2015 following which he retired from his post and returned to New Zealand. His health started to deteriorating and he started staying indoors with limited public appearances. According to Moore's wife, he wanted to spend the rest of his life in New Zealand's Northland region but he had to return to Auckland because of his health and further treatment. Read: Mike Hesson Warns Of A Potential Threat From Kiwi Pacers To Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma 02.02.2020 LISTEN The campaign to make Lieutenant General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, 45 years old, the next president of Uganda, looks genuine on the surface, but I strongly believe that there will not be a Muhoozi presidency anytime soon. I'm convinced that the Muhoozi project was/is a decoy to prolong Museveni's presidency, and identify the military Generals, or those in NRM, whose loyalty to Museveni wasn't absolute--- the son helps to protect the father believing that one day he would take over, and this makes him suppress any opponents of his father, thus, literally rendering him an enemy of both NRM historicals and majority of Ugandans. According to Hon.Ssemujju Nganda, in one of his articles in the Observer, most of the Permanent Secretaries and heads of different state organisation, were handpicked by Muhoozi himself. If Museveni, officially 75 years old, wanted to make his son the next president, he would have done it last year in 2019, the year the opposition was at its weakest, and throwing bubs at each other. But, guess what, Museveni is not only preparing for 2021 elections, but he's even speaking of the 2026 elections.It will be harder for Muhoozi to become president with his father too old, or dead. Nevertheless, we still have a succession of Museveniates claiming to be Muhoozi supporters demanding that he succeeds his father. They are basically advocating for hereditary succession of the presidency. Their schtick is that he has as much right as any other Ugandan to stand for presidency, and I absolutely agree with the "right" bit. His strength is that he's already closest to the wheels of power and has some influence in the army,and those opposing him know this which is why theyre making a concerted effort to paint him as someone who has got everything with a silver spoon, and therefore undeserving. He is seen as someone who isn't Museveni-- he cannot think on his feet; he has no capacity to think outside the prism of being dad's boy; he reportedly has a short temper and he isn't a good listener;he loves the bottle,unlike the dad; he's not quick witted enough to respond to sudden changes in the political sphere; he can't think as fast as events move on. Being made a presidential adviser on Special operations in 2017 was seen as a vote of no confidence by his dad, which means that he doesn't lead. He hasn't got the capacity to lead. This matters. It's not some pointless meetings with ambassadors of other countries that is at stake; it's the future of our country. The population won't accept him. The NRM historicals won't accept him. Ever. As a result, everything he does is expressed through that prism. Fair enough; he's been a passionate campaigner for some honourable causes. A friend of mine living in USA, but close to the family, also told me that actually Museveni's children including Muhoozi, were well brought up-- they have manners and humanity-- "obuntubulamu ". However, evil hides behind many faces, even an attractive one. I have nothing against Muhoozi as a person, but I think, with Uganda, as it is at the moment, it will prove a grave failure if he takes over from his father, and will turn the country dysfunctional. In the age of transformation, trying to subvert democratic norms and to insist for the hereditary right is utterly disgusting. Being the leader of a country means that you need to be able to unite and unify everyone. I haven't seen Muhoozi openly reaching out to Kiiza Besigye, or anybody in the opposition. I haven't seen him standing up to his father on some issues. I haven't seen him protecting online bloggers,like us, and journalists against the so called double standards Computer Misuse Act, e.t.c. All this has come at a time when most of us are still taking stock of the emergency of comical leaders, particularly,Bobi Wine and his People Power. Remember how we got here. The catalyst for the Bobi bounce was the loss of faith in our traditional parties and some long serving opposition leaders, and a few wins in by-elections. To his only credit, Bobi has attracted shedloads of young activists to the cause, though he has misled them into believing that elections can remove Museveni. Uganda has the biggest young population in the world. Muhoozi and Bobi are in the same age bracket, and he(the first son) would probably be an attraction to some youths in the country. But, guess what, his father isn't ready to let go. By 2026, Muhoozi will be in his 50s, and still dreaming of the presidency, if at all he is interested. Just like I told people years ago that the succession queue was in Amama Mbabazi's head, I can tell you now that the Muhoozi project is a Disney land fictional movie. It probably doesn't make sense to Museveni himself! Abbey Kibirige Semuwemba Stalk my blog at http://semuwemba.worldpress.com "Men in authority will always think that criticism of their policies is dangerous. They will always equate their policies with patriotism, and find criticism subversive." - Henry Steele Commager 1902-98 The Philippines on Sunday reported the first overseas death from the growing epidemic of a coronavirus that originated in China, where new confirmed infections jumped by a daily record to top 14,000 cases. The Philippines Department of Health said a 44-year-old man from Wuhan city in central Hubei province, the epicenter of the outbreak, had died after developing severe pneumonia. It was the first death out of more than 130 cases reported in around two dozen other countries and regions outside of mainland China. The man who died was a companion of a 38-year-old Chinese woman, also from Wuhan, who was the first and only other person to test positive for the virus in the Philippines. Both patients arrived in the Philippines via Hong Kong on Jan. 21. The death toll from the coronavirus outbreak in China had reached 304 as of the end of Saturday, state broadcaster CCTV said on Sunday, citing the country`s National Health Commission. All the new deaths in China and most of the new infections of the flu-like coronavirus on Saturday were in Hubei. Live TV China is facing mounting isolation as other countries introduce travel curbs, airlines suspend flights and governments evacuate their citizens, risking worsening a slowdown in the world`s second-largest economy. The World Health Organization on Thursday declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern but said global trade and travel restrictions are not needed. However, some countries are responding to fears of the virus spreading by ramping up border controls. Singapore and the United States announced measures on Friday to ban foreign nationals who have recently been in China from entering their territories, and Australia followed suit on Saturday. Russia introduced visa restrictions and will start evacuating Russian citizens on Monday and Tuesday, Interfax and TASS news agencies reported. The Philippines expanded its travel ban to include all foreigners coming from China, widening an earlier restriction that covered only those from Hubei. New Zealand and Vietnam also barred foreigners who have been in China, with Vietnam saying it would halt all flights to and from China. Taiwan is asking its diplomats to talk to governments where Taiwanese airlines fly to ensure more flights are not cut off due to the island`s inclusion by the WHO as part of China due to the coronavirus outbreak. Nations continue to evacuate citizens from China. More than 100 Germans and family members landed in Frankfurt on Saturday after being evacuated from Wuhan. Around 250 Indonesians were being evacuated from Hubei. Japan plans to send another chartered plane mid-week or later to bring back Japanese nationals who are still in Hubei, the foreign ministry said on Sunday. Japan also confirmed an additional three cases of the new coronavirus among an earlier batch of evacuees, including one who initially tested negative, the health ministry said, bringing the country`s total to 20 cases. U.S. health officials on Saturday confirmed an eighth case of the coronavirus in the United States, and the Pentagon said it would provide housing for people arriving from overseas who might need to be quarantined. The country has introduced mandatory quarantine for citizens arriving from Hubei. In Mexico, ride-hailing application Uber Technologies Inc said it suspended 240 accounts of users in Mexico who may recently have come in contact with someone possibly infected with the virus. There are no confirmed cases in Mexico yet. PROVINCE IN LOCKDOWN The number of deaths in Hubei from the outbreak had risen to 294 as of the end of Feb. 1, with a total of 9,074 cases, the majority in the capital Wuhan, where the virus is thought to have emerged late last year in a market illegally trading wildlife. New confirmed cases also surged by 276 in nearby Huanggang. One death was reported in the city, about 60 km (37 miles) east of Wuhan. China`s environment ministry on Saturday urged local governments to step up disposal of medical and urban wastewater to prevent the spread of the virus. Local authorities in quarantined areas must disinfect faeces and sewage, the ministry also said. Genetic traces of the coronavirus were found in the faeces of some patients, said the health authority of Shenzhen, one of the most populous cities in China. Hubei has been under virtual quarantine for the last week, with roads sealed off and public transport shut down. The province extended its Lunar New Year holiday break to Feb. 13 in a bid to contain the outbreak. But some people are leaving Hubei on foot over a bridge spanning the Yangtze River, entering Jiujiang city in neighboring Jiangxi province. Lu Yuejin, a 50-year-old farmer from a village on the Hubei side of the bridge, was trying to gain passage for her leukemia-stricken daughter on Saturday. "Please, take my daughter. I don`t need to go past... please, just let my daughter go past," Lu pleaded with the police. Eventually, Lu and her daughter were both allowed through and an ambulance was called to pick them up. Chinese family in UAE diagnosed as first cases of virus in ME Chinese family in UAE diagnosed as first cases of virus in ME Four members of a Chinese family who arrived in the United Arab Emirates from the city of Wuhan have been diagnosed with the new coronavirus, the first known cases in the Middle East, the UAE health ministry said yesterday. The family members are in a stable condition and under medical observation, the ministry said in a statement carried by the state news agency. The statement did not say where the family members were being treated or when they arrived in the UAE. The ministry and a government information office did not respond to a request for further comment. Nearly 60 cases have been reported in 15 countries outside China, including the United States, France and Singapore. Emirates, the UAEs biggest airline, said yesterday its flights were operating normally. The Gulf Cooperation Councils (GCC) health committee met yesterday in the Saudi capital Riyadh to discuss the new coronavirus and to unify Gulf efforts to prevent its spread, Bahrains state news agency BNA said. Photo : Travellers wear masks as they arrive at the Dubai International Airport, after the UAEs Ministry of Health and Community Prevention confirmed the countrys first case of coronavirus, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates A n alleged drunken driver has been charged with 20 offences including manslaughter after an SUV struck seven children on a pavement in Sydney, killing four and seriously injuring a fifth. The children were walking to buy ice cream when they were struck Saturday by a vehicle allegedly driven by Samuel Davidson. Three of the children killed were siblings and their brother was taken to a hospital in serious condition. The fourth child killed was the daughter of their father's cousin. The father, Danny Abdallah, told reporters on Sunday that he was heartbroken. "I don't know what to say. I'm numb," Mr Abdallah said. "All I want to say is please, drivers, be careful." Flowers are pictured at a makeshift memorial at the site of an accident / AFP via Getty Images "These kids were just walking innocently, enjoying each other's company ... and this morning I woke up and I have lost three kids," he added. His children Antony, 13, Angelina, 12 and Sienna, 9, were killed. Their 10-year-old bother was in serious but stable condition. Mr Abdallah and his wife Leila had had six children. He said his cousin lost an 11-year-old child, Veronique Sakr. A woman pauses with a young girl near flowers placed at the scene / AP Two other girls aged 10 and 13 suffered minor injuries, authorities said. Davidson was arrested at the scene on Saturday and remains in custody. The 20 charges against him, including four of manslaughter, were read in a Sydney court on Sunday. He did not appear in court and was refused bail until his next court appearance on April 2. He has not entered any pleas. Manslaughter carries a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison. People gather to pay their respects at a makeshift memorial / AFP via Getty Images Davidson is accused of having a recorded blood alcohol concentration of 0.15 per cent - three-times the legal limit in Australia. Acting Assistant Police Commissioner Jason Joyce said the driver remained at the scene until the police arrived and there were indications his 24-year-old male passenger tried to help some of the children. Neither the driver nor the passenger was injured. Mr Abdallah said all seven of the injured children were staying at his house. Health officials on Sunday confirmed the second case of novel (new) coronavirus in Santa Clara County. The newest incidence, involving an adult woman, is not related to the first case, but both involve people who recently traveled to Wuhan, China. The woman "is a visitor to this county and arrived Jan. 23 to visit family," the County of Santa Clara Public Health Department said in an announcement. She has stayed home since she arrived, except for two times to seek outpatient medical care. She has been regularly monitored and was never sick enough to be hospitalized." Family members of the woman have also been isolated and do not leave the house, officials said. "I understand that people are concerned, but based on what we know today, the risk to general public remains low," said Dr. Sara Cody, Santa Clara County health officer. "A second case is not unexpected. With our large population and the amount of travel to China for both personal and business reasons, we will likely see more cases, including close contacts to our cases." Officials advise the public "to engage in their regular activities and practice good health hygiene since this is the height of flu season. Healthy people should not be excluded from activities based on their race, country of origin, or recent travel. Anyone with respiratory symptoms, such as a cough, sore throat, or fever, should stay home, practice proper cough etiquette and hand hygiene, and limit their contact with other people." A Santa Clara County man on Friday was confirmed as the first Bay Area case of the novel coronavirus. The man, whose name and city of residence were not released, traveled to Wuhan, China and Shanghai before returning home to Santa Clara County via the San Jose Mineta International Airport on Jan. 24. Copyright 2020 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. Here's a look at futures prices on commodities that impact Southern Illinois and the rest of the Midwest. Virus spreads, markets volatile The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the novel coronavirus a global health emergency after the outbreak expanded significantly this week, reaching 20 countries and sickening nearly 10,000 people, with over 200 deaths. The designation by the WHO will mobilize resources to fight the disease, but the organization issued a stern statement against overreaction, warning against measures that unnecessarily interfere with international trade or travel. However, there have already been significant impacts, with nearly 60 million Chinese placed under travel restrictions, while neighboring countries like Mongolia, Russia, and North Korea are closing borders to trade and migrants. These measures will severely affect the Chinese economy, and possibly global growth, if kept in place long term. As scientists continue to study the outbreak, they are coming away with positive findings. The virus appears to have a shorter incubation period than originally feared and is less deadly than other similar outbreaks, which may lessen the ultimate impact. As a result of the disparate signals between government reactions, scientific research, and public concern, markets see-sawed all week, with stocks and oil near their lows on Friday. Pork market slashed Hog futures collapsed this week as markets grew increasingly worried about U.S. exports of pork. The market rallied into the new year on the expectation of the trade deal with China but have been disappointed with a lack of immediate sales. Analysts had been concerned about Chinas ability to meet its import obligations under the deal, and the coronavirus outbreak has exacerbated worries about future Chinese demand. As a result, hogs lost over ten cents per pound, a loss of 15%, with the February contract trading Friday near a one-year low at 58 cents per pound. Brexit day leaves pound in limbo The United Kingdom is officially leaving the European Union on January 31, but still much remains unknown about the future of the relationship. As part of the negotiated exit, the UK will continue to be part of the EUs single market until the end of the year, allowing for a free flow of goods and people. Leaders are meeting in March to determine what the long-term deal will be, leaving some investors worried about Britain becoming economically stranded. For now, most market watchers are still optimistic about a deal, with the British pound worth $1.32, near the highest level of the year. Walt and Alex Breitinger are commodity futures brokers in Valparaiso, Indiana, and the opinions here are solely the writers'. They can be reached at 800-411-3888 or www.indianafutures.com. This is not a solicitation of any order to buy or sell any market. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 File Photo: City health official conduct monitoring and testing for African Swine Fever at a backyard piggery in Manila on September 17, 2019. (Photo: MARIA TAN/AFP/Getty Images) MANILA, Feb 2 (Reuters) - Blood samples taken from pigs in a southern province in the Philippines, the world's 10th-largest pork consumer, tested positive for the African swine fever virus, the Department of Agriculture said on Sunday. It was the first reported case of African swine fever infections in Davao Occidental province and elsewhere in Mindanao, the southern island of the Southeast Asian nation. Agriculture Secretary William Dar has ordered regional department officials to restrict animal movement in that part of the archipelago, the department said in a statement. The Philippines, also the world's seventh-biggest pork importer, reported its first African swine fever outbreak in September 2019, in some backyard farms near the country's capital, Manila. The disease quickly spread to other parts of the main island of Luzon, including Manila, prompting some central and southern provinces to ban pork and pork-based products from disease-hit areas. Dar has said pork smuggled from China, where millions of pigs were culled because of the disease, could be behind the outbreak in the Philippines. Although the blood samples from pigs in Davao Occidental had already tested positive for African swine fever, further tests were to be undertaken by the department's Bureau of Animal Industry for confirmation. The department said the initial tests covered blood samples from more than a dozen villages in the province. The provincial government has already imposed a "complete, but temporary, lock down", prohibiting the transport of pigs and pork products from and into Davao Occidental, it said. "Backyard pig farmers in the area practice group rearing of hogs, from different owners, most (of them without) proper housing provisions nor biosecurity practices," the department said. There was also no regular vaccination, vitamin supplementation and deworming of pigs in the province, and household butchering is common, especially with animals exhibiting weakness or disease, it said. Story continues Around a thousand pigs in Davao Occidental have been culled amid the outbreak, according to local media reports, citing information from the provincial government. Philippine agricultural output grew at an annual pace of 0.4% in the last quarter of 2019, slower than the 2.9% gain in the September quarter, as hogs production contracted. Though not harmful to humans, the disease is deadly to pigs, with no vaccine available. (Reporting by Enrico dela Cruz. Editing by Gerry Doyle) Lucy Mecklenburgh looked every inch the glowing mother-to-be as she attended her baby shower soiree at the Ivy Tower Bridge in London on Saturday. The former TOWIE star, 28, was joined by her nearest and dearest as they celebrated the impending arrival of her first child, a boy, with fiance Ryan Thomas. Lucy cut a stylish figure for the day, arriving to the bash in a monochrome coat which she wore over a black dress with a lace hemline. Radiant: Lucy Mecklenburgh, 28, looked every inch the glowing mother-to-be as she attended her baby shower soiree at the Ivy Tower Bridge in London on Saturday The reality star added height to her frame with a pair of silver heels with an ankle strap while she also carried a cream handbag. Styling her brunette locks into loose waves, Lucy underwent an outfit change inside the venue as she mixed and mingled with her guests. For her second look, the star sported a blue long-sleeved, off the shoulder dress that displayed her growing baby bump. Lucy was all smiles as she posed for snaps alongside her friends, who lovingly placed their hands on her bump. Party: The former TOWIE star was in good spirits as she was joined by her nearest and dearest as they celebrated the impending arrival of her first child with fiance Ryan Thomas Romance: Lucy was joined by her fiance Ryan, 35, who lovingly placed an arm around her A variety of flowers, gifts and other treats could be seen inside the venue, where Lucy's guests sipped on glasses of prosecco. Adding a festive touch to proceedings, the venue was also decorated with a variety of blue, white and golden balloons. Lucy and her guests also tucked into a two-tiered cake with white frosting with an elegant white and green floral display. At one point, the guests could be seen gathering in a circle and appeared to watch a slideshow of Lucy and Ryan's relationship. Friends: Lucy was all smiles as she posed for snaps alongside her friends, who lovingly placed their hands on her bump Outfit: Lucy cut a stylish figure for the day, arriving to the bash in a monochrome coat which she wore over a black dress with a lace hemline Beauty: Styling her brunette locks into loose waves, Lucy underwent an outfit change inside the venue as she mixed and mingled with her guests The former TOWIE star announced her pregnancy in August 2019, after Ryan proposed on a trip to Italy's Amalfi Coast in June. The couple have been together since early 2017 when they met while appearing on survival show Celebrity Island With Bear Grylls. Ryan is already dad to Scarlett, 11, with his ex-girlfriend and former Coronation Street co-star Tina O'Brien, 36. Glowing: For her second look, the star sported a blue long-sleeved, off the shoulder dress that displayed her growing baby bump Festivities: Lucy was in good spirits as she chatted with friends and opened some of her gifts Stunning: Lucy was a sight to behold at the swanky affair where she could be seen lovingly cradling her bump Elegant: Lucy completed her look for the event with a pair of shimmering diamond earrings Although Lucy is not due to give birth for another few weeks, she has already planned out her unborn son's love life. The TV personality is due on the same day as her best friend Lydia Bright, 29, and the pair have confessed that they want their children to get married when they grow up. Lydia is expecting a baby girl with her ex-boyfriend, Lee Cronin, and recently shared her hopes that Lucy's little boy will marry her daughter. Celebrations: Lucy and her guests also tucked into a two-tiered cake with white frosting with an elegant white and green floral display Mother-to-be: Lucy's bump could be seen as she went to cut the cake with her guests News: Lucy announced her pregnancy in August 2019, after Ryan proposed on a trip to Italy's Amalfi Coast in June Pals: Lucy's friend and fellow reality star Ashley James was among the guests at the shower Event: Former Made In Chelsea star Ashley mixed and mingled with some of Lucy's other guests Fun: Lucy's friends were clearly in good spirits as they joined her to celebrate the festivities Making memories: Some of the reality star's pals were busy taking snaps of the special day Decadent: Lucy's cake also featured several sponge layers for guests to enjoy Relationship: Lucy and Ryan have been together since early 2017 when they met while appearing on survival show Celebrity Island With Bear Grylls Ensemble: The reality star added height to her frame with a pair of silver heels with an ankle strap while she also carried a cream handbag Luxurious: A variety of flowers, gifts and other treats could be seen inside the venue Refreshments: Lucy's guests were well looked after for the day with a variety of refreshments on display Decorations: Adding a festive touch to proceedings, the venue was also decorated with a variety of blue, white and golden balloons Impressive: The guests marvelled at some of the decorations Lucy had on display She told Closer magazine: 'Oh God, it's definitely amazing to share this experience with my best friend. 'I called her and told her I was pregnant and then she called her back the next day and told me she was too!... 'It was such a big thing for both of us to get our heads around. I fell pregnant really quickly so it was a massive shock. At night, we would sit and try and get our heads around becoming mums. 'We've said they might end up dating in the future! We've also said they could be husband and wife one day - but then we're so close we thought that might be quite weird because they'll probably end up growing up like cousins.' Both Lucy and Lydia shot to fame in 2010 with their starring roles in TOWIE, which led to their reality careers. Future: Although Lucy is not due to give birth for another few weeks, she has already planned out her unborn son's love life Plans: The TV personality is due on the same day as her best friend Lydia Bright, 29, and the pair have confessed that they want their children to get married when they grow up Swanky: Lucy and Ryan's guests enjoyed a variety of food and drink at the shower Memories: At one point, the guests could be seen gathering in a circle and appeared to watch a slideshow of Lucy and Ryan's relationship New Delhi, Feb 2 : Delhi Police Commissioner Amulya Patnaik on Sunday spoke for the first time on the nearly two-month-old anti-CAA protest at Shaheen Bagh, urging the protesters, through the media, to move away from the main roads and not block them. Interacting with journalists here, he, referring to the incident of firing in the air near the protesters on Saturday, said that the youth concerned had no "courage" to do anything more. On the two cases of shooting in the area in the last two-three days, he said both the incidents were "different". "Police have made all the necessary arrangements at Shaheen Bagh," he said. On security arrangements for the February 8 Assembly elections, Patnaik assured that the polling will be held peacefully with nearly 59,000 security personnel - 40,000 of the Delhi Police and 19,000 Home Guards - to be deployed. He said police were keeping an eye on sensitive spots, and all personal of the local and traffic police as well of the security wing were on the alert. (Sanjeev Kumar Singh Chauhan can be contacted at sanjeev.c@ians.in) Some of the Indians evacuated from the Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak, were seen dancing in a video shot at a quarantine facility of the Indian Army. The clip tweeted by Air Indias spokesperson, Dhananjay Kumar, has gone viral on social media with more than 700 likes and at least 179 people retweeting it. The 16-second clip shows at least six students with masks on dancing to Byah Di Anpadh Hali Ke, a Haryanvi number. Several others are also seen standing and some using their mobile phones to capture their colleagues dancing. WATCH | Coronavirus: Students evacuated from China dance at Armys quarantine camp Two special flights of Air India had flown back more than 600 Indians from Wuhan in Hebei province of China on Saturday and Sunday. Of the 324 Indians evacuated from Wuhan on Saturday, 211 were students, 110 working professionals and three children. On Sunday, 323 Indians came back from the city now under lockdown. All of them were screened for symptoms of coronavirus at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in the Capital and before being brought to the two quarantine facilities set up by the Indian Army and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) in Delhi and neighbouring Haryanas Manesar. Chinas death toll from the new virus has gone up to 304 with more than 14,000 cases, amid warnings from the World Health Organization that other countries need to be prepared in the event the disease spreads among their populations. Two confirmed cases of coronavirus have been reported from Keralaone on Sunday and the other on Thursdayofficials have said. Both the patients have been kept in isolation ward in different hospitals across the southern state and the Union health ministry said in a statement on Sunday that the second person is stable and is being closely monitored. Kerala health minister KK Shailaja said the second patient is in Alapuzha. On Saturday, the state government had said that the countrys first coronavirus-infected patient, the woman who returned to Kerala from China last week, was recovering fast. A medical bulletin said she was responding well to treatment in the Thrissur Medical College Hospital. One person was killed in a fire at a shoe repairing factory here on Sunday, police said. The blaze at the factory, located in the E-block of Sector 7, was reported around 7.30 pm, the police said. "One person has died in the incident. The fire was controlled in 30 minutes as police and fire department personnel were deployed immediately at the spot," a senior police official said. Further details about the cause of the fire are awaited, the official added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Finally, after 47 years (much longer than my own lifetime), we are out of the EU. There were no live Big Ben bongs. No grand international photocalls at an Olympic Games-style closing ceremony. Just two people signing a piece of paper in Brussels, and Boris Johnson, flanked by a pair of tall Union Jacks, later scribbling his name on the same document in Westminster. As church bells across the country struck 11pm on Friday, we left. Now we are a free nation. Brexit: The moment dawns without Big Ben bongs or photocalls but bells rang out instead Not surprisingly, many of the reasons that led a majority to vote Leave have crystallised during the past week. Number one for anyone I met while canvassing over the past four years has always been the precious principle of sovereignty. How sad that those still banging the Remain (now Rejoin) drum have never understood what this means. True, sovereignty is an abstract concept but it's at the core of a nation's soul. To some extent, it means different things to different people. It can be big issues, such as striking independent trade deals with other countries, or simply not having all those little irritations, such as being unable to buy fruit and veg in imperial measures. Such viscerally important concerns have always been disregarded by Remainers, who grimly tell us we are stupid, racist little Englanders who didn't understand the benefits of EU membership benefits they failed utterly to explain. How typical that last week, as Britain finally left, Guy Verhofstadt MEP, the former prime minister of Belgium, made it abundantly obvious that in his view one widely shared in Brussels the sovereignty of a nation state is a bad thing. He, like all those other arch-integrationists and most of my former MEP colleagues, failed to see Brexit as a siren wake-up call that power needs devolving from unelected bureaucrats to the people. Risibly, to them, the problem is that the European Union is not centralised enough. 'Obsolete': That is the view of Verhofstadt on the nation station, according to Rees- Mogg In defiance of democracy, Verhofstadt had the gall to suggest the destination of the 'European project' means the nation state is obsolete and 'the world order of tomorrow is a world order based on empire'. (And there was me thinking that, in today's world, empires, imperialism and colonial power were considered morally wicked.) At least Verhofstadt had the decency to admit: 'It is sad to see a country leaving that twice liberated us, [that has] twice given its blood to liberate Europe.' But what is democracy unless it comes from the people and is government for the people? Most distressingly, there are signs elsewhere across Europe of the weakening of democracy. In the cradle of democracy, Greece, the country's proud citizens have become pawns in a game of geo-political chess, with their economy destroyed by a Brussels-imposed currency project. Noble Poles did not escape the suffocating restrictions imposed on them by Moscow to be trampled on by another remote and unrepresentative politburo-style body. And the French, with their long and distinguished history, are fighting to stop being subsumed by a foreign technocracy. All of these independent peoples want co-operation with their neighbouring states but not to be run by a supranational government. All want peace across the European continent. But they also want to be able to control the direction of their own countries in their own way, reflecting their own needs. This is sovereignty. This is what the British people called for in 2016 and have now gloriously achieved. It is a lesson the remaining 27 EU countries would be wise to heed. It is also a lesson for us in Britain. Nations are made up of individuals. They are not an amorphous blob. No country, state or empire survives ignoring the individuals upon whose shoulders it rests. Politicians forget this at their peril. Ever since my childhood, my family has listened to Nicholas Parsons's melodious voice flow from the radio. Just hearing Chopin's Minute Waltz strike up at the start of another episode of Just A Minute would lift my spirits. As youngsters, my siblings and I tried to join in and speak for a minute without hesitation, deviation or repetition. It was a challenge I always failed. While most programmes on Radio 4, from Woman's Hour to The News Quiz, are depressing to a degree, Nicholas and his erudite, witty panellists brightened up our lives. I hope the BBC can find a suitable replacement to help us carry on laughing. At a gathering of a dozen farmers in Lincolnshire, I learnt that six had voted to Remain and six to Leave. In character with the doughty realism required in their daily work, all 12 now accept Brexit and the Government's deal with Brussels. Like the majority of us, they just want to ensure the best future for our nation and are more than ready to work together to achieve it. Ignore the unpatriotic moaners on Twitter they don't represent the opinions of most folk across the UK. Who couldn't have been awe-struck watching the time-lapse video of the Chinese rushing to build a new hospital in ten days? One of the few benefits of a Communist state is that such feats can be achieved. However, without a free press and with state control of the internet, things are suppressed. We don't know the truth about how long the deadly coronavirus has existed and the real death toll. What does seem certain, though, is the disease was transmitted from wild animals sold as food in live animal markets common there. I visited such a market in Guangzhou, where we were offered a bear's paw. There were mewling kittens, live beavers and rats in cages fighting one another alongside other living 'delicacies'. We should be far more concerned about this part of the global food chain than chlorinated chicken. In agreement: Rees-Mogg agrees with Gary Lineker that the licence fee should be voluntary Grab the smelling salts I agree with Gary Lineker. Despite being the BBC's highest-paid presenter (1,754,999 a year, plus a big fee for doing similar work on BT Sport), he believes the licence fee should be voluntary. Having what is, in effect, a poll tax to provide money for a national broadcaster seems antiquated and indefensible. Making the 154.50-a-year fee voluntary would be interesting. I wonder how many people would pay? Another firing incident was reported at Jamia Millia Islamia University in Delhi Sunday night. Arshaan Afaq, an undergraduate law student, was present at the spot when two people opened fire from a moving vehicle. The first shot was fired near gate number 5. And we heard another noise when it crossed gate number 1. Though no one was hurt, situation here is tense. We have noted the number of the vehicle. Security guards at Jamia told officials that two persons came on a scooty from Okhla and moved towards Jullena. They said the first shot was fired near gate number 6 and second near gate number 1, an official said, requesting anonymity. Watch l 2 men open fire near Jamia, students protest outside police station The SHO of Jamia Nagar along with his team went to the spot and searched the area. No empty bullet shells were found there. Also, there were different versions regarding the vehicles which the alleged miscreants were riding. Some people said it was a scooter, others said it was a four wheeler, Kumar Gyanesh, additional DCP (southeast) said. Meanwhile, many people, including students, have started gathered outside the police station. They will be asked to give their complaint. We will conduct an enquiry and accordingly take action as per law, the senior police officer said. Margot Robbie joked that Brad Pitt would be naming his Bafta award Harry because he is really excited about bringing it back to the States as the Duke of Cambridge watched from the audience. With Pitt not present at the ceremony in London, Robbie stepped up to collect the award for best supporting actor for his role in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood on his behalf. Reading Pitts words from a sheet of paper, Robbie, his co-star in the Quentin Tarantino movie, closed the acceptance speech by saying: Oh, and he says that he is going to name this Harry because he is really excited about bringing it back to the States with him. As the audience reacted, she added: His words, not mine. Margot Robbie accepted the award on behalf of Brad Pitt (Matt Crossick/PA) Harrys brother William, watching from the front row alongside the Duchess of Cambridge, appeared to enjoy the joke as both he and Kate were seen laughing. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced recently they would be stepping down from their royal duties and bringing up son Archie mostly in Canada. In his speech, read by Robbie, Pitt also joked about Brexit. Robbie began: He starts by saying, Hey Britain. I heard you just became single welcome to the club. Pitts award was his first ever Bafta in an acting career that has spanned more than 30 years. According to an opinion piece recently appearing in The Courier written by one Debra Gore-Mann, Donald Trump should not only be impeached, but, We the people demand that the Senate vote to convict and remove this president. Other than the writer, it is not clear who we the people are. Lets be clear, irrespective of what you think of Trump, and irrespective of anything he has done or could have done, he was impeached because the American people voted for the wrong person. This will be perfectly clear after the next election. If Trump wins, his opponents will immediately claim the election was illegitimate. You see, we the people are only Gore-Manns correct people. In fact, if Trump is convicted, only the vote of the correct people would have counted. Gore-Mann makes this obvious when she writes that Trump could just as easily be impeached for his other offenses. What are these other offenses? Ah, Trump is a bigot, a racist, and a white nationalist. Debra opines, To be clear: bigotry, racism, and white nationalism are impeachable offenses. Of course, if this standard was applied across the board, it would have taken out Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, and every other Democratic president until the advent of post-modern liberal radicalism. These pejorative terms have become difficult to define once they were co-opted by the extremists. Our culture, for whatever reason, has allowed a very small group of people to redefine our language, especially negative terms like hate, sexist, and the nuclear racist. Hate speech can now be defined as almost any speech with which you disagree. In this new vocabulary, a person can be hateful without any evidence of hateful behavior. In fact, the new definitions remove actual behavior in favor of mere thought. You can be found guilty of thought crimes. So, as far as can be determined, a racist is anyone who disagrees with someone like Gore-Mann, a sexist is anyone you dislike, and a white nationalist is someone who actually likes American culture. We can assume, for example, that black, brown, yellow, green, and orange nationalism are not impeachable offenses. Under a system demanded by Gore-Mann, any president could not only be impeached for almost anything, every president you dont like SHOULD be impeached for almost anything. Under this system, we the people become a group of bureaucrats, a collection of activists, a majority of the media. Any election should be overthrown if the lowly masses dare elect someone these groups dislike. Gore-Manns article will sound perfectly logical to the present far-left and its ever-growing body of followers. Watch the next election. If Trump wins, the election will be illegitimate. If his opponent wins by a small margin, the election will be legitimate, but tainted. There must have been cheating and collusion with (fill in the blank) that greatly reduced the winning margin. Unfortunately for us all, a Democratic republic doesnt work under these circumstances. Dennis Clayson is a marketing professor at the University of Northern Iowa. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect those of the University of Northern Iowa. Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 3 Sorry! This content is not available in your region Frankfurt, Germany European governments ramped up military airlifts Saturday to bring their citizens back from China amid the outbreak of a new virus that has sickened thousands of people. A German air force plane arrived in Frankfurt carrying 128 passengers who were expected to spend two weeks quarantined at a military base. Russia sent military aircraft to evacuate citizens from Wuhan and other areas of China most affected by the virus. The German plane's arrival was delayed after it was refused permission to stop in Moscow to refuel and change the crew. Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said the plane received flyover clearance but not to land due to what the Russian side said was insufficient capacity. Russia's RIA-Novosti news agency cited an unnamed aviation source as saying Russia was not giving permission to any third-country evacuation flights to make stops. Russia's aviation authority could not be reached for comment. More repatriation flights are planned for Sunday, including to France. Of the 180 French people flown back from Wuhan on Friday, one showed symptoms of being infected with the virus and was sent to a Marseille hospital for testing. Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. The other passengers are being quarantined for 14 days at an isolated Mediterranean resort not far from Marseilles. The plane being dispatched Sunday also is expected to transport seven Austrians. A flight taking off from Wuhan on Sunday is due to land at a military base in Rome Monday bearing 70 Italians who will be be quarantined for about 14 days, Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio said. None of the returning Italians have shown any signs of contagion. Continuing his attacks on Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Sunday (February 2) said that Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Delhi is trying to create anarchy in Delhi by orchestrating incidents like Shaheen Bagh. The Uttar Pradesh chief minister made the remarks while addressing an election rally in Delhi's Badarpur. Sharpening his attacks on Kejriwal, Yogi Adityanath said that the ongoing anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protest at Delhi's Shaheen Bagh is only an excuse as the protesters really wanted to protest against the abrogation of Article 370, which granted special status to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir and construction of a grand Ram Temple in Ayodhya. The Uttar Pradesh CM once again dragged Pakistan in Delhi Assembly poll, scheduled to take place on February 8, saying when Prime Minister Narendra Modi abrogated Article 370, the pain was felt by Pakistan as well as Delhi CM Kejriwal. On Saturday (February 1), CM Adityanath had said that those who support terrorists in Kashmir were staging protests at Shaheen Bagh and raising slogans of 'azadi'. Hitting out at the AAP dispensation, the UP Chief Minister had said that his Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal was being endorsed by Pakistan. Live TV Hitting out at the anti-CAA protesters, Yogi Adityanath had said that 'their ancestors divided India.' "These protests happening at various places in Delhi are not about the CAA, but it is happening because those people are questioning as to how can India emerge as a major power in the world, and to stop that rising India," Adityanath claimed. In a related development, the AAP on Sunday demanded the Election Commission to ban CM Yogi Adityanath from campaigning in Delhi over his alleged provocative speeches. AAP MP Sanjay Singh demanded that an FIR should be registered the UP chief minister for his remarks. Polling for 70 Assembly seats in Delhi is set to take place on February 8 and results will be announced on February 11. A California man is about to face serious consequences for a string of crimes that include breaching a gaming industry giant. Palmdale resident Ryan Hernandez has pleaded guilty to federal charges of both hacking Nintendo systems (computer fraud and abuse) and possessing child pornography. Hernandez reportedly used phishing to swipe the credentials of a Nintendo worker in 2016 and used that to steal confidential info about the console maker and promptly leak that to the public. He even leaked details of the Switch before its March 2017 debut, according to court records. Moreover, he resumed hacking Nintendo systems in June 2018 despite the FBI catching him and eliciting a promise that he would stop. In Hernandez' renewed campaign, which ended when the FBI seized his devices in June 2019, he apparently broke into "multiple" Nintendo servers and stole a host of secret info, bragging about it on Discord and Twitter while leaking some of the data elsewhere. He even shared potential vulnerabilities in Nintendo's network with his community. The plea includes a recommended sentence of three years in prison, $259,323 in restitution to Nintendo and registration as a sex offender. Hernandez will face sentencing on April 21st. That deal would be a far cry from the maximum sentences of five years for the hacking-related charges and 20 years for child pornography, but it isn't trivial. For Nintendo, this also sends a message to would-be data thieves hoping to get a peek at the company's future. For a change of pace and for the sheer pleasure of the thing, I would like to pay tribute to Don Everly on the occasion of his birthday yesterday; he turned 83. Younger brother Phil died at the age of 74 six years ago. In the Cosmic American Music the Everly Brothers have a constellation all to themselves. They brought the close harmony singing of traditional country music into the mainstream of American popular music. Richie Unterberger has a good overview of the vicissitudes of their career in his AllMusic profile of the Everlys. Kit Rachlis has a perceptive chapter on the Everlys in The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll. More than a few great musicians learned close harmony singing by listening to their records. To take just one example, Paul McCartney acknowledged his debt to the Everlys in Let Em In. Simon and Garfunkel learned harmony singing by imitating the Everlys records. And so on. The Everly Brothers debut album on Cadence in 1958 remains a keeper. It was full of hits including several we all know as classics, most of them written by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant. I learn from Rachlis that the Bryants Bye Bye Love had been rejected by 30 acts before the Everlys rescued it for their hit ten days after its first releaseeventually reaching the Number Two spot on the pop listings and Number One on the country charts. Im mostly overlooking the songs of this period because of their familiarity, but I cant leave without a look back at Love Hurts. Written by Boudleaux Bryant, this one has echoed down the years. Songs Our Daddy Taught Us (1958) derives from their work on Cadence. You cant really understand the Everly Brothers without giving this one a spin. I love Long Time Gone from Songs. In 1960, they signed a big contract with Warner Bros. and struck out on their own. Some of their most brilliant work followed, including their number one smash Cathys Clown. Written by the Everlys, it still sounds fresh today. Their audience in the United States dwindled in the wake of the British Invasion. They nevertheless continued deepening and updating their work on albums such as The Everly Brothers Sing (1967) and Roots (1968) with songs that stand with their best work. On Roots they retrieved Dons I Wonder If I Care As Much from their first Cadence album and gave it a maturity that it lacked on the Cadence recording. Their subsequent recordings on Warner Bros. are haphazard affairs, but there are keepers among them. I put the single Im On My Way Home Again (by Terry Slater and Venetia Stevenson, 1969) in that category. I also put Stories We Could Tell (by John Sebastian, 1971) in that category. After performing together with their faces a few inches apart from each other for many years, the brothers broke up in public onstage at Knotts Berry Farm in Buena Park, California in 1973. It took some ten years for time to heal the wounds sufficiently for them to reconcile professionally. Their British fans never really left them. Repaying their debt to their British fans, the brothers debuted their reunion in a concert at Albert Hall. Paul McCartney repaid his debt by contributing On the Wings of a Nightingale to their reunion (EB84). It was their last top 10 hit on any US chart (number 9 on Adult Contemporary, according to the Wikipedia list of songs recorded by the Everlys). The video above captures Don and Phil in a beautiful performance of Take a Message To Mary/Maybe Tomorrow at the Christmas 1983 BBC concert following their Albert Hall reunion concert that fall. Its a medley that goes back to their Cadence recordings of the 1950s and brings their career full circle. (Take a Message to Mary was written by the Bryants, Maybe Tomorrow by the Everlys.) We saw the Everly Brothers when their reunion tour brought them to Minneapolis in June 1984 for a show at Northrop Memorial Auditorium on the campus of the University of Minnesota, and again in the fall of 2003 when Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel brought them to St. Paul for an arena show as part of their own version of a reunion tour. I was struck by the excitement of the audience as we entered each of these shows. The quality of the songs, the performances, the playing, the sound all added up to make the shows something of an emotional experience. The emotion triggered by the shows can be written off to the self-indulgent nostalgia of the baby boomers who constituted virtually the entire audience for the shows, but I thought it represented something more. The Everly Brothers had brought the close harmony singing of the recorded country tradition into popular music. That style of singing originates in the music of the Carter Family and runs preeminently from the Carter Family through the succeeding Brothers acts that deepened and perfected it the Monroe Brothers, the Louvin Brothers, the Delmore Brothers, the Stanley Brothers. As Richie Unterberger writes in a fine essay on country duos, The Everlys couldbe seen as the link in the chain that finally brought the magic of country harmony singing to a wide international pop audience. In the process they werent playing country music anymore, although you could hardly say they sold out, given that they made some of the finest rock and pop records of the late 50s and early 60s. Their influence was immense on the Beatles, the Hollies, Simon & Garfunkel, and many other rock and pop acts of the last several decades that built their sound around close harmonies. The demands of the form place a premium on conformity of timing, pronunciation, intonation and pitch that contribute to the difficulty of the style and the tradition of blood relationships among its practitioners. The inherent stress of show business combined with the family element of the equation must make the form extraordinarily intense. When these folks reunite for love or money, we must understand at some level how the show replays the family romance of love and death that holds us all in its grip. We seize the moment of this reunion like that of our own family reunions to cherish the harmony for its beauty and evanescence. NOTE: I want to express my gratitude to the estimable Richie Unterberger for responding to my inquiry regarding his essay on country duos. He reminds me that his essay appears in The All Music Guide to Country: The Definitive Guide to Country Music. The essay is no longer accessible online. Elizabeth Warren hit the ground hard in Iowa, desperate to make up momentum ceded to rivals such as Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg after time away from the campaign while acting as a juror in Donald Trumps Senate impeachment trial. Having flown back to the Hawkeye state on Friday night after senators brokered a deal to vote on the president next Wednesday, Warren threw herself back into the final days of campaigning, making her case that Iowans should vote for her. At the centre of her pitch was not simply an appeal to anger about Republicans alleged unwillingness to properly consider the impeachment accusations levelled at the president. Rather, she also hammered hard on several concerns she believes are closest to voters hearts access to affordable healthcare, the cost of prescription medicine and jobs that paid a living wage. I was a high school debater and I won a scholarship to college, she said, speaking in a gymnasium at Coe College in the city of Cedar Rapids. The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Show all 25 1 /25 The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Bernie Sanders The Vermont senator has launched a second bid for president after losing out to Hilary Clinton in the 2016 Democratic primaries. He is running on a similar platform of democratic socialist reform Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Joe Biden The former vice president recently faced scrutiny for inappropriate touching of women, but was thought to deal with the criticism well and has since maintained a front runner status in national polling EPA The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Elizabeth Warren The Massachusetts senator is a progressive Democrat, and a major supporter of regulating Wall Street Reuters The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Amy Klobuchar Klobuchar is a Minnesota senator who earned praise for her contribution to the Brett Kavanaugh hearings Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Michael Bloomberg Michael Bloomberg, a late addition to the 2020 race, announced his candidacy after months of speculation in November. He has launched a massive ad-buying campaign and issued an apology for the controversial "stop and frisk" programme that adversely impacted minority communities in New York City when he was mayor Getty Images The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Tulsi Gabbard The Hawaii congresswoman announced her candidacy in January, but has faced tough questions on her past comments on LGBT+ rights and her stance on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Pete Buttigieg The centrist Indiana mayor and war veteran would be the first openly LGBT+ president in American history Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Deval Patrick The former Massachusetts governor launched a late 2020 candidacy and received very little reception. With just a few short months until the first voters flock to the polls, the former governor is running as a centrist and believes he can unite the party's various voting blocs AFP/Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Beto O'Rourke The former Texas congressman formally launched his bid for the presidency in March. He ran on a progressive platform, stating that the US is driven by "gross differences in opportunity and outcome" AP The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Kamala Harris The former California attorney general was introduced to the national stage during Jeff Sessions testimony. She has endorsed Medicare-for-all and proposed a major tax-credit for the middle class AFP/Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Bill De Blasio The New York mayor announced his bid on 16 May 2019. He emerged in 2013 as a leading voice in the left wing of his party but struggled to build a national profile and has suffered a number of political setbacks in his time as mayor AFP/Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Steve Bullock The Montana governor announced his bid on 14 May. He stated "We need to defeat Donald Trump in 2020 and defeat the corrupt system that lets campaign money drown out the people's voice, so we can finally make good on the promise of a fair shot for everyone." He also highlighted the fact that he won the governor's seat in a red [Republican] state Reuters The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Cory Booker The New Jersey Senator has focused on restoring kindness and civility in American politics throughout his campaign, though he has failed to secure the same level of support and fundraising as several other senators running for the White House in 2020 Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Wayne Messam Mayor of the city of Miramar in the Miami metropolitan area, Wayne Messam said he intended to run on a progressive platform against the "broken" federal government. He favours gun regulations and was a signatory to a letter from some 400 mayors condemning President Trump's withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord Vice News The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Kirsten Gillibrand The New York Senator formally announced her presidential bid in January, saying that healthcare should be a right, not a privilege Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: John Delaney The Maryland congressman was the first to launch his bid for presidency, making the announcement in 2017 AP The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Andrew Yang The entrepreneur announced his presidential candidacy by pledging that he would introduce a universal basic income of $1,000 a month to every American over the age of 18 Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Julian Castro The former San Antonio mayor announced his candidacy in January and said that his running has a special meaning for the Latino community in the US Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Marianne Williamson The author and spiritual adviser has announced her intention to run for president. She had previously run for congress as an independent in 2014 but was unsuccessful Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Eric Swalwell One of the younger candidates, Swalwell has served on multiple committees in the House of Representatives. He intended to make gun control central to his campaign but dropped out after his team said it was clear there was no path to victory Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Seth Moulton A Massachusetts congressman, Moulton is a former US soldier who is best known for trying to stop Nancy Pelosi from becoming speaker of the house. He dropped out of the race after not polling well in key states Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Jay Inslee Inslee has been governor of Washington since 2013. His bid was centred around climate change AFP/Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: John Hickenlooper The former governor of Colorado aimed to sell himself as an effective leader who was open to compromise, but failed to make a splash on the national stage Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Tim Ryan Ohio representative Tim Ryan ran on a campaign that hinged on his working class roots, though his messaging did not appear to resonate with voters Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Tom Steyer Democratic presidential hopeful billionaire and philanthropist Tom Steyer is a longtime Democratic donor AFP/Getty Leading into the twisting personal life story that has also become part of her pitch to voters, she added: Then at 19, I felt in lot, got married and dropped out ... It was OK, but I lost out on my dream of being a public school teacher. Warren has her work cut out here in the midwest, where people will on Monday night hold the first vote of the 2020 political cycle. Because of its first in the nation status, largely rural and overwhelmingly white Iowa exerts influence far beyond its population. Just a few months ago, Warren, a senator from Massachusetts, was tied for first place here. But just as quickly as she seemed to rise, so she has lost ground, while Joe Biden, Buttigieg and Sanders have seen their fortunes rise. Some have suggested Warren saw her numbers dip amid doubts among voters as to how she would pay for her universal healthcare plan, despite her including the explanation as part of her pitch. As result, while the equally progressive Sanders has held onto his supporters, some of Warrens initial supporters appear to have shifted to Biden, Buttigieg and Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar all of whom claim their more modest policy proposals are more realistic. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders heard accusing each other of calling them a 'liar' at end of TV debate A recent poll by The New York Times put Biden ahead nationally on 27 points, with Sanders on 24, and Warren on 14. In Iowa, the polls put Sanders and Biden equal on 22, with Buttigieg second on 18, and Warren on 15. Sitting in the front row of seats at Coe College, Lana Gehlsen, 68, a retired lab technician, said she was not fully decided on who to support on Monday, but that she was impressed by what she had seen of the senator. Im still on the fence, but Im leaning towards her. I like what she has to say, she said. Warren was introduced by Ayanna Pressley, the first African-American woman elected to congress from Massachusetts. She is both empathetic and electable, she declared. People talk a lot about her skills as a professor and a teacher, but she is an even better student. And that is something we need right now. She added: I know why some people are not here: broken hearts and broken promises and a broken system. But we need big structural change. Warren has made posing for selfies with every person in the room who asks for one an important part of her campaign strategy. Yet on Saturday, as the sun glimmered off the snow in Cedar Rapids, she asked them to allow her to cut that short, in order to enable her to get to other campaign stops in the state. In her place, she was leaving behind her golden retriever, Bailey, who has also been campaigning along with her son, Alex, while she was dealing with impeachment in Washington DC. Dont worry, she said to the crowd. Hes been working on his smile. As it was, she stayed behind for one group shot before getting back on the trail. This is it. This is our moment in history, and it launches right here in Iowa, she said, her voice sounding a little hoarse. We are going to make it happen. AMARAVATI: The office of the Vigilance Commissioner and the chairman of the Commissionerate of Inquiries are the first departments to be ordered to shift out of Amaravati to Kurnool, where the Jagan Mohan Reddy government is planning to set up the judicial capital of Andhra Pradesh. The government wants to dissemble its administration so as to develop three capitals but the move is facing hurdles in the legislative council where the opposition has majority. Despite that the states chief secretary Nilam Sawhney issued, after midnight Friday, to these office to get move base to Kurnool. These two offices are currently housed in the Interim Government Complex at Velagapudi in the Amaravati capital region. They are both quasi-judicial offices, hence the move to Kurnool, where the states High Court is to be set up. The district collector and engineer-in-chief (roads & buildings) of Kurnool district have been told to find suitable buildings for them. The three capitals idea is snagged in the Legislature but also in the High Court, which has asked the government not to shift any of its offices. The court will next hear the case on February 26 for further hearing. A whole bunch of writ petitions has been filed to challenge the AP Decentralisation and Inclusive Development of All Regions Bill, 2020 and the APCRDA (Repeal) Bill. Both bills could not pass muster in the Legislative Council where the majority TDP opposition had them referred to a select committee, which is likely to drag its feet on the deliberations. Following this, the government moved to get rid of the council itself. New York Community Bancorp, Inc. (NYSE:NYCB) is about to trade ex-dividend in the next 4 days. You will need to purchase shares before the 7th of February to receive the dividend, which will be paid on the 24th of February. New York Community Bancorp's next dividend payment will be US$0.17 per share. Last year, in total, the company distributed US$0.68 to shareholders. Based on the last year's worth of payments, New York Community Bancorp stock has a trailing yield of around 6.1% on the current share price of $11.06. If you buy this business for its dividend, you should have an idea of whether New York Community Bancorp's dividend is reliable and sustainable. So we need to investigate whether New York Community Bancorp can afford its dividend, and if the dividend could grow. Check out our latest analysis for New York Community Bancorp Dividends are typically paid out of company income, so if a company pays out more than it earned, its dividend is usually at a higher risk of being cut. It paid out 87% of its earnings as dividends last year, which is not unreasonable, but limits reinvestment in the business and leaves the dividend vulnerable to a business downturn. It could become a concern if earnings started to decline. When a company paid out less in dividends than it earned in profit, this generally suggests its dividend is affordable. The lower the % of its profit that it pays out, the greater the margin of safety for the dividend if the business enters a downturn. Click here to see the company's payout ratio, plus analyst estimates of its future dividends. NYSE:NYCB Historical Dividend Yield, February 2nd 2020 Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing? When earnings decline, dividend companies become much harder to analyse and own safely. If earnings decline and the company is forced to cut its dividend, investors could watch the value of their investment go up in smoke. Readers will understand then, why we're concerned to see New York Community Bancorp's earnings per share have dropped 6.6% a year over the past five years. Such a sharp decline casts doubt on the future sustainability of the dividend. Story continues The main way most investors will assess a company's dividend prospects is by checking the historical rate of dividend growth. New York Community Bancorp's dividend payments per share have declined at 3.8% per year on average over the past ten years, which is uninspiring. While it's not great that earnings and dividends per share have fallen in recent years, we're encouraged by the fact that management has trimmed the dividend rather than risk over-committing the company in a risky attempt to maintain yields to shareholders. Final Takeaway Should investors buy New York Community Bancorp for the upcoming dividend? Earnings per share have been declining and the company is paying out more than half its profits to shareholders; not an enticing combination. This is not an overtly appealing combination of characteristics, and we're just not that interested in this company's dividend. Wondering what the future holds for New York Community Bancorp? See what the 12 analysts we track are forecasting, with this visualisation of its historical and future estimated earnings and cash flow We wouldn't recommend just buying the first dividend stock you see, though. Here's a list of interesting dividend stocks with a greater than 2% yield and an upcoming dividend. If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Thank you for reading. In what is literally a decades-long fight, the state of Montana, along with Wyoming, wants the United States Supreme Court to rule on the controversial plan to put coal ports in Washington for easier export to places like Japan and India. Those who want to stop coal from being consumed are happy with the ruling from the Washington state courts which has stopped the ports. Those who stand against coal believe the courts should rule on coal. In other words, stop the coal, stop the problem. Like so many things, that's too simple of an equation, and it's not the truth. This is really not a fight about coal. It's about whether a state can manipulate a federal law to deny commerce with another state. It's not about coal; it's about the law. We'd point out that we have raised concerns about relying on coal previously. However, we have also repeatedly pointed out that reliability and heavy peak load times are also something utilities need to be ready to handle, and coal would seem to be a possible solution. We also believe that the global economy, coupled with a growing concern about carbon-based fossil fuels will take care of itself. In other words, if consumers want energy, want it coal-less, and are willing to pay for that, then the markets will adjust accordingly. However, this is not about blocking coal, even though that's what the legislation in Washington has done. Instead, we believe the issue is about how far Washington can contort the issue such that it will violate federal standards. As one person suggested, the state of Washington appears to be weaponizing the Clean Air Act just to block coal. The question isn't one of fossil fuels, energy or climate change as some have argued. Instead, it's whether one state can apply the Environmental Protection Agency rule as Washington has done, and in doing so, shut out other states from doing business there. This, as Montana Attorney General Tim Fox said, will be a test of the Commerce Clause in the United States Constitution. That's why we believe the United States Supreme Court would do well to consider this issue. This is a legitimate and timely fight between two states, both of which see the next generation's survival as tied to the outcome of this suit. Wyoming and Montana need to have a coal port within a reasonable distance to ensure the coal prices remain competitive. They claim that Washington has used the Clean Air Act improperly and it doesn't allow the state to deny the permitting of new coal ports. Washington claims that runoff from the coal would pollute waterways and damage wetlands. It's not surprising this fight is coming via Washington. The state recently took action against coal, ruling that coal power would be banned after 2025. This seems like it unfairly targets coal. Coal still has environmental challenges and those are serious. But, we have repeatedly called for a mix of usages to balance our energy portfolio, ensure a reliable power supply, and maximize a cheap, reliable source. The reality is that one state's overreach may not only cause economic pain in Montana and Wyoming, but it may mean the power is not as reliable. We hope the Supreme Court takes this challenge because it will take some time to settle. And the Supreme Court seems like the proper venue. We also believe that deciding a case like this will help future fights that are bound to happen as landlocked states like Montana and Wyoming continue to want to use natural resources responsibly. Sometimes it seems as if joining big national lawsuits is more a publicity stunt than anything. But, this lawsuit from Montana Attorney General Tim Fox is a great way to settle a dispute that has been going on for far too long. We're glad that we may finally have an answer to this vexing problem in Washington. This editorial originally appeared in the Billings Gazette. You must be logged in to react. Click any reaction to login. Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 2 business Budget 2020 | More needs to be done for MSMEs and investors In this special episode on Budget 2020, Moneycontrols Deputy Executive Editor Gaurav Choudhury explains why the market was disappointed with the announcements made by the finance minister Indonesians who arrived from Wuhan are sprayed with antiseptic at Hang Nadim Airport in Batam (Indonesian Foreign Ministry/AP) The Philippines on Sunday reported the first death from coronavirus outside China, where authorities have tightened quarantine measures in a city that allow only one family member to venture out to buy supplies. The Philippine Department of Health said a 44-year-old Chinese man from Wuhan was admitted on January 25 after experiencing a fever, cough, and sore throat. He developed severe pneumonia and, in his last few days, the patient was stable and showed signs of improvement, however, the condition of the patient deteriorated within his last 24 hours resulting in his demise. The mans 38-year-old female companion, also from Wuhan, tested positive for the virus and remains in hospital isolation in Manila. President Rodrigo Duterte approved a temporary ban on all travellers, except Filipinos, from China and its autonomous regions. The US, Japan, Singapore and Australia have imposed similar restrictions despite criticism from China and an assessment from the World Health Organisation that they were unnecessarily hurting trade and travel. The death toll in China climbed by 45 to 304 and the number of cases by 2,590 to 14,380, according to the National Health Commission. This is well above the number of those infected in the 2002-03 outbreak of Sars, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, which broke out in southern China and spread worldwide. Meanwhile, six officials in the city of Huanggang, neighbouring the epicentre of Wuhan in Hubei province, have been fired over poor performance in handling the outbreak, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. Expand Close The Huoshenshan temporary field hospital nears completion in Wuhan (Chinatopix/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The Huoshenshan temporary field hospital nears completion in Wuhan (Chinatopix/AP) It quoted the mayor as saying the citys capabilities to treat the patients remained inadequate and there is a severe shortage in medical supplies such as protective suits and medical masks. The trading centre of Wenzhou in coastal Zhejiang province confined people to their homes, allowing only one family member to venture out every other day to buy necessary supplies. Huanggang imposed similar measures on Saturday. A 1,000-bed hospital specially built to handle cases of the virus in Wuhan is expected to open on Monday, just 10 days after construction began. A second hospital is to open soon after. With the outbreak showing little sign of abating, authorities in Hubei and elsewhere have extended the Lunar New Year holiday, due to end this week, well into February. The annual travel crunch of millions of people returning from their hometowns to the cities is thought to pose a major threat of secondary infection at a time when authorities are encouraging people to avoid public gatherings. All Hubei schools will postpone the opening of the new term until further notice and students from elsewhere who visited over the holiday will also be excused from classes. Expand Close Visitors wear face masks at the Comic Exhibition in Taipei, Taiwan (Chiang Ying-ying/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Visitors wear face masks at the Comic Exhibition in Taipei, Taiwan (Chiang Ying-ying/AP) Far away on Chinas south-east coast, the manufacturing hub of Wenzhou put off the opening of government offices until February 9, private businesses until February 17 and schools until March 1. With nearly 10 million people, Wenzhou has reported 241 confirmed cases of the virus, one of the highest levels outside Hubei. Similar measures have been announced in the provinces and cities of Heilongjiang, Shandong, Guizhou, Hebei and Hunan, while the major cities of Shanghai and Beijing were on indefinite leave pending developments. Despite imposing drastic travel restrictions at home, China has chafed at those imposed by foreign governments, criticising Washingtons order barring entry to most non-citizens who visited China in the past two weeks. Apart from affecting Chinas international reputation, such steps could worsen a domestic economy already growing at its lowest rate in decades. New Zealand announced Sunday it is temporarily banning travellers from China to protect the South Pacific region from the virus. The 14-day ban applies to foreigners leaving China but not to New Zealand residents. New Zealand also raised its travel advice for China to do not travel, the highest level. Among a growing number of airlines suspending flights to mainland China was Qatar Airways. The Doha-based carrier said on its website that its flights would stop Monday. It blamed significant operational challenges caused by entry restrictions imposed by a number of countries for the suspension of flights. Indonesia and Oman also halted flights to China, as did Saudi Arabias flagship national carrier, Saudia. Saudi Arabias state-run media reported that 10 Saudi students were evacuated from Wuhan on a special flight. It said the students would be screened upon arrival and quarantined for 14 days. This weekend, South Korea and India flew hundreds of their citizens out of Wuhan. Persons with #2019nCoV who are symptomatic will spread the virus more readily through coughing and sneezing. WHO Situation Report 1 February 2020 https://t.co/5gEHSOGO7H pic.twitter.com/DP6dH1bOGy World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) February 1, 2020 A Turkish military transport plane carrying 42 people arrived in Ankara from Wutan on Saturday night. The 32 Turkish, six Azerbaijani, three Georgian nationals and an Albanian will remain under observation for 14 days, together with 20 personnel who took part in the evacuation, health minister Fahrettin Koca said. A second French-chartered plane was flying to France with 300 evacuees, including French, Belgians, Dutch, Danes, Czechs, Slovaks and some citizens of African countries. Officials said none of the passengers had symptoms of the virus on leaving China. Of the 180 French people flown back from Wuhan on Friday, one showed symptoms of being infected and was taken to hospital for testing, French health minister Agnes Buzyn said. The others were quarantined for 14 days. Europe so far has 23 people infected with the virus: Germany with eight, all tied to the same car parts factory; France with six; Russia, Italy and the UK with two each, and Finland, Sweden and Spain each with one. Expand Close A government worker takes the temperature of a passer-by at a checkpoint in Suining in south-western Chinas Sichuan Province (Chinatopix/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A government worker takes the temperature of a passer-by at a checkpoint in Suining in south-western Chinas Sichuan Province (Chinatopix/AP) On Sunday, South Korea reported three more cases for a total of 15. They include an evacuee, a Chinese relative of a man who tested positive and a man who returned from Wuhan. India reported a second case, also in southern Kerala state. South Korea also barred foreigners who have stayed or travelled to Hubei province within the last 14 days from entering the country. Indonesia flew back 241 nationals from Wuhan on Sunday and quarantined them on the remote Natuna Islands for two weeks. Several hundred residents protested against the move, with one saying: This is not because we do not have a sense of solidarity with fellow nationals. But because we fear they could infect us with the deadly virus from China. Vietnam counted its seventh case, a Vietnamese-American man who had a two-hour layover in Wuhan on his way from the US to Ho Chi Minh City. It ordered schools to close for at least a week in 19 of the countrys 54 provinces and cities, including Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, which together account for more than four million students. Expand Close Government workers in protective suits carry groceries for a family under home quarantine in Zouping in eastern Chinas Shandong Province (Chinatopix/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Government workers in protective suits carry groceries for a family under home quarantine in Zouping in eastern Chinas Shandong Province (Chinatopix/AP) The virus rapid spread in two months prompted the WHO on Thursday to declare it a global emergency. That declaration flipped the switch from a cautious attitude to recommending governments prepare for the possibility the virus might spread, said the WHO representative in Beijing, Gauden Galea. Most cases reported so far have been people who visited China or their family members. WHO said it was especially concerned that some cases abroad involved human-to-human transmission. Countries need to get ready for possible importation in order to identify cases as early as possible and in order to be ready for a domestic outbreak control, if that happens, Mr Galea told The Associated Press. Both the new virus and Sars are from the coronavirus family, which also includes those that cause the common cold. Ernakulam, Feb 2 : Strongly condemning incidents of violence unleashed against pro-CAA votaries in different parts of the country, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) has called for stringent legal action against political parties that support violent attacks against Hindu society. In a press release issued on Sunday, VHP secretary general Milind Parande expressed concern over the role of Muslim organisations, like the Popular Front of India (PFI), in anti-CAA agitations and associated violence. He reiterated that the CAA deals only with providing citizenship for non-Muslim refugees from neighbouring Muslim-majority countries, and doesn't affect citizenship of any Indian. Parande's comments come in the backdrop of the recent attack on a pro-CAA rallies in Jharkhand, which led to the death of one person. He also called attention to recent developments such as Kapil Sibal receiving money for providing legal support to the conversion of non-Muslim girls. A weather map resembling a penis has garnered a lot of attention online. The map shows a weather system with heavy rain forecast off the coast of Coffs Harbour on the north coast of New South Wales on Thursday. A storm is also expected to form over that stretch of the coastline next week with heavy rainfall of up to 39.1mm. Unfortunately the weather system took on a very phallic shape. The map shows a weather system with heavy rain forecast off the coast of Coffs Harbour on the north coast on Thursday A storm is also expected to form over the NSW coast next week with heavy rainfall of up to 39.1mm The hilarious image was posted to Reddit on Sunday with the caption: 'Just when you think you can't take another inch'. The post quickly garnered attention, with users flooding the comments with sexual innuendos. 'Man, Australia is really getting f**ked over this year!' one user wrote. 'Geez, we truly are getting shafted!' another wrote. 'Looks like you're about to take a pounding,' one person commented. Sydney has been sweltering through the weekend but thunderstorms and rain is expected to hit at the beginning of the week. Damaging winds could hit Sydney, the Illawarra and the Blue Mountains on Sunday night and Monday. Damaging winds could hit Sydney, the Illawarra and the Blue Mountains on Sunday night and Monday NSW Health issued a warning that winds could bring bushfire smoke from the state's south into Sydney and the Illawarra. They warn residents to be cautious of being outdoors: 'People with chronic respiratory and cardiovascular conditions should avoid outdoor physical activity and those with asthma should also follow their Asthma Action Plan and carry their reliever medication with them.' Sydney could be seeing a reprieve from the warm weather over the coming week, with maximum temperatures of 26C and cloud cover. Showers and storms are forecast from Thursday and into the following weekend. Islamabad: The four minor boys arrested by the police in connection with the Hindu temple vandalism in Chhachro area of Sindh province of Pakistan have now been released. The release is because the person who had filed the case has withdrawn his complaint. According to Pakistan newspaper Dawn, the complainant's name is Prem Kumar and he has withdrawn the complaint following the request of local Hindu leaders. The newspaper quoted police officials as saying that the boys arrested were aged 15, 13, 13 and 12. He has confessed his crime and said that he did this to steal money from the temple. Mata Deval Bhittani temple in a village near Chhachhro town in Thar, Sindh province was vandalized by some unknown miscreants on Sunday night (26 January). He insulted the idols of God. On Monday, an FIR was registered on the orders of Thar Senior Superintendent of Police Abdullah Ahmadiyar. The report said that the four boys, residents of Chhachharo, were arrested on Monday on charges of sabotage at the place of worship. Meanwhile, Sindh Province Minority Affairs Minister Hari Ram Kishori Lal has asked the police to file a blasphemy case against the accused. Also Read: Britain exited from EU after 47 years, know its effect on India Imran Khan again criticizes India on CAA, says, '50 crore Muslims out...' Coronavirus: Return of Indians from China continues, 323 passengers reaches Delhi so far Pak students whipped PM of Pakistan, says 'Learn something from India...' New Delhi: In a tragic incident, unknown assailants on Sunday (February 2) shot dead Vishwa Hindu Mahasabha president Ranjit Bachchan in Uttar Pradesh's Lucknow. According to the police, the incident took place at the Globe Park in Hazratganj area of Lucknow on Sunday morning. The attackers managed to flee from the spot after committing the crime. Ranjit Bachchan was fired upon on his head and was immediately rushed to a nearby Trauma Centre where he succumbed to his injuries. Along with Ranjit, the assailants also fired bullets on his brother. Six teams of Uttar Pradesh Police and the Crime Branch have begun an investigation into the matter. Live TV It is to be noted that this is the second incident when the leader of an ultra-right fringe outfit Hindu has been killed. In October 2019, Hindu Samaj Party leader Kamlesh Tiwari was murdered outside his residence in the Naka area of Lucknow by two suspects. Kamlesh Tiwari had shot into the limelight after he made controversial remarks about Prophet Mohammad in 2015 following which several Muslim groups held huge protests demanding action against him. He had contested the Lok Sabha election 2019 from Faizabad as an independent but lost deposit. He also had several criminal cases registered against him. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday clarified that only those NRIs will be taxed who are having income in India but are living outside the country. "I am not taxing what you are earning outside India. If an NRI is getting rent in India and living abroad, he or she will be liable to pay tax. I am not taxing what you are earning in Dubai. But that property which is giving you rent here you may be an NRI, you may be living there but that is revenue being generated here for you," Sitharaman told reporters here. Soon after the Finance Minister's media interaction, the government also clarified that in case of an Indian citizen who becomes deemed resident of India under this proposed provision, income earned outside India by him shall not be taxed in India unless it is derived from an Indian business or profession. Sitharaman also gave a clarification on the new tax regime announced in the Union Budget 2020-21, which she tabled in the Lok Sabha on Saturday. In reply to a question, she said: "Most of the people are questioning the tables, which have come up in newspapers, maybe because of us, there is definitely a lack of clarity, many of calculations in newspapers have not taken on board that set of exemptions." The minister said that there are a few exemptions in the new system and a list of exemptions has been issued. "I may be wrong, but I believe that many of the calculations which have come up in newspapers today have probably not taken into considerations all exemptions," she said. Sitharaman said in the new tax system people will be taxed at the lowest possible rate and will still benefit. "All exemptions are not being removed," she said. Replying to a question, the minister said that many aspects of the Direct Tax Code recommendation have been put together in the Budget. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Neurologists convened to tackle scope of the problem, its causes and some exciting new preventative treatments The phrase crippling headache is as accurate as it gets for millions around the globe -- a bad headache can get in the way of everything. Last Thursday, a conference in Cairo was attended by several senior professors of neurology in collaboration with the private sector's pharmaceutical, Novartis , to discuss the burdens of migraines, the traditional treatments available to patients, and the importance of the new treatment in relieving their suffering. Last year, the conference organisers also launched the hashtag #BalashSuda3 to raise public awareness of different kinds of headaches, their causes and their treatment options, with a special focus on migraines. Migraines decoded Dr. Mohamed Osama Abdelghany, the head of the Headache Chapter, explained that migraines are a neurological disease in which genetics and environmental factors appear to play a role, although the exact causes are still shrouded in mystery. "Migraine in Arabic historically had a very significant name el-shakeeka -- meaning 'what splits the head into two'. With such accuracy, our ancestors explained its effect, he said. "It is typically a severe throbbing recurring pain, usually on one side of the head, and is often accompanied by debilitating symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, dizziness, extreme sensitivity to sound, light, touch and smell. A common disease Understanding the magnitude of the problem requires a look at the data. Migraine affects more than 10 percent of the global population and is two to three times more common in women than in men. Research suggests that 3,000 migraine attacks occur every day for each million of the general population. The disease is most common between the ages of 25 and 55, said Abdelghany. Comprehensive data is not available for the whole of Egypt, so experts tend to rely on two key studies conducted in the governorates of Assiut and Fayoum. "A study on primary headache disorders in Fayoum on 2,600 patients and in Assiut on 5,000 patients revealed that more than 60 percent of respondents did not seek medical advice for their headaches, with the percentage higher in rural areas. Those people thought that over-the-counter pills could be a solution, and that migraines are incurable. The prevalence of symptomatic migraines reached 17.3 percent and peaked in middle age, according to the survey." "Migraine is the third most common disease in the world, with an estimated global prevalence of 14.7 percent -- affecting nearly one in seven people," Abdelghany explained. Finding a way out The experts then turned to the topic of understanding the ailment and the treatments commonly used, as well as tackling the new scientific breakthroughs in the field. The causes of the disease have long been unclear, and sufferers have often resorted to painkillers that are not effective. Doctors prescribed medications that are usually used for treating other medical problems like heart disease, depression and epilepsy, which could scare patients off and led them to discontinue treatment. "Many factors contributed to under-recognition and under-treatment, some of which were the absence of specialised headache centres, underestimating headache disorders by family members and even by health care practitioners, insufficient patient education and the availability of over-the-counter pain relievers," said Dr. Maged Abdel Nasser, professor and head of neurology at Kasr Al-Ainy, and general secretary of the Egyptian Society of Neurology, Psychiatry and Neurosurgery. Though migraine causes are not understood, genetics and environmental factors appear to play a role. Migraines may be caused by changes in the brainstem and its interactions with the trigeminal nerve, a major pain pathway," he added. This was until a new discovery surfaced. "Clinical studies have proven that the a certain protein, CGRP, is associated with the migraines and plays an important and active role in causing an attack, and new treatments in the form of monthly shots made use of this scientific breakthrough, and paved the way for the first preventive medication to appear in Egypt when it comes to migraines, Abdel Nasser noted. Leading cause of disability The day concluded with attendees drawing attention to the importance of raising awareness of the possibility of preventing and treating migraines, which take a huge toll on economies and societies. The doctors explained that, between 1990 and 2016, migraines were classified globally as the second leading cause of disability. They added that more than 90 percent of those who suffer from migraines are unable to work or lead normal lives, and up to 46 percent of migraine patients visit emergency rooms for treatment. Studies show that migraines with aura, a sensation that sufferers get before the onset of an attack, are associated with a twofold increased risk of ischemic stroke. "In addition to that, migraine patients are at a greater risk of developing anxiety and/or depression than non-sufferers, and the disease is also associated with a high economic and societal burden, Abdelghany said. "The huge impact of migraine, which affects women three times more than men, on patients lives, translates into significant economic and social burdens," he stressed. More awareness Commenting on the lack of proper awareness even among health care providers, Abdelghany, said: Across medical schools all over the world, a minimal amount of hours are dedicated to migraine, despite the fact that severe headaches and migraines are highly prevalent among the younger segment of the population. "Migraine remains under-diagnosed and under-treated in at least 50 percent of patients, and less than 50 percent of migraine patients consult a physician. "Awareness should be raised in order for health care professionals, family members and friends to be able to identify the symptoms of migraine and understand that there are treatments, and yes, now there could be prevention," he concluded. Search Keywords: Short link: It takes less than 30 seconds to drive through Taiban, and if youre not paying attention, you might not realize it is a town. But it is. A crumbling, one-horse, inhabited by only six families type of town, but a town. A town with an interesting history and an interesting name. Taiban (pronounced tie-ban) was established by three Portales businessmen in 1906 as a small ranching community near the newly laid railroad tracks. Its in De Baca County about 14 miles east of Fort Sumner along U.S. 60. According to the book The Place Names of New Mexico, by Robert Julyan, Taiban is named for a nearby creek that flows southwest and joins with the Pecos River. Taiban Springs was known locally in the early days as Brazil Spring for a Portuguese immigrant who settled here in 1871, he writes. Most people, he said, agree that Taiban is derived from a Native American language, but the tribe and exact meaning are not known. Some say it means horsetail, he writes. Others say it means three creeks for the three tributaries of Taiban Creek. In anticipation of the railroad and the opportunity to own land, settlers went to Taiban from all over the country, including Texas, Missouri, Tennessee, Indiana, Kentucky, Georgia, Alabama, New York, Ohio and Virginia. They camped out in their wagons and tents until they could build their homes. Anyone who has heard of Taiban (not counting those who live nearby), probably has heard of it because of its tie to Billy the Kid. Pat Garrett captured the Kid and his pals in that area in December 1880. But the town was once a thriving, albeit small, community. The 1920 Census puts the population at 312, and 30 years later, in 1950, it was 206. Taiban had its own weekly newspaper, Taiban Valley News, from 1917 to 1921, which printed every Friday complete with local and national news, a society column, and classified ads in which people sold livestock. There was also a hotel, bank, general store, school, cemetery and a post office that is still operating today. The 1969 short book The Taiban Story by F. Stanley talks about life in Taiban. The ladies soon banded together and advertised ice cream socials, box suppers, and other events for the purpose of raising funds for the school house constructed during the summer of 1906. The town also built a two-story masonry high school in 1921, but it closed in 1942. The building sat unused, was condemned and eventually torn down. The most prominent locations in Taiban history are the Taiban Presbyterian Church and the Pink Pony bar. The two were at war for most of the towns short existence. On one side were the church-going folks who wanted a dry town, and on the other were those who wanted to enjoy a drink close to home. After its population decline in the 1930s, Taiban earned a reputation as the bootlegging capital of Eastern New Mexico and West Texas, according to an interview with local residents that was included in a 2007 application to register the church as a historical property. (It achieved that status in 2009.) Stanleys writes in his book that the Pink Pony was the main business establishment left in the town in 1969. But the church may have gotten the last word. The church, although no longer used, is still standing and has been the subject of articles and several photo essays. Vandals destroyed its windows and doors in 2006, exposing the church to the elements. On a trip to the town last month, on a cloudy, windy day, the bar was nowhere to be found, but the church loomed. It sits atop a small hill, its fading white paint functioning as a beacon among New Mexicos faded brown landscape. The windows and doors are gone, and the floor is missing planks, but its sort of still functioning as a place of inspiration. Visitors have covered the walls with encouragement. One post reads Take out of need, not out of greed, while another reminds us The sun will rise and we will try again, and We are remembered by who we love. The only other visible commercial property is the Taiban General Store along the highway, but that, too, is no longer in operation, although its obvious it operated long after the town was abandoned. A peek through the two dusty picture windows in front of the shop reveals items from bygone eras. From a round, metal clothing rack hangs a white T-shirt displaying the slogan Perot 92. Ross Perot was an independent candidate for president in 1992. Closer to the window, sitting lopsided on a table, is a small, lime-green Berwin Gold typewriter with a faded, yellow plastic thermos. A cardboard box filled with old records sits beside the table. Leaning against the window is a set of wooden crutches. The church, the store and a few modern homes are all that remains. The Great Depression, which led to discontinued railroad passenger service there in 1933, seems to have ended any hope of a future for Taiban. Businesses closed, homesteaders moved away and the structures were torn down or have crumbled. And gone is the livestock that once grazed the area. Oh, except that one horse that eyeballed us as we drove by his corral. Curious about how a town, street or building got its name? Email staff writer Elaine Briseno at ebriseno@abqjournal.com or 505-823-3965 as she continues the monthly journey in Whats in a Name? Editors note: Whats in a Name? is a monthly column in which staff writer Elaine Briseno gives a short history of how places in New Mexico got their names. Republicans are getting ready to flip the tables and launch their own investigations after the Senate acquits President Donald Trump. Sen. Lindsey Graham warned that the Senate Intelligence Committee will call the whistleblower whose complaint ended up launching the impeachment inquiry against Trump while the Foreign Relations Committee will investigate Joe Biden. The Senate Intel committee under Richard Burr has told us that we will call the whistleblower, Graham said on Fox News Sunday Morning Futures. Why is it important? I want to know how all this crap started. Graham went on to say that he wants to know what ties the whistleblower who first raised a red flag regarding Trumps phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has with Democrats. If the whistleblower is a former employee of, associate of, Joe Biden, I think that would be important. If the whistleblower was working with people on Schiffs staff that wanted to take Trump down a year and a half ago, I think that would be important. If the Schiff staff people helped write the complaint, that would be important. Were going to get to the bottom of all of this to make sure this never happens again, Graham said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Watch the latest video at foxnews.com Graham said that in addition to the investigation into the whistleblower, the Foreign Relations Committee will be looking into Bidens alleged conflicts of interest because of his sons work on the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma. Im gonna bring in State Department officials and ask them, Why didnt you do something about the obvious conflict of interest Joe Biden had? Graham said. Joe Bidens effort to combat corruption in the Ukraine became a joke. The senator from South Carolina assured that he can prove beyond any doubt that Joe Bidens effort in the Ukraine to root out corruption was undercut because he let his son sit on the board of the most corrupt company in the Ukraine and were not gonna give him a pass on that. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Under Grahams telling three committees will be launching investigations after the impeachment trial is over. Senate Intel will deal with the whistleblower, Foreign Relations committee will deal with Joe Bidens conflict of interest, the Judiciary Committee will deal with all things FISA, he said. Despite Grahams assurances though there is no indication that Republican senators are all on board with this plan. Burr said last year that he absolutely wanted the whistleblower to testify but other GOP senators were not really eager to go down that path. Graham said though that failure to take on these issues would be a disservice to members of their party. Let me tell Republicans out there. You should expect us to do this. If we dont do it, were letting you down, Graham said. I guarantee you . if the shoe were on the other foot, Democrats would be eating us alive if Republicans had done any of these things. The reintroduction of tolls on Connecticut highways became likely upon the election in 2018 of Ned Lamont as governor. He had run on such a plan, calling it necessary to fund a transportation overhaul. After considering wider-ranging plans, state Democrats have now agreed on a tolling proposal that applies solely to trucks as a way to boost the state economy. There are toll plans that could make sense for Connecticut, that would bring in the kind of revenue the state says it needs to fund a new transit plan while giving breaks to state residents and low-income drivers. The plan currently on offer does not meet those criteria. Its been watered down to the point that its no longer worth enacting. It wouldnt raise enough money to finance needed projects, and is not worth the massive infrastructure investment that installing toll gantries would require. Details on revenue projections remain hazy. The Legislature should reject the tolls plan as currently offered. A key moment in the debate arrived last summer when Republicans said they agreed with the governor on the broad outlines of a plan to spend in the neighborhood of $20 billion on repairs and upgrades to the states road, rail and other transit systems. From that point, the debate should have centered on one question: Do we want the money to pay for those upgrades to come only from state residents, or should drivers passing through from other states contribute part of the cost, as well? Like it or not, Connecticut is often merely in the way of where people want to go. We stand between millions of New Yorkers and a weekend at the Cape, as well as upper New Englanders who need to drive almost anywhere else in the country. Since tolls were removed from Connecticut in the 1970s, all those drivers have had a free ride through our state, even as Connecticut residents pay regularly to take other states roads. It stands to reason that our highways have suffered as we watch all that potential revenue pass through uncollected. Estimates show that out-of-state drivers could amount for up to 40 percent of toll revenue. If we dont toll out-of-state drivers, that money has to be made up from in-state sources. Whether its borrowing or raiding the rainy day fund, the money all comes from the same place. The governor has mishandled the tolls question from the first day of his administration, and as a result, even if the current plan passes, the transportation problems in Connecticut wont be close to solved. Legislators so frightened of being blamed for telling voters that some things need to be paid for will instead support a half-measure that will please no one. Even though the debate has dragged on for months, lawmakers need to start over. Tolls should be abandoned for this session and reintroduced in a format that makes sense next year, with a new Legislature. And under no circumstances should Connecticut be tolling a stretch of Interstate 684 that barely dips into Greenwich from New York state, as is currently planned. A new Legislature may come up with a workable proposal. But the current plan is the wrong way forward. Gaten Matarazzo shared a post-op photo from his fourth Cleidocranial Dysplasiarelated surgery on Friday. The 17-year-old Stranger Things actor called the procedure, which address his impacted teeth, a 'complete success.' 'Though my expression in this picture may not show it, the surgery was a complete success,' he wrote. Winning: Gaten Matarazzo, 17, emerged triumphant when he shared a post-op photo from his fourth Cleidocranial Dysplasiarelated surgery on Friday The photo showed him with an ice pack wrapped around his head while giving a thumbs up. 'This was such A big one, it may be the last one I need. Hopefully at least,' he added. The stage and screen actor went on to explain that he suffers from a rare genetic disorder called Cleidocranial Dysplasia, a condition that causes extra teeth (known as supernumerary teeth) to grow in his gums. Individuals with the condition can also have deformed or underdeveloped bones. Stranger Things: The stage and screen actor explained that he suffers from a rare genetic disorder called Cleidocranial Dysplasia, a condition that causes extra teeth to grow in his gums; pictured January 19 'Ive had several surgeries to extract these teeth from within my gums and help expose the teeth that should have already grown in considering my age,' he continued. 'In this surgery, the team of amazing medical professionals extracted 14 supernumerary teeth and exposed six of my adult teeth. I was under for four hours.' Gaten went on to thank the team of professionals who helped clear up his smile. The big one: Gaten Matarazzo posted to Instagram Wednesday morning before undergoing the surgery, which would remove the extra teeth to allow his intended teeth to grow The Stranger Things star previously shared a picture of himself in a hospital bed flashing a reluctant thumbs up just before the procedure. The star is one of the many Cleidocranial Dysplasia sufferers who was born without collarbones and without teeth, forcing him to wear a dental appliance. Before heading into surgery, Matarazzo urged his 13million Instagram followers to 'learn more about Cleidocranial Dysplasia' by visiting ccdsmiles.org. Surgery number three: Matarazzo shared this selfie before his third surgery back in March of 2019 From there fans would find the tools necessary to 'help others suffering from the same condition' as Matarazzo. His ultra famous co-star, Millie Bobby Brown, was one of the first to send well wishes. 'Good luck love!!! sending my love gate,' she wrote in the post's comment section. Gaten has been extremely open on Instagram and in the media about his ongoing battle with the disorder. Second surgery: In 2017, the Stranger Things actor underwent oral surgery that he toted would get him 'one step closer to having [his] own real teeth' Just last March, the actor was on the operating table coping with the reality that he would have to undergo a third surgery in relation to his illness. 'Surgery number three...yippee,' captioned Matarazzo who flashed, yet another nervous thumbs up. And in 2017, Matarazzo was back on the table for an oral surgery that would take the star 'one step closer to having [his] own real teeth.' In an interview with People magazine in 2016, the Stranger Things star explained that being born with a like his can put a person through the ringer. Role of a lifetime: In the series, Gaten's character, Dustin, openly has Cleidocranial Dysplasia in the show; pictured here in Stranger Things season one alongside (L-R) Noah Schnapp, Finn Wolfhard, and Caleb Mclaughlin Success: Gaten, along with his Stranger Things co-stars, premiered season three of the hit Netflix series in the Summer of 2019 'Theres a one in a million chance that you have of getting it most likely you get it from a parent, but it just happened for me.' He has 'a very mild case' so it 'doesnt affect [him] as much, but it can be a very difficult condition to have.' On The Doctors in 2018, the then 15-year-old expressed how his illness, for many years, got in the way of his acting pursuits. 'Its one of the reasons why I [wasn't] getting roles, because of my lisp, and the teeth situation, and my height,' said Gaten to the daytime talk show hosts. Raising awareness: 'I feel like putting it into the show is really raising awareness for it,' said Gaten during his interview on The Jonathan Ross Show in 2016; pictured here in Stranger Things season three Once a detriment: On The Doctors in 2018, the then 15-year-old expressed how his illness, for many years, got in the way of his acting pursuits; pictured here in Stranger Things season three But in 2015, he would land the role of Dustin in Stranger Things where show creators, Matt and Ross Duffer, allowed the defect to become part of the character's identity. 'It really started out when I was stretching in the audition room and I was just doing stretched and [Matt and Ross] were like "Wait, wait, wait what did you just do?"' What was a normal stretch to the teen actor became an awe-inspiring anomaly to Matt and Ross Duffer. They told Gaten to 'do [the stretch] again' and they marveled at how the actor could make his shoulders touch due to his lack of collar bones. Advocate: Instead of letting his disorder hold him back, he's worked hard on bring awareness to Cleidocranial Dysplasia through his work with CCD Smile This would lead to Matarazzo explaining his condition to the Stranger Things creators, thus landing him and his unique ability the role of a lifetime. 'I feel like putting it into the show is really raising awareness for it,' said Gaten during his interview on The Jonathan Ross Show in 2016. When the star isn't acting on the streaming network's most popular series, he's volunteering his time with the organization dedicated to educating the public, as well as lifting the spirits of individuals born with Cleidocranial Dysplasia. Sam Caughron, a sprightly 17-year-old member of Waterloos Youth City Council, had a busier-than-usual Saturday. He ventured first to a rally hosted by former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg in the morning, and then hit up one headlined by Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar in the evening. But he cant decide which candidate deserves his support. Buttigieg was impressive, he argues, but I want to elect a woman really bad. Whoever Caughron selects will need to be a candidate whose policies can get done in their four or eight-year term, he adds. (Caughron will turn 18 by Election Day, making him eligible to caucus.) At jam-packed rallies in Cedar Falls and Des Moines on Saturday night, Klobuchar tried dutifully to win over the support of people like him. Though she was constitutionally obligated to participate in President Donald Trumps Senate impeachment trial in Washington during the crucial two weeks leading up to the Iowa caucuses, she didnt spend much time dwelling on the historic moment that had kept her away. Instead, she wanted to talk about the kitchen table issues afflicting working and middle class families across the statesome of which had plagued her own family. Her fathers alcoholism is just one example. By the time Klobuchar got married, she told the exuberant crowd of 200-plus people, her dad had been charged for driving while intoxicated three times. At that moment, the judge said to him, youve got a choice, treatment or jail, and he chose treatment, she said. I think everyone, whether theyre dealing with opioids or meth, or whether theyre dealing with crack cocaine or alcoholism, have that same right. Though Klobuchars dad, 91, is sober now, hes facing another dilemma that cropped up in Klobuchars speech Saturday: her dad is running out of long term care insurance money and will soon need to leave the senior group home where he currently resides. Since that facility doesnt accept Medicaid, hell have to move to a different community when his savings dry up. Story continues Our story is actually so much better than so many other families, Klobuchar admits, because theres so many people my age and younger, who are taking care of their own kids and at the same time, want to make sure that their aging parents are taken care of. Why weve done nothingzero, zilchon this issue is beyond me. Amid audience cheers and chuckles, Klobuchar delved into policy details on how to solve the long-term care problem. She pledged to keep Social Security solvent, double the funds Pell Grant recipients are allocated, double the income limit that determines Pell Grant eligibility, and make it easier for students who take out college loans to pay them back. She also promised to address the nations lack of mental health resources. There are only 64 public mental health hospital beds in Iowa, she said. If multimillionaires can refinance their yachts, she said, to a raucous round of applause, students can refinance their student loans. In the final push before the caucuses, Klobuchar seems more determined than ever to widen the ideological divide between her own, pragmatic platform and those of her competitors who lean further left. They are not going to agree with every single thing we say on the debate stage, she says of the 31 Iowa counties who voted for former President Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, but opted for Trump in 2016. Even I dont agree with everything that has been said on the debate stage, she quips. This is a big tent. This is about a fired up democratic base, but it is also about independents and moderate Republicans. Senator Amy Klobuchar got a brief reprieve from her Senate impeachment trial duties to jet into Iowa for the final days leading up to Monday's Iowa caucuses. | Elijah Nouvelage/Bloomberg via Getty Images That middle-of-the-road approach resonates with Tom Stively, a retired high school counselor who now tutors students before their college entrance exams. He is especially amped up about Klobuchars plan to make two-year college free, versus the more radical proposals that pledge to make all public college free while also eradicating student loans. I had a number of students go to community colleges, he says. They got some classes out of the way and they kind of found themselves. Stively also thinks a President Klobuchar would be more effective than some of her competitors in getting Congressional Republicans to pass legislation. When Warren and Sanders scream about things, its going to create a division. Republicans arent going to sit back, there are going to be battles, he says. I dont think that would happen with Amy. The path to the White House, though, means she first must win the nomination. For now, shes still a long shot. In Iowa, Klobuchar is polling at 10%, according to a compilation of reputable surveys tabulated by Real Clear Politics. Nationally, she averages less than 5%. Its clear, however, that Klobuchars momentumor Klomentum, as some of her fans sayis building. At the conclusion of the Cedar Falls event, Klobuchar received a standing ovation. Two hours later, she attracted a crowd of more than 700 people: her largest rally size yet. When she finished her pitch, dozens of audience members began chanting her name. Simultaneously, my pocket buzzed. It was a text from Caughron, the teen from Waterloo Id met earlier. I am going to be caucusing for Amy Klobuchar! it read. iStock(NEW YORK) -- Massachusetts health officials reported the state's first confirmed case of coronavirus, putting the number of confirmed cases in the U.S. at eight. The man, who is a student at the University of Massachusetts Boston, had recently traveled to Wuhan, China, and sought medical care soon after returning home, according to a statement from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. Massachusetts Public Health Commissioner Monica Bharel said the man was recovering and she was grateful that he sought medical attention immediately. Bharel said that while the state has been preparing for a possible case, the risk to the public "remains low in Massachusetts." Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, emphasized at a press briefing Friday that the risk to the general American public is low. "We want to keep it at a low risk," he said. The eight cases in the U.S. include seven in travelers and one human-to-human transmission between a husband and wife. The affected states are California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Washington state and Arizona. In China, there have been 11,821 confirmed cases as of Saturday and 259 people have died. Outside of China, 170 cases have been confirmed in 25 countries. The new case in the U.S. comes a day after Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar declared a public health emergency in the country at a White House press briefing on coronavirus. U.S. citizens returning from Hubei province in the previous 14 days will be subject to up to a 14-day quarantine. Foreign nationals, other than immediate family members of U.S. citizens who have traveled to China in the previous 14 days, will be denied entry into the country. The temporary measures take effect Feb. 2 at 5 p.m. Americans who've traveled to other parts of China in the previous 14 days will be subject to a health screening upon entry and asked to self-quarantine for up to 14 days. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ordered a federal quarantine order for all 195 people who were evacuated from China and have been voluntarily quarantined at a military base in California. Americans should not let panic or fear guide their actions, according to the CDC, who recommended that the general public does not need to wear face masks. Many questions remain about how the virus is transmitted and how infectious it is, with countries scrambling to react. Copyright 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved. A rapist who dodged deportation after a mutiny by plane passengers will next month launch another bid to avoid being booted out of Britain. Yaqub Ahmed, who was part of a gang who subjected a 16-year-old girl to a terrifying ordeal, is applying for a judicial review in a bid to block his deportation to Somalia. The legal move was disclosed last week at an immigration court hearing in Newport, South Wales, where he was seeking to be released from a detention centre on bail. His application was refused. Fighting on: Rapist Yaqub Ahmed is applying for a judicial review in a bid to block his deportation to Somalia Chris Howells, representing the Home Office, revealed that when Ahmed, 31, was out of jail on licence in 2016, he continued to consort with his co-defendants with whom he had gang-raped the teenage girl and trawled nightclubs and bars looking for 'young white women' to have sex with. Mr Howells said: 'He continued to engage in sex acts with young women. He represents a continued harm to young white females who are found in nightclubs, public houses and anywhere else where alcohol is available.' He added that Ahmed would represent a 'very high risk' of absconding, was 'highly likely' to reoffend and should remain at a detention centre in Harmondsworth, West London. Ahmed was jailed for nine years in 2008 for his part in the gang rape. An attempt to deport him in October 2018 failed when passengers aboard a Turkish Airways flight about to jet him out of the UK revolted. They sprang to his defence after he began screaming shortly before take-off from Heathrow. He had been due to be returned to Somalia from Istanbul, but the passengers unaware of his brutal crime demanded security guards remove him. Risk to the public: His bail application was last week refused by judge Adam Rhys-Davies Ahmed, who was first told he was liable for deportation in 2010, was released on bail in March last year, but detained again shortly afterwards because he ripped off an electronic tag and tried to flee the country. At that stage, 12 years of criminal trials, prison costs and immigration cases involving Ahmed who receives legal aid were estimated to have cost British taxpayers more than 330,000. That figure is set to soar now he has won the right to argue his case for a judicial review hearing. Refusing last week's bail application, judge Adam Rhys-Davies said: 'I am satisfied he is a risk to the public and his continued detention is necessary.' Iowa caucuses considered a 'crucible' of 2020 primary: Here's how they work originally appeared on abcnews.go.com The Iowa caucuses, which have been the first nominating contest in the country since 1972, marks the official start of the presidential election season - giving the Hawkeye State an outsize influence over the primary race. This cycle, the first-in-the-nation caucuses will be held on Monday, Feb. 3 with 41 delegates up for grabs on caucus night, significantly less than delegate-rich Californias 415. Before Monday nights caucuses, here is what you need to know about the 2020 Iowa caucuses: What is a caucus? Caucuses are neighborhood gatherings or party meetings that take place all at the same time all across the state. Iowans gather at each caucus site, either at one of the 1,678 traditional precinct caucuses across the state, or at one of the 87 "satellite caucus" locations around the world, including 60 in-state, 24 across 13 states and Washington, D.C., and three abroad. The satellite caucuses, which take place on Monday parallel to the precinct caucuses, are designed to expand accessibility and participation in the caucus process for those who cannot make it to their assigned precinct, like shift workers, people in retirement homes and Iowans living abroad; a few are also aimed at attracting voters in underrepresented communities. MORE: 32 hours in Iowa: Sanders packs schedule during mid-impeachment dash At this years caucuses, the Iowa Democratic Party is preparing for their biggest turnout in modern political history, expecting to surpass 2008s record-setting turnout when more than 239,000 voters showed up to caucus. When are the Iowa caucuses and how do they work? The Iowa caucuses are slated for Monday, beginning at 8 p.m. ET, with some satellite caucuses beginning a few hours before the precinct caucuses. The Iowa caucuses begin when voters from across the state head to their designated precinct, which are often make-shift polling places inside schools, churches, union halls, etc. to caucus for their candidate of choice. Anyone who will be 18 years old by Election Day, on Nov. 3, will be able to participate in the 2020 caucuses, even if a caucusgoer is still 17-years-old on Monday. Story continues PHOTO: Signage for the Iowa Caucuses hang in downtown Des Moines, Iowa, Jan. 25, 2020. (Stephen Maturen/AFP/Getty Images) Throughout the night, Iowans not only declare a presidential preference, but they also discuss issues defining the Democratic platform and elect local leaders, underscoring the effort to keep the process local. The caucuses officially begin with the caucus leaders discussing party business and opening up the floor to give campaign representatives the opportunity to deliver speeches and spend time jockeying support for their top choice -- in the hopes of helping a presidential candidate establish an early lead towards the nomination. "What the Democrats do is that the Democrats who show up for a precinct caucus will literally vote with their feet. It's a very physical, participatory experience," said Karen Kedrowski, director of the Carrie Chapman Catt Center at Iowa State University. Caucusgoers declare their support for a candidate by physically moving to a designated space in the room. The process, which traditionally takes hours but has been shortened this cycle, ultimately divides the entire room into groups based on the candidate theyre backing. The precinct captains tally the number of caucus-goers in each group - this is what is known as the first alignment. MORE: Some Iowa caucus-goers question Buttigiegs viability, citing struggle to build a diverse coalition At most precincts, a presidential contender needs support from at least 15% of the vote at that caucus site to be eligible to receive any delegates. But in precincts with less than four delegates, the threshold is slightly higher -- since the delegates cannot be split between multiple candidates. Candidates who reach the 15% threshold are considered to be "viable," at which point their support is locked in and cannot go down. Caucusgoers that are part of viable groups can turn in their presidential preference cards, which marks their choice for president, sign them and go home. The cards are important for creating a paper trail, allowing for a recount if needed. But for those caucusgoers in the room that are part of nonviable groups, meaning they backed a candidate who failed to cross the 15% threshold, they have a few options in the second round, which is called realignment: they can move to a group supporting a viable candidate; they can join another candidates nonviable group to help that candidate become viable or attempt to persuade other caucus-goers to join their group and earn enough support for their first choice to make that candidate viable; they can move to the uncommitted group; or they can go home. After the realignment is over, caucusgoers fill out their presidential preference cards, sign it and turn it in. This is what is known as the final alignment. This cycle, the Iowa Democratic Party streamlined the caucus process, giving caucusgoers only up to two opportunities to declare their pick for president. With such an unsettled race, the polling front-runners have reportedly started reaching out to their rivals in the middle tier to privately broker a deal, in which the two campaigns will share support in a precinct if one of them is not viable. How is a winner declared? The votes in the caucuses are actually votes to elect delegates to the Democratic National Convention. The candidates goal is to secure a majority of delegates, which is 1,991 pledged delegates this cycle, in order to win the nomination at the convention, which will be held in Milwaukee in July. On caucus night, the candidates will ultimately be vying for Iowa's 41 national delegates. Once the caucus process concludes, the state party translates the results from the final alignment, or the second round, into delegates through a formula determined by the party. Candidates have to win at least 15% of the vote statewide or in a congressional district, or both, in order to win any national delegates -- so just because a candidate secures 15% at one precinct, and are therefore eligible to receive delegates, it's not a guarantee they will be awarded any at the end of the night. For the first time this cycle, the Iowa Democratic Party will report three different numbers from the results of the caucuses: the total vote from the first alignment, considered to be a popular vote from all the caucusgoers who walked through the door, the total vote after the final alignment, which is considered to reflect the top consensus-builders of the night, and the number of "state delegate equivalents" won by each candidate. PHOTO: Local residents attend a campaign event in Council Bluffs, Iowa, Jan. 29, 2020. (Carlos Barria/Reuters, FILE) "State delegate equivalents" are the projected number of state party convention delegates a candidate will receive based on the results of the precinct caucuses. These will only be awarded to viable candidates. The state delegate equivalents are allocated in proportion to a candidate's performance in the final alignment and will correlate to how many national delegates a candidate receives. Historically, the winner of the Iowa caucuses was declared based on who has the most state delegate equivalents. In 2020, ABC News will be using the state delegate equivalents to project a winner. The state party doesnt declare a winner of the caucuses, but with three different streams of data, up to three candidates could walk away declaring victory, with each one spinning the results in their favor. Why do the Iowa caucuses matter so much? The national spectacle of Iowas caucuses more or less began in 1976, four years after the Democratic Party overhauled the entire primary process in 1968 and when the state snagged the earliest slot in the calendar. "The sea change came in 1976. In 1976, there was a little known governor from Georgia named Jimmy Carter who decided that he wanted to be President of the United States," Kedrowski said. "The way that he was going to make his mark was to come to Iowa and to do better than what anybody expected him to do in the Iowa caucus." MORE: 'This is no time to take a risk': Biden ad leans into electability as caucuses approach After declaring that he won the Iowa caucus, Carter was "catapulted" to "national prominence," Kedrowski continued. "Of course, he went on to win the White House. And ever since then...Iowa has been the first in the nation and has been sort of the crucible and the first serious contest that we have seen." A similar fate in Iowa propelled then-candidate Barack Obama to the top of the field in 2008, with the former Illinois senator ultimately capturing the Democratic nomination and the White House. But while Iowa doesnt always deliver the nomination, it does often winnow the existing field of candidates. In 2020, the scaled up, yet streamlined, caucuses are expected to be among the most competitive, with each poll throughout 2019 and early 2020 from Iowas largest newspaper, the Des Moines Register, in partnership with CNN, showing a different front-runner among the top tier -- former Vice President Joe Biden, former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren - taking the lead. Reflecting the volatility of the race leading into caucus day, when a number of Democratic contenders are seeking to upend expectations, less than half, 45%, of likely Iowa Democratic caucus-goers have made up their minds and said they could be persuaded to support another candidate, according to the most recent Des Moines Register/CNN poll from mid-January. ABC News' Samantha Sergi contributed to this report. Please allow ads as they help fund our trusted local news content. Kindly add us to your ad blocker whitelist. If you want further access to Ireland's best local journalism, consider contributing and/or subscribing to our free daily Newsletter . Support our mission and join our community now. Fine Gael Senator Catherine Noone blamed tiredness from campaigning for her description of Leo Varadkar as autistic - and told supporters she believed the controversy was "already passing over". As she battles to save her political career this weekend, Ms Noone has also told the Sunday Independent that she insulted people with autism "unintentionally". This newspaper has seen an email to a parent who has a child with additional needs in which Ms Noone wrote: "The only possible explanation is that I was tired from campaigning. "It was a throw-away comment that I shouldn't have made. I feel terrible." In a separate apology in a WhatsApp group of her supporters, the Dublin Bay North candidate said: "I'm so very sorry for the comments I made so carelessly and everything that has ensued. "I will make it up to you all in the coming days." In her message to the 'Campaign For Catherine' group the day after her comments were reported by The Times, Ms Noone thanked her supporters for their "support and kindness" and shared an email from a constituent urging her to work with autism awareness campaigners. These include Adam Harris, brother of Health Minister Simon Harris who is the founder and chief executive of AsIAm, Ireland's national Autism charity. "Please God this is already passing over," Ms Noone said. However, she faced an immediate backlash after posting the message with one long-time Fine Gael member responding: "Before I say something not nice please remove my details from your WhatsApp. I'm beyond disappointed." Speaking to the Sunday Independent's Barry Egan about her controversial comments in the newspaper's Living section today, Ms Noone said: "Honestly, I just insulted people with autism unintentionally." The parent who received the email from Ms Noone, Seanie Vaughan, said her response was "totally unacceptable" and that she should withdraw from politics. "She is not the person you want as an elected representative," he said. Despite being backed by Mr Varadkar and Fine Gael, who have accepted her apology, there are growing doubts about Ms Noone's future. She is unlikely to take a Dail seat in Dublin Bay North, while the organisation that nominated the two-term senator to run for the Seanad four years ago has refused to say if it will do so again. "The board have not yet made a decision and are meeting next month to discuss," the Irish Country Houses and Restaurants Association said. Ms Noone did not respond to requests for further comment this weekend. She became embroiled in controversy last Tuesday after The Times recorded her describing the Taoiseach as "autistic" while discussing his performance during the first TV debate of the campaign. "He's autistic like, he's on the spectrum, there's no doubt about it," she said while canvassing in the constituency. "He's uncomfortable socially and he doesn't always get the in-between bits." Ms Noone subsequently denied using the word "autistic" and then said she did not mean it literally. She gave examples of potentially offensive words that could be used out of context, including "special" and "n***er". She then clarified that she would never use the n-word, and said it was a bad example. In a statement via the Fine Gael press office on the day her comments were reported, Ms Noone apologised "unequivocally" and withdrew all of her remarks, describing them as "completely unacceptable". She was denied an opportunity to take part in broadcast interviews to explain herself after she did a mock interview with the Fine Gael press office. Following discussions with the Taoiseach, Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe, who is Fine Gael's director of elections, and the party's general secretary, Tom Curran, Ms Noone has reached out to autism awareness organisations to apologise in recent days. She spoke to Adam Harris by phone, and a spokesman for AsIAm said her "profuse apology" had been accepted. Mr Varadkar said Ms Noone's apology was "good enough for me", but urged her to learn more about autism. Amid confusion over Fine Gael's vote management strategy in Dublin Bay North last week, the local party organisation is understood to have resumed a letter drop in the constituency yesterday. The letters urge voters in certain areas to give their first preference to Ms Noone and their number two to Richard Bruton, the sitting Fine Gael TD and Communications Minister, in a bid to maximise the party's vote and chance of taking two seats. The Delhi High Court on Sunday reserved judgement on the Centre and Tihar Jails plea challenging the stay on the execution of the four convicts in the December 16 gang rape case. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta on Sunday told the Delhi High Court at a special hearing that there is a deliberate, calculated and well thought of design by the 2012 Delhi gang rape and murder case convicts to frustrate mandate of law by getting their execution delayed. Mehta told Justice Suresh Kait that convict Pawan Guptas move of not filing curative or mercy petition is a deliberate, calculated inaction. There is deliberate, calculated and well thought of design to frustrate mandate of law, Mehta told the high court which is hearing Centres plea challenging stay on the execution of four death row convicts in the 2012 Delhi gang rape and murder case. There cannot be any delay in the interest of justice, death sentence cannot be delayed. In the interest of the convict, any delay in death sentence will have a dehumanising effect on the accused, Mehta said. The Solicitor General also told the court that the President had already examined the facts and rejected the mercy pleas of Mukesh and Vinay. He further added that just on the basis of speculation the court cannot pass an order. It would not be correct to presume that the President may in future commute the death sentence and hence the order cannot be delayed or stalled, he said. Mehta reminded that the Delhi government did not have a problem nor did Tihar Jail with individual executions. On Friday, a Delhi court had postponed the hanging of the four convicts, which had been scheduled for February 1 at 6am, till further orders on a plea by one of the convicts Vinay Sharma seeking a stay on the execution of the death warrant in wake of the mercy plea filed before the President. Advocate AP Singh appearing for death row convicts Pawan Gupta, Akshay Kumar and Vinay Sharma, contended that there was no prescribed time given to execute the death sentence by the Supreme Court and Constitution. Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa on Sunday said that money will be provided for the suburban railway project in the state Budget and it is expected to be completed in three years. Speaking to ANI on the suburban railway project, the Chief Minister said, "We are going to provide money in the Budget. We want to complete it in three years. We will start work as early as possible." "On February 5, I will present the state budget, our main agenda will be agriculture," Yediyurappa had said on January 15. Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal last year in February had discussed the project with then chief minister HD Kumaraswamy. The Union Minister had said, "Bengaluru sub-urban railway project had come to a stalemate for long. It was under discussion for about 20 years. I ordered a feasibility study and got its report in 30 days. We included this project in the budget of 2018-19, subject to the approval of the state government. The project will be costing nearly 20,000 crores." Elaborating further about the suburban rail project, Goyal had also announced that thousand crores worth of land will be given to the city for a token amount. Announcing the most awaited cabinet expansion, Yediyurappa said, "Karnataka Cabinet expansion to be held on 6th February at 10:30 am. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) DODOMA, Tanzania Twenty people were killed and a dozen others injured in a stampede during a church meeting in the northern Tanzanian city of Moshi, the government said on Sunday. It was not immediately clear what prompted the stampede, which took place on Saturday. But it occurred when church faithful were being ushered through an exit so that they could walk on anointed oil, according to a government spokesman. Hundreds of worshipers were attending a prayer meeting led by Boniface Mwamposa, a popular preacher who leads the Arise and Shine Ministry Tanzania. Local news outlets reported that Mr. Mwamposa had flown to the city of Dar es Salaam, on the Tanzanian coast, after the stampede to lead a prayer service at another branch of his church. It is believed two people have been injured in the incident the police declared "terrorist-related." A man has been shot dead by officers in a "terrorist-related" incident in south London, the Met Police have said. It is believed two people have been injured in stabbings on Streatham High Road, the BBC reports. Gun shots were heard just after 14:00 GMT on Sunday. Police later said the scene had been "fully contained". #INCIDENT A man has been shot by armed officers in #Streatham. At this stage it is believed a number of people have been stabbed. The circumstances are being assessed; the incident has been declared as terrorist-related. Please follow @metpoliceuk for updates Metropolitan Police (@metpoliceuk) February 2, 2020 Prime Minister Boris Johnson tweeted that his thoughts were with the injured and others affected. He thanked emergency services for their response. London Ambulance Service said it was treating a number of people at the scene. The Metropolitan Police said it was awaiting updates on the condition of those injured. Read alsoRussia reviving ISIS threat in Europe OSINT group "I was crossing the road when I saw a man with a machete and silver canisters on his chest being chased by what I assume was an undercover police officer," Gulled Bulhan, a 19-year-old student from Streatham, told the PA news agency. "The man was then shot. I think I heard three gun shots." Mayor of London Sadiq Khan thanked emergency services for their "swift and courageous response", saying: "They truly are the best of us." "Terrorists seek to divide us and to destroy our way of life - here in London we will never let them succeed." Those who do make it to the hospital say they are squeezed together for hours in waiting rooms, where infections are easily spread. But the shortages have meant that many are ultimately turned away and sent home to self-quarantine, potentially compounding the outbreak by exposing their families. Many doctors and residents are putting their hopes on the two new coronavirus hospitals that China has been racing to build in Wuhan in just a matter of days. One of them spans about eight acres, has 1,000 beds and is scheduled to open on Monday. The government says 1,400 military medical workers will be deployed to work there, potentially helping with the shortage of health professionals on hand to combat the outbreak. On Sunday, city officials announced plans to set up quarantine stations around Wuhan for people with symptoms of pneumonia and close contacts among coronavirus patients. But just over a week into the lockdown, many residents believe the virus has already spread much further than the official numbers suggest. The situation that weve seen is much worse than what has been officially reported, Long Jian, 32, said outside a hospital where his elderly father was being treated. Mr. Long said his father had to go to six hospitals and wait seven days before he could even be tested for the coronavirus. Just steps from where Mr. Long spoke, beds could be seen lining both sides of a narrow corridor in the emergency room. One man was getting an intravenous drip outside in his car. The Philippines on Sunday reported the first death from a new virus outside of China, where authorities delayed the opening of schools in the worst-hit province and tightened quarantine measures. Beijing: The Philippines on Sunday reported the first death from a new virus outside of China, where authorities delayed the opening of schools in the worst-hit province and tightened quarantine measures in a city that allows only one family member to venture out to buy supplies. The Philippine Department of Health said a 44-year-old Chinese man from Wuhan was admitted on 25 January after experiencing fever, cough, and sore throat. He developed severe pneumonia, and in his last few days, the patient was stable and showed signs of improvement, however, the condition of the patient deteriorated within his last 24 hours resulting in his demise." The man's 38-year-old female companion, also from Wuhan, first tested positive for the virus and remains in hospital isolation in Manila. President Rodrigo Duterte approved a temporary ban on all travellers, except Filipinos, from China and its autonomous regions. The US, Japan, Singapore and Australia have imposed similar restrictions despite criticism from China and an assessment from the World Health Organization that they were unnecessarily hurting trade and travel. Meanwhile, six officials in the city of Huanggang, neighbouring the epicentre of Wuhan in Hubei province, have been fired over poor performance" in handling the outbreak, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. It cited the mayor as saying the city's capabilities to treat the patients remained inadequate and there is a severe shortage in medical supplies such as protective suits and medical masks." Figures from the National Health Commission showed an increase of 45 in the death toll and 2,590 in the number of cases for a total of 14,380, well above the number of those infected in the 2002-03 outbreak of SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, which broke out in southern China before spreading worldwide. After Huanggang, the trading centre of Wenzhou in coastal Zhejiang province also confined people to homes, allowing only one family member to venture out every other day to buy necessary supplies. With the outbreak showing little sign of abating, authorities in Hubei and elsewhere have extended the Lunar New Year holiday, due to end this week, well into February. The annual travel crunch of millions of people returning from their hometowns to the cities is thought to pose a major threat of secondary infection at a time when authorities are encouraging people to avoid public gatherings. All Hubei schools will postpone the opening of the new semester until further notice and students from elsewhere who visited over the holiday will also be excused from classes. Far away on China's southeast coast, the manufacturing hub of Wenzhou put off the opening of government offices until 9 February, private businesses until 17 February and schools until 1 March. With nearly 10 million people, Wenzhou has reported 241 confirmed cases of the virus, accounting for one of the highest levels outside Hubei. Similar measures have been announced in the provinces and cities of Heilongjiang, Shandong, Guizhou, Hebei and Hunan, while the major cities of Shanghai and Beijing were on indefinite leave pending developments. Despite imposing drastic travel restrictions at home, China has chafed at those imposed by foreign governments, criticizing Washingtons order barring entry to most non-citizens who visited China in the past two weeks. Apart from dinging China's international reputation, such steps could worsen a domestic economic already growing at its lowest rate in decades. The crisis is just the latest to confront Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who has been beset by months of anti-government protests in the semi-autonomous Chinese city of Hong Kong, the reelection of Taiwan's pro-independence president and criticism over human rights violations in the traditionally Muslim northwestern territory of Xinjiang. Economically, Xi faces lagging demand and dramatically slower growth at home while the tariff war with the U.S. remains largely unresolved. Among a growing number of airlines suspending flights to mainland China was Qatar Airways. The Doha-based carrier said on its website that its flights would stop Monday. It blamed significant operational challenges caused by entry restrictions imposed by a number of countries for the suspension of flights. Saudi Arabias flagship national carrier, Saudia, also suspended flights to China. Saudi Arabias state-run TV reported that 10 Saudi students were evacuated from Wuhan on a special flight with King Salmans approval. The report said the students would be screened upon arrival, but did not say whether they would be quarantined for 14 days. This weekend, South Korea and India flew hundreds of their citizens out of Wuhan, the city at the centre of an area where some 50 million people are prevented from leaving in a sweeping anti-virus effort. The evacuees went into a two-week quarantine. On Sunday, South Korea reported three more cases for a total of 15. They include an evacuee, a Chinese relative of a man who tested positive and a man who returned from Wuhan. India reported a second case, also in southern Kerala state. South Korea also barred foreigners who have stayed or travelled to Hubei province within the last 14 days from entering the country. Indonesia flew back 241 nationals from Wuhan on Sunday and quarantined them on remote Natuna Islands for two weeks. Several hundred residents protested the move, with one saying, This is not because we do not have a sense of solidarity with fellow nationals. But because we fear they could infect us with the deadly virus from China. A Turkish military transport plane carrying 42 people arrived in Ankara from Wutan Saturday night. The 32 Turkish, six Azerbaijani, three Georgian nationals and an Albanian will remain under observation for 14 days, together with 20 personnel who participated in the evacuation, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said. Vietnam counted its seventh case, a Vietnamese-American man who had a two-hour layover in Wuhan on his way from the US to Ho Chi Minh City. The virus rapid spread in two months prompted the WHO on Thursday to declare it a global emergency. That declaration flipped the switch from a cautious attitude to recommending governments prepare for the possibility the virus might spread, said the WHO representative in Beijing, Gauden Galea. Most cases reported so far have been people who visited China or their family members. WHO said it was especially concerned that some cases abroad involved human-to-human transmission. Countries need to get ready for possible importation in order to identify cases as early as possible and in order to be ready for domestic outbreak control, if that happens, Galea told The Associated Press. Both the new virus and SARS are from the coronavirus family, which also includes those that cause the common cold. The death rate in China is falling, but the number of confirmed cases will keep growing because thousands of specimens from suspected cases have yet to be tested, Galea said. The case-fatality ratio is settling out at a much lower level than we were reporting three, now four, weeks ago, he said. Although scientists expect to see the limited transmission of the virus between people with family or other close contacts, they are concerned about cases of infection spreading to people who might have less exposure. Maldivian President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih on Sunday expressed gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar for the evacuation of seven Maldivian nationals from the coronavirus-hit Chinese city of Wuhan. (Photo: File) Male: Maldivian President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih on Sunday expressed gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar for the evacuation of seven Maldivian nationals from the coronavirus-hit Chinese city of Wuhan. Taking to Twitter following the return of the Indians and Maldivians from Wuhan to Delhi on a special Air India flight, Solih described the gesture as a fine example of the outstanding friendship and camaraderie between the two countries. "My thanks and gratitude to PM Narendra Modi & EAM Dr. S Jaishankar & Govt of India for expeditiously evacuating the 7 Maldivians residing in Wuhan, China. This gesture is a fine example of the outstanding friendship and camaraderie between our two countries," Solih tweeted. Today, as many as 323 Indians and seven Maldivians were rescued from Wuhan - a Chinese city of 11 million people which is the epicenter of the new strain of coronavirus. The evacuees have been sent to quarantine centers set up by the Indian Army and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police in Manesar and Chhawla respectively. The virus originated in Wuhan in December last year and has since then spread to various cities around the world. Several countries including India have sped up the evacuation process after the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the coronavirus outbreak as a global health crisis. Prabhu Chawla By Rituals without efficacy are blase formalities of inevitable intentions. Take the yearly Budget. Apart from being a photo-op for the finance minister and a talking shop for businesspersons and their collaborators, it is hardly a pick-me-up for the populace. It is a television circus sponsored with big bucks where corporate honchos and market economists hold forth in five-star hotels to debate and discuss the big takeaways and small giveaways of the long-winded Budget speech. For the high priests of vacuous vocabulary, the deficit digit is more fascinating than rising youth unemployment. Hence, the second Budget presented by Indias first full-time female finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, turned out to be a complex exercise in wordplay. She promised that the Budget in spirit honours wealth creators and would end imagined tax terrorism. But by the end of her 150-minute speechthe longest ever by any finance minister since Independenceit proved to be just another statement of noble intent. The Sensex, however, slid during her speech. Corporate captains, who normally cheer every finance minister, were circumspect in their endorsement. They were more concerned about FDI, GST, fiscal deficit and easy access to bank credit than reviving the countrywide plummeting demand and lack of new employment opportunities. The Budget, while addressing almost every section and sector of the economy, failed to provide a new innovative direction for policymaking. By allocating a whopping Rs 5 lakh crore for infrastructure development, the government expects to generate jobs and create excess demand. Sitharaman also claimed that North Blocks guardian angel has blessed Aspirational India, comprehensive economic development and the inspiration for a caring society. Yet, the praxis of her sacrament brought no smiles to the faces of the masses. They had expected a decisive and aggressive BJP government to make fundamental changes in budgeting architecture. Sitharaman announced various new schemes and projects but there was no inherent idea that qualified as new Modinomics or ModiMantra Rising. The Budget included many of the PMs views but there was no tangible sign of turning his dream of making India a $5 trillion economy into reality. The main boxes ticked are: Agriculture: Modi has been making repeated promises to double farmers income by 2022. However, Budget 2020 showed no revolutionary signs of propelling such an ascent in the next two years. While every second Indian depends on agricultural livelihood, the sector contributes a mere 15% of the GDP. In fact, due to adverse trading terms, the farmers real income has declined over the past decade. Real agriculture growth is below 3%. Per capita farmer income is already 30% less than the national average. Its growth rate has slowed thanks to the impact of usury and higher input costs. Sitharaman mentioned air-conditioned rail wagons and aircraft to ferry agro products from villages to urban markets but these will not help middle or marginal farmers. While the rest of the country uses technology to make more money, the FM doesnt offer a roadmap for encouraging farmers to adopt new techniques and modern equipment. Unlike for corporates, there is no incentive scheme in place to push the farming community to produce more at minimum cost. The placebos offered by successive finance ministers and parties were farm loans and direct cash transfers that ensured votes but not prosperity. The Middle Class: The BJP has been the darling of the middle classes, which is ironically the most heavily taxeddirectly and indirectly. Sitharaman has rejigged the direct tax regime by reducing personal income tax on annual incomes up to Rs15 lakh. The middle class forms the largest segment of Aspirational India. Its dreams include a comfortable home, car, affordable education for children, credible and economical health facilities, and a yearly family holiday. But it is the one burdened with high taxes. While corporates get tax relief on all capital expenditure, a house buyer gets relief only up to Rs 2 lakh as the annual interest on a home loan. At current property prices, this would mean a house priced at Rs 25 lakh, which is hardly available anywhere in the country. Moreover, anyone who wants to sell his property and invest in a commercial venture ends up paying huge capital gains tax, thus making it impossible for him to start a new business. The biggest concern for the middle class is the plummeting interests rates on small savings. Both the government and the banks have been drastically reducing interest on short and long term fixed deposits, forcing people to invest their hard earned savings in markets. Though the budget promises ease of living, in reality, a tension-free life for the middle class is a Sisyphean myth. Since 1991 when the reform regime was born, the middle class has been the main source filling government coffers and raising demand generation while corporates remain the sole beneficiaries. Economic Inequality: The Budget is expected to ensure equitable distribution of wealth and income generated through fiscal initiatives. Unfortunately, Union Budgets have only widened the gap between the rich and the poor. For the past 28 years, they have focused on supply concerns by extending massive tax concessions to the corporate sector and creating a lucrative stock exchange mechanism to serve as the major source of tax-free income to promoters. Easy access to bank credit at relatively lower interests was provided to create excess supply of goods and services without setting a corresponding system for generating sustainable demand. The phenomenal growth of the services sector led to Brobdingnagian income inequalities. According to a new study, 77% of the wealth generated in India during 2017-18 went to the top 1%. The number of Indian billionaires rose from nine in 2000 to 120 last year whose wealth equals the total Budget outlay. Foreign educated economic advisors embedded in the system never bothered to tackle the widening void between people who have everything and those who hardly have anything. Government Size: Narendra Modi was the first prime minister who understood the pitfalls of a big government. He promised Maximum Governance and Minimum Government. But none of the budgets have used pruning shears. Inversely, more top-level new posts, panels and commissions were created in the last six years than ever before. Ministries havent been rationalised. In fact, many mantris with multiple portfolios keep a hefty number of personal staff and enjoy perks from each ministry like luxuriously appointed offices. At the macro level, the Centre bestows about 10% of its expenditure budget on salaries and benefits. Moreover, huge amounts are being spent on constructing new offices to accommodate the top- heavy bureaucracy. Even the pervasive use of technology hasnt shrunk the multiple levels of decision making. Put it all together to see that Budget 2020 is hardly an instrument of change. It is a volume inspired by optimistic Wiki-arithmetic, and not a manual for structural and institutional corrections in Indias skewed growth story. By the end of every annual budget, India adds ten new billionaires but millions go hungry without a roof over their heads. The country needs a Budget not for the markets but for the masses. Maldivian President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih on Sunday expressed gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar for the evacuation of seven Maldivian nationals from the coronavirus-hit Chinese city of Wuhan. Taking to Twitter following the return of the Indians and Maldivians from Wuhan to Delhi on a special Air India flight, Solih described the gesture as a fine example of the outstanding friendship and camaraderie between the two countries. "My thanks and gratitude to PM Narendra Modi & EAM Dr. S Jaishankar & Govt of India for expeditiously evacuating the 7 Maldivians residing in Wuhan, China. This gesture is a fine example of the outstanding friendship and camaraderie between our two countries," Solih tweeted. Today, as many as 323 Indians and seven Maldivians were rescued from Wuhan - a Chinese city of 11 million people which is the epicenter of the new strain of coronavirus. The evacuees have been sent to quarantine centers set up by the Indian Army and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police in Manesar and Chhawla respectively. The virus originated in Wuhan in December last year and has since then spread to various cities around the Several countries including India have sped up the evacuation process after the Health Organisation (WHO) declared the coronavirus outbreak as a global health crisis. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Philippines has reported the first death outside China in the virus epidemic that has killed more than 300 people and spread to 24 nations. The 44-year-old Chinese man who died in the Philippines was from Wuhan, the city that has been ground-zero for the epidemic. Here is what we know -- and dont know -- about him: - Where he visited - The man and a 38-year-old Chinese woman also from Wuhan, who authorities called his companion, flew from Hong Kong to the Philippines on January 21. ALSO WATCH | Second batch of Indians reach Delhi from Wuhan, undergo screening Health department authorities said the pair travelled to the central island of Cebu and then the city of Dumaguete, which is on a neighbouring island. Cebu Pacific airline said it was working with health authorities to track down passengers from the two flights they took. - How he died - Days after arriving in the Philippines the pair went to see a doctor with symptoms like cough and fever. They were both admitted to hospital from January 25, she with a mild cough and him with pneumonia, the national health department said. In recent days the man was stable and even showed signs of improvement, but his condition rapidly declined over his final 24 hours and he died Saturday in Manila. Authorities did not say if he had pre-existing health problems, which has been the case for many of those the virus has killed in China. The woman is recovering in hospital. - When infected - National health authorities said Thursday the woman had tested positive for the virus, the Philippines first confirmed case. However, they did not offer any specific information about the man. On Sunday the World Health Organization said the deceased man was not a locally acquired case of infection. - How authorities are responding - Less than an hour before the death was announced, the Philippine government announced it was barring arrivals of foreigners travelling from mainland China as well as Hong Kong and Macau. The deceased man and the woman arrived on January 21, before some nations began to close their borders and tighten restrictions on Chinese arrivals. At that time, Chinese authorities had reported just over 300 cases and six deaths -- the toll was on Sunday more than 300 deaths and some 14,500 confirmed infections. This is a story about Opie and Karma. Most days the two cats cuddle on a bed upstairs in the Saratoga Springs, N.Y., home of Aray Till, a freelance creative director. One recent afternoon, though, they were startled by the sound of chirping birds in the living room downstairs. They bounded down the staircase and were transfixed by two blue jays they saw sparring over seeds on the television screen. Opie swatted at the glass, while Karma sat upright, a vigilant sentry. Ms. Till had recently discovered cat TV on Amazon Prime, a library of streaming videos and movies that feature birds, squirrels and other creatures, and were made to entertain felines. Opie and Karma arent the only ones amused. My in-laws were here recently and we put on cat TV, Ms. Till recalled in an interview. There were five adults, one child and two cats watching. It was a nice meditative break from the daily news. VICTORIA - A former cabinet minister who resigned as Premier John Horgan's liaison for the recovery of threatened caribou herds in northeastern British Columbia says he wants more voices in the discussion to increase conservation support. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 2/2/2020 (708 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Migrating Caribou are shown in the Porcupine River Tundra in the Yukon Territories, Canada on August 12, 2009. A former cabinet minister who resigned as Premier John Horgan's liaison to help drive recovery plans for threatened caribou herds in northeastern British Columbia continues to push for more voices at the planning table to increase support for conservation efforts. Local governments need more say in future land use decisions that relate to caribou protection to win broader public support for the recovery strategy, Blair Lekstrom said in a recent interview. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP, Rick Bowmer VICTORIA - A former cabinet minister who resigned as Premier John Horgan's liaison for the recovery of threatened caribou herds in northeastern British Columbia says he wants more voices in the discussion to increase conservation support. Local governments need greater input in future land use decisions that relate to caribou protection to win broader public support for the recovery strategy, Blair Lekstrom said in a recent interview. Lekstrom, a former B.C. Liberal energy and mines minister, recently quit as Horgan's liaison, saying the B.C. government was not prepared to change a draft agreement between the federal government and the area's West Moberly and Salteau First Nations. "We've got governments, both federal and provincial, prepared to sign this partnership agreement when they don't know the socio or economic impacts of what this means to the region or the communities," he said. "I've never seen anything like it. If we find out it costs the possibility of hundreds of people losing their jobs, I guess so be it." Lekstrom wants the B.C. government to endorse minor changes to the draft agreement to include local governments and said he is aware that Horgan has stated the province cannot make unilateral changes because it requires the consent of all parties. "To sign an agreement that's 30 years in duration without local government having a seat at the table is just beyond anything I could support," said Lekstrom. "You have to wonder: is this somebody's pet project in the federal and provincial governments that come hell or high water they don't care about the region up here and they are going to sign it." B.C. government figures indicate the Dawson Creek and Chetwynd areas in the Peace River region have six caribou herds, but their numbers have declined from 800 to about 220 over two decades. Lekstrom pointed to recent provincial caribou recovery team meetings in Williams Lake where the province is collaborating with local governments, First Nations, industry and other stakeholders on management programs for threatened Caribou herds in the Chilcotin region of central B.C. In May 2018, the federal environment minister said southern mountain caribou faced an "imminent threat" to recovery in 10 local populations across B.C. The declaration set the stage for the federal government to issue an emergency order under the Species at Risk Act to protect the caribou. Such an order could include cutting off habitat areas to economic and public activities. Moira Kelly, Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson's press secretary, said in a statement that signing the draft partnership agreement is a priority. "We also recognize the concerns we have heard from local communities, so as part of this process, we, along with our partners, have established a number of working groups to ensure the concerns of local communities are heard," she said. The statement said B.C.'s southern mountain caribou are "an at-risk species that requires urgent action. If we don't act now, we could lose the caribou forever." Charlotte Dawe, a Wilderness Committee caribou campaigner, said a recent study of 80 years of data concluded more than 80 per cent of B.C.'s southern mountain caribou populations have lost habitat critical to their survival. She said both the B.C. and federal governments are not doing enough to prevent the herds from facing extinction. "It's clear as day, if caribou are to have any chance at recovery, we need to stop destroying their critical habitat," she said. "Every single population unit we looked at in that region has surpassed the threshold required for recovery and survival." Horgan appointed Lekstrom last year to bridge tensions between local groups, including back country enthusiasts and Indigenous groups, over the draft agreement's proposals to save threatened herds. A report by Lekstrom last April made 14 recommendations, including the call for more local involvement. An interim moratorium on signing the recovery program was introduced following Lekstrom's report. "I've done all I could in what I was engaged to do as a liaison to the premier," he said. "It became clear they weren't going to listen to anything I said." A statement from the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development said technical sessions are ongoing in the Peace region to implement protection measures for caribou, but there was no comment on changing the draft partnership. "We know it's important for local governments to be heard and be involved, that's why we have been working hard to ensure they have a larger role in this work," it said. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 2, 2020. The eastern Chinese city of Wenzhou restricted the movement of residents and closed roads on Sunday in the most drastic steps taken by authorities outside the epicentre of a deadly virus. Only one resident per household is allowed to go out every two days to buy necessities, authorities said in the city of nine million, while 46 highway toll stations have been closed. Zhejiang province has the highest number of confirmed cases outside central Hubei province, with 265 in Wenzhou. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Batelco will operate a retail outlet at Bahrain International Airports (BIA) new Passenger Terminal Building, BIAs operator and managing body Bahrain Airport Company (BAC) announced. Batelco will offer international visitors a range of products and services to keep them connected in the Kingdom. BAC CEO, Mohamed Yousif Al Binfalah signed the five-year concession agreement alongside Batelco's Enterprise General Manager, Abderrahmane Mounir, in the presence of the Minister of Transportation & Telecommunications and BAC Chairman, Kamal bin Ahmed Mohammed and Batelco Chairman Shaikh Abdulla bin Khalifa Al Khalifa. At BAC, we understand how important it is for international visitors to stay connected to their work and loved ones while away from home, Al Binfalah said. By partnering with Batelco at the new terminal, we aim to ensure this process is as quick and convenient as possible. We look forward to working with Batelco and ensuring that visitors enjoy a hassle-free airport experience replete with comfort, connections, and character. Batelco is delighted to enter into this agreement with BAC to deliver our retail services at the new terminal and is ready to serve airport tenants and passengers around the clock, 7 days a week, Mounir said. We look forward to supporting the efforts of BAC in providing high- quality services to upgrade all aspects of the travel experience in the new facility. Additionally, Batelco is proud to provide high-speed Wi-Fi connectivity and superior quality services for all visitors to the airport. Alongside Batelco, Zain Bahrain and STC will also operate retail outlets and offer their services at the new terminal, ensuring broader and faster mobile coverage for travelers and tenants. Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield is one of four military bases chosen to house travelers returning from overseas and being monitored for the new coronavirus that has sickened 11 Americans and more than 17,000 in China, where it originated. The bases main lodging facility will house about 250 travelers through February if needed, said Capt. Amanda Farr, a spokeswoman for the base. The base is expected to solely provide housing federal officials are to handle all care, transportation and security of evacuees. Farr emphasized that evacuees who stay at the base will be screened before boarding a flight to the U.S., monitored in flight, screened again when they land on American soil and monitored while at the base. Folks are worried, and we understand that, Farr said. But our leadership is 100% engaged in working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The announcement came Saturday, a day after health officials in Santa Clara County confirmed the first case of the virus in Northern California. A second case was announced in the county Sunday, and two more cases were diagnosed in neighboring San Benito County. Health officials said the risk to the public remained low. Airmen and other personnel at Travis Air Force Base will not have contact with the travelers, who will not be allowed anywhere on the base other than the housing facilities, officials said. The living area will be cordoned off for the safety of personnel on base and the privacy of people staying there. We are making sure there is a designated lodging area, Farr said. We are only being asked to provide lodging. Farr said she did not know exactly where the evacuees would come from or when they would arrive. Base officials had not received an estimated timeline, she said. Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts. More than 360 people have died from the virus in China. Two people have tested positive for the virus in Southern California one in Orange County, one in Los Angeles County. Washington state, Massachusetts and Arizona each have one patient. A woman who recently returned to Illinois from China was also among the infected in the U.S. Her husband, who got the illness from her, is the first person infected by human-to-human transmission in the nation. The other bases are Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego, Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio and the 168th Regiment Regional Training Institute in Fort Carson, Colo. They were selected by the Department of Defense after a request from the Department of Health and Human Services. Alejandro Serrano is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: alejandro.serrano@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @serrano_alej Current Print Subscribers will be prompted to either login to their current site user account or to create a new one. A confirmation email will be sent when a new user account is created, which must be confirmed within three days in order to provide uninterrupted online access through your Print Subscription. Once the email address is confirmed please provide your Account Number to activate your Print Subscription Service. Royal Jordanian (RJ) conducted a complete sterilisation and disinfection procedure to its aircraft that returned from Wuhan to Amman on Saturday morning (February 1). The aircraft was dispatched to evacuate Jordanians, Palestinians and Arabs residing in this Chinese city where the coronavirus was said to originate. The entire aircraft underwent the sterilisation process: seats, facilities and air conditioning; the best cleaning materials and equipment were used by a highly qualified team from a local company for the purpose. The sterilisation and disinfection process went through three phases and took over two hours, following the international standards of the civil aviation authorities and Boeings protocol in this regard, which helps kill 100 per cent of bacteria, virus and fungi. The airline will continue to exert its utmost efforts to maintain the international reputation it enjoys for maintaining the safety and security of its passengers, employees and aircraft, it said ina statement. - TradeArabia News Service New Delhi: In a bench headed by Justice Suresh Kumar Kait, the Delhi High Court on Sunday (February 2) reserved order on Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) plea challenging the trial court's order which had stayed the execution of the convicts in the 2012 Delhi gang-rape case. The Delhi HC had issued a notice to Tihar jail authorities and the Nirbhaya convicts and sought their response on a plea moved by the MHA challenging the stay on convicts execution. Putting forward his argument in the case Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said that law requires a 14 days notice period to be given to the convicts to take care of their affairs before they are hanged. In this case, on the 13th day, one convict will file some plea and then ask for a warrant to have stayed against all which clearly states that they are all acting in tandem. He also presented a chart before the court explaining the legal remedies availed by the four death row convicts till now. Carrying forward the courts proceeding SG Tushar Mehta said that the convicts cannot be hanged separately only during the time when judicial proceedings are ongoing. Once Supreme Court decides the fate of all convicts in finality, there is nothing barring them from being hanged separately. He further submitted that the last legal remedy which can postpone the hanging, as per the Prison Rules, is the Special Leave Petition before the Supreme Court. Live TV Defending his point SG Mehta said that mercy has been described as a separate petition it is not an application or appeal which means that hanging can take place once the apex court dismisses all the SLP in a case of multiple death row convicts, therefore separate hangings of convicts can take place. He also called the mercy petition filed by convicts as a deliberate, well-calculated move designed to frustrate the process of law, adding, there cannot be any delay in the interest of justice, death sentence cannot be delayed. Mehta called the rape and murder incident ghastly which shook the nation and said that 7 years have gone by and they are still playing with the machinery of the judicial system. The convicts are still trying the patience of the nation. He also gave example of Telangana encounter and said, '' people celebrated after the police encounter in Telangana, which was not the celebration of police but celebration of justice, adding, only victims would who say that people will stop believing in the justice system, the credibility of the institution and its own power to execute death sentence is now at stake. Mehta said ''If this continues, people will stop having faith in the administration of justice, seven years have gone by and they are still playing with the machinery of the judicial system. Accused/ convicts are still testing the patience of the nation.'' Concluding his argument SG Mehta said the order passed by the trial court deserves to have stayed. Every convict is enjoying defeating the judicial system in the country. Convicts are exploiting the process of law. Convicts lawyer AP Singh argued that the convicts belong to rural areas, Dalit families, they came to Delhi and got implicated, adding, the convicts cannot be made to bear brunt of ambiguity in the law Senior advocate Rebecca John who was arguing for Mukesh Singh in Delhi HC said, "The high court has to confirm the sentence of death. The sentencing order of the trial court was one common order for all convicts. The convicts were sentenced by a composite order which was upheld by the HC and the SC. She added, ''My question is, does the scheme envisage the delinking of the convicts? A common sentence and a common execution. That's all I'm seeking today." As per the current status of the case, three out of the four convicts Mukesh Singh, Vinay Sharma, Akshay Thakur has already filed a mercy petition in the apex court which got dismissed whereas Pawan Kumar Gupta is yet to file curative and mercy plea. On February 1, barely 12 hours ahead of the much-anticipated execution of the four convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape-murder case, the court directed the Tihar jail authorities to not execute the death warrants issued against the convicts. As per Patiala House courts earlier order the execution of the four convicts was scheduled for 6 am at Tihar Jail no. 3. The Tihar Jail authorities had also brought Pawan Jallad, a third-generation hangman from Meerut to carry out the execution. On January 31, the jail authorities also performed a dummy execution of the four men ahead of the actual hanging. The case pertains to the gangrape and brutal murder of a 23-year-old paramedical student in a moving bus on the night of December 16, 2012, by six people, including a juvenile, in Delhi. The woman had died at a Singapore hospital a few days later while being treated for several internal injuries. A new strain of coronavirus that has emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan is expected to continue dampening investor sentiment, according to various reports. Tourists wear protective masks while visiting Hoan Kiem Lake in Hanoi, Vietnam on January 31, 2020 PHOTO: REUTERS Concern regarding the novel coronavirus continued to have a negative impact on the VN-Index of the Hochiminh Stock Exchange as it dropped 2.4% on Friday to a 50-week low of 936.62 points. In the Lunar New Year or Tet-shortened weeks two days of trading, the index plunged 5.3% and also declined for the third consecutive month as it fell 2.5% in January. Dairy producer VNM was the major drag as it plummeted 7% to a 34-month low. Airlines VJC and HVN experienced steep declines of 7% and 6.9%, respectively, for the second day in a row. On the positive side, pharmaceutical company DHG surged by 7% to a six-month high. BIDV Securities Company said in a report on Friday that the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak is forecast to have the most adverse impacts on tourism and its related industries. Apart from the obvious short-term negative impact on industries, such as aviation, seaports, shipping, and retail, the brokerage firm noted that the fisheries and real estate sectors may be negatively affected in the medium term. Meanwhile, stocks in the pharmaceutical industry, including DHG and DBD, may benefit in the short run, according to the firm. Echoing the view, Viet Capital Securities said that as concerns regarding the outbreak remain, the company believes they will have a negative impact on aviation stocks, including ACV, VJC, HVN and AST, as their earnings exposure to tourism is high. According to the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, Chinese arrivals accounted for 32% of total international arrivals by all modes in Vietnam last year. The Vietnamese Government has now stopped issuing visas for Chinese tourists in an attempt to stop the spread of the deadly respiratory disease. Additionally, cross-border trade activities and tourism between Vietnam and China are not encouraged as the outbreak is spreading rapidly. In a report, analysts at ANZ Research said the drop in economic activity in mainland China due to the virus will be felt across Asia through tourism and trade channels since businesses and factories in the mainland close due to internal travel restrictions amid the crisis. ANZ Research predicted Vietnam would see a 0.44-percentage point drop in its economic growth considering its high exports to the northern neighbor. S&P Global Ratings said as to potential regional and global impacts, the scale of the effects depends on the extent to which the virus spreads outside China. Even if contained, we expect some spillover to Asia-Pacific, given that Chinese tourists represent a large proportion of arrivals for economies including Thailand and Vietnam, among others, said U.S.-based ratings agency. The World Health Organization on Wednesday expressed concern over the person-to-person spread of the virus in three countries, including Vietnam. On Saturday, the Southeast Asian nation confirmed its sixth case of coronavirus. Reuters reported that Chinas new confirmed infections from the coronavirus outbreak increased by a daily record, up by 2,590 cases on Saturday to top 14,000. The death toll from the coronavirus outbreak in China had reached 304 as of the end of Saturday, state broadcaster CCTV said on Sunday, citing the countrys National Health Commission.SGT Hanoi authorities spray schools with disinfectant to combat nCoV infection Schools throughout Hanoi have made efforts to clean their facilities with disinfectant spray on February 1 as a means of fighting against the potential spread of acute respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus (nCoV). https://www.aish.com/j/fs/Why-Israelis-Love-the-New-American-Peace-Plan.html Israelis loves the new Middle East Peace Plan. Heres why. SATIRE: Israelis loves the new Middle East Peace Plan. Here is why we love it. Israelis Love Plans Weve been planning peace for the past five decades. We love it. Anytime we have a chance to sit down and discuss a peace plan, were there. Its nice. They bring you coffee. You get to sit on a plush couch. Who wouldnt want that? Jews love planning. We plan Bar Mitzvahs. We plan weddings. We plan surprise parties for Auntie Shirley and Uncle Iras wedding anniversary. Jews dont just get married. We call every relative to make sure they can all make it, then we plan the hall, the invites and the band and if after eight months of negotiations between the parents dont fall through, theres a wedding. With the Current Plan Israelis Dont Have to be Uprooted from Our Homes People like their houses. The last plan consisted of throwing Jews out of their homes, and believe it or not the people getting kicked out were not too happy about it. They said, This plan does not sound too peaceful to me. Israelis Want Peace We love shopping in the Arab Shuk. We need peace. The negotiations in the shuk right now are way too intense. If this peace plan goes through, I have a feeling that the vendors will mellow out during negotiations when I buy my next pair of sandals. Israelis Want to Be Able to Travel in the Middle East We want to be able to travel farther than a radius of twenty miles from our homes. We like the idea of people not hating us and our passports working. Israelis Like the Idea of A Two State Solution Our current state is not working. We cant figure out how to get past these elections. Two state solution, one state solution, whatever it is we need a solution! We cant vote again. Maybe a two state solution can get the Knesset moving again. Either that, or a two prime minister solution. Israelis Love Saying Peaceful Coexistence It bothers them so much. We just say it to get them mad. Because Israelis Love It, We Know the Arabs Will Not The Arab leadership immediately rejected the new peace plan. They saw the word peace and they were like, No way. These aggressors of peace, always pushing peace on us. This aggression will not stand. Only barbarians speak of peace. To quote Abbas, We say a thousand times over. No. No. No. He didnt hear the question, but he was very adamant. I believe he was asked if he wanted mayonnaise on his shwarma. It turns out Abbas also doesnt put mayonnaise on his meat; we have so much in common. It Makes Israelis Look Great Its like committing to show up at your friends event that you know will be cancelled. You just say I wanted to be there, and you end up looking good. This method works great for hosting events as well. Never invite people you think can make it. Invite everybody that you know will not come, and you will look good. I have done that. I had a birthday party and wanted gifts. I sent invitations to everybody I knew in America. None of them came to Jerusalem for my party. Got some nice gifts. Great return on investment. Best party of my life. Even though I was alone. Israelis Support the American System Every American president proposes a peace plan. Its tradition. And as the people of the Holy Book, we love tradition. We believe that each president should have the right to come up with their own plan for peace that wont work. That is the right of the American presidency, its a rite of passage. Its like the right that every rabbi has to author a Haggadah for Passover. Every American president has the right to attempt to obtain a Nobel Peace Prize and fail miserably. At Least American Recognizes Israel as a Country The US acknowledges Israel has the right to exist among the family of nations. This recognition is kind of a prerequisite for us to sign a peace treaty. Most peace plans for Israel are given over by nations who dont acknowledge Israels right to exist. Why anyone would think Israel would sign such a treaty is beyond us. The Syrian proposal for Israeli peace with the Palestinians went something like, And Israel will not exist anymore and there will be peace in Israel. It Recognizes Jerusalem as Our Capital We love the fact that our capital is recognized as our capital. For years, people have been mocking us, Israelis think their capital is Jerusalem. What fools! They dont even know their own capital! Were sick of people deciding what Israels capital is. Afula is a great town, with great falafel and peanuts, but were not signing any treaties that set Afula as our capital. Some nations are just throwing out ridiculous ideas for capitals to get out of having to use Jerusalem. Brussels?! How did that get in the mix? We dont even live there. Like the Belgian people would like us?! Sadly, we have a long history of peace treaties, and usually they dont end well. Just ask the ancient Israelite King Zedekiah. It really didnt out well for him. So this isnt the first peace treaty and it wont be the last. But we might as well give it another go. Its tradition. The CM said that the decision to divest a stake in LIC shows the precarious state of the economy. Mumbai: Chief minister Uddhav Thackeray has accused the Centre of doing injustice to Maharashtra and Mumbai in the Union Budget. It does not support development of basic amenities and on-going metro projects in Mumbai, he said on Saturday. The step-motherly treatment given to Maharashtra has become evident in the budget. The International Finance Centre in Gujarat has been strengthened, while Mumbai, which makes the highest contribution to the countrys development, has been ignored deliberately, Mr Thackeray said. There is no mention of developing suburban railway network, except for the mention of projects announced earlier, such as the Bullet Train, he added. The CM said that the decision to divest a stake in LIC shows the precarious state of the economy. This growth doesnt have the potential to achieve Prime Minister Narendra Modis dream of making India a USD 5 trillion economy nation, he said. Revenue min-ister Balasaheb Thorat said that the Union Budget is nothing but some old schemes, unrealistic announcements and figures thrown in together. Mumbai along with Maharashtra has been ignored once again. This years budget is directionless and even meaningless, he said. Mr Thorat said that the budget is only good for headline management and that there is nothing in it for the common man. Where is Maharashtra in the budget. Mumbai and Maharashtra give the largest share of taxes to the Centre and despite the state did not get anything, he added. Former chief minister and BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis on Saturday said that the Union Budget has a futuristic vision, adding that the government has taken a strong step against the tax terrorism. A 16-point plan to revive the farm and agriculture sector has also been given in the budget. This will help the farmers to double their income. From increasing the productivity to post-harvest technologies, market linkages, farmers will be at ease, Mr Fadnavis said. Passengers arriving on flights wear protective masks at the international airport in Auckland, New Zealand, on Jan. 29, 2020. (Dave Rowland/Getty Images) Russia to Evacuate Citizens From China: Kremlin Russian President Vladimir Putins government will evacuate Russian nationals from China next week, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. Due to the fact that it has taken certain time to finalize the coordination of flight information by the Chinese side, the evacuation of Russian nationals from China by planes of the Aerospace Force will be carried out on February 3-4, Peskov told the state-run TASS news agency. It came after Putin ordered the evacuation of Russian nationals trapped in the hardest-hit areas in China, the agency reported. Peskov also indicated in state-backed RT that they will start carrying out [evacuation] flights as of today. The move came about a day after Russian health officials confirmed two cases of coronavirus in two Siberian regions. Those new cases involve Chinese nationals, RT reported. Russia also announced last week that it would shut down its 2,500-mile border with China in the Far Eastern District. A corresponding instruction was signed today. Work on it is already in progress. We will inform all those concerned properly about the measures to close the border in the Far Eastern region and other steps the government has taken [to prevent the spread of coronavirus in Russia], Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said during a cabinet meeting on Thursday, according to the state-run TASS news agency. A World Health Organization (WHO) official warned other governments to prepare for domestic outbreak control amid the coronavirus epidemic that has prompted a number of countries to suspend travel to China. Gauden Galea, the WHO representative in Beijing, told The Associated Press that other countries should get ready for possible importation in order to identify cases as early as possible and in order to be ready for a domestic outbreak control, if that happens. Last week, the U.N. organizations director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, declared a global public health emergency in light of the outbreak. The declaration flipped the switch from being cautious to calling on governments to prepare for the possibility that the coronavirus might spread beyond their borders, Galea said. The majority of cases outside China have been people who have recently traveled to Wuhan, a city that was placed on lockdown and quarantine by Chinese regime officials. There are eight cases in the United States as of Sunday, including seven who traveled to China and one person-to-person transmission. Those cases are in Massachusetts, California, Arizona, Illinois, and Washington State. Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar last week declared a public health emergency and a temporary travel ban. New Delhi: The National Investigation Agency (NIA)s initial probe into the naval spy ring busted in December has found that Pakistans spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), used the same set of social media accounts to honey trap sailors and paid them very small amounts of money, officials familiar with the matter said. As of now, the agency has found that no sensitive information could have been leaked to the ISI since the navy personnel did not have access to any classified information, the officials added. But the further inquiry is on to ascertain if any specifics of naval vessels or submarines of Vishakhapatnams Eastern Naval Command or Western command in Mumbai were shared with the ISI. Most of the personnel under probe had joined the navy after 2015. Other suspicious cases are also being checked, the officials said. As many as 10 sailors have been arrested since the espionage racket was busted on December 20 in a joint operation of the Andhra Pradesh police and central intelligence agencies. The NIA suspects there could be more navy personnel in the lower ranks, who were honey-trapped. It appears that a particular set of women working as Pakistani agents, most likely based in a third country, were using these Facebook and other social media accounts to get in touch with the navy personnel. Once they befriended the personnel, they were either blackmailed or some willingly started bragging about their work, job profile, said one of the officials cited above. The agency is in the process of sending Letters Rogatory or judicial request for seeking information from foreign jurisdictions to the United States for information on the Facebook accounts used to honey-trap the personnel. The official said the money paid to the sailors was not very big. Small amounts like Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000 were paid to the navy personnel through a hawala dealer. We are further checking everyones accounts and personal investments, he added. The handler of the Pakistani agents, who was trying to penetrate the Indian naval installation through its personnel, is yet to be identified. It is suspected that both eastern and western naval command centre responsible for the security of the maritime borders with Pakistan were exposed to the Pakistani agents. After the spy ring was busted, the navy had asked all its personnel on-board warships, dockyards and naval bases to keep themselves away from social media and smartphones. Earlier, in a similar espionage case probed by the NIA, the agency in April 2018 put Pakistani diplomat Amir Zubair Siddiqui posted as visa counsellor in the Pakistani High Commission in Colombo on its wanted list along with two other senior Pakistani officers for conspiring to launch 26/11-type attacks on US and Israeli consulates besides army and navy commands in south India in 2014. Siddiqui was even charged by the NIA in February 2018 for planning attacks on vital installations in Chennai and other places in south India with the help of his agents. Siddiqui allegedly hired Sri Lankan national Muhammed Sakir Hussaien and others, including Arun Selvaraj, Sivabalan and Thameem Ansari, all of whom were arrested by Indian agencies. It was alleged that after recruiting them, Siddiqui instructed them to collect information about defence installations, nuclear establishments and movement of arms and click photographs of such places, the NIA said in its charge sheet. The Pakistanis had also asked them to steal laptops of senior Indian army officers and supply fake Indian currency notes, the agency had added. HARTFORD Parents opposed to repealing the religious exemption for childhood vaccinations say they will be at the state Capitol in large numbers on the opening day of the session Wednesday. State Rep. Jonathan Steinberg, D-Westport, who co-chairs the committee that is expected to introduce the legislation, said Monday that they are working on a draft of the bill and will share it with committee members when its finished. He said the bill would eliminate the religious exemption, which some lawmakers have started to refer to as the non-medical exemption, in accordance with guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Steinberg said they dont plan to introduce legislation to mandate the HPV vaccine for seventh-graders, even though that is recommended by the CDC. Steinberg said he expects that the Public Health Committee will vote to have a public hearing because even those without reservations about the bill understand the need for the public to weigh in. He said it takes a lot of time for everyone to express their viewpoint on an issue that has been this controversial, but he promised everyone will have their three minutes. In March 2019, when the measles outbreak in Brooklyn, N.Y., was on everyones mind, CTNewsJunkie reported that the state Department of Public Health was sitting on school-level vaccination rate data, but was unable to release the information by statute. At that point, legislators began advocating for release of the data, and House Majority Leader Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, promised a vote on removing the religious exemption within a year. In the following months, the DPH released two years of school-level immunization rates, which showed a 25 percent increase in the number of children claiming the religious exemption to the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine. Based on additional interviews over the last several months, parents appear to be using the religious exemption in a variety of circumstances. In some cases, parents say they have opted out of all vaccines. In others, they may have opted out of a portion of the required vaccines. And some parents are vaccinating their children but are making use of the religious exemption because they dont want to disclose their childrens immunization status to their school districts. It was also clear from the data that the paperwork for some students had fallen through the cracks at some schools. Specifically, the number of immunized students, added to those who had used exemptions, did not add up to the total number of kindergartners and/or seventh-graders enrolled. The MMR vaccine comes in two rounds, which are routinely recommended for children ages 12-15 months and again at 4-6 years. One dose of measles vaccine is about 93 percent effective at preventing measles when exposed to the virus. Two doses are about 97 percent effective, according to the CDC. The data released in May showed that in the 2017-18 school year there were 109 school buildings in Connecticut in which MMR immunizations were below the CDCs recommended herd immunity rate of 95 percent. In the 2018-19 school year, data for which was released in October, the total had increased to 149. The overall statewide vaccination rate for MMR dropped from 96.5 percent in 2017-18 to 96.1 percent in 2018-19, based on revised data that the DPH had received from schools. In an interview earlier this month, Ritter said the release of the data was a turning point for legislators. I think the data has been the single most important factor in getting Connecticut politicians to understand the serious nature of this problem, Ritter said. He said you can find out the third-grade reading level at any school in the state. You should be able to know the kindergarten vaccination rate as well. Steinberg didnt want to get into specifics about the legislation before his colleagues had a chance to review it. But he was able to confirm last week that the continued release of the school-by-school immunization data which he said is important to the governor and the public health commissioner would be part of the bill repealing the religious exemption. Steinberg said the committee is focusing on the vaccines that the CDC requires, and is also following the lead of the DPH, which does not require administration of the HPV vaccine. Public Health Commissioner Renee Coleman-Mitchell and Gov. Ned Lamont told reporters in September that they also were supporting the repeal of the religious exemption. Earlier this week, Archbishop Leonard Blair of the Archdiocese of Hartford and four other bishops and high-ranking officials with the Catholic Conference encouraged the use of vaccines, but stopped short of calling for the repeal of the religious exemption. There is no religious teaching against the use of these vaccines for Catholics, the bishops wrote in an open letter. But they went on to say that religious exemptions should be jealously guarded. Any repeal of a religious exemption should be rooted in legitimate, grave, public health concerns. House Deputy Minority Leader Vincent Candelora, R-North Branford, said he had been a member of a bipartisan working group seeking to draft the legislation before the holidays, but he said the group was no longer meeting. He said its an oversimplification to say youre going to get rid of the religious exemption and more kids will get vaccinated. He said most of the schools that fell below the recommended 95 percent rate for MMR immunizations are schools where the paperwork was not properly registered, or it was not turned in at all. He said that unless theres some sort of penalty or mandate for schools to collect this data, then the data is not going to be useful. He said the issue of grandfathering in certain groups of students might work because it doesnt make sense to throw high school kids out of school. However, advocates on both sides of the issue are not in favor of grandfathering the current student population. Brian Festa, a co-founder of a group called CT Freedom Alliance, said there are people with sincere religious objections to some vaccines. He said he knows people who forgo some vaccinations but get others. Festa said that without the religious exemption, they wont be able to do that and continue to attend school, which is a right granted to children under Connecticuts constitution. Its a civil rights issue, Festa said. Dawn Jolly, another co-founder of CT Freedom Alliance, said they have asked a lot of people to come to the state Capitol on Wednesday and to the public hearing later in February. Both Jolly and Festa are hoping to get lawmakers to reconsider. They hope to replicate what happened in New Jersey in December, when the state Senate there was unable to find enough votes to repeal that states religious exemption. According to news reports, protests by parents and children opposed to mandatory vaccines were enough to get the issue tabled before a vote. Parents and children were yelling and stomping their feet outside the Senate chamber there when they figured out that they didnt have the votes. Connecticut failed to pass legislation last year, and officials who are now pushing for repeal have been cautious about what theyve said publicly to avoid confrontations with parents who support the religious exemption. We announced it several months ago and no one has wavered from the House and Senate leadership to the governors office on getting it passed this year, Ritter said. He said hundreds of people are not vaccinating their children anymore based mostly on misinformation and thats a danger to a lot of our residents and we want to end that. Emails between employees at the DPH, which were obtained through a Freedom of Information request, show they were concerned about Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who came to Connecticut last March to speak about vaccines. Kennedy has become a celebrity within the niche of people who oppose vaccinations, and he was supposed to join a panel of medical professionals who support vaccines for a public discussion. But the event was canceled. Instead, Kennedy spoke to a large number of mostly women about how he doesnt believe vaccines are safe a position that puts him at odds with members of his own family. The FOI request revealed that Kathy Kudish, immunization program manager at the DPH, warned a colleague seven days before the forum that they should limit the anti-vaccine presence and take no questions from the public. This has the potential to turn into a media and anti-vaccine platform so Im hopeful that (state Rep. Josh Elliott) will take some steps to ensure that does not happen, Kudish wrote. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a loud anti-vaccine spokesperson and turns out huge crowds. LeeAnn Ducat, founder of Informed Choice CT, said that when supporters of vaccine mandates cannot defend their position, they resort to bullying and censorship. We saw a perfect example of this in Hartford in March 2019. The medical establishment cant defend vaccine mandates because their science is extraordinarily weak, Ducat said. If lawmakers learned how weak their evidence is, they would never consider a vote to remove religious liberty and access to public schools. Thats why they are afraid of a real dialogue. She said they hide behind the curtain of alphabet soup agency recommendations and pharmaceutical company public relations campaigns. Virtually all of the entities which support removal of the religious exemption participate in the revenue stream from vaccines, which is an obvious and enormous conflict of interest. Jillian Wood, executive director of the American Academy of Pediatrics Connecticut chapter, has said theres no way medical professionals were going to convince true anti-vaccine people their information is wrong. We can only answer questions about scientific truth. The spread of misinformation on the internet is credited with causing immunization rates to drop. Doubts about the MMR vaccine originated with a retracted study published in 1998 that incorrectly suggested a link between the vaccine and symptoms of autism. The study has been widely cited online as the basis for fear of vaccinations. That is not to suggest that there are no side effects or adverse reactions from vaccinations - the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System was created to track such events and there are parents in Connecticut who believe their children were adversely impacted by vaccines. Regardless, vaccinations are part of the CDCs recommended requirements for children to attend both public and private schools. For the most part, Connecticut follows the CDCs recommendations, but could, in theory, opt not to include a given immunization in the required schedule. The World Health Organization, in its online training course titled Vaccine Safety Basics, provides a chart showing the cycles of a vaccination program. The chart illustrates a vaccines impact on public health from inception through eradication. It also includes a period where negative perceptions about the vaccine - based on adverse events - lead to a drop in immunization rates and a resurgence of a disease. Nationally, we have seen that religious exemptions increase when that is the only choice and other personal/philosophical exemption choices are removed, said Dr. Jody L. Terranova, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington who also is the immunization advocate for the Connecticut Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. But total non-medical exemptions are still increasing regardless of whether they are religious or personal beliefs. Terranova said the increase in use of exemptions can be attributed to a combination of reasons, including: a lack of experience with and exposure to the diseases that vaccines prevent; the reach of the internet and social media and the ability of anyone to claim expertise; perception of risk and overemphasis on vaccine side effects as the visibility of a disease and its effects decrease, and; a general distrust of the government, physicians, and pharmaceutical companies.Measles is among the most contagious diseases in the world and had been nearly eradicated by an aggressive vaccination program, but it has made a comeback in the U.S. and elsewhere as parents have been deciding not to vaccinate. The United States, because of its investment in sanitation and vaccination programs, is better equipped than many other countries to handle outbreaks of contagious diseases. But in areas where people are not vaccinated, the disease is extremely dangerous. One student in Brooklyn infected 21 others last year, some of whom were unvaccinated. But the virus - with its four-day incubation period during which people are contagious but not symptomatic makes it especially easy to spread. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, where vaccination rates are low, an ongoing measles outbreak has infected 310,000 people and killed more than 6,000, according to the World Health Organization. The virus is spread through coughing and sneezing, and can live for up to two hours in an airspace where the infected person coughed or sneezed. In 2019, there were 1,282 measles cases in 31 states in the United States. The CDC reported that 128 of the people who got measles were hospitalized, and 61 reported having complications, including pneumonia and encephalitis. Last year in Connecticut there were four confirmed cases of measles and one suspected case. No measles cases have been reported in Connecticut in 2020. Trumps plan will not make the Palestinians lives better, but it could help dismantle the disastrous Oslo order. On January 28, US President Donald Trump finally unveiled his much-delayed Middle East plan to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinian people. Titled Peace to Prosperity: A Vision to Improve the Lives and of the Palestinian and Israeli People, the plan proposes to unleash the economic potential of the Palestinians through investment, improved education, healthcare and utilities, and enhanced governance. The plan also promises large-scale economic projects including a free trade agreement with the United States, a new port in Gaza, a Palestinian Dead Sea resort under Israeli sovereignty, and others. Compensation is also envisioned for Palestinian refugees who will have to surrender their right of return. The plan also proposes a broader process of economic normalisation and integration at the regional scale, calling for open borders for capital and investments and the building of new infrastructure to enable trade across the Palestinian state, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, and Lebanon, with the substantial involvement of Gulf states. One of the great rewards of the plan, its backers argue, is the unprecedented regional economic prosperity that would eventually translate into regional peace and stability. All of this is supposed to be realised through an investment worth $50bn over 10 years, which will likely be financed by wealthy Gulf states and private companies. Basically, Trumps plan promises the Israelis an almost full realisation of the Zionist objectives to establish a Jewish state on all of historic Palestine, while offering the Palestinians prosperous apartheid, ie life under occupation with more money but no dignity and basic rights. Although backers of the Trump plan like to depict it as a groundbreaking approach to Middle East peace, much of the regional economic integration rhetoric recycles peace initiatives proposed by past US administrations. The Oslo process spearheaded by the Clinton administration in the 1990s, was inspired by the notion of peace dividends. It promised a new era of prosperity where Gaza would be transformed into the Singapore of the Middle East; unsurprisingly, the text of the Trump plan makes multiple references to Singapore as well. The Roadmap for Peace put forward in 2003 by the Bush administration also positioned economic growth and investments at the centre of a future peace process just like Trumps proposal. President Barack Obamas 2013 peace plan offered the Palestinians $4bn to boost the economy by up to 50 percent to help transform the fortunes of a future Palestinian state again the latest plan makes a similar promise. All of these initiatives have tried to use economic incentives as an instrument for pacification in Palestine, trying to redefine the socioeconomic conditions governing the lives of the Palestinians as a way to ensure political submission. The economic pacification approach is based on a highly reductionist understanding of peace, which promises economic prosperity in exchange for security collaboration by the Palestinian authorities while side-lining the political process. The expected result is that economic normalisation would have pacifying effects over the Palestinian population and preclude political radicalisation, which would ultimately lead to peace. Israel adopted this approach early on in order to try to control the Palestinian people. In the immediate aftermath of 1967 war, the Israeli government adopted the open bridges policy, designed by Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, which endorsed limited economic modernisation through agricultural and light-industry projects in Palestinian lands in order to pacify the population and disrupt the political foundation of the Palestinian anti-colonial struggle. In the words of Dayan, the objective was to make the occupation invisible. Then, in the 1990s, then-Foreign Minister Shimon Peres put forward his idea of a New Middle East which proposed a process of regional economic integration beyond the Palestinian territories, bringing together Arab countries and Israel into a common market. Peress vision would have exploited power imbalances to transform Arab economies into peripheries subordinated to the Israeli centre. More recently, this approach took the form of the economic peace strategy spearheaded by Benjamin Netanyahu in 2009 to exploit the intra-Palestinian conflict of 2007, which resulted in Hamas taking control of Gaza and the Palestinian Authority (PA) holding on the West Bank. This strategy, known in some circles as West Bank First, eased restrictions on the movement of people and goods and promoted limited growth in the West Bank in order to make the besieged Gazans desire the economic prosperity of the West Bank and as a result, turn against Hamas. All of these tactics have one thing in common: They all have more or less failed to suppress the drive of Palestinians for full rights and independence. The Palestinian people remain staunchly adherent to their national rights and dignity. Despite the tens of billions that have been poured into the occupied territories since 1993, the Palestinian economy continues to be underdeveloped and structurally dependent on Israel. It is characterised by high unemployment and poverty rates; currently, some 31 percent of working-age Palestinians do not have a job and approximately 29 percent of the population lives under the poverty line. Another $50bn is unlikely to change all this because Israel will remain in control of large swaths of Palestinian land and resources, including borders, ports, trade, finance, and the movement of people. Economic pacification strategies, however, have been successful in creating a complex network of financial interests that tie the political elite and restrict their ability for political manoeuvring. The Oslo framework, for example, laid the foundation of complex political allegiances and economic alliances that created a status quo, fostered by Israeli policies and the international donor community to maintain the cohesiveness and stability of the PA regime. This not only explains the reason behind the PAs persistent inability to seriously challenge Israeli colonisation for more than 25 years but also its unwillingness to reintroduce a new national strategy that would unify the Palestinians and rebuild the national movement along with the principles of anti-colonial struggle and self-determination. Unsurprisingly PA President Mahmoud Abbass response was more rhetorical than substantive and did not take serious action against the announcement of Trumps plan, nor does he appear willing to do so in the future. On the contrary, it was reported that the PA security coordination with Israel has rather intensified to prevent mass protests and confrontation with Israeli soldiers stationed on the entrances of Palestinian Bantustans. Apart from the PAs muted response, a number of Arab states have come in support of the plan something that was unthinkable in the past when Arab regimes feared the reaction of the Arab public to even the mention of normalisation of relations with Israel. Some Arab regimes have gone as far as on systematic media propaganda to negate Palestinian rights and defame their anti-colonial struggle and sacrifices. Yet, none of these actors US, Israel and Arab regimes can impose unjust solutions as long as the Palestinians are united in their resistance. But this requires radically different approaches and strategies that effectively break with structures and realities the Oslo accords created most importantly the PA system and its pro-Israels security functions. In this sense, Trumps plan may have a silver lining: It could help Palestinians dismantle the Oslo order and push for a paradigm shift in Palestinian political thinking towards a long-term struggle for equal rights for all within the framework of one state. The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance. A manhunt is under way for a suspected arsonist who lit a truck on fire east of Brisbane on Sunday morning. Flames ripped through the tipper truck, which was parked on the side of Cleveland Redland Bay Road in Thornlands, about 3am. The aftermath of the truck fire. Credit:Queensland Police Service The owner of the truck had left it locked and parked on the side of the road, between Finlandia Village and Pinklands Recreation Reserve, after suffering a flat tyre about 7pm on Saturday. Detectives believed the suspected arsonist broke into the truck before starting the blaze, which destroyed the cabin and front of the truck. Have you ever wanted to live in a castle? Nestled in the woods just off Highway 132 in Pointe-a-la-Garde, on the Gaspe coast, is the Chateau Bahia, a 26-room castle built entirely by a man and his son and it's on the market. Overlooking the Baie des Chaleurs, the castle has served as a bed and breakfast for more than four decades, but its builder and owner, Jean Roussy, says it's time to retire. "After 41 seasons of receiving guests I've loved it all my life, some of the best friends of my life I met at Chateau Bahia I'm older now, I'm slower, it's time to pass it on to someone else," Roussy said. Turning a dream into reality It was back in 1976 that Roussy told his friends he would one day build a castle. While his mother thought he was crazy, his dad, also named Jean Roussy, jumped on board and agreed to help make the dream a reality. Submitted by Jean Roussy Seven years later, using lumber from a local mill, Jean Roussy junior and senior got started on one of the castle's towers on the 160-hectare plot of land they'd purchased. Over 16 summers, the Roussys added the great hall, then two more towers, and the castle eventually grew to its current grandeur, with four towers, seven turrets and 12 guest rooms. Along the way they got help from a Norwegian carpenter the younger Roussy met by chance at a gas station outside of Oslo in the early 1970s. Buildings in Norway are often built of wood instead of stone and brick, so the carpenter's experience was invaluable. He made seven trips to the Gaspe over the years that the castle was under construction. Roussy said his fondest memories of Chateau Bahia are the dinner parties: hours of conversation around candle-lit tables. "All the beautiful evenings: we have dinner every night in a big banquet hall, and it's those exchanges with people that are fantastic," he said. Submitted by Jean Roussy A pastime for every season Roussy named the castle for a Veronique Sanson song. Story continues "I don't know how it came to me. I had thought of many, many other names," he said. "But once when I was walking in the castle, just at the door, the word came to my mind, and I knew it was the name." A guest at the castle happened to be neighbours with Sanson and delivered a letter to her from Roussy explaining his inspiration. Years later, he met Sanson at a concert in Paris, and she remembered the story. Serge Bouchard/Radio-Canada Roussy said he loves to soak up the fall colours, snowshoe in the winter, and pick berries and wild mushrooms in the summer. But he's not a homebody. The B&B owner has gone to Europe every year for almost five decades. Once he's retired, he hopes to travel more. He said he's looking for a new owner of the chateau who loves to meet people and who has the energy required to keep the business running. Here's a look at the castle, in summertime: While China is already rocked with an unprecedented outbreak of coronavirus starting from Wuhan, the nation has also reported an outbreak of a highly pathogenic strain of H5N1 bird flu in Hunan on February 1. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs reportedly said that the case occurred in a chicken at a farm in Shaoyang city of the southern province of Hunan which reportedly had 7,850 chickens. However, more than 4,000 have already died with bird flu. According to international reports, followed by the H5N1 outbreak, authorities have selectively slaughtered more than 17,000 poultry. Another virus, H5N8 had spread across eastern Europe in recent weeks due to which authorities in India had also started culling chickens and destroying eggs to contain the bird flu strain. Read - Odisha Says No Fear Of Bird Flu Or Coronavirus In State Bird flu virus can affect the economy In an already slow-down economy, the bird flu virus can take a toll as it is already dealing with the crisis of coronavirus. According to experts at the United Nations, a bird flu outbreak in China in 2013 costed a loss of nearly $6.5 billion. Just recently, in order to provide stability to China's economy, the nation's central bank said that it will inject $173 billion to help fight the nationwide outbreak of the Coronavirus. Read - New H5N6 Bird Flu Reported Among Swans In China's Xinjiang - Ministry As the deadly virus claims more than 300 lives with nearly 14,000 confirmed cases in China, the People's Bank of China released a statement which said that it would launch 1.2 trillion yuan reverse purchase operation to maintain 'reasonable abundant liquidity' in the banking system. The bank also announced another range of measures to ramp-up the monetary as well as the credit support to enterprises which are currently contributing to the battle against the 2019-nCoV including medical companies. According to international reports, China's economic growth last year was the slowest in the last three decades with only 6.1 per cent. Moreover, the virus outbreak could further slow down the economy if it goes on for an extended period of time. Read - China Detects Another Case Of H5N6 Bird Flu In Xinjiang Region Read - Bird Flu Outbreak In Chhattisgarh; Over 15,000 Birds Culled Every name on the BrandBucket marketplace is exclusively listed with BrandBucket. That means that all of our sellers are very responsive, making for quick domain transfers. A dedicated BrandBucket agent will manage your domain transfer from beginning to end, ensuring a secure and easy transaction. They will manage the receipt of the domain into one of BrandBuckets secure registrar accounts and then complete the transfer to you. 1. Verification and registrar choice After we receive the payment and verify it, we will reach out via email to confirm which registrar you want the domain transferred to. We also provide a link to our tracking system, where you can communicate with us, check on the status of your transfer, view your invoice, and download your logo files. In most cases, if a domain is moved between accounts at a single registrar, the transfer is quick and usually completes within 48 hours. If a domain changes registrars (in other words, you would like to move it away from where it is currently registered), the transfer is slower. The total transfer time can then be anywhere from 48 hours to 7 days. BrandBucket has vetted and supports the following registrars: GoDaddy Namesilo Uniregistry NameCheap Google Domains Network Solutions Name.com Dynadot Amazon Route 53 123 Reg Gandi 2. We request the name from the seller. Once we know where you would like the domain transferred, BrandBucket will request the domain from the seller. All of our sellers are very responsive, making for a quick process. 3. Transfer the name into your account As soon as we receive the name from the seller, we start the transfer into your account and guide you through the whole process. 4. Verify with the buyer that the transfer is complete Once we confirm that you have received the name, we consider the escrow process to be complete. Only then do we release payment to the domain seller. A 4-month-old boy was injured after a shooting inside an apartment in Indiana County Saturday. The shooting occurred on College Lodge Road in White Township, WPXI is reporting. Pennsylvania State Police spokesman Trooper Cliff Greenfield told the Indiana Gazette troopers first got word of the shooting around 6:16 p.m. Troopers learned that a 4-month-old male child sustained a single gunshot wound to the upper body while inside an apartment near Philadelphia Street, Greenfield told the paper. The circumstances of the shooting were not immediately known, but reports indicate the childs parents were in the apartment when it happened. A neighbor called 911 while the parents took the boy to the hospital, where he is listed in stable condition, according to reports. Police are investigating, and the 4 month old is expected to survive. Thanks for visiting PennLive. Quality local journalism has never been more important. We need your support. Not a subscriber yet? Please consider supporting our work. Mangaluru airport bomb case: Suspect Aditya Rao remanded to 14 days judicial custody India oi-Madhuri Adnal Mangaluru, Feb 02: A local court on Saturday remanded Aditya Rao,the suspect in the Mangaluru International Airport (MIA) bomb case, to two weeks judicial custody. Rao was produced before the Sixth Judicial First Class Magistrate Court after the 10-day police custody expired. Rao has been in police custody since January 22 after he surrendered before the police in Bengaluru on January 21 and was later brought. He had allegedly planted an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) at the airport on January 20 triggering panic and later made a hoax call to the airport terminal that a bomb had been planted in an IndiGo flight. Mangaluru bomb scare: Family disowned Aditya two years ago, says brother During the last ten days, police took the accused to several places in the city and Udupi where he had frequented in the recent past. He was also taken to the room where he stayed while he was working at a hotel in the city. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Sunday, February 2, 2020, 11:16 [IST] China's death toll from the coronavirus epidemic soared past 360 on Monday, with deepening global concern about the outbreak and governments closing their borders to people from China. The fresh toll came a day after China imposed a lockdown on a major city far from the epicentre and the first fatality outside the country was reported in the Philippines. Authorities in Hubei, the province at the epicentre of the outbreak, reported 56 new fatalities, with one reported in the southwestern megalopolis of Chongqing. That took the toll in China to 361, exceeding the 349 mainland fatalities from the 2002-3 SARS outbreak. Struggling to contain the virus, authorities took action in the eastern city of Wenzhou on Sunday, closing roads and confining people to their homes. Wenzhou is some 800 kilometres (500 miles) from Wuhan, the metropolis at the heart of the health emergency. Since emerging out of Wuhan late last year, the new coronavirus has infected more than 17,200 people across China and reached 24 nations. The G7 countries -- Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States -- have all confirmed cases of the virus. They will discuss a joint response, Germany's health minister Jens Spahn said on Sunday. In Thailand, which has 19 confirmed cases, doctors said Sunday an elderly Chinese patient treated with a cocktail of flu and HIV drugs had shown dramatic improvement and tested negative for the virus 48 hours later. Most of the infections overseas have been detected in people who travelled from Wuhan, an industrial hub of 11 million people, or surrounding areas of Hubei province. The man who died in the Philippines was a 44-year-old from Wuhan, according to the World Health Organization, which has declared the epidemic a global health emergency. China has embarked on unprecedented efforts to contain the virus, which is believed to have jumped to humans from a Wuhan animal market, and can be transmitted among people. - Wenzhou lockdown - China's efforts have included extraordinary quarantines in Wuhan and surrounding cities, with all transport out banned, effectively sealing off more than 50 million people. But 10 days after locking down Wuhan, authorities imposed similar draconian measures on Wenzhou, a coastal city of nine million people in Zhejiang province, part of the eastern industrial heartland that has powered China's economic rise over recent decades. Only one resident per household is allowed to go out every two days to buy necessities, and 46 highway toll stations have been closed, authorities announced. The city had previously closed public places such as cinemas and museums, and suspended public transport. Zhejiang has more than 660 confirmed infections, with several hundred of those in Wenzhou, according to the government. This is the highest tally for any province in China after ground-zero Hubei. - Closing borders - The United States, Australia, New Zealand and Israel have banned foreign nationals from visiting if they have been in China recently, and they have also warned their own citizens against travelling there. Mongolia, Russia and Nepal have closed their land borders. The number of countries reporting infections rose to 24 after Britain, Russia and Sweden confirmed their first cases this weekend. There were 2,829 new confirmed cases nationally on Monday, bringing the total infected to 17,205, health officials said. With hospitals in Wuhan overwhelmed, China will open a military-led field hospital Monday that was built in just 10 days to treat people stricken by the virus. And with the Chinese economy suffering, the central bank announced it would release 1.2 trillion yuan ($173 billion) on Monday to maintain liquidity in the banking system -- the day markets re-open after the long holiday break. - Holiday ending - The emergence of the virus coincided with the Lunar New Year, when hundreds of millions travel across the country in planes, trains and buses for family reunions. The holiday, which was scheduled to end on Friday, was extended by three days to give authorities more time to deal with the crisis. With many due back at work on Monday, people were starting to return on planes and trains over the weekend, with almost everyone wearing face masks. Customs authorities had ordered temperature checks at all exit-entry points in Beijing, according to state media. Returning travellers were being checked and registered at residential compounds, while fever checks were in place in subway stations, offices and cafes. One 22-year-old arriving at a Beijing train station from northeastern China said her family had urged her to delay her return. "But I was worried it would affect my job," she said. Security guard Du Guiliang, 47, said he would be starting back at work in Beijing on Sunday, after returning from northeast Liaoning province. "Many colleagues (from Hubei) couldn't come back. Now, those who work the day shift at our company have to do the night shift as well," he said. Many businesses were to remain closed for at least another week, however, while some major cities -- including Shanghai -- had also extended the holiday. Treasure hunters have set a record for the largest coin hoard discovered in the British Isles after unearthing 69,347 Roman and Celtic coins that were buried three feet beneath a hedge in Jersey, Channel Isles. Metal detectorists Reg Mead and Richard Miles spent 30 years searching the field for the 10million treasure after a woman described seeing what looked like silver buttons in the area. Their find - made in 2012 - trumps the previous record holding discovery of 54,951 Iron Age coins unearthed in Wiltshire in 1978. Britain's largest coin hoard of gold and silver pieces was found under a hedge on Jersey in the Channel Islands Reg Mead and Richard Miles found the coins sealed inside a slab of clay after searching the area for 30 years. Pictured above is curator Neil Mahrer inspecting the discovery The coins were found by metal detectorists encased in clay. It is believed that they were hidden in the field around 50BC Some of the silver and gold relics from the Guinness Record setting discovery, dated to around 50BC, will go on display at La Hougue Bie Museum on the island. 'We are not surprised at this achievement and are delighted that such an impressive archaeological item was discovered, examined and displayed in Jersey,' said curator of archaeology at Jersey Heritage Olga Finch. 'Once again, it puts our Island in the spotlight of international research of Iron Age coinage and demonstrates the world class heritage that Jersey has to offer.' Mr Miles said he and Mr Mead had been involved in the process the whole way through and described receiving the Guinness World Record certificates as 'lovely'. The coins were found to have been entombed in a mound of clay weighing three quarters of a ton and measuring 55 x 31 x 8 inches. Conservator for the Jersey Heritage Museum Neil Mahrer begins to carefully dig the silver and gold treasures out of the clay There were 69,347 coins inside the large clay tablet, that weighed three quarters of a tonne Pictured above are some of the coins after they were restored. The find was made in 2012 They were declared a 'treasure' under the Treasure Act 1996, which means they officially belong to the Queen, although the finders are entitled to a reward. Mr Mead has said that the least valuable coins in the hoard are likely to be worth 100 each, suggesting a valuation of several million pounds, without taking into account the precious jewellery also found in it. However, there has been discussion over whether the price would come down because so many coins had been found, reducing their rarity. The previous largest coin hoard from Wiltshire was discovered in 1978 at the former Roman town of Cunetio near to Mildenhall. The largest hoard of coins ever found in the world was in Brussels in 1908 with 150,000 silver medieval pennies from the 13th Century uncovered. The coins were carefully extracted after they were detected three feet beneath a hedge The block of coins is pictured being lifted out of the ground. Metal detectorist Reg Mead is pictured left wearing the black shirt A Tamil Nadu Minister has stoked a major controversy by claiming that spawning of Hindu extremism cannot be stopped if some political parties and outfits continue to support and create Islamic extremism in the state. Dairy Development Minister KT Rajenthra Bhalaji, who has a penchant for making controversial statements, accused principal opposition party, DMK, and others of harbouring Islamic extremists in Tamil Nadu. He also alleged that the murder of a local BJP functionary in Tiruchirappalli smacks of religious vendetta though the police say the motive seems to be the previous enmity between the perpetrator and the victim. The controversial comments snowballed into a political issue with Leader of Opposition and DMK President M K Stalin demanding the immediate sacking of Bhalaji for sowing seeds of violence and spewing venom. There may be several reasons for the murder. But the way he (the BJP functionary) was murdered shows religion is behind. The murder was being planned for a month and it is clearly a case of religious hatred. The enmity between the two is true but that enmity is being used by others to settle scores, Rajenthra Bhalaji told a Tamil television during an interview. He continued to say, spawning of Hindu extremism cannot be stopped if outfits like DMK continue to instigate, support and create Islamic extremism. The Minister, who had advocated violence against actor Kamal Haasan that independent Indias first terrorist was a Hindu, Nathuram Godse, who killed Mahatma Gandhi, justified his remarks saying he was not supporting any religion but only stating the facts. 38-year-old F Vijaya Raghu, a BJP functionary, was hacked to death on January 27 by a group of unidentified men. While the BJP claims religion was behind the murder, the police maintain the previous enmity as the reason. In his statement, Stalin said Governor Banwarilal Purohit should not sack Bhalaji from the Cabinet but also act according to the law against him. It is condemnable that minister Rajenthra Bhalaji is attempting to usher in violence in the country by harboring spewing poison. He is openly flouting the law after having taken an oath as minister in accordance with the law, he said in the statement. Applications must be submitted exclusively online no later than, and you can find further details This is a part time position (40%) that includes teaching courses for law students in undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. The candidate will conduct individual and collective research projects in digital law (Swiss, comparative and international law), and be expected to develop activities in digital law at the Faculty of Law and at the University in a transversal perspective, to obtain external funding, and other such responsibilities. A doctorate in law or equivalent is required. This is a part time position (40%) that includes teaching courses for law students in undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. The candidate will conduct individual and collective research projects in digital law (Swiss, comparative and international law), and be expected to develop activities in digital law at the Faculty of Law and at the University in a transversal perspective, to obtain external funding, and other such responsibilities. A doctorate in law or equivalent is required. nclusive academic community while supported by a very generous research leave scheme and individual research allowances. Applicants must demonstrate research excellence in the field of Intellectual Property Law, with the ability to contribute to research groups like their Institute for Commercial and Corporate Law and/or CELLS and to teach their students to an exceptional standard and to fully engage in the services, citizenship and values of the University. Durham Law School is seeking to appoint an outstanding legal scholar to Associate and/or Assistant Professors in Intellectual Property Law with research interests in this broad field. The successful candidate will join their vibrant and i nclusive academic community while supported by a very generous research leave scheme and individual research allowances. Applicants must demonstrate research excellence in the field of Intellectual Property Law, with the ability to contribute to research groups like their Institute for Commercial and Corporate Law and/or CELLS and to teach their students to an exceptional standard and to fully engage in the services, citizenship and values of the University. Durham Law School is seeking to appoint an outstanding legal scholar to Associate and/or Assistant Professors in Intellectual Property Law with research interests in this broad field. The successful candidate will join their vibrant and i nclusive academic community while supported by a very generous research leave scheme and individual research allowances. Applicants must demonstrate research excellence in the field of Intellectual Property Law, with the ability to contribute to research groups like their Institute for Commercial and Corporate Law and/or CELLS and to teach their students to an exceptional standard and to fully engage in the services, citizenship and values of the University. The intern should currently be enrolled in a master programme (or equivalent) and continue to be enrolled during the period of the internship. You must send in your application before, and you can find further information and requirements The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) is seeking a full-time intern/stagiaire with a Convention de Stage (and for all non-EU residents, valid papers, i.e. long student visa and/or carte de sejour, health & corporate responsibility insurance coverage) to join the Knowledge Solutions Department in its Paris headquarters as of February 2020 for a period of 3-6 months. The intern will support the work of the ICC Commissions on Intellectual Property and Digital Economy, and special projects BASIS (Business Action to Support the Information Society) and BASCAP (Business Action to Stop Counterfeiting and Piracy). The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) is seeking a full-time intern/stagiaire with a Convention de Stage (and for all non-EU residents, valid papers, i.e. long student visa and/or carte de sejour, health & corporate responsibility insurance coverage) to join the Knowledge Solutions Department in its Paris headquarters as of February 2020 for a period of 3-6 months. The intern will support the work of the ICC Commissions on Intellectual Property and Digital Economy, and special projects BASIS (Business Action to Support the Information Society) and BASCAP (Business Action to Stop Counterfeiting and Piracy). Job opportunities galore! This Sunday Surprises post features PhD opportunities, post-doctoral research fellowships, professorships, internships, and other opportunities - just in time for the beginning of the week. Be sure to check the relevant deadlines for applications! Job opportunities galore! This Sunday Surprises post features PhD opportunities, post-doctoral research fellowships, professorships, internships, and other opportunities - just in time for the beginning of the week. Be sure to check the relevant deadlines for applications! 4 PhD positions for Law - Stockholm University The Department of Law at Stockholm University has announced four positions as employed doctoral candidates, one of which is in Procedural Law. If applying for the position in Procedural Law, you automatically apply for the general positions as well. Requirements include an LLM, a Law Degree or equivalent, though eligibility can also be granted to applicants who, through professional experience or other training, are deemed to have acquired competence equal to that which is necessary to conduct studies at post-graduate level, both in terms of scientific skills and legal literacy relevant to the research area. 1 March 2020 , and you can find further details and entry requirements here. The closing date for applications is, and you can find further details and entry requirements PhD positions - Maastricht University and Hasselt University Two four year full time paid PhD positions are available at the Faculty of Law of Maastricht University, with the PhD researchers participating in the Maastricht University Graduate School of Law. They will prepare a PhD thesis in English or Dutch within the Faculty of Laws research programme. Supervision will be provided by individually assigned senior researchers. At least 80% of the position will be dedicated to research and no more than 20% to teaching activities. PhD researchers join the faculty department in the field linked to the theme of their research proposal. Two four year full-time paid positions are provided by The Special Research Fund UHasselt Maastricht University in the framework of the joint PhD programme between Maastricht University and Hasselt University. They will prepare a PhD thesis in English or Dutch within the research programmes of both faculties. Both will receive a double doctoral degree (2 separate degrees that refer to each other) between Hasselt University and Maastricht University. One PhD candidate will be appointed by Hasselt University, with one PhD candidate appointed by Maastricht University. 23 March 2020 , and you can find further information here. The deadline for applications is, and you can find further information Doctoral Research Fellowship - University of Oslo A Doctoral Research Fellowship in history is available at the Department of Archaeology, Conservation and History (IAKH), University of Oslo. The position is associated with the 5-year Consolidator Grant 818523 CREATIVE IPR - The History of Intellectual Property Rights in the Creative Industries funded by the European Research Council and led by Principal Investigator Veronique Pouillard, professor in history at the University of Oslo. The applicant is asked to propose a project proposal that deals with the history of the societies for the protection of authors rights, possibly but not exclusively with a focus on the history of the French Societe des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques (SACD) and/or the Societe des Auteurs, Compositeurs et Editeurs de Musique (SACEM). Other national cases are possible. The person appointed will be affiliated with the Faculty's organized research training and the Norwegian Graduate School in History. The academic work is to result in a doctoral thesis that will be defended at the Faculty with a view to obtaining a PhD. The successful candidate is expected to become part of the research milieu or network and contribute to its development. 31 March 2020 , and you can find more details here. The deadline for applications is, and you can find more details The Prince of Wales arrives at RAF Valley on the Queens Helicopter Flight during the Prince's visit to RAF Valley in Holyhead, Wales. The Royal Family has defended Prince Charles after it emerged he had flown in a helicopter to give a speech about lowering aircraft emissions. The Prince of Wales took the private aircraft for a 100 mile journey from Highgrove to Cambridge to speak to scientists from Cambridge Universitys Whittle Laboratory. His journey was said to have cost at least 12,000 and is estimated to have caused about 2.5 tonnes of carbon emissions. Clarence House, however, defended the Prince over the weekend - saying his emissions were offset by other projects. The Prince driving an Audi from his fleet of cars. (Getty) The prince is not personally involved in decisions around his transportation arrangements, though he ensures all carbon emissions are offset every year, a spokesperson said. They are made based on what is possible within the constraints of time, distance and security. In order for him to undertake as many engagements as he does across the UK and around the world he sometimes has to fly. As he has often said, as soon as there is a more sustainable way of making these journeys, hell be the first to use it. READ MORE FROM YAHOO NEWS UK: It is estimated that Charles could have cut his emissions down to just 0.2 tonnes if he had travelled by car. Campaign group Republics chief executive Graham Smith told the newspaper: He wants to play the role, but not walk the walk. His view seems to be that its one rule for him and one rule for the rest of us. Driving or using the train would have been pretty easy. Research carried out by BBC News last year found Prince Charles was by far the highest spender on transport, with his annual costs totalling more than 1 million last year. He recently faced criticism for flying 16,000 miles in private jets and helicopters in the days leading up to this years World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Story continues Prince Charles was also slammed after after making a speech in 1991 on "monstrous" cars only to have his favourite Bentley driven 800 miles to then-Czechoslovakia ahead of a visit. And back in 2015 he argued that people should save energy by turning off their lights, shortly before using a private helicopter for an 80-mile journey. Figures published by the royal household showed that the royals made a total of 207 trips by helicopter last year, and 56 flights on specially-chartered planes. (CNN) The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) issued a new directive effective Sunday requiring airlines to ask passengers on flights from outside the United States if they've been to mainland China in the past 14 days. The directive comes as the Wuhan coronavirus, which was first detected in China in December, continues to spread around the world. The virus has killed 304 people in mainland China, one man in the Philippines and infected more than 14,000 in over 20 countries and territories. In the United States, an eighth case of coronavirus has been confirmed a Boston college student in his 20s, health officials said Saturday. Chinese nationals coming from China and connecting through another foreign airport will be denied travel, according to a person briefed on the new restrictions. Those with pre-clearance are exempted. The TSA notified airlines about the restrictions Saturday, a day after the White House announced plans to set up new travel rules. The directive to both US and foreign airlines goes into effect at 5 p.m. ET Sunday. "Under these directives, non-US citizens who have been in China within 14 days of their planned travel will not be permitted to fly to the United States," TSA administrator David Pekoske said in a statement. "US citizens who have been in China within 14 days of their planned travel will be permitted to enter the country through one of seven airports Honolulu, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle-Tacoma, Chicago O'Hare, Atlanta, and John F. Kennedy International airports where the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has the capability to conduct medical screening. This applies to travel from any airport with direct flights to the US, not just airports in China." In addition to the directive, Pekoske said, all frontline employees will be permitted to wear surgical masks if they choose to do so. The US declared coronavirus a public health emergency on Friday. Once the declaration goes into effect at 5 pm ET Sunday, US citizens returning to the United States who've been in China's Hubei province in the two weeks before their return will be subject to up to 14 days of mandatory quarantine. US citizens returning from the rest of mainland China in the two weeks prior will face a health screening. They will also get up to two weeks of monitored self-quarantine to ensure they pose no health risk. "I want to stress: the risk of infection for Americans remains low," Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said. "And with these and our previous actions, we're working to keep the risk low." This story was first published on CNN.com, "As coronavirus spreads, TSA issues new directive for anyone entering the US from China." Activist Patrick Duff in front of the house where he says the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once lived in Camden. Read more A yearslong effort by a local activist to persuade the state of New Jersey to recognize a Camden house with ties to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as a historic site has hit a roadblock, as officials declared the property ineligible. Activist Patrick Duff contended that King lived in the house at 753 Walnut St. while he was a graduate student at the now-closed Crozer Theological Seminary in Upland, Delaware County. The house has been vacant for decades and was marked for possible demolition in 2016. That year, U.S. Rep John Lewis (D., Ga.), a civil rights icon, visited Camden and called the house a piece of historic real estate that must be saved for generations yet unborn. City officials and state lawmakers also urged the New Jersey Historic Preservation Office to protect the property. Placing the site on the New Jersey Register of Historic Places would make it eligible for grants and prevent it from being razed. Duff filed a preliminary application with the state in 2015 to determine whether the property was eligible for listing on the state and national registers. On Friday, state officials wrote Duff a letter saying that the house did not meet the criteria. Please do not misunderstand this finding. It does not mean that Dr. King was never present at 753 Walnut St.," wrote Ray Bukowski, assistant commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection. It does mean that Dr. King neither lived nor resided there, the letter, dated Jan. 31, says, adding that Kings visits there "were just that: visits. The letter was first reported Sunday by WHYY. In an interview Sunday, Duff said he would appeal the states determination to the National Park Service. He filed a lawsuit last week against the DEP, seeking records about the Historic Preservation Offices deliberations. Duff said he wasnt surprised by the outcome. Even when I produced dozens of documents, several eyewitnesses, it still wasnt enough for the state, the Haddon Heights resident said. Kings time in Camden had a significant impact on his life, Duff argued, in part because thats where he was living when he and a few friends were refused service at a bar in Maple Shade in June 1950. When King and his friends asked for ginger ale, the pub owner walked outside and fired his pistol in the air a few times. It was Kings first sit-in, Duff says. Walter R. McCall, a fellow seminary student, filed a police report which mentioned Kings name and listed 753 Walnut St. as his address. The owner was arrested, but prosecutors dropped the charges after witnesses failed to testify before a grand jury. Duff argued that the episode helped shape Kings activism. State officials said in the letter that they found little evidence to support that conclusion. They acknowledged that King spent time with the family of Benjamin and Ella Hunt, who bought the house in 1945. But officials said the evidence showed that King lived on campus during his three years at Crozer not in Camden. The Old Main building at Crozer is among the eight properties in the country listed on the National Register of Historic Places with strong associations to King, the letter says. It adds that the national and state registers do not permit the eligibility of all properties that were somehow associated with an important historic figure. The rowhouse, now owned by Jeanette Lily Hunt, remains vacant and in disrepair. The City of Camden received $229,000 in federal funds to renovate the building, but in 2018 city officials diverted the money to the fire department without explanation. Air India special flight carrying 323 Indians and seven Maldivians evacuated from the coronavirus-hit Chinese city of Wuhan, landed in New Delhi on Sunday morning. The flight had taken off from Wuhan at 3:10 am (IST) on Sunday. The flight carrying the first batch of Indians had landed at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi on Saturday. Of the 324 passengers, three were minors and 211 were students. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The South African Rand (ZAR) exchange rates came under heavy pressure last week, as markets grew increasingly unnerved about the coronavirus outbreak in China. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the coronavirus outbreak to be a global emergency last week as the number of worldwide cases surpassed that of the Sars epidemic in 2003. Chinas government has been swift to respond to the coronavirus outbreak, shutting down public transport and closing factories in an effort to limit the spread of the virus. However, this in turn has sparked fears Chinas economy could stagnate at the start of 2020 as a result, effectively stalling a major engine of global growth. Russ Mould, investment director at the stockbroker AJ Bell commented: The market is back in panic mode about Chinas coronavirus. An extended lunar New Year holiday is nothing to celebrate for China, instead it represents an escalation of attempts to contain the deadly virus by restricting travel and locking down major cities... putting pressure on a fragile global economy. The difficulty for investors is that it is extremely difficult to predict what turn events might take in the coming days and weeks. Until there are signs the virus has been contained equities look set to be dogged by uncertainty. Concerns over the viruss impact on China and the wider global economy prompted investors to shun risk-sensitive assets such as the Rand. The Sars epidemic is estimated to have cost the global economy over $30bn, and economists forecast the new coronavirus could have an even greater impact due to Chinas increased importance in global supply lines. Eskom's Woes Knock Rand (ZAR) Exchange Rates Propelling ZAR exchange rates even lower in the latter half of the week was the news that struggling state utility, Eskom would close out January as it began, with the implementation of load shedding. In an announcement on Thursday, Eskom said it would need to implement scheduled power outages throughout the weekend as it conducted maintenance on three major generation units. Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter said: Our system is constrained. It's unreliable and it's unpredictable, it is prone to unplanned outages and breakdown. We are extremely scrupulous when it comes to the imposition of load-shedding. It's not a decision we take lightly. I'm personally involved in every decision to impose load-shedding. It's very regrettable for us to have to do this to SA. We will, unfortunately, have to expect some increase in load-shedding. We are going to have to do this in a structured and carefully managed way. Frequent power cuts have been a major drag on South Africas economy in recent months, causing major disruption and stoking fears the country could be on the brink of another recession, its second in as many years. Risk-Off Trade to Continue to Weigh on the Rand? Looking to the week ahead, the South African Rand (ZAR) exchange rates may remain under pressure if the coronavirus crisis continues to dominate headlines. Expect to see foreign exchange investors continue to shy away from the riskier Rand until markets are confident the outbreak has peaked. Also likely to exert some pressure on the S.A. Rand exchange rates in the first half of the session will be the publication of South Africas latest PMI figures, which are forecast to show growth in the private sector fell deeper into contraction last month. Former WA Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan has taken aim at the WA government's war on meth, saying taskforces, seizures and arrests aren't making any difference. Speaking on 6PR's Weekend Breakfast, Mr O'Callaghan said past and current governments had poured a lot of money into tackling the issue but meth use remained high. Former WA Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan. Instead, Mr O'Callaghan said the government should divert first and small-time meth users away from the courts and into therapeutic programs. "We've seen a lot of stuff seized, we've seen some Mr Bigs gone after but it still isn't making any difference to availability," he said. Four members of the Mewat gang allegedly possessing illegal arms were arrested by the Special Cell of Delhi Police after a brief exchange of fire, officials said on Sunday. Amin (33), Warish (20), Mustkeen (25) and Subba (25) were held near Sector 7 of Pushpvihar on the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday, they said. "We received information about movement of Amin with his associates in Delhi NCR in their tempo to commit a robbery in the area of Pushpvihar. A team was deployed in the area to track their movements," Deputy Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) P S Kushwah said. Sensing police presence, the driver of the tempo increased the speed of his vehicle, but it hit the gate of a residential colony in Pushpvihar. Following which Amin and his associates came out of the tempo and started firing upon the police team. In retaliation, the policemen also fired in which Amin sustained bullet injuries on his legs, he said. The accused were overpowered and disarmed by the police personnel, the DCP said, adding that Amin was immediately taken to Safdarjung Hospital. About 14 rounds were fired from both sides, police said, adding that more than seven rounds were fired by the arrested persons. Four pistols and nine live cartridges were seized from their possession, they said. According to police, Amin is found to be involved in more than 15 criminal cases of robberies in Delhi, Rajasthan, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Discover unique old churches in these 3 places Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Its that time of the year when spring or summer getaways are planned. But instead of following the crowds to a beach consider a trip centered on religious heritage, including unique architecture and art on par with the finest museums. Norway This Nordic country isnt known for its old churches, but with 28 wooden medieval-era churches it should be. Called stave churches, the name comes from the construction method of erecting load-bearing posts staves in Norwegian upon rocks or sill frames. Kaupangers 12th century stave church features a 16th century baroque interior. Other notable stave churches are found in Borgund and Urnes, the latter of which dates to the year 1130 and includes its original crucifix. Most of the stave churches are located in Norways Fjord region, which means flying into Bergen or Trondheim and renting a car. Norfolk and Suffolk, England East Anglia, as the region encompassing the historic English counties of Norfolk and Suffolk is called, has over 150 medieval churches with round towers. By contrast, this style is incredibly rare elsewhere in England. Many remain active houses of worships. Others are so-called redundant churches in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. One of the finest specimens of round tower churches is St. Margarets Church, which is also known for its nearly perfect Norman architecture. The architectural style, also called Romanesque, came to England after the Norman Conquest in 1066. You will want to fly into Londons Heathrow Airport (about three hours away). Dont worry: Driving on the other side of the road isnt that difficult. Virginia As one of the original 13 colonies Virginia has numerous colonial-era churches. Most belong to Episcopalian congregations that date to when the Church of England was the established church of colonial Virginia. Among the notable Episcopal churches are Ware Church and Abingdon Church, both about an hour by car from Norfolks airport; Bruton Parish in Colonial Williamsburg; Grace Church, near the Yorktown battlefield where American independence was won in 1781; Virginia Beachs Old Donation Church; and St. Johns Church in Hampton, which still uses early 17th century communion silver. All of these churches are within driving distance of each other, which makes for a nice weekend getaway. Be sure to make arrangements ahead of time as some churches arent regularly open outside of services. Norfolks airport has frequent service on multiple airlines. By the way, many of the place names can also be found in East Anglia. This is because a good number of Virginias earliest settlers after the 1607 establishment of Jamestown emigrated from Norfolk and Suffolk. Spires and Crosses is a weekly travel column. Follow @dennislennox on Twitter and Instagram. Source: Xinhua| 2020-02-02 22:20:06|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close GAZA, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- Israeli authorities decided on Sunday to freeze measures it took to facilitate access of goods and business people into Gaza Strip, according to identical Palestinian and Israeli sources. The Palestinian liaison committee for goods shipment informed the local private sector that Israel has decided to freeze the import of cement and reduce the number permits for business people. Meanwhile, Kamil Abu Rukon, coordinator of Israeli government's activities in the occupied territories, said the Israeli authorities have decided to freeze the facilitations to the economic sector and movement in crossings in response to "destabilizing the security" such as the violence on the borderline area and rocket launching towards Israeli territory. The army will continue to protect the Israeli citizens and sovereignty, he added. A Palestinian source told Xinhua that Israeli authorities have informed the Palestinian liaison office of suspending permits of some 500 Palestinian businessmen from Gaza because of the tensions. The source, said on condition of anonymity, that the Israeli side has withdrawn the commercial permits of dozens of business people on the Erez crossing on Sunday morning. Last week, Israeli authorities have allowed the entry of quantities of cement without the utilizing of the UN supervision mechanism for the first time since 2014, according to the Israeli public radio. The Israeli radio said that the facilitations included the export of strawberries from Gaza Strip to Israel for the first time since 2007, and the entry of thousands of tires for vehicles for the first time since March 2018. The Israeli army said that its war jets have struck several locations that belong to Islamic Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip. Weather Alert ...WIND CHILL ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 7 PM THIS EVENING TO 3 PM EST TUESDAY... * WHAT...Very cold wind chills expected. Wind chills as low as 25 below zero. * WHERE...Champlain Valley and lower Connecticut River Valley. * WHEN...From 7 PM this evening to 3 PM EST Tuesday. * IMPACTS...The cold wind chills could cause frostbite on exposed skin in as little as 30 minutes. * ADDITIONAL DETAILS...The coldest wind chill values will occur between 2 AM and 11 AM on Tuesday. PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... Avoid outside activities if possible. Wear appropriate clothing, a hat, and gloves. && The clarification of the health minister came in the wake of a youth shifted to isolation ward of Guwahati Medical College Hospital. Guwahati: Assam health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma here on Sunday said that no coronavirus case has so far been reported in Assam. He however admitted that they are alert and taking all precautionary steps. The clarification of the health minister came in the wake of a youth shifted to isolation ward of Guwahati Medical College Hospital. Informing that a youth from Morigaon who works in Kerala landed at the Guwahati airport with symptoms of coronavirus, sources in Guwahati Medical College Hospital said that youth was shifted to isolation ward and his blood sample has been collected for confirmation of virus. The medical team attending the patient said that they are not sure about the coronavirus but on the basis of symptoms, he has been isolated. Assam health minister said that there was no need to panic about. The Centre has issued a protocol for us to follow and we have already started it. Surveillance of air passengers is under way at Lokapriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport, the minister said. Minister of state for health and family welfare Pijush Hazarika admitted that a patient with suspected infection of coronavirus has been admitted to the GMCH as precautionary measaures. The patient who was returning from Kerala was having a very high fever. The doctors are examining and monitoring his health. However, he may not be infected by coronavirus, rather he could have small pox or dengue, the minister of state for health and family welfare told reporters. He said that doctors would be monitoring the health of patient till Monday and only after that they would be able to clarify whether the patient is infected with coronavirus. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Sunday (local time) extended his condolences to the injured in the stabbing incident at Streatham in South London. "Thank you to all emergency services responding to the incident in Streatham, which the police have now declared as terrorism-related. My thoughts are with the injured and all those affected," Johnson tweeted. Earlier in the day, the Metropolitan Police said that a man stabbed several people in a terror-related incident in Streatham. The suspect was shot dead by the police. The Metropolitan Police said in a tweet that it believed two persons have been stabbed and that the incident had been declared terror-related. "We can confirm that the man shot by police today in Streatham High Road has been pronounced dead," police said. "A man has been shot by armed officers in Streatham. At this stage, it is believed a number of people have been stabbed. The circumstances are being assessed; the incident has been declared as terrorist-related," the Metropolitan Police tweeted shortly after 3 pm (local time). (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the EU (COMECE) release a statement in light of Britains Exit from the European Union. By Francesca Merlo The statement on Brexit released by COMECE reads that as defender of freedom of expression and democracy, the Catholic Church in Europe respects the will expressed by the British citizens during the 2016 referendum. The United Kingdom officially left the European Union late on Friday night. The Bishops write that they welcome the Brexit Deal recently achieved between the UK and the EU explaining that "it can be seen as a victory of common sense and good neighbourly relations. A No-Deal scenario, continues the statement, would have had negative effects on both the United Kingdom and the European Union, but, overall, it would have been harmful for the most vulnerable people. Though it might be a long and challenging process, say the BIshops, it could also be an opportunity to trigger new dynamics between European peoples and rebuild a sense of community in Europe, reads the statement. Finally, the Bishops assure that although Britain is no longer a member of the EU, it will continue being part of Europe, and that the Bishops Conference of the United Kingdom will remain an integral part of the Church in Europe. New York, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/31/2020 -- Tobacco Market accounted for $663.76 billion in 2017 and is expected to reach $1,012.19 billion by 2026 growing at a CAGR of 4.8 % during the forecast period. Introduction of numerous premium tobacco products such as flavoured, long and skinny, coloured and e-cigarettes by the manufacturers are some of the major factors boosting the market growth. However, availability of traditional nicotine replacement therapies such as gum, patches, and lozenges, which help alleviate cravings and higher levels of education along with rising awareness about health concerns related to tobacco consumption such as different types of cancers, cardiovascular diseases, pulmonary diseases, etc. are the restraining factors for the market growth. Moreover, increasing frequency of new flavor launches in hookah tobacco and the rapid emergence of online retail of hookah tobacco will provide ample opportunities for the market growth. Get Sample of the Report: https://www.marketgrowthinsight.com/sample/46850 Some of the key players in this market include Hongyunhonghe Tobacco (Group) Co., Japan Tobacco Inc., Reynolds American Inc., Philip Morris International Inc., British American Tobacco p.l.c. (BAT), Ltd., Imperial Brands PLC and Altria Group, Inc. Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the Nicotiana genus and the Solanaceae (nightshade) family, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of the tobacco plant. Tobacco contains a coloess volatile alkaloid, nicotine, which is responsible for stimulating brain functions, increasing blood pressure, constricting peripheral blood vessels and raising heart rate. Dried tobacco leaves are majorly used for smoking in cigarettes, cigars, pipes and shisha; and as chewing tobacco, snuff, snus and dipping tobacco. Types Covered in this Tobacco Market are: - Pipes - Nicotine Replacement Therapy - Shishas or Hookahs and Mouassal - Smokeless Tobacco - Smoking Tobacco - Roll Your Own - Cigars - Cigarettes The tobacco type segment is segmented into cigarettes, smoking tobacco and smokeless tobacco cigars & cigarillos. The cigarettes segment is dominating the market. A cigarette, also known colloquially as a fag in British English, is a narrow cylinder containing psychoactive material, usually tobacco that is rolled into thin paper for smoking. Most cigarettes contain a "reconstituted tobacco" product known as "sheet", which consists of "recycled [tobacco] stems, stalks, scraps, collected dust, and floor sweepings", to which are added glue, chemicals and fillers; the product is then sprayed with nicotine that was extracted from the tobacco scraps, and shaped into curls. Get Discount : https://www.marketgrowthinsight.com/discount/46850 Key Topics Covered: 3 Market Trend Analysis 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Drivers 3.3 Restraints 3.4 Opportunities 3.5 Threats 3.7 Emerging Markets 3.8 Futuristic Market Scenario 4 Porters Five Force Analysis 4.1 Bargaining power of suppliers 4.2 Bargaining power of buyers 4.3 Threat of substitutes 4.4 Threat of new entrants 4.5 Competitive rivalry 7 Key Developments 7.1 Agreements, Partnerships, Collaborations and Joint Ventures 7.2 Acquisitions & Mergers 7.3 New Product Launch 7.4 Expansions 7.5 Other Key Strategies 8 Company Profiling 8.1 Hongyunhonghe Tobacco (Group) Co. 8.2 Japan Tobacco Inc. 8.3 Reynolds American Inc. 8.4 Philip Morris International Inc. 8.5 British American Tobacco p.l.c. (BAT), Ltd. 8.6 Imperial Brands PLC 8.7 Altria Group, Inc. Buy This Report : https://www.marketgrowthinsight.com/checkout/46850 About Market Growth Insight Market Growth Insight is a one stop solution for market research reports in various business categories. We are serving 100+ clients with 10000+ diverse industry reports and our reports are developed to simplify strategic decision making, on the basis of comprehensive and in-depth significant information, established through wide ranging analysis and latest industry trends. We are striving to provide the best customer friendly services and appropriate business information to accomplish your ideas. CONTACT US: +1 347 767 5477 ( US ) +44 131 463 4161 ( UK ) + 91 8956 767 535 ( Apac ) Sales@marketgrowthinsight.com Website- https://www.marketgrowthinsight.com Follow Us:- LinkedIn | Twitter | Google+ | Facebook In the Union Budget 2020, the Modi government has made it clear that it intends to promote marine life. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her Budget speech referred to the blue economy and said, by 2022-23, the government aims to raise fish production to 200 lakh tonnes. It will also focus on growing algae, sea-weed and cage culture. But what caught the attention was her emphasis "our government will involve youth in fishery extension through 3477 Sagar Mitras and 500 Fish Farmer Producer Organisations (Fish FPOs). We hope to raise fishery exports to Rs 1 lakh crore by 2024-25." The Fish Farmer Producer Organisations is a new development. However, experts in the field feel, much depend, on what is done to make these organisations viable. Reacting to this, Vijayalakshmi Das, CEO, Friends of Women's World Banking (FWWB), India, told Business Today, that it would be important to know how do we intend to make these fish farmer producer organisations viable, especially at a time when the agri-based farmers are in distress. She says, FWWB, India is working with about 80 well-established FPOs in agriculture. However, she said, "we find that becoming viable is still a challenge that most are facing. We have lent them to meet their working capital needs and help build market linkages and also to help them diversify the income-generating sources. This is crucial so that there is a favourable impact at the level of households of the farmers involved. Also Read: Budget 2020: Govt reduces spending on MGNREGA, allocates Rs 60,000 crore for FY21 According to Das, the most critical element that needed to be attended for farmer producer organisations was ensuring that the complete value chain from production to market get established and in case of fish, even export market, cold storage and other infrastructure get into. She added that the biggest challenge faced by many of the farmer producer organisations was getting regular working capital from financial institutions. Move to boost MSME capital base hailed "The 500 Fish Farmer Producer Organisations is a small number but a good start will take time for them to mature as they first need to be nurtured to become creditworthy," said S Viswanatha Prasad, managing director, Caspian Advisors, an impact investor with investments of over Rs 1200 crore in MFIs (microfinance institutions) and SFBs (Small finance banks) and MSMEs. However, he said, if we look from the perspective of those who are financially excluded that the budget looked at, one measure which does stand out is about the MSME (Medium, Small and Micro Enterprises) sector. Here, he said, an important announcement was that under CGTMSE, the guarantee scheme of the government where they guarantee bank loans to MSME, banks that are giving unsecured loans or subordinated debt or tier II capital can also come under the CGTMSE guarantee. Also Read: Budget 2020 disappoints domestic automobile industry In her budget speech, the Finance Minister said that "working capital credit remains a major issue for the MSMEs. It is proposed to introduce a scheme to provide subordinate debt for entrepreneurs of MSMEs. This subordinate debt to be provided by banks would count as quasi-equity and would be fully guaranteed through the 27 Credit Guarantee Trust for Medium and Small Entrepreneurs (CGTMSE). The corpus of the CGTMSE would accordingly be augmented by the government." Those in the industry feel this will help "as this will boost the capital base of MSMEs because to borrow from banks and NBFCs, they need capital and this will count as tier II capital," says Prasad. DMK chief MK Stalin on Sunday (February 2) announced that his party has joined hands with poll strategist Prashant Kishor's firm Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC) for 2021 Tamil Nadu Assembly election. Stalin posted a tweet saying that many young people of Tamil Nadu are joining the DMK under I-PAC's banner to help the party win 2021 Assembly poll and restore the state to its former glory. "Happy to share that many bright and like-minded young professionals of Tamil Nadu are joining us under the banner of I-PAC to work with us on our 2021 election and help shape our plans to restore TN to its former glory!" Stalin tweeted. Happy to share that many bright & like-minded young professionals of Tamil Nadu are joining us under the banner of @IndianPAC to work with us on our 2021 election and help shape our plans to restore TN to its former glory! M.K.Stalin (@mkstalin) February 2, 2020 Kishor responded to Stalin's message saying that I-PAC's team in Tamil Nadu will play an important role in helping the DMK win the 2021 Aseembly poll in Tamil Nadu. "Thanks Thiru MK Stalin for the opportunity. The I-PAC Tamil Nadu team is excited to work with DMK to help secure an emphatic victory in 2021 elections and contribute in putting the state back on the path of progress and prosperity under your able leadership," I-PAC tweeted. Thanks Thiru @mkstalin for the opportunity. The @IndianPAC Tamil Nadu team is excited to work with DMK to help secure an emphatic victory in 2021 elections and contribute in putting the state back on the path of progress and prosperity under your able leadership. https://t.co/PXmRLWMrQz I-PAC (@IndianPAC) February 2, 2020 Notably, Kishor's I-PAC is also working with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for the Delhi Assembly election, scheduled to take place on February 8. The organisation on its website says it helps its partners "set a citizen-centric agenda" and "conceptualize and implement the most effective methods of taking it to the public and gathering mass support". It may be recalled that Kishor was expelled from the Janata Dal (United) on Wednesday (January 29) for "anti-party activities". Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar-led JD(U) decided to expel Kishor a day after he called Nitish Kumar a 'liar' for claiming that former was made the JD(U) vice-president at the direction of BJP leader Amit Shah. It is to be noted that Kishor had been criticising the Bihar CM over the party's decision to support the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). (Corrects spelling of traveller in the headline) Feb 1 (Reuters) - Hyatt said it was extending its cancellation policy for Chinese travellers and hotels by nearly three weeks to February 29 amid the coronavirus epidemic. The extension will apply to guests from mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan looking to stay in any Hyatt hotel globally, the hotel group said on its official WeChat account on Saturday. The policy allows guests who had booked stays through Hyatt's official channels and are canceling due to coronavirus or Chinese guests outbound to its Asia Pacific hotels, to cancel or change dates free of charge. The cancellation policy was initially offered for bookings made up to Feb. 10. Customers that had booked to stay at Hyatt hotels in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan can also cancel or change their reservations free of charge, it said. (Reporting by Aishwarya Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Clelia Oziel) Somalia has declared a national emergency as large swarms of locusts spread across east Africa. The country's Ministry of Agriculture said the insects, which consume large amounts of vegetation, posed "a major threat to Somalia's fragile food security situation". There are fears that the situation may not be brought under control before the harvest begins in April. The UN says the swarms are the largest in Somalia and Ethiopia in 25 years. Meanwhile, neighbouring Kenya has not seen a locust threat as severe in 70 years, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). However, Somalia is the first country in the region to declare an emergency over the infestation. Somalia's unstable security situation means that planes cannot be used to spray insecticide from the air. Source: BBC Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Fr Ray Kelly miraculously survived to dance another day on Dancing With The Stars tonight. The Singing Priest, who shot to fame in 2014 when his rendition of Hallelujah went viral, went through to the next round despite consistently getting low points from the RTE shows judges. He and his long-suffering partner Kylee Vincent even managed to get fewer points than Michael Carruth and partner Karen Byrne, the couple sent home. And yet again, his ability to actually dance failed to impress the judges, with them praising his ability to... sing. Judge Brian Redmond, for example, described the singing as heavenly. But, given the role the public phone vote plays, Fr Ray whose dancing style has been described as shuffling buffaloes clearly remains a favourite with some viewers. That said, his luck cant last forever and next week could well see his departure. Ive been on shaky ground for the past three weeks, he admitted on the show. Highest marks of the evening went to Grainne Gallanagh and her partner Kai Widdrington. Their 27 points were despite the couple being hit by injury yet again. The former Miss Universe Ireland suffered an injury to one of her ribs during training for the contemporary ballroom dance to Sias Unstoppable. The week before Kai, who brilliantly danced Patrick to her Jennifer when they performed Dirty Dancing, had suffered a shoulder injury which prevented him from doing the famous lift scene when Johnny lifts Baby over his shoulders in the iconic movie. Other big hitters were Fair City actor Ryan Andrews and Giulia Dotta whose rumba to Cold Play classic Fix You earned them 26 points. Former Big Brother star Brian Dowling and partner Laura Nolan earned 17 points with their cha-cha-cha to We Are Family by Sister Sledge He fought back tears when he said how he was dedicating the dance to his mother who died two years ago. Also drawing on some painful experiences on the night was Ryan Andrews, who revealed he was told he would never dance because he suffers from scoliosis. He spoke of how the fact that he had a sideways curvature of his spine was used when he was a schoolchild to humiliate him. Judge Julian Benson told him: You proved to the nation and to the world any dream is possible. Delhi Assembly Elections LIVE Updates: With just a week to go for the February 8 Delhi polls, the Congress released its manifesto today. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party is also likely to release its manifestowhile the Aam Aadmi Party is also expected to release its manifesto, two days after the BJP came out with its 'Sankalp Patra', promising wheat flour at Rs 2 per kg for the poor, cycles and scooties for girl students as well as an 10 per cent increase in the health and education budget annually.The BJP, in its 'Sankalp Patra 2020' (manifesto), also said it would focus on women empowerment, traders, infrastructure development and housing for all by 2022. Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari said the outgoing AAP government's subsidy schemes for power and water will be continued by his party if it is voted to power. Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said here on Sunday that the second patient from Kerala to be detected with coronavirus in India had sat next to the person who was diagnosed with the first case of the deadly virus, on the flight from China, which had brought back Indians from Wuhan. "We have investigated the history of the second case of coronavirus. This is another student who was in touch with the first case in China itself for the last two-three days. In the flight also the second patient sat next to the first patient," said Harsh Vardhan. This morning the state health minister said that a second case of the novel coronavirus in India was reported again from Kerala, adding that the patient was being monitored in an isolation ward in the Alappuzha medical college. She, however, said that the state government was waiting for results from the Pune Virology Institute. The first case too had arisen from Kerala, three days ago. The virus originated in Wuhan in December and has since then spread to various cities around the world. The confirmed cases of coronavirus in China have now surged past 14,000. China has imposed quarantine and travel restrictions, affecting the movement of 56 million people in more than a dozen cities, amid fears that the transmission rate will accelerate as hundreds of millions of Chinese travel for the Lunar New Year. Health authorities around the world are taking action to prevent a global pandemic as the virus continues to spread, with cases reported in Australia, France, the United States and seven Asian countries besides China. Several countries including India have sped up the evacuation process after the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the coronavirus outbreak as a global health crisis. Earlier today, India evacuated 323 Indian nationals and seven Maldives citizens, from Wuhan in a special Air India flight. Earlier 324 Indians had been evacuated on Saturday too from Wuhan. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Oxford Africa Business Forum is in its 11th year and is hosted annually by Said Business Schools Oxford Africa Business Alliance. It brings together distinguished leaders from top companies, innovative start-ups, government, and civil society from across Africa with thought leaders, students, and alumni from Oxford University to discuss business in Africa. Convening over 350 delegates and a diverse range of speakers, the Forum will offer unrivalled insights into the opportunities and challenges Africas fast-growing youth population present. A gala dinner, held at Balliol College, will open the Forum on Friday 13 March, followed by the full-day Forum on Saturday 14 March at Oxford Said. The Forum is livestreamed to ensure that conversations with the boldest innovators and decision-makers in Africa can be shared with a global audience. The conversation about Africa is shifting from one of deficits and gaps to one about opportunities, prospects, ventures and creativity, stated Tammy Brophy, Chair of the Oxford Africa Business Alliance and Oxford Saids Africa Initiative Manager. This Forum provides a vibrant platform for thinking about Africas future and the role Africas youth plays in Her success. Approximately three-quarters of Africas population is below 35 years of age, making Africa the worlds youngest continent. The African Unions African Youth Charter states that Africas youth is the continents largest resource and, if harnessed, Africas growing youth population can drive political, social, cultural and economic transformation on the continent. How government and business leaders on the continent manage Africas youth bulge will determine how economies are able to access the opportunity and navigate the challenge. The theme of this years Oxford Africa Business Forum will move beyond basic education. It will examine models of non-traditional skills development including entrepreneurship skills training, coding, and corporate academies, and it will tackle the most pressing questions facing the continent: What will it take from a skills development perspective to create the jobs we need at the scale and pace needed given the high level of unemployment in Africa? From a business perspective, what are the opportunities and challenges underlying this demographic dividend? What have been some of the benefits that early responders have yielded? Are there other continents/countries that have had this dividend in the past and what lessons can African countries draw from them? Beyond skills, how can the public, private and social sectors build the ecosystem innovatively to leverage trends such as urbanization, mobile and digital technological advancements, and industrialisation? What are the opportunities for infrastructure development, innovative financing for youth entrepreneurs, and strengthening business environments and regulations? Prominent political and business figures that are confirmed as speakers include: Jorn Lyseggen, CEO, Meltwater Group & MEST David Sengeh, Minister of Basic and Senior Secondary Education, Sierra Leone Government Arunma Oteh, Executive in Residence, Said Business School & Former Treasure, World Bank Papa Yusupha Njie, CEO, Unique Group, Gambia Tshilidzi Marwala, Vice-Chancellor, University of Johannesburg Tashmia Ismail-Saville, Chief Executive Officer, Youth Employment Service (YES) Gagan Gupta, President and CEO of Infrastructure and Logistics, and Regional Head for Central Africa, Olam Ladi Delano, Founder & Managing Partner, Grace Lake Partners Ezekiel Macharia, Chief Actuary, Kenbright Insurance Holdings Serge Kamuhinda, Director, VW: Rwanda Teresa Mbagaya, Principal, Education Investments Africa, Omidyar Network Zainab Usman , Public Sector Specialist, Office of the Chief Economist, Africa region: World Bank Samuel Darko, who is studying the full-time MBA at Said Business School and Co-chair of the Africa Alliance said: The continents youthful population presents a powerful opportunity for accelerated economic growth and innovation. Yet this demographic also presents economic and social challenges. This is particularly exciting for the African student body as we promote an interactive and integrated dialogue between current and future young leaders who seek opportunities to contribute to a more prosperous African continent. Now more than ever, it is imperative that there is a seat at the table for Africas young leaders but also conducive political and economic conditions for us to be successful entrepreneurs and business leaders Tammy Brophy continues to explain that the Forum is designed to provide an inclusive platform to bring business and society together through the lens of regulators, academics, scholars, entrepreneurs and business leaders. It focuses on some of the business opportunities that exist on the continent, explores challenges faced by entrepreneurs and investors doing business in Africa and offers a prognosis for future growth. We are proud to have had over 11% of each Oxford MBA cohort hailing from Africa in recent years, which is significantly higher than other business schools, where the average is 2%. This Forum is one of the ways to demonstrate our commitment to creating meaningful networks and opportunities within Africa for our students, alumni and stakeholders. Visit http://www.cvent.com/d/phqzyq for more details about the Forum, including speakers, agenda and booking information. To register for a press pass or for further information please contact the press office: Thomas Pilsworth, Press Officer, Said Business School Tel: +44 (0) 1865 288879 Email: thomas.pilsworth@sbs.ox.ac.uk ; PressOffice@sbs.ox.ac.uk About Said Business School, University of Oxford Said Business School at the University of Oxford blends the best of new and old. We are a vibrant and innovative business school, but yet deeply embedded in an 800-year-old world-class university. We create programmes and ideas that have global impact. We educate people for successful business careers, and as a community seek to tackle world-scale problems. We deliver cutting-edge programmes and ground-breaking research that transform individuals, organisations, business practice, and society. We are a world-class business school community, embedded in a world-class University, tackling world-scale problems. www.sbs.ox.ac.uk About Oxford Africa Business Alliance Jointly led by Said Business School and an MBA student leadership committee, the alliance focuses on aspects relating to development, corporate engagement, recruitment and communication. It also brings African thought-leaders the School and wider University to talk on the opportunities on the continent; and connect with other African related networks and groups. For more information, visit www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/africa Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Sunday said a new policy will be brought for districts that do not have a medical college. He also said that through health fairs, "it is the endeavour of the government to take health services to the doorstep of the people, especially the poor and the deprived". The government is serious about the development of the most backward areas of the state, Adityanath said while addressing a public meeting here after unveiling a statue of Maharshi Valmiki. It has been decided that "a new policy will be brought for districts which do not have a medical college", the chief minister announced and added that a healthy society is a symbol of "Ram Raj". "In the next one year, one medical college each in these districts will be started on public-private partnership mode. The state government has approved a medical college for Chandauli district and its foundation stone will be laid soon," Adityanath said. "I am happy that we are launching the biggest collective health scheme 'Mukhyamantri Arogya Yojana' in more than 4,200 primary health centres in Uttar Pradesh today," he said. Every person has the right to remain healthy and it is the government's responsibility to extend health facilities to them, the chief minister said. "This is happening for the first time that on every Sunday, from 10 am to 2 pm, every PHC will organise the 'Mukhyamantri Arogya Mela' in which patients will be provided counselling and medicines without any discrimination," he said. There should be at least four doctors in each of the centres during the mela, the chief minister said, adding that students of the medical college in the area should also be made part of it. Medical mobile units should also be deployed at the fair, he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) 02.02.2020 LISTEN Platform of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),in commemoration of the one year anniversary of the Ayawaso West Wuogon bye-election violence, called on the government to immediately implement the Vigilantism and Related Offences Law in the country. They said the law when implemented will disband political party vigilante groups and forbid acts of vigilantism in the country, following the continuous violence that has happened during the country's by-election. Madam Faustina Djabatey, the Communications Officer, Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC) said this on behalf of the group during a press conference held in Accra. We acknowledge the President's good decision of setting up the Commission of Enquiry to investigate the violence and the good work by the commission, our worry has to do with the implementation of the recommendations. Not much has been heard of the implementation after the government issued its white paper on the Commission of Inquiry's report, she stated. Below is the press release: 31/01/2020 PRESS CONFERENCE BY THE CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANISATIONS (CSOs) PLATFORM ON SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS (SDGS), SUBPLATFORM 16 (SDG16) IN COMMEMORATION OF THE ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF THE AYAWASO WEST WUOGON BYE-ELECTION VIOLENCE Friends of the Media, Ladies and Gentlemen, Good morning. On behalf of the CSOs Platform on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Sub-Platform 16 (SDG16), we are pleased to welcome you to today's Press briefing. Ladies and Gentlemen, it will be recalled that on 31st January, 2019, there was violent attacks on innocent Ghanaians by masked and uniformed personnel of the National Security resulting in several casualties during the Ayawaso West Wuogon Bye-Elections. The brazen acts of violence perpetrated against law abiding citizens were condemned by well-meaning Ghanaians and the international community. Today is exactly one year since this unfortunate incident. The CSOs SDG Sub-Platform on Goal 16 believes that it is imperative we commemorate the day, take stock of lessons learnt and call on all stakeholders to ensure that there will never be another Ayawaso West Wuogon incident in any of our electoral areas. Ladies and Gentlemen, the issue of violence during elections needs to be looked at holistically. In recent times we have had a culture of political parties forming and using vigilante groups to perpetrate mayhem on persons or groups considered as opponents. Ruling parties over the years have also attempted to use state security agencies as their own private vigilante groups. The peace and security of Ghana, a country touted as a beacon of democracy in Africa is continuously being threatened by partisan vigilantism, which rears its ugly head particularly during elections. We use this opportunity to remind the political parties that the peace and stability of this country is bigger than their ideological and personal ambitions. The good people of Ghana have chosen a system of governance and a system of electing their leaders, characterized by fair, free and open elections. We already have institutions of state that have the mandate, capacity and integrity to ensure security during elections. Vigilantes have no place in our electoral set up. Friends from the media, Ladies and Gentlemen, whilst we acknowledge the President's good decision of setting up the Commission of Enquiry to investigate the violence and the good work by the commission, our worry has to do with implementation of key recommendations. Not much has been heard of implementation after government issued its white paper on the Commission of Inquiry's report. The culture of impunity related to electoral violence persists because culprits are not made to face the full rigours of the law. We are urging government and the leadership of political parties to: 1. Implement the Vigilantism and Related Offences Law by making examples of persons or groups affiliated to political parties to send a strong signal to potential offenders. 1 | P a g e 2. Allow the state security agencies with responsibilities during elections to undertake their duty without influence. 3. Political parties should not incite their supporters to be violent but rather support the state institutions to do their work and channel complains and grievances to the appropriate quarters. 4. We would like to remind our state security institutions that they serve at the pleasure of the people. They should resist partisan influence and show themselves to be neutral, fair and committed to the colours of Ghana, and none other. Ladies and Gentlemen, CSOs Platform on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), SubPlatform 16 (SDG16) which advocates for 'Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions' recognizes the onus of all stakeholders towards a peaceful election in 2020 and beyond. Thank you for coming. Signed by the UNDERLISTED ORGANIZATIONS 1. Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC) 2. Community Focus Foundation Ghana (CFF-Ghana) 3. West Africa Network for Peace Building (WANEP-Ghana) 4. Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) 5. Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII) 6. SEND-Ghana 7. Renel Ghana Foundation 8. Youth Research Network of Ghana (YORNG) 9. CSOs against Political Vigilantism (CCSAPV) 10. Sisters Next Door 11. WUZDA Ghana (WUZDA) 12. ABAK Foundation 13. PACKS Africa 14. Foundation for Security and Development in Africa (FOSDA) 15. Positive Action Against Poverty 16. Access to Life Foundation 17. Institute for Liberty & Policy Innovation 18. Lamaconsult Foundation 19. NORSAAC 20. Democratic Credentials Network Ghana (DCN-Ghana) 21. Federation of Muslim Women's Associations in Ghana (FOMWAG) 22. CODAC India Evacuates Nationals From Wuhan, China By Anjana Pasricha February 01, 2020 India has evacuated 324 of its nationals from Wuhan, the epicenter of the deadly coronavirus outbreak in China, where hundreds of Indians are studying in universities. After landing in New Delhi Saturday they were taken to two quarantine facilities set up by the army, where they will be kept under observation for two weeks. India confirmed its first case of coronavirus Thursday in the southern state of Kerala, in a student who had returned from Wuhan. The focus in the world's second most populous country now has turned to preparedness. More than 200 of the people who landed in New Delhi Saturday are students over 20,000 Indians study in China, mostly in medical colleges. A second flight is scheduled to bring back more nationals from Wuhan and nearby areas that are under lockdown to prevent the spread of the virus. Authorities have been screening all people arriving from China and Hong Kong at seven of India's major airports and have adopted quarantine procedures for anyone suspected of carrying the virus. About 40 people have been put in isolation across eight states. Health experts have stressed that surveillance will be crucial to prevent its spread in the country's crowded cities. "We are taking all precautions against it," Health minister Harsh Vardhan said earlier this week. India on Friday also banned the export of personal protective clothing and masks amid a surge in demand from China. Two of the country's major airlines have temporarily suspended most flights to China and authorities have asked Indians to "refrain" from traveling to the country. Besides India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh are also evacuating their citizens from China Sri Lanka brought back 33 students on Saturday. Sri Lanka reported its first case of the coronavirus in a 43-year-old Chinese tourist from Hubei Province. The World Health Organization has declared the coronavirus outbreak an international public health emergency. The decision was announced after cases of human-to-human transmissions were confirmed outside China. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address We attempted to send a notification to your email address but we were unable to verify that you provided a valid email address. Please click here to update your email address if you wish to receive notifications. Otherwise, you may click here to disable notifications and hide this message. Our Divisions Copyright 2021-22 DB Corp ltd., All Rights Reserved This website follows the DNPA Code of Ethics. michael barbaro Today: As voting begins in Iowa, marking the beginning of the 2020 election, were launching a new show covering the country and the voters in the lead up to November. Its Monday, February 3. astead herndon So we have a Cory Booker sign, we have a Warren sign, a Pete one, an Amy Klobuchar one. A Parking for Bobs Girlfriend Only sign. This is Bobs house. I really hope someones here. [KNOCKING] austin mitchell I hear someone. astead herndon Yeah weve got some action. Hi, how are you? bob henderson Good, good. astead herndon My names Astead, this is Austin. Were journalists. bob henderson Hi. Molly! [dog barking] How about I throw her in the basement. astead herndon Yeah, no problem. Well be here waiting for you. bob henderson O.K. come on, Molly, come on. astead herndon Hi, Molly. [dog barking] astead herndon From The New York Times, this is The Field. Im Astead Herndon, in Iowa. astead herndon I get really uncomfortable around dogs. Hi! So were journalists. Were from The New York Times. Were talking to folks about the caucasus. bob henderson Oh, O.K. astead herndon And I see the signs here. I know theres bob henderson Yeah, Ive got a couple more around. Theres one buried, I think, down there. astead herndon Are you someone whos decided on who bob henderson Were pretty sure were not 100 percent. astead herndon Youre not 100 percent? Well thats the type of folks we like to talk to. bob henderson All right, well here I am. astead herndon Tell me the decision process. Tell me who youre thinking about. bob henderson Wow, theres a lot of people. Thinking about Elizabeth Warren. And I dont know, maybe I like Pete too. It depends on who you listened to last, damn near. astead herndon But what makes you nervous? It seems like theres some anxiety around that. bob henderson Electability. Just we have to beat somebody thats there already. astead herndon So how does that electability question impact whether or not youll vote for Elizabeth Warren? bob henderson Well, Im wondering if Republicans will vote for Biden. And they may not for Pete, but some of them will. And some of them will for Warren, I think, too. Its just how many. astead herndon So part of your vote is trying to figure out who you think Republicans would vote for in the general election? bob henderson Yes, thats part of it. astead herndon I dont hear Bernie. Is he on your list? bob henderson Hes down there, maybe. astead herndon Whats the decision there? Why? bob henderson I dont think Republicans will vote for him. astead herndon Yeah. austin mitchell You seemed pretty wracked with indecision. bob henderson Yeah. You gather that, huh? I just Jesus. [LAUGHS] astead herndon Youll be happy when this thing is over, huh? bob henderson Yeah. Yeah. astead herndon Whats your name? bob henderson Bob Henderson. astead herndon Bob. I dont envy you. You seem bob henderson [LAUGHS] astead herndon Its much easier going and asking people all these questions than to be making these choices. It seems like youre wrestling with it. bob henderson Yeah. Yeah, it wasnt that hard last time. astead herndon Whod you caucus for last time? bob henderson We went Hillary. But I didnt do something right. We did something wrong. [music] astead herndon So a week before the Iowa caucuses, I went with my colleagues, Austin Mitchell and Andy Mills, to the Des Moines region to talk to voters about how theyre feeling. For months, weve been seeing a really fluid race in the state. Top candidates like Pete Buttigieg could be leading in one month, Elizabeth Warren could be leading the next. Some polls show Joe Biden leading. And most recently, Bernie Sanders has held a firm lead at the top. Even more, when we started talking to voters, they werent just deciding between one or two candidates that were the same ideologically, but maybe even between candidates that seemingly have conflicting policy positions. So you can meet a voter whos flipping between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. You can meet a voter thats flipping between Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg. So we wanted to get a better sense of what was going on on the ground. andy mills We are in the small town of Russell, Iowa. astead herndon And over and over, people kept going back to the same moment. andy mills Down some very lonely streets to come here and talk to this lady. casey dehoedt You guys need a hand with anything? austin mitchell Hi. andy mills Were just out here talking to ourselves. casey dehoedt No, youre fine. andy mills Are you Casey? casey dehoedt I am Casey. andy mills Im Andy. casey dehoedt Andy, nice to meet you. austin mitchell Hi, Casey. andy mills This is Austin. casey dehoedt Austin, nice to meet you guys. astead herndon So a couple days ago, Austin and Andy went out to meet Casey DeHoedt. casey dehoedt Yeah, my name is Casey DeHoedt. Im 36 years old. Im a full-time supervisor at a warehouse in the area, and Im a city councilwoman here in Russell. astead herndon And for her and for a lot of Iowa Democrats, the story actually begins in 2008. casey dehoedt Yeah, I remember I remember that pretty well, because it was it was Obama and it was Hillary. archived recording Voters give Clinton high marks for being strong, experienced, decisive, and compassionate. But is Clinton likable? casey dehoedt And at that time, I dont think Hillary was particularly popular, but she seemed like she was going to be the pretty clear candidate. And then here comes this meteor out of Chicago, which is Barack Obama. archived recording 1 The question is whether or not Obama, an African-American candidate from the big city of Chicago, can connect with the primarily white rural voters here. archived recording 2 I think were listening [music] archived recording (barack obama) Thank you, Iowa. casey dehoedt And then Iowa picked him, and I remember being pretty floored. archived recording (barack obama) They said they said this day would never come. [CHEERING] But on this January night, at this defining moment in history, you have done what the cynics said we couldnt do. casey dehoedt Iowa sort of saw the lightning and was able to put it in the bottle, and then the rest of the nation was like, yeah, we see it too. archived recording (barack obama) You have done what the state of New Hampshire can do in five days. [CHEERING] You have done what America can do in this new year, 2008. astead herndon So 2008 becomes this vitally important year for Iowa Democrats. They have a sense of pride, a real sense of ownership around Barack Obamas historic campaign. They feel like they saw in him what the rest of the country would eventually see. And that they helped launch an upstart candidate to the Democratic nomination, and then eventually, the historic presidency. archived recording (barack obama) We are one nation, we are one people, and our time for change has come. [CHEERING] andy mills But thats not the story of the 2016 campaign, is it? casey dehoedt No. [LAUGHS] That was awful. andy mills Can we go back to like right around this time about four years ago, when you were doing this Iowa thing of trying to pick the first candidate? archived recording The Democrats getting ready for their final face off tonight in Iowa before voters go out and caucus next week. Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Martin OMalley. Yes, hes still in there. andy mills What were you thinking, how were you weighing, what were you liking? casey dehoedt For me, it was pretty obvious early on, Hillary. But ramping up to the caucus day, Bernie was really starting to gain some steam. archived recording last minute, as most polls show Sanders is closing in on Hillary Clintons lead in Iowa and beating her in New Hampshire. casey dehoedt And I was like, I could really switch to this guy right now. But my only thing about Bernie was Barack Obama had a lot of difficulty getting a lot of legislation through because the different legislative bodies thought he was so liberal, that they didnt really want to do anything with him. I thought, well, my god, if Barack Obama cant get that achieved, how are they going to let Bernie Sanders, whos this progressive out of nowhere whos asking for all these crazy things? So I thought, nope, its going to be Hillary. Shes going to be the one whos more electable in the general. astead herndon What happens next is very specific to Iowas caucus system. Rather than the traditional voting booth where someone goes in and selects one candidate, caucusgoers show up to a big room, oftentimes a gymnasium or a local community center, and they stand in a group with other people who support their candidate. But thats not a set thing. People can make appeals to each other, and things can shuffle around before the final vote is taken. casey dehoedt They ask several times, does anybody want to change their candidate? This is where everyones at in the room. Does anybody want to switch sides? Last chance. And I kept thinking, I could just get up, go over sit with that other group. But no, its going to be Hillary. archived recording (hillary clinton) I am so thrilled that Im coming to New Hampshire after winning Iowa. astead herndon And it was Hillary. archived recording The first woman ever to win the Iowa caucuses did it by two-tenths of 1 percent. astead herndon Iowa voted for Clinton over Sanders by the smallest margin in caucus history, 49.8 to 49.6. casey dehoedt I thought, well, Hillarys incredibly qualified. Shes earned it. astead herndon And about nine months later, well, we know what happened. archived recording Right now, a historic moment. We can now project the winner of the presidential race. CNN projects Donald Trump wins the presidency, the business tycoon, a TV personality, capping his improbable political journey with an astounding upset victory. Donald J. Trump will become the 45th president of the United States, defeating Hillary Clinton. casey dehoedt And then once Trump was elected, then I felt like Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I see all these Trump shirts around and Im like, wait, where have I been living? And I was just like, my god, they really hated Hillary. I really took it as less of a Trump win as it was a Hillary loss. and I feel like they wanted a change in politics. Bernie would have been a change in politics. Hillary Clinton was the status quo. They didnt want status quo. andy mills And yet, you chose her because you found her to be the more reasonable and electable candidate. Did the election shake that sense, that you knew what was electable? casey dehoedt Very much. Very much changed that. Had I known then what I know now, I would have switched so fast. I would have definitely gone Bernie. Had I switched and had Bernie been the nominee for the party, he would be president right now. andy mills Well, when it comes to this year, how confident are you that this time around, you can find the candidate that is more electable? casey dehoedt Not at all confident. That last election, 2016 was just such a mindblow. I mean, nobody saw that coming. But yeah, going into this election, thats definitely something thats into my mind is, whats a candidate that I like and whats a candidate that speaks to me, but whats a candidate that might have a more broad appeal? This is probably the crux of why Im an undecided caucusgoer, is because Im trying to negotiate that space of astead herndon So Casey calls it having her mind blown. My colleague, Alex Burns, says that some Democrats feel as if their brains have been broken. But its this effect where Democrats do not trust themselves to make the right electoral decision. They no longer trust their own instincts about determining what electability is. Do they go with the candidate who speaks to their sense of inspiration, an Obama-like figure, someone who can maybe rally the party through soaring rhetoric or the like? Or do they try to think of who is most electable to other people? But they dont even know what that is. For a lot of people, they thought that was Hillary Clinton, and that didnt turn out well. And so with just days to go, youre seeing Iowa Democrats really frozen. andy mills With days until your caucus, while youre still undecided, what is it that youre most afraid of? casey dehoedt Thats a good question. Im worried that the first week in November, that Wednesday after the general election, again waking up and going, Dammit, I did it again, I voted for the wrong candidate, knowing that I felt better about a different candidate. [music] astead herndon So we wanted to talk to more undecided voters like Casey. andy mills We are in the Beaverdale neighborhood of Des Moines, Iowa. We are walking through this residential neighborhood to knock on some doors and ask Iowans how theyre feeling. austin mitchell Theres a surprising amount of snow on the ground. andy mills I just hope it doesnt get any colder. astead herndon [KNOCKING] austin mitchell Strong knock. astead herndon Yeah, its a fine line between the strong knock and the police knock, which you dont want to do. Hi, how are you? My names Astead. This is Austin and Andy. Were reporters with The New York Times. Hows it going? speaker 1 Oh gosh, fine. I have a sleeping baby though. astead herndon Oh. Oh, thats cool. speaker 1 She just woke up. andy mills We wondered if we could ask you a couple of questions? speaker 2 I cant. Im in the middle of a conference call actually. Sorry. andy mills Sorry to interrupt you. astead herndon Are you someone whos thought about who youre going to caucus for? speaker 3 Actually sir, Im somebody who has to go get his wife. Shes getting off at 1 oclock. You want to report that in The Times? astead herndon I mean hey, thats big news. speaker 3 If Im not there in time, itll be big news. austin mitchell All right, thank you sir. astead herndon Obviously, there were some people who were totally decided. speaker 1 Bernie. austin mitchell No doubts about it? speaker 2 Yeah, I think were caucusing for Bernie. andy mills Was it a hard choice to pick Bernie? speaker 3 No. speaker 4 Ill be caucusing for Bernie Sanders. astead herndon O.K. speaker 4 Yep. astead herndon Are you someone who just made that choice, or this is something thats been true for a long time? speaker 4 Its been true for a long time speaker 5 Andrew Yang, 2020. andy mills Yeah? Not undecided, you know. speaker 5 Yep. austin mitchell Is there anyone else here that is trying to make a decision still that might be willing to chat with us for a bit? speaker 5 Yeah, she likes Joe Biden. Sam, are you going to caucus for Joe Biden? speaker 6 No, Im caucusing for Pete Buttigieg. speaker 5 Pete Buttigieg. andy mills Can we chat with her for just a little bit? speaker 5 She says shes too hungover. andy mills Hungover roommate, do you want to share your thoughts on your candidate? speaker 5 Hungover roommate, do you want to share your political opinions? speaker 6 No, I want to vomit. speaker 5 See, hangover people vote for Pete Buttigieg. Im clear-minded, though, so thats why Im for Yang. [music] astead herndon But just as often astead herndon Hi. speaker 1 Hey, Im sorry. I thought you were somebody else. I dont have time. All right, bye bye. astead herndon Were just were just reporters just trying to gauge the caucus on Monday. Are you planning on going? speaker 1 Yes. I thought you were selling something. O.K. Im on my way out. But honestly, I cant decide. Im not a Bernie lover, so if you guys are Bernie bros that like O.K. so then its sort of like, I want to vote for I want to vote for someone who people in Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania will vote for. Thats who I want to vote for. andy mills And do you have is there anybody in the front of mind that you think is best for that? speaker 1 Elizabeth, and I love Amy. Id really like to vote for a woman. Because you know, Im going to die soon, and theres still not been a woman president. But I feel like theres so much prejudice against us Bettys, you know what I mean? Ive got to think about it in bigger terms than who I want. Im kind of obsessive about politics. astead herndon I can hear the TV on in the background. speaker 1 Well, its got to be loud now for when Im getting ready. astead herndon Have you made a decision on who youre going to caucus for? speaker 2 I have it down to two. The two I came down to are the one I support the most and the one I think probably has the best chance to win. So I think, Im going to caucus I think for Amy Klobuchar, and then Id imagine shes not going to have enough, so then I think Ill probably go to Joe Biden. andy mills Yeah, what was that like for you? speaker 2 Yeah. Well it felt like Id love to go with just a gut feeling, I love somebody really a lot. I dont have that person so much this year, like when Obama was around, you know? That was really nice to have that gut feeling. So you have to just do it more intellectually, gather more information. The more you can get and the more wise decision you can make and go from there. Does that answer your question? austin mitchell Yeah. But with that intellectual decision, it seems its not just a personal intellectual decision. Youre trying to project a little bit into the minds of others. speaker 2 When it comes down to the who I think can win part definitely. andy mills And how have you been factoring that? speaker 2 Im hearing a lot of people that dont think anybody but Biden can really win. Not sure I totally agree with that, but I think this years election is special because we need to make sure that we win. And about everybody I talk to, the main focus is making sure Trump doesnt have another four years. And its not so much get that candidate you love. Its get him out. [music] andy mills Hi there! speaker 3 Finding anybody to talk to? andy mills We are finding a few people. Everyone seems to be pretty nice. You guys look like youre leaving though. Can we just ask two questions? speaker 3 Got to get to work. andy mills Are you planning on voting next week? speaker 3 Oh yeah. austin mitchell Whos your number one? speaker 3 Huh? austin mitchell Whos your number one? speaker 3 I dont know yet. andy mills You dont know? speaker 3 No. andy mills Thats why we want to ask you about it. speaker 3 Too complicated to answer it. andy mills When do you think youll make your decision? speaker 3 Probably there. andy mills Probably there? speaker 3 Yeah. andy mills Why is it so hard? speaker 3 Its all about electability, so its hard to decide what factors are going to control electability. So its complicated. andy mills You just want to win in November? speaker 3 Absolutely. Guys a fucking idiot. [music] astead herndon Six months ago, the Democratic primary was all about the ideological divides. There were the progressives, who were promising systemic change and upheaval, and the moderates, who wanted to work more within the system. But now, its just about who can win. andy mills Test. austin mitchell Do you have time to chat? pat body Oh. Hi, Im Pat Body. andy mills Hi, Pat. Im Andy. pat body Hi, Andy. austin mitchell Hi, Pat. Austin. pat body Austin, nice to meet you. And you guys are astead herndon So after a day of knocking on doors, a very cold day of knocking on doors, we decided to go to a coffee shop nearby. We found Pat sitting at the table. pat body I think what people do not necessarily appreciate unless theyve spent some time here is just how seriously we take this job. I have several friends. Weve all tried to make sure weve seen pretty much every candidate in person. andy mills And how many people involved with different campaigns do you think youve spoken to? pat body Oh, Ive spoken to almost all of the candidates. I may have missed Marianne Williamson, but I think I have spoken to every other candidate in the field. I dont think Im alone in that. austin mitchell When you say spoken to, do you mean like we are speaking right now? pat body Yeah. Ive probably been to a total of 20 plus or more events, and some of them have been long-form conversations. There was a Steyer event at a friends house just the other day. I saw Elizabeth Warren at our representatives pharmacy. There were like 10 of us there and Elizabeth Warren. I mean, Im telling you, its just you feel like you get to know them quite a little bit. Did that help answer your question? austin mitchell That was delightful. andy mills Yeah. astead herndon So believe it or not, Pats process is pretty typical of the Iowa caucusgoer. They take real pride in meeting multiple presidential candidates and vetting them and asking them tough questions. And they see it as their personal duty, because theyre the state that votes first in the primaries. And like a lot of other Iowa Democrats this year, Pats making this decision on the basis of whos best positioned to beat President Trump. And she was struggling. austin mitchell Who are the candidates that you are really fighting between in your mind? pat body Warren, Booker, Buttigieg, and then of course Steyer came into the picture. Quite frankly, the vast majority in the field was really appealing. astead herndon But at a certain point, she just changed the way she was thinking. pat body I think a lot of us were thinking about electability for a long time, and I finally realized I dont have the expertise to pick electability. Its hard. I mean, you cant even try the polls are messy. The Electoral College is in the mix. Its just a very difficult choice to make that way. So Im going to pick on the basis of who do I think would make a great president. astead herndon And when she did that, her choice became pretty clear. pat body Mayor Pete Buttigieg. I was really looking for someone that was a combination of climate and character and the ability to unify the country. So when I put all of those pieces together, that added up to Pete Buttigieg. austin mitchell So where are we right now? What is this? speaker We are at the Urbandale field office for Pete for America, about to attend the last precinct training for Petes precinct captains in Urbandale. austin mitchell And theres Pete signs up everywhere. Weve got some coffee and crackers, people settling in. astead herndon So we wanted to spend time with the Buttigieg campaign, because its notable that here in Iowa hes doing significantly better than hes doing in other parts of the country. And part of the reason thats been true is that voters here see him as an Obama analogous figure. They see another young Midwesterner, someone who would be a historic president as the first openly gay president. And also someone who speaks their rhetorical language about inspiration, about coming together, about knitting the countrys moral fabric back together. And his campaign has been hearing the same things about electability that weve been hearing. And so to close the deal in Iowa, theyre making an argument to try to get more Iowans to think like Pat, to embrace the idea that the most electable candidate is the one that inspires you the most. speaker 1 His intellect drew me first. Yeah, that was the first thing. I thought, you know, theres no doubt. And the more I look at him, goodness. He speaks several languages. Hes a vet. Hes everything you could possibly want. speaker 2 Him being a veteran is one of the keys for me. He knows what its like to be on the receiving end of those deployment orders. speaker 3 I was really impressed with him. He was very intelligent, very straightforward. speaker 4 I like the fact that hes young. I mean, Im just Im tired of old white men. [laughter] speaker 5 What a minute, let me rephrase. speaker 6 There are men here. speaker 7 And I wanted to listen to somebody with some new ideas, with some ideas of Middle American values, and thats why I picked him. Id love to see Pete on the debate stage with Trump. speaker 8 Oh, wouldnt you? speaker 9 Oh my gosh. Id pay good money for that. Id dip into my savings even. [LAUGHS] brandon Clap twice if you can hear me. [CLAPPING] Clap twice if you can hear me. [CLAPPING] Great. Look at this group. We got a good group in here. Yeah. [APPLAUSE] We really appreciate everyone coming. Were all here for one reason, and thats because we believe Pete is the candidate that we need right now. And you know what Pete needs? speaker 11 Us. brandon Yes. You guys are a smart group of people. [laughter] brandon Im done. You guys got it. speaker 12 Weve been around the barn brandon People will be sold on Pete. They just need to hear his message. And when you finally get someone to talk to and you can convey that message to them, they become a believer. They become a supporter, and they will join our team. We have only a few days left. We are running out of time right now. This is your last chance to show Iowa, to show the country that Pete can have a strong showing. Pete can come through. If you dont understand this urgency right now, you havent been following the news. We have a few days left, guys, so turn to your neighbor. Tell them, Im excited to be coming and door knocking. Go ahead. Do that right now. [CHATTER] astead herndon So can you tell me your name? julie witoff Julie Witoff. astead herndon And what do you do? julie witoff Im retired. I was a financial planner for 40 years. astead herndon So Julies one of the volunteers at the event. And shes been personally inspired by Buttigieg. julie witoff I heard him for the first time on a blogcast with Preet Bharara. And I was driving in my car, and I tuned in about five minutes after it started, and I had no idea who he was. And I listened for the remaining 40 minutes of the blogcast, and I remember sitting in my driveway thinking, my gosh, who is this guy? He is so smart. He was answering multipoint questions just so articulately. So I canvass most weekends. I have for the last couple of months. So Ive knocked on about 400 doors. Ill probably hit 500 by the end of this weekend. astead herndon And you knock on doors, whats the issues that come up the most often? julie witoff How to beat President Trump. As a group, Democrats are so traumatized by the entire Trump experience that were kind of like a group of deer in the headlights. So the bottom-line conversation always comes around to, Ill support anybody in the field. I like this person or I like that person. But so often Ill hear, well, Petes in my top three, but I like so-and-so, and maybe it needs to be Joe Biden because maybe hes the most electable. So the conversation just goes around and around. And then we just talk about or I talk about the things that draw me to Pete. When I listen to him speak, my blood pressure goes down instead of up. Im tired of the politics of outrage. Im tired of being outraged. astead herndon Speaking of politics of outrage, I mean, I think about Bernie Sanders. Would the prospect of a Sanders nomination as a Democrat make you nervous? julie witoff Yes, because I personally dont think hes electable. I dont think that his extreme left-wing policies will garner the support he needs, particularly in the Electoral College states that we need to win. So on those levels it concerns me. I dont personally have a strong feeling one way or the other about Bernie. Its just a fear of looking at his politics, having a life of experience watching how this country functions. And feeling that if the country as a majority wanted a democratic socialist government, the Congress would be full of democratic socialists. We would be electing those people, and we dont. So sure its a concern. astead herndon I asked Julie this because of another dynamic thats happening among Democrats. So Sanders is also pulling ahead in New Hampshire, the second state to vote after Iowa. And so one of the problems that all this indecision is causing for the other campaigns is that a clear rival to Sanders is yet to emerge in the first two states. Their support is fractured. And no candidate has won both Iowa and New Hampshire and then gone on to lose the Democratic nomination. astead herndon Doesnt that mean, though, that the Biden, Buttigieg, Klobuchar wing needs to pick a person and stick with it? julie witoff Well get there. Were early in the process. The electability issue to me I guess my main feeling is that knowing our history as Democrats, in the last 60 years weve won when weve nominated somebody thats young, inspirational, outside the Washington politics. When we try and go with somebody thats safe and electable, we lose. And I just I do feel that Pete can put together that coalition. astead herndon So Julies essentially bringing us back to where we started, to 2008 when Iowa captured that lightning in a bottle and helped spring Barack Obama to the Democratic nomination. And with that logic, 2016 is the aberration, and Democrats shouldnt use that fear of electability as a framework for choosing candidates going forward. jay My personal belief is that anyone who has any faith in their powers of political prognostication after 2016 is either delusional or much more plugged in than I am. One of the two, maybe both. astead herndon This is Jay, another Buttigieg volunteer. jay So I think that most Iowans do know our outsized import, in the sense that if a candidate does well here, its a launching pad. Generally you get that big bounce in the polls. Youre going have a position to do better in New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina. And if you can show, like Barack Obama did, that you can win over Iowans, the rest of the country pays attention to that. We do I think some Iowans do get in a little chicken and the egg. So its like, we look at the rest of the country and go, whos doing well there? Because I want somebody who can win across the country. And then the rest of the country is kind of looking at us. Its like, all right, well who can do well in Middle America, right? And so there is this sort of feedback loop that we can get caught in and theres just no off ramp. Which is why for me, it just makes a ton more sense to support the candidate that excites you and trust that the things that are exciting to you are exciting to your neighbors and people around the country as well. andy mills So youre saying youre trying not to play the electability game but that your most important issue is winning in November? jay All of my most important issues flow from winning in November, right? So in that regard, sure, electability is my primary concern. Theres no scenario in which Im going to go full-throatedly support a candidate that I suspect cant win. More what Im saying is, I dont know. I dont know who can win, who will win. I will say I think every Democrat can win. Im not super responsive to arguments thats like Im backing this candidate because the rest of them wont win. I think we run the risk of overlearning the lessons of 2016. [music] astead herndon But the Obama campaign worked in 2008, because what Iowans were feeling was also what Democrats across the country were feeling. And also what the general electorate was feeling. It is unclear that any Democrat in this race has the ability to recreate the coalitions which led him to the presidency. And in that view, there is a risk of under learning lessons from 2016. brandon If you can hear me, clap once. If you can hear me, clap twice. [CLAPPING] So on caucus night, we all talked about it. Were going to get there early. Were going to help out as much as we can. And everyones going to wear their button. All right? All right. Any last questions? Otherwise Im going to let you guys dismiss. All right, thank you. speaker Thank you, Brandon. [APPLAUSE] michael barbaro The Iowa caucuses begin tonight at 7 p.m. Central. Well cover the results on tomorrows Daily. A pair of small earthquakes were registered in York County this weekend. The earthquakes were reported Saturday afternoon and early Sunday morning near Dover. However, only two people actually reported feeling a quake. National Earthquake Center geophysicist Don Blakeman told PennLive folks had to be right at the epicenter to feel anything. The first quake happened about 5 miles northwest of Dover shortly before 3 p.m. Saturday with a magnitude of 1.6. The second was reported around 4:37 a.m. Sunday about 5.6 miles northwest of Dover, registering a magnitude of 1.8, according to the United States Geological Survey earthquake map. The two people who said they felt the ground shake reported feeling it on Sunday on the did you feel it website. Blakeman told PennLive quakes this small are rarely felt far from the epicenter. If they are felt at all, it would likely be a brief jolt lasting less than one second. There was some shaking near the Lehigh Valley in July 2019 when the U.S. Geological Survey confirmed a 2.2 magnitude earthquake happened in Spring Township, Berks County. The quake was followed by a flood of reports of booming sounds and shaking buildings and cars. Commenters on the Berks Weather Authority Facebook page then reported hearing or feeling shaking something as far north as Spring Ridge to as far south as Mohnton. Some, however, attributed the shaking to UGI blasting bed rock near Wilson High School. Pamela Sroka-Holzmann may be reached at pholzmann@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @pamholzmann. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. WHO Urges Countries To Brace For 'Local Outbreaks' Of Coronavirus By RFE/RL February 01, 2020 The World Health Organization (WHO) has urged governments around the world to prepare for local outbreaks of the coronavirus. The February 1 announcement came as China raised the death toll in that country from the virus to 259. China reported 11,791 confirmed cases of the virus, making it worse than the 2002-03 outbreak of SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. The WHO earlier in the week declared a global health emergency over the flu-like coronavirus. The organization has expressed concern that some cases outside China could involve human-to-human transmission of the virus. "Countries need to get ready for possible importation in order to identify cases as early as possible and in order to be ready for domestic outbreak control, if that happens," the WHO representative in Beijing, Gauden Galea, told journalists. In Geneva, WHO Secretary-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that, despite the health emergency declaration, there was "no reason for measures that unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade." On January 31, the United States barred entry to most foreigners who visited China in the last two weeks and introduced other screening measures. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced similar measures on February 1, following such announcements earlier by Japan, Italy, Mongolia, and Singapore. The Chinese Foreign Ministry has criticized the U.S. travel ban as "unkind." "Certainly it is not a gesture of goodwill," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on February 1. At least 25 countries have reported cases of infection by the virus, mainly involving people returning from China or who have had contact with such people. No deaths have been reported outside of China. The Kremlin said on February 1 that Russia would fly out Russians on February 3 and 4 from areas of China most seriously affected by the virus. An EU evacuation flight from Wuhan was scheduled for February 1. U.S. tech giant Apple announced on February 1 that it would close all its stores in mainland China at least until February 9 because of the virus. With reporting by AP, The New York Times, Reuters, and dpa Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/coronavirus- who-urges-countries-brace-local- outbreaks/30411428.html Copyright (c) 2020. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address As an existing print subscriber it is easy to get FREE access to all our online content. When you click get started below it will walk you through creating an online account to attach your print subscription number to. After your account is created it will ask you to either add a subscription for online access or click on the print subscriber button. Click the print subscriber button header and it will open a dropdown, now click on get started. The page will reload and you will be prompted to enter an account number and a zip code. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO USE THE NUMBER OFF OF THE MOST RECENT ISSUE OR ANYTHING AFTER JANUARY 28, 2019 TO GAIN ACCESS! OLD ACCOUNT NUMBERS WILL NOT WORK The account number and zip code are easily available on your most recent issue of the High Plains Journal or Midwest Ag Journal in the address fields as is shown here. Sometimes the account number has extra zero's in front of it, just ignore those. All 56 of her books were bestsellers, according to her publisher. In her memoir, Kitchen Privileges (2002), Ms. Higgins Clark described herself in her younger years as aching, yearning, burning to write, certain that she would succeed but needing guidance. She eventually found it in a writing class at New York University. The professor suggested that his students seize upon a situation that they had experienced or read about and begin by asking the questions Suppose ? and What if ?' The New York Times Some Ghanaian shop attendants at various Chinese owned shops in the Tema are in a state of anxiety as the deadly Coronavirus gains grounds in China. At Tema Community 11, where a large concentration of Chinese shops are, the Ghana News Agency observed that both Ghanaian and Chinese workers wore nose masks whilst attending to customers. A Chinese National who gave her name as Stella told the GNA that, it was very urgent to be proactive saying the virus was really taking lives in faraway China. She added that though the virus had not been detected in Ghana, the citizens as well as the government must be proactive in their effort to protect the borders of the country. According to her, an instruction was given to the supervisors to provide mouth and nose protective gears to the workers hence the spectacle. Some of the workers who spoke on condition of anonymity told the GNA that for some time now, no new Chinese citizen had been brought from China to replace their colleagues as it used to be the norm. They informed that, the virus scare had in a way affected daily sales as clients were still skeptical over how authorities were prepared to prevent the virus from entering the country. "Though we are scared, we hoping the country would be safe," they noted. Meanwhile, health officials in the country had given assurance that the country was safe from the virus and no hospital have recorded any case yet. The Coronavirus, which originated from the Chinese city of Wuhan has so far claimed more than 150 lives and infected over 1, 000 people Source: GNA Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video One of the six pillars of the Chester County Historic Courthouse on North High Street will shine in blue light on January nights beginning Tuesday evening in recognition of National Human Trafficking Awareness Day. Setting up the elections under Ukrainian law is impossible in territories where illegal armed groups operate and if the Ukrainian government has no control over the border. Ukraine will come to the next meeting of the Normandy Four with a package of agreements that will allow local elections to be held in October throughout the country, including the certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk region, says President Volodymyr Zelensky's aide Andriy Yermak. "In three months there will be another meeting of the Norman Four leaders. I hope that it will take place, and I really hope Ukraine will come to this meeting with a new package of agreements. I hope we will take the next steps to ensure that the local elections were held, in line with the Ukrainian law, throughout Ukraine [including in the certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions] at the end of October," Yermak said in an interview aired on KRYM Critical Thinking YouTube channel, Censor.net reports. Yermak added that some could call this too optimistic of a scenario. "But once people told me it was unrealistic for you to get Sentsov back. But the president did it. Do you remember how many world leaders and artists had been voicing appeals and discussing this, and for how many years. But Zelensky just did it. He made a promise, and he did it," Yermak said. Read alsoCanada imposes new sanctions on individuals involved in illegitimate elections in Crimea The official emphasized that setting up the elections under Ukrainian law is impossible in territories where illegal armed groups operate and if the Ukrainian government has no control over the border. "I, like everyone, have many questions to the Minsk agreements, but this is the only document that has been agreed and signed as of today, and there really is a provision according to which the border shall be transferred [back under Ukraine's control] after the election. President Zelensky said in Paris we can't agree with this because it is contrary to Ukrainian law," the president's aide said. According to Yermak, that is why the Ukrainian side is now raising the question of how the control over the border could be handed to Ukraine before the election. "Why are you against this? If any guarantees are needed or anything else, let's discuss this. I have experience in various hard talks. So, even if the position of the other side is absolutely unpleasant to you today, there is a need to hear them out, as to achieve any forward movement you need to hear out, understand this philosophy, and try to do everything so that today, not yielding to our interests, we could find a way out of this situation," the official explained. (Natural News) Things are only getting worse for Boeing, which apparently has a corporate culture so corrupt and disjointed that employees who work there wrote in internal emails to one another that the failed 737 Max 8 death-plane was designed by clowns, who are in turn supervised by monkeys. As part of yet another batch of damning evidence obtained by the federal government in its ongoing investigation, these and other company emails reveal clear patterns of disdain directed not only at Boeings upper management, but also at Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) officials tasked with regulating airplane safety. More than 100 pages of internal communications at Boeing that were deliberately withheld from regulators have been found to contain mockery of federal rules by Boeing employees, open discussion about how Boeing was deceiving regulators about airplane safety, and jokes about the design flaws of the Max. Among the most shocking of these communiques were discourses between Boeing pilots and other employees about known problems with the flight simulator software installed on the Max. As the world now knows, the maneuvering characteristics augmentation system (MCAS) used in the Max is believed to have contributed to the two avoidable Max crashes that resulted in the deaths of 346 people. I still havent been forgiven by God for the covering up I did last year, wrote one Boeing employee back in 2018, apparently referring to interactions this individual had with the FAA. Would you put your family on a Max simulator trained aircraft? I wouldnt, asked another, to which the recipient of this message also responded, No. Will Boeing ever recover from the potentially irreparable damage it inflicted upon itself? Both of these communications, which The New York Times described as the latest embarrassing episode for Boeing in a crisis that has cost the company billions of dollars and wreaked havoc on the aviation industry across the globe, took place before any Max airplanes ever crashed, suggesting that Boeing knew all along that the planes were unsafe but sold them anyway. Its almost as bad a situation as the one that exists between Big Pharma and both the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Similar to the relationship between Boeing and the FAA, Big Pharma routinely lies to the FDA and CDC about the safety of pharmaceuticals and vaccines except in the case of medicine, the industry is literally getting away with murder while receiving no scrutiny whatsoever for its crimes against humanity. These messages indicate that Boeing withheld damning information from the FAA, which is highly disturbing, wrote Peter DeFazio, Chair of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, in a letter to Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao about these latest bombshell revelations concerning Boeings blatant deception about the 737 Max 8. Meanwhile, the markets have barely responded to any of this, which is further concerning as it suggests that the general public isnt taking this news as seriously as it should. Boeings 737 Max 8 is not safe and should never fly again, but the media is still talking about the situation as if there will eventually come a time when theyre sent back up in the air. any Boeing shareholders who experienced an escalating dread as they read this post its okay, you can relax, commented Zero Hedge about this strange situation between this damning news about Boeing and the markets reaction to it. Because once again, the market just doesnt care. Plane crashes have been normalized in 2020, and so, apparently, has gross incompetence and contempt for both government regulators and the broader public. For more related news about Boeing, be sure to check out Corruption.news. Sources for this article include: ZeroHedge.com NaturalNews.com Two jawans were injured on Sunday in bomb blasts triggered by naxals in two separate incidents in Chhattisgarh's Bastar region, police said. The incidents occurred in Dantewada and Kanker districts, officials said. Dantewada SP Abhishek Pallav said a constable of Chhattisgarh Armed Police was injured in the explosion of a pressure bomb near Potali village. In the Kanker incident, a BSF jawan sustained injuries in a landmine blast near Badetewda village during patrolling. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The EU is set to back Spain's claim to Gibraltar and give Madrid the power to exclude the Rock from a future Brexit trade deal, according to reports. In the latest move by Spain to take advantage of Brexit to stake its claim on the Rock, Madrid have said Gibraltar must be mentioned in the EU's initial negotiating position to be published on Monday. It said Gibraltar should be left out of Britain's new relationship with the EU unless Spain gives explicit permission for the contrary, the Observer reports. The EU is set to back Spain's claim to Gibraltar (pictured) and give Madrid the power to exclude the Rock from a future Brexit trade deal, according to reports A senior EU diplomat said: 'They have in principle asked that the new relationship not apply to Gibraltar without the explicit consent of Spain, which will only be given if the bilateral talks with Spain and the UK over the rock are resolved.' Gibraltar sits in an strategically crucial position on the western gateway to the Med and has been British for more than 300 years. The UK and the EU today launched into a new war of words as Gibraltar was branded a 'colony' in draft laws to give visa-free travel to Britons. Downing Street swiftly moved to slap down the jibe. In the latest move by Spain to take advantage of Brexit to stake its claim on the Rock, Madrid have said Gibraltar (pictured) must be mentioned in the EU's initial negotiating position, to be published on Monday Unlike at other moments in the Brexit negotiation Britain has no power to veto or even disagree because it is a decision made by the remaining 27 EU states. It means the incendiary language is likely to stay in the final version of the rules granting visa-free travel to Britons after Brexit. It will not prevent Gibraltar's citizens taking advantage of the waiver and does not change their legal status in the EU. Spain almost blocked the conclusion of the deal in November and repeatedly raised the issue of Gibraltar during two years of talks. In April 2017 there were even claims Mrs May would go to war to defend the Rock in the same way as Margaret Thatcher fought for the Falklands. It said Gibraltar (pictured) should be left out of Britain's new relationship with the EU unless Spain gives explicit permission for the contrary The Rock's 2006 constitution stipulates that there can be no transfer of sovereignty to Spain against the wishes of its voters. In a referendum in 2002, Gibraltarians resoundingly rejected the idea of joint sovereignty between the UK and Spain. Free travel between Spain and Gibraltar was fully restored in 1985, but travellers continued to suffer delays at the border. In late 2006, passenger flights between Spain and Gibraltar resumed for the first time in nearly 30 years, though seven years later there were renewed border checks by Spain in response to a Gibraltarian plan to build an artificial reef. The 2006 air link was restored after Gibraltar, Spain and Britain signed agreements aimed at improving living conditions on the Rock. In the 2016 EU referendum, the Rock voted overwhelmingly against Brexit. And even though the UK overall did not, Gibraltar's leaders have made clear they prefer to follow the motherland out of the EU. But for Madrid, Brexit represents a golden opportunity to overturn three centuries of history and stage their own bid to 'take back control'. Claflin University introduced its ninth president on June 10, 2019. Harris-Stowe State University President Dr. Dwaun Warmack is leading Claflin following the retirement of longtime president Dr. Henry Tisdale. Im coming behind a living legend, Warmack said at a press conference. Tisdale is a person who has done an amazing job with building, working on this institution, plus hes an alum here, Warmack said. For me, I am honored to stand on the shoulders of giants. Im fortunate to still have him here in the region to have that relationship. Tisdale retired on June 30 after 25 years of leading the historically black university. The universitys trustees unanimously selected Warmack to succeed him. Warmack took his own advice when choosing to take the job at Claflin. Ive been in higher ed for 20 years and I tell students when theyre making a college decision, you know when you step on that campus if its a place for you. So, there was a special feel that I felt when I stepped on Claflins campus and said, Wow, this is it. This is a place where I can happily go and serve, he said. Warmack noted Harris-Stowes previous president served 32 years before he became president. I have a history of coming behind long-standing leaders. I value embracing the past while transcending into the future, he said. Warmack had served as president of Harris-Stowe State University for five years. Harris-Stowe is an HBCU located in St. Louis, Missouri. A press release from Claflin stated, Under Dr. Warmacks exemplary leadership, Harris-Stowe witnessed an institutional transformation, which is unparalleled in its 162-year history. He has shepherded more than $24 million in external funding to the institution, including a $5 million STEM grant, the largest in the schools history. He cultivated more than 16 partnerships and collaborations with Fortune 500 companies, regional organizations and other higher education institutions to strengthen Harris-Stowes infrastructure. Prior to his years at Harris-Stowe, Warmack served as the senior vice president of administration and student services at Bethune-Cookman University. Warmack also served as associate dean of students at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee, and held positions at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, North Carolina, and Delta State University in Cleveland, Mississippi, his alma mater. Warmack was one of two finalists for the position. Claflin University Board of Trustees Chairman Dr. James K. Lehman stated that the search committee narrowed down the finalists from a pool of over 45 candidates. The final pool was in excess of 50 candidates that was considered by the search committee, and that did not include certain candidates that did not otherwise meet the qualifications, Lehman said. He said the search committee was looking for leadership ability. We were looking for an ability to relate to students, an ability to raise the needed resources for the university. Looking for someone who was committed to fiscal accountability, which Claflin has a reputation for always having had fiscal accountability and fiscal responsibility, as well, and most importantly of maintaining the culture of excellent academics. Dr. Warmack was someone who impressed all of us as being the next generation who has already faced some of the challenges of higher education and helped his current institution and prior institution in very significant ways, he said. Lehman expressed his belief in Warmacks vision for the institution. Hes got great vision for how he believes he can move Claflin yet to even another level, Lehman said. Were looking forward to having him do that. The university has had a strategic plan in place for several years and he will be carrying that forward. We will not be starting, but it will really be a continuation of the strategic plan that as a board we developed with the cabinet over the last several years. Claflins new president stated that he will build on the foundation built by his predecessors. Claflin is on an amazing trajectory, he said. The theoretical framework is here. Great things are there. Warmack said his goal is to transition the university from great to excellent. Claflin is already a great institution. How do we transcend to be excellent? So, you know, I want to continue to build on those things, the things that have happened already, build those, and bring some of the expertise and skill set I have to continue to go to the next level, Warmack said. Thats my vision. I dont want to be status quo." Warmack earned a bachelors degree in education and a masters degree in sociology from Delta State University. He earned his doctorate in educational leadership with a specialization in higher education from Union University in Jackson, Tennessee. He has also completed post-doctoral work in educational leadership at the Harvard University School of Education. Over the years, Warmack has received a number of awards and special honors including being named among the HBCU Campaign Funds Ten Most Dominant HBCU Leaders of 2018, being named the East St. Louis Branch of the NAACPs Game Changer in 2016 and being inducted into his alma maters hall of fame in 2014. Warmack and his wife LaKisha have one daughter, Morgan. Contact the writer: bharris@timesanddemocrat.com or 803-533-5516. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Homes are believed to have been destroyed by bushfires in southeastern NSW where hundreds of properties have already been lost in blazes this summer. Strong winds and high temperatures on Saturday night pushed the massive 177,000-hectare Border fire north towards Bega Valley while three separate blazes burning southwest of the region merged into one. Bega Valley Shire Council Mayor Kristy McBain said an unconfirmed number of homes were lost in Wyndham and Tantawangalo in the blazes. 'This pushes our total losses in Bega Valley to well over 400,' she told AAP on Sunday. The Clear Range Bushfire continues to burn in soaring temperatures and unpredictable wind changes The Clear Range fire in the Snowy Monaro region was at emergency levels on Saturday, closing the Monaro Highway NSW RFS crews extinguish a fire that crossed the Monaro Highway, four kilometres north of Bredbo on Sunday 'It's hard for people because this has been going on for 34 days and counting. We had homes lost on day one and day 34 we are still losing homes.' Ms McBain said cooler weather gave some reprieve to the community on Sunday but a big south westerly wind is expected on Monday which residents fear will cause more problems for the area. 'Everyone is just catching their breath today before tomorrow afternoon it flares up again,' she said. NSW Rural Fire Service spokesman Greg Allan said there have been reports of property loss from Saturday's fires but building impact assessment teams haven't been able to access firegrounds yet. No fires were burning at emergency level on Sunday afternoon with two blazes at 'watch and act' alert level. The Clear Range fire in the Snowy Monaro region was at emergency levels on Saturday, closing the Monaro Highway until Sunday afternoon. The blaze ravaged more than 5,200 hectares and is still burning at watch and act level near the villages of Michelago and Bredbo. A firefighter from a local brigade works to extinguish flames after a bushfire burnt through the area in Bredbo As of 4pm Sunday, the Monaro Highway was reopened, with cars being led by police escort between Bredbo to Michelago As of 4pm Sunday, the Monaro Highway was reopened, with cars being led by police escort between Bredbo to Michelago As of 4pm Sunday, the Monaro Highway was reopened, with cars being led by police escort between Bredbo to Michelago. It began as a spot fire off the Orroral Valley blaze but quickly became out-of-control as temperatures spiked on Saturday. The Orroral Valley fire has also burned through almost one-quarter of the ACT but Saturday was not as bad as predicted, despite the fire still burning out-of-control. ACT Emergency Services Agency Commissioner Georgeina Whelan told reporters there will still be challenging times ahead. 'The next 24 hours are going to be very challenging for us indeed, probably the most challenging the ACT has seen this entire fire season,' she said. NSW RFS crews extinguish a fire that crossed the Monaro Highway, four kilometres north of Bredbo on Sunday Lawrence and Claire Cowie (pictured) stayed to protect their home from a fast moving fire tore through Bumbalong Road in Bredbo North on Saturday A firefighter from a local brigade works to extinguish flames after a bushfire burnt through the area in Bredbo 'We may get thunderstorms ... we could see some very challenging conditions, and certainly some very intense firefighting in the next 24 hours.' At least 20 homes were lost in the ACT on Saturday after the temperature in Canberra tipped 40C for the second day in a row. The area is expected to be hit with storms on Sunday afternoon, which could pose a further risk to firefighters. However, conditions are expected to now ease allowing firefighters to get in and assess damages. 'We've had reports of a number of property losses,' Deputy RFS Commissioner Rob Rogers told Today. 'We don't know how many but we're reporting between ten and 20.' Claire Cowie pictured after defending their home from a fast moving fire on Bumbalong Road, Bredbo North Claire Cowie with her horses on her Bumbalong Road, Bredbo North after saving her property 'We have got crews on the ground this morning to try to get that accurate number of that.' Lawrence and Claire Cowie stayed to protect their home from a fast moving fire tore through Bumbalong Road in Bredbo North on Saturday. The couple have been pictured in high spirits after saving their home despite being told it could be flattened in the fire. NSW Health had earlier issued a warning for smoke haze and dust from the blazes on Sunday with Sydney suffering poor air quality due to particles. "A change in wind direction is likely to bring smoke from the southern NSW and ACT bushfires into eastern parts of Sydney, the Illawarra, and possibly the Central Coast and Newcastle this morning," NSW Health said in a statement on Sunday. The department's medical advisor Dr Adi Vyas said dust from dust storms in western NSW may affect western Sydney. There were 66 fires burning in NSW as of Sunday afternoon with 30 not yet contained. The Monaro Highway has reopened with cars under police escort from Bredbo to Michelago By Express News Service CHENNAI: In a shocking revelation, several prison officials are under the scanner for a variety of violations they have been committing for a long time now -- including indulging in sexual relationships with wives of jail inmates and helping prisoners procure drugs. In a circular sent out to all prison officials across Tamil Nadu, Additional Director-General of Police (Prisons), R Kanagaraj, has highlighted several scams that were brought to light through a special inquiry. He has asked the officials concerned to probe the charges and take appropriate action against the offenders. The four-page circular dated January 30, without pinpointing anyone specifically, accuses several prison officers of misusing their position to help prisoners in return for money, of indulging in discriminatory practices, of allowing mobile phones inside the prison campus, and smuggling out medicines meant for the jail inmates. A male nurse employed at a central prison allows visitors to provide various medicines to the inmates against the rules, and smuggles supplies from prison dispensary to a private clinic of a doctor, who is also posted in the prison, says the circular. Another district prison superintendent has been accused of forcing inmates relatives to buy him groceries, vegetables, and every pay his personal electricity bills. The circular accuses a Grade-2 constable of having illicit affairs with wives of inmates, which is against the rules. A Grade-1 constable is accused of being partial to inmates based on their caste, and of allowing inmates to meet their kin even on holidays in return for bribes. The circular points out that families of inmates are constantly made to give cash and other items to the prison personnel as bribe. The communication also says personnel demand money from inmates who are eligible to go on leave and some convicts act as agents because of their close contact with personnel. Personnel also allow mobile phones and drugs after receiving money from inmates and also allow them to have food prepared outside. We received information that personnel are taking bribe to release inmates even after the court grants bail to the accused. Even after the stipulated time, inmates with influence are allowed to stay in luxury rooms with all facilities, the circular said. In order to procure food and supply for the inmates, the personnel have been tampering bills showing additional expenses and demand money from inmates for food supply. "Even after illegal items inside the prison are seized, the personnel have not taken any action against the inmates. Prison personnel are also favouring notorious rowdies, gangsters and criminals by providing a luxurious stay in return for personal favours, the circular said. The ADGP expressed concern over hearing the reports and asked the personnel to stop such actions immediately. Prison should be the place for change where criminals should realise their mistakes and make a better living. The illegal actions will motivate criminals in committing more crimes when they are released, said Kanagaraj in the circular. He asked all prison superiors and other personnel to take the circular seriously and make sure the department does not get such reports again. Speaking to Express, a senior prison department officer said, The department has been receiving such reports for a long time and in spite of warning the in-charges of the prisons concerned, they are reluctant since the prison is their fortress and they could do anything they want. This forced us to send an official circular now and if we still continue receiving such reports, necessary action will be taken against the personnel. By Agustinus Beo Da Costa and Gayatri Suroyo JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia on Sunday barred entry to visitors who have been in China for 14 days over concern about coronavirus, as citizens evacuated from Hubei province faced protests by some residents on their return home. There have not been any confirmed cases of coronavirus in Indonesia, but neighbouring Philippines on Sunday reported the first death from the virus outside China. Indonesia will also temporarily stop flights to and from mainland China starting Wednesday. It will immediately bar visitors who have been in China for 14 days from entering or transiting, Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi told a televised news conference. Indonesia's Lion Air Group has already stopped its flights to China. Marsudi also asked Indonesians not to travel to China during the coronavirus epidemic. In China, the virus has killed 304 people and infected more than 14,000. More than 20 other countries and regions outside mainland China have also reported cases. Earlier on Sunday, the government flew 243 Indonesians from China's Hubei province, the epicentre of the virus, and placed them under quarantine at a military base on the sparsely populated Natuna Besar island northwest of Borneo. Marsudi said a total of 285 people, including flight crew and the team involved in the evacuation, will have to stay there for 14 days under observation. Although she said all were reportedly healthy, their presence on the island alarmed some residents. Around 200 people set tyres ablaze during a protest rally on Sunday, regional police spokesman Harry Goldenhard said by telephone. "What the government is doing has been weighed and planned carefully. The location of the observatory is far from their homes, some 6 km (3.7 miles) away," he said. "The virus won't spread," Goldenhard said. (Editing by Ed Davies, Christopher Cushing and Frances Kerry) She has been turning heads with the many glamorous looks she has donned at this award season. But Zoe Kravitz cut a low-key figure on Saturday when she stepped out for dinner with her husband Karl Glusman and dog Scout at the Chiltern Firehouse in London. The Big Little Lies actress, 31, opted for a long khaki coat for her outing paired with a green pashmina style scarf elegantly draped around her neck for warmth. Natural beauty: Zoe Kravitz cut a low-key figure on Saturday when she stepped out for dinner with her husband Karl Glusman and dog Scout at the Chiltern Firehouse in London The natural beauty complimented her stunning features with a barely-there-palette of makeup. She completed the casual ensemble with blue jeans and black boots and carried black sunglasses in her hand. Her hunky husband, 32, wore a leather jacket and a simple black hoodie. Earlier this month the couple's adorable pooch crashed a Golden Globes after party. Date night: Her hunky husband, 32, wore a leather jacket and a simple black hoodie According to Page Six Scout escaped their hotel room and ran into the room of party goers, meaning Karl had to quickly retrieve the dog and take him back upstairs. The pair were married in a lavish Parisian ceremony last June. The celebrity-packed event also featured guests Cara Delevingne and Ashley Benson, Chris Pine, Denzel Washington and Childish Gambino's Donald Glover, among others. Low-key: The Big Little Lies actress, 31, opted for a long khaki coat for her outing paired with a green pashmina style scarf elegantly draped around her neck for warmth Karl has made a name for himself in a number of disturbing experimental films, including Gaspar Noe's Love, The Neon Demon and Tom Ford's psychological thriller Nocturnal Animals. He and Zoe began their relationship back in 2016, shortly after they met each other at a bar with friends. The rising actor asked her to marry him at their apartment in February 2018, after his preferred Parisian proposal fell through. Party dog: Earlier this month the couple's adorable pooch crashed a Golden Globes after party when he escaped from their hotel room According to Rolling Stone, Karl's heart was racing so fast when he hugged her before proposing that she worried something was wrong with him. 'I was like, "Baby, are you OK?" I was actually worried about him!' she recounted. Even when he got down on one knee she didn't make the connection, instead urging him to stretch out to calm down. Zoe will be seen on screen next in a gender-swapped remake of High Fidelity, which premieres on Valentine's Day, 2020. The Brooklyn-set show will feature her in the lead role as Rob, a record store owner obsessed with every facet of musical minutiae. She's also set to return to comic book films when she plays Catwoman in The Batman, opposite the newly cast Caped Crusader played by Robert Pattinson. A 56-year-old woman protester died at Park Circus Maidan in south Kolkata on Saturday, where dozens of women and children have been staging a demonstration against Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), National Register of Citizens (NRC) and National Population Register (NPR) over the past 26 days, along the lines of Delhis Shaheen Bagh. Sameeda Khatun was very active and had been demonstrating for over the past 15 days almost. She used to come every day around 3 pm and leave for home around 1 am, said Asmat Jameel, one of the organisers of the demonstration at Park Circus Maidan a prominent landmark in the city with a Muslim neighbourhood. According to the doctors, Khatun died of cardiac failure. She fell ill at night and was rushed to a private hospital. Doctors referred her to a state-run hospital where doctors declared her dead on arrival. BJP leader questions nationality Bharatiya Janata Partys state general secretary Sayantan Basu, triggered a controversy saying: First we need to check whether she was a Bangladeshi or an Indian citizen. State food minister and senior Trinamool Congress leader Jyotipriyo Mullick lashed at saying: He (Basu) is a lunatic. He is not fit to speak in public. Following her death, on Sunday morning, other protesters on the stir switched off the loudspeakers to observe silence to pay condolence. Khatun was a patient of high blood pressure and sugar. Her family never wanted her to be here so long every day. But she kept saying that the fight was much bigger than her own health, said Rafey Siddiqui, another organiser. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Tomorrow, it will be eight long months since dealings in investment fund Woodford Equity Income were abruptly suspended, marking the beginning of the end for the Woodford investment empire. During that time, we've had an emphatic Conservative victory at the polls (hurrah, I hear you shout) and we've even managed to leave the European Union. Who would have thought that last autumn when Remainers sabotaged the workings of Parliament? Another spontaneous burst of hurrahs. Slow progress: Precious little has been done to reassure fund investors that another 'Wood ford' will never be allowed to happen again Yet, since June last year, precious little has been done to reassure fund investors that another 'Woodford' will never be allowed to happen again. Boos all round. Although the powder-puff City regulator that is the Financial Conduct Authority has launched an investigation into the demise of Woodford Investment Management, this probe seems to be progressing at a snail's pace. For former fans of TV children's programme The Magic Roundabout, more Brian-like than jack-in-the-box Zebedee. Maybe it's partly a result of vacillation stemming from a changing of the guard at the regulator with boss Andrew Bailey moving to the Bank of England to take over the governorship from Mark Carney and Chris Woollard stepping into Bailey's old shoes on an interim basis. For the record, Woollard was previously the regulator's director of 'strategy and competition' hardly the credentials, I would have thought, to oversee a rigorous investigation into the Woodford debacle. But more likely it's because the regulator is about as effective a protector of consumers' financial interests as Woodford was in managing fund portfolios stuffed to the rafters with illiquid stocks. In other words, totally useless. Think about its failure to take decisive action over Royal Bank of Scotland's appalling treatment of many small businesses in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. And think about its failure to protect savers who bought London Capital & Finance mini-bonds, only to lose all their money when the company collapsed last year. This very point was made to me last week by Alan Miller, chief investment officer of wealth manager SCM Direct and a former fund manager with Gartmore, Jupiter and New Star. More than anyone else, he helped me pick my way through the Woodford wreckage in the aftermath of Equity Income's suspension in June last year and convinced me that brand Woodford was finished when others thought he (Neil Woodford) would come back from the proverbial dead. Miller is incandescent with rage over the regulator's failure to act swiftly on Woodford (and other financial scandals) and believes that the FCA is not fit for purpose. He says that had the Woodford scandal occurred in the United States, 'we would have witnessed the FBI visiting Woodford's offices and those of the various connected parties to quickly establish whether there was evidence of fraud or gross negligence'. He says any investigation would have been 'quick, efficient and thorough' with any parties found guilty of wrongdoing spending 'a long time in prison'. In contrast, Miller believes UK investors are treated as 'third-class consumers' by the regulator with the promise of nothing but delayed investigations into wrongdoing that end up going nowhere. He believes that until such time that the regulator starts putting investors first, there will always be the potential for another 'Woodford'. He adds: 'The message this sad affair sends to others in the asset management industry is do whatever you like. Put profit before people and take on as much risk as you can because the regulator is unlikely to come after you.' His final words on the issue? 'The Woodford affair is scandalous, but even more of a scandal is the tardy response and lack of protection ordinary investors receive from the regulator.' I couldn't agree more. Time for a change in strategy at the top of the FCA. Maybe after all, Chris 'strategy and competition' Woollard is the right individual for the job. (CNN) -- Timothy Prater had seen the YouTube videos. He remembered seeing a poster, too. So when this 9-year-old's cousin started stomping his feet and holding his throat, Timothy knew just what to do. He leaped into action, dropped to his knees and put his cousin, Connor, in the Heimlich maneuver. A few moments later, a Lifesaver flew out of Connor's throat. Prather, 9, had saved a life. The two were visiting a rodeo in McNairy County, Tennessee when the cousin began choking. "He was just crying and stomping his feet and holding his throat," Prather told CNN affiliate WREG. "Our mam-maw had him upside down and our pap-paw was patting his back, that's how I knew something was wrong." Timothy remembered watching YouTube videos about the Heimlich and remembered a poster hanging in Ramer Elementary School's cafeteria illustrating the steps to save someone from choking. "I just feel happy that he's alive," Prather told WREG. "We never know when they're watching, what they're picking up on," kindergarten teacher Brandi Wardlow told WREG. "To think this little poster here saved his cousin's life, it's amazing." The posters, she said, were older than Prather himself. She hung them on the walls 14 years ago. When news broke of the lad's heroics, he was the talk of the school. The teacher hopes Prather's story will inspire her students to pay attention to what the poster says and remember that someday they can save a life, too. NEW HAVEN The Connecticut Professionals Leadership Academy, a six-month program that brings together dozens of professional to help develop and improve their professions, their professional association groups, their companies, and their personal career growth, has been launched, according to a release from The Connecticut Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA Connecticut) in coordination with Connecticut Society of Certified Public Accountants (CTCPA), Hartford County Bar Association, CFA Society Hartford, Connecticut Young Insurance Professionals and Connecticut Bar Association. The program will inspire emerging leaders by strengthening leadership skills, building relationships, cultivating talent, and creating a collaborative community among several professions for the next generation of business leaders, the release said. According to the release, seven members of AIA Connecticut are taking part in the academy, including Catherine Young with George Penniman Architects, Essex; Emily Ky with The SLAM Collaborative, Glastonbury; Jieun Bae, with Newman Architects PC, New Haven; Kevin Levesque from Babbidge Construction, New Haven; Max Ballardo with Patriquin Architects, New Haven; and Susan Odell, with Point One Architect LLC, Old Lyme. This was a wonderful opportunity to collaborate with the other Connecticut professional associations and to offer our members a channel to build leadership skills and to foster talent, Gina Calabro, executive director and CEO of AIA Connecticut, said in the release. I appreciate the yearlong work all the organizations put into developing this exceptional program. For more information, visit www.aiact.org. Business Networking Breakfast Feb. 6 The Connecticut Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce will hold a Business Networking Breakfast event from 8-9:30 a.m. Feb. 6 at The Chez, 458 Wethersfield Ave. in Hartford. To register, visit https://members.ctglc.org/events/. Housatonic River Job Network to meet ORANGE The Housatonic River Job Network will meet at 6 p.m. Feb. 6 at Case Memorial Library, 176 Tyler City Road. Speaker will be Natalia Xiomara, a career consultant with Employment Resource Team LLC. Topics will be Top 10 Interview Tips and How to Create Your Personal Brand. For information, email alexy56@hotmail.com. McGill University scientists have developed a new system for sharing the enormous amount of data being generated by the CHIME radio telescope in its search for fast radio bursts (FRBs), the puzzling extragalactic phenomenon that is one of the hottest topics in modern-day astronomy. In 2007, a 21-year-old man was lured to a shed in Co Monaghan with the promise of work clearing up a farmyard. Instead, 10 ''men'' beat him with iron bars while his friend was forced to listen. "You could hear the bars bouncing off him he was screaming," he said at the time. Had he lived, as his mother pointed out last week, Paul Quinn would now be 34. Everyone knows the IRA was responsible for killing him, except the recently appointed Northern finance minister, Conor Murphy, who said he had been given "solid assurances" that the IRA hadn't been involved. He stated Quinn had been killed as the result of a "criminal feud". Paul's parents have repeatedly called for a retraction of this statement. Murphy has never done so. He has also never disclosed who he had spoken to that led him to form that opinion. Paul was murdered nine years after the Good Friday Agreement by shadowy figures who have never been prosecuted for the crime. Shadowy figures protected those killers. Life in Northern Ireland has never been normal, but the memory of Breege Quinn, Paul's mother, sobbing as she told me her son was beaten so badly that she couldn't even put rosary beads on his hands will haunt me forever. Such a simple ritual that couldn't be observed because the animals who battered Paul left, as a doctor told his family, "nothing to fix". A few months ago, Mary Lou McDonald was asked about Paul Quinn and specifically if Conor Murphy would retract his "criminal" remark. "I will ask Conor Murphy to say and do things that give confidence and comfort to the Quinn family," she said. The Quinn family heard nothing after this interview, from Murphy or McDonald. The situation with other victims of the IRA is similar. Sinn Fein have treated them like dirt on the end of a shoe, trodden into the carpet for good measure. On whose instructions have they been acting over decades? Sinn Fein has hit out at those who have said the party is controlled by unelected secretive figures, and even poked fun at the assertion, pointing out that its ard comhairle runs the party and they are elected at an ard fheis. Supposing we believe them, on this occasion? Expand Close Paul Quinn / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Paul Quinn It's a callous, non-compassionate ard comhairle which decides the party's approach to victims, if so. Has its ruling body decided, for whatever reason, that Conor Murphy cannot retract his words and finally provide comfort to a mother who quietly, and with dignity, daily nurses the hurt caused by the loss of her son? What exactly is the impediment to doing so? The pledge that Sinn Fein requires all elected representatives to sign states: "...in all matters pertaining to the duties and functions of elected representatives, I will be guided and hold myself amenable to all directions and instructions issued to me by an ard comhairle of Sinn Fein." Pretty clear. McDonald insists she takes "instructions from no one". Which is it? And shouldn't we all be calling on the ard comhairle to collectively direct its party representatives to act properly in respect of the Quinns? Separately, who thought it was a good idea for Mary Lou to describe Slab Murphy (no relation to Conor) as a "typical rural man"? It's important to ask this question in the public interest, because either McDonald had appalling political judgement on this issue, given Slab Murphy's history, or her ard comhairle does. For years, the party has had a policy concerning victims of the IRA, or indeed anyone, who has spoken out about the IRA. It is either to deny, or refuse to condemn atrocious actions, or indeed to cast a cloud of doubt on the credibility of those speaking. Where did this policy emanate from? It isn't an unfair question, as the party is mainly homogenous in the response of its representatives whenever a scandal emerges. In the course of this campaign, it is something that journalists should be mindful of getting an answer on. Breege Quinn's devastation is not historic; it is very much a live issue. She has been begging Sinn Fein to do the right thing for the past 13 years. A simple phone call from McDonald to Conor Murphy - and an instruction from the ard comhairle - could sort the issue out quickly. Expand Close Mairia Cahill / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Mairia Cahill Who decided to trot out representatives on the issue of Sinn Fein's response to the IRA's handling of sex abuse? We all remember the party's disgraceful treatment of this sex abuse victim, in full view of the media. We also remember, and I feel it acutely, that four years after insinuating there was an issue with my credibility, Sinn Fein was forced to issue a half-apology, when a police ombudsman report surfaced proving what I had said to be true. Who in Sinn Fein made the decision to treat a rape victim like this? Did the ard comhairle decide this policy? Sinn Fein records minutes of all of those leadership meetings. I know, because I have some. Let Sinn Fein publish the minutes of its leadership meetings between 2014-2018 and we can all examine if it was them, or some other entity, which decided the party approach on this particular issue. The problem with denying that former IRA figures have any influence on the party is that Sinn Fein has a credibility issue in its response to IRA atrocities. There are people all over the country who wouldn't hesitate to say that breaking every bone in Paul Quinn's body from the neck down and killing him was beyond appalling, that the murder and disappearance of Jean McConville was a crime, that the strapping of Patsy Gillespie into his car, turning him into a human bomb in the process was abhorrent, or that the kangaroo courts which saw child sex abuse victims having to face their rapists is nothing short of vile. Sinn Fein has not stated any of these things, and in fact has refused to suspend anyone alleged to have taken part in any of these actions in the past. Who decided the party's policy on its response to these issues? There should be n problem for the party's ruling body to call it as everyone else in the land of human empathy sees it. If there are no shadowy figures holding the party back from formulating a response to individual victims which doesn't re-traumatise them in the process, then why isn't Sinn Fein just doing that? I think we all know the answer to that one. I spoke to Breege Quinn last week. She said: "Sinn Fein have refused to withdraw the slur they made against my child. I want them to do so." Sinn Fein has a moral duty to shake off the spectre of the IRA by providing closure to Breege and others who it continues to hurt in word and deed. Let's hear its ard comhairle instruct that they do so. Saturday evening marked the launch of a new internet campaign on behalf of actor Johnny Depp due to some information circulating about his ex-wife, Amber Heard. The pair have been embroiled in a legal battle since they filed for divorce in 2016, with Depp suing Heard for defamation after she wrote an op-ed indirectly accusing him of physical abuse. A recently released audio recording of Heard went viral on Saturday and now fans want JusticeforJohnnyDepp. Amber Heard and Johnny Depp, 2016 | C Flanigan/Getty Images The background on Johnny Depp versus Amber Heard In April 2019, Depp filed a defamation lawsuit against Heard for $50 million over an opinion piece she wrote for The Washington Post about domestic abuse and sexual violence. She didnt mention Depp by name, but he and his attorneys assert that the allegations were clearly leveled against him. In her article, she claimed that she lost out on work opportunities because she spoke publicly about abuse. According to The Associated Press, in 2016, Heard appeared in court with a picture of herself with facial bruising, resulting in a judge granting a restraining order against Depp. Depp has vehemently denied physically abusing Heard and his lawsuit states that she is the abuser and her claims were part of an elaborate hoax to generate positive publicity for Ms. Heard and advance her career. Because of Heards accusations, Depp says was fired from his role as Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean and his reputation has taken a hit. The lawsuit was filed in Fairfax County, Virginia since that is the headquarters for The Washington Post. Whats on the recording? The case has been pushed back multiple times and is now set to go to court in August 2020. The Daily Mail obtained a bombshell recording of Amber Heard admitting to hitting Depp, mocking him, and calling him a baby. She also says shes thrown pots, pans, and vases at him. The pair are heard going back and forth, and she says things like, I dont know what the motion of my actual hand was, but youre fine. I did not hurt you. I did not punch you. I hit you. This is one of more than six dozen recordings Depp and his attorneys say are evidence that Heard was the perpetrator of domestic abuse. The full conversation is available here but the viral content starts around the 26-minute mark. Warning: It contains profanity. Why fans are demanding justice for Johnny Depp After listening to the audio exchange, fans are appalled by what they heard and want Amber Heard to be punished. Hundreds of thousands of Twitter users have spoken out against Heard, and some point out that shes an ambassador for one of the United Nations human rights initiatives that advocate for the protection of women and children while shes been abusive. One commenter wrote, When you see #JusticeForJohnnyDepp trending, and youre one of the few people that never believed her and another said, Can you imagine abusing someone and then purposely ruining their reputation by saying they abused you? Can you imagine getting them in legal trouble? Can you imagine being Amber Heard? Many are citing the incident of Depps severed finger where he said he injured himself while filming Pirates of the Caribbean in 2015. He later accused Heard of doing it during their divorce proceedings, while she said he cut it off himself. When the initial claims of abuse came out, people took sides. Some demanded Depp be canceled, and others wanted Heard fired from Aquaman. There were also a group of fans who mentioned Heard was arrested in 2009 for hitting then-girlfriend Tasya Van Ree. The hashtag #JusticeforJohnnyDepp has been trending since Saturday calling for Heard to face justice for admitted abuse and the impact its had on Depps career. Along with protests against Heard, there were campaigns against Depp to have him removed from the Fantastic Beasts franchise. As it stands, the lawsuit will play out in civil court. End times prophecy study: Most pastors dont link world events to speeding up Christ's return Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Though some religious teachers believe global events in the Middle East could fulfill prophecies about the end of the world, pastors are three times more likely to believe evangelism efforts will quicken the return of Jesus Christ, a recent study has found. A study of 1,000 Protestant pastors conducted between Aug. 20, 2019, and Sept. 24, 2019, by LifeWay Research found that church leaders believe Christians can speed up the return of Christ by sharing the Gospel rather than by backing certain geopolitical changes mentioned in biblical prophecy. "While Scripture specifically says we cannot know the day or the hour of Jesus Christ's return, we were interested in pastors' views on whether Christians can play a role in bringing about that return any sooner," LifeWay Research executive director Scott McConnell noted. Just 1 in 8 Protestant pastors (12%) believe Christians can speed up the second coming of Jesus by supporting geopolitical changes mentioned in the Bible, with 5 percent strongly agreeing. Eight in 10 pastors (80%) dont believe their support will have an impact on the timing of Christs return, including 61% who strongly disagree. Interestingly, in 2013, amid escalating conflicts with Syria, a larger percentage of Americans believed it was part of the Bible's plan for the end times. One in four believed that a possible U.S. attack on Syria could lead to the Battle of Armageddon, and one in five believed the world would end in their lifetime. At the time, the survey found that 32% of those polled agreed with the statement, "I believe the battles in Syria are all part of the prophecies of the book of Revelation." Forty-nine percent disagreed. "Almost 1 in 3 saw the conflict as part of the Bible's plan for the end times," the 2013 LifeWay Research study said. "One in 4 thought a U.S. military strike in Syria could lead to Armageddon, and 1 in 5 believed the world would end in their lifetime including 32% of evangelicals." But in the most recent study of Protestant pastors, there was no significant difference between mainline and evangelical pastors regarding their views about international political affairs speeding up the return of Christ, according to Lifeway. In the Great Commission (Matt. 28:19-20), Jesus tells His followers to make disciples of all nations. Lifeway notes that this verse is often understood as a command to spread the faith to all distinct people groups. Previously in Matthews Gospel, Jesus connects this occurring to his second coming. This good news of the kingdom will be proclaimed in all the world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come (Matt. 24:14 CSB). Still, a relatively large minority of pastors see a connection between spreading the Word and when Christ will come back. Close to 2 in 5 (41%) believe Christians can hasten Jesus' Second Coming through world evangelism, while around half (54%) disagree, the study showed. The Great Commission was a task Jesus gave His followers to be doing while He is gone, said McConnell. Four in 10 pastors believe the pace of sharing the message of what Jesus has done will impact the timing of Christs return. Presumably many of those who disagree would assert exclusively divine control over Christs return. However, the majority of Protestant pastors agree immorality will be more common until Jesus returns: Almost 7 in 10 (68%) agreed with the statement culture will increasingly get less moral until Jesus Christ returns, and around a quarter (26%) disagree. Evangelical pastors (80%) are far more likely to agree than mainline pastors (51%). Pastors 45 and older (71%) are more likely to agree than younger pastors (62%). "On the surface, the responses of most pastors could be described as feeling helpless regarding these specific aspects of the future," McConnell concluded. "Yet the persistence of their faith amidst a lack of control points to an even greater level of hope." In general, predictions about the end times tend to be more common among charismatic pastors and church leaders who believe God uses signs and miracles in the modern world. John Hagee, Pat Robertson, and the late Jack Van Impe are among popular pastors who have pointed to recent Middle East conflagrations, such as the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the war in Syria, as fulfilling biblical prophecy of the end times. But conservative pastors and Bible teachers have cautioned against excessive speculation regarding the timing of Jesus Christ's return to Earth. "The Lords people rightly look forward to the Parousia (Second Coming). But I would suggest greater caution because the same sort of comments have been made by prophecy enthusiasts throughout church history," Kenneth R. Samples, the senior research scholar of philosophical and theological apologetics at Reasons to Believe, said. "Many, unfortunately, went further and set dates that were wrong causing nonbelievers to doubt the truth of the Christian faith. Just in the last 50 years alone, several prominent Bible teachers have set dates and acted, in my opinion, eschatologically irresponsible, and evangelical Christianitys credibility suffered because of it," he added. Dr. Floyd Elmore, professor of theology at Southern Evangelical Seminary in Matthews, North Carolina, previously told The Christian Post that is not possible to have absolute certainty on a connection between current events and the Bible's plan for the end times. "Since the Lord said 'no man knows the day or the hour when He comes,' I don't really think that anyone can say with absolute certainty that these specific events are going to lead to the end times Catastrophes," said Elmore. Aside from becoming the number one petrochemicals powerhouse in the Middle East within the next three years, Irans priorities in the current U.S. sanctions environment is to increase its production of gas, particularly from the South Pars field, and of oil, particularly from the West Karoun fields. In both cases, this is partly because of the sheer opportunity available in the resources but partly as well because Iran can use the fact that many of these reservoirs are shared with Iraq to operate largely unfettered by such sanctions. The last major foreign development firms that remain in Iran, principally from China and Russia, in the meantime, are equally keen to obfuscate the extent of their presence in Iran not just by engaging in these shared reservoirs in preference to standalone fields but also by operating where they can as just straightforward contractors, rather than fully-fledged field developers. There are two key reasons for these operations being done more in the shadows than in the limelight. First, is the desire to take a break from the consciousness of the Iranian public following the revelations broken exclusively first in OilPrice.com in the past few months - of the terrible deals for Iran that have been made with those countries. In Russias case, two such deals are the most notable and stand alongside the earliest deals of Saudi Arabia with the Wests Seven Sisters oil firms as being the worst deals ever made in the history of the oil business, as analysed in great depth in my new book on the oil markets. The first was done when it was clear that the U.S. was considering unilaterally pulling out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal in May 2018. At that point, Moscow offered Iran US$50 billion every year for at least five years that would cover all of Irans estimated US$150 billion of costs to bring all of its key oil and gas fields up to Western standard, with US$100 billion left over for the build-out of other key sectors of its economy. Related: Why 2020 Could Be A Record Year For Oil Trading Giants Russia also pledged to veto all attempts in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to have sanctions against Iran increased or to have the terms of the original nuclear deal re-drawn to include further sanctionable actions such as missile testing or not allowing snap inspections of all military facilities. In exchange for this, over and above the added military co-operation (including further listening stations, and Irans purchase of a dated missile system for brand new pricing), Russia was given basically carte blanche over key Iranian oil and gas fields. This included the final say on how much oil was produced from each field, when and to whom it was sold, and for how much. Russia also had the right to be able to buy all of the oil being produced from fields that their companies were supposedly developing at 55-72 percent of its open market value for the next 10 years. As it was, Russia instead turned around and swindled Iran out of trillions of dollars of revenues from its Caspian assets the second terrible deal for Iran - and did not support it at all in the UN. China, in the meantime, was also busy negotiating its own similar deals on other fields in Iran Russia and China, unsurprisingly, work very close together on foreign hydrocarbons and other interests securing various knock-down pricing on South Pars phases and various oil fields. For China, the aim was not just to secure access to a huge oil and gas energy reservoir relatively close by but also to advance the middle section of its multi-generational One Belt, One Road initiative. Given Irans enduring political, economic, and military hold over neighbouring Iraq, by cementing its position in Tehran China tangentially does the same in Baghdad, of course. Following the revelation of these deals, Russia and China took a back step in order to assuage public antagonism to the selling out of Iran amongst the indigenous population but also to try to fly under the radar of the anger-scattergun approach of the U.S. to anything pertaining to Iran since May 2018. This has been achievable partly through using their operations in neighbouring Iraq (both north and south) to move Iran oil and gas out of the country by rebranding it as Iraqi oil and gas, a practice that was perfected during the last period when global sanctions were increased in 2011/12. Partly as well this has been done through avoiding acting as the chief exploration and development firm for oil and gas fields in Iran, according to a senior oil and gas industry source who works closely with Irans Petroleum Ministry. The big Russian and Chinese oil and gas firms that are actually involved have taken cover behind much smaller firms with specific contracts, such as for drilling only, or for field maintenance only, or for parts replacement only and so on and so on, that are either not disclosed or that attract no publicity he told OilPrice.com last week. For example, lets say that a big state-owned Chinese hydrocarbons company wants to continue as the main developer of a particular oil or gas field in Iran without attracting any negative attention from either the Iranian public or the U.S. State Department all it does is get a plausible-sounding Iranian development firm to take over the exploration and development contract in name on a field and then the Iran firm quietly awards a number of very dull-sound and specific contracts to a number of firms virtually no one has heard of all in fact, controlled by the big Chinese firm - and China is back in business as the de facto developer, and thats it, and its the same thing with Russia, he underlined. Related: US Oil Exports Could Explode After Once In A Lifetime Power Shift In China Quite coincidentally, of course, progress on a number of phases in the South Pars gas field and on a number of fields in the West Karoun reservoirs cluster has been going very well even despite the apparent pull back of Chinese and Russian firms in Iran in recent weeks. In the case of the former, the third platform of Phase 14 is now fully set up, under the nominal control of Irans Pars Oil and Gas Company, with the fourth being in the final phase of construction and likely to be fully installed by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (ending on 20 March). In the meantime, Platform 14B has started production in earnest, and is anticipated to produce at least 14.2 million cubic metres per day (mcm/d) of gas from Phase 14 of the supergiant non-associated gas field that is shared by Iran and Qatar in Persian Gulf waters within the next six months. From Platforms A and B, Iran expects to produce at least 28 mcm/d of gas plus 20,000 barrels per day (bpd) of gas condensate and 100 tons per day of sulphur (for petrochemicals use in large part), plus varying quantities of liquefied petroleum gas and ethane per year. Another 28 mcm/d of gas is expected to come from Platforms C and D when they are fully operational, totalling at least 56 mcm/d for Phase 14 as a whole. On the oil side, the Iranian (nominally) operator firm of the Azar oil field - Petroleum Engineering and Development Company (PEDEC) said just recently that several sections of the central processing unit of the project were about to start early production, bringing the fields output to the original (pre-U.S. JCPOA withdrawal) target of 65,000 bpd. Located in Mehran, on the border with Iraq and shared with its Badra field, the Azar fields 65,000 bpd target is just the Phase 1 objective, although making further progress on it will be no easy task, as it is regarded as being the most challenging of all the principal prospects in the Anaran bloc which also includes Changuleh and Dehloran - due to its surface stony ground and condensed reservoir rock. However, Chinese money, equipment, and personnel are being funnelled into this project as it is an important field for Iran because it is shared. Therefore, output can be shielded from the watchful gaze of the U.S. via rebranding as Iraqi and, for China, it was part of a deal agreed way back in 2016 to develop a swathe of Iran fields as part of its overall Iran development plan. Although the next phase of Azars development is not insignificant in itself 100,000 bpd the immediate development package includes the Changuleh and Dehloran fields, in which Russian companies will also be involved, albeit playing second fiddle to Chinas, according to the Iran source. From that point, by which time there may have been a change in U.S. president or at least a weakening of Trumps position in the Senate, China will gradually re-embark on its bigger developments firstly in South Pars Phase 11, then South Azadegan, North Azadegan, and then North and South Yaran, he said. By that point as well, the railway infrastructure build-out which will bring a lot of jobs and money to Iranians will have begun properly, starting with the first phase construction of the Tehran-Qom-Isfahan high-speed train line, he added. By Simon Watkins for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:' Iran's Navy owns epic records after Islamic Revolution, commander says IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Tehran, Feb 1, IRNA -- Navy Commander Rear-Admiral Hossein Khanzadi said on Saturday that the force has had epic records during the four decades after the Islamic Revolution. "The Navy, under the auspices of the Supreme Leader of Islamic Revolution and the Commander in Chief Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, has maintained a brilliant record of epic and supremacy during more than four decades," Khanzadi said in a statement released on the website of Iran's Army. He added that the Navy has brought to climax Iran's self-containment, industrial development and defense depth in different dimensions of power production. Khanzadi made the remarks at the start of the Ten-Day Dawn, which begins with the anniversary of Imam Khomeini's return to Iran form exile (February 1, 1979) and culminates with the anniversary of the victory of the Islamic Revolution on February 11, 1979. The Iranian nation toppled the US-backed Pahlavi regime 41 years ago, ending 2,500 years of monarchy in the country. 9416**1430 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address A majority of Americans believe President Trump abused his power by asking Ukraine to investigate his political opponents and obstructed Congress by withholding documents and executive testimony during the impeachment inquiry, according to an NBC/WSJ poll of 1,000 registered voters. Why it matters: Most Americans believe that the articles of impeachment against Trump are accurate, but they remain divided on whether they justify his removal from office. 46% of voters polled said he should be removed, while 49% said he should remain a similar margin to the results of a December NBC/WSJ poll conducted before the trial. By the numbers: 84% of Democratic voters support Trumps removal from office, while 91% of Republicans oppose it. 45% of independents back removal, and 50% oppose it. 52% of those polled said they believe Trump abused his power by withholding military aid to Ukraine in exchange for investigations into Joe and Hunter Biden. 53% said they believe he obstructed Congress by not cooperating with the impeachment investigation and by ordering government employees to ignore subpoenas. Methodology: This poll was conducted throughout Jan. 2629 of 1,000 registered voters more than half of whom were reached by cellphone and it has an overall margin of error of 3.1 percentage points. Go deeper: The daily highlights from Trump's Senate impeachment trial This is daylight highway robbery of national assets, Sitaram Yechury on Air India returning to Tatas Procurement of expensive aircraft parts to be done after approval of senior official: Air India 4 stopped, 323 Indians including 7 Maldivians evacuated from Wuhan in Air India's 2nd flight India oi-Madhuri Adnal New Delhi, Feb 02: Air India evacuated 323 more Indians from Wuhan in China in its second special flight, which landed at Delhi airport on Sunday morning. Earlier, a special Air India plane carrying 324 Indians landed in the national capital on Saturday. Wuhan is the epicenter of outbreak of novel coronavirus, which has killed more than 300 people in China. An Air India spokesperson said at 9.45 am, "323 passengers were there in the second special flight, which landed at Delhi airport just now." Coronavirus Scare: Army sets up quarantine facility for Indians returning from Wuhan Air India's jumbo B747 made two flights to Wuhan city - the ground zero of the coronavirus epidemic that has killed 305 people. "The 2nd #AirIndia flight from #Wuhan has just taken off for #Delhi with 323 Indian citizens on board. 7 Maldives citizens are also being evacuated. Grateful once again to @MFA_China and local authorities all across #Hubei for their assistance," Indian Ambassador to China Vikram Misri tweeted. "Want to thank my team at @EOIBeijing which mounted a non-stop almost 96-hour long operation to coordinate a complex airlift under challenging circumstances for us, the passengers and local authorities in #Hubei and #Wuhan," he said in another tweet. "A special word of appreciation for two of our officers who are on board the plane - Deepak Padmakumar and M Balakrishnan - they showed exemplary fortitude and a real spirit of public service by travelling to ground zero in #Wuhan to coordinate airport arrangements. Kudos to both," he tweeted. Four Indians could not board the second flight after they reported high temperatures, Misri told PTI. The first flight left early Saturday with 324 stranded Indians mostly students from Wuhan. Officials said that six Indians could not board the first flight as they were stopped by the Chinese immigration officials after they reported high temperature. The Indian Army has set up a quarantine facility in Manesar near Delhi to keep those evacuated from China's Hubei province. Coronavirus: People who do not show symptoms, may still spread infection Officials said they would be monitored for any signs of infection for a duration of two weeks by a qualified team of doctors and staff members. The death toll from the novel coronavirus outbreak in China has risen to 305 with total confirmed cases surging to 14,380 amid stepped up efforts by a number of countries to evacuate their nationals from Hubei province, the epicentre of the virus, officials said on Saturday. Air India has done such evacuations earlier also from countries such as Libya, Iraq, Yemen, Kuwait and Nepal. It was around 2pm on an otherwise ordinary Sunday afternoon when the Streatham attacker began his bloody rampage. In the Life Cafe, diners enjoying lunch were oblivious to the terror until a police officer burst in. He shouted: 'We've got to evacuate. There's been a terrorist incident... If you want to stay safe, you'll listen to me.' Witnesses said the terror began when the attacker, later revealed to be 20-year-old Sudesh Amman, walked into the Low Price hardware store before choosing his deadly weapon, said to be a 3.99 kitchen knife In the Life Cafe, diners enjoying lunch were oblivious to the terror until a police officer burst in. Asked by a waitress if they could have half-an-hour to finish their meals, his response was clear: 'Madam, a terrorist has been shot dead just down there' Asked by a waitress if they could have half-an-hour to finish their meals, his response was clear: 'Madam, a terrorist has been shot dead just down there. 'They've got a possible IED vest on them, which is a bomb. If you want to stay open for half-an-hour and you want to put people's lives in danger, be my guest.' Outside the horror was clear to see. The terrorist had been shot dead outside a Boots chemists after a team of undercover officers brandishing handguns swooped. Filmed by a bystander from a passing bus, shocking footage shows the men in jeans, trainers and hoodies pointing their firearms at the attacker's convulsing body. A team of five anti-terror police stand behind shields while responding to the incident One of the officers kicks away a knife on the pavement before backing off. A third officer skids on to the scene on a blue motorbike while another ushers onlookers away from the scene shouting: 'Get away.' As the bus drives on, it passes two victims lying on the pavement. Two innocent bystanders, a man and a woman, had been stabbed in broad daylight in front of dozens of horrified onlookers on one of south London's busiest shopping streets. Next to one victim, a pushchair was abandoned on the pavement as members of the public desperately tried to give first aid. A police officer next to a blue motorbike, with the terrorist's body seen on the floor (bottom) A police officer stands in the road with a gun during the terrorist attack in London yesterday It was around 2pm on an otherwise ordinary Sunday afternoon when the Streatham attacker began his bloody rampage. The Life Cafe is pictured above Fearing an explosion from the attacker's 'suicide vest', dozens of shoppers had been ordered to take shelter behind the closed shutters of Boots and a WHSmith store. Families in a nearby Odeon cinema were interrupted mid-way through their films and evacuated by police. Witnesses said the terror began when the attacker, later revealed to be 20-year-old Sudesh Amman, walked into the Low Price hardware store before choosing his deadly weapon, said to be a 3.99 kitchen knife. Shopkeeper Jagmon Singh watched Amman, dressed in a grey tracksuit and a black and grey top, pluck the knife off the shelf and unpeel the packaging. Maybe believing him to be a shoplifter, he tried to wrestle it off him. 'The shopkeeper tried to get the knife from him but he got away and stabbed a woman on a bicycle,' said a nurse who saw the horror. 'The knife was really big.' The female victim, said to be in her 40s, was stabbed along with a man outside the neighbouring White Lion pub. Firearms team crashes on the way to the scene: Officers stand by the crumpled wreck of unmarked police BMW after it hit wall in Streatham Common yesterday A horrified witness is pictured above at the attack scene in Streatham. Witnesses told how the attacker was felled by up to four gun shots which made shoppers flee Witnesses said the terror began when the attacker, later revealed to be 20-year-old Sudesh Amman, walked into the Low Price hardware store before choosing his deadly weapon, said to be a 3.99 kitchen knife As the attacker lay 'convulsing and twitching' on the floor, officers cautiously approached and kicked his knife away The terrorist had been shot dead outside a Boots chemists after a team of undercover officers brandishing handguns swooped. The terrorist is pictured wearing a fake suicide vest, left, and brandishing a knife, right Mechanical engineer Nardos Mulugeta, 52, saw the injured man outside the pub and said police arrived almost immediately. 'I saw a guy lying down in front of the pub with stab wounds across his stomach,' he told the Daily Mail. 'About ten minutes later, a woman came in and said she had also been stabbed. I had ran over because I was smoking further down the road and heard a shot. 'At first I thought it might have been a car backfiring. Then I heard three or four further shots. People were running so I went to investigate. That's when I saw a guy on the floor next to the pub. He had very bad injuries to his stomach. 'He was going pale. People were saying 'Stay with us' and talking to him. Then another woman came and knelt at the Low Price Store. 'She said, 'He stabbed me in the back'. Two people started helping her. A policeman came and asked if any other people had been stabbed.' Comedian David Chawner, 31, was on his way to the Odeon when he saw two police officers in plain clothes pointing firearms at the attacker outside Boots, around 300ft from the Low Price Store. Fearing an explosion from the attacker's 'suicide vest', dozens of shoppers had been ordered to take shelter behind the closed shutters of Boots and a WHSmith store. Police are pictured above patrolling near the scene 'I ran to the other side of the road where I saw a white, possibly European victim on the ground, bleeding from the lower abdomen,' he said. 'I tried to compress the bleeding. I ran off as instructed to flag down the ambulance.' Shockingly, Mr Chawner said it took more than 30 minutes for paramedics to arrive. 'I'm shaking. I'm still in shock,' he added. Witnesses told how the attacker was felled by up to four gun shots which made shoppers flee. Daniel Gough said he ran with them, adding: 'There was panic, people were yelling. A young girl running alongside me kept asking 'Is this what I'm meant to do?' She was very distressed. After a few minutes, I went back and saw a policeman and he yelled, telling everyone to get back. 'His gun was pointing in the direction of a man on the floor. Suddenly, more police appeared. There were [officers] everywhere.' As the attacker lay 'convulsing and twitching' on the floor, officers cautiously approached and kicked his knife away. To their horror, they saw a suspected suicide vest strapped to his stomach. Video shows the officers quickly retreating before evacuating nearby buildings. Richard Mustonen-Smith, 59, a pastor at the Ascension Trust, said: 'My grandson was in the Odeon and they got told to go out the back because there was a bomb. 'When it's your family, you don't expect it. You're always worried about your family being on the streets but this is even worse.' Witnesses told how the attacker was felled by up to four gun shots which made shoppers flee. Forensic officers are pictured on Streatham High Road last night Retired accountant John Woods, 64, was in a Wetherspoon's pub when people ran inside following the sound of gunfire. 'I went outside and it was obvious they were undercover police,' he said. 'There were a number of men armed but wearing normal clothes. From when I heard the shots and walked to the door, the police were already there. They must have been following him. There were black cars stopped.' Dozens of emergency vehicles raced to the area and an air ambulance landed on nearby Tooting Bec Common. Last night forensic officers were combing the scene. Many residents who had been evacuated were told it would be hours before they could go home. The London Ambulance Service said the first paramedics arrived at the scene four minutes after being called just before 2pm. As the claim by the presidency that President Muhammadu Buhari is fighting insecurity better than previous governments continues to generate controversy among Nigerians, two persons were on Saturday killed in Kaduna State by their abductors. The two victims are 18-year-old seminarian Michael Nnadi and the wife of a Kaduna-based medical doctor, Philip Ataga. Their bodies were found by the roadside on Saturday. According to reports, Mr Nnadi was kidnapped on January 8 while Mrs Ataga suffered the same fate on January 24 in Chikun LGA, Kaduna state. Before she was killed, her abductors requested a N150 million ransom for the release of Mrs Ataga and her two children abducted with her. The bandits killed Mrs. Ataga, dumped her corpse and called her husband and directed him to pick the corpse at a particular location, The Cable newspaper reported. Meanwhile, the kidnappers are still requesting a N20 million ransom for the release of the two children. Mr Nnadi was kidnapped alongside three other seminarians. They are Pius Kanwai, Peter Umenukor and, Stephen Amos from The Good Shepherd Major Seminary, Kaduna. While the other three were released on Friday, Mr Nnadis corpse was found on Saturday. At the current toll of 3,066 Trinidad and Tobago now has the highest number of Covid-19 deaths in the Caricom region, both numerically and number of deaths per million people. This unenviable standing could quickly change, depending on when new variants take hold and the impact they have on any given country. Great Wall Motors is one of the leading car makers from China. The company is all set to make India debut next week at Auto Expo. After seeing the success achieved by new entrants like Kia and MG Motor in 2020 more new players plan to enter the Indian auto industry in 2020. One of them is Great Wall Motors from China. The company is scheduled to unveil its products in the country for the first time at the 2020 Auto Expo. However, ahead of the event, few cars from Great Wall Motors have been spotted in Delhi NCR. The spyshots cover 3 cars from GWMs Haval brand. While one is totally covered, two of the others can be spotted clearly. Unsurprisingly, both the cars are SUV, which is very well justified considering the SUV frenzy of Indian car buyers. The orange car in the spyshots is the Haval F5, which is a compact SUV which has been on the production run since 2018. The Chinese-spec version draws power from a 1.5 liter 4-cylinder turbo petrol engine which dishes out 169hp. The engine comes mated to a 7-speed dual clutch transmission. The SUV shares its platform with Havals H6 and WEY VV5 (WEY is another sub brand of Great Wall Motors). The red car in the spyshots is the Haval F7 which is positioned above the Haval F5. It had made its debut at the 2018 Moscow International Motor Show post which deliveries had commenced in China by November 2018. It had made its first global appearance in concept form at the 2017 Auto Shanghai as Haval HB-03. The SUV shares its platform with the WEY VV6 (positioned above the WEY VV5). The F7 shares its engine lineup with the F5, which includes the 1.5 litre turbo petrol and a more powerful 2 litre turbo petrol. At the 2020 Auto Expo, GWM will unveil the Vision 2025 Concept, which will be a battery electric vehicle. Apart from Vision 2025, GWM will be showcasing multiple products from its global portfolio. Considering the spyshots, we are confident that both F7 and F5 will also be present at the stall. Talking about GWM, it has a very strong presence in Chinese SUV market. The company has aggressive plans for India and that is the reason it has purchased GMs old facility near Pune. They will be starting their Indian operations soon with this brownfield facility. Japan destroyer heads to Middle East as Iran-US tension lingers Tokyo, Feb 2 (AFP) Feb 02, 2020 Japan sent a naval destroyer to the Middle East on Sunday for a rare overseas mission to ensure the safety of its ships amid lingering tension between Iran and the US. The vessel left the Yokosuka naval base, south of Tokyo, for an information gathering mission in the Gulf of Oman, northern parts of the Arabian Sea and parts of the Gulf of Aden. Japan earlier decided not to take part in the US-led Operation Sentinel to protect shipping routes in the region. "Securing safety of vessels related to Japan is an important duty of the government," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told the crew members of the 4,650-ton ship -- the Takanami -- as it readied to leave port. Energy-poor Japan has traditionally enjoyed warm ties with Middle Eastern countries, including Iran, as the world's third largest economy relies heavily on energy from the resource-rich region. Abe has held a series of meetings with Middle Eastern leaders over the last year, including Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani, in an attempt to calm the soaring tension between Washington and Tehran. The naval destroyer will join two Japanese surveillance patrol airplanes that have been operating in the region as part of the same mission. 1. Yes. The downtown area needs a good draw. Some quality taverns would be a plus. 2. Yes. Too many storefronts are vacant. Bars could help to bring in needed revenue. 3. No. Putting a number of bars downtown is just asking for trouble. Dont change things. 4.No. Several churches have located downtown. Putting bars close by would be a bad fit. 5. Unsure. It would depend on how the law is written and what standards are enacted. Vote View Results Champaign, IL (61820) Today Mostly clear this evening then becoming cloudy after midnight. Low 27F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Mostly clear this evening then becoming cloudy after midnight. Low 27F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. A woman who threw a knife into her husband's chest and killed him after he arrived home late from work has appealed her nine-year manslaughter sentence. Katie Anne Castel, 38, killed her husband Jarred Castel, 35, at their house in Chapel Hill, in Brisbane, in 2017. The couple got into a heated argument when Mr Castel arrived home two hours later than expected. Mr Castel, who worked in the property industry, was caught up at his office while trying to close a business deal. Katie Anne Castel, 38, pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of her husband Jarred Castel, 35, who died at their home in Chapel Hill, in Brisbane, in 2017 The couple got into a heated argument after Mr Castel arrived home from work two hours later than expected Mrs Castel slit her wrists with a 20cm knife before throwing it at her husband while their four-year-old son Levi watched on. The knife lodged 4cm into Mr Castel's chest and hit his heart. Mrs Castel, who owned fashion business Adverbium Design, was sentenced to nine years behind bars in 2019. But she has now lodged an appeal to the Queensland Court of Appeal, claiming her sentence is manifestly excessive. The stabbing death left the couple's son without parents to look after him. Mr Castel's father Tony Castel said his daughter-in-law's last ditch appeal is stopping the family from moving on with their lives. Castel slit her wrists with a 20cm knife before throwing it at her husband Jarred (pictured), while their four-year-old son Levi watched on 'We are totally excluded from the process. Legally, it's got nothing to do with us. It's between the State and her but everything that happens, we're affected. I'm the administrator for the estate,' he told the Courier Mail. 'Our lives are on hold but the bank still wants money and we can't do anything until this is all over.' In March last year, Mrs Castel sent her former parents-in-law bizarre religious letters from her jail cell. The letters lasted 12 pages and Mrs Castel touched on religious teachings and her experience of being imprisoned. 'The night I lost Jarred they put me in the Brisbane Watchhouse - it was truly the bowels of hell, a concrete cell with a tiny window I couldn't see out of, graffiti on every inch, no underwear and a couple of plastic-covered cushions,' she wrote. The mother-of-one went on to claim she was a 'novelty' in jail and she was 'the only one as far as the eye can see who doesn't have a drug charge'. The letters also told her husband's parents to 'rest in Jesus', and quoted a Bible passage saying: 'He who is forgiven much, loves much'. Mrs Castel penned a similar letter to Justice Jean Dalton, in an attempt to explain who she is as a person. 'I hope these thoughts will give you some understanding of who I am as a person, how sorry I am and how my husband's death has affected my life,' she wrote. 'I feel deeply the shame of being a prisoner. It is utterly demoralising and demonising to be inherently mistrusted, to have your individuality ignored, and be herded and lined up and counted like livestock every day.' When a blast from the manufacturing plant behind her home blew out her windows and the ceiling began to collapse, Angeline Garza, 65, didnt have time to think. She dashed up the stairs to her daughter and grandchildren, and the four of them stumbled to safety through glass and debris. It was only then that the questions began. How am I going to how are we going to do this? she asked herself. Garza was one of more than 500 homeowners and renters who had filed insurance claims as of Wednesday, as those impacted by the Jan. 24 explosion at Watson Grinding & Manufacturing on Gessner Road in west Houston scrambled to assess their losses and coverage. While city officials estimated 450 single-family homes were damaged by the disaster, insurance claims, which also cover renters and condo owners, suggested more families were impacted. So many homes were damaged as a result of the explosion, which claimed two lives, that major insurance agencies brought in special teams of catastrophe adjusters from around the state to inspect the damage. On HoustonChronicle.com: Watson CEO said he would repair Houston-area homes damaged in Gessner explosion then walked it back The Insurance Council of Texas said it was too soon to estimate the total damage from the explosion, but even when they do, it will only encompass the damage assessed on behalf of insurance agencies. Left out of the calculation are those who were not covered by insurance or whose older policies covered only a fraction of the damage incurred. More than half of the homeowners in the ZIP code had already paid off their mortgages, according to the real estate data company CoreLogic; such households are not required to have home insurance. Garza, who is among those who are covered, stood last week in the heart of her broken home as Ozzie Giles, an adjuster who worked the aftermath of the TCP chemical plant explosion in Port Neches, measured rooms with a laser. Garza had been downstairs, about to feed her dogs, when she saw the sky light up and the window glass fly toward her. I was so happy here, she said, as Giles, who works for her insurance company, State Farm, reviewed the house. My grandkids, they were born here, all three of them. And my neighbors, I knew all of them. Dont give up on that yet, said Dean Crane, the claims team manager who was explaining her coverage. Youll get it back. Saving money Van Nguyen, who lived just down the street from Garza, has no such reassurances. She opted out of insurance because a relative had lived in the area for 30 years without incident. The Westbranch neighborhood did not flood during Hurricane Harvey. I should have had it, she said. But I was thinking: Save money. Nguyen, 30, started saving to buy a home even before moving to America from Vietnam, because she had heard the high housing costs could make life here difficult during hard times. After moving to Houston, she held two waitressing jobs and worked at a senior assisted living facility, pulling 90-hour weeks without weekends with the goal of buying a house. In 2015, she paid for her home in cash, avoiding the fees, interest and insurance required with a mortgage. Without a monthly housing payment, she was able to drop two jobs and begin taking classes to become a radiology technician. Breaking News: Get email alerts from Chron.com sent directly to your inbox I did things backwards, she said. Most people go to school, then get a job and buy a house. She was working the night shift when the explosion buckled her garage door and cracked the walls. Nguyen had no idea anything was wrong until she called her aunt it was the morning before the Lunar New Year, and she wanted to see if her aunt needed help preparing. Her aunt said something was wrong the windows had shattered and Nguyen searched the internet for an explanation. She quickly found a nightmarish video of her neighborhood alongside news of an explosion. I saw my neighbor crying, she said. At that moment, I knew my house was ruined. When she first stepped into her house, Nguyen wondered if she was in a war zone. She called her big yellow dog, Humphrey, and he didnt respond. He had gone deaf from the explosion. After receiving a $250,000 quote for repairs, Nguyen has pushed her home from her mind. Im not thinking about it, she said. I need a place to live. I need my routine. Lengthy process Eric Dick, a home insurance lawyer Nguyen has hired to try to receive compensation from Watson Grinding and Manufacturing, said that within six days of the explosion he had received roughly 70 calls since the disaster. Many are in relation to personal injuries. A handful, like Nguyen, had paid off their mortgages and did not have insurance. Another handful were underinsured, with policies worth less than the extent of the damages. For example, one client, on the same street as Garza and Nguyen, was insured for $55,000, Dick said. He estimated the repairs would cost more than $150,000. Its an older neighborhood, Dick said. So youll have a lot of people who have paid off their mortgages and they dont need insurance, or they have had a policy for a long time and they havent adjusted it. For those with insurance, the wrangling over claims could take weeks. Giles, the State Farm adjuster, explained that those with insurance claims could expect an estimate within a week of adjusters coming to view the property. But homes as damaged as Garzas require an engineer to assess structural damage. That could add another two to three weeks to the process. A crack ran from the ceiling fan above Garzas head to the corner of the living room, where a deflated balloon with the words Happy New Year! wavered near the ceiling. But as she listened to Crane explain her options, relief spread across her face. He said State Farm would cover additional living expenses, such as rent and new furniture, while the family was displaced, something she had not expected. This is the first time Ive smiled in a while, Garza said. For those without insurance, the future is much less certain. Lawsuits can take years to resolve. Im worried, Nguyen said. What if the company doesnt pay? Ill go back to zero. rebecca.schuetz@chron.com twitter.com/raschuetz Former governor of Anambra state, Peter Obi says living in Nigeria is the biggest threat to ones life. Obi said this while responding to questions during an interview with a national daily. Asked if he has had a near-death experience, Obi said: What is more threatening to someone than living in Nigeria? We live under constant threats here. Speaking on his journey in business, Obi said business came to him naturally because he was born into it. He said both of his parents were both business people. He said he was born with a silver spoon but the civil war and the death of his father when he was six years old, took both the silver and the spoon. There was a silver spoon when my father was alive and doing well but the civil war came and took both the silver and the spoon leaving my mother and us toiling to meet our needs. One of the good things the war did not take away was the roof over our heads. My mother a wonderful woman she was struggled to see us through and guided us along the path of growth; a strong influence which I have imparted to my children, he said. Commenting on his relationship with women, Obi said he relates with the female gender as friends and partners. He said that he does not agree that women throw themselves at men, rather it is men that take advantage of their relationship with women. I believe one of the major problems of this country is not allowing women to take their rightful place and not investing enough in them, he said. As Governor, my administration accorded them a decent place in the civil service, political appointments, education, health and other human services. Among others, at a time, my Chief of Staff was a woman. I do not believe that women throw themselves at anybody; it is the men that take advantage of them. Women are wonderful people and we should not exploit them. Young women come to me every day with one problem or the other; and God forbid that I should exploit them. The vice-presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2019 election further said that he is allergic to wasting money. Describing the type of wedding he had, Obi said he did the traditional wedding in Nigeria and had the church wedding in London with less than 50 guests. I have always told you, in my life, I have an allergy to money being wrongly spent. I undertook the traditional wedding quietly and later had the Church wedding in London with 35-40 guests at the reception. We agreed that it was mainly about two of us and no amount of Champagne would make us better husband and wife? When I see Nigerians own houses in New York, Abuja, Lagos, Johannesburg, London, France, here and there some of which they rarely occupy I wonder what they hope to do with all of them. What are you going to do with them? I have a house in Onitsha and was urged to have one in the village, I simply responded No, because it is 10-minute drive from Onitsha to my village. If my presence in the village is required, I will be there in time. He said that however, unlike him, my wife enjoys life a lot. Police are appealing for a woman who helped a sexual assault victim in the early hours of Sunday morning to come forward. A 23-year-old woman was assaulted by a man in the public toilet in Bankmore Square in Belfast city centre at around 2.15am. A short time after the incident a 23-year-old man was arrested and remains in custody at present. The woman police wish to speak to assisted the victim immediately after the attack. It is believed she used the victim's phone to call police. Detective Sergeant Nick Harris asked the woman to come forward. We would like to hear from the individual who approached the young woman and assisted her. You may have information that could assist us," he said. "The Dublin Road/Bankmore Square area would also have been busy at that time and I would also appeal to anyone who was in the area and who may have seen something that could help the investigation to please call 101, quoting reference 275 02/02/20. The former head of Iran's Drug Control Headquarters (DCH), Ali Hashemi, has confirmed that "dirty money" has had a role in deciding the country's parliamentary elections. The issue was initially raised five years ago by the Minister of Interior, Abdol-Reza Rahmani Fazli. "A part of the dirty money collected in the narcotics market and drug smuggling resurfaces on the political stage, through financial support to candidates, and for urging members of parliament to endorse some particular bills and motions," Rahmani Fazli had divulged. Speaking to the state-run Iran Labor News Agency (ILNA), on Saturday, the head of Iran's Drug Control Headquarters (DCH) in the government of former President Mohammad Khatami (1997-2005) insisted that under a barrage of criticism from lawmakers, Rahmani Fazli had been forced to take back his comments. "Investigating the wealth of a detained international drug smuggler verified the fact that some of his dirty money was directed toward several members of Majles (Iranian parliament)," Ali Hashemi disclosed, without further elaboration. The narcotics Mafia, Hashemi asserted, can easily win a parliamentary seat for a candidate in some of the smaller cities by spending $300,000. Earlier, in September 2019, the Guardian Council's (GC) spokesman, Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei, also admitted that "dirty money" had played a crucial role in elections in many constituencies across Iran. "Better laws are required to address the problem of dirty money in deciding elections," Kadkhodaei insisted. Three days later, the 91-year-old chairman of the GC, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, also affirmed, "Several people are seeking parliamentary seats through spending dirty money, while such crime is the GC's red line." Nonetheless, neither Jannati, nor Kadkhodaei defined what is dirty money or disclosed the details of the GC's plan to eliminate its role in elections, and why the problem had been ignored in the past. The 12-member GC, which is empowered to vet legislation and oversee elections, is made up of religious jurists and lawyers and, in many ways, acts as an upper legislative body in the Islamic Republic establishment. The Islamic Republic has not joined the international conventions to combat money laundering. At the same time, a local bill on financial transparency has also been shelved. The eleventh Islamic Parliament elections in Iran will be held on February 21, 2020. By Engen Tham and Josh Horwitz SHANGHAI, Feb 1 (Reuters) - Expatriates are leaving coronavirus-hit China - and not just from the outbreak epicentre in Wuhan - as worries about their children take hold and private health care facilities start turning away the feverish. Some foreigners also fear being trapped indefinitely as airlines cancel flights and countries quarantine or limit entry for people who have recently set foot in the country, according to interviews with eight people who are or were based in four Chinese cities. A growing number of governments are urging their citizens not to travel to China and the United Kingdom said on Saturday its embassy and consulates in the country will maintain only a skeleton staff. "It may be increasingly difficult for those who wish to leave China to do so, and there is a growing risk of UK nationals being unable to access medical care as hospitals become overwhelmed," the British embassy said on Saturday. The virus, declared a global emergency by the World Health Organization (WHO) on Thursday, has killed 259 people and spread to some two dozen countries, although the vast majority of those known to be infected are in China. Expat chatgroups are alight with exchanges on the pros and cons of leaving, and tips on visas. "Wouldn't go if we didn't have kid," Russian expat Maria Arkhangelskaya, who has a 20-month-old daughter and left Shanghai for Thailand on Thursday, said via WeChat. Meanwhile, many of the costly private clinics catering to foreigners have started to turn people with fevers away, raising concerns among the expat community they would have to rely on local facilities if they needed medical care. "I don't want to go to the local hospital with a sore throat only to catch something else," said Czech national Veronika Krubner in Tianjin, who is considering leaving the country with her 21-month-old daughter. Private clinic Raffles in Beijing will take the temperature of patients on entry and suspected virus cases will be referred to public fever clinics, a person answering the appointments hotline said. Story continues People manning the appointment lines at private practices Parkway Health and Ferguson in Shanghai said the government had instructed them not to accept patients with a high temperature, and that they should be referred to public fever clinics. Private clinic Jiahui Health said in a January 24 text message to patients in Shanghai that it cannot screen for the virus and those who have a fever of over 37.8 degrees Celsius (100 Fahrenheit) should go to a public facility designated for treating fever patients. Visiting a public hospital in China can mean first waiting in line to get a ticket to see a doctor, only to wait in an another hours-long queue before being seen, and language is a barrier for non-Chinese speakers. Harrowing scenes of panicked crowds in Wuhan hospitals have circulated on social media. One U.S. citizen who is based in Shanghai and asked not to be identified said he flew home to California last week. "I'm not worried so much about the virus as I am about being forced to go to a Chinese hospital simply for having a fever," he said. Over 900,000 foreigners were living in China last year, according to a January 2019 report in the official China Daily. GROUNDING FEARS The WHO has praised China for its response to the outbreak thus far. Many areas of China have extended the Lunar New Year holiday through Feb 9, and companies have curtailed business travel. There is "no business to do in China for at least two weeks," said Louis-Olivier Roy, a Canadian business-owner based in the southern city of Dongguan who decided on Tuesday to return home temporarily. "I was planning to travel around for work but obviously can't for a while," he said. As airlines cancel flights, many expats are trying to get away, afraid of being effectively stranded in the country. The United States, Australia and Singapore have barred entry to foreigners who have recently been in China. "If the problem got severe enough I might not be able to make it back to America," said another American, who flew home on Jan 24 to avoid the possibility of mass flight cancellations. VIRUS FATIGUE As anxiety rises, demand for emotional support is soaring. "People are really scared," said Emanuele Gatti, a counselling psychologist based in the southern city of Shenzhen. After sending out a flyer for an online coronavirus support group for those suffering "severe anxiety and isolation" on Wednesday, he was inundated with requests on Thursday. "I am receiving 1 friendship request per minute," he said on Thursday. While some turn to online help, others are still trying to decide whether to stay or go. "Everyone is going and I just get messages asking me if I've booked my flight yet," said Han Lili, a British national living in Shanghai. (Reporting by Engen Tham, Josh Horowitz and David Stanway in Shanghai, Muyu Xu in Beijing and Ben Blanchard in Taipei Editing by Tony Munroe and Lincoln Feast.) DMK president M K Stalin on Sunday launched a 'one crore signature campaign' against the Citizenship Amendment Act, the National Register of Citizens and the National Population Register here. Launching the drive in which his party-led coalition partners, including the Congress, Left parties, IUML and MDMK are also taking part, Stalin slammed the Centre for "beginning work" for the NRC and NPR like it passed the CAA in Parliament. "Sometimes we are confused about our own date of birth. When this is the case, a situation has now come about in which details about older generations like our father and grandfather are sought," he claimed. Though Opposition parties had all along opposed the CAA and other aspects like the citizenship register, the Central government has, however, turned a deaf ear to it, he said. Home Minister Amit Shah "autocratically" declared that the Citizenship law will be implemented and Prime Minister Narendra Modi too echoed the view, the DMK leader said. "CAA must be repealed and initiatives related to both the NPR and NRC must not be taken up and these are the campaign objectives and this drive will emerge victorious," he said. Stalin, also the leader of opposition in the Tamil Nadu assembly, strongly criticised the ruling AIADMK for supporting the CAA and said the signature drive has been launched following several forms of protests like demonstrations. Wearing a "No to CAA NPR NRC," tag, the top DMK leader affixed his signature to kick start the campaign in his Kolathur Assembly constituency here. The drive, with participation from his party and allies will be held across the State and volunteers will go door to door and get people's signatures after explaining the reasons, he said. After completing the exercise by February 10, Members of Parliament belonging to his party and allies will submit it to President Ram Nath Kovind and through it "a solution will come for this problem," Stalin said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) It was a nearly full house for the third annual Founders Day celebration on Saturday afternoon at the old Henry County Courthouse in uptown Martinsville as three speakers recognized the importance of the furniture industry in Henry County. Those in the audience stood up as the names of furniture companies past and present were read aloud including Bassett Furniture, Stanley Furniture, Hooker, American, Pulaski, Gravely, Ridgeway Clocks, Martinsville Novelty, Shenandoah Furniture and Henry County Plywood. Some stood up more than once. Back in the heyday, it was not uncommon for a person to leave one factory in the morning and be at work in another by the evening, said Martinsville-Henry County Historical Society board member Glenn Wood. Barry Dorsey, retired president of New College Institute and board member of the historical society, said the Martinsville and Henry County area had been through three economic transformations. First was tobacco, then furniture, then textiles, said Dorsey. Textiles ended in 1979. Bassett Furniture Industries senior vice president and chief operating officer Jeb Bassett presented a history of his company. The facts I have are based on living it. Im in my early 60s, dinner talk with family and research. Bassett started by referencing Thomas Bassett who he said immigrated to Virginia in the 1630s. Col. William Bassett settled New Kent County in 1764. After the Revolutionary War Burwell Bassett bought a tract of land from Col. George Hairston in 1790. By 1866 the land had become the Bassett family farm. When the railroad began securing right-of-way to build a tracks connecting Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and Roanoke, the Bassetts gave permission to build through the middle of the family farm. With transportation no longer an issue, a furniture dynasty was born. Bassett Furniture survived the Depression and two world wars, but no one in the business went unscathed by the free trade agreements of the 90s. In 1995 I took my first trip to Asia, Bassett said. We visited Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Hong Kong and China. It was a changing business environment. We went from manufacturing to importing. During the early 2000s, Bassett said, most of their furniture was made in China, Philippines, Thailand or Vietnam and was shipped to the West Coast or through the Panama Canal to Norfolk for distribution. For a while over 50% of everything we sold was imported. Today 77% of everything we ship is made in the USA either in Bassett, Martinsville, Newtown, North Carolina or Grand Prairie, Texas. Bassett Furniture senior systems designer Andy Doss describes himself as a local historian and researcher. He talked about the people behind the machines in the factories. The stories of getting your fingers cut off were true, said Doss. It was a badge of honor if you did. Typical machines used by furniture makers included the band saw, sprayer, drill press, bench grinder, jointer, wood lathe, mortise, moulder, table saw and tenoner. People would get into arguments near-to-blows over how you spelled the moulder or pronounced the tenoner, said Doss. The furniture workers were hard working, determined and set an example we should never forget, he said. Today we pay tribute to those who ran those machines, sweated, cried and bled. They left a legacy to which we can all claim an inheritance. Bill Wyatt is a reporter for the Martinsville Bulletin. He can be reached at 276-638-8801, Ext. 236. Follow him @billdwyatt Bill Wyatt is a reporter for the Martinsville Bulletin. He can be reached at 276-638-8801, Ext. 236. Follow him @billdwyatt Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sun, February 2, 2020 15:50 708 7f440ff09e92db75a02bbad206222dc5 1 Books Gundala,Bumilangit,Gundala-Putera-Petir,Bumilangit-Universe,comic-book,comic-artists Free Fresh off the runaway success of Joko Anwars homegrown superhero blockbuster Gundala, the Bumilangit Cinematic Universe is set to return to its comic book roots with the release of Gundala Destiny: the Official Movie Adaptation. The English-language comic book, launched in cooperation with Japan-based producer Shogakukan Asia, is now available for purchase in Indonesia, as well as neighboring Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei Darussalam. Gundala Destiny will also be made available in other Southeast Asian countries soon. Gundala Comic Go SEA and International! Bumilangit bersama Shogakukan Asia dengan bangga mempersembahkan showcase dari talenta komik terbaik Indonesia dalam komik Gundala Movie Adaptation - Destiny#BumilangitBanggaKaryaIndonesia! pic.twitter.com/aIQQwHsxfT Bumilangit (@bumilangitcom) February 1, 2020 Read also: Three fun facts about Joko Anwar's 'Gundala' The partnership will hopefully open doors for other IPs [intellectual properties] managed under the Bumilangit banner to reach new audiences in Southeast Asia and other regions. We are proud to have teamed up with Shogakukan Asia, for showcasing the best Indonesian comic artists, said Bumilangit founder and chief executive officer (CEO) Bismarka Kurniawan in a statement received by The Jakarta Post on Sunday. Shogakukan Asia CEO Bunshio Kajiya said he was thankful for the collaboration with Bumilangit and that the company was looking forward to holding future partnerships with Indonesian talents. Gundala Destiny, which is the English version of the original Indonesian-language Gundala Takdir graphic novel released in August 2019, is written by Oyasujiwo based on the screenplay by Joko, with art by Ardian Syaf (pencil), Ecky (ink) and Doni Cahyono (colors). Gundala Takdir is said to be a bestseller and its fourth edition is currently in circulation in the national market. Chronicling the myth of the original Indonesian superhero, Gundala Destiny recreates the events seen in the 2019 blockbuster hit that sees protagonist Sancaka struggle to embrace his role as the peoples savior as he uncovers a sinister plot concocted by criminal mastermind Pengkor. Another homegrown pop-cultural sensation, The Raid 2: Berandal, also previously received the comic book treatment with an all-new story, launched in partnership with British comic publisher Titan Comics in 2018. (rfa/kes) (Bloomberg) -- Joe Biden is opening a daunting lead over the rest of the field in the March 3 Texas primary, but his advantage has slipped in South Carolina, where the primary later this month is crucial for his campaign, according to two polls released Sunday. The former vice president leads Senator Bernie Sanders, his closest competitor, in Texas by 17 points in a poll by the Dallas Morning News and the University of Texas at Tyler. The good news for Biden in one of the biggest Super Tuesday states was tempered by results of a Charleston Post and Courier poll in South Carolina. His lead there ahead of the Feb. 29 primary has slipped to a mere 5 points over Sanders, after having been as large as 31 points last May in the newspapers poll. South Carolina is supposed to be Bidens firewall, giving him a reliable tranche of delegates after harder-fought contests in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada. Taken together, the two poll results suggest that Biden could face a more complicated path to the nomination. Results of later primaries are likely to be influenced by the results of earlier ones, so South Carolina is seen as a key momentum-builder going into delegate-rich states like Texas and California. Bidens strength in the Palmetto State is based largely on his support from African-American Democrats, who view him fondly for his role as President Barack Obamas running mate. Now, African-American voters in South Carolina have begun to look at alternatives. Biden has 30% support among African-Americans, down from 50% last year. Billionaire Tom Steyer is at 24% among those voters; Sanders is at 16%. Super Tuesday The timing of the South Carolina primary is critical, coming three days before Texas and 15 other Super Tuesday primaries that will award more than a third of the delegates to the Democratic National Convention. The Texas poll released Sunday shows Biden at 35%, followed by Senator Bernie Sanders at 18%. Senator Elizabeth Warren and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg have 16% each. Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News. He is not competing in South Carolina. In Texas its Hispanic and African-American voters helping to give Biden a boost: 50% of African-American Democrats in Texas support him, as do 33% of Hispanics. Texas is the third largest delegate prize on the Democratic calendar. And although Democrats use proportional representation to award delegates, Bidens large margin could give him the overwhelming majority of the states 228 delegates. The margins of error are 4 percentage points in the South Carolina poll and 4.4 points in the Texas poll. 2020 Bloomberg L.P. Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. Chinese officials in protective suits checking on an elderly man wearing a facemask who collapsed and died on a street near a hospital in Wuhan, China, on Jan. 30, 2020. (Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images) White House: US Has Reached Out to China Over Coronavirus Outbreak White House national security adviser Robert OBrien said Sunday that the Chinese regime hasnt yet accepted an offer from the United States to help contain the outbreak of coronavirus. We continue to offer assistance to the Chinese. Weve offered to send over CDC and other U.S. medical and public health professionals. And we have not heard back yet from the Chinese on those offers, but were prepared to continue to cooperate with them, OBrien told CBS Face the Nation on Sunday. China has placed Wuhan, a city of about 10 million people, and other parts of Hubei province on lockdown to enact a quarantine over the virus, while some locals in Wuhan have told The Epoch Times that the situation in Wuhan is far direr than what the Chinese regime is letting on. Officials in Wenzhou, a port city located in Chinas coastal Zhejiang Province, announced on Sunday that only one member from each family in the city can be out buying goods every two days. OBrien said the White House has asked Beijing for more transparency after CBS anchor Margaret Brennan noted that regime officials in coronavirus-hit Wuhan, the capitol of Hubei province, may have covered up the extent of the virus. President Trump, from the day he took office, made protecting Americans and keeping them safe, whether its from terrorists or criminal organizations or from viruses like the new novel coronavirus [his] top priority. So were taking steps to keep Americans safe and the government is functioning in that direction, OBrien remarked. The World Health Organization (WHO) last week declared the coronavirus outbreak a global health emergency, while reports have said that some WHO officials are on the ground in Wuhan. But OBrien said that the top public health officials are in the United States with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Look, this is a worldwide concern. We want to help our Chinese colleagues if we can, he said, adding that the United States has made the offer. I think we can be helpful if were on the ground. Right now the Chinese are providing information to us and were taking that for what its worth. But at the same time, were monitoring ourselves, OBrien said. Over the weekend, the eighth case of coronavirus was confirmed in the United States, according to health officials in Massachusetts, who said the patient had recently traveled to Hubei Province. In a statement on Saturday, the Pentagon said Defense Secretary Mark Esper approved a request for assistance from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for housing support for 1,000 people who may be subject to quarantine on arrival from overseas. Health officials had asked the Defense Department to provide several facilities capable of housing at least 250 people in individual rooms through Feb. 29. The Pentagon said four military installations have been selected: two in California, one in Colorado, and one in Texas. It said Defense Department personnel would only provide housing support and HHS would be responsible for all care and transportation. DOD personnel will not be directly in contact with the evacuees and evacuees will not have access to any base location other than their assigned housing, the Pentagon said. Reuters contributed to this report. Two men arrested in connection with burglaries in the Blackrock area of Dublin have been charged by gardai. Gardai on patrol in Tallaght on Thursday night noticed a car acting suspiciously at junction 13 on the M50, before beginning to follow it. Top priority is safety, not economic benefits South Korea appears to be entering a critical phase in its fight against the spread of a new coronavirus that originated in Wuhan in Hubei Province, central China. On Sunday, the country reported three more cases of the new virus, bringing the total here to 15. The new patients included a 40-year-old Chinese woman who is a family member of a Chinese man diagnosed with the virus here Saturday, and a 43-year-old South Korean man who had been on the watch list since arriving from China, Jan. 20, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Given the incubation period of the virus is seven to 14 days and the country reported its first case Jan. 20, more cases of local infection could be forthcoming here in the days ahead and probably for weeks. In this regard, Seoul's decision to bar foreigners who have been in Hubei Province in the past two weeks from entering the country is a step in the right direction. The decision, announced by Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun, reflects the government's determination to curb the spread of the virus at all costs. This could be painful for the domestic economy, but was unavoidable because the virus shows no signs of abating in China, and is spreading rapidly worldwide. Already, some countries, including the U.S. and Australia, have taken such a measure to limit the damage. According to the government, over 11,000 Chinese entered Korea via flights and ships on Jan. 31 alone. Considering the poor response by the health authorities and local governments in the initial stages are blamed for the current state in China, South Korea should take all possible pre-emptive measures to limit the spread of the virus. Beijing said the death toll from the new virus increased to 304 as of Sunday morning, up 45 from the previous day, and the total number of cases had reached 14,380, well above the number of those infected with SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, which broke out in southern China in 2002 before spreading worldwide. The virus was reported in 26 countries, but all fatalities except for one occurred in China. South Korea has evacuated its nationals from Wuhan on chartered plans, and placed them in isolated quarantine facilities. But this is not enough. It is time for South Korea to seriously consider temporarily banning flights to and from China as well. As long as cases of person-to-person transmission have been confirmed here among Chinese people who have arrived in Korea, it is necessary for the government to limit their access to Korea, before it is too late. Korea's 12th patient, a Chinese man, arrived in the country Jan. 19, but he did not show any symptoms upon arrival. What is equally important is for the government to share accurate information on how virus transmissions have occurred in Korea with the public as quickly as possible. One of the major issues over the weekend was a "Corona Map," created by a college student to show where each of the patients in Korea stayed before being diagnosed with the virus. The government should contemplate why this news is drawing a wave of cynical online comments such as, "one student is doing better than the government." The Kolkata Police has arrested five persons from three places of Jharkhand for allegedly making calls to dupe consumers of a payment bank in the city. Two persons were picked up from Dhanbad and Jamtara each, while another one was arrested from Deogarh from Saturday night, a senior police officer said on Sunday. One person has filed a complaint to the police last month that he was duped of over Rs 6 lakhs after he clicked on a link he had received after getting a unanimous call to update the KYC of the account of his payment bank. During investigation, it was found that over 30 such complaints have been lodged in different police stations in the city. "The link is the catch. Once you click on it, the miscreants get control of your account. Using net banking, they get hold of your money and transfer it other accounts," the officer said. The man from Deogharh was picked up first last night and then the four others from their hideouts in Jamrata and Dhanbad, the IPS officer said. They had duped a senior citizen of the city of around Rs 88 lakhs last June, he said. "The fraudsters have opened over 100s of bank accounts using fake documents and that is the reason this particular gang could not be traced," he added. The five were brought to the city on Sunday and a court here remanded them to police custody till February 10. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) (Bloomberg) -- Restrictions on travel to and from China widened as rising fear of the Wuhan coronavirus prompted countries to bar entry and restrict flights, ignoring the guidance of the World Health Organization. The Philippines -- which on Sunday reported the first virus death outside China -- and New Zealand were the latest to deny access to foreigners traveling from China, while South Korea will prevent arrivals from some parts of the mainland. The U.S., Australia, Singapore, Israel and Russia have announced restrictions as well. In Hong Kong, thousands of medical professionals voted to begin a five-day strike Monday after authorities refused their demand to shut all entry points from China. The citys government appeared to open the door for more controls on travel from the mainland while appealing to them to reconsider their decision. Vietnam halted air travel to China, Italy banned incoming flights -- the first European Union country to do so -- and Qatar Airways became the first Middle East carrier to suspend flights to China. With confirmed cases in China exceeding 14,000 and deaths at over 300, countries want to keep those exposed to the potentially lethal virus from their shores. The moves run counter to the recommendation of the World Health Organization, which said Thursday that it could demand scientific justification from countries that go beyond its guidance not to restrict travel. Anxiety has escalated with more evidence that people may transmit the disease without obvious telltale signs of infection, such as coughing, sneezing and a fever. Some data has emerged suggesting that patients diarrhea may pose a risk of contagion. Here Is What a WHO Global Health Emergency Means: QuickTake Under pressure from a rapidly expanding epidemic, the WHO declared the virus a public health emergency of international concern on Thursday. The move allows the agency to recommend travel and trade measures for specific countries, regions and cities that its member states usually follow, despite their economic consequences. In this case, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus specifically discouraged any such measures. Story continues WHO doesnt recommend and actually opposes any restrictions for travel and trade or other measures against China, he said, while praising Chinas response to the outbreak. If anyone is thinking about taking measures, its going to be wrong. WHO representatives didnt immediately respond to email and telephone requests for comment on the travel bans. Countries began taking aggressive steps to limit travelers from China after the U.S. issued a rare quarantine order for a group of citizens repatriated travelers from the city of Wuhan -- the epicenter of the outbreak -- and restricted flights from China to seven airports. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises avoiding all non-essential travel to China. (Updates with Hong Kong strike threat in third paragraph) --With assistance from James Paton, Abeer Abu Omar and Layan Odeh. To contact the reporters on this story: John Lauerman in London at jlauerman@bloomberg.net;Ross Larsen in Rome at rlarsen2@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Matthew S Levine at mlevine51@bloomberg.net, Andrew Davis, James Amott For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source. 2020 Bloomberg L.P. Steve Trout Trout is the director of the Oregon Elections Division in the secretary of states office. Welcome to 2020! You may be aware we have a major election coming up this year. In Oregon, elections happen all the time. But every four years with high-profile posts like the president of the United States up for grabs people collectively turn their attention to election systems. The security of these systems is an important topic and one that often seems to garner the most attention. But did you know that misinformation is actually the biggest threat to elections? Thats why the elections division of the secretary of states office is working hard to communicate with voters more frequently. Our goal is to educate voters and combat misinformation about elections so that Oregon voters feel confident their vote will be counted. Election misinformation can be anything from rumors to misleading photos to more sinister campaigns with the goal of suppressing voter turnout. Misinformation can influence your thinking about a political campaign or outright lie to you about your voting status. And it can be found from a diverse array of sources social media, email lists, text message chains, even mailers. With unlimited sources of information at our disposal, it can be challenging to recognize what is accurate and trustworthy. Fortunately, there are some simple questions you can ask yourself to help identify misinformation: Is there any data or evidence presented to support the statements in question? Does this information seem designed to push my political buttons? Is there something about this material that doesnt seem right or too bizarre to be true? Who is sharing this? Does this individual or group have an agenda? One particular risk to voters comes from groups some well-intentioned, others not with websites offering to register you to vote or offering other election data. The safest website to register and get election information is that of the Oregon Elections Division: OregonVotes.gov. Share your opinion Submit your essay of 500-700 words on a highly topical issue or a theme of particular relevance to the Pacific Northwest, Oregon and the Portland area to commentary@oregonian.com. Please include your email and phone number for verification. There, youll find official information about all Oregon elections, as well as answers to most of your questions about elections. You can register to vote, check your registration status, check or change your political party, find an official ballot dropbox, track your ballot, see who is running for office, and see who is giving them money. You can also learn about election processes, see elections laws, and historical data. Were proud that Oregonians have confidence in our voting system. In 2019, we conducted a poll that found Oregonians overwhelmingly have a positive experience with our vote-by-mail system. Only 3% said they had problems marking or completing their ballots and only 4% had problems receiving their ballot. You, the informed voter, are the best defense we have against attacks on our democracy. Dont be fooled by misinformation. Know the official source OregonVotes.gov and remember that Oregon elections have never been more accurate or secure. You can be confident your vote counts. Summer flights scheduled to link China and Dublin will be assessed by Irish health officials who expect to spend months monitoring the spread of the deadly coronavirus. At present, there are no direct flights between Irish airports and China, but a new service between Dublin and Shanghai, with a stop each way in Helsinki, starts in March. Meanwhile, flights to Beijing are set to resume in the summer. While the HSE insists it is well versed to cope with a potential breakout here, the coronavirus is being monitored by experts at the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) with a view at preventing the spread of the disease. HPSC director Dr John Cuddihy conceded routes set to open later in the year will be assessed with a view to containing the deadly virus. "We will certainly be monitoring that over the next few months," he told the Sunday Independent. "It is very early in the evolution of this new virus at the moment, but it is likely that we will be looking at it over the next weeks and months." Some international and domestic flights from the Wuhan province worst hit by the coronavirus, and other parts of China, have already been cancelled to help prevent the virus from spreading. "Currently, there has been a huge number of cancellations of flights from that area of China particularly," Dr Cuddihy said. "The protocols we have issued to the GPs, hospital clinicians and the ambulance service - and the fact the public are being asked if they have travelled to Wuhan province in China in the past 14 days and have respiratory symptoms to call their GP - means their situations can be assessed and necessary steps taken." Dublin Airport said it acts on the advice of the HPSC, which follows the guidance of the World Health Organisation. A spokesman added it is ready to change to procedures if necessary. "The HSPC has said that given there are no flights to Irish airports from Wuhan, which is at the centre of the outbreak, there is no requirement for entry screening at Irish airports," he said. "Separately, there are formal protocols in place in the event of a passenger presenting with acute respiratory infection on an inbound aircraft, and these will be adhered to." HSE national director of national services Joe Ryan said the recent winter flu "has been a live test" for the health service that will "model" any necessary response to a coronavirus outbreak. While the winter flu season put huge pressure on the hospital network last month and led to record-breaking numbers of people waiting on trolleys, Mr Ryan said plans rehearsed at a local and national level will be used to manage a coronavirus outbreak. He said he is confident there are adequate plans in place here to manage and contain future outbreaks of deadly diseases. No coronavirus cases have been detected in Ireland but the HSE insists a strong action plan is in place to identify the disease in a patient with appropriate symptoms. Testing for the coronavirus will be available here from tomorrow. Mr Ryan said anyone who presented at a GP, port or airport with a suspected case of the coronavirus would initially be dealt with at a local level. "Ideally you would have the person self-isolated if that was safe to do so, or if they needed to be in a hospital we would take them in to our standard hospital using our standard isolation arrangements and processes. "Flu has been a live test for us and is every year as to how we deal with surges that we have, whether it is in the emergency department, whether it is in isolation or whether it is on ICU beds. "There is a standard way in which you do that because that keeps it safe. "That is all that emergency management is about, having a standard response to different types of problems." (Natural News) A trifle considering the circumstances, authorities have successfully intercepted a sick passenger at Boston Logan Airport who had just arrived on a flight from Beijing with undisclosed symptoms, prompting a formal evaluation. But how many others are still arriving daily from China at airports all across this country and not being identified as potentially sick? According to reports, this particular individual exhibited some kind of illness symptoms that drew Massport Fire Rescue and Boston E.M.S. to the scene. An official statement from Boston Logan Airport explains that all safety protocols were followed, and that the individual was expected to be transported to a local hospital. The announcement did not, however, make any mention about coronavirus, so it remains unknown whether or not this was the suspected disease. Its also important to note that a Boston E.M.S. spokeswoman has since come forward to reveal that this symptomatic passenger refused transport to a local hospital following the evaluation. But whatever symptoms this individual was exhibiting did not meet the Center for Disease Control and Preventions (C.D.C.) criteria for refusing transport meaning he or she potentially has something very serious that requires immediate admittance to a medical facility. In nearby New Hampshire, two people who recently returned from travel to Wuhan, China, also reportedly developed concerning respiratory symptoms that prompted officials to test them for the virus. With the World Health Organizations (W.H.O.) recent announcement that were now dealing with a global emergency, several major airlines have announced cancellations of flights in and out of China. Due to a significant decline in demand for travel to China, we are suspending some flights between our hub cities and Beijing, Hong Kong and Shanghai beginning Feb. 1 through Feb. 8, reads an official statement from United Airlines. We will continue to monitor the situation as it develops and will adjust our schedule as needed. Given the significant decline in demand for travel to and from China, American Airlines will suspend travel between Los Angeles International Airport (L.A.X.) and Shanghai Pudong Airport (P.V.G.) as well as L.A.X. and Beijing Capital International Airport (P.E.K.) from Feb. 9 through March 27, 2020, reads a similar statement from American Airlines. We will continue to review our flight schedules to ensure we can accommodate the needs of our customers and will make updates as needed. British Airways, Lufthansa, and several other international carriers are likewise following suit. Should there be an official Chinese travel ban due to coronavirus? While its definitely a step in the right direction for these airlines to axe their Chinese flight routes, even if its purely for financial reasons, many are starting to wonder why the federal government isnt also taking action. Allowing people who were recently in high-risk areas of China to travel to the United States and potentially infect others with coronavirus bodes ominous for public safety, especially since new cases of coronavirus including human-to-human transmission are popping up daily in the U.S. The last thing our country needs is a major coronavirus outbreak like the one affecting Wuhan, where people who decided to stay before the quarantine was implemented are now stuck there to basically fend for themselves. Should coronavirus become a major problem here in America, the C.D.C. will have a whole lot of blood on its hands. As you likely know, the agency aggressively pushes vaccines on Americans because it claims to be deeply concerned about disease outbreaks, and yet its done nothing to curb the flow of travelers from China inside our borders. To keep up with the latest coronavirus news, visit Pandemic.news. You can also read more stories like this one at Outbreak.news. Sources for this article include: TheEpochTimes.com NaturalNews.com Last weekend I tuned in to highlights of the impeachment trial, and nothing was a surprise. Democrats pointing to witness-supported evidence that the president placed his personal political interests above the interests of the United States and Republicans excusing what reeks as unconstitutional as nothing more than the unconventional Trump style that populism craves. Television tedium often directs thoughts inward, and I began thinking about what calibrates my own ethical compass. And then, in the midst of introspection, the untimely death of Kobe Bryant flashed across the screen. The news of the nine victims silenced all other events. In the days that followed I spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about life and its fragile nature. I say inordinate because living is activity, not the cognition of it, yet it is the consideration and evaluation of our actions that lead to better lives. A bigger question arose: If life is so precarious, what is its meaning? Poet/philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote: The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived. I dont agree with the prefatory statement, however, that lifes purpose is not to be happy. Happiness is central to motivation. Joy results from being useful, honorable and compassionate, and frames our purpose. Controversy will follow the legacy of Kobe Bryant, but I recalled when he became a father and noted he found meaning. I believe he discovered a purpose in life from the commitment to hand the next generation better tools and more fertile soil from which to sow the seeds of their own ambitions. When we fail politically, socially, or environmentally, we have failed in that purpose. My thoughts circled back to the impeachment. Donald Trump did not create our political dysfunction, nor is he the first president to have corrupt impulses. His rhetoric and actions are the result of decades of misdirection; he is an inevitable demagogue at a confluence of disenfranchised populists, tribalism, and Wild West social media. The result of that convergence is a compromise of our purpose as a nation. The beacon of impartial justice that once illuminated Americas path has been walled by a myopic view, confined by fear, and the lamp beside the golden door has dimmed. World history has seen kings, dictators, and misguided presidents before, and all are vanquished eventually, but only after the people rise collectively to reclaim the realm. A moral reckoning is at hand to light our disparate ways. The next generation is our legacy, and we are handing them a less secure future. Whether were talking climate, education costs, access to health care, living wages, or threat of war, their reality is plagued with doubt. It was a plague that wiped out half of Europe in the 14th century and the future was determined by cold attrition. Today another disease is wiping out our decency and the fundamental meaning of life: to be useful, honorable, and compassionate. That is the impeachment trial we should all tune in to. Gary Kroeger is a local business owner and advertising executive in Cedar Falls. Love 5 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 A female medical student was crushed to death under the weight of snow when a timber roof caved in at an underground garage party in Siberia. Tuyana Prushenova, 22, died when the thickly-packed snow caused the makeshift roofing to collapse at the disused cafe in the scientific research city of Akademgorodok, Novosibirsk. Four of the 200 revellers were injured including a man who suffered a broken pelvis and a woman who fractured her ankle at the 4am rave with two others suffering from frostbite. Tuyana Prushenova, 22, died when the thickly-packed snow caused the timber roofing to cave in at the disused cafe in the scientific research city of Akademgorodok, Novosibirsk Party-goers were filmed dancing during the night (left and right). Two-hundred people attended the underground garage party in Siberia Emergency service at the scene which is filled with snow and rubble from the timber roof Diggers uncover evidence from the scene after the roof of the makeshift annexe to the abandoned building collapsed under the weight of snow Snow is seen covering the floor of the garage after the roof collapsed as disco lights remain on Footage filmed minutes before the collapse, captioned 'walter garage party on fire', shows people dancing together with multicoloured disco lights illuminating the room. However a video from the aftermath of the tragedy shows emergency services staff wading through the piles of snow and rubble. One man is seen using a chainsaw to clear the dismantled roofing in order to investigate the scene. People search the scene after the terrifying incident in freezing temperatures of -20c The site of the roof collapse is covered in snow as piles of rubble surround the abandoned building Ten were trapped under the falling roof and blocks of snow in a temperature of -20c, with some suffering frostbite at the underground party. Partygoers were putting on their coats to leave the illegal bash at the time of the tragedy. 'The music was very loud when I heard a sudden crack, and then a girl screamed,' said one witness, according to The Siberian Times. 'I rushed towards the door and jumped outside.' 'There were guys inside the cloakroom when it happened. A man (pictured) takes notes beside clothes left at the site. Partygoers were putting on their coats to leave the illegal bash at the time of the tragedy 'They were hit by an old rotten wooden roof mixed with huge blocks of snow.' An emergencies ministry source said: 'The body of a woman has been pulled out from the rubble. She was killed.' A 27-year-old man who organised the event was detained, said the Russian investigative committee. He is under criminal investigation for staging party without ensuring adequate safety standards. In the judicial session of 2019, the Supreme Court of the United States rejected the Trump administration's effort to include a question about the citizenship status of every person included in the 2020 census. That Supreme Court decision was correct. The Constitution, in Amendment 14, states that the census is charged with counting "... the whole number of persons in each state ..." not just the citizens, and the representative in the U.S. House of Representatives must represent all "persons in their District." Furthermore, as President Trump himself declared shortly after the announcement of the Supreme Court decision, the information about the number of citizens is already available to the federal government. In that case, when the government already knows the number of citizens, it makes no sense to ask that question again. Dennis J. Lawler,Rochester TROY, N.Y. Troy, Albany, and Schenectady, are the latest communities to join a growing group of municipalities exploring Community Choice Aggregation (CCA), a new bulk electricity-buying program for residents and small businesses, according to a recent news release. While CCA is new to New York, it has been underway in several other states, including Massachusetts, Illinois, and California. The program localizes energy decision-making and creates more choice for consumers. Through bulk purchasing and competition, CCA can offer better electric rates and price stability for residents and small businesses. It also provides access to 100% renewable electricity and helps combat the predatory practices of energy telemarketers and door-to-door sales. In addition to the tri-cities, the cities of Glens Falls, Saratoga Springs, and Watervliet, the towns of Bethlehem, Guilderland, Knox, New Scotland and Niskayuna, and the villages of Voorheesville, Altamont, and Kinderhook are also seeking to offer their residents and small businesses additional electricity choices by participating in CCA. Community Choice Aggregation has seen great success in other areas, and we are proud to be among the pioneers of this program in the Capital Region, Troy Mayor Patrick Madden said in the news release. At this point in the process, we are focused on educating our residents about their energy choices and exploring whether CCA is the right fit for our city, Madden added. Municipalities are able to customize their CCA program based on their values and priorities, such as choosing a 100% renewable, green electricity supply, according to the news release. We are excited to explore the possibility of taking part in this new program alongside so many Capital Region municipalities, Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan said in the release. Community Choice Aggregation is an opportunity to offer our residents access to competitive energy pricing and renewable energy two things that we know to be important to Albanys residents and small businesses, Sheehan added. Residents and small business owners can learn more about the CCA program online (www.megacca.org) and/or through a series of upcoming public education sessions. Education sessions are open to residents in all municipalities and residents are encouraged to bring their questions and electricity bills. CCA is an opt-out program, which means all eligible customers are automatically included unless they choose not to participate. There is never a fee or penalty for opting out or opting back in. Residents will not be automatically included if they already purchase their electricity supply from a company other than National Grid or if they have a block on their account. As a city built on a legacy of electricity innovation, were eager to explore the CCA program and work to bring the best energy choices to the Electric City, Schenectady Mayor Gary McCarthy said in the release. By joining forces with 13 other communities in the region, we are able to offer our city residents and businesses access to bulk electricity pricing and more options when it comes to renewable energy, McCarthy noted. The municipalities listed above have chosen the Municipal Electric and Gas Alliance (MEGA) as their CCA Administrator. In partnership with the communities, MEGA will oversee the creation, development, and implementation of the program, and perform education and outreach to residents. No taxpayer or government funds will be used in the creation or operation of the program, officials noted. Blaming Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath for the state's "deteriorating" law and order, the Congress on Sunday sought his resignation. In a statement issued here, state Congress chief Ajay Kumar Lallu said, "The murder of a Hindu leader in Hazratganj area of the state capital and children made hostage in Farrukhabad are some of the examples of the jungle raj prevailing in UP." "Adityanath is an incompetent chief minister who has been unable to maintain law and order in the state. He should resign and go back to Gorakhpur (his hometown in eastern part of the state)," Lallu added. The state Congress chief further alleged that Uttar Pradesh has become a hotbed of criminal and anti-social activities under the BJP. "The chief minister says that criminal elements have left the state, then who are these people who are committing heinous crimes here," Lallu said. A leader of a right wing Hindu outfit was shot dead on Sunday while he was out on a morning walk, barely a couple of kilometres away from the high-security Uttar Pradesh legislature complex in the heart of the state capital. On January 31, 23 children aged between six months and 15 years had been taken hostage by a murder accused after inviting them to his daughter's birthday party. The hostage drama began at Kasaria village in the afternoon and continued for about eight hours before the police killed the captor and rescued the children. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) (@FahadShabbir) MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 02nd February, 2020) Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said in an interview with the German Die Welt newspaper that Austria was opposed to using the EU Naval Forces, also known as Operation Sophia, in the Mediterranean to monitor the implementation of the Libyan arms embargo that was negotiated in Berlin. "The EU naval mission 'Sophia' was practically ineffective in enforcing the UN arms embargo against Libya from 2016 to 2019. In essence, Sophia has always been primarily a rescue mission, which for thousands of illegal migrants has become a ticket to Europe ... The intention to revive the Sophia rescue mission under the pretext of monitoring the observance of the UN arms embargo is an obvious ploy. I clearly say this will not happen. Austria, as well as a number of other countries, categorically reject this," Kurz said. According to the Austrian chancellor, the European Union, together with member states, should concentrate on how to stop the smuggling of weapons to Libya by air and land. On January 19, Berlin hosted an international conference on Libyan reconciliation attended by 16 states and entities, including Turkey, Russia and the United States. A joint communique was adopted at the conference in which the signatories pledged to refrain from assisting their rivals and observe the arms embargo on Libya. Operation Sophia was launched in 2015 to prevent migrants from drowning while attempting a perilous journey across the Mediterranean from North Africa. However, Italy, Greece and some other frontline countries have taken a tough stance on the new arrivals and demanded that other EU nations share their migrant burden. Last year, Italy closed its ports to migrant rescue ships. On Sunday, Lightfoot said shed like to receive clear operational guidance from the feds and answers on questions for how to handle certain situations, such as what to do when someone who recently visited one of the China provinces is asymptomatic but doesnt want to be quarantined, or how frequently individuals who are self-quarantining should check in. A 36-year-old Chicago firefighter was recovering at a hospital early Sunday after he was shot in the leg while responding to a car fire during an unfortunate incident in the citys Albany Park neighborhood on the Northwest Side, officials said. CAIRO Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claimed on Sunday that it directed a Saudi military officer to carry out the shooting at a United States military base in Florida in December that killed three sailors and wounded eight people. In an audio recording released on Sunday, the leader of the Yemen-based group, Qassim al-Rimi, claimed responsibility for the Dec. 6 attack at Naval Air Station Pensacola, according to SITE, an organization that tracks jihadist media. The group offered no evidence that it had trained the gunman, Second Lt. Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, but produced a copy of his will as well as correspondence that indicated he had been in contact with Al Qaeda. Experts said those elements gave the claim a plausible air. Mr. al-Rimi, the Qaeda leader, may himself be dead. He was the target of an American drone strike in eastern Yemen last week, according to American and Yemeni officials who said they believed he had been killed but were awaiting confirmation. The Chamber also held its ceremonial Installation of Officers, where it sore in President Brianna Audet of Nutrition Nook, Vice President Josh Kelley of Redbud Physical Therapy and Secretary of Treasurer Traci Conley. It also hosted keynote Rick Brinkley a former Emmy-nominated television producer, nonprofit president and CEO, state senator, minister, addict and felon who shared his experiences in recovery after serving 30 months in federal prison for embezzling $1.8 million from his former employer, the Better Business Bureau in Tulsa. Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu on Sunday said that in democracy, patriotism does not mean supporting the government, one can support the government or oppose it. But one's opposition doesn't give anyone the right to resort to violence to suppress others' views. Speaking after inaugurating India's largest skill training centre on the outskirts of Hubballi on Sunday, he said, violence will affect the development of the country and hinder the opportunities of youth, as a burnt bus would mean an increase in tax collection and lesser growth options. Naidu who abstained from making any political statements said that discussion should happen like the ones that happen at Parliament: the government proposes, opposition opposes and house disposes. Left uncorrected, Ohio law seemingly requires that the state -- that is, Ohio taxpayers -- pay millions of dollars in undeserved bonuses to failing and poorly performing charter schools. Reason: a well-intentioned but flawed Quality Community Schools Support program included last summer in Ohios two-year state operating budget, House Bill 166. The flaws have left the state vulnerable to paying millions of quality bonuses to charter schools that are anything but quality -- including many "F" schools. That money wasnt paid out this year only because Ohio officials found what they said were paperwork omissions by certain charter operators that disqualified them. But thats a loophole that operators dispute -- and that they will also hurry to close. Lawmakers need to act first, by eliminating the language that allows this end run. The charter-school bonus program was urged by Gov. Mike DeWines administration to reward the states good charters and encourage quality charter chains elsewhere to expand to Ohio. It earmarked $30 million per fiscal year in Ohio Lottery profits $60 million overall for the charter school bonuses. For Ohio charter schools that qualify, the budget allots a bonus of up to $1,750 for each pupil classified as economically disadvantaged and up to $1,000 per pupil for all others. The money was supposed to go only to quality charters. Unfortunately, language intended to attract strong out-of-state charter chains to open in Ohio -- by offering the same bonuses to Ohio schools run by operators with good-performing schools in other states -- backfired by allowing operators of dozens of failing and poor Ohio charters to ask for millions under the same provision. The Plain Dealers Patrick ODonnell reported, for instance, that the for-profit Accel charter school company applied for more than $15 million for 33 Ohio schools that would not have qualified on their own. The basis was a single Accel school in Colorado that got a federal charter expansion grant in 2016, one of the measures of out-of-state quality allowed by the budget language. That money wasnt paid out after the state said both the Accel and Concept charter schools hadnt properly registered in Ohio as doing business out-of-state. Accel disputes this interpretation. Ohioans who find it hard to believe that such a gaping, multimillion-dollar loophole could creep into the budget havent being paying attention to the hurried, closed-door way big spending bills are hammered out in Ohio. The same lawmakers who approved this faulty language now need to undo it, and quickly. Even pared back to those Ohio charters that meet in-Ohio quality standards, the first $30 million -- spread among 63 well-performing charter schools, including ten that Accel operates in Ohio, and some Concept schools, too -- didnt amount to as much per school as some charter operators had hoped. Almost a half dozen years ago, Ohio was described as the Wild West of charter schooling. The budget bills wording, as it currently stands, suggests that Ohio still is. Expecting the General Assembly to adequately repair the bonus programs flaws may represent the triumph of hope over experience. But the state Senate and Ohio House must clarify the rules now to protect charter school pupils, as well as Ohios taxpayers. About our editorials: Editorials express the view of the editorial board of cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer -- the senior leadership and editorial-writing staff. As is traditional, editorials are unsigned and intended to be seen as the voice of the news organization. Have something to say about this topic? * Send a letter to the editor, which will be considered for print publication. * Email general questions about our editorial board or comments on this editorial to Elizabeth Sullivan, director of opinion, at esullivan@cleveland.com. * Use the comments to share your thoughts. Then, stay informed when readers reply to your comments by using the Follow option at the top of the comments, & look for updates via the small blue bell in the lower right as you look at more stories on cleveland.com. Footage from the attack in Streatham, south London, shows a group of heavily armed officers shielding behind a car with their guns drawn. A man's body is seen lying on the footpath. After officers inspected the body, they quickly retreated. Police later said the man had been shot and pronounced dead at the scene. "A device was found strapped to the body of the suspect and specialist officers attended," Deputy Assistant Commissioner Lucy D'Orsi said in a statement. Witnesses in Streatham, south London, where a man was shot and killed by armed police on Sunday. Credit:Getty Images "Cordons were put in place and it was quickly established that this was a hoax device. "The incident was quickly declared as a terrorist incident and we believe it to be Islamist-related." Prime Minister Boris Johnson planned to announce "fundamental changes" on Monday to how Britain deals with convicted terrorists. He made a similar pledge after the stabbing attack near London Bridge. "If you are convicted of a serious terrorist offence, there should be a mandatory minimum sentence of 14 years - and some should never be released," he said. "Further, for all terrorism and extremist offences, the sentence announced by the judge must be the time actually served - these criminals must serve every day of their sentence, with no exceptions." Student Gulled Bulhan said the shooting happened in front of a pharmacy on Streatham High Road. "I was crossing the road when I saw a man with a machete and silver canisters on his chest being chased by what I assume was an undercover police officer as they were in civilian clothing," the 19-year-old told the PA news agency. The scene of an apparent terror attack in Streatham, south London, on Sunday. Credit:PA "The man was then shot. I think I heard three gun shots but I can't quite remember." Streatham resident Nardos Mulugeta said he heard gunshots and saw one victim lying in the street. Loading "I went over and I saw the first victim a male victim on the ground near the White Lion Pub, and people were helping him," the 52-year-old said. "Then five minutes later a woman came over and said 'I've been stabbed too in the back'. And then people starting helping her. "I saw one body laying down further away. He was face down between [the shops] Argos and Iceland. It's really scary." Police later said that one stabbing victim, a man in his 40s was no longer in a life-threatening condition. A woman in her 50s has been discharged from hospital. Another woman in her 20s who had minor injuries caused by flying glass from police fire was still being treated. Deputy assistant police commissioner Stephen Roberts said police were looking to search the suspect's home and seize any computer-based evidence that could provide clues to a motive. Investigators were researching the man's background to learn more about the attack and any possible co-conspirators, Roberts said. He said that if evidence suggested the stabbings were carried out by a "self-starter", it meant that any city in the country was vulnerable at any time to a similar "low-tech" attack. A video posted on social media shows a policeman attempting to evacuate a nearby shop, although cafe staff appear initially reluctant to leave. The staff and customers eventually follow the police officer's instructions after he explains the suspected terrorist is believed to be wearing an explosive device. "Terrorist seek to divide us and to destroy our way of life [but] here in London we will never let them succeed," the city's mayor, Sadiq Khan, said in a statement. The UK's terror alert level remains at "substantial", which means an attack is likely. Ministers were braced to face immediate demands for all terrorists who have been released early to be recalled, the sources said, amid growing fears over public safety following two attacks by terrorists on parole within just over two months. Confirmation of a terrorist motive would make this incident the third terror attack in the United Kingdom in two months. British police shot a man dead on London Bridge following a stabbing rampage that killed two people and wounded three others in late November. The attacker, 28-year-old Usman Khan, had been previously convicted of terrorism offences and released from prison in 2018. Khan was free on parole, with an electronic tracking device on his ankle, when he entered a conference focused on the rehabilitation of violent offenders and terrorists. Khan slashed at his victims with knives and wore a fake suicide vest. He had been previously convicted of conspiring to bomb London landmarks. In early January, two inmates wearing fake suicide belts attacked and seriously wounded a guard at the Whitemoor maximum security prison in Cambridgeshire. In a June 2017 attack, three Islamic State sympathisers were shot and killed after ramming pedestrians with a van near London Bridge and stabbing eight bystanders to death in nearby Borough Market. Another 48 people were wounded. The growing climate crisis has been brought up time and again over the last few years. Wildfires, heatwaves, droughts and floods are increasingly disrupting and destroying the lives of many around the world. This in turn has led conscience-minded investors to seek out more sustainable and environmentally aware companies when looking for investing opportunities. According to Global Sustainable Investment Alliance, ESG (environmental social governance) funds now have assets worth over $30 trillion under management across the globe. Were not saying to not to invest in an oil or gas company. But if you are, you want to invest in one that has a historically strong track record in dealing with environmental issues, said Nuveens Managing Director Steve Libertadore. With this in mind, we used TipRanks Stock Screener tool to seek out two companies with an environmentally friendly agenda. In addition to a sustainable approach, both, as it turns out, currently have a Strong Buy consensus rating from the Street. Lets get started. Renewable Energy Group Inc. (REGI) With a name like Renewable Energy Group, it would be hard for this company to express more succinctly what its primary focus is. REGI is the largest biodiesel manufacturer in the US, with 14 biorefineries and a feedstock processing facility. Although the company only exhibited modest gains of 11% in 2019, it has been very successful over the last three years. The company has added over 200% to its share price since 2017, its forward-thinking agenda and profitable operations rewarded handsomely by the market. In what the company regards as a big win for the environment, agriculture and US motorists, Congress passed legislation which included a retroactive reinstatement and extension of the $1 per gallon Biodiesel Tax Credit (BTC) in December. The credit will be retroactively reinstated to January 1, 2018 and extended up until December 31, 2022. This means REGI will receive $500 million this year for production spanning back to the beginning of 2018, with it also standing to earn a further $1 billion in subsidies by the end of 2022. CEO Cynthia Warner has said the company will use the additional funds for its expansion strategy and share repurchases, which should add value to shareholders. Story continues The good news has excited Roth Capital analyst Craig Irwin, who said, "We are adding the benefit from reinstatement of the $1/gal BTC to our forecasts (but we are waiting to adjust retroactive results until these are disclosed), factoring continued headwinds from feedstock commodity competition. We expect around $150m of BTC cash will be used for share buybacks, with $150 million for strategic RHD expansion projects, and the remainder for balance sheet remediation. Irwin, therefore, kept his Buy rating on Renewable Energy Group and bumped up his price target, from $22 to $33. The new target implies upside potential of 26%. (To watch Irwins track record, click here) The Street is siding with the bulls, too. REGIs Strong Buy consensus rating breaks down into solely Buy ratings 4, as it happens. At $35, the average price target suggests possible upside of 33%. (See Renewable Energy Group stock analysis on TipRanks) Sunrun Inc. (RUN) It is always refreshing to find companies whose use of cutting-edge technology is directed towards improving the world around us. For solar panel provider Sunrun, the strategy has rewarded investors handsomely so far. Like REGI, Sunrun has done very well over the last few years, with 2019s 38% gain adding up to a cumulative 200% increase since 2017. The company is now the number 1 residential solar installer in the US. Its 3Q19 earnings report boasted year-over-year customer base growth of 24%, with 271,000 homes now having a Sunrun panel. Following several years of underwhelming results, a US Solar Market Insight Report noted that in 2019s third quarter, the residential solar industry installed a record high 712 megawatts (MW) of electrical generating capacity. A combination of policy changes and affordability are pushing installers into states such as Florida and Texas, where none had operated before. In a recent research note, J.P. Morgans Mark Strouse notes Sunrun is well positioned within the "high-growth" US residential rooftop solar market. The analyst thinks the company is undervalued and will attract investors looking for exposure to the de-carbonization, decentralization and digitization of energy. Furthermore, Strouse says Sunruns leading scale could present adjacent opportunities for growth. Unsurprisingly, then, the 4-star analyst initiated coverage of Sunrun with an Overweight rating. The accompanying $19 price target represents potential upside of 12%. (To watch Strouses track record, click here) With 5 Buy ratings, Sunrun has a unanimous Strong Buy consensus rating from the Street. Gains in the shape of 26% could be lining investors pockets should the average price target of $21.40 be attained over the next year. (See Sunrun stock analysis on TipRanks) To find good ideas for stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks equity insights. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will travel to Ethiopia, Senegal and Germany from Feb. 6 to 14, the Canadian Prime Minister's Office said Saturday, Trend reports citing Xinhua. Trudeau will meet with leaders of the three countries. In Ethiopia, he will also meet with world leaders attending the 33rd African Union Summit, and "participate in side events focused on deepening our relationships with African countries," the office said in a statement. The Canadian prime minister will attend the Munich Security Conference in Germany, the office added. Source: Xinhua| 2020-02-02 23:51:17|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close TEHRAN, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- The Iranian and Turkish foreign ministers on Sunday called for "solid" stance of the Muslim world against the U.S. peace plan for the Middle East, the official IRNA news agency reported. In a telephone conversation, Mohammad Javad Zarif and his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu expressed their opposition against what they called the "sale of Palestine", according to IRNA. U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday revealed the long-awaited political aspect of his Middle East peace plan, a proposal that has already been repeatedly refused by the Palestinians. The plan proposes a "realistic" two-state solution and recognizes Jerusalem as Israel's "undivided capital," according to Trump. Iran's Foreign Ministry on Tuesday strongly condemned the U.S. peace plan. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (Agence France-Presse) Rijeka, Croatia Sun, February 2, 2020 16:00 708 7f440ff09e92db75a02bbad206224390 2 News Croatia,Rijeka,European-Capital-of-Culture Free Croatia's port city of Rijeka on Saturday held festivities to celebrate its inauguration as a European capital of culture for 2020. Thousands of people, including many tourists, braved the rainy weather to attend the cultural party with dozens of events held throughout the northern Adriatic port, according to an AFP photographer. Hundreds of performers took part in the festivities, including concerts including at the city's historic fish market building. Visitors could also learn about Rijeka's eventful recent history from a 200-meter-long timeline running along its main Korzo street. Croatia's third-largest city is the country's first to be awarded the title of European Capital of Culture which is this year shared with Ireland's Galway. The central ceremony dubbed 'Opera Industriale' was held Saturday evening at the Rijeka port, a symbol of the city's openness. The open-air event involved more than 100 performers, combining classical instruments, recitations and choral singing with industrial sounds, lighting effects and audience participation. Read also: Plovdiv: Europes other Capital of Culture for 2019 "It pays homage to the working class and conveys a message about ... the strength of workers in the life of a modern city," organisers said. The event also "tells the story of Rijeka's 'Port of Diversity'" which is the motto of the year-long event, mayor Vojko Obersnel said earlier. During the year the city will host hundreds of events, including a special edition of its known international carnival later in February. Rijeka, with a population of around 120,000 people, was once a thriving industrial port and the center of Croatia's once prosperous shipbuilding industry, but is now struggling. Its fall in fortunes is the consequence of both the 1990s Independence war and badly-managed privatization exercises which led to the collapse of major companies. With a rich history, having been run by different states over the 20th century -- from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, to two decades of Italian rule and subsequent Nazi occupation, Yugoslavia and finally Croatia -- Rijeka is now banking on cultural attractions and tourism to boost its coffers. Tourism is a key sector of Croatia's economy. Last year the country attracted nearly 21 million tourists, five times its own population. Blaming the Centre as well as the Delhi government for the delay in the execution and appearing for Delhi gang rape convict Mukesh on Sunday at a special hearing of the Delhi High Court, lawyer Rebecca John said that the Centre should have gone to the Supreme Court challenging the order of postponement of the hanging and not sought the intervention of the Delhi High Court. If the sentence is common for the four convicts, then the execution too has to be common, the senior advocate told the court. The court was holding a special hearing to decide a petition by the Centre challenging the postponement of the death warrant till further orders in the December 16, 2012 gang-rape case, which claimed that the convicts are testing the patience of the country. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, M Natraj and Amit Mahajan represented the Centre at the hearing while the accused were represented by Rebecca John, Vrinda Grover and advocate A P Singh. Citing an earlier instance, where the division bench of the Delhi High Court had sent the matter back to the trial court, John said that the petition was not maintainable in the high court. She also reiterated that the legal remedies convict Mukesh could try was linked to the legal options of the other convicts. The senior advocate said, The Centre has woken up yesterday and they were blaming the convict on death row for the delay. In the last so many years, had the Delhi government moved court seeking issuance of a death warrant? Emphasising that the matter did not relate to an ordinary prisoner, John said, The convicts have right to use their legal options and they would use it till the last breath of their life. The Centre did not put in any appearance before the trial court and has just woken up a couple of days ago. On Friday, a Delhi court had postponed the hanging of the four convicts, which had been scheduled for February 1 at 6am, till further orders on a plea by one of the convicts Vinay Sharma seeking a stay on the execution of the death warrant in wake of the mercy plea filed before the President. Advocate AP Singh appearing for death row convicts Pawan Gupta, Akshay Kumar and Vinay Sharma, contended that there was no prescribed time given to execute the death sentence by the Supreme Court and Constitution. The police also arrested Irfan Shafi Mir, a lawyer by profession, who has been accused as an overground worker of militants. The sources said a NIA team led by a DIG-rank officer went to Anantnag on Saturday and held a meeting with senior police officials there. Srinagar: The National Investigation Agency (NIA), as part of a probe into tainted Jammu and Kashmir police officer Davinder Singhs alleged links with militants, on Sunday conducted raids at multiple locations in the Union territorys southern Shopian district. Official sources here said NIA sleuths fanned out in the militancy-infested district at dawn to raid several places, including private houses and offices. They reportedly seized incriminating material including some documents which may help its investigation into the sensational case, the sources said. The raids took place a day after 20-member NIA team arrived in Kashmir to collect more evidence against Singh, who was arrested along with Syed Naveed Mushtaq alias Naveed Babu, one of the most wanted Hizb-ul-Mujahideen militants, and his accomplice Asif Ahmed Rather in Kulgam district on January 11. Singh, who was posted as deputy superintendent of police at the Anti-Hijacking Squad at the Srinagar Airport, has since been placed under suspension. The police authorities have also recommended that he be dismissed from service. The militant duo were travelling in a Hyundai i20 along the highway linking Srinagar and Jammu and were reportedly on their way to Chandigarh. The police also arrested Irfan Shafi Mir, a lawyer by profession, who has been accused as an overground worker of militants. Subsequently, Naveed Babus brother Syed Irfan Ahmed was arrested from Punjab. The investigations by the J&K police had reportedly revealed that Singh had accompanied militants or helped them in relocating to various parts of country on different occasions in lieu of money and other considerations. However, the Centre later asked the NIA to probe the case. The sources said a NIA team led by a DIG-rank officer went to Anantnag on Saturday and held a meeting with senior police officials there. This was followed by the NIAs raids in Shopian. The places raided by the NIA sleuths included the homes of Naveed Babu, Asif and Irfan Mir and also those of a Hizb militant, Adil Pala, and Khursheed Sheikh, a local resident who allegedly helped Naveed Babu, a former special police officer, in stealing four service rifles from a security picket at a Food Corporation of India store in central district of Budgam in 2017. The sources said Khursheed Sheikh was not present at home. However, the NIA detained his brother Tariq Sheikh. The NIA also raided the house of Tariq Mir, the local sarpanch, in Maldera village of Shopian. Mir, said to be associated with the BJP was, however, neither detained nor questioned, the sources said. Both the J&K police and NIA had earlier conducted raids at Singhs house in Srinagars Indira Nagar and the familys ancestral properties in Tral area of Pulwama. The NIA also sealed a residential house in Srinagars Gulshan Nagar where Naveed Babu had stayed as a tenant some time ago. A special court at Jammu had on January 23 sent Singh, the militant duo and Irfan Mir and Syed Irfan to 15 days NIA custody. Three suspected Jaish militants all said to be Pakistani nationals were shot dead by the security forces while attempting to enter the Valley after reportedly sneaking into J&K from across the border at Hiranagar, 56 km east of Jammu, in an encounter at Nagrota along the Jammu-Srinagar highway Friday. One policeman was injured. The militants were in a truck driven by Sameer Dar, a resident of Pulwamas Kakapora area. Dar reportedly told his interrogators that he ferried a group of militants to the Valley using his truck earlier in December last year, after they had sneaked into J&K from across the border. He has said he doesnt know their present whereabouts, but knows that they were carrying a large amount of ammunition. Acer has announced a new line-up of products, targeting the education sector. Acer debuted its new 12-inch Chromebook, the Acer Chromebook 712, features a premium and durable design, a 12-inch display with 3:2 aspect ratio for better vertical viewing and productivity, and the latest 10th Gen Intel Core processors for first-rate performance. Acer has also expanded its line of TravelMate notebooks with the convertible TravelMate Spin B3 and clamshell TravelMate B3, devices intended for the K-12 education market. The portable 11.6-inch notebooks come with enhanced performance and sport a sturdy design to protect them from the knocks of school life, ideal for use both in-school and out-of-school. Powered by up to 10th Gen Intel Core i3 processors, the Chromebook 712 provides the performance capabilities needed to handle more complex and challenging classes such as coding or video editing. This power also lets students collaborate on school projects, run multiple apps and stream educational videos with ease. With up to 12 hours of battery life, students can expect a full day of usage on one charge. The Acer Chromebook 712 is not only durable enough to meet the stringent US MIL-STD 810G military standards, its also tough enough to handle even the most energetic students. It has a reinforced hinge that remains intact even when students pick it up by the display, which was intentionally designed to provide extra flexibility. It can also withstand up to 60 kg (132 pounds) of downward force, so its protected if a student steps on it or smashes it in a backpack. Its reinforced design and shock-absorbing bumper even lets it handle drops from heights of up to 122 cm (48 inches). Also suitable for younger students, the new Acer Chromebook 712 is certified to meet two leading toy safety standards: the ASTM F963-16[iii] and UL/IEC 60950-1. The keyboard has mechanically anchored keys that are difficult to remove but easy to replace, making them ideal for classroom environments. The keyboard also protects against spills of up to 330 ml (11 fluid ounces) of water thanks to a gutter system that routes water out the bottom of the chassis. Even the touchpad is moisture-resistant. The new Acer Chromebooks 712 will boost learning with a 3:2 aspect ratio that gives students 18 percent more vertical space compared to an equally wide 16:9 display. It is available with either a touch- (C871T) or non-touch (C871) display option. It can be opened a full 180 degrees, letting it lay flat on a desk for sharing with other students during classes or for school projects. The new Acer Chromebook 712 is great for classrooms where multiple students will share a device. Chrome OS devices support multiple user sign-in, so each student can log into their unique account while ensuring their projects, Gmail and other information are kept safe. Storage on Google Drive protects files, documents, and photos safely in the cloud, and ensures that the most current version is always available. Chrome OS is automatically updated and guards against ever-changing online threats of viruses and malware to help keep students safe. While at home, parents can install the Family Link app to set daily screen time limits, set parental controls and manage their childs Google account. Accessibility settings sync across all Chrome OS devices, so as students switch between shared devices or log in at home with their G Suite for Education account, their accessibility settings automatically update. The TravelMate Spin B3 and TravelMate B3 are reliable devices designed around the needs of K-12 schoolchildren. They feature the latest Intel Pentium and Celeron processors, giving students all the power they need for classroom work, and comply with the MIL-STD 810G military standard, meaning that theyre strong enough to survive the bumps and spills[vi] that are part of daily student life. A pressure-resistant top cover, shock-absorbent rubber bumper and reinforced corners all add to the durability of the devices. The notebooks can also get students through the entire school day (up to 12 hours2 of battery life) on a single charge. The TravelMate Spin B3 is a flexible device that adapts to the demands of a school day via four usage modes: students can write essays in clamshell mode, watch videos or lectures in display mode, make space on a desk in tent mode when they need to work by hand, and make use of tablet mode when they need to write by hand in math or art class. An optional world-facing camera above the keyboard allows students to capture photos and videos in tablet mode. The TravelMate B3 Spin employs Wacom AES technology to provide a natural writing experience and comes with a dockable stylus. The school ecosystem is made up of more than just students, and the TravelMate Spin B3 and TravelMate B3 include a variety of features that will make the lives of educators and school IT technicians easier: an optional battery indicator light on the front cover which enables teachers to see which students laptops are low on battery, anchored keys that are difficult to remove and an easy-fix keyboard, making it convenient for the schools IT technician to repair. The new Acer Chromebook 712, TravelMate B3 and TravelMate Spin B3 will be available to education and commercial customers in Middle East starting from April. -- Tradearabia News Service Workers at Hyundai Motor's car manufacturing plant in Ulsan leave work, Jan. 23. / Korea Times file By Baek Byung-yeul Hyundai Motor, SsangYong Motor and other automakers here are reeling from the spread of the deadly coronavirus from China, as component supply chain disruptions cause production delays. China, the world's second-largest economy, has played a big role in the global supply chain and Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, has a huge footprint in the auto industry as carmakers in the city are expected to produce over 1.6 million vehicles this year, accounting for 6 percent of total output in China. But the virus' spread has disrupted the auto industry as local governments have extended mandatory factory shutdowns. SsangYong Motor is the first Korean carmaker to be affected. The SUV maker told the Financial Supervisory Service on Friday that it will suspend production at its plant in Pyeongtaek, 70 kilometers south of Seoul, for seven days from Feb. 4 to 12 as the virus has hit parts suppliers. Leoni Wiring Systems Korea, a South Korean unit of German auto parts maker Leoni AG, has decided to suspend production at its plant in Yantai, in China's Shandong Province, until Feb. 9. This has affected SsangYong's production. Hyundai Motor and Kia Motor also have decided to cut extra weekend working hours as the Hyundai Motor Group companies struggle to source components due to the crisis. Employees in its Chinese units will also extend their holidays. "The weekend extra working hours for assembling the Palisade SUV in the Ulsan plant will be halted starting this week due to the shortage of auto parts," a Hyundai Motor official said. A Hyundai spokesman said the company is seeking to diversify its supply chain to minimize production problems. "We are closely watching the situation and trying to diversify the supply chain for car components to cope with a lack of supply from China," he said. The other Korean carmakers GM Korea and Renault Samsung are also keeping a close watch on the situation but it is not expected to have an immediate impact on their production. The outbreak has dealt hard blows to global auto makers. Honda and PSA Group, which operate in Wuhan, are evacuating employees from the city. In an attempt to prevent the spread of the deadly virus, the Chinese government said Jan. 27 it would extend the Lunar New Year holiday to Feb. 2. Local government also said enterprises will be closed until Feb. 9 and Hubei Province, where the SARS-like virus outbreak began, said firms in the area will be closed until Feb. 13. Analysts said the outbreak of the new virus could seriously disrupt global supply chains and consumer sentiment more than the SARS virus outbreak in 2003 because China is deeply integrated in global supply chains. Due to the SARS outbreak, which killed 774 people around the world, China's GDP growth plunged 2 percentage points, from 11.1 percent in the first quarter of 2003 to 9.1 percent in the second quarter of that year. Larry Hu, chief China economist at Macquarie, warned that the novel coronavirus could be a "black swan," an unpredictable event that could cause catastrophic damage to the global economy. "The world today is much flatter than 2003 and China is a lot more integrated into the global supply chain," Hu said. "Any potential disruption could cause a shortage of components and the impact would be amplified by the whole supply chain." Commenting on the effect of the virus on Korea's auto industry, Hana Financial Investment analyst Song Sun-jae said: "Hyundai and Kia will likely have little negative impact on their business as they don't have production lines in Wuhan. Given they already have a low utilization rate of their facilities in China, the possible loss they could have had will be minimal." Coronavirus impact on Q1 economy bigger than SARS Global Times By Li Xuanmin and Zhang Dan Source:Globaltimes.cn Published: 2020/1/31 2:16:06 Last Updated: 2020/1/31 23:00:12 Tourism, consumption, transport hardest hit The coronavirus outbreak could deal a heavier blow to the Chinese economy than the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) from almost two decades ago, weighing up to 2 percentage points on China's Q1 GDP growth for 2020 due to a steep decline in consumption, a key driver for the Chinese economy, said industry insiders and observers. Service industry sectors, including tourism, transportation, restaurant and retail will be the first to reel from the impact. As Chinese authorities have extended the Spring Festival holidays to February 2 and with factories having delayed work in an effort to stop the virus from spreading, the new epidemic will take a chunk out of the nation's manufacturing industry and disrupt the global supply chain. "I'm anxious and worried. This is a battle for survival, but I'm losing territory," a manager of a small robotics company in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province surnamed Yang told the Global Times. Yang's factory employs about 500 people, but has suspended operations due to concerns over the spread of the coronavirus. Yang does not have a date when his factory will resume operations and said it depends on when the epidemic will be under control. "Our spending, mostly in factory rental cost and employee salaries, is amplifying day by day. But we don't have an income source. If production does not resume before mid-February, the direct and indirect economic loss could be millions of yuan," Yang said. "Our spending, mostly in factory rental costs and employee salaries, is amplifying day by day. But we don't have an income source. If production does not resume before mid-February, direct and indirect economic losses could be in the millions of yuan," Yang said. Across Guangdong, known as China's manufacturing base and trading hub, a mixed mood of sobriety and anxiety is spreading among entrepreneurs. Some pointed out that if the disruption is extended, many small- and medium-sized manufacturers would be mired in a capital crunch and could even face bankruptcy. The Global Times learned that many Guangdong factories will resume operations on February 10, which industry insiders said was due to an order from the Guangdong government mandating that companies not begin production before that date. "It will take more time for us to see productivity bounce back to normal levels. Manufacturing is a labor-intensive industry, but the outbreak of coronavirus will reduce the number of migrant workers coming to Guangdong," a manager of an electronic component supplier in Dongguan, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the Global Times on Thursday. Exports could also experience setbacks from a production slowdown. The manager said the uncertainty over the volume of electronic component shipments could also make the firm fail to catch up with orders from India, Southeast Asia, Japan, and South Korea - its main export destinations - in the short term. Chen Lianjie, general manager of the Zhejiang-based KANGLIDI Medical Articles which makes medical products, told the Global Times the firm has had difficulty in meeting export orders, which were placed last year, due to a lack of raw materials and employees. Chen's factory resumed production on Spring Festival Eve as domestic demand soared, with production capacity reaching its largest daily output of 40,000 masks. Half of the company's wound dressing orders were from Russia, Peru, and Southeast Asia, Chen said, noting the company now has prioritized domestic orders. Waning consumption Spring Festival is traditionally a peak holiday travel time, during which Chinese make inbound and outbound trips and embark on shopping sprees, providing a robust stimulus to the nation's economic output at the beginning of the year. This year, as Chinese authorities imposed travel restrictions and millions of Chinese canceled travel plans in an effort to combat the epidemic, the contribution of consumption to the Chinese economy is likely to wane significantly, industry insiders said. Xu Xiaolei, marketing manager of CYTS Tours, said the number of travelers who booked trips on the platform plunged to almost zero on Wednesday. China Railway data revealed that rail services transported 2.93 million passengers on Wednesday, down 73.8 percent year-on-year. Xue Qingde, a department store owner in Fuzhou, capital of East China's Fujian Province, told the Global Times that his store's daily turnover has dropped 50 percent as residents have curbed shopping activities. "Consumption-related industries received a great shock due to the virus, with the consumption growth rate during this Spring Festival dropping to negative 3 to 5 percent," said Tian Yun, vice director of the Beijing Economic Operation Association. By comparison, China's consumption growth for the festival season in previous years was in the double digits. Some analysts predicted the impact of the coronavirus could be bigger than SARS in the short term, as consumption contributed 57.8 percent to China's GDP growth last year compared to a 37 percent contribution rate since 2003. Tian estimated that China's GDP growth in the first quarter may drop to 1 or 2 percent. A closer examination of the 2003 Chinese economy during the SARS outbreak could provide a clue on how the resilient Chinese economy can withstand short-term headwinds. During Q2 2003, when SARS hit, China's real GDP growth plunged by almost 2 percentage points to 7.9 percent due to subdued demand in consumption and reduced transportation. But it rebounded in Q3 and Q4 as consumption revived, driving the annual GDP growth rate to 9.9 percent in 2003. Tian stressed the economic impact of the epidemic on China will not last after Q1 and won't change larger trends, as the Chinese will consume, eat, and shop more to make up for suppressed demands once the epidemic fades. Analysts also expect the central government will consider macroeconomic policies to cushion short-term disruptions. "In the longer term, as long as the trade tension between China and the US won't escalate this year, China's GDP growth will improve gradually during the next three quarters and remain steady between 5.7 to 5.9 percent this year," Tian predicted. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Few things embody the Wisconsin Idea more than UW Extension agricultural agents. Scattered across the state, they offer expertise to farmers and connect them to the latest research coming out of University of Wisconsin System campuses about cows, corn, cranberries and more. But steep budget cuts imposed during former Republican Gov. Scott Walkers tenure reduced the number of agents working statewide. As many as 23 of the states 72 counties were without an agent in 2018. Staffing has slightly recovered since Extension shifted to UW-Madison oversight as part of a System restructuring. There are 62 agents this year, all of which are partially funded by counties and a dozen of whom cover multiple counties. Democratic Gov. Tony Evers wants $2.5 million to fund 20 additional agents, a bill that could have rare bipartisan support during this period of divided government. Both Republicans and Democrats agree that the states dairy industry is in crisis, with farmers suffering under low milk prices. I think we could always use more (ag agents), Rep. Todd Novak, R-Dodgeville, vice chairman of the Assembly Committee on Agriculture, said in an interview. More boots on the ground is a good thing and theyre invaluable resources for farmers. Several counties in Novaks district, which covers swaths of southwestern Wisconsin and is one of the most agriculturally diverse areas of the state, were without agents at some point in recent years but now have a dedicated Extension employee. Ten of Wisconsins other 72 counties are without their own agricultural agent, though Extension officials said those without one still have access to a statewide network of resources. Marquette County lost its agent in the fall, and the County Board has already funded its portion, county administrator Gary Sorensen said. He said sharing an agent with another central Wisconsin county is a possibility. Five counties took it upon themselves to fully fund the agent working for their communities. Dane County did so last year, said Josh Wescott, chief of staff to Dane County Executive Joe Parisi. With the dairy industry facing its greatest challenge in decades and the county down 73 herds since 2014, officials pulled together nearly $53,000 in local tax dollars to hire a full-time dairy and livestock coordinator. Help to bring back state ag agents is incredibly welcome news, Wescott said of Evers proposed bill to backfill some of the cuts Extension has made. Interim Extension dean and director Karl Martin, who was not available for an interview last week, said in a statement that the proposed legislation would create new opportunities to connect and apply the latest university research with those who can benefit from it the most. More staff would mean more capacity to teach farmers and community members about topics such as commercial vegetable production, soil management and water quality. Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, told reporters after Evers State of the State speech in late January that the Legislature is all ears on the governors series of agriculture bills. The governor is right; were losing two dairy farms a day, he said. But others Republicans are signaling concern about the bills. Farmers are already telling us the governors package does more to grow the size of government than actually help our rural areas, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, said in a statement last week. His spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment last week on the Extension bill specifically. Sen. Howard Marklein, R-Spring Green, chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Revenue and Financial Institutions, said he is willing to look at all of Evers agriculture proposals, but that farmers support for ag agents varies. Some are well-respected, but Marklein said he didnt know if that was true across the board. I want to deliver what farmers want, not what somebody in Madison thinks they need, he said. Richard Halopka works as a crops and soil educator in Clark County, one of the highest milk-producing counties in the state. Previously a two-agent county, Clark County found itself down to one after budget cuts. County officials decided in the fall to fully fund their own part-time dairy educator, who is bringing in state specialists, working with at-risk farms and collaborating with the Wisconsin Farm Center. Additional agents would reduce some of the stress, said Halopka, who also serves as president of the Wisconsin Association of County Agricultural Agents. You get spread thin some days, he said. Agriculturists are accustomed to being reactive, he said. For example, programming plans went out the window last year when Mother Nature dropped a polar vortex, shifting agents focus to the effect on perennial crops. No matter the winds political or literal Halopka said the agents will do what theyve always done: We work with what we have. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 The coronavirus, which was first detected in Wuhan, China, in December has found its way into more than 24 countries. While many countries, especially those in Africa, are yet to report any confirmed case, there have been scares of the disease in Nigeria. The World Health Organisation (WHO) have advised countries to heighten their health security surveillance to be able to quickly detect cases. However, there might still be one or two missing cases which might go undetected and enter into the society. To minimise the risk of contracting the disease, here is how to protect yourself and family from the coronavirus. 1. Avoid close contact with anyone coughing, sneezing or showing symptoms of respiratory illness. Others symptoms of coronavirus includes fever and shortness of breath, severe cases can lead to pneumonia, kidney failure and in worse scenarios death. 2. Cook food thoroughly before consumption. Scientists are claiming that animals are the primary host of the coronavirus. Due to this health official recommended cooking meat and animal products like eggs, milk, thoroughly before consumption. 3, When visiting live markets in areas currently experiencing cases of novel coronavirus, avoid direct unprotected contact with live animals and surfaces in contact with animals. 4. Anyone with underlying medical conditions should avoid live animal markets and raw meats together, since those people are considered at higher risk of severe disease. 5. Do not eat sick animals or those that died from diseases or unknown causes. 6. Wash hands: Wash your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. 7. If you have a fever, cough, and difficulty breathingl seek medical care early and share previous travel history with your healthcare provider. 8. Cover mouth and nose if you are the one feeling sick, cover your mouth and nose when you cough or sneeze, and disinfect the objects and surfaces you touch. 9. When coughing and sneezing cover mouth and nose with flexed elbow or tissue throw tissue away immediately and wash hands. Advertisement By West Kentucky Star Staff Feb. 02, 2020 | PADUCAH By West Kentucky Star Staff Feb. 02, 2020 | 02:14 PM | PADUCAH The McCracken County Sheriff's Office is investigating a report of a threat against Reidland Middle School. McCracken County Schools Director of Public Relations Jayme Jones says administrators at the school learned late Saturday night about the potential threat made against the school. Jones said school officials are working closely with detectives to assist with the investigation. "The safety and security of our students and staff is always our top priority and we take all threats seriously, as does the McCracken County Sheriff's Office," Jones said. "This is a timely reminder for our entire school community that threatening or concerning behavior or language should always be reported to authorities and we thank those that brought this information forward." Sheriff's detectives say they are still investigating, but at his time there doesn't appear to have been any credible threat against the school. The Sheriffs Office encouraged the public to call 911 or 270-444-8550 if they hear of alleged threats. Miguel Maestre was crowned the winner of I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! Australia on Sunday night. The 40-year-old chef broke down in tears as he claimed the title of King of the Jungle, with monies raised going towards suicide prevention charity, R U OK? Retired AFL star Dale Thomas, 32, placed runner-up for his charity Camp Quality, and musical theatre veteran Rhonda Burchmore, 59, in third for Neuroscience Research Australia. King of the Jungle! Miguel Maestre, 40, (pictured) was crowned the WINNER of I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! Australia on Sunday night's finale episode Miguel shed tears as he was reunited with his wife of 10 years Sascha Newport, and their two children, daughter Claudia, nine, and Morgan, five. The Spanish-born star thanked his 'amazing' campmates Dale and Rhonda, and his family. 'I want to say thank you to the people I look up to, the people I love the most. That is my family, my beautiful wife Sascha, Claudia and Morgan. I want to say thank you to the family back at home supporting.' Reunion: Miguel shed tears as he was reunited with his wife of 10 years Sascha Newport, and their two children, daughter Claudia, nine, and Morgan, five (all pictured) Miguel went on to praise his charity of choice, R U OK?, and urged Australians to continue working towards removing the stigma surrounding mental health issues. 'Thank you to R U OK? for raising awareness to stop suicide in Australia,' he said. 'We need to get away from the stigma. We have to stop Australians [who commit] suicide every day.' The work of suicide prevention charity R U OK? is close to Miguel's heart, having represented them on Dancing With The Stars last year. Heartfelt: Miguel (pictured with runner-up Dale Thomas) thanked his family for supporting him: 'I want to say thank you to the people I look up to, the people I love the most' Worthy cause: Miguel competed to raise money and awareness for suicide prevention charity, R U OK? 'That conversation could save a life. It's not just about raising the money but it's about raising awareness,' Miguel said before entering the South African jungle. 'Imagine how powerful it is if somebody is watching this show and they say, "Oh, Miguel is supporting R U OK?" and see all the avenues of help. 'Even if it's one person, one life. How much that's worth!' After the top spot: Retired AFL star Dale Thomas, 32, placed runner-up followed by musical theatre veteran Rhonda Burchmore, 59, in third Praise: During her exit interview with hosts Dr Chris Brown and Julia Morris, Rhonda said she was incredibly grateful to have made the final three with two men 'full of heart' During her exit interview with hosts Dr Chris Brown and Julia Morris, Rhonda said she was incredibly grateful to have made the final three with two men 'full of heart'. 'So respectful of the good things in life. Miguel was [about] family and old fashioned values. Dale, he was like my little brother there. [He] folded up my sleeping bag every morning. 'Really good blokes,' she continued. 'Good heart and they were just wonderful.' KENOSHA Wisconsinites, accustomed to the smell of dairy air, now have the skunky stench of hemp as part of their scent profile. In Kenosha County, Somers residents repulsed that their backyards could soon have a new aroma have learned its a protected odor under the states right-to-farm law. And they have their Bristol neighbors to blame. The bottom line is, we cant do anything, said Somers attorney Jeff Davison, tasked with looking into whether Somers could require a buffer zone between hemp fields and subdivisions. Wisconsins right-to-farm law was enacted after the pungent odor from a chicken farm in Bristol was deemed a nuisance by the state Supreme Court in 1981. Quality Egg Farm Inc., in operation since 1967, was shuttered by a lower court after years of complaints from neighbors about the smell that permeated from the property, located near an elementary school. The 140,000 chickens on the farm in 1974 reportedly produced 15 tons of chicken manure per day. The court case led state officials, lobbied by farm groups, to enact legislation to protect the economic interests of the agricultural industry against such nuisance claims. Every state has some version of a right-to-farm law. Many were enacted when rural America met urban sprawl. Wisconsins law protects lawful farming practices, including crop and livestock production, beekeeping, fish farming, and now, hemp growing. Basically, it states these ag-based activities cannot be found a nuisance if conducted on land that was in agricultural use before the complainant moved next door. Residents of Covelli Heights subdivision, located in the 800 block of 22nd Avenue (Highway Y), approached the Somers Village Board in November after they learned the farm located southeast of the subdivision had applied for a license to grow hemp. They noted the law does allow a farming practice to be deemed a nuisance if it presents a substantial threat to public health or safety. Colleen Dosemagen and MaryAnn Cardinali, vice president of the Covelli Heights homeowners association, voiced safety and crime concerns. They pointed to reports that school children were getting ill from the smell in some areas. Resident Guy Santelli said other states where hemp is grown have ordinances in place that limit the proximity of the fields to subdivisions, parks, schools and municipal buildings. It is a plant that very much smells like marijuana when it is being grown, Santelli said. It grows 6 to 12 feet tall, and it is quite different than the crops of cabbage, soybeans or corn that we are used to. However, Davison said Wisconsin laws prevent local municipalities from enacting ordinances regarding hemp, contrary to what is set forth in the 2017 industrial hemp pilot program regulations. Its not a matter of local concern, Davison said. The state makes the rules and issues the licenses. Village officials said they have and will continue to voice the residents concerns to state officials and encouraged them to do the same. Trustee Gregg Sinnen said that because it is a pilot program, legislators may be willing to make changes based on what was found to work and not work. Trustee Karl Ostby said with hemp flooding the market, prices are so depressed the problem may partially take care of itself, as farmers drop out of the market. A farmer in the audience noted that hemp was selling for about $18 a pound, down considerably from $150 per pound a year ago. Also, those who are not locked in with a buyer will be hard-pressed to find one, meaning they will have to retail the product on their own. Sinnen said given the market reality, there may not be as much push back from the agricultural community if changes are proposed. A 56-year-old NCP leader was hacked to death on Sunday by two persons in Sangli district of Maharashtra, police said. The deceased, Ananda Patil, is a brother of Gajanan Patil who is a personal assistant (PA) of deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar. The deceased was also a Sarpanch of Khatav village. The incident occurred near Khatav village in Palus tehsil when Ananda Patil was returning from his farm on his motorcycle, a police officer said. "Two persons attacked him with a sharp-edged weapon around 11.30 am and fled. He was taken to hospital but succumbed to his injuries during treatment," he said. The motive behind the murder is under investigation, he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The much awaited expansion of the Karnataka cabinet will take place on February 6 with chief minister B S Yediyurappa on Sunday saying that 13 MLAs would take oath of office. "The cabinet expansion will take place on February 6 with the oath-taking ceremony at the Raj Bhavan at 10.30 am," he told reporters in Bengaluru. Thirteen MLAs, including 10 who had joined the Bharatiya Janata Party from parties, including the Congress and the Janata Dal-Secular, will take oath, he said. Yediyurappa had received the nod from the BJP central leadership on January 31 for the expansion of his six month old cabinet. The exercise has been on the cards for nearly two months ever since BJP won 12 of the 15 seats in the December 5 2019 bypolls, helping the Yediyurappa government retain majority in the assembly. There are 18 ministers, including the chief minister, in the cabinet that has a sanctioned strength of 34. Sixteen berths are vacant. The chief minister had said that barring one or two, most of the disqualified JDS-Congress MLAs who got re-elected in the bypolls on BJP tickets would be made ministers, but that there would not be additional deputy chief ministers. Though he had given an assurance to all 11 re-elected legislators that they would be made ministers, he said on Sunday that 10 of them would be made ministers. The cabinet expansion exercise will be a delicate task for Yediyurappa as he has to ensure adequate representation to various castes and regions. The cabinet already has eight Lingayats, including Yediyurappa, three Vokkaligas, three from Scheduled Castes, two OBCs, one from the Scheduled Tribe and a Brahmin. Opposition parties have been critical of the BJP and Yediyurappa over the delay in the cabinet expansion, alleging tha he was weak and that his administration had collapsed. ANNE DRAGO, Stonington, Girls Basketball, Senior; Drago was named to the all-tournament team at the WCCU Holiday Basketball Tournament. In two games, she scored 38 points and had eight rebounds. DANTE WILK, Westerly, Boys Basketball, Senior; Wilk was named MVP of the WCCU Holiday Basketball Tournament after the Bulldogs beat Chariho in the title game. Wilk had a combined 35 points, 10 rebounds, 11 assists and eight steals in two tournament victories. TYLER LABELLE, Chariho, Boys Basketball, Junior; LaBelle scored 41 points in two games to earn all-tournament honors at the WCCU Holiday Basketball Tournament. LaBelle had 22 in a win against South Kingstown and 19 in a loss to Westerly. ADDIE HAUPTMANN, Wheeler, Girls Basketball, Senior; Hauptmann scored 32 points in two games in the Montville Christmas Tournament. She also had 20 rebounds, seven assists and eight steals. Vote View Results (Bloomberg) -- Joe Bidens campaign has added big-name Democratic fundraisers to the candidates national finance committee, including billionaire Penny Pritzker and Avenue Capital Croups Marc Lasry, as it braces for a protracted fight for the Democratic nomination. Muddied or close results in the first few contests paired with multiple candidates who have signaled plans to stay in the race indefinitely drag the nominating contest deep into the year, and Bidens camp argued Friday that its ready for the fight. The VP remains in a strong position to perform well in the first four states and on Super Tuesday, but were also planning for an extended process into the summer, campaign manager Greg Schultz said in a memo to Biden supporters, hinting that the campaign expects Bernie Sanders will stay in the race at least until the end of the primary calendar, even if he doesnt have a delegate advantage. Mondays contest begins the process, it doesnt end it, Schultz said. And, its a process we are fully prepared and well-positioned to win. After falling behind top opponents in raising money, January has been Bidens strongest month of fund raising since launch, he said, with much of the growth coming online. Setting the Bar While Schultzs memo could be interpreted as an effort to lower expectations ahead of an uncertain showing on Monday, so he could tout the results if Biden does reasonably well, it could also be seen as an effort to head off panic among Bidens supporters should he perform poorly. For months, Bidens top aides have stressed that their strategy doesnt rely upon wins in Iowa or New Hampshire as much as it does on strong performances later in February in Nevada and South Carolina, and on Super Tuesday, March 3. But before Biden began falling behind Sanders in a variety of national and key-state polls, they hadnt acknowledged the possibility that the nomination fight would stay competitive deep into the primary calendar. Story continues Currently, Biden trails Sanders in the RealClearPolitics polling average. In Iowa, Biden and his team are expecting a close finish, the candidate insisted. I think its going to be just a tossup here. It has been all the way along, Biden told reporters in Mount Pleasant at the end of a day of campaigning that took him to small events in three towns in the southeastern corner of the state. Calendar Favorable? Still he projected optimism, even as operatives and pundits in Iowa have become more skeptical about his chances. Ive said from the beginning I expect to do well. I probably shouldnt tell you that, but I expect to do well, he said. However Monday nights caucuses turn out, Biden said he doesnt see those results defining the race at least for him if he doesnt win. Its not as consequential in one sense as it has been in years past, he said. New Hampshire will be a real uphill race as it always is for a non-New Englander. Both Sanders and Warren are from neighboring states. The calendar becomes more favorable to him after that. I feel very strongly that we have a great firewall in South Carolina. I think were in a position where well do very well in Nevada, he said. Big-Name Fundraisers In addition to teasing a strong fundraising announcement as January comes to a close, Schultz big-name Democratic fundraisers who have joined Bidens finance committee, including Pritzker, the former U.S. Commerce Secretary; former Ambassadors Jane Hartley and Rufus Gifford; Lasry, chairman and CEO of Avenue; Mark Gallogly, managing principal and co-founder of private equity firm Centerbridge Partners; Blair Effron, co-founder of investment banking firm Centerview Partners; and Alex Heckler, founding and managing partner of LSN Partners, a Miami Beach-based consulting firm. Schultz said he anticipates there will be only a small difference between the number of delegates among the top candidates after the Iowa and New Hampshire contests. That will benefit Biden, who has led polls of South Carolina by double-digits for months. To help with delegate strategy, Bidens campaign has hired David Huynh, a veteran of Hillary Clintons 2016 campaign and Kamala Harriss campaign, as delegate adviser. Schultz said that having Huynh, a top expert on delegate strategy, on board will be an enormous advantage. (An earlier version corrected the affiliation of Blair Effron.) (DISCLAIMER: Michael Bloomberg is also seeking the Democratic nomination for president. Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.) (Recasts first paragraph.) To contact the reporter on this story: Jennifer Epstein in Mount Pleasant, Iowa at jepstein32@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Magan Crane For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source. 2020 Bloomberg L.P. Israel launches strikes on Gaza after rockets fired Jerusalem, Feb 2 (AFP) Feb 02, 2020 Israel launched air strikes on the Gaza Strip early Sunday in retaliation for projectiles fired from the Palestinian enclave into southern Israel, the army said. Military jets and helicopters struck targets linked to Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza, shortly after midnight, with no reported casualties. Israel also suspended cement deliveries to the enclave and cancelled 500 commercial entry permits into Israel "until further notice". The action was taken "due to the continued rocket fire and launchings of incendiary balloons from the Gaza Strip into Israel," said a statement by Major General Kamil Abu Rukun, head of the Israeli military unit responsible for coordination in the Palestinian territories. Since the announcement Tuesday by US President Donald Trump of his plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, rockets, shells and explosive balloons have been fired almost daily from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel, provoking Israeli retaliation. Palestinians strongly reject the US plan, seen as heavily favouring Israel. The Trump initiative suggests that Israel would retain control of the contested city of Jerusalem as its "undivided capital" and gives the Jewish state the green light to annex settlements in the West Bank, which Israel occupied in 1967. Rocket fire from Gaza on Saturday night forced Benny Gantz, a leading candidate in Israel's upcoming general election who was campaigning in southern Israel, to take refuge with his team in a shelter, local media reported. Former military general Gantz heads the Blue and White party and is the chief rival of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the March 2 election. The Israeli army said its overnight strikes on Gaza targeted infrastructure belonging to Hamas, the Islamist group that has controlled the enclave since 2007. "Fighter jets and attack helicopters struck a number of Hamas terror targets in the northern Gaza Strip," it said in a statement. Among the targets was "underground infrastructure... used as a situation room," it added. There were no casualties from the strikes, according to Hamas security sources. Hamas and Israel have fought three wars since 2008 but over the past year the Islamists have gradually shaped an informal truce with Israel, under which the Jewish state has eased its crippling blockade of Gaza. Jamia Millia Islamia has become a hub of student protests over the past two months. The university has prohibited students from holding any protest meeting or agitation inside the university campus, warning them of strict action, as per the officials. The varsity administration also directed students to report to it any unauthorised entry of outsiders in campus to avoid "disruption of peace". The directive comes in wake of recent incidents around the university area. bccl Earlier this week, a student of the varsity was injured outside the campus when a man fired a pistol at a group of anti-CAA protesters while waving the firearm over his head shouting "Yeh lo aazadi". "Any kind of protest meeting, agitation, speeches and mass gathering or any unlawful activities causing inconvenience and disruption in the day to day academic functioning are not allowed around the central canteen or anywhere in the Jamia Millia Islamia campus," the Jamia Registrar said in an official order. Jamia Millia Islamia Registrar: It is to inform that any kind of protest meeting, agitation, speeches&mass gathering or any unlawful activities causing inconvenience&disruption in the day to day academic functioning are not allowed anywhere in the campus. ANI (@ANI) February 1, 2020 #Jamia issues a notice against holding any protest/meeting/gathering anywhere in its campus. It's requested the students to immediately report any outsider entry in the campus. Warned students of action if found engaged in any such activity. @jamiamillia_ Fareeha Iftikhar (@Iftikharfariha) February 1, 2020 Don't protest in campus: Jamia to students. Warns stringent action pic.twitter.com/ThhwWRUKuE Nitish Shekhawat (@nitishshekhawa1) February 1, 2020 bccl "Students are expected to cooperate actively in discipline maintenance to support exam and conduct of classes. "They are also expected to immediately report any outsider or unauthorized campus entry as this can lead to an attempt of disruption of peace at university. Strict action will be initiated if anyone is found engaged in such activities," the registrar added. bccl The university had virtually turned into a battlefield last month after police entered the campus and used force, following protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act. It had led to violence and use of arson in which four DTC buses, 100 private vehicles and 10 police bikes were damaged. The university moved court this month for registration of FIR against Delhi police. On Saturday, a man open fired at protesters in Shaheen Bagh, as he shouted "Hindu Rashtra Zindabad" and fired two rounds. "The man had resorted to aerial firing. Police immediately overpowered and caught him," Delhi DCP Chinmay Biswal told ANI. However, according to news agency PTI, the man opened fire behind the stage at the site where the protest took place, not the Jasola red light which is around 500 metres from the protest site. , We're sorry, this article is not currently available Chennai, Feb 2 : A special court here is expected to pronounce on Monday the quantum of punishment for 15 men convicted of sexually assaulting a minor disabled girl at an apartment complex here. On Saturday, the Special Court under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offenders (POSCO) Act had convicted 15 accused, acquitted one while one person died while the trial was on. The 12-year-old hearing impaired girl was sexually assaulted by the convicts working in the apartment complex as lift operators, plumbers, housekeepers, security guard and others for about seven months. The convicts were R. Ravikumar, M. Suresh, A. Rajasekar, A. Erald Bross, B.J. Sugumaran, N. Abishek, K. Murugesu, N. Paramasivam, N. Palani, A. Jayaganesh, Deenadayalan, A. Jayaraman, E. Surya, J. Raja, and A. Umapathy, while P. Gunasekaran has been acquitted and accused N. Babu died during the trial. Some of accused were above 50 years of age. The sexual assault came to light last year when the girl told about her ordeal to her elder sister who had come here on holiday from Delhi. The parents then lodged a police complaint and the 17 persons were arrested. According to the police, the girl was first sexually assaulted by the lift operator in the apartment complex and later, the other service persons assaulted her. A special flight of Air India carrying the second batch of 323 Indians from Chinas Wuhan landed in Delhi on Sunday morning, a day after hundreds were evacuated from the Chinese city in Hubei province at the centre of the novel coronavirus outbreak. Indian ambassador to China, Vikram Misri, said seven people from the Maldives have also been evacuated from Wuhan. The Maldives foreign minister Abdulla Shahid thanked India for bringing his countrys nationals out of Wuhan. Seven Maldivians in Wuhan are on their way to Delhi on the special Air India flight. Upon arrival, theyll be housed in Delhi for a period of quarantine. My deep gratitude to PM Narendra Modi and external affairs minister Dr Jaishankar, Shahid was quoted as saying by ANI. The 323 will be screened for symptoms of coronavirus at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in the Capital and then taken to the two quarantine facilities set up by the Indian Army and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) in Delhi and neighbouring Haryanas Manesar. Five doctors from the Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) Hospital, who were on board the first flight, were also in the second flight to monitor the evacuees, an Air India spokesperson said. On Saturday, Air Indias jumbo B747 had carried 324 Indians from Wuhan. Officials had said that one of the evacuees has so far shown symptoms of being affected by the virus. Those quarantined will be observed for any signs of the infection for at least two weeks by a qualified team of doctors and staff trained at the facilities. Chinas death toll from the new virus has gone up to 304 with more than 14,000 cases, amid warnings from the World Health Organization that other countries need to be prepared in the event the disease spreads among their populations. Figures from the National Health Commission released on Sunday showed an increase of 45 in the death toll and 2590 in the number of cases for a total of 14,380. Of the 324 Indians evacuated from Wuhan on Saturday, 211 are students, 110 working professionals and three minors. Of them, 56 are from Andhra Pradesh, 53 from Tamil Nadu and 42 from Kerala. About six others were not allowed to board the plane by immigration officials in China as they showed symptoms such as high fever. They may have to undergo tests to confirm if are infected with the virus. India reported its first case of coronavirus on Thursday, with a woman in Kerala who had recently returned to the country from Wuhan testing positive. Emilia Clarke's 90s-inspired beauty look at the 73rd British Academy Film Awards. [Photo: Getty] Yahoo is committed to finding you the best products at the best prices. We may receive a share from purchases made via links on this page. Prices were correct at the time of publication. Emilia Clarke was easily one of the best dressed actors at the BAFTA Awards on Sunday evening. Clarke, 33, was one of the first big names to walk the red carpet at the Royal Albert Hall wearing a slinky black, sequin gown by Italian fashion house Schiaparelli. The couture look was complimented by the former Game of Thrones stars sultry beauty look, which featured slicked back hair, a dramatic smokey eye and subtle nude lip. Clarkes make-up was all Clinique - unsurprisingly, as the actor became the beauty brands Global Brand Ambassador last month. Lynsey Alexander, the make-up artist behind Clarkes BAFTA look said on Instagram Stories that she wanted the look to be sexy, sultry and 90s-inspired. For those wanting to re-create Clarkes beauty look, the entire process was a rather complex, nine-step routine. While we definitely dont all have time to create the entire look, weve rounded up all the products so you can re-create the feature of your choice, from Clarkes sultry smokey eye, subtle nude lip or glowing complexion. Emilia Clarkes nine step BAFTAs beauty routine Step One: Clinique ID with the Fatigue Cartridge | 36 from Clinique Emilias unique Clinique ID was applied first to prep the skin, and works to brighten her complexion. Step Two: Even Better Makeup with SPF 15 | 28.50 from Clinique Emilias make-up artist, Lynsey Alexander, then applied Even Better Makeup with SPF, in shade Colour Whip, on target areas, such as her forehead, cheek and chin. Step Three: Kohl Eyeliner | 16.50 from Clinique Alexander lined Clarkes eyes with black and brown kohl pencils. Step Four: All About Shadow Quad Morning Java | 30 from Clinique Story continues For a sultry look Emilias make-up artist goes over the liner with a brown powder, which is blended out afterwards. The versatile golden shades were layered together for a dramatic smoky eye. Step Five: High Impact mascara | 20 from Clinique Lashings of Clinique High Impact mascara is applied on the top and bottom of Emilias eyelashes for extra volume. While a clear mascara is applied to her eyebrows to set them. Step Six: Chubby Stick Sculpting Contour | 21 from Clinique Lynsey sculpts the face using Cliniques shading cream, as it helps to create a 3D effect. Step Seven: Chubby Stick Sculpting Highlight | 21 from Clinique A highlighter is then applied to brighten the face and accentuate Emilias bone structure. Step Eight: Moisture Surge Face Spray Thirsty Skin Relief | 24 Emilias make-up is then set with a translucent powder and a spray of moisture surge over the top for a lived in look. Step Nine: Even Better Pop Lip Colour Foundation in Romanced | 17.50 from Clinique In order to create a perfect nude lip Alexander used Cliniques lip foundation, where each shade is expertly created to match the shade of your lips. There are 28 nude shades to chose from, Clarkes perfect shade being a pinky hue called Romanced. Libyan National Army (LNA) commander Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar confirmed that his side will take part in the upcoming 5+5 military commission talks in Geneva, the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) said, Sputnik reports. SRSG [Special Representative to the Secretary-General] @GhassanSalame met today in Rajma with Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, who confirmed LNAs participation in the Joint Military Commission (5+5) talks, expected to start soon in Geneva, the UNSMIL announced late on Saturday via their Twitter account. The UN-initiated committee will comprise five representatives of the Government of National Accord (GNA) and five representatives of the Libyan National Army (LNA). Its formation was announced at the Berlin conference on Libya, held on 19 January. The purpose of the military committee is to negotiate a full ceasefire in Libya between the warring GNA and LNA. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres previously counted on convening a meeting of the military commission in Geneva on 28 January, but this did not happen. Five persons have died while 14 others have sustained various degrees of injury in an accident at Gomoa Antseadze on the Kasoa Cape Coast road in the Central Region. The Saturday, 1 February 2020 accident, occurred when an articulated truck with registration number AS 8726-10 collided with a Toyota minibus with registration number GX 3045-18. According to an eyewitness, the truck, which wrongly overtook another car, collided with the passenger car which had 19 people on board. Officers of the Ghana Police Service and National Fire Service rushed to the scene to control traffic. The deceased and the injured have been rushed to the Apam Government Hospital. Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The beginning of the school year when you got to show off your new duds, new cars, new looks! Sports! Playing, cheering, watching high school athletics. The arts: Dramatic arts, musical groups and shows, graphic arts groups, debate, etc. The prom! No dancing the night away or punch bowl antics. The daily interactions. Just being with the group, hanging with friends and classmates. Access to college recruiters and advisors its harder to line up higher education. Walking onstage to get a diploma while all the family is watching with everyone elses family. Vote View Results Voters have turned on Prime Minister Scott Morrison over his response to the summer bushfires in a sign he could be irretrievably damaged by a series of stumbles, including his decision to take a holiday in Hawaii. Angry at a pathetic and disorganised response to the crisis, voters blamed Mr Morrison for being too slow to act on the threat and failing to show empathy with Australians suffering in the aftermath of the fires. But some believe Mr Morrison can recover from the crisis if he sticks to his policies over the years ahead, showing he has continued support from those who backed the Coalition government at the last election. The findings, based on focus groups run by research company Ipsos for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, also revealed majority support for greater action on climate change despite doubts about putting a price on carbon. As an entrepreneur, you might think business and love cant mix. But theres no reason couples cant work together to create an extraordinary business. A trend thats on the rise, there are more and more power couples emerging who are beating the odds and successfully running a business together. Thats not to say that its easy. Working together every day and maintaining a strong relationship takes work, especially if you both have strong personalities. So how can a couple successfully work together without straining the relationship? If youre looking to become the next Melinda and Bill Gates, the following tips might help: Ensure you have good communication When working with your spouse, you need to maintain a good level of communication with one another. If you end up tip-toeing around each other, both your professional and personal relationships may erode. Upon returning to work after taking time off to be a full-time mom, Megan McKissen joined her husband Dustin in their corporate communications company McKissen & Co. in Bellingham, Wash. She believes you need to be respectful, but tell your spouse when something is not right within the business. Clear communication is important," Megan says. "If youre upset with something as a coworker, but not as a spouse, clarify which role youre speaking from. Failing to do that will cause a lot of unnecessary conflict. Related: Sincerity Is How Power Couples Maintain Intimacy While Working Together By empathizing with one another and taking the time to talk every day, youll stand a better chance of being successful, both at work and at home. Take time off When you work together every day, there might be a risk of everything becoming about work. While its important to talk about work when you are, of course, working throughout the day, you dont want every discussion you have to be about work. This is why its vital to also spend quality time together away from the workplace. Related: 4 Secrets of Blissful Entrepreneurial Power Couples Try to arrange a date night every week. This will keep your personal relationship on the front burner while giving you a break from the stresses the business might bring. Dustin sums it up like this: A successful working relationship depends on a successful personal relationship. You cant have peace at work and war at home or vice versa. Make your relationship a priority. Even if youve seen each other all day every day through the week, you need to make time for date night on the weekend. Keep it professional When you are working, however, its important to keep your relationship professional. If you fail to do so, your emotions will get in the way when it comes time to make challenging decisions within the business. Treat your partner like a work colleague. Make every important decision together while also recognizing your unique and individual strengths. Related: These 10 Entrepreneurial Couples Share How They Make It Work in Both Business and Love Of course, there should be a clear work-life balance. But when youre in the office, both partners should have the same frame of mind that your business is a top priority. Express appreciation and celebrate the little things When working together, you should show appreciation for the little things throughout the day. If you have worked together to close a deal or acquire new business, show gratitude to your partner for what they have done. This respect is essential for your relationship and business to thrive. If your spouse makes a move that benefits your business, such as successfully acquiring an order, celebrate it. By celebrating the small things together, you will make the workplace a lot more positive. It also shows you respect and appreciate all they do for the business. Your spouse will, in turn, follow suit. Related: The Secret to Staying Married While Starting a Business Sid Clevinger and Tiffany Tombs of Dallas, Texas run multiple businesses together and happen to be engaged. I reached out to find out how they make it work. Being in a relationship with a fellow entrepreneur is extremely fast-paced, as we are both consistently going all in on ourselves and our business," Clevinger said in an email. "Weve each learned to leverage our own success to help the other see wins in the business as well. Couples time Working together and living together can create a delicate work/love balance. You wake up in the same house, go to work together in the same office and go home together. So the thought of being around your partner later to go on a date can lose its luster if youre not careful. Tombs says time management is important to keeping the businesses running smooth and the relationship sparks running high. We are both alphas, competitive and extremely passionate about what we do, Tomb says. Weve had to create agreements around our communication about what needs to get done, remember that we arent competing with each other and provide feedback about each others' ideas." "Weve also created clear boundaries around business time and couples time, she continues. This means when were on couple time, there are no phones and no work talk. Related: The Science Behind Working With Your Spouse Maintaining a successful mixture of business and love is a learning curve, which makes it vital to be on the same page from the start of the journey. You need to define the roles you hold individually and appreciate each other for the unique talents you have. If you go into the process with the mindset that not every day within a business is perfect, there will be fewer surprises. From the get-go, ensure you know the divide you must make between business and relationship to be sure youre there for each other no matter the challenges the business may face. This is the biggest secret to becoming a powerful entrepreneur couple. Related: From 25 Cents to $25,000 and Beyond: How 15 African-American Entrepreneurs Funded Their Businesses Bags on Sale for Every Kind of Entrepreneur This Bike Taxi Start-up Aims To Make Transportation Accessible to Next 200 million Users This Year Copyright 2020 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved Australias hotels, restaurants, tourism operators and some of our most popular attractions face a combined $1 billion loss in revenue for every month the Chinese travel ban remains in force, with industry chiefs calling for a government rescue package to save jobs and businesses. The federal governments blanket ban on Chinese tourists, announced four days after Beijing grounded Chinese group tours to Australia, has already caused an abrupt, mass cancellation of bookings on what is traditionally the busiest and most profitable time of the year for businesses that target the Chinese market. While Tourism Minister Simon Birmingham described the tourism industry as incredibly resilient and predicted it would recover from the twin impact of this summers bushfires and coronavirus, Restaurant & Catering Association chief executive Wes Lambert said help would be needed to stop businesses going to the wall. Tourism Minister Simon Birmingham says China travel ban will have a "significant impact" but Australia's tourism industry is resilient. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Some members have told us they have gotten calls from some of their tourism operators that have had cancellations in the hundreds of thousands, Mr Lambert told The Age. Veteran Nigerian journalist and Ovation Magazine boss, Chief Dele Momodu has sent a warning to Nigerians after he almost lost 900,000 to a fuel attendant. The Ovation Magazine boss revealed that he bought fuel of just N9,000, however, he was charged N900,000 by the fuel attendant at the petrol station. Also Read: Remain Loyal To Your Boss, Dele Momodu Advises Osinbajo The veteran journalist expressed relief that his bank limit is N500,000 and that was saved him from the big loss. Dele Momodu, the brain behind the prestigious Ovation magazine wrote on his Instagram page: Representative image India on February 2 temporarily suspended e-visa facility for Chinese travellers and foreigners residing in China in view of the novel coronavirus that has killed more than 300 people, infected 14,562 others and spread to 25 countries, including India, the US and the United Kingdom. Due to certain current developments, travel to India on e-visas stands temporarily suspended with immediate effect," the Indian Embassy announced in Beijing. This applies to holders of Chinese passports and applicants of other nationalities residing in the People's Republic of China. Holders of already issued e-visas may note that these are no longer valid," the announcement said. All those who have a compelling reason to visit India may contact the Embassy of India in Beijing or the Indian consulates in Shanghai or Guangzhou, as well as the Indian Visa Application Centres in these cities," it said. Also read - In-Depth | Coronavirus: The spread, the danger, the symptoms and the social cost COVID-19 Vaccine Frequently Asked Questions View more How does a vaccine work? A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine. How many types of vaccines are there? There are broadly four types of vaccine one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine. What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind? Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time. View more Show On February 2, India airlifted a second batch of 323 stranded Indians and seven Maldivian citizens from coronavirus-hit Wuhan city, taking the total number of people evacuated to 654. Air India's jumbo B747 made two flights to Wuhan city the ground zero of the coronavirus epidemic. In the first flight on early February 1, 324 Indians were evacuated and on February 2 another 323 Indians and seven Maldivian citizens were flown back. (Newser) On the 12th day of marriage, Jon Peters' true love got herself a fast plane ticket out of town and an announcement that the fifth marriage for both Peters and Pamela Anderson was not to be the charm. As the Hollywood Reporter reports, the split came abruptly in the wake of the Jan. 20 wedding in Malibu, Calif., and Anderson headed off to her native Canada. But it apparently wasn't technically the fifth time around for either party, notes the Reporter, as the couple hadn't filed legal paperwork. Anderson's statement: story continues below "I have been moved by the warm reception to Jon and my union," Anderson said. "We would be very grateful for your support as we take some time apart to re-evaluate what we want from life and from one another. Life is a journey and love is a process. With that universal truth in mind, we have mutually decided to put off the formalization of our marriage certificate and put our faith in the process. Thank you for respecting our privacy." (Read more Pamela Anderson stories.) New Delhi, Feb 2 : Green advocates on Sunday praised Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's Budget speech towards combating air pollution along with fighting climate change and energy transition. But they were apprehensive too on several issues over the increased fund allocations. In her speech, she highlighted the need to shut down old coal plants. India has about 48GW worth of coal power plants that are old and don't comply with the new emission standards. Reacting to the Budget proposals, Delhi-based Climate Trends Director Aarti Khosla told IANS: "The Coal Ministry clearly is not on the same page as the Finance Ministry." "While the Coal Ministry still thinks coal is the 'soul of India', the Finance Ministry's Budget hints otherwise. The Finance Minister's Budget calls for an early retirement of old coal plants while adding more emphasis on renewable energy. The energy transition is inevitable, and crucial that the Union Budget acknowledges the cost of action versus that of inaction, taking a long-term view on a low carbon future." "The Budget had a positive outlook on several matters pertaining to climate and clean energy goals. Increased allocation of up to Rs 4,000 crore for air quality management in cities is not positive, if not implemented well," she said. Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CRECA) analyst Sunil Dahiya said the mention of Rs 4,400 crore for clean air programmes was good to hear but the total allocation to the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change is merely Rs 3,100 crore, with an increase of just Rs 430 crore from last year. "So it's unclear and raises questions such as where has this money (Rs 4,400 crore) been parked and who will be responsible to manage and disburse this. We hope more clarity on this will follow soon and help streamline actions for clean air," Dahiya said. Adding doubts, Centre for Financial Accountability Executive Director Joe Athialy said the retirement of old thermal projects with high emissions is a welcome announcement in the Budget. But as the latest Central Electricity Authority status shows that none of the thermal plants have met air pollution norms of December 2015 with a deadline of December 2019, raising doubts whether the minister is serious about "what she is saying". According to Athialy, the power sector contributes a major share to the non-performing assets (NPAs) of the banks. Without addressing how to reduce it, offering the new corporate tax regime to new and existing power generation companies would only contribute to more NPAs, rather than reducing it. While proposing Rs 22,000 crore outlay for renewables and power sector in 2020-21 to realise the goal of 24*7 electricity for all, the minister assumes that lack of power generation is what is stopping from providing power for all, while India is power surplus. Ajay Nagpure, Head Air Quality and Sustainable cities, WRI India, said with nearly 77 per cent of India's population is exposed to air pollution levels above the National Ambient Air Quality Standards safe limit, Rs 4,400 crore, allotted for clean air schemes, is positive news indeed. - The Pound Sterling to Canadian Dollar exchange rate is -0.21% lower @ $1.74459 on 02.02.2020 - CAD forecast to extend recent losses alongside oil priced on coronavirus market downturn - GBP awaits tomorrow's big Brexit announcement by UK PM Boris Johnson With anxiety over the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus weighing on global growth as well as oil prices the Canadian Dollar (CAD) continued to slide against many of the majors on Friday. This general sense of market risk aversion overshadowed a modest improvement in Novembers Canadian gross domestic product reading. Although the monthly growth rate bounced back to 0.1% the Canadian Dollar failed to benefit from this improvement, weighed down by wider market anxiety. Better-than-expected UK mortgage approvals helped to shore up the Pound Sterling to Canadian Dollar (GBP/CAD) exchange rate further, meanwhile. Hopes that the UK economy regained some of its lost momentum in the wake of Decembers general election result gave the Pound a solid boost across the board, in spite of lingering anxiety over Brexit. Underwhelming Canadian Trade Data Forecast to Add to Canadian Dollar Exchange Rates' Bearishness Demand for the Canadian Dollar could weaken further if Wednesdays set of trade data fails to impress. As forecasts point towards a widening of the trade deficit in December confidence in the outlook of the Canadian economy could sustain a fresh blow. With global trade disruption looking set to persist in the coming months, thanks to both the coronavirus outbreak and US trade spats, any deterioration here could weigh heavily on CAD exchange rates. However, if export volumes show improvement on the month this could help to put a temporary floor under the Canadian Dollar. Further volatility is likely in store for the GBP/CAD exchange rate on the back of Fridays Canadian labour market data. With markets expecting to see the headline unemployment rate rise from 5.6% to 5.8% in January this could cast a fresh shadow over Canadas economic outlook. Even so, a resilient level of wage growth may help to offset any deterioration in the labour market in the short term. Brexit Concerns May Limit Potential for Further GBP/CAD Exchange Rate Gains Demand for the Pound, meanwhile, could weaken over the course of the coming week as market focus turns towards the next stage of UK-EU trade negotiations. As long as investors still see reason to doubt the likelihood of the two sides reaching a comprehensive trade deal before the end of the transition period GBP exchange rates look vulnerable to selling pressure. Any change to the finalised UK manufacturing and services PMIs for January could provoke additional movement for the GBP/CAD exchange rate. If the performance of the service sector is revised lower this would leave the Pound vulnerable to selling pressure as markets re-evaluate the odds of a stronger first quarter growth performance. Boris Johnson has been accused of pursuing a scorched earth approach to trade negotiations with the EU, as he sets out his plans to broker an agreement with the bloc. In a major speech on Monday after the UK severed its 47-year membership of the EU Mr Johnson will outline his ambitions for a future trade relationship with Brussels to businesses and ambassadors from across the globe. The prime minister is expected to say that no achievement lies beyond our reach, in the imminent trade talks, and will insist there will be no alignment with the EU a move that will create considerable concern among UK firms. There are two likely outcomes in negotiation a free trade deal like Canada or a looser arrangement like Australia and we are happy to pursue both, a government source said on Saturday. As it stands, the EU trades with Australia under a partnership agreed in 2008, and is currently negotiating a free trade agreement with the bloc. Canada brokered a free trade agreement with Brussels over several years, eliminating 98 per cent of tariffs on goods, but it does little for financial services. Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Show all 37 1 /37 Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Pro-Brexit supporters celebrating in Parliament Square, after the UK left the European Union on 31 January. Ending 47 years of membership PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Big Ben, shows the hands at eleven o'clock at night AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Pro Brexit supporters attend the Brexit Day Celebration Party hosted by Leave Means Leave Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage smiles on stage AFP/Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square People celebrate in Parliament Square Reuters Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square A Brexit supporter celebrates during a rally in Parliament square AP Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Police form a line at Parliament Square to prevent a small group of anti-Brexit protestors from going through to the main Brexit rally PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Nigel Farage speaks to pro-Brexit supporters PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square JD Wetherspoon Chairman Tim Martin speaks as people wave flags Reuters Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit supporters wave Union flags as they watch the big screen AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit Party leader, Nigel Farage arrives Reuters Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit supporters gather AP Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Ann Widdecombe speaks to pro-Brexit supporters PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit supporters wave Union flags as they watch the big screen AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square People wave British Union Jack flags as they celebrate Reuters Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Pro-Brexit demonstrators celebrate on Parliament Square on Brexit day Reuters Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square A pro-Brexit supporter jumps on an EU flag PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square AP Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square A man waves Union flags from a small car as he drives past Brexit supporters gathering AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square A pro-Brexit supporter pours beer onto an EU flag PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square An EU flag lies trampled in the mud Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square AFP via Getty Ed Davey, the acting Liberal Democrat leader, however, lashed out at the plans. Boris Johnson talks about bringing the country together and building a prosperous future, he said. Neither of those things can be done by deliberately hollowing out our existing trade relationship with our most important economic partners. This is nothing short of a scorched-earth policy. Johnson is only interested in bringing the Brexit vote together, not the country. He is more than happy to leave the 48 per cent behind. The government will also publish a ministerial statement in the House of Commons on Monday setting out the UKs position on talks with the EU to coincide with the publication of the blocs own mandate. It comes after The Daily Telegraph claimed the prime minister is preparing to impose full customs and border checks on all goods entering the UK after the transition period in a major departure from previous plans. A Whitehall source told the newspaper: We are planning full checks on all EU imports export declarations, security declarations, animal health checks and all supermarket goods to pass through border inspection posts. This will double the practical challenge at the border in January 2021. On Saturday, the ex-Brexit secretary David Davis also said it would be a fair race to strike a trade deal with the EU by the end of the transition period in December 2020, but insisted it can be done. Speaking to BBC Radio 4s Today programme, Mr Davis said extensive work had already been completed when he was in the cabinet to analyse every free trade deal Brussels had previously struck with other third countries. We should have started last March, he added. That being said, a lot of work has been done. Theres the possibility of a trade deal taking pieces from all the other trade deals that the European Union has done and therefore cannot undermine the single market. It is going to be a fair race to do it right now because it was going to be 21 months, now it is only 11, but nevertheless it can be done in the time period. Mike McDonnell is pictured in his home in Bristol, Pa., on Sept. 17, 2019. Mike was 12 years old when the Rev. Francis Trauger sexually abused him at a Bucks County parish. Read more After 18 years of chronicling the horrors of clergy abuse within the Pennsylvania Catholic Church, including cover-ups that helped hundreds of predator priests avoid a single day in jail, the church may finally be due a round of applause. Namely, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. I usually have fierce criticism for this institution that serves 1.3 million Catholics across five counties. Today, I urge congratulations. It has shown itself capable of something that has been tragically elusive for years regarding children harmed by the scourge of abuse. It happened a few days ago in a Bucks County courtroom. And apparently, coincidentally, the gesture came the day before the official naming of Archbishop Nelson Perez as the successor to Charles Chaput. Former St. Titus of East Norriton altar boy Michael McDonnell, now 51, was seated in court with Common Pleas Court Judge Rea Boylan at the bench and Deputy District Attorney Matthew Lannetti there for the commonwealth. The archdioceses presence was made plain in the form of a letter to the prosecutor, which the judge had before her. Everyone was there because McDonnell, of Bristol, had been convicted a decade earlier of misspending about $100,000 in therapy payments from the archdiocese he had sought after having been abused by a priest. He used the churchs money instead for other purposes. McDonnell said he had ripped off the church out of anger. He was a kid, he said, when the Rev. Francis Trauger assaulted him. Hed been left traumatized. For the fraud, McDonnell was jailed for about a year. He was still on probation while seated in Boylans courtroom last month, a man on a $40,000-a-year wage, and making regular restitution payments to the church on a balance that totaled $94,315.69. READ MORE: Justice follows revenge in Philadelphia Archdiocese clergy abuse at St. Titus in East Norriton Id written about McDonnell late last year. He was a poster child for how uneven justice had been for these poor kids whod become damaged adults. Trauger, his abuser from when he was a preteen, was walking free even after Bucks County authorities in September charged the onetime priest for more recent allegations involving another victim. Trauger had been arrested after a lifetime of no prosecutions, but still, at age 74, didnt so much as have to post a penny in bail ahead of his planned trial this coming April. So imagine my shock when I heard what the archdiocese requested of the criminal justice system. Earlier this year, Msgr. Daniel J. Kutys wrote to Bucks County prosecutors, in a letter publicly filed, Michael McDonnell participated in the Independent Reparation and Restitution Program (IRRP) being conducted now for victims of clerical sexual abuse within the Archdiocese. McDonnell had filed a claim last year through a fund the church set up in the wake of a damning 2018 Pennsylvania grand jury report into abuse at dioceses across Pennsylvania. It was the churchs preferred alternative to a change in state law that would have permitted the filing of civil lawsuits. McDonnell received a settlement for an undisclosed sum. But there was more. He also used another resource available through the fund: He reached out to Lynn Shiner, an independent victim advocate whod been placed in charge of counseling and otherwise assisting people filing claims. Shiner, 59, is a woman who understands trauma. Shiners 10-year-old daughter, Jennifer, and 8-year-old son, David, were murdered 25 years ago this past Christmas by her ex-husband. Stabbed to death. She told me about the recent anniversary when we spoke about McDonnell a few days ago. I was supportive of them vacating that order, Shiner said of McDonnells restitution obligations. Thats really the true spirit of healing the community when the archdiocese can step back and see the impact that this had, and how vacating that order would help him tremendously with moving forward. She had McDonnell write a letter while she advocated within the archdiocese for him. It worked. As a result of her meeting with Mr. McDonnell, Ms. Shiner has recommended to us the forgiveness of Mr. McDonnells debt to the Archdiocese, the monsignor in charge of administration for Chaput continued in his letter to prosecutors. Mr. McDonnell was also in touch with us, and explained the personal and professional burdens that the ongoing restitution creates for him. In response to this, Kutys continued, I am asking formally that the remaining restitution due to the Archdiocese by Michael McDonnell be forgiven. It wasnt all that long ago that this same institution used to treat victims very differently. Aggressively, to put it nicely. What a difference 18 years makes, thanks to public disclosures at the hands of prosecutors. McDonnell was relieved when he left court. At home later that night, he heard rumors swirl that a new archbishop would be named the next day. It felt surreal. There were no clean hands here, he said. It was one of those moments where I started to realize that this chapter, this nightmare in my life, is really coming to a close. ... Im grateful to the archdiocese. Im grateful that they have shown mercy. For that, I offer the archdiocese a sincere thank you. Better late than never. Source: Xinhua| 2020-02-02 22:18:06|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close HONG KONG, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- An official of Hong Kong's Center for Health Protection (CHP) warned on Sunday that the public should be prepared for the possible spread of novel coronavirus in the local community as two of Hong Kong's confirmed cases could not be completely ruled out as locally-transmitted cases. So far in Hong Kong there are two confirmed cases of which the source of illness is not clear enough to exclude the possibility of community transmission, said head of the Communicable Disease Branch of the CHP Chuang Shuk-kwan. According to the latest statistics of the CHP, Hong Kong has registered 15 confirmed cases of novel coronavirus infection as of Sunday noon. Most of the confirmed cases are imported from Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province. Chuang said at Sunday's daily press briefing on the epidemic that the public should be prepared for the virus' possible spread in the local community by taking preventive measures and paying attention to personal hygiene. From Dec. 31, 2019, to Sunday noon, the CHP has received reports of a total of 882 cases fulfilling the reporting criteria, including 15 confirmed cases and 699 cases which were ruled out as novel coronavirus infection. The remaining 168 cases are still hospitalized for investigation. According to Chuang, another patient has been preliminarily tested positive for novel coronavirus infection and is waiting for further test results. WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. President Trump defended a decision that would bar foreign nationals who had recently visited China from entering the United States as his administration continued to assess the growing threat of a coronavirus outbreak. Sitting with the Fox News personality Sean Hannity, Mr. Trump used a roughly nine-minute interview taped on Saturday evening at Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Florida, and broadcast on Sunday as an opportunity to condense his usual rally-speak into Super Bowl pregame chatter. The topics included the virus, his impeachment and quick-paced insults of his potential 2020 rivals. We pretty much shut it down coming in from China, Mr. Trump said of the coronavirus. But we cant have thousands of people coming in who may have this problem, the coronavirus. Were going to see what happens, but we did shut it down, yes. He said his administration was offering the Chinese tremendous help to contain the spread of the virus. On Sunday afternoon, the administration put into effect a rule that would also essentially quarantine American travelers who had visited China within the past two weeks, diverting them to seven airports to implement enhanced screening procedures, according to guidelines issued Sunday by the Department of Homeland Security. Allentown, PA (18103) Today Clouds and a few breaks of sun; the mildest day of the forecast. . Tonight Mostly cloudy and not that cold. Thank you to Gov. Kevin Stitt and so many fellow Oklahomans who stand with open arms to receive and support the legal immigrants who find refuge in our state. Our response to those seeking asylum defines who we are and for what we stand. As a follower of Christ and citizen of Oklahoma, I stand for love, peace and support of those who lawfully enter our borders and often are seeking asylum. When I think about the community of friends I am blessed with, I can't imagine my life without those from faraway places, and I appreciate the long-standing work and dedication of community organizations such as Eastern Oklahoma Catholic Charities, which have worked tirelessly to give families a new start. I will never forget the Iraqi soldier who brought his family to Tulsa after the regime change. He risked everything he had to support American troops in his home country, and, thus, became a target. These are voices that make us stronger and more vibrant. Amy Emerson, Tulsa WASHINGTON - State lawmakers across the country are calling for huge investments to mitigate the effects of wildfires, flooding, hurricanes, droughts and other natural disasters made more devastating and frequent by climate change. Following the hottest decade on record, which saw record-breaking wildfires in the West, extreme weather events like Superstorm Sandy, a years-long drought in California, and severe flooding in the Midwest, legislators in many states say it's long past time to treat such events as the new normal - and invest accordingly. "We're going to see more and more of these impacts as the years go on," said California state Sen. Ben Allen, a Democrat. "We either invest in efforts on the ground right now or we pay a lot more down the line." The federal government is looking ahead as well. The Department of Housing and Urban Development is operating a $16 billion program to help coastal states prepare for natural disasters, a shift from the typical funding model of providing money after disasters have happened. Even states whose leaders don't publicly acknowledge the existence of climate change, such as Texas and South Carolina, have applied for federal dollars citing "changing coastal conditions" or "unpredictability," The New York Times reported. ADVERTISEMENT Texas wants to invest the federal money in flood control, removing homes from high-risk areas and helping local governments pay for projects. The state last year put more than $3 billion from its rainy day fund toward flood control. Louisiana hopes to use federal dollars to better map flooding areas. That state already is undertaking its own sweeping plan to limit development and move residents out of areas most prone to flooding, while improving infrastructure in communities on higher ground that are likely to receive displaced populations from neighboring towns. In New Orleans, leaders will be spending $500 million on infrastructure upgrades over the next five years, after residents in 2019 voted to authorize a bond to address flooding and other concerns. "There's more of an appetite among states for action, because there's an increase in the disasters that we're seeing," said Beth Gibbons, executive director of the American Society of Adaptation Professionals, an organization dedicated to climate resilience work. Jim Murley serves as the chief resilience officer for Miami-Dade County, which is experiencing flooding caused by sea level rise and increased hurricane threats. Planning for climate change, he said, is a different beast than typical government work. "Most of what government does is thinking three to five years ahead," he said. "(With climate change), we seriously have to think about 2040, 2060, 2100 - that doesn't happen. We don't do that for transportation planning, water planning - anything. You have to deal with a lot of uncertainty while at the same time believing the science is taking you on some path among these scenarios." Florida's first-ever chief resilience officer, appointed last year by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, is surveying what local governments are doing to develop best practices that can be employed statewide. Some states' proposals would borrow massive amounts of money to pay for future work, create new surcharges to bankroll permanent disaster accounts or shift development away from areas prone to disaster. All those plans would come at a cost to state budgets or taxpayers, but supporters say the spending is necessary. ADVERTISEMENT In some states, critics have argued that proposals represent excessive government spending or would inflict economic hardships on residents. Others have countered that some measures don't go far enough. Under the status quo, California is projected to face financial liabilities of $100 billion annually by 2050 because of climate change, said Allen, the state senator. That's why he is proposing a climate bond, borrowing more than $4 billion to help prevent wildfires and droughts, shore up drinking water and protect coastlines. The bond would cover a wide variety of projects, some of which would get underway almost immediately, with others to be identified over time. By investing in resilience projects over the next 10 to 15 years, Allen said, the state would be better prepared for inevitable future disasters. He said California lawmakers have expressed interest in his bill, which would need to pass the state legislature before being sent to voters for approval. Some Republicans have voiced opposition, including state Assemblyman James Gallagher, who told The Associated Press the state should pay for the work within its existing budget rather than borrowing more money. Allen, though, thinks the growing challenges require additional long-term investment. "Anybody who's thinking about the state of affairs in California right now in terms of any of these problems - wildfires, drought, mudslides, sea level rise - understands that any one of these incidents are part of a broader trend," Allen said. "Unfortunately, this is the new normal." In Washington state, Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz is leading the push for a bill that would establish a dedicated account to help prevent and fight wildfires. A new surcharge on home and auto insurance policies, estimated to cost the average household $1 a month, would raise an estimated $63 million a year. "We're finding increasing numbers of wildfires, we're seeing an increasing geographical area for those wildfires," Franz said. "We cannot afford to be complacent or think those are anomalies. ... We currently spend on average $153 million a year fighting wildfires. I'd rather be putting $63 million a year toward reducing catastrophic fires." ADVERTISEMENT Begging lawmakers each year for money for forest health projects and wildfire response resources has usually yielded "zero," she said. The dedicated account would pay for new resources like additional firefighters, trucks and a helicopter, as well as bankroll the state's plan to treat forests that have grown too dense and are filled with diseased and dying trees. Franz's proposal has Democratic sponsors in both chambers, while Gov. Jay Inslee, also a Democrat, has not yet weighed in. Franz said it won't be easy to pass the bill over likely opposition from the insurance lobby. While climate change is shifting conditions in coastal areas, it's also making the West drier, increasing the likelihood of more frequent and severe droughts. Last year, seven Western states signed, and Congress approved, an agreement to use less water from the Colorado River. Limits go into effect when the water falls below certain levels. Regional leaders say much more work remains to prepare for drier conditions under climate change. In New York and South Carolina, legislators will consider bills that would prepare for disaster by pushing people to get out of nature's way. New York put hundreds of millions of dollars into buyouts for homes flooded during Superstorm Sandy. A proposal from state Sen. Joseph Griffo, a Republican, would establish a dedicated fund for buyouts - including in his upstate, inland Mohawk Valley district. "We need to now have a permanent program in place under an existing agency of the state," Griffo said. "Right now, we're reacting, and we've done a fairly good job, but it's case by case. Because this is occurring more regularly, let's put some more structure together." Under his bill, residents whose homes flood repeatedly could lobby their local government to designate the area a flood zone and ask for state money to buy them out and return the land to its natural state. He said the bill has drawn interest, but legislators may need some convincing to approve more state spending despite a $6 billion budget deficit. South Carolina coastal areas that are prone to flooding and sea level rise have developed rapidly. That has led to a "vicious cycle" in which taxpayers end up paying for disaster relief to rebuild homes that will flood again, said state Sen. Stephen Goldfinch, a Republican. Such homes can be eligible for buyouts from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, but the homeowner must cover 25% of the cost. Goldfinch has filed a bill that would provide zero-interest state loans for homeowners who don't have the money on hand to meet the FEMA requirement. He's hoping for $5 million from the state to get the program underway. "We've experienced unprecedented flooding for five or six years now," Goldfinch said. "If you add up all the repair costs of fixing a home five or six times, the buyout's a better solution." In Pennsylvania, state Sen. Jay Costa, a Democrat, said climate change is leading to more-frequent landslides in his district, including a major highway collapse in 2018. "The amount of rain we've been experiencing," he said, "there are communities that have suffered significant landslides that have resulted because of the freeze-thaw cycle that's here and the changes that have occurred in our weather." Costa has proposed a bill to create a state-backed landslide insurance program, while also establishing an assistance fund. The fund would give grants or loans for remediation and stabilization work, while the insurance program would allow homeowners to get coverage that is currently either difficult or expensive to obtain. Both programs would start with $2.5 million. Costa has introduced the same legislation for several years, and he's waiting to see whether it gets traction in the legislature in 2020, or whether it will get rolled into Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf's Restore Pennsylvania plan to address infrastructure needs. In some coastal areas, there is a debate over whether to remove development from low-lying areas or to invest in costly sea walls. New York City is considering several plans to address flooding, including a $119 billion offshore sea wall that could protect the coast from storm surges but not high tides or storm runoff. Even that ambitious project, some critics say, does not adequately account for current projections of sea level rise. Federal and state money from both New York and New Jersey likely would be required to pay for the project. Boston, however, recently scrapped its plans for a sea wall. Instead, Mayor Marty Walsh, a Democrat, envisions using local, state and federal money plus private investment to convert many of the city's flood-vulnerable areas into parks and green space. Many states and cities are facing similar questions in 2020, deciding which locations have an urgent need for protection from rising waters, and which areas - like parts of the Florida Keys - are too expensive to save. Superstorm Sandy flooded a pair of electrical substations in New Jersey, leaving part of state Assemblyman Sean Kean's district without power for two weeks. Kean, a Republican, questioned the location of the substations, one near the ocean and one near a river. Kean is now pushing a proposal that would require utilities to have flood mitigation plans. "We need to force the utilities to take the proper action," he said. New Jersey announced this week that it will require builders to factor in sea level rise and other effects of climate change to get their projects approved, making it the first state to do so. The regulation is expected to go into place by 2022, forcing developers to consider the long-term implications of climate change, especially for projects along the state's 130 miles of coastline. Legislators in Maine will be closely watching the work of the Maine Climate Council, which the legislature established last year to come up with recommendations to reduce the state's greenhouse gas emissions and prepare for climate change. Democratic state Rep. Lydia Blume's proposed commission to assess hazards to coastal communities caused by climate change was incorporated into the council's mission. "The idea is that we're not just waiting for a disaster," Blume said. "We're anticipating that we need to make changes so we're more resilient going forward." The council is expected to recommend proposals this year. States also may find it harder to borrow money for future projects if they don't demonstrate now that they're thinking ahead about climate change. Credit rating firms such as Moody's Investors Service have said they are considering the effects of climate change, meaning governments that don't prepare could see their credit ratings downgraded. BlackRock, a firm that manages more than $7 trillion in investments, said this month that it would make future decisions based on environmental sustainability, signaling an increased awareness in the financial sector of the effects of climate change. Gibbons, the adaptation expert, highlighted Minnesota as a leader in climate planning, noting that the state now requires local governments to incorporate projected conditions in their hazard mitigation plans. She noted that most disaster money comes from the federal level and is disbursed after calamities take place. States, she said, need to advocate to change that model. --- (c)2020 Stateline.org Visit Stateline.org at www.stateline.org Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Arab League rejects Trump's so-called peace plan The Arab League has completely rejected US President Donald Trump's Middle East plan during an emergency meeting in Egypt's capital. The Arab League on Saturday announced that it rejected US President Donald Trump's so-called peace plan for the Middle East. In a statement following an extraordinary ministry-level session requested by Palestine, the pan-Arab body said it would not consider the proposed plan announced last week in Washington. "THE PLAN DIDN'T MEET THE RIGHTS OF PALESTINIANS" According to the statement that followed the meeting held in Egypt's capital Cairo, the plan would not lead to peace, but would rather be an obstacle in the 30-year peace process. Asserting that the "unfair" plan did not meet the minimum rights and aspirations of the Palestinian people, the statement announced that the members agreed not to cooperate with Washington in its implementation. It added that Israel would be solely responsible for the consequences of such policies, warning Tel Aviv against any unilateral actions on the plan. Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry announced full support during the meeting for the establishment of an independent Palestinian State with its capital in East Jerusalem, according to the 1967 borders. At a time when the House of Windsor is haemorrhaging "senior royals" left, right and to Vancouver a new hero emerges to potentially take up some of the slack. Stepping up to the plate in time of need is Prince Simon from Australia. You may not have heard of Prince Simon before - but there's a good reason for that. Simon's not actually a prince. However, Simon Charles Dorante-Day (his real name) has this week launched a legal action Down Under claiming that he is the love child of Prince Charles and Camilla. And as such, potentially, second-in-line to the throne. The poor Queen. How much more can she take? Megxit, the Andrew scandal, Peter Phillips flogging "royal" milk in China (Princess Anne's son has appeared in a TV ad there promoting dairy produce) and the many, mad Markles. And now some strange Aussie claiming that he's her grandson on account of the fact that he's got a similar hairdo to the Duchess of Cornwall. Prince Simon (we'll refer to him as that because the double-barrelled surname is a bit of a mouthful) was born and brought up in England. Adopted at 18 months, he claims that throughout his youth his adoptive grandmother often told him that he was the child of Charles and Camilla. Interestingly, the grandmother and her husband had both worked for the royal household. So far, so plausible? Sadly for Simon, no. Bearing in mind we all got told stories by our grannies that may have been a little, shall we say, enhanced, this is far from an open and shut case. Without DNA evidence Prince Simon is relying on photographic "evidence" to back up his claims. He's produced pics of himself in his youth comparing them to Camilla's son Tom at around the same age. In fairness there is a distinct resemblance. However, he could also pass for Herman from Herman's Hermits (Sixties pop band, children), so the lookalike argument is hardly a clincher. Same goes for his claim that in his youth his hair was very similar to Camilla's. However uncanny the similarity in centre-parting, Simon, hair doesn't make you an heir. If I'm sounding unkindly dismissive of Prince Simon's claim to the throne, it's because some aspects of his argument just don't add up. When he was conceived (he was born in 1966) Prince Charles was 17 and at a school in the north in Scotland. Camilla was 18 and living down south. And the pair still hadn't met. And then there's the small matter of eye colour. Both Camilla and Charles have blue eyes. Simon's eyes are brown. Asked how this could be (when both parents have blue eyes the child apparently can't have brown eyes) Simon said he could explain. He insisted that his eyes had been tampered with. That's the bit where he lost me. That, and his claim that Megxit was in fact just a ploy by the royal family to take attention away from what he describes as his explosive court action. No, Simon, I don't think so. I think Harry and Meghan wanted out. Which makes it all the more intriguing as to why you would want in. Prince Charles used to moan that the monarchy was turning into a soap opera. These days it's borderline sitcom. But with a cast of characters no scriptwriter could make up. Among them is Clown Prince Thomas Markle now threatening one major tell-all interview per month unless his daughter and Harry wise up and get in touch. At some point old Thomas is surely going to run out of home videos and ways to say what an ungrateful wretch his Meghan is. But like the aforementioned Peter Phillips in the weird Chinese dairy ad he's milking it for all it's worth. As for Prince Simon, the only comfort for the royals must be that there's still one oddball out there who wants in. Just a pity he's not their blue-eyed boy. Who knows when Brexit negotiations will finally be over By the time you read this we will be gone. Last night at 11pm, with a bit of Boris fanfare but no Big Ben bonging, the UK formally left the EU. It's been a week that will go down in history. We can only sympathise with the students of the future who will have to try to get their heads around Brexit's tortuous timeline. Earlier in the week the EU Parliament had hosted a send-off that was part Last Night of the Proms, part Eurovision Song contest. MEPs held hands and warbled Auld Lang Syne, some using their pro-EU scarves to mop their tears. Nigel Farage flashed a grin of such unbridled joy that it looked almost as false as Philip Schofield's at the NTA awards. You almost expected him to burst into a chorus of "So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, adieu". With all the sincerity of a Eurovision host, Ursula van der Leyen, assured departing MEPs of the EU's undying love. "And this completes the results of the European jury. Royaume-Uni, nul points." So we're out. Sort of. We know that many more months of negotiations lie ahead. But we're hardened to that by now. As Eurovision's Johnny Logan once so perceptively put it: "What's another year?" Is the truth a casualty in China? Of all the bizarre stories emanating from the coronavirus crisis one of the most mind-boggling is how the Chinese managed to build two massive hospitals in just one week. In the UK they've been trying for years to build a high speed HS2 rail link between London and Birmingham. And they're still nowhere near. But at least we know the full sorry facts and figures there. Are the notoriously secretive Chinese authorities being equally upfront with casualty figures? Or are they constructing those too? Chancers on eBay making a mint Have you found a commemorative 50p coin in your change yet? Have you put it up on eBay? At the time of writing, the coins having just been issued and still warm from the Royal Mint oven, I see that some are already being offered online. Asking price, 14.99. Not quite the "rare Peter Rabbit" 50p price tag of 1,500. But still. By the end of 2020 around 10 million of the Brexit coins will be in circulation. For commemorative accuracy sake, shouldn't they have released 17.4 million? Wuhan coronavirus THE CENTRAL HOSPITAL OF WUHAN VIA WEIBO /via REUTERS More than 3,000 doctors, nurses, and other hospital workers in Hong Kong voted in favor of striking unless the city closes its border with mainland China, the South China Morning Post reported. Hong Kong's Chief Executive Carrie Lam has said she wouldn't close the border over fears of fueling discrimination. Other countries around the world, like the US, Japan, and Australia have imposed restrictions on entry from China. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. More than 3,000 hospital workers in Hong Kong have voted in favor of a strike that could begin as early as Monday in a move to pressure the Hong Kong government to close its borders with mainland China amid the ongoing Wuhan coronavirus outbreak. According to a report Saturday from The South China Morning Post, 3,123 voted in favor of the strike. Just 10 people voted against the measure, while 23 others abstained, the South China Morning Post reported. The workers are members of the Hospital Authority Employees Alliance, formed in December and consisting of 18,000 doctors, nurses, and other hospital employees, per the SCMP. Members representing the organization told the SCMP that the low turnout was due to members who were working or not in the city to vote. More than 9,000 medical workers have signed a petition, pledging to join the potential strike, the SCMP reported. Non-essential hospital workers were expected to strike on Monday, with the rest of the workers beginning to strike throughout the rest of next week, the Hong Kong news outlet said. The Hong Kong Hospital Authority said it was closely monitoring the strike. There are around 77,000 total workers at the public hospitals, including 6,500 doctors and 27,000 nurses, the SCMP said. As Reuters reported, Carrie Lam, Hong Kong's chief executive, has resisted calls to close Hong Kong's borders with China, citing guidance from the World Health Organization. Story continues "I am afraid (closing the border) contradicts the WHO suggestion ... which asks governments not to take any measures that may fuel discrimination," Lam said at a news conference. The threatened strike comes as nations around the world move to impose new travel restrictions with China in order to limit the spread of the coronavirus, which has killed at least 259 and infected around 12,000 others. While the virus has gone global, the majority of its effects have been felt in mainland China. The Trump administration announced January 31 that the US would bar the entry of any foreigner who had visited China within the past two weeks, with the exception of permanent residents and the immediate family members of US citizens. US citizens who have visited the Hubei province in China, where the virus originated, within the past 14 days will have to spend at least two weeks in quarantine upon returning to the United States. Japan announced Saturday that they would bar the entry of foreign nationals that had visited Hubei within the past two weeks, while Australia placed an outright ban on foreigners who had recently traveled to China, The New York Times reported. As Business Insider reported, the coronavirus has spread to every part of China, with at least 10 cases in Hong Kong. Read more: Apple shuts down all stores and corporate offices in China amid the continued Wuhan coronavirus outbreak Scientists have published over 50 studies on Wuhan coronavirus in the last 3 weeks. They learned that 75,800 people in Wuhan could be infected. A medical-surveillance system that China implemented after SARS led officials to discover the novel coronavirus within 1 week here's how it works One of the 2 people with Wuhan coronavirus in the UK is a student at the University of York Read the original article on Business Insider Joker leads the nominations at the British Academy film awards, which will be handed out today amid controversy about the lack of diversity in the acting nominees. The movie, starring Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur Fleck, is in the running for best film, best actor, best adapted screenplay and best director. It is closely followed by Martin Scorseses gangster epic The Irishman and Quentin Tarantinos ninth film, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, which both scored 10 nominations and will also compete in the best film category, alongside Sir Sam Mendes war film 1917 and Korean film Parasite. That feeling when you're the star of the most nominated film at the #EEBAFTAs (11 for Joker) pic.twitter.com/Rz314m0CbZ BAFTA (@BAFTA) January 30, 2020 Bafta bosses have said it is disappointing and infuriating that its membership have selected all-white performers to recognise at the ceremony. There was also dismay that no female directors were recognised for the seventh year in a row, since Kathryn Bigelow was nominated for The Hurt Locker in 2013. Nominated in the Director category: 1917 Sam Mendes The Irishman Martin Scorsese Joker Todd Phillips Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Quentin Tarantino Parasite Bong Joon-ho#EEBAFTAs pic.twitter.com/SsMCMmwKBK BAFTA (@BAFTA) January 7, 2020 The star-studded ceremony, which is one of the last stops on the awards circuit before the Oscars on February 9, will see guests walk on a recycled red carpet before tucking into a dinner made of sustainably sourced food, including a vegan starter and pudding, as it endeavours to be carbon neutral for the first time. Single use plastic will be banned at the ceremony and branding that has not been re-used from previous years will be made using reclaimed and recyclable materials. The traditional gift bags have been axed in favour of a gifting wallet, made from recycled plastic by sustainable travel goods company Groundtruth and containing redeemable vouchers. Video of the Day Expand Close The gifting wallet (Grountruth) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The gifting wallet (Grountruth) Guests have also been asked to make sustainable fashion choices for the ceremony and consider the impact of their travel options. This will likely win the approval of Phoenix, who used his speech at the Golden Globes to praise its vegan menu and scold celebrities for flying to Palm Springs on private jets. The actor, who has already won a Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild award for his turn in Joker, will compete with Once Upon A Time star Leonardo DiCaprio, Marriage Storys Adam Driver, Rocketman star Taron Egerton, and Jonathan Pryce for The Two Popes in the leading actor category. Our five Leading Actor nominees are: @LeoDiCaprio- Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Adam Driver - Marriage Story @TaronEgerton - Rocketman Joaquin Phoenix - Joker Jonathan Pryce - The Two Popes#EEBAFTAs pic.twitter.com/h0J7b0tzxE BAFTA (@BAFTA) January 7, 2020 It had been hoped that Greta Gerwig would land a directing nomination for her adaptation of Little Women, but she is only recognised in the adapted screenplay category, leaving an all-male directing line-up of Sir Sam for 1917, Todd Phillips for Joker, Scorsese for The Irishman, Tarantino for Once Upon A Time, and Bong Joon-ho for Parasite. Presumptive frontrunner Renee Zellweger is nominated in the leading actress category for Judy, alongside Jessie Buckley for Wild Rose, Scarlett Johansson for Marriage Story, Saoirse Ronan for Little Women and Charlize Theron for Bombshell. The nominees for Leading Actress: Jessie Buckley Wild Rose Scarlett Johansson Marriage Story Saoirse Ronan Little Women Charlize Theron - Bombshell Renee Zellweger - Judy#EEBAFTAs pic.twitter.com/yC3qcM3OZV BAFTA (@BAFTA) January 7, 2020 Johansson is also nominated in the supporting actress category, this time for Jojo Rabbit, while Margot Robbie has two nods in the category, for her roles in Bombshell and Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. The other nominees are Laura Dern for Marriage Story and Florence Pugh for Little Women. The supporting actor nominees are Tom Hanks for A Beautiful Day In The Neighbourhood, Sir Anthony Hopkins for The Two Popes, Al Pacino for The Irishman, Joe Pesci for The Irishman, and Brad Pitt for Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. The winners and nominees in the majority of categories are voted for by 6,500 Bafta members, who are comprised of industry professionals and creatives from around the world. Technical, writing and craft awards are chosen by the relevant specialist chapter. The public votes for the winner of the EE Rising Star award, which has shortlisted Awkwafina, Jack Lowden, Kaitlyn Dever, Kelvin Harrison Jr and Micheal Ward. Introducing our 5 @EE Rising Star nominations for 2020: Awkwafina Kaitlyn Dever Kelvin Harrison Jr Jack Lowden Micheal Ward Find out more https://t.co/4hxN1BHe9L #EEBAFTAs #EERisingStar pic.twitter.com/JbgPIjl9n0 BAFTA (@BAFTA) January 6, 2020 Star Wars producer Kathleen Kennedy will be honoured with the Bafta Fellowship at the ceremony, which will be hosted by Graham Norton at the Royal Opera House. Canary Islands, 2 February 2020 (SPS) - The governing body of the Grand Canary Island, Cabildo Insular, approved a motion against the decision of Morocco to include the waters of Western Sahara in its maritime space in violation of the international law, calling on the Spanish government to react firmly. The motion, proposed by the parties Nueva Canarias, Podemos and the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE), with 18 votes in favor, expressed the total rejection of Moroccos decision, an occupying force in Western Sahara, to extend its maritime space in the Canaries and Western Saharas waters, infringing thereby the legitimate rights of the Canary Islands, said the Spanish media El Diario. The motion supports the Canaries government in defending its interests, requiring that the Spanish government reacts firmly in this situation. It also intends to refer the matter to the European Security Council and the European Commission to demand from Morocco a total respect of the international law, added the source. Morocco included, on 22 January 2020, the waters of Western Sahara in its maritime space by passing two bills. Podemos denounced Rabats expansionist policies in the Sahrawi territorial waters, while urging the Spanish government in collaboration with the Canaries government to undertake actions to stop this Moroccan scheme. (SPS) 062/SPS/APS US envoy warns Palestinians against confronting Trump plan at UN Iran Press TV Friday, 31 January 2020 10:58 PM The United States' ambassador to the UN warns Palestinians against raising opposition at the world body to a US-hatched scheme, which Washington claims seeks to resolve the age-old Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but Palestinians have unanimously spurned. "Bringing that displeasure to the United Nations does nothing but repeat the failed pattern of the last seven decades. Let's avoid those traps and instead take a chance on peace," Kelly Craft alleged in remarks to Reuters on Friday. "Why not instead take that displeasure and channel it into negotiations?" she asked. Washington had announced the plan -- a brainchild of US President Donald Trump's son-in-law and advisor Jared Kushner and other key pro-Israeli figures -- years ago, but had withheld the details. Trump announced the general provisions of the scheme, which he has controversially dubbed "the Deal of the Century," on Tuesday, with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his side. Palestinian sides were conspicuous by their absence at the ceremony given their vociferous disagreement to the plot. The US president reiterated his hugely-contentious recognition in late 2017 of the holy occupied city of Jerusalem al-Quds as Israel's "undivided capital," although Palestinians have historically wanted the city's eastern part as the capital of their future state. He said the deal featured an economic portion that earmarks $50 billion in monetary allocations to Palestinians, Jordan, and Egypt. Palestinians have denounced this as a means of bribing them into selling their rights. Still contentiously, Trump said that the Israeli settlers, who have been housed in illegal apartment blocks since Tel Aviv's occupation of the Palestinian territory of the West Bank in 1967, would not be moved under the deal. The US president, meanwhile, alleged that Israel would be freezing its settlement activities for four years "while Palestinian statehood is negotiated." Tel Aviv has never fully committed to such freezes, causing any negotiation process to break down. Palestinians stopped recognizing any intermediary role by Washington after its 2017 pro-Israeli move concerning al-Quds. Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, which is headquartered in the West Bank city of Ramallah, and all other Palestinian officials wasted no time in repeating their objection to the US plot after Trump's remarks. Also on Thursday, Palestinian UN envoy Riyad Mansour said, "There is not a single Palestinian official [who] will meet with American officials now after they submitted an earthquake, the essence of it [is] the destruction of the national aspirations of the Palestinian people. This is unacceptable." Earlier, he had announced that Abbas would be speaking at the UN Security Council in the next two weeks about the US plan. The envoy also said he hoped that the 15-member Council would vote on a draft resolution against the scheme. However, Washington, which has unexceptionally used its veto power in favor of Israel at the Council, is almost certain to cast its veto against any such resolution too. Israel's UN mission, meanwhile, asserted that it was "working to thwart these efforts," referring to upcoming Palestinian efforts to confront the US scheme at the UN. The Israeli team also vowed that it "will lead a concerted diplomatic campaign with the US" to stymie the Palestinian bid. The Palestinians would then take their objection up with the UN General Assembly, where Washington cannot strike down any unanimously-approved resolutions. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address By AFP MOSCOW: Russia's government on Saturday halted visa-free tourism for Chinese nationals and stopped issuing them with work visas over the deadly coronavirus outbreak. An order posted on the government website said the measures were to "ensure the safety of the country, protect public health and prevent the spread of the new coronavirus". ALSO READ: Coronavirus outbreak - India's second positive case reported in Kerala's Alappuzha The order, dated Friday, said that the FSB security service, which is in charge of border guards, should halt visa-free tourism from midnight Saturday. Chinese tour groups visiting Russia have been eligible for visa-free travel since 2000. The government order also said that the interior ministry should stop issuing invitations for Chinese people to work in Russia and the foreign ministry should stop issuing work visas. Russia said Friday that two Chinese citizens had tested positive for the new coronavirus in the country's first cases since the deadly outbreak emerged in China, and announced new travel restrictions. The government said the foreign ministry inform China that the measures were "due to exceptional circumstances and only temporary". Russia on Thursday said it would stop issuing electronic visas to Chinese nationals, which can be used to cross into the country in parts of the far east and western Russia. Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray has said that he will not allow the National Register of Citizens (NRC) to be implemented in the state but also defended the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) saying it is not about taking away citizenship rights from anyone. Thackerays backing of the Citizenship Act may create issues in the coalition government of the Shiv Sena, Nationalist Congress Party and Congress in Maharashtra. The Congress and NCP Senas new alliance partners have already opposed the amendment. In a short video clip of an interview with Shiv Sena mouthpiece Saamana, Thackeray said the amendment in the Citizenship Act is not about taking away citizenship. CAA is not a law to remove anybody from the country, Thackeray is seen responding in the teaser video clip of the interview conducted by Sena leader and Saamana editor Sanjay Raut. Thackeray has also sought to assuage concerns of Muslims over the implementation of NRC. The chief minister said that proving citizenship will be difficult for both Hindus and Muslims. Thackeray said, Proving citizenship will be difficult for both Hindus and Muslims. I will not let that happen. The Shiv Sena had backed the Citizenship Amendment Bill when it was tabled in the Lok Sabha in December 2019. However, after the Congress leadership expressed unhappiness over Senas stance, the party did not back the Bill in Rajya Sabha. Sena MPs, including Raut, walked out ahead of the voting on the Bill in the upper house. Subsequently, the Sena mouthpiece had slammed the Narendra Modi-government on the CAA and NRC stating that it had led to countywide protests. In the video, Raut also asked Thackeray if he is firm on his stand to remove illegal Pakistanis and Bangladeshis immigrants. Though it has been Shiv Senas stance since the time of Bal Thackeray to throw out illegal Bangladeshis and Pakistanis in Mumbai and Maharashtra, the issue has now been taken up by Uddhavs estranged cousin and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray, who has adopted a hardline Hindutva stance. Political observers pointed out that Thackeray continues to play the Senas Hindutva card while managing to keep the secular allies happy in Maharashtra. The first part of the three-part interview will appear on Monday in Saamana. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Behind the impeachment of President Trump lies the whistleblower whose identity the mainstream media have carefully protected from disclosure. The Democrats have classified it Sensitive Compartmented Information. This must account for the media have blackout. At RealClearInvestigations, Paul Sperry (@paulsperry) has refused to abide by the blackout rules. He explored the back story in his deeply reported 4,000-word investigative account Whistleblower Was Overheard in 17 Discussing With Ally How to Remove Trump. We also posted it here (links omitted). Senator Rand Paul drew on Sperrys column to pose the question that Chief Justice Roberts declined to read at the Senate impeachment trial last week. Sperry has now updated his previous column in Paul Sperrys Notebook: Whistleblower Censorship Hits Facebook and Senate. RCI authorizes the republication of its articles with attribution and we are grateful to take advantage of the opportunity here. Please note that, with a few exceptions, Sperrys internal links are omitted below. Paul Sperry reports: When Facebook last fall said it would delete any and all mentions of the name of the CIA operative believed to be the whistleblower who sparked President Trumps impeachment, it wasnt kidding. A number of Facebook members complain the social media giant has been taking down recent RealClearInvestigations stories about the whistleblower within hours of sharing them with friends. I posted your article to Facebook, got a bunch of likes and comments and shares, said a user in Sacramento who linked to RCIs Jan. 22 story, Whistleblower Was Overheard in 17 Discussing With Ally How to Remove Trump. But when I looked to see if there were additional responses, I saw that Facebook had removed the post. Wow! The story disappeared overnight, no message to me. She said she tried reposting the story twice, but Facebooks content police removed it both times within an hour or so. Another user in New Orleans also complained: The article disappeared from my friends feed. And a Little Rock member reported, My post was removed without any notification from Facebook. Facebook had no comment. But in early November a week after RCI first reported Oct. 30 that CIA analyst Eric Ciaramellas name had been invoked in heated discussions about the whistleblower during closed-door House depositions of impeachment witnesses the site warned it would scrub from its platform identifying posts on the whistleblower. It explained that outing the anonymous official violates its policy against potentially coordinating harm against witnesses or activists. Facebook users complain RCIs original story, The Beltways Whistleblower Furor Obsesses Over One Name, which quickly went viral after the Drudge Report linked to it, has also been wiped off their pages. A Connecticut law school student was so incensed after Facebook deleted his whistleblower posts mentioning Ciaramella again, without warning, notification or explanation that he sued Facebook and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg for allegedly violating fair trade practices, as well as his civil liberties. The plaintiff has been denied the ability to speak publicly on a matter of grave public importance, Cameron Atkinsons attorneys stated in his Nov. 12 complaint. Atkinson argued that Facebooks censorship of the whistleblower is politically motivated to preserve the carefully crafted narrative around the attempt to impeach President Trump. During the 2016 election, the social network was accused of suppressing right-leaning publications and authors, along with positive Trump stories, in its Trending Topics news feature. FEC records show Facebook executives overwhelmingly back Democrats, including COO Sheryl Sandberg who made a $416,000 contribution to Hillary Clinton in 2016. So do Facebook employees: 87% of their political contributions have gone to Democrats since the company was founded in 2004, according to a 2018 study. Many of Facebooks 2.3 billion users rely on the platform for their political news. Others rely on traditional media, but they wont hear about the whistleblower there, either. The nations top reporters have taken a virtual oath of silence regarding his name, even though its an open secret inside their newsrooms. Suppressing their news instincts, they have been unified in complying with Democratic demands to back off identifying the whistleblower and exploring his motives. As a result, they have left large gaps in reporting on the origins of this momentous story, only the third presidential impeachment in U.S. history. The Washington Post, which normally would own such a local story, has scarcely touched it. Instead of doing its own deep reporting, its assigned reporters to do media stories (here and here) questioning RCI for its journalistic decision to unmask the whistleblower, who enjoys limited, not blanket, anonymity. Unlike the federal agency that fielded his complaint, the press is under no statutory obligation to keep his name secret, especially when its in the publics interest to disclose it, along with his background and bias. Without him, there would be no investigation, no impeachment and no trial to say nothing of the virtual halting of the nations business for the past six months. Congress can legally reveal the whistleblowers name, but so far it has suppressed it. Congressional Republicans complain House impeachment manager Adam Schiff and his staff, who privately met with the complainant prior to his filing, have redacted his name from documents. Schiff has even classified at the SECRET level all 179 pages of a document discussing the whistleblower and his contacts with Schiffs staff, which he did not disclose in his complaint as required. That means Republicans who have seen it cannot quote from it without violating laws against divulging classified information. The contacts between members of Schiffs staff and the whistleblower are shrouded in secrecy to this day, deputy Trump counsel Patrick Philbin said responding to a question asked at Wednesdays trial by senators about RCIs reporting earlier this month. Obviously to get to the bottom of motivations, bias, how this inquiry was all created, [it] could be relevant. Schiff claimed he cannot talk about who among his staff met with the whistleblower, because they have received threats online. He says he must protect them, along with the whistleblowers identity, which he insists he does not know. Schiff also suggested RCI was circulating smears on my staff, though he did not deny the story. On an official question card, GOP Sen. Rand Paul Thursday submitted a direct question for Schiff based on RCIs story: Are you aware that House intelligence Committee staffer Sean Misko has a close relationship with Eric Ciaramella when at the National Security Council together? Are you aware and how do you respond to a report that Ciaramella and Misko may have worked together to plot impeaching the president before there were formal House impeachment proceedings? However, the question was never asked. Chief Justice John Roberts, who is presiding over the trial, blocked it after screening the card, ostensibly because it included the name of the official believed to be the whistleblower. The presiding officer declines to read the question as submitted, Roberts declared in rejecting Pauls query. Earlier, Roberts had signaled to Senate leaders behind the scenes that he would not read aloud the alleged whistleblowers name or otherwise publicly relay questions that might out the official. Constitutional scholars say the disputed question was an unprecedented situation. Jonathan Turley, a constitutional law professor at George Washington University who testified as an expert in the House impeachment hearings, said Roberts had no legal reason to quash the senators question since it did not violate federal whistleblower laws. This is relatively uncharted because the reading of the name does not directly violate federal law, Turley said. He speculated Roberts simply claimed an inherent authority to block the question under decorum and restraint. It remains unclear how Roberts knew Eric Ciaramella was the whistleblower when Paul did not outright say he was the whistleblower in the question card that was handed Roberts to read. My question made no reference to any whistleblower, Paul affirmed. Did the presiding justice consult with Schiff or other House managers prior to the 16-hour question period? If so, did Roberts violate his own impartiality oath? Paul said he was given no explanation for the rejection of a question that could have drawn out exculpatory information for the president. He blamed Roberts and the Senate for selective belief in protecting the whistleblower statute Nobody says they know who the person is. But anybody you say might be [the whistleblower] all of a sudden is protected from being part of the debate. The Kentucky senator said he considered requesting a roll call vote to overrule Roberts incorrect finding, but decided Fridays debate over witnesses would generate too many motions and votes to make it feasible. Effectively silenced, Paul held a press conference Thursday afternoon in which he explained the significance of asking such questions: Its very important whether or not a group of Democratic activists, part of the Obama-Biden administration, were working together for years looking for an opportunity to impeach the president. He compared Eric Ciaramella and Sean Misko to disgraced FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page plotting to prevent Trump from being president. With a paucity of information about the whistleblower forthcoming from both government and media, only one side has been allowed to do any real fact-finding during the impeachment process. And thats left the defendant Donald J. Trump still unable to cross-examine his main accuser. NOTE: Sperry adds the following footnote via Twitter. On the evening of April 6, 2016, Enda Kenny met Micheal Martin in a small room located between Government Buildings and Leinster House. During the hour-long rendezvous, the then Taoiseach offered the leader of Fianna Fail a five-year partnership government with a rotating Taoiseach, and equal number of cabinet ministers. Mr Kenny left the meeting believing his offer had got a fair hearing and returned to brief his senior ministers, including Leo Varadkar on what had happened. "He didn't rule it out!" Mr Kenny told them as he walked in the door. Mr Martin talks very dismissively of that offer now, but at the time he slept on it and didn't actually rule it out until he met Mr Kenny for a second time the following day. The meeting was shorter, breaking off after 10 or so minutes. Mr Martin said he rejected it in the national interest, saying the offer left "a lot to be desired" and was "driven by narrow party interests". It was another month before a Fine Gael-led minority government was eventually formed after the two parties cobbled together a confidence-and-supply deal following protracted talks in Trinity College that were dominated not by the crises in health and housing but how they would scrap water charges. The alliance between the two largest parties in the State endured, against the odds and aided by the Brexit uncertainty, for just under four years. The opposition, particularly Sinn Fein, have in that period dismissed the arrangement as effectively the two parties governing together. But it has also prompted serious figures in both parties to consider more openly the possibility of actually going into government together, including party grandees on both sides. In October 2017, former Fianna Fail finance minister Ray MacSharry even claimed that he discussed the idea of a merger of the two parties with Michael Noonan in the 1980s. "There was quite a level of agreement about it at the time, but the heads [party leaders] wouldn't hear tell of it and still won't," Mr MacSharry told me. For what it's worth, Mr Noonan, who has retired from politics, said in 2016 he would "never" go into Government with Fianna Fail. Last week Mr MacSharry was more reserved and on-message. "Fianna Fail have ruled it out and I think they're right. It's not going to be easy to ever make that arrangement unless you have a long-term government for five years," he said. His son Marc MacSharry, who is running for re-election in Sligo-Leitrim, was in favour of the grand coalition offer in 2016, as were others in Fianna Fail at the time, including TDs John McGuinness and Bobby Aylward. In this election Mr Martin's firm rejection of the idea is parroted by his deputies and candidates who are keen to maintain discipline in the campaign. Privately, they are a bit looser about the reality that could face them if Fianna Fail does not have sufficient numbers to form a government with smaller parties and Independents. Incidentally, the same applies among some Fianna Fail TDs when it comes to the idea of coalescing with Sinn Fein. The past four years was not the first time Fine Gael and Fianna Fail have co-operated. Between 1987 and 1989, Charlie Haughey's Fianna Fail minority government was supported in Dail votes by Alan Dukes's Fine Gael under the so-called Tallaght Strategy. Mr Dukes told the Sunday Independent that he believes grand coalition could become "the only viable option" after this election. "I used to worry that it would solidify the left, but the way they are performing, they are a long way away from becoming a coherent voice. "If that's the case then why not have the grand coalition. I think both of the larger parties will find that somewhat less objectionable than going in with Sinn Fein." In Fine Gael there is growing support for the idea at all levels, which is indicative of the party's seemingly growing acceptance that it will not be in a position to form a government after next weekend. Party figures argue that the country will need a stable government as the Brexit trade talks enter a crucial phase. Fianna Fail thinks differently, of course, with Mr Martin straight-out rejecting Mr Varadkar's idea that it would be a coalition of last resort if all other options for government formation failed. Mr Martin remains supremely confident of his ability to have enough seats and enough support among smaller parties and Independents to put together a government. But if he doesn't he will have to look elsewhere to fulfil his ambition to be Taoiseach. This weekend he is not ruling out Fine Gael supporting him under a confidence-and-supply deal. Figures in both parties are more concerned about the rise in support for Sinn Fein than ever before, acknowledging that the surge in the polls is evident on the ground. "There is definitely Sinn Fein growth," said a senior Fianna Fail figure. If they are both to remain true to their word of not doing a deal with Mary Lou McDonald then they may have to seriously think about sitting down with each other once again. Politics, and more specifically government formation, is and will forever be about numbers and after voters go to the polls on Saturday they expect their elected politicians to give them a government - not a second election Just as in 2016, it may take 70 days and many false dawns for that reality to hit home amongst senior politicians. But when it does, don't be surprised if it involves the big two doing another deal of some sort and if that is the case it will make the argument against a full-blown grand coalition increasingly redundant. Source: Xinhua| 2020-02-02 18:28:45|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close BEIJING, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- Russia fully recognizes and highly appreciates the effective measures taken by China to combat the epidemic caused by the novel coronavirus, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said. He said in a phone conversation with Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Saturday that Russia believes that the threat of the epidemic will soon be eliminated. President Vladimir Putin on Friday sent a sympathy message to Chinese President Xi Jinping, saying that Russia fully supports China in fighting the epidemic, and is willing to provide necessary medical supplies and send a delegation of anti-epidemic experts to China to jointly carry out research and development of vaccines and drugs, Lavrov said. Wang appreciated Putin's sympathy message to Xi, saying it reflects the strong mutual trust between the two heads of state and the high-level China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era. The Chinese people are united as one in the serious fight against the epidemic, and are fully capable, confident and sure of defeating the virus, Wang said. The Chinese government has actively responded to the reasonable concerns both at home and abroad in an open and transparent manner and has won full recognition by the international community including Russia and the World Health Organization (WHO), Wang noted. He added that Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the WHO, has spoken highly of China's decisive and powerful measures and is full of confidence in China's victory over the epidemic. Offering firm and mutual support when they need each other the most is a good tradition between China and Russia, and also what is expected of the comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era between the two countries, Wang said. He expressed China's gratitude for Russia's medical supplies and welcomed Russia to send anti-epidemic experts to China for exchanges and cooperation on public health, including epidemic prevention and control. Lavrov said Russia is willing to strengthen communication and coordination with China to properly cope with the challenges posed by the epidemic and jointly contribute to the cause of world public health. Tonight, Hollywood stars are descending on the Royal Albert Hall in London for the British Academy Film Awards, otherwise known as the Baftas. This years ceremony, which marks the 73rd consecutive year it has been held, is being presented by British television host Graham Norton for the first time ever, while Edith Bowman and Dermot O'Leary will be on hand to quiz guests about their outfits as they arrive on the red carpet. The nominees for the Baftas which you can see here were announced in January and give both cinephiles and fashion fans an indication of which stars are likely to grace the red carpet for 2020. As the president of the Baftas, Prince William is expected to attend this years ceremony alongside Kate Middleton, while a myriad of familiar on-screen faces such as Margot Robbie, Florence Pugh, Tom Hanks and Leonardo DiCaprio are also expected to make an appearance. As is the case every year, the Baftas red carpet attracts a number of fashionable figures but for 2020, attendees have been asked to follow a very specific dress code. Baftas 2020: The best-dressed guests Show all 42 1 /42 Baftas 2020: The best-dressed guests Baftas 2020: The best-dressed guests Margot Robbie Birds of Prey star Margot Robbie opted for a black floor-length Chanel gown for the Baftas on Sunday night. The dress featured delicate lace sleeves and a matching peplum at the waist. The star accessorised the look with a simple pair of hoop earrings and a black flower ring. Rex Features Baftas 2020: The best-dressed guests The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge championed sustainable fashion as they arrived at the Baftas. While William opted for a classic black trouser suit, Kate chose an Alexander McQueen gown which she has worn before several times. The royal first wore the dress on a tour of Southeast Asia back in 2012 to attend a dinner with the King and Queen of Malaysia. Rex Features Baftas 2020: The best-dressed guests Florence Pugh Little Women star Florence Pugh stood out among a sea of LBD's in this voluminous fuchsia pink gown by Dries Van Noten that featured a dramatic train and black mini skirt at the front. She accessorised with black platform heels. Rex Features Baftas 2020: The best-dressed guests Zoe Kravitz Zoe Kravitz wore a metallic gold gown designed by Saint Laurent for the 73rd Baftas. The actor completed the look with red drop earrings that matched her manicure and lipstick shade. AFP via Getty Images Baftas 2020: The best-dressed guests Charlize Theron Charlize Theron arrived on the red carpet wearing a bold purple gown designed by Dior. The strapless dress featured a plunging neckline and A-line skirt that was highlighted by the addition of a slim black waist belt. She accessorised the look with a diamond necklace by Tiffany & Co. Rex Features Baftas 2020: The best-dressed guests Scarlett Johansson Marriage Story star Scarlett Johansson chose a pink sequin dress by Versace for the occasion which featured a plunging neckline, thigh-high split and feather-trimmed floor-length skirt. Rex Features Baftas 2020: The best-dressed guests Joaquin Phoenix Joaquin Phoenix has vowed to wear the same suit to every awards show this year to help reduce waste and the Bafta's were no exception. The Joker star walked the red carpet wearing a custom-made tuxedo by British designer Stella McCartney. Rex Features Baftas 2020: The best-dressed guests Olivia Colman The Favourite star Olivia Colman opted for a black A-line dress by Alexander McQueen that featured a high neck and sheer sleeves, while the bodice of the dress was decorated with intricate floral embroidery. AFP via Getty Images Baftas 2020: The best-dressed guests Saoirse Ronan Little Women star Saoirse Ronan attended the Bafta's wearing a black ballgown designed by Gucci. The dress featured thin spaghetti straps and was accessorised with multi-coloured drop earrings. Baftas 2020: The best-dressed guests Renee Zellweger Judy star Renee Zellweger opted for a pink satin column gown by Prada that featured a Bardot neckline. She accessorised with matching pointed heels and gold cuff bracelets on each wrist. Rex Features Baftas 2020: The best-dressed guests Laura Dern Marriage Story star Laura Dern chose a bright pink ballgown by Valentino that featured an embellished bodice and full skirt with concealed pockets. Rex Features Baftas 2020: The best-dressed guests Rooney Mara Rooney Mara attended the event wearing a black floor-length Givenchy gown that featured oversized sleeves. The star completed the look with black pointed heels and a matching bow in her hair. Rex Features Baftas 2020: The best-dressed guests Daniel Kaluuya Daniel Kaluuya chose a black trouser suit designed by Louis Vuitton for the occasion. The actor completed the outfit with a matching shirt the featured an embellished collar. Baftas 2020: The best-dressed guests Rebel Wilson Rebel Wilson attended the event wearing a two-tone wrap dress by Prabal Gurung that featured a black skirt and red sequin top that tied at the waist. Rex Features Baftas 2020: The best-dressed guests Emilia Clarke Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke arrived at the Bafta's wearing an elegant black column-style dress designed by Schiaparelli that featured thin straps and sequin embellishment. The star accessorised with purple gemstone drop earrings. AFP via Getty Images Baftas 2020: The best-dressed guests Adam Driver Joanne Tucker Marriage Story star Adam Driver attended the event wearing classic black tuxedo designed by Celine, while his wife Joanne Tucker opted for an aqua blue floral gown. Baftas 2020: The best-dressed guests Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach Greta Gerwig arrived at the Baftas alongside husband Noah Baumbach wearing an emerald green velvet dress with a silver halter neckline. Rex Features Baftas 2020: The best-dressed guests Chernobyl star Jessie Buckley stood out on the red carpet in a floor-length black ballgown by Miu Miu that featured a dramatic white feather-trimmed neckline. AFP via Getty Images Baftas 2020: The best-dressed guests Gillian Anderson Sex Education star Gillian Anderson opted for a black strapless dress by Camilla and Marc for the event. The actor accessorised with red strappy heels, a matching clutch bag and a diamond necklace. AFP via Getty Images Baftas 2020: The best-dressed guests John Boyega Star Wars actor shunned the traditional black tuxedo in favour of a red brocade trouser suit which he paired with a white shirt. REUTERS Baftas 2020: The best-dressed guests Kaitlyn Dever Booksmart star Kaitlyn Dever opted for a pale pink floor-length gown designed by Miu Miu for the Baftas 2020. The dress featured a strapless neckline and tiered ruffles covered in sequins. AFP via Getty Images Baftas 2020: The best-dressed guests Taron Egerton Rocketman star Taron Egerton chose a wine-coloured velvet two-piece suit by Armani for this year's Baftas, accessorising with a white shirt and black bow tie. AFP via Getty Images Baftas 2020: The best-dressed guests Daisy Ridley Star Wars actor Daisy Ridley chose to wear a strapless emerald green dress by Oscar de la Renta that featured cut-out detailing in the bodice and a sheer asymmetric shoulder design. AFP via Getty Images Baftas 2020: The best-dressed guests Joshua Jackson and Jodie Turner-Smith Queen & Slim star Jodie Turner-Smith attended the ceremony alongside husband Joshua Jackson wearing a strapless canary yellow Gucci gown that showed off her bump. PA Baftas 2020: The best-dressed guests Naomie Harris British actor Naomie Harris attended the Bafta's wearing a silver sequinned dress by Michael Kors that featured a thigh-high split. She accessorised with a matching clutch bag and high heels. AFP via Getty Images Baftas 2020: The best-dressed guests Hugh Grant and Anna Elisabet Eberstein The Gentlemen star Hugh Grant attended the Baftas alongside his wife Anna Elisabet Eberstein wearing a class black tuxedo. Baftas 2020: The best-dressed guests Graham Norton TV presenter and Baftas 2020 host Graham Norton opted for a red velvet tuxedo jacket that featured floral embroidery. He completed the look with a black button-up shirt, matching trousers and dress shoes. AFP via Getty Images Baftas 2020: The best-dressed guests Ella Balinska Charlie's Angels star Ella Balinska opted for a mini white-and-pink floral dress by Giambattista Valli that featured a ruffle hem and victorians-inspired neckline. The otherwise girlish gown was completed with a dramatic cape that trawled behind the star as she walked the red carpet. AFP via Getty Images Baftas 2020: The best-dressed guests Quentin Tarantino Once Upon a Time in Hollywood director Quentin Tarantino attended the awards ceremony wearing an all-black two-piece suit, including a matching shirt and tie. AFP via Getty Images Baftas 2020: The best-dressed guests Lulu Wang The Farewell director Lulu Wang wore a white dress with red embroidery designed by Simone Rocha. On Instagram, the film maker said she was "excited to look like an English teacup". Baftas 2020: The best-dressed guests Rhoda Ofori-Attah Ghanian-born British actor Rhoda Ofori-Attah chose a floor-length black gown that featured white oversized bow shoulder detailing. The look was accessorised with simple gold hoop earrings and a statement ring. AFP via Getty Images Baftas 2020: The best-dressed guests Asa Butterfield Sex Education star Asa Butterfeld attended the ceremony wearing a three-piece suit featuring a black double-breasted jacket, matching trousers and bow tie. Baftas 2020: The best-dressed guests Lily-Rose Depp Model Lily-Rose Depp wore a semi-sheer black lace dress designed by Chanel for the 73rd British Academy Film Awards. The gown was accessorised with black open-toe heels and silver jewellery. PA Baftas 2020: The best-dressed guests Alex Wolff Hereditary star Alex Wolff opted for a blue three-piece suit that was covered in hand drawn illustrations. The star completed the look with a white shirt and matching tie. PA Baftas 2020: The best-dressed guests Edith Bowman Edith Bowman opted for a tiered metallic dress which she accessorised with a bold yellow belt and blue gloves that kept her warm as she spoke with guests on the red carpet. Baftas 2020: The best-dressed guests Oliver Cheshire and Pixie Lott Singer Pixie Lott attended the ceremony with her partner, model Oliver Cheshire, wearing a white midi dress that featured ruffled tiers on the skirt. Rex Features Baftas 2020: The best-dressed guests Alice Eve Actor Alice Eve chose a silver Ralph & Russo gown for the Baftas. The dress featured an embroidered bodice and skirt made from three tiers of fringing. Baftas 2020: The best-dressed guests Aisling Bea Irish actor Aisling Bea chose a metallic silver dress by Hasan Hejazi that featured black satin detailing and a thigh-high split. Baftas 2020: The best-dressed guests Jo Hartley This Is England star Jo Hartley attended the event wearing a satin emerald green ballgown which featured a flattering V-neck and handy pockets in the skirt. AFP via Getty Images Baftas 2020: The best-dressed guests Saskia Chana British actor Saskia Chana opted for a sleek black jumpsuit for this year's ceremony. She accessorised the look with a black Valentino handbag and matching heels. AFP via Getty Images Baftas 2020: The best-dressed guests Anthony Welsh British actor Anthony Welsh chose a classic black double-breasted two-piece suit for the Baftas. He completed the look with a white shirt and black bow tie. AFP via Getty Images Baftas 2020: The best-dressed guests Niamh Algar Irish actor Niamh Algar arrived on the red carpet wearing a satin blue halter neck dress that featured a front split and buckled waist belt. AFP via Getty Images This year, the British award body has created a sustainable fashion guide alongside the London College of Fashion, which encourages guests to either re-wear something they already own or hire an ensemble as opposed to buying something new. It also urges guests to make the most of rental fashion sites and opt for sustainable fashion brands, such as Stella McCartney and Reformation, which are renowned for using innovative eco-friendly materials. Click through our gallery to see the best-dressed guests from the 73rd British Academy Film Awards. By PTI ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan will embark on a two-day visit to Kuala Lumpur from Monday to placate the Malaysian leadership after he skipped a major summit of Muslim nations reportedly under pressure from Saudi Arabia. The Pakistan Foreign Office on Sunday said "(PM) Khan is visiting Malaysia on February 3-4" on the invitation of Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. Khan will be accompanied by a high-level delegation, including Cabinet members and senior officials. During the visit, the two heads of state would have tete-e-tete followed by delegation-level talks. They will witness the signing of important agreements/MoUs and have joint press meets. Prime Minister Khan will also address a think-tank event organised by the Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS) of Malaysia. "The prime minister's visit is another sign of robust engagement between Pakistan and Malaysia and the shared commitment to further fortify the strategic partnership between the two countries," said FO. In line with a common vision, bilateral ties between the two countries have deepened in recent years in trade, investment, industry, defence, education and in various international forums, the FO said. The FO said the prime minister will share with Mahathir his vision for Pakistan and his government's positive role in bringing regional and international peace . Khan's visit is being called a "damage control" exercise by local media. Khan had confirmed Pakistan's participation in the December 19-21 summit hosted by the Malaysian prime minister but skipped the event at the 11th hour due to pressure exerted by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates - key financial backers of the cash-strapped country. The summit in Kuala Lumpur was seen by the Saudis as an attempt to create a new bloc in the Muslim world that could become an alternative to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) led by the Gulf Kingdom. Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan even visited Islamabad in December last to convey the Saudi leadership's gratitude to Pakistan for not attending the summit. After pulling out from the event, Khan spoke to his Malaysian counterpart over the phone and offered him to visit after the summit. It is believed that Khan will use the visit to explain to Mahathir the reason for Pakistan's pull out from the summit. This is Khan's second visit to Malaysia since assuming office in August 2018. The last visit was in November 2018. Prime Minister Mahathir had visited Pakistan in March last year and was the chief guest at the Pakistan Day Parade. The two prime ministers also met on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly Session in New York in September 2019. (Natural News) The biggest difference between President Donald Trump and every single one of the Democratic presidential contenders running for their partys nomination is this: Self-empowerment versus government handouts. The Democrat Party long ago abandoned any pretense of being a party of the common American and instead became the party of bigger and more expensive, intrusive government. You can tell by the way its candidates are attempting to give away everything but the kitchen sink this campaign cycle. In fact, one candidate former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is actually promising a kitchen sink. And a bedroom, a kitchen, a living room, and some closets to at least some Americans. But theres a catch: You have to be a transgendered person. And if taxpayer-funded housing isnt enough, Blooomberg will throw in free sex surgery as well, all compliments of every working person in the country. As Breitbart News reported Thursday, Bloombergs campaign released a vision for the adoption of a comprehensive policy to ensure LGBTQ+ equality. The news site reported: The vision includes transgenders rights to free sex surgery and hormone treatment, rights to shelter based on gender identity, and forcing law enforcement and health care providers to undergo cultural competency and implicit bias training. I have been honored to stand with the LGBTQ+ community in the fight for equality and justice, from New York, where we won marriage equality in 2011, to states across the country. That fight true to our nations highest ideals has achieved historic progress, but we still have a long way to go, Bloomberg says on his campaign website. As president, I will work to protect every member of the LGBTQ+ community from hatred, violence, and discrimination. We will close disparities in health care access and quality, stop violence against transgender people, and advocate for equal rights across the world. We cannot settle for anything less and I wont, he continued. What the government provides it can take away In addition to this blatant pandering, Bloomberg also said he supports new legislation that would essentially gut existing protections for Americans who want to live and act according to their deeply held religious beliefs a blatant attempt to criminalize the First Amendments freedom of religion guarantee. Because to the Left, you cant be a Christian who believes in traditional marriage and gender roles simply as a matter of faith. No. Such beliefs make you a bigot. Mike will end the Trump administrations practice of granting federally funded organizations a license to discriminate against people based on their religious beliefs, sexual orientation or gender identity, the campaign website adds. Meanwhile, President Trumps policies are growing the economy in ways it has not for years, while creating more jobs and opportunities for all Americans across all demographics. Trump, then, is providing a means for people to provide for themselves; Democrats like Bloomberg are offering nothing but government-sponsored largess, an existence that makes those Americans who take the bait totally dependent on bureaucrats in D.C. Because lest we never forget, whatever the government provideth, the government can taketh away. Bloombergs pandering to transgenders, though, isnt just an insult against the vast majority of Americans who do not fall into the LGBTQ+ demographic, but its insulting to those he means to pander to. Programs like what Bloombergs proposing assume that targeted individuals are incapable of making their own way and must be helped by government. Speaking of bigotry, dividing Americans along racial, ethnic, religious, sexual, and other lines is about as bigoted and racist as it gets. Forcing a Christian, via the taxes they pay, to support lifestyles they dont agree with is no different from forcing a gay person to subsidize the Christian religion. The latter would never happen, so why does the former get serious consideration? Trump ignites passion in his political enemies, no question, but overall hes trying to be president for all Americans. Bloomberg, obviously, would not. Sources include: Breitbart.com USAFeatures.news NaturalNews.com Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size The start of the 2020 school year has been markedly different for young Australians. The catastrophic bushfire season will have affected thousands of students directly, through property loss, loss of friends or community members. Others will have experienced the terror via the unrelenting news coverage, images of singed animals and the vast spaces of charred bush prompting chilling questions about what their future might be like. Most students are attuned to the political circumstances surrounding this fire season; many are climate activists, having participated in rallies and school strikes. However, Australian schools are under-resourced and under-prepared to cope with the influx of trauma, eco-anxiety and psychological symptoms students will harbour. Sydney primary school students and parents demand urgent action on climate change during a protest last year. Credit:Kate Geraghty Schools have always been the ideal place for young people to recover from trauma. The predictability, routine and community provided by the traditional school structure creates space for the healing. Teachers are well-positioned to navigate a class through challenging topics. Many of these arise each day, either organically or through the curriculum, and require sensitive handling. However, the climate crisis presents an unprecedented challenge for educators. Not only will they be working to create safe and supportive classroom spaces for grieving and anxious young people; they will be coming to terms with it themselves. Geese landing in the restored wetland on Viola Farm. Matt and Marilyn Spong own a corn-and-soybean farm, located on the Delmarva. Viola Farms has been in Marilyn Spongs family for well over 150 years. About 15 years ago they started the process of restoring a wetland habitat on their property. Photo: Kayt Jonsson / USFWS / Flickr By Geena Reed 27 January 2020 (UCS) Last week, the Trump administration finalized its rollback of the expanded definition of the waters of the United States. Now fewer water bodies, including wetlands and ephemeral streams, will be protected under the Clean Water Act. The quality of more than half of the countrys wetlands and 18 percent of its streams is now in peril. This move goes against established science and flies in the face of hydrogeology. Even the EPAs own advisors wrote in a draft report that, The departure of the proposed rule from EPA-recognized science threatens to weaken protection of the nations waters by disregarding the established connectivity of groundwaters and by failing to protect ephemeral streams and wetlands which connect to navigable waters below the surface These changes are proposed without a fully supportable scientific basis, while potentially introducing substantial new risks to human and environmental health. [] Screenshot of the title page of The Navigable Waters Protection Rule: Definition of Waters of the United States pre-publication version (PDF). Graphic: Department of the Army, Corps of Engineers What the Trump administration actively ignores in its decision is that wetlands provide multitudes of public benefits, whether or not they have uninterrupted surface water connection. The complex ecological system of which water bodies are a part isnt made up of visible, clean, connected lines. The system is open and in flux and decisions need to take that complexity into consideration. For example, there are certain amphibian species in isolated wetlands in the Carolina Bays of South Carolina whose life cycles depend on the wetlands presence and functional integrity. The Prairie Pothole region at the northern border of the Great Plains and Canada supports significant populations of ducks and geese. And ephemeral or intermittent headwater streams can provide predator-free opportunities for a variety of species to mate and enjoy less competition. Last year, President Trump told farmers that the previous definition of Waters of the US, basically took your property away from you. But that is far from the truth. The Clean Water Act doesnt put farmers and industry out of business, it puts in place safeguards so our resources arent depleted and polluted to the point of no return. Farmers, of all people, understand the benefits wetlands provide for land use including improved water quality, reduced flooding and erosion, and beneficial species like pollinators and pest-controlling insects. [more] Americas Wetlands: Vital, Ignored, and Now Defined Away by the Trump Administration STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- After the coronavirus was declared a global public health emergency, there was a surge in face mask purchases -- so much so they are skyrocketing in price. Despite experts citing the masks do not properly protect against the disease, prices on websites, like Amazon.com show a huge spike in prices. The best defense against contracting the disease is good hygiene, health experts say. Business Insider pointed out that Amazon suppliers, including PacingMed and BLBM are sold out of masks. Some Amazon sellers say they dont know when the masks will be back in stock. And theyve issued a warning against the purchase of counterfeit products, Business Insider reported. In addition to price gauging, the N95 air filtration mask, the one recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for blocking most airborne viruses, is completely sold out, according to Bloomberg.com. Amazon sellers have jumped in to sell substitute masks, but the prices are higher than normal. For example, Amazon has packages of 20 disposable face masks for sale for as high as $89. A girl wearing a face mask stands in the entrance to a shop in Wuhan in central China's Hubei Province, Friday, Jan. 31, 2020. The U.S. advised against all travel to China as the number of cases of a worrying new virus spiked more than tenfold in a week, including the highest death toll in a 24-hour period reported Friday. (AP Photo/Arek Rataj)AP POSSIBLE NYC CASE A person under the age of 40 who traveled from China to New York City is being detained and tested for the coronavirus at NYC Health + Hospital/Bellevue in Manhattan, according to the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. This means the person had recently traveled from China and showed signs of a fever and cough or shortness of breath without another common cause, like influenza and other cold viruses, identified on testing, according to the Health Department. Testing to determine whether this is a confirmed case of coronavirus will take a minimum of 36 to 48 hours and depends on CDC testing capacity. An individual with a travel history to China felt unwell and sought help from a medical provider who promptly contacted the Health Department. This is exactly what we prepared for and we thank everyone for taking all the right steps, said city Health Commissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot. Reports of the first person being tested in New York City demonstrate that the system is working as intended. A man wears a face mask as he stands along the waterfront in Wuhan in central China's Hubei Province, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2020. China counted 170 deaths from a new virus Thursday and more countries reported infections, including some spread locally, as foreign evacuees from China's worst-hit region returned home to medical observation and even isolation. (AP Photo/Arek Rataj)AP There are now eight confirmed cases in the United States and over 12,000 worldwide. At least 259 people have died. The novel (new) coronavirus is a strain of coronavirus that has not been previously detected in humans. This novel coronavirus can lead to symptoms of fever, cough or shortness of breath. While some infections have resulted in severe illness, and even death, others have presented with milder symptoms and been discharged from care. FOLLOW TRACEY PORPORA ON FACEBOOK and TWITTER Sculptor Mihajlo (Mihaly) Kolodko places his new small-size sculpture, the 'Axe' nearby the Soviet monument of the World War II at the Freedom square of Budapest, Hungary Drawing inspiration from enigmatic British artist Banksy, a sculptor of tiny bronze statues has gained a cult following in the Hungarian capital Budapest by placing his quirky works around the city for the public to discover. "I look for places which are a little hidden but still easy to find if you know where to look," Mihaly Kolodko, 41, told AFP in his workshop in Vac, north of Budapest. "I never tell anyone in advance where I have put them," he grinned while working on a new figure, bearded beneath a beanie-hat. While his statues don't have the biting satire of Banksy's work, they have been provoking some heated debate -- as well as nostalgia. Kolodko, whose grandmother was Hungarian, grew up in western Ukraine where he could watch TV from nearby Hungary. Many of his works depict 1970s and 1980s Hungarian cartoon figures. Since moving to Hungary in 2016 he has peppered Budapest with over 20 cast metal sculptures measuring just 10-15 centimetres (4-6 inches) tall. A cheeky talking worm is sat on a rampart on the river Danube opposite the Hungarian parliament. A flying rabbit with oversized chequered ears looks down on the city from a perch near Buda castle. More cryptic pieces include a Marcel Duchamps-style pissoir, and a mysteriously murdered squirrel. - 'Guerilla' sculpture? - Kolodko doesn't ask for permission from the authorities to install his metal miniatures, fuelling his reputation as a "guerilla" sculptor, a tag he shrugs off. "I just follow my feelings, I'm not a lawyer, if I had to spend time and money asking for permits I'd lose the urge to make art," he told AFP. "I communicate with people through statues, it's my first language." Thousands of Kolodko devotees are running a Facebook fan page, swapping tips on hunting the statues and debating the meaning of the more abstract works. "These are the statues of our 30 to 40-something generation," says 40-year-old Szilvia Liptai, who organises regular "Kolodko tours" for runners, which take in a dozen of the bronzes. Story continues "He triggers our childhood memories," she told AFP, as runners took selfies beside the talking worm -- now sporting a winter scarf and bobble hat knitted for him by an anonymous donor. Kolodko was trained in monumental sculpture in the Ukrainian city of Lviv by teachers who designed gargantuan statues of Lenin during Ukraine's Soviet period -- and nationalist heroes after the country gained independence. But he found his artistic voice in less time-consuming and cheaper, smaller-scale works, sculpting the mini-statues in his hometown of Uzhhorod near the Hungarian border. It was Hungary where the father-of-two's work found the best reception, winning commissions like one from Budapest airport for a diminutive Franz Liszt or memorials for historical events such as the Holocaust. - Thrown into the Danube - "Banksy inspired me to use the language of sculpture the way he does for painting," Kolodko said, beside a statue of US cartoon character Lisa Simpson bound to a lamppost in downtown Budapest -- a "Joan of Arc" commentary on the "oppression of American culture". Not everyone gets his messages though. A statue of another 1970s children's favourite, a hapless handyman goat, was widely seen as a critique of shoddy workmanship on a recently renovated main square in Budapest. "I meant to show that you can be lovable even if things don't work out, and also reflect on the Ukrainian guest workers who used to gather here in mornings for odd-jobs," he said. Then last November an ultra-nationalist politician interpreted Kolodko's statue of a Russian "ushanka" fur ear-flap cap with a red star on it as approval of a nearby Soviet World War II memorial. After filming himself cleaving it from its place with an axe, the politician said it was "the symbol of a dictatorial system" and threw it into the Danube. "I don't mean to be provocative," Kolodko told AFP. "The ushanka was actually trying to say the past is still with us. "Some people just look at things differently. After the statues go public they take on a life of their own, I say goodbye to them." Three of his pieces have been removed or stolen so far, he added. Earlier this month, the latest "Kolodko" suddenly appeared, the artist's answer to the recent act of violence: a tiny bronze axe where the ushanka once rested. Director Tim Cheys movie The Islands is going on its 9th week in theaters. Based on the true story of Chiefess Kapiolani who went into an active volcano in 1823 to demonstrate her faith in Christ. Its considered one of the greatest acts of courage by a world leader. The critically-acclaimed film opened nationwide in theaters December 6, 2019 and is going on its 9th weekend. It was the 4th largest new release in the nation. People are telling me the showings are still packed, says Chey. Its just a wonderful God-thing. We never dreamed we would have a national theater release especially during Christmas season. Many theater-goers who have seen the film have said their lives were changed. Saw the movie last night, said one who went. Beautiful message of love and salvation. Another said, I just went to see it. I know its a true story. I cried throughout the movie. So moving and touching. The film will be released on VOD in June 2020 and will reach 60 million homes worldwide through the top platforms including Direct TV, ATT, Comcast, iTunes, Amazon Prime, Hulu, et al. The film is also being included in lineups at the Berlin Film Market, Cannes, American Film Market among others. The film stars a 98% Hawaiian/Polynesian cast and Oscar-Award winning actress Mira Sorvino and John Savage. Tim Chey will direct the sequel of The Islands which starts filming this June. The film entitled The Islands: Betrayal is based on the true story of the last Hawaiian queen and the annexation of Hawaii in 1898. The Islands Now in Theaters In Chicago, she led the masters in health professions education program and expanded the departments masters of science in patient safety leadership and the doctorate program in curriculum studies with concentration in health professions education in collaboration with the universitys College of Education. She led the Department of Medical Education, first on an interim basis beginning in 2009 and then as permanent head from 2010 to 2019. The exhibit and accompanying assignments looked at how immigration has changed along ethnic and political lines in America over time. Though the predominant nationalities of those arriving at our nations ports of entry has changed over the years, the way each group has been received has not, he said. Vietnam on Sunday confirmed the seventh patient testing positive for the novel coronavirus, which has killed more than 300 people in China, the core of the epidemic, and infected over 14,500 others around the world. The patient is a Vietnamese American who waited for a connecting flight in the Chinese city of Wuhan for two hours on January 15 on his way from the U.S. to Vietnam, the Vietnamese Ministry of Health said on Sunday. He is the seventh confirmed case in the Southeast Asian country. The Vietnamese American T.K.H., 73, started to show signs of the novel coronavirus infection on January 26 and was admitted to a hospital in Ho Chi Minh City on January 31. He was having a fever, coughing, and suffering shortness of breath, the health ministry said in a report. Tests showed that he sustained damage to his lungs, with his throat sample collected on January 31 and returning positive now. He is put on a ventilator at the Ho Chi Minh City Hospital for Tropical Diseases, with antibiotics and antiviral drugs prescribed for him. H. left the U.S. on January 14 and arrived in Wuhan on January 15. He stayed in the city for two hours. He landed at Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City on January 16. He stayed in Room 202 at Trieu Han Hotel at 382/1-3 Nguyen Thi Minh Khai Street, Ward 5, District 3, Ho Chi Minh City. He showed symptoms of a fever and coughing then. Hotel employees took him to the Ho Chi Minh City Hospital for Tropical Diseases on January 31. Local authorities have required the hotel not to receive any more guests, to disinfect their premises, and to isolate their staff together with the staying guests until February 15. The novel coronavirus has killed 304 people in mainland China and struck 14,551 others, an overwhelming majority of whom are in China, since the first outbreak in Wuhan in December 2019. Vietnam has confirmed seven cases so far, including four Vietnamese, one Vietnamese American, and two Chinese. One of the Chinese has been cured. The World Health Organization has declared the virus a public health emergency of international concern. The Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam has grounded all flights to and from mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan to curb the spread of the deadly virus. Vietnam has also stopped issuing tourist visas to those coming from China, including Chinese and foreigners who have stayed in the mainland for 14 days which is the incubation period of the new coronavirus. The country is mulling over closing down schools to prevent the viral contagion. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! In theory, automatic voter registration is a wonderful idea. Democracy is only as good as the number of people participating in it. Making it easier for voters to register should be a country-wide goal. Its only through registration that we can get people involved in the process and raise some of those embarrassing voter participation numbers. But the wonderful idea turns disastrous if its not properly implemented. Thats whats happened in Illinois. Despite assurances it wouldnt happen, an error in the system led to a possible 545 non-U.S. citizens being registered to vote. Unquestionably, this outcome is unacceptable. The automatic voter registration program went live on July 2, 2018. Eligible citizens were automatically registered to vote as they interacted with certain state offices. There is an opt-out option. In the next 17 months, as many as 574 people who identified themselves as non-U.S. citizens had their information forwarded to the Illinois State Board of Elections. Not all of those people are necessarily non-U.S. citizens. Sometimes a wrong box gets checked. But 545 of those registrations were finalized, and 16 cast ballots in 2018 and 2019 elections. The office of Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White has since contacted those voters and told them not to vote. Whites office also said all 545 lawfully present in the United States, and the issue did not involve any undocumented immigrants. Approximately 7.9 million voters are registered in Illinois, so the 19 ballots cast by the 16 ineligible voters doesnt signify a widespread conspiracy of voter fraud. But that doesnt mean elections might not have been swayed. Illegal votes were cast in Champaign, Christian, Cook, DuPage, Lee, Macon and Peoria counties and the city of Chicago. Voters for Macon County sheriff know that race was decided by a single vote. The Secretary of States office said the glitch was immediately corrected after its discovery on Dec. 13, 2019, but it failed to notify people it should have notified. Which people? For starters, the ones raising their voices loudest right now, specifically Republicans and one Democrat demand answers, as reported in a headline in the Chicago Sun Times. A letter of concern was sent to Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan by five Republicans who serve on the House Executive Committee. Democratic Sen. Andy Manar said he might call for Senate hearings. Also, the delay from the Secretary of States office is alarming. There should not have been any delay in making the error known as widely as possible. The instinct to make the correction and stay quiet is understandable. But when it comes to voter trust, too much in Illinois has been circumspect, and like it or not, the failure to communicate thoroughly about the issue as well as the 17-month failure to catch the error does nothing to battle the most pessimistic observers. Outrage is a word too easily used these days. Theres an entire social media culture of outrage, people who live merely to be offended. Yet Illinois Rep. Dan Caulkins, R-Decatur, was on the mark when he said, The fact that the Secretary of State kept this a secret for 17 months is outrageous. Caulkins added, Protecting the integrity of our electoral process should have been a top priority. Its obvious a better system needs to be put into place and it should start with not registering non-citizens to vote. There seems to be a reluctance in suspending the law. But thats the best option. Faith can only be restored through transparency. With the March elections a mere seven weeks away, fixing the problem beyond doubts is a priority. Herald & Review, Decatur By France 24 February 01, 2020 " Information Clearing House " - The Palestinian Authority has cut all ties with the United States and Israel, including those relating to security, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Saturday. Abbas was in Cairo to address the Arab League, which backed the Palestinians in their opposition to Trumps plan. The blueprint, endorsed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, calls for the creation of a demilitarised Palestinian state that excludes Jewish settlements built in occupied territory and is under near-total Israeli security control. Weve informed the Israeli side ... that there will be no relations at all with them and the United States including security ties, Abbas told the one-day emergency meeting, called to discuss Trumps plan. Israel and the Palestinian Authoritys security forces have long cooperated in policing areas of the occupied West Bank that are under Palestinian control. The PA also has intelligence cooperation agreements with the CIA, which continued even after the Palestinians began boycotting the Trump administrations peace efforts in 2017. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter Abbas also said he had refused to discuss the plan with Trump by phone, or to receive even a copy of it to study. Trump asked that I speak to him by phone but I said no, and that he wants to send me a letter ... but I refused it. Abbas said he did not want Trump to be able to say that he, Abbas, had been consulted. He reiterated his complete rejection of the Trump plan, presented on Tuesday. The Arab League foreign ministers meeting in Cairo said the plan would not lead to a comprehensive and just peace, and that the League would not cooperate with the United States in implementing it. The ministers affirmed Palestinian rights to create a future state based on the land captured and occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, with East Jerusalem as capital, the final communique said. Foreign ministers from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon, among others, said there could be no peace without recognising Palestinian rights and a comprehensive solution. After Trump unveiled his plan, some Arab powers had appeared, despite historic support for the Palestinians, to prioritise close ties with the United States and a shared hostility towards Iran over traditional Arab alliances. Three Gulf Arab states - Oman, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates - attended the White House gathering where Trump announced his plan alongside Netanyahu. On Tuesday, Netanyahu said he would ask his cabinet this week to approve the application of Israeli law to Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Such a move could be a first step towards formal annexation of the settlements and the Jordan Valley - territory Israel has kept under military occupation since its capture in 1967. Most countries consider Israeli settlements on land captured in war to be a violation of international law. Trump has changed U.S. policy to withdraw such objections. This article was published by "France 24" - Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here ==See Also== SEVERAL major drug dealers have sent word to armed ex-Provisional IRA members that they had nothing to do with the murder attempt on veteran republican Pat Fitzpatrick. The criminals fear that they could be targeted in revenge attacks by republicans for the gangland-style shooting of the 58-year-old, who only survived because he was wearing a bulletproof vest. Fitzpatrick has told friends that he wants no retaliation for the attempt on his life last weekend in the Short Strand district of east Belfast. Expand Close Kevinn McGuigan Snr / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Kevinn McGuigan Snr But senior ex-Provos are determined to lay down a marker to the gang which targeted him. The same group of republicans murdered Kevin McGuigan Snr in 2015 after accusing him of carrying out the killing of former Belfast IRA boss Jock Davison. The following year they seriously wounded criminal Scott McHugh, who had gone public to deny being involved in the Davison execution. Expand Close The gunshot sustained by Pat Fitzpatrick / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The gunshot sustained by Pat Fitzpatrick This heavily armed gang - who put on a show of strength at the funeral last spring of Provo bomber Peter 'Pepe' Rooney - are understood to be planning to avenge the shooting of Pat Fitzpatrick despite his pleas for peace. 'Pat Fitzy', as he is known in republican circles, was a close confidant of Davison and was wounded outside the home of a relative of the slain IRA chief. "Several drug dealers have contacted senior republicans through go-betweens to deny any involvement in the Pat Fitzy murder bid," a source told Sunday Life. "Some of them have even provided alibis, they are really worried." A violent drug addict with connections to the Market area has been named as the gunman, however republicans are at this stage hesitant to believe these rumours. "The name of the shooter will come out in the end, just like it did in Jock's case," added our source. "Pat Fitzy has said he does not want any retaliation, but that's not in his hands. Republicans cannot allow attacks from criminals to go unpunished. If we did it would be open season on every ex-IRA member in Belfast." Fitzpatrick, who is originally from the Market district of south Belfast, is close to Sinn Fein Communities Minister Deirdre Hargey, and has worked on several of her election campaigns. She is known to be horrified at the murder bid on her friend and former neighbour. Last weekend's shooting has also shocked republicans, as Fitzpatrick has always been a supporter of the Good Friday Agreement and opposed dissident groups. A second senior republican told Sunday Life; "Pat Fitzy was an easy target, that's the only reason why he was shot." What saved Fitzpatrick was a tattered bulletproof vest that he has been wearing regularly since the murder of his pal Jock Davison in 2015. It absorbed most of the power of the bullet to his back, leaving a huge red welt on the skin. This is the second time that Fitzpatrick has been the target of a murder bid - in 1988 he lost an eye in a UVF gun attack in south Belfast. The shooting occurred one week before his good friend Brendan 'Ruby' Davison, a leading IRA man and the uncle of Jock Davison, was murdered by the same loyalist gang. Fitzpatrick was famously pictured at the top Provo's wake with bandages around his eye and arm. Since then he has been on strong pain medication. When Fitzpatrick was arrested by police at his home with a stolen PSNI Glock pistol in 2015 his medical condition was referenced. He ended up pleading guilty to possessing the firearm and six bullets with intent, and having the weapon without a certificate. Fitzpatrick's lawyer told the court that his client had obtained the gun to "protect his family", and that "he was only going to be using this in a defensive way". This was over fears the republican harboured of being murdered like his close friend Jock Davison. At an earlier court hearing a detective claimed Fitzpatrick was "a suspect in the murder of Kevin McGuigan", but that has now been discounted by police. Republicans remain suspicious though that associates of McGuigan were behind last weekend's Short Strand murder attempt. One told us: "They are the only people with a motive for shooting Pat Fitzy." File image Deal street is abuzz with a series of measures announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her Union Budget 2020-21 speech, which are expected to boost foreign investment and spur mergers and acquisitions. Let us take a quick look at a few of them. Abolition of Dividend Distribution Tax Since the corporate tax rate cut announced in 2019, India Inc. had been pushing for the elimination of the unpopular dividend distribution tax (DDT). Dividend is the amount that a firm pays its shareholders from the profits it earns. DDT is the tax levied on that dividend. FM Sitharaman did not disappoint as she answered their prayers. Experts believe that the move will reduce acquisition costs of Indian entities by foreign companies, including private equity players. The big step to bring in dividend taxation in line with international practices by the withdrawal of the DDT is a step in the right direction and will be a big boost for foreign investors. Under the DDT regime, foreign investors would not get a tax credit for the DDT against the taxes to be paid in their home country, leading to double taxation. With the proposal to remove DDT, a lower tax rate under the applicable tax treaty can be sought as well as a credit, Bijal Ajinkya, Partner, Khaitan & Co. said. Incidentally, the task force on the direct tax code had also recommended the removal of the DDT. However, some experts believe that the abolition of DDT will have an impact on M&A restructuring in a few cases. Promoter holding structures will have to be relooked in light of the changes to dividend taxation pursuant to DDT abolition. Primarily, the cost of holding shares through trusts, partnership firms and LLPs (limited liability partnerships) would be more costlier than through a corporate entity, said Amrish Shah, Partner, Deloitte India. Wooing Sovereign Wealth Funds In her Union Budget speech, FM Sitharaman also proposed full tax exemption to interest, dividend and capital gains income on investment made by sovereign wealth funds in the infrastructure sector and other notified sectors. The investments must be made before March 31, 2024 and have a minimum lock-in period of three years, the finance minister added. The likes of ADIA (Abu Dhabi Investment Authority) and Singapores sovereign wealth fund GIC seem to be the biggest gainers since now even using an special purpose vehicle (SPV) structure, they can claim 100 percent exemption on interest, capital gains or dividend income. For the infra sector, sovereign funds are likely to see accentuated growth with special purpose vehicles being given complete tax exemptions, Ruchir Sinha, Leader, (M&A and Private Equity) at Nishith Desai Associates said. The move should help complete infrastructure projects which have been stuck due to lack of funds, but actually have good economic potential, as these can then become targets for long term, patient sovereign wealth fund capital, Sanjeev Krishan, Leader (Deals), PwC India added. ADIA was a co-investor in the $1.07 billion fund infusion in GVK Power & Infrastructure Ltd. to increase the latters stake in the Mumbai airport. It had also invested $1 billion in NIIF in 2017. GIC had joined the Tata group and stressed assets investor SSG Capital Management to invest in GMR Airports Ltd. It was also part of the $3.7 billion deal to invest in Reliance Industries (RIL)s telecom tower assets along with Canadian investor Brookfield Asset Management. Sinha also adds that InvITs (infrastructure investment trusts), as a product, will become more attractive after the Budget and there will be more deals as part of this route. The tax treatment for both listed and unlisted InvITs have now been aligned in the Budget and hence sponsors and investors may not struggle to list the InvITs and grapple with additional compliance, he explains. Interestingly, some experts believe status quo may also boost M&A activity. Several market participants were expecting an increase in the foreign direct investment limit in the insurance sector from the existing 49 percent to 74 percent. Since there has been no indication of an increase in the limit in the current Budget, I believe some of the insurance companies would not be comfortable with status quo and may go for consolidation. For any insurance business, size is an important factor. So some of them may decide to go for strategic alignment to achieve economies of scale, Sunil Sanghai, Founder and CEO, NovaDhruva Capital Private Limited said. Reliance Industries Ltd. is the sole beneficiary of Independent Media Trust which controls Network18 Media & Investments Ltd. The new American plan did dramatically turn the pre-election discourse away from Mr. Netanyahus recent indictment on charges of bribery and breach of trust, and back toward the security and diplomatic arenas, where he is far more comfortable. But Ms. Talshir said the prime minister still needed at least a mini annexation of one major settlement, say before the election. Otherwise, she said, some right-wing voters might prefer to stay at home or vote for parties further to the right than Mr. Netanyahus conservative Likud party. Or the focus could go back to Mr. Netanyahus legal troubles. Ambiguities and contradictions arose immediately with the presentation of the Trump plan, which is heavily weighted toward Israel. It would allow Israel to annex about 30 percent of the West Bank, including all the parts it deems important for security or as part of its biblical birthright. In return, the plan makes the Palestinians a conditional offer of a truncated state made up of a disarmed Gaza Strip and chunks of the West Bank linked by roads and surrounded by Israeli territory. That would cast aside longstanding Palestinian hopes for an independent state that incorporated the vast majority of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital. Most of the world considers the settlements a violation of international law. President Trump first introduced the plan as a basis for direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. But he also said the United States would recognize Israeli sovereignty over the parts of the West Bank it gets to keep under the plan, saying that could be immediately achieved. Adding to the confusion, Mr. Trump said Americans and Israelis would form a committee to come up with a more detailed map, suggesting a process that might take some time. Source: Xinhua| 2020-02-02 17:53:40|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close BEIJING, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- Amid the novel coronavirus outbreak, foreigners in China have shown great confidence in the country's unprecedented efforts for epidemic control. "The speed with which China detected the outbreak, isolated the virus, sequenced the genome and shared it with the WHO and the world are very impressive, and beyond words," World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Thursday after the organization announced the novel coronavirus outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). "So is China's commitment to transparency and to supporting other countries. In many ways, China is actually setting a new standard for outbreak response," he added. That reflects not only China's high sense of responsibility for the lives and health of its own people but also its strong support for global disease prevention and control, he said. Since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, the Chinese government has attached high importance to the safety of foreigners in China. Foreigners have also actively cooperated in the country's anti-epidemic war. ACTIVE COOPERATION Antonio Caminada has been a captain with China Eastern Airlines for 30 years. The 59-year-old Brazilian is now in quarantine at a designated hotel in Chengdu, southwest China's Sichuan Province, as he had been to Wuhan, the hard-hit city of the novel coronavirus. "I arrived at the hotel on the morning of Jan. 27, and I'm really grateful because everybody's treating me nicely and kindly," he said. According to Caminada, every morning people come to check his temperature and blood pressure and provide food and essentials he needs. Caminada is "very impressed by the way the Chinese people and the Chinese government are dealing with this bad situation." "The response was very, very fast," he said. "I never saw this anywhere in the world." Timo Balz is a German engineering professor at Wuhan University. He said he was impressed by the local government's courage and efforts in combating the disease. "My family has enough food supply and medical products such as masks and alcohol cleansers since the city was put on lockdown for epidemic control for more than one week," he said. According to the professor, he and his family spent most of their time at home and wore masks when going out after Wuhan decided to further extend the holiday along with other cities in Hubei Province. "Not only my family members, but also our community and Wuhan University really stick together since we are willing to support and help each other, and we are not afraid of staying here," said Balz, who has lived in Wuhan for 12 years. TIMELY MEASURES The overall confirmed cases of novel coronavirus infection on the Chinese mainland reached 14,380 by the end of Saturday, and a total of 304 people have died of the disease, according to Chinese health authorities. China's National Immigration Administration has issued a guideline for novel coronavirus prevention in six languages including English, Russian, French, German, Japanese and Korean, for foreigners in China. Hubei, the epicenter of the outbreak, has launched 24-hour hotlines for foreigners in this central Chinese province. A number of provinces and cities across China have publicized open letters with epidemic control information to foreign residents, including hospitals designated for treating the epidemic. Beijing, for instance, set up a hotline in eight foreign languages for its 140,000 foreign residents, according to the Foreign Affairs Office of Beijing Municipal People's Government. More than 30,000 foreign institutions including over 170 foreign embassies, a large number of foreign-funded companies and international organizations, are based in Beijing, according to the office. Mohamed Jiahd Mohamed Moustafa from Egypt is now studying as a graduate student at the Communication University of China. The 23-year-old has been in his apartment since the epidemic outbreak. "Our teachers ask about our situation one by one in China's social media platform WeChat every day, and also issue the latest notices to make sure foreign students can understand the anti-epidemic measures. " "It is very humane and warm-hearted," he said. "No matter what, I believe China will definitely find a way to solve this problem." In the southwestern Chinese municipality of Chongqing, life has become "unusually quiet" for Sharon Fraser from New Zealand, who is the general manager of Crowne Plaza Chongqing Jiefangbei. She said the local government "has been amazing, working so fast and really caring for the people," sending out constant messages, controlling areas and making them "super safe." "(The government has been) implementing wonderful controls and giving wonderful support to our business. Very understanding of the situation for ours and other businesses," she said. CONCERTED EFFORTS Facing the novel coronavirus, a large number of foreigners are also joining the battle. Yemen doctor Ammar Albaadani from Yiwu is one of them. Eastern China's major small commodity hub of Yiwu has about 15,000 foreign merchants from over 100 countries and regions. Ammar, 40, who works for a local hospital, has returned to work before the holiday, along with thousands of doctors across the city to fight the epidemic. Besides seeing patients, mostly foreigners, Ammar also helps explain the epidemic control measures taken by governments on social media, in either English or Arabic, to those who do not speak Chinese. Authorities across China are taking preventive anti-epidemic measures to ensure the treatment of patients and prevent the spread of the disease, said Ammar. "Their efforts offer us, people who live abroad, a great sense of security." Hendra Kurniawan from Indonesia is an international student at northwest China's Lanzhou University. Together with his Indonesian friends, he has donated 4,700 masks to the Lanzhou University Hospital. "We are doing our best to send more masks from Indonesia to China. Another 6,000 masks will be delivered next Monday. At this special moment, we should tide over difficulties together," he said. Muhammad Salman Azhar from Pakistan is a graduate student at the Xiangya School of Medicine of Central South University in central China's Hunan Province. On Jan. 24, he signed a voluntary application to go to Wuhan. "I am studying medicine in China and I want to do my part to help the country," he said. Although the volunteer team did not make the trip in the end, he still follows the news of the epidemic every day and tells his friends about the correct ways of wearing masks and washing hands. Nouh Bentaleb from Morocco is studying at Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute in east China's Jiangxi Province. To reduce crowds and prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, the university has suggested that students avoid going outside, and Bentaleb is now in charge of purchasing daily necessities for his classmates. "This is what I should do. In difficult times, we should help each other," he said. "There will be hard days, but they won't last." The way Kathy Kreminec describes it, life is like a box of cookies. That might slightly deviate from the famous reference to chocolates in the movie, Forrest Gump," but listening to Kreminec describe the annual Girl Scout cookie sale goes beyond hearing an inspiring message about an American tradition that began in 1917. It leaves one a bit hungry for the tasty treats that Western Massachusetts customers are currently buying in eight flavors. This years drive runs until the second weekend of March. Its customers include Governor Charlie Baker, who bought one box of each flavor in a recent visit to Springfield. For those who dont want to miss out, Kreminec said potential buyers can wait for a Girl Scout to come door-to-door, or go through the online Girl Scout Cookie Finder to locate a nearby cookie booth. If they know a scout, they can also reach out to utilize that girls digital platform. This is not your average bake sale; in fact, Kreminec believes the drive, which is only five years younger than Girl Scouts itself, is more popular than ever. "The Girl Scout cookie sale is the largest business in the country run entirely by girls and women,'' said Kreminec, a troop leader for 18 years and the Chicopee service unit manager for five. Shes actually understating the case: its the largest entrepreneurship program for girls in the world, raising $800 million each year for programs that support girls empowerment programs in local cities and towns. Thats what Kreminec feels is sometimes overlooked about a drive beloved by Americans, yet sometimes viewed as a nostalgic holdover from a much different age. To this enthusiastic scout leader and a nation of participating girls and women, Girl Scouts and the cookie sale are more relevant in the modern age of feminist empowerment than ever before. "A lot of misconceptions exist. People think of Girls Scouts as just the Brownies and cute little girls in the green uniforms,'' Kreminec said. They dont see what we see. A young girl whos afraid to be away from Mom for two hours for a meeting will make a sale, and that will build confidence, courage and character in her. As attitudes toward the independence and empowerment of women have changed, many time-honored traditions have grappled with maintaining such relevance. One popular example is the Miss America contest and other such competitions, which are trying either to shed their histories as exploitive beauty pageants, or seeking to balance these traditions with modern values. Kreminec said if anything, the cookie sale and the organization itself have been decades ahead of the modern curve. "Were a lot more than cookies, camping and baking, and I think parents come to realize that. I think the cookie sale is more popular than ever,'' she said. The girls have no problem making sales. Its sometimes easier for the younger girls because theyre so cute, but our older ones also want to do well and they do. What does the sale provide besides a major revenue source? Quite a bit. It teaches five primary lessons, one of which is goal-setting. What do you want to achieve? Kreminec asked rhetorically. We always tell them, shoot for one more (box) than you got last year. Thats not always possible because of circumstances. We teach them that setting unattainable goals doesnt serve any purpose, either. The scouts learn money management. They absorb decision-making skills that affect, among other things, how and where they will sell. They learn people skills that will serve them long after theyve earned their last badge. "Its really cool to watch the really shy kids come out of their shell in this campaign,'' Kreminec said. Business ethics are also taught. "We emphasize, were going to do this the right way,'' she said. This years new flavor is Lemon-Up. It is a major marketing and merchandising success, as is often true with new choices. "Theyre going like hot cakes. The lemon flavor is popular, anyway,'' Kreminec said. The Central and Western Massachusetts units extend from Worcester to the New York state line, and to the states northern and southern borders within this region. These units buy their cookies from Little Brownie Bakers, a supplier for 35 years that last year celebrated the five-year anniversary of the Toffee-tastic flavor. Kreminec is right; for non-involved families, the image of Girl Scouts often evokes images of 1950s and 60s Middle America. Families will buy the cookies, but they dont always look at the organization as a pioneer in entrepreneurship and independence for women, and at the forefront of todays liberating movement. She points to Sylvia Acevedo, the organizations CEO in the United States. Ever hear the term rocket scientist to describe a brilliant mind? Acevedo actually is one, having worked worked at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on Voyager 2s Jupiter flyby in 1979, with additional experience at Apple, Dell and Autodesk. Acevedo credits her Girl Scout training to her passion for space, science and math. Kreminec says scouting helps girls learn in ways they embrace, often more so than in class. "When they earn their math badge, we dont tell them (its about math) till theyre done,'' she said. When girls ask to pursue a new adventure, troop leaders try to say yes. "If its within our safety regulations, I tell them Ill try it. When they asked me about whitewater rafting, I said, youre nuts. But weve done it - twice,'' Kreminec said with discernible relish. As for the cookies, they carry embedded messages that speak to positive values. The Lemon-Up slogan is about G.I.R.L. - Go-Getters, Innovators, Risk-takers and Leaders. And that, according to Kreminec, is what the legendary Girl Scout Cookie Season is really all about - and why its values and goals speak so well to a 21st Century empowerment age for women that bares little resemblance to the America of 1917, when it all began. "It teaches girls about business and leadership,'' she said. It builds their character and their confidence. Thats what we want people to know about most. The Berlin Conference on Libya has set a positive direction for ongoing negotiations between the countrys warring parties and their backers, if all can commit to the principle of a political solution Last week, I wrote an article entitled Berlin Promise on the summit meeting that brought together the heads of states and governments with the secretary general of the United Nations, the secretary general of the Arab League and the chairman of the African Commission. The article was written four days before this important summit on Libya met on Sunday, 19 January, in Berlin. I argued that the summit held promise for the Libyan warring factions and for the international community. And that, once convened, there would be a pre- and a post-Berlin reality. These arguments stemmed from the fact that the situation on the ground in Libya has reached such a critical stage that it has become imperative for the international community to intervene, in light of the sad fact that the warring parties in Libya have failed either to successfully implement the UN Peace Plan in Libya, or to achieve a decisive military victory on the battlefield that would ultimately push the victor and the vanquished to reach a peace agreement, sparing the Libyans further bloodshed and destruction and likewise North Africa, the Mediterranean basin and Sub-Saharan Africa major and intractable threats to their security. From a diplomatic point of view, the Berlin Summit was a success, regardless of the scepticism of many. It was the most important and significant international gathering on Libya since the Security Council meeting on the same question in September 2017. The presidents and heads of governments of the five permanent members of the Security Council were present, the United States being represented by Secretary of State Michael Pompeo. On the other hand, other countries involved in the Libyan conflict were present. Egypt, Algeria, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates also participated, plus the host country Germany that chaired the summit. The head of the Libyan Government of National Accord, Fayez Al-Sarraj, and Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar were in Berlin but were not invited to participate. Each of them met, separately, with some leaders in attendance outside the conference hall. By the time the summit got under way, the ceasefire that was announced one week earlier had been observed to the satisfaction of everyone present in Berlin and, in fact, proved that the Berlin track holds promise for the future. In Berlin, the participants reaffirmed their commitment to a political solution to the Libyan conflict, emphasising that there would never be a military solution in Libya. Furthermore, they reaffirmed the utmost importance of respecting the arms embargo as mentioned in Security Council Resolution 1970 of March 2011. In the meantime, they reaffirmed their opposition to the deployment of foreign fighters in Libya. The agreement to set up three parallel tracks to carry out the UN Peace Plan was unprecedented. The Berlin Summit agreed on a financial-economic committee, a military-security committee and a political one. The avowed purpose has been to facilitate the work of UN Envoy to Libya Ghassan Salame, in helping the warring factions and other political forces in Libya implement the peace plan. The paramount concern, for the time being, is the consolidation of the ceasefire and turning it into a permanent truce. In this context, a 5+5 military committee has been established: five officers from each side of the armed conflict to meet regularly to monitor the shaky ceasefire as well as the shipment of armaments and the presence of mercenaries and alien fighters in Libya. In fact, this mission is one of the most delicate ones, and its success or otherwise will determine the fate of the comprehensive and detailed Berlin Declaration. In the next few days, the three committees are supposed to meet in different places, and in parallel, so the momentum gained in Berlin would be preserved, and the warring parties feel the weight of the interests of great, Arab and regional powers present in Berlin, realising fully that the Berlin process is, probably, the last chance, to prevent Libya and the regional neighbourhood from sliding into an open-ended conflict that would present grave dangers to international peace and security. To this end, the Security Council met three days after the Berlin Summit and urged the Libyan adversaries to respect the ceasefire, on the one hand, and has lent its support to the Berlin Declaration, on the other. As far as the political committee is concerned, it will be composed of 13 members from each side of the Libyan conflict, chosen by the National Assembly in Benghazi and the Government of National Accord in Tripoli, respectively. The United Nations, through Salame, would choose another 14 Libyans, to complement the committee with more neutral and hopefully unbiased Libyans whose presence is certainly important as a buffer between warring sides who have shown, so far, no serious inclination to save their country from territorial disintegration. This committee is supposed to meet before the end of January in Geneva. Judging from the reactions of the participants in Berlin, it seems that all concerned are committed, for the time being, to the Berlin Declaration. A case in point is the official Turkish position. Be it the Turkish president or his foreign minister, Turkey announced that it would respect the ceasefire agreement as long as Haftars forces abide by the ceasefire. It is a big if. No one can say for sure what is the endgame of the self-styled Field Marshal whose true commitment to the Berlin track remains to be seen. Of course, the same is true of the internationally-recognised Government of National Accord. Haftars regional backers seem hesitant as to the course they should take in the weeks and months to come in Libya. Here is an idea. Why dont you stand at equal distance from the two warring factions in Libya? I believe this could be a significant strategic shift that would compel these factions to lay down their arms and start, seriously, to negotiate a way out of this Libyan quagmire. As far as Egypt is concerned, the Berlin Declaration has met all its interests in Libya. And it remains one of the Arab powers that stands to gain the most, from a strategic point of view, from the implementation of the declaration. Its diplomacy should be reoriented as a result. *The writer is former assistant foreign minister. **A version of this article appears in print in the 30 January, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly. Search Keywords: Short link: A couple of storms will sweep across the center of the country over the coming days, bringing wintry weather from Iowa to Texas. After dumping inches of snow in across the Great Basin and the Rockies, one storm will move across the Plains into Tuesday. "As this first storm moves eastward, it will lose much of its intensity," said AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Eric Leister. Most locations from Kansas City, Missouri westward through much of Kansas are likely to accumulate less than 3 inches into Tuesday evening. "By the time that first storm reaches southern Iowa and central Missouri, there may be snow falling from the sky, but little more than a thin coating is expected," Leister added. A second storm is forecast to slice across the Central states from Tuesday night to Wednesday. The southern side of the same storm that will spark severe weather across the Gulf Coast. The snow from the second storm will begin in New Mexico and western parts of Texas on Tuesday night before spreading eastward through Wednesday. Snowfall from this storm is likely to be more impressive in terms of amounts and impact. "Several inches of snow are possible in a swath from northern Texas to southwestern Missouri," said AccuWeather Meteorologist Adam Sadvary. An AccuWeather Local StormMax of 8 inches of snow is forecast before the second system exits the region on Wednesday. Temperatures will likely be marginally low enough on the southern fringe of the snow, which may allow sleet and freezing rain to mix in with any snowflakes. "The wintry precipitation accumulating on roadways will likely bring complications for travelers along Interstates 20, 35, 40, 44 and 49, especially during the morning commute," added Sadvary. Spotty freezing rain may encroach on the northern and western suburbs of Dallas for a time Wednesday morning, while travel around Oklahoma City is likely to be a wintry mess. The snow may also lead to school delays or closures on Wednesday. Story continues The bulk of the snow is forecast to slip south of Kansas City, Missouri, for the Chiefs victory parade, but there can be a small amount of snow on Wednesday with localized slippery conditions. AccuWeather RealFeel Temperatures are forecast to be in the 20s. CLICK HERE FOR THE FREE ACCUWEATHER APP Following both of these storms, chilly air will become entrenched in the Plains. Low temperatures early Thursday morning will be in the teens from the North Dakota-Canada border down into Oklahoma and the northern Texas Panhandle. Elsewhere, lows will be in the 20s. Temperatures are expected to rebound into the 40s and 50s across central Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Kansas on Thursday, but hold in the 20s and 30s for Iowa and Missouri. In these areas, any snowpack will likely linger longer. The same storm bringing snow to the southern Plains is expected to continue moving east, and could impact the Eastern Seaboard late in the week. Keep checking back on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier and Verizon Fios. China Everbright International Limited (HKG:257), which is in the commercial services business, and is based in Hong Kong, received a lot of attention from a substantial price movement on the SEHK over the last few months, increasing to HK$6.29 at one point, and dropping to the lows of HK$5.52. Some share price movements can give investors a better opportunity to enter into the stock, and potentially buy at a lower price. A question to answer is whether China Everbright International's current trading price of HK$5.56 reflective of the actual value of the mid-cap? Or is it currently undervalued, providing us with the opportunity to buy? Lets take a look at China Everbright Internationals outlook and value based on the most recent financial data to see if there are any catalysts for a price change. See our latest analysis for China Everbright International What is China Everbright International worth? Great news for investors China Everbright International is still trading at a fairly cheap price. Ive used the price-to-earnings ratio in this instance because theres not enough visibility to forecast its cash flows. The stocks ratio of 6.87x is currently well-below the industry average of 11.9x, meaning that it is trading at a cheaper price relative to its peers. China Everbright Internationals share price also seems relatively stable compared to the rest of the market, as indicated by its low beta. If you believe the share price should eventually reach its true value, a low beta could suggest it is unlikely to rapidly do so anytime soon, and once its there, it may be hard to fall back down into an attractive buying range. Can we expect growth from China Everbright International? SEHK:257 Past and Future Earnings, February 2nd 2020 Future outlook is an important aspect when youre looking at buying a stock, especially if you are an investor looking for growth in your portfolio. Buying a great company with a robust outlook at a cheap price is always a good investment, so lets also take a look at the company's future expectations. China Everbright Internationals earnings over the next few years are expected to increase by 40%, indicating a highly optimistic future ahead. This should lead to more robust cash flows, feeding into a higher share value. Story continues What this means for you: Are you a shareholder? Since 257 is currently undervalued, it may be a great time to increase your holdings in the stock. With an optimistic outlook on the horizon, it seems like this growth has not yet been fully factored into the share price. However, there are also other factors such as capital structure to consider, which could explain the current undervaluation. Are you a potential investor? If youve been keeping an eye on 257 for a while, now might be the time to make a leap. Its buoyant future outlook isnt fully reflected in the current share price yet, which means its not too late to buy 257. But before you make any investment decisions, consider other factors such as the track record of its management team, in order to make a well-informed investment decision. Price is just the tip of the iceberg. Dig deeper into what truly matters the fundamentals before you make a decision on China Everbright International. You can find everything you need to know about China Everbright International in the latest infographic research report. If you are no longer interested in China Everbright International, you can use our free platform to see my list of over 50 other stocks with a high growth potential. If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Thank you for reading. Donald Trump accused Democrats of "scamming America" as his impeachment trial came to a close without witnesses testifying against him. Barring unforeseen events, Trump will be acquitted on Wednesday by the US Senate. He said "radical" Democrats had "put on the most unfair witch hunt in the history of the US Congress". "They didn't do their job, had no case. The Dems are scamming America!" Meanwhile, a poll showed Americans are more "satisfied" with the state of the US than at any time since 2005. The poll showed 41pc were satisfied, up from 26pc when Trump took office. Among Republicans, 72pc were satisfied, a jump of 14pc since December, suggesting impeachment increased his popularity in his own party. Democrats said the impeachment, only the third in US history, was a "sham" because Republicans prevented witnesses being called. Senior Republicans riposted by saying it was "time to turn the page" on the saga. Closing arguments will be made tomorrow. Senators will make their views known ahead of a vote on Trump's guilt or innocence on Wednesday afternoon. Trump faces two articles of impeachment - abuse of power and obstruction of Congress - and a two-thirds majority would be needed to convict him. Republicans hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate and will vote to acquit. Trump had wanted his acquittal to take place before he gives his State of the Union address on Tuesday, and held "fervent" talks with the Senate's Republican leader in an attempt to achieve that. But moderate Republican senators wanted time next week to explain their decision-making process publicly. Polls showed a majority of Americans thought witnesses should have been called, but only two of the four Republican senators they needed voted with them. Chuck Schumer, the Democrat leader in the Senate, said: "America will remember this day, a day when the US Senate did not live up to its responsibilities, turned away from truth and instead went along with a sham trial." He said there should be a "permanent asterisk next to the acquittal of Trump, written in permanent ink". The impeachment case centred on allegations - supported by the witnesses that were not called by the Senate - that Trump tried to pressure the president of Ukraine to open a corruption investigation into Joe Biden, his domestic political rival. Trump consistently denied doing anything wrong. Telegraph Faced with faltering economic growth, India's government has unveiled measures aimed at getting millions of Indians to spend and spurring companies to invest. The task at hand is urgent: India was the world's fastest-growing major economy as recently as last year but has since ceded that spot to China. The news has worsened in recent months, with economic output in the current fiscal year expanding at the slowest pace in more than a decade. The government on Saturday presented its annual budget, a much-anticipated exercise that serves as a manifesto for economic policy. It announced moves to cut certain taxes, encourage investment and reduce its stakes in major publicly-owned companies. But investors looking for bold steps to power India back to faster growth were left disappointed: the country's benchmark stock index slid more than 2 per cent on Saturday. Here's what you need to know about the predicament facing India's economy. 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. How badly is India's economy doing right now? Very. While economies around the world have decelerated recently, India has slammed into a wall: in just over a year, economic growth tumbled by nearly half from a rate of 8 per cent to 4.5 per cent in the latest quarter. For a developed country, that would still be a healthy rate of expansion. But in a developing economy such as India's that hopes to pull tens of millions out of poverty and employ a young and burgeoning workforce, it feels almost like a recession. The economic data continue to flash warning signs. The corporate and income tax collected by the government - an indicator of overall economic vitality - is set to fall during the current fiscal year for the first time in two decades, Reuters reported. The latest available nationwide figures show that unemployment spiked to a 45-year high in 2018. And leaked data from a flagship survey conducted once every five years indicated that consumer spending fell in 2018 for the first time in four decades. India's economy is in the intensive care unit, said Arvind Subramanian, who served as the government's chief economic adviser for four years until 2018. The evidence is just too large and too mutually supportive to not raise alarm bells. How did India get to this point? That depends on whom you ask. The government, together with some economists, contends that India is in a temporary downturn, with economic growth suppressed by an unfavourable environment worldwide. By this line of thought, the slump will end later this year and the economy will pick up speed. Other economists worry that there is something deeper than a cyclical slowdown at work. They say several factors - some of them years in the making - are together acting as a lead weight on the economy. India's financial sector is dealing with a bad-debt hangover in sectors such as real estate and infrastructure. Bad loans have poisoned the climate for investment, making banks unwilling to lend and companies averse to fresh borrowing. The government of Narendra Modi, India's prime minister, made a challenging situation worse, these economists say, with its abrupt decision in 2016 to invalidate most of India's currency. The move paralysed the country's vast informal economy, which is based on cash transactions. The introduction of a nationwide value-added tax soon after - a step economists praised in principle but criticised for its botched rollout - didn't help. Indian daily wage laborers wait to get hired in Mumbai, India, Saturday, Feb 1, 2020 (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool) The picture is sharp and scary, wrote R Nagaraj, an economist at the Indira Gandhi Institute for Development Research in Mumbai, earlier this month. Slower economic growth has led to job losses and stagnant wages in rural India, he said, followed by falling consumer spending. It is the unmistakable story of [an] economy in distress. Economists at Goldman Sachs wrote in a note last year that the current slowdown is the longest India has experienced since at least 2006 and represents a considerable source of anxiety for investors. How has Modi's government reacted to the slowdown? Until recently, the government barely acknowledged that a slowdown was underway. In September, Nirmala Sitharaman, India's finance minister, announced corporate tax cuts that buoyed stocks and aimed to spur investment but nothing further. Several economists said the government's primary focus has been elsewhere in recent months. In August, Modi undid seven decades of Indian policy in Kashmir. In December, his government passed a divisive citizenship law that sparked nationwide protests. A disproportionate amount of attention is going into politics, said Kaushik Basu, a former chief economist at the World Bank and a professor at Cornell University. The economy is feeling the neglect and that worries investors. What happens next? Professor Basu said Mr Sitharaman faces a dilemma. The economy needs a jolt of stimulus in the form of higher government spending, but any significant move in that direction risks enlarging the gap between public spending and tax revenue. It's a very dangerous game, but I don't think she has a choice, he said. Mr Sitharaman needs to put more buying power in people's hands, which could mean that the fiscal deficit that was going to be reined in will not be reined in. Amit Basole, an economist at Azim Premji University in Bangalore, said the situation was serious enough that now is really the time to be concerned about the real economy, not the fiscal deficit. He urged an expansion of a government program to guarantee jobs in rural areas to get those consumers to spend. Mr Subramanian, the former chief economic adviser, said the government could start with a more limited set of goals: fixing the jam in the financial system and ensuring the reliability of government statistics so policymakers can properly assess the scope of the problem. On spending, the government just doesn't have the space to do anything dramatic or drastic, he said. The Washington Post Many airlines have suspended service to China, and the Philippines, Australia, Indonesia, Vietnam and Singapore have joined the U.S. in temporarily barring most travelers from China. Chinas vast economy and the global supply chains it feeds are fraying. But some top officials in Southeast Asia, which has the largest cluster of coronavirus patients outside China, have dismissed the threat and even pushed remedies not supported by science. Heres the latest, and a map of infections. How we got here: Public health experts say China initially put secrecy and order ahead of confronting the coronavirus. Reconstructing the first seven weeks of its spread, our reporters showed how the authorities silenced doctors and others for raising red flags and soft-pedaled the danger. In Wuhan: A new hospital for those with the coronavirus, built in just 10 days, opens today. But most hospitals are swamped and the population of 11 million is struggling under quarantine. With many of the sick going untested and untreated because of circuitous bureaucracy and short supplies, the number of infected and dead could be significantly higher than reported. NEW YORKThe warning from the New York City building inspector was blunt. The facade of the apartment building in the Bronx was crumbling and a corner was separating. The playground outside a day care center in the building had to close immediately. That was in 2001. Nineteen years later there is still a three-foot gap in the brick facade and the playground, for the centres 50 children between two and four years old, is still off limits. The buildings owner has ignored at least 19 violations, failed to pay $49,000 (U.S.) in fines and has not shown up for seven hearings on the dangerous conditions. Yet the city has been unable to force the owner to make any repairs. Instead, a 150-foot stretch of scaffolding that envelops the front of the building was put up in 2011 to protect pedestrians and remains there today. Across the city, about 1,400 buildings are wrapped in wood-and-steel sidewalk sheds not for construction, but because their facades are a serious safety threat. The sites have major structural problems, including corroded masonry and fractured terra cotta, which could come loose and hurt or kill people on the ground. Many line the citys most heavily trafficked sidewalks, from luxury condo towers near Central Park to office buildings in midtown Manhattan. Others are miles from Manhattan, tucked on impoverished and overlooked streets. Nobody pays attention. Nobody does anything about it, said Alexander Perez, who lives next to the Bronx day care and whose two daughters attended the center, around a kilometre from Yankee Stadium. Scaffolding in New York often stays up for years without any repairs being done. Despite rigorous city building laws and a string of high-profile accidents, including the death of a woman killed by falling terra cotta in December, an examination by The New York Times found that building owners routinely flout rules and enforcement actions with no repercussions. Over the past decade, landlords have ignored more than $31 million in fines over unsafe facades, according to an analysis by The Times. Repairs at buildings have been slow-walked or not started at all. During that period, more than 6,000 buildings higher than six floors did not inspect their facades or failed to file their findings, as required by law. One building, the Esplanade Manhattan, reported to the city in 2011 that its facade was safe, even though the site was never inspected. Four years later, a two-year-old girl was killed by falling terra cotta from the building. Critics call the fines too small and say the city does not aggressively deploy the tools it has to impose financial consequences, such as threatening a landlords credit. The citys building inspectors charged with enforcing the rules can impose fines of $1,000 a year for missing facade inspections and $1,000 for each month that an unsafe building goes unrepaired. The most powerful tools in their arsenal, such as emergency orders to vacate, are applied only in extreme cases. City officials acknowledged the shortcomings but said they were moving rapidly to beef up the fines and punish negligent landlords, including charging them criminally in court and adding more facade inspectors. Were taking aggressive action, Melanie E. La Rocca, the buildings commissioner, said, so that these owners make the needed repairs to their buildings, so that these sheds can be taken down. Some building owners have not even taken the basic step of putting up sidewalk sheds or netting, leading to deadly consequences. In April, city inspectors told the owner of 729 Seventh Ave., a 17-storey building just north of Times Square, that terra cotta pieces were missing from its facade and ordered the owner, Himmel + Meringoff Properties, to pay a $1,250 fine and put up a sidewalk shed. It didnt. And eight months later, Erica L. Tishman, 60, an architect, was killed when she was hit by a falling piece. A sidewalk shed was installed hours after Tishman died, and the company plans to remove all of the decorative terra cotta. A spokesman for Himmel + Meringoff said repairs were not made earlier because the severity of the April violation had been downgraded by a judge who determined that the facade was not unsafe. The vast number of faulty facades reflects, in part, the citys successful effort to systematically assess the condition of building facades prompted by the death of a Barnard student in the early 1980s from falling concrete. Eleven other cities, including Chicago and San Francisco, have adopted similar facade rules. But the proliferation of sidewalk sheds illustrates the weakness in enforcement. In New York, sheds around unsafe buildings stretch for a total of 130 km eyesores that obscure first-floor businesses, collect trash and, according to Mayor Bill de Blasio, are great for criminals as a place to hide. Even one of the most notorious buildings, a 12-story apartment tower at 601 West 115th St. owned by Columbia University, still has had problems. In 1979, Grace Gold, a freshman at Barnard, was killed by a falling 1-by-2-foot piece of concrete from that building. Nearly four decades later, an inspection in 2017 found that there were still cracking and crumbling bricks. A sidewalk shed was installed and the university paid $4,150 in fines. There is no sense of urgency, and the fines are a joke, said Golds sister, Lori Gold, who has advocated for safer buildings since her sisters death. A spokeswoman for Columbia University said the facade was fixed in November and that the university would ask the city to sign off on the repairs so the sidewalk shed could be taken down. In addition to lax enforcement, inspectors have been accused of not acting swiftly enough to inspect facades when there are clear warnings. A city investigation after the death of Greta Greene, the two-year-old killed outside the Esplanade Manhattan, faulted the Buildings Department for not acting on a tip eight months earlier that the facade had a scary crack that warranted getting someone over pretty quick on this. In recent months, however, the Buildings Department has stepped up its targeting of negligent building owners. In October, the department filed misdemeanor charges of noncompliance in Criminal Court in Manhattan against the owners of the seven buildings with sidewalk sheds older than a decade, which includes those used for construction and to shield against unsafe facades. A guilty verdict could bring a one-year jail sentence and fines up to $25,000. Sidewalk sheds are a critical tool for protecting the public against the dangers of falling debris, said La Rocca, who was appointed commissioner last May. They can also be a nuisance when building owners let repair work languish, keeping their sheds up far longer than necessary. The department has also brought charges against individual tenants, including the board president at 409 Edgecombe in Upper Manhattan, a 13-story apartment building, whose shed has been up for 14 years, longer than any other in the city. Days later, building officials told the city that the facade would be fixed. Now the department plans to press criminal charges against owners of all buildings with sheds older than three years, a list that includes about 570 properties, according to two people familiar with the agencys actions. The agency is doubling the size of its facade inspection team to 22 members and will soon enact significantly higher fines for facade conditions. In the days after Tishman was killed, the department also conducted surprise inspections of roughly 1,330 buildings previously deemed unsafe and found that 220 of them had no pedestrian protections. The building commissioner is not messing around, said Ben Kallos, a councillor who has urged the department to do far more to take on negligent building owners. Regardless of who owns the building, they have to keep it safe and the city should be helping out. Married At First Sight star Martha Kalifatidis and her boyfriend Michael Brunelli just moved to Bondi, Sydney. And the 31-year-old was spotted unpacking her extensive wardrobe as she moved into her new beachside apartment on Saturday. Despite the eight-hour drive from her parents home in Melbourne, Martha appeared to be in high spirits as she lugged her huge collection of clothing inside. New beginnings! Martha Kalifatidis, 31, was spotted unpacking her extensive wardrobe out of a car with shirtless boyfriend Michael Brunelli when they moved into their new Bondi home on Saturday The raven-haired beauty was spotted carrying a number of unusual garments, including leopard and snakeskin prints cocktail dresses. Meanwhile, shirtless Michael was seen carrying a number of large boxes into the couple's new flat. Mary, Martha's mother, was also put to work as she carried a number of odd household items from the car inside. Glam! The raven-haired beauty was spotted carrying a number of bespoke dresses, including leopard and snakeskin print Lots of clothes: Martha appeared in a good mood as she carried the dresses from the car to her new place Need some help? At one point, Martha seemed engulfed by all the clothes After the clothing was put away, Mary was seen transporting several black camera stands, plastic tubs and a wicker basked full of bric-a-brac inside. Martha looked casual in a scoop-cut crop-top which revealed a generous glimpse a hint of her chest and toned midriff. She paired the tight grey top with a pair of beige sweatpants and finished her outfit with a pair of black-and-white Adidas slides. That's a lot! Michael seemed astounded by all of his girlfriend's clothes Helping hand: Michael was tasked with moving a lot of the clothes inside All comfort: Michael wore Adidas slides for the move The former make-up artist wore her cropped raven tresses out, allowing her mane to sit at her shoulders. Martha appeared to have changed into the skimpy top once she arrived in scorching Sydney, as she was seen wearing a vintage over-sized sweatshirt earlier. Despite the heat she opted for a glossy makeup palette, wearing bronzer which she paired with dark eye-makeup. Doing the heavy lifting: Michael appeared to sweat as he carried the boxes inside Hot in here: Michael opted to go shirtless for the move No-fuss look: Martha have her raven-haired tresses tied back while doing the unpacking Meanwhile, Michael opted to flaunt his muscled physique by wearing just a tight pair of grey Adidas shorts. He also wore Adidas slides that matched those worn by Martha. Moving to Sydney is the latest in several big changes for Martha, who also recently opted to chop her long raven hair off. During the lengthy car trip from Melbourne to Sydney this weekend, Martha spoke of her stylish new hairstyle on Instagram. On the job! Martha got to work carrying a lot of dresses into their house Matching: Michael and Martha both wore black-and-white Adidas slides Belongings: Michael was also seen wheeling a large blue suitcase inside Oh, my! Michael was seen carrying a number of pillows into his new home The star replied to a fan, who asked her whether she wore hair extensions. She jokingly dismissed their question explaining: 'Honey, I have a light layer of fur that covers my entire body. 'My hair is so thick - no extensions, no,' she added. Duty calls: Mary was seen carrying a number of odd things, including two black stands along with a bag of items for the kitchen No rest! Martha appeared to get Mary on the job, with her seen helping the couple move their things into their new place Since starring on MAFS, fashion-conscious Martha has changed her hair look several times. Martha previously quit her job as a makeup artist in Sydney last September to film MAFS. Martha has undergone a number of changes lately, including talking about the possibility of freezing her eggs. Over-sized: Martha was seen carrying a number of things for her new place, including a small bathroom mirror and a lamp shade Speaking on the car trip, Martha said she was interested in having kids sooner rather than later. 'Yeah, I do want to have kids. I don't know when,' Martha said after a fan asked her about her family plans. She added: 'I know I'm 31 and I should probably get a move on. But I don't think I'm ready to.' Come on, Martha! Elsewhere, Martha's mother Mary appeared to be doing a lot of the heavy lifting while moving into the new place The anonymous question brought up the option of Martha freezing her eggs and the reality star revealed she has considered it, but needed more information. 'Funny you should ask, I was actually talking about freezing my eggs with my best friend, but we don't know anything about it,' she said. Martha went on to ask her Instagram followers to reach out to her on social media if 'anyone has any information.' The Argavand intersection is currently closed by a large number of police forces that arent permitting the move of relatives transporting the coffin of the soldier who died on January 30 to Yerevan. The deceased servicemans relatives want to transfer the body of the serviceman to the Ministry of Defense of Armenia. Minister of Defense of Armenia Davit Tonoyan and deputy of the My Step faction of the National Assembly of Armenia and Chair of the Standing Committee on Defense and Security Andranik Kocharyan are currently negotiating with the relatives. The relatives of the serviceman who died on January 30 in the shooting range of a military unit in Artsakh dont believe the official version of the servicemans death (suicide). The relatives told Armenian News-NEWS.am that the soldier, Vahram was murdered. Vahram was enlisted six months ago and was serving in Artsakh. He died on January 30 at around 1:15 p.m. The Investigative Committee of Armenia declared that the soldier had shot his chest with the AKM type of gun attached to him and had been transferred to a military hospital with firearm injuries, and he was pronounced dead at 2 p.m. The first garrison investigative division has instituted a criminal case in relation to the incident, and preliminary investigation is underway. https://www.aish.com/h/15sh/r/Eco-Friendly-Wineries-for-a-Happy-Tu-BShvat.html Some awesome wines recommended for celebrating Tu BShvat. The holiday of Tu BShvat , the New Years celebration for the trees, is the ideal opportunity to reconnect with nature and eat our favorite fruits and nuts. There are few better ways to get into the spirit of Tu BShvat than enjoying a feast of fresh produce paired with some delicious eco-friendly or organic wines, connecting fruit of the trees to fruit of the vine. Here are some awesome wines wed recommend for celebrating Tu BShvat. Tabor winery boasts the first ecological vineyard to be established in Israel. Eco-friendly wines or ecological vineyards are made in harmony with the natural environment, helping to support greater biodiversity in the vineyard and making grape-growing a more sustainable industry. The family-run winery was founded in the 1990s and has quickly grown to become one of the countrys finest boutique wineries. To date Tabor is the only Israeli winery to have been invited to the Wine Spectator Experience, one of the most prestigious wine shows in the world. Now the winery continues to be at the forefront of the Israeli wine industry thanks to their deep commitment to sustainable viticulture and organic winemaking. Here are a few of their most popular wines that would pair well at a TuBShvat seder: Tabor Adama Rose is a light and delicate dry rose made entirely from Barbera grapes. You would like this wine if you enjoy refreshing, easy-drinking rose wines which are perfect for sipping by the pool or over a casual dinner. The wines ripe strawberry, raspberry and floral notes make this a great match for berries, plums and cherries. Tabor Adama II Sufa Storm is composed of 50% Cabernet Sauvignon and 50% Petite Sirah which combine to create a bold, powerful red wine with plenty of luscious dark fruit character. You would like this wine if you enjoy hearty, full-bodied red wines with plenty of soft tannins and intense flavors that linger long on the tongue. Tabor Moscato is a delicious white wine with a gentle spritz and enchanting notes of lychee, melon and ripe peach. The natural sweetness makes this a fantastic partner for ripe fruits, dried figs and desserts. You would like this wine if you enjoy sweeter wines that are very easy to drink and pair well with a diverse range of dishes. There are even kosher organic wines (delicious too). Organic winemaking is regarded by some as a popular new trend, but in reality people have been making organic wines for thousands of years. Winemakers across the world have been returning to the ancient traditions of their craft by rejecting chemical additives in the vineyard. Instead organic winemakers carefully harness nature in the vineyard to reduce the risk of pests and disease. A Kosher organic winery worth discovering is De La Rosa Vineyards whose wines are made in Burgenland, Austria. The De La Rosa estate in Austria has been making wine for 800 years and started producing kosher-certified wines in 1980. The estates vineyards have also been certified as organic since 2007 and their wines are all vegan and gluten-free. De La Rosa Taryag Gruner Veltliner has the special distinction of being the only Kosher Gruner currently available on the market. You would like this wine if you enjoy dry white wines with plenty of enticing aromas on the nose. Its a crisp and refreshing wine which pairs very well with fresh fruits, dried fruits and vegetable dishes. One final winery that will help you get into the spirit of Tu BAv is Herzberg. Prof. Max Herzberg is one of the early entrepreneurs in the biotech industry in Israel. He established the Israel National Biotech Committee and was its first chairman. Born in Paris in 1940, Max learned to make wine in Bordeaux before making Aliyah in 1967. At age 65 he decided to plant a classical vineyard beside his home, in Moshav Sytria. His idea was to create an estate winery with a terroir philosophy. Max applies his biotech background to his wine making process, he grows grapes using organic techniques of minimal intervention, highlighting the fruit profile of the wines while keeping the alcohol low. Domain Herzberg Reserve This sophisticated classical blend of Cabernet Sauvignon (40%), Malbec (30%), Merlot (30%) is rich with a red berry under taste and gorgeous violet notes of licorice and spice. This full-bodied wine lingers on the taste buds and softens into a balanced sweet and spicy finale. It enriches the taste of casseroles and meat dishes as well as strong cheeses. (Newser) The Philippines on Sunday reported the first death from coronavirus outside of China, where authorities delayed the opening of schools in the worst-hit province and tightened quarantine measures in a city that allows only one family member to venture out to buy supplies. The Philippines said a 44-year-old Chinese man from Wuhan was admitted on Jan. 25 after experiencing a fever, cough, and sore throat. He developed severe pneumonia, and in his last few days, the patient was stable and showed signs of improvement, however, the condition of the patient deteriorated within his last 24 hours resulting in his demise." The man's 38-year-old female companion, also from Wuhan, also tested positive for the virus and remains in hospital isolation in Manila. President Rodrigo Duterte approved a temporary ban on all travelers from China, except Filipinos, reports the AP. story continues below The death toll in China climbed by 45 to 304 and the number of cases by 2,590 to 14,380, according to the National Health Commission, well above the number of those infected in the 2002-03 SARS outbreak. Meanwhile, six officials in the city of Huanggang, neighboring the epicenter of Wuhan, have been fired over poor performance" in handling the outbreak. It cited the mayor as saying the city's capabilities to treat the patients remained inadequate and there is a severe shortage in medical supplies such as protective suits and medical masks." After Huanggang, the trading center of Wenzhou in coastal Zhejiang province also confined people to homes, allowing only one family member to venture out every other day to buy necessary supplies. With the outbreak showing little sign of abating, authorities in Hubei and elsewhere extended Lunar New Year, due to end this week, well into February. (Read more coronavirus stories.) Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Sunday slammed SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal for praising the Union Budget as pro-poor and pro-farmer. The chief minister claimed that even agriculture experts and farmer bodies have rejected the Budget as totally bereft of any initiative to save the agrarian sector. "While the BJP was blinded by power and could not see the problems faced by the farmers, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president was apparently so blinded by his sycophant love for the ruling party that he could see nothing wrong in their actions," Singh was quoted as saying in an official statement. Despite having three ministers from the state in the Union Cabinet, the BJP-Akali combine have failed to secure a debt-relief scheme for the farmers, who continue to reel under massive debt burdens, not just in Punjab but across the country, he said. "With this measly allocation, which comes nowhere near meeting the needs of the farmers, how does Sukhbir hope to see the farmers' income getting doubled in the next two years. And without farmers uplift, there was no possibility of rural consumption going up, which would naturally scuttle economic growth even further," the chief minister claimed. Singh said while his government was doing its best in Punjab, a holistic national policy, encompassing debt waiver, MSP for all crops and diversification were the only long-term solution to the problem. "Nothing has, unfortunately, been proposed in the Budget to encourage crop diversification, despite the fact that buffer stocks of food grains are already putting the states and farmers under extreme stress," he pointed out. Joe Biden gave his teen granddaughter a kiss on the lips while giving a speech at a campaign trail event ahead of the Iowa caucuses. The former Vice President was spotted clutching 19-year-old Finnegan Biden's hand as they arrived at a campaign event at Clarke University in Dubuque, Iowa on Sunday. The 77-year-old gave his granddaughter a peck on the lips as a crowd of supporters watched on. The teen, who is the daughter of Biden's son Hunter, later stood by as her grandfather hugged members of the crowd. Joe Biden gave his 19-year-old granddaughter Finnegan Biden a kiss on the lips while giving a speech at a campaign trail event in Dubuque, Iowa on Sunday At one point, Biden could be seen interacting with a baby as he kissed the child's hands. The campaign event came on the eve of the Iowa caucuses as Democratic presidential candidates hustled across the state trying to fire up voters and make one last appeal to those struggling to make a final decision about their choice in the crowded field. Campaigns and voters acknowledged a palpable sense of unpredictability and anxiety as Democrats begin choosing which candidate to send on to a November face-off with President Donald Trump. The Democratic race is unusually large and jumbled heading into Mondays caucus, with four candidates locked in a fight for victory in Iowa and others still in position to pull off surprisingly strong finishes. Many voters say they're still weighing which White House hopeful they'll support. Polls show Biden in a tight race in Iowa with Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, as well as former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg. The former Vice President was spotted clutching Finnegan's hand as they arrived at a campaign event at Clarke University in Iowa Bidne laughed with his granddaughter during the campaign event on Sunday ahead of the 2020 Iowa Presidential caucuses The 77-year-old clutched his smiling granddaughter tightly as he addressed the crowd of supporters Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang are also competing aggressively in the state. Democrats' deep disdain for Trump has already put many in the party on edge about the decision before them. And a series of external forces have also heightened the sense of unpredictability in Iowa, including Trump's impeachment trial in the Senate, which marooned Warren, Sanders and Klobuchar in Washington for much of the past week. Despite the late-stage turbulence and confusion, the candidates spent Sunday making bold pronouncements. Speaking to several hundred supporters in Cedar Rapids, Sanders declared 'we are the campaign of energy and excitement' and said 'we are in a position to win tomorrow night'. At one point, Biden could be seen interacting with a baby as he kissed the child's hands Biden greeted the baby in Dubuque, Iowa on Sunday ahead of the caucuses Finnegan (left), who is the daughter of Biden's son Hunter, stood by as her grandfather hugged members of the crowd Biden is pictured above greeting and speaking to supporters during the campaign event in Dubuque on Sunday Warren, who is also rallying progressive voters, pressed her supporters to 'fight back' if they ever lose hope. Meanwhile, the 38-year-old Buttigieg talked up his newcomer status, telling a rally in Coralville that when Democrats have won the White House in the past, 'we have done with it someone who is new in national politics.' But Biden, emphasizing his decades of Washington experience, told voters there's no time for 'on-the-job training'. Biden's campaign appeared to be trying to lower Iowa expectations, cautioning against reading too much into Mondays results. Biden is hoping to sustain enough enthusiasm and money coming out of Iowa to make it to more diverse states where he hopes to draw strong support from black voters. His campaign is particularly focused on South Carolina - the fourth state on the primary schedule. Biden posed for selfies with supporters as he campaigns to be the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee Hundreds of medical workers from China's army have arrived in the novel coronavirus-hit city of Wuhan. At the order of the Central Military Commission, the Chinese Air Force dispatched eight large-scale aircraft carrying 795 medical staff and 58 tons of supplies to Wuhan early Sunday morning. The medical teams were transferred to the brand new Huoshenshan Hospital dedicated to the outbreak. "When we received the order, we did not hesitate. The country needs us as the epidemic worsens. As soldiers, we should be on the front line," said Mao Qi, a medical team member. The medical teams face a front line that many of them have seen before having experiences during the 2003 SARS epidemic and the more recent Ebola outbreaks in Africa. Before their departure, the teams went through sophisticated training processes. Many say they're now ready for the challenge, despite knowing very little about what lies ahead. "This mission is special; we are not familiar with the environment. We have sufficient preparation, but we don't know how long it will last. There are still some uncertainties," said Ma Ling, another team member. This is the largest number of such aircraft dispatched simultaneously by the Air Force in non-wartime military operations since the earthquake relief efforts in Wenchuan in 2008 and Yushu in 2010. The eight planes, which took off at 1:30 a.m. from a military airport despite the rain, arrived in northeast China's Shenyang, southwest China's Lanzhou, south China's Guangzhou and east China's Nanjing, respectively, to pick up medical teams and supplies at around 4:00 a.m., before they landed successively at Wuhan Tianhe Airport at around 9:00 a.m. Behind the task is an experienced aviation team that has successfully completed disaster relief missions during the Wenchuan and Yushu earthquakes. The team had already sent three military medical teams on the eve of the traditional Chinese Lunar New Year. Wang Quansheng, deputy head of the team, said that after receiving the mission, all officers and soldiers raced against time to work out the emergency delivery plan. In order to take the medical staff and supplies to Wuhan as soon as possible, the planes took off in the middle of the night after completing pre-flight preparations, Wang said. As of Saturday midnight, China had 14,411 confirmed cases of the virus, with 304 deaths and 328 recoveries. (Zhang Youze also contributed to the report.) Actor Joaquin Phoenix after supporting the unfurling of a banner at an Animal Equality protest Photo credit: Victoria Jones/PA Wire Actor Joaquin Phoenix (centre) after supporting the unfurling of a banner on Tower Bridge in central London, during an Animal Equality protest to draw attention to the effects of animal agriculture on the environment Photo credit: Victoria Jones/PA Wire Oscar and Bafta nominee Joaquin Phoenix has made a plea for people to "go vegan" as he led an animal equality protest in central London. The Hollywood A-lister used his pulling power to gather a group of activists for a protest where he dropped a 390-square foot banner from Tower Bridge which declared: "Factory farming destroys our planet. Go vegan." He made the call for people to break away from animal products ahead of Sunday's Bafta award ceremony, where he is in the running for the best lead actor prize for his starring role in Joker. It is the latest protest campaign by the staunch animal rights activist, who has been a vegan since he was three years old. Phoenix, 45, later responded to mounting criticism that people in glamour-filled industries like top actors are not in a position to preach about climate change because they are live in a world of frequent flights and high carbon footprints. After the protest, he said: "We are all hypocrites in some ways. We all struggle with what the right thing to do is and we make mistakes. "The industry does consume a lot of power and a lot of resources so the way to mitigate that for me is to maintain a vegan lifestyle." Read More He convinced the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the organisation that runs the Golden Globes, to serve its first all-vegan menu at the ceremony's star-studded dinner last month. He added: "I think that is part of our appeal to the award ceremonies because there are so many people flying in to the awards and the cars they use - the one thing they can do is to make the meal plant-based. "I think we just have to try and find that balance. Nobody is perfect but we are all trying to figure it out. Video of the Day "Instead of being judgmental and attacking each other, we should try to help each other and educate each other about how we can change. "There are many improvements I can make in my own life and I am trying to do that." He turned up at the protest in support of Animal Equality, which is an international organisation working with society, governments, and companies to try and end cruelty to farmed animals. Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Sunday ordered a magisterial inquiry into the escape of three prisoners from Amritsar Central Jail. According to an official statement, a state-wide hunt has been launched for the escaped prisoners, and the Chief Minister has also ordered ADGP Jails to revamp prison security in the wake of the incident, which came to light around 3.20 a.m., less than two hours after the undertrial prisoners broke their barrack and escaped by scaling the inner and outer walls of the jail, as per the CCTV footage of the prison. Taking serious note of the security lapse, the Chief Minister said prison security would be reviewed and further strengthened, not just in this jail but in the others across the state too. The prisoner who escaped have been identified as Vishal, Gurpreet and Jarnail. Vishal is accused in a rape case registered last year, while Gurpreet and Jarnail, who were brothers, were jailed for snatching. Giving details on the escape, DGP Dinkar Gupta said the men apparently made a hole in the wall of their barrack by removing about 10 bricks. Vishal's brother Gaurav, also in the same barrack, chose not to flee with them, said the DGP. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) GALVESTON Two outreach workers walk toward a group of men and women exiting Our Daily Bread, a social services organization for homeless and mentally ill people near downtown Galveston on a sunny, breezy January afternoon. Their goal: Counting every single homeless person they can find. Hilda Tobias of The Childrens Center, a homeless shelter for families and children, approaches a man navigating the cracked sidewalk en route to Our Daily Bread in a wheelchair. Leedell Anthony Brown, 59, a disabled veteran, lives a nomadic life, moving across the country in search of cities that have the resources to serve his needs. He came to Galveston from Pennsylvania four months ago, living in a room at the Salvation Army, the islands only emergency homeless shelter. This isnt a place Im kind of liking too much, Brown said. Its not enough resources here. Its not enough fellowship. You meet some people who are legitimately nice and then you meet others that are not. If they have some resources, they often refer you (to) somewhere else. Or if they have resources, its a wait period. Such is the plight of homeless men and women in a 41-square-mile island community stretched thin for the type of wraparound services required to tackle a homelessness problem that local advocates say is growing worse every year. It is why Tobias and her team at The Childrens Center say this years count is so critical. Advocates have a single day every year to do what essentially amounts to a census of homeless people for Galveston and Brazoria counties, a task made all the more difficult by the transient nature of homelessness. The Galveston count was conducted on Jan. 23. Weve been doing street outreach for many years and when you do street outreach, the first word is consistency, said Tobias, vice president of The Childrens Center. You have to be out there, they have to know who you are. The count is mandated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, carried out locally by homeless advocacy organizations that contract with the agency. The Texas Homeless Network coordinates the count statewide in corodination with regional providers, such as the Gulf Coast Center, which is running the count for Galveston and Brazoria counties. The network has an app for outreach workers and volunteers to log the name, age and date of birth of any homeless persons they encounter. The final count is sent to HUD, which uses the figures to determine how much federal grant funding should be provided. Justine St. Cyr, a case manager, said Gulf Coast Center uses the data to determine what the needs are whether its housing, mental health services, or food banks. She noted that housing providers, which are desperately needed in Galveston and Brazoria, will only partner with local service organizations if they can show theres a critical mass of homeless persons that need it. In order to get partners like that, we need the numbers to prove it, St. Cyr said. However, the one-day count is hardly ideal, particularly for rural counties and small cities like Galveston where there is not as much density and the homeless tend to scatter, including on the miles of coastline. It is nearly impossible for homeless outreach workers, the vast majority volunteering for a day, to cultivate the street knowledge of when and where to find the homeless. To have it one day is ridiculous because you have to build that rapport with the families, with the youth that are out there and theres no way for you to develop a rapport just like that, in one day, Tobias said. Last years count, for example, found a mere 325 homeless persons in both Galveston and Brazoria counties, only 69 of whom were under 18. Marsha Wilson, statistical program coordinator for The Childrens Center, said the homeless liaison for the Galveston Independent School District told her last month that the district had 379 children considered homeless, be it living in a shelter or sleeping on the couch of a classmate. But because HUD defines homelessness as living on the street, in a shelter or in transitional housing, many of those children arent officially counted. Weve got to inquire, Are you on the same couch you were on last night? in order to count them today, Wilson said. Everything but my dog In the city of Galveston, where the vast majority of Galveston Countys homeless population resides, the face of homelessness is heterogeneous: from undocumented immigrant youth and families to baby boomers and seniors. And for every man, woman or child who has a bed to sleep in at one of the islands three shelters, there are dozens more like Billy Wooldridge, 58. The disabled veteran roams from beaches to parking lots to back alleys any haven for him and his dog, Kujo, a brown mutt with a bad back leg that he transports in a stroller. Tobias and her colleague, Frank Ramos Molina, approached Wooldridge in the parking lot of a Family Dollar on Broadway. Their tact and empathy is palpable as Molina hands Wooldridge a bag of blankets and food and Tobias asks how he ended up living on the street. Bad divorce. I used to be the maintenance man at Fort Crockett before Hurricane Ike and I started my own business after Hurricane Ike, did pretty good for a while until the divorce, Wooldridge said. Gave her everything but my dog. Tobias brings Wooldridge a can of dog food that he pours onto a plastic bag for Kujo to devour. He recently came into possession of a van that he is hoping to turn into a makeshift home for them if he can scrape together enough money from his monthly Veterans Affairs check. They say its mine, all I gotta do is get it fixed, he said. Tobias and Molina, two of roughly 67 outreach workers and volunteers surveying the regions homeless on the day of the count, have the unique experience of having also once been homeless. Tobias is the daughter of undocumented Mexican immigrants who crossed the Rio Grande in search of work. She was shuttled around southern Texas with her parents, sleeping in bathroom facilities, cars, parks and beaches, her fathers meager wages as a farmhand barely affording them the basics. I know that because I had the experience of being homeless with my family, I know that theres a reason why people end up homeless, Tobias said. I always say, Help me understand what got you to this point, and Im able to relate to that. Molina grew up in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, and was indoctrinated into a street gang at age 7. He fled the violent city with his father when he was 13, migrating north to Houston. Molinas father was arrested and deported not long after arriving, leaving him to roam the streets begging for money, narrowly avoiding slipping back into gang life or selling drugs. An encounter with a police officer led to Child Protective Services sending Molina to Galveston, where he ended up living in a home hosted by Terry Keel, the CEO of The Children Center. Now 21, Molina is a father, equipped with a GED and ambition he eventually wants to go to college and a knack for homeless outreach , particularly connecting with runaway undocumented children. What I tell them is, Do whatever makes you happy, but dont hurt other people, Molina said. Living day to day By midday in Galveston, the outreach workers have mostly encountered older males. Some, such as William Wilkins, 61, were victims of natural disasters. A former contractor who moved to Galveston from Illinois, Wilkins left the island six months prior to Hurricane Ike in 2008 to retrieve his ID and Social Security card back home. I came back to the island and it was underwater, Wilkins said. Others, such as Lester Musterman, who had a laundry bag slung over his shoulder near Galvestons City Hall, struggle medically. Musterman was working until a medical condition that led to a large protrusion on his stomach limits his mobility. I had to go to UTMB, Ive got problems, Musterman said, gesturing toward his stomach. And there are some, like Leedell Anthony Brown, who see Galveston as a means to an end. Unlike many homeless persons, Brown has money in his pocket. He gets a disability check from Veterans Affairs, but he says the income is barely enough to rent a bedroom in Galveston. Brown has been reading a history book about Thailand and hopes to acquire a passport in the next several months to live out the rest of his life abroad. I just live day to day, week to week, month to month, Brown said. Ive been here long enough. Its time for me to move on. This town isnt Leedell-friendly. By the end of the count, the numbers roll in: 390 homeless in Galveston and Brazoria counties, a slight uptick from the previous year. Some volunteers reported glitches with the app they used to log names, possibly contributing to a lower number than expected. Tobias is already thinking ahead to what they can improve better organization, more volunteers, more accurate locations. For me, I really dont feel comfortable with the numbers, Tobias said. I see the streets, I see them, I work after hours. I know the numbers would have been more. nick.powell@chron.com Kyivpost The reason for the delay in ratification of the FTZ agreement between Ukraine and Israel is the constant re-election of the Knesset. This became known from an interview with Israeli Ambassador to Ukraine Joel Lion to LB.ua. "In Israel, we are now going to the third round of parliamentary elections. This means that some processes have been suspended for more than a year. We signed a free trade zone agreement with Ukraine a year ago. It was not ratified. It could not be ratified by Israel. Therefore, it is not working right now, "said the Israeli ambassador. According to him, the agreement cannot be transferred to the Knesset by the transitional government, because the parliament has been dissolved. However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked the officials responsible for the FTZ to find a solution to the issue with the ratification of the said document, Lion added. Related: Israeli ambassador asks Ukraine to open its embassy in Jerusalem He noted that trade between countries cannot grow without the ratification of the FTZ. At the moment when the FTA starts working, we will see a growth in trade, an increase in the economy. After all, if you can export goods to Israel from Ukraine without taxes. Of course, the Israelis will want to buy them, buy them in larger quantities. The same thing will happen on the other side," the Israeli diplomat emphasized. We recall that the FTZ agreement was signed in January 2019 as part of the visit of President Petro Poroshenko to Israel. In July 2019, the Verkhovna Rada ratified a free trade agreement. In August, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky signed a law ratifying a free trade agreement between Ukraine and Israel. Israel will hold parliamentary elections for the third time in a year: citizens will come to polling stations on March 2. An astounding number of women have shared stories about the once-mighty Harvey Weinstein allegedly victimizing them. For decades, the powerful producer, known equally as a film impresario and for his volatile temper, has been the subject of sexual misconduct allegations that range from unwanted touching to rape. The accusations suggest that the Pulp Fiction and Shakespeare in Love producer had a pattern too: According to allegations, inviting women to his hotels for business meetings, dismissing so-called honey pots (usually female associates) who might have accompanied them, then suggesting that they go to his room for massages or other activities. Though his alleged impropriety was widely described as an open secret in Hollywood circles, the outcry that followed the Oct. 5 New York Times investigation highlighting years of alleged misconduct became his undoing. Advertisement He reportedly reached at least eight settlements with women who accused him of harassment, including multiple former employees of the Weinstein Co. and his previous business, Miramax. Weinstein has denied some but not all the wrongdoing and was fired as co-chairman of his namesake production company on Oct. 8 despite a bizarre apology and public pleas for a second chance. Heres a look at his accusers allegations. This story will be updated if and when more step forward. Asia Argento Actress/director Argento alleged that Weinstein invited her to what was supposed to be a party at a hotel on the French Riviera in 1997. When she arrived, only Weinstein was there. According to Argento, after changing into a bathrobe, he forcibly performed oral sex on her. Argento entered into what she describes as a years-long coercive sexual relationship with him. After the rape, he won, she told the New Yorker. Read more Rosanna Arquette (Valerie Macon / AFP/Getty Images ) Rosanna Arquette Actress The Pulp Fiction actress told the New Yorker that she went to the Beverly Hills Hotel in the early 1990s to get a script from Weinstein. According to her, he showed up at the door in a bathrobe and asked for a massage, then placed her hand on his erect penis. She says her career suffered after she rejected him. Read more Jessica Barth Actress The Ted star told the New Yorker that the producer propositioned her at the 2011 Golden Globe Awards, inviting her to his hotel room to talk about her career. She obliged and found that he had ordered Champagne and sushi. Weinstein allegedly then asked for a naked massage in bed. She left bawling after he told her to lose weight to to compete with Mila Kunis. Read more Zoe Brock Model Posting her story on Medium, the New Zealand model said she was 23 when she was Harveyed at the Hotel du Cap during the Cannes Film Festival. Though she said she had felt safe with Weinstein at a party beforehand, she detailed an alleged ruse to get her alone in his hotel room. There he emerged naked and kept asking if she wanted a massage, then chased her until she locked herself in the bathroom, according to Brock. She scolded the producer, whom she claims cried and said, You dont like me because Im fat. Upon leaving, Brock claims Weinsteins assistant apologized, saying that of all the girls he does this to, you are the one I really felt bad about. You deserve better. This comment made me nauseous. It was an admission of his sycophantic enabling, she wrote. Read more Emma de Caunes Actress The French actress alleged that in 2010, Weinstein invited her to his hotel room in Paris to discuss a book he wanted to adapt. According to her, he emerged from the bathroom naked and with an erection. She fled the room. Read more Cara Delevingne. (Anthony Harvey / Getty Images ) Cara Delevingne Actress/model Delevingne, who has appeared in the Weinstein Co. films Paper Towns and Tulip Fever, wrote Wednesday on Instagram that when she first began acting, Weinstein called her up to ask whether she had slept with any women. She claims he also gave her unsolicited advice about her sexuality and the effects it might have on her career in Hollywood. A year or two later, she alleges, she took a meeting with him that started in a hotel lobby and ended up with her and another woman with the producer in a hotel room where he asked the two of them to kiss and then tried to kiss her on the lips as he walked her out of the room. I still got the part for the film and always thought that he gave it to me because of what happened, Delevingne wrote. Since then, I felt awful that I did the movie. I felt like I didnt deserve the part. I was so hesitant about speaking out....I didnt want to hurt his family. I felt guilty as if I did something wrong. Read more Dawn Dunning Actress In 2003, Dunning met the producer at a nightclub where she was waiting tables. Promised a screen test for Miramax, she said she was invited to his Manhattan hotel suite for a meeting. She was 24. When she got to his room, she told the New York Times, he was waiting in his bathrobe behind a coffee table filled with contracts for his next three films. She could sign them if she would have a threesome with him, she said. She laughed it off but he got angry, she said, and told her shell never make it in this business. Read more Ambra Battilana Gutierrez Model The Italian model and beauty pageant contestant claims that Weinstein groped her during a meeting in 2015. She reported the alleged assault to the New York Police Department, and the next day, wearing a wire, she says she met with Weinstein at the Tribeca Grand Hotel. In audio footage obtained by the New Yorker, Gutierrez objects to Weinsteins behavior the day before, and an agitated Weinstein can be heard telling Gutierrez, Im a famous guy ... Im used to that, and repeatedly urges her not to embarrass him. Despite the recording, the Manhattan district attorney declined to pursue criminal charges, possibly because Gutierrez had once attended a party thrown by Silvio Berlusconi and was not considered credible. Read more Louisette Geiss, right, with attorney Gloria Allred. (Emma McIntyre / Getty Images ) Louisette Geiss Former actress/screenwriter Geiss alleged that her encounter with Weinstein took place at the Sundance Film Festival in 2008, where she was shopping a screenplay. Geiss said that she met with Weinstein at a restaurant near closing time to discuss her pitch and that he invited her to his office adjacent to his hotel room to continue their meeting. Geiss claimed that, 30 minutes into the meeting, Weinstein excused himself and returned naked, wearing only a bathrobe, and instructed Geiss to continue talking as he got into the hot tub, before later asking that she watch him masturbate. Read more Judith Godreche Actress The leading French actress said she was 24 when she took a breakfast meeting with Weinstein at the Cannes Film Festival in 1996. Unaware of his reputation, she went to his room at the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, where she claims he asked her to give him a massage, arguing that it was an American custom. The next thing I know, hes pressing against me and pulling off my sweater, she told the New York Times. I tried to negotiate the situation over the years, and negotiate with myself and pretend it kind of never happened, she said. Read more Heather Graham. (Andy Kropa / Invision/Associated Press ) Heather Graham Actress The Boogie Nights stars alleged encounter took place in the early 2000s, when Weinstein summoned her to his office and said he wanted to put her in one of his films, she told Variety. Later in the conversation, he mentioned that he had an agreement with his wife. He could sleep with whomever he wanted when he was out of town. I walked out of the meeting feeling uneasy. There was no explicit mention that to star in one of those films I had to sleep with him, but the subtext was there, she said. Graham said she later declined a follow-up meeting at his hotel because she didnt want to be alone in a hotel room with him. Read more Angelina Jolie. (Dia Dipasupil / Getty Images ) Angelina Jolie Actress/director The Oscar winner said the producer made advances in a hotel room during the release of her film Playing by Heart in the 90s. I had a bad experience with Harvey Weinstein in my youth, and as a result, chose never to work with him again and warn others when they did, Jolie told the New York Times. This behavior towards women in any field, any country is unacceptable. Read more Ashley Judd (Charles Sykes / Invision/Associated Press ) Ashley Judd Actress Judd, whose personal account was a key part of the New York Times investigation, told the newspaper that while she was working on the 1997 thriller Kiss the Girls, Weinstein invited her to the Peninsula Beverly Hills hotel for what she thought would be a breakfast meeting. Instead, he had her sent up to his room, where he appeared in a bathrobe and asked if he could give her a massage or she could watch him shower, the newspaper said. I said no, a lot of ways, a lot of times, and he always came back at me with some new ask, Judd said. It was all this bargaining, this coercive bargaining. The outspoken actress was applauded by her colleagues for coming forward and also said that women have been talking about Harvey amongst ourselves for a long time, and its simply beyond time to have the conversation publicly. Read more Katherine Kendall Actress The Swingers actress recounted a 1993 story of the producer disappearing into a bathroom and reemerging wearing a bathrobe to ask her for a massage. She alleged that he then bargained with her, asking her to at least show him her breasts, she told the New York Times. Read more Rose McGowan. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times ) Rose McGowan Actress The Charmed alum, who appeared in the Weinstein Co.s Scream franchise, reportedly reached a six-figure settlement with the producer in 1997 for an alleged incident in a hotel room during the Sundance Film Festival. The settlement, however, was not to be construed as an admission by Weinstein, but intended to avoid litigation and buy peace, according to legal documents obtained by the New York Times. McGowan has been a vocal on Twitter about Weinstein and has publicly condemned him, his brother and the Weinstein Co. board, along with actors such as Ben Affleck who claim they were unaware of Weinsteins behavior. Emily Nestor Former employee After working for just one day as a temporary employee at the Weinstein Co. in 2014, Nestor provided an account to company execs that said Weinstein invited her to the Peninsula Beverly Hills hotel where he said if she accepted his sexual advances, he would boost her career, according to the New York Times. Read more Lauren OConnor Former assistant The former Weinstein Co. assistant sent a searing memo to the company asserting sexual harassment and other misconduct by Weinstein, she told the New York Times. There is a toxic environment for women at this company, she wrote in a letter addressed to several executives. Another unnamed female assistant claimed that in 2015, the mogul badgered her into giving him a massage while he was naked, leaving her crying and very distraught, the New York Times reported. Read more Gwyneth Paltrow with Harvey Weinstein in 2002. (Getty Images ) Gwyneth Paltrow Actress Weinstein was credited with launching Paltrows career, aiding in her Oscar win for 1998s Shakespeare in Love and turning her into the first lady of Miramax. Before that, though, Paltrow claimed that the film producer assaulted her when she was 22 after he summoned her to his hotel suite at the Peninsula Beverly Hills for a work meeting about 1996s Emma. There, according to Paltrow, he placed his hands on her and suggested they go to the bedroom for massages. I was a kid. I was signed up; I was petrified, she told the New York Times. Paltrow said she confided in her boyfriend at the time, actor Brad Pitt, who later confronted the producer. But she said Weinstein threatened to fire her if she talked about it again. The two managed to carry on with a professional relationship. Read more Tomi-Ann Roberts Actress Roberts met Weinstein while waiting tables as a 20-year-old college junior. In summer 1984, he urged her to audition for a movie, sent scripts, and asked her to meet him where he was staying so they could discuss the film, she told the New York Times. When she arrived, she said, he was nude in the bathtub and told her that she would give a much better audition if she were comfortable getting naked in front of him. Read more Lauren Sivan TV reporter The journalist claimed she was once trapped by Weinstein in the hallway of a restaurant that was closed to the public. According to her, he masturbated in front of her until he ejaculated into a potted plant, she said on Megyn Kelly Today. I could not believe what I was witnessing, Sivan said. It was disgusting and kind of pathetic. More than the disgusting act itself, which of course was gross, the demeaning part of it all, that just 20 minutes earlier he was having this great conversation with me and I felt so great and flattered by it. And then [he said], Stand there and be quiet, just a few minutes later, just negated any warm feelings I had, and I realized, Oh, that is what this is all about. Read more Mira Sorvino Actress The actress told the New Yorker that Weinstein tried to give her a massage and chas[ed] her around a hotel room at the Toronto Film Festival in 1995, and later showed up at her New York apartment in the middle of the night. She believes her rebuff of his advances damaged her career. Read more Lucia Stoller Actress The actress told the New Yorker that while she was a college student, Weinstein forced her to perform oral sex on him during what was billed as a casting meeting at the Miramax offices in 2004. Read more Staff writers Stephen Battaglio, Meredith Blake, Christie DZurilla and Libby Hill contributed to this report. Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib booed former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton at a Bernie Sanders event Friday in Iowa. She addressed the incident hours later, saying in a statement she let her "disappointment" with Clinton's recent comments about Sanders "get the best" of her. "I am so incredibly in love with the movement that our campaign of #NotMeUs has created," Tlaib wrote, referring to Sanders' campaign slogan. "This makes me protective over it and frustrated by attempts to dismiss the strength and diversity of our movement. However, I know what is at stake if we don't unify over one candidate to beat Trump and I intend to do everything possible to ensure that Trump does not win in 2020." "In this instance, I allowed my disappointment with Secretary Clinton's latest comments about Senator Sanders and his supporters get the best of me. You all, my sisters-in-service on stage, and our movement deserve better," she wrote. "I will continue to strive to come from a place of love and not react in the same way of those who are against what we are building in this country," she added. Tlaib booed Clinton while on-stage with Dionna Langford, the Iowa co-chair of Sanders' 2020 campaign. Langford had brought up comments Clinton recently made. Clinton said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter last month that "nobody likes" Sanders, and that "he got nothing done" in Congress. Upon mentioning Clinton's remarks, Langford was interrupted by boos from the crowd. She responded: "We're not gonna boo ... we're classy here." That was when Tlaib interjected: "No, no, I'll boo." The Michigan congresswoman proceeded to boo. "You all know I can't be quiet," she said. "No, we're gonna boo. That's all right, the haters will shut up on Monday when we win." Story continues Tlaib's choice sparked both backlash and support online. Saturday Sessions: William Prince performs "Always Have What We Had" Saturday Sessions: William Prince performs "Breathless" Saturday Sessions: William Prince performs "The Spark" Babies with low weight at birth may grow up to have bodies with weaker ability to supply oxygen to the muscles, according to a study which emphasises the importance of strategies to reduce low birth weight in infants. According to researchers, including those from Karolinska Institute in Sweden, having a good cardiorespiratory fitness is important for staying healthy, and can reduce the risk of numerous diseases and premature death. However, they said this ability of the body to supply oxygen to muscles during exercise is declining globally, both for youths and adults. The current study, published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, assessed if low birth weights played a role for cardiorespiratory fitness in individuals born after pregnancy of 37-41 weeks. In the study, the scientists followed more than 2,80,000 males from birth to military conscription at age 17-24 using Swedish population-based registers. They found that those born with higher birth weights performed significantly better in a fitness test on a cycle ergometer -- a stationary bicycle equipped with an instrument to measure the amount of work done by the individual peddling the bike. According to the study, for every 450 grams of extra weight at birth, in a baby born at 40 weeks, the maximum work capacity on the bicycle increased by an average of 7.9 watts. The scientists added that the association was stable across all categories of weights of individuals in young adulthood, and was largely similar in a subset analysis of more than 52,000 siblings. Based on these findings, the researchers said current weight and shared genetic and environmental factors alone cannot explain the link between birth weight and cardiorespiratory fitness. "The observed 7.9 watts increase for each 450 grams of extra weight at birth, in a baby born at 40 weeks, translates into approximately 1.34 increase in metabolic equivalent (MET) which has been associated with a 13 per cent difference in the risk of premature death, and a 15 per cent difference in the risk of developing cardiovascular disease," said Daniel Berglind, study co-author from Karolinska Institutet. "Such differences in mortality are similar to the effect of a 7-centimeter reduction in waist circumference," Berglind added. According to the researchers, the findings are of significance to public health, since about 15 per cent of babies born globally weigh less than 2.5 kilogrammes at birth. "Providing adequate prenatal care may be an effective means of improving adult health not only through prevention of established harms associated with low birth weight but also via improved cardiorespiratory fitness," said study co-author Viktor H. Ahlqvist from Karolinska Institute. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas announced Saturday a cut of all ties with Israel and the United States, including security cooperation, after Washington unveiled a controversial Middle East plan seen as favouring Israel. Abbas has made similar declarations before and it was not immediately clear what it would mean in practice. His comments came as the Arab League rejected US President Donald Trump's plan, which had enraged Palestinians. "We are informing you that there will be no relations with you (Israel) and the United States, including on security cooperation," Abbas said at an extraordinary meeting of the pan-Arab bloc in Cairo. He said the move followed the "disavowal of signed agreements and international legitimacy" by the US and Israel. Israel will have to "bear responsibility as an occupying power" for the Palestinian territories and Palestinians will press ahead with resistance using peaceful means, he added. Abbas made a similar declaration in July 2017, announcing the suspension of security coordination with Israel during a dispute over the flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem. It was resumed later that year, though the Palestinian police chief said that even during the suspension they had maintained regular contact, with 95 percent of the activities continuing. "The only thing we stopped is we didn't meet them in the field," Hazem Atallah said at the time. The Cairo meeting brought together senior Arab officials, including Saudi Arabia's foreign minister and the United Arab Emirates' minister of state for foreign affairs. Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit said the US plan was tantamount to creating "a one state with two categories of people, meaning an apartheid system, as it makes Palestinians second class citizens". "It is our right to accept or reject (the plan)... though the American proposal in reality appeared to be a dictation, or an offer that cannot be rejected or even discussed," he added. The Arab League rejected Trump's plan, saying in a statement it failed to meet "the minimum rights and aspirations of Palestinian people". Arab leaders also vowed "not to... cooperate with the US administration to implement this plan". They insisted on a two-state solution that includes a Palestinian state based on borders before the 1967 Six-Day War -- when Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip -- and with east Jerusalem as its capital. There was no immediate reaction from the Israeli government, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's chief rival in next month's general election, Benny Gantz, criticised the Palestinian response, saying Abbas "doesn't miss an opportunity for refusal". "The time has come to begin working for the future generations and toward peace, instead of remaining stuck in the past and preventing a future of hope in this region," Gantz added. The US plan suggests that Israel would retain control of the contested city of Jerusalem as its "undivided capital", but Palestinians would be allowed to declare a capital adjacent to Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem. Trump announced the plan on Tuesday flanked by Netanyahu and in the presence of Arab ambassadors from Bahrain, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. Other Arab states gave carefully worded initial responses to the plan. On Saturday, Abbas met Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who called for direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. Abbas told the Arab League the US plan was in "violation of the (autonomy) accords" launched in Oslo in 1993 by Israel and the Palestinians. The accords included the creation of the Palestinian Authority, currently led by Abbas, and outlined delineations of the West Bank. They were seen as key to Israeli-Palestinian peace process, which hit an impasse in the years following the signing. The Trump plan also gives Israel the green light to annex the strategic Jordan Valley -- constituting some 30 percent of the West Bank -- and all Israeli settlements, which number more than 200. Abbas said that while Israel would immediately start annexation, under the plan the Palestinians would have to wait four years, until they show "good will", to get a limited state. He said he would go to the United Nations Security Council soon to call for an international conference to re-launch negotiations with Israel, under the auspices of the diplomatic Quartet comprised of the US, the EU, the UN and Russia, Abbas said. "But we will not accept the US alone. We have tried it already," he added. Please register or log in to keep reading. No credit card required! Stay logged in to skip the surveys. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday expressed happiness over Uzbekistan participating in the annual Surajkund crafts mela in Haryana. "Happy to have Uzbekistan as Partner Country in the Surajkund Mela, inaugurated by Rashtrapati Ji (Ram Nath Kovind)," the prime minister wrote on Twitter. He also thanked Uzbeki President Shavkat Mirziyoyev for his leadership "on such initiatives that make India-Uzbekistan relations even stronger". (Image credits-PTI) Before going to the airport, citizens in China need to contact the particular airline company in advance in order to specify information regarding the particular flight. This is stated in the statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia. As reported the Embassy of Armenia in China, taking into consideration the coronavirus situation in China, several international airline companies are gradually restricting flights from Beijing and other cities across China. Before going to the airport, citizens in China need to contact the particular airline company in advance in order to specify information regarding the particular flight. On February 1, Ural Airlines rejected registration of a group of citizens of the Republic of Armenia and didnt let several other citizens board the flight. The flight tickets have been compensated. The Embassy of Armenia in China has advised citizens of Armenia to move to a nearby city from where they can fly to Armenia after specifying the regulations of the particular airline company. The embassy and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia are taking steps to prevent such developments. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also reports that the embassy is constantly in contact with all citizens of Armenia who are in China and have informed about them and responds to all questions, the statement reads. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told Business Today.In that NRIs will be taxed only on Indian income, not on foreign income. In an exclusive interview to Business Today.In, Sitharaman said that "income generated in tax free jurisdictions will not be taxed". The Union Budget 2020 proposed to tax Indians who are not tax residents in India but are neither tax residents in any other countries. The budget proposes changes in the income tax law to make such individuals deemed tax residents of India. "The Finance Bill, 2020 has proposed that an Indian citizen shall be deemed to be resident in India, if he is not liable to be taxed in any country or jurisdiction. This is an anti-abuse provision since it is noticed that some Indian citizens shift their stay in low or no tax jurisdiction to avoid payment of tax in India," the government said in a statement. The government added, the new provision was not intended to include bonafide Indian workers in tax net who were working in other countries. "The new provision is not intended to include in tax net those Indian citizens who are bonafide workers in other countries. In some section of the media the new provision is being interpreted to create an impression that those Indians who are bonafide workers in other countries, including in Middle East, and who are not liable to tax in these countries will be taxed in India on the income that they have earned there. This interpretation is not correct," government said. At present, if an Indian or a person of Indian origin managed his stay in India such that he remained a non-resident in perpetuity, he was not liable to pay tax on his global income in India. "In order to avoid any misinterpretation, it is clarified that in case of an Indian citizen who becomes deemed resident of India under this proposed provision, income earned outside India by him shall not be taxed in India unless it is derived from an Indian business or profession," the government added. Also Read: Big blow to NRIs! Modi govt to tax individuals who work in tax-free countries Tightening the residency provisions, the Budget also proposed to reduce the period of stay in India to 120 days from 182 days earlier for persons of Indian origin (PIOs) to be categorised as non-resident Indians (NRIs). Reworking the definition of non-resident Indians (NRIs), the Budget document said that the I-T Act provides that an Indian citizen or a person of Indian origin shall be Indian resident if he is in India for 182 days in that year. According to experts, Indian citizens who do not stay in India but have significant economic activities in India would now find it difficult to escape paying taxes in India. A new poll puts Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and former Vice President Joe Biden in a tie on the eve of the Iowa caucuses after the mainstay Des Moines Register survey was yanked shortly before its scheduled releases. The two longtime lawmakers were each tied at 25 per cent, according to the final CBS News survey before Monday's Iowa caucuses. Trailing closely behind was South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg, at 21 per cent. He was followed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, at 16 per cent, with her colleague Sen. Amy Klobuchar at 5 per cent. Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders speaks during a rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, U.S., February 1, 2020. He is tied with former Vice President Joe Biden in the latest CBS poll The results don't present a major break with earlier polls although it does provide a smidge of information for politics watchers who were clamoring for information out of the Des Moines Register poll, known as the gold standard here in Iowa. It comes hours after Sanders drew the biggest crowd to date of the campaign, with about 3,000 coming to see him in Cedar Rapids, in eastern Iowa. The event featured the band Vampire Weekend, along with filmmaker Michael Moore, who trashed the Democratic National Committee at the event for allowing billionaire Michael Bloomberg onto the debate stage in the future. Biden is the second-choice among lower-tier candidates in the CBS poll, meaning his support could get a boost on caucus night when those backing candidates who aren't 'viable' reallocate their preferences. His supporters aren't registering as much enthusiasm for their candidate as Sanders backers have been in surveys. But Biden has stressed an electability message and touted polls showing him performing strongly against President Trump. He is back in Des Moines Sunday for an event along with his wife, Jill Biden, one of several 'community events' his campaing has been staging. The political road show will immediately move to New Hampshire after Monday's results then to South Carolina, where Biden led a new Post and Courier poll released Sunday. It had Biden at 25 percent, Sanders at 20, and hedge funder and philanthropist Tom Steyer, who has spent heavily there, at 18. Joe Biden is hoping for a strong iowa showing that won't tarnish his electability message Sanders holds a three-point edge over Biden in Iowa in the Real Clear Politics polling average. The critical Des Moines Register presidential preference poll was abruptly pulled just moments before it was due to be released on Saturday night amid fears its results may have been compromised. The poll, conducted by the Register, CNN and its polling partner, is believed to have omitted Pete Buttigieg's name off the survey. Carol Hunter, the executive editor of the Iowa newspaper, posted the announcement Saturday night at the same time the results of the highly anticipated survey were supposed to be released. Hunter said that one of the poll respondents reported concerns earlier in the day, which raised questions about the integrity of the results. Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg's name was left off at least one question in the survey, voters reported The crucial poll was abruptly pulled just moments before its release on Saturday night 'It appears a candidates name was omitted in at least one interview in which the respondent was asked to name their preferred candidate,' Hunter wrote in an article posted on the Register's website. 'While this appears to be isolated to one surveyor, we cannot confirm that with certainty. Therefore, the partners made the difficult decision to not to move forward with releasing the Iowa Poll.' CNN political director David Chalian said it wasn't clear whether the issue with the single respondent was an isolated incident. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren were still campaigning late into Saturday night ahead of Monday's crucial vote Democratic presidential candidates businessman Tom Steyer, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., stand on stage before a Democratic presidential primary debate hosted by CNN and the Des Moines Register in Des Moines, Iowa 'So out of an abundance of caution CNN and the Des Moines Register and Seltzer, the company who conducts the poll, decided not to release tonight's poll,' Chalian said. 'We take the standards that we apply to our polling very seriously.' The decision to halt the release of the poll was based on a technical irregularity, involving the font size on a computer screen for one of the polltakers, a person at CNN told The Associated Press. The font at that computer was enlarged and cut off or obscured the bottom name on the list. That name was Pete Buttigiegs, but it could have been any name because the names automatically randomize after every call. The Des Moines Register's Politics Editor Rachel Stassen-Berger, left, and Executive Editor Carol Hunter, right, who made the announcement on Saturday Because the respondent did not hear Buttigiegs name, the respondent contacted Selzer, who brought the irregularity to the attention of CNN and The Des Moines Register. Because CNN, the Register and Selzer were unable to determine if it was a one-time occurrence, the partners decided they could not move forward with releasing the poll, the person at CNN said. The person was not authorized to discuss the details by name and requested anonymity. Twice a day they will have their temperature taken and nurses will check them for coronavirus symptoms: other than that, their main concern will be how to keep their phone charged and get their laundry done. The 179 evacuees -- mostly made up of French nationals and their Chinese spouses -- flown back from China were settling into their new life in quarantine on Saturday. A holiday resort in the southeast of France that will be their home for the next two weeks. These special guests will have the run of their seaside base in Carry-le-Rouet, about 30 kilometres (19 miles) from the Mediterranean port city of Marseille -- so long as they wear a mask. On Saturday, their first morning there, some were up to take in the sunrise, others sat outside in the mild weather reading while others explored inside the hotel complex. "There are worse places," said Marc Ziltman with a smile, as children's shouts echoed across the facility. "The easy solution would have been a disused barracks," Zilman, the senior Red Cross official on site, pointed out. Instead, the French authorities opted to make the evacuees stay as comfortable as possible. "The site needs to be as agreeable as possible because people are going to pass 14 days there," he told AFP. There is volleyball for the teenagers, art classes for the toddlers and a space for the grown-ups to relax over a coffee, making it more holiday resort than hospital or clinic. For the moment, no one here has shown any symptoms that could indicate they have caught the new coronavirus. Two possible cases identified as the evacuees came off their plane on Friday tested negative at La Timone hospital in Marseille. The medical team looking after the evacuees is about 20 strong, including doctors, nurses and psychologists. Backing them are are soldiers from France's civil security units and 30 Red Cross volunteers, who mainly take care of the logistics of their stay. On their first day back on Saturday, the new arrivals got down to solving the immediate challenges raised by their rather hasty repatriation: how to do their laundry, change their Chinese currency and get hold of cigarettes. A concierge service was already up and running to attend to their needs. "Yesterday, they were tired, which is quite normal," said Zyltman. They had their evening meal and went quietly to bed. "Now, life is back on course and it's going rather well," he added. As the special guests got their bearings, members of France's paramilitary gendarme force patrolled the site, keeping careful guard at the resort's only access point. But they are in any case at a fairly isolated site, in the middle of a pine forest, in a cove more than 3 kilometres from the seaside village of Carry-le-Rouet itself. The parents of a student flown back from China were already outside, having come to deliver him a travel bag with clean clothes. They had to leave it with the gendarmes at the entrance. But the father seemed reassured that their son was being looked after in France. Their son had described the atmosphere there as "fairly convivial", he said. "I think they are all relieved to be there, in very good conditions, he told the journalists gathered outside. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Press Release February 2, 2020 De Lima seeks to regulate gadget use among young students Senator Leila M. de Lima has filed a measure regulating the use of mobile phones and other electronic gadgets among students in private and public schools to improve their academic performance and achieve academic excellence. In filing Senate Bill (SB) No. 1271, De Lima said it is the duty of the State to provide students with a more focused, positive and supportive learning environment that is free from any distractions that prevent them from performing poorly in school. "Making life easier and more efficient are just some of the benefits brought about by the advancement of technology. However, excessive use of mobile devices can also lead to an array of negative effects and hazards," she said. "Regulating the use of mobile phones and other electronic gadgets in schools is one of the immediate solutions that the government can take to improve the learning conditions for our students and help them towards better performance in our schools," she added. The Philippines ranked last among 79 countries in reading comprehension among 15-year-old students, with the country ending up below ranks 70 in mathematics and science, according to the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). De Lima, however, noted a study which found out that unrestrained use of mobile phones poses risks to students, leading them to fare poorly in elementary and junior high school primarily due to lack of sleep that affects their concentration and retention. "Other noted adverse effects include psychological and physiological complications, and mental health issues, which interfere with education, diminish academic performance, and contribute to increase in teenage anxiety, depression and suicide," she added. In addition, she continued, a 2015 study by the London School of Economics and Political Science found out that "schools could significantly reduce the education achievement gap by prohibiting mobile phone use in schools." While mobile phones and other electronic devices can also be useful in bringing higher quality teaching and learning, De Lima maintained there is a need to balance student performance with integrating mobile devices in educational system. Under SB No. 1271, De Lima explained that the Department of Education (DepEd) is mandated to promulgate clear-cut guidelines regulating the use of mobile devices and other electronic gadgets in the schools. "These guidelines shall likewise establish the procedure to be observed in cases of abuse of mobile devices and electronic gadgets in the commission of other student misconducts such as cheating and bullying, as well as promote the responsible use of mobile devices and electronic gadgets," she said. De Lima, who chairs the Social Justice, Welfare and Rural Development Committee in the Senate, said the measure shall apply to all public K-12 institutions under the control and supervision of the DepEd. The militants hurled a grenade on the CRPF personnel posted on duty near Pratap Park in busy Lal Chowk area of Srinagar, a police official said Srinagar : Two security force jawans and seven civilians were injured in a grenade attack by militants on CRPF personnel in Lal Chowk area of the city on Sunday, police said. The militants hurled a grenade on the CRPF personnel posted on duty near Pratap Park in busy Lal Chowk area of the city, a police official said. The nine injured persons were shifted to a hospital, he said. The loud explosion caused panic among the people, especially those who had come to the weekly flea market, also known as Sunday market, the official said. Security forces have cordoned off the area, he added. Police are treating a poster tacked on doors of a tower block telling residents they should only speak English as a racially aggravated public order incident. The posters, titled Happy Brexit Day, were found stuck on fire doors across every floor of Winchester Tower in Norwich on Friday morning. The typed A4 sheet of paper said: As we finally have our great country back we feel there is one rule that needs to be made clear to residents. We do not tolerate people speaking other languages than English in the flats. We are now our own country again and the the Queens [sic] English is the spoken tongue here. The note went on to tell anyone who wished to speak a different language to return to [the country you came from] and vacate the premises so we can return to what was normality before you infected this once great island. Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Show all 37 1 /37 Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Pro-Brexit supporters celebrating in Parliament Square, after the UK left the European Union on 31 January. Ending 47 years of membership PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Big Ben, shows the hands at eleven o'clock at night AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Pro Brexit supporters attend the Brexit Day Celebration Party hosted by Leave Means Leave Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage smiles on stage AFP/Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square People celebrate in Parliament Square Reuters Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square A Brexit supporter celebrates during a rally in Parliament square AP Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Police form a line at Parliament Square to prevent a small group of anti-Brexit protestors from going through to the main Brexit rally PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Nigel Farage speaks to pro-Brexit supporters PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square JD Wetherspoon Chairman Tim Martin speaks as people wave flags Reuters Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit supporters wave Union flags as they watch the big screen AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit Party leader, Nigel Farage arrives Reuters Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit supporters gather AP Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Ann Widdecombe speaks to pro-Brexit supporters PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit supporters wave Union flags as they watch the big screen AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square People wave British Union Jack flags as they celebrate Reuters Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Pro-Brexit demonstrators celebrate on Parliament Square on Brexit day Reuters Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square A pro-Brexit supporter jumps on an EU flag PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square AP Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square A man waves Union flags from a small car as he drives past Brexit supporters gathering AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square A pro-Brexit supporter pours beer onto an EU flag PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square An EU flag lies trampled in the mud Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square AFP via Getty A spokesman for the Norfolk Constabulary said: Officers attended Winchester Tower last night and all posters had been removed. Those posters kept by residents have since been seized for forensic enquiries and we will be working with the council to examine any available CCTV. There is no place in society for hatred and intolerance. Nobody should have to face intimidation because of who they are and it is more important than ever that we stand together in the face of hostility. We remain committed to helping people feel safe and secure as they go about their lives. The matter is being dealt with as a racially aggravated public order incident and anyone with information which could help officers with enquiries should contact Norfolk Police on 101 quoting crime reference 36/7964/20. The posters were first spotted on 31 January, when the UK officially left the EU, and images of it were shared widely on social media. Residents of the tower block and social media users condemned the poster, calling it a disgrace. According to the Norwich Evening News, several new posters with positive messages of support for foreign residents have been put up inside the tower. One person said on Twitter: Maybe Spanish people should attach the same sign all over Majorca, Canary Islands, the Mediterranean coast? Just asking myself as 600K Britons that dont speak a single word of Spnish live there... Racist unicells organisms [sic] that think Britain is great. Anti-racism campaigners Stand Up To Racisms Norwich branch organised a demonstration in response to the poster on Sunday. The group wrote: In response to the racist leaflets pinned to peoples doors and other racist incidents we have been told about in Norwich: Meet at 2pm at The Vauxhall Centre to hold hands and create a ring of love around Winchester Tower and love bomb the area bring paper hearts items that inspire love not hate. Mike Stonard, a city councillor for Norwich, told the Eastern Daily Press the posters were abhorrent and said: Whoever put it there has committed a hate crime, it is as simple as that. Many people voted for Brexit for a range of different reasons however I am sure not many of them will condone this kind of thing. After a snowfall, Liupan Mountain was dyed white all over. Yan Xiaoyuan, 46, in bright orange and with a shovel in his hand, a water tank on his back and a pair of binoculars around his neck, began his daily patrol. It was his 25th Chinese Lunar New Year on Liupan Mountain. A difference in altitude of about 2,500 meters between Yan's workplace and home has left him no other choice but to join the family reunion via video call. "We must be more alert especially during Spring Festival to make sure the forests are safe and sound," Yan said. His parents used to work in the local forest protection departments, and thus understand his absence. Liupan Mountain, crossing northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, is known as a green island on a plateau and a natural water tower, and is rich in plant and animal resources. Therefore, firefighting here is extremely important on dry winter days. There are more than 240 rangers in the Liupan forestry bureau of the city of Guyuan. They have been on duty around the clock in 76 forestry stations, guarding the mountain all year round since 1958. With houses renovated and solar panels, TVs and Wi-Fi installed in recent years, living conditions in these stations including Yan's Madiwan have been greatly improved. But food and water still need to be supplied from time to time. Hui Jitang, 42, has been delivering supplies to Madiwan station about once a week for six years. He needs to drive about 40 km, more than half of which is unsurfaced, posing great challenges for him when it snows or rains. "It's very dangerous to drive along the slippery road. If you are trapped midway, a mobile phone without any signal will leave you helpless," Hui said. "But I always managed to meet their needs even during festivals and holidays." Yan and his three colleagues are responsible for an area of about 4,000 hectares. They depart at 8 a.m. and end a day's work at 5 p.m., patrolling 20 km or so over areas with possible human activities, such as entrances to the mountain, to detect fire hazards. They also need to protect wild animals from poachers and observe the forest situation from up the tower every three hours. "Life here is simple but also a little bit dull, so we tell jokes or sing folk songs to keep things fresh," said Ma Hongming, who has been a forest ranger for just three months. Every time Ma meets rare wild animals such as leopards or golden pheasants, he is filled with excitement. "I've seen wild boars several times. But I'm not very scared, because they only hurt people when they feel threatened," Ma said. A telescope, shovel and water tank are the necessary tools when rangers patrol on the mountain. But now each of them is equipped with a hand-held terminal, which can report fires, capture photos of rare wild animals or call for help. "It's easy and helpful, and all we need to do is press the button," Yan said. Such technologies have been widely applied in forest firefighting in recent years. The Liupan forestry bureau also installed a real-time monitoring system to monitor indicators including cars and people on the mountain, wind direction and temperature to ensure forest safety. "Thanks to the rangers and technological means, the seven-month-long fire-prone season seems to be less difficult to overcome. But we still need to improve our emergency capacity," said Jing Wenke, vice director of the firefighting center of the bureau. According to Jing, amateur and professional firefighting teams have been set up to improve the emergency command ability. Apart from patrolling work, the firefighters also take part in frequent training exercises. As returning migrant workers increase every year during the Spring Festival, posing higher risks, Yan and his colleagues have become even busier these days. "Nearby villagers are used to burning paper money as a tribute to the deceased during Spring Festival, so we have to persuade them to burn it in a bucket and wait until the flames go out," Yan said. Because of his job, Yan spends much more time with his colleagues than his own family. "We treat each other like family, so we don't feel that lonely during a festival for family reunions," Yan said. ROME, N.Y. Rome police are asking the public to be on the lookout for a teenager who was reported missing. Joseph Mendoza, 15, was reported missing Jan. 31, according to the Rome Police Department. Mendoza is believed to be in Rome or nearby, police said. He is 5 feet, 4 inches tall, 150 lbs and has a scar on his left eye. He was last seen wearing a black Champion hoodie with sweat pants and black shoes. Police are asking anyone with information to call the department at (315)339-7780. The call comes on the back of a recent wave of complaints against editors in chief of a number of newspapers At a joint meeting held Saturday evening, members of the National Press Authority and the Press Syndicate underlined the obligation for all media workers to adhere to the journalistic code of ethics. During the meeting they also directed all journalists to "completely avoid all kinds of insults, slander and delving into personal lives." According to a statement, these directives comes on the occasion of "the beginning of a new era to restore citizens' confidence in the press and present a positive image of public opinion about the profession of journalism, in addition to restoring the prestige of the press and its role in spreading ideals, ethics and principles of the lofty profession." Attendees of the joint meeting instructed the heads of the National Press Authority and Press Syndicate to intervene to resolve recent publishing abuses after the syndicate received complaints against a number of chief editors of newspapers in the last two weeks. Action would follow, the statement said, while ensuring the right of journalists to criticise, which is guaranteed by the constitution and law as a right to all citizens, without insulting or slandering, to preserve the syndicate's prestige and "respect of the profession." In order to preserve the unity of the press group, resorting to the judiciary is a last resort, if amicable solutions among colleagues fail, noted the statement. Search Keywords: Short link: President Xi Jinping on Sunday commissioned the new 1000-bed hospital built in nine days to treat those infected with the novel Coronavirus in Wuhan, the central Chinese city at the epicentre of the outbreak. Members of the Peoples Liberation Armys (PLA) will begin admitting patients to the hospital from Monday, state media reported on Sunday. The new facility built in record time has 1,000 beds in 419 wards, including 30 intensive care units. The number of confirmed cases of novel coronavirus rose to 14,380 in the Chinese mainland as of Saturday, including 304 deaths, according to the National Health Commission. ALSO WATCH | Second batch of Indians reach Delhi from Wuhan, undergo screening Construction of the Huoshenshan Hospital, inside the Wuhan Workers Sanatorium in Caidian district, began on January 25. It was completed by more than 7,000 workers. At the peak of the massive project, more than 4,000 workers and about 1,000 construction machines and trucks worked on the site, the state-run, China Daily newspaper said in a report Sunday evening. More than 1400 PLAs medical workers including many doctors have been deployed at the hospital. Its the largest mobilisation of the PLAs medical forces in more than a decade. This hospital along with a second one under construction is likely to at least partly address the shortage of beds in the city to treat patients of the new pneumonia which is transmissible between humans. A total of 1,400 medical workers from the military will start on Monday receiving and treating patients infected with the highly contagious pneumonia at Huoshenshan Hospital, which was built in nine days and was formally delivered to the military on Sunday morning, the China Daily report said. The majority of the medics, 950, are from hospitals administered by the various wings of the PLA including navy and air force. Many medics involved in this operation, the largest mobilisation of the PLAs medical forces since the May 2008 devastating earthquake in Southwest Chinas Sichuan province, are experienced in handling infectious diseases because they took part in fights against the 2003 SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) outbreak in China and the Ebola epidemic in some western African nations in 2014, the newspaper report said. Hubei, the most-affected province in this outbreak, reported 9,074 confirmed cases by the end of the day, including 294 deaths, the provincial health commission said on Sunday morning. Source: Xinhua| 2020-02-03 06:33:41|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close by Mahmoud Fouly, Abdel-Meguid Kamal CAIRO, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- The rejection of Arab states of the recently-proposed U.S. peace plan to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict eliminates chances for the plan's implementation, said Palestinian and Egyptian experts. In an emergency meeting at the Arab League (AL) headquarters in Cairo on Saturday, Arab foreign ministers unanimously agreed to boycott the U.S. plan, also known as the "Deal of the Century," and not to cooperate "in any way" with Washington in its implementation. The final statement of the Arab meeting described as "unfair" the peace deal, announced on Jan. 28 by U.S. President Donald Trump, in the presence of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "The U.S. deal was born dead, as it does not respond to the minimum aspirations of the Palestinian people in the establishment of their independent state based on the pre-1967 borders," said Barakat al-Farra, former Palestinian ambassador to Cairo and former Palestinian representative at the AL. Al-Farra stressed that the Arab consensus on rejecting the U.S. deal "eliminates any chance for its success," adding that the deal violates international legitimacy resolutions and it leads to neither peace nor stability in the Middle East region. "Arabs opposed the deal for objective reasons, especially that it represents a U.S.-Israeli plan to take the issue away from the UNSC (United Nations Security Council)," the Palestinian ex-diplomat told Xinhua, describing the deal as "biased to Israel." Al-Farra said that if Israel implements the deal unilaterally, it will be an illegitimate act without legal basis and so it will be rejected by the UN. Mokhtar Ghobashi, deputy chairman of the Cairo-based Arab Center for Political and Strategic Studies, said that the Arab rejection of the U.S. deal is not enough unless it involves mechanisms to pressure the United States and Israel to give it up. "The Israeli side has the green light from Washington to implement the deal and Trump has told the Palestinians that they have four years to study it," said the Egyptian political expert. He added that relying on UN resolutions is insufficient because they have been disregarded when the United States relocated its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. During the AL meeting on Saturday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said that the U.S. deal is "completely rejected once they announced annexing Jerusalem to Israel," vowing to cut ties with Israel and the United States over the deal. The United States, Israel's main backer, officially recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital in late 2017 and relocated the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to the holy city in May 2018. While Jerusalem is to be Israel's "undivided capital," the Palestinian capital will include areas on the outskirts of East Jerusalem, according to the U.S. vision on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Tarek Fahmy, a political science professor at Cairo University, emphasized that "the U.S. deal shows persistence on legalizing Israeli settlement construction on Palestinian occupied territories, which is the most dangerous thing that could happen." Along with Trump and Netanyahu, diplomats from the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Oman attended the announcement of the U.S. deal at the White House in late January. "Washington tries to cause and invest a kind of division in the Arab world while luring some regional and international parties to support the deal," the political science professor told Xinhua. Fahmy described the Arab rejection of the U.S. Mideast peace plan as "a good stance" that shows a united Arab position in support of the Palestinian cause. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict erupted following the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and the Western-backed creation of Israel in 1948. "The Palestinian plan to raise the issue at the UN and other organizations such as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the African Union is a good thing but it needs further practical mechanisms," Fahmy said. He predicted that Trump's administration would attempt to ruin the Palestinian efforts and use the veto right against any future UN resolution in favor of the Palestinians. The plan states that "the State of Palestine shall be fully demilitarized and remains so" and it will have to give up 30 percent of the West Bank. "It also says that the future state of Palestine will not have any land, sea or air outlets or sea and air sovereignty. The deal seeks a demilitarized Palestinian state that is part of Israel," said Samir Ghattas, head of Middle East Forum for Strategic Studies and member of the Egyptian parliament. "The Palestinians still seek negotiations to reach a solution based on the international references and the Arab Peace Initiative endorsed by the Arab League in Beirut in 2002, and they don't want the United States to be the sole mediator of the peace process," Ghattas told Xinhua. He added that "the deal was undoubtedly born dead and is surely doomed to fail." The Birmingham Zoo used a substitute weather predictor for Groundhog Day on Sunday, allowing resident groundhog Birmingham Bill to continue his hibernation. Hes sleeping, said Sam Cohen, a zookeeper for the Birmingham Zoo. We dont want to mess with his natural rhythm, so we are letting him hibernate. Bilbo the Eurasian owl stood in for Birmingham Bill and did a flyover to see his shadow. He did see his shadow on a bright, sunny day, so according to tradition, that means six more weeks of winter. That conflicts with the prediction by Punxsutawney Phil, the Pennsylvania groundhog who predicted an early spring for the second year in a row. Birmingham Bill was last called upon to work Groundhog Day on Feb. 2, 2018. Since then, Birmingham Zoo officials have decided not to wake him from hibernation. An opossum was called on to make the prediction last year. Groundhog Day at Birmingham Zoo Posted by al.com on Sunday, February 2, 2020 Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh on Sunday hit back at Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath over the latter's remarks linking Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal with Pakistan, and called him a "manorogi" (psychopath). He also challenged the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to produce the proof of Kejriwal having links with Pakistan or go to jail for making false claims against a chief minister. "Someone says Kejriwal is a terrorist, someone claims he has links with Pakistan. They have made a drama company," the AAP spokesman hit out at BJP. "This manorogi has come from Uttar Pradesh who people call yogi baba. Since the day manorogi has come, he has been making rubbish remarks...But there are good psychiatrists here in Delhi and we can provide free of cost treatment to him," Singh said while speaking with ANI. The leader also expressed shock that the Election Commission being mum on the situation. "I am surprised that the Election Commission is mum on the situation. He should be banned and told to go out of Delhi," Singh said. He dared BJP to talk on the issues including electricity, water, education, employment, women security and infrastructure. Election to the Delhi Assembly is scheduled to be held on February 8. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Photo: 2019 CJ ENM Corporation/Barunson E&A With one week to go until dignified cinematic hell breaks loose at the Oscars, Parasite and Jojo Rabbit took home the top honors at this years Writers Guild of America Awards, being presented with Best Original Screenplay and Best Adapted Screenplay, respectively. While Taika Waititi pulled double duty as Jojo Rabbits director and writer, Parasite director Bong Joon Ho co-wrote the screenplay with his writing partner, Han Jin-won. On the television side of things, Succession fucked off to win Best Drama, Barry expertly killed a bunch of bad guys to win Best Comedy, and Watchmen gave us all the answers to win Best New Series. Still, it looks like the nice boys of 1917 could be the ones to beat. Send to Email Address Your Name Your Email Address Post was not sent - check your email addresses! Email check failed, please try again Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. A reconstruction of the crucial seven weeks between the appearance of the first symptoms in early December and the government's decision to lock down the city, based on two dozen interviews with Wuhan residents, doctors and officials, on government statements and on Chinese media reports, points to decisions that delayed a concerted public health offensive. The government's initial handling of the epidemic allowed the virus to gain a tenacious hold. At critical moments, officials chose to put secrecy and order ahead of openly confronting the growing crisis to avoid public alarm and political embarrassment. A medical worker attends to a patient in the intensive care unit at Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University in central China's Hubei Province. Credit:AP The illness was not SARS, but something similar: a coronavirus that is now on a relentless march outward from Wuhan, throughout the country and across the globe, killing at least 290 people in China and infecting more than 11,700. In the middle of the night, officials from the health authority in the central city of Wuhan summoned Li, demanding to know why he had shared the information. Three days later, police compelled him to sign a statement that his warning constituted "illegal behaviour." "So frightening," one recipient replied, before asking about the epidemic that began in China in 2002 and ultimately killed nearly 800 people. "Is SARS coming again?" W A mysterious illness had stricken seven patients at a hospital, and a doctor tried to warn his medical school classmates. "Quarantined in the emergency department," the doctor, Li Wenliang, wrote in an online chat group on December 30, referring to patients. The first case, the details of which are limited and the specific date unknown, was in early December. By the time authorities galvanised into action on January 20, the disease had grown into a formidable threat. The Wuhan Huanan Wholesale Seafood Market, where a number of people related to the market fell ill with a virus, sits closed in Wuhan, China. Credit:AP "This was an issue of inaction," said Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations who studies China. "There was no action in Wuhan from the local health department to alert people to the threat." By not moving aggressively to warn the public and medical professionals, public health experts say, the Chinese government lost one of its best chances to keep the disease from becoming an epidemic. Their reluctance to go public, in part, played to political motivations as local officials prepared for their annual congresses in January. Even as cases climbed, officials declared repeatedly that there had likely been no more infections. In those weeks, authorities silenced doctors and others for raising red flags. They played down the dangers to the public, leaving the city's 11 million residents unaware they should protect themselves. They closed a food market where the virus was believed to have started, but told the public it was for renovations. Li, an ophthalmologist, went back to work after being reprimanded. On January 10, he treated a woman for glaucoma. He did not know she had already been infected with the coronavirus, probably by her daughter. They both became sick. So would he. That same day, Wuhan's health commission, its hand forced by those "rumours," announced that 27 people were suffering from pneumonia of an unknown cause. Its statement said there was no need to be alarmed. On the last day of 2019, after Li's message was shared outside the group, authorities focused on controlling the narrative. Police announced that they were investigating eight people for spreading rumours about the outbreak. It is now a global health emergency. It has triggered travel restrictions around the world, shaken financial markets and created perhaps the greatest challenge yet for China's leader, Xi Jinping. The crisis could upend Xi's agenda for months or longer, even undermining his vision of a political system that offers security and growth in return for submission to iron-fisted authoritarianism. It was, for the public, the first visible government response to contain the disease. The day before, on December 31, national authorities had alerted the World Health Organization's office in Beijing of an outbreak. On January 1, police officers showed up at the market, along with public health officials, and shut it down. Xinhua News Agency reported that the market was undergoing renovation, but that morning, workers in hazmat suits moved in, washing out stalls and spraying disinfectants. In hospitals, doctors and nurses were puzzled to see a cluster of patients with symptoms of a viral pneumonia that did not respond to the usual treatments. They soon noticed that many patients had one thing in common: They worked in Huanan market. The market occupies much of a block in a newer part of the city, sitting incongruously near apartment buildings and shops catering to the growing middle class. It is a warren of stalls selling meats, poultry and fish, as well as more exotic fare, including live reptiles and wild game that some in China prize as delicacies. According to a report by the city's centre for disease control, sanitation was dismal, with poor ventilation and garbage piled on wet floors. Hu Xiaohu, who sold processed pork in the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, sensed by late December that something was amiss. Workers were coming down with nagging fevers. No one knew why but, Hu said, several were in hospital quarantine. Authorities disclosed the man's death two days after it happened. They did not mention a crucial detail in understanding the course of the epidemic. Zeng's wife had developed symptoms five days after he did. Nine days after the market closed, a man who shopped there regularly became the first fatality of the disease, according to a report by the Wuhan Health Commission, the agency that oversees public health and sanitation. The 61-year-old, identified by his last name, Zeng, already had chronic liver disease and a tumour in his abdomen, and had checked into Wuhan Puren Hospital with a raging fever and difficulty breathing. "It undermines the legitimacy of the government in messaging," she added. "And public health is dependent on public trust." "Projecting optimism and confidence, if you don't have the data, is a very dangerous strategy," said Alexandra Phelan, a faculty research instructor in the department of microbiology and immunology at Georgetown University. City officials struck optimistic notes in their announcements. They suggested they had stopped the virus at its source. The cluster of illnesses was limited. There was no evidence the virus spread between humans. She had never visited the market. The Race to Identify a Killer About 30 kilometres from the market, scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were studying samples from the patients checking into the city's hospitals. One of the scientists, Zheng-Li Shi, was part of the team that tracked down the origins of the SARS virus, which emerged in the southern province of Guangdong in 2002. As the public remained largely in the dark about the virus, she and her colleagues quickly pieced together that the new outbreak was related to SARS. The genetic composition suggested a common initial host: bats. The SARS epidemic began when a coronavirus jumped from bats to Asian palm civets, a catlike creature that is legally raised and consumed. It was likely that this new coronavirus had followed a similar path possibly somewhere in or on the way to the Huanan market or another market like it. Around the same time, Li and other medical professionals in Wuhan started trying to provide warnings to colleagues and others when the government did not. Lu Xiaohong, the head of gastroenterology at City Hospital No. 5, told China Youth Daily that she had heard by December 25 that the disease was spreading among medical workers a full three weeks before authorities would acknowledge the fact. She did not go public with her concerns, but privately warned a school near another market. By the first week of January, the emergency ward in Hospital No. 5 was filling; the cases included members of the same family, making it clear that the disease was spreading through human contact, which the government had said was not likely. Loading No one realised, the doctor said, that it was as serious as it would become until it was too late to stop it. "I realised that we had underestimated the enemy," she said. At the Institute of Virology, Shi and her colleagues isolated the genetic sequence and the viral strain during the first week of January. They used samples from seven of the first patients, six of them vendors at the market. On January 7, the institute's scientists gave the new coronavirus its identity and began referring to it by the technical shorthand nCoV-2019. Four days later, the team posted the genetic sequence of the new virus on a database of sequences of nucleotides, the molecules that are basic units of DNA. That allowed scientists around the world to study the virus and swiftly share their findings. As the scientific community moved quickly to devise a test for exposure, political leaders remained reluctant to act. 'Politics is Always No. 1' As the virus spread in early January, the mayor of Wuhan, Zhou Xianwang, was touting futuristic health care plans for the city. It was China's political season, when officials gather for annual meetings of People's Congresses the Communist Party-run legislatures that discuss and praise policies. It is not a time for bad news. When Zhou delivered his annual report to the city's People's Congress on January 7 against a backdrop of bright red national flags, he promised the city top-class medical schools, a World Health Expo, and a futuristic industry park for medical companies. Not once did he or any other city or provincial leader publicly mention the viral outbreak. "Stressing politics is always No. 1," the governor of Hubei, Wang Xiaodong, told officials on January 17, citing Xi's precepts of top-down obedience. "Political issues are at any time the most fundamental major issues." Shortly after, Wuhan went ahead with a massive annual potluck banquet for 40,000 families from a city precinct, which critics later cited as evidence that local leaders took the virus far too lightly. As the congress was taking place, the health commission's daily updates on the outbreak said again and again that there were no new cases of infection, no firm evidence of human transmission and no infection of medical workers. "We knew this was not the case!" said a complaint later filed with the National Health Commission on a government website. The anonymous author said he was a doctor in Wuhan and described a surge in unusual chest illnesses beginning January 12. Officials told doctors at a top city hospital "don't use the words viral pneumonia on the image reports," according to the complaint, which has since been removed. People were complacent, "thinking that if the official reports had nothing, then we were exaggerating," the doctor explained. Even those stricken felt lulled into complacency. When Dong Guanghe developed a fever on January 8 in Wuhan, his family was not alarmed, his daughter said. He was treated in the hospital and sent home. Then, 10 days later, Dong's wife fell ill with similar symptoms. "The news said nothing about the severity of the epidemic," said the daughter, Dong Mingjing. "I thought that my dad had a common cold." The government's efforts to minimise public disclosure persuaded more than just untrained citizens. "If there are no new cases in the next few days, the outbreak is over," Guan Yi, a respected professor of infectious diseases at the University of Hong Kong, said on January 15. The World Health Organization's statements during this period echoed the reassuring words of Chinese officials. It had spread. Thailand reported the first confirmed case outside China on January 13. A City Besieged The first deaths and the spread of the disease abroad appeared to grab the attention of the top authorities in Beijing. The national government dispatched Zhong Nanshan, a renowned and now-semiretired epidemiologist who was instrumental in the fight against SARS, to Wuhan to assess the situation. He arrived on January 18, just as the tone of local officials was shifting markedly. A health conference in Hubei province that day called on medical workers to make the disease a priority. An internal document from Wuhan Union Hospital warned its employees that the coronavirus could be spread through saliva. On January 20, more than a month after the first symptoms spread, the current of anxiety that had been steadily gaining strength exploded into public. Zhong announced in an interview on state television that there was no doubt that the coronavirus spread with human contact. Worse, one patient had infected at least 14 medical personnel. Xi, fresh from a state visit to Myanmar, made his first public statement about the outbreak, issuing a brief set of instructions. It was only with the order from Xi that the bureaucracy leapt into action. At that point the death toll was three; in the next 11 days, it would rise above 200. In Wuhan, the city banned tour groups from visiting. Residents began pulling on masks. Guan Yi, the Hong Kong expert who had earlier voiced optimism that the outbreak could level off, was now alarmed. He dropped by one of the city's other food markets and was shocked by the complacency, he said. He told city officials that the epidemic was "already beyond control" and would leave. "I hurriedly booked a departure," Guan told Caixin, a Chinese news organisation. Two days later, the city announced that it was shutting itself down, a move that could only have been approved by Beijing. In Wuhan, many residents said they did not grasp the gravity of the epidemic until the lockdown. The mass alarm that officials feared at the start became a reality, heightened by the previous paucity of information. Crowds of people crushed the airport and train stations to get out before the deadline fell on the morning of January 23. Hospitals were packed with people desperate to know if they, too, were infected. "We didn't wear masks at work. That would have frightened off customers," Yu Haiyan, a waitress from rural Hubei, said of the days before the shutdown. "When they closed off Wuhan, only then did I think, 'Oh, this is really serious, this is not some average virus.'" Wuhan's mayor, Zhou Xianwang, later took responsibility for the delay in reporting the scale of the epidemic, but said he was hampered by the national law on infectious diseases. That law allows provincial governments to declare an epidemic only after receiving central government approval. "After I receive information, I can only release it when I'm authorised," he said. The official reflex for suppressing discomforting information now appears to be cracking, as officials at various levels seek to shift blame for the government's response. With the crisis worsening, Li's efforts are no longer viewed as reckless. A commentary on the social media account of the Supreme People's Court criticised police for investigating people for circulating rumours. "It might have been a better way to prevent and control the new coronavirus today if the public had believed the 'rumor' then and started to wear masks and carry out sanitary measures and avoid the wild animal market," the commentary said. Li is 34 and has a child. He and his wife are expecting a second in the summer. He is now recovering from the virus in the hospital where he worked. In an interview via text messages, he said he felt aggrieved by the police actions. "If the officials had disclosed information about the epidemic earlier," he said, "I think it would have been a lot better. There should be more openness and transparency." The New York Times Joaquin Phoenix won the leading actor Bafta for Joker at tonights EE British Academy Film Awards. He won over fellow nominees Leonardo DiCaprio, Adam Driver, Jonathan Pryce and Taron Egerton. Phoenix took aim at "systemic racism" and "oppression" within the industry in his acceptance speech. Phoenix said: "I feel very honoured and privileged to be here tonight - Bafta has always been very supportive of my career and I'm deeply appreciative. Joaquin Phoenix attending the 73rd British Academy Film Awards held at the Royal Albert Hall, London. But I have to say that I also feel conflicted because so many of my fellow actors that are deserving don't have that same privilege. Read more: Full list of BAFTAs 2020 winners "I think that we send a very clear message to people of colour that you're not welcome here, I think that's the message that we're sending to people that have contributed so much to our medium and our industry and in ways that we benefit from. "I don't think anybody wants a hand-out or preferential treatment, although that's what we give ourselves every year. I think people want to be appreciated and respected for their work. Joaquin Phoenix as Joker (Warner Bros.) "This is not a self-righteous condemnation because I am part of the problem, I have not done everything in my power - not all sets I've worked on are inclusive. "I think that we really have to do the hard work to truly understand systemic racism... it is the obligation of the people that have created and perpetuated and benefit from a system of oppression to dismantle it, so that's on us." Earlier in the day, Phoenix made a plea for people to "go vegan" as he led an animal equality protest in central London. The Hollywood A-lister used his pulling power to gather a group of activists for a protest where he dropped a 390-square foot banner from Tower Bridge which declared: "Factory farming destroys our planet. Go vegan." Source: Xinhua| 2020-02-02 18:42:46|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close HERAT, Afghanistan, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- A total of 29 armed militants affiliated with the Taliban group have given up fighting and handed over their weapons to local authorities in the western Herat province, the Defense Ministry said in a statement released on Sunday. The surrendered militants were involved in anti-government activities in Chasht district of Herat and in parts of the neighboring Ghor province over the past couple of years, the statement said, adding the surrendered militants under Sahib Khan have vowed to defend the government and the ongoing peace efforts in the country. More than 290 militants have given up fighting and surrendered to security forces in the western Herat and neighboring Ghor province over the past couple of months, according to the Defense Ministry. The Taliban insurgents have yet to make comment on the report. A Vancouver philanthropist and real estate mogul who invested heavily in the town of Bridgewater, N.S., has died. Stephen Sander, 85, was originally from India, but came to Bridgewater by way of England in the 1960s after a local school hired him as a physical education teacher. Sander only lived in the Bridgewater area for a few years, but developed a great love for the community. Bridgewater Mayor David Mitchell said Sander never forgot the community and considered it his hometown. "How he was is how we should be," Mitchell said. Sander went on to found Hollyburn Properties, a large Vancouver real estate company. Town of Bridgewater Sander and nine members of his family returned to Bridgewater for a visit in the fall of 2019. He made the trip after donating $1 million to create a surgical suite at the South Shore Regional Hospital. It was by far the biggest gift the Health Services Foundation of the South Shore had ever received. Sander also gave $200,000 for a new playground for the Bridgewater Elementary School. The town honoured the Sander family's gift at a celebration where some of his old students were present. "He walks in the room and walked right up to one of the ladies that was sitting in the room and he knew her name. He recognized her as one of his students," Mitchell said. Health Services Foundation of the South Shore The gifts that Sander made to the community have affected the lives of many people in the Bridgewater area, said Arleen Stevens, the executive director of the Health Services Foundation. His donation allowed the South Shore Regional Hospital to renovate a minimally-invasive operating room suite. The suite has laparoscopic equipment that speeds recovery time by doing surgery through tiny openings rather than a large opening. The suite is being used every day for many types of surgery, some of which couldn't be done at the hospital before the renovation. 'Canada has been very good to me' "Those folks benefiting from the new procedures don't need to travel outside of their community to receive care," Stevens said. "That's a tremendous benefit." Story continues In 2017, Sander donated $1 million to help purchase a robot-assisted surgery system at a Vancouver hospital. "Canada has been very good to me, and it's time for me to pay back," he said at the time. Bridgewater residents 'fought for' Sandler Mitchell said during Sander's visit to Bridgewater last fall, Sander explained the people of Bridgewater "fought for him" when the school principal of the day didn't like him and wanted to get rid of him. "He said that the students and the teachers and the parents basically told the principal at the time that if you fire Mr. Sander, we're all leaving," Mitchell said. People in the town also advocated for Sander to receive a visa to enter Canada when he was initially denied, and took out a full page ad in the newspaper to thank him when he left the community. Health Services Foundation of the South Shore "Despite the fact that he gave a million and a quarter dollars to this community, he would say that he's still indebted to us," Mitchell said. He noted Canada was a much less diverse place in the 1960s. "Let's face it: in the late 60s, to welcome an immigrant, a visible minority, to a small town, I don't care where you are in Canada, [it was] not commonplace," Mitchell said. "So to be that welcoming, to the point where he never forgot us, I'm proud of my community, and obviously so proud of the man he became." MORE TOP STORIES MANILA, Philippines The Department of Health (DOH) and the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) announced at a press briefing on Sunday that, as of Saturday, February 1, 2020, twenty-four (24) patients under investigation (PUIs) tested negative for the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) while two (2) tested positive. Samples from four (4) other PUIs are currently being tested at RITM. In the press briefing, DOH Secretary Francisco Duque III revealed that the two confirmed cases are the previously-announced 38-year-old Chinese female and her companion, a 44-year-old Chinese male, who were both admitted for isolation and supportive treatment at San Lazaro Hospital in Sta. Cruz, Manila after experiencing fever, cough, and sore throat. Read: Philippines reports first case of novel coronavirus Both patients are from Wuhan, China and arrived in the Philippines via Hong Kong last January 21, 2020. DOH also announced that the 44-year-old male died on February 1, 2020, after developing severe pneumonia due to multiple viral and bacterial infections over the course of his admission. The DOH said that, in his last few days, the patient was stable and showed signs of improvement. His condition, however, deteriorated within his last 24 hours resulting in his demise. We are currently working with the Chinese Embassy to ensure the dignified management of the remains according to national and international standards to contain the disease, Secretary Duque said. In the statement the DOH released following the press briefing, the health department assured the public that all measures needed to contain the spread of the virus is being strictly implemented and followed, and that San Lazaro Hospital has implemented rigorous infection control protocols while caring for the said patients. The health department also guaranteed the public that both patients were isolated following strict isolation standards, and all health personnel who came in contact with them practiced stringent infection control measures and wore appropriate personal protective equipment. Story continues The statement further said that the Epidemiology Bureau (EB) of the Department is currently conducting contact tracing of passengers aboard the flights of the two positive cases. EB has secured the manifestos of the flights and is in close coordination with the concerned airlines. Contact tracing activities are ongoing in Cebu and Dumaguete, and in other places where the patients stayed and traveled to. The Philippine Government has already implemented a temporary travel ban for travelers coming from China, Macao, and Hong Kong. DOH is monitoring every development on the 2019-nCoV very closely and is taking proactive measures to contain the spread of this virus in our country. This health event is fast-evolving and fluid. We are continuously recalibrating our plans and efforts as the situation develops, Duque assured. We are providing the public with constant updates and advisories as frequently as possible, so all I ask from the public now is to heed the advisories from official DOH channels and to refrain from sharing unverified and unvalidated information. I assure the public that we will keep you abreast of any information that we have, he added. The DOH also affirmed that there are currently no reports of community spread of the virus within the country. However, the public is still reminded to practice prevention measures such as proper hand hygiene and observance of cough etiquette. The DOH has also confirmed that as of February 1, 2020, there were an additional five (5) patients under investigation (PUIs), bringing the total recorded number of PUIs to thirty-six (36). Twenty-three (23) PUIs are currently admitted and isolated, while ten (10) have been discharged under strict monitoring. The department also clarified that the previously-reported PUI mortality was found to be negative for 2019-nCoV. The new developments warrant a more diligent approach in containing the threats of the 2019-nCoV. The Department of Health is continuously improving and scaling up its public health measures and reminds the public to remain calm and vigilant, Secretary Duque concluded. /mbmf The post 24 of 36 PUI tested negative of 2019-nCoV ARD; first death confirmedDOH appeared first on UNTV News. Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS) shares fell 3.7% to US$65.31 in the week since its latest full-year results. Las Vegas Sands reported US$14b in revenue, roughly in line with analyst forecasts, although statutory earnings per share (EPS) of US$3.50 beat expectations, being 3.0% higher than what analysts expected. Analysts typically update their forecasts at each earnings report, and we can judge from their estimates whether their view of the company has changed or if there are any new concerns to be aware of. With this in mind, we've gathered the latest statutory forecasts to see what analysts are expecting for next year. View our latest analysis for Las Vegas Sands NYSE:LVS Past and Future Earnings, February 2nd 2020 After the latest results, the consensus from Las Vegas Sands's 17 analysts is for revenues of US$13.3b in 2020, which would reflect a small 3.6% decline in sales compared to the last year of performance. Statutory earnings per share are expected to decline 13% to US$3.06 in the same period. In the lead-up to this report, analysts had been modelling revenues of US$13.9b and earnings per share (EPS) of US$3.27 in 2020. It's pretty clear that analyst sentiment has fallen after the latest results, leading to lower revenue forecasts and a minor downgrade to earnings per share estimates. Analysts made no major changes to their price target of US$73.05, suggesting the downgrades are not expected to have a long-term impact on Las Vegas Sands's valuation. It could also be instructive to look at the range of analyst estimates, to evaluate how different the outlier opinions are from the mean. The most optimistic Las Vegas Sands analyst has a price target of US$83.00 per share, while the most pessimistic values it at US$55.00. Analysts definitely have varying views on the business, but the spread of estimates is not wide enough in our view to suggest that extreme outcomes could await Las Vegas Sands shareholders. One way to get more context on these forecasts is to look at how they compare to both past performance, and how other companies in the same industry are performing. These estimates imply that sales are expected to slow, with a forecast revenue decline of 3.6% a significant reduction from annual growth of 2.2% over the last five years. By contrast, our data suggests that other companies (with analyst coverage) in the same market are forecast to see their revenue grow 7.3% annually for the foreseeable future. So although its revenues are forecast to shrink, this cloud does not come with a silver lining - analysts also expect Las Vegas Sands to grow slower than the wider market. Story continues The Bottom Line The most important thing to take away is that analysts downgraded their earnings per share estimates, showing that there has been a clear decline in sentiment following these results. On the negative side, they also downgraded their revenue estimates, and forecasts imply revenues will perform worse than the wider market. There was no real change to the consensus price target, suggesting that the intrinsic value of the business has not undergone any major changes with the latest estimates. With that said, the long-term trajectory of the company's earnings is a lot more important than next year. We have forecasts for Las Vegas Sands going out to 2023, and you can see them free on our platform here. You can also see whether Las Vegas Sands is carrying too much debt, and whether its balance sheet is healthy, for free on our platform here. If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Thank you for reading. Michelle Bridges, how did it go so wrong? Fitness guru, media mogul, fully-fledged celebrity and red carpet regular, Bridges turns 50 this year, a milestone she should be celebrating as one of the most successful business entrepreneurs in the country. Michelle Bridges and former partner Steve "Commando" Willis. And yet, while there are still a few months before her October birthday, at this point 2020 is not shaping up to be Bridges' best year. Last Monday she confirmed her relationship with fellow fitness guru Steve "Commando" Willis, the father of their young son Axel, was in tatters. India on Sunday reported a second case of novel coronavirus with a person from Kerala, who had returned from China recently, testing positive, officials said. However, the Kerala government said the state was awaiting the results from the National Institute of Virology (NIV) at Pune. "We have been informed telephonically by NIV Pune that there is a possibility of another positive case. But since there is a possibility we have to be extremely vigilant. We are yet to receive the results. The suspected case is of a student of Wuhan university," state Health Minister K K Shailaja told the media at Kollam. She said the student, who had returned from China on January 24, and currently at an isolation ward in Alappuzha Medical College Hospital, was being closely monitored and the condition of the patient is stable. "The patient has minor symptoms. But we are not taking any chances. We have taken proper precautions even though we have not received any confirmation. We expect the results by evening," she said. India's first novel coronavirus case in India was reported from Thrissur in Kerala with a student testing positive. Till date, 1,793 people who traveled from coronavirus affected countries have been identified and placed under surveillance in Kerala. Of this, 70 people have been admitted in selected isolation facilities and 1723 are under home isolation, a medical bulletin said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Gold weighing 31.5 kg has been seized in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and 12 people have been arrested, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence said on Sunday. Based on specific intelligence, the accused were nabbed during searches in buses and trains on four different occasions. The DRI Hyderabad on Sunday held three passengers travelling from Chennai to Hyderabad and seized gold worth Rs 4.53 crore. On January 31, the DRI Nellore unit intercepted three men travelling on a train from Chennai to Warangal in Telangana. They were stopped at the Vijayawada railway station in Andhra Pradesh and found carrying gold bars in packets concealed in bags, the DRI said in a statement. On enquiry, they told police that they carried cash to Chennai, purchased the smuggled foreign-origin gold in the city and were travelling back to Warangal to hand the metal over to the smuggling kingpin at Warangal, the statement said. The seized gold weighed 7,228 gm and valued at Rs 3.05 crore. A day later, the DRI Vijayawada unit intercepted three passengers, travelling on a train from Chennai to Warangal, carrying gold bars in packets concealed in their clothing, it said. The passengers admitted to a similar modus operandi. The DRI seized 7,077 gm gold valued at Rs 2.99 crore, the statement said. In another instance, the DRI Hyderabad and Vijayawada seized gold worth Rs 2.73 crore from three passengers travelling to Warangal via Vijayawada by a state-run bus. In all the four cases, the gold was seized under the Customs Act and further investigation was on, the statement added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Palestinian Authority cuts all ties with US, Israel over 'deal of century' Iran Press TV Saturday, 01 February 2020 3:04 PM The Palestinian Authority stops recognizing whatever ties with the United States and Israel after the US announced the long-awaited outline of a controversial pro-Tel Aviv scheme, which Washington claims seeks to resolve the age-old Palestinian-Israeli conflict. "We are informing you that there will be no relations with you (Israel) and the United States," Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told an Arab League meeting in Cairo on Saturday. Palestinians had already stopped recognizing any intermediary role by the US in late 2017, when President Donald Trump took all his predecessors' pro-Israeli measures to a whole new level by recognizing the holy city of Jerusalem al-Quds in the Tel Aviv-occupied West Bank as Israel's "capital." The move by Washington came in the face of historic Palestinian demands that the city's eastern part serve as the capital of their future state. Commenting further on his decision, Abbas said the ties that would be affected include any standing "security cooperation" between Tel Aviv and the Palestinian Authority. The Israeli regime has historically considered the security coordination to be a means of preempting Palestinian retaliation against its incessant acts of aggression. Israel would have to "bear responsibility as an occupying" entity for the Palestinian territories, the PA chief added. Abbas said the decision follows the US and Israel's "disavowal of signed agreements and international legitimacy." He added that the US plan, dubbed "the deal of the century" was in "violation of the [autonomy] accords," referring to the Oslo Accords. The accords were signed by late leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Yasser Arafat, and former Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in Washington DC, in 1993 and Taba, Egypt, in 1995. The purported goal of the accords was to achieve peace based on the United Nations Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, and to realize the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination. The US had announced the so-called deal of the century -- a brainchild of President Donald Trump's son-in-law and advisor Jared Kushner and other key pro-Israeli figures -- years ago, but had withheld the details. Trump revealed the general provisions of the scheme on Tuesday, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his side. Palestinian sides were conspicuous by their absence at the ceremony given their vociferous disagreement with the plot. Under the scheme, the US would continue to recognize Jerusalem al-Quds as Israel's "undivided capital," Trump said, endorsing his 2017 move concerning the city. He said the deal featured an economic portion that earmarks $50 billion in monetary allocations to Palestinians, Jordan, and Egypt. Palestinians have denounced this as a means of bribing them into selling their rights. Still contentiously, Trump said that the Israeli settlers, who have been housed in illegal apartment blocks since Tel Aviv's occupation of the West Bank in 1967, would not be moved under the deal -- something that amounts to annexation of the land on which the settlements have been built. The US president, meanwhile, alleged that Israel would be freezing its settlement activities for four years "while Palestinian statehood is negotiated." Tel Aviv has never fully committed to such freezes, causing any negotiation process to break down. Countering Trump, however, Abbas insisted that Palestinians would press ahead with their legitimate struggle using peaceful means. According to Palestinian UN envoy Riyad Mansour, the PA chief would be speaking at the UN Security Council in the next two weeks about the US plan. The envoy also said he hoped that the 15-member Council would vote on a draft resolution against the scheme. However, Washington, which has unexceptionally used its veto power in favor of Israel at the Council, is almost certain to cast its veto against any such resolution too. The Palestinians would then take their objection up with the UN General Assembly, where Washington cannot strike down any unanimously-approved resolutions. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Source: Xinhua| 2020-02-02 17:49:39|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close TEHRAN, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- Josep Borrell, EU high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, will visit Iran on Monday, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Abbas Mousavi announced on Sunday. Borrell will visit the Iranian capital for the first time after taking office in Dec. 2019 amid escalating disputes over Tehran's nuclear program. He is scheduled to hold meetings with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and other senior Iranian officials during his trip. On Jan. 16, Borrell met with Zarif on the sidelines of the Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi, India. During the meeting, Zarif urged the European countries to meet their commitments to the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). After exempting foreign companies, the Budget 2020-21 has exempted the income of Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserves Ltd (ISPRL) from taxes on transaction of crude oil stored in the underground caverns it built as country's strategic stockpile. In 2017, the government had exempted foreign companies from paying on the sale of oil they store in India's strategic oil reserves. According to a budget 2020-21 document, the income of will be exempt from taxes on the transaction of crude oil stored in its strategic caverns, provided the company replenishes the removed fuel within three years. Tax changes on will be effective April 1. The then Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had in his Budget for 2017-18 exempted income of a foreign company, which books capacity in the strategic storages, from the sale of leftover stock. Prior to that, exemption from payment of was available only during the duration of the contract a company entered into for hiring the storage caverns. The Budget also abolished import tax on very low sulphur fuel oil (VLSFO) used by ships to reduce costs for local shipping companies. This relief is in line with exemptions offered to other bunker fuels. Also, the import tax on calcined petroleum coke, used by aluminum makers to make anodes, will be reduced to 7.5 per cent from 10 per cent earlier. These tax changes took effect from Sunday. In a bid to insulate the country from volatility in the global oil market, India has built underground storages in rock caverns at Visakhapatnam (1.33 million tonnes), Mangalore (1.5 MT) and Padur (2.5 MT). Two more underground crude oil storages at Chandikhol in Odisha and Bikaner in Rajasthan, with a combined capacity to stock 12 million tonnes of oil, are planned to be built. Strategic storages provide a country with a two-fold advantage. Firstly it ensures utilisation of reserves in times of high oil and gas prices and secondly, they can be used in the event of supply disruptions following unforeseen events like a natural disaster or a war-like situation. The storage at Chandikhol will be an underground rock cavern while the one at Bikaner will be an underground salt cavern. UAE's national oil company ADNOC and Saudi Aramco have signed agreements to hire capacity in India's maiden strategic oil storages. India is 83 per cent dependent on imports to meet its crude oil needs. Under the agreements, India will have the first right to use the stored oil in case of an emergency, while ADNOC and Aramco would use the facility to store oil for trading purposes. Barely a few hours after China's death toll from coronavirus increased to 304, WA Premier Mark McGowan announced Australians evacuated from Wuhan province would touch down in Exmouth on their way to Christmas Island. The news comes amid warnings from the World Health Organization that other countries need to be prepared in case the disease spreads among their populations and less than 24 hours after the Philippines reported the first death from the virus outside of China. Premier Mark McGowan has announced Australians evacuated from Wuhan will travel to Exmouth on their way to Christmas Island. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen During a press conference on Sunday, Mr McGowan said a flight from China carrying Australians would land in Exmouth's RAAF Base Learmonth where people would transfer to smaller charter flights bound for Christmas Island. The base, established in the 1950s to support land, air and sea operations to secure Australia's north, is located 30 kilometres south of Exmouth town, on WA's North West Cape peninsula. This is Tajoura detention center in Libya. It was sheltering hundreds of African migrants and refugees when it was hit by an airstrike on July 2. The attack killed at least 53 people and wounded many more. How could something like this happen to a migrant holding center? The Times analyzed photos, videos, and satellite images of the facility. And former detainees and humanitarian observers in Libya told us grim stories of lapses on many fronts. Anti-government forces vying for control in Libya carried out this airstrike. But the attack has shed new light on a simple fact: Thousands of migrants are now trapped in the crosshairs of a brutal civil war between the Libyan government and those rebels. And it exposes serious failures on the part of the European Union, which has outsourced some of its migration problems to a country in chaos. The E.U. declined our interview requests and pointed to statements calling for an investigation, and for migrants to be moved. Libya has become a crossroads for Africans fleeing turmoil at home and trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe. But the European Union has looked to Libya to prevent them from making the journey. It has given hundreds of millions of dollars to the Libyan Coast Guard and agencies supporting detention centers like the one in Tajoura. Overcrowding and lack of medical care in the centers has caused widespread health problems, experts say. All these detention centers in Libya they were built as warehouses. Its just, theyve now been repurposed for instead of storing goods, theyre storing people. And those who complained were often threatened by guards and militias that control those centers. The dire conditions inside the facilities are made even worse by whats going on outside. The most serious issue weve uncovered is that the Tajoura center is located in a military compound. And the migrants living quarters are less than 100 yards from what our reporting shows is a weapons depot. We can confirm that these trucks with heavy weapons were photographed inside it. Migrants have told us they were forced to work in this depot cleaning and maintaining weapons for a pro-government militia that effectively controls the compound. Others say, the militia forced them to take up arms. This weapons depot is key, because on July 2 it was clearly targeted by the rebels. Images of the aftermath showed damaged military vehicles and the remains of an anti-aircraft gun. The nearby detention center was struck moments later. This security camera filmed what happened. First, the weapons depot was hit by an airstrike. Shrapnel is sent flying across the parking lot towards the migrant center. As smoke and debris spills out, people try to flee. But the guards stop them, witnesses told us. Then, 11 minutes later, a second airstrike hits the migrant detention center directly. Hundreds of people are confined inside. Some escape while others try to break through a locked door to the victims on the other side. These migrants were sitting ducks for rebel airstrikes and European officials should have known this. Why? Because some had visited the site. And the area had been targeted before. On May 7, an airstrike hit the very same weapons depot sending shrapnel through the roof of the migrant center. Two people were injured. And even before this, migrants in Libya tried to alert the public to the danger they were in. We obtained voice recordings from people being held in Tajoura and other centers. The U.N. refugee agency says it has tried to move migrants away from Tripoli. Italy is the only European country that took some migrants in. The ultimate blame for the attack on Tajoura lies with Khalifa Hifter, a Libyan strongman fighting to topple the U.N.-backed government in Tripoli. The U.N. says it shared. the centers coordinates with his forces. But it didnt matter. And the Tajoura strike may be far from the last. The U.N. says there are 3,800 refugees and migrants in Libya still being detained in areas of active clashes. Meanwhile, the survivors in Tajoura were released by the Libyan government on July 9. Some may be taken in by the U.N. But hundreds of others walked out onto the streets of an active conflict zone, uncertain of what lay ahead. Sharadhaa A By Express News Service Theres one word on the lips of the biggest filmmakers of Kannada cinema: Pan-India. Pan-Indian films are a growing trend established by the resounding success of Yash-starrer and Prashanth Neel directorial, KGF Chapter 1, Darshans 50th film Munirathna Kurukshetra, Sudeep-starrer Pailwaan, and Rakshit Shettys Avane Srimannarayana. Up next is Upendra-starrer Kabza, directed and produced by R Chandru, and slotted to be released in as many as seven languages, including Marathi and Bengali. Sources indicate quite a few Kannada filmmakers are contemplating to release their films in multiple Indian languages. Karthik Gowda, who is the executive producer of KGF films and also a distributor, thinks that the pan-India aspirations of Kannada cinema is ambitious, A pan-India release is what films of all languages will eventually aspire for. It isnt just the concept of the film or the lavishness that determine whether a film can work across regions. Its a combination of many aspects. We need to give a reason for people speaking other languages to watch our cinema. Sudeep in Pailwaan Director Krishna, who entered the Kannada film industry with his maiden venture Pailwaan, is convinced that if the content is universal, the film can get a good worldwide opening. Producers play an important role, as a lot of money is at stake. Going by my experience, one will need between `10-20 crore, if one wants to take their film to all languages. Taking it to Bollywood especially costs a lot, he explains. Citing the example of Telugu cinema and its most popular production, Baahubali, Krishna urges that it not be viewed as a template. Success comes differently to different content. We must not try to imitate. Its heartening however that the Kannada film industry has shown such potential for growth. Kannada cinemas prominence on the map has also resulted in films of other languages being dubbed in Kannada. Producer and distributor Manjunath Gowda who took up the Kannada distribution rights of Salman Khan-starrer Dabangg 3 talks about the challenges of taking films across regions. It cant happen unless distributors from other states show interest in diversity. Just one film doing well wont do the trick. The trend of Kannada films doing well across the country has started over the last couple of years. The idea should be to focus on content with a universal appeal. Producer Pushkara Mallikarjunaiah had his film Avane Srimannarayana released in five languages. He feels that the multiplex audience prefer to watch films with subtitles, as opposed to dubbed versions. Only a film that creates a great buzz before the release can reach out to tier 2 and 3 centres and create business. We must try to convince people to watch our films in Kannada along with subtitles. He also points out that the starcast plays a big role. Their importance cannot be underestimated in pan-Indian films. To examine the extent to which acute care hospitals in the Netherlands have adopted recommended practices to prevent catheter-associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI), central line-associated bloodstream infection (CLABSI), ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), and Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI). Between 18 July 2017 and 31 October 2017, we surveyed the infection prevention teams of all acute care hospitals in the Netherlands. The survey instrument was based on the 'Translating Healthcare-Associated Infection Prevention Research into Practice' (TRIP) questionnaire and adapted to the Dutch context. Descriptive statistics were used to examine the reported regular use of CAUTI, CLABSI, VAP, and CDI prevention practices as well as the hospital characteristics. Out of 72 eligible hospitals, 47 (65.3%) responded. Surveillance systems for monitoring CAUTI, CLABSI, VAP, and CDI were present in 17.8, 95.4, 26.2, and 77.3% of hospitals, respectively. Antimicrobial stewardship programs have been established in 91.5% of participating hospitals. For CAUTI, the majority of hospitals regularly used aseptic technique during catheter insertion (95%) and portable bladder ultrasound scanners (86.1%). Intermittent catheterization and catheter stop-orders were regularly used by 65.8 and 62.2% of hospitals. For CLABSI, all hospitals regularly used maximum sterile barrier precautions and chlorhexidine gluconate for insertion site antisepsis. Avoidance of the femoral site for central line insertions was regularly used by 65.9% of hospitals. Urinary catheters and central-lines impregnated with antibiotics or antiseptics were rarely used ( 5%). Selective decontamination strategies for preventing VAP were used in 84% of hospitals. With the exception of disposable thermometers (31.8%), all prevention practices to prevent CDI were regularly used by more than 80% of hospitals. Most Dutch hospitals report regular use of recommended practices for preventing CLABSI and CDI. Several specific practices to prevent CAUTI and VAP were less frequently used, however, providing an opportunity for improvement. Antimicrobial resistance and infection control. 2020 Jan 06*** epublish *** Anita Huis, Jeroen Schouten, Dominique Lescure, Sarah Krein, David Ratz, Sanjay Saint, Marlies Hulscher, M Todd Greene 1Radboud Institute for Health Sciences, IQ healthcare, Radboud University Medical Center, PO box 9101 (114), 6500 HB Nijmegen, The Netherlands., 2Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, PO box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, The Netherlands., 3VA Ann Arbor Center for Clinical Management Research, VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System, 2800 Plymouth Road, North Campus Research Complex 16, Ann Arbor, MI 48109 USA. PubMed http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31921413 The Bank of Japan, the countrys central bank, must be ready to issue a digital currency if situations warrant, according to its deputy governor Masayoshi Amamiya. The speed of technical innovation is very fast. Depending on how things unfold in the world of settlement systems, public demand for CBDCs [central bank digital currencies] could soar in Japan. We must be prepared to respond if that happens, Amamiya said in a seminar on Thursday, as reported by Reuters. Amamiyas comments are reportedly the strongest to date from a Bank of Japan executive on the potential of digital currencies. Notably, Amamiya was not keen on digital currencies as he recently said if CBDCs "replace private deposits, that could erode commercial banks credit channels and have a negative impact on the economy." While Japan has no immediate plans to issue digital yen, Amamiya at the seminar said several factors must be examined, including its impact on monetary policy. The Bank of Japan has been researching digital currencies for several months now. Earlier this month, it joined hands with five other major central banks - the Bank of England, the European Central Bank, the Bank of Canada, the Sveriges Riksbank (Sweden) and the Swiss National Bank - to explore digital currencies. Japans ruling Liberal Democratic Party is also working on a proposal to issue digital currency. China is moving toward issuing digital yuan, so wed like to propose measures to counter such attempts, Norihiro Nakayama, a member of the party and parliamentary vice-minister for foreign affairs, said last week. Police on Sunday seized over 500 kg ganja from a godown near Kudsad village in Gujarat's Surat district and arrested one person, an official said. The godown is located in an industrial area, he said, adding that the operation was carried out by the Local Crime Branch and Special Operations Group. The value of the seizure is estimated to be more than Rs 50 lakh, he said. As per preliminary investigation, the consignment of ganja was smuggled from Odisha and was supposed to be supplied to customers in Surat and other cities. It can be recalled that the police had seized around 18 kg ganja from the same village around three months ago and arrested one person. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) HANOI, Feb 1 (Reuters) - Vietnam declared a public health emergency over the coronavirus epidemic on Saturday and said it would stop all flights to and from China. The government said it would also stop issuing visas for foreign visitors who had been in China in the past two weeks. All permits granted for flights between Vietnam and China, including Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau have been revoked until further notice, the government said in a statement. Budget carrier Vietjet Air and the national firm, Vietnam Airlines, earlier said they would suspend all flights to and from China from Feb. 1. (Reporting by Phuong Nguyen; Editing by Andrew Heavens) India raises import taxes in move set to spook some foreign firms People buy electric goods at a roadside market in Kolkata By Aditya Kalra and Chandini Monnappa NEW DELHI/BENGALURU (Reuters) - India on Saturday raised taxes on imports of goods such as electronic items, toys and furniture, aiming to give impetus to domestic manufacturing in a move that will hit Sweden's IKEA and other foreign firms. The measures, announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her 2020-21 budget, come amid criticism from some companies that India has increasingly resorted to protectionist rules that discriminate against foreign companies. Listing the new taxes, the government said they were in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "Make in India" programme aimed at promoting domestic industry. Taxes on imports of items including kitchenware, fans and small electrical appliances will be doubled to 20%, while the levy on furniture including seats, lamps and mattresses will be raised to 25% from 20%. IKEA's India CEO Peter Betzel said the company was disappointed with the increase. "We are further evaluating the impact of the hike on our total business," he said. IKEA, which has committed more than 1.5 billion euros ($1.7 billion) in India investments, imports roughly 75% of goods sold in the country. Sitharaman defended the decision, saying the rationale was that if certain goods were being manufactured locally at "equal quality, if not better, (then) we had no reason to import." Taxes on imported toys would be tripled to 60%, a move one industry executive said could hit imports of toys made by firms such as Lego, Hasbro and Mattel, and boost smuggling of unbranded toys from abroad. "It's a protectionist move," said the executive. The new tariffs also come as India and the United States try to resolve trade differences and have been at odds over certain tariffs. Washington has been urging India to not impose trade barriers that restrict growth of American firms. The government also said a tax of 5% will be imposed on imported medical device to fund health infrastructure. The measure could hit firms such as Abbott which are already battling price caps imposed by the government. Story continues "It would make some imported medical devices costlier and that increase will likely be passed on to consumers," said an India-based executive of foreign medical device company. The duty on shelled walnuts will be raised to 100% from 30% while certain car and smartphone parts will also face higher import taxes. (Reporting by Aditya Kalra and Chandini Monnappa Editing by Sanjeev Miglani and David Holmes) Prime Minister Chung Se-kyun, third from left, speaks during an emergency meeting at the Government Complex in Seoul, Sunday, on measures to prevent the spread of a new coronavirus./ Yonhap By Bahk Eun-ji The government said Sunday it will ban the entry into Korea of any foreigners who have visited Hubei Province in China within the past two weeks. The move comes amid growing fears of the spread of the new coronavirus with the total number of confirmed patients here rising to 15. Speaking during an emergency government meeting, Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun also suspended visa-free entry for Chinese nationals to the southern tourist island of Jeju Island. "We will temporarily suspend the visa-free entry system under the Jeju Island Special Law, after close consultation with the Jeju Special Self-Governing Province," Chung said. He also asked Korean nationals who have visited Hubei Province to quarantine themselves for 14 days. The government decision came after three more cases of the new coronavirus were reported Sunday. According to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC), the 13th patient is one of 368 Koreans evacuated from the Chinese city of Wuhan, the viral outbreak epicenter, by chartered plane Friday. The 28-year-old man has now been quarantined at the National Medical Center. He showed no symptoms upon his arrival at the airport, but tested positive during a diagnostic test. The 14th confirmed patient is a 40-year-old Chinese woman who is a family member of the 49-year-old Chinese man diagnosed Saturday. He was classified as the 12th confirmed case. The woman is now quarantining herself, while the KCDC conduct an epidemiological investigation. A trailer containing youth wrestling equipment was stolen Wednesday night near 16h Street and Colorado Avenue in Old Colorado City, according Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal addresses at the launch of the website 'www.welcomekejriwal.in' for 'one to one communication' with the voters ahead of the Delhi Assembly elections, in New Delhi on Jan 27, 2020. (Photo: IANS) Image Source: PK New Delhi, Feb 2 : Slamming the claims that the Aam Aadmi Party mostly worked towards the end of its tenure with elections in mind, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said the verdict of the Supreme Court on July 4, 2018, gave his government the real power and a push to speed up the work. Speaking to IANS, Kejriwal said his government started taking decisions soon after the verdict, adding that the verdict galvanized the government into more work and announcements. "Look at our work after July 4, which was the real turning point. We started so much work for the unauthorised colonies, there were so many new projects by December 2018. The work stopped for some time because of the model code of conduct during the Lok Sabha elections (March-May, 2019). The Supreme Court order was the real push. We worked with so much speed. The files were not stopped and we were free to take decisions," Kejriwal said. He admitted that the initial 2-2.5 years of the government were not as active as the files used to go to the LG for approval. On July 4, 2018, the apex court ruled that Delhi's Lieutenant Governor is bound by the "aid and advice" of the Delhi government, bringing powers back to the city government, lack of which had created administrative issues between the two. On the accusation from the opposition that he made major announcements just months before the elections, the Chief Minister said they were elected to work for the common man and "we did that". "We were working till the last day, last minute before the elections were announced." Over the issue of the Citizenship Amendment Act, he said the party is against the law. "We voted against it in Parliament. I have been saying this almost daily." He said AAP wants people to vote for the party on the basis of work. "We want votes for our work on education, health, water and electricity," said the Aam Aadmi Party National Convener. He said that it is for the police and the Home Ministry to see the law and order issue in Delhi. "Let them handle it," he said. "It is not that I am not concerned. I spoke to the LG whenever I felt concerned for the law and order," Kejriwal added. He reiterated that he wants to focus on the work done by the AAP government for the February 8 assembly elections. The Chief Minister however, admitted that the last mile connectivity in Delhi is still a big challenge. "The last mile will be a focus in the next term. The Delhi Integrated Multi-Modal Transit System Ltd. has conducted a study and has redesigned the routes of all the buses. It has also decided where to use small buses, where we need bigger ones. This redesigning will also solve the last mile connectivity to a large extent. The report has come and on the basis of it, a pilot is being implemented in Najafgarh. If it is successful we will implement it in the entire city after being re-elected," he said. Kejriwal also said that the BJP does not have any face for the CM candidate in Delhi. "They do not have a CM face, people want to know who will be their leader," he added. (Nivedita Singh can be contacted at nivedita.singh@ians.in) Kirk, whos been a member for about 40 years, said the group is the only one of its kind in the south suburbs and currently there are about 30 members, about 20 who usually show up to the meetings. Thanks for visiting ! The use of software that blocks ads hinders our ability to serve you the content you came here to enjoy. We ask that you consider turning off your ad blocker so we can deliver you the best experience possible while you are here. Thank you for your support! A former luxury car dealer who was fined $100,000 for leaving customers out of pocket has been banned from the industry indefinitely following a decision in the State Administrative Tribunal last week. Tribunal member Dr Bertus De Villiers ordered Luxuride Pty Ltd and its sole director Nicolas Ngo be disqualified from operating under the Motor Vehicle Dealers Act for offences he said showed a lack of moral integrity. More than a dozen car owners who signed consignment contracts with Luxuride reported being out of pocket. In 2018 Luxuride was fined $70,000 and Mr Ngo, also known as Khoi Nguyen Ngo and Nguyen Khoi, was fined $30,000 in the Perth Magistrates Court after being convicted of 23 offences under the act and six offences under Australian Consumer Law. The Commissioner of Consumer Protection has been pursuing Luxuride and Mr Ngo, who is believed to have left the country, for offences under the act since 2018. China's Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP) has asked procuratorates nationwide to fully play their role to create a favorable judicial environment in the fight against the novel coronavirus outbreak. Procuratorates across the country are required to severely punish those found guilty of dereliction of duty, including withholding information, in strict accordance with the law on the prevention and control of infectious diseases and the criminal law, according to a circular issued by the SPP. The crackdown on criminal activities including pushing up prices, profiteering and severely disturbing market order during the period of outbreak control should be intensified, the circular said, adding that the production and sale of fake and shoddy protective equipment and medicines should be harshly punished. It stressed strong actions against patients infected with the novel coronavirus who intentionally spread the virus or refuse any examination or compulsory isolation and treatment thus leading to serious consequences. It urged procuratorates to strengthen the crackdown on violence against medical personnel amid the virus outbreak to ensure the safety of medical workers at the frontline. Crimes including fabricating coronavirus-related information that may lead to panic among the public, making up and spreading rumors about the virus, sabotaging the implementation of the law and endangering public security will be strictly cracked down upon to ensure the epidemic prevention and control work is conducted in an orderly way, the circular said. It also stressed harshly punishing illegal hunting of wildlife under state protection, as well as improving inspection and quarantine measures for fresh food and meat products. Former Big Brother star Skye Wheatley works hard for her figure. And the 25-year-old showed off the results of her dedicated gym regimen in photos shared to Instagram on Sunday. Posing up a storm inside her Gold Coast home, the blonde bombshell revealed her pert derriere in pink and purple G-string briefs. Bottoms up! Skye Wheatley, 25, (pictured) showed off her pert derriere in G-string briefs as she posed inside her Gold Coast home in photos shared to Instagram on Sunday In one photo, Skye knelt on the floor and arched her back in order to capture the perfect mirror selfie. She teamed her G-string briefs with a pink crop top and added white sneakers. Skye swept her blonde locks into a sleek topknot and concealed her face from view. In a second shot, the mother-of-one stood with one foot outstretched, drawing attention to her very trim pins. Not an inch to pinch: In another shot, the former Big Brother star stood with one foot outstretched, drawing attention to her very trim pins She rested one manicured hand on the strap of her skimpy top and once again, hid her face from view. Skye welcomed son Forest in December 2018 with boyfriend Lachlan Waugh. The former makeup artist snapped back to her pre-baby body in record time, and put it down to her new 'healthy lifestyle' in an Instagram post in August. Doting mother: Skye welcomed her first child, son Forest (pictured), in December 2018 Changes: The former makeup artist snapped back to her pre-baby body in record time, and put it down to her new 'healthy lifestyle' in an Instagram post in August Posing in a racy white bikini to flaunt her frame, Skye told her followers: 'I'm honestly pretty proud of how motivated I have been to get my pre-baby body back! 'I'm actually more fit than I was before which is pretty crazy! Leading a healthy lifestyle is so important to me now because of how much better I feel.' She continued: 'I have more energy for Forest and am in such a better mindset. Last weekend I had two rest days and I felt a little down... it really helps with my mood and I overall just feel so much better in every way!' Skye rose to fame on the 2014 season of Big Brother Australia. CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa - When Bernie Sanders addresses throngs of supporters who gather at his rallies, the divisions that plague the Democratic Party can feel far away. The Vermont senator speaks of building a mutliracial, mutli-generational movement that will cut through economic divides, catapult him into the White House and transform the nation. Some of the highest-profile surrogates campaigning on his behalf are less sanguine. Speaking at a concert for Sanders on Friday night, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., led sustained booing from the stage at the mention of Hillary Clinton, his rival in the 2016 primary. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat who has campaigned for Sanders across Iowa, says the Democratic establishment should conform to the progressive movement, not the other way around. We arent pushing the party left, we are bringing the party home, she says. Then theres filmmaker Michael Moore, who fires up Sanders crowds by bashing corporate Democrats and suggesting that the partys own leadership may swoop in and steal the 2020 nomination from Sanders in a way that some of the senators supporters believe it did in 2016. Such episodes demonstrate the tension at the heart of Sanders campaign as he shows signs of strength heading into Mondays caucuses. While the self-described democratic socialist has never backed away from his call for political revolution, the visions of unity he also articulates are sometimes at odds with the rhetoric espoused by his supporters. The dynamic is playing out at a precarious time for the Democratic Party, which will have to unite to unseat President Donald Trump. The Sanders supporters are demanding that everybody unite behind Bernie, but if they want Democrats to unite behind Bernie they have to be ready to unite behind the moderate Democrats, said Democratic strategist Brad Bannon. And theyve not yet shown that they will do that. Theyve not shown that, if things dont go their way, they wont just stay home in November. Sanders is bunched near the top of many polls in Iowa with progressive rival Elizabeth Warren and with former Vice-President Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg, the former Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who represent the moderate wing of the party, along with Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar. If he were to win the caucuses and also notch a victory in New Hampshire, which holds its primary on Feb. 11, Sanders will face growing pressure to show his campaign will be open to all factions of the party. Conversely, a series of losses would amplify calls on Sanders to ensure that his supporters rally behind the ultimate nominee. He insisted on Saturday that he would do just that. Let me say this so theres no misunderstanding, he told a rally in Indianola, Iowa. If we do not win, we will support the winner and I know that every other candidate will do the same. Sanders has earnestly tried to quell intra-party division in other ways, too, describing many of his fellow Democratic presidential rivals as his longtime friends who are good people. But, often in the same breath, he gleefully fans the flames, calling his campaign the political and corporate establishments worst nightmare. Sanders problem is he may only be able to achieve true unity by compromising on what many supporters see as his greatest strength: consistency over his decades in political office even on positions that bucked this own party. For young people in particular, theres an authenticity and a level of trust that is hard to garner from some of the other candidates, said Evan Weber, political director for the Sunrise Movement, a youth-led activist group supporting the sweeping Green New Deal to combat climate change which has endorsed Sanders presidential bid. His record is being consistent and relentless in demanding what he thought was just and was right for decades. But what some see as unwavering commitment to core ideals, others see as hostile. I just think hes too angry, said Paula Peeper, a 76-year-old retired office worker from Waterloo, Iowa, especially when he says hes the one to unite the party. Peeper, attending a rally Saturday for Buttigieg, said Sanders risks alienating voters in the closing stretch, especially when they see him leading in some Iowa polls, giving undecided voters reason to think harder about his rivals. Its not helpful for Bernie to be fighting, she said. I think Biden, Pete and Klobuchar could be the beneficiaries of it. Melissa Dunlevy, 34, was a stalwart Sanders supporter and campaign volunteer in 2016, but now plans to support Buttigieg, thinking he could do a better job attracting Republicans and independents needed to beat Trump. Im passionate about every single thing Bernie says, Im 100 per cent there, Dunlevy said. But its just another giant extreme, its another thing thats so partisan, its another thing that divides us. ___ Associated Press writers Thomas Beaumont and Julie Pace in n Waterloo, Iowa, contributed to this report. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Mon, February 3 2020 In pursuit: Troops from the 134th Raider Infantry Battalion, Batam, and the 509th Raider Infantry Battalion, Jember, enter the forest in Sedoa village, North Lore district, Poso regency, Central Sulawesi, in this 2016 photo. They were tasked with chasing terrorists of the East Indonesia Mujahidin group, led by Santoso alias Abu Wardah. Santoso was killed in a shootout in Poso on July 18, 2016. (JP/Ruslan Sangadji) Terrorists are not forever evil as they like human beings in general have hearts and most importantly brains, which allow them to think and differentiate between good and bad. A number of terrorists in Poso, Central Sulawesi, have realized their past deeds were wrong and have turned into peace campaigners. The Jakarta Posts Ruslan Sangadji recently met and interviewed several of them and put their accounts into this Special Report. A group of people gathered in a meeting room at a hotel in Poso, sitting in the front row to face hundreds of students. They were former convicts of Poso terrorism, including Hasanuddin aka Slamet Rahardjo aka Ustad Hasan. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,000/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login National chairman of the National Liberal Party Prime Minister Ludovic Orban told the Liberals on Sunday that this is a turbulent time, mentioning that he is rejecting the judgement passed on him by the current parliamentary majority and that he wants to win the next elections. "We are entering a turbulent time. We have 21% percent backing in the Romanian Parliament with a heterogeneous support that is provided by several political groups, whom I am thankful for the support they have given us, but in many situations the think differently than us, they are still prisoners to other concepts of Romania's development. At 22% it is very difficult to govern Romania," Orban told a convention on Sunday of the PNL National Council. He mentioned the liberal government of 1876 to 1888 under Ion I.C. Bratianu and told the Liberals that they must win the next elections. "I do not know what will happen in Parliament, but I tell you clearly: I am rejecting the judgement passed on me by the current parliamentary majority, which has no connection with the interests of Romania. I am not afraid of them and, no matter what will happen moving forward, we have one thing to do: to meet the expectations of the Romanians, to go for each Romanian, to show them our dream, our faith and the power to achieve, to prevail in all the elections that will follow regardless of whether there are one-round, two-round, direct or indirect elections, on time or early - winning the elections," said Orban. Minnesota church to build tiny house settlement for homeless veterans Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment A Minnesota congregation has approved the development of a tiny house community on their church's property to house homeless veterans. Faith Lutheran Church of Forest Lake recently voted to approve the project, with the hope that the tiny house community, known as Sacred Settlement, will be completed by 2021. Faith Lutheran Church Senior Pastor John Klawiter told The Christian Post that the concept of the Sacred Settlement matches the values of our congregation in many ways. We have a lot of members who have served or are actively in the military. We have a newly established veterans committee that will walk alongside any of the veterans that live in the Sacred Settlement, Klawiter said. Faith Lutheran also has a long history of helping support homeless ministry, which includes the establishment of a family shelter in nearby Hugo. A developmental team at the church will be working alongside an architect to determine the proper location on the church property for the community, Klawiter added. This community will be well designed and intentional in how the houses are configured to be aesthetically pleasing and to provide a sense of community within our community, he continued. A Sacred Settlement is not meant to be transitional housing, but a permanent community that brings community and belonging for the residents in a dignified and supportive place to call home. To achieve their goal, Faith Lutheran is working with a nonprofit organization called Settled, which works with churches to create tiny house communities for the homeless. According to their website, Settled works under a community first model to address homelessness, believing that simply building a house for someone homeless is not enough. [The housing first] approach falls short because the problem of homelessness is not a lack of housing and professional help alone, but just as critically, a lack of integration into a supportive and nurturing community, they stated. A Community First approach is an alternative that focuses not only on providing shelter but on meeting relational and social needs in a holistic way. Klawiter told CP that he hoped congregations across the United States will also hear the call to support the homeless communities and act upon the call to love thy neighbor as themselves. I have been blessed to see my congregation respond to this calling to serve deeper in relationship and to grow in compassion, Klawiter added. Its a leap of faith to jump into this ministry, but we know that Gods continued presence is at the heart of this opportunity to alleviate the growing concerns of those experiencing chronic homelessness. REDDING, Calif. - On Feb 1st, at approximately 3:56 pm, Redding Police say Officer Joanna Bland contacted James Maynard, 41, of Redding, on the north side of the Safeway at 2275 Pine St. Maynard is on Supervised Release and had an ankle monitor on and Officer Bland recognized him from prior contacts. Officials say he had two misdemeanors and one felony arrest warrant for violating his probation SOR terms. He was uncooperative and fled on foot from the officer. He jumped into a canal, which runs, between Cypress Ave. and Locust St. Officers set up a perimeter in the area and the California Highway Patrol Northern Division Air Operations assisted with air support. Officer Travis Williams and his K-9 partner Otto began tracking Maynard in the canal. Police say Maynard was located in the canal south of the Department of Motor Vehicles on Civic Center Blvd. He refused to surrender or comply with officers' commands. K9 Otto was deployed and assisted in taking Maynard safely into custody. Maynard was transported to a local hospital for medical treatment before being booked into the Shasta County Jail. The Philippines has reported the first death outside China from the coronavirus that has killed over 300 and spread to other countries, the World Health Organization said Sunday. The fatality is a Chinese man from the city of Wuhan, where the virus was first detected, and appears to have been infected before arriving in the Philippines. "This is the first reported death outside China," Rabindra Abeyasinghe, the WHO representative to the Philippines, told reporters. "However, we need to take into mind that this is not a locally acquired case. This patient came from the epicentre of this outbreak," Abeyasinghe added. The man, who died in a Manila hospital, arrived in the Philippines with a Chinese woman who had also tested positive for the virus, health secretary Francisco Duque said. She was the Philippines' first case of the virus and is recovering in hospital. The news of the man's death was released shortly after the Philippines announced it would immediately halt the arrivals of any foreign travellers from China. Agra A tourist from Denmark was injured here on Sunday when he tried to photograph a cow near the Taj Mahal and the animal threw him. The tourist, who fractured his collar bone and also suffered head injury, was taken to hospital. A foreign tourist Nielx (40) from Denmark was attacked by a cow near the western gate of the Taj Mahal on Sunday. The tourist was clicking the cow but was taken aback when the animal lifted him on its horns and threw him on the ground, said Dinesh Singh, in charge of tourism police station here. The tourist was taken to the district hospital and then to SN Medical College where he was diagnosed with a fracture in the collar bone and a minor head injury. He was given suitable medical aid, added Singh. Tamseel Parwaaz, the guide to Nielx and his wife said doctors advised the tourist to not move his hand but allowed him to continue with his trip. The couple left for Jaipur from where they would reach Delhi to fly to Goa, informed Parwaaz. Stray animals near monuments continue to be a menace as tourists get attracted and try to click pictures of dogs, monkeys, bulls and cows which lands them in trouble, the guide said, adding he had advised Neilx not to click photos of these animals. Sources said a tourist from West Bengal was attacked by a monkey and a foreign tourist was bitten by a dog near the Taj Mahal recently. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Home Instead Senior Care in Thousand Oaks recently shared the exciting news of Lakelyn Hogans appearance on Dr. Phil as she returned to highlight the challenges facing caregivers for seniors in a follow-up segment. The original Dr. Phil segment, which aired last spring, featured a woman named Tracy who was struggling to care for her elderly mother while simultaneously maintaining a career and caring for her children. People like Tracy belong to what is known as the sandwich generation because they care for the generation below them (children) and the generation above them (parents). Many members of this generation also work outside the home to financially support themselves and their family. In the original segment, Tracy was struggling to care for her mother, who suffers from dementia. Dr. Phil called on Lakelyn Hogan to help, and the two surprised this busy caregiver with six months of free elderly care from Home Instead. When Lakelyn returned to Dr. Phil, she was delighted to learn of the impact that Home Instead has had on Tracys life. Because my mothers been cared for so well, I've been able to study and get my real estate license and that has let me expand my designer consignment business, Tracy said. And while she knows her mothers memory is not going to improve, she said its like her personality is back. Home Instead Senior Cares Thousand Oaks location is proud to bring this same kind of relief to elderly people and their caregivers in Southern California. The Thousand Oaks franchise is located at 171 E. Thousand Oaks Blvd, Suite 203, Thousand Oaks, CA 91360. For more information, visit them online at https://www.homeinstead.com/815 or call (805) 370-0303. About Home Instead Senior Care in Thousand Oaks: Home Instead Senior Care began by serving a handful of families in Omaha, Nebraska in 1994. Since those early years, the agencys network has grown to over 1,000 franchises that provide in-home senior care around the world from Thousand Oaks to Tokyo. While Home Instead leads the world in home care services, this innovative senior home care agency still retains its traditional Midwestern values and always operates from the heart. These values guide the Home Instead Senior Care team as they continue to provide personalized care, build relationships, and enhance the lives of seniors and their families. Joe Malagon is the franchise owner in Thousand Oaks, California. His years of experience owning and operating a business provided a great foundation to start a Home Instead Senior Care franchise. His loves for interacting with people, especially seniors, makes this venture a perfect fit. He feels that seniors are a true treasure with so much to offer. His goal is to give all of his clients and their families the quality of care, quality of life and peace of mind they so deserve, so they can age in place with dignity and respect. (CNN) The Wuhan coronavirus has spread throughout the world since the first cases were detected in central China in December. At least 490 people have died and more than 24,000 people have been infected, and the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern. China's National Health Commission has confirmed the virus can be transmitted from person to person through "droplet transmission" where a virus is passed on due to an infected person sneezing or coughing as well as by direct contact. There at least 230 confirmed cases of Wuhan coronavirus in more than 25 countries and territories outside mainland China. Two people have died outside of mainland China from the virus a 44-year-old Chinese man in the Philippines, and a 39-year-old man in Hong Kong. A number of countries, such as the United States and Japan, have evacuated their nationals on flights from Wuhan, capital of Hubei province. This is a full list of places outside mainland China with confirmed cases of the Wuhan coronavirus. Australia (at least 13 cases) The Australian state of Queensland confirmed its third case of Wuhan coronavirus on Tuesday, according to a statement from Dr Jeannette Young, Chief Health Officer from the Queensland government, pushing the national total to 13 confirmed cases. The patient is an eight-year-old boy, a Chinese national from Wuhan. He traveled in a tour group with a 44-year-old man and a 42-year-old woman, who were confirmed to be infected on January 29 and January 30, respectively. The child remains in isolation at the Gold Coast University Hospital and is currently stable. More than 240 Australians on the repatriation flight from Wuhan, via Qantas, reached the Australian territory of Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean, according to Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Tuesday. A total of 241 Australians were transferred to Christmas Island to be quarantined, while a pregnant woman and her partner were sent to Perth for isolation, according to Morrison's tweets. Morrison added that the government is also working with Chinese authorities on a second repatriation flight from Wuhan, and the New Zealand government about possibly repatriating its nationals on the same flight. Belgium (at least 1 case) Belgium has confirmed its first case of coronavirus, after one of nine repatriates from Wuhan tested positive for the virus, Belgium's public health department said in a statement on Tuesday. "The person who tested positive is healthy and shows no signs of illness for the time being," the statement said. "They were transferred last night to St. Peter's University Hospital in Brussels, one of our country's two reference centres. This hospital has all the necessary expertise and support to ensure the best possible care." Cambodia (at least 1 case) Cambodia reported its first case of Wuhan coronavirus on Monday -- a 60-year-old Chinese man who flew into the country from Wuhan with three family members. They tested negative for the virus, according to a Ministry of Information statement. The man's condition was stable and he only showed mild symptoms, it said. Canada (at least 5 cases) Canada has a total of five confirmed cases of coronavirus. The fifth case is a woman from British Columbia aged in her 50s who had contact with family visitors from Wuhan, Dr. Bonnie Henry, British Columbia Provincial Health Officer told a news conference. The patient tested positive in provincial testing and the results will be confirmed by national labs shortly, Henry said. The patient and her visitors remain in isolation at home. The visitors are being "monitored," but Henry declined to say if they were showing symptoms. This is significant, as it seems to confirm human to human transmission in Canada for the first time. Henry would not clarify if the visitors were symptomatic during their visit. The Canadian government has warned its citizens against all travel to Hubei province, including the cities of Wuhan, Huanggang and Ezhou. It said the risk of the new coronavirus spreading within Canada remained low. Finland (at least 1 case) Finland has one case of coronavirus. The patient, a 32-year-old woman from Wuhan, arrived in the country on January 23, traveling the same day to a village in the northern Lapland region, according to CNN's affiliate MTV3 Finland. She developed respiratory symptoms and fever on Sunday and went to the emergency room on Tuesday, MTV3 Finland reports. France (at least 6 cases) A sixth case of coronavirus has been confirmed in France, according to the head of the country's health department, Jerome Salomon. The sixth confirmed case is a French doctor who had been in contact with a patient in Asia, a spokesman for France's health department told CNN. France was the first European country to confirm cases of the Wuhan coronavirus, according to Salomon. The fifth case is the daughter of an 80-year-old Chinese tourist, who is one of the first four confirmed patients, France's Health Minister Agnes Buzyn said on French television BFMTV. Germany (at least 12 cases) Germany has confirmed at least 12 cases of coronavirus, according to public broadcaster Deutsche Welle, citing health authorities. Two of the cases are infected patients who recently flew to Germany from the epicenter of the outbreak in Wuhan, China. The other 10 cases are located in the southern state of Bavaria and are centered around an auto parts company after an infected employee from China visited Germany on a business trip. Hong Kong (at least 18 cases, 1 death) The semi-autonomous city of Hong Kong, which borders mainland China, has reported its first death from the coronavirus. The 39-year-old man died Tuesday at Princess Margaret Hospital and had an underlying illness. The patient took the high-speed train from Hong Kong to Wuhan on January 21 and returned to the city from Changshanan on January 23. He was said to have never visited any health care facilities, wet market or seafood market, or had any exposure to wild animals during the incubation period. Hong Kong has temporarily closed some of its borders with China and stopped issuing travel permits to mainland tourists. West Kowloon Station, where high-speed rail runs between the city and mainland China, is closed until further notice. Half of all incoming flights from China have been canceled. Residents of Hubei province, where the virus was first reported, are also being denied entry to the city. Most government offices, except those involved in emergency and essential services, will be closed for the rest of the week. All schools will also be shut until at least March 2. This comes as Hong Kong recalls painful memories from the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003, a pandemic that killed more than 280 people in the city. India (at least 3 cases) India confirmed its third case of coronavirus on Monday in Kerala. The third case is a student who tested positive for the virus after returning from Wuhan, according to a Facebook post from Kerala Health Minister KK Shailaja. The student has been admitted to a district hospital in Kerala and is in stable condition. Italy (at least 2 cases) Italy has confirmed two cases of coronavirus, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said at a news conference in Rome on Thursday. The individuals affected are two Chinese tourists who had arrived in Rome a couple of days previously, Conte said. "We have already prepared all the precautionary measures to isolate these two cases," Conte said. Italy's Health Minister Roberto Speranza said the government would try to trace the tourists' journeys while in Italy, adding that the situation was serious, but under control. "The timeliness of the intervention makes us think that there are no other people exposed," Ippolito said. Japan (at least 23 cases, plus 10 in cruise ship quarantine) At least 10 people on board a cruise ship under a 14-day quarantine in Yokohama Bay have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, as screening continues. There are 2,666 guests and 1,045 crew members on board the Diamond Princess ship, Princess Cruises said in a statement. The ship was quarantined after an elderly former passenger from Hong Kong tested positive for the virus. Not including those in quarantine on the cruise ship, Japan has confirmed 23 other cases of coronavirus in total. At least two people with the coronavirus in Japan have no travel history to Wuhan. One, a man in his 60s, is a bus driver who drove tour groups from Wuhan for nine days before getting ill. His is the first case of suspected human-to-human transmission in Japan. A third plane carrying Japanese evacuees from Wuhan arrived in Tokyo on Friday. Notably, the Japanese flights also carried medical supplies for the Chinese government. They included thousands of surgical masks, safety goggles and 50 sets of protective suits. Macao (at least 10 cases) Macao has confirmed at least 10 cases of the Wuhan coronavirus. A total of 41 entertainment operations in the semiautonomous Chinese city have been suspended for 15 days starting tonight, according to the government. The operations include casinos, betting branches, theaters, cinemas, game centers, internet cafes, discos, bars, nightclubs and dance halls. The outbreak has had a devastating impact on tourism in the gambling enclave, which relies heavily on mainland Chinese visitors. Gambling is illegal on the mainland and Lunar New Year is usually a particularly busy time for Macao's casinos. But not this year -- tourism to the city has dropped 73.6% year-on-year, the Macao government announced on January 29. Malaysia (at least 10 cases) Malaysia reported two new coronavirus cases on Tuesday, bringing the total in the country to 10, state news agency Bernama reported, citing health minister Dzulkefly Ahmad. The latest cases are a man, 41, who is the first Malaysian to become infected, and a 63-year-old Chinese man. All the other cases in the country are Chinese nationals. Malaysia has temporarily suspended all visas for Chinese citizens from Hubei province. It has also established an emergency response team at its Beijing embassy to provide assistance to Malaysian citizens in China. Nepal (at least 1 case) There was one confirmed case in Nepal a 31-year-old Nepali PhD student who lives in Wuhan but flew to Nepal earlier this month. He was admitted to hospital in Kathmandu on January 13, but was subsequently released on January 17 after his condition improved. The Health Ministry said people in close contact with the patient have been identified and are being monitored. Philippines (at least 3 cases, 1 death) The Philippines announced its third confirmed case of the Wuhan coronavirus on Wednesday during a news conference by the Department of Health. The patient is said to be a 60-year-old woman from China who arrived in Cebu from Wuhan, via Hong Kong in January. The Philippines reported its first coronavirus fatality on Sunday -- the first death from the virus outside of mainland China. The patient was a 44-year-old Chinese man who flew in from Wuhan in January, and who died on Saturday. He is the partner of a 38-year-old Chinese woman who was traveling with him, and who was the first confirmed case reported in the Philippines. Earlier, the Department of Health stressed it is "on top of the evolving situation" but urged the public to wear surgical masks and avoid crowded places if they are experiencing symptoms, such as coughing and a fever. Russia (at least 2 cases) Russia has identified its first two cases, both Chinese citizens, Russia's TASS news agency reported, citing Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Tatyana Golikova. One patient is being treated in the Zabaikalsky region, which borders China, with the second case detected in the Tyumen region in Western Siberia, which borders Kazakhstan, TASS reports. According to Golikova, Russia will begin evacuating its citizens from the Chinese provinces of Wuhan and Hubei, where there are 300 and 341 Russians respectively. Singapore (at least 24 cases) The current number of confirmed cases in the country stands at 24. The health ministry previously advised citizens to "defer all travel to Hubei province and all non-essential travel to mainland China." Minister of trade and industry Chan Chun Sing said at a news conference the government will distribute four masks each to 1.3 million households starting Saturday. He added that the country has "sufficient masks" if they manage the supply appropriately. The health ministry earlier urged employers to implement flexible work arrangements, such as working from home or telecommuting, for employees who have been to China in the past 14 days. South Korea (at least 18 cases) Two more South Koreans have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, bringing the national total to 18, the South Korean Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(KCDC) said in a news release on Wednesday. One of the new cases is a 38-year-old South Korean man who visited Singapore for a conference between January 18 and January 24. One of the attendees at the conference was an infected Malaysian citizen. The South Korean tested positive on Wednesday morning, according to the KCDC. South Korea is sending $5 million worth of emergency humanitarian aid to China, the South Korean Foreign Affairs Ministry announced on Thursday. Spain (at least 1 case) Spain confirmed its first case Friday according to a statement from the Health Minister's Office. According to the release, the patient is currently under observation at a hospital in La Gomaera a small island that is part of the Canary Islands. The patient is part of a group of five people that health officials on the island say are "under observation" after being in contact with a person in Germany who has been diagnosed with the virus, the release stated. Sri Lanka (at least 1 case) There's one case of the Wuhan coronavirus in Sri Lanka. A statement from the health ministry assured residents that local hospitals were prepared to handle any further outbreak. The government is contacting people who may have come into contact with the single case to detect potential contagion. Sweden (at least 1 case) Sweden confirmed its first case, a woman in Jonkoping county who had visited the Wuhan area of China, on Friday. When the woman landed in Sweden on January 24, she was free of symptoms of the infection, but later developed a cough and contacted a local hospital, Sweden's Public Health Authority said in a statement. She was isolated in the hospital's infection clinic, but is not seriously ill. Taiwan (at least 11 cases) Taiwan confirmed its 11th coronavirus case on Tuesday, according to a statement from the self-governing island's Ministry of Health and Welfare. The patient is a man in his 50s, said to be a Taiwanese businessman who returned from Wuhan on Tuesday. He showed no symptoms of fever nor pneumonia, and is now in stable condition in an isolated hospital room. Taiwan announced Tuesday it would deny entry to all foreign nationals who had been to China in the past 14 days. Those with a Taiwan resident certificate will be allowed in, but are required to self-isolate in their homes and monitor their health. The restrictions go into effect on February 7. All residents of Hubei province are banned from entering the self-governing island. Chinese students from other provinces will also be denied entry for two months. The export of face masks is also temporarily suspended to ensure stable supply. Thailand (at least 25 cases) Thai health officials have confirmed six new cases of the Wuhan coronavirus bringing the countrywide total to 25. Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, the Director General for the Disease Control Department, Dr. Suwannachai Wattanayingcharoen, said that four of the new cases are Thai nationals and the additional two are Chinese nationals. Two of the Thai nationals are a married couple who recently traveled to Japan and the other two Thais are "hired car drivers" who have transported Chinese passengers. Five out of the six cases are in stable condition, but the sixth case -- who is 70 years old and also suffers from tuberculosis -- is in critical condition according to Dr. Wattanayingcharoen. Thai airports are now screening all Chinese visitors for symptoms. Thai citizens are also being asked to report anyone who seems to have fallen ill after recently traveling from China. United Arab Emirates (at least 5 cases) A new case of coronavirus has been reported in the UAE, making that the fifth case in the country, the Ministry of Health and Prevention announced on Saturday. The patient, who arrived from Wuhan, is "stable and under medical care," the ministry said in a statement, adding there is "no cause for concern" for the public. United Kingdom (at least 2 cases) The UK has confirmed its first two cases in the northwest of England, according to a statement Friday by the chief medical officer for England. "We can confirm that two patients in England, who are members of the same family, have tested positive for coronavirus. The patients are receiving specialist NHS (National Health Service) care, and we are using tried and tested infection control procedures to prevent further spread of the virus," Chris Whitty said. "The NHS is extremely well-prepared and used to managing infections and we are already working rapidly to identify any contacts the patients had, to prevent further spread. "We have been preparing for UK cases of novel coronavirus and we have robust infection control measures in place to respond immediately. We are continuing to work closely with the World Health Organization and the international community as the outbreak in China develops to ensure we are ready for all eventualities." United States (at least 11 cases) There are now 11 cases of the novel coronavirus in the United States. Two cases have been confirmed in San Benito County, California according to a statement provided by San Benito County Public Health Services. The confirmed cases in San Benito County are related -- the individuals are husband and wife, both 57 years of age, according to the statement. The husband recently traveled from Wuhan, China, and the wife did not -- therefore, there has been person-to-person transmission. Six confirmed cases are in California, one in Massachusetts, one in Washington state, one in Arizona, and two in Illinois. The State Department is telling US citizens not to travel to China amid the outbreak. In an advisory posted on the State Department website Friday, the agency elevated its travel warning to "Do Not Travel" and warned of possible "travel restrictions to be put into effect with little or no advance notice." The advisory said US citizens currently in China should consider leaving using commercial means. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday confirmed that 195 passengers who have been evacuated from Wuhan arrived at March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County, California, Wednesday. None of the passengers show signs of sickness, CDC officials said during a news conference Wednesday afternoon, but they will remain under a voluntary quarantine at the air base. Vietnam (at least 10 cases) Vietnam confirmed its 10th coronavirus case on Tuesday, according to a state media report. The patient is a woman in Binh Xuyen district, northwest of Hanoi. She started having a high fever on January 31 after coming into close contact with another confirmed case, who had traveled to Wuhan. Schools in 56 provinces and localities in the country will delay a return to classes to prevent the spread of the virus, the report said. This story was first published on CNN.com 'This is where Wuhan coronavirus cases have been confirmed worldwide' (Bloomberg Opinion) -- As it marks its centennial this month, the League of Women Voters shows how difficult it is for a political organization born and bred in nonpartisanship to navigate the cratered road of partisan destruction. The ascendance of President Donald Trump, the decline of the Republican Party and the reaction against them both have rendered nonpartisan and political as effective antonyms. Not that the league was ever immune to partisan complaint. Too prim and complacent for the left, it was too feminist and fluoridated for the right. When William F. Buckley launched National Review in 1955, he vowed that his new conservative magazine would stand outside the respectable bipartisan consensus of the era epitomized, he wrote, by such institutions as the New York Times and the League of Women Voters. In the mid-20th century, the league conjured images of affluent suburban women who liked Ike and volunteered at the local polling station. The league was part of the advancing American center, both exemplifying and championing mainstream causes. It supported the creation of the United Nations in 1945. In the 1970s, along with First Lady Betty and President Gerald Ford, it supported the Equal Rights Amendment. As the political center suburban, moderate, corporate came under siege, the league held firm to the causes that defined it: good government; progress, however incremental, toward social equality; deference toward expert knowledge; political enfranchisement. Such causes were always political. Today they are overwhelmingly partisan. The Republican Party, currently engaged in a no-holds-barred defense of a self-dealing president, is not only anti-government but increasingly pro-corruption. It approaches internationalism as quasi-treasonous globalism, often slathered with a lumpy smear of anti-Semitism. Instead of working for social progress, the party has promised its base a triumphant return to a more racially and sexually stratified past. Story continues Nothing reveals the bitter incongruity of nonpartisanship and contemporary politics like voting rights. The league was founded at the National American Woman Suffrage Association convention in February 1920, months before the 19th Amendment was ratified and women gained the right to vote. Voting rights are central to the groups identity and mission. Yet there is virtually no issue, or court case, on which voting-rights advocates and the Republican Party are on the same side. GOP elected officials purge citizens from voting lists, erect barriers to voting, gerrymander to empower one group of voters at the expense of another (Democrats have done likewise, just not to the same degree) and spread bogus claims of voter fraud to justify antidemocratic laws. After the 2016 election, the league issued a statement that the vote had effectively been rigged by government-sanctioned suppression in multiple states. Its important to us to stay true to our values and true to ourselves, said Jeanette Senecal, senior director of mission impact at the league. The league has been working on voting rights for 100 years. Senecal, a 20-year veteran of the league, acknowledges that the hyper-partisan environment has made it harder for a nonpartisan organization to function. But supporting voting rights is essential to the American project. Its the very foundation of effective representative government, she said in a phone interview. All three terms effective, representative and government are fighting words in todays Republican Party. With Trump in the White House and the party ever more committed to minority rule, theres little common ground between the GOP and a group committed to advancing democratic values. With their acquittal of Trump this week, Senate Republicans will enshrine the principle that a president (albeit exclusively a Republican president) can commit crimes and gross abuses of power without fear of indictment or impeachment. It is new terrain, not only far beyond the shrunken political center of yore but outside the bounds of democracy and rule of law altogether. In the present era, its hard to see how any group that supports democratic values even a group as venerable as the League of Women Voters can possibly maintain a claim to be nonpartisan. To contact the author of this story: Francis Wilkinson at fwilkinson1@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Newman at mnewman43@bloomberg.net This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners. Francis Wilkinson writes editorials on politics and U.S. domestic policy for Bloomberg Opinion. He was executive editor of the Week. He was previously a writer for Rolling Stone, a communications consultant and a political media strategist. For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source. 2020 Bloomberg L.P. Dar Es Salaam, Feb 2 : At least 20 worshippers were killed and 16 others injured in a stampede at a church service at a stadium in Tanzania, police said on Sunday. A group of worshippers packed a stadium in Moshi, a town at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro, on Saturday evening and the stampede occurred as they rushed to get anointed with blessed oil, reports Xinhua news agency. "The stampede occurred between 7.30 p.m. and 8 p.m. on Saturday as worshippers rushed to doors of the stadium where the anointing oil was placed, causing the mayhem," Salum Hamduni, Kilimanjaro regional police commander, told Xinhua. Scotland would be welcomed enthusiastically by the European Union if it won independence from the rest of the UK, according to Donald Tusk. Speaking after the UK officially severed its 47-year membership of the bloc on Friday, the former president of the European Council also said negotiations over future trade will be focused on damage control. On the issue of Scottish independence, which Downing Street is resisting, Mr Tusk said while he wanted to respect the internal debate in the UK, he felt very Scottish after Brexit. Emotionally I have no doubt that everyone will be enthusiastic here in Brussels, and more generally in Europe, he added on the BBCs Andrew Marr Show. He warned the process of rejoining the bloc would not be automatic and there would still be a process of application for any country wishing to join the EU, but added: If you ask me about our emotions, you will witness I think always empathy. Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Show all 37 1 /37 Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Pro-Brexit supporters celebrating in Parliament Square, after the UK left the European Union on 31 January. Ending 47 years of membership PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Big Ben, shows the hands at eleven o'clock at night AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Pro Brexit supporters attend the Brexit Day Celebration Party hosted by Leave Means Leave Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage smiles on stage AFP/Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square People celebrate in Parliament Square Reuters Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square A Brexit supporter celebrates during a rally in Parliament square AP Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Police form a line at Parliament Square to prevent a small group of anti-Brexit protestors from going through to the main Brexit rally PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Nigel Farage speaks to pro-Brexit supporters PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square JD Wetherspoon Chairman Tim Martin speaks as people wave flags Reuters Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit supporters wave Union flags as they watch the big screen AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit Party leader, Nigel Farage arrives Reuters Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit supporters gather AP Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Ann Widdecombe speaks to pro-Brexit supporters PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit supporters wave Union flags as they watch the big screen AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square People wave British Union Jack flags as they celebrate Reuters Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Pro-Brexit demonstrators celebrate on Parliament Square on Brexit day Reuters Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square A pro-Brexit supporter jumps on an EU flag PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square AP Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square A man waves Union flags from a small car as he drives past Brexit supporters gathering AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square A pro-Brexit supporter pours beer onto an EU flag PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square An EU flag lies trampled in the mud Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square AFP via Getty The comments drew criticism from Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, who said Mr Tusks intervention was irresponsible. Mr Raab said: I think it was frankly un-European and rather irresponsible given the separatist tendencies in Spain, in France, in Italy. Im not sure European leaders, let alone leaders here in the UK would actually welcome that kind of language. In response to accusations there was no plan for Scotland, Mr Raab added: I dont think thats right, we want to make sure, with the levelling-up agenda, with the opportunities of Brexit right across the board, that Scotlands got the great opportunity to take advantage of all those benefits. At the same time, we obviously expect the SNP to deliver on its commitment to honour the outcome of the independence referendum and not keep coming back and asking for a second one. But a lot of this is a distraction from the standards in schools, the high level of taxes, that actually the job of the Scottish government in discharging its responsibility to the Scottish people ought to be focused on. On Friday, Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP leader, who has been demanding Boris Johnson grant the Scottish government the powers to hold a second independence referendum, said Brexit was a profound moment of sadness for many who did not vote to Leave in Scotland. The comments from Mr Tusk come after a YouGov poll which showed 51 per cent support for independence a majority for the first time in five years. However, a majority of Scots surveyed also said they would not like to see another vote on the issue in 2020 or 2021, but most said they would like to see another referendum within the next five years. Also speaking on the issue, Labours shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, told the BBC: I desperately dont want them to, I want a United Kingdom. I will always argue for that UK and Im hoping they dont go along that path. But I just say to Boris Johnson and his colleagues, do not do things that will threaten the unity of our country and the language that weve heard even in the last 24 hours is divisive, rather than holding the country together. And if he cant secure a good deal, it will again encourage others therefore in Scotland to go their own way and I think it would be completely counterproductive for the Scottish people. In the immediate aftermath of Brexit, Britains place in the world is already feeling a little diminished. As The Independent reports this weekend, the greatest single threat to peace across the globe right now is Irans renewed determination to acquire a nuclear arsenal. With the Trump-Netanyahu peace proposal met with near-universal disdain, there is more chance of miscalculation and conflict in the region than negotiation and lasting peace. At a moment when the major European powers concerned could and should be putting on a united front, reports suggest that there is squabbling. There often is, of course, but the habit of working together through the European Union usually helps the French, the Germans and the British to reach some common purpose. With the United States more determined to go its own way in lockstep with Israel, the dangers are clear. We knew after the Trump-ordered assassination of Qassem Soleimani that any hope of keeping the 2015 Iran nuclear deal had disappeared. The decision by the Europeans to put the agreement into a dispute procedure did not so much kill it off as draw attention to the corpse. A moment for sober realism about Iran has arrived. Tension and anger ran high among protesters at Shaheen Bagh on Saturday, after a man opened fire near the protest site where hundreds have been gathering everyday, since December 15, 2019, to protest against the amended citizenship act. The protesters blamed the Delhi Police for not being able to provide safety to them and vowed to continue their agitation despite continuous attacks. Saturdays firing at Shaheen Bagh took place within 48 hours of a similar incident being reported from Jamia Millia Islamia, where a man had fired bullets at a group of students protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) on Thursday. A 22-year-old student was injured in the incident. Earlier on Tuesday, a man carrying a pistol had been nabbed by protesters at Shaheen Bagh. According to eyewitnesses on Saturday evening, three persons entered the protest site crossing barricades installed near Jasola traffic signal. One man walked in and started raising slogans and fired three shots in the air. The police didnt come forward to stop him till the third shot was fired. We saw the attacker pointing his weapon directly towards the protesters. Hundreds of men, women and children were present there. Who would have taken responsibility if anyone had been hurt? said an eyewitness requesting anonymity. The protesters also said that after firing the shots, the attacker dropped his weapon in a drain and tried to escape. Some protesters chased and nabbed the man before police could step in, the eyewitness added. Questioning Delhi polices inaction, a group of protesters gathered around the police barricades later on Saturday evening and raised slogans against the cops. Noor Jahan, mother of four and homemaker, said, How can they (the police) allow people to enter with weapons? The police are here for our safety and yet gunmen are entering with weapons with the intention of wanting to hurt us. The same thing happened in Jamia and there too police stood and watched as a student was shot at and injured in broad daylight. Kausar Bi, who has been there at the protest site from Day One, said, Such attacks are happening because BJP leaders are provoking people against us. They are targeting Shaheen Bagh protesters every now and then and making people shout slogans like goli maro.. Earlier this week, BJP MP and minister of state for finance Anurag Thakur at an election rally in Rithala, called out a chant of desh ke gaddaron ko... asking the audience to finish it, which they did with goli maaro saalon ko. Later in the evening, some protesters assigned volunteers around the barricades to check the identity cards of visitors. Abid Sheikh, a volunteer at the protest, said, Its natural that we will do something for our own security. We are verifying the identity of each and every visitor before they enter the protest site. Iraqi protesters dig in heels despite new PM-designate Najaf, Iraq, Feb 2 (AFP) Feb 02, 2020 Furious anti-government youth held their ground in protest squares across Iraq's south on Sunday, despite the previous evening's appointment of a prime minister who insists he is an independent. Mohammad Allawi announced his own nomination as premier on Saturday, which marked exactly four months since the anti-government movement erupted and two months since outgoing prime minister Adel Abdel Mahdi resigned under growing pressure. Demonstrators had demanded a politically independent successor who had not served in government and for them, ex-communications minister Allawi did not make the cut. "Mohammad Allawi is rejected, by order of the people!" read a new sign hung in the holy city of Najaf on Sunday. Young men with their faces wrapped in checkered scarves had spent the night torching car tyres in anger at Allawi's nomination, an AFP reporter in the city said. Main highways leading out of Najaf and streets within the city were still blocked off with smouldering tyres on Sunday morning. Kut, about 170 kilometres (100 miles) southeast of Baghdad, saw hundreds hit the streets chanting, "If it's been tried before, it shouldn't be tried again!" In Diwaniyah, further south, protesters marched into government buildings to demand they close for the day, while students began sit-ins at schools and universities. Protesters in Hillah blocked off all roads leading into the city and chanted, "Allawi is not the people's choice!" Allawi, named as a consensus candidate after months of political paralysis, now has a month to pull together his cabinet, which will be subject to a vote by parliament. In his first formal address, he pledged to form a representative government, hold early parliamentary elections and ensure justice for protest-related violence -- all key demands of demonstrators. More than 480 people have died and nearly 30,000 have been wounded since the rallies began on October 1, but few have been held accountable for the bloodshed. The protests first demanded an end to corruption, better services and jobs for unemployed youth, but they quickly spiralled to calls for a total government overhaul. DUBUQUE, Iowa - Jason Greer will never forget what it was like to be a black teenager in Dubuque when it tried to bring about racial healing after several hate crimes in the 1990s. The experience scarred him for life. His father, Jerome Greer, had moved the family here from St. Louis after he was recruited to become Dubuque's first black school principal in 1991. Vandals burned crosses to show their disapproval, one within eyeshot of Jerome's school. A series of cross burnings 30 years ago led the residents of Dubuque, Iowa, to ask, "Why do we hate?" In the lead-up to the 2020 Iowa Democratic caucuses, L.A. Times reporter Tyrone Beason traveled to Dubuque to find out whether its efforts to confront racism and inequality are working, and what the rest of the country can learn from its example. Dubuque was a nearly all-white city with a long-running reputation for not welcoming blacks. Jason says white children ran away when they saw him and he was constantly targeted with racial slurs. He rarely strayed far from home. ADVERTISEMENT "I was called the N-word so often that my running joke was I should change my name to the N-word to make it easier for people," says Jason, now 45. Dubuque has tried repeatedly to make itself a welcoming place for people of color, and it has made strides over the years. But its efforts to eliminate hate and discrimination show how hard it is to confront racism - and how much is at stake for people of color who live in communities struggling to make amends for bigotry. On Monday night, Iowa will cast the first votes of the 2020 presidential campaign. Every four years, the state and its voters face widespread criticism that the place is too white, too rural and its residents too parochial to play such an outsized role. Iowa's agenda, detractors say, doesn't reflect what's important to people of color. But issues at play in this election - racism, justice, equality, empathy and a reckoning with America's tortured history of enslaving blacks - are universal ones. They matter in many communities across Iowa, which is 90% white and has one of the highest incarceration rates in the country for African Americans. Dubuque is one such place. In the late 1980s, after two cross burnings brought long-simmering racial tensions to the surface, city officials, activists and residents banded together in a campaign to make the city a more appealing place to live and work for minorities. Opponents burned more than a dozen crosses, including the ones to protest Greer's hiring. The rash of racist vandalism prompted some residents to put up billboards around town asking: "Why do we hate?" Two more cross burnings in 2016 revived old fears and brought new calls for racial unity and dialogue. The culprits were never caught. Last year, racist graffiti was found at least three times at public parks. ADVERTISEMENT Dubuque's race problems appear to run deeper than the hateful actions of individuals. The city was forced to revamp its policies in 2013 for awarding low-income housing vouchers after the federal government announced that it had violated the 1964 Civil Rights Act by "restricting the ability of African Americans to obtain vouchers and relocate to Dubuque." Interviews with dozens of residents, government leaders and civil rights activists suggest that after decades of soul-searching and outreach, the city's no closer to answering the question posted on those billboards so long ago. "It's a sickness, and it's a sickness that America has had since the beginning of our union," Anthony Allen, the president of the local chapter of the NAACP, says of the way discrimination permeates life in this city - and the nation. Allen moved here from Chicago in 1988 to attend college, and he's watched with a mix of hope, frustration and resignation as this overwhelmingly white river city of 58,000 people publicly wrestled with its racism. He commends Dubuque for the way it has addressed inequities, citing the city's decision to stop asking applicants for government jobs about their criminal backgrounds, as a way to make its hiring process fairer. But Allen, 54, believes Dubuque has a lot of work yet to do, starting with helping whites and blacks have more constructive conversations about race. When African Americans voice their anger and fears over the city's racial climate, they're often met with awkward silence or defensiveness from whites, he says. ADVERTISEMENT "We're not speaking the same language," Allen says. In 1990, Dubuque, located about three hours northeast of Des Moines, was nearly 100% white. It had fewer than 350 black residents. The city's plan to remake itself initially looked promising. Local employers like John Deere, the major farm equipment manufacturer, prioritized hiring more minorities. Pastors preached against racism from the pulpit. The city's public schools and colleges extolled multiculturalism in classrooms, and city leaders went so far as to recruit minorities to Dubuque in an effort called "constructive integration." 'How do you get past that ridiculous reputation set up by a few idiots that's unfortunately come to represent a lot of Dubuque's history?' Today about 3,000 African Americans live here, making up about 4% of the population, though it's unclear how many of those arrived because of the recruitment effort. Despite the greater number of African Americans, deep divisions are reflected in the way whites and blacks see the city's racial issues. Many white residents and city leaders insist that this five-time "All-America City" has been unfairly tarnished by the actions of a few bad seeds. Many African Americans wonder how that can be true in a town that was a hotbed for the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s and that was once branded "The Selma of the North" by the Des Moines Register, the state's largest newspaper. "How do you get past that ridiculous reputation set up by a few idiots that's unfortunately come to represent a lot of Dubuque's history?" asks Police Chief Mark Dalsing, a Dubuque native who is white. Dalsing believes that the burned crosses and other racist acts don't reflect his city's values. He describes those who burn crosses as "knuckleheads." Lynn Sutton, who has been a member of Dubuque's tiny African American community her entire life, looks exasperated as she walks up to a park where she says vandals have repeatedly spray-painted warnings for n - to get out. She regards the cross burnings and graffiti as clear messages that blacks will never be welcome. "It's almost like we're going backward," says Sutton, 57, a nurse. "We're not too far away from it all being turned around again." Still, Allen, who also chairs the city's Human Rights Commission, says he's encouraged that a new generation is emerging to pick up the work of the previous one. Nancy Van Milligen, president and chief executive of the nonprofit Community Foundation, the city's biggest sponsor of programs aimed at improving the quality of life of minorities, says today's leaders and residents deserve credit for quickly condemning hate crimes, and for joining forces to solve problems. She pointed to the foundation and the school district's goal of increasing the number of black students who go to college. But Sutton says the city should do a better job of anticipating the pain that people of color have to go through when good intentions fall short. A two-day conference in October sponsored by the Human Rights Commission called "Race in the Heartland: The Past in the Present" came in response to a public outcry over an incident in 2018, when someone posted an anonymous letter at an apartment complex saying people of color weren't welcome there. The letter showed that more frank discussion was needed to figure out why Dubuque can still be a hostile place for racial minorities, says conference organizer Miquel Jackson, a 31-year-old African American who moved to Dubuque to attend college 13 years ago and who now sits on the commission. The event ended with a public forum at which several black residents aired their concerns about racism in the city - unfiltered - in front of a majority-white audience of about two dozen that listened quietly as they spoke. Dubuque may be a Northern city but its layout is reminiscent of the strict racial divisions of Southern segregation. Black residents largely keep to themselves in "the flats," the low-lying, working-class neighborhood along the Mississippi River where rents are cheaper and housing is often in disrepair. Turn-of-the-century brick and wood houses, some subdivided into apartments, line the streets, and the many old churches hark back to the city's strong Irish and German Catholic immigrant roots. Most whites live above the flats in more solidly middle-class neighborhoods, on a wooded bluff dotted with Victorian mansions that overlook the bridges crossing into neighboring Illinois and Wisconsin. Dubuque's poverty rate for black households stands at 60%, compared with about 13% for whites. African Americans complain of unfounded stops by police. A long-standing stereotype that blacks, especially transplants from bigger cities, are prone to commit crime is a common belief here. White residents must acknowledge uncomfortable truths about their community and themselves if they want to build trust with African Americans who are forced to live with inequality everyday, says Katrina Neely Farren-Eller, a white college professor who's lived here for five years and has taken part in several of the city's diversity efforts. Among the latest efforts is Inclusive Dubuque, a coalition of business owners, educators, religious leaders and nonprofits whose aim is to make the city more welcoming and reduce racial disparities. Farren-Eller, 52, says it's hard to talk about her own upbringing as the daughter of avowed white supremacists, but the bottom line is this for white people like herself: "We need to be aware of our crap." There are encouraging signs in Dubuque. Recently, three dozen people from different cultures participated in "I'm a Dubuquer," an advertising campaign featuring video testimonials and photo displays that highlight the slightly broader demographic makeup of a city long known as racist and insular. "The idea was that nobody could look at this and not see some reflection of their identity," said the campaign's organizer, Sam Giere, who's white. He went to college in Dubuque in the mid-1990s and relocated his family here in 2006. Last fall at Soul Food Sunday, a meet-and-greet at the county fairgrounds with Southern fried chicken and African American line-dance lessons, white and black residents briefly came together in a way that earlier activists had envisioned but never quite realized. As someone who's experienced racism in Dubuque since birth, Sutton, the nurse, knows to be cautious about progress. When her mother, the late civil rights leader Ruby Sutton, went into labor with her in 1962, she had to be driven to a hospital across the Mississippi River in Wisconsin. Hospitals in Dubuque refused to deliver black babies. Now Lynn Sutton is fighting her own battles to erase inequities. She spends much of her free time taking on landlords in the flats who've neglected their properties and pressuring the city to help poor minority residents get into affordable housing. "They feel trapped by their condition," Sutton said of the largely low-income black population. "The question is how do we get them out?" Racial healing must come with economic uplift for blacks, she says: "You can't build anything on a cracked foundation." Jason Greer drives up to the house at the end of a cul-de-sac in the white middle-class neighborhood that his family used to live in. His father, Jerome, sits in the passenger seat. Jason is unsettled. He just feels dread. The Greers haven't been back to this city since Jerome, now 82 and retired, moved the family two hours away to Peoria, Ill., in 1994. He says he moved for a better job. Neither man can say why he felt compelled to come back to a city that had caused the family so much grief - and still does. Most of the children at all-white Irving Elementary had never seen a black person up-close when Jerome Greer walked through the school's doors in 1991. He was not just the city's first black principal, but also its first black school official of any kind, he says. The children quickly warmed to him, Jerome says with a proud grin. Jason doesn't hold any fond memories. It killed him to watch his father, the man he idolized, treated like an example of Dubuque's white tolerance on one hand, and like a pariah on the other. As father and son drive through town, Jason flashes back to the time he saw white men stretch their arms in the Hitler salute as they hurled the N-word in his direction - and to all the times white people told him to "go back where you came from." He mostly holed up in his basement because he feared that the verbal abuse directed at him might escalate to a physical attack. Dressed in dark business suits and long coats to protect against the winter chill, the men stand at the site of the cross burning by the school with expressions that veer between dismay and defiance. "My parents taught me to get an education and follow the rules and you can have whatever life has to offer," Jason says. "Then I came to Dubuque and was treated like garbage. I left feeling like a town that I'd never heard of before took something from me - innocence." For his part, Jerome remembers the city's integration plans as little more than window dressing. He used the city's racism as a teaching tool, taking his son around town to visit the sites of cross burnings to show him what he'd have to cope with as a black man in America. "It really didn't scare me," he says of the burned crosses. At one point, he recalls, he printed up satirical fliers intended for the town's white supremacists that read: "If you must burn crosses, I will furnish the wood, and you furnish the kerosene and the matches. And let's have a cross-burning party." Jerome regrets that his son suffered so much in Dubuque. But as someone who grew up surrounded by the brazen bigotry and violence of the Jim Crow South, he wanted Jason to see that self-pity was a waste of time. Finally, in 2008, after his own son was subjected to taunts, Jason realized he was letting the racists win by continuing to brood over his time in Dubuque. So he wrote two letters, one forgiving Dubuque and the other forgiving the KKK. "I hope that one day our family can return to a racially diverse/racially accepting Dubuque," he wrote in the letter to the city. Jason, who lives six hours away in the St. Louis area, seems unsettled still during his daylong return. The only time his mood brightens is when he joins his father on what turns into a joyful visit to his old school. Watching his father confidently stroll the halls of Irving Elementary like the principal he once was and poke his head into classrooms to check on the students, now a mix of races and nationalities, Jason says it's one of the happiest moments he's ever shared with his dad. Although Jason can't explain why he came back, what he does know is that he took the pain Dubuque caused him and parlayed it into a commitment to make America a more understanding and just society. He's now a diversity consultant. "Our country had made strides during the presidency of Barack Obama," Jason says. "Now fast-forward. There's a vocal minority out there that reminds me of what we experienced in Dubuque. It scares me." --- (This story was reported in part with financial support from a Renewing Democracy grant awarded by the Solutions Journalism Network.) --- (c)2020 Los Angeles Times Visit the Los Angeles Times at www.latimes.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. ----- She's expecting her first child with husband Joshua Jackson in the coming months. And Jodie Turner-Smith seems to have accidentally revealed the gender of her new addition. The 33-year-old model and actress appeared on The Graham Norton Show where she let it slip that she was having a daughter. Oops! Jodie Turner-Smith has accidentally let it slip on The Graham Norton Show that she is expecting a daughter with Jodie Turner-Smith 'So glad I could be here while you're crowning,' said fellow guest, Jim Carey. Jodie jokingly replied, 'I think she's bored.' Neither Graham or Jim picked up on the slip up, rather continued asking questions about Jodie's baby. Line-up: Jodie was joined by Jim Carey, Margot Robbie, Daniel Kaluuya and host Graham Norton 'Oh, fallen asleep?' asked the host before the actor chimed in: 'No kicking?' The beauty replied: 'There's been no kicking.' Jodie is currently seven months pregnant with Joshua Jackson's child. It comes after the wife of the 41-year-old Dawson's Creek alum revealed last week that they plan to raise their child outside of the United States. Baby girl? Jodie referred to her growing human as 'she' in her interview Moving away: Jodie revealed last week that she'd like to raise her children in Canada 'The racial dynamics over here are fraught. White supremacy is overt. It's the reason I don't want to raise my kids here,' Jodie said to the Sunday Times. 'I don't want my kids to grow up doing active shooter drills at school.' And when asked where they're considering as an alternative, Jodie quickly dismissed her native UK. 'England has gone off the rails, so I was thinking maybe Canada,' she said. Mr & Mrs: In December, it was reported that Jodie and Joshua tied the knot after picking up a marriage license in Beverly Hills in August Jodie's husband Joshua was born in Vancouver, Canada. In December, it was reported that Jodie and Joshua tied the knot after picking up a marriage license in Beverly Hills in August. Yet despite the reports, Jodie still refused to officially confirm her nuptials to the publication during her candid interview. 'People are assuming whatever they want, but when people tell me "Congratulations," I say "Thank you,"' she coyly revealed. iStock(SOUTH BEND, Ind.) -- As Pete Buttigieg makes his final push for votes ahead of Mondays Iowa caucus, his army of volunteer door knockers will include a retired South Bend, Indiana, businessman and political powerbroker who is also making his debut on the national stage. Bob Urbanski, a local contractor and longtime Democratic donor in Indiana, has quietly served as a key behind-the-scenes figure in Buttigiegs political career, offering early support, crucial connections and the tens of thousands of dollars needed to finance his meteoric rise from mayor of a modest-sized city to legitimate contender for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States. Campaign finance records reviewed by ABC News suggest that Urbanski was Mayor Petes most prolific early backer. His name might not be familiar outside of the Rust Belt, but in South Bend, his word -- and his wallet -- carry weight. "Hes not the face of the party. Thatd be the [Democratic] chair or party official," South Bend Common Councilman Jake Teshka told ABC News. "But hes the one calling the shots. Hes the kingmaker." Though he rarely gives interviews, Urbanski spoke at length with ABC News, about his own career and his relationship with the recent Harvard graduate who, after a stint with the McKinsey & Co. consulting firm, returned home with a desire to enter politics. "The first meeting I had with him lasted three hours," Urbanski told ABC News. "I was awed." The son of Polish immigrants, Urbanksi grew up in a South Bend booming with industry. His father was a butcher and Democratic precinct committeeman, and Urbanski remembers the book his father kept in his bedroom in which he wrote the names and personal details of every member of his precinct. Urbanski soon followed his fathers lead, telling ABC News he first got involved in local Democratic politics in the 1970s. He would enjoy a successful career focused largely on growing Indianas roads and infrastructure. He started working at Morse Electric -- a company that worked on the Indiana Toll Road -- and later helped launch a firm called Trans Tech Electric, which grew into one of the states top electrical contracting firms. In the 1990s, he joined the board of the South Bend lender Sobieski Bancorp Inc., going on to become chairman of the bank from 2002 to 2013. Meanwhile, Urbanski became a regular supporter of Democratic candidates and causes. He backed the bids of two South Bend natives for statewide office and gave tens of thousands of dollars to the state party committee, in addition to serving as campaign chairman for three candidates for South Bend sheriff, and one candidate for county commissioner. One longtime South Bend resident involved in politics -- who spoke to ABC News on the condition of anonymity -- said Urbanskis local power is pervasive. "[Urbanski] had run Trans Tech Electric for decades and they had an enormous amount of contracts with the city and he just built up a rapport with city leaders, the resident said. [He has] basically been calling the shots, as it were, for 40 years. It was early summer in 2009, Urbanski recalled, when the phone rang, and a young man with a hard-to-pronounce name on the other end of the line told him he was contemplating a bid for Indiana state treasurer and asked if they could meet for lunch. Unlike a "typical politician," Urbanski said, Buttigieg arrived at the meeting with a surprisingly deep understanding of problems facing the state and sophisticated ideas about how to solve them. He set up another meeting with Buttigieg a week later "to give him a check," he said, and to offer some frank advice. "I basically told him, 'Look, you're going to lose this state treasurer's race.' And he said, 'Well, that's not very nice.'" Urbanski told ABC News. "And I said, 'Well, nobody can win it in this Republican state in an off-year. I said, 'Quit this race, get the hell out of it, and let's start running you for mayor.'" Buttigieg was flattered, Urbanksi said, but told him he was already committed to the treasurers race, having amassed too much support to let his backers down. Buttigieg lost the state treasurers race by 20 points. After the votes were tallied, Urbanski said his phone rang again. "He said, 'You got your wish, I lost.'" It wasnt long before Urbanksi signed on to be Buttigiegs campaign chairman for his next run -- for mayor. Urbanskis support was critical to Buttigiegs initial victory as well as his reelection bid. He donated money, office space, and even his home for high-dollar fundraising events, according to available campaign finance records for both races. The full scope of his financial contribution is unclear. St. Joseph County officials told ABC News their record retention schedule doesnt require the clerks office to preserve all campaign finance records, making it difficult to determine the total amount of contributions from Urbanski to Buttigieg over the years. But available campaign finance reports reviewed by ABC News show that Urbanski continued to write checks to Buttigiegs mayoral committee through 2018, donating at least $43,000 to his local and state political accounts. Urbanski said he never sought political favors or benefited personally from the close relationship he established with Buttigieg. Urbanski told ABC News that his contracting operations did substantial business with the city during the years predating Buttigiegs tenure as mayor -- but that work had largely ended by the early 2000s, before Buttigieg took office. Urbanski was tied, however, to one of the characters in a long-running controversy inside the South Bend Police Department-- an issue that has followed Buttigieg beyond South Bend. In 2006, during a dispute with a South Bend construction contractor, Urbanski dispatched an off-duty police officer to the job site. The officer -- Tim Corbett -- allegedly approached the contractor with his badge and gun in view and told the man "he needed to comply with Mr. Urbanski's demands, or he would go to jail," the contractor alleged in a lawsuit against Urbanski, Corbett and others. Ultimately, the lawsuit was dismissed upon appeal. Corbett, who received a one-day suspension over the incident, told ABC News he considers the matter "in the past," and said, "I don't think of them anymore." For his part, Urbanski denied any wrongdoing but acknowledged that he asked Corbett to go over to see the contractor and "I wasnt there with Tim to know what he did." That episode received renewed attention when, years later, Corbetts name resurfaced during a legal dispute over surreptitious recordings of members of the South Bend Police Department that were said to capture officers using racist language. The tapes have not been released, but Corbett is one of the officers believed to have been recorded, and he and a group of other officers are fighting to keep them from reaching the public. Dr. Oliver Davis, a former South Bend council member who is backing a Buttigieg opponent in the 2020 presidential contest, said Buttigieg's handling of the controversy ultimately reflected poorly on his "style of leadership." In 2018, as that controversy continued, Urbanski backed Corbetts failed bid at county sheriff. Urbanski told ABC News on several occasions, saying that he believes theres "no better cop" than Corbett. "Unfortunately," Corbett told ABC News, "Bob and others around me have been painted with a broad brush." As Buttigiegs star has risen, Urbanskis support has continued. Urbanski was among the first donors to give Buttigiegs campaign the maximum allowable amount when he made the leap into the crowded 2020 Democratic primary field, writing a $2,700 check last year, according to federal election filings. But as Buttigiegs popularity has grown, so has his roster of large-dollar donors. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, his campaign has raised more than $27 million from large-dollar donors, including at lavish events in Hollywood that attracted the ire of his opponents. Urbanskis money might be less critical to Buttigiegs presidential campaign than his shoe leather. With the Iowa Caucus just days away, Urbanski is on the ground in Iowa, talking to potential voters about the young politician who captivated him 11 years ago. He told ABC News he is prepared to "do anything [the campaign] tells me might be of value." On his docket: Visits to diners and coffee shops to "engage with people and tell them about Pete." His real value to Buttigieg now, he said, is that he can speak about the candidate based on his own personal experience. "He doesn't run his mouth until he thinks about what he's going to talk about and makes sure he understands it," Urbanski told ABC News. "Ive seen that here [in South Bend]." Copyright 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved. Turkey has deployed additional armed vehicles and soldiers to its border with Syria as an intensifying military push by Syrian government forces in the countrys last major rebel-held stronghold has prompted fears of a new refugee crisis. Backed by Russian jets, the Syrian troops have recently made large advances in Idlib province during the deadly offensive that has forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee towards safer areas near the Turkish border, according to the United Nations. The Syrian governments campaign has shattered a fragile ceasefire that was brokered last month by Turkey and Russia, raising tensions between the two countries which back opposing sides in the conflict but have also coopoerated in attempts to find a solution to the almost nine-year-old war. Turkish state media reported on Sunday that the deployment of tanks and other armoured vehicles to Reyhanli district of Hatay province was completed earlier in the day. Turkey would do what is necessary diplomatically or militarily in order to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in Idlib and keep the region stable, Ahmet Berat Conkar, a member of the Turkish parliaments foreign affairs committee, told Al Jazeera. Ankara would not hesitate to intervene if the Syrian government offensive turns into a catastrophe, Conkar said. 200202065643945 We need to protect our border against any kind of threat, particularly terrorism, and control it in case of a refugee flow against the backdrop of the attacks going on in Idlib. The UN said on Wednesday that almost 390,000 people the vast majority of them women and children had fled their homes in northwestern Syria since December 1. Turkey hosts more than 3.5 million Syrian refugees and is wary of a fresh influx. Civilians should be protected Idlib is home to approximately three million people, half of whom were transferred there en masse from other parts of Syria that were taken by government forces. Damascus and Moscow maintain the military operation in Idlib is aimed at driving out terrorists from the region, in accordance with a 2018 de-escalation agreement reached between Russia, Iran and Turkey. The Hayet Tahrir al-Sham armed group, a former al-Qaeda affiliate that is considered by Russia and Turkey a terrorist organisation, controls a large portion of Idlib. Conkar, who is also a senior legislator in the governing AK Party, said Ankara was not opposed to operations against terrorists but stressed that civilians should not be harmed. Turkeys understanding of fighting against terrorism requires protecting civilians. However, this is not what is going on in the Syrian regimes offensive backed by Russia in Idlib. This is the main point of conflict, he said. I believe Turkey and Russia should act in collaboration against terror elements in Idlib and work closer to distinguish civilians from terrorists in the region, Conkar added. The cooperation and trust between the two countries do not seem to be at that level yet, but hopefully it will be in the future. 6,500 children fleeing daily Meanwhile, UNICEF, the UNs children agency, said on Saturday that violence over the past week had forced 6,500 children to flee daily, bringing the total number of displaced minors in the area to more than 300,000 since early December. 200127184735401 The agency said an estimated 1.2 million children are in desperate need amid short supplies of food, water and medicine. Children and families are taking refuge in public facilities, schools, mosques, unfinished buildings and shops. Many are simply living in the open air including in parks, amidst heavy rains and in the freezing cold. Access to the most basic services like health, water or sanitation is either very limited or non-existent, UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore said in a statement. In Idlib, where more than three-quarters of the population in need are women and children, many families have suffered multiple displacements and are increasingly desperate with no way to safely escape the violence. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently warned that Ankara may launch a cross-border military operation in Idlib unless fighting there was quickly halted. Ankara has 12 military observation posts around Idlib, set up in line with the 2018 deal for de-escalation zones in the region, but several of them have since been surrounded or have come under fire by advancing Syrian government forces. Moscow and Ankara also cooperated late last year in establishing the borders of a so-called safe-zone in a separate region in northeatern Syria following an operation against Kurdish fighters dubbed terrorists by Turkey. ALs Deli in the Mission offers delivery of its herby falafel sandwiches and smoked meat salads through the service Caviar, but something strange happened two weeks ago. Delivery drivers for a different service started arriving, demanding to know the status of their orders. The ALs Deli staff had a question, too: What orders? We dont have order numbers, no data to track them down. We dont know anything except some driver showing up, said owner Aaron London. When you have random companies sending in people blind, it shackles us. Russell Yip / The Chronicle 2015 The practice of delivery apps such as Grubhub and DoorDash offering food from restaurants without their knowledge came to the forefront last week after San Francisco chef Pim Techamuanvivit learned that her Michelin-starred Thai restaurant Kin Khao was listed on a Grubhub site. Kin Khao doesnt do delivery it doesnt even box up food for takeout. The issue is far more widespread than Kin Khao: The Chronicle confirmed with 19 San Francisco restaurants, including State Bird Provisions, Zero Zero and Michael Mina, that Grubhub listed them without permission. As food delivery apps rush to add more restaurant listings, the practice is creating confusion and damaging reputations. Many restaurant owners wonder whether the practice is even legal, and drivers complain of lost pay from botched or rejected orders. Delivery is booming regardless. U.S. sales grew 41% from 2018 to 2019, according to Second Measure, a firm that analyzes consumer spending. The Bay Area restaurant industry has reflected this growth. New restaurants now tout delivery, and ghost kitchens serve only app orders. Others, like San Franciscos Mission Pie, say the pressure of competing with delivery apps forced them to close. Commissions can run as high as 30%, according to some restaurant owners a significant reason for some to decline to deal with delivery apps. The delivery companies are feeling the pressure, too. Chicagos Grubhub, which has steadily lost market share to San Franciscos DoorDash, has been trying to grow by doubling the number of restaurants it lists by the end of the year. But that includes adding restaurants it didnt have agreements with, like Kin Khao. What happens when a customer orders from a restaurant that doesnt even know its listed on Grubhub? It depends. A recent lunch order from Mission cafe Stonemill Matcha on Grubhub, for example, arrived an hour later without trouble. A driver must have followed Grubhubs directions for such orders: He ordered the food without telling the cafe whom he worked for, paid with a Grubhub-issued card, and then delivered it. (Stonemill officially delivers only through Caviar.) Grubhub makes less money on such deliveries because it doesnt collect a commission and must cover credit card fees and other costs. When a restaurant doesnt do takeout at all or actively tries to avoid delivery companies both driver and customer get stranded. That happened when a Chronicle employee tried ordering crab from the classic Polk Gulch seafood counter Swan Oyster Depot on Grubhub for lunch on a recent Monday. It took more than an hour and a half for a Grubhub representative to call and cancel: Swan Oyster Depot had refused the order. For the driver, these situations are not only frustrating but result in lost income. Eric Brock, who started driving for Grubhub three months ago in Oregon, remembers calling a restaurant as Grubhub instructed. He placed the order under his own name and went to the restaurant. But once employees saw Brocks Grubhub credit card, they grabbed the bag of food and dumped it in the garbage, he recalled. They said the restaurant wouldnt serve delivery companies. Brock quietly returned to his car and called Grubhub to explain the situation. He didnt earn any money for the order. Driving is a side gig to make extra money for Brock. I especially feel bad for people who are dependent on the income, because you dont get paid for your time. You get paid for deliveries, he said. Grubhub confirmed the payment policy but said it is working on improving how such situations are handled. Brock stopped accepting delivery requests for restaurants without a Grubhub deal in place. Four rejected deliveries later, Brock effectively stopped driving for Grubhub. I would get one delivery an hour, for $3 an hour. Thats not even a side job, said Brock, who recently started driving for Uber Eats. Nina Riggio / Special to The Chronicle Kimberly James, a driver in Georgia, started making deliveries for food apps about a year ago. She recalled getting yelled at trying to fulfill orders with unaffiliated restaurants via Postmates and appreciated how Grubhub didnt force her into those situations that is, until a few months ago. These companies are all the same, she said. Theyre turning us not only into a driver but a customer. DoorDash, which has overtaken rivals to become the largest delivery service in the Bay Area and elsewhere, delivers food without permission because it bills itself as a logistics company. Restaurants dont have any legal sway in stopping delivery drivers from showing up to purchase food but they can take action when apps mislead consumers, legal experts say. I dont think a delivery site needs permission to purchase food from a restaurant and deliver it, said Mark Lemley, a professor at Stanford Law School. But concerns can come up around how the relationship between apps and restaurants are conveyed to consumers, he said. Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes In 2015, DoorDash was sued by In-N-Out Burger, the California chain with a cult following, alleging trademark infringement after the restaurant found out it was listed on the app. The lawsuit was settled. Doordash no longer lists In-N-Out but still defends its practice, saying it boosts sales to local businesses. You cant use a companys trademark without permission, said Robert Wallan, one of the attorneys at Pillsbury law firm in Los Angeles, who represented In-N-Out against DoorDash. You cant pretend you have a business relationship when you dont. This situation is not only an annoyance for businesses who dont want to be on these apps, but its a dead bang loser for the delivery companies. Nina Riggio / Special to The Chronicle Strangely, Grubhub agrees. How this story was reported Chronicle reporters interviewed six restaurant owners and four delivery drivers for this story, and contacted 19 restaurants to confirm that their listings on delivery apps were unauthorized. In addition, a Chronicle reporter ordered food from two restaurants listed on Grubhub without their permission to see how the delivery experience would work. See More Collapse Its chief executive and chief financial officer said in an October letter to investors that listing only partner restaurants is the right way to build the marketplace and that non-partnered options are the wrong long-term answer. But, they added, Grubhub felt it had to remove any reason for diners to look anywhere else. The once-dominant delivery company, which went public in 2014 and reports earnings Wednesday, is reportedly considering a sale, as is Postmates, which is privately held. (Postmates did not respond to a request for comment.) Grubhubs stock has fallen by two-thirds since September 2018. Listing more restaurants may please DoorDashs and Grubhubs investors, but it exasperates restaurant owners. Many fear they lose potential diners who order on Grubhub but never receive their deliveries. We get angry customers because they think were not keeping our end of the promise, said August 1 Five owner Hetal Shah, who added that her contemporary Indian restaurant has been on Grubhub for months, despite emails and calls to get it removed. Some restaurateurs such as Kin Khaos Techamuanvivit and Vikram Bhambri, who was shocked to find his San Francisco high-end Indian restaurant Rooh on Grubhub, are talking to their lawyers. Theres no way in hell its going to work, Bhambri said of Grubhubs moves. They shouldnt control our business, just like we dont control their business. Janelle Bitker and Shwanika Narayan are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: janelle.bitker@sfchronicle.com, shwanika.narayan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JanelleBitker, @Shwanika During the February cold spell, the county was asked to turn off natural gas to the courthouse and refused to do so because it needed to provide heat for the inmates at the jail. Now it's facing a $17,000 bill as a result. The number of failures to citizens of Ukraine at the entrance to Poland in 2019 amounted to 58,500 Polish Border Guard Open source The number of refusals to citizens of Ukraine to enter Poland in 2019 amounted to 58.5 thousand - this is 25% more than the previous year (then it was 46.7 thousand). The analytical center "Europe without barriers" with reference to statistics from the Polish Border Service and data from our own research reports this information. The vast majority of failures were issued at the land border. When traveling by plane, the probability of rejection is much less, analysts say. The main reasons for the refusals are the unconfirmed purpose of the trip (34,900) and lack of funds (12,800). Monitoring of migration indicators, such as refusals of entry, is part of the EU visa-free suspension mechanism. As we reported, February 3, French President Emmanuel Macron will arrive in Warsaw on his first visit, one of the most important topics of negotiations with Polish President Andrzej Duda is the situation in Ukraine Szchersky called the situation in Ukraine and the development of work within the framework of the so-called Norman format and the Minsk process one of the important topics of the Monday talks between Duda and Macron. In this context, he recalled the meeting during the events on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the former Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, President Andrzej Duda, with the President of Ukraine Zelensky. https://www.aish.com/tp/i/oai/48949316.html "I declare that I will bring you out of the wretchedness of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizites, Hivites and Jebusites - to a land flowing with milk and honey.... You and the elders of Israel will then go to the King of Egypt. You must tell him that the God of the Hebrews revealed Himself to us. Now we request that you allow us to take a three day journey into the desert to sacrifice to the Lord our God." (Exodus 3:17-18) The commentators are puzzled by the fact that when God revealed His plan for the Jewish people, He immediately told Moses of their destiny in the Land of Israel, but at the same time instructed Moses to ask Pharaoh only for permission to leave for three days. Many answers have been proposed to this question (see Ohr Hachaim to Exodus 3:18). We shall offer yet another based on one of the unique aspects of Matzah. Matzah, the bread of slavery, is at once the symbol of our slavery and the symbol of freedom. In the Passover Haggadah it is both poor bread and the symbol of how God redeemed us in an instant. It could be asked why a richer, more tasty cake was not chosen as a symbol of our redemption from the bitter slavery of Egypt. The answer is that we did not cease to be slaves with our redemption. As the Talmud (Megillah 14a) says, commenting on the verse (Psalms 113:1), "Praise God, give praise, you servants of God" - "Originally we were slaves to Pharaoh; now we are slaves to God." We did not emerge from slavery to freedom; we remained slaves with a new master. The Jew is not free. "Frei" is the password of alienation from Judaism. The Jew is the model servant, accepting the yoke of the kingdom of Heaven, and unequivocally yielding to his master, the Master of the Universe, Whom he serves with unswerving dedication. The commentary Talmidei Rabbeinu Yonah (on the Talmud - Brachot 9b) explains the law that the blessing of geulah (redemption) must be linked to Amidah, service of the heart. There is for the Jew no hiatus, no free moment between redemption and acceptance of God's yoke. After our redemption, we continued to dine on the bread of slavery to emphasize that our status as slaves had not changed. Even the good Land that we were given is a land suited to servants, whether they be servants to human masters or servants to the King of Kings. It was first given to Canaan, who himself bears the curse of eternal servitude. Our freedom is the freedom to be God's servants. And it is this servitude which is the ultimate freedom. The Sages say: "On the Tablets was engraved our freedom. Do not read 'engraved on the Tablets,' but rather 'freedom on the Tablets'." Freedom is total immersion in Torah, total dedication and obedience to God Himself. Only when the Jew is able to express his deepest inner will, the thirst to do God's will, is he truly free. He is no longer a servant whose inner will is suppressed and stifled by the "the yeast in the dough," and figuratively, the Yetzer Hara with its infinite array of desires and lusts that wrench one from submission to God's will. Subjugation to the nations of the world, whether physical or cultural subjugation, is enslavement, for it suppresses our ability to express our inner will, to come close to God. Redemption from that enslavement is totally God's doing. We are passive objects when God takes us into His jurisdiction. We do not bring our redemption; we graciously and gratefully accept it. But we must show ourselves worthy of freedom by displaying an understanding of the implications of freedom from outside forces, a desire for the opportunity to subject ourselves to God. The Ruler of the World did not need permission from Pharaoh to take us out of Egypt. Therefore Moses did not approach Pharaoh with a request to leave Egypt to settle in Israel. But, the Jewish people, then under Pharaoh's rule, had to show that they deserved redemption. That is why they petitioned Pharaoh for three days in the desert to sacrifice to God. The nature of these sacrifices was not clearly defined even to Moses. As he told Pharaoh: "For we do not know how we are to serve Him until we get there." (Exodus 10:26) Three days after leaving Egypt, God told the newly freed Jews to return toward Egypt. Return toward Egypt, give up your newly acquired freedom, cease running toward safety and put yourselves in the clutches of your oppressors. Why? Because God wills it. That was the "sacrifice" after three days in the desert - not animal sacrifices, but the giving up of the thing most dear to them, their new freedom. That was the test of their worthiness for redemption. We stand today on the brink of redemption and are being tested to see if we merit God's redemption. We can safely leave bringing Moshiach to God, but we must merit his coming. Only by intensifying our commitment to Torah and Mitzvot, by dedicating ourselves to serving God in all areas of life, by removing the chametz (leaven) from our hearts, will we successfully discharge our three days in the desert. SIOUX CITY -- With the Iowa caucuses looming Monday, Sen. Amy Klobuchar came to the Marquee bar in downtown Sioux City Saturday afternoon to pitch her moderate brand of Democratic politics. Like her fellow senators seeking the Democratic nomination -- Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Michael Bennet -- Klobuchar's campaign activities in Iowa largely stalled this week, with the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump occupying her time. GOP senators have effectively blocked any further witnesses in Trump's impeachment, leaving acquittal the only likely outcome of the trial. Speaking on the impeachment matter, Klobuchar repeated a line she used at a recent Democratic debate in Des Moines. "I said, 'If my Republican colleagues are afraid to even found out, about what the witnesses say, just four witnesses, they may as well give' -- this is what I said -- 'They may as well give the president a crown and a scepter,'" Klobuchar said. "Because they are basically making him the king. And they are not, they are not, following the laws of this country." Klobuchar touted an endorsement from Iowa state Rep. Chris Hall and plugged for J.D. Scholten, the Democrat who sought to unseat Rep. Steve King in 2018 and is running again this year. Despite frequently touting her Midwest credentials, most recent Iowa polls show the senator trailing former Vice President Joe Biden, Sanders and, frequently, Warren and former South Bend (Ind.) Mayor Pete Buttigieg, according to polling aggregator website FiveThirtyEight. One poll showed Klobuchar in third place with 16 percent support, behind Sanders' 23 percent and Biden's 17 percent. The senator drew a sizable crowd into the back area of the bar, a space normally used by musicians and other performers. In similar fashion to her campaign stop at the Sioux City Public Library in November, Klobuchar deployed a number of folksy jokes, anecdotes and observations, including her oft-aired campaign-ad declaration that the Midwest is "not flyover country to me." Klobuchar recounted some of her encounters with voters who once supported Trump. Working-class Americans, she said, face their many adversities with a certain grace and dignity, taking responsibility and doing whatever must be done to get by; this, she said, the president does not do. "And what does this guy (Trump) do when something goes wrong for him? He whines. He literally whines," Klobuchar said. "Think of him walking by that helicopter, whining at the media. He blames other people, he blames Barack Obama, he does that all the time." Richard Iverson, a Sioux City native who has lived in the Pacific Northwest for decades but was back visiting Sioux City during Klobuchar's campaign stop, said Iowans see a lot more of presidential candidates than Oregonians ever do -- Oregon, like Washington and California, is considered a Democratic stronghold, so candidates seldom bother to visit. "You guys are lucky in Iowa, because you do have this first caucus, and you get all this opportunity to see the candidates and person. Actually yesterday I went to see Pete Buttigieg," Iverson said. "And it's just great to see them in person, because we get so little attention from the candidates out there." Of Klobuchar, Iverson said he's "very impressed with her" though he is "still an undecided voter." His top priorities in the 2020 election, he said, are beating Trump and finding ways to address climate change and income inequality. "I think she has a good message, I believe that she would appeal to a broad spectrum of voters, and I like that about her," he said. Mary Burns, of Sioux City, said she plans on caucusing but couldn't say who she'd caucus for. Burns is seeking a "centrist candidate" who is "decent," and she said healthcare is a top priority for her. "I think she (Klobuchar) is very impressive," Burns said. "She has a record of achievement, I think she can encourage and motivate people, and she's decent." Love 3 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Get Government & Politics updates in your inbox! Stay up-to-date on the latest in local and national government and political topics with our newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Israel has stopped the delivery of cement into the Gaza Strip and put 500 business permits on hold, adding to the plight of 13 years of blockade. Israel has stopped the delivery of cement into the Gaza Strip and put 500 business permits on hold. It is another blow for those in Gaza, who continue to live in dire conditions after 13 years of blockade. Al Jazeeras Stefanie Dekker reports from Gaza City. (Bloomberg) -- Sequoia Capital, the U.S. venture capital company that was an early investor in Google and WhatsApp, plans to open a London office later this year, the Sunday Times reports. The company is eyeing British tech start-ups ahead of what the paper describes as a post-Brexit buying spree. The company has yet to decide on a person to lead the British operation. To view the source of this information click here To contact the reporter on this story: Derek Wallbank in Singapore at dwallbank@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Shamim Adam at sadam2@bloomberg.net, Derek Wallbank For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source. 2020 Bloomberg L.P. Uber Technologies Inc. has reportedly suspended 240 user accounts in Mexico as a containment effort to combat the spread of the deadly Coronavirus. According to reports, Uber confirmed that they had suspended the customers who had ridden with two drivers who came into contact with a possible Coronavirus case. No confirmed cases of Coronavirus in Mexico to date Mexico has not reported any confirmed cases of Coronavirus to date. The two uber drivers that are presumably infected showed pneumonia-like symptoms and have been transferred to the medical care center, suggest reports. We will keep users and drivers informed with respect to any update of their accounts, Uber informed in an official statement to the citizens on the companys Mexican Twitter account. Mexico Citys Health Ministry told the media that a traveller from Los Angeles was driven in an Uber, and it is suspected that he was infected with the coronavirus. The agency said that the driver has been quarantined to monitor whether he has contracted the disease, or the authorities need to discount the contagion prospect. Read China Reports H5N1 Bird Flu Outbreak In Hunan Amid Coronavirus Spread Read Chinese FM Shifts Media Briefings Online As Coronavirus Death Toll Crosses 300 Last month, the officials in Mexico reportedly ran coronavirus tests on a few citizens who were showing flu-like symptoms. The Mexican citizens were quarantined on the northern border state of Tamaulipas that borders the southern tip of Texas state in the US. Mexican president Andrews Manuel Lopez Obrador had told the media that the first suspected case of coronavirus in Mexico was ruled out while the second was under observation. The World Health Organization has declared the coronavirus global outbreak a public health emergency of international concern as the death toll from the life-threating virus has soared to 304 and the infection cases have alarmingly spiked to 14, 370. Millions of citizens in mainland China remain in the lockdown as fears of transmission of the disease globally grip the nations worldwide. Read Coronavirus: Maldives' President Solih Thanks India For Evacuating 7 Maldivians From Wuhan Read China: Hubei's Coronavirus Lockdown Obstructs Girl's Cancer Treatment Mr Raab said today: 'The issue of alignment is just not going to happen, it's not a question of red lines, it's not on the negotiating table, it's not even in the negotiating room' Irish leader Leo Varadkar clashed with Dominic Raab today, attacking his 'petty' demand that UK diplomats to sit apart from EU states ahead of crunch trade talks. The Foreign Secretary sent a message to UK representatives telling them to 'sit separately' from those from European nations at international events after Brexit happened on Friday. His telegram to embassies around the world said he wanted Britain to project an image of a 'confident independent country' that did not seek ''seek residual influence' with former continental allies, the Sunday Times reported. But appearing on the BBC's Andrew Marr programme today, the Taoiseach said: 'I think it just comes across as being a little bit petty. 'It's kind of when you're in primary school or in secondary school that you get worried about who you sit beside in class. 'Most international forums that I've attended, whether it's UN or other international bodies, you tend to be seated either in alphabetical order or according to protocol. 'So I don't really know what that's about but it seems that seems a bit silly, surely everyone should be trying to work with everyone?' The Foreign Secretary (today in London) sent a message to UK representatives telling them to 'sit separately' from those from European nations at international events after Brexit Appearing on the BBC's Andrew Marr programme today, the Taoiseach said: 'It just comes across as a little bit petty' Shadow chancellor John McDonnell branded Number 10's approach to future EU relations 'sabre-rattling', adding: 'Well it's a bit puerile, this thing about where ambassadors sit, absolutely puerile'. Mr Varadkar, who is facing a general election in Ireland next week, also hit out at UK plans to diverge from EU rules as it seeks a free trade deal. 'One thing I'd say to everyone is let's not repeat some of the errors that were made in the past two-and-a-half years, let's not set such rigid red lines that it makes it hard to come to an agreement and let's tone down the kind of nationalistic rhetoric,' he said. 'As is always the case when it comes to negotiations, setting out so boldly such firm red lines actually makes coming to an agreement more difficult because the other party you are negotiating with doesn't feel they got a fair deal unless those red lines get turned pink or bent in some way.' Mr Raab's hardline policy came as Boris Johnson cranked up the stakes ahead of post-Brexit showdowns with the EU by warning he will walk away from any trade deal which does not meet his red lines. Mr Raab said following EU rules after 2021 'just ain't happening'. Speaking to the BBC, the Cabinet minister said: 'We are entering into these negotiations with a spirit of goodwill. 'But we are just not doing that other stuff. The legislative alignment, it just ain't happening.' He accused Brussels of attempting to 'shift the goalposts' since the Political Declaration was signed off last year. Boris Johnson cranked up the stakes ahead of post-Brexit showdowns with the EU by warning he will walk away from any trade deal which does not meet his red lines The Prime Minister is understood to be furious with Brussels, who he believes have pivoted from wanting to forge a deep trading relationship to now insisting on regulatory alignment. Noises from the continent in the days before Britain left the bloc on Friday signaled the EU's eagerness to keep the UK bound by its rule book and the oversight of the European Court of Justice. Mr Johnson, who has already given a cast iron pledge to end alignment, is understood to be incandescent with this 'changing of the terms' agreed in the joint political declaration. In a strategy which could spook Brussels into giving ground and rethinking their demands, Downing Street will express it is no longer only planning for a Canada-style deal. He will use his first speech since delivering Brexit to tell Brussels negotiators he is not afraid to accept border checks and that no concessions will be made. The Prime Minister is due to lay out his plans on Monday for the upcoming negotiations with the European Union following the UK's formal withdrawal from the bloc at 11pm on Friday. Mr Johnson is expected to tell his audience - due to gather at a London venue with 'historic trade ties', according to insiders - that 'no achievement lies beyond our reach'. It is understood Mr Johnson will put his cards on the table in asking for a Canada-style free trade deal with Brussels - and he is expected to make clear he will accept no alignment, no jurisdiction of the European courts, and no concessions to any Brussels' demands. The EU has been calling for a level-playing field to be agreed, pressing for Britain to sign-up to adhering to Brussels-set environmental and social standards, as well as rules on state subsidies, to prevent the UK undercutting the single market once the transition period ends in 2021. DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - The United Arab Emirates pledged Sunday to give $2 billion in aid to the Western African country of Mauritania, amid a visit to the Arabian Peninsula nation by Mauritanias president. Mohamed Ould Ghazouani visited the Emirati capital of Abu Dhabi and met with its powerful crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The state-run WAM news agency announced the pledge, describing it as including funding for investment and development projects, as well as a soft loan. Mauritania, a moderate Islamic republic, has suffered five coups since independence from France in 1960. It has been led by military rulers for much of that time. Ghazouani took the oath of office in August after winning a presidential election last year. That marked the West African nations first peaceful transfer of power. The UAE, a federation of seven sheikhdoms also including Dubai, has sought to expand its influence across Africa in recent years. Ahead of the Delhi assembly election, Shiv Sena in its mouthpiece Saamana slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for communal politics saying that the Centre is only focussed on dividing India. Saamana's executive editor, Sanjay Raut in his article mentioned that the army is suffering due to the financial crisis and economic slow down in the country. The editorial said, "Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his speech often mentions that the Indian army is capable of defeating and finishing Pakistan in just eight to ten days. But PM forgets the fact that the soldiers at the borders are not provided with sufficient ration. The reason behind this is the economic slowdown of the country. The PM should keep in mind that the Army and the unemployed citizens in our nation have a stomach of their own to fill. We should definitely fight against Pakistan but most importantly we must fight for our daily basic needs. Why always we are stuck on Hindu-Muslim topics? The BJP is campaigning in Delhi at its high but ultimately Kejriwal will win the election." READ | Shiv Sena's Mouthpiece Saamana Now Taunts BJP Over Zilla Parishad Election Losses In Maha "Prime Minister is an expert in giving speeches. During his NCC cadet speech, PM Modi gave an ultimatum to the Pakistan army. But his ideology in politics is not moving ahead of Pakistan. There are enemies at China Border as well who are more dangerous than the Pakistan army. China has taken over Nepal and we are still stuck on Pakistan," the editorial read. PM Modi at the NCC Cadet rally in Delhi said, "Pakistan has already lost three wars. Our armed forces will not take more than 7-10 days to make Pakistan bite the dust." READ | Shiv Sena Mouthpiece Saamana Takes Another Dig At BJP, Claims Party Has Lost Credibility Delhi election New Delhi will go to polls in a single-phase on February 8 and the counting of votes will take place on February 11. The last day of filing nominations for the candidates was on January 21. The BJP has fielded Bhartiya Janta Yuva Morcha president Sunil Yadav against Delhi CM Kejriwal from New Delhi constituency, and the Congress has pitted former NSUI Delhi president Ramesh Sabharwal against him. The BJP and Congress are yet to name their Chief Ministerial faces. For the BJP, names such as Manoj Tiwari, Hardeep Puri, and Harsh Vardhan have been floated. Amit Shah, however, has stated in the absence of a formal name, the BJP would contest under PM Modi's leadership. The ruling AAP is contesting the election with Kejriwal as the chief ministerial face. BJP is trying to make advances in the upcoming Assembly elections after the 2015 debacle where it won only 3 seats. During the 2015 elections, AAP won 67 seats out of the 70-seat Assembly. READ | Shiv Sena Attacks Centre Over State Of Economy In Mouthpiece Saamana READ | Delhi Election: BJP Leaders, CM Kejriwal To Hold Multiple Rallies As Poll Date Nears OK. We give up. We'll vote. We'll vote whatever way you want. We'll do what you all tell us. Just please no more debates, no more panels, no more leaders' one-on-ones. If nothing else, it's cruelty to these people. For weeks now, they've been paraded around, poked and prodded, shouted at by moderators, their every utterance analysed. They've been asked the same questions repeatedly and every word and intonation then compared with the last time they were asked the same question in case it signals a shift in position. They've had to buy meat and flowers wherever they go, eat buns, drink tea, listen politely to every shouter they come across, and remain calm at all times. Worse again, they keep telling us, through gritted teeth, that the voters are very "engaged" this time out. "Engaged", in political speak, means, "I'm spending half an hour at doorways listening to people's every gripe and even then I don't know if I have a vote". Admit it, if it was you or me, we would have told someone to f**k off by now. We would definitely have told Ivan to f**k off. Do you think they dream at night about telling some random punter where to go? Do you think they imagine turning around to some lad who is never going to vote for them, but is haranguing them nonetheless, and saying: "You sir, are clearly an a***hole. Please do us all a favour and f**k right off." Adding to the leaders' stress is the fact that they are not just responsible for themselves, they're also responsible for every loose cannon in their party. Is there anything more stressful that being responsible for things over which you have no control. Expand Close Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald during a seven way leaders General Election debate at the Virgin Media Studios in Dublin, Ireland. Photo: Niall Carson/PA Wire / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald during a seven way leaders General Election debate at the Virgin Media Studios in Dublin, Ireland. Photo: Niall Carson/PA Wire Read More So, for example, you think you're doing well, managing not to tell anyone to f**k off, and then, out of the blue, one of your people casually tells a journalist that you're autistic, she shows complete ignorance of autism, and then, in explaining herself, manages to bring in the N-word into it. You literally couldn't make it up. And you can't tell her to f**k off either. And that's just the politicians. The rest of us need to be put out of our misery as well. How many more times do we need to watch these people telling us the same stuff, bombarding us with the same figures? And they mightn't be quite picking the figures out of their backsides, but we know we can rely on none of it to ever happen. Because this is just the kind of thing you do in an election, isn't it? The only way they, and we, can get through this final week, is if we all agree, when the dust settles, that they will all go away for a long break, and the rest of us will not be bothered by politics for at least a month. The TV and the radio channels can play soothing music, and we will all sit in silence, eating ice-cream. Asia Bibi photo emerges as memoir 'Finally Free' is released, details prison torture Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment A photo of a happy and free Asia Bibi, the Pakistani Christian woman who was imprisoned on death row for over eight years on trumped up blasphemy charges, has gone viral ahead of the release of her memoir. Bibi, 47, whose case garnered international attention throughout the past decade, is seen in a photo with French journalist Anne-Isabelle Tollet who is co-authoring Bibi's book about her years in prison. The memoir is titled, Finally Free, (Enfin Libre in French), the BBC reported Thursday. The picture, which appeared in the French publication Le Figwort, shows the journalist hugging Bibi from behind. Bibi is seen smiling as a free woman following years of incarceration. The image went viral on social media with many Twitter users re-tweeting the image in celebration and offering their warm wishes. "You may know my story through the media, you may have tried to put yourself in my place in order to understand my suffering. But you are far from understanding my daily life in prison or my new life and that's why, in this book, I will explain it all," Bibi writes in the publicity materials for the book. The publishing house released an excerpt in which Bibi asks: "How could I ever imagine in 50 years that I would become a global symbol of the fight against religious extremism when I am but a simple, illiterate peasant? "From my small windowless cell, I often wondered why Pakistan was targeting me." During her incarceration, Bibi's neck was sometimes encased in an iron collar that prison guards would tighten with a nut. Some of Bibi's fellow prisoners were sympathetic to her plight, she says in the book, in which she also reveals how she's adjusting to life in the West. The book was published in French this week but an English version will be published later this year. Bibi's ordeal first began in 2009 when she got into an argument with a group of Muslim field workers she worked alongside who berated her for drinking from the same water bucket. They accused her of making the water "impure" because she is a Christian. Muslims are forbidden from drinking from the same container as Christians. Bibi was also accused by the field workers of committing blasphemy by insulting the Islamic prophet Muhammad, a charge she consistently denied that brings a sentence of life in prison or death by hanging. During the police investigation into her alleged crime, Bibi was beaten up in her home and subsequently arrested on blasphemy charges. In 2010, she was convicted and sentenced to death under the nation's blasphemy law. Her case has led to widespread advocacy against similar laws in other countries. When she was acquitted by Pakistan's Supreme Court in the fall of 2018, protests calling for her execution ensued just as they had throughout her lengthy imprisonment. Two politicians who publicly supported Bibi and spoke out against the blasphemy law under which she was detained, Salmaan Taseer and Shahbaz Bhatti, were both assassinated. Even after Bibi was acquitted she was forced to remain in Pakistan for several months before she was able to safely leave and obtain asylum in Canada where she now resides. Her exact location remains undisclosed. Tollet, who has worked in Pakistan for many years, has published two other books on Bibi's case. Latest News MFAA calls submissions for 2022 Excellence Awards The association also reveals a new award Playing it safe? Here are 50 of most consistent suburbs to invest in Hotspotting founder claims investors should look into stable markets, not booming ones The start of the new year marks the beginning of the transition from a closed banking system to an open model in which consumers have control of their data and can share it with any institution they choose. Australian Broker examines how the industry should prepare Australia will soon transition from a closed banking system in which each financial institution keeps and controls its customers information to one in which customers control their own data. The new regulated system aims to allow customers to unlock their own financial data and to provide them with a wider choice of financial products and services, while enabling a more competitive marketplace. In July 2017, the government commissioned the Open Banking Review chaired by Scott Farrell, who was asked to recommend the most appropriate model for Australia. The time frame proposed by the Farrell report, and then accepted by the government, will see mortgage data and recommended financial products made available by July 2020 but with a transition period until 2021. Originally, major banks mortgage data was scheduled to be available from February this year, but the ACCC has deferred the launch of certain aspects of open banking to July, delaying the implementation and launch of the Consumer Data Right (CDR) in the banking sector. ACCC commissioner Sarah Court said, The CDR is a complex but fundamental competition and consumer reform, and we are committed to delivering it only after we are confident the system is resilient, user-friendly and properly tested. Robust privacy protection and information security are core features of the CDR, and establishing appropriate regulatory settings and IT infrastructure cannot be rushed. What CDR means is that consumers will be able to direct major banks to share their credit and debit card, deposit account and transaction account data with accredited service providers from 1 July 2020. Consumers mortgage and personal loan data will be able to be shared from 1 November 2020. Poli Konstantinidis, executive general manager, credit services and decision analytics A/NZ at Experian, welcomes the delay. Based on our experience in the UK, we have always believed the implementation of CDR [in Australia] needed to be exercised with care, so we welcome this considered approach to the CDR rollout, Konstantinidis says. The additional time available should be used to increase the awareness of open data among Australians. While he believes the ACCCs caution has been appropriate until now, Konstantinidis warns that open banking should not be delayed any further. Greater data sharing will see the ownership of customer data put back in the hands of Australians and give them the power to access better deals, he says. While a true open data environment may be delayed for now, its vital CDR is implemented effectively and regulated properly so consumers can have access to the wide-ranging benefits. If we havent seen it already, open banking will certainly signal the death of pen and paper broking Jason Furnell, Loan Market Group Brokers role in open banking The data that will be made available is substantial; it will include all transaction information across customers accounts, including what they spend, their income, all loan details and repayment history. Stephen Moore, CEO at Choice Aggregation Services, says customers, as opposed to their institutions, will own their banking data for the very first time. But in order for open banking to work successfully, customers will have to provide permission to brokers to use such data. If they do, it means brokers will also have more insights into their clients than anyone else across the value chain. Moore says, All of that is enormously valuable, and the exciting bit about it is how brokers can then support customers in an open banking regime. He suggests brokers today know their customers at a personal level better than anyone else does. Brokers are aware of family circumstances, an individual's aspirations, and the ins and outs of what their customers are trying to achieve. The only thing missing until now has been the hard data around banking. Moore continues, To me there are two key benefits for brokers: firstly, from an efficiency perspective, we've seen the ridiculous scenario of having to highlight items on a bank statement for expense categorisation all that disappears, and its going to be a far more efficient system. Secondly, and this is going to be the main benefit of open banking: having detailed insight into someones expenditure, savings, loan payment history, etc., will be enormously valuable from any lender perspective, and it will have a really positive impact on competition, and thats where the true benefit for customers comes in. He adds, But, naturally enough, its more complex. Youve got lots of data and a myriad of new lenders, so it does mean the role a broker plays in helping customers navigate through a competitive landscape will become even more important. Jason Furnell, chief customer experience officer at Loan Market Group, suggests the changes could mean customers are more likely to choose brokers ahead of banks for the best mortgage outcomes. Customers trust brokers to do right by them, he says. But open banking wont just benefit the consumer. Furnell suggests it creates a victory for brokers in numerous ways: It recognises that customers banking and expense data belongs to them and not banks. It will create competition among lenders, encouraging customers to explore new options and guess who theyll ask for help? It establishes a global set of technical and security standards that make it easier and safer than ever before to share data. Furnell also notes that, in order to take full advantage of the opportunities, brokers need to be digitally savvy. He explains, If we havent seen it already, open banking will certainly signal the death of pen and paper broking. This means brokers will need to ensure theyre digitally ready for the arrival of open banking, and it might prove too complex and expensive to try to navigate it on their own. Customers want to win back their financial identities, Furnell says. Theyll want to use their own data to explore new options. And theyll want experts with the knowledge of products and policies to help them utilise their data for better outcomes. How to prepare A key thing to understand is that it isnt just the influx of new data that is key to open banking those are just the facts that will be provided. Furnell says, To prepare yourself to make the most of open banking, find an aggregator who is ahead of the tech curve. At Loan Market, we are working on further strengthening our security practices so we are prepared to hold even more client data. Plus, we are evolving our online fact-find so our brokers can collaborate transparently and easily with clients based on the additional customer data. Indeed, the most important skill to have will be the ability to collect and store the data in a secure and natural way, suggests Moore. He says, What will become fundamental is the ability to analyse and develop insights around that data, and this is where, in fact, we're already talking to a number of vendors to provide analysis tools to help brokers through that process. What [then] becomes important in an environment where more data is shared is the ability to store, analyse and act on those insights. That will just increase the importance of having the right sharing system. Moore also highlights the importance of analysis tools for the mortgage industry. There are some of those expense tools around to date. The expense tools are an example of a precursor for some of the things we would be able to do in open banking. But it certainly goes beyond just expenses, looking at income repayment history, loan type, loan details, etc. There are a number of people already developing tools in that space, and in fact that whole area will develop quite rapidly. But what will truly become critical, aside from analysis tools, is being able to integrate data into brokers customer relationship management. Otherwise, you're going to have all these disparate systems that do not talk ... the difficulty in managing customer data will just be a cost," Moore says. But if you get it right and integrate the data and do so efficiently, then it's going to be a real efficiency gain for the broker market too. There is also the issue of cost versus reward to be taken into account. Moore explains: At the moment theres a substantial effort that goes into reasonable enquiry to validate customers income and expenses. What open banking will do is remove much of that effort if it gets set up in the right way. Furnell adds: Open banking isnt new. Its been part of the worlds largest economies for several years, driven by the operators in the financial sector themselves. Aggregators and support The role of aggregators in developing insights and providing support to brokers becomes critical in this space, especially through the transition period. Moore says, At Choice Aggregation we see any open banking supporting tools as an extension of our platform systems ... in fact, we've designed Podium (the platform that we provide to brokers) with Salesforce [a globally leading CRM system] at its core. "Having a world best practice CRM means we're really building Podium with the future in mind for open banking the ability to accept analysis tools and the ability to capture data and to manage it all the way through to the process. He adds that developing insights will be fundamental to open bankings future. The risk that needs to be managed is that the more data that is shared, the greater the privacy and cybersecurity risk. On a recent Wednesday night, a delivery driver carrying an empty DoorDash bag walked up to a long white trailer occupying four parking spots in the back of a Financial District lot. It wasnt what he expected. Is this Burger Bytes? he said, seemingly to no one. Within seconds, a hand emerged from the trailer door with a plain brown paper bag of food. This is the future of food or at least one fast, cheap and dystopian future, that has drawn hundreds of millions of dollars of investment from venture capitalists. Their vision: doing away with restaurants and replacing them with ghost kitchens, serving customers who order exclusively via app. The restaurant-less restaurants might befuddle drivers used to picking up from regular locations, but customers wont know when they get a bag of food where it came from. Burger Bytes, an example of this phenomenon, is an evanescent presence, though its everywhere online, having staked out space in Postmates, Uber Eats and Grubhub. Its website is registered to a Florida company thats a subsidiary of Miamis Reef Technology, as is Vessel CA, the company name that appears on the trailers handwritten signs. Reef Technology Reef Technology Reef does not deliver food from any local restaurants; instead, it has filled rented trailers with virtual restaurants of its own devising. In addition to Burger Bytes, they include concepts like American Eclectic Burger, Breakfast All Day Everyday, Burn Burger, Fork and Ladle, Rebel Wings and Wings & Things, each with its own stylized food photos, logos and menus. The food is prepped at Reefs main kitchen under the Highway 101 and Interstate 280 overpasses at 1760 Cesar Chavez St. From there it heads to Reef Kitchens its Vessel pickup spots, some of which are the white trailers in parking lots where final preparation and delivery take place. Blanchard; John The concept of ghost kitchens is not original to Reef. Also known as cloud, virtual and dark kitchens, they are restaurants without dining rooms, designed to serve delivery orders. Travis Kalanick, the co-founder and former CEO of Uber, has backed CloudKitchens, a Los Angeles startup, which is building commissary kitchens to serve such restaurants; at least one of his kitchens already operates on Morris Street, a South of Market alley. Reefs rapid push to serve the San Francisco delivery market is fueled by a large investment from Japans SoftBank, a technology and investment firm, which reportedly vaulted Reef into the ranks of unicorns, or privately held companies with a value of more than $1 billion. How this story was reported Chronicle reporters visited several sites where Reef Technology had established ghost kitchens in trailers parked in lots. Public records including health inspection reports and corporate registrations established the link between Vessel CA, the operator listed on the trailers, and Reef. Chronicle reporters then contacted Reef to confirm its link to the trailers and learn more about its plans for expanding virtual restaurants in San Francisco. Key terms Delivery app: DoorDash, Uber Eats, Grubhub and Postmates are the biggest ones by market share. Delivery-only restaurant: A restaurant with no dining room. Some offer their own app, while others sell through third-party apps, which charge a commission. Ghost kitchen: A food-preparation facility that only serves delivery orders. Also known as cloud, dark or virtual kitchens. One ghost kitchen might host multiple delivery-only restaurants. See More Collapse SoftBank has grown notorious for pumping up companies like Uber and WeWork with capital, only to see their value diminish as business realities set in. More recently, the company has pressured its portfolio of startups to show profits or at least stanch their losses. Formerly known as ParkJockey Global, Reef boldly announced plans in June to transform its thousands of parking lots and garages into thriving hubs for the on-demand economy. Those hubs, it said, would have state-of-the-art kitchens ... housed in proprietary containers, with each one able to accommodate from one to five restaurant brands or concepts. The Vessel trailers appear to be the current realization of that vision. Nick Otto / Special to The Chronicle What exposed Reefs plans to dot San Francisco with virtual restaurants was the uproar that began when prominent San Francisco chef Pim Techamuanvivit discovered her Michelin-starred Thai restaurant Kin Khao was listed on a Grubhub site last month. Grubhub, a Chicago food-delivery company, had loosened its standards for listing restaurants last year, amid fierce competition from San Franciscos DoorDash, which has also received funding from SoftBank. Not only does Kin Khao not offer delivery, but the menu on Grubhub didnt even belong to Kin Khao. Instead, it came from a Reef brand, Happy Khao Thai, and Grubhub mixed the two restaurants up. After Techamuanvivit complained, Grubhub pulled the listing down. Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes John Storey / Special to the Chronicle 2014 A spokeswoman for Reef said the company did not attempt to impersonate Kin Khao. It uses generic names like Burger Bytes for its delivery-only restaurants to make it easier for customers to find popular types of food a strategy similar to e-commerce sites that have sought to rank highly on Google and other search engines. Reefs presence in San Francisco may grow less virtual soon. The company said it is seeking to work with established restaurants even though its virtual outlets currently compete with them. It already works with at least one brick-and-mortar restaurant in Miami. Ghost kitchens seem set to rise, as local restaurateurs also explore cutting their real estate costs and piggybacking on popular delivery apps. Frjtz closed its Valencia Street restaurant in April and now serves orders out of CloudKitchens 60 Morris St. address. Tacolicious runs a rotisserie-chicken operation, MF Chicken, out of its North Beach and Palo Alto locations. And Souvla has opened a delivery-only location in South of Market. Will your next delivery order come from a real restaurant, a commissary kitchen, or a rented trailer? When you order online, you might not know. Though you could always ask the driver. Shwanika Narayan and Janelle Bitker are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: shwanika.narayan@sfchronicle.com, janelle.bitker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Shwanika, @JanelleBitker For those suffering the mysterious new illness, the most common symptom was fever, but shortness of breath and lung infections were known to affect patients as well. By January the World Health Organization was monitoring the unknown ailment in Wuhan, a city in China's Hubei province with a population of about 11 million. An investigation revealed the illness was likely caused by a new type of coronavirus. In time, the origin of the sickness would be traced to Wuhan's Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, which was soon shut down. On Jan. 14, a news report on the main television channel in the Transnistria region of Moldova claimed that cars licensed from the breakaway area wouldnt be allowed across the Ukrainian-Moldovan border. Transnistria is a Russian-leaning region of Moldova thats been agitating for independence since the demise of the Soviet Union. A brief military conflict in 1992 ended in a ceasefire. Most countries even Russia havent recognized Transnistria, but the political skirmishing continues. In this case, over license plates. Moldova and the unrecognized Transnistrian Moldovan Republic both issue license plates, a situation that created potential confusion at the borders. In September 2018, however, the competing sides agreed to a compromise: neutral license plates, with three numbers and three letters. Moldova allowed cars with neutral plates to cross the Ukraine border unhindered. This is where First Transnistria comes in. The channel is financed and controlled by a Transnistrian governmental administration in Tiraspol that, among other things, collects taxes and maintains a paramilitary security force. The headline and intro of the TV report said that all cars, including those with neutral plates or numbers with Moldovan state symbols officially issued in the capital of Chisinau, would not be able to leave Transnistrian territory. That was false. In fact, officials in Chisinau said they had only begun a temporary program to stop allowing cars with Transnistrian plates into Ukraine, as had been the practice. On January 10 of the current year, the exclusive border crossing procedure, under which vehicles registered by the organs of Transnistria were allowed to cross the Moldovan-Ukrainian border, was suspended, an official statement of the Republic Reintegration Bureau Moldova said. The statement said the goal, in part, was to inform citizens about the need to properly register their cars and obtain neutral license plates. Alexander Flenkya, the Moldovan deputy premier for reintegration, issued a similar statement on Facebook 10 days later. Some said the First Transnistrian report was aimed at creating hostility toward the Moldovan government. In this news, we see the manipulation of several levels, said political analyst Andrei Andrievsky. This is a lie those who have the documents and neutral plates in order are not affected by the innovation of the Moldovan authorities. Andrievsky suggested there was a deeper level of manipulation in the report aimed at perpetuating the notion that Transnistria is a distinct nationality. Ruslan Shevchenko, a historian, noted that the term Transnistrians in the report is disputed by the Chisinau government. In this case, he said, the story stokes resentment that Moldova is unjustly restricting freedom of movement. In response to Chisinaus measure, the authorities in Tiraspol passed reciprocal measures that banned drivers licensed by Moldova in cars with Moldovan plates from entering Ukraine via the Transnistrian border. The decision was taken by the local authorities Security Council on Jan. 17 and went into effect on Jan. 24. All the travel restrictions have since expired so that drivers from Transnistria with all types off plates can cross the Ukraine border without problems. Prime Minister Boris Johnson will tell the EU he is prepared to accept a trade deal based on no-deal arrangements (Scott Heppell/PA) Boris Johnson will tell the European Union he is prepared to accept border checks in a no-deal like scenario as tensions ratcheted up between the sparring sides. As the dust settles on Britains formal EU withdrawal on Friday, attention has turned to the impending trade talks as the Prime Minister prepares to lay out his post-Brexit vision on Monday in a speech in London. The Government is understood to be privately infuriated by what it perceives to be attempts by Brussels to change the terms of the deal struck in October as part of the Withdrawal Agreement. Reports have surfaced in recent days suggesting EU chiefs want the UK to continue to follow Brussels-made rules on standards and state subsidies, while accepting the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) over matters relating to any trade deal. But in what promises to be a combative speech, the PM is expected to tell the EU he will accept no alignment, no jurisdiction of the European courts, and no concessions to any Brussels demands when talks start in March. A Government source told the PA news agency that the PM would be prepared to accept a Canada-style free trade deal a checks-lite trade arrangement that would allow tariff-free trade for the majority of goods, but that would not include the UKs dominant services sector. Expand Close The Government is set to lay out its negotiation stance for the EU trade talks on Monday (Victoria Jones/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The Government is set to lay out its negotiation stance for the EU trade talks on Monday (Victoria Jones/PA) Analysis undertaken by the Treasury in 2018 predicted that Britains economy would be 4.9% worse off under such a deal within 15 years, when compared with expected growth if it had remained in the EU. If a Canada-esque deal cannot be signed-off, insiders say the Government is gearing up to walk away with what is dubbed an Australia-style arrangement a re-branding of a no-deal Brexit. It would see the UK revert to World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, with additional mini-deals tacked-on to ensure travel arrangements, such as international flights, can continue. A Government source told PA: There are only two likely outcomes in negotiation a free trade deal like Canada or a looser arrangement like Australia and we are happy to pursue both. European leaders have already set out their own warnings to Mr Johnson over the upcoming talks. French President Emmanuel Macron used an article in the Times to outline how the level of single market access granted to the UK would depend on the degree to which the European Unions rules are accepted. Another area of trouble could be Gibraltar, with Spain reportedly laying down a gauntlet to EU negotiators over the terms of any deal in the offing. Expand Close Gibraltar could used as a pawn by Spain and the EU during the trade talks, according to reports (Simon Galloway/PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Gibraltar could used as a pawn by Spain and the EU during the trade talks, according to reports (Simon Galloway/PA) According to the Observer, the EU will back Spain over its territorial claims to the British overseas territory by giving Madrid the power to exclude its population of 34,000 people from any potential trade deal. In his keynote speech in London on Monday, Mr Johnson is preparing to rule out relaxing rules on workers rights, food hygiene standards and environmental protections. He is also expected, according to Government sources, to confirm UK negotiators will pursue free trade agreements with the likes of the United States, Japan, Australia and New Zealand at the same time as dealing with Brussels. The Sunday Telegraph reported that a trade deal is earmarked to be agreed with Japan by Christmas, followed by more agreements with Australia and New Zealand in mid 2021. On top of the tough stance on trade, the Sunday Times reported that British diplomats have been ordered to make a break with their former EU allies in a bid to adopt a stance as a confident independent country. Expand Close Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab (Aaron Chown/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab (Aaron Chown/PA) According to a leaked telegram quoted by the paper, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said the UK should be free to dis-apply EU foreign policy positions during the 11-month transition period, as Britain prepares to move away from the bloc. It comes as the Mail on Sunday revealed the PM toasted his Brexit success on Friday evening with a 350 bottle of rare vintage red wine. The paper said the Conservative Party leader opened a bottle of 1994 Chateau Margaux that was left to him in a supporters will, gifted with strict instructions for it not to be drunk until Britain was no longer an EU member. Dominic Cummings, the PMs chief aide and the mastermind behind his get Brexit done slogan, is said to have teared-up after the UKs departure was confirmed at 11pm. Taking to the microphone at a party at Downing Street, the Sunday Times said the Vote Leave strategy guru had to compose himself by clutching a hand over his face, before addressing those in Number 10 for the historic occasion. The mention of Ghana and the involvement of some top officers of the state in a major bribery scandal involving the worlds largest aircraft manufacturer, Airbus, has thrown many Ghanaians into a state of bewilderment. This is because the scandal has gained global attention and is yet again a major scandal involving top Ghanaian government officials after a similar one, the Mabey and Johnson scandal in 2009. A UK court document on the matter indicated that the top officials took the bribes within the Mills-Mahama administration which was between 2009 and 2015 to afford Airbus some business favours. The case has been described as one of 'endemic' corruption against the company. The company has been found guilty and has been ordered to pay a record sum of 3 billion in fines. The UK's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) which investigated the deals in Ghana, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Taiwan detailed how the crime occurred pertaining to Ghana. The UKs Serious Fraud Office, however, in its statement of fact did not name the individual Ghanaian officials nor the Airbus agents involved in the crime, giving room for wide speculations with many suggesting that it would have been proper to make the names of the complicit officials public. The facts, which was also contained in a summary of the judges ruling, said the decision to hide the identities of the individuals involved was to protect their right to a fair trial. It said it was also because there were still ongoing investigations on some of the individuals involved. Read the full explanation below: In the Statement of Facts, the identity of the individuals concerned has not been included. There are ongoing investigations in respect of a number of individual suspects in this jurisdiction and abroad. It is appropriate to protect the rights of the suspects to a fair trial. In addition some of the individuals involved in the relevant conduct are based in jurisdictions where there are human rights concerns, and the death penalty exists for corruption. Further, the intermediary companies used by Airbus were often made up of a few individuals. Naming the companies would therefore be tantamount to naming those individuals. To go further than the Statement of Facts or my summary and identify the employees or others by name, would be to prejudice potential criminal proceedings and could lead to action or the imposition of a penalty which, in this country, we would regard as contravening Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The identities and positions of relevant employees and other persons referred to in the Statement of Facts have however been made known to me so that I have been able to assess their comparative seniority and, thus, the responsibility of Airbus. In the circumstances however, none are identified. citinewsroom The world's largest Chinese dragon was awakened in Melbourne as part of Lunar New Year celebrations on Sunday morning, despite concerns around coronavirus forcing the cancellation of other Victorian events. Melbourne Mayor Sally Capp told the assembled community that it was clear Chinese Australians were already working to support communities overseas who are dealing with the virus. People celebrate Chinese New Year in Melbourne on Sunday. Credit:Luis Ascui Supporting a friend who was taking part in the dragon dance, Cam Huson said it was his first time at Lunar New Year. The dragon dance was really cool, its a chance to do something. Plus I love the food, he said. Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. A woman walked into Chris Madrids last September only a few days after the legendary burger joint had reopened. The place had been rebuilt almost from scratch following a devastating fire two years earlier. Looking around, she approached Richard Peacock, whod purchased the business from the Madrid family shortly before the fire. You the owner? she asked him. Yes, he said. It doesnt look like you did a damn thing to this place, she barked. What took you so long to reopen? Initially upset, Peacock realized that the complaint was actually a compliment: the very point of the renovation of the San Antonio landmark was to re-create as much as possible the look and feel of the restaurant that has been slinging burgers since 1977. From the very beginning, we wanted to rebuild it in a way that would honor Chris, said Peacock, referring to the restaurants eponymous founder, who died in 2012. We also wanted to honor the 40 years of memories his customers made here the family celebrations, the fun Friday nights, all that. To do that, they had to completely rebuild the portion of the building destroyed by the fire, salvage what they could everything from the old bar thats faced with pressed tin to the T-shirts that hung on the walls and do some major restoration of the rest. Even before the fire, Peacock was working with architect Kristin Hefty, a partner at the Dado Group, to make several improvements, including covering the outdoor patio, building a private event space and, rectifying a common customer complaint, renovating the bathrooms. On ExpressNews.com: 52 Weeks of Burgers: Chris Madrids The fire completely upended those plans, and salvaging took a front seat. Perhaps their biggest success was the three-sided bar that had been near where the fire started. It was cleaned up and reoriented and now dominates the new bar area. It was important to Richard that we kept it, Hefty said. And besides, it looks cool. They took inspiration from several tile-topped tables that survived the fire and decorated the ordering counter and the newly renovated, ADA-compliant restrooms with tiles purchased in Austin by Madrids daughter Lisa Waller, an interior designer. Lisa used her talents to help us ensure that Chris Madrids kept the same feel as it always did, Peacock said. She and her family rallied around us from Day One. Waller also made several trips to the Round Top Antiques Fair, coming back with everything from hanging light fixtures to galvanized tin planters for the outside patio to weathered wooden dining benches. Richard wanted us to paint those benches so they looked new, Hefty said. But we kept telling him we didnt want to make it look too nice. We wanted to make sure everything felt comfortable, like it used to. On ExpressNews.com: Meet Dado Group, the S.A. firm cooking up cutting-edge restaurant design To match the exact wall colors in the bar area with those in the rest of the restaurant, they created a sample board made up of nine pieces of plywood stained different shades of brown. And in a decision sure to make many customers happy, they collected all the T-shirts that had festooned the walls, had them dry cleaned and hung them up again throughout the newly renovated restaurant. The building that was Chris Madrids was made up of three structures cobbled together over the years. The original part, a converted 1920s gas station, has been expanded since it first opened and today is the ordering area and kitchen. In the 1980s, Madrid purchased the nearby Alpine Ice House to use as a bar area and for more seating. Later, he connected the two buildings with a high-ceiling dining room where a parking lot had been. The fire broke out in a storeroom off the bar building, which was a total loss and had to be torn down. While the task before him seemed overwhelming, Peacock said he was told by several people, including a consultant with his insurance company, that the fire would be a blessing in disguise. Turns out they were spot on, said Peacock, who owns the business with his wife Brooke and a few family members and friends. Soon after the fire was put out, Peacock began working with Hefty to rebuild the bar building. But as the work progressed, as they removed walls and poked into dark corners, they discovered that the surviving structures needed almost as much attention as the part that had been destroyed. Wed be following the plan and then someone would come to us and say, We have a problem, and wed have to go back and come up with a solution, Hefty said. And after wed done that, theyd come back and say, We have another problem. Thats why it took us two years to finish this project. The west wall of the building was still standing basically by habit, Peacock said ruefully. Chris was apparently a very trusting person who believed that the way he treated others would be the way others would treat him. What they found when they tore things back, he explained, seemed to indicate people didnt always do right by him. In the end, they had to take most of the rest of the structure down to the studs and eventually re-stucco the facade. On ExpressNews.com: Top 10 burgers in the San Antonio area from our 52 Weeks of Burgers series While they wanted to stay true to original space, they also decided to make strategic architectural updates to the new structure, such as eschewing the restaurants familiar stucco siding for whats known as weathering steel. Made of steel alloy with a rippled surface, weathered steel will rust after about six months of exposure to the elements, giving it an aged look that also protects it from further deterioration. The material felt right for the building, especially against the white stucco, Hefty said. Its a good mix of old and new. Peacock also went ahead and built the private event room hed been planning before the fire, which he dubbed The Gathering Place. Separated from the main building by a comfortable outdoor patio, the long rectangular building has a large, shaded front porch and garage doors that hark back to the converted gas station that predated the restaurant and that can be opened in mild weather. In addition to events, The Gathering Place comes in handy on those busy Friday and Saturday evenings when the crowds are thick and seating is at a premium. But Peacock didnt want to eliminate every sign of the fire. High up on the wall, just below the ceiling between the bar area and the center room, the wood around several electrical outlets shows scorch marks from the flames. When workers started to clean the soot, Peacock stopped them. Even though few people will ever notice it, I wanted to keep those burn marks there as a reminder of what we went through, he said. So to the impatient woman who wondered why it took them two years to get the place up and cooking burgers again: now you know. Richard A. Marini is a features writer in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | rmarini@express-news.net | Twitter: @RichardMarini LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - The Arkansas Supreme Court has rejected the appeal of a man who fatally shot a U.S. Army soldier and wounded another outside a recruiting station in Little Rock. The ruling dated Thursday and first reported by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette said Abdulhakim Muhammads appeal is without merit. Muhammad, 34, was sentenced to life without parole after pleading guilty to the 2009 fatal shooting of Pvt. William Long of Conway and wounding of Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula of Jacksonville outside the Little Rock Army-Navy Career Center. In an interview with The Associated Press shortly after his arrest, Muhammad, who changed his name from Carlos Bledsoe, said he didnt consider the killing a murder because U.S. military action in the Middle East made the killing justified. Serving as his own attorney, Muhammad said in a handwritten appeal that Pulaski County Circuit Court lacked jurisdiction to try this case based on the fact federal courts not state courts have exclusive jurisdiction over all offences over laws of the United States. The states highest court, in an opinion written by Associate Justice Robin Wynne, disagreed. Under the doctrine of dual sovereignty, the State of Arkansas may prosecute any person whose conduct violated state law even if the persons conduct also violated federal law, Wynne wrote. Krueger: With some care over the years, the old family barn keeps standing WESTPORT Friends, family and the community got an opportunity to show its appreciation for its men and women in blue last week with the inaugural Westport Police Department Service Awards Ceremony at Town Hall. Its a very special occasion, Chief Foti Koskinas said. He and other officials bestowed honors and awards on some two dozen members of the force, including Cpl. Kevin Smith, who was named Officer of the Year. As far as I know, this is the first organized awards ceremony, said Koskinas, who has been with the department 25 years. A wide range of successes and services were highlighted from various life-saving efforts, investigative work, acts of bravery and acts of kinds and community care. Most of what these officers do will never be recognized, Koskinas said, recounting a range of behind-the-scenes examples of how they help and serve people, and noting the immensity of what they sometimes must experience in their jobs. Their eyes will see things throughout their career that no one should ever see, he said. First Selectman Jim Marpe said he was proud and honored to be part of the ceremony. What a proud moment this is for you, I hope, for your families and friends, he told the award recipients, and what a proud moment this is for Westport celebrating your accomplishments. The National Health Commission said in its daily report that 1,795 patients remained in critical condition, and 17,988 people were suspected of being infected with the virus as of the end of Friday. A total of 243 people had been discharged from hospital after recovery. Friday saw 2,102 new confirmed cases, 5,019 new suspected cases, and 46 deaths -- 45 in Hubei Province and one in Chongqing Municipality. Also on Friday, 268 patients became seriously ill, and 72 people were discharged from hospital after recovery. A total of 136,987 close contacts had been traced, the commission said, adding that among them, 6,509 were discharged from medical observation on Friday, with 118,478 others still under medical observation. By the end of Friday, 13 confirmed cases had been reported in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, seven in Macao Special Administrative Region and ten in Taiwan. * The two hospitals being built following Beijing's SARS treatment model will start to receive patients infected with novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) on Febuary 3 and February 6 respectively in Wuhan, the center of a coronavirus outbreak in central China, according to a press conference on Friday. Now, workers, trucks, and excavators are racing against the clock to meet the deadline at the construction sites. * The first batch of charter flights sent by the Chinese government Friday evening brought back 199 stranded Hubei residents from overseas following the novel coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province. Passengers on board were tested if they had a fever. Those with the symptoms of fever will be quarantined immediately. * The municipal government of Beijing announced Friday that enterprises in the city should make arrangements for employees to work at home before the end of February 9 to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus. The government also required that company employees currently in central China's Hubei Province should strictly abide by the measures taken by the local government and should not leave the province without permission. * China's central authorities approved Friday further extending the Spring Festival holiday in the novel coronavirus hard-hit Hubei Province to curb the outbreak. A meeting of the leading group of the Communist Party of China Central Committee on the novel coronavirus prevention and control agreed that Hubei would extend the holiday to an "appropriate extent." People in Hubei whose workplaces are outside the province were also granted an extended holiday and were asked to stay put. The meeting was chaired by Premier Li Keqiang, who also heads the group. * China's railway police will step up prevention and control measures to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus during the ongoing Spring Festival travel rush. Local railway public security authorities are asked to strengthen cooperation with local enterprises, epidemic prevention departments, health departments and other departments in epidemic prevention and control, according to a national video conference held in Beijing. * China has imported CNY290 million (about US$41.8 million) worth of medical supplies in a single week to ease domestic shortages amid efforts to contain the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak, customs data showed Friday. Rosa Parks was a famous activist during the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s in the United States. She is most well known for the role she played in the Montgomery bus boycott. She chose not to give up her seat on the bus to a white man when public transportation was racially segregated by law. Rosa Parks chose to be arrested instead of giving up her seat and became a symbol of the fight against an unjust, racist system. She was nicknamed the first lady of civil rights by the U.S. Congress. The Early Life And Activism Of Rosa Parks Rosa Parks was born in 1913 (February 4), in Tuskegee, Alabama. Her maiden name was McCauley. During her childhood, she suffered from poor health and had attended mostly rural schools. Around this time, racial segregation was becoming more prevalent in the south of the United States. This was due to the former Confederate states adopting laws that took away the voting rights from black people. Public transportation had separate seating sections for blacks and whites, and school buses were unavailable for black children. In her autobiography, Parks remembered the members of the Ku Klux Klan marching in front of her house. She was often bullied by white children and had to fight back. In 1932, Rosa married Raymond Parks, who was a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). She was working numerous jobs and managed to finish her high school studies in 1933. She started being more active in the civil rights movement in 1943 when she began working as a secretary for the NAACP. While working there, she investigated cases of racial injustice and campaigned for equality. In the 1940s, she worked at an air force base for a while, and because it was federal property, there was no racial segregation there, which was an eye-opening experience for Parks. The Montgomery Bus Boycott In August of 1955, Emmett Till, a black teenager, was mercilessly murdered in Mississippi by racists. That event started stirring a larger uprising of the civil rights movement, the murderers were acquitted, and the case garnered a lot of media attention. This event incredibly saddened Rosa Parks. On Thursday, December 1, 1955, she boarded the bus in downtown Montgomery and sat in the first row of the seats reserved for blacks, the so-called colored section. The bus began to fill up, and soon the driver asked the black passengers to give up their seats for white people and move to the back of the bus. Sculpture of Rosa Parks inside a bus at the National Civil Rights Museum. Credit: Gino Santa Maria / Shutterstock.com Rosa Parks continuously refused to stand up and give up her seat. According to her, she remembered Emmett Till and couldnt go back. She was arrested after the driver called the police. It is often believed that Rosa Parks couldnt stand up because she was physically tired; however, this is not true, and Parks disputed it herself. After her arrest and release, the members of the NAACP started to plan a bus boycott. The boycott aimed to force the predominantly racist society to treat blacks with the normal level of respect and courtesy, to hire black drivers and for the middle row of the bus seats to be open for those that sit there first. Rosa Parks was found guilty on trial. However, she decided to take a stand and appeal her conviction, thereby challenging racial segregation through legal means. The boycott continued, and a new group was formed to continue leading it. The name of the group was the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), and its first president was Martin Luther King Jr., who was still unknown then. 17,000 people joined the boycott, and 13 months later, the buses were desegregated. The Impact And Importance Of Rosa Parks The actions of Rosa Parks played an enormous role in the fight for civil rights. She was a model citizen, employed, married, and well versed in politics, which made her the perfect choice for the attempt to fight segregation laws. Her actions helped raise international awareness of racism in the United States. Her arrest is considered to be the catalyst that fueled the civil rights movement. Although what she did may seem like something insignificant to the younger generations of today, it was an astonishingly brave thing to do, and it changed the entire world for the better. The fight against racism is still ongoing, but people like Rosa Parks are responsible for making it grow to a tremendous size. She became an absolute icon because of what she did and is rightfully considered the mother of the civil rights movement. Australians the government wants to airlift from the Chinese city of Wuhan and transport to Christmas Island will not be charged $1,000 as previously announced. Federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg said it was a mistake to say they would be charged. 'The Department of Foreign Affairs have publicly said they they provided incorrect information,' he told ABC's Insiders program on Sunday. The department had previous said the charge was consistent with the arrangements that were in place when people airlifted out of Cairo during the Arab Spring. Less than an hour earlier, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton had told Sky News evacuees would be charged $1000, as Prime Minister Scott Morrison had said last week. Australians the government wants to airlift from the Chinese city of Wuhan and transport to Christmas Island will not be charged $1,000 as previously announced (pictured: passengers at Brisbane Airport on January 31) Federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg said it was a mistake to say Australians would be charged People are seen leaving the Sydney Airport terminal wearing facemasks over fears of the deadly coronavirus However, Mr Frydenberg said Beijing has yet to agree to the evacuation that would see Australians quarantined on Christmas Island. 'We're working through the issues, but we hope that approval is imminent,' the treasurer said. Mr Morrison announced on Saturday foreign travellers who have left or passed through China will be denied entry to Australia aiming to stop the spread of the coronavirus. Australian citizens, permanent residents and their immediate families, dependents, legal guardians and spouses, will be exempted from the strict measures, Mr Morrison said. People who arrive in Australia and have been to mainland China, not just the Hubei province, are required to self-isolate for a period of 14 days from the time they left the country. He also announced advanced screening arrangements at major airports. Mr Dutton said border and medical staff having been working through the night to set up these arrangements to deal with travellers from China. Australians trapped in the Chinese Wuhan province will need to pay $1,000 in order to be evacuated to the detention centre on Christmas Island (pictured) He said staff conducting the screening that commenced from 6am on Sunday will be well protected. Arriving travellers will be issued with masks and information and tested with thermometers. 'It provides additional reassurance to the Australian public that we are absolutely determined to deal with this issue,' Mr Dutton said. 'We have been decisive in making these decisions to get us to this point and we'll do what ever is necessary to keep Australians safe.' These measures came as South Australia confirmed two new coronavirus cases there - a Chinese couple in their 60s - bringing the national total to 12. Australians are also being told not to travel to mainland China as the number of confirmed coronavirus cases grows. The deadly disease has killed 170 people in China and nine Australians have so far been diagnosed People wearing protective face masks to protect themselves from Coronavirus are seen at Brisbane International Airport on Friday Three more cases of coronavirus (pictured) on Saturday have taken Australia's tally to 12 Qantas will halt its two direct services to mainland China, saying entry restrictions imposed the United States, Singapore and other countries will impact crews working across the airline's international network. Mr Frydenberg also said it is too soon to judge what impact the cirus will have on the Australian economy. He said China is a critical economic partner for Australia and the source of over 200,000 foreign students and 1.4 million tourists and provide a combined $16 billion to the economy. 'It's too early to give a definite view about the economic impact because we don't know how severe and how sustained the virus outbreak is,' the treasurer said. He said the SARS virus in 2003 did impact on student numbers and tourist numbers fell about 11 per cent in the June quarter of that year, and while trade numbers were affected, they rebounded in subsequent quarter. But he declined to speculate whether the economy could face a quarter of economic contraction. 'There are things that we can control and things that we can't control,' he said. 'When it comes to the outbreak of the virus, when it comes to the fires, when it comes to the floods. When it comes to the trade tensions between the United States and China, we can't control those factors.' Fully protected ambulance and medical staff walk through a community health station in Wuhan Participants in the ASEAN-Korea Youth Academic Workshop with Deputy Head Phan The Thang, fourth left in the third row, from the ASEAN-Korea Centre's Information and Data Unit, during their visit to the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam (DAV) in Hanoi, Jan. 7. The ASEAN-Korea Centre hosted the workshop in Hanoi, Seoul and Busan from Jan. 6 to 16 as part of efforts to enhance youth cultural exchanges. / ASEAN-Korea Centre Participants in the ASEAN-Korea Youth Academic Workshop with Minister Counsellor Han Sung-ho, sixth left in the front row, from the South Korean Embassy in Hanoi, and Deputy Head Phan The Thang, fourth right in the front row, from the ASEAN-Korea Centre's Information and Data Unit, during their visit to the embassy, Jan. 8. / Korea Times photo by Yi Whan-woo By Yi Whan-woo HANOI South Korea and ASEAN forming a cooperative bloc with North Korea is not a mainstream idea in the international diplomatic circle that hopes to bring peace to the Korean Peninsula. It would also be going too far for the South to fully acknowledge the 1965 agreement with Japan over wartime reparations as a step toward establishing a three-way partnership with ASEAN and avoid being overpowered in the Indo-Pacific. But future leaders of ASEAN and South Korea say these are plausible hinting at how creative the next 30 years of ASEAN-South Korea cooperation could be when they gathered in Hanoi, Vietnam, from Jan. 6 to 11 as a part of the ASEAN-Korea Youth Academic Workshop. "An ASEAN Plus Two with both Koreas should be created as part of the Korean peace process," Dao Manh Nghia, a law student at Ho Chi Minh City University in Vietnam, said, referring to ASEAN's multilateral cooperation framework with outside groups. Hunter Ng, a student at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, argued "three factors will contribute to the outcome" of ASEAN-South Korea relations in the next 30 years, with one being cooperation among ASEAN, South Korea and Japan. The other two are South Korea "letting go of historical baggage against Japan" and strengthening people-to-people exchanges. Dao Manh Nghia and Hunter Ng were among participants of the workshop hosted by the ASEAN-Korea Centre in Hanoi, Seoul and Busan from Jan. 6 to 16. The workshop, the centre's opening project this year, invited 14 winners of the 2019 ASEAN-Korea Academic Essay Contest with one from Brunei, Cambodia, Myanmar and the Philippines, two from Indonesia, Singapore and Vietnam and four from South Korea. The annual contest began in 2016, co-organized by the centre and the ASEAN University Network. It has been open to all university-level students in ASEAN and South Korea, with the goal of raising public awareness and understanding of the two sides' relations, stimulate youth cultural exchanges and encourage related studies in common interest areas. The goals are in line with the objectives of the centre a Seoul-based intergovernmental organization tasked with promoting the economic and socio-cultural cooperation of the regions. The 2019 contest was held with growing expectation toward future generations of ASEAN and South Korea, which celebrated their 30th anniversary of relations last year and discussed cooperative measures. The applicants were asked to write on one of four topics "ASEAN and Korea in the emerging Indo-Pacific," "ASEAN connectivity and beyond," "Toward a reciprocal cultural exchange: ASEAN wave in Korea," and "30 years of ASEAN-Korea relations: Retrospect and prospect." Participants in the ASEAN-Korea Youth Academic Workshop and ASEAN-Korea Centre officials visit Vietnam's leading IT services company FPT in Hanoi, Jan. 9. / ASEAN-Korea Centre ASEAN-Korea Youth Academic Workshop participants visit the Landscape Complex on the outskirts of Hanoi, Jan. 11. / ASEAN-Korea Centre "In shaping the future community of ASEAN and Korea, the role of young people is more important than ever," the centre's Secretary-General Lee Hyuk said. He said the two sides are "advancing together into a new era of partnership" after a commemorative summit among ASEAN and South Korean leaders in Busan November 2019. "In this regard, the ASEAN-Korea Academic Essay Contest is a valuable program that promotes studies on ASEAN-Korea relations and contributes to nurturing the young minds of ASEAN (member states) and Korea to lead a more sustainable and forward-looking partnership into the future." Meanwhile, the Hanoi workshop took place because Vietnam is the 2020 ASEAN chair. The programs included discussions with students at prestigious schools, such as the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam (DAV) an academic institution for aspiring diplomats under the wing of the Vietnamese foreign ministry and Thuongmai University. The discussions addressed common challenges faced by ASEAN and South Korea, ranging from the U.S.-China trade war, a rising China, growing U.S. protectionism and its threat to a free market economy. To tackle some of the challenges, Dao Manh Nghia proposed a three-way cooperative bloc with India, while Ang Guan Teo, also from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, suggested expanding cooperation among defense sectors. Asked whether the students' suggestions could be feasible in the future, DAV President Nguyen Vu Tung said: "Why not?" "These are brave ideas and we have to try to convince people on these issues," he said. ASEAN-Korea Youth Academic Workshop participants with officials from the ASEAN-Korea Centre and the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) visit KOICA. They toured Korea as a part of a workshop in Hanoi and Seoul from Jan. 6 to 16. / ASEAN-Korea Centre Participants in the ASEAN-Korea Youth Academic Workshop listen to a guide during their visit to the ASEAN Culture House in Busan. / ASEAN-Korea Centre Participants in the ASEAN-Korea Youth Academic Workshop visit Busan Port. / ASEAN-Korea Centre Russias government on Saturday halted visa-free tourism for Chinese nationals and stopped issuing them with work visas over the deadly the deadly coronavirus outbreak. An order posted on the government website said the measures were to ensure the safety of the country, protect public health and prevent the spread of the new coronavirus. The order, dated Friday, said that the FSB security service, which is in charge of border guards, should halt visa-free tourism from midnight Saturday. Chinese tour groups visiting Russia have been eligible for visa-free travel since 2000. The government order also said that the interior ministry should stop issuing invitations for Chinese people to work in Russia and the foreign ministry should stop issuing work visas. Russia said Friday that two Chinese citizens had tested positive for the new coronavirus in the countrys first cases since the deadly outbreak emerged in China, and announced new travel restrictions. The government said the foreign ministry inform China that the measures were due to exceptional circumstances and only temporary. Russia on Thursday said it would stop issuing electronic visas to Chinese nationals, which can be used to cross into the country in parts of the far east and western Russia. In this context, the Budget proposed to develop five archaeological sites as iconic sites with onsite museums. Chennai: The government has identified five archaeological sites to be developed into iconic sites and it has proposed to set an institute for training manpower in museology and archeology. Hundred airports under Udaan scheme too will promote travel and tourism. "Growth of tourism directly relates to growth and employment,' said Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman referring to the foreign exchange earnings growth in the sector. In this context, the Budget proposed to develop five archaeological sites as iconic sites with onsite museums. These include Rakhigarhi in Haryana, Hastinapur in Uttar Pradesh, Shivsagar in Assam, Dholavira in Gujarat and Adichanallur in Tamil Nadu. The minister also recognized the fact that lack of trained man-power is a handicap affecting tourism. Hence, the Budget proposed to establish an Indian Institute of Heritage and Conservation under Ministry of Culture. "It shall have the status of a deemed University to start with. Acquisition of knowledge in disciplines such as museology and archaeology are essential for collecting and analysing scientific evidence of such findings and for dissemination through high quality museums. In the historic Old Mint building Kolkata a museum on Numismatics and Trade will be located. Apart from the Kolkata museum, which was proposed to undergo recuration earlier, four more museums from across the country shall be taken up for renovation and re-curation so that a world class experience can be offered to visitors, she said. Further, the government shall also support setting up of a Tribal Museum in Ranchi and a maritime museum would be set up at Lothal- the Harrapan age maritime site near Ahmedabad by Ministry of Shipping. She also expects states state governments to develop a roadmap for identified destinations and formulate financial plans during 2021 against which specified grants will be made available to them. The government has proposed to provide `3,150 crore for Ministry of Culture for 2020-21 and for tourism promotion, an allocation of `2,500 crore has been made. Eleven more evacuees from coronavirus-hit China are beginning a two-week quarantine period after they were flown back to the UK on Sunday evening. The British nationals and family members arrived at RAF Brize Norton on a flight from France shortly before 8pm and will join 83 people already in isolation at Arrowe Park Hospital in the Wirral. The latest repatriation flight came as a man in the Philippines became the first person to die from the virus outside China, where the death toll has risen above 300. Chinese authorities said the number of confirmed cases of infection had increased to 14,380. A University of York student and their relative remain the only two confirmed cases in the UK and the pair are being treated at a specialist unit in Newcastle. On Sunday, the Foreign Office, which has withdrawn some staff from China and closed the British Consulate-General in Wuhan, said it is continuing to work with EU countries to add remaining Britons to any rescue flights they may charter back from Wuhan. A spokesman for the Foreign Office (FCO) said: The Government is in touch with British nationals who remain in Wuhan, and are doing everything we can to bring them home as safely and quickly as possible. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said the Government which has launched a public health campaign advising people how to slow the spread of the virus is doing all it can to help Britons leave Wuhan. CORONAVIRUS: PUBLIC INFORMATION Please read and share the latest information and advice on novel #coronavirus https://t.co/HdLMY6wv7K Stay up to date by following @PHE_uk and @DHSCgovuk pic.twitter.com/M9zee3qPLe Public Health England (@PHE_uk) February 2, 2020 Mr Raab told the BBCs Andrew Marr Show: Well do everything we can to make sure that those that still want to leave, give them the opportunity to do so. Story continues He added: The challenge that weve got, and the Chinese have got frankly, is to contain the virus but also then to lift out people that want to come back home and were doing that as sensitively and as effectively as we can. The Department of Health said the new campaign of advertisements advising people to use tissues when sneezing or coughing and wash their hands regularly will target publications and forums known to be read by Chinese nationals in the UK. Health Secretary Matt Hancock said UK medics are working round the clock to prevent the spread of the illness, but added the general public can do its bit. He said: Basic hygiene such as washing our hands regularly and using tissues when we cough and sneeze can play an important role in minimising the spread of viruses like this. A UK-wide public health campaign has been launched to advise people how to slow the spread of coronavirus (NHS/PA) The University of York reassured staff and students that the risk there remains low as investigations revealed the unnamed student had not been on campus or in student accommodation either before or after being exposed to the virus. Vice-chancellor Professor Charlie Jeffery said the student did not attend a university Chinese New Year celebration or recent graduation ceremonies and contacted emergency services as soon as their relative showed symptoms of the virus. Public Health England is continuing to work to try to trace people who had close contact defined as being within two metres of the infected person for 15 minutes with the pair, who had checked in to the Staycity apartment-hotel in York. A dedicated helpline set up by the University of York at the weekend for people with concerns about the virus had received more than 240 calls by Sunday afternoon. The UK risk level from coronavirus remains at moderate, having been raised from low last week, on the same day the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared an international public health emergency. York University has advised people concerned about their health in relation to coronavirus to call 111 (Anna Gowthorpe/PA) The Department of Health said 266 coronavirus tests had been carried out in the UK to date, with only the two confirmed cases coming back positive. The number of coronavirus cases worldwide has surpassed that of the Sars epidemic, although death rates are lower. Many countries have said they plan to quarantine evacuees for two weeks to avoid spread of the virus and evacuation flights out of Wuhan where the virus was first identified are expected to continue. Russia, Mongolia and North Korea have announced that they will close their land borders with China to guard against the spread of the virus. New Zealand announced on Sunday that it is imposing a temporary 14-day ban on foreign travellers from China. The Department of Health said it had no current plans to stop travellers from entering the UK. A spokeswoman said: We have no current plans to restrict entry into the UK, but we will keep this constantly under review and follow WHO guidance. WA's taxpayer-owned State Theatre Centre has apologised to the Chinese government after it allowed a Taiwanese performing arts group to hire its facilities. According to the Perth Theatre Trust, the state government body which manages the theatre, the Chinese consul in WA was embarrassed when "a flag was raised that did not align with the Commonwealth's one-China policy" at a performance of the Taiwanese Acrobatic Troupe. Falun Gong-linked Shen Yun dance troupe, which is based in New York, failed to secure a booking at a WA theatre in 2020. Credit:Must Do Brisbane The People's Republic of China claims Taiwan as part of its territory, but this is rejected by the controversial east-Asian democracy, which maintains informal diplomatic relations with Australia even though its independence is not recognised by most countries. In March last year, the Perth Theatre Trust's venues director Glenn Hall apologised in person at China's consulate in East Perth when officials requested a meeting about the Taiwanese performance. WATERTOWN, N.Y. -- A 29-year-old Watertown has been arrested and charged with third-degree assault, according to New York State Police. Angelo R. DiLeonardo was also charged with endangering the welfare of a child, police said. Both charges are misdemeanors. DiLeonardo injured the child in November of 2019, police said. He was issued an appearance ticket and is set to appear in Town of Pamelia Court on Feb. 20, police said. Thanks for visiting Syracuse.com. Quality local journalism has never been more important, and your subscription matters. Not a subscriber yet? Please consider supporting our work. In an apparent effort to end the growing confusion over the new definition of Non-resident Indian (NRI), the Ministry of Finance on Sunday (February 2) issued a clarification saying that any Indian citizen, who becomes deemed resident of India under the Finance Bill 2020 will not be taxed in the country unless it is derived from an Indian business or profession. "In case of an Indian citizen, who becomes deemed resident of India under this proposed provision (Finance Bill 2020) shall not be taxed in the country unless it is derived from an Indian business or profession," the Ministry of Finance said in a statement. The government added that it will incorporate necessary clarification in the relevant provision of the law if deemed necessary. "Necessary clarification if required shall be incorporated in the relevant provision of the law. The new provision is not intended to include in tax net those Indian citizens who are bonafide workers in other countries," said the government. The government further said: "In some section of the media, the new provision is being interpreted to create an impression that those Indians who are bonafide workers in other countries, including in the Middle East, and who are not liable to tax in these countries will be taxed in India on the income that they have earned there. This interpretation is not correct." Live TV It is to be noted that Finance Bill, 2020 has proposed that an Indian citizen shall be deemed to be resident in India if he is not liable to be taxed in any country or jurisdiction. "This is an anti-abuse provision since it is noticed that some Indian citizens shift their stay in low or no tax jurisdiction to avoid payment of tax in India," the government said. "In some section of the media the new provision is being interpreted to create an impression that those Indians who are bonafide workers in other countries, including in Middle East, and who are not liable to tax in these countries will be taxed in India on the income that they have earned there. This interpretation is not correct," noted the Ministry of Finance statement. Bethlehems looking to tighten up its home-sharing regulations and limit them to owner-occupied homes. The city is floating two zoning amendments that more clearly spell out where the city allows home-sharing, when folks rent their homes online on places like Airbnb and HomeAway, and define whats permitted. Last month, Bethlehem City Council unanimously passed a resolution declaring the two changes pending ordinances, which means any new uses from Jan. 21 on would be subject to the new zoning. Council scheduled a public hearing on the new zoning rules for March 3. On Tuesday, updates to the citys existing short-term lodging law -- Article 1741 -- are being sent to Bethlehem City Council as a correspondence item. The changes are meant to bring it in the line with the proposed new zoning definitions. Back in 2017, Bethlehem City Council enacted short-term renting rules to stop investors from snatching up properties in Bethlehems Historic District and listing them on Airbnb. The ordinance requires all short-term rentals to be owner-occupied, licensed and inspected and sets specific limits on the length of rentals. Many residents of the Historic District feel their neighborhood has been under a commercial attack and liken the Airbnb rentals to illegal hotels that threaten the districts residential vibrancy. But Airbnb is playing a role in the Lehigh Valley economy. In 2019, hosts in Northampton County welcomed 14,100 guests, generating $1.7 million of income, according to the home-sharing website. On average, Airbnb guests say 41% of their spending occurs in the area where they stay. In neighboring Lehigh County, 9,100 guests booked stays resulting in $1.2 million for hosts. And Airbnb argues this is really good for the local economy. A survey of more than 35,000 hosts and guest responses found 92% of hosts recommend local restaurants and cafes to guests and 55% of hosts say it helps them afford their homes. Bethlehems struggled with balancing legitimate home-sharing with people buying properties and renting them for income. After the 2017 law was enacted, the city issued 12 citations to unregistered and unlicensed short-term rentals, according to a response to a Right-to-Know request filed by lehighvalleylive.com. Eight of those citations were give to Dr & Sir LLC, which is owned by historic district residents Jay Brew and Dr. Mary Ellen Williams. No citations have been issued since Northampton County Judge Craig Dally issued a ruling Oct. 8, 2018, denying the citys request to toss out a challenge to the law filed by Brew and Williams, according to the city. The case is still spending in Northampton County Court nearly two years after it was filed. Assistant City Solictor Ed Healy did not return a message seeking an update on the case. Brew and Williams asked the judge to invalidate Bethlehems short-term lodging ordinance and allow their residential rental business to continue. The couple owns several properties under limited liability corporations and markets them on Airbnb. They live adjacent to one of the homes, but do not reside in any of the rentals, making them illegal under the existing ordinance and the proposed zoning changes. Their attorney argued in court papers that the city shouldve regulated the rentals via the zoning ordinance, but didnt to avoid grandfathering in existing ones. The proposed zoning changes define a short-term lodging as an owner-occupied single family dwelling that can be rented to a visitor for no more than 30 consecutive nights. If a property is larger than an acre, outbuildings on the land could be used, according to the proposed ordinance. We have had issues with short-term lodging units that are not owner-occupied," city Planning Director Darlene Heller told the Bethlehem Planning Commission when it reviewed the proposed changes. No more than two rooms may be rented and no signs can advertise the rentals, the draft states. A rental must have two off-street parking spaces, unless the short-term rental is located in the central business district. The renter can not use the space to hold a wedding, party or business meeting. If a single-family home or a portion of one is rented when the owner is not living in the home -- and it is not a bed-and-breakfast by definition -- it shall be considered a hotel, according to the proposal. Owners must comply with the existing annual licensing and inspections outlined in the citys short-term lodging rules. They would be allowed in the rural residential and single-family residential by special exception and permitted in the medium-density residential district and the residential overlay district, but prohibited in the residential retirement complex. Airbnbs would be allowed in the citys limited commercial, central business; industrial redevelopment and the office-mixed use districts. They would be prohibited in the general commercial and shopping center, light industrial, industrial, planned industrial, office-research center, institutional, mixed-use commercial and industrial redevelopment-residential option districts. The second proposed ordinance change requires the owner of bed-and-breakfasts to live on site. Sara K. Satullo may be reached at ssatullo@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @sarasatullo and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. IMANI Africa has opined that former president John Dramani Mahama's chances of winning the 2020 elections could be affected after his administration was cited in the Airbus corruption scandal. Europe's largest aerospace multinational, Airbus, is to pay a record 3 billion in penalties after acknowledging it had paid huge bribes to land contracts in 20 countries. Between 2011 and 2015, the company paid bribes to secure contracts in Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Taiwan and Ghana. Anti-corruption investigators hailed the result as the biggest ever corporate fine for bribery. In a Citi News interview on the matter, President of IMANI Africa, Franklin Cudjoe said the revelations could hamper Mahama's presidential ambitions. It will have some ripple effect. That is why we need damages to unveil all of this. It is most likely that because it was his administration that has been fingered in this matter, definitely his campaign will take a bit of a hit to the extent that, although he has not been mentioned in particular, it was his administration that was involved partially as a vice president and later, a president. I'm sure he's had to take the heat just as we are apportioning blame to the presidency when there have been several acts of corruption under this administration, he said. Background It has emerged that some top officials in the government of Ghana during the Mills-Mahama administration between 2009 and 2015, took bribes from the world's largest airliner manufacturer, Airbus. The bribes were to afford the company some business favours, according to UK court documents. The company was found guilty and has been ordered to pay a record sum of 3 billion in fines. citinewsroom VAN BUREN COUNTY Police are seeking a suspect believed to have robbed the Midway Grocery in Van Buren County at gunpoint Saturday, Feb. 1. The suspect, pictured in the foreground of the attached surveillance photo, was described by an employee as a Hispanic male in his 30s, according to a news release from the Michigan State Police Paw Paw Post. Troopers were dispatched to the store near the intersection of M-51 and 92nd Avenue just east of Decatur at around 9 p.m. Saturday night, where they soon after obtained surveillance footage that showed the suspect entering the store and threatening an employee with a handgun. The suspect was seen wearing a dark-colored hooded jacket, dark colored pants, grey shoes, grey gloves, and a light-colored bandana covering his face, the release states. He was seen taking an undisclosed amount of cash from the till and a bottle of wine from the counter, before fleeing southbound from the store. The man in the background of the photo, police confirmed, was a store cashier. Troopers were assisted on scene by members of the Van Buren County Sheriffs Department, Cass County Sheriffs Department, Decatur Police Department, and Pokagon Tribal Police Department. Anyone with any information is asked to contact the Michigan State Police Paw Paw Post at 269-657-5551. Also on MLive: Two charged with open murder in killing of Dowagiac man Full house at Grand Rapids basketball event leaves unruly crowd outside, police respond Murder trial for Kalamazoo woman accused of setting fatal fire will stretch into third week At least seven members of a family, including four children and two women, were killed in a mortar shell fired from Afghanistan in Pakistan's northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Sunday, officials said. The mortar shell hit the family's home at border village Baatwar Bangro in Salarzai tehsil, 137 kilometres from here. The local people, district administration officials, security forces, ambulances and rescue teams rushed to the site and retrieved the bodies, officials said. The house was destroyed in the mortar attack. The shell was fired from the adjacent Kunar province of Afghanistan, an official said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Houthis say targeted Saudi airports, Aramco in retaliation for Riyadh air strikes Iran Press TV Saturday, 01 February 2020 9:43 AM The spokesman for Yemeni Armed Forces says they targeted airports in southern Saudi Arabia and facilities belonging to Aramco oil giant over the past week in reprisal for the Riyadh regime's air raids on the impoverished country. Speaking at a press conference in Sana'a on Wednesday, Brigadier General Yahya Saree said Yemeni fighters launched 26 rocket attacks on airports in Saudi Arabia's Jizan, Abha and Najran regions as well as Khamis Mushait base, Aramco company and sensitive sites inside the kingdom on January 25-30. The airports hit in the Yemeni operation are used by the enemy for military purposes, he added. "The command's instructions were clear to strike Saudi facilities and military bases in response to the airstrikes," Saree said, noting that the operation inflicted a major defeat on the enemy and caused hundreds of the Saudi-led mercenaries to flee. The retaliatory attacks are the first of their kind since late September, when the popular Houthi Ansarullah movement said it would halt its retaliatory missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia if the Riyadh-led military coalition ended its aerial assaults on Yemen. The announcement came after the Houthis claimed responsibility for the September 14, 2019 air raids on Aramco installations, which disrupted about half of Saudi Arabia's oil capacity or 5 percent of the daily global oil supply. Saudi Arabia and the US rushed to blame the attacks on Iran without providing any evidence. Last December, however, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said that the world body's investigators were "unable to independently corroborate" claims that the Islamic Republic was behind the Aramco raids. Recently, the Houthis have engaged in clashes with militants loyal to former Saudi-backed President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi in the Nihm district of Sana'a Province. Elsewhere in his remarks, Saree said that the Yemeni forces had managed to fend off the militant attack on Nihm and were advancing to Sana'a's neighboring provinces of al-Jawf and Ma'rib. "With the defeat of the enemy forces, the Yemeni Armed Forces continued to advance beyond Nihm," he pointed out. In another press conference earlier this week, Saree estimated that the Ma'rib operation, dubbed al-Bunyan al-Marsoos, has liberated 2,500 kilometers of territory and caused the enemy to lose thousands of its elements. UN experts claim Houthis getting weapons similar to Iran's In a separate development, UN experts claimed that the Houthis are receiving parts for drones and weapons, some with technical characteristics similar to arms manufactured in Iran. In a report to the UN Security Council obtained Friday by The Associated Press, the experts argued that an alleged smuggling route "seems to run overland from Oman and the southern coast of Yemen, through territory controlled by the [self-proclaimed] government of Yemen, towards Sana'a." Commenting on the Aramco attacks, they further claimed that "despite claims to the contrary, the Houthi forces are unlikely to be responsible for the attack, as the estimated range of the weapon systems used does not allow for a launch from Houthi-controlled territory." Nonetheless, they added, a number of other attacks using the same drones and land-based cruise missiles can be attributed to the Houthis. Saudi Arabia and a coalition of its vassal states launched the war on Yemen in March 2015 in an attempt to reinstall the Hadi regime and eliminate the Houthis. The military aggression, coupled with a naval blockade, has killed and injured hundreds of thousands of people, and plunged Yemen into what the UN says the world's worst humanitarian crisis. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman has presented a focused, bold, pragmatic and growth-oriented Budget which has attempted a credible balancing act between scripting a blueprint for sustaining the growth momentum in the Indian economy on the one hand, while taking up issues of social inclusion on the other. Being embedded in the three major themes aspirational India, economic development and a caring society the Budget reflects the governments commitment towards satisfying the aspirations of the common man even while striving to revive growth in the economy. Moreover, it contains far-reaching and comprehensive provisions which are anchored in the social and macroeconomic reality of the country. No doubt, it will find resonance among the hopes and aspirations of key stakeholders in the economy. In fact, the finance minister has been proactively making bold Budget-like announcements in the last few months to stimulate investment and promote inclusive growth. Examples include reduction of the corporate tax rate, removal of enhanced surcharge on FPIs, provision of additional depreciation to the automotive industry, bank recapitalisation, a package for housing and exports, among others. The Budget marks an ongoing process than a one-off approach towards taking our development journey forward. The Budget has adopted just the right approach for catalysing growth with social inclusion. It has provisions which cover almost all sections of society. The finance minister has taken path-breaking measures towards improving agricultural productivity and doubling farmers income. Besides, developing human capital by providing a fillip to health, education and skills, introducing mega tax cuts for the lower and middle class, making bold announcements on infrastructure and affordable housing, providing an impetus to domestic industry, addressing the concerns of SMEs and startups, simplifying taxation, encouraging foreign investors and supporting futuristic technologies, among others, are versatile moves. In this way, the Budget has ticked all the right boxes, which would propel the economy to the path of inclusive growth. The finance minister made rural India the centrepiece of her second Budgets narrative. The 16 action points enunciated in the Budget are breakthrough ideas, and if implemented they would go a long way to transform the rural economy. The move to encourage states to adopt model acts will pave the way for adoption of much needed agri reforms, leading to better returns for farmers as well as enhanced private sector engagement with agriculture. Similarly, the introduction of Kisan Rail, that will build a seamless national cold supply chain for perishables, is another landmark scheme. Besides, measures like Krishi Uddan, integrating the financing on Negotiable Warehousing Receipts (e-NWR) with e-nam, promoting horticulture, fish farmer producer organisations, among others, are to make farming more remunerative and enhance economic prosperity in the rural heartland. The finance ministers move to restructure income-tax slabs for individual taxpayers who forego deductions and exemptions is noteworthy. Besides, enhancing the basic limit of exemption on personal tax rates for the salaried middle class, with no income tax up to `5 lakhs, is in line with industrys suggestion and would support consumption through an increase in disposable income. The Budget has given a bold thrust to boost manufacturing. The fillip given to individual sectors like electronics and technical textiles, in which India has a cost advantage, is noteworthy. For MSMEs, the Budget has tried to address finance and marketing problems. The national logistics policy will help in enhancing the competitiveness of MSMEs. The proposal to give the option of a concessional corporate tax rate of 15 per cent to power generating companies would encourage investment in electricity generation. On the external front, reviewing the Rules of Origin under various FTAs will address the issue of Indian industry getting impacted due to imports getting routed through FTA countries. The Budget has taken major strides towards building a climate of business confidence among entrepreneurs. Decriminalisation of business laws, by enshrining the taxpayers charter in the statute, on the lines of what is being done for the Companies Act, will be well received. Similarly, the Vivad se Vishwas scheme to resolve pending income-tax cases and introduction of faceless appeals are concrete steps to build trust between the government and industry. The Investment Clearance Cell to facilitate clearances at the Central and state levels, will also improve the ease of doing business. The governments decision to abolish dividend distribution tax (DDT) and return to the classical tax system, where income-tax is levied separately on company income and on dividends received by shareholders, is in line with CIIs position and would reduce the cost of equity capital in the country. The move to allow deduction for the dividend received by a holding company from its subsidiary would also remove the cascading effect of DDT. The government has done well to retain its focus on infrastructure to fulfil its development aspirations. The follow-up on the National Investment Pipeline, with the 6,500 projects across sectors like housing, safe drinking water, access to clean and affordable energy, healthcare for all, etc, as well as the focus on the transport sector and railways and involvement of youth in construction, operation and maintenance of infrastructure would be an important lever to generate growth with equity. The `22,000-crore equity support to IIFCL and NIIF to create a funding pipeline of `103,000 lakh crores, and granting 100 per cent exemption to interest, dividend and capital gains income of Sovereign Wealth Funds in respect of investment made in infrastructure are very important initiatives for funding infrastructure creation. The proposal to extend a tax holiday by a year for the developers of affordable housing project is also commendable. The Budget also sends a strong message towards the continuity of fiscal prudence despite the economy being buffeted by domestic and global challenges. The fiscal deviation in this years Budget is on expected lines and it is heartening to note the deficit will be used to finance capital expenditure. Overall, the Budget reflects a pragmatic approach and displays a vision to drive the economy back to the path of inclusive growth. Would people who dont like socialism vote for Sen. Bernie Sanders against President Donald Trump? Thats a big question for Iowa Democrats as they prepare to caucus on Monday night. Socialism is consistently unpopular in polls. Even many Democrats say they wouldnt vote for a socialist. If that makes Sanders unelectable, Iowans would be foolish to propel him toward the nomination. A new poll taken by Data for Progress, a left-leaning organization, casts doubt on this criticism of Sanders. DFP hasnt posted the survey or its methodology, but it released some of the data to Matthew Yglesias, my former Slate colleague. In a writeup in Vox, Yglesias presents the numbers with care and circumspection, reading them as evidence that Sanders could overcome the socialist label. I read them differently. The DFP poll tells us more about Trump than about Sanders. And it fits the theory that Democrats are better off nominating a different candidate. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The survey, taken between Jan. 9 and Jan. 19, posed three versions of a standard ballot test. One question asked how youd vote if the candidates were Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. The second version added partisan cues, asking how youd vote if the candidates were Democrat Bernie Sanders and Republican Donald Trump. The third version asked how youd vote if the candidates were Democrat Bernie Sanders, who wants to tax the billionaire class to help the working class, and Republican Donald Trump, who says Sanders is a socialist who supports a government takeover of healthcare and open borders. The three versions yielded similar results. In the first scenario, respondents chose Sanders over Trump, 47 percent to 41 percent. (Vox doesnt say whether the respondents were adults or registered voters, but DFP has generally polled registered voters.) In the second scenario, they chose Sanders by a narrower margin, 45 percent to 43 percent. Its possible that partisan cues helped Trump or hurt Sanders. Its also possible that the difference was just random variation. Advertisement Advertisement On the third version of the questionthe one that mentioned socialismrespondents still chose Sanders, 47 percent to 42 percent. Thats almost identical to the first version. From this, Yglesias infers that affixing that label to Sanders doesnt really shift polling at all. In its headline, Vox declares, Bernie Sanders leads Donald Trump in polls, even when you remind people hes a socialist. Advertisement Thats a comforting conclusion. But it doesnt quite match the survey. The question didnt ask whether people would vote for Sanders when you remind them that hes a socialist. It asked whether theyd vote for Sanders if Trump called Sanders a socialist. In the latest Fox News poll, 58 percent of voters said Trump wasnt honest or trustworthy. Only 38 percent said he was. So when you tell respondents that Trump has called somebody a socialist, most of them wont assume that person is a socialist. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Yglesias has a theory to explain why the socialist version of DFPs question produced no effect. Republicans have been characterizing Democratic Party support for higher taxes and a more generous welfare state as socialism for a long time, he notes. This may have somewhat deadened the argument. In a subheadline, Vox puts this point in colloquial terms: Republicans are the political party that cried wolf. Thats a good theory. It implies that Trump would have trouble persuading voters that a self-styled progressive pragmatist, such as former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, or former Mayor Pete Buttigieg, is a socialist. It would be Trumps wordwhich most people dont trustagainst the word of the accused candidate. But if Sanders were the nominee, the claim would be conceded. Sanders calls himself a socialist. When the wolf says hes a wolf, you dont need to trust the shepherd boy. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement When the wolf says hes a wolf, you dont need to trust the shepherd boy. In this way, the DFP survey fits the larger case against Sanders. If voters discount Trumps allegations of socialism, its possiblebut unlikely, given the findings of other pollsthat they dont care about socialism. Its also possible that they dislike socialism but prefer Sanders anyway. But the simplest explanation is that they dont believe Trump. Theyre not going to accept that the Democratic nominee is a socialist unless he says so himself. Sanders doesnt just embrace the label. He backs it up with a long history of Marxism. And hes the only major candidate who insists on abolishing private health insurance and replacing it with a government monopoly. (Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who initially shared his position, has since deferred the idea of taking over the health insurance market.) If you want to test how Sanders would fare in a general election, you cant just tell voters that Trump calls Sanders a socialist. You have to tell them what Sanders has said and done. Advertisement Advertisement Yglesias believes that Sanders performance as a candidate in Vermont supports an optimistic reading of the DFP survey. Sanders consistently does a bit better in elections for his Senate seat than you would expect from the states baseline party lean, he observes. But winning in Vermont is very different from winning a presidential election. According to Pew data, Vermont is 35 percent liberal, 32 percent moderate, and only 30 percent conservative. The United States, as a whole, leans the other way: 36 percent conservative, 33 percent moderate, and only 24 percent liberal. Wisconsin is 41 percent conservative, 36 percent moderate, and only 19 percent liberal. A minor liability in Vermont can be fatal in Wisconsin. The good news for Sanders is that DFPs survey dispels the worst-case scenario. The poll could have found that if Trump were to call Sanders a socialist, most people would vote against Sanders. It didnt. Trumps accusation, by itself, isnt decisive. The question for Democrats is whether to nominate a candidate who will concede that accusationor one who will fight it. Chalk it up to the popularity of the gap year, climbing college costs or emerging career fields that dont require degrees. Whatever the reason, Academy School District 20, a high-performing district of about 26,600 students, has seen a noteworthy decline in the percentage of students entering college within the first year of graduating from high school. Of the districts 1,934 graduates in the Class of 2018, 71% went on to two- or four-year colleges or universities, according to the district, which pays the nonprofit National Student Clearinghouse Research Center to collect the data. Thats down from 76% for the Class of 2017 and comes after extended stagnation, said Jim Smith, D-20s assistant superintendent for student services. While this drop is the first significant change in the district in more than eight years, it does reflect the national trend that is often referred to as the post-recession decline in student enrollment in college, Smith said. Up to an additional 5% of students go to college after the first year post-graduation, he said. In the district's eight years of tracking graduates, 58% of students from a total class graduate from a two- or four-year college, and about 23% of D-20 grads who start two- or four-year colleges drop out. Nationally, D-20s college enrollment numbers are on par with other suburban school districts, Smith said. The National Student Clearinghouse reported in May 2019 eight consecutive years of decline in college enrollment nationwide. College enrollment historically has decreased in a strong economy, as high school graduates secure adequate jobs from the onset, he said. Locally, the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs recorded a lower-than-projected enrollment last semester, after 12 consecutive years of record-setting student growth. That led the campus to offset decreased revenue with emergency funds and hold off on raises and promotions. Enrollment for this semester will be tallied this week. Pikes Peak Community College, however, saw a 3% increase in enrollment last semester over 2018 and a 2.1% increase this semester over last year. The school attributes the growth to a continued focus on developing programs to address our communitys workforce needs, such as last semesters opening of a new Center for Healthcare Education and Simulation, said PPCC spokeswoman Karen Kovaly. Specific digital marketing campaigns and a new texting initiative, which allows us to make a one-on-one connection with students during the application process, also are attracting students, she said. And PPCC retention rates have increased steadily from 47.3% in 2011 to 56.3% in 2019, Kovaly said. The need for skilled-trades workers, new industries such as cybersecurity and information technology requiring training and certification instead of degrees, and families weighing the expense of college versus the return on investment also contribute to declining college enrollment, officials believe. Not all kids are destined for college, and not all kids should go to college, said Alan Thimmig, principal of Liberty High School in D-20, which last semester opened an automotive tech shop, a building and construction center, and certified nursing assistant and emergency medical technician programs for students district-wide. Ive seen kids who go to college and kind of have an idea of what they want to do after high school, but you dont see a lot of enthusiasm and motivation, Thimmig said. The same kids have motivation in these programs. The new classes are popular, the principal said, and part of a $19 million expansion to the school, a result of a $230 million bond measure voters approved in 2016. While the trends are interesting, what school districts do with the information is what counts, said Lori Benton, executive director of learning services for Lewis-Palmer School District 38 in Monument. Another high-achieving district, Lewis-Palmer normally has about 80% of its 500 to 550 graduates enter two- or four-year colleges, she said. That excludes students who seek industry certification, volunteer for military service or become missionaries, for example. Weve been figuring out how to meet the needs of the other 20%, who arent accessing college in that first year after graduation, Benton said. D-38 is trying several programs, she said, including adding courses for students to earn industry certificates and offering the chance for students to graduate high school in five years instead of the traditional four, while taking career preparation courses. For both Academy D-20 and Lewis-Palmer D-38, the majority of students stick in Colorado. D-20s top college choices for graduates are PPCC, UCCS, CSU in Fort Collins and CU Boulder, Smith said. For out-of-state, the most popular are the University of Wyoming, Brigham Young University, Arizona State University and Grand Canyon University. Over the past five years, Rampart High School in D-20 leads local high schools in sending the most freshmen to UCCS for the fall semester, at 458 graduates, statistics show. In Lewis-Palmer D-38, Benton said the highest attended colleges and universities are along the Front Range UCCS, PPCC, CU Boulder, Colorado State University in Fort Collins, the University of Northern Colorado and the University of Wyoming. What that indicates, she said, is the ongoing need for school districts to work with community leaders and businesses to provide work-related experience for students and training that matches job market needs. Just one-third of all American adults have a bachelors degree, yet We have this massive push to get kids to college, Benton said. Our philosophy is to prepare them for a successful first career. Four people were shot, two of them fatally, after a funeral Saturday afternoon at a church in Riviera Beach, Florida, said police, Trend reports citing Xinhua. The shooting occurred at Victory City Church at approximately 2:34 p.m. local time, according to a press release tweeted by the Riviera Beach Police Department. A 15-year-old boy and an adult male were pronounced dead at the scene, said the release, adding that a woman and another juvenile were also shot and taken to the hospital for treatment. No arrests have been made so far, it said. The church's senior pastor, Tywuante Lupoe, said in a Facebook post that they are mourning the loss of "two young black men to a senseless shooting." Riviera Beach is about 130 km north of Miami. At least 304 people in China have died from the virus, which has infected more than 14,500 worldwide mostly in China. The first death outside of China from the new coronavirus was confirmed in the Philippines on Sunday a 44-year-old man from the central Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak. The death toll in China has jumped to at least 304, the Chinese government said, while some 14,380 more are infected. Other countries have rushed to evacuate their citizens from Wuhan and the wider Hubei province, while many have also imposed extraordinary travel restrictions and airlines have suspended flights to and from China. Here are the latest updates: Sunday, February 2 Is the response to the coronavirus enough? Al Jazeeras Inside Story programme debates whether the global response to the coronavirus outbreak has been sufficient and what the global health emergency means for poorer countries with weak infrastructure. Read more here and watch the full episode below. Chinas envoy to Israel compares virus travel bans to Holocaust Chinas acting ambassador to Israel has apologised for comparing the closure of several national borders to Chinese citizens to the turning away of Jewish refugees during the Holocaust. Dai Yuming told reporters at a English-language press conference in Tel Aviv that the errors to limit or even ban entries of Chinese citizens reminded him of the old days, the old stories that happened in World War Two, the Holocaust, the darkest days in human history. Millions of Jewish were killed, and many, many Jewish were refused when they tried to seek assistance from other countries. Only very, very few countries opened their door, and among them is China, Dai said. The Chinese Embassy in Israel later issued a statement saying there was no intention whatsoever to compare the dark days of the Holocaust with the current situation and the efforts taken by the Israeli government to protect its citizens. We would like to apologize if someone understood our message the wrong way, the embassy said. Russian Railways suspends passenger trains to China State-run Russian Railways said it would halt passenger trains to China from midnight until further notice. The Beijing-Moscow route is among the suspended trains. The operator said ti would fully reimburse the fare for unused tickets bought in Russia. Twitter bans financial market website over misinformation Twitter has banned financial market website Zero Hedge from the social media platform after it published an article linking a Chinese scientist to the coronavirus outbreak. Zero Hedge said it initially thought the suspension was triggered by an article it published on Friday about the makeup of the coronavirus. But it said it later learned Twitter had received a complaint from online news website BuzzFeed over a separate article. BuzzFeed said Zero Hedge had released the personal information of a scientist from Wuhan in an article that made allegations about coronavirus having been concocted as a bioweapon. The article was titled Is This The Man Behind The Global Coronavirus Pandemic? Brazilians in Wuhan ask help leaving Wuhan A group of Brazilians stuck in Wuhan has sent President Jair Bolsonaro a video pleading for help to return home. Reading from a letter dated January 30, they told him they were willing to be quarantined when they get back. As we write this letter, there are no confirmed cases of coronavirus or symptoms of infection, one of the group said. Brazils government has said it is studying the possibility of repatriating Brazilians from Wuhan but Bolsonaro said on Friday that in order to do so, a law must be passed guaranteeing that such people would remain in quarantine when they return. G7 countries to discuss joint response The Group of Seven (G7) countries will discuss a joint response to the coronavirus epidemic, Germanys health minister said. Jens Spahn said he had talked on the phone with his US counterpart and we agreed that there should be a conference call, a discussion by G7 health ministers about this question with the aim of dealing with it together. Plane with China evacuees lands in Riyadh Saudi students have landed in Riyadh after a special flight was approved by King Salman to bring the nationals home from Wuhan. State TV reported that ten students were screened by health officials upon arrival and will be quarantined for the recommended 14 days. China has not yet accepted US offer of help: NSA China has not yet accepted an offer of help from the United States to contain the virus, White House National Security Advisor Robert OBrien said, adding that China has been more transparent than in past health scares. 200201235839015 The US has offered help from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other health professionals. We have not yet heard back from the Chinese on those offers but we are prepared to continue to coordinate with them, OBrien told CBS. Weve got tremendous expertise. This is a worldwide concern. We want to help our Chinese colleagues if we can and weve made the offer and well see if they accept the offer. Netanyahu: Israel preparing for unavoidable coronavirus Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country was preparing for unavoidable cases of coronavirus. Our foremost goal is to postpone the arrival of the virus to Israel. I say postpone because its arrival is unavoidable, he said in a statement. We will then identify, treat, isolate and deal with those infected, Netanyahu said. One person with coronavirus visited Mexico: Health ministry Mexicos Ministry of Health said it had received international notification that one person carrying the new coronavirus had visited Mexico City but has since left the country. None of the people so far identified as having been in contact with the infected individual has so far shown symptoms, more than 10 days after the exposure, the ministry said in a statement. Situation in Hubei province severe and complicated The situation in Hubei province remains severe and complicated and medical resources at the country level are relatively weak, Vice Governor Xiao Juhua told a news conference. 200202093426388 Wang Wei, director of Hubeis Science and Technology Department, told the briefing that the time needed to confirm the cases with test kits had halved to not more than two hours and that the kits accuracy had improved. Plane repatriating 250 Europeans lands in France A plane repatriating 250 French and other European nationals from Wuhan has landed at a military airbase in Istres, southern France, BFM TV footage showed. About 65 French nationals will be quarantined either at a holiday resort at Carry-Le-Rouet, in the south of France, or at a firefighters training centre near Aix-en-Provence, Secretary of State for Child Protection Adrien Taquet told reporters. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said the plane was carrying nationals of 30 countries. Non-French nationals will travel on to their home countries, he added. Military planes to evacuate Russians from China Five military planes will evacuate Russian citizens from China, Russian news agencies reported, citing the Defence Ministry. TASS news agency reported that about 130 Russians were ready to leave Hubei province. North Korea says it is virus-free amid tight restrictions North Korea has had no cases of the new coronavirus that is spreading in neighbouring China, a health ministry official said on state media. Pyongyang said there are no confirmed cases of the virus in North Korea [Jon Chol Jin/AP Photo] North Korea has ended most flights to neighbouring China and Russia, imposed mandatory quarantines on any foreigners arriving in the country and ended international tourism programmes, among other measures. Just because there is no case of the new coronavirus in our country, we should not be too relieved, but have civil awareness and work together for prevention, health ministry official Song In Bom said. Cocktail of flu, HIV drugs may help fight virus: Thai doctors Thai doctors have seen success in treating severe cases of the new coronavirus with a combination of medicines for flu and HIV, with initial results showing vast improvement 48 hours after applying the treatment. 200126061554884 The doctors from Rajavithi Hospital in Bangkok said the technique has improved the condition of several patients under their care but stressed it was not a cure. Chinese health officials have already been administering HIV and flu drugs to help fight the virus. Iraq bans foreigners arrival from China Iraq has banned the entry of all foreigners coming from China over fears about the coronavirus outbreak, the interior ministry said. Bangladesh suspends on-arrival visas for Chinese visitors Bangladesh has temporarily suspended visa-on-arrival services for travellers from China in an attempt to halt the coronavirus. Chinese nationals can usually acquire visas on reaching Bangladesh, but now will have to obtain visas before travelling, Foreign Minister Abul Kalam Abdul Momen told reporters in Dhaka. We have suspended the privilege for a month, he said. Potential Chinese visitors will have to submit health certificates when applying for Bangladeshi visas, Momen added. More UK citizens flown back from China A further 11 British nationals are being flown back to Europe from China on a French flight, foreign minister Dominic Raab said. Its correct that there is a further French flight that is expected back in Europe today and that will carry some UK nationals, he told Sky News. Afghanistan sets up isolation wards Afghan health authorities are establishing isolation wards across the country ahead of a potential influx of coronavirus cases, an official said. In the capital, Kabul, authorities have created a 100-bed isolation ward and another 200 or so beds will be made available across the country, public health minister Ferozuddin Feroz said. No cases have been recorded in Afghanistan so far, but the war-torn countrys health services have set up screening units at airports and borders. We have put serious measures in place, Feroz told reporters. Indonesia to stop flights to and from China Indonesia will temporarily stop flights to and from mainland China starting Wednesday and bar visitors who had been in China in the past 14 days from entering or transiting in the southeast Asian country, Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said. The government will temporarily stop visa-free entry for Chinese nationals and visas-on-arrival for those who live in mainland China, she said, asking Indonesians not to travel to China amid the coronavirus epidemic. A total of 243 Indonesian citizens living in Hubei province were also repatriated back to the country, and transferred to the Natuna Islands military base to be quarantined, Indonesias foreign ministry said. Medical officers spray Indonesian nationals with antiseptic as they arrive from Wuhan, and before transferring them to the Natuna Islands military base to be quarantined [Antara Foto/via Reuters] New coronavirus may spread through digestive system: Experts The new strain of coronavirus in China may be spreading from person to person via the digestive system, Xinhua news agency reported, citing medical experts. Researchers from the Renminbi Hospital of Wuhan University and the Wuhan Institute of Virology of the Chinese Academy of Science reported their findings after studying patient stool samples and rectal swabs, the news agency said. Xinhua reported that many coronavirus patients suffered only from diarrhoea instead of from classic viral symptoms like fever. Uber suspends 240 user accounts in Mexico over possible virus contact Uber has suspended the accounts of 240 users in Mexico who may have been in contact with drivers who ferried a person suspected of having the deadly coronavirus. The ride-hailing app said Mexico City health authorities had requested information in January on a possible carrier of coronavirus and Uber had been able to find two drivers who transported the suspected individual before driving a further 240 people. We have proceeded to send information to these two drivers and the 240 users regarding the temporary deactivation of their accounts, the company said in a statement posted on Twitter. So far, Mexico has not reported a confirmed case of the novel coronavirus. Oman, Saudi airlines suspend flights to China Oman and the state airline of Saudi Arabia, Saudia, both suspended flights to China in reaction to the coronavirus epidemic. Chinese economy gets $173bn boost Chinas central bank has announced that it will inject 1.2 trillion yuan ($173bn) into the economy to help deal with the outbreak of coronavirus. The Peoples Bank of China (PBOC) said in a statement it would launch a 1.2 trillion-yuan reverse repurchase operation on Monday to maintain reasonable and abundant liquidity in the banking system, as well as a stable currency market, during the epidemic. Chinese Peoples Liberation Army Air Force aircraft arrive at the Wuhan Tianhe International Airport with medical personnel and supplies to help fight the outbreak of the new coronavirus [China Daily/Reuters] Kazakhstan evacuates 83 citizens from Wuhan Kazakhstan has evacuated 83 of its citizens, mostly students, from the Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicentre of a new coronavirus epidemic, Kazakhstans government said. The Kazakh aeroplane also took an undisclosed number of Kyrgyz, Belarusian and Armenian citizens, the cabinet said in a statement. The evacuees would be quarantined and tested, it added. South Korea to ban entry from Chinas Hubei province South Korea will bar entry to foreigners who have visited Chinas Hubei province, South Koreas prime minister said on Sunday, according to Yonhap news agency. The entry ban will go into effect on Tuesday, Yonhap reported, citing Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun. India confirms second coronavirus case Indias health ministry confirmed the countrys second case which, like the first, is in the southern state of Kerala. The patient is a young woman who returned to India from China on January 24. The patient has a travel history from China, the ministry said in a statement, adding that the new case is being treated in isolation at a hospital. Wuhan field hospital delivered to medics A 1,000-bed field hospital under construction by the military in Wuhan has been completed and handed to health workers, according to the China Daily. The Huoshenshan Hospital will be staffed by 1,400 military medics. Huoshenshan hospital has been formally delivered to military medics after eight days of speedy construction. #coronavirus pic.twitter.com/07kSkLFSzs China Daily (@ChinaDaily) February 2, 2020 US military in S Korea imposes quarantine for soldiers returning from China The US military command in South Korea said it had imposed a 14-day self-quarantine effective Sunday for any soldiers who recently travelled to China, adding that the coronavirus outbreak there could harm military readiness. US Forces Korea (USFK) said it knew of no troops who had been in the hardest-hit provinces of China and that its quarantine measures were a precaution. USFK continues to stress the overall risk to USFK personnel remains low, but that the quarantine measures implemented are out of an abundance of caution to mitigate risk to the USFK population, the command said in a statement. The policy only applies to US troops, but the command encouraged military family members, civilians working for the defence department and contractors to take similar voluntary steps. Saudi Arabia evacuates students from Wuhan Saudi state television Saudi Arabia has evacuated 10 students from Wuhan, Saudi state television reported on Sunday, citing a Saudi diplomat. Chinese authorities approved the special flight that flew the students to Saudi Arabia, the report said. It did not say when the evacuation took place. Separately, Saudi Arabian Airlines said it would suspend flights to Guangzhou in southern China from Sunday night. Taiwan scrambles diplomats to keep flights going Taiwan is asking its diplomats to talk to governments where its airlines fly to ensure more flights are not cut after the WHO included the island as part of China. Taiwan has only reported 10 cases but because the WHO considers self-ruled Taiwan part of China, it has been included in the organisations advice that China is very high risk. China considers self-ruled Taiwan part of its territory. Taiwan is not a member of the WHO due to Chinese objections. Taiwan is Taiwan. Taiwan is not a part of the Peoples Republic of China, Foreign Minister Joseph Wu told reporters in Taipei on Sunday, adding that the two had totally separate health and airline management systems. This simple reality the WHO should not get wrong. Chinese city outside virus epicentre shuts down Wenzhou, an eastern Chinese city of nine million, on Sunday restricted the movement of residents and closed roads in the most drastic steps yet taken by authorities outside the epicentre of the coronavirus. Only one resident from each household will be allowed to go out every two days to buy necessities, authorities said. Some 46 highway toll stations have been closed. Zhejiang province has the highest number of confirmed cases outside central Hubei province, with 265 in Wenzhou. New Zealand to bar entry to foreigners travelling from mainland China New Zealand joined a slew of other countries around the world on Sunday in barring entry to all foreign nationals arriving from mainland China. The ban will take effect from Monday. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade also raised its travel advice to New Zealanders for all of mainland China to Do not travel, the highest level. We have been advised by health officials that while there are still a range of unknowns in the way the virus is being transmitted, we should take a precautionary approach, New Zealands Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said in a statement. The end of the Lunar New Year or Spring Festival is usually one of the busiest times for Chinas airports, but many are now deserted amid strict travel restrictions [Alex Plavevski/EPA] New Zealand citizens and permanent residents returning to New Zealand can still enter the country, as can their immediate family members, but will be required to self-isolate for 14 days on arrival back in the country. The ban will be in effect for up to 14 days, reviewed every 48 hours and includes all foreign travellers who leave or transit through mainland China after February 2. Philippines reports first coronavirus death outside China The Philippines on Sunday reported the first overseas death from the coronavirus; a 44-year-old man from Wuhan city in central Hubei province who died after developing severe pneumonia The man had travelled to the Philippines on holiday with his partner, who was diagnosed with the infection earlier. For more, read here. City officials fired over coronavirus response Six officials in the city of Huanggang, which neighbours Wuhan, have been fired over poor performance in handling the outbreak, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. Xinhua cited the mayor as saying the citys capabilities to treat the patients remained inadequate and there is a severe shortage in medical supplies such as protective suits and medical masks. In the smaller cities around Wuhan, doctors have told Al Jazeera that they have resorted to using disposable rain ponchos and plastic bags to protect themselves because there is not enough equipment to go around. Read more here. Cremation, no funerals: health authorities Chinas health authorities are advising that the bodies of those who have died from the coronavirus should be cremated immediately and that there should be no funerals. Bodies of #nCoV2019 victims should be cremated close by and immediately. Burials or transfer of the bodies not allowed. Funerals not allowed to avoid spread of the virus: National Health Commission (File Photo) pic.twitter.com/IsAHnuY4Rk Global Times (@globaltimesnews) February 2, 2020 Uber suspends scores of Mexico accounts to curb virus spread The ride-hailing company Uber said on Saturday it suspended 240 accounts of users in Mexico who may recently have come in contact with someone possibly infected with the new coronavirus. There are no confirmed cases in Mexico and all nine suspected cases were later declared negative. Uber said in a statement posted on its Twitter account that two drivers may have transported a user who is possibly infected with the new coronavirus. It added the suspended users should contact health authorities if they develop symptoms. Read updates from Saturday, February 1 here. A senior Irish aviation leasing executive has been barred from leaving China by authorities in that country for almost a year, the Sunday Independent has learned. Senior members of Government and consular officials are personally involved in trying to secure the return to Ireland of Richard O'Halloran, who is from a well-known south Dublin family. Sources said that O'Halloran is highly regarded in Dublin aviation leasing circles and "through absolutely no fault of his own" had been caught up in a complicated situation "that has nothing to do with him", but which involves separate businesses belonging to the Chinese owner of the aviation leasing firm for which he works here in Ireland. A spokesman for Tanaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney said: "The Tanaiste is aware of the case but we cannot comment on consular matters." O'Halloran, a director of Dublin-registered China International Aviation Leasing Service Ltd (CALS), had travelled to China approximately 11 months ago, some time after the Chinese owner of his company had become the focus of an unrelated investigation by authorities there. It had previously been reported in the aviation leasing industry press that the Chinese owner of CALS was under investigation as part of a crackdown by the authorities on the country's peer-to-peer lending industry - a sector in which the Chinese owner of the firm was involved through other companies. Dublin-based CALS, which focused on buying and leasing single commercial aircraft, had been in the process of purchasing a Boeing 737 with a $2m (1.8m) deposit loaned to it by one of the financial companies connected to its Chinese owner. That deal was abandoned after the Chinese owner, who also served as chairman of CALS, was detained by authorities in Shanghai. Sources said that O'Halloran had travelled to China some months later but was subsequently denied permission to leave. The Sunday Independent contacted a number of people connected to CALS, including its former Hong Kong-based chief executive, but they declined to comment on O'Halloran's situation. The Foxrock businessman, whose father is a well-known architect and who is also related to the family of former taoiseach Garret FitzGerald, has been unable to leave China but is allowed to leave the hotel in which he is staying, it is understood. Nadhim Zahawi is Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and is MP for Stratford-on-Avon. One of the Labour Partys most frustrating tactics during the last election was their invention of the idea that the Conservatives were somehow lining up to sell off the NHS. They moved on from the lies of previous elections about how the Tories are going to make you pay for services up front traditionally what people might describe as privatisation. But the new fantasy is that were now lining up to allow private companies rip off the NHS, and that patients will suffer an ever-worse service. Luckily the public saw through these politicians parroting on about Donald Trump, the NHS and trade over and over, and the trusted us again with their votes. Voters around the country saw that our party, and our leader, were best placed to care for the system that we rely on to care for us. Of course, now that weve been returned to Government, we can begin the work to show that the public were right to back us on the NHS. Though the truth is that weve already started to try and repay that trust. Not only are Ministers already at work delivering Boris Johnsons promises on nurse numbers and funding levels, but we recently saw an announcement that demonstrates how this Conservative Government will embrace revolutionary ideas in the NHS, while delivering the value for money we need, and supporting the wider economy in the UK. We all know that tackling big public health issues, like obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease is vitally important for the NHS both to keep people healthy and able to live full and rewarding lives, and to reduce ongoing costs to the taxpayer. Unfortunately, drug companies have traditionally become less adept at finding solutions to these issues, due to the huge cost of developing treatments. Thats why the NHS has started to lead the way in attempting to make the development, manufacturing and procurement of these new drugs faster and cheaper for everyone involved. All the while getting patients the medicines they need, and maintaining and improving the manufacturing and skills base at home This new way of working meant were able to announce our first big success recenrly, with a partnership on Inclisiran, a drug originally created by The Medicines Company, before it was bought by Novartis. Inclisiran helps lower cholesterol, via a twice yearly treatment, for those suffering from ASCVD. This disease is a leading case of death and illness in the developed world, where a thickening and loss of elasticity in arterial walls, combined with cholesterol build up, can block blood flow to and from the heart and other organs, eventually causing heart disease or stroke. The UK was able to start discussions early last year about a specific UK collaboration which will enable a large clinical trial and an implementation research project, NHS commercial discussions about pricing and purchasing, and research into manufacturing too. All delivered in partnership with the private sector, the NHS and the Department for Health and Social Care. This innovative project means that 30,000 lives could be saved over the next decade, and thats the most important outcome. But theres another great benefit too, because this work is a real boost to the life sciences sector in the UK; both in research and in manufacturing. Thats why a phone call to Clive Meanwell, the founder of the Medicines Company, was one of my first tasks when I was appointed to the role of Minister for Business and Industry last year. This is exactly the sort of project our country, our economy and our NHS needs. We need the UK to be a global leader in bringing medicines to market, securing investment in our life sciences and providing hope for patients, all at reasonable costs to the NHS. This announcement is a great start, and a testament to the hard work of multiple departments delivering innovative solutions to difficult problems and supporting jobs at home in a real industry of the future. This is the high skilled economy and enhanced NHS that this Conservative Government wants to deliver, to repay the faith of those who voted for us in December and were only just getting started. With the widespread outbreak of coronavirus in China's Wuhan city, people over the globe are confusing the deadly disease with the famous corona beer. According to Fox News, the latest Google trends statistics reflect that searches for "corona beer virus" have seen a considerable spike in the recent days. This made it quite apparent that people are confusing between the coronavirus disease and the popular beer brand Corona. The eastern European nation of Estonia currently leads the pack for "corona beer virus" searches with marked surges seen across all the continents. Fortunately, a gentleman named Realeboga Mashiane shined some light over this epidemic of ignorance by tweeting an image that clearly illustrated the difference between the two coronas. Now it is rather safe to say that you can peacefully enjoy your pint without worrying about dying from acute pneumonia. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The deal comes one day before a deadline by which Kosovos parliament must elect a new prime minister. Kosovos two biggest parties have reached a deal to create a new government, almost four months after the Balkan country held snap elections following the prime ministers resignation. Albin Kurti, the 44-year-old leader of the left-wing Vetevendosje (Self Determination) party said on Sunday he would become the prime minister under the deal and work with the centre-right Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) and other groups. We have already signed the agreement, we have agreed on everything and are sharing responsibilities within the new government, Kurti told a joint news conference with LDK leader, Isa Mustafa. The countrys parliament where the coalition parties together have 77 of 120 seats will vote on the agreement on Monday, he said. The new coalition will include six groups representing the Serbs, Turks, Bosniaks and other ethnic minorities. Kurti and Mustafa have been negotiating a coalition since the election on October 6, the countrys fourth since declaring independence in 2008. The main points of contention concerned the allocation of posts within the administration. The October election was called after Ramush Haradinaj resigned as prime minister after being summoned for questioning by a European Union-funded war crimes court that sits in The Hague. Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, nearly a decade after NATO air attacks drove out Serbian forces accused of expelling and killing ethnic Albanian civilians. A court here sent Kapil Gujjar, arrested for firing in the air at southeast Delhi's Shaheen Bagh area during a protest against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), to a two-day police custody on Sunday. Kapil was produced before Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Vijeta Singh Rawat. On Saturday, he had fired two rounds in the air at Shaheen Bagh, where anti-CAA protests are being held for over a month now. After being overpowered by police personnel, Kapil had chanted "Jai Shri Ram" and said, "hamare desh me aur kisi ki nahi chalegi, sirf Hinduon ki chalegi (only Hindus shall have a say in our country, no one else)," as he was taken into custody by the Delhi Police. This was the second such incident reported from Shaheen Bagh in a span of three days. A man had fired from a pistol on a group of anti-CAA protesters in the area on Thursday, injuring a student of the Jamia Millia Islamia University. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Twelve years. Thats the milestone the Santa Fe Independent Film Festival will reach on October 15-18, 2020. The indie film fest is an October staple in Santa Fe and has grown into a power player on the film festival circuit. Were really excited with how nationally known the film festival has become, says Jacques Paisner, SFIFF artistic director. Its one of the top international film festivals because we are coming together with films that are often the second or third screenings in North America. The Santa Fe Independent Film Festival began in 2009, when it was housed inside a community center. By 2011, it had become the largest film festival in New Mexico, screening over 100 films during a five-day festival. By 2014, the festival crossed a milestone and hosted over 10,000 attendees for the first time. The festival has always been held in October. The festival lines up well just after the Balloon Fiesta and the New York Film Festival, says Liesette Paisner Bailey, SFIFF executive director. Its the perfect time for our region. Big premieres are taking place in New York and Los Angeles, and we try to get these films in Santa Fe for the festival. It gives people the opportunity to not have to travel far to see these films. In 2019, the festival was able to secure the films Marriage Story, Just Mercy and the 1983 classic Somewhere in Time. Marriage Story and Just Mercy were Oscar contenders and gave people in the state a chance to see the film months before it came out. Jacques Paisner says the festival was able to get the films because of the developing relationships with Netflix and NBC Universal, both of which have studios in Albuquerque. Its been super important to develop these relationships, Jacques Paisner explains. (Netflix and NBC Universal) decided to make New Mexico their home. Its our home, as well, and we want to provide quality cinema to festivalgoers. Having these relationships gives everyone a new opportunity. Marriage Story was from Netflix and Somewhere in Time is an Universal picture. As the festival continues to gain traction in the circuit, Liesette Paisner Bailey says its also important to have a presence at other festivals. I travel to other film festivals around the world, she says. I went to Festival de Cannes and, each year, we go to Telluride to find the best international films to bring to Santa Fe. Years ago, SFIFF was competitive with festivals that were more regional. Jacques Paisner says, today, the festival is competing for the biggest films. Its put us in a place where we have these opportunities to play movies that in previous years were out of reach, he says. It really challenges us to be a stop for a big movie. A movie that is figuring out its journey and it decides to land in Santa Fe because there is a large number of Oscar voters here. Theres no little city like this and its because we have one-of-a-kind theaters. Everything comes together for the festival to stand out. Liesette Paisner Bailey says the festival continues to expand its community outreach, offering free movies in the park during the summer months. The festival has also honored the likes of Russell Means, Gary Farmer, Kirby Dick, Alton Walpole, Chris Eyre, Rudolfo Anaya, Judy Blume, John Waters, Shirley MacLaine, John Sayles, N. Scott Momaday, Jane Seymour, Tantoo Cardinal and George R.R. Martin. When were setting our program, things can get pretty crazy, she says. Were doing our volunteer meetings and making sure everything is covered. Its a lively time around the offices and its purely fun. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- When super villains attack New York City, theres only one Staten Islander to call: Richard Perotta. Perotta, 51, of West Brighton is a freelance comic book artist who has had the experience of working for both DC Comics and Marvel Comics. The native of Bay Ride, Brooklyn, said his father introduced him to comics and coloring books at the age of 4 and he has been practicing art as long as he can remember. "Drawing is amongst the oldest forms of communication and, for me, I communicate what Im feeling, what Im thinking and what Im seeing through my drawing. I love it; its part of me, he said. Its telling a story with what Im able to do he added. Thats my favorite thing to do in this world." Comic artist Richard Perotta of West Brighton specializes in drawing and designing superhero cartoon characters. (Staten Island Advance/ Victoria Priola) His youthful imagination and passion for drawing created a foundation that helped him land his first comic book job as an adult: An inker at Marvel Comics. After three application submissions, Perotta was hired in the mid-to-late 1990s. Half of it is talent and half of it is being at the right place at the right time, he said. During his 10-year career at Marvel, Perotta worked on classics like Avengers and X-Men. He was in charge of placing black line to the pencil artwork, giving two-dimensional work a textured feel. The process is one of the final steps a comic goes through before being printed. While he did not get to meet comic legend Stan Lee (trust us, we asked), Perotta said, I knew when I was at Marvel, it was the opportunity of a lifetime. I just learned as much as I could and really took in the talent I was surrounded around. Comic artist Richard Perotta of West Brighton specializes in drawing and designing superhero cartoon characters. (Staten Island Advance/ Victoria Priola) After Marvel, he tested the freelance field before signing a two-year contract with DC Comics -- home of Superman and Batman. If you really love creating, youll learn how to do it independently, said Perotta, who did not attend art school. Instead, he said he relied on books detailing human anatomy in order to correctly proportion characters he created. Asked what advice he would give budding artists, he said, You have to do your research and the best way youre going to learn is practice. Staten Islanders can catch Perotta working at local coffee shops like Fab Cup in West Brighton, where he designed one of the multiple tabletop pieces. For more of Perottas work, follow him on Twitter and Facebook. China's death toll from the coronavirus epidemic soared past 360 on Monday, with deepening global concern about the outbreak and governments closing their borders to people from China. The fresh toll came a day after China imposed a lockdown on a major city far from the epicentre and the first fatality outside the country was reported in the Philippines. Authorities in Hubei, the province at the epicentre of the outbreak, reported 56 new fatalities, with one reported in the southwestern megalopolis of Chongqing. That took the toll in China to 361, exceeding the 349 mainland fatalities from the 2002-3 SARS outbreak. Struggling to contain the virus, authorities took action in the eastern city of Wenzhou on Sunday, closing roads and confining people to their homes. Wenzhou is some 800 kilometres (500 miles) from Wuhan, the metropolis at the heart of the health emergency. Since emerging out of Wuhan late last year, the new coronavirus has infected more than 17,200 people across China and reached 24 nations. The G7 countries -- Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States -- have all confirmed cases of the virus. They will discuss a joint response, Germany's health minister Jens Spahn said on Sunday. In Thailand, which has 19 confirmed cases, doctors said Sunday an elderly Chinese patient treated with a cocktail of flu and HIV drugs had shown dramatic improvement and tested negative for the virus 48 hours later. Most of the infections overseas have been detected in people who travelled from Wuhan, an industrial hub of 11 million people, or surrounding areas of Hubei province. The man who died in the Philippines was a 44-year-old from Wuhan, according to the World Health Organization, which has declared the epidemic a global health emergency. China has embarked on unprecedented efforts to contain the virus, which is believed to have jumped to humans from a Wuhan animal market, and can be transmitted among people. - Wenzhou lockdown - China's efforts have included extraordinary quarantines in Wuhan and surrounding cities, with all transport out banned, effectively sealing off more than 50 million people. But 10 days after locking down Wuhan, authorities imposed similar draconian measures on Wenzhou, a coastal city of nine million people in Zhejiang province, part of the eastern industrial heartland that has powered China's economic rise over recent decades. Only one resident per household is allowed to go out every two days to buy necessities, and 46 highway toll stations have been closed, authorities announced. The city had previously closed public places such as cinemas and museums, and suspended public transport. Zhejiang has more than 660 confirmed infections, with several hundred of those in Wenzhou, according to the government. This is the highest tally for any province in China after ground-zero Hubei. - Closing borders - The United States, Australia, New Zealand and Israel have banned foreign nationals from visiting if they have been in China recently, and they have also warned their own citizens against travelling there. Mongolia, Russia and Nepal have closed their land borders. The number of countries reporting infections rose to 24 after Britain, Russia and Sweden confirmed their first cases this weekend. There were 2,829 new confirmed cases nationally on Monday, bringing the total infected to 17,205, health officials said. With hospitals in Wuhan overwhelmed, China will open a military-led field hospital Monday that was built in just 10 days to treat people stricken by the virus. And with the Chinese economy suffering, the central bank announced it would release 1.2 trillion yuan ($173 billion) on Monday to maintain liquidity in the banking system -- the day markets re-open after the long holiday break. - Holiday ending - The emergence of the virus coincided with the Lunar New Year, when hundreds of millions travel across the country in planes, trains and buses for family reunions. The holiday, which was scheduled to end on Friday, was extended by three days to give authorities more time to deal with the crisis. With many due back at work on Monday, people were starting to return on planes and trains over the weekend, with almost everyone wearing face masks. Customs authorities had ordered temperature checks at all exit-entry points in Beijing, according to state media. Returning travellers were being checked and registered at residential compounds, while fever checks were in place in subway stations, offices and cafes. One 22-year-old arriving at a Beijing train station from northeastern China said her family had urged her to delay her return. "But I was worried it would affect my job," she said. Security guard Du Guiliang, 47, said he would be starting back at work in Beijing on Sunday, after returning from northeast Liaoning province. "Many colleagues (from Hubei) couldn't come back. Now, those who work the day shift at our company have to do the night shift as well," he said. Many businesses were to remain closed for at least another week, however, while some major cities -- including Shanghai -- had also extended the holiday. Anxious shoppers try to buy face masks in Manila after the first foreign fatality from the new coronavirus was reported in the Philippines Countries or territories with confirmed cases of the 2019 Novel Coronavirus as of February 1 at 08:30 GMT. The World Health Organization late last week declared the new coronavirus outbreak a global health emergency Authorities are conducting temperature checks on people across China as they return to work following the Lunar New Year holiday The coronavirus has seen airlines stop flights to China and countries close its borders to travellers from China People around the world are donning face masks in a bid to protect themselves from the virus Labour leadership front-runner Sir Keir Starmer will woo the suspicious left of the party today by backing plans to increase taxes on Britain's highest-earners. The shadow Brexit secretary will use a hustings in Cardiff to say he will keep commitments made in the Labour election manifesto for a 5 per cent income tax hike for people earner 80,000 and over. And in another move which looks designed to win over suspicious Corbynista hardliners who believe he is too moderate, he will pledge to reverse Tory plans to cut corporation tax and stamp out tax avoidance. Sir Keir is the favourite to win the Labour leadership and replace Jeremy Corbyn, but most of the Corbynista establishment has thrown its weight behind his main rival, shadow business secretary Rebecca Long Bailey. In the Welsh capital today Sir Keir is expected to say: 'Labour didn't lose the last election because we promised to raise tax on the highest 5 per cent of earners or to make corporations pay their fair share of tax. The shadow Brexit secretary will use a hustings in Cardiff to say he will keep commitments made in the Labour election manifesto for a 5 per cent income tax hike Most of the Corbynista establishment has thrown its weight behind his main rival, shadow business secretary Rebecca Long Bailey 'If elected Labour leader, I will want to work towards writing a tax and economic plan that is radical and relevant for the end of the 2020s and 2030s. 'However, I want to make a clear commitment now: we cannot step back from our core principles or commitment to build a fairer economy and society. 'If we want to rebalance our economy and invest in public services, it's right that we ask those with the broadest shoulders the top 5 per cent of earners to pay more in tax. 'And we need to clamp down on tax avoidance by companies and individual which costs the taxpayer billions.' Corporation tax has fallen from 28 per cent to 19 per cent since 2010. But Boris Johnson has already halted plans to cut it further to 17 per cent, saying the revenue is needed for infrastructure investment. Ms Long-Bailey and fellow contender Lisa Nandy last night urged the party to accept Brexit and move on, during the first hustings since the UK's European Union exit. Shadow business secretary Ms Long-Bailey and Wigan MP Ms Nandy, who both represent Leave voting constituencies, told a Hustings in Bristol efforts should now be redirected into ensuring a good trade is struck with Brussels. But shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry predicted the exit talks were unlikely to go smoothly and argued that Labour would need a Remain-backing leader who had been 'on the right side of the argument all along'. Ms Long-Bailey told supporters at a hustings in Bristol that the party could not campaign at the next general election, expected in 2024, with the message of 'we told you so' if the country's economic fortunes took a dip after leaving the EU. She admitted it was 'sad' to see the UK's divorce from Brussels finalised this week but said the 'debate is over' on Brexit. 'We cannot spend the next four years waiting to tell our constituents we told you so and that we knew it was going to be this bad all along,' the 40-year-old urged. The Salford and Eccles MP said Labour instead had to make sure Boris Johnson negotiated the 'best possible trade deal' that could help 'rebuild our communities'. Ms Nandy was critical of Labour's reaction to the referendum outcome, accusing the leadership under Jeremy Corbyn of looking 'backwards' after the result rather than 'looking forward to the country we can be'. 'We completely missed the point of that political earthquake, which was a clamour for more power, more control and more agency across this country,' said the backbencher. Scotland Yard officers guarding Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's have said they are treated 'like skivvies' and forced to do 'menial tasks' like picking up takeaways and groceries, it has been claimed. Highly-trained protection staff have also allegedly been seen buying food from an organic delicatessen, a favourite of Meghan's, and picking up coffees from fast food outlet Tim Hortons. A team of 15 guards has been flown to guard the couple and their nine-month-old son Archie at their secluded Canadian bolthole, after they stood back from royal duties. The Duke and Duchess's security is estimated to cost taxpayers in Canada and the UK between 3million and 6million a year, as staff work round the clock two weeks at a time. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's security staff have also been seen buying food from an organic delicatessen near their secluded Canadian bolthole. Pictured is Harry and Meghan visiting Canada House in London last month Security staff pictured holding coffee and sandwiches next to a cafe close to the Sussex's Canadian mansion. One source said they feel they are carrying out 'menial tasks' like errands A royal security source told The Sun on Sunday: 'While the guys are happy to be out there doing the jobs, there is a feeling they are carrying out menial tasks, like picking up takeaways and groceries. 'They are close protection officers - and should be sticking solely to close protection rather than running errands. 'It is dangerous for one thing, because if something were to happen it would not be good if one of them was away running an errand or picking up coffee.' A local source also told the paper that the guards have a 'fleet of cars' and are burly men that seem to be British, which makes it 'not hard to spot them in an isolated place like this'. An insider has previously told MailOnline that the pair have British and Canadian security officers at their mansion. One security officer said the staff were being forced to carry out 'menial tasks' when they should be 'sticking solely to close protection'. Pictured is Harry and Meghan visiting Fiji in October last year It comes as Kim Kardashian's endorsement company Sheeraz Inc. has claimed to be taking offers for the pair - which they have denied. 'Sheeraz Inc. is now taking appearance and endorsement requests for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle,' reads a post from the company online. 'Sheeraz Inc. clients from the Middle East, India, US and Asia can send us official offers and we will take them directly to their representatives.' They have expressed a desire to become self-sufficient following their withdrawal from front-line royal duties last month. Kim Kardashian's endorsement company Sheeraz Inc. - run by businessman Sheeraz Hasan (right) - said it is taking offers for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle this week Sheeraz Inc. asked global clients to send commercial requests to them so they can pass them on to the Sussex's representatives Buckingham Palace and the Met Police declined to comment as they do not comment on matters of security. A spokesman also previously denied claims that Sheeraz Inc. has been recruited to find work for the couple. However, the post has not being removed from their social media page. Hanoi's second metro line gets ready for trial run next year An artist impression of the Nhon-Hanoi Railway Station trains. Photo courtesy of the Hanoi Metropolitan Railway Management Board. A dynamic test of Hanois second metro line is set to take place in September to prepare it for a test run in March 2021. The first train for Hanoi's second metro line, the Nhon-Hanoi Railway Station route, one of ten being made in France, is expected to arrive in Vietnam this July. A dynamic test, involving checks of vehicle stability, safety against derailment, track fatigue, several comfort characteristics and other aspects, will follow two months later, according to the Hanoi Metropolitan Railway Management Board. The 8.5 kilometers of elevated tracks with eight stations will first be put into operation in April 2021, the board said. The Nhon-Hanoi metro line will run a total of 12.5 kilometers from the Nhon area in the western district of Nam Tu Liem via Kim Ma Street to Hanoi Railway Station on Le Duan Street. The underground section, four kilometers long, was earlier scheduled to begin operations more than a year later. The board has said it is working on a plan to recruit and train personnel for operating and maintaining the route. Each train for the Nhon-Hanoi line will have four cars with a total length of 78.2 meters. They will have 94 seats and a capacity of 944 passengers. It will run at a speed of 35 kilometers per hour, with a maximum speed of 80 kilometers per hour, mirroring those operating in Paris, Berlin, and several major cities in Asia. The dates have been announced based on approval of the adjusted schedule for completion of the project. The route was first supposed to be completed in September 2017. This is the second delay the Nhon-Hanoi Railway Station project has experienced. Work originally began in September 2010 for the September 2017 deadline. But early in 2017, Hanoi authorities extended it to 2021. Under the latest deadline, Hanoi authorities have said the entire route would begin operations by December 2022. The second metro line for the capital city carries a total investment of VND36 trillion ($1.56 billion), sourced mainly from official development assistance (ODA). Last October, French rail contractor Alstom revealed the line's train, painted in light green, red and white, mimicking the colors of the dragon fruit, a famous Vietnamese farm produce. Hanoi plans to build eight urban railway lines across the central city area with a combined length of 305 km, including three monorail segments, in its development plan for 2030 orienting towards 2050, according to a government report. Singer Dua Lipa's Grammys dress had strong '90s vibes. Credit:Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP This week, the twice-yearly feast of runways known as Fashion Month will kick off in New York, followed by London, Milan and Paris. And although the runways will show the collections that will be in store in mid-2020, they give a sense of which trends from the past season are going to stick around. Among the experts doing the rounds of the shows will be Libby Page, the senior fashion market editor for e-tailer Net-a-Porter. It's Page's job to distil the key trends to help the buyers decide what to buy (known as "the edit") and the marketing and content teams to sell the dream to customers worldwide. So influential are websites such as Net-a-Porter that they hold their own presentations of brands about two months after the shows, to communicate to editors and content creators (aka influencers) in different markets what's coming up. "We have to be selective and know what we are going to stand behind will resonate with our customer," she said. "The '90s is something we're really going to get behind. It comes back to this idea of being able to wear a trend in a number of ways." Listing of insurance behemoth Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) may be done in the second half of the next financial year, Finance Secretary Rajiv Kumar said on Sunday. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman while presenting the Budget 2020-21 on Saturday announced stake sale in LIC through an initial public offer in the next fiscal. There are a number of processes which have to be followed for the listing and some legislative changes would also be required for the listing of LIC, Kumar said. "We will follow the extant procedure for listing and for other things including the legislative changes it requires in consultation with the Ministry of Law and that process we already started ... listing in the second half of FY21 seems logical," he said. Listing of LIC will bring in greater transparency, public participation and also deepen the equity market, he told PTI in an interaction. Asked about the quantum of dilution, Kumar said, it could be 10 per cent but no decision has been taken so far. The government aims to garner Rs 90,000 crore from the listing of LIC and stake dilution in IDBI Bank in the next fiscal out of total disinvestment target of Rs 2.10 lakh crore. The government currently owns 100 per cent in LIC, while it holds around a 46.5 per cent stake in IDBI Bank. "Listing of companies on stock exchanges discipline a company and provides access to financial markets and unlocks its value. It also gives opportunity for retail investors to participate in the wealth so created. The government now proposes to sell a part of its holding in LIC by way of Initial Public Offer (IPO)," the Finance Minister had said in her Budget speech. Market participants are quite bullish about LIC and said it could be "IPO of the decade" akin to the Saudi Aramco listing. The 60-year-old state-owned firm, LIC, is the country's largest insurer, controlling more than 70 per cent of the market share. The insurer has a market share of 76.28 per cent in number of policies and 71 per cent in first-year premiums. LIC has many subsidiaries including IDBI Bank. It acquired controlling stake in IDBI Bank last year. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) South Korean protesters stage a rally calling for a ban on Chinese people entering South Korea near the presidential Blue House in Seoul, South Korea. AP photo Coronavirus death toll crosses 300, fear triggers global xenophobia against Chinese The anti-Chinese sentiment calls for a full travel ban on Chinese visitors and indignities for Chinese and other Asians South Korean protesters stage a rally calling for a ban on Chinese people entering South Korea near the presidential Blue House in Seoul, South Korea. AP photo A scary new virus from China has spread around the world. So has rising anti-Chinese sentiment, calls for a full travel ban on Chinese visitors and indignities for Chinese and other Asians. Restaurants in South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong and Vietnam have refused to accept Chinese customers. Indonesians marched near a hotel and called on Chinese guests there to leave. French and Australian newspapers face criticism for racist headlines. Chinese and other Asians in Europe, the United States, Asia and the Pacific complain of racism. Two dozen countries outside of China have reported cases of the new coronavirus, which has killed more than 300 people and sickened thousands of others in China. Many countries have sent planes to the Chinese city of Wuhan to evacuate their nationals. The anti-China sentiments come as a powerful Beijing bolsters its global influence, and Chinas rise has caused trade, political and diplomatic disputes with many countries. But with rising fear of the mysterious disease has come a more acute anti-Chinese and, in some cases, anti-Asian backlash. Heres a look from around the world: South Korea South Korean websites have been flooded with comments calling on the government to block or expel Chinese and racist remarks about Chinese eating habits and hygiene. A popular Seoul seafood restaurant frequented by Chinese tourists posted a sign saying No entry for Chinese before taking it down Wednesday after an online backlash. More than 650,000 South Koreans have signed an online petition filed with the presidential Blue House calling for a temporary ban on Chinese visitors. Some conservative opposition lawmakers publicly back these steps, and about 30 people rallied near the Blue House on Wednesday demanding the government immediately ban Chinese tourists. Unconditional xenophobia against the Chinese is intensifying in South Korea, the mass-circulation JoongAng Ilbo newspaper said in an editorial Thursday. Infectious diseases are a matter of science, not an issue that can be resolved through an emotional outpouring. The United States After news broke that someone attending Arizona State University has the virus, Ari Deng, who is Chinese American, said she sat down at a study table on the Tempe, Arizona, campus near five other students. Deng, who was the only Asian, said the other students began whispering. They got really tense and they quickly gathered their stuff and just left at the same time. In a recent business class a non-Asian student said Not to be racist, but theres a lot of international students that live in my apartment complex. I try my best to keep my distance but I think its a good precaution for all of us to wash our hands, Deng said. It stings but I dont let it take up room in my mind or weigh on my conscience, she said. Meanwhile, the University of California, Berkeleys health services center removed an Instagram post Thursday that said fears about interacting with those who might be from Asia and guilt about these feelings were a normal reaction to the coronavirus outbreak. No matter how much time we spend in this country, at times we are almost immediately viewed as a foreigner, Gregg Orton, the national director of the National Council of Asian Pacific Americans, said. Its a pretty frustrating reality for many of us. Hong Kong The virus has deepened anti-Chinese sentiment in Hong Kong, where months of street protests against Beijings influence have roiled the semi-autonomous Chinese city. Last week, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam suspended ferry and high-speed train services to the mainland and reduced flights between Hong Kong and Chinese cities. Tenno Ramen, a Japanese noodle restaurant in Hong Kong, is refusing to serve mainland customers. We want to live longer. We want to safeguard local customers. Please excuse us, the restaurant said on Facebook. Europe A French teacher started a Twitter conversation recently under #JeNeSuisPasUnVirus (I am not a virus) that has drawn numerous accounts of discrimination, from children taunted in the schoolyard to subway passengers moving away from people who appear Asian. France has a significant and growing Asian community, and Chinese visitors are a pillar of the French tourism industry, but old prejudices run deep. A regional newspaper in northern France carried a front-page headline warning of a Yellow Alert, and later apologized amid national criticism. Its a virus that comes from a region in China. It could have come from North Africa, Europe or anywhere, said Soc Lam, a legal adviser to Chinese community groups in Paris. People should not consider that just because we are Asian, we are more likely to spread the virus. A Danish paper, Jyllands-Posten, published a cartoon that replaced the yellow stars of the Chinese flag with representations of the virus. The Chinese Embassy in Copenhagen called the cartoon an insult to China and demanded the newspaper apologize. The German Der Spiegel magazine ran a headline that said made in China along with a photo of an individual in protective gear. On Friday, a cafe near Romes Trevi Fountain, a popular tourist site, posted a notice in its window saying all people coming from China are not allowed access in this place, according to the Italian news agency ANSA. When AP journalists went there to check on it, the post was no longer in the window. Australia, Newzealand More than 51,000 signatures have appeared on an online petition demanding apologies from Australias two biggest-circulation newspapers over their headlines. The petition condemned Melbournes Herald Sun headline Wednesday that read, Chinese virus pandamonium, a misspelling that plays on Chinas native pandas, and Sydneys The Daily Telegraph headline on the same day that read, China kids stay home. Singaporean Kiwi Dollice Chua told the New Zealand Herald that when she went to an Auckland mall last week to buy a wedding card a woman gave her a dirty look and told her You Asians are the ones who brought this virus. Chua has lived in New Zealand for 21 years. Its racist and beyond rude, she said. Japan Many Japanese have taken to social media to call for a travel ban for the Chinese visitors amid worries theyll come to Japan for virus-related treatments. One tweet said, Please ban Chinese tourists immediately, while another said, Im so worried that my child may catch the virus. A candy store in Hakone, a hot springs town west of Tokyo, recently made headlines after it posted a note saying, Chinese peoples entry into the store is prohibited. On Wednesday, Menya Hareruya, a popular ramen chain in Sapporo on Japans northern island of Hokkaido, posted a sign saying No entry for Chinese tourists. Zhang Jiaqi, a Chinese student in Tokyo, said he has not faced any unpleasant response from his Japanese classmates and friends, but, he added, I noticed that some people have turned around or watched me with angry looks on their face when I was talking to my friends in Chinese. Southeast Asia Last weekend, several hundred residents in the Indonesian tourist city of Bukittinggi marched to the Novotel Hotel, where some 170 Chinese tourists were staying, to protest their entrance into Indonesia. They blocked roads near the hotel to prevent the Chinese, whod arrived a day earlier, from getting out of the hotel. Local authorities decided to send the visitors back to China later in the day. More than 400,000 Malaysians have signed an online petition calling for a ban on Chinese travelers and urging the government to save our family and our children. A hotel in Danang, Vietnam, a popular beach destination, has been refusing to accept Chinese tourists. A former police officer and town mayor, Abner Afuang, said he burned a Chinese flag on Friday in front of the National Press Club in Manila to protest the problems China has brought to the Philippines and other Southeast Asian countries, including the virus and Beijings claim to disputed islands in the South China Sea. The Philippine presidents office said in a statement: Let us not engage in discriminatory behavior, nor act with any bias towards our fellowmen. The reality is everyone is susceptible to the virus. The Queen looked elegant in a baby blue ensemble as she arrived for Sunday church service in West Newton in Norfolk, today. Her Majesty, 93, brightened up an otherwise rainy day in a pale blue hat and matching coat, which revealed a glimpse of the paisley patterned silk dress she was wearing underneath. She looked in high spirits as she was photographed stepping out of the back of a chauffer-driven vehicle after arriving at St Peter and St Paul church. The monarch appeared to be enjoying the fresh February air, even stopping to pick up several colourful flower bouquets from well-wishers in the crowd. The Queen looked elegant in a baby blue ensemble as she arrived for Sunday church service in West Newton in Norfolk, today The monarch appeared to be taking the fresh February air, even stopping to pick up several colourful flower bouquets from well-wishers in the crowd The Queen accessorised her summery with a silver diamond brooch, pearl necklace and matching earrings - and could be seen carrying her trusty black patent back on her left arm. Scores of royal fans gathered as the Queen arrived for the traditional Sunday morning service. The Queen, wearing a hat adorned with green and blue feathers in the shape of flowers, looked delighted to be handed pink roses and daffodils as she bypassed well-wishers who lined the streets. While the crowd reached for their smartphones to capture the moment, the Queen smiled as she received the gifts, and walked alongside Canon Jonathan Riviere to the church. The Queen, wearing a hat adorned with green and blue feathers in the shape of flowers, looked delighted to be handed pink roses and daffodils as she bypassed the throng of well-wishers Scores of royal fans gathered as the Queen arrived for the traditional Sunday morning service The Queen (pictured), 93, opted for baby blue ensemble as she arrived at Sunday church service in West Newton, Norfolk today Her Majesty (pictured) completed her outfit with a silver diamond brooch and matching pearl necklace and earrings While the crowd reached for their smartphones to capture the moment, the Queen smiled as she received the gifts The Queen smiled as she left church and was greeted by crowds of well-wishers who gathered in the small Norfolk village As ever, there was a water-tight security presence with police officers flanking the royal as she strode through the small Norfolk village. It's been a busy few weeks for the Queen, who was spotted getting behind the wheel of her Range Rover on Saturday days before she is set to leave Sandringham Estate for London. It marked the first time the monarch was seen out and about since the UK left the European Union and comes days before she is expected to return to the capital. Her Majesty appeared in good health as she was seen driving her car out of the property in Norfolk. She usually spends her winter break at the Royal Estate before leaving on February 6, which is the anniversary of her father King George VI's death. The Queen wore a hat adorned with green and blue feathers in the shape of flowers Her Majesty could be seen strolling the the church yard alongside Reverend Canon Jonathon Riviere As ever, there was a water-tight security presence with police officers flanking the royal as she strode through the small Norfolk village The monarch could be seen holding her trust black patent back, and kept out the chill with a pair of stylish gloves The Queen looked in high spirits before heading inside St Peter and St Paul church, in West Newton, Norfolk The Queen is flanked by Canon Jonathan Riviere as she made her way up the path to the church The royal wore patent leather shoes with a heel and silver buckle which she paired with a black handbag The Queen was unable to attend a WI meeting on Thursday, which she goes to every year at West Newton village hall as part of her winter stay at Sandringham, after catching a cold. Earlier that week, the Queen and Philip were seen for the first time since Prince Harry departed to Canada. She was pictured driving in Sandringham while Philip accompanied his daughter Princess Anne as she drove through the estate. Prince Phillip was also seen driving a truck for a shoot on the estate, following reports that he and the monarch were holding crisis talks about the embattled Prince Andrew. Her Majesty appeared in high spirits at the service - St Peter and St Paul's church is one of several rural churches that fall under Sandringham The Queen appeared in high spirits as she made her way to the church service in Norfolk The monarch's powder blue coat revealed a glimpse of the paisley-patterned silk dress she was wearing underneath The monarch accessorised with a silver diamond brooch, pearl necklace and earrings - and could be seen carrying her trusty black patent back on her left arm The Queen was all smiles as she was photographed stepping out of a black chauffeur-driven car as she arrived at church service The Queen wore a blue hat adorned with pastel-coloured flowers as she attended the church service The Queen arrived at the church before she made her way to the service with Canon Jonathan Riviere A group of well-wishers greeted the monarch who took photos as she exited her chauffeur-driven car DAVOS, ZURICH, SWITZERLAND / ACCESSWIRE / January 31, 2020 / China's leading supplier of bulk commodities Cedar Holdings Group Co Ltd ("Cedar Holdings") signed an agreement with the UK-based Stemcor Global Holdings Limited ("Stemcor") on acquring 100 percent equities of the latter on Tuesday. Photo: Cedar Holdings Group Co Ltd ("Cedar Holdings") signs a share purchase agreement with the UK-based Stemcor Global Holdings Limited ("Stemcor") on Jan. 21, 2020, in Davos, Switzerland. Cedar Holdings is dedicated to building a world-leading bulk commodity group. Stemcor has a well-established global marketing network and system, which will present potential synergy with the existing domestic and international business of Cedar Holdings, said Han Gang, vice president of Cedar Holdings and president of Cedar Commodities Supply Chain Group. With the aid of Cedar Holdings, Stemcor will be able to create new business models. A win-win results and complementary benefits emerge, he added. Photo: Zhang Jin, chairman of Cedar Holdings, delivers a speech at the Guangzhou Key Industrial Project Agreement Signing Ceremony on Jan. 21, 2020, in Davos, Switzerland. Cedar Holdings, headquartered in Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong Province, is known as "the Chinese equivalent of Glencore". It is actively expanding its global presence. It ranked 301st on the 2019 Fortune Global 500 with 40.6 billion U.S. dollars in total revenue. Founded in 1951, Stemcor, a UK-based company, was a Top 3 global independent steel trading company. With business operations covering 30 countries and regions, Stemcor helps customers choose from over 3,500 different grades of steel and raw materials available in the market. Nearly 20 percent of its business comes from China's market. CONTACT: Company Name: CEDAR HOLDINGS GROUP Person: Xudafeng Website: www.cedarhd.com Phone: 020-38911638 media@cedarhd.com SOURCE: CEDAR HOLDINGS GROUP View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/574614/Chinas-Cedar-Holdings-Buys-Out-UKs-Stemcor Another case of coronavirus has been reported in Santa Clara County, officials from the the county's public health department said Sunday. On Friday, Santa Clara County reported the Bay Area's first case of the disease, but officials believe the two cases are unrelated. The second patient is a woman who traveled to Wuhan, China and arrived in the Bay Area on January 23 to visit family. The first patient was a male who traveled to Wuhan who returned to the Bay Area on January 24. Both patients have been "self-isolated" since falling ill, and only left their homes to seek medical attention. So far, 10,000 people have been infected globally and more than 200 have died. All of the deaths have occurred in China, where the disease originated. READ MORE: What Bay Area residents need to know about coronavirus On Friday, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar announced that foreign nationals believed to be a risk of transmitting the virus will be temporarily barred entry to the United States. The new restrictions begin Sunday afternoon. Americans returning from Hubei province, the center of the outbreak, will be required to undergo 14 days of quarantine. Others returning from elsewhere in China will be allowed to self-monitor their condition for a similar period. The U.S. will also begin funneling all flights to the U.S. from China to seven major airports where passengers can be screened for the illness. This story is developing and will be updated as more information is made available. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Eric Ting is an SFGATE digital reporter. Email: eric.ting@sfgate.com | Twitter:@_ericting Jan 31 (Reuters) - A man accused of killing two police officers while acting as the leader of an al Qaeda group in the Iraqi city of Fallujah was arrested in Phoenix, Arizona, federal officials said on Friday. Ali Yousif Ahmed Al-Nouri, 42, is wanted in Iraq on charges of premeditated murder of the Iraqi police officers in 2006, according to a statement by the U.S. Attorney's Office District of Arizona. An Iraqi judge issued a warrant for Al-Nouri's arrest and the government there issued an extradition request to the U.S. Justice Department, the statement said. The Justice Department sought an arrest warrant for Al-Nouri and he was taken into custody on Thursday in Phoenix. He appeared before a federal magistrate judge in Phoenix on Friday in connection with proceedings to extradite him to Iraq, the statement said. According to the Iraqi government, al-Nouri was the leader of an al Qaeda group in Fallujah which planned operations targeting Iraqi police. The statement noted the details in the Iraqi complaint were allegations that had yet to been proven in court. Al-Nouri's extradition would have to be certified by the U.S. court and the U.S. Secretary of State would then decide whether to surrender him to Iraq, the statement said. It was not immediately possible to contact Al-Nouri for comment or determine whether he had hired a lawyer. The statement did not provide information on when Al-Nouri entered the United States or how long he had lived in Phoenix. (Reporting by Andrew Hay in New Mexico; Editing by Lincoln Feast.) British nationals evacuated from Wuhan arriving back in the UK on Friday. (Getty) Eleven more British nationals are set to arrive back in Britain on Sunday after being flown out of Wuhan, the city at the centre of the coronavirus outbreak. On Friday, 83 Britons were flown into RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire and are currently being quarantined in Birkenhead. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab confirmed a second plane carrying a group of UK citizens would arrive on Sunday afternoon via France. Its correct that there is a further French flight that is expected back in Europe today and that will carry some UK nationals, he told Skys Sophy Ridge On Sunday. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab announced a second flight would be arriving on Sunday. (PA) Mr Raab did not confirm the number of people being brought back but the BBC reports that 11 British citizens are on the plane. According to Mr Raab, they are due to go into quarantine at Arrowe Park Hospital in Merseyside, where the 83 British nationals who arrived from Wuhan on Friday are being kept. Mr Raab said: They will go to the Arrowe Park facility and all of the protections, the support during the 14-day period will be put in place. READ MORE FROM YAHOO NEWS UK: So they will be treated very well, and of course the reason we need to do that is on the one hand we want to get the UK nationals that want to leave China out, on the other hand we need to make sure we control and prevent the spread of the coronavirus because of the implications that that would have. A spokesman for the Foreign Office (FCO) said: The Government is in touch with British nationals who remain in Wuhan, and are doing everything we can to bring them home as safely and quickly as possible. A University of York student and their relative remain the only two confirmed UK cases with the virus which has killed more than 250 people in China. Story continues From Sunday, advertisements advising people to use tissues when sneezing or coughing and wash their hands regularly will appear in newspapers, on the radio and on social media. The ads will also target publications and forums known to be read by Chinese nationals in the UK, the Department of Health said. Health Secretary Matt Hancock said UK medics are working round the clock to prevent the spread of the illness, but added the general public can do its bit. He said: Basic hygiene such as washing our hands regularly and using tissues when we cough and sneeze can play an important role in minimising the spread of viruses like this. OTTAWA - Suddenly, the Liberal government is all about Africa, and there is a very practical political reason for that avoiding an embarrassing defeat in a major upcoming international election. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 2/2/2020 (707 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Prime Minster Justin Trudeau is photographed during the Lunar New Year celebration at Casa Deluz in Scarborough, Ont., Saturday, Feb. 1, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Tijana Martin OTTAWA - Suddenly, the Liberal government is all about Africa, and there is a very practical political reason for that avoiding an embarrassing defeat in a major upcoming international election. When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrives in Ethiopia later this week, he will be following in the footsteps of two cabinet ministers and a parliamentary secretary who have visited in the last few weeks. The attention is all part of Canada's campaign for a seat on the United Nations Security Council. Many analysts say Trudeau's Africa tour may be too little, too late because Canada's spending commitments on foreign aid and personnel contributions to UN peacekeeping are at all-time lows. His government has been accused of largely ignoring Africa, which is a key UN voting bloc, but now suddenly the Liberals are discovering the political value of the fast-growing continent. Africa, with its 54 voting countries, is a kingmaker of sorts in the secret ballot at the UN General Assembly's 190-plus countries where Canada will need at least 128 votes in the upcoming June election for a two-year term starting in 2021. Canada faces tough competition from Norway and Ireland, which both spend more on foreign aid and peacekeeping. Two seats up for grabs in what is called the "Western European and Others Group" of the UN. It's a bloc that usually circles the wagons in favour of its own European members at the expense of the "others" in the group namely Canada, Australia and Israel. "Without support on the African continent, Canada's bid for the Security Council is a non-starter," said Nicolas Moyer, the president of the Canadian Council for International Co-operation. Trudeau visits Addis Ababa to meet with Ethiopia's prime minister and president and attend the African Union Summit there before travelling to Dakar to meet with the president of Senegal. Trudeau committed Canada to a Security Council run in 2015 as part of his "Canada is back" pledge, following the 2010 loss of a seat to smaller and economically fragile Portugal under the previous Conservative government. Moyer and many others have long called on Canada to make a commitment to reach the UN goal for development spending of 0.7 per cent of gross national income. Canada's current level is less than 0.3 per cent, which has it near the bottom of the pack among of the roughly three-dozen richest countries in the world. Norway's development spending rate is almost at one full per cent, while Ireland has laid out a plan to reach the 0.7 target. "On that measure we don't compare very well to our competitors." Canada's 2010 loss to Portugal was largely due to the inability of the then Stephen Harper Conservative government to persuade African countries to offer support, said Adam Chapnick, the Royal Military College professor and author of the new book "Canada on the United Nations Security Council: A Small Power on a Large Stage." "The votes we needed that we didn't get were largely in Africa. In the previous campaigns, we'd virtually swept Africa and that made up for the fact that we rarely have much success in Eastern Europe. And Europe itself can be challenging because our opponents are usually Europeans." Canada is better positioned in Africa than most might think, in part because too much is being made of Canada's low spending on rate based on gross national income, said Chapnick. "Africa doesn't vote as a bloc," said Chapnick, whose book examines the intricacies of Canada's past Security Council bids. "Every country votes in large part, based on what the nominees have done for them personally, lately. And the total number of dollars we spend on aid to Africa is not nearly as proportionately low as the percentage of our GNI." On a recent conference call at the end of his Africa trip, Foreign Affairs Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne noted that Canada had given the West African country of Mali $1.6 billion in development assistance over the last decade. Canada also has an advantage over Ireland in West African countries because it is French speaking, said Chapnick. That's something Trudeau is likely to emphasize when he arrives in Senegal next week. "The personal touch in Africa does matter quite a bit. The appearance of a G7 leader . . . brings credibility to your state and demonstrates the importance of your state on the world stage, and that can be quite helpful," said Chapnick. But Leona Alleslev, the deputy leader of the Conservatives, said numbers matter more, and Canada's will be hurt by the recent withdrawal of peacekeepers from Mali and the fact the Trudeau government has no clear plan to redeploy elsewhere in Africa. "They don't have a strategy and now they're grasping at straws. So, what is it that they are offering when they have withdrawn from the Mali peacekeeping mission, when they haven't looked at any other peacekeeping missions?" she said. Unlike some fellow Conservatives including former prime minister Stephen Harper who once branded the UN a club for dictators Alleslev said Canada needs a seat on the Security Council to better represent the interests of middle powers, and to build international credibility with important trading partners. Alleslev noted the latest figures tabled in the House of Commons showed the government spent almost $2 million on the bid as of early December, up from the $1.5 million of the previous spring. "I think it's too little, too late because they don't know what they're trying to sell." This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 2, 2020. When a video of Muslim children singing horrifically anti-Semitic songs threatening violence was uploaded to social media, coverage forced the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations (PCHR) to investigate. But now that the furor has died down, and despite pressure from U.S. congressmen, the PCHR seems content to whitewash the incident, and is unwilling to hold anyone accountable. On April 17, 2019, the Muslim American Society of Philadelphia (MAS Philadelphia) and its affiliate Leaders Academy posted a video of Muslim school children singing lyrics including, we will sacrifice our souls without hesitationwe will chop off their heads and we will liberate the sorrowful and exalted Al Aqsa Mosque we will subject them to eternal torturethose who accept humiliation what is the point of their existence we will lead the army of Allah fulfilling his promise. Mass media, elected officials, and religious and organizational leaders condemned this horrendous teaching of hatred and called for an investigation. The Philadelphia Commission for Human Relations took on the task. Five months later, after no word from the PCHR, two congressmen, Lee Zeldin (NY) and Scott Perry (PA) sent a letter to the PCHR requesting an update on their findings. Their letter pointed out that the Muslim American Society is an documented arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, with several of its members designated as terrorists; that contrary to MAS statement claiming Leaders Academy was a separate entity, evidence showed otherwise; and that the problem may not only be limited to Philadelphia, considering that nationwide there are 50 MAS chapters. PCHRs response on October 7 avoided answering any of these tough questions. In fact, the statement merely mimicked and accepted at face value the public statements made by MAS. Specifically, they asserted that the video was a mistake; that Leaders Academy, the organization that taught the class and created the video was not affiliated with MAS; that the only person responsible, a volunteer was dismissed; and that CAIR-Philadelphias executive director was enlisted to conduct anti-bias workshops. At a minimum, PCHR could have listened to Muslim scholar and member of the Council on Foreign Relations Qanta Ahmed, who provides commentary on numerous media outlets including CNN and BBC. Ahmed was interviewed on Fox News about the incident on May 3 and May 5, 2019 -- before PCHR met with the leadership of MAS and the Leaders Academy on May 13. Ahmed called the Muslim Brotherhood the mother ship of terrorism and said that the video comes, right from the Muslim Brotherhood Islamist playbook for American youth in Pennsylvania where they are being taught to glorify and romanticize martyrdom, Jew hatred, death to Jews and delegitimization of Israel. Congressman Zeldin said in an email that he does not believe the PCHR addressed his concern about the relationship between MAS and the Muslim Brotherhood, and noted, Unfortunately, PCHR has not held anyone accountable yet for this horrendous act. While it may not be part of their job to track terrorist-related entities, there is nothing stopping PCHR from acknowledging a serious and worrisome link between MAS and the Muslim Brotherhood and recommending further investigation from appropriate government agencies. The question of who is responsible remains an open one. Only one volunteer has been blamed by MAS for the performance. Yet theres reason to believe MAS is using this volunteer as a scapegoat for the behavior of the school as a whole. Past executive director of the ADL in Philadelphia Nancy Baron-Baer notes that teachers -- more than one -- were in the room leading the class in the performance. Its incumbent on the adults in the room, said Nancy Baron-Baer, to understand what was being said and recognize that words like that are absolutely unacceptable at any time, in any language. Susie Dym , a spokesperson for the Israeli NGO Mattot Arim agrees: Wheres that teacher who taught kids to behead people? Does it really make sense that only one single adult heard the speech rehearsed -- although the speech was doubtless practiced many times, since children need lots of practice? When asked for information about the person dismissed, PCHR avoided the question by responding that its considered private information that we are not privileged to share. PCHR is shielding not only a bigot, but, Dym argues, a potential criminal. Dym proposes that the Philadelphia district attorney indict this anonymous teacher on charges of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Good idea in theory, but in practice the current Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner is notorious for allowing even admitted murderers back on the street, and has had a cozy relationship with MAS, attending a MAS prayer service in January 2019. PCHR also relies heavily on claims that MAS completed anti-bias workshops conducted by CAIR-Philadelphia, but offers little information about this supposed remediation. When did it take place? Who attended? What was the itinerary? Was there any follow up with the children forced to sing these songs in the video? Congressman Zeldin says he believes PHRC should, definitely have found out more about what went on at this workshop. PHRC should also have asked whether CAIR-Philadelphia is the appropriate organization to conduct this so-called anti-bias workshop, considering that MAS and CAIR both have ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. As federal prosecutors once noted, CAIR and MAS omit reference to a shared background that limits their membership to those of a particular political bent, and undercuts their credibility. And CAIRs own executive director Jacob Bender has admitted his own bias: "We should be careful not to conflate criticism of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians with anti-Semitism. Jews like myself are critical of the oppressive policies of the government of Benjamin Netanyahu. In other words, CAIR-Philadelphia does not believe these songs were anti-Semitic, they were just anti-Israel. Regrettably PHRC showed complete indifference to what took place at the workshop. Any questions about the details of the CAIR trainings would need to be answered by MAS Philly and/or CAIR Philadelphia. All efforts to get clarity on PCHRs understanding of MAS relationship with Leaders Academy were also ultimately rebuffed. In its letter to the congressmen, PCHR went along with MAS self-serving and clearly false statement of May 4 that MAS is not affiliated with Leaders Academy, but then acknowledged the contradictory statement of May 15 issued jointly by MAS and Leaders Academy. Yet on May 8, the Investigative Project posted evidence of an overlapping relationship between MAS and Leaders Academy, including a shared location and identical corporate officers. The Investigative Project also found that the school is called MAS Leaders Academy and posted many school videos on MAS social media. Additionally, Congressman Zeldin has inquired with PHRC to see whether they looked at the documents that suggest there was a closer relationship than previously stated. PCHRs curt reply was PCHR has already provided our comments on this request. The question remains; why does the PCHR refuse to give credence to credible evidence and valid concerns about MAS? Why do they stubbornly stand by the specious narrative that the whole affair was an unfortunate mistake and accept MASs apology? The reason may be is that doing so would force PCHR to admit MAS lied to them, that MAS did indeed know it was engaging in radical indoctrination of children, and that would mean they would have to do something about it, which is the last thing the PCHR wants. In words often attributed to Edmund Burke, The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men [and women] to do nothing. But doing nothing seems to be all the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations does. Leonard Getz, CPA, is the Philadelphia Associate of the Counter-Islamist Grid and a freelance writer whose work has appeared in the American Thinker, the Algemeiner, PJMedia, the Clarion, the Daily Wire, Lifestyles Magazine, Nostalgia Magazine, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Philadelphia Bulletin, the Jewish Exponent, and the Lock Haven Express. UN Warns Stability and Protection of Palestinian Refugees Threatened by Trump Peace Plan By Lisa Schlein January 31, 2020 UNRWA, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees, warns the recently unveiled Trump administration peace plan is likely to lead to greater instability and uncertainty for the 5.6 million refugees it assists in the Israeli occupied territories and the Middle East. It is appealing for $1.4 billion in funding for 2020. UNWRA reports it is facing the worst financial crisis in its history at a time of growing needs of the Palestinian refugees and great political uncertainty in the Middle East. The United States, which had been UNRWA's biggest donor, stopped funding the agency in 2018. The Trump administration cut off $360 million in aid, nearly one-third of UNRWA's budget. Acting Commissioner General of UNRWA Christian Saunders says the agency received phenomenal support from other countries in 2018. But that support waned last year, causing a funding shortfall of $55 million. He says U.S. President Donald Trump's recently unveiled Middle East Peace Plan is causing another body blow to the humanitarian and protection needs of Palestinian refugees. He tells VOA clashes that have erupted in the occupied territories and around Jerusalem after the plan was presented could be a harbinger of worse things to come. "There are a lot of people that still are in a state of shock over the proposal. What will happen after that shock wears off, I do not know. We certainly have serious concerns that it will result in an escalation in clashes and in violence" he says. Saunders adds UNRWA, which has been through similar situations before, has contingency plans to support Palestinian refugees during such times of unrest. He notes the Trump proposal would give large swathes of territory to Israel, which the United Nations and Palestinians envisioned as part of a future Palestinian state under a two-state solution. Saunders says UNRWA has enough money to pay for its humanitarian operation until April. It is appealing to donors to respond generously. It says millions of destitute Palestinian refugees depend on UNRWA's ability to provide them with life-saving aid as well as health, education, vocational training and other essential services. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia reports that on February 2, citizen of Armenia Susanna Aghajanyan, who is located in the Chinese city of Wuhan and had expressed the desire to be evacuated, was evacuated and moved to Kazakhstan through cooperation with the countrys Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This is what Spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Anna Naghdalyan wrote on her Facebook page. The Embassy of Armenia is constantly in contact with the Armenian citizen and is taking actions to bring her back to Armenia as soon as possible. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia expresses deep gratitude to its colleagues in Kazakhstan for their rapid response to Armenias request and the support, she stated. Hotel and guesthouse owners in Kilkenny and across the country today called on candidates in the general election to commit to decisive action in support of the continued growth of Irish tourism. Colm Neville, Chair of the South East branch of the Irish Hotels Federation (IHF) said that, while tourism had returned to growth in recent years, the recovery has not been evenly spread across the country. Citing the CSOs overseas visitor numbers for 2019, which were released this week, he warned that continued growth cannot be taken for granted with regional tourism most likely to be negatively affected. The figures show a significant fall off in growth with an increase of just 1.8% in 2019, as against 6.9% in 2018, compared to the previous year. Commenting on the launch of the IHFs national tourism policy document for the general election A Strategy for Job Creation and Economic Growth Mr Neville said that tourism has been one of the great success stories of the economy in recent years, supporting over 260,000 jobs in every town and county, including 4,300 in Kilkenny, contributing some 101m to the local economy annually: However, our industry now faces heightened uncertainty and remains vulnerable to external shocks, given our exposure to the economic environment of our major source markets, as Brexit clearly demonstrated. Decisive action is needed now to ensure our industry lives up to its full potential as a major engine for growth and job creation across the entire country over the next five years. The IHFs five-point plan calls on the next Government to support tourism by addressing a number of key challenges, including: Tackling the high cost of doing business More supports for regional tourism Increased tourism marketing support Additional investment in tourism product and infrastructure Investment in people, skills and training As one of Irelands largest indigenous industries, tourism plays a vital role in the countrys economic well-being. Mr Neville said that the effectiveness of tourism growth in spreading employment opportunities and prosperity across the entire country is sometimes lost in discussions about the economy. With 70 per cent of tourism jobs based outside of Dublin, tourisms wide geographic distribution is critical to sustaining regional economies, including here in Kilkenny, and addressing the rural imbalance. Irish tourism has created over 90,000 new jobs since 2011. Accounting for almost 4% of GNP, tourism generates over 9.4 billion in revenue each year thereby supporting the local economies of every village, town and county. Mr Neville highlighted the high cost of doing business in Ireland, particularly around insurance and Government controlled costs such as local authority rates, water and energy levies. He also called for greater supports for regional tourism to counter the impact of Brexit. Significant additional investment is also required to support tourism marketing and product development. Tourism represents an excellent investment for the country and its therefore vital that it remains at the heart of Irelands economic policy. Were calling on candidates in the general election here in Kilkenny to commit to a range of pro-tourism policies that will help to sustain the growth of tourism and the significant contribution that it makes to the economy, said Mr Neville. IHF FIVE POINT PLAN: 1. Tackle the high cost of doing business The international tourism market is exceptionally competitive and every tourism euro spent in Ireland is hard won. As such, the high cost of doing business in Ireland remains one of the most pressing issues faced by tourism businesses such as hotels. A focused approach on cost competitiveness is required, including: restoration of the 9% tourism VAT rate, one of the most successful job creation initiatives in modern times; greater urgency on insurance reform and establishment of a Garda Insurance Fraud Unit; shake-up of local government funding to achieve a fairer distribution of rates burden; defer the CRUs decision for a hike in Irish Waters cost allocation to businesses. 2. More supports for regional tourism It is essential that the countrys economic policy is more attuned to the realities facing businesses in the regions, particularly with recent developments around Brexit. Brexit is having a detrimental impact on local tourism and remains very challenging in light of our heavy reliance on visitors from Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which combined account for 44% of inbound visitors to the country. Of particular concern is the ongoing economic uncertainty, fragile UK consumer confidence and the marked drop in the value of Sterling, which has significantly reduced the spending power of visitors from our largest market. Additional capital and marketing funding must be allocated to projects designed to achieve better regional spread of visitors and tourism activity. Tourism growth is one of the most effective ways to spread employment opportunities and prosperity across the entire country. Its wide geographic distribution is critical to sustaining regional economies. 3. Increased tourism marketing support Irish tourism has been an excellent investment for the country and must be nurtured if it is to continue to deliver returns for the economy. Every euro spent in overseas tourism marketing by the state generates approximately 130 in overseas visitor expenditure. Since the economic downturn, however, the funding allocation for tourism marketing and product development has been cut back substantially. Two particularly pressing strategic marketing challenges are the need to attract more visitors to the regions and to extend the tourism season. Reduced marketing budgets are having a negative effect on the tourism potential of the regions with many rural tourism businesses continuing to lag behind. This is further compounded by the disproportionate negative impact that seasonality has on regional tourism. 4. Additional investment in Irelands tourism product and infrastructure A significant increase is required in tourism-related capital expenditure over the next five years to ensure sustained growth. We are an island destination and face unique challenges in relation to access and competitiveness. It is therefore vital that sufficient resources are allocated to tourism development in order to deliver sustainable, long-term growth that continues to benefit the local economies and the communities in which tourism businesses operate. 5. Investment in people, skills and training Hotels in particular are among the largest employers in the tourism sector, supporting over 60,000 jobs and investing up to 40% of turnover in payroll each year. These jobs are of enormous importance to many areas of the country that have an otherwise weak economic base. In addition to job openings for experienced employees, hospitality and tourism businesses around the country recruit over 6,000 entry-level employees annually across all areas of their operations. Given the growing requirement for suitably skilled and qualified employees, training and education is a key priority. While we have made considerable progress in developing varied career paths for employees that promote professional development, greater Government supports are required for vocational and craft level training. EL-ARISH, Egypt - Security officials in Egypt said suspected Islamic militants on Sunday blew up a natural gas pipeline in the restive norther part of Sinai Peninsula. At least six masked militants planted explosives under the pipeline in the town of Bir al-Abd. It transfers gas to el-Arish, the provincial capital of North Sinai, and a cement factory in central Sinai, the officials said. The explosion sent thick flames of fire shooting into the sky, and authorities stopped the flow of gas to extinguish the fire, officials said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they werent authorized to speak to journalists. No group immediately claimed the attack. Egypt is battling an Islamic State-led insurgency in the Sinai that intensified after the military overthrew an elected but divisive Islamist president in 2013. The militants have carried out scores of attacks, mainly targeting security forces and Christians. They also have targeted gas pipelines between Egypt and both Jordan and Israel regularly since the 2011 uprising that toppled then president Hosni Mubarak. Israel and Jordan relied on the pipeline to meet its energy needs. The attacks led to the collapse of a 2005 deal to export Egypts natural gas to Israel in 2012. The state-owned Israel Electric Corp had sued the state-owned Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation and Egyptian Natural Gas, resulting in a $1.7 billion fine in 2015. In July last year, Egypt said it reached a deal with the Israel Electric Corp that reduced the fine to $500 million. In recent years, Israel became a major energy exporter after gas discoveries in the Mediterranean. It signed a $15 billion deal in 2018 to provide Egypt with 64 billion cubic meters of gas over a 10-year period that will help transform both couture into regional energy players. Get the SC business stories that matter. Our newsletter catches you up with all the business stories that are shaping Charleston and South Carolina every Monday and Thursday at noon. Get ahead with us - it's free. Leo Varadkar urged Boris Johnson to avoid a hardline approach to trade deal negotiations. (Getty) Leo Varadkar has called on Boris Johnson to dial down the nationalistic rhetoric and avoid putting down rigid red lines early on in the Brexit trade talks. The Irish premier made the plea after Mr Johnson accused Brussels of attempting to "change the terms" of the Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration since they were signed off last year. "I've learned a lot from the past two and a half years dealing with Brexit and dealing with two different British prime ministers," the Taoiseach said. "And one thing I'd say to everyone is let's not repeat some of the errors that were made in the past two-and-a-half years. It comes as Boris Johnson accused the EU of 'changing the terms' of the Brexit deal agreed last year. (PA) "Let's not set such rigid red lines that it makes it hard to come to an agreement and let's tone down the kind of nationalistic rhetoric." As is always the case when it comes to negotiations, setting out so boldly such firm red lines actually makes coming to an agreement more difficult because the other party you are negotiating with doesnt feel they got a fair deal unless those red lines get turned pink or bent in some way. Varadkar also took aim at a leaked order for British diplomats to sit separately from their EU counterparts at international summits calling it petty and likening the move to "primary school" behaviour. READ MORE FROM YAHOO NEWS UK: He said: "I think it just comes as being a little bit petty. "It's kind of when you're in primary school or in secondary school that you get worried about who you sit beside in class. Mr Johnson is expected to flesh out his plans for a post-Brexit relationship with Brussels in a speech on Monday ahead of the start of trade talks in March. According to PoliticsHome, Mr Johnson will reportedly call for the UK to be treated as an "equal" in the talks and demand "no alignment, no jurisdiction of the European courts, and no concessions". Story continues Foreign secretary Dominic Raab said on Sunday that any suggestion the UK will have to follow European Union rules and laws after 2021 just aint happening. Raab used broadcast interviews on Sunday morning to insist that Britain would no longer be a rule-taker now Brexit had been delivered. Were not going to be aligning with EU rules, thats not on the negotiating table, its not even an issue of red lines it is not even in the negotiating room, he told the BBCs Andrew Marr. We are entering into these negotiations with a spirit of goodwill. But we are just not doing that other stuff. The legislative alignment, it just aint happening. North Dakotas five coal mines produced 27.2 million tons of lignite in 2019, an 8% drop from the previous year. The reduction was largely due to major outages that occurred at various power plants and maintenance at the Great Plains Synfuels Plant, according to the Lignite Energy Council, a trade group representing lignite producers, electric utilities and about 250 industry-related businesses. The lower tonnage in 2019 also resulted partially from electricity produced from other sources including natural gas, wind generation and the Garrison Dam, which put pressure on lignite-based power plants in the state, said Jason Bohrer, the council's president and CEO. North Dakota has seven lignite-based power plants, which consist of 12 individual units. Normally, each unit has a major outage every three years. Plants that had major outages last year included Coyote Station, Heskett Station, Antelope Valley Station, Milton R. Young Station and Coal Creek Station. Coal production in North Dakota has held steady over the past decade despite the national decline of the coal industry. The lignite industry is unique in that our plants are generally adjacent to the mines, which reduces, if not eliminates, transportation costs, Bohrer said. It also means that our state benefits from the jobs associated from both the mines and the power plants along with low-cost, reliable electricity generated from lignite. The seven power plants generate enough electricity to serve more than 2 million families in North Dakota and surrounding states. Love 7 Funny 4 Wow 3 Sad 3 Angry 6 New Delhi, Feb 2 : The Central government on Sunday termed the indefinite stay imposed on the execution of the four convicts in the Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case a "deliberate, well-calculated and well-thought out attempt to frustrate the process of law" and demanded that there should be "no delay" in their hanging. "In the Interest of the society and victim, there should be no delay. Even in the case of the convicts, the Supreme Court says that there should be no delay as it would have dehumanising effect on the convict," Mehta, appearing for the Centre, told Justice Suresh Kumar Kait during a special court proceeding on the weekend. The Solicitor General also presented a chart before the court explaining the legal remedies availed by the four death row convicts till now. The court was hearing a petition filed by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) challenging the stay imposed by the sessions court on the hanging of Vinay, Akshay, Mukesh and Pawan -- convicted for raping a medical student in December 2012. "There is a deliberate, well-calculated and well-thought design to frustrate the process of law. Mukesh took an ingenious plea which the trial court mistakenly accepted. Mercy jurisdiction is individual," Solicitor General Mehta said. The convicts were scheduled to be hanged on February 1 at 6 am. It was deferred for the second time on January 31 after Mukesh filed an application before a Delhi court contending that other convicts are yet to avail the legal remedies and cannot be hanged separately. Mukesh and Vinay have exhausted their legal remedies. However, a decision on Akshay's mercy plea is pending before the President. Pawan has yet not availed the remedy of mercy petition, which is the last constitutional resort. Continuing his tirade against the four convicts facing the gallows, Mehta asserted said that a co-convict, by his mere "calculative inaction", can frustrate the order of the court. The Solicitor General said that the trial court mistook the appeal filed by the convict to be a "mercy" plea. The 23-year-old victim, later named Nirbhaya, was brutally gang-raped and tortured and succumbed to her injuries a few days later. The deed was committed by six men who were all arrested and charged with sexual assault and murder. One of the accused was a minor and appeared before a juvenile justice court, while another accused committed suicide in Tihar Jail. Four other convicts -- Akshay, Pawan, Mukesh and Vinay -- were sentenced to death by a trial court in September 2013, and the verdict was confirmed by the Delhi High Court in March 2014 and upheld by the Supreme Court in May 2017 which also dismissed their review petition in July 2018. The BJP in its last leg of campaigning for the February 8 Delhi polls, conducted a mega contact programme on Sunday, with its top leaders, including chief J P Nadda and Amit Shah, visiting various assembly constituencies. Over one lakh party leaders and workers also participated in the programme that was conducted in all the 70 assembly constituencies of Delhi. BJP chief Nadda, Home Minister Shah and other top leaders are likely to visit offices of party candidates tonight to take a stock of preparations for the polls. Earlier in the day, Shah visited the Delhi Cantt constituency and met people there to seek support for BJP candidate Manish Singh, while Nadda visited Greater Kailash constituency to canvass for Shikha Rai. Union Minister and Delhi assembly election in-charge Prakash Javadekar, Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari, and Union minister Harsh Vardhan were among the other BJP leaders who canvassed for party candidates. Shah, Nadda, and other senior party leaders will visit election offices of candidates in different constituencies to take stock of preparations for the polls, according to a Delhi BJP statement. "Shah will visit election offices in Timarpur, Adarsh ??Nagar, Shalimar Bagh and Rohini Assembly constituency candidates while Nadda will go to the Sadar Bazar, Chandni Chowk, New Delhi and Jangpura election offices. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The RSPCA in New South Wales sends broken-down thoroughbreds to knackeries where they can be processed into pet food and the Victorian branch uses abattoirs to euthanise them. Branches of the animal welfare charity in South Australia, Queensland and the ACT say they do not send horses to slaughterhouses under any circumstances. The South Australian branch does put livestock other than horses through saleyards and at one time used the services of Adelaide Zoo to euthanise animals. The zoo, which killed the animals for free, fed the carcasses to its lions and tigers. The ultimate fate of broken-down racehorses and other stock taken in by the RSPCA nationwide can depend on the state where the animal is seized. RSPCA state branches operate independently and set their own policies for the destruction of animals including horses which cannot be expected to survive. Scroll down for video RSPCA NSW says it is sometimes forced to send animals including thoroughbreds to abattoirs and knackeries. Each state has its own RSPCA. Pictured are malnourished horses seized by RSPCA inspectors on a property in Western Australia in 2016 One of the knackeries RSPCA NSW has used in the past is Burns Pet Foods in Sydney which featured in a recent expose by the ABC suggesting thoroughbreds were being slaughtered on an industrial scale The ultimate fate of broken-down racehorses and other stock taken in by the RSPCA nationwide can depend on the state where the animal is seized (File image) Last month Daily Mail Australia revealed RSPCA NSW sometimes sent stock including thoroughbreds for commercial slaughter if no other option was available. 'On occasion the only mechanism for disposing of very diseased, unwell or aged stock animals is via abattoir or knackery facilities,' a spokeswoman said. 'RSPCA NSW has in the past sent stock to abattoir, and continues to do so in a variety of circumstances.' The animal welfare charity's Victorian branch does not send live animals to knackeries, which produce pet food, or abattoirs, which process meat for human consumption. It does employ knackeries and abattoirs to euthanise horses and the facilities then retain the carcasses. 'RSPCA Victoria believes that physically healthy and behaviourally sound companion animals that are suitable for adoption should not be euthanised,' a spokeswoman said. The ABC's 7.30 program screened footage of thoroughbreds being mistreated in an abattoir in south-east Queensland (pictured) and alleged hundreds of Australian racehorses were being sent to slaughter every year. Pictured is a dead horse on the floor of the Queensland abattoir Hidden camera footage provided to the ABC showed horses being mistreated at an abattoir in south-east Queensland (pictured). An RSPCA Queensland spokesman said the state body had never sent stock including thoroughbreds to abattoirs or knackeries under any circumstances 'In certain circumstances, we must make the decision to euthanise animals due to health or legislative reasons.' RSPCA Australia has been one of the strongest critics of thoroughbreds being sent to abattoirs and knackeries once they are retired from the racing industry. Last October the ABC's 7.30 program alleged hundreds of Australian racehorses were being sent to slaughter every year and screened footage of thoroughbreds being mistreated in an abattoir in south-east Queensland. Hidden cameras showed that more than 300 racehorses - winners of a combined $5million in prize money - were killed in the Queensland abattoir in just 22 days. The report cited Racing Australia data which claimed fewer than 1 per cent of ex-racehorses were sent to abattoirs or knackeries, which would be 34 each year. The ABC aired allegations animals sent to the Queensland abattoir were beaten, repeatedly stunned with electric prods and kicked while they were dying. One of the knackeries RSPCA NSW has used in the past and which featured in the ABC expose is Burns Pet Foods in Sydney. Protesters at last year's Melbourne Cup at Flemington racecourse hold banners and shout slogans calling on the racing industry to introduce better practices for retired thoroughbreds This invoice from a horse transport company dated November 2012 shows RSPCA NSW paying for the delivery of a 'TB [thoroughbred] mare' to 'Burns PF [Pet Foods]', a Sydney knackery Daily Mail Australia has been provided with an invoice from November 2012 which shows RSPCA NSW paying $300 for the transport of two horses including the delivery of one 'TB mare' to 'Burns PF'. 'TB' means thoroughbred. 'Burns PF' is Burns Pet Foods at Riverstone. Burns Pet Foods, which processes horse meat for consumption by animals, has recently been prosecuted by the RSPCA for cruelty to cattle and sheep. The company pleaded guilty last September to four counts of aggravated animal cruelty and one of failing to provide veterinary treatment. It is not suggested the horse sent by RSPCA NSW to the knackery in 2012 was in any way mistreated. An RSPCA NSW spokesman said it was possible the animal had been in a condition which made it cruel to keep it alive and it was euthanised before being delivered to Burns Pet Foods. The RSPCA takes in thousands of animals every year and some are unable to be saved. Pictured are horses in a yard at the Queensland abattoir featured on the ABC's 7.30 program 'RSPCA NSW notes further that the obligation to rehome thoroughbreds by industry participants has only existed since 2017,' the spokesman said. A spokeswoman for RSPCA Victoria said horses which were suffering mentally or physically, or were terminally ill and palliative care was not appropriate, could be euthanised. So could horses which were considered dangerous to themselves, other animals and/or humans. 'The decision to humanely euthanise an animal is taken very seriously and always done with the animal's interests as the priority,' the spokeswoman said. 'In these circumstances RSPCA Victoria does employ the services of knackeries to humanely euthanise horses on-site at RSPCA Animal Care Centres. 'Euthanasia is conducted with the best interests of the horse in mind and under the supervision of an on-site RSPCA employee. 'RSPCA Victoria engages the service of a knackery or abattoir to conduct humane euthanasia on-site due to the sheer size of horses. 'This process is always completed in accordance with our policies and procedures.' RSPCA Australia has said the oversupply and 'wastage' of horses in the racing industry led to animals being slaughtered. Pictured are starving horses seized by the RSPCA from a property in Western Australia in 2016 In the case of on-site euthanasia by knackeries or abattoirs the slaughterhouse retains the carcass. RSPCA South Australia said it did not send animals to knackeries or abattoirs under any circumstances but did put other livestock through saleyards. 'Horses that are unable to be re-homed due to medical or temperament reasons are humanely euthanised and disposed of,' a spokeswoman said. That usually happened by burial at an equine property the agency used for agistment and for the transport of horses and livestock in its custody. 'RSPCA SA also does not sell horses via auctions,' the spokeswoman said. 'Where horses in our care are available to adopt, prospective adopters must fulfill certain criteria to ensure they have the knowledge and resources to adequately care for a horse.' The slaughter of racehorses is not illegal in Australia but is against Racing NSW rules, which state all retired thoroughbreds should be re-homed The spokeswoman said the branch's chief inspector could not recall the organisation ever sending any animals to abattoirs or knackeries. 'We have sent livestock - cattle and sheep - to saleyards through an agent,' she said. That only happened in prosecution cases where a person opted not to surrender an animal to the RSPCA and a magistrate made an order for it to be sold. In that case money from the sale would be held in trust until the completion of court proceedings, when the funds would be disbursed. 'The expectation is that the sheep and cattle are sold for market value, hence the sale through saleyards,' the spokeswoman said. It was up to a magistrate to decide the percentage of sale proceeds which would go to RSPCA SA to recover costs for the animal's transport and care, and whether any money would go to the owner. The spokeswoman said Adelaide Zoo used to provide a service whereby it would euthanise horses in a paddock or stable at no charge. It would then remove and feed the carcass to the zoo's carnivores - mainly big cats. It is understood the practice was stopped due to quarantine and occupational health and safety concerns. Adelaide Zoo used to provide a service whereby it would euthanise horses for the RSPCA for free. The carcasses would be fed to the zoo's big cats. Pictured is an African lion at the zoo The spokeswoman said it cost at least $500 and sometimes more than $1,000 to euthanise and dispose of a horse's body. 'This is why some people choose to dispose of their horses via knackeries and abattoirs.' Asked if RSPCA Queensland had ever sent animals - in particular thoroughbreds - to abattoirs or knackeries horses, a spokesman said: 'The simple answer is no.' A spokeswoman for RSPCA ACT said that branch 'does not, and has not in the past, sent animals to abattoirs or knackeries.' While RSPCA NSW confirmed it sometimes disposed of stock through abattoirs and knackeries it did not say how often it did so. Asked to clarify if 'stock' included thoroughbreds, RSPCA NSW cited the Department of Primary Industries' use of the word. 'RSPCA NSW uses the DPI definition of stock - so that includes horses of all descriptions, including thoroughbreds,' it said. Footage aired on the ABC in October shows healthy thoroughbreds being mistreated and slaughtered for consumption in an investigation which has shaken the racing industry It had no capacity to determine whether carcasses were processed into pet food. The spokeswoman said RSPCA NSW received 'many thousands' of stock animals each year 'under many different circumstances'. It took in surrendered, stray and impounded animals, those seized by inspectors for prosecution of owners and for the administration of seize and sell provisions of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act. 'The decision as to how to maintain the animals, in what circumstances, for how long, and whether they should be euthanised is determined by the purpose for which they come into our custody, and a variety of other factors,' the RSPCA NSW spokeswoman said. 'That includes determining whether the animal is in a condition which requires immediate euthanasia, in which case the stock will be humanely euthanised, and then either buried or transported to appropriate facilities for disposal.' RSPCA NSW makes those decisions based on the advice of experienced vets including experts from Sydney University's Veterinary Teaching Hospital. A spokeswoman for RSPCA NSW said the animal welfare charity received 'many thousands' of stock animals each year 'under many different circumstances' (file image) Where seize and sell proceedings are commenced, the decision is made by a stock welfare panel. Horses, sheep and cattle can be deemed so nutritionally deprived they are fit only for transport to an abattoir or agistment. In that case they are considered unsuitable to be put through saleyards or to travel long distances. 'Where there is no suitable agistment available, such stock can be processed through abattoir or knackery facilities,' the spokeswoman said. Daily Mail Australia accepts RSPCA NSW does not send fit and healthy animals to abattoirs or knackeries. The RSPCA NSW spokeswoman reiterated the charity's opposition to retired racehorses being sent to slaughterhouses. 'RSPCA NSW believes that the implementation of legal welfare standards for racehorses, to eliminate practices that cause injury, pain, suffering or distress, is an urgent government priority,' she said. 'We believe provisions should be made to ensure thoroughbreds are not sent to abattoirs or knackeries.' The slaughter of racehorses is not illegal in Australia but since October 2017 has been against Racing NSW rules, which state all retired thoroughbreds should be re-homed. WHAT RSPCA AUSTRALIA SAID ABOUT ABC'S ABATTOIR EXPOSE Following the expose on ABC 7.30 last night, Australian racing must no longer deny the need for action to address serious welfare issues in its industry, says RSPCA Australia Acting CEO Dr Bidda Jones. 'Like all Australians who saw last night's program, we were shocked and horrified - but sadly, not surprised - at the fate of of Australian thoroughbred and harness racing horses sent for slaughter, and the industry's alarming lack of acknowledgement or control over this. 'There are two issues here: first, the appalling handling and slaughter practices at the Queensland abattoir shown - Meramist Abattoir at Caboolture - which, as an export abattoir, comes under federal government regulation. 'And second, the oversupply and wastage of horses in the racing industry which has led to these horses ending up at abattoirs or knackeries. 'What has been allowed to take place at the abattoir should be a matter for urgent investigation and intervention by the Australian Government Department of Agriculture. 'However, the Australian racing industry cannot claim to be surprised by this footage, and must not be allowed to dodge their responsibility for the numbers of horses that are being bred, as well as those ultimately sent to slaughter. 'The RSPCA along with many other welfare groups has urged action to reduce wastage and improve standards when horses are slaughtered for years. 'Sadly, Australian racing authorities have become experts in ignoring the obvious, because it doesn't fit with their desired image. 'Racing authorities repeatedly claim that animal welfare is "paramount", yet they dont want to admit that racehorses are being slaughtered or to admit they should take responsibility for ensuring that horses are treated well throughout their lives - not just when they are generating a profit. 'To put it bluntly, Racing Australia, Harness Racing Australia, and the state racing bodies need to get real. 'It's clear they have completely lost control of the way racehorses are managed in their industry, from how they are treated while training and racing, to their fate after racing. 'As a matter of urgency, they must put measures in place to ensure the number of horses prematurely exiting racing is dramatically reduced, and put proper standards and monitoring in place to ensure all racehorses have humane treatment throughout their lives, from beginning to end,' said Dr Jones. Source: RSPCA Australia statement October 18, 2019 Advertisement : Kerala has come out against the Union government's proposed amendment to section 6 of the Income Tax Act, saying it would affect its economy which is supported largely by remittances from NRKs in the Gulf. In a statement here, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the state's economy, which is substantially supported by remittances, especially from those in the Gulf countries, would be affected by this amendment. In the Finance Bill presented along with the Union budget 2020, the Centre has proposed to amend section 6 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 which stipulates conditions for determining residential status for tax purposes in India. Presently, Indian citizens or people of Indian origin are treated as residents if they stay for 182 days or more in India. The amendment proposes to reduce this to 120 days with effect from April 1, 2021. For a resident, his or her global income is subject to tax in India. Though the Explanatory Memorandum to the Finance Bill states that this is a provision to check tax abuse, it needs to be pointed out that a large number of persons who do not fall even remotely in the cateogry of tax evaders, would be put to great hardship due to this proposed amendment, the statement quoted Vijayan as saying. Most of the people working in the Middle East were from Kerala and they have houses and families in the state and they visit and stay in their home state to look after domestic affairs. "Tax evasion is not their intention and they do not fall in the category of persons who shift their bases to avoid taxes," he said. Persons from Kerala working in Middle East and doing medium-scale businesses there have the responsiblity of taking care of their families who are here. Such persons would be "hard hit" by the amendment, the statement said. "We record our strong disagreement with the move in the Finance Bill, 2020, brought in under the guise of checking tax abuse, but is in reality going to hurt those who toil and bring foreign exchange to the country," Vijayan said adding the the central government should desist from going ahead with the amendment. There was no dispute that the undisclosed income of those who transfer money to tax havens should be brought within the tax net and such proceeds should be utilised for social welfare programmes, he said. But persons working in countries of the Gulf region which have no personal income tax would be hit. Most of such persons are not in the economic upper crust. "They need to be excluded from the ambit of the proposed amendment as they are mostly middle income people who bring to our country a part of their hard-earned income", he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A crudely-worded note put up inside a block of flats asking residents to speak only English now that the UK has left the European Union has prompted fury and a police investigation in the east England town of Norwich. Residents whose mother-tongue is not English should return to their countries of origin, the poster said, insisting that people now speak only Queens English (sic). The block of 95 flats Winchester Tower is managed by the local council housing people in need of accommodation. The anonymous poster under the heading Happy Brexit Day was quickly removed but its image has been widely shared on social media. It comes in the context of a rise in racist incidents in the UK since the 2016 EU referendum. ALSO WATCH | Brexit: UK formally leaves the European Union, supporters celebrate We finally have our country back, the poster said, going on to add: We do not tolerate people speaking other languages than English in these flats. We are now our own country again and the the Queens English is the spoken tongue here. This trending photo from a door in Norwich makes me livid & embarrassed. Norwich is the most tolerant, accepting, loving city I have ever lived in or visited. This photo in no way represents our county or city. A racist, bigoted minority will NEVER be tolerated & NEVER prevail. pic.twitter.com/9De3s8g17d Jake Humphrey (@mrjakehumphrey) February 1, 2020 It soon evoked strong reaction after its image went viral and the local press reported it prominently. Mike Stonard, a cabinet member in the Norwich City Council, told The Eastern Daily Press: I absolutely condemn this abhorrent poster. Whoever put it there has committed a hate crime, it is as simple as that. Many people voted for Brexit for a range of different reasons however I am sure not many of them will condone this kind of thing. A council spokesman said: Norwich has a proud history of being a welcoming city and we will not tolerate this behaviour. As soon as we were made aware of this incident, we reported it to the police and they are investigating. We take this very seriously. Television presenter Jake Humphrey tweeted an image of the poster and said: This trending photo from a door in Norwich makes me livid & embarrassed. Norwich is the most tolerant, accepting, loving city I have ever lives in or visited. This photo in no way represents our county or city. A racist, bigoted minority will NEVER be tolerated & NEVER prevail. The Boris Johnson government is embarking on a Global Britain campaign after the UK formally left the EU on Friday. A new 50 pence coin to mark Brexit day has the words: Peace, prosperity and friendship with all nations. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON 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. In many cities, the construction cacophony of jackhammers, excavators, and pile-drivers offers a background symphony, and even a short stroll around Dublin or Cork provides mesmerising views of cranes and towers dominating the skyline. Construction activity has grown roughly 10% per annum since 2013 when the economic recovery began to get underway and 1,000 people have entered the construction industry per month since then. How different it all was a decade ago when silence and inactivity were the bywords of a shattered economy. Inevitably, though, construction activity does present its problems. The dilemma is about the lack of trained workers available personnel. With the economy approaching full employment, the task of filling vacancies in the dozens of major building projects across the country is proving a vexatious headache. Such is the skills shortage that construction companies have been forced to cast their employment net overseas in search of quantity surveyors, civil engineers, and project managers, with talent from as far afield as Brazil and South Africa responding to work opportunities. While there has been a focus in recent years on bringing Irish construction talent back from overseas, including many who were forced to emigrate during the slump, it is not enough to successfully plug the growing gaps. To maintain the level of growth required by the vast array of major projects across the country, companies increasingly need to access the global talent pool. However, many companies are put off by the assumption that the bureaucracy of employing non-EU residents will involve a blizzard of paperwork. According to Azon Recruitment, construction professionals from outside of Ireland make up less than 10% of all workers in the industry, with over 70% of building companies saying they are not actively looking to hire professionals from abroad to fill their vacancies. In addition, 90% of those who responded to the Azon survey were unaware of government initiatives to help companies to source and relocate non-EU workers. One example is the 2015 Trusted Partner Initiative, aimed at streamlining the application process and offering a fast turnaround of applications, with no fees and reduced paperwork. It is buttressed by the Critical Skills Employment Permits, an initiative designed to attract highly skilled people into the labour market to take up permanent residence in the State. Another product of the skills shortages in construction is the increase in salaries. Azon estimates construction wages rose by around 4.5% last year, before other perks, such as enhanced car allowances, pensions, and health benefits. In addition, construction is getting to grips with a variety of roles that were unknown a decade ago. The changing face of the sector is generating new types of job, driven by technology. The industry is also grappling with a gender equality crisis, with women accounting for only 8% of Irish construction workers. Given that up to 112,000 additional workers will be needed to deliver on the planned construction activity over the next decade, the industry is limiting its growth potential if it only recruits from 50% of the population. From an efficiency perspective, female participation in business decision making has been proven to improve business performance, says Jean Winters, who is director of industrial relations at the Construction Industry Federation. We, as an industry, cannot continue to allow such low levels of female participation. Other sectors have taken steps with some success and we need to also, she says. The construction industry continues to play a game of catch-up following almost a decade of under-investment. Meeting the housing needs of a country whose population is set to substantially increase in the near future will underpin much of the next decades output. The construction industry will be under pressure to deliver. the goods. Austrian wine: Climb every vineyard Austria is ticking a lot of boxes for wine drinkers, finds Sonya Hook Austria could be one to watch in wine in 2020 with the country boasting success from both its international varieties and its rarities, alongside its ongoing favourite Gruner Veltliner, supported by reports that 2019 might be Austrias vintage of the decade. But what is it that is driving Austrias success and what can retailers do to help consumers discover new things from the nation? Carmen Augscholl, head of international markets for the Austrian Wine Marketing Board, tells DRN that Austrian wines are transporting the values that people are screaming for: conscious treatment of our environment, high quality for fair prices as well as food-friendly, elegant wines. She adds: Our winegrowers cannot wait to show the first samples of the 2019 vintage. Quantity-wise it will be above the past five-year average and quality-wise it could be Austrias vintage of the decade. Peter Honegger, at Austrian specialist importer and retailer Newcomer Wines, also highlights the environmental focus from Austrian wine producers, predicting that over the next few years we will see more and more organic certifications. He says: Austria is one of the leading countries these days in terms of good agriculture and good farming practices. There are more low-intervention and organic producers now and we are seeing new clients approaching us who are looking for these kinds of wines. It seems that the quality you get on average wine in Austria is very high and the wines are just speaking for themselves. Some retailers in the UK agree. Beth Pearce, Majestic Wines Austria buyer, says: Austria is flying at the moment, with sales for the year to autumn 2019 up over 70% like-for-like. FLAGSHIP VARIETY Gruner Veltliner, the nations flagship grape, which covers one third of Austrias total vineyard surface area, is leading the way for Majestic, according to Pearce. She says: We had some really successful parcels in 2019 and we added one to our Definition range. Gruner is still thriving. Bringing it into the Definition range has helped create trust and brand building and the sales are following. The lighter, fresh style is finding a great audience with those customers who love New Zealand Sauvignon styles. Its really exciting to see. Nik Darlington, director at Graft Wine, says the best-selling producer for his previous company Red Squirrel and now Graft was for many years Austrian, bolstered predominantly by Gruner Veltliner. He says: In 2018 we found sales of Gruner tailed off in the on-trade, where it is no longer as in vogue, and the off-trade has been slower to pick up the slack. Zweigelt continues to be exceptionally popular but we felt Gruner was hitting a plateau. I am pleased to say, however, that trend has been reversed over the past year, and Gruner is back in growth. Retailers looking for a starting point would be wise to include Gruner but, like Darlington, many in the trade highlight Zweigelt as one of the up-and-coming success stories from Austria. Majestic has had Gruner Veltliner in its portfolio for more than a decade but it recently expanded its Austrian collection, including the trial of a Zweigelt. Pearce says: I think this could be the next big thing since juicy, fruity reds are working a treat for our customers. Gruner will still be the flagship Im sure but it needs a red partner and Zweigelt can be made in a really approachable style. Honegger at Newcomer also highlights Zweigelt and other lighter reds from Austria, which he says consumers are increasingly looking to explore. He says: Wines such as Blaufrankisch, Pinot Noir and Zweigelt are increasingly being produced in Austria. There is still a big domestic demand for these but historically it was the richer reds which were exported. This is now changing and we are seeing increased demand outside of Austria for its lighter reds. I think the single most important red variety is Blaufrankisch and we are seeing just the beginning of the growth of this. It can compete with some of the best fine wines of France or Italy and it has such a variety of styles. People have compared it with the good terroir you find in Beaujolais or, if you pick the grapes later and produce whole-bunch wines, then you could think of it as being more similar to a Northern Rhone Syrah. Darlington also points to Austrian reds, whether thats lighter, fruitier styles much like Zweigelt, or the bolder offerings from the southern regions where grapes like Blaufrankisch and St Laurent thrive. Similarly, Augscholl confirms Austrias red wines are gaining in popularity. She adds: Red quality wines saw an increase of 45% in value and 72% in volume in the first nine months of 2019 compared to 2018. In addition, there is definitely a higher interest in Austrias rarities, such as Zierfandler, Rotgipfler, Roter Veltliner and Wiener Gemischter Satz. Augscholl also notes that Austria can rely on its success with international varieties which are combined with a clear identity, such as its Rieslings. PLUS POINTS Pearce also sees an exciting opportunity for varieties such as Riesling, with the more engaged wine consumer. She adds: I would love to see more of the Pinot Blanc, which seems to be kept within the country. Looking ahead, it is clear Austria can produce wines of interest, but do the nations wines offer any additional plus points for retailers? Those in the UK that are already reporting strong sales from Austria highlight anumber of keys to its success, including the fact its wines are often lower in alcohol and that they are known for being food friendly. Darlington says: Despite the renaissance having been going strong for a number of years now, Austrian wines still hold something of a novelty factor with many wine drinkers. There is also a groundswell of support for lighter wines (especially lighter reds) and lower alcohol levels, and Austrian wines regularly deliver on these and deliver well. Whats more, it is a relatively youthful wine industry, with a new generation of charismatic young winemakers, a great push towards organic and biodynamic viticulture, and a strong natural wine scene. There are great stories to tell. Majestics Pearce adds: I think the Austrian style appeals to customers who like the restraint and freshness of European whites but want to look outside the regions commonly found in the UK market. I think they have similar appeal to Italian whites not too fruity, clean mineral flavours and not too alcoholic. All that means they are great to pair with food. Related articles: What really bothers me about your situation is that you said the will wasnt witnessed. Im not concerned about the lack of a notary since Indiana wills dont need to be notarized. But the lack of witnesses signatures is definitely a problem. Remember for a will to be valid, it has to be in writing, signed by the maker and witnessed by two witnesses, preferably disinterested witnesses. Sure, there are a couple of other requirements. However, if the will isnt in writing, signed and witnessed, nothing else is likely to matter since you dont have a properly executed will in the first place. The first thing I would do is pull that will out and check to see if it is witnessed and signed. If not, you need to come to terms with the fact that you likely dont have a will. If it isnt signed and witnessed, or you arent sure, call the attorney. Set up an appointment and go over the situation. Let the attorney take a look at it and tell you what needs to be done. If you are uncomfortable going back to the original attorney, call a different one. Whatever you chose to do, dont ignore this. You likely have a serious problem that has an easy solution. Get in front of this thing before its too late to deal with it. Christopher W. Yugo is an attorney in Crown Point. Chris Estate Planning Article appears online every Sunday at www.nwi.com. Address questions to Chris in care of The Times, 601 W. 45th Ave., Munster, IN 46321 or to Chrisyugolaw@gmail.com. Chris information is meant to be general in nature. Specific legal, tax, or insurance questions should be referred to your attorney, accountant, or estate-planning specialist. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Executives of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in Ajumaku Enyan Essiam have vowed to boycott the Ghana Card registration exercise currently ongoing in the Central Region. According to them, some officials of the National Identification Authority (NIA) have turned the exercise into a partisan one hence their threat. They also claimed that known NPP party members who are agents at some centres turn away individuals without proper education on how to get registered. The NDC executives in the area also alleged that NPP supporters who dont have the requisite requirement to be agents have been recruited to work at the expense of those who qualify hence creating a lot of problems in the exercise. The President in his inaugural address when he became President called on us to be citizens and not spectators so we will expose any rot in the NIA registration, Rexford Mensah, the NDC Deputy Communication Officer in Ajumako said. To start with, the recruitment of personnel to undertake the exercise, the qualifications of staff to work are known NPP members in Ajumako and they are using their already printed cards to guarantee for known NPP party members as against other applications who are only turned away on the basis of non-possession of birth certificates without proper education on how to get registered, he insisted. Speaking to Citi News at a press conference in Ajumako, Mr. Mensah indicated that if the NIA registration exercise is really aimed at giving legal access to citizens, authorities must address their concerns. He further indicated that the issue of GPS is also denying rural settlers from getting registered since they dont have access to the internet in their villages and are forced to come to Ajumako to get registered. The issue of GPS must be made optional to allow rural settlers to register but that is not the case here. Rural settlers are turned away. He added that at some centres in Ajumako, the exercise didnt start on time, denying residents access to part in the exercise. DCE rejects allegations However, denying these allegations, the District Chief Executive (DCE) for Ajumako Enyan Essiam, Ransford Kojo Nyarko said that the NPP will ensure that the exercise is successful. This is an exercise that will allow the ordinary Ghanaian to get identified so why will the NPP deny anyone that privilege to get registered? he asked. citinewsroom According to news published on January 30, 2020, on a Malian newspaper website, Malian Armed Forces have received 15 Cougar light armored vehicles from the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The Cougar is a 4x4 Armored Personnel Carrier designed and manufactured by the Company Streit Group with headquarters in UAE. New Cougar Armored Personnel Carrier for Malian armed forces. (Picture source ICIMali website) The Cougar 4x4 is a light Armored Personnel Carrier (APC) vehicle designed and manufactured by the Company Streit Group. The Cougar is based on a Toyota Land Cruiser 79-series chassis adapted to be used in all-terrain conditions with military specifications. The Cougar is a 4x4 APC (Armored Personnel Carrier) designed to carry 9 military personnel including driver and commander. The vehicle offers protection against firing of small arms 7.62mm NATO caliber and artillery shell splinters. It can be equipped with various types of weapon stations and turrets armed with 7.62 mm or 12.7 mm machine guns or a 40 mm automatic grenade launcher. The Streit Group Cougar 4x4 APC is motorized with a 4.5L 6 cylinders gasoline engine developing 218 hp. at 4,600 rpm. The engine is coupled to a manual transmission with 5 speeds and one reverse. It can run at a maximum road speed of 110 km/h with a maximum cruising range of 650 km. In January this year, the Malian armed forces had already received seven Typhoon mine-resistant ambush-protected (MRAP) vehicles also manufactured by the Company Streit Group. According to military sources, Mali has signed an agreement to receive 30 Cougar Armored Personnel Carrier (APC) vehicles from UAE, as part of a wider agreement that also covers the sale of 100 Streit Typhoon mine-resistant ambush-protected (MRAP) vehicles. The Malian armed forces have also announced that 35 Typhoon MRAP has already been delivered. Mali plans to increase the size of its army by 50% in order to have more soldiers to fight terrorist groups in the country. Currently, the Malian army is around 6,900 soldiers and 4,800 people from the Gendarmerie, Republican Guard, and National Police. The Malian Army is mainly equipped with old Soviet-made military equipment and armored vehicles including T-55 main battle tanks, PT-76, BTR-60 APCs, BRDM-2, BTR-40, and BTR-152. Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site. 0108263 License for publishing multimedia online Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349 By Express News Service KOCHI: Even after Norka Roots, a state-run agency has been entrusted to recruit nurses and housemaids to 18 countries, including GCC nations, hundreds of nursing job aspirants still fall prey to overseas recruitment fraud. Though Kochi City Police are carrying out investigations in these cases, the key accused in most of the cases are yet to be arrested. According to the police, two to three overseas recruitment fraud cases are reported in the city every week. Recently over 80 nurses had come out against a Kochi-based firm George International for duping them of lakhs of rupees after being promised jobs in Kuwait, Sharjah and Canada. However, the masterminds of the big fraud amounting to about `2.5 crore Anish Jose, Adarsh Jose and George T George are still absconding. Though the police arrested Vineetha Mathew, an employee of the firm last Thursday, she is only a small fry in the case. Earlier, around 80 nurses had complained that they were duped. However, now the number has increased to more than 200, according to the police. Anish Jose and Adarsh Jose, who are brothers, and George T Jose, their friend, have been operating the firm since 2017 though the licence holder is Lissy George as per an agreement. Anish masterminded the fraud from Kuwait while others assisted him from Kochi. They collected money from job aspirants as the fee for certificate attestation, visa processing and other requirements through the savings bank accounts of George and Adarsh. The job aspirants came to know that they lost their money when they approached the agency for getting their money back after they failed to get the visa promised by the agency. The agency had failed to deliver their money back, said a police officer. According to him, an investigation with the assistance of the cyber cell is under way. George and Adarsh had used about 20 SIM cards. When the fraud came to light they switched off all the numbers. We get different locations while tracking the mobile phone numbers, said the officer, who is part of the investigation team. Vineetha Mathew was arrested after police found a transaction of `6.5 lakh through her bank account. The arrested was an employee of the firm and she left Kochi after switching off her mobile phone in December last year. She was arrested following an investigation conducted at her residence at Anakkara in Idukki, said an officer. The Ernakulam South Police registered the case following a complaint lodged by Bincy Jacob, a native of Palakkad, who was cheated after offering visa to Kuwait for a nursing job. The agency offered jobs in Kuwait Ministry of Health and Kuwait Oil Company, according to the complaint. Ernakulam South CI Aneesh K G is heading the investigation.Modus operandiRecruitment agencies post advertisements via social media. They contact job aspirants based on a database of the candidates in their possession. Once a person approaches them they follow it up frequently so as to have a rapport with the job aspirant. After winning the trust of the job aspirants they collect an amount ranging from `10,000 to 10 lakh citing fee for attestation and visa processing. ONGC, IOC and other oil PSUs will invest over Rs 98,521 crore in the coming fiscal starting April 1 in exploring for oil and gas, refineries, petrochemicals and laying pipelines to meet needs of the world's fastest-growing energy consuming nation. The investment proposed in 2020-21 is almost 4% higher than Rs 94,974 crore spending by the state-owned oil firms in the current fiscal year that ends on March 31, according to Budget 2020-21 documents. Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) leads the pack with a 19% rise in its capital spending at Rs 32,501 crore. The company is investing in finding new reserves of oil and gas and bringing to production discoveries it has already made. It is developing discoveries on both east and west coast of the country. The top oil producer's overseas arm, ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL) will invest almost 10% more at Rs 7,235 crore in oil and gas operations abroad. Indian Oil Corp (IOC), the country's top oil refiner, will see a 17.4% rise in spending to Rs 26,233 crore with the bulk of it in expansion and upgrade of its seven refineries that produce fuel. IOC will also see investment in petrochemical business almost double to Rs 3,387.5 crore while its exploration spends quadruples to Rs 2,150 crore. Privatisation-bound Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) has proposed a 14% higher capital spending at Rs 9,000 crore, two-third of which will be in its core refining business. Gas utility GAIL India Ltd will not see any major increase in its investments at Rs 5,412 crore as most of its pipeline grid expansion projects are nearing completion. Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL), a subsidiary of ONGC, will invest Rs 11,500 crore in FY21, the same as the previous year. Oil India Ltd, the nation's second-largest oil producer, will invest Rs 3,877 crore next year as compared to Rs 3,675 crore in current fiscal. In her second budget, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had on Saturday laid down plans for expansion of national natural gas pipeline network to 27,000 km from the present 16,200 km and pricing reforms as the government looks at boosting the use of environment-friendly fuel. The government has set a target of raising the share of natural gas in primary energy basket to 15% by 2030 from current 6.2%. Connecting gas sources to consumption hubs is key to achieving this. Presently, most of the gas pipelines are concentrated in the western and northern part of the country with a few lines in the east and south. "To deepen gas markets in India, further reforms will be undertaken to facilitate transparent price discovery and ease of transactions," she had said. Presently, the price of natural gas produced domestically is fixed by a formula that averages out rates in gas surplus nations such as Russia and the US. "Further, it is proposed to expand the national gas grid from the present 16,200 km to 27,000 km," she said without giving a timeline. GettyImages 1159114238 Rachel Murray/Getty Images for Girlbos Beauty YouTuber and entrepreneur Michelle Phan tweeted Friday about the racist comments she received amid the global coronavirus scare. Phan said some people told her to go back to eating bats. She responded that she was born and raised in the United States. Since the first case of the coronavirus was reported in December, at least 259 people have died and more than 10,000 have been infected. Visit Insider's homepage for more stories. On Friday, beauty YouTuber and Ipsy founder Michelle Phan tweeted her response to racist comments she received amid the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak spreading across the world. It started when Phan tweeted, "I snapped," after sharing a picture of a racist Instagram comment she got. "Why do you Asians eat creatures left right and centre???? Dead or alive... all body parts!!!!! That's why your starting all sorts of diseases!!!!," the person wrote. Phan responded, "@0011love1100 Why do you settlers give out smallpox infected blankets to Native Americans, wiping out 95% of their population?" After sharing that first tweet, Phan went on to tweet three more times about the racism she was dealing with. "I'd like remind the people who've been racist towards Asians because of the coronavirus. 90% of everything you own was made in China including your phone. Bye," she wrote. Her second tweet reads, "Why are some of you telling me to go back to eating bats? I'm American you ignorant f---s." Her last tweet read, "I can't believe we're in 2020 and people are still dumb as rocks. I take that back, I shouldn't insult rocks." Story continues Phan was born in Boston, Massachusetts, grew up in Tampa, Florida, and her parents were both Vietnamese refugees. The coronavirus, on the other hand, originated in Wuhan, China. Since the first case of the coronavirus was reported in December, at least 259 people have died and more than 10,000 have been infected. The virus has spread to at least 24 other countries including the US, which has eight confirmed cases. On Saturday, a student at the University of Massachusetts Boston tested positive for the coronavirus after returning from a trip to Wuhan, China. According to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, the man will remain in isolation until he is cleared by public health officials. Read the original article on Insider Fotis Dulos' legal team is gearing up for a fierce battle against the suspected wife killer's mother-in-law over control of his assets after the man's death. Dulos attorney Norm Pattis and Gloria Farber, the mother of 50-year-old Jennifer Farber Dulos, are both in the process of filing probate estates. Farber is filing the probate as she is one of Dulos' closest living relatives and she has been taking care of the couple's five children since Jennifer disappearance on May 24, the Hartford Courant reports. It does not appear the father left a will naming an executor or a beneficiary. Dulos attorney Norm Pattis (left) and Gloria Farber, the mother of 50-year-old Jennifer Farber Dulos, are both in the process of filing probate estates Pattis said on Friday he plans to fight Farber's claim to the assets, giving her relationship with Fotis. 'We obviously are taking actions ourselves to open an estate on behalf of Mr. Dulos and we dont think that Mrs. Farber should have any involvement,' Pattis said. 'This is Mr. Dulos estate to be administered not Mrs. Farbers.' Richard Weinstein, who is representing Farber and filing the probate estate, said that he would not allow the woman to personally administer the estate because of conflicts of interests. Pattis said on Friday he plans to fight Farber's (pictured) claim to the assets Farber is currently suing Dulos, claiming that he owes more than $2million to the estate of her deceased husband, Hilliard Farber. That action is currently pending. 'I will ask there be a temporary administrator appointed,' Weinstein added. 'I dont expect theyll be a positive money flow from his estate. He was selling furniture from the house on eBay so he had no funds.' Pattis has filed an unusual motion to have the murder trial move forward, with Dulos' estate replacing him as the defendant. The lawyer wants the trial to go on so that he can attempt to clear Dulos' name. Doing so could cause problems for whoever would be deemed representative of the estate. A judge will have to hold a hearing to determine who is more qualified to administer the estate. It is said that that hearing would occur expeditiously. Weinstein claims Farber has a major interest in the estate, particularly for Dulos' Jefferson Crossing home in Farmington, Connecticut. Farber has a $2.3million mortgage for the property and is required to pay $21,000 in property taxes that Dulos failed to pay. A trust for Farber recently filed a foreclosure notice on the house. Farber's lawyer claim she has a major interest in the estate, particularly for Dulos' Jefferson Crossing home in Farmington, Connecticut. Farber has a $2.3million mortgage for the property and is required to pay $21,000 in property taxes that Dulos failed to pay. A trust for Farber recently filed a foreclosure notice on the house News of the estate battle comes after Dulos died on January 30, following his suicide attempt two days earlier. It also comes after the news that Dulos wrote a suicide note declaring his innocence. 'If it takes my head to end this, so be it,' says the letter obtained by DailyMail.com and believed to be Dulos' suicide note. The note, neatly written in blue ink on lined paper, is dated January 28 - the day Dulos attempted to take his own life by carbon monoxide poisoning while on bail over the murder of his wife Jennifer. Jennifer disappeared on May 24 after dropping their children off at school, in the midst of an ugly divorce and custody battle over their five children. In the suicide note, the suspected murderer proclaims his innocence and the innocence of alleged accomplice Michelle Troconis, and his civil attorney Kent Mawhinney. The suicide note obtained by DailyMail.com and believed to be that of Fotis Dulos Dulos also states: 'I also ask the State to stop harassing my friends, Andreas Toutziaridis, and Anna Curry. They are honorable people.' Toutziaridis is mentioned in Dulos' arrest warrant as a 'childhood friend of Dulos who lives in Greece' and a person central to the investigation. The police record states that Dulos received an incoming call to his cellphone at 8.24am from Toutziaridis on May 24 - the day Jennifer went missing. Curry was Dulos' new girlfriend who had fronted thousands of dollars in cash in order for him to make bond and who was with him the morning he attempted suicide, DailyMail.com revealed Thursday. Dulos also makes an apology to Curry at the end of the note. Dulos apologizes to his new girlfriend Anna Curry (pictured) for 'not continuing the fight' in the note which was found in the car after he tried to kill himself Michelle Troconis (left), Fotis' live-in girlfriend at the time of Jennifer's disappearance, and Kent Mawhinney, Dulos' civil attorney (right), are charged with conspiracy to murder for their alleged roles in plotting and covering up Jennifer's death. In his suicide note, Dulos proclaims the innocence of his alleged accomplices Troconis and Mawhinney Fotis Dulos' 'suicide note' in full All, If you are reading this I am no more. I refuse to spend even an hour more in jail for something I had NOTHING to do with. Enough is enough. If it takes my head to end this, so be it. I want it to be known that Michelle Troconis had nothing to do with Jennifer's disappearance. And neither did Kent Mawhinney. I ask the State to let them free of any such accusations. I also ask the State to stop harassing my friends, Andreas Toutziaridis, and Anna Curry. They are honorable people. Please let my children know that I love them, I would do anything to be with them, but unfortunately we all have our limits. The State will not rest until I rot in jail. My attorney can explain what happened with the bags on Albany Avenue. Everything else is a story fabricated by the Law Enforcement. I want to thank all my family and friends that stood by me this difficult time. Above all Anna Curry. I am sorry for letting you down and not continuing the fight. Fotis. Advertisement The note continues to proclaim Dulos' innocence for the murder of Jennifer (above) Dulos' attorneys Norm Pattis (right) responded to DailyMail.com's request for him to verify the contents of the suicide note by saying Dulos had always insisted ex-girlfriend Troconis was innocent The father speaks of his five children who he shared with his wife Jennifer in the note. The children, aged 8 to 13, live with Gloria Farber after she was given full custody after filing a motion the same day Dulos was arrested for evidence tampering and hindering prosecution in relation to Jennifer's disappearance. She continues to care for them in her Upper East Side apartment on Fifth Avenue. Dulos' note goes on to accuse the state of fabricating the 'story' of his guilt and alleges that his lawyers could explain 'what happened with the bags on Albany Avenue'. Fotis was found in his car inside his garage. The exhaust pipe he used to try to kill himself is shown attached to his vehicle Emergency workers are shown trying to revive Fotis Dulos at his home in Farmington, Connecticut, on Tuesday Dulos appears to be referring to the video surveillance which shows a man and woman matching his and Troconis' descriptions dropping items in the trash along Albany Avenue in Hartford on the evening of May 24. Jennifer's blood was found on the items later recovered by police. Dulos new girlfriend Anna Curry (above) had paid $147,000 in cash in order for him to make bond A homeless man also allegedly found a 'hunting knife' in a trash can in Albany Avenue that investigators believe could have been the dumped murder weapon. Dulos closes off the suicide note thanking his family and friends 'above all' his new girlfriend Curry. Dulos' attorney Norm Pattis responded to DailyMail.com's request for him to verify the contents of the suicide note by saying Dulos had always insisted ex-girlfriend Troconis was innocent. 'Mr. Dulos insisted from day one that Ms. Troconis was not involved and wanted a joint defense agreement with her. He always spoke of her with the utmost respect,' said Pattis. Dulos' new girlfriend features heavily in his last known message. Documents obtained by DailyMail.com Thursday found that Curry, 42, put up $147,000 in cash and said she would pay an additional $272,000 to secure the $6million bond that Dulos posted after he was charged with Jennifer's murder. Curry was seen at Dulos' home on Tuesday in the hours before he was due to attend a hearing at Stamford Superior Court where he feared his bond would be revoked and he would be jailed. She left Dulos' home around 10.30am to run errands and returned to find police officers fighting to revive him on the driveway, according to sources. The brunette bears a striking resemblance to Dulos' missing wife Jennifer (left) and mistress Michelle Troconis (right) who has also been charged in the disappearance Sources confirmed that Curry was in a romantic relationship with him. She bears a striking resemblance to Dulos' missing wife Jennifer and his ex-girlfriend Troconis, who has been charged with conspiracy to commit murder. TIMELINE OF THE FOTIS DULOS CASE 2004: Fotis Dulos and Jennifer Farber get married. It is his second marriage In the same year, her father Hilliard starts loaning him money for his property business, Fore Group 2015: Fotis and Michelle Troconis start taking trips he paid for which he claimed were for business. They later start an affair January 2017: Hilliard Farber dies March 2017: Gloria Farber takes over his estate June 2017: Jennifer files for divorce, saying she is afraid of her husband February 2018: Gloria Farber sues Fotis Dulos for unpaid loans May 24 2019: Jennifer vanishes after dropping off her five children at school June 2019: Fotis and Michelle Troconis are arrested for evidence tampering Gloria Farber files an order for custody of the children August 2019: Troconis 'turns' on Dulos in police interviews, admits she lied when she said she had an alibi for him September 2019: Fotis is arrested again for evidence tampering January 2020: Dulos and Troconis are charged with murder January 28: Dulos is found unresponsive at his Farmington home January 29: Dulos' family fly in to say their goodbyes as sources say he 'is completely reliant on life support' Police conduct a new search of Dulos' home January 30: Dulos dies at 5.32p.m. at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx, New York, surrounded by family, friends and his legal team His attorney files a motion to continue with the murder trial after his death as Dulos' family are 'adamant that his name be cleared' Advertisement A neighbor previously told DailyMail.com: 'A young woman has been at Fotis' house several times over the past few months. They've been out jogging together. She's been driving one of his cars.' The Hartford Courant first reported that Curry wrote two checks for a total of $147,000 on January 9, according to public records, in order to pay the bail bondsman his fee on the $6million bond. Dulos contributed a check for $1,000. The conditions of Dulos' $6million bond meant putting up 7 per cent of that amount or $420,000 in cash, to prevent him awaiting trial in jail. According to the filing, Curry also agreed to pay the balance of just over $272,000 in 15 installments until April 2021 to secure the $6million bond. In the documents, seen by DailyMail.com, Dulos listed Curry as his 'best friend'. On Curry, Dulos' lawyer Norm Pattis said in an earlier statement: 'It is my understanding and belief these were old friends who developed a friendship years ago at work and out of loyalty to that friendship she has assisted Mr. Dulos. We should all be lucky enough to have such a loyal friend.' He declined to elaborate on the nature of Dulos and Curry's relationship. Curry lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, and works in financial services. She worked at Capgemini, a consulting firm in New York, as a senior consultant in wealth management strategy for four years from 1999 until 2003, according to her LinkedIn. Dulos overlapped with her time at the company when he was a manager at Capgemini for seven years from 1997 until 2004. Dulos died on Thursday, two days after a suicide attempt at his home while on bail accused of murdering his estranged wife Jennifer. Sources told DailyMail.com Dulos was 'losing his mind' at the prospect of having to go back into custody ahead of his scheduled appearance on Tuesday. A bondsman who had been working with Dulos since his first two arrests revealed he was probably the last person to speak with the suspected killer before he died. Mark Motuxzick said he spoke on the phone with Dulos just hours before he was found lifeless and that he had sounded like he was 'out of breath'. When Dulos then failed to show up to the bond hearing, police checked on him and found him inside his garage with a hosepipe taped to his car exhaust in an attempted suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning. Cops dragged him into the fresh air, performed CPR and rushed him to the hospital. At one point he was legally dead before being revived. Jennifer vanished on May 24. Surveillance footage (pictured) shows the last known images of Jennifer driving home, where police say Dulos 'lay in wait', after she dropped her children at school at around 8am The family of Fotis Dulos (pictured being led out of court by officials) are now demanding that he is cleared posthumously of murdering his wife Jennifer last year. 'The family is adamant that his name be cleared,' Pattis said in a statement, after announcing Dulos' death The 52-year-old clung to life for more than 48 hours, before his attorney confirmed he had died at 5:32pm Thursday at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx, New York. Before Dulos passed away, a judge issued a warrant for his re-arrest and added $500,000 to his bail on Wednesday. His attorney Pattis said Dulos family is 'adamant that his name be cleared' posthumously and slammed the public's treatment of his client, saying he was 'executed' by public opinion. In the statement on Thursday, Pattis said: 'Mr. Dulos was tried and convicted in the court of public opinion. Now he has been executed. We remain committed to demonstrating he did not murder Jennifer.' 'The family is adamant that his name be cleared.' 02.02.2020 LISTEN On January 30 2020, University of Ibadan Campus Humanists and Freethinkers held a talk on the theme: Who is afraid of witches on campuses? The venue of the event was the Tedder Hall Cafetaria. Students from Law, Political Science, Philosophy and Education faculties attended the program. The Advocacy for Alleged Witches(AfAW) organized the talk in response to the growing fears and anxieties over witches on Nigerian campuses, and to mobilize students against witch persecution nationwide. To realize a witch-hunting free Africa in 2030 as envisioned by AfAW, a critical mass of students must be allies and advocates. Unfortunately, pervasive fears of the occult exist and persist in Nigerian schools. In November, christian students at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka protested the convention of an academic conference on witchcraft on the campus. The Christian Association of Nigeria and the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria also issued statements opposing this academic meeting. Meanwhile, persons who are suspected of witchcraft are attacked and killed across the country. People blame alleged witches for various misfortunes including sickness, accidents and deaths in the communities. In most cases, young persons are the forefront of witch finding, witch hunting and witch persecution because they are made to believe that alleged witches pose a serious threat to their lives, health, future and progress. Incidentally there has not been any major effort to combat occult fears and anxieties on campuses. There were two presentations at the event. Dr Olayinka Olatunde Ayinde, a psychiatrist from the University College Hospital in Ibadan, spoke on witchcraft and mental health. He made it clear that mental health problems had no causal link to witchcraft as widely believed in the society. Dr Ayinde urged attendees to be mindful of persons including some medical officers who associated mental health problems with the occult. People who have mental health issues are believed to be possessed by evil spirits and could spiritually infect others. Thus they are stigmatized and subjected to various rituals that include chaining, starving and violent exorcism. Many years ago, I attended a church program in Imo state where the presiding priest ordered that a man with mental health problems be bundled out of the building because he was spreading demons and could infect other attendees. In my presentation, I discussed the aims and objectives of AfAW and the need for students to become advocates against witch persecution. Through its decade long campaign, AfAW plans to dispel witchcraft fears and anxieties on campuses and build a critical mass of students against witchcraft accusation, witch persecution and killing. AfAW will take its campaign to the tertiary institutions across the country including colleges of education, polytechnics and universities. Earlier in the day, the university's Diamond FM interviewed me in their morning Safari program where I stressed the need to stop witchcraft accusation and witch persecution. I told listeners that the AfAW would support victims of witchcraft accusation as well as witchcraft accusers and believers. AfAW plans to work to protect and rehabilitate the accused and then enlighten and educate the accusers. Some listeners phoned in recounting their 'witchcraft' related experiences. Others stressed the urgent need for public education and enlightenment programs to eradicate witchcraft beliefs and other superstitions. Source: Xinhua| 2020-02-03 06:10:39|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close SAO PAULO, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- Chinese-owned ride-hailing app 99 announced on Sunday it has racked up 1 billion rides in Brazil by this week. "We succeeded in reaching this mark after the company turned into Brazil's first unicorn (a privately owned startup valued at over 1 billion U.S. dollars), by being acquired by China's Didi Chuxing," 99 said in a statement issued by its offices in Sao Paulo. Didi, China's homegrown ride-hailing app, bought Brazil's 99 in January 2018, a year after injecting enough financing into the company to make it more competitive. Today, 99 has 600,000 drivers and 18 million passengers in more than 1,600 cities, including its biggest market Sao Paulo, Brazil and South America's largest city, according to the company. The United States House of Representatives has opposed the visa ban placed on Nigeria and five other countries by Donald Trump administration and says it will soon establish a no ban act against the immigrant visa ban. The United States of America yesterday imposed an immigrant visa ban on Nigeria, Eritrea, Myanmar, Kyrgyzstan, Tanzania and Sudan. Nigerians travelling for official purposes, business, tourism and student travel will be still allowed into America. Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the US House of Representatives has released an official statement to the immigrant visa ban. Read below; The Trump Administrations expansion of its outrageous, un-American travel ban threatens our security, our values and the rule of law. The sweeping rule, barring more than 350 million individuals from predominantly African nations from traveling to the United States, is discrimination disguised as policy, In the coming weeks, the House will bring the NO BAN Act to the Floor to prohibit religious discrimination in our immigration system and limit the Presidents ability to impose such biased and bigoted restrictions. Americas strength has always been as a beacon of hope and opportunity for people around the world, whose dreams and aspirations have enriched our nation and made America more American. With this latest callous decision, the President has doubled down on his cruelty and further undermined our global leadership, our Constitution and our proud heritage as a nation of immigrants. In the Congress and in the Courts, House Democrats will continue to oppose the Administrations dangerous anti-immigrant agenda. In the coming weeks, the House Judiciary Committee will mark-up and bring to the Floor the NO BAN Act to prohibit religious discrimination in our immigration system and limit the Presidents ability to impose such biased and bigoted restrictions. We will never allow hatred or bigotry to define our nation or destroy our values. Meanwhile, Nigerias President Muhammadu Buhari has set up a committee to study and address the issues which led to the immigrant visa ban. Alejandro Montoya Marin is on a mission to bring his film projects to New Mexico. After appearing on the TV competition series Rebel Without a Crew in 2018, the Albuquerque-based independent filmmaker began his next project, Millenium Bugs. Montoya Marin turned to crowdfunding to raise money for the feature film. In 60 days, he was able to raise over $55,000 from backers worldwide. Even RogerEbert.com shared it. Honestly, I didnt think we were going to get passed $25,000, Montoya Marin said. I did all reaching out via social media by myself. I once texted for nine hours straight and got cramps in my fingers. Every day I was working on the campaign. To have that many backers believe in this film is overwhelming. I want to show them what we can accomplish in New Mexico. Millennium Bugs is a dramedy set in the 1990s that deals with family issues, alcoholism and the potential end of the world Y2K. It stars Katy Erin, Michael Lovato, Micah McNeil, Rogelio T. Ramos, Romy Peniche, Chad Brummett, Melyssa Zurasky and Tamas Nadas. Montoya Marin and crew filmed for 14 days around Albuquerque. Securing locations was difficult because none of it could be finalized until the campaign was over. Every obstacle that could come up happened on the set. It was so stressful, Montoya Marin said. We had really cold nights and our film is set in the winter and spring was starting to show around town. We had to figure out how to shoot it. On Rebel Without a Crew, Montoya Marin had to film a feature film with a budget of $7,000. With more than $50,000, there were so many more opportunities. What we were able to do with more money was great, he said. We also got a lot of help from the state. They are great for assistance in helping secure locations and for advice. The cast and crew was about 90% New Mexican, with lead actors and directors coming from out of state. That number qualifies the production for the states film incentive package. For an indie production like ours, getting 25% back means that we have money for either post-production or marketing, he said. It means that we can submit to more film festivals. The film is in post-production and being sent out to festivals. The Duchess of Cambridge embraced BAFTA's message of sustainability as she arrived at the awards ceremony on Sunday night wearing a dress she has worn before. Attending the event, held at the Royal Albert Hall, alongside her husband Prince William who also wore a tuxedo he has worn several times before, Kate looked radiant in a gold-embroidered cream Alexander McQueen gown. Kate first wore the dress on a royal tour of Southeast Asia back in 2012, to attend a dinner with the King and Queen of Malaysia. In re-wearing a dress she already owned, Kate was adhering to the sustainable fashion guidelines of this years BAFTA event; and demonstrating that the red carpet needn't be about newness in order to be fabulous. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge arrive at the 2020 BAFTA Awards / PA BAFTAs event organisers had this year issued a request in advance to ask all attendees to consider re-wearing an outfit they already own or to choose another sustainable option. "Sustainability is very important to BAFTA, and were doing more than ever before," a BAFTA spokesperson told Harpers Bazaar. "The goal is that the EE British Academy Film Awards 2020 will be carbon neutral, working towards having a net positive impact on the environment. From travel and food, to branding and materials, BAFTA is ensuring the awards are as sustainable as possible." Kate first wore the Alexander McQueen gown on Royal Tour to Malaysia in 2012 / Getty Images Guests at this years event were given dressing guidelines, created by the London College of Fashion, UALs Centre of Sustainability which suggests guests consider renting their red carpet gowns or buying vintage, or even wearing something they have worn before. The guidelines also offer examples of designers who have sustainable credentials, including Stella McCartney, Phoebe English, Reformation and Rejina Pyo. The spokesperson said, The LCF sustainable fashion guide is provided as one small part of our wider sustainability efforts where we are looking at every part of our awards to do more than ever before. Kate accessorised her look with gold shimmering courts, a gold clutch bag and Van Cleef & Arpels jewellery. During the 2019 Legislature, Gov. Steve Bullock, legislators, and Montanans across the Treasure State worked tirelessly to keep history alive in a variety of ways. Senate Bill 338, also known as the Montana Museums Act, is best known for providing a portion of the funds to build the new Montana Heritage Center. But the legislation also creates an ongoing historic preservation grant program for counties, incorporated cities or towns, tribal governments, associations and incorporated nonprofit groups. Feb. 28 is the deadline to apply for the first round of grants, which are administered through the Montana Department of Commerce and provide up to $500,000 for improvements to historic sites, societies and museums, which can include building repairs and renovations, security and fire protection upgrades, or even infrastructure work. The grants are meant to increase economic development, revitalize communities and enhance tourism statewide while adding jobs, expanding businesses and improving local tax bases. The 2021 legislature will determine grant recipients, with funds being distributed in 2021 across Montana. The money for the grants and for some construction costs for the Montana Heritage Center doesnt come from general tax revenues. Instead, the law increases by 1% the state lodging tax, which will add only $1 per $100 to a nights lodging costs. The new Montana Heritage Center will be adjacent to the existing Montana Historical Society building and directly across the street from the state Capitol. Its estimated $53 million construction costs include $10 million in private donations, with about $4 million already raised. Everyone benefits from this farsighted legislation, which hopefully will last into perpetuity. The Board of Trustees and Director Bruce Whittenberg appreciate both your support and contributions to this Program for the Ages. Thank you from the Montana Historical Society Board of Trustees. Bruce Whittenberg (MHS director) Kent Kleinkopf, Missoula (board president) Bob Brown, Whitefish Cliff Edwards, Billings Ed Jasmin, Helena Chuck Johnson, Helena Steve Lozar, Polson Douglas MacDonald, Missoula Thomas Minckler, Billings Thomas Nygard, Bozeman Sam Phares, Clyde Park Sara Scott, Missoula Jude Sheppard, Chinook Mike Shields, Helena Crystal Wong Shors, Helena Hal Stearns, Missoula Love 2 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 BOWMAN -- Palmetto Plains in September flipped the switch at its Bowman solar farm, which can produce enough power for 15,000 homes. Officials say its a win not only for the company, but for Orangeburg County. We see solar energy as a win-win for our residents -- the projects provide long-term revenue to the county as well as clean energy and substantial investments to our community," Orangeburg County Council Chair Johnnie Wright Sr. said. "Were grateful that Orangeburg County is becoming the solar capital of South Carolina, he said. Cubico Sustainable Investments, a global investor in renewable energy, and Cypress Creek Renewables, a national solar and storage company, announced in late August that the solar farm began commercial operations. The companies say the 500-acre farm is the largest in the state. It will produce 106 megawatts of power. The Palmetto Plains solar project provides power to Dominion Energy. Palmetto Plains represented an exciting new chapter for us when it became the first asset in our USA solar portfolio to start operations," said Ricardo Diaz, Cubicos head of Americas. "We are proud to see the project producing power and contributing to the sustainability goals of South Carolina. The solar farm is located on Bowman-Branch Highway on a site known to many locals as Weathers Farm. The project will provide the county with about $5 million in tax payments over the 40-year term of the agreement. The property, like all the county's solar projects, is on leased land. No permanent jobs have been promised. Officials celebrated the farm during an October ceremony. "This project will produce clean energy and new tax dollars for the community for decades to come," Cypress Creek Renewables CEO Sarah Slusser told those gathered at the farm for the symbolic power-up ceremony. "Cypress Creek is a national solar company, and it is creating jobs that will benefit communities for decades with affordable, emissions-free power, a long-term source of stable revenue, construction and operation jobs and economic investment." "I am just as proud as I can be to be standing here in the largest solar farm in the state of South Carolina," said Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, D-Orangeburg said during the ceremony. "When we talk about innovation, Orangeburg County is not shy about leading the way in innovation and innovative research." "This solar farm is an example of that," Cobb-Hunter continued. "We intend to become the largest solar capital not just in South Carolina ... we are growing and we intend to keep growing." Cobb-Hunter praised the leadership of the Weathers family, which leased the property to Cypress Creek for the solar farm. "Orangeburg County is open for business," Cobb-Hunter said. Landy Weathers, who owns the land along with his brother, Hugh, said the discussions about leasing the farmland have been going on for about the past five years. "Our job as farmers and the owners of properties is to do what we think is best for the property, not for right now but for the future," Weathers said. S.C. Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette said during the ceremony, "In South Carolina, we talk about our natural resources and as we keep growing, we want to make sure we can do everything to protect that. Team South Carolina is not just a hashtag. Team South Carolina is something that makes businesses look at South Carolina not only all over the country but all over the world. It is our ability to work at all levels." "I want to thank Palmetto Plains for now being a part of Team South Carolina," Evette continued. "We appreciate what you are doing here and we are excited for what you will continue to do for our state." Cypress Creek has started construction on the 550-acre Huntley Solar, a 100-megawatt solar project also located in Bowman. Together, the Huntley and Palmetto Plains projects will provide $11 million in local tax revenue for Orangeburg County over the expected 40-year operational life of the projects. Cypress Creek will perform the long-term operation and maintenance services for both projects. "These are long-term infrastructure assets that will benefit the community," said Sarah Slusser, CEO of Cypress Creek Renewables. We look forward to continuing to work with the Orangeburg County community through our management of Palmetto Plains and the construction of Huntley." Orangeburg County Administrator Harold Young said, Orangeburg County is proud of the success of our agribusiness history which lends itself to the next generation of technology. "Solar farms offer an alternative energy source which makes us competitive in the 21st century, lowers utility bills for our citizens as well as allows us to be less dependent on coal and nuclear energy." Orangeburg County Development Commission Chairman Ken Middleton said the project's completion is about diversification. "This project further diversifies our countys energy portfolio and gives us a greater percentage of clean, renewable energy for our residents and neighbors," Middleton said. "Recognizing this site as the largest solar project in the state of South Carolina puts Orangeburg County on the map as a leader in sustainable energy." The Energy Freedom Act creates the opportunity for economic development in rural communities," said Sen. John Matthews, D-Bowman. "Im proud of my hometown of Bowman for attracting these opportunities. It is important to involve local communities in innovative industries like solar energy." South Carolinas solar farms now produce more than 880 megawatts of power enough to serve about 94,000 homes. Cypress Creek alone has developed 375 megawatts across 22 projects in South Carolina, making the company a leading developer of utility-scale solar in the state. We are excited to have companies like Cypress Creek and Cubico invest in our state and remain proud of all the steps we have taken to welcome the solar industry to South Carolina," Gov. Henry McMaster said. "With the recent passing of the Energy Freedom Act, we expect to continue to see the ratepayers benefit from low-cost, environmentally friendly power. The T&D Region has been a destination for solar farms in recent years. Ten other projects have been announced in Orangeburg County over the past three years. The developers of the eight Orangeburg County solar farms have promised to invest a total of $503.5 million and provide 460 megawatts of power. About half a dozen farms have also been announced in Calhoun County and one has been announced in Bamberg County over the last three years. Contact the writer: gzaleski@timesanddemocrat.com or 803-533-5551. Check out Zaleski on Twitter at @ZaleskiTD. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. A millionaire who was homeless and sleeping under a bridge as a teenager said he still stresses about money because of long held trauma from being on welfare. Harry Sanders, 22, from Melbourne found himself living rough at 17 because of issues in his home life. He is now worth more than $1million. But before he made his fortune Mr Sanders found himself struggling to get benefits from Centrelink and when he did he ended up in dire living quarters. Millionaire entrepreneur Harry Sanders (pictured) said despite having a company worth millions, his time as a homeless teen still makes him question every purchase he makes, no matter how small He said when he was given government housing he found himself rooming with people who were battling drug addiction. He said it was 'insanely tough' to get onto Centrelink, even as a homeless 17-year-old, and he found himself jumping through 'many hoops'. However Mr Sanders said his experiences living on the street and relying on Centrelink taught him valuable lessons he still applies today. 'Every rich person who has never been on Centrelink thinks its just free cash going out but its not like that, I had social workers and the whole kit and caboodle,' he told news.com.au. He said the experience made him feel worthless and as if he was a 'burden' on the rest of society. The young entrepreneur said what was the most trying time of his life had prepared him for success, but it was also a feeling he wouldn't forget anytime soon. 'Making all this money now is great but it doesnt really feel real. I have a company worth millions of dollars but sometimes I still catch myself fretting about a $3 bagel and asking myself, do you really need this? he said. Before launching the extremely successful StudioHawk business Mr Sanders (pictured) was living on the street as a teenager and said the difficulties of welfare had helped shape him Mr Sanders has been open about some of the tools and methods he has used to find continued success. Techniques which helped him go from being homeless on the street to having a company worth millions. Things like ensuring you get a full eight hours sleep and never wearing a suit might sound counterproductive for a budding mogul, but Mr Sanders swears it's the right way to go. 'I think the most important thing you can do is dress to be yourself. I never wear suits. If I am heading into a meeting or have a long day at the office, I wear whatever I like and what makes me feel comfortable,' he told 7NEWS last year. 'Seeing a 21-year-old wearing an expensive tailored suit has the potential to do more harm than good because it could give off the wrong impression.' Mr Sanders (pictured) went from being homeless at 17 to being worth more than $1million at 22, but he still questions each purchase even when he looks to pick up a $3 bagel He said it was also important for entrepreneurs to ensure they maintained a strict work-life balance, and claims to do otherwise would ultimately impact on productivity. Mr Sanders said no matter what, he puts paramount importance in getting at least eight hours of sleep every night. 'Many people also think that they need to be awake and working all night to be successful. But you can't deprive yourself of sleep for the sake of your business. I always sleep eight or more hours each night so I can be at the top of my game,' he said. Perspective building is another crucial element to his success and he said reading books, magazines and any other content on your topic of interest would achieve this goal. 'I think the most important thing you can do is dress to be yourself. I never wear suits. I wear whatever I like and what makes me feel comfortable,' Mr Sanders (pictured in his office) said. Mr Sanders said while his final two tips appeared obvious, many overlooked their importance -investing in yourself, and looking at what spending can be cut to put more money towards your goals. The final tip Mr Sanders has is to get into business for your passion and not with a single end goal of making money because you 'will never find success'. He said living on the streets for almost a year was also the huge driving force for his success but not one he will recommend for others. 'Although there were a lot of negative moments, I think the experience of being homeless taught me a lot of resilience and matured me greatly,' he said. 'I wouldn't be the same person if it were not for that. Going through a hardship like that also made me a lot more confident when dealing with stressful situations.' 'Although there were a lot of negative moments, I think the experience of being homeless taught me a lot of resilience and matured me greatly,' he said of his time on the streets The young millionaire found success with his Search Engine Optimisation software Studiohawk which helps other businesses gain stronger footholds online and in turn find more business. Mr Sanders had first developed the software at 16 years old and before he found himself homeless. He said it was the desperation to get out of his bad living situation that drove him to relaunch the idea. Soon enough he had gained a portfolio of loyal clients who quickly spread the word about a young SEO master who was working wonders for his clients. On August 2 Mr Sanders announced the winner of the 2019 Australian Business Awards in the category Marketing Innovation only months after being honoured as the Rising Star at the B2B Young Hero Awards 2019. His company recorded $3million in revenue in its last financial year. Last September, Reihana Emami Arandi boarded a flight from Tehran and made her way to Boston, eager to study theology at an Ivy League university. After nearly 100 days of vetting and background checks by the U.S. government, the 35-year-old was bound for a graduate program at Harvard Divinity School with a student visa in hand. But when she arrived at Boston Logan International Airport, she was promptly pulled aside by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers for additional questioning. They led her to a separate area of the airport, where an officer inquired about her travels, her work experience, her family, her studies and what her cellphone number was in Iran, she said. The officer searched her luggage, pulled out her Quran and asked what it was. "He then asked me what Iranian people think about the explosion in Saudi Arabia," she said, referring to the Sept. 14 drone strike on a Saudi Arabian oil facility for which the Iran-backed Houthi movement in Yemen claimed responsibility. "I explained I didn't know much and that people generally hoped the situation would get better." ADVERTISEMENT He inspected her laptop and phone. About eight hours later, after being fingerprinted and having her photo taken, she was on a flight back to Iran, unable to enter the country for five years. Customs officers had concluded that she planned on not just studying in the U.S., but staying here, Emami Arandi said _ a charge she called "far from reality." Her case isn't an aberration. At least 15 other Iranian students with valid visas have been sent home upon their arrival to American airports since last August, immigration attorneys said. In addition, about 20 more students in Tehran were unexpectedly prevented from boarding U.S-bound flights. Many said they were not given a reason for being refused entry. Several of the students were held up in Boston, advocacy groups said, noting that they have received multiple complaints about one specific CBP officer there. A CBP spokesperson said they could not discuss individual cases, but that "simply having a valid visa does not guarantee entry into the U.S." "CBP officers make admissibility decisions based on whether an individual can overcome ALL grounds of inadmissibility," the agency said in an email, adding that there was no new directive ordering additional questioning or scrutiny of Iranians with student visas. "Regardless of having the appropriate documents, if an officer determines an individual cannot overcome all of those grounds, they will be refused entry into the U.S." University officials and Iranian American groups said they don't know what prompted what they regard as a sudden crackdown on Iranian students. Their concerns have arisen amid mounting political tensions between the Trump administration and Iran, culminating in the U.S. drone strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani on Jan. 3, and an Iranian missile strike in response. Advocates said it's unclear how the countries' strained relations may factor into denying Iranian students entry to the U.S., but they point out that Iranians' difficulty traveling to the U.S. has not been limited to students on visas. Earlier this month, more than 60 Iranians and Iranian Americans were questioned for hours at the Washington-Canada border as they tried to return home. "This number is alarming," said Ali Rahnama, an attorney with the Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans, which has been tracking the cases. ADVERTISEMENT "Yes, we have dealt with people being deported in the past, but the numbers weren't big," he continued. "Iranian students have been coming to study here for 70 years _ the revolution didn't change that, the wars with Iraq and Afghanistan didn't change that." One of the top students in his class the University of Tehran, Amin landed in Georgia on Jan. 1 with hopes of earning his Ph.D. at the University of Florida. But when he reached the airport in Atlanta, officers questioned why he had not disclosed an old school email address or one of the research papers he'd written on his visa application. Amin, 34, began to shake and cry when he learned he had been found "inadmissible." That's when his "three-day nightmare" began, he said. An officer told him he had to return to Iran on the same flight he arrived on. That flight would not be available for two days, he recalled the officer saying _ and he couldn't be held at the airport for more than 24 hours. Amin said officers put him in a holding cell for six hours before cuffing him and moving him in chains to a detention facility in Georgia. "They are playing with people's futures," Amin said. "Aside from being Iranian and a student, what did I do?" Another Iranian student, Mohammad Shahab Dehghani Hossein Abadi, was denied entry to the U.S. earlier this month despite previously having studied at Northeastern University for two semesters. He had traveled to Iran to visit his family, his attorney said. Dehghani, 23, was placed on a flight from Boston to France despite a judge's order that his removal be stayed for 48 hours or until further order from the court. Stephen Yale-Loehr, a professor at Cornell University Law School, said the difficulties that Iranian students currently face are part of a "disturbing trend we've seen before." After Iranians stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979, he said, Iranian students in the U.S. had to register with immigration officials or risk deportation. ADVERTISEMENT More recently, the detention of "people of Muslim descent" after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks "failed to yield any significant results in finding and deterring other terrorists," Yale-Loehr said. Mahsa Khanbabai, chair of the New England chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said she's been trying to figure out why students have been having problems since October. Some, she said, were accused of "immigrant intent," or planning to overstay their visas and live in the U.S. "These charges don't make sense," she said. "They are students engaging in research. So why CBP is looking to institute this extreme, harsh law against them, I don't know." Customs and Border Protection was given the authority of "expedited removal" in 1996, said Kerry Doyle, one of the attorneys representing Dehghani. The move granted CBP the power to order an immigrant removed without any court review, she said. "But the only people who fit into that category are only supposed to be people who show up with some kind of fraud or immigrant intent, like if you show up to the airport with everything and your kitchen sink with no return ticket," she said. CBP's use of expedited removal in the case of students like Dehghani is "completely improper," she said. "They seem to be digging and searching for an excuse," Doyle said. "They're using this great power they have inappropriately and illegally." Similar incidents continue to pop up across the country _ most recently in Detroit, where an Iranian student bound for graduate school at Michigan State University was sent back to Iran on his birthday. Alireza Yazdani Esfidajani, 27, was detained by CBP officers upon his arrival at Detroit Metro Airport on Sunday afternoon, his attorney Ghazal Nicole Mehrani said. After about six hours of questioning, he was transferred to Monroe County's jail, where he was held until around noon Monday, Mehrani said. CBP officers deemed him "inadmissible," she added, but it wasn't clear why. When Mohammad Elmi disembarked at Los Angeles International Airport on Dec. 13, two CBP officers were waiting for him. They escorted him to a room, questioned the purpose of his visit, and checked his phone, bags, shoes and belt. He was not allowed to make a call for several hours. Elmi was on his way to reunite with his wife, Shima Mousavi, and to pursue his PhD in electrical engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Mousavi was already attending Antioch University Santa Barbara on a student visa _ a school she transferred to so the pair could live in the same city. Elmi told the officers that during his mandatory military service in Iran he served in the Artesh, or army _ a branch separate from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which the U.S. government has designated as a terrorist organization. The 31-year-old then was interviewed by another CBP officer, who told him it would be best if he withdrew his application for a visa in order to prevent being denied entry. If he was refused entry, the officer told him, Elmi would not be allowed to enter the U.S. for five years. The officers, Elmi said, were aggressive: One yelled when he asked whether he could access his luggage; another told him he would have to pay $3,750 for his flight back to Iran. He already had spent $4,000 and gone through eight months of administrative processing to get to the U.S. "They behaved like I am a terrorist," Elmi said. Elmi had always planned on returning to Iran after he finished his education. He'd hoped to become a professor and run his own company. Now back in Tehran, he isn't sure how to move forward. He is working with advocates to determine whether he can get his visa sorted out. "I have lost my job. I have lost my money. I have lost everything," he said. "My wife is in the U.S. We don't know what we should do. The only solution might be my wife coming back _ and destroying her dreams." ___ (c)2020 Los Angeles Times Visit the Los Angeles Times at www.latimes.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. CINCINNATI, Feb. 02, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- TechOlympics 2020, the largest student-run technology conference in the nation, will be held at the Great American Ball Park from February 22-23. At TechOlympics, companies including P&G, Worldpay, Anthem Digital, Kroger Technology, Abre, Great American, GE, Strategic Data Systems, Max Training and more, host breakout sessions and panels geared towards fueling students passion for technology. Students can immerse themselves in incredible sessions ranging from cybersecurity and internships to AI and game design. As well as visiting more than thirty companies at Career Crossroad, students can also make new friends, compete with passionate students from around the tristate, and discover new talents in web design or public speaking! TechOlympicss 2020 keynote speakers include Nicole Smith, an experienced Project Manager with a demonstrated history of leadership in the Aerospace industry at NASAs Glenn Research Center, Katy Moeggenberg, Head of NA Hair eBusiness & Global Marketing Technologists at P&G, and Anil Bhatt, Chief Experience Officer at Anthem, Inc. Heather Ackels leads TechOlympics as the Executive Director of the INTERalliance of Greater Cincinnati. A non-profit, INTERalliances core mission is that, by working with surrounding Cincinnati businesses and high schools to host a plethora of technology events, the region will foster a diverse and successful pool of IT talent. INTERalliance hopes to better the chances of IT job placements for every student, no matter their current technology experience. Although the once three-day event has been reduced to two, the 2020 venue offers special perks. With access to benefits of the Great American Ball Park, students will be visiting the Reds Hall of Fame, experiencing the batting cages, meeting the mascots, and eating amazing meals offered by the Park. Depending on the financial situation, INTERalliance offers admissions scholarships on an as-needed basis. Visit https://techolympics.org/forms/ to apply. For more information about the event, please visit www.techolympics.org. Extended Registration will close on Feb 5, 2020. TechOlympics address: 100 Joe Nuxhall Way, Cincinnati, OH 45202 About the INTERalliance of Greater Cincinnati: The mission of the INTERalliance is to inspire and assist young talent to pursue an IT career in Greater Cincinnati. More information can be found at www.interalliance.org . Member companies of the INTERalliance include The Kroger Co., Procter & Gamble, Great American Insurance, Worldpay, GE, Vora Technologies, Fifth Third Bank, Western & Southern Financial Group, among many others. Erin with her brother who has Down syndrome. After reading that title, youre probably very confused. In a world that is bent on acceptance, any motion away from that ideal may seem concerning. But I think we may be confusing the ideal of tolerance with the promise of love, and my brother has been teaching me that tolerance, though appearing conducive to all, can create major problems. My younger brother has Down syndrome, and with his presence in my life, I do not accept many things I see others let breeze by them peoples choice of language, flippant racist remarks, personal indulgences. People will argue compassion for the persecutor; people will profess that it isnt a big deal. Accept it and move on, they say. My brother has taught me that when we accept and move on, when we tolerate what we know to be wrong, we are perpetuating the belief that those who are wronged most often are deserving of it. We are encouraging further marginalization of already vulnerable people and groups. Related: To the Momma of a Child With Down Syndrome My brother deserves the world, simply because his presence within it is so pure and wholesome, it makes everyone else better. Many people in our world do not agree. And this shows up in our laws, in our statements, in our abortion rates and in our attitudes. We need to be less accepting of this and of the actions that got us to this place. My brother, through his presence in my life, has taught me three lessons regarding acceptance: 1. Some things and most people are worth fighting for, even if doing so gets in the way of anothers feelings, politics or prejudices. Humans often dont like criticism; we take offense easily. We want to be in control, call our own shots and do what makes us feel good. Heres the thing some peoples words and behaviors are inexcusable. What makes some people feel good and in control can put oneself or others in harms way, perpetuate anothers vulnerability or create dangerous assumptions. Story continues Related: The Things You'll Learn While Raising a Child With Down Syndrome My brother has shown me time and time again that he is worth fighting for. He is worth more than a shrug of the shoulders, an it makes them happy, or a you dont know what that person is going through response to mockery or exploitation. Whatever the reason may be, the action is unacceptable. The narrative that exists for individuals with disabilities places them in an extremely vulnerable position, where they look incapable and are treated accordingly. Those who perpetuate this narrative are standing in the way of my fight, and their feelings, politics and prejudices are a small price to pay in the pursuit of justice for my brother and those like him. 2. There is a vital difference between acceptance and love. My brother has taught me there is good and evil in the world. And it is his goodness which has enabled me to recognize the evil that exists around us. People have attacked my brother and people like him because they are seen as easy targets. Vulnerability is a beautiful thing, but when it is tainted by anothers perverse need for something, it is a scary place to dwell. And yet, many people cannot help dwelling there. Related: Inclusion Starts With Me There are people who use and abuse individuals with disabilities all around our world. I met a woman in China who was raped relentlessly by those who were supposed to be her caretakers, all because she couldnt run away or tell them to stop. I watched a man on Instagram exploiting children with Down syndrome for his own personal pleasure. I watched another womans disabled child being ridiculed and threatened on social media because of her childs appearance. When these things happen, there are generally large groups of people who take up metaphorical arms to fight the injustice, to call out the wrong. Some people fight fire with fire, which is often ineffective. Others are fiercely instructive and gracious. And still others are calling out the justice fighters for not being loving enough. Remember, love doesnt grant permission for wrongdoing acceptance does. And love is what we want. Love doesnt excuse the r-word. Love doesnt allow employers to pay individuals with disabilities less than minimum wage. Love doesnt pretend its OK to handle students from a trauma background with no sense of trauma-informed practice. Love stands to fight against the wrong, the evil, the unjust; acceptance says its not ideal, but its OK. By being the most innately loving and good person I know, my brother has reminded me that love does not seek to appease people but to make them better, to call them higher. 3. Compassion without action is empty. And sometimes the most compassionate thing one can do is graciously correct and call out. We can be gentle and kind, full of the best intentions, but until we take boots-on-the-ground action to right a wrong, our compassion falls short of its full potential. I will not sit idly by while injustice takes place for fear of stirring the pot, stepping on toes or hurting someone elses feelings. Because chances are, someones feelings are going to be hurt regardless, and it darn sure isnt going to be my brothers. Hes been at the bottom of the totem pole for far too long already, and I do not accept that is where he belongs. Compassion is where it begins, but it is not where it ends. Compassion, when combined with passion, is where change is formed and where justice is found. Im grateful to my brother for teaching me the dangers of acceptance and the importance of love. May we all stand against what we know to be wrong and move toward justice for everyone. Read more stories like this on The Mighty: When People Say My Son With Down Syndrome 'Can't' Do Something The Question People Need to Stop Asking Me as the Mom of Two Kids With Disabilities Trump Administration Weighs in on Ohio Down Syndrome Abortion Ban Seamus Mallon had this to say about Gerry Adams, who is adulated by Mary Lou McDonald and Sinn Fein. "I just can't be in the same room with him. I don't want to be. There is just something about him that I recoil from. He has his hand in too many awful events." Mary Lou McDonald's Sinn Fein have never apologised, never mind atoned, for any of these "awful events". Micheal Martin has made it clear he cannot bear to be in government with Sinn Fein, as long as it continues to condone these same "awful events". Expand Close Cartoon by Jim Cogan / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Cartoon by Jim Cogan But far from praising a politician with principles, most of the media seem to deeply resent Martin taking a moral stand against coalition with Sinn Fein. That media agenda was set by RTE, the primary patron of political pundits who toe the Montrose line to stay on the invitation list. Last Friday, Sean O'Rourke's panel rounded on Martin for rejecting Sinn Fein. Neither presenter, nor panel, made any attempt to look at the merits of Martin's stance. Later, Bryan Dobson, who had smiled benignly at Leo Varadkar in a light interview last week, stared stonily at Micheal Martin, asked second-rate questions, and seldom let him finish a sentence. Dobson's failure to delve into Martin's moral problem with Sinn Fein reflected RTE's reluctance to deal with the three main reasons for rejecting Sinn Fein in government. First, it is now widely accepted that Sinn Fein is influenced by a shadowy outside group which includes members of the IRA army council. Second, as long as Sinn Fein condones the Provisional IRA campaign, its presence in the Republic's Government would make the State retrospectively complicit in IRA atrocities. Finally, it would remove credible objections to the Recurring IRA which could reasonably hope for a similar future absolution. Luckily for the future of Irish democracy, Micheal Martin's reservations are shared by most politically alert people in the Irish Republic, and supported by the heavyweights on his shadow front bench. Unlike Fine Gael chief whip Regina Doherty, Fianna Fail's Dara Calleary, Jim O'Callaghan, Michael McGrath, Lisa Chambers, and Barry Cowen have been rock-solid in rejecting Sinn Fein. Incredibly, our gullible commentators seem to believe that Sinn Fein, in government, would give us a green Shangri-La. But what I see are dark shadows and dangers. Let me list them as follows: The army council of the IRA still exists and actively pursues the same agenda - to control the levers of state power, north and south. The army council views Sinn Fein as its political arm and expects the ard comhairle to act accordingly. The army council's influence on Sinn Fein is supplemented by the party's militaristic code of decision making, which allows deceptively minor functionaries to act like political commissars. The army council will urge Sinn Fein in government to seek ministries like education, and communications to legitimise their sectarian war against the Irish people. The army council would ask Sinn Fein ministers in government to seek access to police intelligence and affect policing policy. Goodbye to a crackdown on the crime empires of former comrades along the Border. The army council, which influenced the collapse of the Northern Assembly, will also influence when Sinn Fein pulls the plug on its coalition partner. The army council will influence Sinn Fein in ramping up pressure at home and abroad to end partition, regardless of the wishes of Ulster unionists. The army council will influence Sinn Fein to keep up Irish government pressure, even if it creates conflict on the island. The army council believes such a crisis will lead to a British withdrawal. But it's much more likely to lead to prolonged sectarian violence. Lest you think the above thesis far-fetched, I sent it through channels to some retired senior members of the Garda who specialised in subversion. They thought it a generally accurate analysis of the Provisional IRA's project to secure state power, north and south. Unlike our gullible Generation X, these gardai know the Provisional IRA has never gone away and is still pursuing its historical agenda at many levels. But thanks to their craven dependence on RTE, many journalists now feel it's a social faux-pas to support Micheal Martin's concern about Sinn Fein in government. When you get away from the metropolitan media monotone, however, you find most people privately support Martin's stance. Irish people with a moral compass think a party, that still weasels about the murder of Tom Oliver, is not likely to be squeamish about abusing State power. My fear of an IRA-influenced Sinn Fein with State power is rational and rooted in lived experience. Like most of my family, I was reared a republican. But I clearly recall the first two murders that caused my lasting moral revulsion against the Provo IRA. On 16 September, 1974, Martin McBirney, a Protestant lawyer, married to a Roman Catholic, was shot dead at breakfast at his home in Belfast. McBirney was a Labour democrat whose play on Daniel O'Connell was broadcast a few weeks before his murder. On that same day, the IRA shot dead a Catholic judge, Rory Conaghan, in front of his eight-year-old daughter, in their home on the Malone Road. They did this despite Justice Conaghan having a brave record in awarding damages against the British army and RUC for assaults arising from internment. In spite of Sinn Fein still defending that foul murder campaign, most of our media spent the past three weeks castigating Micheal Martin for daring to draw attention to it. In doing so, Martin is following in the footsteps of Eamon de Valera, who loathed the later IRA and used the full force of the State to crush it. But the Irish media is out of touch with Middle Ireland, which will not give Sinn Fein a mandate for government until it cleans house - luckily for Irish democracy. Come election day, the silent moral majority will reward Martin for acting with good authority by supporting his view that Sinn Fein is not just another normal political party. Most Irish people still respond to that rarest of political virtues: responsible moral leadership. As Christianity retreats from the public sphere, people want politicians who can act as moral guardians. Micheal Martin has remodelled the Fianna Fail party in accordance with his own ideals of decency, civility and moral integrity. His honest personality and republican pluralism is the foundation of a new public trust in Fianna Fail. I believe Martin's republican tolerance will be reciprocated by the real Arlene Foster revealed by Ryan Tubridy on The Late Late Show by simply asking her the right questions, in the right way, and letting her finish her reply. On this, St Brigid's Day weekend, my prayer for Ireland is that on February 8 you will keep the wrong ones out and let the right ones in. Police have launched an investigation after a young woman was sexually assaulted in public toilets in Belfast on Sunday. Detectives have made a specific appeal for a witness to come forward. The 23-year-old woman was assaulted by a man in the public toilet in Bankmore Square at around 2.15am. A 23-year-old man was arrested a short time later and remains in custody. The victim of the assault was helped immediately afterwards by a woman who it is believed called police using the victims phone. Detective Sergeant Nick Harris said: We would like to hear from the individual who approached the young woman and assisted her. You may have information that could assist us. The Dublin Road/Bankmore Square area would also have been busy at that time and I would also appeal to anyone who was in the area and who may have seen something that could help the investigation to please call 101. Intersec, the regions leading trade fair for security, safety and fire protection, has recorded its highest rebooking rate with 150 exhibitors signing up for the 2021 event immediately after Januarys show which represents a 200 per cent increase from 2019s onsite recommitments. The rebookings come in the wake of a 6W Research report which forecasts the Middle Easts commercial security market will grow 16 per cent a year to 2025 to be worth $8.4 billion. Andreas Rex, show director for Messe Frankfurt Middle East, which organises the Intersec exhibition and conference series, said: This strong rebooking performance acknowledges the high potential of the regional security market and Intersecs ability to reach key buyers. A pre-audited visitor count from Januarys event the 22nd in the annual series which ran from January 19 to 21, shows Intersec 2020 attracted 33,584 from 135 countries to Dubai World Trade Centre. With over 1,000 exhibitors from 56 countries including two-thirds of the worlds top 50 security manufacturers, long-established exhibitors were impressed by the shows expanding geographic reach. Amine Sadi, regional channel sales manager, Milestone Systems A/S, a software manufacturer of open platform IP video surveillance software, said at its 12th Intersec showing in January, the company and its community partners still managed to attract potential clients. We found this year that several important potential clients arrived from markets we had not anticipated, explained Sadi. IDIS, the video analytics experts which has pioneered deep learning analytics (IDLA) technology, said Intersec 2020 stood out for the sectoral range of its visitors. Jamil Alasfar, senior sales manager, IDIS Middle East and North Africa, said: There was an impressive range of serious buyers with interest in IDIS end-to-end video solutions from systems integrators and end users working in retail, banking, healthcare, hospitality and corporate sectors, from across the region and beyond. Visitors were genuinely interested in the latest technology, and wanted to drill down and ask how our video solutions will solve their problems and deliver, Alasfar said. At Intersec 2020 IDIS announced a major video surveillance project it has secured with the Central Bank of Jordan. This led to some significant conversations with buyers about our new AI offerings and latest cameras, which we expect to progress very quickly, added Alasfar. Intersec 2020s powerful Intelligence Forums drew experts for an intense conference series which ran over the shows three days. The Intelligence Forums included conferences, roundtables and live demos hosted by the Future Security Summit, the Fire Safety Conference, Government Summits and the Intersec Arena. Behak Kangarloo, CISO Programme Director of BKTRON, UAE was both a speaker and a delegate at the ARENA which, he believes, now serves as a solutions catalyst for the industry. The conferences are informative and tackle key topics in the security domain. These sessions also allow us as delegates and speakers to connect with each other in the same domain, discussing challenges and solutions in the security sector, explained Kangarloo. Added Messe Frankfurt Middle Easts, Rex: We are already working on content framework for next years Intersec Intelligence Forums ensuring we keep totally abreast of new industry developments and the fast-moving technology advances which are shaping it. We are committed to bringing the best brains in the business to Dubai to help ensure the regional industry benefits from the very latest knowledge which impacts the wider security, safety and fire protection fields which now involves a high degree of automation, AI, machine learning and biometrics developments. The event will return from January 24 to 26 in 2021 at Dubai World Trade Centre and will be co-located with Light Middle East and Prolight + Sound Middle East which are also organised by Messe Frankfurt Middle East. TradeArabia News Service R ory Stewart said he once wandered around Notting Hill Carnival "trying to look cool" as he spoke about the years he has spent walking London's streets. The former Tory leadership hopeful left the party in October to stand as an independent candidate for the Mayor of London, describing himself as the "underdog" in the race to City Hall. Now, he is building his #RoryWalks campaign with a growing army of 10,000 volunteers, who are strolling through the capital and speaking directly to Londoners about their hometown. Mr Stewart has now told the Standard about his life in London - growing up in South Kensington, walking along the Thames, what he really thinks of the MI6 building and why Pret is his "favourite pub". Former Tory MP Rory Stewart speaks to the media at the scene in Seven Kings, Ilford, (File photo) / PA He even admitted that in his 20s, he went to Notting Hill Carnival where he "probably wandered around and tried to look cool." "My London is like everybodys London - its is very complicated," Mr Stewart said, as he began speaking about living in the same South Kensington house that he grew up in as a boy. "I'm an old Londoner. My grandmother was born on the same street [in South Kensington] in 1912 and was laid onto straw," he said. He said his familys life in London spanned different eras of the city, with his grandmother being born onto straw in 1912, while his son will live to see the city full of electric cars. Mr Stewart also described different generations of his family living in the same evolving city as "precious to me". But he said his favourite thing about the place is that London is "infinite". "It's a community of 700 villages. From the Seven Kings in Ilford to the Houses of Parliament. Rory Stewart with campaign volunteers in Stockwell. / Rebecca Speare-Cole "In one moment, I can be walking down Edgware Road with six Afghan guys looking for coffee and ending up at Starbucks." And the next moment, the former MP is standing on the doorsteps of big Georgian houses in Stockwell in freezing-cold January, trying to persuade the owners to back his independent vision for the capital. That vision starts with knowing London inside-out to the point that he would spend his day off walking the Thames "end-to-end". "From Putney to Greenwich - actually maybe I could make it to Thamesmead," he said. "There's an amazing 1960s development there with these huge beautiful water features." On his walk, Mr Stewart said he would not listen to music or a podcast but keep his "eyes and ears open" to catch glimpses of the back of "houses, hotels, industrial areas, Putney Bridge". However, he does not like to look at one particular building on the south side of the river in Vauxhall. Rory Stewart is running as an independent candidate for Mayor of London / Getty Images "I do not like MI6. It looks like a 1980s Ziggurat hotel, he said, before giving "no comment" about his opinion of what it is like on the inside. Mr Stewart has previously denied claims that he used to spy for MI6 - but has acknowledged he could not admit to being a spy even if he had been. On the other hand, Mr Stewart is known to be a fan of Pret - specifically the small branch inside South Kensington Tube Station - which he once called it his "favourite pub". "I have a two-year-old and a five-year-old son, who love the gingerbread men and the gingerbread women" he explained. "Every spare moment I have, I want to spend with them. So if you have a two-year-old and a five-year-old, you do not go to pubs." Mr Stewart does find time to run around the Serpentine. He said: "I try to do that every day and Hyde Park contains so much of what I love about London". This includes trees which he says he is "obsessed with planting." Rory Stewart outside Millbank television studios in London during the Tory leadership battle / PA "There needs to be more trees in London. Im totally enraged by that fact," he said. "There are so many opportunities to plant trees but theres always a reason not to, like there is not enough room or there is clay soil. But then theres a tree right there! "It is a good example of something we could be doing. And then next theres is more difficult things to tackle like air pollution on the tube." Speaking about moving away from Parliament and embarking on a massive grassroots campaign, Mr Stewart said: "I much prefer this. Im learning so much all the time I can help people much more directly. "Im the underdog in the race and I do not have a party machine behind me but I now have 53 people working to build up that volunteer voice. I feel much freer." After Brexit and the general election, Mr Stewart said he recognises that people are "exhausted" and "fed up" and so creating momentum behind a political campaign could be challenging. "I can win people over so if I lose it is because the campaign did not get enough visibility," he said. Asked about the months ahead until the election on May 7, he added: It is not daunting. It is challenging in a positive way. "The challenge is, can you make them really be interested? Can you make them see how much a mayor can do?," he said. "And this is their city. They can change their city." If elected, one change Mr Stewart could introduce is more street parties like Notting Hill Carnival. MLive File Photo West Michigan's most affluent ZIP Codes for senior citizens MLive's Julie Mack recently did an analysis of data from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to determine the highest concentrations of affluent senior citizen households. Sixty-two Michigan ZIP codes were compiled in which at least 30% of 2017 tax returns filed by seniors showed an adjusted gross income (AGI) of at least $100,000. Several are from West Michigan. Statewide Bloomfield Hills is the wealthiest community in Michigan, according to the IRS data, which shows the average AGI was $311,740 in 2017. Taxpayers age 60 and older comprised about 38% of tax returns from the three Bloomfield Hills ZIP Codes. Check out this list of West Michigan ZIP Codes with the most affluent senior citizens, including in Kent, Ottawa, Kalamazoo, Allegan, Barry and Berrien counties. Here are some statewide numbers for comparison purposes: The average adjusted gross income was $63,707 for all Michigan individual tax returns. 28% of 2017 Michigan federal tax returns had a primary taxpayer who was 60 or older. 19.5% of tax returns filed by senior citizen households reported an AGI of $100,000 or more. Don't Edit Joel Bissell | MLive.com 49008 Kalamazoo, Kalamazoo County: 30% In 2017, 30% of federal tax returns filed by taxpayers age 60 and older had an adjusted gross income (AGI) of $100,000 or more. The 49008 ZIP Code in Kalamazoo County had 2,160 tax returns filed by senior citizens, or 28% of all returns. The average AGI for all returns in this ZIP Code was $74,035. Don't Edit Cory Olsen | MLive.com 49460 West Olive, Ottawa County: 30% In 2017, 30% of federal tax returns filed by taxpayers age 60 and older had an adjusted gross income (AGI) of $100,000 or more. The 49460 ZIP Code in Ottawa County had 1,000 tax returns filed by senior citizens, or 24% of all returns. The average AGI for all returns in this ZIP Code was $86,150. Don't Edit MLive File Photo 49117 New Buffalo, Berrien County: 30% In 2017, 30% of federal tax returns filed by taxpayers age 60 and older had an adjusted gross income (AGI) of $100,000 or more. The 49117 ZIP Code in Berrien County had 770 tax returns filed by senior citizens, or 42% of all returns. The average AGI for all returns in this ZIP Code was $90,302. Don't Edit Cory Olsen | MLive.com 49506 Grand Rapids, Kent County: 32% In 2017, 32% of federal tax returns filed by taxpayers age 60 and older had an adjusted gross income (AGI) of $100,000 or more. The 49506 ZIP Code in Kent County had 3,580 tax returns filed by senior citizens, or 23% of all returns. The average AGI for all returns in this ZIP Code was $104,508. Don't Edit Don't Edit G. L. Kohuth | MLive.com 49453 Saugatuck, Allegan County: 33% In 2017, 33% of federal tax returns filed by taxpayers age 60 and older had an adjusted gross income (AGI) of $100,000 or more. The 49453 ZIP Code had 630 tax returns filed by senior citizens, or 38% of all returns. The average AGI for all returns in this ZIP Code was $108,956. Don't Edit Neil Blake | MLive.com 49546 Grand Rapids, Kent: 36% In 2017, 33% of federal tax returns filed by taxpayers age 60 and older had an adjusted gross income (AGI) of $100,000 or more. The 49546 ZIP Code had 4,960 tax returns filed by senior citizens, or 32% of all returns. The average AGI for all returns in this ZIP Code was $112,874. Don't Edit Chelsea Purgahn | MLive.com 49083 Richland, Kalamazoo County: 31% In 2017, 31% of federal tax returns filed by taxpayers age 60 and older had an adjusted gross income (AGI) of $100,000 or more. The 49117 ZIP Code in Kalamazoo County had 1,310 tax returns filed by senior citizens, or 34% of all returns. The average AGI for all returns in this ZIP Code was $113,339. Don't Edit Mairin Chapman | MLive.com 49060 Hickory Corners, Barry County: 31% In 2017, 31% of federal tax returns filed by taxpayers age 60 and older had an adjusted gross income (AGI) of $100,000 or more. The 49060 ZIP Code in Barry County had 320 tax returns filed by senior citizens, or 36% of all returns. The average AGI for all returns in this ZIP Code was $123,780. Don't Edit Sally Finneran | MLive.com 49301 Ada, Kent County: 44% In 2017, 44% of federal tax returns filed by taxpayers age 60 and older had an adjusted gross income (AGI) of $100,000 or more. The 49301 ZIP Code in Kent County had 2,480 tax returns filed by senior citizens, or 26% of all returns. The average AGI for all returns in this ZIP Code was $185,247. Don't Edit Don't Edit Map by Scott Levin | Sleving@mlive.com More coverage of West Michigan's affluent ZIP Codes for seniors The map above shows median income for households headed by someone age 65 and older. This is based on 2014-18 five-year estimates by the U.S. Census Bureau. This is an interactive map, so just put your cursor over a county to see the underlying data. Don't Edit Sorry, but your browser does not support frames. Julie Mack | MLive.com Look up ZIP Codes for any county This online database allows readers to look at IRS numbers for any Michigan ZIP Code. (This data is for tax returns filed in 2018 for the 2017 tax year.) Just click on a county to see ZIP Codes ranked by the percentage of senior citizen households reporting an adjusted gross income of at least $100,000. Readers can also can type in the name of a community or type in a specific ZIP Code. Don't Edit MLive File Photo See more MLive coverage of senior issues, state communities MLive's Julie Mack has reported on several stories readers of this post might find interesting on topics that include, retirement, Social Security and Census data on state communities. Here's a list of some recent stories: See Michigan counties ranked by percent of residents getting Social Security income 22% of Michigan residents get Social Security; see data by county, ZIP code Living on $738 a month: As Boomers hit retirement, Social Security more important than ever 8 strategies to help Michigan residents afford retirement See list of Michigans 62 richest cities and townships, based on new Census data See Michigans poorest cities and townships, based on new Census data If Trumps actions actually led to an Israeli-Palestinian peace, he would deserve the label of greatest friend. But more likely he is making a settlement far harder. Peace requires the consent of both sides, but neither Palestinian leaders nor the 4.7 million Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza are likely ever to accept Trumps terms, which are drastically worse than those they rejected from Netanyahus predecessor, Ehud Olmert. Instead of 96 percent of the West Bank, Trump offers less than 70 percent, and even that is spotted with Israeli enclaves. At the Angelus, Pope Francis recalls the Day for Life, which this year has as its theme "Open the doors to life". A Haily Mary and an applause for consecrated persons on the day dedicated to them. "Every baptized person has received a vocation to proclaim, to announce Jesus". "The ability to be amazed at the things around us promotes religious experience." Vatican City (AsiaNews) - "Immobilism is not suitable for Christian witness and the mission of the Church" stewssed Pope Francis today in his reflection before the Angelus prayer together with the pilgrims in St. Peter's square. Today the Church celebrates the Presentation of the Lord together with the World Day of Consecrated Life, which - said Francis - recalls "the great treasure in the Church of those who follow the Lord closely by professing the evangelical counsels". Referring to the Gospel of the Mass (Luke 2: 22-40), the pontiff highlighted some attitudes of the characters mentioned there: Mary, Joseph, Simeone, Anna. The first attitude - he said - is movement. Mary and Joseph walk towards Jerusalem; for his part, Simeone, moved by the Spirit, goes to the temple, while Anna serves God day and night ceaselessly. In this way the four protagonists of the Gospel passage show us that Christian life requires dynamism and willingness to move, letting ourselves be guided by the Holy Spirit. Immobilism does not suit Christian witness and the mission of the Church. The world needs Christians who let themselves be moved, who never tire of walking the streets of life, to bring the consoling word of Jesus to everyone. Every baptized person has received a vocation to proclaim, to announce Jesus, to the evangelizing mission! Parishes and different ecclesial communities are called to encourage the commitment of young people, families and the elderly, so that everyone can have a Christian experience, living the life and mission of the Church as protagonists." The second attitude "is amazement ... These figures of believers are enveloped in amazement, because they allow themselves be captured and involved by the events that happened before their eyes. The ability to be amazed at the things around us promotes religious experience and renders our encounter with the Lord fruitful. On the contrary, the inability to be amazed makes us indifferent and widens the distances between the journey of faith and everyday life ". "Brothers and sisters - he added - may we always be on the move and open to amazement!" "May the Virgin Mary - he concluded - help us to contemplate God's gift for us every day in Jesus, and to let ourselves be involved by him in the movement of the gift, with joyful amazement, so that our whole life may becomE praise to God in the service of others". After the Marian prayer, Francis recalled that today the Day for Life is celebrated in Italy, which has as its theme "Open the doors to life". He said "I am united to the Message of the Bishops and I hope that this Day will be an opportunity to renew the commitment to protect and protect human life from the beginning until its natural end. It is also necessary to combat any form of violation of dignity, even when technology or the economy is at stake, opening the doors to new forms of solidarity fraternity ". The pope then invited all those present to recite a Hail Mary and to applaud all the consecrated men and women "who do so many beautiful things often in secret". Finally the Holy Father also had special greetings for a group of Japanese pilgrims. Five citizens of Armenia have found themselves in a difficult situation in China. Liana Stepanyan, one of the citizens, told Armenian News-NEWS.am that this morning, she and the other citizens were supposed to depart from the Chinese city of Xian to the Russian city of Yekaterinburg via the U6 764 flight of Ural Airlines, but at the airport they were told that only citizens of the Russian Federation can depart via that flight. We were told there is no specific reason. There is no official document. There were also citizens of Belarus and Kazakhstan who werent allowed to board the flight. The representative of Ural Airlines told us we couldnt do anything because this is the decision of the Russian Federation. We went to the local embassy and asked for help, but the embassy didnt provide any help, she said. As reported earlier, Russia is closing almost all air communication routes with China due to the coronavirus. This refers to all flights, besides Aeroflots regular routes to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hong Kong, as well as the Chinese airline companys regular flights to Sheremetevo Airport. It is stated that the new air communication regime with China was introduce on the night of February 1. Spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Anna Naghdalyan said the ministry is verifying the details. Coronavirus has knocked in India, after which the second positive case of Novel Coronavirus has come up in Kerala. The patient has already traveled to China and recently returned from there. The patient is kept in the isolation ward of the hospital. His condition is stable and is being closely monitored. The first positive case also came up in Kerala. Coronavirus: Return of Indians from China continues, 323 passengers reaches Delhi so far The first case came to light in Thrissur, Kerala on January 30. The victim student returned from Wuhan University last week. The state health department has formed a medical board that is reviewing his case. This information was given by state health minister KK Selja on Friday. Health Minister KK Shailaja also held a meeting with health department officials in Thrissur. The minister reached Thrissur after the union health ministry confirmed the woman was in the grip of coronavirus. Shailaja said, 'The condition of the student is now stable. The effect of treatment is visible on his health. We have formed a medical board and a bulletin will be issued every evening.' Radhuvansh Prasad obeys Lalu Prasad Yadav, likely to reduce internal strife The special flight of Air India with the second batch of Indian passengers from Wuhan city of China left Wuhan (China) at 3.10 am today, which reached Delhi at 9.10 am. In addition to 323 Indians in this flight, 7 citizens of Maldives are also included. The number of deaths due to coronavirus in China has increased to 304, while the Chinese government has been quoted that the number of infected patients has increased to 14 thousand. The citizens of another country living here are leaving the city and want to return to their country. Meanwhile, keeping in mind the safety of its citizens, India also decided to airlift them. CM Yogi gives brilliant response on budget, expresses confidence by saying such thing French defence chiefs on Sunday ordered the deployment of 600 soldiers to reinforce Operation Barkhane, the anti-jihadist force in the Sahel region of Africa. "The bulk of the reinforcements will be sent to the so-called three frontiers zone between Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger," said the armed forces minister Florence Parly in a communique. "The other part will be directly involved with the troops of the G5 Sahel in the fighting with the terrorists." The soldiers will be in the combat zone by the end of February and will travel with tanks and light armoured vehicles as well as logistical support. Jihadist groups have stepped up their attacks in the region over recent months leading to civilian and military casualties. In November, 13 French soliders died in Mali when two helicopters collided as they were on their way to an operation. Analysis It is understood a review of the deployment will be carried out in August. "This significant step in our engagement in the Sahel is a key moment for the mobilisation of our European partners and the reinforcement of the G5 forces," said Parly's communique. "If France is going to be more involved, it does not intend to do so alone." Tchad is poised to deploy another battalion of troops and the Czech government is considering whether to send 60 soldiers to the Takuba, a unit of European special forces. Parly's announcement comes just after her return from a visit to the United States where she met her counterpart, Mark Esper, as part of attempts to convince the Americans to continue their involvement in Africa where their logistics and intelligence have been considered crucial for Barkhane. Choice Esper's decision is expected after he completes a global troop review aimed at freeing up more resources to address challenges from Chinas military. General Stephen Townsend, America's top soldier in Africa, warned a congressional hearing on 30 January against withdrawing support from France in the Sahel. "It would mean that efforts against militant groups would not go in a good direction," he said. He also urged other European countries to assist France in the area. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (Agence France-Presse) Beijing Sun, February 2, 2020 15:25 708 7f440ff09e92db75a02bbad20621f2c2 2 Health China,herbal-medicine,health,Wuhan-coronavirus,coronavirus Free A claim by Chinese scientists that a liquid made with honeysuckle and flowering plants could help fight the deadly coronavirus has sparked frenzied buying of the traditional medicine, but doubts quickly emerged. As the death toll from the SARS-like pathogen sweeping the country continues to rise, shoppers have swamped pharmacies in search of "Shuanghuanglian". The rush came after influential state media outlet Xinhua reported Friday that the esteemed Chinese Academy of Sciences had found the concoction "can inhibit" the virus. Videos shared online showed long lines of people in surgical masks lining up at night outside drug stores, purportedly in hope of snapping up the product, despite official advice that people avoid public gatherings to prevent infection. It quickly sold out both online and at brick-and-mortar stores, but responses to the remedy's supposed efficacy have ranged from enthusiasm to scepticism on Weibo, China's Twitter-like social media platform. And state media sounded a more cautionary note on Saturday, with broadcaster CCTV publishing an interview with Zhang Boli, one of the researchers leading outbreak containment efforts, who warned of potential side effects from the medicine. The People's Daily newspaper, a government mouthpiece, said experts advised against taking traditional remedies without professional guidance. But the claim comes as Beijing looks to incorporate traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) into its nationwide fight against the virus, which has killed more than 300 people and infected over 14,000 in the country. On Sunday the Philippines reported the first death outside of China. Researchers at the state-run academy, a top government think tank, are also studying the potential use of a plant commonly known as Japanese knotweed to alleviate symptoms. The National Health Commission on Tuesday said TCM practitioners were among nearly 6,000 reinforcement medical personnel being sent to Wuhan in Hubei province, ground zero of the outbreak. Read also: Holistic herbal healing helps attract tourists, hopefully 'No difference' The strategy has reignited fierce and long-running debate about the efficacy of TCM, which has a history going back 2,400 years and remains popular in modern-day China. Marc Freard, a member of the Chinese Medicine Academic Council of France, told AFP he believed traditional formulations could be used to treat people with symptoms ranging from fever to thick phlegm. But he warned that many remedies on the market were of questionable quality and admitted that TCM "lacks scientific standards of efficacy" because it relied on "individualized treatment". Traditional medicines were widely used in China in conjunction with Western methods during the 2003 epidemic of SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which killed 774 people worldwide. But a 2012 study in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews found combining Chinese and Western medicines "made no difference" in battling the disease. Nationalism The Chinese government has increasingly promoted traditional medicine abroad in recent years, often with nationalistic undertones. Beijing issued its first white paper on TCM in 2016, laying out plans to build medicine centers and dispatch practitioners to developing countries in Africa and Southeast Asia. President Xi Jinping has called TCM a "treasure of Chinese civilization" and said at a meeting in October that it should be given as much weight as other treatments. China is "working hard to spread the message internationally about its traditional culture", and medicine is a part of this, Freard said. In 2019 the World Health Organization (WHO) even added Chinese medicine to its "International Classification of Diseases" -- a reference document for medical trends and global health statistics -- after years of campaigning by Beijing. But the move was slammed by members of the scientific community, with the European Academies' Science Advisory Council calling the decision "a major problem" due to the lack of evidence-based practice. The WHO did not immediately respond to AFP's request for comment. Fang Shimin, a prominent writer in China known for his campaigns against academic fraud, told AFP he believes the government's promotion of traditional medicine "panders to nationalism and has nothing to do with science". It is an enormous industry in China worth more than $130 billion in 2016 -- a third of the country's entire medical industry -- according to state news agency Xinhua. (Bloomberg Opinion) -- Both disasters affected millions of people, well beyond their borders. Both occurred in tightly controlled, socialist, single-party states. Both were initially hushed up by zealous officials. The similarities between the current outbreak of novel coronavirus and a 1986 reactor meltdown arent lost on Chinese netizens, who have drawn unflattering parallels to Chernobyl in online discussions about a 2019 HBO miniseries on the disaster. The political inference is clear: After all, the explosions in reactor No. 4 and the bungled aftermath helped unmuffle public debate and accelerate the decline of the Soviet regime. The comparison is flawed, though. Moscows grip was faltering well before radioactive debris rained down. Beijing would still be wise to draw lessons from that catastrophe. Its hard to overstate the proportions of the human and environmental disaster at Chernobyl, still the worst in civil nuclear history. The reactors flawed design meant that a technical test, poorly administered, triggered explosions that destroyed its core and released a cloud of radioactive smoke, dust and debris. Fires burned for days. A stifling culture of secrecy, political pressure to hit economic targets, and a simple disregard for human life caused a cataclysm on April 26, 1986. There are certainly elements of that in the current crisis. China, of course, is not the Soviet Union of the 1980s. It has learned from the SARS outbreak in 2003, when a slow acknowledgement of the problem helped the pneumonia-like illness spread, eventually killing almost 800 people. Beijing has to contend with social media as well, however stifled. Yet early efforts to raise the alarm were silenced this time, too. Doctors in Wuhan were accused of spreading rumors and summoned by police. Add to that a less-than-impressive immediate response, with slow diagnostic testing that, according to Reuters, required samples to go to Beijing. There is ample evidence of overcrowded hospitals, as my colleagues David Fickling and Adam Minter have written. As with Chernobyl, the local authorities beginning with Wuhans mayor have struggled in a system where orders must come from above, limiting their ability to inform the public. Story continues According to the Lancet, the first known patient developed symptoms as early as Dec. 1. China alerted the World Health Organization by the end of the month. While the first death occurred in early January, full alarm and lockdown didnt ensue until Jan. 23, days before the Lunar New Year holiday. By that point, millions of students, migrant workers and travelers had already left the city. Better than 2003, perhaps, but hardly exemplary. Much like in Chernobyl, where some 340,000 military personnel were ultimately mobilized to clean up the mess, China has proved better at dramatic gestures, like locking down cities, than effective ones. As with radiation, the virus is both invisible and poorly understood, fueling public distrust at home and abroad. And as with the 1986 explosions, the impact of failings in China will be felt globally. The comparison has its limits, though. The novel coronavirus epidemic is a crisis for public health, for the economy and even for Beijings upper ranks. That doesnt make it a catalyst in the mold of Chernobyl. One reason is simply economic. The meltdown has been described by many including then-leader Mikhail Gorbachev, years later as a turning point, the event that ultimately triggered the fall of the Iron Curtain. Reality is more complex. Soviet Russia was stagnating and in near-irreversible decline by 1986, when a sharp drop in oil prices left it desperately short of hard-currency earnings. Figures vary, but academic estimates put gross domestic product growth at less than 1% around that time; productivity was dismal. Chinas economic expansion may be slowing, its still nowhere near this parlous state. A comparison with 2003 also suggests that consumption should bounce back, even if other, trade war-related drags on the economy remain. Consider, too, the political differences. By 1986, Moscow was ready for a shake-up. Gorbachev had ascended to power a year earlier, and by the time of the accident had already spoken of the need for perestroika, or economic restructuring, and glasnost, roughly translated as openness. He nevertheless managed to use the Chernobyl incident to edge out old-school, Brezhnev-era politburo members like Vladimir Shcherbitsky, head of the Ukrainian Communist party. It was the excuse he needed to accelerate his plans. Theres no evidence of such winds of change in Beijing, even if its noteworthy that officials are being placed in positions that make them potential lightning rods for public anger. Premier Li Keqiang is the head of the team in charge of containing the outbreak, not President Xi Jinping. The biggest difference, however, is in the symbolism. Chernobyl battered the very essence of the Soviet state, an entire system built on a myth of outsize military and economic might. The catalog of irresponsibility, careless work and shoddy design at the Ukrainian plant dealt this image a hefty blow, from which it could not recover. It also battered the idea that limited openness would suffice. Moscow was forced to admit its problem because of radioactive readings in Sweden Beijing has at least delivered its own message. To get a sense of the impact, also consider that Soviet citizens had rarely been told of nuclear failings, however large and fatal. The accident at Mayak in the Urals in 1957, which forced thousands from their homes, was only reported abroad after a dissident scientist discussed it in the late 1970s. Earlier trouble at Chernobyl itself was covered up. The shockwaves were far greater as a result. None of this should diminish the seriousness of the Wuhan crisis, which is still unfolding. To date, more than 300 people have died, and more than 14,000 have contracted the illness. It could get far worse. The timing is also dismal for China, as it comes to the end of a five-year plan with a cooling economy. Beijing, though, is well aware of the risk presented by unexpected events. Its no accident that while cheery videos of doctors heading off to Wuhan have appeared, so too has some mild criticism, especially of local government pressure valves, of sorts. Officials have turned to hefty fiscal stimulus in the past, and can do so again.Chernobyl should be a warning. Just dont expect Beijings version of perestroika anytime soon. To contact the author of this story: Clara Ferreira Marques at cferreirama@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Rachel Rosenthal at rrosenthal21@bloomberg.net This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners. Clara Ferreira Marques is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering commodities and environmental, social and governance issues. Previously, she was an associate editor for Reuters Breakingviews, and editor and correspondent for Reuters in Singapore, India, the U.K., Italy and Russia. For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source. 2020 Bloomberg L.P. Boris Johnson has cranked up the stakes ahead of post-Brexit showdowns with the EU by warning he will walk away from any trade deal which does not meet his red lines. The Prime Minister is understood to be furious with Brussels, who he believes have pivoted from wanting to forge a deep trading relationship to now insisting on regulatory alignment. Noises from the continent in the days before Britain left the bloc on Friday signaled the EU's eagerness to keep the UK bound by its rule book and the oversight of the European Court of Justice. Mr Johnson, who has already given a cast iron pledge to end alignment, is understood to be incandescent with this 'changing of the terms' agreed in the joint political declaration. In a strategy which could spook Brussels into giving ground and rethinking their demands, Downing Street will express it is no longer only planning for a Canada-style deal. Boris Johnson has cranked up the stakes ahead of post-Brexit showdowns with the EU by warning he will rip up any trade deal which does not meet his red lines The Prime Minister is understood to be furious with Brussels, who he believes have pivoted from wanting to forge a deep trading relationship to now insisting on regulatory alignment Instead, the 'privately infuriated' PM will also explore the possibility of pursuing a 'looser' relationship with the EU, where not all tariffs would be wiped out. A government source said: 'There are only two likely outcomes in negotiation - a free trade deal like Canada or a looser arrangement like Australia - and we are happy to pursue both.' In a flash of steel, Mr Johnson will use a speech in London tomorrow to tell the EU he will accept no alignment, no jurisdiction of the European courts, and no concessions to any Brussels' demands. It sets up a spectacular showdown between Whitehall and EU trade negotiators when crunch talks kick off in March. Brokering a Canada-style free trade agreement is still the PM's main objective, but if Brussels wrangling scuppers this he is prepared to walk away with what is dubbed an 'Australia-style' arrangement - a re-branding of a no-deal Brexit. It would see the UK revert to World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, with additional mini-deals tacked-on to ensure travel arrangements, such as international flights, can continue. Noises from the continent in the days before Britain left the bloc on Friday signaled the EU's eagerness to keep the UK bound by its rule book and the oversight of the European Court of Justice (EU Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen on Friday) European leaders have already set out their own warnings to Mr Johnson over the upcoming talks. French President Emmanuel Macron this week said the level of single market access granted to the UK would 'depend on the degree to which the European Union's rules are accepted'. Another area of trouble could be Gibraltar, with Spain reportedly laying down a gauntlet to EU negotiators over the terms of any deal in the offing. According to the Observer, the EU will back Spain over its territorial claims to the British overseas territory by giving Madrid the power to exclude its population of 34,000 people from any potential trade deal. The PM is also expected, according to government sources, to confirm UK negotiators will pursue free trade agreements with the likes of the United States, Japan, Australia and New Zealand at the same time as dealing with Brussels. The Sunday Telegraph reported that a trade deal is earmarked to be agreed with Japan by Christmas, followed by more agreements with Australia and New Zealand in mid 2021. On top of the tough stance on trade, the Sunday Times reported that British diplomats have been ordered to make a break with their former EU allies in a bid to 'adopt a stance as a confident independent country'. According to a leaked telegram quoted by the paper, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said the UK should be free to 'dis-apply EU foreign policy positions' during the 11-month transition period, as Britain prepares to move away from the bloc. Source: Xinhua| 2020-02-02 15:54:29|Editor: Xiaoxia Video Player Close by Xinhua writers Zhao Manjun, Che Hongliang and Huang Yaoteng NANNING/NAY PYI TAW, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- As the time for growing rice in Myanmar approaches, Kyaw Thet Naing, a farmer who lives on the outskirts of the nation's capital Nay Pyi Taw, already has high hope for his harvest. His confidence has grown from experiencing years of rich and quality yields on his five acres of rice, where he has kept planting paddy seed varieties from China and practiced related farming techniques since 2017. "With our traditional ways of cultivation, we would normally produce about 60 baskets (1,260 kg) per acre. With China's assistance, we have added nearly 50 baskets per acre," he said. In the past year, rice seeds and related techniques from China have become widely accepted among nearby farmers, he added. BUILDING PLATFORMS In 2017, the Guangxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences (GAAS) in Nanning, capital of southwest China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, worked with agricultural authorities in Myanmar as well as companies from both sides to build several research platforms in Nay Pyi Taw. The platforms, which aim to introduce, select, demonstrate and publicize high-quality crop varieties from both countries, launched research projects targeting new ways to plant and grow crops more efficiently and with greener methods in pest and disease prevention and control. Yang Mingtong, chairman of the Guangxi Haokay Biotechnology Co. Ltd., one of the contributors to the platform, said that the company has been conducting tests and plant trials for about 102 Chinese crop varieties, including rice, corn, cucurbit and vegetables, in Myanmar to see if they are suited to the local climate and soil conditions. "For now, two rice varieties and two corn varieties we developed have received plantation permits in Myanmar," said Yang, adding that the high-yield hybrid rice from China helps improve the taste of Myanmar rice, allowing it to be sold at higher prices. Ruan Shiyun, a farmer from a village near Nanning, planted two new varieties last year. "The yield increased substantially to around 3,000 kg per acre, versus 2,100 to 2,400 kg per acre in previous years, with improved disease-and-lodging resistance," he said. The new varieties were hybridized from rice introduced from Myanmar and local ones in the China-ASEAN crop experimental station in Nanning. Introducing Myanmar crops to China or vise versa benefits farmers from both sides, said Yang, noting that his company, among others, has tested 39 crop varieties from Myanmar for planting in Guangxi. PROMOTING EXCHANGES Meanwhile, bilateral exchanges and cooperation among scientists and technical personnel have laid a solid foundation for long-term cooperation between the two countries. Earlier in January, Myanmar researcher Cho Cho San concluded her one-year exchange as a beneficiary of the ASEAN Talented Young Scientists (Guangxi) Program in GAAS and went back to Myanmar. "Apart from lab experience, I was able to learn from established findings in molecular biotechnology and bioinformatics, some of which have not yet been done in Myanmar," she said. She now serves as a plant pathologist for the Department of Agricultural Research in Myanmar Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation (MOALI). "I will share with my colleagues some of the technical experience and knowledge that I got from Guangxi through practical training, seminars and presentations in conference meetings," she said, adding that the most meaningful aspect of her career is that the team's collective work could help farmers. INCREASING BENEFITS For the past two years, hundreds of Myanmar students and scientists gained opportunities to study and conduct research in China under programs sponsored by the Chinese government and companies. Guangxi, the only region in China that boasts water and land gateways to ASEAN countries, attracted nine young scientists from Myanmar to advance their research. Most of them study bio-science, a field closely related to agriculture. Soe Thet Naung, the Myanmar Consulate General to Nanning, said that Guangxi's climate is similar to that of the Shan and Kachin states of Myanmar, an aspect that could help fructify and deepen bilateral exchanges in agricultural research. He highly valued the bilateral cooperation in agricultural research between China and Myanmar. Ye Tin Tun, director general of the Department of Agriculture under MOALI, said that China is advanced in technology, and Myanmar farmers need quality seeds and an increase in agricultural productivity. With China's technical assistance, these farmers are expected to see more benefits. Some visitors preferred to arrive during daylight to see the ice with its blue or greenish tinge. Other tourists bought their tickets timed with sunset, so they could see what the ice looked like before twilight, and after dark when a kaleidoscope of colored lighting changed the icy look. Boris Johnson and Sadiq Khan have sent their support to the injured and affected in the Streatham terror attack. Armed police shot dead a suspected terrorist feared to be wearing a suicide vest after he grabbed a knife from a shop and stabbed a man and a woman during the brutal high-street rampage on High Road in south London. In a tweet Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: 'Thank you to all emergency services responding to the incident in Streatham, which the police have now declared as terrorism-related. 'My thoughts are with the injured and all those affected.' Boris Johnson and Sadiq Khan have sent their support to the injured and affected in the Streatham terror attack In a tweet Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: 'Thank you to all emergency services responding to the incident in Streatham, which the police have now declared as terrorism-related' Officers raced to the scene outside a supermarket on High Road in Streatham at around 2pm today following reports of gunfire He is expected to return from Chequers to Downing Street this evening to respond to the attack. Boris Johnson has also said he will announce plans on Monday for 'fundamental changes to the system for dealing with those convicted of terrorism offences' following the incident. In a statement, the Prime Minister said: 'My thoughts are with the injured victims and their loved ones following today's horrific attack in Streatham. 'I want to pay tribute to the speed and bravery of the police who responded and confronted the attacker - preventing further injuries and violence - and all of the emergency services who came to the aid of others. 'An investigation is taking place at pace to establish the full facts of what happened, and the Government will provide all necessary support to the police and security services as this work goes on. Photos from the scene show a lifeless body face down on the pavement with what have been described as 'silver canisters' strapped to his chest with a large knife is lying beside him 'Following the awful events at Fishmonger's Hall in December, we have moved quickly to introduce a package of measures to strengthen every element of our response to terrorism - including longer prison sentences and more money for the police. 'Tomorrow, we will announce further plans for fundamental changes to the system for dealing with those convicted of terrorism offences.' Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, also wrote a statement which read: 'A man has been shot dead by armed police in Streatham following an incident that is being treated as terrorism-related. 'A number of people are believed to have been stabbed. 'I am in close contact with the Met Commissioner and local representatives and wanted to thank our police, security and emergency services staff for their swift and courageous response. 'They truly are the best of us. Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, also wrote a statement which praised the response of the emergency services Sadiq Khan said: 'Terrorists seek to divide us and to destroy our way of life - here in London we will never let them succeed' 'Terrorists seek to divide us and to destroy our way of life - here in London we will never let them succeed.' The incident comes just three months after the London Bridge attack where Usman Khan was shot dead by armed police after he killed two people and injured three others while wearing a fake suicide vest. Officers raced to the scene outside a supermarket on High Road in Streatham at around 2pm today following reports of gunfire. Other politicians including Keir Starmer, Priti Patel and Matt Hancock took to Twitter to comment on the attack Photos from the scene show a lifeless body face down on the pavement with what have been described as 'silver canisters' strapped to his chest with a large knife is lying beside him. In one video, police toting machine guns and masked undercover officers are seen approaching the suspect's body before rapidly moving away from the area. Scotland Yard said the broad-daylight carnage was a terror-related incident around an hour after first reports from the scene. The area remains on emergency police shutdown. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn also posted his thanks to those who have been dealing with the terror-related incident in London on Sunday. 'My thoughts go out to those injured and affected by the incident in Streatham,' tweeted the leader of the opposition. 'I would like to thank the police and emergency services for their dedication and quick response.' Armed police have shot dead a suspected terrorist feared to be wearing a suicide vest after he grabbed a knife from a shop and stabbed a man and a woman during a brutal high-street rampage in south London The incident comes just three months after the London Bridge attack where Usman Khan was shot dead by armed police after he killed two people and injured three others while wearing a fake suicide vest. Pictured: An armed police officer recovers medical bags from the scene Labour leadership favourite Sir Keir Starmer added: 'Shocking reports from Streatham. My thoughts are with everyone affected. 'Huge thanks to our emergency services for everything they do to keep us safe. And Home Secretary Priti Patel wrote: 'I am being kept updated by @metpoliceuk on this afternoon's incident in Streatham, which has been declared terrorist-related. 'My first thoughts are with the victims, our brave police and emergency services and their families.' Similarly, Health Secretary Matt Hancock wrote: 'All our gratitude goes to the NHS paramedics and emergency services who responded so rapidly to today's incident in Streatham. 'Thinking of everyone involved. We must never be divided by terrorism.' OPEC and its allies considered how to respond to a plunge in oil prices, with Russia signaling for the first time it was open to Saudi Arabias push for an emergency meeting, Bloomberg reports. Potential dates being discussed are Feb. 8-9 and Feb. 14-15, though for now the next regular meeting on March 5-6 remains on the schedule, a delegate said. For days, the kingdom has been pressing to bring forward a meeting of the coalition, as the threat to demand from Asias coronavirus pushes prices to a six-month low. Russia has been rebuffing the requests and even on Friday said more time was needed to assess the situation, yet added it was willing to convene and even act if needed. OPEC is holding a meeting of technical representatives the Joint Technical Committee on Tuesday and Wednesday to assess the coronavirus effect on markets, according to delegates. In principle, were ready to react on such things, Interfax reported Energy Minister Alexander Novak saying on Friday. But for that we need to assess the situation more accurately, monitor how it will develop in coming days. Crude traded near $51 a barrel in New York on Friday after a slump of about 16% in January, leaving prices far below the levels most members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries need to cover government spending. China is the oil markets primary source of demand growth and measures taken to slow the spread of the coronavirus -- including a lock-down in one of the countrys major cities and the unprecedented extension of the Lunar New Year holiday -- could wipe out a big chunk of that additional consumption. The declaration of coronavirus as a global threat and the Lassa fever outbreak dominated health reports last week Many countries including Nigeria have heightened disease surveillance across their borders as WHO backtracked on its earlier decision and pronounced coronavirus a public health emergency of international concern. Meanwhile, Nigeria is fighting another epidemic as confirmed cases and deaths from a Lassa fever outbreak continue to rise. Here is a round-up of some of the health stories that made headlines last week. WHO declares coronavirus global health emergency The World Health Organisation on Thursday declared the ongoing coronavirus outbreak as a global threat. This decision was made after the reconvened emergency committee met in Geneva to determine the status of the disease. WHO Director-General, Tedros Ghebreyesus announcement is coming a week after the emergency meeting had said that the disease had not attained a level of global concern. The outbreak started from Wuhan province of China in December and as of January 28, has spread across all provinces except one in the country. Nigerian Quarantine Agency to Collaborate with FAAN over Coronavirus The Nigerian Agricultural Quarantine Service (NAQS) is collaborating with the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) to prevent the importation of coronavirus into the country. In a statement signed by the agencys spokesperson, Chigozie Nwodo, on Tuesday, NAQS said it is obligated to buffer the nation from the potential introduction of this high-risk virus. Bearing in mind the zoonotic nature of 2019 n-CoV, the Nigeria Agricultural Quarantine Service is collaborating with FAAN to ensure that there is no gap or breach on the veterinary quarantine front at the airports, the statement highlighted. Lassa fever: Nigerias death toll rises to 41 The death toll from the Lassa fever outbreak in Nigeria has risen to 41, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) disclosed. The NCDC, in its weekly situation update for week four (January 20 to 26), said the number of newly confirmed cases and deaths is gradually on the rise. Rats used to illustrate the story. Although NCDC has activated a National Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) to coordinate the response activities, the number of new confirmed cases increased from 81 cases in week three to 95 cases. Between January 1 and 26, a total of 689 suspected cases with 258 confirmed were reported with 41 deaths. Lassa Fever: Nigerias preparedness for disease outbreaks poor NMA The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) has described the outbreak of Lassa fever across the country as a reflection of Nigerias abysmally low level of preparedness in handling infectious diseases, especially viral hemorrhagic fever, at all levels of healthcare delivery. The frequency of outbreaks also underscores the deplorable state of healthcare delivery in Nigeria, the doctors association said in a statement Monday. The statement came a few hours after a Lassa fever expert, Oyewale Tomori, criticised Nigerias response to the deadly viral disease, saying the government has not done enough to check its recurrence. Cancer: Groups march to raise awareness on early screening Dozens of Nigerians on Saturday marched in Abuja as part of efforts to raise awareness on the menace of cancer diseases in the country. The march is one of the various yearly activities of a cancer awareness advocacy group, Project Pink Blue. Cancer Awareness Group march to raise awareness on early screening The walk is targeted at enlightening people about cancer and the benefits of early screening to enable early detection of cases and treatments. World Cancer Day: Nigeria among countries with poorest cancer care Akeredolu A research has rated Nigeria among countries with the poorest cancer care and control system, the wife of Ondo Governor, Betty Akeredolu, has said. Mrs Akeredolu, at the start of a week-long program to commemorate 2020 World Cancer Day Celebration, said a sizable proportion of patients were lost to follow-up in cancer care continuum as a result of complexity and poor functioning of Nigerias health system. Advertisements Pneumonia: 2 million children risk death in Nigeria Two million children will die of pneumonia in Nigeria in the next 10 years unless more is done to fight the dreaded diseases. The United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF) said this in a statement by its Birinin Kebbi office on Wednesday. The statement signed by its Communication, Advocacy and Partnership Specialist, Rabiu Musa, said malnutrition, air pollution and lack of access to vaccines and antibiotics are among the drivers of preventable deaths from pneumonia, which killed a child every three minutes in the country. The disease is the leading killer of children in Nigeria, causing 19 per cent of under-five deaths, which can be prevented with vaccines, and easily treated with low-cost antibiotics. Exercise has the same effect on the brain as coffee Just 20 minutes of exercise is as good as a coffee for our working memory, according to a new, first-of-its-kind study. In a new study, which appears in Nature Scientific Reports, researchers compared the effects of caffeine and exercise on working memory and concluded that acute exercise can be as good for the mind as it is for the body. However, the main takeaway from this study is that exercise, with all its long-term benefits, can help improve mood and focus just as much as caffeine can. Former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir Lawal, has thrown his weight behind the presidential ambition of the National Leader of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, comes 2023. Lawal, who was sacked as SGF over his alleged involvement in the 2016 N500 million Grass-cutting scandal, said he knows Tinubu very well and not a matter of being a friend, adding that My knowledge of him is that he will make an excellent president. He said that the former Lagos State Governor has demonstrated that he is a good leader. People can insult him, but every governor consistently builds on his structure to the extent that Lagos State has consistently produced the best governors in their dispensation starting from Tinubu, Fashola, Akinwunmi and Sanwo-Olu, who is just starting. Lawal noted that another quality that Tinubu has which Nigerians must look at is the power of succession. There was a time in the Federal Executive Council of 36, Tinubu had four. According to him, If you look at all other governors, the only one that handed over to his deputy was Zamfara and because he had no choice. I am advocating that the best man should take over from Buhari. And for now that best man is Bola Ahmed Tinubu who is from the Southwest by coincidence, he added. Speaking on Atiku, who was the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP presidential candidate in the last general elections, Lawal added, Atiku Abubakar is not my friend. ALSO READ: APC Lawmakers petition Buhari, Tinubu over plot against Oshiomhole He is too senior in age, position in the society to be my friend. He was the vice president. I only managed to become Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) for two years. So, he cannot be my friend. However, the ex-SGF said he gets along very well with the former Vice President, adding, I like the guy. I used to tell people that as an indigene of Adamawa State, and if not because I am committed to other candidates that I feel he will do better, I probably would have worked for him. The guy is okay. He relates very well with people. I have seen people he has helped. I have seen people he has destroyed. I have seen people he has ignored. There is no particular reason to say because I am from Adamawa, he is my friend. In Adamawa, however, I think his political career has fatigued or it is over. A police constable committed suicide by shooting himself allegedly with his AK-47 rifle in Bihar's Muzaffarpur district on Sunday. The deceased has been identified as Pawan Kumar Singh (36), who was posted as body guard of Deputy Superintendent of Police (East), Muzaffarpur, Amitesh Kumar, a police officer said. The constable, a resident of Arwal district, died at Muzaffarpur police lines, Senior Superintendent of Police, Jayant Kant, said. The SSP said the reason behind the incident will be ascertained following an investigation into it. The body has been sent to Sri Krishna Medical College and Hospital (SKMCH) for post-mortem examination. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Man did not return to place of service after vacation and left for Russia Law enforcement officers detained a former border guard, who had been wanted for desertion since March 2015 and was hiding in the territory of the Russian Federation, as well as his wife, an ex-employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine. Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) press service reports. "In March 2015, a serviceman of the Zhytomyr border detachment swore an oath - after a vacation, he did not return to the place of service and left for the Russian Federation, where he was hiding from the investigation," the report said. As noted, the deserters wife offered the bribe to the official in the amount of $ 300 for assistance in obtaining a fictitious passport of a citizen of Ukraine and an individual tax number. To obtain fake documents, the deserter illegally crossed the state border with the Russian Federation and arrived in our country. Law enforcement officers detained the attacker and her husband at the State Migration Service in the Zhytomyr region, where they went to receive the promised documents, the SBU press office states. As we reported before, a number of refusals to citizens of Ukraine to enter Poland in 2019 amounted to 58,500 - this is 25% more than the previous year (then it was 46,700). BAKU, AzerbaiFeb, Feb. 2 By Elnur Baghishov - Trend: High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell will visit Tehran on Feb. 3, Spokesperson of Iran's Foreign Ministry Abbas Mousavi said, Trend reports via ISNA. Josep Borrell is expected to hold talks with Iranian foreign minister and other officials of the country, Mousavi said. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action will be the main focus of Borrell's visit to Tehran. The UK, France and Germany issued a statement regarding Iran's suspension of its obligations within JCPOA and announced that they launched a process to resolve nuclear disputes. If problems are not solved in this process, the matter will be discussed at the UN Security Councils meeting. In January 2016, JCPOA was launched between Iran and the P5+1 group (US, Russia, China, UK, France and Germany) in connection with Iran's nuclear program. In May 2018, the US announced its withdrawal from the deal and imposed sanctions against Iran in November of the same year. In order to preserve the agreements reached as part of the JCPOA, the European signatories of the deal stated in January 2019 that a financial mechanism for maintaining trade with Iran called INSTEX was formed. On May 8, 2019, Iran announced that it had ceased fulfilling its commitments regarding the sale of over 300 kilograms of uranium, as stated in the deal, basing its decision on the other signatories having not fulfilled their obligations. On July 7, Iran announced that it will not be fulfilling its commitments regarding the enrichment of uranium at 3.67 percent and the reconstruction of the Arak Heavy Water Reactor Facility as stated in the deal. On Sept. 5, Iran announced that it will enrich uranium using next-generation centrifuges and will not mix it with the enriched uranium residues as part of the third step of reducing commitments in JCPOA. On Nov. 5, 2019, Iran announced that it took the fourth step in connection with reducing its commitments to the nuclear agreement. So, uranium gas is being pumped to the centrifuges at the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant. Iran took the last fifth step in reducing the number of its commitments within JCPOA. Iran no longer faces any restrictions on its nuclear program. With no end in sight to the outbreak, authorities in Hubei and elsewhere have extended the Lunar New Year holiday break, due to end this week, well into February to try to keep people at home and reduce the spread of the virus. All Hubei schools are postponing the start of the new semester until further notice. David Cameron has seemingly come to terms with his humbling referendum defeat in 2016 telling friends Brexit will be fine with visionary Boris Johnson in charge. And the ex-PM quipped that his fellow Old Etonian will be a brilliant Premier as long as he carries on being well behaved. The Mail on Sunday understands that Mr Cameron last week claimed he always knew his clever longtime rival would take over one day in No 10. The pair have subsequently buried the hatchet, with Mr Cameron offering his successor ad hoc advice on one of the toughest jobs in the world The pair have a rivalry dating back to their schooldays and Oxford University in the 1980s. Their long-running antagonism came to a devastating conclusion in the 2016 referendum when he went head to head with Mr Johnsons Brexit campaign. But the pair have subsequently buried the hatchet, with Mr Cameron offering his successor ad hoc advice on one of the toughest jobs in the world. The pair are also understood to be in regular contact on WhatsApp. The Mail on Sunday understands that Mr Cameron last week claimed he always knew his clever longtime rival would take over one day in No 10. The pair have a rivalry dating back to their schooldays and Oxford University in the 1980s Mr Cameron, who quit the Commons in 2016, was spotted last week having lunch in Mayfair with fellow former Tory MP and arch remainer Oliver Letwin. He was described by one friend as looking disgustingly well and relaxed. In 2017, he reportedly described his life as an ex-PM as time to put some hay in the barn. Last week it emerged that Mr Cameron had earned more than 1.6 million since stepping down in the wake of his referendum routing. Theresa May has also enjoyed some lucrative earnings since becoming an ex-prime minister Published accounts for his private company the Office of David Cameron show that he made 836,168 in the year to April 30, 2019. That came on top of profits of 790,274 in the previous year. Theresa May has also enjoyed some lucrative earnings since becoming an ex-prime minister. The Commons anti-sleaze register shows she is to receive an 190,000 fee from the after-dinner agency Washington Speakers Bureau. She earned 75,500 for a speech she gave to J P Morgan Chase in November and 100,000-plus expenses from UBS Switzerland for a talk. And she spoke at a private bankers dinner at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month which is also expected to pay handsomely. Nigeria will work to fix security lapses that led to a US curb on immigration from the country, President Muhammadu Buhari has said. Buhari said he wants Nigeria, Africas most populous nation, to have productive relations with the US. He has appointed a minister to lead a committee to study and address the new visa requirements. In a statement by Femi Adesina, the presidents media adviser, President Buhari has set up a committee, headed by Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola,to study and address the updated U.S. requirements. The committee will work with the U.S Government, INTERPOL and other stakeholders to ensure all updates are properly implemented. Citizens from Eritrea, Sudan, Tanzania, Kyrgyzstan and Myanmar are also barred from certain types of US visas. People from these countries will, however, still be able to visit the US as tourists. In 2018, the US issued more than 8,000 immigration visas to citizens of Nigeria twice as many as all the other five nations combined. That same year, just over 2,000 were issued to Sudanese nationals, 290 to Tanzanians, and just 31 to Eritreans. These countries, for the most part, want to be helpful but for a variety of different reasons simply failed to meet those minimum requirements that we laid out, acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf told reporters on Friday. The new US rules will come into effect on 21 February but will not apply to official, business and tourism visas, Mr Buharis office said in a statement on Saturday. Nigeria remains committed to maintaining productive relations with the United States and its international allies, especially on matters of global security, presidential spokesman Femi Adesina said. Mr Wolf said officials would work with the countries on bolstering their security requirements to help remove them from the list. US President Donald Trump first introduced a travel ban in 2017. It currently closes US borders to citizens from seven countries, most of them with Muslim majorities. The US had previously announced a ban on certain types of visas for Eritreans in 2017. The US said it would suspend the issuance of visas that can lead to permanent residency for nationals of Nigeria, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, and Myanmar. Sudanese and Tanzanian nationals will no longer be allowed to apply for diversity visas, which are available by lottery for applicants from countries with low rates of immigration to the US. Mr Wolf said non-immigrant visas given to people for temporary stays including visitors, those doing business or people seeking medical treatment would not be impacted by the new rules. Kyrgyzstan and Sudan have large Muslim majorities, while around 50% of people in Nigeria and Eritrea are Muslim. Tanzania also has a sizable Muslim community. Mr Trump signed a controversial travel ban just seven days after taking office in January 2017, arguing it was vital to protect Americans. The ban initially excluded people from seven majority-Muslim countries, but the list was modified following a series of court challenges. It now restricts citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, Venezuela and North Korea. While the government has suspended most immigrant and non-immigrant visas to applicants from those countries, exceptions are available for students and those with significant contacts in the US. Read the full statement: On 31st January 2020, the United States (U.S) Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced temporary travel restrictions on six (6) countries including Nigeria. For Nigeria, the restriction is the suspension of the issuance of immigrant visas to Nigerian passport holders only. This suspension shall come into effect on 21st February 2020. The suspension does not apply to other U.S visas such as those for official, business, tourism and student travel. The DHS states the suspension of immigrant visas became necessary following a review and update of the methodology (performance metrics) adopted by the U.S Government to assess compliance of certain security criteria by foreign governments. This resulted in certain enhancements on how information is shared between Nigeria and the U.S. Nigeria remains committed to maintaining productive relations with the United States and its international allies especially on matters of global security. Accordingly, President Muhammadu Buhari has established a committee, to be chaired by the Hon. Minister of Interior, to study and address the updated U.S. requirements. The committee will work with the U.S Government, INTERPOL and other stakeholders to ensure all updates are properly implemented. ZIMBABWE has activated health surveillance systems at its ports of entry to screen people from countries that have reported cases of Coronavirus infections. At least 22 people who arrived in the country on board a flight from Wuhan City where the pneumonia-causing virus was first reported are under surveillance. Multi-sectorial taskforce teams have been set up at various entry points and are guided by the World Health Organisations (WHO) case detection guidelines for surveillance of the virus. Addressing a combined inter-agency coordination committee on health and the national taskforce on epidemic-prone diseases meeting on Friday, Ministry of Health and Child Care Director for Epidemiology, Dr Portia Manangazira said the Government was on high alert. So now, in terms of the national response strategies, we want to strengthen, for us, its really activating the national multi-sectorial taskforce to address a potentially pandemic severe acute respiratory infection. So we should strengthen the joint control mechanism for multiple sectors and it is very critical because this is something we perceive to be coming from beyond our borders and not already inherent within us. Dr Manangazira said the prevention and control of pneumonia outbreaks needed a joint and holistic approach. We have to alert the multiple sectors in terms of our border authorities that is the Zimra, immigration, our own port health colleagues, ministry of agriculture is, fortunately, present at the borders as well as the response mechanisms, she said. World Health Organisation (WHO) Zimbabwe Disease Prevention and Control Officer, Dr Anderson Chimosoro said WHO does not recommend restriction on travels or trade for people infected with the novel coronavirus. At this stage, there are no indications that there should be restrictions. It is prudent to advise our population or health workers on the need to reduce the general risk of acute respiratory infections by following some of these measures which include avoiding close contact with people suffering from acute respiratory infections, frequent hand-washing especially after contact with people or their environment. Meanwhile, Botswana registered its first suspected case of the Coronavirus on Thursday, according to the countrys Ministry of Health and Wellness. The case was registered at Gaborones Sir Seretse Khama International Airport. A passenger travelling from China had arrived at the airport on an Ethiopian Airways flight. Major nonprofit organizations are protesting the planned sale of the dot-org internet registry system they belong to. The groups say the sale of the system to a private investment company could lead to much higher costs to register and keep a domain name. A domain name identifies a website on the internet. The nonprofit groups also say the change could reduce freedoms of speech and expression. The registration process for millions of nonprofit groups using websites that end in dot-org is controlled by the U.S.-based Internet Society, or ISOC. But in November, the Internet Society announced it was selling control to Ethos Capital. It is a private investment company based on the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. Hundreds of organizations have objected to the plan. Top nonprofit groups like Greenpeace and Amnesty International have called for the $1.1 billion sale to be blocked. Last week, the directors of 10 leading nonprofit groups published an open letter during the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos, Switzerland. The letter urged the Internet Society and ICANN, the internets governing body, to intervene to stop the sale. Should the governance and stewardship of .ORG end up under the control of private or other actors that could lead to financial or other barriers, that would irreparably harm global civil society, the letter read. The Internet Society said in a joint statement with Ethos Capital that Ethos had promised to limit any cost increases to a yearly average of 10 percent. The statement added that existing agreements with ICANN contain limitations to prevent an internet registry from selling information about registered organizations. The statement rejected suggestions that the new system would lead to spying or censorship of online material. Ethos and [the Internet Society] take freedom of expression very seriously, and the registrys commitment to free speech will continue unabated. Brett Solomon is the director of Access Now, a group that supports policies to keep the internet open and free. He told Reuters the sale could force smaller organizations with less money off the internet. In addition, he worries about the level of control handed over to the new owner of the registry system. They have a capacity to take somebody off the .org domain, which means they can censor, they can monitor, they can deny, Solomon said. And all these issues are very, very important for organizations who are challenging governments and are challenging powerful interests, he added. A small demonstration was recently held at the ICANN offices in Los Angeles to protest the planned sale. The demonstrators presented a letter signed by 35,000 supporters that urges ICANN to block the deal. ICANNs chairman, Maarten Botterman, came outside with some other board members to meet with protesters. He told The Associated Press that ICANN is in the process of examining the effects of the sale. He said the organization was also looking to find guarantees to offer concerned dot-org registrants. Im Bryan Lynn. The Associated Press and Reuters reported on this story. Bryan Lynn adapted the reports for VOA Learning English. Mario Ritter, Jr. 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 domain n. the part of an email or website address that shows the name of the organization that the address belongs to stewardship n. the job of supervising or taking care of something, such as an organization or property irreparably adv. in a way that is impossible to repair unabated adj. without weakening in strength or force capacity n. the ability to do, experience or understand something monitor v. to watch something carefully challenging adj. testing ones abilities; demanding WUHAN, Feb. 1 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Vice Premier Sun Chunlan Saturday called for resolute efforts to contain the source of infection. Sun, who leads a central government group to guide the epidemic control work in Hubei Province, called for concrete measures to interrupt virus spread, as well as strengthened prevention and control measures in rural areas. She also urges higher efficiency in testing suspected infection cases and distributing medical supplies in the region. While inspecting the epidemic prevention and control work in Xiaogan City in the afternoon, Sun stressed the prevention efforts at the primary level, especially in rural areas. Source: Xinhua| 2020-02-03 00:28:19|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close ISLAMABAD, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- Officials in Pakistan's Bajaur tribal district said a mortar shell fired from the Afghan side of the border killed at least seven people on Sunday. Gulzar Khan, deputy superintendent of police in Bajaur, confirmed the incident to reporters in Bajaur, bordering Afghanistan's eastern Kunar province. Khan said the mortar shell hit a house near the border and four children were among the killed in the incident. The police officer, who arrived at the scene along with a large contingent of police, blamed militants for firing the mortar shell which promoted protest by the local tribal elders. Witnesses said parts of the house were destroyed in the incident, and police and residents pulled bodies out of the debris. An official at the police control room in the area told Xinhua that the mortar shell landed on the Pakistani side at around 5:00 p.m. local time. Bajaur, one of Pakistan's seven tribal districts, had been a stronghold of militants. In 2008, Pakistani security forces carried out a major operation against the militants in tribal districts. Officials said militants fled to Afghanistan as the result of the operation and now operate from the other side of the border. Pakistan temporarily closed Torkham, one of its major border crossings with Afghanistan, on Wednesday after two mortars fired from the Afghan soil landed on the Pakistani side. There was no casualty in the incident. In a fresh set of instructions, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said that testing of only one swab sample is enough, as against the earlier two, in suspected novel coronavirus cases, a senior Maharashtra health official said on Sunday. The new WHO instructions will ensure faster testing of samples which will quicken the fight against the 2019-nCoV outbreak, the official said. "We have received a new set of instructions from the WHO recommending that one swab sample is sufficient for testing of novel coronavirus infection. Earlier, we were sending two samples of each patient to NIV (National Institute of Virology in Pune) for testing," Maharashtra state disease surveillance officer Dr Pradeep Awate told PTI. "This will ensure faster testing of samples, which will quicken the fight against coronavirus. We are tracking passengers arriving from China for a period of 28 days from the date of their arrival," he added. So far, no confirmed case of coronavirus infection has been found in the state. All 15 persons quarantined across the hospitals in Maharashtra for possible exposure have tested negative, officials have said. The novel coronavirus started in Hubei province of China and has since spread to several countries, including two positive cases in India, both in the southern state of Kerala. Chinese health authorities have said that the number of confirmed deaths from the coronavirus outbreak rose to 304 there, with hardest-hit Hubei province on Sunday reporting 45 new fatalities. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Source: Xinhua| 2020-02-02 06:57:46|Editor: Liu Video Player Close OTTAWA, Feb. 1 (Xinhua) -- Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will travel to Ethiopia, Senegal and Germany from Feb. 6 to 14, the Canadian Prime Minister's Office said Saturday. Trudeau will meet with leaders of the three countries. In Ethiopia, he will also meet with world leaders attending the 33rd African Union Summit, and "participate in side events focused on deepening our relationships with African countries," the office said in a statement. The Canadian prime minister will attend the Munich Security Conference in Germany, the office added. Upside down as that is, Zoellick continued to note that the U.S.-China pact is made worse because it permits each side to use its own statistics, so China will likely meet some quotas by reclassifying U.S. exports to Hong Kong while redirecting commodity purchases fuels, food chemicals from U.S. producers to third countries. To ensure that even headline readers got his point, Zoellick titled his red-hot, NAFTA/China review Trumps Pyrrhic Trade Victories. Other ag trade and finance pros saw the market impacts in similar terms. A week after the China deal was signed, a DTN column (excerpted by the University of Illinois farm policy news website) asked a China Agricultural University professor for his on-the-ground view. It will take a long time for the two countries, as well as the world market, to reestablish a balance to facilitate the deal, he said. Thats a diplomatic way of saying, Dont hold your breath. The Liverpool ACC, Glasgow SEC and ICC Wales have all pulled out of hosting evangelistic events as part of Graham's eight-city UK tour, due to take place over the summer. The Newcastle Arena has come under pressure to cancel his scheduled event at the venue on June 3. Graham is the son of the late evangelist Billy Graham and a vocal supporter of Donald Trump. He has also repeatedly defended heterosexual marriage. Despite the setbacks, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, of which Graham is the CEO, said that the tour was going ahead as planned. And in a letter to supporters, Graham asked Christians to pray "that God will keep the doors open" to preach the Gospel in the UK. "For the last two years we have been preparing to go to the United Kingdom and take the Gospel to eight different cities starting in Scotland, going down to Wales, and finishing up in London," he said. "As we move closer to these events in late May and June, we are experiencing opposition from LGBTQ activists who want to stop this Gospel work. "This small but vocal minority is pressuring venues to back out of our contracts because I have said that God defines homosexuality as sin. Several venues have already told us that they are cancelling. "Much prayer and effort has been put into this, and hundreds of churches across the U.K. are partnering in this tour. This is spiritual warfare. The enemy does not want the Gospel proclaimed." He went on to say that he believed this to be a "defining moment" for the Church in the UK. "You and I have been called for such a moment as this," he said. "Please join me in praying for our brothers and sisters in Christ there, that God will remove obstacles to this Gospel work, and that He will prepare the hearts of people across the nation to hear and respond to His message this spring." Namita Bajpai By Express News Service LUCKNOW: The head of Vishwa Hindu Mahasabha was shot dead by two motorcycle-borne shooters in Lucknows Hazratganj area on Sunday morning. Ranjeet Bachchan, a resident of Gulharia in Gorakhpur district, was on a morning stroll along with his cousin Aditya Srivastava, when the attackers first tried to snatch Bachchans mobile and then fired at the duo near the Central Drug Research Institute (building, the police said. This is the second killing of a Right-wing Hindu leader in Lucknow, after Kamlesh Tewari, the national president of the Hindu Samaj Party, was killed at his Khurshed Bagh residence in October last year. Sources claimed that Bachchans wife Kalindi Nirmal Sharma had also accompanied him on the morning walk but she took a different route as she could not match her husbands pace. The wife of Hindu Mahasabha leader Ranjeet Bachchan. Deputy Commissioner of Police (central Lucknow) Dinesh Singh said Bachchan, who was shot in the head, died on the spot while a critically injured Aditya was rushed to King Georges Medical University (KGMU) trauma centre. He is out of danger. Lucknow Police Commissioner Sujit Pandey set up eight special teams to hit the trail of the absconding gunmen in Lucknow and the adjoining districts. Pandey suspended Parivartan Chowk Station House Officer Sandeep Tiwari under whose jurisdiction the incident took place. The DCP also suspended three constables present in a Police Response Vehicle (PRV), a few yards away from the crime spot, for failure to respond to the shooting. An SI, a member of the investigation team, confirmed that the assailants tried to snatch Ranjeet Bachchans gold chain and cell phone during the attack. However, this could have been a ploy of the assailants to make the crime look like a loot attempt, rather than a planned murder, he said. Bachchans wife Kalindi Sharma was also being interrogated by the police in connection with murder of her husband. The police have secured mobile phones of Bachchan and his cousin and are tracking their call record to ascertain the identity of the killers. As per police sources, a family discord between Bachchan and his wife has also come to the light and it is also being considered in the investigation of the murder. Forensic experts are scanning the spot and looking at CCTV footage. The culprits will be behind bars soon, Singh said. Sources said, Bachchan had been associated with the Samajwadi Party till he formed his own Vishwa Hindu Mahasabha. He had married twice. One of his wives is in Gorakhpur while the other is in Lucknow. He and his wife Kalindi Nirmal Sharma were active members of Samajwdi Party. The two had organised a cycle rally in 2009 and were felicitated by the party leadership. My grandmother used this recipe, then mom, and now me. It has been handed down from generation to generation, and I suspect that trend to continue in our family. My family always requests this chocolate cake. In fact, for birthday celebrations, store-bought cakes are not an option; this home-made cake is always preferred. What Makes this Cake So Good? It's not difficult to make a cake, and I'll bet the ingredients for this recipe are standard to most cakes. However, if I had to pull out one ingredient that makes this cake taste amazing, I'd say it's the Cocoa. I've always used Fry's Cocoa. I use it for our home-made chocolate icing as well. See below for a link to that recipe. I've tried other baking Cocoa, but my family always says that 'the cake doesn't taste the same.' So I stick to Fry's Cocoa. Maybe they're just used to it? However, their friends also comment on how good the chocolate cake is - so yah, maybe it's the Cocoa? You can get Fry's Cocoa in the USA; it's imported from Canada and is available here via Amazon . Canadians can visit Amazon's Canada site to order it, or head to the grocery store; it's easy to find. Chocolate Cake Recipe Ingredients: 1 and 1/2 Cups of White Sugar 1/2 Cup of Cocoa (Fry's Cocoa if you have it - I pack it a bit to get a little more) 1 and 3/4 Cups of White Flour 1 and 1/2 Teaspoons of Baking Soda 1 Teaspoon of Salt 1/2 Cup of Softened Butter (not melted) 1 and 1/2 Cups of Milk 2 Eggs 1 Teaspoon of Pure Vanilla Extract Put everything in one bowl and lightly beat the ingredients until they're mixed together. Never over beat a cake. Once the ingredients are mixed and blended, that's good enough. How to Make the Best Home-Made Icing I bake this cake in a three-quart oblong glass baking dish or cake pan (9inches by 13inches). You can use a non-stick spray if you like; however, I never use that. I'll rub the bottom and sides of the dish with butter, then lightly coat it with flour. To coat it with flour, put about a teaspoon of flour in the middle, then pick-up the cake dish and tilt it in all directions until the flour spreads very thinly over the bottom and sides. If there's too much flour, dump out the excess. You can use different shaped cake pans as well. I've used two round ones before, then stacked them to make a round cake. Bake the cake in a preheated 350-degree oven for 1/2 hour to 45 minutes depending upon your oven. Check it at the half-hour mark, then judge the length of time left at that point. With my oven, it's usually 40 minutes or so. Let your cake cool, and then ice it with delicious home-made chocolate icing; here's the recipe . I've also linked the above photo to the Icing recipe. My grandmother taught me how to make it, so be sure to check it out; it also uses Fry's Cocoa. Note: The author may receive a commission from purchases made using links found in this article. As an Amazon Associate I (we) earn from qualifying purchases. Recklaus added that many of the factors necessary to warrant a stop sign were not met in the traffic study, however, the neighborhood has been moved up on the list for selected traffic enforcement by the Arlington Heights Police Department. He also offered to host a meeting with residents, police and members of the villages engineering department to discuss the issue. On the second floor of Albuquerques Veterans Affairs Medical Center, secured to a wall near the public elevators, theres a large metal sculpture depicting four military men against the backdrop of an American flag. The men are joined in solidarity, hands gripping hands, arms enfolding shoulders. Beneath them is an image of a sinking ship. The artwork honors the Four Chaplains two Protestant ministers, a Jewish rabbi and a Roman Catholic priest who gave their life jackets to others and died on the SS Dorchester, a U.S. troop transport ship torpedoed by a German submarine in the North Atlantic on Feb. 3, 1943, 77 years ago Monday. It is one of many memorials bronze statues, plaques, murals, stained-glass windows that celebrate the chaplains courage around the world, from an interfaith chapel at Arkansas State Teachers College in Little Rock to the Society for Disabled Veterans in Paris, from the Shrine of Ages in Grand Canyon National Park to a chapel at a U.S. scientific research station at the South Pole. There are dozens and dozens of places hospitals, schools, military installations and communities, said the Rev. Dr. David Poling, former pastor of Albuquerques First Presbyterian Church. The list continues to grow. What that tells me is that people like heroism, the self-directed kind, the selfless kind. What it tells me is that we are craving goodness and kindness. Missing Poling, 91, is the first cousin of U.S. Army 1st Lt. Clark V. Poling, a minister in the Reformed Church in America and one of the chaplains who died on the Dorchester. The others, all Army first lieutenants, were George L. Fox, a Methodist minister; Alexander D. Goode, the rabbi; and John P. Washington, the Catholic priest. David Poling was 14, a freshman in high school, when his father, the Rev. Paul Newton Poling, a Presbyterian minister, told him and his older brother, Charles, that the Dorchester, the ship their cousin Clark was aboard, was missing. The brothers were devastated. David and Charles were devoted to Clark, who had lived with their family in Bound Brook, N.J., for two years in the 1930s when he was a student at Rutgers University. David was 3- to- 4 years old during that time and Charles a couple of years older, but their college-aged cousin always found time to play with them and take them for walks. David, Charles and their parents prayed for the best. But it was not to be. The following weekend, we came home from church and my dad and mother were just about to sit down at the dining room table, Poling said. My mom had tears in her eyes. My father had a long look. Polings father told the brothers that Clark was among those from the Dorchester who were missing. Heroic and inspiring There were a lot of missing. Of the 904 passengers and crew on the Dorchester, which sank in 20 minutes after being torpedoed off Newfoundland, only about 230 survived. Some of the survivors reported that the chaplains remained calm during the panic that erupted on the ship after it was attacked at about 1 a.m. They said the four men passed out life jackets and helped people find their way to life boats. When the life jackets ran out, the chaplains took off their own and gave those away. They were last seen praying together as the Dorchester slipped beneath the black and frigid waters. Tragically, even some of those who were wearing life jackets, but were unable to find room in life boats, died of hypothermia in the freezing water. The chaplains actions are considered among the most heroic of World War II and also the most inspiring, because men of different faiths and backgrounds united in an attempt to save the lives of others at the cost of their own. In 1988, a unanimous act of Congress established Feb. 3 as Four Chaplains Day. David Poling said he would like to see a center in Albuquerque devoted to the chaplains story. Im plugging the Four Chaplains, he said. I would like to see a place of meditation, a quality place, a place for family events. And a store to sell postcards and books related to the Four Chaplains to keep the message going. Write on Born into a family of ministers, David Poling graduated from Yale Divinity School and served churches in New York state, Oklahoma and New Mexico. He was pastor of Albuquerques First Presbyterian Church from 1975 to 1989. He wrote a syndicated religious column for the Newspaper Enterprise Association for years and is the author or co-author of 14 books, including 2001s Sea of Glory, a novelization of the Four Chaplains story, and books about Christian evangelist Billy Graham and, physician, theologian, musician and missionary Albert Schweitzer. These days, Poling and his wife, Ann Reid Poling, live in a Rio Rancho retirement complex. Restricted by age, he does not get around much. He said he has not been active in a church community in more than two years or preached in quite some time. If I were going to preach, Id have to do it like John Calvin did sitting down, he said. But he still writes and/or edits every day and has several books in the works, including one he calls Notable People, Notable Things. Hes writing that because, We have met a lot of people who are doing thoughtful, creative and wonderful things in life but they do not get any recognition. And because he feels in his heart that people need stories about goodness and kindness. A truck driver has been fined VND17 million (US$736) and had his driving license taken away for six months after being caught on camera backing his vehicle on an expressway in northern Vietnam this week. Surveillance cameras showed that a truck was reversing on the Hanoi - Hai Phong Expressway at 9:55 am on Saturday. The vehicle was estimated to travel backward for 200 meters to an exit ramp in Gia Loc Town, located in the northern province of Hai Duong. The driver has been identified as Le Van H., 46, who comes from Thanh Ha District, Hai Duong. He had missed the exit ramp so he backed his truck to get off the expressway. Police said on Sunday that they had fined him VND17 million, about four times a months worth of basic salary in Vietnam, and revoked his drivers license for six months. Backing on expressways is punishable by a fine of VND16 million ($693) to VND18 million (779) and a revocation of the drivers license for 5-7 months, according to a government decree. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Israel launched air strikes on the Gaza Strip early Sunday in retaliation for projectiles fired from the Palestinian enclave into southern Israel, the army said. Military jets and helicopters struck targets linked to Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza, shortly after midnight, with no reported casualties. Israel also suspended cement deliveries to the enclave and cancelled 500 commercial entry permits into Israel "until further notice". The action was taken "due to the continued rocket fire and launchings of incendiary balloons from the Gaza Strip into Israel," said a statement by Major General Kamil Abu Rukun, head of the Israeli military unit responsible for coordination in the Palestinian territories. Since the announcement Tuesday by US President Donald Trump of his plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, rockets, shells and explosive balloons have been fired almost daily from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel, provoking Israeli retaliation. Palestinians strongly reject the US plan, seen as heavily favouring Israel. The Trump initiative suggests that Israel would retain control of the contested city of Jerusalem as its "undivided capital" and gives the Jewish state the green light to annex settlements in the West Bank, which Israel occupied in 1967. Rocket fire from Gaza on Saturday night forced Benny Gantz, a leading candidate in Israel's upcoming general election who was campaigning in southern Israel, to take refuge with his team in a shelter, local media reported. Former military general Gantz heads the Blue and White party and is the chief rival of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the March 2 election. The Israeli army said its overnight strikes on Gaza targeted infrastructure belonging to Hamas, the Islamist group that has controlled the enclave since 2007. "Fighter jets and attack helicopters struck a number of Hamas terror targets in the northern Gaza Strip," it said in a statement. Among the targets was "underground infrastructure... used as a situation room," it added. There were no casualties from the strikes, according to Hamas security sources. Hamas and Israel have fought three wars since 2008 but over the past year the Islamists have gradually shaped an informal truce with Israel, under which the Jewish state has eased its crippling blockade of Gaza. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Source: Xinhua| 2020-02-02 14:42:22|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close BEIJING, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- China stands ready to boost international cooperation against the novel coronavirus epidemic, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Saturday night in a phone conversation with German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas. Maas expressed support for China's battle against the spread of the novel coronavirus, saying that the open, transparent and cooperative attitude and the forceful and effective measures the Chinese government has adopted are admirable. The German side has provided China with a certain amount of urgently needed medical supplies and stands ready to offer more assistance in line with China's needs, he added. Wang thanked Germany for the help, and briefed Maas about the latest progress in China's prevention and containment efforts. He stressed that the Chinese government not only keeps the Chinese people's safety and health in mind, but is doing its best to safeguard global public health security. The health and lives of German nationals in China are secure, he pointed out, adding that China has confidence and ability to prevail over the epidemic, and is willing to step up cooperation with Germany and other members of the international community. China, he said, hopes that Germany will look at the epidemic and China's prevention and containment efforts in an objective and reasonable manner, take the World Health Organization's authoritative advice seriously, and help ensure that normal bilateral exchanges will not be disrupted. Maas said the German side will continue to maintain communication with China and jointly deal with the epidemic. (Newser) Al-Qaeda's branch in Yemen claimed responsibility Sunday for last year's deadly shooting at the Naval Air Station Pensacola by an aviation student from Saudi Arabia, the AP reports. The shooter, 2nd Lt. Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, was a member of the Saudi Air Force in training at the base. He opened fire inside a classroom at the base on Dec. 6, killing three people and wounding two sheriffs deputies before one of the deputies killed him. Eight others were also hurt. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, released a video claiming the attack. SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks messaging by militant groups, reported the claim. story continues below AQAP has long been considered the global networks most dangerous branch and has attempted to carry out attacks on the US mainland. The 18-minute video did not provide evidence of training the shooter, but did indicate that Alshamrani and AQAP were in communication, said Rita Katz, director of SITE. It was not clear when the video was recorded. The video claimed that Alshamrani had been planning for years to attack a U.S. base, and had been training and selecting targets. The video, which was viewed by the AP, provided a will written by Alshamrani to his family in September 2019, three months prior to attack. He said he wanted to attack the U.S., citing religious reasons. However, he made no mention of al-Qaeda. (Read more terrorist attack stories.) Hundreds protest in Baghdad and the south to reject nominee as Iran offers support to new prime minister. Hundreds of students have marched in cities across Iraq to denounce the nomination of Mohammed Allawi as the countrys next prime minister despite calls from influential Shia leader, Muqtada al-Sadr, for his supporters to clear roads and resume day-to-day life. Anti-government protesters in Baghdad, Najaf and Nasiriya rejected the choice of Allawi, who they accuse of belonging to the same political establishment that has failed them. For sure he is rejected, a student protester in the capital, Baghdad, told Al Jazeera on Sunday. For 16 years we havent seen anything from them, just destruction. Mass anti-government protests erupted in Iraq on October 1, when thousands of people took to the streets in Baghdad and the predominately Shia-dominated provinces in southern Iraq to decry rampant government corruption, poor services and a lack of employment opportunities. The protesters demanded the removal of the political elite and a complete overhaul of the countrys political system introduced after the US invasion of 2003. At least 500 people have been killed amid a crackdown on demonstrations, with rights groups condemning security forces use of live fire. Familiar figure The 65-year-old prime minister-designate is no stranger to Iraqi politics. A cousin of former vice president and prime minister, Iyad Allawi, he previously served as a member of parliament and communications minister under former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Allawi resigned in 2012, accusing al-Maliki of political interference in his ministry and the government of turning a blind eye to corruption. After two months of political deadlock following the resignation of caretaker Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, Allawi was nominated as the new prime minister on Saturday, with the task of running the country until an early election is held, for which there is no date set. The selection of Allawi followed an ultimatum by Iraq President Barham Salih, who had said he would pick a new prime minister himself if parties did not agree on a candidate. 200202070352074 Irans foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said Tehran offered its full support for the new prime minister. Iran is willing to give any assistance necessary to help Iraq overcome problems and to pass through a sensitive time, Mousavi said, according to the official IRNA news agency. Tensions on streets Reporting from Baghdad, Al Jazeeras Simona Foltyn said large numbers of students had taken to the streets at a critical time before midterm exams. What is noteworthy today is that they turned out in the streets despite mounting political opposition to the protest coming from Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr, she said. Earlier on Sunday, al-Sadr urged his followers camped out in Tahrir Square to resume day-to-day life by opening blocked roads and ensuring schools and government offices remained open in a statement posted on Twitter. Al-Sadrs followers had returned to demonstration camps on Friday after he reversed an earlier decision to withhold support from the anti-government protest movement. Upon returning, al-Sadrs followers consolidated control of strategic areas in Tahrir Square, including key bridges leading to the fortified Green Zone, the seat of government. Significantly, they also moved into a high-rise building nicknamed the Turkish Restaurant, which offers a strategic lookout over the protests and had been occupied by anti-government protesters. They attacked us by surprise and forced us out of the building shouting that we didnt do any good to the country except ruining its economy, said Rassoul, 20, a protester who had been camping at the Turkish Restaurant since October. University students carry a huge Iraqi flag to express their rejection of newly-appointed Prime Minister Mohammed Tawfiq Allawi during ongoing anti-government protests in Baghdad [Thaier al-Sudani/Reuters] Al-Sadr, who also leads one of the biggest blocs in parliament, has thrown his weight behind Allawi. Al-Sadrs followers, known for donning blue caps on the street, were seen on Sunday cooperating with security forces and clearing blocked roads, Foltyn. 200201150554113 Many protesters said al-Sadrs followers had threatened them to toe his line or leave the square. They will never mix with us, said Mariam Nael, 18, a protester. We are here for our homeland, they are blindly following the tweet of one cleric, she told the The Associated Press news agency. A poster telling residents of a block of flats we do not tolerate people speaking languages other than English in the building has been reported to the police. A sign bearing the title Happy Brexit Day was reportedly found stuck to fire doors on Winchester Tower in Norwich on Friday morning. The discovery came hours before the UK officially left the European Union at 11pm on Friday. A photo of the poster shared in news reports and on social media revealed it declared: We finally have our great country back. Addressing Winchester Tower residents, it said the Queens (sic) English is the spoken tongue here. It suggests that people wanting to speak a language other than English should leave the country. Writing on Twitter on Saturday, Norwich City Council said: You may have seen a photo of a poster that has appeared in one of our properties. Norwich has a proud history of being a welcoming city, and we will not tolerate this behaviour. As soon as we became aware of this incident, we reported it to @NorfolkPolice and they are investigating. We take this very seriously and encourage residents to contact us or the police if they have any concerns. According to the BBC, which spoke to a resident, the signs were left on fire doors across all 15 floors of the block of flats before being removed by the caretaker. Mike Stonard, a cabinet member on Norwich City Council, told the Eastern Daily Press: I absolutely condemn this abhorrent poster. Whoever put it there has committed a hate crime, it is as simple as that. Many people voted for Brexit for a range of different reasons, however I am sure not many of them will condone this kind of thing. A 33-year-old Haryana resident was killed and another injured when a car in which they were travelling overturned on Bikaner-Jaisalmer highway in the district on Sunday, police said. Mayank, a resident of Hisar city of Haryana, died on the spot while Surajbhan (28) sustained injuries in the accident under Nal police station area, they said. The body has been shifted to a hospital for post mortem, police added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Foreign issues are rarely to the fore in European countries' elections. The Irish electoral system makes local issues even more important in national elections than in most other countries. Questions about foreign affairs tend to squeezed out as a result. But they need consideration. For a country that will be affected by Brexit more than any other; for one which has pooled sovereignty with its continental neighbours over half a century and will likely continue to do so in the future; and for one which is among the most economically globalised in the world, choice around foreign policy is even more important for Ireland than for many other countries. The much more difficult international environment in which Ireland finds itself is another reason that decisions around foreign policy need plenty of thought. Compared to when Bill Clinton was in the White House, Tony Blair was in Number 10 and deep fissures had yet to emerge in the EU - Ireland's external environment in that period around the turn of the century was the most benign in this State's history - one can see how much more challenging Ireland's world has become over the past two decades. And it is not only Brexit, Donald Trump and new divisions in a bigger and more heterogeneous EU that have made Ireland's world a more difficult place. Other developments which have made it less benign include: a more disruptive Russia; failed states in the Middle East and North Africa causing, among other things, more migration flows into Europe; a more aggressive and at times threatening China; climate change; new cyber security threats; rising protectionism; and seemingly ever-growing international pressure on Ireland over the activities of multinational companies located here. The next government will have to hit the ground running on many of these issues. Brexit will be front and centre, despite Britain having formally left the EU on Friday night. Ireland's relations with our immediate region have been made permanently more complicated by Brexit. Having Britain in the European state system levelled the playing field with our much larger neighbour. As keeping the playing field as level as possible with Britain is a core objective of all 27 members of the EU, expect to hear 'level playing field' discussed endlessly over 2020 and its abbreviation (LPF) soon enter the everyday. The EU-UK talks on what happens when the transition period (of de facto UK membership) finishes at the end of the year will be fraught. They may fail, as European commissioner Phil Hogan correctly if inappropriately (given the election campaign) highlighted last week. The dreaded no-deal Brexit hasn't gone away. Another immediate for the next government will be to work out how the economic border between Northern Ireland and Britain functions. The British prime minister's occasional interventions on that matter have raised questions about his understanding of what was agreed late last year, and even whether he will keep his word. The next government will also have to work with London to keep the North's wobbly devolved institutions on the rails. The wild card for Northern Irish politics and its institution is if Sinn Fein becomes a coalition partner in Dublin after the general election. When Theresa May's government came to depend on the DUP to stay in power, it undermined London's position as an honest broker in the North. Sinn Fein in government in the Republic could only have the same effect, and probably even more so as the party has said any government of which it forms a part will have to commit to holding a border poll and prepare actively for an end to partition. These will not be the only non-domestic issues the next government will have to deal with from Day 1. Last Friday in Paris, dozens of countries agreed to keep working on an international deal on taxing multinational companies. Much as is the case with Brexit, this is a damage limitation exercise for Ireland. The huge increases in the amounts multinational companies have paid to the Irish exchequer are small in a European context, never mind a global context - the European Commission estimates that EU governments lose a lot more from non-payment of Value Added Tax than the OECD estimates every government in the world combined loses from profit tax avoidance. But even if the issue is exaggerated, it is a problem and it should be addressed. If the Paris-centred talks produce a deal, the Irish exchequer will lose out to the tune of 2bn annually, according to the Department of Finance. That is manageable, particularly as implementation of the accord will be rolled out over years and there will be time to prepare. This is probably the best achievable outcome. If the Paris process fails to deliver a deal, however, the attention of European countries will turn to Brussels, and there will be a fresh onslaught to limit member countries' freedom to determine their own profit tax regimes. It will be led by France and Germany. Britain will not be at the table to act as a brake on the Europeanisation of the issue. Ireland will not be alone in resisting EU-level tax change. As such it is unlikely to have to exercise the veto all 27 countries wield over changes in the area of taxes. But the next government could quickly come under more pressure on the issue than ever before. Another big foreign affairs matter looming is the US presidential election. The re-election of Donald Trump later in the year will come as a shock to Europe even if the polls are showing that his prospects are good, and will improve further if the Democrats don't chose a centrist to run against him. European governments and officials are running down the clock in many areas of dispute with the US in the hope that anyone but Trump gets elected in November. If he is re-elected, it will no longer be possible for Europeans to play for time or to dismiss his presidency as an aberration. There will be no return to transatlantic 'normality'. For a president who has shown little sign of restraint over his first term to win a second and final one, and not have to consider re-election, could well make him more radical than he has been to date. Whether an emboldened Trump takes his past positions on a range of issues to new levels remains to be seen. But Europeans know that there is a risk he will. Nowhere are the stakes higher than the security of the continent. Nato and the EU have been the two great institutional frameworks of the European state system in the post-World War II era. Unlike the EU, the US has been the beating heart of Nato since it was founded 70 years ago. Donald Trump has questioned the US's role in the alliance in a way that would have been unthinkable under any previous administration. That means that US commitments to defend Nato members if they are attacked are a lot less credible than in the past. They could disappear during a second Trump term. This would drive Europeans in the direction of self-reliance when it comes to their own security. The most obvious institution in which to do that is the EU. If security and defence becomes a focus of deeper European integration, will the next government do what Britain did when the euro was created and stand aside, or will it seek to remain at the centre of things and sign up to a watering down of Irish neutrality? Neutrality is one of the few foreign affairs issues that brings out strong emotions, for a significant chunk of the electorate at any rate. The next government may have difficult choices to make on this issue. It could potentially have to fight a referendum on it. As the Lisbon and Nice votes showed, it is never a foregone conclusion that the electorate will back deeper European integration. 125 YEARS AGO 1895: The action of the Town Council in passing an ordinance preventing the lewd women of the town from plying their vocation openly on the streets is a move in the right direction. Now if the ordinance, which licenses houses of ill-fame, can be enforced then in the future they can be kept where they belong and they can be made amenable to the law. You can pin your hopes to bargains that you get at the establishment of H.A. Rogers. The SUN is sent postpaid to any address this side of the ocean and across the briny if it is so ordered. The Home Restaurant has been reopened with W.C. Gay as proprietor. The best 25-cent meals in town. J. Clarence Mahoney has been compelled to sever his connection with the Williams News owing to a severe lung trouble. He has gone to Phoenix for the winter. Williams now has a skating rink. Thomas Smith of Williams lost his arm at the Saginaw Lumber Cos box factory. One of the saws caught the member and severed it half way between the elbow and the wrist. Our clothing is guaranteed perfect in every respect and you can get anything you want in the clothing line at a discount of 25 per cent. H.A. Rogers, succession to P.J. Brannen. When Flagstaff, Prescott, Phoenix, Tucson and Nogales are connected by rail, the days of burro travel will forever be at an end and an era of prosperity will set in for all the localities named. Several ladies and gentlemen made a snow shoe expedition to W.F. Gibsonss ranch last Sunday afternoon returning home by moonlight. The north and south railroad is now completed and trains are running along the Agua Fria River about 26 miles from Phoenix. The road will be opened to regular trains running beginning on March 12, 1895. 100 YEARS AGO 1920: Work on the new reservoir. Chas. J. Spencer is building out on the east side of the San Francisco Peaks, not far from Dead Mans Flat, is being pushed forward vigorously, though they need more men there and were in town this week after them. It is about half-mile long and 12-feet deep. They are now tunneling back under the mountain at the rear of the reservoir for the double purpose of catching the seepage and adding to the storage space. Under the terms of their grant from the Forest Service, they have until November of this year to complete their work. They have applied for a permit for 6,000 cattle for five years contingent upon their development of the water. Whether the range will support that additional number of cattle is a question still to be decided. It is understood that Mr. Spencer will give up his cattle permit at the end of five years and thereafter sell the ranches of Dead Mans Flat, Doney Park and Black Bill Park. Harold Dave Steele of Dead Mans Flat has been charged by the Forest Service with cutting and removing cedar posts from Section 13, Township 21, N. Section 10 E. in this county, without permission. Endorsement of Luther Swanners and Earl Wrights plan to set up a permanent Wild West show for Flagstaff were given a boost by the Boosters Club at their regular luncheon at the Confection Den. Twenty cases of the flu have citizens worried about a return of last years devastating siege. For Sale Two-chair barber shop with two bathrooms and a shoe shine stand, in one of the best locations in Flagstaff. Best modern fixtures. Clean light shop. For sale complete. Now is the time to get in for the summer months. 50 YEARS AGO 1970: An estimated 7,500 Flagstaff voters will be eligible to vote in polls to cast their ballot in the primary election 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. in four separate polling places. The legislature is considering changing state law that does not permit school districts to cross county lines. Currently, the situation means that children in Sedona travel to two separate high schools, Flagstaff and in Yavapai County. The proposal to adopt a formal dress code in Flagstaff junior and senior high schools was dropped by the school board Monday night pending a review of clothing being worn at the school. Williams economy faces a stiff blow unless the price of finished lumber goes up and the price of logs goes down. Officials of the Hudson Lumber Co., say that the firm, formally the Haining Lumber Mill are anticipating a complete closure of the operation unless the lumber market improves and the closure could come within the next week. 25 YEARS AGO 1995: Winterfest is under way with events every day. Smokers beware. The City Council may amend the ordinance and extend the no-smoking to cover the bars in certain restaurants. Under the current law, restaurants are smoke free, but smokers can torch up while waiting in a restaurants bar. The proposal from city staff is that a restaurant must gain over half its revenue from the bar in order to remain smoker friendly." Exception would include proof of a negative financial impact from NO Smoking, and would allow smoking in truck stops. The City Council is considering the proposal to bottle and sell water from the Inner Basin, from the City Utilities Department. The costs to set up would be ameliorated by the NAU marketing class and initial shelf space provided by Bashas'. The plan is to begin with 500 cases. If it proves successful, then the city could eventually market 100,000 annually. A plan is under consideration to coordinate with Coconino County to create a mutual plan for growth. An organization calling itself Canyon Forest Village has made a proposal to the Forest Service to build a vast complex of hotels and residences at the Grand Canyon. The effects on places like Flagstaff, Sedona and other local towns is beyond description and a local efforts to forestall this desecration of our local world-class canyon are underway. Just the increase in the number of automobiles crowding our streets is unimaginable quite aside from the amount of water needed to service this kind of development. The city is discussing a plan to put gutters, sidewalks and curbs throughout Sunnyside and split the $5.89 million cost eventually with owners of the neighborhoods 1,100 lots. The average homeowner would pay about $2,000 over as many as 20 years for these improvements. However, many Sunnyside residents are on low or fixed incomes and this is a major stumbling block. All events were taken from issues of the Arizona Daily Sun and its predecessors, the Coconino Weekly Sun and the Coconino Sun. Love 2 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 The body of an Italian bushwalker who disappeared after a day hike has been found. Mattia Fiaschini, 24, was last seen on January 29 leaving Blackheath Railway Station in the Blue Mountains, 50km north-west of Sydney. His body was found at 2.30pm on Sunday near the Baltzer Lookout. Mattia Fiaschini, 24, was last seen on January 29 leaving Blackheath Railway Station Emergency services were working to retrieve Mr Fiaschini's body. He had been reported missing after he didn't turn up to work in Alexandria, in Sydney's inner-west, the next day. Police appealed for information about his disappearance earlier in the week. A report will be prepared for the Coroner. Congratulations, estoespurpura.com got a very good Social Media Impact Score! Show it by adding this HTML code on your site: Estoespurpura.com scored 96 Social Media Impact. Social Media Impact score is a measure of how much a site is popular on social networks. 5/5.0 Stars by Social Team This CoolSocial report was updated on 13 Apr 2015, you can refresh this analysis whenever you want. estoespurpura.com is very popular in Facebook and Twitter. It is liked by 331 people on Facebook, it has 168 twitter shares, it has 2673 twitter followers and it has 1 google+ shares. Furthermore its facebook page has 81929 likes. The total number of people who shared the estoespurpura homepage on StumbleUpon. 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Twitter account link TWITTER PAGE LINK FOUND TWITTER PAGE twitter.com/#!/estoespurpura DESCRIPTION Revista digital para mujeres que quieren explotar su potencial tanto en lo profesional como en lo personal. #Purpurettes ACCOUNT CREATED ON 29 Jul 2013 LOCATION Mexico City TWEETS 4652 FOLLOWERS 2673 LISTED 24 Thank you for reading! Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading. RFE/RL interviewed U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during his visit to Kazakhstan's capital, Nur-Sultan, on February 2. He discussed U.S. policies on Central Asia and China's oppression of minorities, but also journalistic freedom in the world in the wake of the State Department's controversial exclusion of a reporter from his traveling press pool. Pompeo spoke to RFE/RL's Aigerim Toleukhan. A 3-year-old boy who prosecutors said was traumatically abused by his uncle died Sunday, three days after being flown to the Texas Medical Center, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said. His uncle, 27-year-old Melvin Omar Morales-Gomez, was held Friday in county jail on a felony charge of causing injury to the child. Officials alleged Morales-Gomez squeezed him so tight that he allegedly fractured the boys jaw, broke his clavicle, and caused brain swelling and extensive bruising. While we knew this was the likely outcome, its always sad when it happens, Gonzalez said on Twitter. The little guy never had a chance. Morales-Gomez did not post a $500,000 bond set at his initial court hearing Friday. Prosecutors said the man told investigators that he bit the boys lip so hard it began to bleed, and that he also squeezed him tightly. Morales-Gomez said thats what caused the boys injuries, officers said he told them. Its not clear what, if anything, provoked the attack. Afterward, he noticed something was wrong with the boy and brought him to a hospital, prosecutors said. The boy was then transferred to the medical center in a helicopter, and doctors said he was not expected to survive his injuries. On HoustonChronicle.com: 'Horrific, heartbreaking' abuse of a toddler leads to uncle's arrest, according to sheriff Gonzalez called the case a horrific, heartbreaking case of abuse, neglect of an innocent, defenseless child. Morales-Gomez appeared at the hearing Friday standing in a white shirt with his arms crossed while prosecutors detailed the boys injuries. He buried his hands in his head after a judge issued the bond and granted a protective order against Morales-Gomez on behalf of the boys parents. She said there is an active hold from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well for Morales-Gomez, who is a Salvadoran national. He is scheduled to be in court Monday. As of 2:30 p.m. Sunday, no additional charges had been filed. dylan.mcguinness@chron.com gwendolyn.wu@chron.com Conservative Republicans are pushing for a law requiring government buildings and schools across Kansas to post the national motto of 'In God We Trust,' an idea critics say is part of a broader effort by the Christian right to promote their religious beliefs in public life. A Kansas House committee heard testimony Thursday on a bill sponsored by 13 GOP lawmakers - led by Kansas state Rep. Michael Capps - that would, among other things, require all public school classrooms and libraries to post the motto. The national American Atheists organization said such a law would stigmatize nonbelievers and religious minorities and represent a step toward harsher anti-LGBTQ and anti-abortion measures. Nick Fish, president of American Atheists, said in a statement: 'This bill has nothing to do with educating Kansas students. It's clear some lawmakers care more about forcing a religious message into school classrooms than teaching the facts.' Kansas state Rep. Michael Capps, R-Wichita, testifies during a committee hearing in favor of his bill to require the national motto of 'In God We Trust' to be posted in public buildings and schools, Thursday at the Statehouse in Topeka, Kansas. The bill drew immediate opposition from American Atheists, which said it would stigmatize nonbelievers The Wichita Republican said Thursday he wants the motto as a durable poster or framed picture, at least 11 inches by 14 inches, displayed with American and Kansas flags Wichita Republican Capps, the bill's lead sponsor, said the motto should be displayed to acknowledge the nation's 'history and founding principles.' Congress adopted 'In God We Trust' as the national motto in the 1956 at the approval of President Dwight Eisenhower, but Capps said the phrase echoes words in the national anthem and the Declaration of Independence. His bill specifies either a durable poster or framed picture with the motto, at least 11 inches by 14 inches, with American and Kansas flags. Under the measure, the motto must be posted as soon as schools, colleges, cities and counties receive donations, either of 'durable' posters or money to cover the costs. It drew immediate opposition from Democrats, and even one conservative Republican expressed concern about the bill's scope. The bill mirrors model legislation promoted by some conservative Christian groups. The hearing Thursday tapped briefly into longstanding tensions between people who want to keep government from promoting religious beliefs and those who argue that faith's role in public life has been narrowed too much. American churches also are wrestling with a rise in the number of Americans with no religious affiliation. 'These bills are not innocuous. They're part of a larger strategy,' said American Atheists spokesman Tom Van Denburgh. 'A lot of these campaigns are focusing on children. I mean, if you put 'In God We Trust' in schools, you're trying to essentially indoctrinate them.' Alabama, Arizona, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas have passed legislation that says 'In God We Trust' may be posted in public schools and it's allowed in Georgia and Ohio only if donated Eight states require schools to display the national motto; Florida, Tennessee, Mississippi, Utah, Virginia, Kentucky, Louisiana and South Dakota, according to the Education Commission of the States. Alabama, Arizona, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas have passed legislation that says it may be posted in public schools and it's allowed in Georgia and Ohio only if donated. In addition, Arkansas has a law similar to the one Kansas is considering. Capps noted that federal courts have repeatedly ruled that its display does not violate the guarantees of religious freedom under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment. Congress adopted 'In God We Trust' as the national motto in the 1956 at the approval of President Dwight Eisenhower, pictured 1957 Told after the hearing of Atheist America's view that posting the motto would stigmatize non-believers, he said: 'I can't control what someone else thinks. It's not my responsibility to be in their heads.' Capps noted that the state constitution mentions God, starting in its preamble and added, 'Does having the reference to God in the Kansas state constitution make every atheist feel second-class?' Rep. Stephanie Clayton, a Kansas City-area Democrat, said she has 'heartburn' over the potential message to atheists. She also raised concern that the bill could allow groups like the Ku Klux Klan to donate posters or money for posters. Capps said donors wouldn't be credited. Rep. Blake Carpenter, a conservative Wichita-area Republican, asked Capps whether it was 'slight overkill' to require the motto to be posted in every classroom and library, rather than in the main entrance of a school. Capps replied: 'Generally speaking, every classroom has had an American flag in it. We don't consider that to be overkill.' Committee Chairman John Barker is a Republican from Abilene, the hometown of President Eisenhower. But Barker said he personally likes a Latin motto Congress first adopted in the 1780s that remains on the U.S. seal. 'E Pluribus Unum,' Barker said. 'From many, we are one.' Capps said in a statement: 'Misguided people have been attempting to tear apart of the foundation of our country and our states for decades and the efforts by fringe groups today are no different. If fringe groups are offended, they are welcome to move elsewhere. 'I will continue to pray for the atheists in Kansas - praying they will come to find the love our country our Founders showed.' Ministers who are suspected of leaking to the media are at the greatest risk of being sacked or demoted in Boris Johnson's Cabinet reshuffle. The clampdown has led to complaints about 'control freakery', and an image from last week's Mail on Sunday of Mr Johnson, enforcer Dominic Cummings and Chancellor Sajid Javid as Mafia heavies was widely shared by Ministers on WhatsApp. One Cabinet Minister has been secretly tracked by No 10 officials. During Cabinet meetings, officials have been making their own notes about what has been discussed and they then compare them with any leaks in the following day's newspapers. The Minister in question denies being a leaker and claims to have been 'framed' by Cabinet colleagues. Tensions: Our image has been widely shared by Ministers At a meeting at Downing Street on Friday, Mr Cummings told his staff: 'The people's government doesn't take any favours. No coffees, no lunches, no drinks. Especially not with journalists.' Tensions over No 10's 'control' erupted last week over the HS2 project after media outlets were briefed that Mr Javid believed the high-speed line should go ahead, despite the opposition of Mr Cummings and special adviser Andrew Gilligan. It led an angry No 10 official to say: 'This is not coming from us. I think it's pretty clear where it's coming from. 'All I would say is that this sort of thing became commonplace under Theresa May. But this is not a government led by Theresa May, and we have the authority and the majority to ensure this sort of thing does not go on any longer'. During the Election, Mr Johnson insisted the Chancellor's job was secure and he would deliver next month's Budget. A reshuffle is expected within the next fortnight but there is not due to be a major upheaval of Mr Johnson's most senior Ministers. Mr Javid, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, Home Secretary Priti Patel, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace and Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove are all said to be safe. The Supreme Court is scheduled to frame issues for deliberation regarding discrimination against women in various religions and at religious places, including Kerala's Sabarimala temple, on Monday. A nine-judge Constitution bench will consider the issues related to the entry of Muslim women into mosques, female genital mutilation in the Dawoodi Bohra Muslim community and barring of Parsi women, married to non-Parsi men, in the holy fire place at an agiary. Besides Chief Justice S A Bobde, other judges on the bench are justices R Banumathi, Ashok Bhushan, L Nageswara Rao, M M Shantanagoudar, S A Nazeer, R Subhash Reddy, B R Gavai and Surya Kant. The apex court had, on January 13, asked four senior lawyers to convene a meeting to decide on the issues to be deliberated by it in the matter. On November 14 last year, while referring the matter to a larger bench, a five-judge bench had said the debate on the constitutional validity of religious practices such as a bar on the entry of women and girls into a place of worship was not limited to the Sabarimala case. It had said such restrictions were there with regard to the entry of Muslim women into mosques and dargahs, and Parsi women, married to non-Parsi men, from entering the holy fire place of an agiary. It set out seven questions of law to be examined by the larger bench. They include the interplay between freedom of religion under Articles 25 and 26 of the Constitution, need to delineate the expression "constitutional morality", the extent to which courts can enquire into particular religious practices, meaning of sections of Hindus under Article 25 and whether "essential religious practices" of a denomination or section thereof are protected under Article 26. While the five-judge bench unanimously agreed to refer religious issues to a larger bench, it gave a 3:2 split verdict on petitions seeking a review of the apex court's September 2018 decision, allowing women of all ages to enter the Sabarimala shrine in Kerala. A majority verdict by then Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and justices A M Khanwilkar and Indu Malhotra decided to keep the pleas seeking a review of its decision regarding entry of women into the shrine pending and said restrictions on women at religious places were not limited to Sabarimala alone and were prevalent in other religions as well. The minority verdict by justices R F Nariman and D Y Chandrachud gave a dissenting view by dismissing all the review pleas and directing compliance of its September 28 decision. The split decision came on 65 petitions -- 56 review pleas, four fresh writ petitions and five transfer pleas -- which were filed after the apex court verdict of September 28, 2018 triggered violent protests in Kerala. By a 4:1 majority verdict, the apex court had lifted the ban that prevented women and girls between the age of 10 and 50 years from entering the famous Ayyappa shrine in Sabarimala and held that the centuries-old Hindu religious practice was illegal and unconstitutional. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) South Africans can now renew their car licences through WhatsApp, thanks to a service called ChatBack. ChatBack is part of the ChatFin group, and is headed up by Jan Kotze. While ChatBack only launched in South African in late 2019, Kotze has been involved in the innovation of businesses and services since the 90s. From the start of the dot-com era in the late 90s, I was interested in the new emerging business models where technology, client experience, and product and services converged, said Kotze. First job Kotzes first job, however, was less technology-focused: giving swimming lessons to kids in his neighbourhood when he was 10 years old. I charged R20 per lesson per child, he said. Following his secondary education, Kotze went to university to study economics. I received a bursary and was asked to complete my PhD while lecturing. I was paid R3,500 per month while lecturing at what is now the University of Johannesburg. This was in the early 90s, he said. His movement into the technology space was then driven by his time at Deloitte where he started and led the innovation business, and was a partner from 1999 to 2007. We started various new businesses for Deloitte in SA and Europe, and for clients of Deloitte. We did a large project for one of the leading direct insurers, where it became clear how powerful the fintech trend is, said Kotze. Kotze took this experience and started a venture capital business focussed on fintech called VentureCapitalWorks. We sold one of these businesses to a major bank in 2016. At that point I mentioned to my business partners that I need to start my own business or I will always wonder what it would be like. Kotze said it was clear to him at the time that third-party chat applications such as WhatsApp as the front-end for client services was the next big trend. We started ChatFin as a result of this realisation. Looking specifically at ChatBack, Kotze said the service is aimed at making unpleasant necessities simple by using WhatsApp. Licence renewals fit this bill perfectly, hence this being our first service. I personally cant stand it to wait in a queue. Success in tech Kotze said that his successful career in the technology space was thanks to hard work and the support of many people around him. There were also contributing factors which were out of his control, he added. I subscribe to Warren Buffets view that we live in a world where there is a bit of an ovarian lottery. We get opportunities because of where we come from. What we do with it is really what it is all about. Using these opportunities to run a business then presents its own rewards and risks. For me, it is all about getting the sequence right while building out something new like ChatBack. Its very tough and quite personal to make a mistake, but then you need to take it on the chin, correct it, and move on, he said. For South Africans just starting their careers in the technology space, Kotze provides two pieces of advice: Send us your CVs, we need people who are go-getters. You need to get something you are really passionate about and focus on that or else you will never master it. Jan Kotzes technology choices Kotzes personal tech choices are detailed below. Which smartphone do you use? iPhone Which laptop do you use? MacBook Air What is the best gadget you have ever bought? Bluetooth speaker you can take everywhere. We have four daughters and we really enjoy sharing our music tastes using this gadget. What is the worst gadget you have ever bought? Solar charger for a phone. It never seems to work. What is the best investment you have ever made? Getting married. My wife is not only my best friend, but constantly provides moral support which you need when starting businesses like I do. What is the worst investment you have ever made? Didata warrants when they just came out. Liquidity killed me on that one. What is the best business book you have ever read? President Donald Trump plans to use his State of the Union address on Tuesday to pitch a tax break to support private and religious school scholarships, a pet issue for social conservatives that went nowhere last year. The $5 billion proposal, included in Trump's budget last year, received the briefest of mentions in the 2019 address to Congress. This time it will be more prominently featured, a White House official said Saturday. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because details of the speech are not yet public. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, an enthusiastic backer of school choice initiatives, has spent much of the last year touting the plan. On Tuesday, she joined Vice President Mike Pence in Wisconsin, where he promised to help enact it into law. "The decision about where our kids should go to school should not be up to bureaucrats, or a student's Zip code, or their family's income," Pence said. "Parents should decide where their kids go to school." Pence lauded the Wisconsin school voucher program for allowing families to use tax dollars for private, parochial, Christian or home schooling. The administration calls its plan Education Freedom Scholarships. The proposal would create a 100 percent tax credit for individual and corporate contributions to state-sanctioned scholarship funds, meaning donors could get back their entire donation through a reduction to their federal taxes. The donated funds would then be available to help families pay for private education and other expenses, with rules set by each state. The maximum credit would be set at 10 percent of an individual's adjusted gross income or 5 percent of a business's net taxable income, so supporters could essentially divert a significant share of their federal taxes to these programs. The proposal has faced some pushback from conservatives wary of an increased federal role in education. But the main opposition has been from Democrats, who control the House. They see the idea as a rebranding of controversial school voucher programs and argue available tax dollars should be used to support public schools. "Our students deserve better than Donald Trump's and Betsy DeVos' failed education agenda, centered on diverting funding away from neighborhood public schools and into private school voucher programs," said Lily Eskelsen Garcia, president of the National Education Association, the nation's largest union. While the proposal is all but dead on Capitol Hill, it could be a rallying point politically as Trump seeks re-election. School choice is popular among social conservatives, who want the power to use tax dollars for religious and other private schools. Supporters argue it also will resonate among middle class voters who cannot afford to pay for private school on their own. "Given that Democratic candidates are so strongly in the union camp, (Trump) is going to make this a big contrast," predicted Jeanne Allen, chief executive of the Center for Education Reform, which supports school choice programs. Allen and other school choice advocates were disappointed Trump did not push this idea during his first two years in office, when Republicans controlled both houses of Congress. Last year, the idea was included in the Trump budget proposal, although the president's State of the Union speech included only a passing and cryptic reference to it. "To help support working parents, the time has come to pass School Choice for Americans' children," he said. The words "School Choice" were capitalized in the White House transcript, an apparent indication the administration wanted to promote a specific program rather than a general notion. The plan for Trump to speak about the issue in more depth this year was first reported by USA Today. He also plans to include a guest in the audience who would benefit from the school choice program, the White House official said. In a briefing for reporters on Friday, a senior administration official said the State of the Union speech will focus on the economy, supporting working families, health care, immigration and national security. Britain has informed the World Trade Organisation it will represent itself at future meetings after leaving the EU (Andrew Milligan/PA) The UK has given notice to the rest of the world that it is ready to strike trade deals now it is no longer a member of the European Union. Almost half a century as a member of the Brussels bloc came to an end at 11pm on Friday, and Britain wasted no time in informing the World Trade Organisation (WTO) it is ready for business. The British permanent representative to the WTO in Geneva, Julian Braithwaite, told the international trade regulator on Saturday that the UK will now represent itself at future meetings, rather than defer responsibility to the EU. I have just notified all WTO Members of the UK's departure from the EU. The UK will now represent itself in the WTO, supporting the global trading system which we were instrumental in founding, and advancing our economic interests. UK notice: https://t.co/vR5LpT5W7B pic.twitter.com/etIPA4D8S1 Julian Braithwaite (@JnbraithwaiteUK) February 1, 2020 On Twitter, Mr Braithwaite said: The UK will now represent itself in the WTO, supporting the global trading system which we were instrumental in founding, and advancing our economic interests. Boris Johnson has said he plans to negotiate deals with countries such as the United States, Japan and Australia while simultaneously hammering out an agreement with Brussels chiefs in the coming months. The Prime Minister is due to give a speech on Monday laying out his approach to the impending negotiations, having already acknowledged there could be bumps in the road as the UK moves into a new era. Lord Kerr, the veteran diplomat who helped draft Article 50 the mechanism the UK used to quit the EU predicted stupid Britain would regret its exodus and return to the bloc within the next 20 years. It will take quite a long time 10 to 20 years before we say, with our tail between our legs, Can we come back now? he told The Times. In an indication of the difficulties Britain could be about to face in the trade talks, French President Emmanuel Macron said the level of single market access granted would depend on the degree to which the European Unions rules are accepted. Chancellor Sajid Javid has already notified businesses that they must prepare for the UK to move away from alignment with Brussels rules. Another area of trouble could be Gibraltar, with Spain reportedly laying down a gauntlet to EU negotiators over the terms of any deal in the offing. According to the Observer, the EU will back Spain over its territorial claims to the British overseas territory by giving Madrid the power to exclude its population of 34,000 people from any potential trade deal. Expand Close Gibraltar could be used as a pawn in the trade talks by the EU, according to reports (Simon Galloway/PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Gibraltar could be used as a pawn in the trade talks by the EU, according to reports (Simon Galloway/PA) The Rock could be referenced in the EUs opening negotiating position, due to be published on Monday, reported the paper, in a bid to push the PM into a corner over Gibraltars future. There were few practical changes following Brexit being made a reality on Friday due to the deal negotiated by the UK and EU that keeps Britain aligned with EU rules for the rest of the year. Brussels is pessimistic about the 11-month timetable for reaching a trade deal and has made clear Britain will have to accept worse terms and conditions for trade than if it were still a member of the EU. The EU wants the negotiations to be wrapped up by November, with a decision on financial services and fishing to be made even earlier, in only four months time. But former Brexit secretary David Davis told BBC Radio 4s Today programme that a deal can be done in the time allotted. Expand Close (PA Graphics) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp (PA Graphics) Senior Cabinet minister Michael Gove, meanwhile, acknowledged the trade-offs that would have to be made in any deal. There will be some regulations that will differ in Britain, he said, which could mean that when it comes to trading with Europe there are some bureaucratic processes there that arent there now. The Daily Telegraph reported Mr Johnson is prepared to impose full customs and border checks on all European goods entering the UK in an effort to create leverage in the negotiations with Brussels. The newspaper also said Brussels had issued Britain with a bill for 1.09 billion as it left, as a result of recalculations due to higher gross national income and VAT receipts. In the US, colleagues would sometimes use a very brief touch if they are familiar and friendly to express their connection (such as a pat on the back). But in general, people give each other quite a lot of personal space - both physical and in terms of expected disclosure. Some cultures, however, have a different stance. We do not mean rude or invasive: in some cultures, physical distance and a cold shoulder may signify distrust or disrespect. They place the most value of creating a warm personal bond with business partners. In Italy, Connection Comes First Italians do not appreciate business is one thing - the relationship is another, all-sales and politics approach. So do not expect to get down to business right away in Italy. Business here is conducted with people who managed to build personal trust and connection first. Expect to invest your time into developing that relationship and getting to know your Italian partners. The communication is often friendly and personal, and you are expected to talk about subjects like your interests or family, even if you usually do not do that at home. In Italian business culture, gift-giving is not particularly common, but an invitation to a dinner or an event will be appreciated. Do not take small delays or being later as a sign of disrespect. Punctuality and speed in business are not the most important here, so be patient when working with new Italian partners: they will compensate by eagerness and passion. Do not take small delays or being later as a sign of disrespect. If you have a strict and rigid deadline, make sure to communicate it and make it extremely clear to you Italian partners. Individualist Spain In Spain, social life and interpersonal connection are similarly important: to trust you as a business partner, they want to trust you as a person. Individualism, strong opinions and personal dignity are highly appreciated; personal appearance, image, and breeding are crucial, but flaunting superiority is considered a buff. So you want to find the right blend of modesty and self-respect. Tip everyone and for everything in this country and show generosity. In business, shake hands with everyone present (men, women, and children) at a business or social meeting and shake hands again when leaving. Spanish people would stand very close when talking and use gestures a lot (do not try to imitate it). But any other kind of touch (hug, slap on the back, etc.) is reserved for family and friends, so wait for the Spanish partner to do it first. Expect to be interrupted a lot. Spain is not a business meeting-to-discuss culture: meetings are to give instructions and are only used to save time. But lunches and dinners are an essential part of doing business: they are used to create chemistry and trust. When in Spain at a meeting, shake hands with everyone present. Similar to Italy, deadlines are considered a guideline rather than a must-do date, so it is not generally frowned upon if it is missed. Do not be insulted by this; just build the potential delays into the timeline when you are planning your project internally. Brazilians Are Seen As Very Touchy Expect what will feel like an invasion into your personal space when you are conducting business in Brazil. Your colleagues will stand and sit much closer than you are used to in the US, greet you with an air kiss after a few meetings or shared meals, and will, in general, be very open and friendly. Using touch as a means of conveying something is also very common. While the normal reaction might be to back away, you might risk losing a potential business relationship if it is seen as a sign of a personal disrespect or discomfort. In Brazil, physical contact during conversation is natural and signifies the trust between business partners. Business meetings nearly always last longer than planned, so always clear out twice the time in your schedule: leaving the meeting before it concluded is considered rude. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has urged Kazakhstan to join Washington in pressing China over its treatment of Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang region. Human rights groups say Chinese authorities have subjected Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other mostly Muslim ethnic groups in the northwestern region of Xinjiang to intense surveillance, arbitrary detentions, and forced indoctrination. China is a major trading partner for the Central Asian country and the Kazakh state-controlled media have generally avoided reporting about the internment centers in Xinjiang. Pompeo, speaking on February 2 during a visit to Nur-Sultan, the capital of Kazakhstan, said he raised the issue in talks with Kazakh Foreign Minister Mukhtar Tileuberdi. Pompeo said the two men discussed "the plight of more 1 million Uighur Muslims and ethnic Kazakhs that the Chinese Communist Party has detained in Xinjiang, just across the Kazakh border." "The United States urges all countries to join us in pressing for an immediate end to this repression," Pompeo added. "We ask simply for them to provide safe refuge and asylum to those seeking to flee China. Protect human dignity, just do what's right." Tleuberdi, whose government has so far refused to criticize China over Xinjiang, made no comment on the issue and focused instead on economic and security cooperation. In August 2018, the United Nations said an estimated 1 million Uyghurs and members of other indigenous ethnic groups in the region were being held in "counterextremism centers." The UN said millions more had been forced into so-called "reeducation camps." China denies that the facilities are internment camps. Pompeo was meeting top officials in the former Soviet republic to express U.S. support as Washington competes with Moscow for influence in the region. Pompeo arrived late on February 1, Kazakh officials said, and is scheduled on February 2 to meet with President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev and his predecessor, Nursultan Nazarbaev. Pompeo, who visited London before stopping in Ukraine and Belarus, is scheduled to leave for Uzbekistan late in the evening. The State Department said in a statement that the visit to Kazakhstan is aimed at reaffirming "our shared commitment to peace, prosperity, and security in Central Asia." Washington has seen energy-rich Kazakhstan as a counterweight to Russia in Central Asia, and U.S. oil companies have invested billions in joint ventures to develop Caspian Sea fields. Toqaev, 66, became president when Nazarbaev announced his resignation in March 2019 after ruling the country for nearly 30 years. Toqaev was inaugurated as Kazakhstan's new president in June after a weakly contested election that was marred by what international observers called "widespread voting irregularities." Nazarbaev, 79, continues to control social, economic, and political spheres by leading the ruling Nur-Otan party and the influential Security Council. Opponents, critics, and rights groups say Nazarbaev, who tolerated little dissent, denied many citizens basic rights and prolonged his hold on power in the country of 18.7 million people by manipulating the democratic process. The capital, formerly called Astana, was renamed in his honor after his sudden resignation last year. Protests over poor living conditions and financial shortcomings have been held across Kazakhstan for almost a year after five children from one family died when their home in the capital burned down in early February 2019. Uzbekistan Pompeo will then travel to the Uzbek capital, Tashkent, where he will meet with President Shavkat Mirziyoev and Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov. Mirziyoev, a former prime minister, became president after predecessor Islam Karimov's death was announced in September 2016. Karimov ruled Central Asia's most populous country of 32 million with an iron fist since before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Mirziyoev has taken steps to bolster the country's struggling economy and to implement reforms in Uzbekistan -- where rights abuses had been widespread under Karimov. Still, rights watchdogs have expressed concerns about conditions in Uzbekistan. Freedom House, for instance, ranked Uzbekistan "not free" in its Freedom On The Net 2018 assessment and said the Internet environment there remained "repressive." Uzbekistan also has sizable oil and gas reserves, and it has also been seen as a counterweight to Russian influence in the region. It has allied with Washington in the war in Afghanistan and the fight against radical Islamist fighters. During his stay in Tashkent, the top U.S. diplomat will also participate in a C5+1 ministerial summit with his counterparts from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan "to stress U.S. support for a better-connected, more prosperous, and more secure Central Asia, consistent with the U.S.s new Central Asia strategy," the State Department said. With reporting by AFP and Reuters Adopting a whole-of-government approach, as well as coupling with full social mobilization, China is capable of containing the spread of the 2019-nCov epidemic, said experts from the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies. At the central level, Beijing has been on high alert since the early days and activated the public health emergency response mechanism as soon as confirmed cases rose to 200. On January 20, President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang instructed governments at all levels to pay highest attention to the development of the epidemic. The National Health Commission and local authorities were ordered to activate all- round emergency response mechanisms. On January 25, Premier Li was designated chair of a newly established central leading small group on battling the 2019-nCov epidemic and visited Wuhan two days later to inspect the latest progress and boost public morale. Rapid mobilization at the top level catapulted the whole nation into instant reaction. At present, more than 52 batches of medical staff of 6,097 professionals are working inWuhan and other places in Hubei. Medical supplies including face masks, protective suits, and medicines are arriving in epidemic areas. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has urged medical suppliers across China to restore to their full productive capacity to ensure sustained provision of all necessary items. The Ministry of Finance has allocated 1 billion RMB in emergency funds for Wuhan and Hubei. Vegetables, food, and other life necessities have been sent from other places to Wuhan for the nine million residents there. (Photo/Global Times) Local authorities are taking every measure in epidemic control and prevention. At the moment, most of the confirmed cases reported in regions other than Hubei are imported infections -- patients have either traveled to or lived in Wuhan or come into close contact with infected victims. There has been no epicenter of outbreak except Wuhan due to early government intervention. For now, top priorities for local governments include: identifying and caring for symptomatic patients, and advising and monitoring people with Wuhan travel records to self-quarantine. Restrictive measures such as migration control and mass quarantine may give rise to social disorder, which requires appropriate responses from local authorities. Price control and quality supervision are also necessary as demands for face masks and liquid soap have soared. Apart from implementing local prevention and control measures, provincial and local governments, at the request of the central government, are also supposed to provide timely assistance to Wuhan in terms of hospital staff, medical materials, and food supplies. Factories have difficulty restoring to their full manufacturing capacities as most of them are understaffed, under-supplied, and under-funded during holidays. Local authorities should mobilize and coordinate resources to assist those factories to return to operation. Inter-provincial assistance and coordination reflects a nation-wide consensus on the imperative of standing up to challenges at critical moments. (Photo/Eastday.com) Enterprises and the general public are also contributing to the combat against the epidemic. Financial and material donations from Chinese enterprises have been growing since the onset of the deadly virus. Charities and Red Cross agencies in Hubei have received up to 4. 26 billion RMB and 5.29 million pieces of materials in donation by the end of January. Corporate giants like Alibaba and Fosun International Limited have made overseas purchases to supply urgently needed medical equipment to Wuhan. The Chinese public has experienced a quiet Spring Festival as many have canceled their scheduled gatherings and planned vacations. Despite the initial anxiety, criticism, and concerns over information disclosure, the general publics conscience and rationality in a country with 1.4 billion population and 800 million netizens are commendable. With enhanced information transparency by the government, initial criticism soon abated and in its place were optimism and general support of government initiatives and programs. Now, the public is admiring the courageous medical staff from all over China working in Wuhan hospitals, hailing Dr. Zhong Nanshan -- the first professional boldly warning against human-to-human transmission -- as a national hero, and watching live at 3 a.m. the construction of the Leishenshan and Huoshenshan hospitals with chants of Hang on Wuhan, we stand with you. Today, instead of complaining and grieving, more and more Chinese people are comforting and encouraging each other. This boosted public morale has contributed to the rapid social mobilization for epidemic prevention and control. Today Mostly cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low 48F. Winds light and variable. Tonight Mostly cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low 48F. Winds light and variable. Tomorrow Partly cloudy skies during the morning hours will become overcast in the afternoon. High near 75F. Winds NNE at 5 to 10 mph. Brian May says heart medication almost cost him his life It's strange, talking about it now, it seems unreal. It feels like it couldn't possibly have happened, it couldn't possibly have been that bad. A testing facility for the detection of novel coronavirus was unveiled at a premier state-run institute here on Sunday as over 800 people are under observation in homes and hospitals in Tamil Nadu. The testing facility was inaugurated at the King Institute of Preventive Medicine by state Health Minister C Vijayabaskar who said five blood samples have been received at the institute from the health authorities. Besides, four specimens had already been dispatched to the National Institute of Virology, Pune, for diagnosis, he said, adding the results will be available in 48 hours after the receipt of samples. "All of them (whose blood specimen have been collected) are clinically normal (does not exhibit symptom presently)," he said. After chairing a high-level meet here on prevention, monitoring and precautionary measures for the China-origin infection, the minister said 799 people were under house quarantine in the state and the Directorate of Public Health was monitoring them. Of the 799, 646 had travelled to China and 153 to other countries close to it, he said. Besides, 12 people have been admitted to hospitals. So far, thermal screening had been done on 5,543 people at Chennai, Tiruchirappalli, Madurai and Coimbatore airports in the state and all of them were normal. Asserting that there was no positive case of the virus that has claimed over 300 lives in China, he said the state was assiduously following the Central government protocol for all aspects, including testing, prevention and monitoring for the virus. The Centre has said that blood samples of travellers from Wuhan, considered the epicentre of the virus, should be collected irrespective of whether they exhibited symptoms not, he said. For the observation purpose, 10 people have been admitted to isolation wards of Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital here and one each in Tiruchirappalli and Ramanathapuram districts so far, he said. Though all of them under observation were normal and did not show any symptom of the virus, they have been placed under watch considering factors like contact and travel history, he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Suspicious partners are turning to crime scene-style DNA tests on intimate items of clothing to prove adultery. AffinityDNA, a company based in Hove, East Sussex, offers an 'infidelity test' service for those worried about what their other half may be getting up to. It describes it as 'a powerful tool for those wishing to have a scientific indication of whether cheating has taken place'. Suspicious partners are turning to crime scene-style DNA tests on intimate items of clothing to prove adultery (file image) It has prompted warnings from legal experts that the tests on underwear or bedsheets may be illegal without the consent of those involved, according to The Times. Overseas companies that advertise such services, including those based in America and Ireland, refuse to process samples from the UK. Possessing someone's 'bodily material' with intent to perform DNA analysis on it without their consent is a crime under the Human Tissue Act 2004. It is punishable by three years in prison. The Act says: 'It is unlawful to have human tissue with the intention of its DNA being analysed, without the consent of the person from whom the tissue came.' AffinityDNA offers a 90 'semen detection test' to check a piece of fabric and a 299 'gender' test that indicates whether a sample is from a man or a woman. AffinityDNA, a company based in Hove, East Sussex, offers an 'infidelity test' service for those worried about what their other half may be getting up to Their website says: 'Infidelity DNA testing makes it possible for you to send us any suspicious sample you believe might have human biological material for us to analyse. 'Our typical client will send in anything ranging from underwear, bed sheets to used condoms.' Pauline McCormack, from the policy, ethics and life sciences research centre at Newcastle University, has urged the government to have stricter controls on the industry. Genetics experts have also raised fears about what happens to the DNA samples, which can be transferred to third-party laboratories outside the UK. The Human Tissue Authority, part of the Department of Health, said that anyone performing non-consensual DNA analysis could be breaking the law. The all-electric Formula E series has abandoned plans for a race in the Chinese city of Sanya next month because of the coronavirus epidemic. The sport said in a statement on Sunday that it would continue to work with its regional partner and local authorities "to study the viability of potential alternative dates should the situation improve". The race had been scheduled for March 21 in the coastal resort in Hainan province. The outbreak of the flu-like virus has killed more than 300 people and infected more than 14,000 in China after it first emerged in Wuhan in Hubei province late last year. Also Read: Second case of deadly Coronavirus confirmed in Kerala Also Read: Second batch of 323 Indians evacuated from China's Coronavirus-hit Wuhan Also Read: Govt reduces spending on MGNREGA, allocates Rs 60,000 crore for FY21 Prince Harry and Meghan Markle made a major move earlier this year: The two left the royal family. They departed the United Kingdom for Canada, where they hope to live a more private life with many freedoms and few rules. Meghan called Canada home for several years before marrying Harry, and while some locals are reportedly not thrilled to have the two settling down on Vancouver Island, there is one big reason why the country is happy to have her back. Meghan Markle | Samir Hussein/WireImage Harry and Meghans departure created shockwaves around the world When Harry and Meghan returned from their six-week break in North America, most people thought it would be back to business as usual. But the Duke and Duchess of Sussex had something else in mind. They no longer wanted to be members of the royal family. The couple announced in early January that they would seek to cut their professional ties with the family. Since then, they have moved to Vancouver Island, British Columbia permanently, and theyve started to settle into their new lives as private citizens. Meghan and Harry have always had a close relationship with Canada The duke and duchess have always loved Canada, so it makes sense why they chose to start a new life there. Harry has been visiting Canada often since he was young and has always held the country near to his heart. Meghan called Canada home for several years before she married Harry. The former actress filmed her USA Network show, Suits, in Toronto, and she lived in the city during filming. Its unclear how exactly the two landed on Vancouver Island, but the area has a very temperate climate and plenty of nature, which will allow the two to live the active lifestyle that Meghan has always loved. The country is reportedly hoping Meghan will bring a boom to the fashion industry There have been rumors that local Vancouver Island residents arent happy about Meghan and Harrys move but it seems that the country as a whole is excited to have her back. Specifically, Canada is reportedly hoping that Meghan will boost the economy with the role she plays in the fashion industry. According to Fox Business, Meghan has always loved highlighting Canadian brands. And now that shes living there, she could have a significant impact on the countrys fashion industry by bringing even more awareness to local brands. The royals supposedly dont think Harry and Meghans new lifestyle will last Though Harry and Meghan seem to be enjoying their life outside the royal spotlight, the palace reportedly has concerns that the two will eventually dislike their lives in Canada. According to reports, the palace has a contingency plan in place on the chance that the two decide to return to royal life. There are certain laws in the United Kingdom regarding the paparazzi, and Meghan and Harry arent protected by those same laws in Canada. The publicity could prove to be no better on the other side of the pond, and the two might end up returning home to the U.K. But for now, theyre soaking up life as private citizens. Update: Punxsutawney Phil reportedly didnt see his shadow, so we can expect an early spring. Its reportedly the first time in history Phil has forecast two consecutive early springs. Earlier: Who needs forecasting models and weather radar when we have a furry critter poised to tell us whether we will have 6 more weeks of winter or an early spring? Groundhog Day is Feb. 2 and the worlds most famous groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, will make his appearance to let the world know his furry forecast. Legend has it if Phil sees his shadow on Groundhog Day, were in the six more weeks of winter. No shadow means an early spring. Punxsutawney Phil always is set to appear around 7:20 a.m. ET (6:20 a.m. CT). You can watch a livestream starting at 5:45 a.m. ET (4:45 a.m.CT) at http://visitpa.com/groundhog-day-live-stream/. History of Groundhog Day Groundhog Day - specifically its time on Feb. 2 - traces its roots back to an ancient celebration of the midway point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. According to legend, a sunny sky on that day signifies a stormy and cold second half of winter while a cloudy sky indicates the arrival of warm weather. In 1887, Clymer H. Freas, city editor of the Punxsutawney Spirit newspaper, was inspired by a group of local groundhog hunters to form the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club with Phil as America's official forecasting groundhog. Phil's fame grew and soon, people around the country began looking to him for weather predictions. Those predictions have been overwhelmingly in favor of more winter. Past predictions Heres a look back at some recent past predictions, courtesy of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club: Editors Note: Spoilers ahead for the Terminator event mission in Ghost Recon Breakpoint. Ubisoft has just launched the second part of the Terminator mission in Ghost Recon Breakpoint. If you havent done the first mission yet, and would like some tips on how to finish it, you can check out our guide that covers part 1. Furthermore, youll need to actually finish the first part of the mission before you can unlock and move onto the second part. Advertisement If youre already done with part 1, the guide below will walk through the mission step by step. Well also provide some helpful tips on how to make each step of the mission a little easier. Of course these are just suggestions, and you can proceed with doing the mission how you like. Meaning you dont have to follow every single tip we lay out here. The second Terminator mission in Ghost Recon Breakpoint begins by talking to Rasa The first thing youll need to do to start this second part of the mission is talk to Rasa. After completing the first mission she hangs out in Erewhon, so youll always find her there. If you arent already at Erewhon from the last time you logged out, fast travel there and speak to her. Advertisement She should have multiple conversations you can talk to her about. One will be the event mission while the others are the Interceptions, which have you just hunting down Terminators. The mission you want is called Clear Sky, and will be labeled as an Event Mission. Select it to enter a cutscene with Rasa where she explains that she thinks shes found where the Terminator is located thanks to a sensor network that she set up capable of detecting time travel anomalies. Go to the location she has marked on the map and connect the device she has given you to an antenna. Itll be located in the Mount Hodgson area of the map, which is also where Erewhon is. Advertisement Youll want to travel to Stag Ridge, which is the hill area just north of Erewhon. Fast travel back to Erewhon then walk out of the camp, take the helicopter and fly to Stag Ridge, then land somewhere nearby the quest marker. Once you get to your location, climb the ladder on the antenna tower and hack the antenna. After you do this youll get new information that leads to the next step in the mission. Go to Smuggler Coves and investigate the electro-magnetic pattern The next step is to head to Smuggler Coves and investigate the electro-magnetic pattern. Advertisement During the first task in the mission you shouldnt have had to engage in any combat or use up any resources. So you can simply hop back into the helicopter and fly to the new quest marker. Youre headed to a building called the Composite Factory thats just east of Old Distillery Lake, in the northeast part of Smuggler Coves. When you get there, youll immediately see that the guards of the factory are engaged in battle with multiple Terminators. After you discover this youll need to head to the middle of the factory grounds (outside) to investigate the source of the signal. Advertisement At first it appears that the signal is outside. But its actually underground in the smaller building across from the main factory building. If you get in close enough without being seen, you can use you drone to enter this building and fly it downstairs. This will help you avoid the Terminators for now. And itll advance the mission to the next step. Now that you know the source of the signal, youll need to physically get inside. There are three Terminators youll need to avoid. Luckily only one of them moves around. From inside the factory, there is a small walkway that has walls on both sides of the path. These are just high enough to hide you if you crouch. Wait for the Terminator that patrols near here to walk away from you and face the lake. Advertisement Then, make your move to the middle. Wait here and until he moves back towards facing the main factory building, then back towards the lake again. His back will be to you, so youll have time to move towards the smaller building you need to investigate and get inside. Investigate the map and pinpoint the source of the signal Once inside and downstairs, go the wall and investigate the map. Grab pictures of the intel by hitting the interact button. As you go downstairs, youll hear your character say the door you need to get into is locked. The signal is on the other side of this door. To get inside and further investigate, you have to open the airlock, and to do this youll need to destroy the cooling system. Advertisement There are four parts of this you need to take out before you can get the door open. These should all be outside around the perimeters of the factory. The easiest way to get to these without having to engage too much is to draw the attention of one of the Terminators. Once you engage, the others will eventually follow. You just have to bait them a little and then leave the factory grounds. Once youre far enough away, you can double back to the factory and destroy all the cooling system tanks without interruption. I found it extremely easy to get all this done by leading the Terminators to a nearby grouping of enemies. Just get close enough to the group so that they dont see you but the Terminators follow. Then run away. The Terminators will start attacking anything they see, leaving you to go back to the factory to find the cooling system tanks. Theyll be marked on the mini-map so they shouldnt be too hard to find. Once youve destroyed them, go back inside the smaller building to get through the airlock and find the source of the signal. Once the airlock is open, head down the long stairway to get to the source. Reach the control room Heading all the way down the long stairwell will lead you to the are with the control room. It seems youve stumbled onto a manufacturing facility for the Terminators. As you head towards the control room, youll encounter more enemies. There are three or four of them, so youll need to fight them off to continue. The best thing to do is to just run around the room in a circle until you take them all down. Taking cover and healing as you need to. There will be ammo and reserve healing syringes around the room as well, so as you run, look for these and grab them when you run low. When you finally kill off all the Terminators, run to the back of this room and head though a few sets of doors. Youll eventually reach one that you need to interact with to open it. This will dump you into a cutscene, then immediately into another fight with a Terminator. This will be stronger than the ones youve fought so far. So take precautions. Dont try to rush the fight. Take your time, run around and take cover often, and heal as needed. Take a few shots at the Terminator when you have the opportunity then put some more distance between you two. Once you get him low enough, charge your armor buster shot if you have it. This will help in dealing a whole lot more damage in a single shot. Additional, weaker Terminators will also show up towards the end of the fight, so continue to run around and take cover to heal. Keep making your rounds from end to end to avoid being too close to your enemies, and eventually youll finish. Escape the facility on time After you defeat the Terminator, youll need to escape the facility as its going into overload and will explode. If you dont get out in time, youre killed in action and have to start this step over. This might seem easy enough, as you just need to go back the way you came. Not so fast. There are multiple Terminators that will be waiting for you in the rooms you need to backtrack through. Take your time and kill off the ones in your way. But dont try to kill all of them. That will just waste more time. You only have about three minutes to get out of the facility, and you have a bit of a run ahead of you to get all the way up the stairs that lead to ground level. So only focus on the Terminators that are in your direct path and ignore the others. Once you finally get all the way to the top of the facility and are back at ground level, go to the control panel and hack the airlock. This will close the airlock doors again and lock the rest of the Terminators inside. Speak to Rasa again Your next step is to fast travel back to Erewhon and speak to Rasa again. Once you do itll begin a short cutscene that ends the event mission. Youve now complete the second part of the Terminator mission in Ghost Recon Breakpoint. This will also reward you with the MGL Terminator. A new high-end grande launcher that you can use to defeat Terminators in the Interceptions. Completing the event mission also opens up Warfares. These are similar to the Interceptions, except youll be hunting down and destroying some of the Terminators that escaped the factory before it was completely demolished. These will reward with you even better materials than the Interceptions. You can then use these to upgrade the MGL Terminator and other weapons too. Lastly, you now have more event rewards to collect. Though, you wont get all of them. To get more you will need to raise your event tier. You can do this by completing some of the Interceptions and Warfares. Although the first and second parts of the Terminator event mission in Ghost Recon Breakpoint are now over, you can still do the Interceptions and Warfares for useful items as mentioned above. These will reset daily for the duration of the live event, which ends on February 6. Nearly two-thirds of churches have plan for shooting attack, but divided on arming members: LifeWay Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Nearly two out of every three Protestant congregations in the United States have a plan in place for an active shooter incident but remain divided on whether to have armed members, according to a new LifeWay Research report. The LifeWay report, released Tuesday, found that 62 percent of Protestant pastors said their churches had an intentional plan for an active shooter. However, a smaller percentage, 45 percent, reported having armed church members and 27 percent reported having a no firearms policy for the building where you meet. Overall, 80 percent of pastors responded that they have some kind of security measures in place for worship, while 18 percent reported no measures, and 2 percent said they were unsure. Scott McConnell, executive director of LifeWay Research, said in a statement released Tuesday that he believed the findings showed that most pastors recognize that Churches are some of the most common gatherings in any community, and that makes them targets. While methods vary, most churches start with the resources they have to prepare for what they hope will never happen, McConnell said. With planning, a church can be prepared without being distracted or paralyzed by the threat. Pastors are trying to balance two responsibilities protect those on the inside, while being as welcoming as possible to those on the outside. Other findings included evangelical pastors being more likely to report having armed church members than mainline Protestant pastors (54 percent versus 34 percent), and African-American pastors being the most likely to report having a no-firearms policy for their churches (50 percent). The report drew from a survey of 1,000 Protestant pastors conducted over the phone from Aug. 30, 2019, to Sept. 24, 2019, with a sampling error of plus or minus 3.3 percent. LifeWay Researchs report comes amid many high-profile mass shootings at Christian churches and other houses of worship across the U.S. over the past few years. On Dec. 29, 43-year-old Keith Thomas Kinnunen, opened fire at West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement, Texas, killing two people before he himself was shot by a security guard. The events at West Freeway Church of Christ put me in a position that I would hope no one would have to be in, but evil exists and I had to take out an active shooter in church, Jack Wilson, the 71-year-old security guard who shot Kinnunen, said in a Facebook post. Im thankful to GOD that I have been blessed with the ability and desire to serve him in the role of head of security at the church. I am very sad in the loss of two dear friends and brothers in CHRIST, but evil does exist in this world and I and other members are not going to allow evil to succeed. Last week, President Trump signed a bill authorizing $375 million in federal grants for the protection of houses of worship and other faith-based nonprofits. "In the face of attacks on synagogues, mosques, and churches in our community ... we must work together to reject the monstrous evils of anti-Semitism and anti-religious bigotry," the president said. "We are committed to building a nation where every community is secure, every family is safe, and every child can grow up in dignity and in peace." Australian wine companies and grape growers have called for a $103 million federal government investment to lift exports, increase wine-tourism and protect the economic prospects of an industry hit by drought and bushfires. The local industry has also warned that removing the right of Australia to use the term Prosecco wine, which it says the European Union is pushing for as part of a free trade deal, would have a devastating impact and threaten its viability. Prosecco wine is building a bigger footprint in Victoria's King Valley. Credit: The industrys call to retain the right to produce and label wine Prosecco, a popular grape variety which originated in Italy and is now booming in Australia and abroad, comes on the eve of the latest round of free trade negotiations between the EU and Australia. Tony Battaglene, chief executive of industry group Australian Grape and Wine, said Prosecco would be front and centre in the talks. Is BioArctic AB (publ) (STO:BIOA B) a good dividend stock? How can we tell? Dividend paying companies with growing earnings can be highly rewarding in the long term. Yet sometimes, investors buy a popular dividend stock because of its yield, and then lose money if the company's dividend doesn't live up to expectations. Some readers mightn't know much about BioArctic's 1.7% dividend, as it has only been paying distributions for a year or so. Before you buy any stock for its dividend however, you should always remember Warren Buffett's two rules: 1) Don't lose money, and 2) Remember rule #1. We'll run through some checks below to help with this. Click the interactive chart for our full dividend analysis OM:BIOA B Historical Dividend Yield, February 2nd 2020 Payout ratios Companies (usually) pay dividends out of their earnings. If a company is paying more than it earns, the dividend might have to be cut. So we need to form a view on if a company's dividend is sustainable, relative to its net profit after tax. Looking at the data, we can see that 30% of BioArctic's profits were paid out as dividends in the last 12 months. This is a middling range that strikes a nice balance between paying dividends to shareholders, and retaining enough earnings to invest in future growth. Plus, there is room to increase the payout ratio over time. In addition to comparing dividends against profits, we should inspect whether the company generated enough cash to pay its dividend. BioArctic paid out a conservative 46% of its free cash flow as dividends last year. It's encouraging to see that the dividend is covered by both profit and cash flow. This generally suggests the dividend is sustainable, as long as earnings don't drop precipitously. With a strong net cash balance, BioArctic investors may not have much to worry about in the near term from a dividend perspective. Consider getting our latest analysis on BioArctic's financial position here. Dividend Volatility Story continues Before buying a stock for its income, we want to see if the dividends have been stable in the past, and if the company has a track record of maintaining its dividend. This company has been paying a dividend for less than 2 years, which we think is too soon to consider it a reliable dividend stock. Its most recent annual dividend was kr1.50 per share. It's good to see at least some dividend growth. Yet with a relatively short dividend paying history, we wouldn't want to depend on this dividend too heavily. Dividend Growth Potential The other half of the dividend investing equation is evaluating whether earnings per share (EPS) are growing. Growing EPS can help maintain or increase the purchasing power of the dividend over the long run. Strong earnings per share (EPS) growth might encourage our interest in the company despite fluctuating dividends, which is why it's great to see BioArctic has grown its earnings per share at 143% per annum over the past five years. Earnings per share have rocketed in recent times, and we like that the company is retaining more than half of its earnings to reinvest. However, always remember that very few companies can grow at double digit rates forever. We'd also point out that BioArctic issued a meaningful number of new shares in the past year. Trying to grow the dividend when issuing new shares reminds us of the ancient Greek tale of Sisyphus - perpetually pushing a boulder uphill. Companies that consistently issue new shares are often suboptimal from a dividend perspective. Conclusion To summarise, shareholders should always check that BioArctic's dividends are affordable, that its dividend payments are relatively stable, and that it has decent prospects for growing its earnings and dividend. Firstly, we like that BioArctic has low and conservative payout ratios. We were also glad to see it growing earnings, although its dividend history is not as long as we'd like. All things considered, BioArctic looks like a strong prospect. At the right valuation, it could be something special. You can also discover whether shareholders are aligned with insider interests by checking our visualisation of insider shareholdings and trades in BioArctic stock. We have also put together a list of global stocks with a market capitalisation above $1bn and yielding more 3%. If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Thank you for reading. Arlene Foster has called on Boris Johnson to protect security force members living in Northern Ireland from vexatious claims. Following the Prime Ministers pledge to prevent vexatious prosecutions of soldiers who served in Northern Ireland, Mrs Foster urged Mr Johnson to consider troops still living in the province. The First Minister told Sky News: I hope that he (Boris Johnson) does it in a way that recognises not just soldiers and British soldiers who live on the mainland but also he takes into account those people who continue to live here in Northern Ireland. Security force members who continue to live here in Northern Ireland need to be protected as well from vexatious claims. It has to be done in a way that recognises fairness and recognises what actually happened here in Northern Ireland over 35-40 years, the fact that we did have a terrorist campaign and there were so many innocent victims as a result of thatArlene Foster on the Stormont House Agreement review Mrs Foster also called for a review of the Stormont House Agreement regarding proposals for victims of the Troubles and the remit of the Historical Investigations Unit (HIU). The Stormont House Agreement is five years old now, nearly six years old, its important that we look at all of the consultation responses that came in from various victims groups to see what they want, she added. I think we need to revisit the Stormont House Agreement because what is being proposed, and we made this clear in our consultation response at the time, is not acceptable to the victims groups here and its certainly not acceptable to us. There needs to be a re-look at the Stormont House Agreement , particularly in relation to the remit of the Historical Investigations Unit, the HIU, which is there to look at historical cases. She added that the British Government is aware of how serious the issues are. There is a need to deal with these issues but it has to be done in a way that recognises fairness and recognises what actually happened here in Northern Ireland over 35-40 years, the fact that we did have a terrorist campaign and there were so many innocent victims as a result of that, she added. Asked about Mr Johnsons support for a bridge linking Northern Ireland and Great Britain, Mrs Foster said the idea should be scoped out. Mr Johnson told MPs to watch this space when questioned about his support for the bridge idea just days after last months general election. Mrs Foster added: I support the Government in putting money into infrastructure, but it has to be done in a way that we get value for money, and it has to be done in a way that is project managed in the correct fashion. I think it should be scoped out, I think we should be ambitious. Poland wants to know how France now evaluates progress of work in Normandy format and Minsk process February 3, French President Emmanuel Macron will arrive in Warsaw on his first visit, one of the most important topics of negotiations with Polish President Andrzej Duda is the situation in Ukraine. Polskie radio wrote about this. "NATO, relations with Ukraine, the future of the Weimar Triangle (informal international association of Germany, Poland, and France), as well as the policy of enlargement of the European Union and NATO will be among the topics of Mondays talks in Warsaw between President Andrzej Duda and French President Emmanuel Macron," the publication quotes chief of Polish president's cabinet, Krzysztof Szczerski. Szczerski called the situation in Ukraine and the work within the framework of the so-called Normandy format and the Minsk process one of the important topics of the Monday talks between Duda and Macron. In this context, he recalled the meeting during the events on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the former Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, President Andrzej Duda, with the President of Ukraine Zelensky. We want to know how France is now evaluating the progress of work in the Norman format and the Minsk process, Szczerski noted. He also recalled the future chairmanship of Poland in the OSCE in 2022 and noted that Warsaw should be present during discussions on the strategy of peace in Ukraine. As we reported, President of France Emmanuel Macron decided not to wait for the solution of the conflict in Donbas and started rapprochement with Russia. He also explained the grounds of changing attitude toward President of Russia Vladimir Putin Hes your hope and your his hope. J-Hope is the star of BTS latest release off of Map of the Soul: 7, Outro: Ego, which is bursting with color and filled with symbolism. Almost instantly, it became one of the top trending topics on social media, with ARMYs everywhere discussing the music video. Heres what fans are saying about Outro: Ego. BTS shared the Outro: EGO music video, featuring rapper J-Hope Hot off the heels of BTS Grammy performance, this K-pop group released the next track on their road to Map of the Soul: 7. The colorful video for Outro: Ego features one of the BTS rappers, J-Hope, in a variety of scenes, somehow reminiscent of his past, historic figures, his art, and his future with BTS. Within a matter of hours, #EGOComebackTrailer became one of the top trending topics on Twitter. Additionally, the music video itself earned millions of views, becoming one of the top trending videos on that platform. Fans shared their support of this rapper, tweeting clips of the music video and pictures of the K-pop idol. Hoseok is so versatile, he adds his own sound and style and flair to any beat that hes given just give him his own genre already, one Twitter user said. The beat drop has me shimmying, body rolling & dancing salsa all at once. A WHOLE BOP. Yall better bring your moves this tour, another Twitter user wrote. BTS performs during The Late Late Show with James Corden | Terence Patrick/CBS via Getty Images Some BTS fans looked for the hidden meaning in J-Hopes Outro: Ego In true BTS fashion, this trailer and the songs lyrics are full of symbolism and foreshadowing regarding their upcoming album, Map of the Soul: 7. On social media, some fans looked for the hidden meaning behind this music video. Hobi is depicted as a pharaoh with a crown stylized as Horus, with regals and the Eye of Horus (also known as wadjet, wedjat or udjat). It shows Hobi is a king, but Aten in the background changes the perspective. Now Hobi is not only a king (pharaoh), one Twitter user wrote. Hes also a reformer, someone who challenged the old order and actually won. Someone who created beautiful poetry like Echnaton, who created psalms for only god Aten even BEFORE king David created his psalms. Hes the reformer, but hes also a creator and an artist, they continued. Outro: Ego is a song off of the upcoming BTS album, Map of the Soul: 7 While RM was the star of the Map of the Soul: Persona comeback trailer, Suga was the star of BTS first music video of 2020, Interlude: Shadow. The group then released the art film accompanying their song Black Swan. Presumably, Outro: Ego is the last music video to premiere before Map of the Soul: 7 drops. The music video for Outro: Ego is available on YouTube. Map of the Soul: 7 premieres on Feb. 21, 2020. Until then, fans can listen to other BTS albums, including Map of the Soul: Persona, on streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music. "For me, music is mind-altering," said 32-year-old pop hell-raiser Kesha. "It can force me into a better mood, or it can force me into a more introspective mood when I don't want to go there." She hopes her new album, "High Road," can do both, too. Out Friday, it features a star-studded hodgepodge of cameos from Big Freedia, Sturgill Simpson and Brian Wilson. While working, Kesha said she often found herself blasting Queen and perking herself up with the infectious energy of Cardi B, Lizzo and Ariana Grande: She tracked her cultural intake for 48 hours and called from Los Angeles to break it down. These are edited excerpts from the conversation. Wednesday morning I was going to a photo shoot and on the way I was listening to "Nebraska," my favorite Bruce Springsteen record. I know an unusually large amount of people from New Jersey, and I remember once having a conversation about Bruce Springsteen with one of them. Of course, I liked Bruce Springsteen's hits and I respected him, and then someone was like, well, if you're ready to have your mind blown, then you need to listen to "Nebraska." And I did, and my whole perspective of him changed. I had a newfound love for him. Especially "Atlantic City" that's one of my favorite songs ever. That record makes me nostalgic for some reason, the same way that (Bob Dylan's) "Nashville Skyline" does. Wednesday afternoon At the shoot, I was really inspired by a lot of the designers I was wearing. There was an amazing Versace dress that reminded me of 1960s Palm Springs, and then there was a Delpozo pantsuit with this very powerful silhouette, and a Thierry Mugler vintage-future look that was almost like "Barbarella." I love fashion because I find it to be walking art. You put it on and it can inspire you to feel a certain way. When I was leaving someone sent me this video of NikkieTutorials, an amazing woman who does makeup on YouTube. I've been watching her stuff for years. In this video she came out as transgender. It was so brave and inspiring it gave me full-body chills and made me cry. Wednesday night That night I went to the premiere of "Color Out of Space," the new Nicolas Cage movie. It's based on an H.P. Lovecraft short story. I loved it. I'm obsessed with anything that's about space. It's the final frontier of magic. I had also been wanting to meet Nicolas Cage. We've been friendly for a while, but that was the first time we actually got to meet. He's everything you imagine and more. He's just wildly funny, incredibly charismatic, super kind and so talented. Sometimes I've had experiences where I've been like, "Do not meet your idols," but this was definitely the opposite of that. I've always wanted to meet certain people that come across as strange, unique, interesting individuals, and I was not disappointed. On the way home I watched the most recent "Colbert." Thursday morning The next day I woke up and then went to work out. When I do Pilates I usually don't listen to music, but if I go on a bike ride or runs or even just a walk around the block I do listen to music, and I'm so into the new Selena Gomez record ("Rare"). It makes me happy. I love listening to women who have been through things but come out still fully badass. I can especially relate to people who have to go through things publicly and then get to put out music that reclaims their power, positivity and strength. And I very much feel like that's what I'm doing on my new record, so I have a lot of love for other women who do that. Then I went to the photo shoot (for this piece) at an interactive art space called Flutter. I just loved it. Thursday afternoon Then I went to the La Brea Tar Pits. I'm just obsessed with them they're naturally occurring tar pits that are in the middle of Los Angeles. They were a staple from my childhood, and it gives me that nostalgic feeling of being a kid, because there are all these saber-toothed tiger animatronic things in the museum, and I just am a sucker for anything like that. I love animatronic things. I'm like a 32-year-old 5-year-old. Then I came home briefly to feed my cats. I'm rewatching "Twin Peaks" for like the fourth time, so I watched an episode of that while I was cleaning up my house. And then I just started "The Morning Show." I'm pretty ADD so I'll watch one episode of something while I'm cleaning, and then one episode while I'm putting my clothes away. It seems like a really interesting and relevant show. Thursday night I went with some friends to see my boyfriend DJ. I love listening to music on vinyl. It's how I grew up listening to music, and nostalgia is my favorite drug. I requested Hot Chocolate, "Every 1's a Winner" I love that song. Also a song by Suicide. BAKU, Azerbaijan, Feb.2 Trend: Over the past 24 hours, Armenian armed forces have violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops 23 times, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said on Feb. 2, Trend reports. 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, 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 Nagorno Karabakh and the surrounding districts. The scientific community constantly looks to expose its own mistakes because what's a belief worth if it's never subject to any scrutiny? That's what makes science the perfect antidote to our current so-called era of post-truth. As Interesting Engineering writes, by gradually building a wealth of knowledge out of empirical observation, science separates the cold hard truth from partisanship. Testament to this are these studies that tackled commonly held beliefs, as well as a few other beliefs that simply aren't true. 1. Myth: Tackling climate change will ruin the economy Unfortunately, at a time when drastic action is needed, several myths and conspiracy theories persist about climate change. The misguided theory that climate change will ruin the economy was conveniently used by Donald Trump in 2018 to justify his government's inaction. What Im not willing to do is sacrifice the economic well-being of our country for something that nobody really knows, Trump told the Associated Press at the time. This is wrong on two counts. Firstly, science shows that climate change is already damaging economies worldwide. In 2018, Hurricane Florence, which was precipitated by climate change, led to billions of dollars in damages. Right now, the bushfires in Australia, which scientists say have reached their current levels because of climate change, are causing havoc in Australia. Secondly, switching to renewable energy is a huge business opportunity. Though deployment of the technologies needed is very expensive, a recent comprehensive study showed that becoming more sustainable could help to save $26 trillion by 2030. 2. Myth: The best way to save Earth from an asteroid is to nuke it Movies like Armageddon may have led many to believe that the best way to tackle an asteroid is by sending a nuclear warhead to blow it into pieces. What this idea doesn't take into account is that there's no guarantee a nuclear explosion would completely obliterate an asteroid. It might actually turn it into many smaller, but still extremely damaging, meteors on a collision course with Earth. What's more, if scientists were to use a nuclear impactor, they wouldn't try to obliterate an asteroid, they would detonate it far enough from the asteroid so as not to completely destroy it, but close enough so as to alter its course into a safer trajectory. Then there's the question of laser beams and gravitational tractors used to tow an asteroid into a safer trajectory. All of these are being considered by researchers, who would not try to blow up a giant space rock in the unlikely event that we detect one headed towards Earth. 3. Myth: There is a dark side of the moon Pink Floyd might be to blame for this one. The moon rotates very slowly thanks to tidal locking it rotates roughly once every time it moves around the Earth. From Earth, we are able to see just over half of the moon's surface, while the other side is more or less always shielded from our view. Despite what some people think, that doesn't mean the moon is a dark wasteland that's constantly obscured by sunlight. After all, while the Earth does reflect light onto the moon and vice versa, that light comes from the Sun, which also hits what many would call the dark side of the moon. Now, there is a far side of the moon. And recently, a whole load of images were shared of it by China's space program. 4. Myth: Dropping a penny from the Empire State Building could kill someone Dropping a penny from the Empire State Building won't make it go into a nosedive towards the sidewalk causing havoc when it lands. Despite what many believe, if that penny hit someone, it wouldn't kill them. As IFL Science points out, pennies are pretty lightweight weighing roughly one gram. The fact that they're flat means that they aren't very aerodynamic. As such, the coin's low mass and relatively low terminal velocity (105 km/h) wouldnt do much damage to a person down on the sidewalk, though it would no doubt hurt. According to an article in Scientific American, due to its weight, a penny would collide with air molecules as it falls, making it slow down. Heavier items that are more aerodynamic would have a higher terminal velocity and could do real damage. Hence the use of hardhats at construction sites. 5. Myth: Lightning never strikes the same place twice The previously mentioned Empire State Building can help us suss out another scientific myth. Many people believe the old saying that lightning never strikes the same place twice. However, the idiom is just that and shouldn't be taken as scientific fact. How do we know this? The Empire State Building is struck by lightning approximately 100 times a year. In fact, the video above shows it being struck three times in less than a minute. The concept of a lightning rod would be utterly useless if it could only be hit once and never used again. 6. Myth: Vaccines cause autism As Business Insider points out, the idea that vaccines cause autism originated in a study dating back to 1998 that has now been thoroughly debunked and retracted. Since that time, numerous studies have analyzed data from over a million children and concluded that there is no connection between vaccines and autism. And yet, sadly misinformation about vaccines is spread online and funded to the tune of millions by a few small groups. In fact, stories about vaccines are some of the most shared fake news stories online. The effect? As Sky News points out, less people are taking vaccines and diseases like measles are making an unprecedented comeback. So there you have it. Of course, we always encourage further reading and study. Don't take an online article's word for it, that's the moral of this, well, online article. Trying to debunk a debunker is, in itself, a healthy exercise. But do be sure to tell us if you know any other commonly believed science myths. Source: Xinhua| 2020-02-02 18:15:42|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close BEIJING, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- A new hospital built in just ten days in a Chinese city hit hardest by the novel coronavirus outbreak will soon start operation. Approved by Chairman of the Central Military Commission Xi Jinping, 1,400 medical staff from the armed forces are tasked with treating patients in the 1,000-bed Huoshenshan Hospital in Wuhan starting from Monday. This is the latest development in the Chinese people's critical battle against the novel coronavirus outbreak, with the number of cumulative confirmed cases on the Chinese mainland reaching 14,380 by the end of Saturday. Commanding this fight is President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee. Under Xi's leadership, China has taken unprecedented measures to contain the outbreak, pooling national medical personnel and supplies to the hardest hit regions, building new hospitals, extending the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday, postponing the opening dates for schools and businesses, and imposing travel restrictions. The nation is currently experiencing a peak period of confirmed cases. With prevention and control measures in place, the number of future infections will be significantly reduced, said Li Lanjuan, a renowned Chinese epidemiologist. World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said China's measures are not only protecting its people, but also protecting the people in the whole world. President Xi's personal guidance and deployment show his great leadership capability, Tedros said. TOP PRIORITY Over the past few weeks, Xi has called multiple meetings, heard reports and made important instructions on the prevention and control work. The message is crystal clear: people always come first. Before the Chinese Lunar New Year, as the epidemic spread, Xi ordered resolute efforts to curb the spread, stressing people's lives and health as the top priority. On Jan. 25, the first day of the Chinese Lunar New Year, Xi chaired a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. He reiterated putting people's lives and health as the top priority and ordered Party committees and governments at all levels to take novel coronavirus outbreak prevention and control as the most important task. On Jan. 27, in an instruction to Party organizations, members and officials, Xi asked them to keep in mind that the people's interests are the highest priority in the current arduous battle. Xi said in an instruction to the military that the epidemic prevention and control remained grim and complex and demanded the armed forces shoulder their responsibility, fight the hard battle and actively assist local authorities in fighting the epidemic. UNIFIED COMMAND, JOINT EFFORTS Following a unified command and pooling together efforts from all sectors are key to China's battle against the novel coronavirus outbreak. At the Jan. 25 meeting of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, a central leading group was set up to form a unified command to oversee the prevention and control work in different localities. In the Jan. 27 instruction, Xi asked Party organizations, officials and members to unite the people in resolutely implementing the decisions and arrangements of the CPC Central Committee, to let the Party flag "fly high at the frontline of the battleground." On Jan. 28, Xi told Tedros that China has full confidence and capability to win the battle against the virus with concerted efforts, scientific containment and targeted policies under the strong leadership of the CPC. The joint task mechanism was repeatedly stressed. It would help fortify a strong defense against the outbreak by mass participation, according to Xi. INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION As the virus is highly contagious, the entire world is looking to China's prevention and control efforts. Xi has stressed releasing information in a timely manner and deepening international cooperation. The Jan. 25 meeting of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee underscored the timely, accurate and transparent release of information to address concerns from home and abroad. Xi told Tedros that China attaches great importance to the cooperation with the WHO. China is ready to work with the WHO as well as the international community to safeguard regional and global public health security, Xi said. The Union delivered by Honourable Finance Minister Ms Nirmala Sitharaman aims at caring for the society and marginalised communities and aspires to boost the economy. The Government has chosen fiscal prudence over a massive spending programme. Now, its priority should be to efficiently finance and rapidly implement the National Infrastructure Pipeline worth Rs 102 trillion it has previously announced. This will provide the necessary boost to demand in the economy. I believe that the private sector is key to economic revival and I am glad that the FM has recognised its wealth potential creation and has committed to transparency and a hassle-free tax regime. The budget has proposed some bold reforms and has taken into consideration some of the major issues that were previously plaguing our economy. Its focus on sectors such as Education, Affordable housing, Road Infrastructure, PSU Disinvestment, etc are much needed. The abolition of Dividend Distribution Tax (DDT) will go a long way in boosting investor's confidence and improve the ease of doing business in India. Taxing dividends in the hands of the shareholder will both be fairer and more revenue-efficient than the previous scheme of taxation. The decision to sell a part stake of LIC must have been a very difficult one but a much needed one. This should pave the way for aggressive divestment of various other public sector enterprises. The Government should bring its stakes down in PSUs to 50 percent enabling the creation of an independent board and appointment of professional management. divestment will free the government from ownership and operational worries thus raising production, revenues and creating huge employment as well. Last year the government had increased customs duty on gold and other precious metal from 10 per cent to 12.5 per cent, however this year we were expecting similar steps to safeguard domestic industries like aluminium, copper, iron ore and coal by raising import duties or correcting inverted duty structure. The government also needs to focus more on under-the-ground exploration, not only to drive self-sufficiency and cutting dependence on imports but to propel Indian economy towards the $10 trillion mark. The budget has also rightly focused on one issue that has been very close to our hearts for many years now. We fully agree with Hon FMs statement that the Health of mother and child are closely correlated and thus the nutrition levels of children, adolescent girls, pregnant women and lactating mothers are very important. Our dream flagship project Nand Ghar which aims at modernizing anganwadis all across the country intends to create a Model Anganwadi in terms of infrastructure and services. It was very heartening to see the governments intentions to equip more than 600,000 anganwadi workers with smart phones to upload the nutritional status of more than 100 million households. As rightly mentioned by the government, the scale of these developments is unprecedented. Emphasis on the Governments plan to bring in a New National Education Policy to transform Indias higher education system to one of the global best education systems is a welcomed initiative and has been long overdue. The youth of our country urgently need guidance and appropriate platforms to help them explore unconventional career opportunities. Job creation has been an issue and the government has realised the need to look beyond traditional avenues of employment. Our country is rich in culture and has an enormous potential for tourism, the governments plans to establish an Indian Institute of Heritage and Conservation under Ministry of Culture with a status of a deemed University, is a brilliant move. This will open avenues for alternate career options for our youth providing knowledge in disciplines such as museology and archaeology which are essential for collecting and analysing scientific evidence of such findings. The Five archaeological sites planned to be developed as iconic sites with onsite museums will also ultimately lead to a boost in employment opportunities. The comments come on the one year anniversary of the Hayne royal commission's final report, and they suggest big banks will be hit with significant legal action in 2020. ASIC deputy chair Daniel Crennan said big financial institutions would be facing more court action from the watchdog. Credit:James Alcock Daniel Crennan QC, the second in command at the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, revealed most legal cases against the banks and other financial firms over misconduct will be underway by the end of the year, with fresh action coming quite soon." The deputy chairman of the corporate watchdog expects major financial institutions will admit to wrongdoing and settle litigation as the regulator prepares to launch a fresh wave of lawsuits triggered by the Hayne royal commission. Senior bankers including Westpac's acting chief Peter King have recently issued statements vowing the royal commission would have a lasting impact in stamping out bank misconduct. After the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) last year took on banks including Commonwealth Bank and National Australia Bank, Mr Crennan noted key cases had been settled or would be soon. He said this was "appropriate" in royal commission cases, adding "we hope that that continues." We dont expect the entities that we regulate to just blithely admit things, but what we do hope is that we dont see three years of protracted litigation for no real purpose. And I dont think that there will be. The signs are there that most of the large entities are willing, he told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age in an interview. "Its a very different legislative landscape and regulatory landscape. One would hope, given the royal commission and the public arena aspect of the royal commission, that most of the entities that do have legacy cases would prefer to deal with them as quickly as possible. The royal commission, led by former High Court judge Kenneth Hayne, criticised ASIC for being too timid and called for more litigation from the watchdog. Wine Cave Liberals An Ann Arbor expat gets caught in a political crossfire. by Eve Silberman From the February, 2020 issue "I'm just a pawn here," a frustrated Craig Hall told the New York Times in December. Hall's Napa Valley fundraiser for presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg had just blown up the December Democratic debate, where senator Elizabeth Warren declared that "billionaires in wine cellars should not pick the next president of the United States." (Buttigieg shot back that he was the only candidate there who wasn't even a millionaire.) Hall is an Ann Arbor native--his father worked at Argus Camera and his mother was an art teacher. He once told a Dallas paper that "growing up in a liberal university town" made him think that business was "somehow an evil, negative thing." He added that he'd since concluded that entrepreneurs "can do well for themselves and [also] do good things for society." In December, Hall told the Times that in his own circles, he is "often seen as the most liberal"--views he traces to growing up here during the turbulent Sixties. In 1967, he was elected "mayor" for Student Government Day, presiding over a "city council" that adopted an income tax. But the actual city staff didn't have many ideas about how he could fulfill his campaign promise to improve student housing. In a video posted on hallgroup.com, Hall says that disappointment spurred his first real estate deal: at eighteen, he put down his life savings to buy a run-down house on Hamilton Pl. Determined, he says, to "prove that you could be a good-guy landlord," he had dozens of properties by the time he dropped out of the U-M to expand into "lifestyle" apartment complexes. He moved his company to Dallas in the early 1980s, claims to have lost $1 billion after tax laws changed later in the decade, but now is richer than ever. The winery connection comes through his third wife, Kathryn, whose father owned a Napa orchard. They often host fundraisers there for causes and candidates they support. "There are literally hundreds of Democrats that have been in that same cave,'' California governor Gavin Newsom told the Associated Press. In 1997, president Bill Clinton named Kathryn Hall ambassador to Austria. While she's an attorney who speaks German and French, Clinton probably also noticed the Halls gave $234,000 to Democrats in the previous election cycle. Maybe Mayor Pete will be equally grateful if he becomes President Pete. [Originally published in February, 2020.] At 9 and 7 years of age, Mr Wongs children can be forgiven for not quite grasping that their civil servant father is actually working on the laptop they see open on the dining room table these days. The 46-year-old executive, who normally works at Hong Kong government headquarters in Admiralty, has grown used to the occasional distraction of tiny hands since becoming one of 176,000 civil servants asked to work from home amid safety concerns around the Wuhan coronavirus. Originally asking employees to stay out of the office between January 29 and February 2, the government has since extended the arrangement to February 9. Numerous private sector employers have followed suit. Speaking candidly and anonymously, Wong, who has little experience working from home, admitted it was a somewhat less productive environment. Hong Kongs government offices in Admiralty have been largely empty since the Lunar New Year holiday after employees were asked to stay home through February 9. Photo: KY Cheng Many documents are confidential, and I wont have any access to them outside the office. So my work is restricted to non-confidential work at home, he said. And I have to watch out for the little fingers of my children, who do not know I am working and try to close the document files I am working on for their favourite YouTube and Netflix films. The coronavirus, which is believed to have originated in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, escalated over the Lunar New Year holiday. There are now 14,551 confirmed infections and a death toll of more than 304 globally as of Sunday. In Hong Kong, the number of confirmed cases rose to 14 as of Saturday night. To prevent the disease from spreading, companies have put a variety of measures in place, including the adoption of flexible working plans. Employees who have travelled to the mainland over the past two weeks, or had contact with anyone who has travelled there, meanwhile, have been told to stay at home for 14 days. Cherry Wan Suk-yee, brand communications director of United States-based office solutions provider Steelcase Asia Pacific, was required to self-quarantine at home until Friday after returning to Hong Kong from a business trip to Beijing on January 17. Story continues During the past two weeks, aside from the Lunar New Year holiday, she was working from her home in Sai Wan Ho. I have to watch out for the little fingers of my children, who do not know I am working and try to close the document files I am working on for their favourite YouTube and Netflix films Mr. Wong, a civil servant A home office is not new to me, [but it] requires discipline, Wan, in her 40s, said. Digital advancement has played a big role in this arrangement, because all data and work documents are stored in a remote server and all I need is a tablet or a laptop. She said she has conducted numerous conference calls with colleagues in Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia and even the US from the comfort of home. Of course, even at home, certain protocols need to be maintained. There are funny moments, for example, once during a conference call, we heard someone snore, but could not figure out who fell asleep during the discussion of a business matter, Wan said. Whether it is productive or not, depends on how you make good use of your time and technology and whether you are disciplined or not. Some employers in Hong Kong including Hang Seng Bank one of the citys largest say they are fully supportive of the mobile working arrangement. Lunch hour in Central is a lonely place after numerous companies began having employees work from home. Photo: Winson Wong Elaine Wang Yee-ning, the banks head of human resources, said the company encouraged its 8,500 staff except those who provide essential services, to stay home and work until February 8. She said working from home was part of the banks broader flexible working framework, which has been in place for about two years. Aside from working from home, employee hours can also vary, though the goal is still to deliver expected results. We dont worry about how many hours a staff member spends in the office, because their performance is judged by their outcome, Wang said. Half of our staff are aged below 37, [and they] need options or control over how they work and are encouraged by the flexibility we offer. The work from home arrangement is taking place at smaller firms as well. Peggy Cheng Pik-ki, 36, a procurement officer for the 25-person Hong Kong branch of Netherlands-based Midocean, a premium gift supplier, worked from home for the first time this week. I am among half of the staff who tested the arrangement of working from home, she said. It is not as convenient as working in the office, but it is safer to stay home and work at this critical time. Hong Kong Productivity Council Chief Digital Officer Edmond Lai Shiao-bun said he believed it was a growing trend thanks to advances in technology that allow people to stay connected. Working from home is easier than ever, he said, adding that while there are clearly benefits to work-from-home arrangements, including improved productivity and a healthier work-life balance, companies needed strong cybersecurity solutions to allow for those flexible arrangements. This article Coronavirus: Working from home a new, occasionally frustrating, experience for Hongkongers used to rhythms of office life first appeared on South China Morning Post For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2020. The sit-in protest led by elderly women and children in Shaheen Bagh resonated yet again in BJP leader and Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanaths campaign on Sunday. I would have reached here at 5pm, but I couldnt come on time because of protests at Shaheen Bagh, said Adityanath at a rally in Jaitpur area of Badarpur assembly constituency. He was scheduled to reach the venue at 4.30pm but was delayed by two hours. Adityanath is one of the star campaigners of the BJP. Starting and ending his speech with reference to protests at Shaheen Bagh in southeast Delhi, the chief minister said that people travelling to Noida, Greater Noida from Delhi were suffering as they had to spend hours in traffic. He said that it was resulting in loss of salaries of many people working in multinational companies in Noida and Greater Noida. Through Shaheen Bagh an effort is being made to disrupt the public order of Delhi. Shaheen Bagh protest means that it is an effort to promote anarchy and disorder, he said, addressing a gathering on Durga Mandir road. Hitting out at Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and the Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, he said that both opposed all the decisions of the central government which were in national interest. Article 370 was abolished in Kashmir but it was Pakistan and Kejriwal who were pained by this move. You can see two people have opposed abrogation of article 370 and those were Kejriwal and Rahul Gandhi. When the Congress had slyly added article 370 in 1952 then Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar had said that article 370 would become the reason of Algaavvad (Sepretism), he said. Yogi also accused Kejriwal of blocking public welfare schemes of the central government Aayushman Bharat scheme and Pradhan Mantri Aawas Yojana in Delhi because of political differences. Speaking at another public meeting in Harkesh Nagar in Tughlakabad assembly segment, the BJP leader also said that the AAP government did not fulfil its promises such as school or cleaning water but polluted Yamuna and compelled everyone to cough like him. He also accused AAP of instigating riots. AAP quote awaited If you're interested in submitting a Letter to the Editor, click here. Submit : A local court on Saturday remanded Aditya Rao,the suspect in the Mangaluru International Airport (MIA) bomb case, to two weeks judicial custody. Rao was produced before the Sixth Judicial First Class Magistrate Court after the 10-day police custody expired. Rao has been in police custody since January 22 after he surrendered before the police in Bengaluru on January 21 and was later brought here. He had allegedly planted an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) at the airport on January 20 triggering panic and later made a hoax call to the airport terminal that a bomb had been planted in an IndiGo flight. During the last ten days, police took the accused to several places in the city and Udupi where he had frequented in the recent past. He was also taken to the room where he stayed while he was working at a hotel in the city. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Jammu and Kashmir BJP president Ravinder Raina on Sunday met a policeman who was injured in an encounter with terrorists on the Jammu-Srinagar national highway two days ago. Constable Bhoom Raj is undergoing treatment at the Government Medical College Hospital here for a bullet injury in his right arm. Raj was injured on Friday when three Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorists opened fire from onboard a Srinagar-bound truck after a police team intercepted it at a toll plaza on the highway. Raina, accompanied by senior party colleagues, including former minister Choudhary Sham Lal, lauded the bravery of the security personnel in neutralising the terrorists and capturing their three overground workers. "The whole country is proud of our brave jawans. Pakistan is repeatedly trying to create mess and chaos in Jammu and Kashmir but our brave security personnel is foiling its nefarious designs," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) BAKU, Azerbaijan, Feb. 2 Trend: Negotiations between the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov and the Commander-in-Chief of the Joint Armed Forces of NATO in Europe Tod Walters are planned in Baku, supposedly on February 6-7, RIA Novosti was informed by a diplomatic source, Trend reports. "In upcoming week, presumably on February 6-7, negotiations are planned between the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia, First Deputy Minister of Defense, General of the Army Valery Gerasimov and the Commander-in-Chief of the Joint Armed Forces of NATO in Europe, American General Tod Walters. Only parties know about the agenda. Baku is a traditional meeting place, said the source. Previous meeting in the Russia-NATO format took place in Baku on November 26. RACINE In Iowa, supporters are hitting the doors, getting out their last pitches for Democratic presidential candidates. Here in Racine, they are picking up the phones, calling Iowa residents and making their cases. Polls show U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in the lead in the days before the Iowa caucuses on Monday, the first primary of the 2020 election. Sanders volunteers want to keep it that way, while volunteers from other campaigns are looking to trim that lead this weekend. And as all eyes are on Iowa right now, some of the thousands of volunteers canvassing across the Hawkeye State are from another land: Racine. Last weekend, Racine County Supervisor Fabi Maldonado and Racine Unified School Board Member John Heckenlively, drove across the state to canvass around Dubuque for just a few hours, hoping to make a difference on Sanders behalf ahead of the caucuses. Whoever wins the nomination in Iowa they set the tone, Maldonado said. As of Jan. 6, more than $45 million had already been spent on political advertising in Iowa, according to reporting from the Des Moines Register. Only $46.3 million was spent ahead of the 2016 caucuses, and that was when both Republicans and Democrats had competitive elections. Wisconsinites, particularly its left-leaning activists, are paying extra attention this year as Democrats look to unseat President Donald Trump. Polling numbers Below are the rankings of the current polling percentages for the four leading Democratic Party candidate in the swing states of Iowa and Wisconsin, as compiled by RealClearPolitics.com. The Iowa ranking is listed first, followed by the Wisconsin ranking. Sanders: 23.8/20 Biden: 20.2/23 Buttigieg: 15.8/9.7 Warren: 14.6/17.3 The polls contributing to Iowa's rankings are dated from Jan. 20-27 and were conducted by Monmouth University, Iowa State University, Emerson Polling, USA Today and The New York Times/Siena College.The polls contributing to Wisconsin's rankings are dated from Oct. 13-Jan. 12 and were conducted by The New York Times/Siena College, FOX News and the Marquette Poll. Why does Iowa matter so much? In 1976, Carter was Jimmy Who? recalled Heckenlively. But he (Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter) won the Iowa caucus, and that established this guy as a national candidate. Carter was elected president in November of that year. In 2008, Heckenlively was in Des Moines when Barack Obama somewhat unexpectedly won the Democratic caucus. By Obama winning Iowa, which is a very white state, it showed that he did have popular support, Heckenlively said. That was a big factor in propelling Obama, in making him a national candidate. Data points and motivation The more phone numbers and emails and home addresses canvassers collect, the more the campaigns will be able to connect with such people directly. While Heckenlively and Maldonado were traversing the hills of Dubuque last weekend, they werent just wandering around. The Sanders campaign had given them specific addresses at which to knock on doors. During those conversations, they spoke from pre-written scripts intended to encourage Iowans to get out and caucus. You want to make sure that that person is going to go vote, Maldonado explained of his canvassing strategy. They need to be thinking: Do I need a ride? Do I need to leave work early? Iowa voters, Wisconsin voters Greta Neubauer, the Democrat who represents the City of Racine in the state Assembly, has helped organize the campaign of U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., here in Wisconsin. She said that when shes talked to Iowans as she was set to do at a half-dozen college campuses this weekend while volunteering for Warren Neubauer said a lot of them have asked which Democrat has the best chance to win Wisconsin. What people in Iowa want to know is who can win the general election in Wisconsin, Neubauer said. That means a lot right now. Calling Iowans from Racine Like pretty much every other campaign, volunteers for Elizabeth Warren have predetermined scripts to follow. On Thursday evening, a half-dozen volunteers gathered at the Racine County Democratic Partys headquarters, 507 Sixth St., to make cold calls to Iowans, encouraging them to caucus for Warren on Monday. I think that this is very exciting if we can actually make a difference in the Iowa caucus, said Sue Smith of Caledonia, one of the volunteers Thursday night. As with Maldonado and Heckenlively in their door-knocking for Sanders, the Warren campaign uses pre-written scripts and guides to help volunteers maximize their efficiency while making cold calls. In some regards, its kind of terrifying because this is not my wheelhouse, this is not my comfort zone, Smith said of making the phone calls. But they give you a script. And the software that theyre using here is very easy to work with, because as they (the person on the other end) answer questions, then it gives you the next talking point to bring up. Smith isnt a fan of Trump. But her opinion of the president is also what has motivated her to volunteer for Warren. After Trump came from behind to defeat Hillary Clinton in 2016, Smith thought to herself: I have to get up off the couch and go do something, other than sit here and watch it go by and then complain that something happened that I didnt like. Love 0 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Get Government & Politics updates in your inbox! Stay up-to-date on the latest in local and national government and political topics with our newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Delta State chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Apostle Sylvanus Okorote on Sunday called for the establishment of a security architecture in the mould of Amotekun, in the South-South geo-political zone. Okorote urged the governors, Houses of Assembly and other political leaders in the region to go back to the drawing board and produce the security architecture as the South-West leaders have done with Amotekun. The CAN chairman spoke during a Prayer Walk in Asaba, in protest against killings across the country. Armed with placards of various inscriptions including 'Give peace a chance', 'Say no to kidnapping of Christians', 'O God arise, let your enemies be scattered', among others, Christians of different denominations marched from the Stephen Keshi Stadium to the Oshimili Arcade where Okorote addressed the faithful in a short sermon. According to him, the regional security network would reduce, if not completely eliminate rampant cases of killings, kidnappings and armed robberies in the oil rich region. "Our brothers in the South-West went to the drawing board and came up with Amotekun to stop these killings in that region. They tried to stop it but the President said he has not ordered anybody to stop Amotekun. So Amotekun has come to stay. "Our governors and legislators in the South-South region should also go back to the draw board and come with our own unique security architecture to curb these killings. "I know the people committing this havoc cannot dare the South-East, they cannot even step into Anambra State, but if they come to the South-South and there is nothing to repel them, the place will be a fertile ground for them to perpetrate their criminal tendencies. "Therefore, there should be a security architecture in the South-South. Since Amotekun has sailed through, others will follow," the CAN chairman said amidst cheers from the congregation. Earlier, at a press briefing, Okorote urged the Federal Government to rebuild churches and Christian communities destroyed by insurgents including Boko Haram, ISWAP, militia, herdsmen and bandits like it has done to mosques and Muslim communities. Besides, he appealed to the Federal Government to give all religions the freedom and protection to practice their faith peacefully in any part of the country. Since becoming engaged to Prince William in 2010, Kate Middleton has worn her famous engagement ring every chance she gets. But a few keen royal watchers noticed that the Duchess of Cambridge failed to wear her engagement ring during some recent public engagements. There has been a lot of speculation about why Kate seemingly ditched her engagement ring, and it turns out that there is a really good reason why she has not been wearing it. Kate Middleton | Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images Kate Middleton loves her engagement ring William and Kate met when they were in college in the early 2000s. Their romance blossomed during their second year at the University of St. Andrews and they went public shortly after their graduation. Although the two experienced a brief split in 2007, William finally got the nerve to pop the big question in 2010. The future Duke of Cambridge proposed with Princess Dianas former engagement ring, which he received as a gift from Prince Harry. Kate Middleton and Prince William went on to tie the knot in a gorgeous ceremony in Westminster Abbey in 2011, and millions of fans around the world watched the wedding on television. It has been nearly 9 years since the couple exchanged vows, and Kate has worn her engagement ring for a slew of royal engagements over the years. But that all changed this month when Kate was caught without her engagement ring during a visit to a childrens hospital. The Duchess of Cambridge steps out without her famous engagement ring Kate looked as stunning as ever when she visited Evelina childrens hospital. But it didnt take long before fans noticed that she wasnt wearing her engagement ring during the hospital visit. Fans spotted Kate Middletons gold wedding band on her ring finger, but her sapphire engagement ring was nowhere to be found. She also ditched her eternity ring for the event, which was given to her following the birth of Prince George. Kate Middleton was spotted without her engagement ring | Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images There has been a lot of speculation about why Kate was not wearing her ring. This includes the rumors that her fingers were swollen due to another pregnancy. The Duchess of Cambridge has faced pregnancy rumors for months, and we can confirm that the missing ring had nothing to do with the baby talk. In fact, there is a perfectly logical explanation for why she left her engagement ring at home. Why did Kate Middleton ditch her engagement ring? According to Hello Magazine, the real reason Kate did not wear her engagement ring was because of health and safety concerns. Because she was stopping by childrens wards, Kate was advised against wearing her ring over hygiene issues. This is not the first time Kate has left her engagement ring at home during a hospital engagement. In the winter of 2018, Kate stepped out without her famous ring when she visited a childrens hospital on Great Ormond Street. Once again, Kate Middleton rocked her gold band and left her engagement and eternity ring behind at home. Kate, of course, has not commented on why she was spotted without her engagement ring. Her visit to the childrens hospital has been well received by royal watchers, many of whom have started calling her the childrens princess. Did Meghan Markles friend shade Kate? While fans continue to speculate about Kate Middletons engagement ring, some royal watchers are convinced that Meghan Markles best friend, Jessica Mulroney, subtly shaded the Duchess of Cambridge on social media. The drama started after Mulroney admonished people to use their influence to support worthy causes on social media. Around the same time of her post, Kate shared photos of her meeting with a few Holocaust survivors. The images are part of an exhibit at the Royal Photographic Society, and fans are convinced that Mulroneys post was directed at Kates work. Meghan Markle's BFF Jessica Mulroney is targeted by militant Kate Middleton fans https://t.co/uQSgKvgRpJ Daily Mail U.K. (@DailyMailUK) January 29, 2020 Pretty pictures are pretty pictures. Strive to use your platform for good and spread stories of incredible people striving to make this world a better place, Mulroney shared. Mulroney has not commented on the backlash she has received on social media. There has been a lot of rumors surrounding Kate Middleton and Meghan Markles relationship over the years, and the negative reports have only been fueled by Harry and Meghans decision to leave the royal family. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced their exit a few weeks ago and are currently staying in Canada. Movie fans are demanding Justice for Hollywood actor, Johnny Depp after his estranged wife, Amber Heard, got exposed as the real abuser in their marriage. Johhy Depp and Amber Heard were married in February 2015 and she filed for divorce in May 2016, obtaining a temporary restraining order against him, alleging he was verbally and physically abusive during the relationship, often while under the influence of drugs or alcohol. She testified about the alleged physical abuse during a divorce deposition and this led to many people in the film industry boycotting the actor. In 2018, Johnny Depp filed a $50 million suit against Amber Heard for defaming his character with claims of abuse while they were married. The actor claims that Amber Heard defamed his character in the opinion piece she wrote in the Washington Post in December 2018. Jonny Depps lawsuit referred to Amber Heards claims as nothing more than an elaborate hoax, and presented evidences that suggested he (Jonny Depp) was the one who endured physical abuse during the marriage, not the other way around. His deformation case has been slowly chugging along because his team reportedly could not produce court-ordered records on his drug and alcohol usage. So instead of the trial starting February 3, 2020, it was postponed to start August 3, 2020. Well, it appears the overwhelming evidence Johnny Depp has against his Amber Heard may have just set him free from social media crucifixion, and possibly from being boycotted. A 2015 taped two-hour therapy session has proven that Amber Heard was indeed the abuser in their marriage and not the victim, like she had led the public to believe. The audio confession, which was gone viral, is reportedly from a series of taped therapy sessions while the two movie stars tried to work through their volatile marriage issues. In the audio recordings, Amber heard is not only heard admitting to hitting Johnny Deep several times, she also admitted to having an uncontrollable temper and pelting him with pots, pans and vases. She also goes on to mock him for being such a baby and even though Depp tries to make her see why getting physical with him needs to stop, she is heard saying she cant make him a promise that she wont lose her tempter. Below are snippets of the audio tape. Now the most disgusting is that people like @PerezHilton are writing and twisting what cannot be twisted. Because undeniably, the truth is here. IF ONE THING this whole Johnny Depp case should teach us, its that men can be abused WITHOUT BEING ABUSIVE.@cnnbrk where are you ? pic.twitter.com/yLfRdd44Jn Sienna (@winonasrider) February 1, 2020 The audio recording which have since gone viral, have left social media buzzing with fans demanding Justice for Johnny Depp, considering the fact Amber Heard was one of the major speakers against domestic violence and gender equality. Many people have not only tagged Heard a liar, they are accusing her of being the reason actual victims of domestic violence find it difficult to come out for fear that no one would believe them. They are calling for her to be boycotted and dropped from major movies roles including Aquaman 2, which she features in and is yet to be released. I am so sad for Johnny Depp. He got fired from Pirates of the Caribbean because of Amber Heard. Johnny losing his most beloved character Jack Sparrow. He even named his son after this character. Then Amber gaining roles from all this. Disgusting.#JusticeForJohnnyDepp pic.twitter.com/UgowSvQwNE Patel Shashank Singh (@RccShashank) February 2, 2020 JOHNNY DEPP IS INNOCENT. AMBER HEARD ABUSED JOHNNY DEPP. AMBER HEARD RUINED JOHNNY DEPPS CAREER. AMBER HEARD SHOULD NO LONGER BE IN AQUAMAN 2. AMBER HEARD SHOULD BE ARRESTED. JOHNNY DEPP DESERVES JUSTICE. #AmberHeardIsAnAbuser#JusticeForJohnnyDepp Lia ? (@leeirishanne) February 2, 2020 Heres what Amber Heard did to Johnny Depp. -Physically/mentally abused him repeatedly. -Shit in his bed. -Put a cigarette out on his face. -Severed his fingertip. -Admitted to attacking him. He will present all of his evidence of this in court in August.#JusticeForJohnnyDepp pic.twitter.com/4OJ83ggImu #Pirates_Life (@johnnydeppoffi3) February 2, 2020 Amber Heard is the reason people dont believe women. Making false claims just to gain media publicity and roles is disgusting. Johnny Depp is a fucking survivor and deserves to be lifted up not dragged down. Hes a film icon. #JusticeForJohnnyDepp pic.twitter.com/sgRNJfMXa5 Jillian (@jillian_burkitt) February 2, 2020 This is what he deserves and so much more. He went through domestic violence and got stripped off of his legendary roles while constantly being accused of things he hadnt done. We are with you, Captain. #JusticeForJohnnyDepp pic.twitter.com/3yfvz51irp ? P A B O ? (@aegyoeobta) February 2, 2020 me looking at #JusticeForJohnnyDepp trending knowing i never believed amber heard in the first place pic.twitter.com/heM1nTfOit ceo of jason todd (@reyskywalkergf) February 2, 2020 Do yall remember when everyone slammed Johnny Depp for abusing Amber Heard and then got wished horrible scary threats towards him the entire time HE was being silently abused by HER for 4 years? Thats crazy because I do! (: Now look at your goofy ass#JusticeForJohnnyDepp pic.twitter.com/mvpvV4niaO ?????? ? (@SpanishGhoul) February 2, 2020 Waking up to this hashtag is really sad because Johnny Depp is someone I admire. Amazing actor. People are quick to believe the male villain and female victim narrative. Domestic violence against men is real. When they speak up, theyre not taken seriously. #JusticeForJohnnyDepp pic.twitter.com/bAgpZEemkA SECRETARYACE (@SecretaryAce) February 2, 2020 Amber heard needs to be punished for what she did to Johnny deep. She publicaly humilated him. She cutted his finger and now we lost our favorite character Captain Jack Sparrow. #JusticeForJohnnyDepp pic.twitter.com/Sm5CACsCDG Ahmadshah492?? (@ibne_adam786) February 2, 2020 i posted this a little over a year on my instagram and i got a lot of dms telling me its not possible he could be abused cause hes a man MEN CAN BE ABUSED TOO AND SAYING THESE MAKES THEM MORE SCARED TO COME FORWARD ABOUT IT #JusticeForJohnnyDepp pic.twitter.com/zKjUWq8EHD dede hobiuary (@smittenvmin) February 2, 2020 The only thing that I could do was know what I still know. Ultimately, the truth will come out in all of this & Ill be standing on the right side of the roaring rapids. I hope other people will be too. I know the truth Johnny Depp #JusticeForJohnnyDepp pic.twitter.com/OJqy9k3Eky ammar (@DeppsAmarrx) February 2, 2020 The whole world owes Johnny Depp an apology tbh. He had his life and career ruined cos of Female Previledge. Cardi legit came out and said she used to drug, rape and Rob men and she got a free pass. Yall didnt even give Johnny Depp the benefit of doubt? #JusticeForJohnnyDepp The.Demi.Gad (@demithacreator) February 2, 2020 #JusticeForJohnnyDepp stares at us everyday. Youll be amazed at the number of men & boys being either sexually/physically abused but dont speak about it cos of toxic masculinity. Then still suffer blackmail/lies from their abusers. You know who the world usually believes. Ayo Bankole (@AyoBankole) February 2, 2020 (Natural News) By now, you may have seen the latest undercover video from Project Veritas featuring Kyle Jurek, an angry, confused, and historically challenged campaign staffer for 2020 Democratic presidential contender Commie Bernie Sanders. The video features a foul-mouthed revolutionary wannabe who obviously thinks way too much of himself and his ability to overthrow the system that the vast majority of Americans may find frustrating at times but nonetheless better than what he advocates: Marxist authoritarianism. But the really interesting thing about his plans for Merica should Sanders not capture the Democratic presidential nomination which is exactly what party leaders want, by the way, anyone but Bernie is to destroy the very base of support he and other radicals like him need in order to carry oout their revolution. If Bernie doesnt get the nomination or it goes to a second round at the DNC Convention, f*cking Milwaukee will burn. Itll start in Milwaukee and when police push back on that, then other cities will just f*cking (hand explosion), he told the undercover Project Veritas journalist. The cops are gonna be the ones that are getting f*cking beaten in Milwaukee. Theyre gonna call up the National Guard for that sh*t. I promise you that, he added. Im ready to throw down now. I dont want to wait and have to wait for f*cking DNCThe billionaire class. The f*cking media, pundits. Walk into that MSNBC studios, drag those motherf*ckers out by their hair and light them on fire in the streets. And if President Trump should win again (as expected) in November? F*cking cities burn, Jurek threatened. Whatever it takes. And thats why theyre like oh, Anti-Fascists are violent its because were willing to go above and beyond what the law says is acceptable. Like oh free speech, yeah, they try to be like oh youre against free speech and no, were not against free speech, were against hate speech, he added. And if your free speech is something that these people shouldnt exist, then I dont give a f*ck if its free speech or not, you dont need free speech has repercussions. This jerk has no idea what kind of disgusting human being he really is Well, then, Jurek really doesnt have any allies except a few others who, like him, would rather destroy the system than work within it to effect their preferred political outcomes. So while he rails against imagined fascists who support President Trump, he actually sounds and threatens like a fascist would/does. (Related: The Lefts descent to fascism.) Fascism is what destroyed World War II Italy. Fascism is authoritarianism. Fascism is tyranny. Fascism is intolerant. Fascism is incapable of compromise. And patriotism isnt fascist nationalism. In other words, the reality is, President Trump and his supporters are the real anti-fascists. We support freedom, liberty, justice and peace. We support dissent. We believe in giving voice to those who do not agree with us, as the First Amendment prescribes. We believe in working within our processes to effect changes. And we dont believe in attacking our political opponents and burning down their homes. But this schmuck does. And again, since most Leftists live in urban centers, hed essentially be burning down the existence of what allies he could muster. So really, what Jurek is and wants to become is an anarchist no rules but his rules, which amount to nothing more than fascist tyranny. Dont agree with him? Off to the gulag with you! Too much opposition? Off to the brick wall with you to be shot! Heres a final thought, by the way. This guy feels comfortable working for Bernie Sanders the candidate who honeymooned in Moscow during the Cold War, when Russia was still Communist. Jureks anarchy and anger says a lot about him and the Commie who would be president, doesnt it? Sources include: ProjectVeritas.com NaturalNews.com Pakistan, which is facing its worst locust attack in decades, has declared national emergency to tackle the insects destroying crops on a large scale in Punjab province, countrys main region for agricultural production. The decision was taken at a meeting convened by Prime Minister Imran Khan on Friday. The meeting, attended by federal ministers and senior officials of the four provinces, also approved a National Action Plan (NAP) that requires a sum of 7.3 billion to overcome the crisis. Minister for National Food Security Khusro Bakhtiar informed the National Assembly about the gravity of the situation and the steps so far taken by the federal and provincial governments to deal with the crisis, the Dawn newspaper reported. During the meeting at the Prime Ministers Office, which was also attended by Adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance Hafeez Shaikh among others, a detailed briefing on the overall situation was given to the prime minister. The meeting was informed that besides involving the officials concerned at the provincial and district levels, different tasks have been given to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), provincial disaster management authorities and federal and provincial departments to deal with the threat. Prime Minister Khan ordered formation of a high-level committee to be headed by Bakhtiar to take decisions at the federal level for the elimination of insects. The prime minister directed the authorities concerned to make immediate measures on the basis of damage of ripened crops. Protection of farms and farmers is the highest priority of the government. Therefore, the federal government should take all necessary steps to save national crops and provide required resources to the quarters concerned, Khan was quoted as saying in the report. Bakhtiar informed the house that it was for the first time that after attacking Sindh and Punjab, the swarms of locust had entered Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. A sum of 7.3 bn is required to avoid further destruction, he said. Declaration of national emergency was eminent to handle the situation; besides, Parliament must have a role in monitoring the situation, he added. Bakhtiar claimed that the government had managed to save cotton and winter crops to a large extent, adding that climate change was one of the reasons for delay in the exit of locusts. He said the situation was worse than the one Pakistan faced in 1993. The swarms of locust are currently on the Pakistan-India border along Cholistan, the minister said, adding that insects had entered Cholistan and Nara from Sindh and Balochistan. Locusts used to move to Iran after sometime, but perhaps this time due to low temperatures they are still in Pakistan, he said. Nawab Yousuf Talpur of Pakistan Peoples Party said that in 1993 when locusts had attacked the country, the situation had been handled in four days with limited resources, the report said. New Delhi: The expansion of Karnataka Cabinet led by BS Yeddyurappa is all set to take place on February 6 along with the oath-taking ceremony at the Raj Bhavan at 10:30 am. According to PTI, a total of 13 MLAs, including 10 who had joined BJP from parties, including Congress and the JD(S), will be administered the oath of the office on the coming Thursday. "The cabinet expansion will take place on February 6 with the oath-taking ceremony at the Raj Bhavan at 10.30 AM," Karnataka Chief Minister Yeddyurappa told PTI today. Notably, all eyes will be on if any Cabinet reshuffle takes place following the expansion. The cabinet expansion is on the cards for nearly two months ever since the BJP won the maximum number of seats in the Dec 2019 bypolls and got a majority in the Karnataka assembly. The much-delayed cabinet expansion has already been postponed several times. Opposition parties have been targeting the BJP and Yediyurappa over the delay in the cabinet expansion, alleging he was weak and that his administration had collapsed. Last year, the then Assembly speaker had disqualified 17 Congress and JD(S) legislators after they revolted against the coalition government leading to its fall on July 13. Of them, 13 had contested the bypolls held for 15 assembly seats and barring AH Vishwanath (Hunsur) and MTB Nagaraj (Hoskote), all others emerged triumphant as BJP candidates. Eleven disqualified Congress-JDS MLAs had won the December bypolls on the ruling party ticket. Though Yediyurappa has made it clear that 11 who got re-elected in the bypolls on BJP ticket will be made ministers, according to sources, the central leadership is not keen on inducting all of them and wants to give an opportunity to party loyalists also. Vishwanath and Nagaraj have been openly demanding Cabinet berth for them stating that Yediyurappa had given a word to them. Currently, there are 18 ministers, including the Chief Minister in the cabinet that has a sanctioned strength of 34. Sixteen berths are still vacant. With the high-command reportedly not keen on making all the 11 re-elected legislators ministers, whom Yediyurappa has given assurance, it will not be an easy task for the chief minister, who has to ensure adequate representation to various castes and regions in his cabinet. In addition to pressing the BJP leadership hard for ministerial berth, some MLAs are reportedly after plum portfolios. PTI quoting BJP sources reports that Gokak BJP MLA Ramesh Jarkiholi wants Water Resource portfolio, adding that the Chief Minister, however, is non-committal. Jarkiholi, who had played a key role in bringing down the Congress-JDS coalition government paving the way for the BJP to come to power in July last year, has demanded Cabinet berth for two other defectors, who lost in the bypolls held in December. The former Congress leader, however, added the final call will be taken by the party's central leadership. Yediyurappa, who already has three deputies, had recently ruled out the creation of any more Deputy Chief Minister's post. Jarkiholi along with Health Minister Sriramulu had in the past made no secret of their ambition to become Deputy Chief Ministers. (With PTI inputs) Nadia Chelpang from the Northern Regional capital, Tamale was adjudged the winner of the 2020 Spelling Bee competition. Our Manifesto: This is what YEN.com.gh believes in She beat off completion from 150 other contestants to emerge champion. Nadia is a pupil of the Alhassan Gbanzaba Memorial School in Tamale. She is also the first person from the Northern Region to win the completion, which is a decade old. Nadia Chelpang is 2020 Spelling Bee champion. Source: Citinewsroom.com Source: Original READ ALSO: Changing lives: Wealthy businessman offers to pay college fees for whole class of high school graduates For her price, she take home return ticket to Washington DC, USA to represent Ghana in the 93rd Scripts Spelling Bee contest. Nadia will also a GHS 4000 prize money, an engraved golden trophy, a DSTV decoder plus one years subscription, and GHS 1,000 gift voucher for books, a certificate of recognition, among other prizes from sponsors. The event which took place at the Great Hall of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) on Saturday, Febrauary 1, 2020 also saw Aku-Mishee of the University of Ghana Basic School, placed second while Joel of Victoria Grammar School placed third. ATTENTION: Read the best news on Ghana #1 news app. Install our latest app for Android and read the best news about Ghana For their prices, the second place, Aku-Mishee will also receive a return ticket to Kenya, cash prize of GHS 2,000, GHS 800 worth of gift voucher for books, a silver medal, a DSTV decoder plus 6 months subscription, a certificate of recognition, among other prizes. READ ALSO: 5 Kofi B songs Ghanaians will always remember him for Third place, Joel will take home a cash prize of GHS 1,500, a DSTV decoder, GHS 500 worth of gift voucher for books, a bronze medal, certificate of recognition among other prizes from sponsors. YEN.com.gh earlier reported that a British court documents has revealed that Europes largest aerospace multinational company, Airbus paid bribes to some top Ghanaian officials during the Mills-Mahama era between 2009-2015. According to the document sighted by YEN.com.gh, Ghana is amongst five countries Airbus paid millions of dollars in bribes to in exchange for contracts. How convenient is it to use the new GHC 200 note at the market? | #Yencomgh READ ALSO: Brexit: UK officially leaves European Union Get interactive via our Facebook page. Source: YEN.com.gh Australia's education industry is facing an $8 billion hit from the travel ban on visitors from China as the sector grapples with how to confront the wider effects of the deadly coronavirus. Education Minister Dan Tehan will meet with Universities Australia on Monday to discuss how to minimise the impact on international education providers. He has also convened a meeting of the global reputation taskforce which warns the market faces an $8 billion hit from the health crisis. A student at the University of NSW. Credit:Yianni Aspradakis The minister established the taskforce late last month to monitor and advise the federal government on the effects of the bushfire crisis on the sector. The taskforce's remit now extends to co-ordinating the government and education sector's response to the coronavirus. "I appreciate the willingness of the university sector to work with the government to manage this public health emergency," Mr Tehan said. Prince Andrew has been in hot water for the last three months because of his association with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. His lack of remorse for the actions of Epstein or sympathy to his victims has put him in an even worse situation. Stupid But Not a Pedophile Despite the allegations, the scandal-scarred royal has found an ally in his second cousin. Christina Oxenberg insisted that the Duke of York is not a pedophile. "He did idiotic things. But he's not a pedophile," Oxenberg emphasized. Oxenberg told FOX News that the disgraced prince should not be pressured to talk to the FBI about his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. The late sex offender was a pedophile, but that does not make the royal a pedophile, too. The cousin of the Duke of York has tried to defend him more by saying that the disgraced royal may have done stupid things in the past, but he is definitely not a pedophile. Further, Christina said that his cousin Andrew could not even organize a simple dinner party, let alone a sex trafficking ring. "Forgive me, my sweet cousin Andrew, but the dude couldn't organize a dinner party, let alone a sex-trafficking ring. Andrew is not a mastermind sex-trafficking ring organizer," Oxenberg added before saying she is sure that her cousin is "filled with regret and remorse" for the scandal he has sparked. The Duke of York also loves his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, which is why "he doesn't want to bring her any grief." Just Another Victim Christina Oxenberg is the sister of actress Catherine Oxenberg. She is the second cousin of Prince Andrew. She maintained that Andrew was a victim just like all the others. He was specifically targeted by Jeffrey Epstein to give himself credibility. Oxenberg added that through the help of Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein was able to achieve his goal of making the royal a "contact" of some sort. "Andrew was not aware that his position as a member of the royal family and the prominence that came with it was used by Epstein to his advantage," the New York-born Oxenberg furthered. "Jeffrey Epstein was a pervert and Ghislaine was the enable of the pervert." Oxenberg considers the two (Epstein and Maxwell) as the real problems in this scandal. The media heiress, Maxwell, has been in hiding since the FBI refocused their investigation to look into how she was involved in the illegal activities of Epstein. "The only thing that the FBI needs to know from Andrew is how and where they could find Ghislaine Maxwell," Oxenberg said. "That's the only thing they need from him." Oxenberg then admitted to knowing both Epstein and Maxwell and described Ghislaine as a "raving nut job" on the few times that she encountered her. In a direct message to his cousin, Oxenberg told Andrew that his friend Maxwell used and betrayed him. "Now, it is time to give her up." Christina also emphasized that she has already cooperated with the FBI and told them everything she knew about the two. Prince Andrew took a step back from his royal duties in November following his interview where he tried to justify his links with the deceased billionaire pedophile. A week later, the accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre gave her tell-all interview with BBC News and claimed that she was forced to have sexual relations with the royal when she was only 17 years old. Meanwhile, the Buckingham Palace has vehemently denied all allegations raised against Prince Andrew. READ MORE: Prince Andrew A Huge Disappointment To Royal Family Novak Djokovic, who won 7 Australian Open finals one after the other, has won 12 matches in a row and will become the number one player in the world on Sunday, 2 February 2020 when he wins the title, but he has to cope with the dominating theme with confidence after defeating many veterans. is. Djokovic of Serbia has a career record of 6-4 against the theme of Australia. Australia's Dominic Theme made it to the final of the Australia Open for the first time on Friday, beating Alexander Zverev of Germany, after coming back from a set down. The 26-year-old and fifth-seeded here defeated seventh-ranked Xavrev 3-6 6-4 7-6 (7/3) 7-6 (7/4). Even though the theme has won 4 out of the last 5, but now they will have to face Djokovic's tough challenge. World number two player Novak Djokovic defeated second seed Roger Federer in straight sets on Thursday. Djokovic has been invincible for the last 12 matches and he has never lost the final of the Australian Open so far. Earlier, Theme had reached the final of the French Open twice, but both times they were defeated by Spanish star Rafael Nadal. Themes retaliated by defeating the Spanish player in the quarter-finals of the Australian Open. Let us tell you that Djokovic praised the theme, saying, 'It would be wrong to call him the next generation because he has been playing for a long time. Now he is a player of the top five, top ten. He said, 'Grand Slam can be named after winning a match here. He will soon be among the top three players in the world. 16-time Grand Slam champion Djokovic has got an extra day's rest for the match, defeating the injured Roger Federer in the semi-finals on Thursday. On the other hand, Theme has reached here after defeating the four seeded players, they defeated Rafael Nadal in the quarter-finals. Also Read: Ind Vs Nz: India made history, Team Blue beats New Zealand to secure 5-0 whitewash Ind Vs NZ: India choose batting after winning the toss, Rohit Sharma gets team's command IND vs NZ: Last T20 match today, will India win with 5-0? Virat became king of ICC test ranking, overtook Ajinkya Rahane Brisbane man Ian Howland was sitting at his desk when he noticed an email from Telstra drop into his inbox. To his surprise, the message from the telco said his mobile number was being ported out to a different carrier. If transfer is not authorised, please call us immediately, the email said. It was 4:12pm on a Wednesday and he quickly called Telstra using his landline phone. As he waited on the line, he watched other emails start dropping into his inbox. While I was on the landline, I could see on my computer. I was getting other emails saying my PIN number for my Qantas membership had been changed, and my NAB (bank account) PIN number had been changed, and my ANZ PIN as well, he told Yahoo News Australia. It kept going. Moments after the Qantas alert, he received an email telling him that some JB Hi-Fi vouchers purchased using his Qantas points had been sent out. It was quickly apparent he had become a victim of fraudulent phone porting, where criminals take advantage of the lax regulations around mobile porting to steal someones phone number and use it to ransack their personal accounts. I just thought, how ridiculous, Mr Howland said. How can somebody just go and take your phone number? Literally in front of me it happened. My phone went dead. All you could do was make SOS calls. The email that started a painful chain of event for Ian. Source: Supplied At the time, Mr Howland had recently sold his home and business and as a result had a lot of money sitting in the bank, adding to the anxiety of the moment. While his NAB accounts were frozen by the bank due to the unusual activity, ANZ told him he needed to come into a branch to properly identify himself. In the meantime, the thieves racked up $7,000 in charges that night on his ANZ credit card. You just feel so helpless, he recalled. Typically carriers like Telstra, Optus and Vodafone send a text message to confirm the number is being ported out in what amounts to a fleeting chance to halt the process before the number is gone. However Mr Howland said he never got such a message. Story continues What shocks victims most in these cases is how little information is needed to secretly steal their mobile number. And given our reliance on two-factor authentication, thieves are often able to use it to change passwords on critical online accounts before doing serious damage. Ian Howland says despite getting in contact with Telstra, it was too late. Depending on the carrier, a SIM can often be ported out with just a name, mobile number and the date of birth of the owner information that is often readily available on social media. When a South Australia couple had their $8,500 wedding fund stolen last year when their Optus number was illegally ported out, the telco confirmed to Yahoo News Australia that a mobile service number along with an account number or date of birth is enough to port a number. All telecommunications providers are affected by fraudulent porting activity, Optus said, pointing out it was operating in line with guidelines set by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA). Telstra effectively says the same. Mr Howland went to the police and filed a report through the Australian Cybercrime Online Reporting Network (ACORN) without much hope of anything coming of it. The cop actually said to me, youre lucky. For some people, it destroys their whole life, he recalled. Cases like his get lumped in with other forms of fraud and cybercrime so exact numbers of illegal porting are hard to come by. But Mr Howard said his cousin works for the federal police and told him the depth of it is enormous. That echoes the experience of former police detective Dr Terry Goldsworthy who now works at Queenslands Bond University and has researched illegal phone porting. When I was looking at it, the offences were increasing rapidly, he told Yahoo News Australia last year. When speaking to those in law enforcement, they would tell him they are seeing a growing number of porting-related scams. New industry standards for phone porting Mr Howlands ordeal happened in September 2018 but despite mounting cases, telcos have dragged their heels with making any wholesale changes to their systems, instead opting to put the onus on the customer to ask for extra protection on their account in the form of a PIN. However thats finally in the process of changing. In late 2019 at the direction of the cyber security minister, the ACMA announced a broad crackdown on common phone scams, including creating a stricter industry standard required for mobile phone porting. The move has been welcomed by consumer groups, including the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN), who say its been a long time in the making. This is an issue that we have been highlighting to the telco industry for quite some time now, its positive to see that action is finally being taken to safeguard consumers, ACCAN CEO Teresa Corbin said at the time. New changes mean telcos will soon need to enforce stricter ID checks when porting numbers. Source: AAP The changes to the guidelines are being overseen by the ACMAs Fiona Cameron who declined to be interviewed for this story. The trial period is still ongoing, with a view for the changes to be introduced by all telcos by the end of April, meaning carriers will be required to carry out extra identity checks before accepting the port of a mobile number. To date, while some telcos have already introduced stronger preventative measures it has been patchy across the industry and the new standard will be enforceable, Ms Corbin said. In the past there hasnt been all that much regulation around mobile porting, she told Yahoo News Australia. That has made it easier for consumers but really what has happened now is the scammers have taken advantage of that efficiency. That is why we need additional steps now, she said. Its been a problem for a while but I think the scale and size has grown significantly, more recently. Ms Corbin said an industry standard requiring more stringent ID checks will slow the process down but offer far greater security to customers, but still cautioned consumers against sharing too much personal information about themselves online. Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and download the Yahoo News app from the App Store or Google Play. House impeachment manager Adam Schiff called out President Trumps defense team lawyer Pat Cipollone Friday, saying that in his capacity as White House counsel he was in the loop in the effort to persuade Ukrainian officials to dig up dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden. That allegation originated in a forthcoming memoir by former national security adviser John Bolton. Details from Boltons manuscript have leaked over the past week. In an article published Friday, the New York Times reported on Boltons account of an Oval Office meeting in early May at which Trump directed him to help with his pressure campaign to extract damaging information on Democrats from Ukrainian officials. Bolton claims that Cippolone, who has led Trumps defense team during the impeachment trial, attended the Oval Office meeting with the president, along with acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and Trumps personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani. You will recall Mr. Cipollone suggesting how the House managers were concealing facts from this body. He said all the facts should come out. Well, theres a new fact which indicates that Mr. Cipollone was among those who were in the loop. Yet another reason why we ought to hear from witnesses, Schiff, D-Calif., said as the Senate debated whether to call witnesses like Bolton and Mulvaney during Trumps impeachment trial. It seems that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has secured enough Republican votes to keep witnesses from appearing at the trial, but if Boltons allegation is true, it means that Cipollone was, in addition to heading up the presidents defense team, a fact witness in the case itself. White House counsel Pat Cipollone during the impeachment trial of President Trump on Jan. 30. (Senate Television via AP) Mulvaney has previously denied that he ever discussed the efforts to secure a Ukrainian announcement of an investigation into Biden. On Friday, Trump refuted Boltons account. I never instructed John Bolton to set up a meeting for Rudy Giuliani, one of the greatest corruption fighters in America and by far the greatest mayor in the history of N.Y.C., to meet with President Zelensky, Trump said in a statement released Friday in response to the Times article. That meeting never happened. Story continues Giuliani also denied that the Oval Office conversation had ever taken place. The meeting the Times describes is a lie. If Bolton is the source and he believed this was so bad, why didnt he quit? How much integrity and honor will a man sacrifice for greed and revenge? Rudy Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) January 31, 2020 Records unearthed by House investigators, however, show that Giulianis months-long pressure campaign on Ukraine overlapped with the May meeting alleged in Boltons book. Writing at the website Just Security earlier in the week, NYU law professor Stephen Gillers weighed in on the question of the White House counsels apparent dual role in the impeachment case. A legal ethics rule the advocate-witness rule says that when a lawyer should be a witness at trial, she cannot also be an advocate in the courtroom, Gillers wrote. The Senate chamber is not, of course, an ordinary courtroom, but that should make no difference. The goal is the same to get the facts and find the truth. _____ Read more from Yahoo News: If you were looking for the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee website and ended up here, try this Got news tips, gossip, suggestions, complaints?E-mail us: progressivecharlestown@gmail.com We strive to avoid errors in our articles. Our correction policy can be found here Afghan health authorities are establishing isolation wards across the country ahead of a potential influx of coronavirus cases, an official said Sunday, as governments worldwide monitor the disease's spread. No cases have been recorded in Afghanistan so far, and the war-torn country's health services have set up screening units at airports and borders, public health minister Ferozuddin Feroz said. "We have put serious measures in place," Feroz told reporters. He said that in Kabul, authorities have created a 100-bed isolation ward, and another 200 or so beds will be made available across the country in Afghanistan's creaking hospitals. Feroz said 262 people -- including 233 Afghans -- who flew into Kabul's airport from China during the past week had all been screened, and health officials have remained in contact with them to check on their health. About 40 Afghan students are currently in Wuhan -- the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak in neighbouring China. Feroz said the Afghan government had a chartered plane at the ready to bring them home if needed. Coronavirus is similar to the SARS pathogen and has killed more than 300 people in China and spread around the world since emerging in Wuhan. On Sunday, China's National Health Commission said more than 14,000 people have been infected by the novel coronavirus. Outside mainland China, there have been more than 100 infections reported in more than 20 countries. The World Health Organization has declared an international emergency over the outbreak. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In "Israel's education minister is swiftly rebuked for latest anti-gay statements" (1/13/20), the uniqueness of what happened in Israel, compared to all of the other countries in that region, was that the minister was indeed rebuked. According to the Post article, "reaction was swift." He was immediately condemned, and there were calls for his resignation. Further the Post added that "Parents of LGBTQ students called for a strike...some fashioned black arm bands." In addition, "schools in more than a dozen cities and regional councils opted to devote the day's first class period to discussions of equality and tolerance." In Tel AvivJaffa, "teachers turned to a lesson about gay families." Now compare that to other countries of the Middle East. Gays are in hiding for fear of their lives. It's night and day! According to Wikipedia, "In Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen, the laws state that if a person is found of engaging in same gender sexual behavior, the death penalty would be applied." In Gaza, homosexuality "is a crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison. In February 2016, Hamas's armed wing executed one of its fighters ostensibly for 'behavioral and moral violations,' which Hamas officials acknowledged meant same-sex relations." Wikipedia states that "Israel is a notable exception, being the most progressive concerning LGBT rights." In Israel, there is a gay pride parade, transgender individuals serve in the military, and same-sex couples have children. There is no comparison between Israel and the rest. Israel is the only progressive country on this issue in the Middle East. One begs to ask, why is there an article in The Washington Post about an anti-gay comment in the one pro-gay Middle East country? Meanwhile, Middle East countries like Iran hang gays, but nary a Washington Post article on that. What is up with the discriminatory practice against Israel and the free pass that the Post gives all the Arab countries and Iran? Come on, Washington Post end your discrimination! Workers assemble face masks on an emergency production line at a factory in Nantong in eastern China's Jiangsu Province, Feb. 1. AP The number of deaths from the coronavirus epidemic in China has risen by 46 to 259, the country's health authorities said Saturday, as the United States and other nations announced new border curbs on foreigners who have visited the country recently. Wuhan in Hubei Province, the epicenter of the epidemic, is under a virtual quarantine, with roads sealed off and public transport shut down. Elsewhere in China, the authorities have placed restrictions on travel and business activity in a bid to contain the spread of the virus. In its latest figures, China's National Health Commission said there were 2,102 new confirmed infections in the country as of Friday, bringing the cumulative total to 11,791. Around two dozen other countries have reported confirmed cases of the virus. Amid growing international concern, Singapore and the United States announced measures to restrict entry to foreign nationals who have recently been in China. Australia followed suit, with Prime Minister Scott Morrison saying the country will deny entry to all foreign nationals travelling from mainland China from Saturday. "We're in fact operating with an abundance of caution in these circumstances," Morrison told reporters in Sydney. "So Australians can go about their daily lives with confidence." Bollywood actors Kareena Kapoor Khan and Kartik Aaryan walked the ramp for designer Manish Malhotra at a fashion event and he could not stop blushing or keep his eyes away from her. In a video that has surfaced from the event, Kareena and Kartik are seen walking the ramp. Kartik steals a glance at Kareena and starts blushing. His entire facial expression changes from grace and confidence to childish joy. The actors were in white ensembles. Kartik was also seen carrying the train of Kareenas gown alongside Manish. Also read: Jawaani Jaaneman box office day 2: Saif Ali Khan, Alaya F film shows sharp increase, earns 7.74 cr This is not the first time Kartik amnd Kareena have walked the ramp together. Earlier, too, they did it for Manish Malhotras Summer Couture 2018 line in Singapore. Kartik had then confessed he had a major crush on Kareena. She is a commercial actress. Like me, she loves watching and being a part of mainstream cinema. It was lovely spending time with her. Ive always had a crush on Kareena Kapoor, he had said. ALSO WATCH | Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Alaya F attend special screening of Jawaani Jaaneman Sharing a glimpse of Kareenas look for the event, Manish had earlier posted on Instagram, Resplendent, Magnetic and Beautiful always #kareenakapoorkhan .. from the first time she faced the camera to all the films together and shoots all over the world to fashion shows its been a interlinked deep rooted journey together .. #Muse Always. Check out more pictures and videos: Kareena, who is riding high on the success of her last years release Good Newwz alongside Akshay Kumar, Diljit Dosanjh and Kiara Advani, will soon begin work on Karan Johars epic, Takht. She also has Angrezi Medium with Irrfan Khan, lined up for release. Last seen in Pati Patni Aur Woh, Kartik is awaiting the release of Imtiaz Alis Love Aaj Kal, where he is paired opposite Sara Ali Khan. Starring Randep Hooda in an important role, the film will release on February 14. Follow @htshowbiz for more Rebel Wilson lit up the British Academy Film Award (BAFTA) red carpet on Sunday. The Australian actress oozed Hollywood glamour as she showed off her slimmed-down frame in a fugue-hugging design in London. The Jojo Rabbit star wore a two-tone floor-length black gown with crimson embroidered sequin embellishments. BAFTAs 2020: Rebel Wilson sparkled on the red carpet in a custom-made Prabal Gurung crimson sequin gown on Sunday in London The Prabal Gurung wrap dress cinched in at her waist, with the sequin draping creating a dramatic event look. Rebel let the sparkly dress do most of the talking, and chose to head out without any accessorises. The actress left her decolletage bare as the matte jersey v-neck gown showed off a glimpse of cleavage. She's a star! The Prabal Gurung wrap dress cinched in Rebel's waist, with the sequin draping creating a dramatic event look Natural beauty: Rebel kept her makeup look neutral, with blush on her cheeks, a thick lashing of mascara and a light pink lipstick Rebel wore her blonde locks out in tussled curls that framed her face. She kept her makeup look neutral, with blush on her cheeks, a thick lashing of mascara and a light pink lipstick. The Pitch Perfect star and comedian was asked to present the Best Director award category on the evening, which had an all-male nominees list. Choosing to joke about females being left out of the category, Rebel said on stage: 'I dont think I could do what they do, honestly. I just dont have the balls.' Sam Mendes won the award for World War I survival thriller, 1917. 'I dont think I could do what they do, honestly. I just dont have the balls': The Pitch Perfect star made a joke about the Best Director award category having an all-male nominees list BAFTAs 2020 Best Director: Sam Mendes won the award for World War I survival thriller, 1917 The Hustle star has been working out with 'transformation trainer' Jono Castano in Sydney recently. In January, she shared a video of herself being put through her paces during a rigorous training session. On January 2, Rebel said she was focusing on her health this year, in an effort to make 'some positive changes'. Add CoolSocial badge. Show it by adding this HTML code on your site: Diaryofasidechick.net scored 49 Social Media Impact. Social Media Impact score is a measure of how much a site is popular on social networks. 2.5/5.0 Stars by Social Team This CoolSocial report was updated on 24 Nov 2014, you can refresh this analysis whenever you want. 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Twitter account link TWITTER PAGE LINK NOT FOUND The on Sunday released its manifesto for Delhi polls, promising to pass a resolution against the Citizenship Amendment Act if elected to power. In the last column of its manifesto, the party said that it will pass the resolution in the first session of the Delhi Assembly after the and will ask the Centre to withdraw the Act. The manifesto stated: "The CAA brought by the BJP is against the basic spirit of our constitution. By February 21, 2020, INC government will go to the Apex court and challenge the constitutional validity of the CAA under article 131." The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) facilitates citizenship to the Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, and Christian minorities, who had fled persecution from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan before December 2014. After the passage of the Act in Parliament, violence erupted in various parts of the country in which scores of people were killed. A major anti-CAA protest is also going on at Delhi's Shaheen Bagh area. The has been vocal against the CAA ever since it was passed by Parliament. However, the BJP-led Central government has claimed that the CAA was conceptualised by the Manmohan Singh government, and has been brought only on humanitarian ground fulfilling Mahatma Gandhi's wish. Watching the tiny duck take flight, I immediately knew this was not a normal flight pattern for the smallest of Montanas puddle ducks. This green-winged teal seemed to kick in its afterburners soon after takeoff and I quickly saw why. Darting out of nowhere, one of Montanas fastest raptors, the prairie falcon, was a few feet behind the teal. At that moment it seemed that this might be the last day this duck would see light. The pursuit covered several hundred yards in seconds, when all of a sudden, the teal darted into a stand of cattails, leaving the falcon with only a puff of cattail seeds narrowly missing the kill, swooping upwards to avoid a cattail collision. While I am sure the teal was hiding below, secure in the marsh, the falcon took up a position atop a power pole with its eyes keenly focused on the marsh below, awaiting the teal to take flight again. Of all of natures marvels you can see here in the Bitterroot, one of the most impressive to witness is actual predator prey pursuits. They remind me of how each day, the most important thing for many wildlife species to focus on, is to simply stay alive. For the prairie falcon, I suspect its most important duty for the day is to successfully capture prey, and this skillful predator is darn good at it. On the flip side, prairie falcons can have the roles reversed and from time to time actually become the prey. I once observed a falconer fly his falcon after a flock of barnyard pigeons. After the falcon knocked a pigeon out of the sky, it flew into a pecan orchard to locate its prey on the ground. The falconer and I headed for the orchard only to find a great horned owl perched on the falcon, still clasping the pigeon. Only the owl won that day. Prairie falcons are more common than their cousin the peregrine falcon on the valley floor of the Bitterroot. A bit smaller in size, the prairie falcon seems to prefer the agricultural-grassland habitats, hence its name. When comparing the two species, the peregrine appears much darker with a near black head and back while the prairie falcon has more of a dull grey plumage. The prairie falcon also has two noticeable dark streaks on each side of its throat area. In flight, the notable feature of prairie falcons is their very narrow-pointed wings. Other raptors such as the northern harrier or red-tailed hawk have rounded broad wings. When you see a falcon in flight, you quickly realize that this wing design is for speed. The combination of keen eyesight, powerful talons and incredible speed, allow this bird to locate prey, chase it and knock it out of the air to the ground where it will circle back, land and begin foraging on its catch. Typically, prairie falcons will hunt smaller birds and rodents including voles, starlings and meadowlarks, but knocking a mallard out of the sky is not unheard of. Prairie falcons will nest in rugged terrain such as cliffs which are not too hard to find in and around the Bitterroots. They may also select abandoned nests from other birds and occasionally nest on power poles. The nest does not contain very much nesting material such as grass or sticks, and often is just a bowl shape with some feathering to hold the clutch of eggs. When hatched, the young falcons are totally dependent upon the parents for food which keeps both the male and female busy. The brood rearing season often coincides with the adults focusing more on the numerous vole and ground squirrel populations in the Bitterroot. This abundant food source leads to healthy and fast chick development with fledgling usually occurring about five weeks after hatching. From a conservation perspective, prairie falcons appear stable as reported by the North American Breeding Bird Survey from 1966 through 2015. As with many birds of prey, the reduction or elimination of certain pesticides like DDT which caused egg shell thinning and low reproduction, has led to increased populations. A very real concern in the West is the ever-increasing wildfires that can dramatically impact the prey base for falcons. Here in the Bitterroot, the species is doing well, so your opportunity to watch one of these impressive raptors atop a power pole or actually in a prey chase may come soon if you keep a keen eye to the sky. Sam Lawry, Teller Wildlife Refuge Executive Director has 35 plus years in the wildlife conservation profession. His contributions to the Ravalli Republic are intended to share some of that knowledge of wildlife in the Bitterroot with the community. If you would like more information about Teller Wildlife Refuge please visit our website at www.tellerwildlife.org. Love 3 Funny 0 Wow 1 Sad 0 Angry 0 National Party Leader Simon Bridges has today ruled out working with NZ First to form a Government after the 2020 election. A vote for NZ First is a vote for Labour and the Greens, says Simon. Simon has also said that National is open to working with the ACT Party. New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has responded, remaining unfazed by the announcement that rules his party out as a potential coalition partner after the 2020 General Election. Let me say this hes got a lot to learn about politics, says Winston. Epsom MP and ACT Leader David Seymour has welcomed Simon Bridges statement this afternoon. While I appreciate Nationals encouragement, I have always believed Epsom belongs to the voters. I will be campaigning directly to my neighbours as hard as ever, asking that they elect me for a third time, says David. Simon says that National wants New Zealanders to have a clear choice and certainty about what theyre getting when they go to the ballot box in September. A vote for National will mean more money in your pocket, more transport infrastructure and safety for your family, says Simon. We will get things done. Our decisions will be about whats best for New Zealanders, not whats best for NZ First. This Labour/Green/NZ First Government has failed to deliver for New Zealanders. The cost of living has gone up, taxes have been piled on, theres been no new infrastructure, and crime has risen making your family less safe. New Zealanders have been let down and we cant afford another three years of this incompetence. Narrowing your options can be the worst strategic move you will ever make, says Winston about Simons decision. Having been in politics a long time, and a member of the National Party for over 25 years, the one thing New Zealand First is confident about is that if voters deliver that possibility, and if Mr Bridges doesnt pick up the phone, someone else within his caucus will do it for him, says Winston. He has also demonstrated he has no insight into what a unified caucus looks like. As Douglas McArthur said, therell come a time soon when hell when want to see me much more than I want to see him. Simon has stated today that he doesnt believe National can work with NZ First or have a constructive trusting relationship with them. When National was negotiating in good faith with NZ First after the last election, its leader was suing key National MPs and staff, says Simon. I dont trust NZ First and I dont believe New Zealanders can either. A Labour/Greens/NZ First Government will mean more incompetence and wasteful spending, and youll pay for it with more taxes, costs, and burdens on you and your family. Simon says that National is open to working with the ACT Party. National had a constructive working relationship with ACT while in Government. We developed the partnership schools model and worked together to reduce red tape, says Simon. David Seymour agrees that ACT and National worked together constructively in the last government and can do so again. I will be campaigning on the aspirational values of Epsom, and standing up for families, schools and businesses in the face of government overreach from Wellington, says David. National recognises that it needs a strong ACT presence in the next Parliament in order to govern. The final polls of 2019 showed that ACT is likely to secure more MPs at the 2020 election and could make the difference between a Labour and a National government. ACT has held this government accountable every step of the way on the capital gains tax, centralising control over the education system, new hate speech laws, rushed firearms legislation and the flawed Zero Carbon Act, says David. ACT has shown that it is a principled and effective opposition. In 2020, ACT will be campaigning to protect the rights and freedoms of New Zealanders and to give Kiwis more control over their lives. Simon has his sights firmly focussed on the election ahead. New Zealanders have a clear choice heading into this years election, says Simon. The Government I lead will result in families who are better off, can get to work and school on time and are safer in their communities. Officials in Bridgewater agree the town needs more police coverage every day. Now, after a year and a half of political struggle over whether or not it could or should hire more police officers to fill the gaps, the towns new mayor says a scheduling switch will at least start to solve the problem. Bridgewater Mayor Matthew Moench and Acting Police Chief Paul Payne have changed the police departments shift so officers work two consecutive days, followed by two days off, then three consecutive days working 12-hour shifts, followed by three days off. The new so-called Pitman schedule was approved at the Jan. 6 council meeting. Depending on the time of day this will increase the number of officers working by 25-65%, Moench said. Payne said he will be collecting data over the coming months in order to determine if the department still needs additional officers with the shift change. I will be looking at response times and calls to service, and I will be looking to see if this schedule allows officers to have more preventative and positive interactions with the public, Payne said. Its important we have the data analyzed before we justify any kind of increases. The mayor has the concern of the publics safety in mind and has supported us in making these changes. Representatives of Bridgewaters police union did not respond to requests for comment on the switch. Moench has been proposing the police department switch to the Pitman schedule since last year, after former Mayor Dan Hayes and now-retired Police Chief Al Nicaretta proposed hiring a dozen police officers to fill gaps in coverage in 2018. Nicaretta had presented a plan to the township council saying the population has been increasing since 2005, but the number of police officers had remained the same, according to council meeting minutes. The former police chief said it was necessary to increase the police force because the number of calls for service had increased by 8,000, and the time spent per call has increased due to mandates from the attorney general and the Somerset County prosecutors office, according to meeting minutes. The former police chief had done a study (proposing) that the township hire 12 new police officers over two years and I supported that, said former Mayor Hayes in a phone call with NJ Advance Media. It made a tremendous amount of sense to me and other council members, and to other council members it did not. Moench was a member of the township council at that time and said he did not support hiring that many new officers. During the discussions, Moench estimated it would have cost the township $1.5 million to employ 12 new officers, over two years. During the debate, Hayes and Moench were also running against each other in the primary leading up to the 2019 election. Moench received the Republican nomination over Hayes and was elected in November. After months of discussion and a study performed by a third party consultant, the council ultimately did not take any action on adding additional officers to the department. The council did hire two new officers in 2019 in order to replace two officers that were retiring, according to meeting minutes. The Pitman schedule has no direct increase in cost at this time, although the mayor predicts the department will have to purchase one or two new police cars because of the increased volume of officers at any given time. We need to make sure were adequately staffed, the towns protected we do it in a financially responsible way, Moench said. Olivia Rizzo may be reached at orizzo@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @LivRizz. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips. Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. Tax exemption for Sovereign Wealth Funds on their investments in sectors like infrastructure and raising the FPI limit in corporate bonds from 9 percent to 15 percent will be beneficial to the foreign investors, Deepthi Mathew, Economist at Geojit Financial Services said in an interview to Moneycontrol's Sunil Shankar Matkar. Q: What are your thoughts on Budget. Will it boost consumption? A) The budget mainly focused on the new tax regime for boosting consumption. However, it needs to be looked into whether it is enough for reviving the consumption demand. The new tax slab could be availed by only those who do not avail of any exemptions or deductions. In such a scenario, the beneficiaries of the new tax regime would be less, and an injection of Rs 40,000 crore to the economy won't materialise. Q: Do you think the budget has given more leeway to overseas investors to pump in more money into India? A) There are various announcements in the budget for the foreign investors to cheer about. The abolishment of DDT will benefit foreign investors in a great way. Tax exemption for Sovereign Wealth Funds on their investments in sectors like infrastructure and raising the FPI limit in corporate bonds from 9 percent to 15 percent will be beneficial to the foreign investors. Q: What are the major Budget positives that market ignored and what are the things that dampened investors' mood? A) The market expected a stimulus package from the government to turn around the slowing economy, and it didn't materialise. The consumption revival through the new tax regime is also sceptical. LTCG didn't get any mention in the budget that dampened the mood of the market. Q: Do you think the 3.5 percent FY21 fiscal deficit target set by the government looks achievable? A) The budget didn't go overboard on fiscal deficit and pegged it at 3.5 percent, which is a positive aspect. However, what needs to be looked into is whether the target is achievable or will there be a fiscal slippage in FY21 also. Q: Do you think the government will be able to achieve its Rs 2.1 lakh crore divestment target though LIC IPO, IDBI stake sale? A) The IPO of LIC will help the government in garnering resources. However, the disinvestment target of Rs 2.1 lakh crore looks ambitious. The actual realisation for FY20 to date is only around Rs 18,000 crore. The target for FY20 was also revised to Rs 65,000 crore from Rs 1.05 lakh crore. Q: What should be the role of RBI after this Budget? A) It could be said that RBI's hands are tied in the wake of rising inflation. There is no expectation of a rate cut from RBI in February. : The views and investment tips expressed by investment expert on moneycontrol.com are his own and not that of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions. FAIRFIELD (BCN) As the nation's eighth case of coronavirus was confirmed on Saturday, Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield was tapped to be one of four U.S. military bases on standby to house overseas travelers who may need to be quarantined. The Pentagon approved a Department of Health and Human Services request for facilities capable of housing at least 250 people in individual rooms through Feb. 29, according to announcement Saturday on the base's Facebook page. Travis will only provide housing -- the housing agency will be responsible for care, transportation, and security of evacuees, according to the base's statement. The other three installations selected to house evacuees are the 168th Regiment, Regional Training Institute in Fort Carson, Colorado; Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas; and the Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, California, according to a statement from Jonathan Rath Hoffman, assistant to the Secretary of Defense for public affairs. There are now eight confirmed U.S. cases of coronavirus, including one in Santa Clara County that was announced on Friday. Health officials announced the latest U.S. case on Saturday in Boston, Massachusetts, of a man in his 20s who had recently traveled to Wuhan, China. The virus, which presents with flu-like symptoms, is thought to have spread from animals to humans, perhaps at a large seafood and animal market in Wuhan, China. As of Saturday, the virus has sickened at least 11,971 people in China and killed 259, according to the National Health Commission of the People's Republic China. The World Health Organization reported Saturday that there were 132 confirmed cases in 23 countries outside of China. On Friday, Alex Azar, head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, declared a public health emergency due to the spread of the virus and said that anyone who had traveled to Hubei Province in China, where Wuhan is located, within the past 14 days, will be subject to a quarantine of up to 14 days. Anyone who was in the rest of mainland China will be required to undergo health screenings at one of seven airports: San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, Atlanta, Chicago and Honolulu. Also, foreign citizens who have been in China and "pose a risk" of transmitting the virus, except those who are immediate family of American citizens, will be denied entry into the U.S. Copyright 2020 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. OLYMPIA When her 33-year-old son leaves jail or a treatment center after a mental-health and drug-addiction crisis, Theresa Yates says, theres nothing to keep him from winding up back on the streets. After an episode, hell be taken to jail and then involuntarily detained at a hospital or treatment center, said Yates, 54, of Tacoma. Theyll let him back on the street with a plan, and his plan is to go to the shelter, she said. But, she added, He wont go to the shelter. Nobody can make him, because he has rights. Thats what brought Yates to a committee hearing Friday to speak in favor of a bill by Sen. Steve OBan, R-University Place, intended to provide treatment for adults suffering from mental illness or drug addiction who wont or cant help themselves but arent in bad enough shape to be detained. Senate Bill 6109 would create a four-year trial run for a new executor program in King, Pierce and Snohomish counties. Under the bill, someone who has been involuntarily detained at least five times in a 12-month period could have an executor appointed to them to help oversee treatment. The bill would also create requirements to make available treatment, supportive housing and vocational rehabilitation for those in the program. OBan called the bill an attempt to bridge the gap between treatment that people get voluntarily and the high threshold that needs to be met in order for officials to detain someone under Washingtons Involuntary Treatment Act. Under that law, someone in imminent danger because of being gravely disabled or who presents an imminent likelihood of serious harm can be detained and given involuntary treatment. At a news conference before Fridays hearing, OBan said his legislation was geared toward those who consistently refuse care and shelter, but suffer crippling addictions and mental illness. Unless government intervenes, their conditions harden, the likelihood of recovery lessens, and many will perish, he said. We owe them and their parents more, a lot more. Steve Strachan, executive director of the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs, also spoke at the news conference in favor of SB 6109. This will increase the safety of the public, it will increase the safety of law enforcement, and very importantly it will increase the safety of the people involved, said Strachan. Standing nearby was Jerri Clark, founder of the advocacy group Mothers of the Mentally Ill, who talked about her sons long struggle with mental illness. She recounted a story of the last time he was released from involuntary treatment in a hospital. I pleaded with the staff to make sure he was released into appropriate housing, Clark said of her son, who died by suicide last year. Instead, he was sent to an emergency shelter. He discarded his medication, according to Clark and spent six days running around Seattle in psychosis with no fewer than five interactions with law enforcement. But none of those experiences led to a level of imminent threat or criminality that would allow public officials to do anything to help him, said Clark. He didnt get help until he broke into a residence and was arrested on felony charges and thrown in King County Jail, where he immediately tried to kill himself Lawmakers are seeking other ways to make it easier for officials to intervene with people needing mental-health treatment. Senate Bill 5720, sponsored by Sen. Manka Dhingra, D-Redmond, would make several changes to the Involuntary Treatment Act, including changing the threshold for someone to be detained. For example, the definition of serious harm would be expanded to include a risk of physical harm evidenced by harm, substantial pain, or which places a person in reasonable fear of harm to themselves or others, according to a legislative analysis. Dhingras bill passed the Senate last year but stalled in the House. Last week, Senate lawmakers passed it again, and she said she hopes it will get to the governors desk this year. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 BETHLEHEM The town has extended its moratorium on the opening of new vape shops until at least June, after an initial proposal last year to locate one next to a school sparked concern. The town says it needs more time to determine what regulations would dictate where vape shops should be located. The moratorium also covers smoke shops and any business that sells recreational or medicinal marijuana or marijuana products. In June 2019, the town board voted 4 to 1 to start the moratorium after a business applied for a permit to locate in a building on Delaware Avenue that is next door to Elsmere Elementary School. The lone Republican on the board, James Foster, voted against the ban, saying it was "political grandstanding at its worst,'" and that it wouldn't have any positive impact on reducing smoking by children. Foster voted again Dec. 18 against a moratorium extension, which came in response to the town's economic development and planning department suggesting more study needs to be done to determine how marijuana sales would fit into in any new regulations. New York state is currently considering legalizing recreational marijuana. The moratorium extension says there needs to be more discussion about options, considering that "vapor products cannot be considered separately from tobacco products" and "that the sale of marijuana products will be an easy transition for tobacco and vapor retailers." The town already has two vape stores, one near the Four Corners on Delaware Ave., and another in Glenmont on Route 9W. "The town board desires to protect the aesthetic and economic vitality of the business districts as well as real estate values..." and "such regulations should take into account any significant negative impacts on the nature and quality of life in the town and on the health, safety, general welfare, and comfort of its residents," states the local law that enacts the moratorium extension. The vaping industry has taken a serious hit nationwide since last year when thousands of young users became seriously ill after vaping. Vaping is done with electronic cigarettes or vape devices that turn liquid nicotine into a vapor or mist that is inhaled. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found the presence of THC in some products the affected patients smoked, which is illegal in New York. But an exact cause has not been determined. Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. Critics also say liquid nicotine is marketed toward children because it often comes in candy and dessert flavors like bubble gum and cake. The City of Buffalo established a moratorium on vape shops in September. And Gov. Andrew Cuomo attempted to temporarily ban the sale of flavored vape products in New York, but a court decision recently struck down that effort. The New York Vapor Association says there are more than 700 vape shops statewide, notes that it employs more than 2,500 people in New York, and argues that it helps cigarette smokers wean themselves off tobacco. Bethlehem's moratorium extension, which stops the processing of any permits or certificate of occupancies for vape or smoke shops, will last until June. Some of them have not touched an instrument for decades, but for the reuniting members of the Vernon Girls Trumpet Band, it was just like old times. Formed in 1947, the band was a fixture in every Vernon Winter Carnival parade until they disbanded in 2009. However, to celebrate the 60th anniversary of carnival, the band got back together and these ladies have not missed a beat. We have been having so much fun. You have no idea. It's been just a blast, said Joy Gillies who was in the band from 1965 to 1971. The Vernon Girls Trumpet Alumni Band held their first practice in November of last year, and expect more than 35 former members to march in the carnival parade this Saturday. Cathy Sim organized the reunion for which 132 former members registered. Their ages range from 20 to 70-plus, said Sim. We have many eras represented. We are also having a float in the parade, so we do have some of the original band girls, which now we are all ladies. But you put on those instruments and we are all girls again. Sim said for some of the members, it is the first time they have touched an instrument in more than 40 years. One of the ladies said it's like riding a bike, said Sim, adding the band members had to memorize their songs. None of us forgot. It's amazing. Wait until you hear us. The trumpet band will also be honoured at the Vernon Museum on Tuesday with a pop-up display covering their decades of playing. Sims grandfather, Bob Hodgon, started the band as a cadette corp, because it was the only way the band could get funding. Members were given full cadet training, including shooting and map orientation. The band went on to play in competitions and parades throughout Canada, the US and Europe, collecting 172 major trophies along the way. The public is invited to attend the opening of the exhibit from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Feb. 4. The exhibit will include band memorabilia such as photographs, instruments and awards. The Delhi high court will on Sunday hold a special hearing as it issued a notice to Tihar jail authorities and the Nirbhaya convicts and sought their response on a plea moved by the Centre challenging the stay on their execution. The court on Saturday heard the petition filed by the central government and Tihar Jail authorities challenging the trial court's order which had stayed the execution of the four convicts in the Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case. "The four convicts by filing their respective review petition or curative petition or mercy petitions, one after the other and that too at such a belated stage, that is after the issuance of the death warrants, are in fact being permitted to play with the majesty of law leading to unnecessarily prolonging the execution and thereby taking the judicial process for a ride," the plea said. It said that the convicts have deliberately chosen to file their review, curative and mercy petitions beyond the statutory period available to them with the sole objective to delay the execution of the death warrant. A Delhi court had on Friday stayed till further orders the execution of the four convicts -- Akshay Thakur, Mukesh Singh, Pawan Gupta, and Vinay Sharma -- which was earlier scheduled to take place on February 1. The case pertains to the gang-rape and brutal murder of a 23-year-old paramedical student in a moving bus on the night of December 16, 2012, by six people, including a juvenile, in Delhi. The woman had died at a Singapore hospital a few days later.One of the five adults accused, Ram Singh, had allegedly committed suicide in the Tihar Jail during the trial of the case. US move to raise travel warning 'too unkind': China Iran Press TV Saturday, 01 February 2020 11:20 AM China has harshly lambasted the United States' decision to raise its warning alert to the highest level for travel to the Asian country due to the coronavirus epidemic, saying that the move is inappropriate and not "in line with the facts." The US State Department on Friday raised the warning alert to the same level as Afghanistan and Iraq despite the World Health Organization (WHO)'s measure not to recommended travel curbs on China. "The United States acted in a diametrically opposite way right after the World Health Organization's declaration to oppose any move to close borders with China or restrict Chinese travelers' access, which is too unkind and has set a very bad example," China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Saturday. "A friend in need is a friend indeed. Many countries are helping China fight with the contagion through different means. In contrast, the words and deeds of the US are neither in line with the facts nor even appropriate," she added. The virus has so far killed 213 people and spread to at least 18 countries around the world, with the number of confirmed coronavirus cases standing at 9,809. Hua also blasted US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross after he suggested that the deadly coronavirus outbreak in China could be positive for the American economy and help "accelerate the return of jobs" to the US. Hua said China was sharing data and information about the deadly coronavirus with the international community, including the US, in a "transparent, responsible, and timely manner." Economists believe that the deadly virus could have a bigger impact on the global economy than the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) epidemic in 2002 and 2003. SARS infected over 8,000 people, causing more than 700 deaths and is estimated to have cost the world economy more than 30 billion dollars. The coronavirus has forced global companies including tech giants, car makers and retailers to temporarily shut down in China as authorities extended the Lunar New Year holiday and imposed major travel restrictions across the vast Asian country. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address In a nutshell: Indiana University has announced that its Big Red 200 supercomputer will be upgraded with new, unreleased Nvidia hardware by fall this year. Consider the Ampere architecture confirmed. The Big Red 200 is a new $9.6 million supercomputer being built for Indiana University. It was originally designed to use Tesla V100 GPUs, but at the last minute, Nvidia offered to upgrade it with the V100s successor, probably called the Tesla A100. The upgrade brought its theoretical FP64 performance up from 6 PetaFLOPS to just under 8 PetaFLOPS. The new GPUs wont arrive in time for Big Reds original schedule, so Indiana University has split its construction into two phases. The first is the CPU powered half. Built on the Cray Shasta architecture, each of 672 nodes will have two 64-core AMD Epyc 7742 processors. Thats 128 cores per node, and 86,016 cores in total. The first phase is expected to come online soon. The second phase will introduce 256 of Nvidias new Tensor Core GPUs in additional nodes. These nodes are described as being architecturally similar to the Perlmutters (another supercomputer). If thats accurate, then each node will have four GPUs and one AMD Epyc 7742. This would bring Big Reds total CPU core count to 90,112. "The combination of the AMD Rome CPUs and the next-generation NVIDIA Tensor Core GPUs are well-matched to the needs of IU researchers for simulation, AI, and many forms of research - Brad Wheeler Intriguingly, Indiana Universitys CIO Brad Wheeler has described the new GPUs as being 70-75% more powerful than a Tesla V100. The V100 has between 7 and 8.2 TeraFLOPS at FP64, implying that this new card could have 131 TeraFLOPS. Its also possible to work backward from a total system performance bracket of ~8 PetaFLOPS. Doing so yields a per GPU theoretical performance bracket of 14.50.8 TeraFLOPS. Both those estimates would be too unreliable to be worth mentioning if they werent so close to each other. As is though, theyre some food for thought. January 31, 2020 News By Terri Moon Cronk Defense.gov Esper, Italian Counterpart Reaffirm Shared Goals The United States and Italy honored and deepened their long-standing defense relationship during talks between Defense Secretary Dr. Mark T. Esper and Italian Defense Minister Lorenzo Guerini. The secretary welcomed his Italian counterpart to the Pentagon today, and after their discussions, the two defense leaders met with reporters from U.S. and Italian media. "As a steadfast NATO ally, Italy hosts roughly 34,000 U.S. service members, civilians and dependents across five major bases," Esper said. "In doing so, Italy provides a vital role in our force projection into Europe, the Mediterranean and North Africa." The United States is grateful for Italy's leadership and contributions to coalition operations around the world, especially in the Middle East, the secretary said. Through the defeat-ISIS coalition, the United States and Italy continue to work together to ensure a stable and sovereign Iraq and the lasting defeat of ISIS, he said. "Elsewhere in the region, our two nations recognize the importance of restoring stability with Iran as we encourage them to behave like a normal country," Esper said. "And we will continue to discuss requirements of core missions in Afghanistan while we review the United States' force posture in that country." The secretary thanked the defense minister for bolstering Italy's role as a critical, industrial defense partner to the United States, and for his strong advocacy of the F-35 joint strike fighter program. "As a level-2 partner in the program, your country has made important investments in research and development in the aircraft," he added. Ahead of next month's NATO's defense ministers meeting, Esper encouraged U.S. allies and partners to increase their contributions to alliance readiness, burden-sharing and to meet the pledge by NATO members to spend at least 2% of gross domestic product on defense, which he said will be crucial for a stronger NATO to be prepared for tomorrow's threats. "I look forward to continuing our discussions next month at NATO about the way forward for our collective security," Esper said. "I am confident that our strong defense relationship will continue to grow as we advance our priorities on the basis of our shared values and interests." Speaking through a translator, Guerini thanked Esper for hosting him and said their meeting was constructive, touching on a wide span of issues that reflect the relationship between their nations. "Italy and the United States have a strong interest in the development of our military capabilities," the defense minister said. "In the course of our meeting today, we have touched on different issues and shared analyses about Iraq, the situation in Libya, Afghanistan and the southern flank of the alliance." Guerini said he reaffirmed Italy's commitment to international missions. "We both believe, especially in this moment of crisis, in maintaining momentum to preserve the results achieved so far in the fight against terrorism and the training of the local security forces and in regional stabilization," he said. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Around 70 firefighters helped to tackle a huge fire at a car workshop in east London. The London Fire Brigade revealed that they took 25 calls for the 'very visible' blaze in Walthamstow, which is now under control. Earlier video footage showed plumes of smoke and fire rising into the sky. Scroll down for video The pub situated behind the fire, above, Ye Olde Rose & Crown, was reportedly evacuated. One witness wrote on Twitter: 'Everyone evacuated from the pub with pint in hand' Firefighters had to use a cherrypicker to control the blaze when they were called to the scene before 5pm. Nearby residents filmed the blaze from their windows as they watched the flames rise. Ten fire engines were sent to the scene, where a two-floor car workshop and garages were alight. The pub situated behind the fire, Ye Olde Rose & Crown, was reportedly evacuated. One witness wrote on Twitter: 'Everyone evacuated from the pub with pint in hand.' Walthamstow's Labour MP Stella Creasy wrote on Twitter: 'Walthamstow appreciate that it's shocking but can confirm it's the garage behind rose and crown which is on fire so there are flammable items in there - fire brigade asking for public help to stay behind cordon so please stop jumping over it to film and help them by staying back!' The London Fire Brigade said there were no reports of injuries, and that firefighters will be on scene damping down the remaining hot spots of fire. The cause of the fire is under investigation. CHESTER A gas station convenience store altercation early Saturday led to the citys fourth and fifth homicides this year, according to police. City and Delaware County detectives determined the two victims shot each other before making two arrests later Saturday in connection with the robbery and fight that preceded the shooting. Police responded to a report of shooting in the area of West Ninth and Kerlin streets about 4:18 a.m. Saturday, finding one victim unresponsive and not breathing in front of the Sunoco A-Plus market. The victim, identified as Tahriq Doward, 29, suffered a gunshot wound to his torso area. A handgun was located near the victim. Police then located a second victim, identified as Lasantos Saunders, 30, about one block northwest in the area of West 10th Street and Concord Avenue, in the drivers seat of a silver Chevrolet Impala. Saunders, unresponsive and not breathing, appeared to have sustained a gunshot wound to his chest area. A handgun was located near the victims vehicle. Both men were treated by Crozer-Chester Medical Center paramedics but were pronounced deceased at the scene. City and county detectives used surveillance footage to determine Doward and Saunders shot each other. Based on additional surveillance footage, detectives discovered a fight and robbery in the A Plus market that preceded the shooting. According to a release from city police, During this incident Saunders was attacked, robbed and assaulted by numerous actors. After employees were able to restore order and escort the attackers out, Saunder remained in the store for his safety. Moments later Doward returned to the store and did exchange gunfire with Saunders, with both men striking each other, according to the release. Saunders then fled in a Chevrolet Impala, driving to the location where he was discovered. Based on the surveillance footage, police were able to identify and arrest two men in connection with Saunders robbery and assault. Charges have been filed against two city men Jaquail Dale, 21, and Lamont Mallory, 29 including robbery, aggravated assault, recklessly endangering another person, and other related offenses. Dale and Mallory will not be charged for Saunders homicide, according to police. Anyone with additional information regarding this case is urged to contact Chester Detective Victor Heness at 610-447-8429 or vheness245@chesterpolice.org, or County Detective Sergeant Larry Patterson at 610-891-4126. EPA Senators have voted not to hear witnesses in the impeachment trial of Donald Trump, meaning his acquittal on charges of abuse of power and obstructing Congress is now almost certain. A motion that would allow members of the upper chamber to subpoena witness testimony and additional documents was defeated 51 votes to 49. The most senior Democrat in the Senate, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, called it "one of the worst tragedies that the Senate has ever overcome". Senators "turned away from truth and went along with a sham trial", he told reporters after the vote. "If the president is acquitted without witnesses or documents, the acquittal will have no value." Delaware Democratic Senator Tom Carper told reporters following the historic vote that Republican senators will not attempt to force a final vote on whether to convict or acquit the president as he headed to a closed-door caucus meeting in which Democratic members will discuss how they would like to see the next few days play out. Mr Carper said it might take a "couple weeks" to bring about an endgame. But congressional sources indicated there is interest on both sides in wrapping the proceedings as soon as next week possibly by Wednesday evening. Pushing the end of the trial to Wednesday means Mr Trump would be set to deliver his State of the Union address the night before, giving him a chance to mock the very House Democrats who impeached him just hours before the Senate would be poised to clear him on both charges. That possible scene would produce some of the most dramatic images in recent US political history, just the kind of made-for-television moment relished by the reality television star-turned-commander in chief. But no final decision about the trial's conclusion has come into focus. Republican senators also are huddling in their own Capitol meeting room. Both sides are trying to hammer out an agreement under which the final days of the trial would operate, meaning guidelines for closing arguments, floor statements and the final votes on the two articles. Story continues More follows Read more Shots fired after police chase near Trump Florida resort GOP tries to justify acquitting Trump amid confusion around trial end Tump supporters deny they're in denial about the president Prepare for an even more unhinged Trump after the impeachment trial Monica Lewinsky mocks lack of impeachment witnesses at Trump trial By PTI CHANDIGARH: The Shiromani Akali Dal on Sunday demanded immediate dismissal of Punjab Jails Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa and a probe by a sitting judge of the High Court into the escape of three prisoners from Amritsar's high-security Central jail. Former minister and senior SAD leader Daljit Singh Cheema said the Amritsar incident had come in the wake of various other incidents taking place in Punjab jails, which have shaken the confidence of people in the government. He said besides ordering an independent probe into the incident, the government should tell what action it has taken in other cases and why the jail administration has "collapsed." Asking the chief minister to fix accountability at the very top, the opposition party leader said the "jails minister should be asked to resign immediately till the pendency of the probe". "Prison security is the primary responsibility of the jails minister. He cannot shirk away from this responsibility," he said in a statement here. Rejecting the magisterial inquiry ordered by the chief minister into the incident, Cheema said a magistrate "could not do justice" in the case. "The magistrate will not be able to probe the role of the jails minister in weakening prison security," he said. The SAD leader said since the prisoners' escape took place in the wake of several incidents of the use of mobile phones in jails, it is necessary to "hold an independent inquiry into the functioning of the Punjab jails administration". Three undertrials had escape escaped from the high-security Amritsar Central Jail by scaling the boundary walls on the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday, prompting Chief Minister Amarinder Singh to order a review and revamp of the prison security across the state. The Delhi High Court on Saturday issued a notice to the four convicts in the 2012 Delhi gangrape and murder case and directed the authorities at Tihar Jail and the DG (Prisons) to reply to Centre's plea challenging a stay on the convict's execution The Delhi High Court on Saturday issued a notice to the four convicts in the 2012 Delhi gangrape and murder case and directed the authorities at Tihar Jail and the DG (Prisons) to reply to Centre's plea challenging a stay on the convict's execution. The court issued the directions while hearing the Centre's petition challenging a trial court's order staying the execution of the four death row convicts in the 2012 Delhi gangrape and murder case. The court will hear the matter again on Sunday. The execution of the death sentence was earlier scheduled for 1 February, Saturday. The Ministry of Home Affairs has challenged the trial court's Friday order, which had stayed the execution of the convicts until further orders. The plea, which sought setting aside of the trial court's order, has made parties the convicts, Mukesh Kumar, Vinay Sharma, Pawan Gupta and Akshay Singh, Director General (Prisons) and Superintendent of Tihar Jail. Arguing on behalf of the Central Government, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the high court that the convicts have taken the process of law to "joyride" and are acting in tandem to delay their execution. "The 2012 Delhi gangrape and murder case will go down in the history of India where convicts of a heinous crime are trying the patience of country," the Centre told the high court during the hearing. The plea was mentioned before Chief Justice DN Patel for an urgent hearing and was listed for hearing later in the day. It said the trial court judge has acted beyond its jurisdiction in postponing the death warrants issued against the four convicts. The plea also said the trial court while postponing the death warrants "till further order", has failed to consider that the convicts were found guilty for the gruesome and horrible offence of gangrape and murder of a woman. It further said that the convicts were given sufficient opportunity to avail all the remedies available to them but they deliberately chose to delay the process of filing their pleas. The Centre said it was the nodal agency to maintain law and order in Delhi and was also the concerned department to process the mercy petitions files by any death row convict in the national capital. The plea said the conduct of the convicts clearly shows their intention to delay the process of execution of death sentence, which is not only an abuse of process of law but also a mockery of courts and the judicial system. With inputs from PTI McKenzie County officials hope that drones will help them make better-informed decisions about restricting traffic on gravel roads after wet weather hits the oil patch. Starting this spring, pilots from the Grand Forks-based company ISight RPV Services will fly drones over roads in the county following rainy weather, a new application for drones in North Dakota. The drones cameras will pick up images of the road conditions, and officials will use that information to determine which roads to keep open and which to shut down to heavy trucks. If it rains more than a half an inch in a 24-hour period, we may have road issues, McKenzie County Commission Chairman Tom McCabe said. The longer it rains, the softer the ground will get. Heavy vehicles that drive over the wet ground can damage the roads, which is why counties sometimes issue restrictions to truck drivers after storms. Proponents of the drone project say that with more real-time data available, officials can be strategic in shutting down roads and close only those that are necessary, leaving more open for oil-related traffic. ISight plans to establish an office in Watford City with two pilots and two assistants who will begin using the drones in May. The first step is to fly the aircraft over all the roads in good weather to get a baseline that can be used for comparison after future storms. During the first year of the program, pilots will need to be able to see the drones at all times. Our intent is to follow the drones down the road with a pickup so we keep them in line of sight, said Tommy Kenville, CEO of ISight. While one person drives the pickup, the other will operate the drone from the passenger seat. By 2021, Kenville anticipates employees will start operating the drones remotely as beyond-visual-line-of-sight capabilities for the drone industry expand outside an existing 100-mile test corridor in the Red River Valley. The state, with authorization from the Legislature, is spending $33 million in beyond-visual-line-of-sight infrastructure, said James Leiman, director of economic development and finance for the North Dakota Department of Commerce. The state plans to install the necessary sensors and related technology in the western part of North Dakota to establish another corridor in the Tioga, Williston and Watford City area that will support drone use in the oil patch, he said. If it wasnt for that, this project would be very difficult to do, Kenville said. McKenzie County will spend $100,000 over two years on the project, which has a total cost of $225,000 and includes several other partners including the Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute. Kenville considers the effort a pilot project that could, potentially, expand to more counties down the road. ISight has worked in the Bakken before, flying 175 miles of pipeline three years ago in search of problems that vegetation or slumping ground might pose to the infrastructure. The company also uses drones to inspect wind turbines and power lines, among other applications. McCabe, the commission chairman, learned about the drones' capabilities for county roads when Kenville spoke in December at an event hosted by the Western Dakota Energy Association. He anticipates that the drone program will complement five existing weather stations spread throughout McKenzie County and others that the association is installing across the Bakken to provide officials with better information on where rain has fallen during storms. Its going to all be one big package, McCabe said. The association has installed 18 weather stations in the western part of the state and plans to install 32 more. Executive Director Geoff Simon said it will put up more in the spring once the ground thaws. The group also has hired a meteorologist to assist counties with interpreting data from the stations. Reach Amy R. Sisk at 701-250-8252 or amy.sisk@bismarcktribune.com. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Amid widespread panic over Coronaviris outbreak, rumours likening it to zombie apocalypse were doing the rounds making the situation worse. In an attempt to check the spread of misinformation surrounding Coronaviris, Malaysia's government recently took to social media to dismiss the rumours about people turning to Zombies due to infection from the deadly Coronavirus. "The deadly Wuhan virus will not cause the victims to transform into a Zombie," confirmed the government. Malaysians fear turning into a zombie like The Walking Dead The citizens of Malaysia have reportedly been under stress over rumours that the strain of the Wuhan 2019-nCoV virus would turn them into zombies as they dismissed the possibilities of medical treatment. They also struck a comparison of the coronavirus with the disease in the Hollywood zombie apocalypse movie The Walking Dead. Malaysia has been struggling to control the misinformation Malaysia's health ministry dismissed the rumour in a tweet, saying, "The claim that individuals infected with this virus will behave like zombies is not true. Patients can recover." They further added, The death rate is low (between two to three per cent) as compared to MERS-CoV (around 34 per cent) and SARS (about 10 per cent). Read China: Hubei's Coronavirus Lockdown Obstructs Girl's Cancer Treatment Read Coronavirus: Maldives' President Solih Thanks India For Evacuating 7 Maldivians From Wuhan Malaysia has been struggling to control the misinformation circulating in the country through various channels about the wrong figures of the death toll and infection cases, suggest reports. The Malaysian Police have reportedly made six arrests in connection to circulation of false reports and rumours about the virus. Amongst the individuals that the police have detained was a 49-year-old tutor who was detained on charges of uploading fake content pertaining to the virus. Another 28-year-old woman was under investigation on charges of improper use of network facilities in Malaysia, suggest reports. According to the authorities, she can be fined up to 50,000 Malaysian ringgit and may have to serve prison time for at least a year. Read Pak Envoy Against Evacuating Students From Wuhan, Says 'Pak Cannot Treat Coronavirus' Read China Reports H5N1 Bird Flu Outbreak In Hunan Amid Coronavirus Spread Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa on Sunday said the expansion of his ministry will take place on February 6 and 13 MLAs will take the oath of office. Ten legislators who had joined the BJP from other parties, including the Congress and the Janata Dal (Secular), will be among those who will be inducted into the cabinet, he said. Yediyurappa had on January 31 received the nod from his party's central leadership for expanding his six-month-old cabinet. The exercise has been on the cards ever since the BJP won 12 of the 15 seats in the December 5, 2019, assembly bypolls, helping the Yediyurappa government retain majority in the House. "The cabinet expansion will take place on February 6 with the oath-taking ceremony at the Raj Bhavan at 10.30 am," the chief minister told reporters here. Thirteen MLAs, including 10 who had joined the BJP from other parties, including Congress and JD(S), will take the oath of office, he said. Earlier, Yediyurappa had said that most of the disqualified JD(S)-Congress MLAs who got re-elected in the bypolls on BJP tickets would be made ministers, but there would not be additional deputy chief ministers. He had given an assurance to all 11 re-elected legislators that they would be made ministers. On Sunday, Yediyurappa acknowledged that he could not have come to power if the 17 Congress-JD(S) MLAs had not been disqualified, but cited limitations in inducting all of them into the cabinet. He, however, reiterated that whatever promises he had made to the disqualified MLAs will be fulfilled. Asked about former Rane Bennur MLA R Shankar, who was disqualified from the assembly and not given a BJP ticket in the December bypolls, Yediyurappa said he will be made an MLC first and a minister later. On A H Vishwanath and M T B Nagaraj, who had joined the BJP and unsuccessfully contested the bypolls from Hunasuru and Hoskote respectively, the chief minister said, "According to the Supreme Court order, those who lost the elections cannot be made (ministers)." The announcement dealt a blow to the MLAs who had defected from the Congress and the JD(S) and were instrumental in helping the BJP secure a majority in the Karnataka Assembly. MLAs Mahesh Kumatahalli, Vishwanath and Nagaraj reminded Yediyurappa of 'vachana dharma', the religious obligation to fulfil a promise. Amid rumours that he may be excluded from the cabinet, Kumathalli, who had won from the Athani constituency, said he was pained. "We have trusted him (Yediyurappa). We are ready to do whatever work he will assign. We will firmly remain with the BJP but I am hurt," he said. "Even if they (BJP leaders) don't make me a minister and assign me the job to sweep the BJP office in Bengaluru, I will do it," he said. Vishwanath reminded Yediyurappa of his obligation to fulfil his promise. "It is up to him to keep his 'vachana dharma'. I am not going to call him. It is up to him," an apparently aggrieved Vishwanath told reporters in Mysuru. "The apex court allowed us to contest the election... Thus, we came out of our impurity the day we filed our nomination papers," he added. Vishwanath also sought to know how Laxman Savadi continued to be the deputy chief minister despite losing the 2018 assembly election. "I am also hearing that the Channapatna leader will be inducted," he said, referring to the speculation that BJP leader C P Yogeshwar, who lost to H D Kumaraswamy in the 2018 elections from Channapatna constituency, may be inducted into the cabinet. Nagaraj said, "I don't know about the legal complications. Our leader is the chief minister. We trust him. We have faith that he will fulfil the promises he made to us." Currently, there are 18 ministers, including the chief minister, in the cabinet, which has a sanctioned strength of 34. Sixteen berths are vacant. The cabinet expansion exercise will be a delicate task for Yediyurappa as he has to ensure adequate representation of various castes and regions. The ministry already has eight Lingayats, including Yediyurappa; three Vokkaligas; a Brahmin; three SCs, two OBCs and one ST. Opposition parties have been critical of the BJP and Yediyurappa over the delay in the cabinet expansion, alleging that he is weak and his administration has collapsed. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Two people were killed in a shooting outside Victory City Church in Riviera Beach, Fla. following a funeral Saturday afternoon. RIVIERA BEACH, Fla. Two people are dead and one was injured after a shooting Saturday outside a church in Florida, city police say. Police said gunfire erupted at 2:34 p.m. outside of Victory City Church in Riviera Beach, about 5 miles north of West Palm Beach. First responders arrived to find three people shot. The department had initially reported a fourth victim but determined that a juvenile who arrived at a nearby hospital with a gunshot wound was involved in an unrelated shooting. Police said that 47-year-old Royce Freeman and a 15-year-old boy, who police declined to identify, died at the scene. A female adult was also shot. Police say shes being treated at St. Marys Medical Center in West Palm Beach for non-life-threatening injuries. Police said the shooting happened shortly after a funeral service had ended. While the investigation is ongoing, Riviera Beach Police spokeswoman AJ Walker said investigators believe it happened because of a fight between relatives of the person whose funeral was held. A nearby gunfire-detecting device recorded 13 rounds, according to city police. The shooting was not a random act of violence. The victims and the shooters were known to each other, police said late Saturday, revealing that more than one person fired shots. Pastor Tywuante Lupoe, the leader of the Riviera Beach church, told The Post on Saturday that he was returning from a funeral in Fort Lauderdale at the time of the shooting. But Lupoe said a member of his church witnessed the deadly events and told him what he saw. Apparently, there was a family dispute that may have escalated and really brought to a point where there was disagreement and fighting, Lupoe said. Riviera Beach Police spokeswoman Walker declined comment on the pastors version of the events. Our investigators are continuing to work this case. Our thoughts are with our community and those families impacted by this tragic event, Walker said. Lupoe said the church member saw a person fire warning shots in the air to break up an altercation right after the funeral ended. Another person may have mistaken those shots for an attack, Lupoe said. Story continues Hours after the shooting, as the rain persisted, police pieced together the crime scene, which had played out on the sidewalk and street in front of the church. Lupoe said that before the funeral, he received a call about possible family tensions and the churchs staff was notified. Riviera Beach police and the churchs armed security were at the church during the funeral, Lupoe said. After it ended, he said, police and most of our security left. Lupoe said the church regularly has armed security on-site. The pastor noted that the person whose funeral was held was not a member of the church, but they open up the church for the community to use. We pray for the families, the loved ones who lost their two young men today, he said. We pray Gods comfort, love and understanding will come to them. Hannah Morse on Twitter: @mannahhorse This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post (Palm Beach, FL): Funeral shooting: 2 people killed outside church in Riviera Beach, FL India's government space expenditure still lags behind that of the major players in the sector, such as the US, which spent about 13 times more than India in 2018, according to a report presented to parliament. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) plans to launch at least 50 medium and heavy satellites into orbit in the next five years. These launches will include the polar satellite launch vehicle which is considered one of the world's most reliable rockets and the workhorse of the Indian space programme. "ISRO has earmarked $1.6 billion for PSLV with $870 million for Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV)," said Haridas T. V., Deputy Director of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, while taking part in the panel discussions at 'EDGE 2020, The Space Conclave' on Friday. GSLV can place satellites weighing over 3500 kg to the Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit. The agency also plans to introduce a low-cost satellite launch vehicle, the Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV), which can put satellites weighing 500 kg into orbit. The ISRO, which earns around $40 million annually through launching small satellites, aims to increase its revenue by launching satellites for foreign customers. Live TV As the small rocket can be assembled in three days, the ISRO hopes to achieve 50-60 launches a year. Indian government's space expenditure has been increasing for the past few years due to ambitious missions, including a manned mission in 2022, a third lunar mission and others. However, India still lags behind the major players in the space sector, such as the US, which spent 13 times more than India in 2018. "China, which has become a key player in the space sector in recent years, also spent about seven times more than India in 2018," the finance ministry document revealed. India has been making efforts to match the capability of countries like the US, Russia and China which dominate satellite launching services with 20, 31 and 39 satellites launched respectively in 2018. The second confirmed case of Novel Coronavirus has been reported from Kerala where a person has been tested positive with the deadly virus. The patient has a travel history from China, suggested report. "The patient has tested positive for Novel Coronavirus and is in isolation in the hospital. The patient is stable and is being closely monitored," according to a PIB statement. The first confirmed case of Coronavirus was reported from Kerala on January 30, when a student studying in Wuhan University, returned to Kerala. The student, who returned to Kerala from Wuhan via Kolkata, went to the Thrissur General Hospital with possible symptoms, where he was quickly quarantined to an isolation ward. As of now, nearly 900 people are under observation across India. Of this, 806 people are under observation in Kerala alone. As per report, 10 people are in isolation wards in hospitals, while the rest are in home quarantine. Meanwhile, at least 27 persons are under observation in Maharashtra, and as a precautionary measure 10 of them have been quarantined. In MP, a 50-year-old woman and her 20-year-old son who were admitted in a hospital in Ujjain for possible exposure to novel Coronavirus tested negative for the deadly pathogen. Few days back, a 28-year-old resident of Mohali, Punjab, who returned from China recently, was also admitted to the isolation ward of PGIMER, Chandigarh, after showing novel Coronavirus-like symptoms. Also Read: Coronavirus outbreak: Kerala moves fast soon after first case appears in state Last week, the World Health Organization (WHO) had declared the coronavirus outbreak a global emergency, as cases spread to at least 18 countries. As per WHO data, the majority of the more than 7,800 cases detected globally were reported in China, where the virus originated in an illegal wildlife market in the city of Wuhan. The capital of China's Hubei province, Wuhan is the centre of Coronavirus outbreak. Given the deadly novel coronavirus spreading rapidly outside China, government has asked Indians to refrain from travelling to China where the novel coronavirus has claimed nearly 300 lives. The ministry has issued travel advisory and urged people travelling to China to monitor their health closely. It asked people to use 24x7 helpline (011-23978046) for queries related to respiratory infection. Also Read: Coronavirus: WHO declares global emergency as death toll reaches 170 in China As a precautionary measure, the Indian government has evacuated 324 Indians from the Chinese city of Wuhan where the outbreak of deadly coronavirus has killed several people. Air India's jumbo B747 plane, carrying 324 Indian nationals from the coronavirus-hit Wuhan in China, landed on Saturday morning. As per latest update, India on Sunday airlifted a second batch of 323 Indians from Wuhan city, taking the total number of people evacuated to 654. By Chitranjan Kumar Taiwan bans entry of Chinese nationals from Guangdong Province ROC Central News Agency 02/01/2020 10:24 PM Taipei, Feb. 1 (CNA) Chinese nationals from Guangdong Province will be prohibited entry into Taiwan starting Sunday, while travelers who have recently been there will be subject to a mandatory 14-day home quarantine, Taiwan's Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said Saturday. At a press conference Saturday evening, Health and Welfare Minister Chen Shih-chung () said the CECC has declared a Level 2 endemic in the province, where a novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) has sickened more than 520 people to date. In making the designation, Chen said the CECC gave consideration to such factors as the large number of cases in the province, evidence of community-level transmission of the virus, and the high volume of travel between Guangdong and Taiwan. In addition to home-quarantining travelers returning from the province, those found with such symptoms as a fever or difficulty breathing will be immediately tested for the virus, and quarantined at designated medical facilities if a positive diagnosis is made, Chen said. The health minister also provided updates on the 10 Taiwanese citizens who have been diagnosed with the virus, noting that all are in stable condition and that only one is currently using supplemental oxygen. Another of the patients has recovered and has twice tested negative for the virus in recent days, Chen said. Meanwhile, 492 people who came in contact with the 10 confirmed cases of the virus are currently being monitored. Of them, 34 have reported symptoms and six are still awaiting conclusive test results. (By Chang Ming-hsuan and Matthew Mazzetta) Enditem/ls NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Source: Xinhua| 2020-02-03 00:51:22|Editor: zyl Video Player Close LONDON, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- About 150 firefighters and 25 fire engines battled a blaze in Holborn, a historic law district in central London, on Sunday morning after the fire broke out in a six-storey office building, local media reported. The London Fire Brigade was called to Holborn's Chancery Lane at 10:40 p.m. (2240 GMT) Saturday following reports of a fire on the roof. A large amount of the roof and part of the fifth, fourth and third floors of the building remained alight as of 7:00 a.m. (0700 GMT) Sunday, the English newspaper Evening Standard reported. About 28 people left the building before emergency services arrived. Eleven people were evacuated from their flats nearby by the fire brigade as a precautionary measure. A number of road closures are in place around Chancery Lane, said London police, urging people to avoid the area if possible. The cause of the blaze has not yet known and there were no reports of any injuries. After a man fired aerial shots at a protest site in Shaheen Bagh on Saturday, the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union (JNUSU) condemned the "partisan attitude" of the police and demanded urgent action to stop such attacks. "There are reports of another firing incident from Shaheen Bagh. A man has fired on the protestors in front of the police barricades. Before being taken into custody he allegedly chanted, 'Desh me sirf hinduon ki chalegi'. This is the second incident in a disturbing trend of targeting protestors through the use of incitement to violence," read a statement from JNUSU. It further stated that the rally by BJP MP Anurag Thakur "exhorting the BJP-RSS supporters to take the law into their own hands has clearly not been an empty slogan." "BJP leaders from Kapil Mishra to Ajay Singh Bisht are repeatedly making anti-Muslim remarks which are being used as fodder for the intensification of violent and hate-filled campaign on the eve of elections. The police is clearly a collusive presence in these incidents at the behest of the government... The JNUSU condemns the partisan attitude of the police and demands urgent action to stop such attacks," it added. JNUSU appealed to the student community to rally in support of Shaheen Bagh protestors, who have been staging demonstrations against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) for over a month. The police have detained the man, identified as Kapil Gujjar, a resident of Dallupura village near Delhi-Noida border, said Chinmoy Biswal, DCP, South-East. Gujjar told the police that he was angry with the traffic blockade as his cousin's wedding is approaching and he had to run around a lot to make arrangements, police sources said. "The police personnel overpowered and detained him on the spot while he was firing in the air. He is being interrogated. He said that his name is Kapil. An FIR is being registered and further investigation is underway," Biswal said. According to Delhi Police sources, Kapil has told the police that the protest at Shaheen Bagh caused traffic jams in the area. His cousin sister's wedding was coming up and he used to get stuck in traffic for hours while going to Lajpat Nagar to make arrangements. Hence, he took this step and fired shots in the air. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Four minor boys who were arrested in connection with the incident of vandalism at a Hindu temple in Tharparkar district of Pakistan's Sindh province, were set free on Saturday after the complainant withdrew the charges against them. Dawn reported that the complainant, Prem Kumar, withdrew the charges against the minor boys at the "request of leaders of the local Hindu panchayat as a goodwill gesture". As per the initial report, the First Information Report (FIR) registered based on the complaint by Kumar said that the temple was vandalised by four people on January 26, who then also desecrated idols of deities. However, the four minor boys -- aged 12-15 years -- had confessed to sneaking into the temple and having stolen cash from the money box. The incident was widely condemned by the people from all walks of life after the news made rounds on social media. The boys were produced in the district and sessions court of Mithi on Saturday. The court ordered their release after Kumar submitted an application during the hearing withdrawing the charges against them. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will pay a visit to Ukraine on Monday, February 3, according to the press service of the head of Ukrainian state. "On February 3, President of the Republic of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan will visit Ukraine," the statement reads. During the visit, the presidents will meet face to face. The eighth meeting of the Ukraine-Turkey High-Level Strategic Council co-chaired by Zelensky and Erdogan will also take place. During the negotiations, the parties will discuss ways to deepen strategic partnership and cooperation between the states. Following the meeting of the Strategic Council, a number of bilateral documents will be signed. In addition, the heads of state will take part in the Ukrainian-Turkish business forum. ish The Philippines has reported the first death outside China from the coronavirus that has killed over 300 and spread to other countries, the World Health Organization said Sunday. The fatality is a 44-year-old Chinese man from the city of Wuhan, where the virus was first detected, and appears to have been infected before arriving in the Philippines. "This is the first reported death outside China," Rabindra Abeyasinghe, the WHO representative to the Philippines, told reporters. "However, we need to take into mind that this is not a locally acquired case. This patient came from the epicentre of this outbreak," Abeyasinghe added. The man, who died in a Manila hospital, arrived in the Philippines with a 38-year-old Chinese woman who had also tested positive for the virus, health secretary Francisco Duque said. She was the Philippines' first case of the virus and is recovering in hospital. The news of the man's death was released shortly after the Philippines announced it would immediately halt the arrivals of any foreign travellers from China. The Philippine government has also told citizens not to travel to mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau. Forty-year-old Sanjoy Brahma and his wife Semali are expecting their first baby in April. The residents of Dotma, in western Assam's Kokrajhar district, got married in 2018. "It was a late marriage. But we had no option. We were busy in the jungles of Bhutan when youths of our age were getting married. Even when we came overground in 2014, I was reluctant to get married before a final decision was taken about our movement," Brahma, a cadre of Ranjan Daimary faction of National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), a militant group told DH on January 30. Like Sanjoy, 300 cadres of the group laid down their arms before Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal here as part of the new accord the government signed with Bodo groups including all four factions of NDFB on January 27. A total of 1,615 cadres of the NDFB, which launched an armed movement for "sovereign Bodoland" in 1986, officially surrendered and decided to give up arms and start life afresh. "I want to take a loan to start a small business. Some other cadres, who laid down their arms earlier are now doing businesses. I also want to lead a normal life like them," Brahma said. Also read Bodo pact welcome, implementation key The Bodo Accord promised proper rehabilitation of the cadres through skill development programmes and even recruit those not having heinous cases in security forces. Another woman NDFB cadre, D Binai, left her Kerimari village in Sonitpur district in 2008 and joined the armed movement. A mother of a three-year-old daughter now, Binai is trained to use an AK47 rifle and semi-automatic weapons. She has spent years in their hideouts in Bangladesh before coming overground in 2014. "Since it promised to address the cause for which we had taken up arms, we just hope the accord brings our normal life back," said Binai, as she sat with another woman cadre, B Ansuli. Both of them had left their studies to join the rebel group. Similarly, another 644 cadres of eight militant groups also laid down arms on January 23 here before Sonowal. Siblal Mardi, a cadre of National Santhal Liberation Army -- an armed group of the Adivasis formed in 2006 following the Santhal-Bodo ethnic clash in 1996 -- too wished to start his life afresh. "I want to start a small business if the government gives a little financial support," newly married Mardi told DH. Mardi, a resident of Similijora village in Kokrajhar district (bordering West Bengal), had lost his grandfather in the conflict. He had spent years in relief camps before joining the armed group in 2008. "But if the government does not fulfil the demand for Scheduled Tribe status, Adivasi youths may again take up arms," he said. Under the Centre's revised insurgents rehabilitation scheme 2018, a surrendered militant is offered Rs 4 lakh as fixed deposit and Rs 6,000 per month for three years and self-employment support, after detailed scrutiny. The state government has started a scheme named Swabalamban under which it has set a target to provide self-employment support to 1,800 surrendered militants in agriculture, horticulture, rural transport, handloom and handicrafts, animal husbandry and small business. Evalueserve, a global leader in analytics consulting today announced their global partnership with HR-tech startup, inFeedo, which works with global giants ranging from Puma to PepsiCo. The association is focused on bringing Evalueserve closer to its 4,000 strong team across 15+ countries and strengthen the employee connect and organizational culture. In an industry where employee retention is a key success factor, this partnership will help Evalueserve HR business partners to focus on people and topics that need the most attention. Helping them connect with their rapidly expanding global workforce, measure employee sentiment in real-time and take timely action to resolve issues. Speaking of the association, Nand Gangwani, COO & CFO at Evalueserve opined, Our people are our biggest asset and it is our constant endeavour to create a happy, safe and productive work culture. Our values always rigorous, always refreshing and always responsive, are as much for our commitment towards our clients and partners, as they are for our employees. Amber is a great addition to our HR team as we seek to connect more deeply with our global workforce. We can now be proactive in addressing employee concerns, improving their work life balance, retaining talent and most importantly, strengthen our ethos of people first. Evalueserve uses Amber, inFeedos AI engagement bot to monitor and customize initiatives based on employee feedback; which can be quantified using Ambers predictive analytics dashboard that generates regular reports for leadership teams. Currently, among others, Amber is used by a multitude of global and Indian players across continents to drive their workforce management practices more effectively. The partnership with Evalueserve was focused on helping HR better connect with their people and ensure every employee at the workplace has a friend through Amber. We are happy we have been able to achieve that and more for our partners simply because organisations are made up of people, and unless we understand the foundation on which edifices stand, somewhere superstructures tend to crumble. Our efforts at inFeedo will thus continue to be towards building stronger superstructures! added Tanmaya Jain, Founder & CEO, inFeedo. Evalueserves human resource (HR) division can now measure, manage and proactively resolve disengagement issues, which will help improve employee engagement for one of the most significant players in the space which partners with more than a quarter of Fortune-1000 companies globally. The Federal Capital Territory FCT Command of the Nigerian Police Force has arrested five persons who invaded the Wuse General Hospital with false claims of having contracted Coronavirus. The suspects, who are residents of Abuja, were paraded at the Wuse Zone 3 Divisional Police Station. The Command Public Relations Officer, DSP Anjuguri Manza said the suspects, Peggy Shandi (M), Abayomi Adedoyin (M), David Gold Enemigin (M) Priscilla AJesola (F) and Jacob Oji (M) claimed to be playing out a script about the virus without the knowledge or authorization of the relevant authorities of the FCTA. Read Also: Coronavirus: 16 Nigerians In China Not Willing To Return To Nigeria: Lai Mohammed He said the alleged pranksters had gone to the Wuse District Hospital, claiming that one of them had been infected by Coronavirus, an action which led to panic and confusion as well as a disruption of normal health service delivery at the hospital. According to Manza, investigations into the activities of the suspects were ongoing. However, the FCT Department of Public Health has once more reiterated that there is no confirmed case of Coronavirus in the FCT and advised residents to remain calm. Director of Public Health in the FCT, Dr Josephine Okechukwu who disclosed this during the parade of the suspects said the FCT and indeed the country is free of the coronavirus as there is no confirmed case of the disease anywhere in Nigeria. She described the action of the alleged pranksters as very wrong as it was capable of creating pandemonium especially in a hospital environment where the action took place. According to her, if such false information was released on social media, it would do great damage not just to the FCT but the country at large. Peggy Shandi, one of the suspects noted that their action was a prank about the coronavirus, and nothing more but the FCT Police Command said it was still investigating the case and on the conclusion, the suspects would be charged to court. CHICO, Calif. - According to authorities, a deputy with the Placer County Sheriff's office was arrested at a popular Chico bar on Saturday night. The deputy, Daniel Staley was arrested, cited, and released by the Chico Police Department after the incident on W. 5th Street, the location of the popular bar Rileys. According to the Chico Police Department's arrest log, It happened on Saturday, February 1 shortly after 2:45 a.m., Staley was arrested for fighting/challenging a fight in a public place. Action News Now contacted the Placer County Sheriffs office and this is what they had to say: We are aware of an incident involving Deputy Staley at a bar in Chico, early Saturday morning. He was arrested pursuant to a citizens arrest by a bar employee and later cited and released. Any further questions on this matter should be directed to the Chico Police Department, while we conduct a separate internal investigation. The Jammu and Kashmir adminstration on Sunday released four politicians from preventive custody in the MLA hostel, which has been temporarily converted into a subsidiary jail, officials said here. The three of the released politicians belong to the National Conference and one is from the PDP, they said. The four have been sent to their homes and asked to remain confined within their residence for the time being, they said. The leaders released are: Abdul Majeed Bhat Larni, Ghulam Nabi Bhat and Dr Mohammed Shafi (all National Conference) and Mohammed Yusuf Bhat of the PDP. They were detained along with several other politicians, leaders, activists and traders after the abrogation of the Article 370 of the constitution on August 5 last year. Among other prominent politicians who have been detained since the Article 370 move are NC leaders Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah, PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti and JK People's Conference leader Sajjad Gani Lone. They have still not been released. While senior Abdullah has been kept at his Gupkar house, his son and NC vice president Omar Abdullah has been detained at Hari Niwas. PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti, who was lodged at Chesmashahi Huts, has been shifted to a government building in the heart of Srinagar. The senior Abdullah was slapped with stringent Public Safety Act on September 17 which was renewed for a period of three months on December 16. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) For a number of years in the 20-aughts, I worked in Wuhan, Hubei Province, Peoples Republic of China. China being China, and Wuhan being a provincial outpost of old China, an amalgamation of three towns incorporated under the one name, observations of life there then might be of interest now, given the tumult over the mushrooming conflagration of the coronavirus. Because I lived on the outskirts of town, near a squealing pig farm, many buffalo in the fields, goats occasioning the streets, wild dogs inoffensively wandering about most of the open-air eateries not presumptuous enough to call themselves restaurants -- a few plastic chairs and unwashed PVC tables scattered near a rough kitchen, basically -- I was faced daily with the critical choice: Shall I risk whatever microbes or bacteria or whatever we might catch or go along with the locals, who ate whatever was on offer without much of a tremor or fret. Most of the time, frankly, I was hungry, and my colleagues and I trusted to Providence to keep us out of what the local Wuhanites called the doctors office, or the uncontemporary places they called hospitals, where if you were unlucky enough to be in one of the stalls, your relatives brought you food, bed linens, and whatever else you needed that was outside the pill regimen or treatment you were being accorded. At night, because my brand- new apartment had been completed with a living room, a bedroom and a marble-floored Western bathroom, a major prize considering everyone else having a squat toilet, even at work, but no kitchen at all, I would do my work, try to fight off the plagues of mosquitoes that bedeviled me every single night. Despite my burning Citronella candles as an encircling talismanic circle around my work-desk in a vain attempt to discourage the fierce buggers, every morning Id have a field of itching bites up and down any exposed flesh. They itched immoderately for a day, unlike Western mosquitoes, which last, in my experience, longer than a one-day frenzy of irritation. But at night, when I was driven out of the compound by hunger, I roamed the dark roads -- no streetlights frightened away the shadows -- until I usually came upon a crouching older man on his haunches, watching over a few fish in a wide-mouthed plastic laundry basket filled with water. I negotiated in Mandarin for a catch, the fish-herder stuck a fish with a sharp implement, hauled it wriggling out of the sullen water, and then transferred it to a nearby ember-filled brazier, where I waited for a few minutes for the cooking. I paid the few renminbi to the angler/chef and took the paper-wrapped fried fish back to my apartment. When it was lunchtime at work, a number of colleagues, accompanied by our Chinese friends, ambled down what everyone called the dirty alley, where dozens of food stalls cooked various unidentified frying objects in woks producing aerosolized oil that burned your eyes and made choosing foods a penalizing quick-pick or else. All the oil made the food soft and squishy, and the truth was, when we bought our favorites, they were fresh and delicious. And cheap. One of my faves was what I was told were lizards ankles. The taste was of piquant popcorn, but better. Nuts were plentiful. Fruit and vegs were always abundant, ugly but tastier than their Western counterparts, where beauty counts for more than taste. Once a week, though, I took a jitney for half an hour downtown to the French supermarket, where I bought whatever I could keep in my lonely fridge, sitting at one end of my living room. The French supermarket was the only place you could find cheese, or even rarer, milk. I bought whole cooked chickens, heads and feet attached, for later dissection. Lots of fresh fruit -- unbeautiful, but ripe and delicious. A high point of the excursion was always the live market, where creepy crawlies of every type of bat, rat, snake, scorpion, small and large fauna and flora clumped in barrels or plastic trays, some in water, many not. This was the high point of the shopping excursion every Friday, actually. It was like a free zoo. Housewives clacked away, bargaining for all the fresh kill or the still living suppers-to-be. The floors were awash underfoot with spill from the livestock. Men would occasionally swab the grey swill, but the effect lasted seconds before the floors became swampy anew. The smell was not Chanel #5. Once, I accompanied a colleague to a doctor, who was shorter than we were, confided a bottle of some kind of pill to my colleague, and advised her to take them with wine. I objected: Medicines are not designed to be taken with alcohol. He shrugged. My own wellness was a blessing, as my native friends would press roots and herbs and potions on us if we had a sniffle. One was particularly effective, nipping what seemed like a cold in the very nascent moments of its birth. The cure was a fat reddish-brown bean-like thing that, dunked in water, opened into a hairy large item like a horses testicle. We were supposed to drink the liquid around this unsightly object. And, yeah, it did the trick. Speaking of water: Wuhan water was at the time not potable, so every morning, we would all get large tureens of boiling water, a gallon at a time. We drank no cold water, ever. And the boiling water we were always given was handed to us in a thin plastic cup that certainly shed millions of molecules as it transferred its precious cargo to our insides. I tried to keep several tureens in my bedroom, since I never knew if the water distributor would actually be there in the morning. Each day was festooned with unknowns and questionable practices, and we negotiated the Scylla and Charybdis of our daily wellbeing and jobs as best we could manage. That I never became ill, despite the swirling nearby epidemics of SARS and Avian Flu as well as the not-well-understood MERS infections, was a miracle. The Chinese quarantined the millions of collegians in the citys 67 city colleges, refusing to let the students train or bus home the many miles to their parents -- often living in separate cities because of far-flung work locales. The students were told to shower and wash several times a day, and not expose themselves to outsiders. And each time I took a plane out of Wuhan, men in white hazmat outfits put us all through spectroscopic devices to test our temperatures and judge whether we were fit to mingle with others. This then is the breed-nest of the coronavirus. It was an enduring minor miracle that we expats did not come down with the toxic biologics of the markets, the problem water, the unfettered animal morass of daily life in 21st century Peoples Republic. Apparently all the unhygiene caught up with the immutable laws of Nature. A haul of bombs dredged by cops from the bottom of the River Lagan in Belfast has been linked to rogue Royal Marine Ciaran Maxwell. The 33-year-old from Larne is serving an 18-year prison sentence for the theft of weapons and ammunition from his former Army base in England. Some of the munitions which were taken by Maxwell were used by dissident republicans in pipe-bomb attacks in Armagh, Belfast, Carnlough and Larne. Dozens of similar weapons he manufactured were found by police hidden in two barrels buried at Carnfunnock Country Park and Cappanagh Forest in Co Antrim. Maxwell is known to have supplied dissidents with dozens of pipe-bombs prior to his arrest in 2013. A main line of inquiry for detectives is the devices dredged from the River Lagan are linked to the ex-soldier turned violent dissident republican paramilitary. The haul included 30 pipebombs, parts used to make coffee jar bombs, grenades, parts of a grenade launcher and an under-car improvised explosive device. A security source told Sunday Life: "Early indications are that this find is linked to Ciaran Maxwell. It's possible that whoever was in possession of his pipebombs were spooked by his arrest and his decision to turn supergrass." Larne dissident Niall Lehd - who served a three-year jail sentence for possessing some of Maxwell's pipebombs - is facing a raft of new terror charges based on the word of his former pal. At a court hearing last year it was revealed that the ex-Royal Marine had turned "assisting offender" and had made statements implicating the 30-year-old. Detectives are examining the possibility that this revelation spooked dissident republicans, who panicked and dumped Maxwell's pipe-bomb haul in the River Lagan. Officers from the PSNI's Terrorism Investigation Unit said police received a report that a sports holdall, which contained suspicious items, had been found in the water. Expand Close The munitions discovered in the River Lagan. / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The munitions discovered in the River Lagan. The Queen Elizabeth Bridge and Lagan Weir were closed following the discovery. Superintendent Raymond Murray said: "These potentially lethal weapons were designed to kill or seriously injure their targets, which include police officers and members of the public. "History tells us they would have been used recklessly and indiscriminately, with little regard as to who would be the final victim." cbarnes@sundaylife.co.uk CAESAREA, Israel, Jan. 30, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Itamar Medical Ltd. (ITMR) (ITMR), a medical technology company focused on the development and commercialization of non-invasive medical devices to aid in the diagnosis of respiratory sleep disorders, today announced the upsizing and pricing of its public offering of 2,545,450 American Depositary Shares (ADSs) at a public offering price of $13.75 per ADS, for total gross proceeds of approximately $35.0 million, before deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by Itamar Medical. Each ADS represents 30 ordinary shares of Itamar Medical. All of the ADSs are being offered by Itamar Medical. In addition, the Company has granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 381,817 ADSs on the same terms and conditions. The offering is expected to close on February 4, 2020, subject to customary closing conditions. Itamar Medical intends to use the net proceeds from the offering to hire additional sales and marketing personnel and expand its marketing programs, fund product development, research and development activities and clinical research, invest in information technology and facility infrastructure, and for working capital and general corporate purposes. Piper Sandler is acting as sole bookrunner for the proposed offering. Ladenburg Thalmann and A.G.P./Alliance Global Partners are acting as co-managers for the proposed offering. A registration statement relating to these securities has been filed and was declared effective by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The offering is being made only by means of a prospectus. A copy of the final prospectus relating to this offering, when available, may be obtained from Piper Sandler & Co. 800 Nicollet Mall, J12S03, Minneapolis, MN 55402, Attn: Prospectus Department, by telephone at (800) 747-3924, or by email at prospectus@psc.com. This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any securities, nor shall there be any sale of these securities 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 any such state or jurisdiction. Story continues About Itamar Medical Ltd. Itamar Medical is a medical technology company focused on the development and commercialization of non-invasive medical devices to aid in the diagnosis of respiratory sleep disorders. Itamar Medical commercializes a digital healthcare platform to facilitate the continuum of care for effective sleep apnea management with a focus on the core sleep, cardiology and direct to consumer markets. Itamar Medical offers a Total Sleep Solution to help physicians provide comprehensive sleep apnea management in a variety of clinical environments to optimize patient care and reduce healthcare system costs. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and other applicable securities laws. Statements preceded by, followed by, or that otherwise include the words "believes", "expects", "anticipates", "intends", "estimates", "plans", and similar expressions or future or conditional verbs such as "will", "should", "would", "may" and "could" are generally forward-looking in nature and not historical facts. Because such statements deal with future events, they are subject to various risks, uncertainties and assumptions, including events and circumstances out of the Company's control and actual results, expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, could differ materially from the Company's current expectations. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, risks, uncertainties and assumptions discussed from time to time by the Company in reports filed with, or furnished to, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Israel Securities Authority (ISA), including the Companys latest Form 20-F and its registration statement on Form F-1 relating to this offering, which are each accessible on the SECs website at www.sec.gov. Except as otherwise required by law, the Company undertakes no obligation to publicly release any revisions to these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. Company Contact Itamar Medical Ltd. Shy Basson Chief Financial Officer Phone: +972-4-617-7700 Investor Relations Contact David Carey Lazar FINN Partners david.carey@finnpartners.com Phone: 212-867-1762 Eran Gabbai, Partner Galbert-Kahana Investor Relations and Public Relations Phone: +972-54-2467378 The Irish Cancer Society is asking voters to bring up cancer care with candidates on the doorsteps during the election campaign. The Society is contacting 100,000 of its supporters nationwide about its #CancerMatters campaign and is urging the people to make cancer an election issue. The Irish Cancer Society has asked candidates to commit to three actions that could make a big difference. Firstly, the Irish Cancer Society wants the quality of life for cancer patients and survivors to improve. To help achieve this it is asking for a reduction in government charges like the 80 in-patient charge for chemotherapy and radiotherapy patients. A lower Drug Payment Scheme threshold, reduced hospital parking charges and greater availability of medical cards for cancer patients would also help ease the financial burden of cancer. Secondly, it is asking that the National Cancer Strategy and Slaintecare are fully funded so that cancer services are improved, creating a fairer health system for all. Lastly, it says that more needs to be done to protect children from the tobacco and alcohol industries which still use clever marketing to make their products attractive to young people. Averil Power, Chief Executive of the Irish Cancer Society said: "Unfortunately, there isnt a family in Ireland that hasnt been affected by cancer. In Carlow, over 260 people are diagnosed with cancer every year. "Over 200,000 Irish people will get cancer over the five-year term of the next Dail. It is critical that our newly elected TDs make cancer a priority and ensure every family affected by the disease has the support they need," she said. Breeda OConnor will be asking candidates who call to her house about supports for those who have gone through a cancer diagnosis. "Youre discharged from hospital and youre left to your own devices with very little guidance on how to move forward," said Breeda, who is a survivor of breast cancer. Any General Election candidate who wants to sign up to the Irish Cancer Societys campaign can do so at www.cancer.ie/GE2020 Vulnerable EU nationals could be left without vital support to assist them with applying for post-Brexit immigration status because Home Office funding that was granted for this purpose is set to end in weeks. Charities helping harder-to-reach EU citizens such as homeless people, domestic abuse victims and children in care to apply for EU settled status say they are being forced to cut back on this service because the department has refused to guarantee any funding beyond March 2020. Fifty-seven organisations in the UK were granted a total of 9m from the department last April to provide practical support to an estimated 200,000 vulnerable or at-risk people applying to the scheme which they must do in order to retain immigration rights after Brexit. However, the support has only been guaranteed until March and the Home Office has announced no plans for any extension, which campaigners said risked leaving a gap in provision. A letter to party leaders from the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants raising the issue at the end of last year received no response, while requests from the European Commission for confirmation from the Home Office that the funding would be extended are also said to have been unanswered. Praxis, a charity granted funding to help homeless people apply to the scheme, currently has three caseworkers dedicated to providing this support but it is being forced to consider ending their contracts because there is no guarantee that the work can continue beyond March. Sally Daghlian, chief executive of the charity, said: The government is pushing us towards a cliff edge. This is a vital service needed to secure the future of thousands of people who have made the UK their home but because of their circumstances are unable to complete the application on their own. Charities providing this service dont know if the funding is going to continue beyond the end of March and there comes a point at which you have to end staff contracts, because its a financial risk to continue employing people without dedicated funding. Even if the Home Office does decide to provide more funding which we absolutely think it must to avoid creating misery and chaos for vulnerable people then it means well lose three critical months because we have to carry out recruitment and then provide training so that people are up to speed on the new system. Bethan Lant, caseworker manager at the charity, said that due to the complexity of many cases, they had to work with them on a long term basis which was not possible without guaranteed funding. These arent people who can apply quickly. Caseworkers are working with women who have experienced domestic violence, trying to collect evidence that they have been here for five years when they havent got access to a lot of the documents they need; and people with mental health issues who dont have passports, helping them to approach their embassies to obtain the documents they need, she said. Its very difficult for us to continue working with these people if we dont know whether our caseworkers will be there in a months time to be able to continue that work. It leaves us stuck. Nicole Masri, senior legal officer at charity Rights of Women, which runs an advice service funded by the Home Office to help domestic abuse victims apply to the EU settlement scheme, echoed these concerns, saying any break in continuity of the service would be a real setback. The government cant afford to lose any time in supporting people to access the scheme before the June 2021 deadline, she added. Christopher Desira, solicitor at the law firm Seraphus and adviser at the European Commission Representation in the UK, said some charities had been forced to end their support for EU nationals because the uncertainty had left them unable to take on new cases. He said the European Commission had been asking the Home Office whether there would be an extension of funding for the last few months and requesting details, but that it had as yet received no response. Mr Desira added: I met with the operations team in Liverpool about a month ago, and internally they support the funding being extended, because it makes their job easier. But its a ministerial decision. Tory MP admits EU settlement scheme sometimes 'doesn't work as well as we expect' A Home Office spokesperson confirmed that the current grant funding scheme was set to finish at the end of March 2020, and said the department was exploring options for the financial year of 2020-21. They added: We have already had over 2.5 million people given status under the EU settlement scheme and we are always looking at ways to make sure everyone with the right to status gets it. As well as providing funding for charities which have supported hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people, there are over 1,500 Home Office staff working on the EU Settlement Scheme and 250 Settlement Resolution Centre staff in place to provide assistance to applicants with any questions about the scheme or who need help applying. Seven West Media has delayed payment for major flagship program Big Brother as shares in the television network slumped to fresh record lows ahead of its half-year financial results. The return of the hit reality-TV show, which previously aired on Ten, was announced at the companys annual "Upfronts" event last year. The program will cost between $20 million and $30 million to make, according to production sources, and will launch before the Tokyo 2020 Olympics in winter. Seven West Media CEO James Warburton with chairman Kerry Stokes. Credit:Peter Rae Typically, a broadcaster would give a substantial payment to a production house upfront for a new show and provide the rest of the costs in instalments. However, sources close to the discussions said Seven had negotiated with production company Endemol Shine to pay the entirety of the cost at the end of production. This type of arrangement has occurred in previous years between broadcasters and production companies, but is unusual. However, decisions on payment of producers do not necessarily correlate with market position. Most broadcasters are looking to secure the best terms for business, and that includes production arrangements. Endemol Shine and Seven West Media declined to comment. southwest airlines REUTERS/Mike Blake Southwest Airlines has flown more than 17 million passengers on planes with missing safety paperwork, according to a Department of Transportation report obtained by The Wall Street Journal. The report also details lax oversight of the airline by the Federal Aviation Administration. The report is the latest accusing Southwest of not prioritizing safety highly enough, and includes an example of pilots repeatedly attempting a dangerous landing. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. Southwest Airlines flew millions of passengers on airplanes with unconfirmed maintenance records, failing to prioritize safety, according to an explosive new report from The Wall Street Journal. A federal Transportation Department report, which The Journal reports will be released in the coming days, also says the Federal Aviation Administration has not adequately addressed the airline's violations. More than 17 million passengers were flown on jets with unconfirmed records over about two years, the report said. A culture disincentivizing safety also led a pilot to repeatedly attempt a landing in 2019 during gale-force winds, leading to both of the plane's wingtips being smashed on the runway, the report says. According to The Wall Street Journal, the report also says the FAA's oversight of the airline was "lax, ineffective, and inconsistent." Late last year, the FAA considered grounding up to 38 Southwest jets due to missing maintenance documentation, but eventually declined to do so. The planes in question were mostly purchased used by Southwest from foreign carriers, which failed to keep reliable service records. Although the airline believed it had backup records, it later found those to be missing. Southwest has faced repeated criticism in recent years over safety concerns, including over maintenance records, inappropriate dealings with local FAA managers, and repeated failures to compute correct take-off weights before flights. Story continues Similarly, the FAA's relationship with Southwest has been criticized as too cozy, with local managers accused of being overly accommodating to the airline's requests. In 2019, three local managers were reassigned to no longer regulate the airline. During the 2019 landing in gale-force winds, pilots aborted three attempted landings at Bradley International Airport near Hartford, Connecticut. The pilots continued descents through severe turbulence, low-level wind shear, and gusts stronger than they were trained to handle, the report says. Eventually, the plane diverted and landed safely in Providence, Rhode Island. A news report from the local Hartford Courant said at the time that the landing attempts "caused the tip of one wing to scrape the runway" and "left dozens of frightened passengers vomiting from the severe turbulence." Accordingly, an internal report reviewed by The Journal said flight attendants alerted the ground crew that they would need to clean vomit from "the number of passengers who had gotten sick" during the botched landings. A spokesperson for the airline told Business Insider that the company saw the draft and disagrees with the "unfounded" implications that "we would tolerate a relaxing of standards." The spokesperson also said the company's safety systems meet or exceed regulatory requirements. "We have communicated our disappointment in the draft audit report to the OIG," the spokesperson said. "We are considered one of the world's most admired companies and uphold an excellent safety record." Read the original article on Business Insider B oris Johnson is to say he will accept no alignment with EU rules as tensions ratcheted up between the sparring sides after the UK left the bloc. After Britains withdrawal on Friday, attention has turned to the impending trade talks as Mr Johnson prepares to use a speech in London on Monday to toughen his post-Brexit stance ahead of trade talks. The Government is understood to be privately infuriated by what it perceives to be attempts by Brussels to change the terms of the deal struck in October as part of the Withdrawal Agreement. Reports have surfaced in recent days suggesting EU chiefs want the UK to continue to follow Brussels-made rules on standards and state subsidies, while accepting the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) over matters relating to any trade deal. But in what promises to be a combative speech, the PM is expected to tell the EU he will accept no alignment, no jurisdiction of the European courts, and no concessions to any Brussels demands when talks start in March. Prime Minister Boris Johnson in Brussels in October / REUTERS It comes as Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab told BBC's Andrew Marr that following EU rules after 2021 "just ain't happening". The Cabinet minister said: We are entering into these negotiations with a spirit of goodwill. But we are just not doing that other stuff. The legislative alignment, it just aint happening. He accused Brussels of attempting to shift the goalposts since the Political Declaration was signed off last year. Dominic Raab / Getty Images Asked about reports of EU demands for the European Court of Justice to oversee disputes in any trade deal with the UK, Mr Raab said: We all agreed that we werent going to do that. You knew that, you signed up to the Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration on that basis. Why are you trying to shift the goalposts? We want to have a good positive win-win new deal with the EU. Thats not going to happen if they pull the rug, shift the goalposts. A Government source told the PA news agency that the PM would be prepared to accept a Canada-style free trade deal a checks-lite trade arrangement that would allow tariff-free trade for the majority of goods, but that would not include the UKs dominant services sector. Analysis undertaken by the Treasury in 2018 predicted that Britains economy would be 4.9% worse off under such a deal within 15 years, when compared with expected growth if it had remained in the EU. If a Canada-esque deal cannot be signed-off, insiders say the Government is gearing up to walk away with what is dubbed an Australia-style arrangement a re-branding of a no-deal Brexit. It would see the UK revert to World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, with additional mini-deals tacked-on to ensure travel arrangements, such as international flights, can continue. Brexit Day at Parliament Square - In pictures 1 /22 Brexit Day at Parliament Square - In pictures Anti-Brexit protesters in Parliament Square, London PA Police presence at anti-Brexit protests in Parliament Square, London PA The Winston Churchill statue and Union flags in Parliament Square, London PA Pro Brexit supporters hold placards at Parliament Square as people prepare for Brexit Getty Images A man carries an EU themed wreath at Parliament Square Reuters Anti-Brexit demonstrators in Parliament Square, London, ahead of the UK leaving the European Union PA Pro Brexit supporters hold placards at Parliament Square as people prepare for Brexit Getty Images A man wears a President, Donald Trump mask and holds an American flag at Parliament Square as people prepare for Brexit Getty Images People hold placards in Parliament Square opposite the Houses of Parliament in London AFP via Getty Images A man holds up a President, Donald Trump, American flag at Parliament Square as people prepare for Brexit Getty Images A Red Viking apple with the Union Jack is displayed and given out for free to promote British produce as an Anti-Brexit demonstrator waves the European Union flag in Parliament Square AP Joseph Afrane in Westminster Jeremy Selwyn Pro-EU anti-Brexit protesters hold placards in Parliament Square AFP via Getty Images A man takes a photo of political artist Kaya Mar's paintings in Parliament Square Getty Images A man in an oversized 'Keep America Great' hat and draped with a US flag holds a Union Flag in Parliament Square opposite the Houses of Parliament AFP via Getty Images A woman holds a newspaper at Parliament Square Reuters A woman wears a face mask in Parliament Square PA A Government source told PA: There are only two likely outcomes in negotiation a free trade deal like Canada or a looser arrangement like Australia and we are happy to pursue both. European leaders have already set out their own warnings to Mr Johnson over the upcoming talks. French President Emmanuel Macron used an article in the Times to outline how the level of single market access granted to the UK would depend on the degree to which the European Unions rules are accepted. French President Emmanuel Macron / POOL/AFP via Getty Images Another area of trouble could be Gibraltar, with Spain reportedly laying down a gauntlet to EU negotiators over the terms of any deal in the offing. According to the Observer, the EU will back Spain over its territorial claims to the British overseas territory by giving Madrid the power to exclude its population of 34,000 people from any potential trade deal. In his keynote speech in London on Monday, Mr Johnson is preparing to rule out relaxing rules on workers rights, food hygiene standards and environmental protections. He is also expected, according to Government sources, to confirm UK negotiators will pursue free trade agreements with the likes of the United States, Japan, Australia and New Zealand at the same time as dealing with Brussels. The Sunday Telegraph reported that a trade deal is earmarked to be agreed with Japan by Christmas, followed by more agreements with Australia and New Zealand in mid 2021. On top of the tough stance on trade, the Sunday Times reported that British diplomats have been ordered to make a break with their former EU allies in a bid to adopt a stance as a confident independent country. According to a leaked telegram quoted by the paper, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said the UK should be free to dis-apply EU foreign policy positions during the 11-month transition period, as Britain prepares to move away from the bloc. Dominic Raab / Getty Images It comes as the Mail on Sunday revealed the PM toasted his Brexit success on Friday evening with a 350 bottle of rare vintage red wine. The paper said the Conservative Party leader opened a bottle of 1994 Chateau Margaux that was left to him in a supporters will, gifted with strict instructions for it not to be drunk until Britain was no longer an EU member. Dominic Cummings, the PMs chief aide and the mastermind behind his get Brexit done slogan, is said to have teared-up after the UKs departure was confirmed at 11pm. Taking to the microphone at a party at Downing Street, the Sunday Times said the Vote Leave strategy guru had to compose himself by clutching a hand over his face, before addressing those in Number 10 for the historic occasion. They played an unlikely pair of master methamphetamine cookers in the wildly popular hit crime-drama series Breaking Bad for five seasons. Their unlikely union on-screen has now transformed into a business partnership off-screen with the launch of their very own new mezcal brand called Dos Hombres. As part of the promotional blitz, the two leading men made made their way to Miami Beach to pour some tasters to customers at a local bar ahead of the Super Bowl. Scroll down to video They're back! Breaking Bad stars Aaron Paul and Bryan Cranston have teamed together to create their own brand of mezcal called Dos Hombres Tweakers: The unlikely duo played master methamphetamine cookers in the wildly popular hit crime-drama series Breaking Bad for five seasons (2008-2013) In the moments before the festive event, the pair took to social media to get the word out to fans and prospective customers. 'Hey South Beach! @Bryan Cranston and I will be pouring cocktails for the next couple of hours at Sweet Liberty. Come say hello!,' Paul captioned an photo his posted on his Instagram page of himself and his partner standing outside the establishment. They wrote, 'Come drink with us. Sweet Liberty. South Beach,' on the Dos Hombres Instagram page. Cheers! The duo got behind the bar and served up tasters of their Dos Hombres brand at a bar in Miami Beach, ahead of the Super Bowl Fan friendly: Paul, who played Jesse Pinkman on Breaking Bad, showed a charming enthusiasm while behind the bar Multi-talented: Cranston, who played master chemist Walter White on Breaking Bad, showed he's got mad skills behind the bar serving up his mezcal And it turns out the fans got the message, while others were pleasantly surprised when they wandered into the bar. Both Cranston (Walter White) and Paul (Jesse Pinkmon) seemed to relish their time as amateur bartenders. With the music pumping through the bar's sound system, they handed out glass after glass of their Dos Hombres brand, and, at times, joined in for a round with the adoring public. Customers were lining up to get a taste of Dos Hombres and a picture of the Breaking Bad stars Beaming: Both Cranston and Paul seemed to relish their time as amateur bartenders Word play! The pair teased their partnership with lines like, 'A collaboration so smooth you can taste it,' which some would say is a play off their partnership as meth cookers and dealers His shadow: Paul showed a glimpse of his Jesse Pink alter-ego while serving up drinks When making the announcement of their venture over the summer, the pair described their mezcal as 'real, artesanal Mezcal made by hand in Mexico.' They also called themselves 'two guys on a quest' -- hence the name Dos Hombres -- to a truly special mezcal. Previously, they teased their partnership with lines like, 'A collaboration so smooth you can taste it.' Mezcal is a Mexican distilled alcoholic beverage made from agave, which are found mainly in many parts of Mexico and south to the equator, though most mezcal is made in Oaxaca. Watch Breaking Bad on Netflix, or on Stan in Australia. The mantra: The duo have called their mission as 'two guys on a quest' -- hence the name Dos Hombres -- to a truly special mezcal Promo mode: The pair have been out promoting Dos Hombres around the country Dos Hombres themselves: Later, the actors reconvened at the 2020 Big Game Big Give event in Miami A New Jersey maker of bedding and home products announced Nov. 12 it was investing $1.1 million and bringing in 113 new jobs to Bamberg County. Denmark will be home to Pegasus Home Fashions first manufacturing and distribution operation in the Southeast. We are very excited to expand our business to Denmark and bring jobs to the Bamberg area, where we look forward to hiring more than a hundred people," Pegasus Home Fashions owner Carmine Spinella said. "We appreciate the support we have received from the S.C. Department of Commerce, SouthernCarolina Alliance and the local community, which have all created a pro-business environment. The family-owned company is locating its local operations in the former Masonite facility at 1349 Locust Avenue in Denmark. Pegasus Manager Carmine Spinella Jr. said Denmark's location attracted the company. "It was strategic location for our company," Spinella said. "It is close to the customers." Bamberg County Councilman Evert Comer said, Pegasus Home Fashions will bring investment and jobs to Bamberg County, and we are delighted that we have the workforce that can support manufacturing operations as diverse as this textile operation, aerospace, advanced composites and agribusiness. "Its a great day for Bamberg County to welcome this fine company. Denmark Mayor Gerald Wright praised the announcement. Denmark welcomes this new industry and we look forward to creating the best business environment for their manufacturing," Wright said. "The people of our town thank Mr. Spinella and Pegasus for the 113 new jobs and economic stimulation in our community." Pegasus Home Fashions has been in business for about 30 years. The company produces and distributes bed pillows, memory foam, bedspreads, blankets, sheet sets, pet beds and more. Some of the companys brands include: EZ Dreams, Essence of Copper, Iso-Pedic, Waterford, America's Pillow, Essence of Bamboo, The Original Panama Jack, Beverly Hills Polo Club and Iso-Pedic Ultra Cool. The company's products are found in a number of locations including department stores, big box and discount stores, online and in catalogs. Pegasus has plants in New York, Pennsylvania and Arizona. SouthernCarolina Alliance President and CEO Danny Black said the company will be an asset to our regional industrial community, and we look forward to working with them for years to come. S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster said, When a company decides to move here, it confirms that Team South Carolinas approach to attracting businesses and building a world-class workforce is working. "Were excited to welcome Pegasus Home Fashions to the South Carolina family and to celebrate the 113 new jobs this investment will bring to Bamberg County. Masonite International Corporation, one of the county's largest manufacturers, closed its doors in the summer of 2019, resulting in the loss of 110 jobs. Masonite made doors at the facility. Masonite had been in the facility for about nine years. It was previously home to Lifetime Doors Inc. For more information visit: www.pegasushomefashions.com. Contact the writer: gzaleski@timesanddemocrat.com or 803-533-5551. Check out Zaleski on Twitter at @ZaleskiTD. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. DETROIT - A Michigan inmate who was mistakenly released after being transferred to Ohio to face drug charges is back behind bars after more than a week on the lam, prison officials said over the weekend. Talleon S. Brazil, 31, was captured at a house in Detroit on Saturday by the Michigan Department of Corrections Absconder Recovery Unit after several days of surveillance, according to a department news release. We are glad this case came to a quick resolution, Michigan Department of Corrections Director Heidi Washington said in the release. Brazil has served around 10 years of a 15- to 40-year prison term at Michigans the Saginaw Correctional Facility for carjacking, possession of a weapon by a felon and other convictions. During the manhunt, officials said he was considered dangerous. Michigan officials handed him over to Ohio authorities on Jan. 14 to face drug charges in Scioto County on the condition that he be locked up while in Ohio, then returned to Michigan. But Brazil was improperly released on bond posted Jan. 21 in Scioto County. The Michigan Department of Corrections said Brazil was picked up by family members and brought to the Detroit area, and that Brazil and his family should have known he wasnt eligible for release. The Scioto County prosecutor, Shane Tieman, had said that it was not unusual that bond would be set for Brazil on the Ohio charge, but that the jail shouldnt have released him because he was still serving a prison sentence in Michigan. Brazil could face new charges for trying to avoid capture following his release in Ohio, the weekend news release said. Carter: Trump plan works against 'peace', breaches international law Iran Press TV Saturday, 01 February 2020 5:37 PM Former US president Jimmy Carter says the country's current President Donald Trump's self-styled initiative for resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict serves instead to compromise any prospect of "peace" and violates international law. Carter made the remarks in a Thursday statement that was carried by CNN. "The new US plan undercuts prospects for a just peace between Israelis and Palestinians. If implemented, the plan will doom the only viable solution to this long-running conflict, the two-state solution," he said. Trump had announced the scheme, which he has named as the "deal of the century" years ago, but had withheld its details. He unveiled its outlines on Tuesday, saying it considers occupied Jerusalem al-Quds to be Israel's "capital" -- although Palestinians want the city's eastern part as the capital of their future state. Carter reminded that the plan violated the United Nations' repeated calls for a "two-state solution" based on the 1967 borders. Tel Aviv occupied the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip that year. Not only did not Trump's scheme mandate Israel to withdraw from the West Bank, but also it said the regime would be annexing the illegal settlements that it has been building on the occupied territories under the US scheme. Carter also called on UN member states "to adhere to UN Security Council resolutions and to reject any unilateral Israeli implementation of the proposal by grabbing more Palestinian land." The US proposal also "breaches international law" addressing the issues of Palestinian self-determination, acquisition of foreign land by force, annexation of occupied territories, and also denied Palestinians equal rights, he added. Palestinians, who had already spurned the plot, repeated their opposition to it soon after Trump's announcement. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has cut his organization's ties with Washington and Tel Aviv in response to Trump's announcement, saying his decision followed the US and Israel's "disavowal of signed agreements and international legitimacy." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address A close up image of Canadian $20 Dollar bills The annual contribution room in a Tax-Free Savings Account (TFSA) increased by $6,000 in 2020 the second straight year that the cumulative contribution room in a TFSA rose by this amount. Valuations are sky-high on the TSX right now, which may give investors pause when it comes to pulling the trigger on a stock. Today I want to try to ease that apprehension and look at two equities that have provided an attractive blend of capital growth and income over the past decade. Scotiabank Scotiabank (TSX:BNS)(NYSE:BNS) was outpaced by most of its big banking peers in 2019. Shares have only climbed 2.9% year over year as of close on January 29. I love Scotias value right now, and am targeting it as a promising rebound candidate for 2020 and beyond. This has been dubbed The International Bank by many investors because of its large global footprint. Scotia was one of the first banks to release its fourth-quarter and full-year results for fiscal 2019 in late November. It expects its Canadian Banking segment to be the main source of its strength in the 2020 fiscal year primarily due to improved housing activity and good levels of business and consumer confidence according to CEO Brian Porter. The bank has entered 2020 boasting a fantastic balance sheet and is one of the best bank stocks for those on the hunt for income. Scotia last increased its quarterly dividend to $0.9 per share. This represents a strong 4.9% yield, the second best among its peer group. The stock last possessed a favourable price-to-earnings ratio of 10.9 and a price-to-book value of 1.4. CAE Earlier this month Id discussed why defence stocks were worth targeting to start this decade. The sector saw increased activity as tensions rose between the United States and Iran. Beyond that, defence spending has consistently increased on a global level, hitting a record in 2018. CAE (TSX:CAE)(NYSE:CAE) is a manufacturer of simulation technologies, and defence is a key sector that it services. Story continues Shares of CAE have climbed 43% year over year as of close on January 29. The stock has already increased 15% in 2020 so far. Investors can expect to see its fiscal 2020 third-quarter results early this month. In the second quarter, the company reported revenue growth of 21% compared to the prior year and its order backlog rose to $9.2 billion. Its Civil Aviation Training Solutions segment saw revenue rise 35% year over year to $529.9 million. Defence revenue increased 5% to $336.5 million. Income growth in this segment is more heavily weighted in the second half of the fiscal year. CAE stock is an enticing long-term hold, but its a pricey proposition as it hovers around a 52-week high. The stock possessed a P/E ratio of 31 and a P/B value of 4.6 at the time of this writing. CAE last paid out a quarterly dividend of $0.11 per share, representing a modest 1.1% yield. Value investors should keep CAE on their radar, but they may want to wait for a more attractive entry point going forward. More reading Fool contributor Ambrose O'Callaghan has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends BANK OF NOVA SCOTIA. The Motley Fools purpose is to help the world invest, better. Click here now for your free subscription to Take Stock, The Motley Fool Canadas free investing newsletter. Packed with stock ideas and investing advice, it is essential reading for anyone looking to build and grow their wealth in the years ahead. Motley Fool Canada 2020 Their noses are wet and theyre here to play, these pint-sized snugglers are ready to lick and wag their way into the end zone for the big game next weekend. Of the 160 shelter dogs and puppies from across the country participating in Animal Planets 16th annual Puppy Bowl and the third annual Dog Bowl, 19 of the furry athletes were selected from Connecticut rescues. Every year Animal Planet showcases shelter dogs in the Puppy Bowl and Dog Bowl, where the canines will romp and chew their way to glory in this adorable spin on the Super Bowl. Five of these playful pups were selected from the Danbury Animal Welfare Society (DAWS). Stephanie Barksdale, the operations manager at DAWS, said this is the second year DAWS has had its dogs participate in the Puppy Bowl, with four pups on the second strings lineup in 2019. This is the first year the shelter has had one of its dogs make the starting lineup. DAWS darling Starla will be representing the shelter as a starting member of Team Ruff at the Puppy Bowl, airing on Animal Planet on Feb. 2 at 3 p.m. Starla is a cocker spaniel/'Siberian husky mix who has already found a loving home with a New Milford family. Barksdale said Starla was found wandering around an abandoned area in rural Virginia when she was six weeks old and was rescued by one of DAWSs partner shelters, A Reason to Believe Animal Rescue. At eight weeks, she was transported to DAWS where she was adopted by her foster family, who renamed her Colbie. Now shes living happily ever after, Barksdale added. DAWS pups Floofer and Lindy will be playing second string for Team Fluff at the Puppy Bowl. Both have since been adopted with Floofer finding a home in Southbury and Lindy now lives with a family in Danbury. Barksdale said having DAWS canines participate in the Puppy Bowl and the Dog Bowl is beneficial to the shelter because it shows off the dogs. Somebody may have tossed them out in Virginia or Kentucky but when they get here theyre playful, theyre fun, theyre spunky, theyre peppy and they want to be with other dogs and be with people. It allows us to show them off on national TV and it will spotlight how wonderful these dogs really are. Starla is not the only Connecticut pup starring in the Puppy Bowls starting lineup. Sadie, an American staffordshire terrier/American bulldog mix from Pet Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) in Norwalk will be playing for Team Fluff on game day. PAWS executive director Ellen Simmonds said Sadie was part of a litter of 10 puppies who were rescued along with their mother after Animal Control found them under a bridge in Hartford. Simmonds said that Sadies mama was found emaciated and that her 10 pups had completely sucked her dry. Luckily, PAWS was able to provide the mother and puppies with the medical care and love they needed until they were ready to find their forever homes, which all of them found. Simmonds added that typically PAWS doesnt have many puppies at the shelter, as it tries to take in the communitys neediest animals but thought Sadie would be a stellar candidate when the Puppy Bowl reached out to the shelter. Two of DAWSs now adopted senior dogs, Snow and Spunky, will participate in the Dog Bowl on Feb. 1 at 8 p.m. Barksdale noted that she feels people overlook the benefits of adopting an older dog. An older dog is already trained and housebroken, already has decent manners and theyre just as much fun as puppies. They want to go on walks, they want to cuddle up with you, she said. You dont have to do a lot with older dogs other than give it love and affection and take it for walks. The rest of Connecticuts second string pups at the Puppy Bowl include Benjamin from the Connecticut Humane Society in Newington, Braham and Rubble from East Hartfords Pack Leaders of Connecticut and Squash and Tin Man from Dog Star Rescue in Bloomfield. The rest of the Connecticut canines will represent their respective shelters at the Dog Bowl. These dogs will include Jaxon from Pack Leaders of Connecticut, Ivy from the Friends of the New Haven Animal Shelter, Harper, Lady Jane, Mickey, Spud and Sweet Potato from One More Dog Rescue in Wethersfield and Little Ricky from William Berloni Theatrical Animals. Currently Ivya white senior pitbull terrier, from the Friends of the New Haven Animal Shelter is looking for a loving home. For more information about her, call 203-946-8110. One More Dog Rescue also still has two of its Dog Bowl participants listed on the shelters website as looking for homes. Harper is an adult boxer and Lady Jane is a senior yorkie mix with visual and hearing impairments. For more information about them, visit omdrescue.org. According to Animal Planet, in previous years all of the dogs and puppies that have participated in the Puppy Bowl and the dogs in the Dog Bowl found forever homes. When asked about how many critters DAWS houses, Barksdale said the shelter can have as many as 90 animals in the system at any given time. She noted that when adopting from a shelter like DAWS, people are able to actually save two pets. Every dog and cat we can get out of here, we save another from euthanasia down South. Barksdale said adopting a pet from DAWS is a simple process and noted that the shelter wants to find a home for each animal.. A shelter is not a place for a pet, she said. A house is a place for a pet. For more information about all of the shelters participating in the Puppy Bowl and the Dog Bowl, visit animalplanet.com/tv-shows/puppybowl. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, February 2) The Department of Health announced Sunday the countrys first death of a patient who tested positive for novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) the first reported death due to the virus outside of China. A 44-year-old Chinese man, who is also the Philippines second confirmed case of 2019-nCoV, died Saturday, the DOH said. He was the partner of the 38-year-old Chinese woman who last week became the first confirmed case of the new virus in the country. DOH Secretary Francisco Duque III said the man was admitted to San Lazaro Hospital on January 25. He had penumonia, fever, cough and a sore throat. Over the course of the patients admission he developed severe pneumonia. In his last few days, the patient was stable and showed signs of improvement. However, the condition of the patient deteriorated within the last 24 hours resulting in his demise, Duque said. He added that aside from being infected with 2019-nCoV, the man was also infected with Influenza B virus and Streptococcus pneumoniae bacteria. "Many of the [deaths] in China have been observed ... the first 40, most of those really with underlying medical problems," Duque said. In contrast, the man's partner only sought consultation due to mild cough and was already free of any symptoms of infection by the time the DOH announced Thursday that she is positive for 2019-nCoV. The DOH said they are now working with the Chinese embassy and will cremate the remains of the man. "When we have persons who died of infectious illness, part of the protocol is to dispose the body or even cremate the remains as soon as possible," DOH spokesperson Eric Domingo said. Duque said the San Lazaro Hospital has isolated the man and his partner, while health personnel who came in contact with them practiced stringent infection control measures and wore appropriate personal protective equipment. The Health chief also said that the Epidemiology Bureau is tracing passengers aboard the flights of the couple, who came to the Philippines from Wuhan the Chinese city at the center of the 2019-nCoV outbreak via Hong Kong on January 21. The bureau is also tracing people who could have come in contact with the couple in Cebu, Dumaguete and other places where they stayed and traveled to. The World Health Organization stressed that while this is the first death due 2019-nCoV outside of China, this is not a locally-acquired case. The DOH also said that there are still no reports of community spread of the new virus. Cebu Pacific said the couple were aboard January 21 on flight 5J 241 from Hong Kong to Cebu and flight DG 6519 from Cebu to Dumaguete. Philippine Airlines also disclosed that the couple were onboard flight PR 2542 from Dumaguete to Manila on January 25. The two airline companies said it is contacting passengers on those flights. Crew aboard those flights have been placed under quarantine and the planes used have been disinfected, airline officials said. Those who have not been contacted by Cebu Pacific who were aboard the abovementioned flights can call +632 87020886 from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily. Four more being tested The DOH said that as of Saturday, they have put 36 people under observation for possible 2019-nCoV infection. Thirty of them have tested negative for the virus, while four more are still being tested at the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine. Ten have been discharged from hospitals. A 29-year-old Chinese man from Yunnan province under observation earlier died due to pneumonia, but he tested negative for 2019-nCoV. All of the remaining patients under investigation are stable. "Our persons under investigation have not been increasing rapidly. And I think, with the ban now of the President, it will be a lot easier for us kasi kakaunti na po ang babantayan nating papasok ng Pilipinas (we would only be looking after fewer people coming into the Philippines,)" Domingo said. Hours ahead of the DOH's announcement, President Rodrigo Duterte approved the recommendation to expand the travel ban from China, barring all travelers who passed through the mainland, including Hong Kong and Macau, from entering the Philippines. The ban exempts Filipino citizens and permanent residents in the country, but requires them to be quarantined for 14 days. CNN International reported on Sunday that 2019-nCoV had killed at least 305 people and sickened more than 14,300 globally. The virus has been confirmed in more than 25 countries and territories since it was first detected. China has reported that the virus may be transmitted even by people who are not showing symptoms, but the WHO said that the main driver of transmission is through people who are symptomatic of the infection. "Asymptomatic infection may be rare, and transmission from an asymptomatic person is very rare with other coronaviruses, as we have seen with Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus. Thus, transmission from asymptomatic cases is likely not a major driver of transmission," the WHO said. It acknowledged, however, that infected people may transmit the virus even before the develop symptoms. Photo: Dominic Simpson/Flickr Here are some notable crime reports from SFPD's Central District since our last biweekly recap. The district encompasses Chinatown; the Financial District; the Embarcadero; Russian, Telegraph and Nob Hills; North Beach and Union Square. All information comes from official SFPD reports, unless otherwise noted. 20-year-old man arrested in Chinatown robbery On January 22, a second suspect was arrested in a robbery and assault of two older men that occurred in Chinatown this summer, sparking outrage in the community. The robbery occurred at Stockton and Pacific streets on July 15, when three suspects allegedly attacked a 56-year-old man and a 69-year-old man in broad daylight, around 1:09 p.m. After the suspects knocked the first man to the ground and stole his watch, the second attempted to intervene, and was knocked unconscious. Both were hospitalized with head injuries, but have since been released. In October, police arrested an initial suspect, 19-year-old Oakland resident Dashawn Pierson. Now, 20-year-old Akeem Smith, of Sacramento, has also been arrested in the case. Smith is currently in custody in Alameda County for unrelated charges. A third suspect remains at large. Phone robbery at gunpoint On January 24 at 3:20 a.m., a man of unknown age robbed a 23-year-old man at gunpoint on the 500 block of Green Street (between Grant and Columbus). After brandishing a small black pistol, the suspect stole the victim's phone, phone case and cash. The victim was uninjured, and no arrest has been made. Three women jump, rob 72-year-old man On January 18, at 12:40 p.m. three women in their twenties approached a 72-year-old man from behind at Kearny and Bush streets. One of the women then shoved the man to the ground and took his phone, after which all three suspects fled on foot. The victim suffered non-life threatening injuries; no arrest has been made. Phone pulled from victim's hands On January 16 at 6 p.m., a 40-year-old man grabbed a 27-year-old woman from behind and pulled her phone from her hands, then fled on foot. The robbery occurred on the 1100 block of Leavenworth Street (between California and Sacramento). No arrest has been made. Story continues 31-year-old man injured in hit-and-run On January 15 at 11:31 a.m., a man believed to be between 60 and 70 years old struck a 31-year-old man with his car at Mason and Jackson streets, then fled the scene. The victim was transported to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries. No arrest has been made. Anyone who has information about any of these incidents is encouraged to contact SFPD via the department's anonymous tip line at (415) 575-4444, or text TIP411 with "SFPD" at the start of the message. Heres why we usually dont include suspect descriptions in crime reports. It is mildly astonishing that the Iowa Caucuses are upon us, but even more astonishing that our own local election cycle has started anew. Californias leisurely old way primary election were reserved for June meant that while Iowa and New Hampshire were storms of political activity, we Californians could sit back and relax until May. Not any more. Our newly advanced primary set for March 3 along with the advent of all-mail balloting meant that election fever began to build back in December. I had candidates requesting endorsement meetings even as Thanksgiving leftovers were still in the fridge. Even though I knew things were starting early, I hadnt been ready for the full reality of election-related letters and editorials when things really got cranking in early January. From the editor: Battling the zombies Seems there are a lot of things we think we know but are based on, well, what? But our ballots will be coming out this week, just as the voters in Iowa pick their favorite Democrats for the presidential nomination. So as with every election cycle, here are our rules. We will accept election-related letters through Feb. 21. We will run as many of them in the print edition as fit, roughly on a first-come-first-served basis, though length will be a factor in fitting all the pieces on the page efficiently. Our word limit is 800, but brevity is always appreciated and you have a much better chance of fitting on the page in the final days if youre under 400 or 500 words. If were able, well run letters online that dont fit in print, though that depends on the time available to process those letters. Well run the letters that come in by the end of the work day on Feb. 21 through that weekend, up to Monday, Feb. 24. In the week between Feb. 25 and Election Day, we will only run a letter related to the March 3 election if it is a clear and compelling response to something previously published. Well judge that on a case-by-case basis and it is a fairly rare thing when we agree to publish such a response in the final week before voting closes. From the editor: Keeping the focus where it belongs Last week, we received a remarkable letter from the father of Alaina Housley, the young woman from Napa killed late last year in a mass shooting in Thousand Oaks. She was just 18 and in her first year at Pepperdine University. As always, we reserve the right to accept, reject or edit anything submitted by the public. Generally, Ill let you know if there is a problem with a letter, but since I have to process all the letters personally, my ability to devote attention to letters varies a lot depending on what else is going on in the office. So forgive me in advance if I fall short of my goal to keep everyone informed on the status of their letters. Also as always, we do not allow candidates to write letters to tout their own candidacies. We do, on a rare and case-by-case basis, allow them to respond to serious allegations or criticism. But again, thats fairly unusual. Particularly in this partisan and fractured era, were trying to keep the discussion civil. Youre much more likely to get on the Opinion page if you spend your limited space telling us why your candidate is so great rather than telling us why the other one is so awful. We certainly wont ban criticism of candidates, but please do keep it as civil as possible. From the editor: Adventures in Search Engine Optimization With less than a week to go before the election, I noticed something very strange on our website. If it comes down to a choice of what runs in print and what doesnt, well give priority to letters about local issues and candidates over state or national issues, though we welcome letters on any race that is relevant to Napa County. We have had some letters lately about local races that wont be on the ballot until November. If space becomes an issue, Ill have to start holding those until after Feb. 24. If you have questions, or you dont see your letter appearing after a few days, feel free to contact me to discuss. Happy voting. You can reach Sean Scully at 256-2246 or sscully@napanews.com. Catch the latest in Opinion Get opinion pieces, letters and editorials sent directly to your inbox weekly! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. A Japanese warship left its port near Tokyo on Sunday on a mission to protect merchant ships and oil tankers passing through the Gulf of Oman that supply 90% owf Japans oil, as tension in the Middle East simmers, Trend reports citing Reuters. The helicopter destroyer Takanami and its 200-strong crew will operate with two P-3C maritime patrol aircraft to guard ships heading for Japanese ports. Prime Minister Shinzo Abes government said it is prepared to authorize force to protect ships in danger - a controversial decision because Japans war-renouncing constitution forbids the use of military force to settle international disputes. The UN Security Council on Friday approved a slight relaxation of the arms embargo on the Central African Republic, an issue that has been a source of friction between France and Russia. A resolution drafted by France that extends the embargo by only six months to July 31 was approved by 13 votes with Russia and China abstaining. It allows the CAR to acquire military vehicles mounted with up to 14.5mm weapons, provided the United Nations is notified ahead of time. According to the diplomats, negotiations on the draft were held amid sharp tensions between France and Russia. A former colonial power, France did not want any easing of the embargo in light of conditions in the country, according to sources who spoke on condition of anonymity. The European and African members of the council supported France's draft, but Russia, backed by China, supported Bangui's longstanding call for the embargo to be completely lifted. Moscow this week proposed a concurrent resolution to France's. However, a compromise was worked out on Thursday that avoided a vote on two resolutions, and the risk that the embargo would be lifted entirely. France's deputy representative to the United Nations, Anne Gueguen, said she "profoundly" regretted that the resolution was not unanimously adopted. She said the Security Council is receptive to the CAR authorities but stressed the need for a "responsible approach." - Six month extension - Her Russian counterpart, Dmitry Polyanskiy, complained that none of Moscow's arguments had been taken into account, and he warned these would be raised again in July, indicating the Security Council fight over the embargo would resume in six months. "We wanted a greater easing of the arms embargo," he said, arguing that while it was useful initially it had become an obstacle to re-equipping the military and security forces. Niger's ambassador Abdou Abarry, speaking also on behalf of South Africa and Tunisia, said the resolution represented a response to the CAR's legitimate demand to move towards the lifting of the arms embargo. He said the easing of the embargo would help the CAR's government to retake control of the entire country. The United States noted that Bangui had made no requests for exemptions to the embargo since September, even though the possibility was open to it. The latest relaxation of the embargo follows a Security Council decision in September 2019 to allow delivery of individual weapons of up to 14.5mm in caliber to the CAR security forces, which was the first time an easing occurred. The embargo has been in place since 2013, when the CAR was rocked by civil war following the fall of president Francois Bozize. But the government has long demanded that it be lifted altogether, contending that armed groups continue to control vast areas of the country and can easily resupply their forces through contraband, putting Bangui at a disadvantage. Since 2017, exceptions to the embargo have been accorded by the United Nations on a case by case basis, including when Russia and France gave arms to the CAR. The deadly coronavirus will not cause victims to act like zombies, Malaysia's government said on social media, as officials act to correct the spread of misinformation surrounding the outbreak. As medical authorities seek to contain the virus, some social media users in Malaysia made a connection between the disease and the walking dead. Malaysia's health ministry dismissed the rumour in a tweet, however, saying: "The claim that individuals infected with this virus will behave like zombies is not true... Patients can recover." A number of posts in Malaysia on social media have wrongly claimed the number of deaths or infected people in the country. Police have arrested six people for spreading misinformation about the virus, a Malaysian Communications and Multimedia statement said. In the latest arrest, last Thursday, a 28-year-old woman was investigated for "improper use of network facilities". If convicted, she can be fined up to 50,000 ringgit or be jailed for a year, or both. The virus has killed more than 300 people in China and infected thousands. Eight people in Malaysia have been found with the virus -- all Chinese nationals. The Union Budget 2020-21 has earmarked an all-time high allocation of Rs 7,572.20 crore for the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises while announcing a string of initiatives for the sector including raising the turnover threshold for audit of their accounts to Rs 5 crore and a scheme to provide subordinate debt to MSME entrepreneurs. The flagship employment generation scheme of the ministry, Prime Minister Employment Generation Programme, has got an all-time high allocation of Rs 2,500 crore for generating self-employment opportunities through establishment of micro-enterprises in non-farm sector by helping traditional artisans and rural/urban unemployed youth. "Currently, only businesses having a turnover of more than Rs 1 crore are required to get their books of accounts audited by an accountant. In order to reduce compliance burden on small retailers, traders, shopkeepers who comprise the MSME sector, I propose to raise by five times the turnover threshold for audit from the existing Rs 1 crore to 5 crore," Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said while presenting the Budget in Parliament on Saturday. She said a scheme will be introduced to provide subordinate debt to MSME entrepreneurs. Besides, the government has also asked the Reserve Bank to extend the debt restructuring window for MSMEs by a year to March 31, 2021, Sitharaman said. "An app-based invoice financing loans product will be launched. This will obviate the problem of delayed payments and consequential cash flow mismatches for the MSMEs," the finance minister said. She further said necessary amendments will be made to the Factor Regulation Act 2011 to enable non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) to extend invoice financing to MSMEs through TReDS, thereby enhancing the economic and financial sustainability. A scheme of Rs 1,000 crore was also announced to extend hand holding support to mid-sized companies in selected sectors such as pharmaceuticals, auto components and others for technology upgradations, R&D, business strategy, among others, to make them export competitive. The Khadi Vikas Yojana and Gramodyog Vikas Yojana has been allocated Rs 472 crore to develop a sustainable model of Khadi based business enterprises in the villages. The allocation under MSE-Cluster Development Programme has witnessed an increase of 71 per cent to Rs 391 crore from Rs 228 crore in 2019-20 for enhancing productivity, competitiveness and capacity building of Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs). Allocation for 'Scheme of Fund for Regeneration of Traditional Industries' (SFURTI) has gone up to Rs 465 crore from Rs 125 crore in the previous year to help traditional industries become more productive, profitable and capable of generating sustainable employment for artisans. Besides, Rs 805 crore has been allocated under Credit Linked Capital Subsidy and Technology Upgradation Scheme (CLCS-TUS) to improve competitiveness of MSMEs through various interventions aimed at upgrading technology. The National Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe Hub is given Rs 150 crore to provide professional support to SC/ST entrepreneurs and capacity building among existing and prospective SC/ST entrepreneurs through training programmes. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) U.S. health officials on Saturday confirmed an eighth case of the fast-spreading new coronavirus in the United States and the Pentagon said it would provide housing for people arriving from overseas who might need to be quarantined. The latest U.S. patient, who is in Massachusetts, recently returned from Hubei province in central China, the epicenter of the outbreak, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in an emailed statement. The person was not identified and no other details were provided. The flu-like coronavirus, which is believed to have originated in a market that traded illegally in wildlife in Hubeis provincial capital Wuhan, has so far resulted in 304 deaths in China, state broadcaster CCTV said early on Sunday in China. Confirmed cases of the virus have been reported in 27 other nations, according to the CDC. All but one of the patients in the United States was believed to have contracted the disease while they were traveling in the Wuhan area. U.S. officials this week reported the first human-to-human transmission of the disease in the United States in Illinois. Concerns about the virus spurred the Trump administration to declare a public health emergency and bar entry to the United States for foreign nationals who have recently visited China. In addition, U.S. citizens who have traveled within the past two weeks to Hubei will be subject to a mandatory quarantine of 14 days, believed to be the incubation period of the virus, officials said. Americans who visited other parts of mainland China will undergo special health screening upon their return, followed by up to 14 days of monitored self-quarantine, under the temporary restrictions. In a statement on Saturday, the Pentagon said Defense Secretary Mark Esper approved a request for assistance from the Department of Health and Human Services for housing support for 1,000 people who may be subject to quarantine on arrival from overseas. Health officials had asked the Defense Department to provide several facilities capable of housing at least 250 people in individual rooms through Feb. 29. The Pentagon said four military installations have been selected: two in California, one in Colorado, and one in Texas. It said Defense Department personnel would only provide housing support and HHS would be responsible for all care and transportation. DOD personnel will not be directly in contact with the evacuees and evacuees will not have access to any base location other than their assigned housing, the Pentagon said. QUARANTINE PROCEDURES The first quarantines of U.S. citizens potentially exposed to coronavirus in China began hours before the White House announcement on Friday. Nearly 200 Americans evacuated earlier this week from Wuhan and voluntarily confined to a California military air base for 72 hours of health screenings were placed under a mandatory 14-day quarantine on Friday. By Saturday afternoon, none of those quarantined showed any symptoms of having the virus, said Jose Arballo, a spokesman for the public health department in Riverside County, where the air base is located. He said test results were still pending. The order to keep the Americans on the base marked the CDCs first mandatory quarantine for decades. Since this hasnt been done in 51 years theres quite the scramble to work through all the procedures, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official said, adding that the last mandatory quarantine was ordered to fight smallpox. The official, who requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly about the matter, said DHS personnel would take over running medical screenings at airports this weekend to free up their CDC counterparts for other tasks. State and local authorities will likely play a role with mandatory quarantines, the official said, which could mean a lot of variance across the country for how it gets implemented. A DHS spokeswoman denied the department was scrambling and said it has been working on these plans since last summer, when it began contracting medical professionals and readying quarantine and health screening plans in case it had to ramp up for the Ebola outbreak. We were able to quickly tailor those plans and contracts to the coronavirus, said the spokeswoman, Heather Swift. Swift said state and local officials are always involved in public health and emergency response, but that there is a uniform standard. All passengers who receive a positive symptoms screening will be placed in quarantine. Those who show no symptoms will be sent home on self-quarantine, she said. Nearly 12,000 people have been infected globally by the virus, according to the WHO, with all but just over 130 of those cases occurring in China. U.S. health officials have said risks to the United States remain low. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Dian Septiari (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sun, February 2, 2020 As Palestine begins drumming up support from the Muslim world against United States President Donald Trumps divisive Middle East peace plan, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) should issue a response to challenge the legitimacy of the US move, experts have said. Top diplomats from 57 OIC member states are to convene on Monday for an extraordinary ministerial meeting called by Palestine. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,000/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login The West Bengal Health Department on Sunday traced eight passengers who had travelled in the same flight as that of the coronavirus-affected Kerala resident and landed at the airport here on January 23, a senior official said. These passengers were seated in the two rows in front and behind the Kerala resident's seat, he said. While two passengers, who had landed at the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport on January 23, were identified as residents of Asansol and Odisha, details of the other six were also traced on Sunday, West Bengal Director of Health Services Ajay Kumar Chakraborty said. Three passengers of that flight, who were sitting either in the front or the back four seats of the coronavirus affected-Kerala man, were identified as Chinese nationals, he said. One of the passengers was from New Delhi, while two others were from West Bengal, he added. "All the eight persons have been identified. The three Chinese have returned to their country and the Delhi resident has also gone back home," Chakraborty told PTI. The two from West Bengal have been advised to follow instructions of the state health department, another official said. "Blood specimens have been collected and sent for tests and they (passengers) have been sent to stay in isolation in their respective homes. We are in touch with them," he said. The first confirmed case of coronavirus was reported from Kerala on January 30 when a student studying in Wuhan University returned home. The student, who had returned to Kerala from Wuhan via Kolkata, went to the Thrissur General Hospital with possible symptoms of novel coronavirus and was quickly quarantined. A second case was reported from Kerala on Sunday as a person with a travel history to China tested positive for coronavirus. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Mumbai police personnel on Sunday managed to convince a 39-year-old man to not contemplate suicide, moments after he tweeted on the subject on the former's official Twitter handle. Nilesh Bedekar tweeted to the Mumbai police informing that he intended to commit suicide and asked what was the punishment set down by law for his act. A police official asked Bedekar for his contact details, which the latter provided on Twitter, following which Inspector Mahesh Nivetkar from Vanrai police station paid a visit to his home in the northern suburbs. Bedekar was counselled, after which he dropped the plan to end his life, and was also subjected to a medical test, an official said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Three Vietnamese 'slaves' were shockingly locked inside a huge, secret drugs farm by a ruthless county lines gang with only grains of rice to eat. The men, who had been driven from London to Lincolnshire in the dead of night with the promise of a job, were rescued when police raided a warehouse on the Foxhills Industrial Estate in Scunthorpe. One of them, Vietnamese national Quang Van Ho, had been trapped inside the warehouse for two months with gangmasters screwing the doors shut to stop him escaping. Pictured: The cannabis plants at the drug factory in Scunthorpe where three men were forced to work and locked in a warehouse Police are pictured raiding the site of a drugs factory and slavery ring where they found three Vietnamese men He'd been joined by the other two men, aged 30 and 46, with just enough food, mainly rice, and liquids to survive and under orders to tend and cultivate the huge cannabis farm hidden inside. Harrowing details of their ordeal emerged after a hearing at Grimsby Crown Court which heard about the July 28th raid on the 4m cannabis factory, thought to be the largest found in northern Lincolnshire. Humberside Police who rescued the three men trapped in the warehouse discovered 15,000 cannabis plants which took almost a week to remove. Police arrested Ho and his two compatriots and charged them with producing cannabis between June 1 and July 30. But in court on Thursday they were cleared after the case against them collapsed because they were victims of modern day slavery or people trafficking. Speaking after the hearing, solicitor advocate Richard Hackfath, who represented Ho, said 'He came into this country on his own passport on a visitor's visa but ended up being detained in an immigration detention centre. Pictured: The warehouse were the three workers were locked in and forced to sleep at night 'When he was released from there, he had got no means of support so somebody in London offered him a job and that's how he was brought to Scunthorpe in the middle of the night and was locked in. 'He was never paid and, if people refuse to work, they beat them. He was there inside the premises for two months.' He said Ho was given just enough food and liquids to survive. 'There was a bag of rice and things they found in there. It was very rudimentary but just enough to keep him going. 'The other two were in there in exactly the same way but they came into the country in the back of a lorry. They said they had been smuggled in. 'They were locked in as well. It was placed into lockdown and was screwed down shut.' The other two men were found to be the victims of trafficking but the police did not provide the requested information to the Home Office about Ho. 'The Home Office had emailed and telephoned Humberside Police but had not had a reply' said Mr Hackfath. 'If the police had told the Home Office what they knew, it was likely that they would have dropped the case against Ho some time ago. That's why they have now dropped it.' At the hearing on Thursday, prosecutor Ben Thomas told Grimsby Crown Court that Ho was due to face trial as he had initially not been found to be a victim of trafficking. However, Mr Thomas said there were 'no problems with the credibility of his account' of how he came to be in the premises. 'It's not safe to proceed in respect of him' said Mr Thomas and a verdict of not guilty was entered. It is understood Ho will have been released from Grimsby Crown Court with a travel warrant that would entitle him to buy a rail ticket to a destination in the country of his choice. As his passport and visa remain valid, he is not subject to any deportation requirements. Mr Thomas said the 15,000 cannabis plants found in the raid were estimated to have a street value of between 2.5m and 4m. At the time of the find, it was revealed that all the cannabis and the equipment used to grow the plants had been removed from the warehouse and police said there was nothing of value there. The factory was uncovered following police inquiries and information from members of the public. Humberside Police Detective Inspector John Cram said at the time 'This is a hugely significant find. 'It is a very professional set-up which we believe to have been ongoing and operating for a period of months.' Taoiseach Leo Varadkar intends to continue leading Fine Gael from the opposition benches if voted out of office next weekend. Mr Varadkars party are facing an uphill battle to retain power after the latest opinion polls suggested Fine Gael are on course for one of their worst election results in history. While the Taoiseach believes his candidates still have time to turn the tide, he accepts that life on the opposition benches could be looming. In an interview to be aired on Sky News, Mr Varadkar said he wants stay in politics and lead Fine Gael regardless of the outcome in the election. If my party wants me Ill continue to be leader of the party and if needs be, be leader of the opposition. Ive energy for this, Ive a hunger for it, weve started so many things that I really want to see through, he said. Lets be honest, what would happen if Fianna Fail or Sinn Fein lead the next Government - certainly with Fianna Fail every time in my lifetime that theyve got into power therell be a boom and bust and Fine Gael will be here to pick up the piece but please lets not make that mistake again. The 41-year-old added: Even if we end up in a scenario where Fine Gael is not part of the next government, assuming I hold my seat Ill still be a constituency TD for Dublin West and its a huge honour to represent the area that I grew up in and I want to continue to do that at the very least. The latest Red C poll published in today's Business Post recorded a surge in support for Sinn Fein heading into the final week of campaigning - with the party level with Fianna Fail, and ahead of Fine Gael for the first time. Fianna Fail is on 24pc (down 2 points) as is Sinn Fein (+5), with Fine Gael on 21pc (-2). Among the other parties, Labour is on 5pc (+1), the Greens are on 7pc (-1), and Independents on 12pc (-2). Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin told Independent.ie today that he would not rule out entering into a confidence and supply arrangement with Fine Gael if Leo Varadkar's party was in opposition as the smaller of the two parties. But Mr Varadkar said: We have to bear in mind the future is informed by the past. Its only two years since we balanced the books. I think he likes people to forget that he was in government for 14 years. I certainly havent been in for that long. The idea that Micheal Martin represents change is a bit of a try on for me quite frankly. Mr Varadkar also told Sky News that he feels a lot of the election campaign has involved personal comments about him. Everything from the fact that Im mixed race to my sexual orientation to my personality to perceptions about my social class and I dont think the election is about me. The election is about 4.5 million Irish citizens, the fact that people feel the need to criticise me personally or attack me personally, I think is a cover for the fact that they have very little to offer. They dont want to talk about their policies and something that is so obvious about this election to me is the extent to which Fianna Fail have come unstuck on policy, he said. Read More The Taoiseach was also asked Anglo-Irish relations, insisting he has a good relationship with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. However, he doubled down on controversial comments about the need for Britain to realise it is a small country now. I think sometimes you have to tell it like it is, he said, adding: The United Kingdom is not in the top 20 countries in the world in terms of population. Thats a fact. But it is in terms of economy and many other aspects. It is in the top 10 in terms of economy but everyone knows the world is changing. Meanwhile, Mr Varadkar has said Fianna Fail has "a lot of backwoodsmen," who would slow social progress, while canvassing in Athlone this afternoon. Despite just moments earlier saying social class had no place in Irish politics, the Taoiseach used the term, which typically describes rural dwellers as uncouth or backward. Mr Varadkar was responding to comments made by Micheal Martin in an interview with the Sunday Independent, where he described Fine Gael as being out of touch with working-class people. The Taoiseach hit back at Martin, saying it was "a really unfortunate thing that in the last couple of years, particularly the past couple of months some parties have tried to inject class politics into Irish politics. He said he was "sorry that Fianna Fail are trying to pit the working class against the middle class". "That is not our agenda, and I wouldn't like to see that kind of agenda at the top of government." Moments later when asked by reporters if both Fine Gael and Fianna Fail's staunch criticism of Sinn Fein had backfired the Taoiseach said: "Other parties talk about change, but we have been the ones who have been driving it through, and we want to finish it. "And if we have a Fianna Fail led government, I have no doubt that the social progress we have seen in recent years will not continue. "There are a lot of backwoodsmen in Fianna Fail that would slow down social progress. "The referendum would not have happened had Fianna Fail been in office." Fianna Fail has been contacted for comment. Speaking while canvassing in Athlone Varadkar described a possible coalition government of Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein as "double trouble." "There is real and growing risk that the next government will be led by Fianna Fail or Sinn Fein or maybe ever two of them together. The double trouble option if you like. "And that is really dangerous for our economy, for jobs. People have worked so hard over the past few years to get the country to where it is now, and a government led by Fianna Fail or Sinn Fein or both of them is going to be really bad for our economy. And that puts people's jobs, people's incomes, people's livelihoods, people's business at threat. So it's a big decision for the public to make." The Taoiseach said he would welcome Mary Lou McDonald's inclusion in the next televised debate. "I have never had any objection to including Mary Lou McDonald in the debate. I've made that clear from the very start. It is a matter for the broadcaster, so it's their decision to make. "It would be useful to take such an opportunity to scrutinise Sinn Fein's policies a bit more. "The four billion euro tax they intend to on Irish businesses, jobs, pensions, property, wealth something that would be hugely detrimental to our economy, as bad as what FF were when they were in power." "And it is also a fact that notwithstanding what vote Sinn Fein gets in this election that they don't have enough candidates to lead a government. So the choice about who leads the government is between Micheal Martin and Fine Gael and Fianna Fail." SANAA, Yemen Tribal leaders said Saturday a suspected U.S. drone strike destroyed a building housing al Qaeda militants last week in eastern Yemen. President Trump, meanwhile, retweeted several tweets and media reports that seemed to offer confirmation the Jan. 25 strike killed top al Qaeda leader Qassim al-Rimi. The tribal leaders said the drone strike took place in the Wadi Ubaidah area in the eastern province of Marib. The area is known as a stronghold for al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, as the Yemeni affiliate is known. They said at least three explosions rocked the area, and that the building was set ablaze. It was not immediately clear how many militants were in the building at the time or their identities. The tribal leaders said a handful of al Qaeda militants arrived at the area directly after the strike and cordoned off the area. The tribal leaders spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared reprisals. Trump on Saturday retweeted tweets and articles that seemed to offer confirmation that al-Rimi, one of AQAPs founders and its current chief, was killed in the strike. The White House did not comment on whether Trumps retweeting was confirmation. The attack was first reported by the New York Times. Al-Rimi succeeded Nasser al-Wahishi, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2015, as the top leader of AQAP. Among Trumps retweets was a thread by Rita Katz, director of SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks messaging by militant groups. If true, and it seems to be, the death of al-Rimi would mark a major blow to #AlQaeda on the whole. Al-Rimi was a candidate for succeeding AQ leader Zawahiri, Katz tweeted Thursday. She was referring to al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri. Katz said that of all living al Qaeda leaders, al-Rimi was the most compelling, known for his charisma & beloved across the AQ community. AQAP has long been considered the global networks most dangerous branch and has attempted to carry out attacks on the U.S. mainland. Yemen was plunged into civil war in 2014. Al Qaeda and an Islamic State affiliate have exploited the chaos to expand their presence in the country. Ahmed Al-Hai and Samy Magdy are Associated Press writers. Countries thank Turkey for airlifting citizens The plane belonging to the Turkish Armed Forces landed in Turkey's capital Ankara on Saturday upon completing its evacuation operation from China's Wuhan city, the epicenter of the deadly outbreak. Azerbaijan, Georgia and Albania thanked Turkey on Saturday after a Turkish military cargo plane traveled to China's coronavirus-hit city Wuhan to evacuate its own as well as those countries' nationals. "WE ARE DEEPLY GRATEFUL TO TURKISH GOVRENMENT" The Turkish Armed Forces' A400M type cargo plane departed from Wuhan on Saturday airlifting 42 people with 32 Turkish citizens, along with the citizens of Azerbaijan, Albania, and Georgia after health staff confirmed they did not carry any symptoms related to the fatal outbreak. All the patients -- including 32 Turks, six Azerbaijanis, three Georgians and one Albania -- boarded the plane after they were found not to show coronavirus symptoms in initial examinations, the Health Ministry said before the evacuation operation. "Thank you to #Turkey for arranging the flight to evacuate Georgian citizens from #Wuhan, China amid an outbreak of coronavirus. Such acts of support further reaffirm strong partnership and solidarity between our two countries," Georgian Foreign Minister David Zalkaliani said on Twitter. Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry also thanked Turkey for evacuating its citizens, adding that the move was exemplary of the "brotherhood" between the to countries. "The Azerbaijani citizens were evacuated together with the Turkish citizens from China's Wuhan city in a Turkish plane. This is another great example of Azerbaijan-Turkey brotherhood! Thank you, brotherly Turkey!" the ministry said on Twitter. "Deeply grateful to #Turkey for helping to evacuate the #Albanian citizen studying in #Wuhan and assisting with the mandatory check-up & monotoring period. Greatly appreciative to our colleagues in @MFATurkey [Turkish Foreign Ministry] for their high-value support," Albania's Foreign Ministry also said on Twitter. GUANGZHOU, China, Feb. 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- It is of greatest concern that the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) has spread through more than 20 countries and become a global health emergency. To address the urgent need for strengthening disease prevention measures, a Chinese agriculture technology company XAG announced on Friday that it would set up a 5-million-yuan special fund on coronavirus response, calling for voluntary drone disinfection operations in China, which is hardest hit by the epidemic. XAG is actively pitching in to combat the contagious coronavirus with innovative technologies, as well as assisting local governments on public health safety. The 5-million-yuan fund is committed to providing XAG's agricultural drone users with technical support to properly carry out aerial disinfectant sprays that help curb the spread of virus, especially in rural villages with weaker health systems and poorer sanitation conditions. Operations will target the densely populated outdoor public places and those communities having confirmed or suspected cases of coronavirus. Another focus of applications is intensive cleaning and disinfection of medical and epidemic prevention vehicles moving between affected and unaffected areas. During the nationwide drone disinfection operation, XAG will cover all the spare parts and maintenance expenses for those who voluntarily engage. Also, strict qualification approval and standard operation procedure (SOP) are implemented to ensure safety and legitimacy. Disinfecting actions would be taken under the permission of Centre for Disease Control and Prevention and relevant government authorities. According to the Novel Coronavirus Treatment Proposal (Fourth Edition) published by National Health Commission of China, coronavirus is mainly travelled via respiratory droplets, but it can also spread by touching contaminated surfaces. Dr. Mara Van Kerkhove, a member of the World Health Organisation (WHO)'s emergency committee, also confirmed the possibility of coronavirus spreading via fomites. Agricultural drone, as an autonomous precision spraying tool, can be a highly effective alternative to accurately release disinfectants over public places. Compared with traditional disinfection approaches conducted by hands or lorry, drones can be directed to spray where it is needed and cover a wider area, helping to improve public hygiene and reducing the risk of virus transmission through surface contact. In China's Shandong province, XAG's drone fleets were deployed by a crop protection team on 28 January to disinfect a local community of over 300,000 square metres in less than 4 hours. About XAG Founded in 2007, XAG is a world-leading agriculture technology company with 12 years of technical experience in unmanned aerial system (UAS) and 6 years of practical experience in innovative field applications. Having 42,000 agricultural drones in operation, XAG has served 6.37 million farmers with precision crop protection services on 20 million hectares of farmland. To empower the next-gen global farmers, XAG is dedicated to building digital farming infrastructure, developing precision farming equipment, such as robots, drones, AI and IoT, and creating smart agriculture ecosystems. SOURCE XAG Related Links www.xa.com The grieving daughter of a woman who was killed on a smart motorway has called for the transport secretary to 'end the madness' of the new roads. Saima Aktar, who lost her mother Nargis Bashir, 62, as she drove home to Sheffield along the M1, said government minister Grant Shapps needed to ban the hard shoulders that had been converted into live lanes. Ms Aktar, whose family is due to sue Highways England for corporate manslaughter, said by speaking out she hoped Mr Shapps would be prompted to ban the new scheme and 'speak the truth' about smart motorways. Calling for the minister to 'end the madness' of the new lanes, she told The Sunday Telegraph: 'Mr Shapps must understand how devastating it is to lose someone because a simple thing like a hard shoulder has been removed and a motorway absurdly rebranded as ''smart''. A daughter of a woman who was killed on a smart motorway in September 2018 has called for the transport secretary Grant Shapps to ban the new lanes Saima Aktar said the government minister needed to ban the hard shoulders that had been converted into live lanes She added: 'He needs to answer a simple question- does he have the nerve to speak the truth about smart motorways?' Ms Bashir had been a passenger inside a stationary car which had broken down on the M1 with its hazard lights on for 17 minutes when another vehicle crashed into her in September 2018. Highways England did not notice the broken-down vehicle on CCTV and the lane was left open to traffic. Ms Aktar's comments come as the families of those killed on smart motorways said Highways England have 'got blood on their hands' and demanded that its chiefs face criminal charges. Grief-stricken relatives accused the government-owned company's bosses, including chief executive Jim O'Sullivan, of repeatedly ignoring concerns over the scheme and called for stricter consequences for the organisation's lack of action. Claire Mercer whose husband Jason, 44, was killed on the M1 by a lorry as he shared details with another driver following a minor collision on June 7 last year has lodged formal allegations of corporate manslaughter against Highways England with South Yorkshire Police. She told The Sunday Telegraph: 'They have got blood on their hands.' Mrs Mercer, who is seeking a judicial review, has since raised more than 5,000 in a crowdfunding campaign to see the new scheme scrapped and has enlisted the help of lawyers at Irwin Mitchell LLP to continue her fight to see the new roads stopped. The fresh calls come after National Chair of the Police Federation of England and Wales John Apter said the government needed to suspend all new smart motorways 'as a matter of urgency' after it was revealed that 38 people had been killed on them in the last five years. Families of those killed on smart motorways have said the the chiefs of Highways England, including Jim O'Sullivan (pictured), must face criminal charges Claire Mercer (with husband Jason) lost her husband Jason, 44, on June 7 last year after he was killed on the M1 by a lorry Mr Apter, who said the roads were 'inherently dangerous' took to Twitter to write: 'The Government must act as a matter of urgency and suspend all new Smart motorway builds until a review is completed. 'From the evidence we have seen and the experience from our colleagues it's clear that Smart motorways are inherently dangerous. Time for action @grantshapps.' This week a BBC Panorama documentary, entitled 'Britain's Killer Motorways?', found 38 drivers had died on smart motorways in the last five years after becoming stranded. It also found that on one section of the M25 near misses had increased 20-fold since the hard shoulder was taken away. Responding to the documentary Mr Apter wrote: 'A serious issue and one @PFEW_HQ has been raising since smart motorways were introduced. This @BBCPanorama programme is well worth a watch. 8.30pm, tonight on BBC1.' He added: 'Did you watch #Panorama on the scandal that is Smart motorways? The Gov and public were sold a concept by @HighwaysEngland on what a Smart motorway would be. 'That concept has been fundamentally changed (not for the better). We have been misled.' This week National Chair of the Police Federation of England and Wales John Apter (pictured) urged the government to suspend all new smart motorways Mr Apter said the evidence was clear that smart motorways were 'inherently dangerous' In October, Mr O'Sullivan told the Commons' Transport Select Committee that smart motorways were 'too complicated for people to use' and that he did not think they would be building any more hard shoulder smart motorways. He also admitted that the agency had not investigated the dangers of removing the hard shoulder and 'would have not looked into' whether smart motorways that retain their hard shoulder were more or less dangerous than those that don't. He said: 'I am persuaded that the difference is so slight that we would have not looked into it.' He added: 'I don't think we will be building any more dynamic hard shoulder smart motorways. They're just too complicated for people to use.' The chief executive also said that 'a number of fatalities' would have been prevented had technology which could detect if a vehicle has stopped on the lane been widely used before adding the scheme was still 'as safe or safer than conventional motorways'. He said: 'I would prefer to break down in the live lane of a managed motorway or a smart motorway than I would prefer to break down on a live lane on a conventional motorway or on a dual carriageway.' Last month calls were launched to ban smart motorways by members of the Broken Hearts Club, a Whatsapp group set up by the mother of eight-year-old Dev Naran, from Leicestershire, who was killed on the M6 when his grandfather's Toyota Yaris was struck by a HGV on May 31 2018. Meera Naran (right with son Dev) lost her eight-year-old son Dev Naran on the M6 when his grandfather's Toyota Yaris was struck by an HGV Dev's grandfather had been driving along the road with him in the back and his cousin Ria Soni, 20, in the front passenger seat when he stopped on the occasional hard shoulder with his hazard lights on. A police investigation established the car was stationary for just 45 seconds before lorry driver Paul Kiddy, 62, from Hampshire, hit the Toyota at about 56mph. Following her son's death Dev's mother Meera Naran, 36, told the Sunday Times Magazine: 'I miss him every day. I don't want any other families to suffer like mine has suffered. 'The government has to restore the hard shoulders on these motorways until they can find a way to make them safe.' Highways England initially set up smart motorways, which allows drivers to use the hard shoulder at least some of the time, to cut congestion and improve the flow of traffic. There are currently more than 20 sections of 'smart motorways' on seven different motorways and six more are under construction. A Highways England spokesperson said: 'Any death on our roads is one too many, and our deepest sympathies remain with the family and friends of those who lost their lives. 'The Transport Secretary has asked the Department for Transport to carry out, at pace, an evidence stocktake to gather the facts about smart motorway safety. We are committed to safety and are supporting the Department in its work on this.' The Transport Secretary, Grant Shapps, said: 'My thoughts and sympathies are with the families and loved ones of those who have lost their lives or sustained injuries. 'Smart motorways must be as safe or safer than regular motorways, or we shouldn't have them at all. That is why I established this evidence stock take, so we can make recommendations based on the facts.' There are currently more than 20 sections of 'smart motorways' on seven different motorways What is the future of the Intelligent Design movement? Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment What will the future be for the Intelligent Design movement following the death of Phillip E. Johnson, one of its best known proponents? Last November, Johnson, author of the best-selling book, Darwin on Trial, and other anti-evolution works, died at age 79. The Christian Post has since interviewed Intelligent Design proponents, as well as critics, to discuss Johnson's legacy and the current direction of the movement. A longtime law professor at the University of California-Berkeley, Johnson was credited with helping to ignite the modern Intelligent Design movement through his books and debates. The most notable of these was the aforementioned Darwin on Trial, first published in 1991 and written in response to atheist intellectual Richard Dawkins book, The Blind Watchmaker. In 2003, the Christian news publication World magazine honored Johnson with its Daniel of the Year award, referring to him as a courtly combatant. Phillip Johnson has made it his mission to correct that mistake and the wrong-headed thinking that led to it. He speaks all over the country, John Perry of World magazine said at the time. He is also a Daniel who befriends the lions, treats them with courtliness, annihilates them on the intellectual battlefield, humbly yet effectively neutralizes their desperate ad hominem attacks, then invites them out to dinner preferably Indian. Merriam-Webster defines Intelligent Design as the theory that matter, the various forms of life, and the world were created by a designing intelligence. Intelligent Design differs from more traditional creationism in that it generally avoids crediting a specific deity and tends to be more open to ideas like an old Earth and some evolutionary change. In recent years, the debate over Intelligent Design versus the Theory of Evolution has not garnered the headlines it once did, especially regarding arguments on public school curriculum. Nevertheless, organizations and scientists that support Intelligent Design remain present in the United States and continue to advance their work to a largely evolution-minded population. The Christian Post interviewed some Intelligent Design proponents, as well as some critics, to discuss Johnson's legacy and the current direction of the movement. New research Douglas Axe, a professor of Molecular Biology at Biola Universitys School of Science, Technology and Health, told The Christian Post that Johnson influenced his decision to join the movement. Ive been suspicious of Darwinism as far back as I can remember, but it wasnt until I started connecting with other Darwin-skeptics that I was able to place my own thinking within the larger body of thought that became known as Intelligent Design, Axe recalled. Phillip Johnson was instrumental in this. I met Steve Meyer in 1990 and Bill Dembski in 1992 and then many others, including Mike Behe, at a meeting organized by Phil in 1993. It was at that point that I realized a movement was in the making. Axe believed that the first phase of research within Intelligent Design was centered on settling the question of whether life really is designed. Considering that question basically resolved, Axe told CP that the current phase of research is focused on developing a new design-centered way of thinking about biology. For example, former Google coder Dr. Winston Ewert recently published a peer-reviewed paper that provides striking evidence that genomes have been designed in a way that resembles how humans design software, he continued. Dr. Michael Egnor, Professor of Neurosurgery at State University of New York in Stony Brook, has just described with mathematical precision how engineering principles are used masterfully to smooth out the heartbeat pulse in order for the capillary flow in our brains to be smooth. In an interview with CP, Egnor said he believes there is abundant evidence for intelligent agency, labeling Intelligent Design a valid inference. There is in nature very clear evidence for intelligent agency in some aspects of biology, he said. The intricate nano-technology that exists inside cells, the clear evidence for purpose in cellular metabolism, in physiology, in multi-cellular organisms." Egnor believed that, regardless of whether one believed in evolution, it was a challenge to do scientific research without presuming that there is design in nature. "If you look for example at the genome, at the DNA inside a cell. You think of it as a computer program, as software. That helps you quite a bit in understanding how it works. If you didn't have that inference, it would be much harder to understand what the DNA is doing, Egnor continued. "We really can't study the human heart unless you begin with the premise that its a pump. If you begin with the premise that its a pump, then the whole thing makes sense. The muscle in the heart and the valves, the chambers, all of it adds up. But the idea that its a pump is a design inference." Dr. Brian Thomas, research associate with the Institute for Creation Research, an organization that supports biblical creationism, told CP that he believes current scientific finds bolster Intelligent Design and creationism claims. Despite claims that the human genome is littered with useless evolutionary leftovers, geneticists keep confirming that almost all human DNA is used in one tissue or another at some point during growth and development, said Thomas. Genome usage and sophistication continue to boggle investigators minds and baffle non-intelligent origins options. Even fossil discoveries keep confirming fully formed creatures at their lowest appearance. Astrophysicist Hugh Ross of the Christian apologetics group Reasons to Believe explained in comments emailed to CP that he believes the movement is taking a two-pronged approach. One prong involved groups like Reasons to Believe developing an alternative creation model that could be tested while Johnson and groups like the Discovery Institute were devoted more to rebutting evolutionary claims and attempting to be inserted into public education. Id have to say the ID prong is working well among Christians, though not especially well among skeptics, those within or influenced by secular academia, wrote Ross. The RTB prong has met with receptivity in the opposite areas. Despite some resistance within the evangelical community, our creation model and presentation of evidence for our Christian faith have opened doors in universities and beyond, especially among skeptics and doubters influenced by secular academia and media. Ross added that he believes each of the prongs pursues its mission wholeheartedly, and each is sustained by the generosity of those who care about their cause. Silently growing? When noting the strengths of the Intelligent Design movement, especially within the scientific community, some proponents believe that it's growing in a quiet manner. Axe of Biola told CP that over the years, the way in which Intelligent Design has advanced has become less public. In the early days of the modern movement, around the time that Phils book Darwin on Trial was published, it was possible to bring design opponents and advocates together for conferences at major research universities, Axe said. Thats now been taboo for some time in secular academic circles. Why? Well, theres really only one reason for the academic powers-that-be to avoid discussion of a subject of such obvious scientific import: they know an open debate wont go their way. Axe believes there's currently a growth of interest in Intelligent Design among young scientists and thus the future of the movement looks very bright. "Its certainly growing," said Egnor, who asserted that the fundamental concept of looking for purpose and design in nature was fundamental to being a good scientist. Even the most passionate Darwinist atheist uses Intelligent Design every day in his research, he just either doesn't realize it or is not honest about it. Because if he doesn't look for design, he's not a very good scientist. Because how do you understand nature without inferring design?'' Egnor felt that the movement was growing and was doing so because it's making it easier for scientists like me to just be honest and open about" finding design in research. The ID movement is growing not so much in the sense that we're having big conventions and thousands are signing up, he clarified. [Instead,] it's creating an environment in science where the inference to design is becoming more acceptable, people are becoming more aware of it, and the evidence is accumulating that the ID perspective is correct." Ewert, a former coder for Google, told CP that he felt there were some very promising things going on in the Intelligent Design movement, though he also believed they still had a ways to go in order to become the dominant paradigm that we'd like to be. I think we are making progress in that direction," he insisted. I think, for the most part, its quiet. Its not getting big headlines these days as it has sometimes in the past, and I think that's actually a better for the movement. Haarsma of BioLogos was more critical, telling CP that it's unclear if the ID movement is growing or shrinking among the general population and that in the scientific community evolution was very much the norm. In science, conclusions are based on evidence, not on popularity. Scientific conclusions are most reliable when many trained scientists evaluate the evidence, debate and test each others ideas, and build a consensus among scientists of many cultural and religious views, Haarsma said. A Pew survey found that 99 percent of leading Ph.D. scientists agree that Human beings and other living things have evolved over time. ID theory is not gaining significant ground in the scientific community. Haarsma told CP that he believes it was evolutionary creation, rather than Intelligent Design, that was growing in prominence. Christian publishers are releasing books on evolutionary creation much more frequently than a decade or two ago, she explained. An increasing number of Christian colleges and evangelical seminaries are engaging evolutionary creation as a faithful Christian option in guest lectures, classroom discussions, faculty research, etc. Thomas of ICR also felt that the Intelligent Design movement may not have the same momentum it had a decade ago, attributing it to cultural fatigue over the debate. A mixed legacy from a keen intellect Who could counter professor Johnsons insights? asked the Institute for Creation Research in a piece published about two weeks after the Intelligent Design proponents death. Professor Johnson left a legacy of how to present a winsome case for clear thinking in origins issues. He will be remembered as the godfather of the modern intelligent design movement and as a pioneer in impacting our culture with the reasonableness of origins by design. He set out to help build a movement, not an empire, said Axe when thinking about the legacy of Johnson. The rising generation of young scientists who have no time for Darwin probably wont have read much of Phils work. Instead, they will have read the work of scientists who were inspired by Phil. The Biola professor said Johnson would be happy to have such a result, just as Axe said that he himself will be happy for my name to have been forgotten. Echoing the words of John the Baptist, He (Jesus) must increase and we must decrease, he concluded. Haarsma of BioLogos shared a mixed opinion of Johnsons legacy. On the one hand, she considered some of his arguments against evolution to be flawed and said he wrongly equated belief in evolution with apostasy. This badly mischaracterizes the motives of scientists who honestly believe that the theory of evolution is strongly supported by a wealth of data. His mischaracterization has sadly pushed many scientists away from Christianity, commented Haarsma. Nevertheless, Haarsma told CP that she believes Johnson correctly highlighted that popular presentations of evolutionary science were often laced with overstated claims or atheistic worldviews. Christians need to speak out when atheist and agnostic scientists elevate science to the best way of gaining knowledge or reject religion as mere superstition, she added. In a statement emailed to CP, Answers in Genesis CEO Ken Ham commended the late Johnson for helping many people see that molecules-to-man evolution by means of natural selection and random mutations is a myth. He showed that it is not supported by genetics or the fossil record but is actually driven by naturalism, Ham said. When Johnson visited us here at the Creation Museum, we found him to be most cordial, with a keen intellect. The second Air India flight carrying 323 Indian and seven Maldivian citizens from China's coronavirus-hit Wuhan city landed in New Delhi this morning. With this, a total of 654 Indians have been evacuated from the Chinese city of Wuhan where the outbreak of deadly coronavirus has killed hundreds of people. Air India's jumbo B747 aircraft made two flights to Wuhan city to evacuate stranded Indians mostly students from Wuhan as the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the deadly coronavirus a global health emergency. The first flight, carrying 211 students, 110 working professionals and 3 minors, reached the national capital on Saturday. The deadly virus has killed 304 people and infected over 14,380 others in China while two people from Kerala have tested positive for the virus in India. According to officials, six Indians could not board the first flight as they were stopped by the Chinese immigration officials due to high temperature. The may be quarantined to undergo tests to determine whether they have symptoms of the coronavirus, the officials added. Vikram Misri, the Indian ambassador to China, said that twenty-five others stayed back on their accord, adding that there may still be about 100 Indians who remained in Hubei province for which Wuhan is the provincial capital. "The second Air India flight from Wuhan has just taken off for Delhi with 323 Indian citizens on board. 7 Maldives citizens are also being evacuated," tweeted Vikram Misri, the Indian ambassador to China. Also Read: Coronavirus in India: Second case of deadly virus confirmed in Kerala He also thanked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China and local authorities across Hubei province for their assistance. The 2nd #AirIndia flight from #Wuhan has just taken off for #Delhi with 323 Indian citizens on board. 7 Maldives citizens are also being evacuated. Grateful once again to @MFA_China and local authorities all across #Hubei for their assistance. @MEAIndia @DrSJaishankar @EOIBeijing - Vikram Misri (@VikramMisri) February 1, 2020 "Want to thank my team at @EOIBeijing which mounted a non-stop almost 96-hour long operation to coordinate a complex airlift under challenging circumstances for us, the passengers and local authorities in #Hubei and #Wuhan," he said in another tweet. "A special word of appreciation for two of our officers who are on board the plane - Deepak Padmakumar and M Balakrishnan - they showed exemplary fortitude and a real spirit of public service by travelling to ground zero in #Wuhan to coordinate airport arrangements. Kudos to both," he tweeted. Relieved to see AI 1349 return safely to #Delhi with 324 of our fellow citizens from #Wuhan in #China | Grateful to @MFA_China for their assistance as well as local authorities in #Hubei and @Wuhan | Thank you also to #AirIndia and our team in @EOIBeijing | Now for second flight. pic.twitter.com/rhJvBGMpYj - Vikram Misri (@VikramMisri) February 1, 2020 Indian Army has also set up a quarantine facility near Delhi in Manesar for all those who have been evacuated from China's Hubei province. People will be monitored for signs of any infection for 2 weeks by qualified medical professionals. Till now, around 124 positive cases of coronavirus have been reported in many countries, including India. By Chitranjan Kumar with PTI inputs Mauritanias defense ministry Thursday debunked local media reports that the North African country will house an Emirati military base. The ministry in a statement said Mauritania has brotherly relations with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) based on the principle of common interests and cooperation in all fields, including military cooperation. The remark was relayed by the state-run news agency Agence Mauritanian dInformation in reaction to widespread reports of the alleged military base to be built in the north of the country near the border with Algeria. A visit this month by a delegation of the Emirati personnel triggered the media reports. This is the second time rumors of the establishment of an Emirati military base in the country, are emerging. They first came to public under the rule of former President Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz who had good relation with the Arab Gulf country. Mauritania, under Ould Abdelaziz, sent military troops to Yemen where the UAE and Saudi Arabia are leading a Pan-Arab coalition fighting Iran-backed Houthi rebels. The UAE, very active in the Libyan crisis where it backed rebel Gen. Khalifa Haftar, has been seeking to establish military bases around the world, mainly in Africa. It has already signed a deal with regional Niger for the construction of a base. Just weeks after Australia's worst bushfire season killed an estimated 8,000 koalas, authorities are investigating reports that dozens more have been wiped out by loggers. A registered nurse claims at least a dozen koalas are dead and another 60 seriously injured after a bluegum plantation in Portland, Victoria, was bulldozed. Helen Oakley surveyed a small area of the property, which she said 'smelt like death', and said she'd already seen dozens of dead and injured koalas. In a tearful video explaining the devastation, Ms Oakley said the logging company 'bulldozed 140 acres now and have just killed all of our koalas.' Ms Oakley witnessed dozens of dead koalas when she was scouring the bulldozed land 'There are koalas lying there dead,' she said. 'Mothers killed with their little babies.' Ms Oakley said the government was responsible for stepping in and doing something about the issue, but insisted 'nobody has done anything.' 'Australia should be ashamed of this... We need help.' Local MP for the region Andy Meddick also spoke of his devastation after pictures o the dead koalas emerged overnight. He said he would do all that he could within his electorate to get to the bottom of the situation and save the animals. Other koalas which survived the initial impact were eventually euthanised due to their injuries Ms Oakley found one koala with a broken arm which later had to be euthanised despite best efforts to save him 'As bushfires ravage parts of our state, killing millions of native animals, a bluegum plantation full of koalas is being cleared in my electorate of Western Victoria,' he said. 'According to local sources, hundreds of koalas have been impacted. Some have been killed, many injured.' Mr Meddick said a law was passed in January 2017 making it mandatory in the state for individuals or businesses to report koala deaths. He promised to raise that issue as soon as he could. 'I know how distressing this is, and thank you to all who have raised it with me. I promise I'll do all I can.' Wildlife experts estimate at least 8,000 koalas have perished in Australia's deadly bushfire season, which is almost a third of the entire population in New South Wales The Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning are investigating the incident. Ms Oakley told Yahoo News some of the surviving koalas were so badly injured medics were forced to euthanise them after rescuing them. 'The surviving koalas are being brought down from trees and the vets are checking them for hydration and malnutrition as they're all covered in ticks... a lot of them had to be euthanised' She said one of the koalas which was later put to sleep was discovered with a broken arm. A registered nurse claims at least a dozen koalas are dead and another 60 seriously injured after a bluegum plantation in Portland, Victoria, was bulldozed (pictured) 'I've never seen so many koalas in a concentrated area like this and so much death and smell. 'I started thinking if these were humans what this would be like and I just lost it.' Wildlife experts estimate at least 8,000 koalas have perished in Australia's deadly bushfire season, which is almost a third of the entire population in New South Wales. Ecologists say the animals may disappear from some regions and have to be reclassified as an endangered species. Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa on Sunday said that the cabinet expansion would take place on February 6, with 13 MLAs taking oath of office. The cabinet expansion will take place on February 6 with the oath-taking ceremony at the Raj Bhavan at 10.30 AM, he told reporters in Bengaluru. Thirteen MLAs, including 10 who had joined BJP from parties, including Congress and the JD(S), will take oath, he said. The cabinet expansion is on the cards for nearly two months ever since the BJP won the maximum number of seats in the December 5 2019 bypolls and got a majority in the Karnataka assembly. Viettel has become the 6th company in the world to manufacture 5G devices, and Vietnam is among the first countries in the world mastering the modern technology. From a nation which followed and learned from countries like South Korea and Singapore, Vietnam has become a country which creates new technologies, said Phan Xuan Dung, chair of the National Assemblys Committee for Science, Technology and Environment. Dung spoke at an important event witnessing the first call made with 5G technology on Viettel network with made in Vietnam equipment on January 17. On that historic day, Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Manh Hung and Minister of Science and Technology (MoST) Chu Ngoc Anh made the first video call with gNodeB, which was researched and developed by Viettel, which included both software and hardware devices. Viettels engineers developed gNodeB 5G within six months, from June and December 2019 on the basis of the experience it gained from the development eNodeB, the transceiver for 4G and from the pre-feasibility study for 5G. As such, eight months after the day Viettel, the first Vietnamese mobile network operator and top 50 network operators in the world, made the first 5G call with imported devices in May 2019, Vietnam now masters 5G technology. Viettel has become the 6th company in the world to manufacture 5G devices, and Vietnam is among the first countries in the world mastering the modern technology. Viettel has become the 6th company in the world to manufacture 5G devices, and Vietnam is among the first countries in the world mastering the modern technology. We can do the things that seem to be impossible, Dung said. In the past, Vietnam was always behind developed countries and learned from core-network developed countries like G7 or non-core network countries such as China, South Korea, Singapore and Malaysia. But we have joined the group of countries that create new technologies with Make in Vietnam, he commented. Dung went on to say that Vietnam has turned irregularities into regularities. As for Viettel, the technology firm does not follow the normal way but goes a new way because it understands that to develop and become the leader, one needs to overcome difficulties and experience challenges. Regarding the future of Vietnams 5G technology, he said it is difficult to create products, but it will be even more difficult to develop a market for the products. Viettel has asked the government to apply necessary measures to encourage domestic enterprises to use telecom products made in Vietnam. If there is no market, no product will be able to develop, especially for science and technology, high-tech products, Dung commented. The creation of a market for hi-tech products, according to Dung, is the responsibility of state management agencies. MIC Minister Nguyen Manh Hung received a delegation of the US congressmen on January 20. At the meeting, the minister asked the US side to discuss with Vietnam about the building of technical standards for 5G and check if the 5G devices made by Vietnam can satisfy the requirements to enter the US market. Le Ha Viettel uses own device to make first 5G call Local telecom carrier Viettel has successfully carried out the first 5G video call using its own gNodeB transceiver, becoming one of the few companies in the world that can manufacture fifth generation devices. A leader of a lesser-known outfit, Vishwa Hindu Mahasabha, was shot dead by an unknown attacker in the heart of Uttar Pradeshs Lucknow on Sunday morning, a day after his birthday, officials said. Ranjeet Bachchan, a resident of Gorakhpur district, was on a morning walk along with his cousin Aditya when a man fired at them on the pavement of the Globe Park near Central Drug Research Institute (CDRI) building in Hazratganj. The lone attacker fired at Ranjeets face killing him on the spot and walked away. Bachchans cousin was injured in the shooting at around 6:30am. Aditya is undergoing treatment at the trauma centre of King Georges Medical University (KGMU), where doctors stated that his condition is out of danger. The assailant was on foot and approached Ranjeet asking him for his cell phone to make a call. The assailant fired on Ranjeets face, killing him on the spot, assistant commissioner of police (Hazratganj circle), Abhay Mishra, said. Commissioner of police Sujeet Pandey said four policemen, including in-charge of the KD Singh Babu Stadium police outpost Sandeep Tewari, have been suspended after the killing. Forensic experts are scanning the spot. We have been scanning CCTVs and probing the case from all angles. The culprits will be behind the bars soon, Dinesh Singh, deputy commissioner of police (central Lucknow), said. Singh also said six teams have been constituted to probe the case and nab the culprits. Bachchans family has rushed to Lucknow after hearing the news. He lived with his wife in the state capitals Hussainganj area. His brother-in-law, Manoj Kumar Sharma, said Bachchan had celebrated his 40th birthday on Saturday and had also organised an event in support of CAA and NRC. Outraged supporters of Bachhan shouted slogans against the police outside his house. This is the second killing of a right-wing Hindu leader in the state capital in the last year. Kamlesh Tewari, the national president of the Hindu Samaj Party, was killed at his Khurshed Bagh residence on October 18 last year. (Copy has been corrected to say Bachchan was the president of Vishwa Hindu Mahasabha and not Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha) SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The Log Cabin Republicans, a conservative LGBT group, will not have a booth at the Texas GOP Convention yet again. The State Republican Executive Committee on Saturday tabled a motion that would have allowed a vote on whether to allow the group the booth. The group has applied for a spot at the event for at least 20 years without success, said Houston chapter president Marco Roberts. Motions to allow a roll call vote on the matter and to allow Roberts to speak both failed. Obviously, we are very disappointed with the decision made by our elected representatives, Roberts said in a statement. There were a few courageous members of the SREC who stood with us, even under enormous pressure to refrain from doing so. We owe them our highest respect and deepest gratitude. Roberts added: "Many have told us that it is upon us to make the case for ourselves. We agree, and we intend to do that, for us, and for our great party. State chairman James Dickey declined to offer his personal position, saying his obligation is to speak for the party, but stressed that he appreciated how members handled a controversial issue. There was a decent discussion yesterday and clearly, today after having already had that discussion yesterday, the committee decided not to rehash the lessons that frankly the partys been considering for a long time, Dickey said. The discussions I had with members yesterday was how proud I am of how different a heartfelt debate looked like in our party compared to how I am convinced a similar debate on a similar topic would look from the other party. As Republicans work to keep a tight grip on their majority in the Legislature, this issue is one that members on both sides say foreshadows the partys ability to grow and attract new members. Amy Hedtke, who made the motion Saturday to allow the groups booth, told the committee it could not afford to turn away fellow Republicans. Pretty much all of us have worked a campaign where we have lost by less than 50 votes, Hedtke told the committee. You know the importance of every single vote. She added: Theyve been working within the party for 40 years. They worked with Reagan. They are working to fulfill Republican principles. They are the anti-Leftist group in this particular demographic. A Facebook livestream of Saturdays meeting, posted by Hedtke, illustrated the divisiveness of the issue. Smith County member Craig Licciardi commented: Anyone that voted for LCR needs to be replaced. To which a Log Cabin Republican member, John Nicks, replies, Anyone that votes against LCR should be replaced. Red Oak resident Penny Story, who voted as a proxy and disagreed with allowing the group into the party, said she was in favor of a roll call vote because she wanted committee members on the record. Story said she came to Saturdays meeting specifically to address the Log Cabin Republicans issue. In our bylaws, it says we provide an opportunity for full participation in the party to all Texans who subscribe to the beliefs and principles advocated by the party," Story said. Thats it. If you do not subscribe, you need to go. Its like joining any organization why do you join it? Its because you like what they do, she added. We dont have a salad bar here; we have a full menu. Hedtke said after the vote that she was disappointed but not surprised by the vote, adding that those who did not wish to put their name to their opinion on this issue by taking a roll call vote were cowards. She reiterated she believes the party will have to change in order to grow. If you want Republicans to win, you get all the Republicans out to vote, Hedtke said. Theyre people. We need help in not just party politics but in all sorts of policy issues going on in Texas. Former State Representative Glen Maxey, who was the first openly gay member of the Texas House of Representatives, said in a statement for the Texas Democrats that the vote was yet another example of how extremism and prejudice have come to define the Republican Party. It is dead wrong and the Texas Republicans decision today only reinforces their idea that all people arent created equal, Maxey said. To every Log Cabin Republican, we have one message: You are welcome in the Texas Democratic Party. Come join us in the fight for equality and march with us as we strive for a more just, fair society. Just before the meeting ended Saturday, Hedtke put in one last effort, making a motion to accept the group as a coalition organization to the Texas GOP. The motion failed with resounding votes to table. Gift-giving can be tricky even at home, and if the recipient belongs to a different culture, there is an added layer of complexity! In many cultures, gift-giving is an entire ritual, and can easily convey a wrong message if done wrong. What should and should not be given? When is it inappropriate to give a gift? How should it be presented? We answer all the burning questions! No Gift-Giving, Please! In Yemen and Saudi Arabia, it is embarrassing to receive a gift from anyone but closest friends. If you do have a close friend from one of these countries, make sure to select the best quality available among the category and be prepared that the gift will be examined in order to express the appreciation for the good taste and wise choice. Silk and gold are generally only given to women. What Are The Main Rules Of The Successful Gift-Giving? In many countries, it is expected that vendors send gifts to senior positions in their clients companies. Russia and Egypt are examples of these countries. If your gift if for a business colleague, check very carefully what is appropriate to give and how exactly. Apart from legal and tax implications (USA and Singapore, for example, downright restrict gift-giving), you can put yourself or the recipient in a problematic situation. In general, if you are giving a gift to someone who already gave something to you, you might want to try and give something of similar value. Of course, that does not apply to families and close friends: nearly all formalities disappear after a certain degree of familiarity. If you are giving a gift to someone who already gave something to you, you might want to try and give something of similar value. In Latin America, women giving gifts to men might look awkward as it can be misunderstood as a romantic interest. In those cases, giving something like a gift for his children or a gift that can be shared by his entire team would be more appropriate. When To Give Gifts In Different Cultures In Asia, gifts can mean gratitude or reciprocation. In Russia, on the opposite, giving gifts for hospitality or help is not common as it is perceived as a doubt of the hosts generosity and sincerity. However, just because gifts and gifts when paying a visit are common. In some countries, some types of gifts are reserved for lovers or as a part of courtship. For example, you would not want to give a colleague a piece of diamond jewelry that is worn close to the skin, like a ring or a necklace (unless you work for DeBeers and give out samples, of course). In Russia, where corruption is prevalent, you would make the client, an official or professional (for example, a doctor) uncomfortable giving a gift in public. If you really feel the need to give something, do it when you are alone, or they might feel the need to refuse. What Is Better Not To Give In Different Countries In Russia, thank-you cards are considered wasteful and impractical; a small gift is more favorably looked upon. In Russia, you should never give an even number of flowers, or give carnations or pine tree branches, as they are used in funerals. Yellow flowers may symbolize betrayal, so they are not given to lovers. In East Asia, Brazil, Italy, Peru, Russia, and Switzerland, giving objects with a blade (like scissors or knives) has a negative connotation from just bad luck to severing the relationship meaning. In Russia, if your heart is set on giving a sharp object (for example, to a collector of rare knives), ask them to buy the gift from you for 1 ruble. In Russia, a small gift is more favorably looked upon. In China, giving an umbrella means that you wish to sever the relationship. In Hong Kong and China, clocks, handkerchiefs, and straw sandals are associated with aging and mortality, so it is better to skip those. In Russia, the clock holds the same meaning. In Italy, avoid brooches and handkerchiefs. When paying a visit, avoid giving a potted plant as it is a wrong gift for a hostess or women in general. Please do not bring alcohol to the home of a Muslim family unless you know them very well and confident that they drink. When giving something that has an obvious count, like flowers on stems, money, chocolates, etc., count it with care. In Eastern Asia, even numbers are lucky, except for number four, which sounds much like death. In Russia it is the opposite: it does not matter for money or food, but the even number of flowers is only put on graves. What Are Some Gift-Giving Rituals? In China, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan, it is customary to express modesty and refuse the gift up to three times. Be ready to insist and show how happy it makes you give it to them, or say what precisely they did to deserve it. When a person accepts the gift from you, thank then for the honor. In Russia, a recipient may say something you shouldnt have! even if they expect to accept the gift. So it is quite common to downplay the value of the gift: you might say, it is just a little something or oh, it is nothing. This would not be considered an offense but rather a way to make accepting the gift easier. In many countries, the way you hand the gift is important. In the Middle East, some African countries and East Asia left hand is considered unclean, so you pass the gift always with the right hand. In East Asia (Japan, Korea, China, Thailand, Vietnam), always give and accept a gift with both hands and an appropriate bow. In East Asia always give and accept a gift with both hands and an appropriate bow. How To Wrap A Gift Correctly This one is a bit easier: at least, everyone agrees that it is better to wrap the present. However, the specifics of the presentation vary. In Russia, you can use a simple and rustic package, as Russians do not pay attention to cards and packaging as impractical (with the exclusion of the home-made cards). In Japan, on the opposite, presentation is critical, and even if you do not have the skill to be artful about it, you want to demonstrate the effort. The only thing you need to keep in mind is the symbolism of colors. In Russia, pretty much any color would be fine. But in many countries, some colors are reserved for specific rituals. For example, in India, a white paper would be just fine, but in China, it is covered in writing and used for the gifts to the dead. It is safer to avoid white, yellow, and black paper in Asia. Purple is an unlucky color in Italy, and in many South American countries, both black and purple are associated with the ceremonies of honoring the dead. You know, we went through a period of quiet before the Aramco attack in September. And I always remember that when I think about Irans capability for action, he said, referring to a bold missile and drone assault on Saudi oil facilities that Washington and Riyadh blamed on Tehran. Thats very much in my mind as I think about what they are capable of doing, when they might do it and why they might do it. Logo of Bayer AG at a plant of the German pharmaceutical and chemical maker in Wuppertal (Reuters) - Bayer AG's shares have taken a hit since three consecutive U.S. juries awarded more than $2 billion in damages to cancer patients alleging that the company's glyphosate-based weed killer, Roundup, caused their disease. Bayer, which acquired Roundup maker Monsanto for $63 billion in 2018, denies the allegations, saying decades of studies and regulatory approvals have shown glyphosate and Roundup to be safe for human use. But the company faces similar U.S. lawsuits by more than 42,700 plaintiffs and shareholders have rebuked Bayer's top management over its handling of the Monsanto acquisition and the litigation it inherited. The company's shares have lost about 20% of their value since the first adverse jury verdict in August 2018. Bayer has appealed or vowed to appeal all verdicts against it, but said the litigation will take some time to conclude as no case has been subject to appellate review to assess key legal rulings in the trials. Here is a summary of pending appeals in the U.S. glyphosate litigation: - The first Roundup jury verdict, a $289 million award in San Francisco state court in August 2018, later reduced to $78 million, is currently on appeal before California's Court of Appeals, First Appellate District. Bayer in late April 2019 asked the appeals court to throw out the judgment, saying there was "no evidence" glyphosate could cause cancer. Plaintiffs and Bayer have submitted all their briefs to the court, but no date for oral arguments has yet been scheduled. - Bayer is also appealing the March 2019 verdict that awarded $80 million to a California man, later reduced to $25 million. The company in December filed its appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Justice Department have supported Bayer in that appeal, in a filing urging the court to reverse the verdict as regulatory reviews have found glyphosate to be safe and noncarcinogenic. But just like California's state court system, the 9th Circuit also is overwhelmed by a massive case load, hearing more cases than any other federal appeals court in the country. Legal experts said the court was unlikely to schedule arguments before the end of 2020. - Bayer has said it would also appeal a massive $2 billion verdict issued by a California jury to a couple in May 2019. The judgment was later reduced to $86.7 million. As of Friday, Bayer has not yet filed an appeals brief in the case and any opening brief in the case is due by Feb 7. (Reporting by Tina Bellon in New York; Editing by Matthew Lewis) A terrified firefighter who thought he was going to die when his truck went up in flames sent his family a heartbreaking goodbye message. Rhys Outred, from Terrigal on the New South Wales Central Coast, texted his mother Cheryl: 'I love you. We've been overrun by fire. Truck on fire'. The 28-year-old sent the eerie message when he thought he would be killed while fighting fires in Nowra, on the state's south coast. Three Fire and Rescue NSW fire trucks and 17 crew members became trapped between flames, while toxic smoke began to fill the cabins. Rhys Outred, from Terrigal on the New South Wales Central Coast, sent his mother Cheryl a text saying: 'I love you. We've been overrun by fire. Truck on fire' Rhys' mother Cheryl Outred (pictured) said it was the worst day of her and her family's lives The 28-year-old sent the eerie message when he thought he would be killed while fighting fires in Nowra, on the state's south coast 'I only had a very short amount of time and pretty much sent her a text saying I loved her and I wasn't going to be coming home,' Mr Outred told the Sydney Morning Herald. Over 300km north at her home in Fern Bay, Mrs Outred believed her son was about to die. 'My first thought was, ''This is it. This is it, he's not going to come back to me'',' she said. Around one kilometre down a no-through road on a property, firefighters could no longer see as an ember attack surrounded their trucks. 'It came from about 200 metres away in, no joke, about five seconds, there was little to no time to actually escape ... Fortunately enough my strike team leader and my pump leader had experience on some things like that and I listened to their directions and I believe that's what got us out of there safely,' Mr Outred said. The crew put on breathing gear and escaped on foot, as their burning fire trucks became too dangerous to stay inside. Thirteen minutes later, Mrs Outred received the life-changing text message that her son had survived. 'We got another text that said, ''survived and waiting for evacuation'' and we just waited and hoped that they would find them to be evacuated,' she said. Mrs Outred said she didn't want to let go of him when they were reunited at Terrigal Fire Station the next day. 'I remember just opening the door and seeing him. And as a mother, you know, I couldn't hold him any tighter. My heart was against his heart and I was saying ''It's a mother's love, you're here'',' she said. PIERRE | Gov. Kristi Noem started her remarks before a gathering of newspaper editors and publishers with praise for the work that they do. Soon she was defending remarks she has made about the news media. Noem talked Thursday to a group of editors and publishers in Pierre for Newspaper Day at the Legislature, sponsored by the South Dakota Newspaper Association. Noem thanked more than 30 people who work at newspapers for the way they help improve their communities. Youre really the heart of every single community, Noem said. It really is important work. Noem has, at times, found fault with that work. She was asked to respond to a quote from one of her campaign letters that said, You know as well as I do that we cant trust the media to tell the truth. She was asked Thursday if any of the media organizations represented in the room couldnt be trusted to tell the truth. Theres always instances that we could specifically point to where you feel like it wasnt a fair article or coverage, Noem said. I could give you specifics today, but I dont know if thats beneficial to the conversation. Noem said her family was aware of the scrutiny they would face when she became governor. You get to be attacked and looked at and examined, Noem said. The governor said her criticism wasnt leveled at newspapers in the state. Everyone in this room knows, in their heart of hearts, that this doesnt apply to all of them, Noem said, noting unfair coverage at a national level. There are times where there has been biased and unfair reporting. One area where South Dakota and the governor have come in for criticism is the Meth. Were on it. advertising campaign. It was a provocative campaign and we knew that it would be, Noem said, adding that she did not anticipate the level of discussion that it would spark. Noem said the next part of the campaign will be a call to action that provides South Dakotans with the tools they need to help people in their lives who are addicted to methamphetamines. Overwhelmingly, thats what people are looking for, Noem said. The states initial investment of $5 million in ConnectSD has resulted in $25 million in internet infrastructure, Noem said, connecting 6,500 homes and 150 businesses to the internet. Through the program, Noem said the state became aware of internet providers who werent doing all they could to connect more customers. It kind of pointed out to us where providers in this industry werent necessarily investing in infrastructure, Noem said. You must be logged in to react. Click any reaction to login. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 1 Angry 3 A second confirmed coronavirus case was reported in Kerala, even as Air India evacuated 323 Indians from Wuhan in China in its second special flight, which landed at Delhi airport on Sunday A second confirmed case of coronavirus was reported from Kerala on Sunday, the Union Health Ministry said three days after the first patient showing symptoms of the novel virus was tested positive and kept in isolation in the southern state. The coronavirus outbreak which has its epicentre in China's Wuhan city has claimed more than 300 lives so far and spread to more than 20 countries. The Kerala government in a news release said, Second positive case of novel coronavirus patient has been reported in Kerala. The patient has travel history from China. The patient has tested positive for the virus and has been kept in isolation in a hospital. The person is stable and is being closely monitored." However, the state government said the state was awaiting the results from the National Institute of Virology (NIV) at Pune. "We have been informed telephonically by NIV, Pune that there is a possibility of another positive case. But since there is a possibility, we have to be extremely vigilant. We are yet to receive the results. The suspected case is of a student of Wuhan University," state Health Minister KK Shailaja told the media at Kollam. She said the student, who had returned from China on 24 January, and is currently being closely monitored at an isolation ward in Alappuzha Medical College and Hospital, is stable. "The patient has minor symptoms. But we are not taking any chances. We have taken proper precautions even though we have not received any confirmation. We expect the results by evening," she said. Meanwhile, a special Air India aircraft airlifted 323 Indians from Wuhan airport in China in its second flight, which landed at the Delhi airport on Sunday morning. Out of the 324 people that were evacuated through first Air India flight, 56, 53 and 42 were from Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, respectively. Upon landing, the passengers underwent a special coronavirus screening. Earlier, a special Air India plane carrying 324 Indians, including 211 students, 110 working professionals and three minors, landed in the National Capital on Saturday. Till date, 1,793 people who traveled from coronavirus affected countries have been identified and placed under surveillance in Kerala. Of this, 70 people have been admitted in selected isolation facilities and 1,723 are under home isolation, PTI quoted a medical bulletin as saying. Delhi: 323 Indian nationals and 7 Maldives nationals who arrived in Delhi by the second Air India special flight from Wuhan, China today, underwent #coronavirus screening soon after they de-boarded from the aircraft. pic.twitter.com/YafdBYS9xY ANI (@ANI) February 2, 2020 Air India airlifted the second batch of 323 stranded Indians and seven Maldivian citizens from China's coronavirus-hit Wuhan city, taking the total number of people evacuated to 654, said officials. Air India's jumbo B747 made two flights to Wuhan city - the ground zero of the coronavirus epidemic that has killed 304 people and infected 14,380 others. "Want to thank my team, which mounted a non-stop almost 96-hour long operation to coordinate a complex airlift under challenging circumstances for us, the passengers and local authorities in Hubei and Wuhan," Indian Ambassador to China Vikram Misri tweeted. The second flight from #Wuhan has just landed in #Delhi. We wish all those on board good health in the days ahead. Once again, thank you to #AirIndia, Team @MEAIndia and @MFA_China |@DrSJaishankar @PMOIndia Vikram Misri (@VikramMisri) February 2, 2020 He also tweeted a special word of appreciation for two officers who were on board the plane - Deepak Padmakumar and M Balakrishnan - for showing "exemplary fortitude and a real spirit of public service by travelling to ground zero" in Wuhan to coordinate airport arrangements. A special word of appreciation for two of our officers who are on board the plane - Deepak Padmakumar and M.Balakrishnan - they showed exemplary fortitude and a real spirit of public service by traveling to ground zero in #Wuhan to coordinate airport arrangements. Kudos to both. Vikram Misri (@VikramMisri) February 1, 2020 Four Indians could not board the second flight after they reported high fever, Misri told PTI. Additionally, officials said that six Indians could not board the first flight as they were stopped by the Chinese immigration officials after they reported high temperature. They may be quarantined to undergo tests to determine whether they have symptoms of the coronavirus, officials said. Twenty-five others stayed back on their accord, Misri said, adding that there may still be about 100 Indians who remained in Hubei province for which Wuhan is the provincial capital. The Army has set up a quarantine facility in Manesar near Delhi, apart from a 600-bedded facility in southwest Delhi's Chhawla area set up by the ITBP to quarantine and provide basic medical care to those suspected to have been affected by the virus. The officials said the Indians evacuated from China will be monitored for any signs of the infection for a duration of two weeks by a qualified team of doctors and staff members. Ahead of the evacuation operation, the Indian Embassy had informed Indian citizens that they have to undergo health tests before the flight. Air India had earlier stated that it has cancelled all its Mumbai-Delhi-Shanghai flights until 14 February. Several airlines have cancelled flights to and from China and many countries, including the US, Japan, Australia and UK, mass evacuations of citizens amid fears of a major pandemic, which could threaten exports and growth in the worlds second biggest economy. Smokers will have to shell out more as the government has proposed to raise excise duty on the sin item. Presenting the Budget 2020-21 in Lok Sabha on Saturday, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman proposed to impose National Calamity Contingent Duty (NCCD) on cigarettes and other tobacco products. However, no increase in duty was proposed on bidis. As a revenue measure, I propose to raise excise duty by way of National Calamity Contingent Duty on cigarettes and other tobacco products, the Finance Minister said. Citing their serious health impact, many public health groups have been demanding higher levy on all tobacco products to discourage their sales and consumption. Besides being in the highest GST slab of 28 per cent, cigarettes attract higher compensation cess under the new indirect tax regime. The public health groups have been advocating for raising the compensation cess uniformly on all cigarettes to Rs 5,463 per 1,000 sticks on cigarettes irrespective of their sizes. The Budget announcement raising the excise duty on cigarettes saw leading FMCG major ITCs stock closing in red. The shares of the cigarette manufacturer closed 7 per cent lower at Rs 218.85 on the BSE. Some industry experts said that increase in NCCD announced in the Union Budget and the resulting escalation in cigarette taxation leading to higher tax arbitrage will serve as a huge incentive to illegal cigarette trade operators, who target India as a preferred destination for smuggled cigarettes. Industry group Tobacco Institute of India (TII) said that illegal cigarettes have grown consistently in the country and now account for 1/4th of the Indian cigarette market. Quoting Euromonitor International, TII said that India is now the fourth largest illegal cigarette market in the world with illicit cigarettes more than doubling from a level of 11.1 billion sticks in 2004 to 25.6 billion sticks in 2018, resulting in an annual revenue loss of Rs 13,000 crore for the Government. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) said on Sunday that it bothered him that President Donald Trump pushed the Ukrainian president to investigate a long-debunked conspiracy theory surrounding the Democratic National Committee server hack in the 2016 election, calling it a mistake. Alexander, who voted against allowing additional witnesses in the Senate impeachment trial last week despite saying he believed the presidents behavior towards Ukraine was inappropriate, appeared on NBCs Meet the Press to defend his decision. Reiterating his assertion that more witnesses and evidence werent necessary as the Democrats had already proven their case, the Tennessee Republican added that he was going to vote to acquit the president because he was very concerned about any action that we could take that would establish a perpetual impeachment, adding that when you start out with a partisan impeachment, you're almost destined to have a partisan acquittal. Having all but assured Trump's acquittal, Alexander, who is retiring at the end of his term, detailed where he thought the president's actions were wrong: What I believe he did, one, was that he called the president of Ukraine and asked him to become involved in investigating Joe Biden, Alexander told host Chuck Todd. The second thing was, at least in part, he delayed the military and other assistance to Ukraine in order to encourage that investigation. Those are the two things he did, he added. I think he shouldn't have done it. I think it was wrong. Inappropriate was the way I'd say -- improper, crossing the line. And then the only question left is who decides what to do about that. The conservative lawmaker, however, repeated his belief that this didnt rise to the level of impeachment and that Trumps fate should be left to the ballot box, saying the people should decide whether to punish the president for his actions. You know, in the phone call, there's one thing on the phone call that I'm surprised, frankly, hasn't been brought up more by others, the Meet the Press anchor noted at one point. This -- the mere mention of the word CrowdStrike, is a Russian intelligence sort of piece of propaganda that they've been circulating. Story continues Does it bother you that the President of the United States is reiterating Russian propaganda? Todd asked, referencing the fringe-right theory that the DNC server is currently in Ukraine and wasnt hacked by Russia. Yes. I think that's a mistake, Alexander responded. I mean, if you see what's happening in the Baltic states, where Russians have a big warehouse in Saint Petersburg, in Russia, where they're devoted to destabilizing western democracies. I mean, for example, in one of the Baltic states, they accused a NATO officer of raping a local girl, the senator continued. Of course, didn't happen. But it threw the government into complete disarray for a week. So I think we need to be sensitive to the fact that the Russians are out to do no good, to destabilize western democracies, including us, and be very wary of theories that Russians come up with and peddle. Read more at The Daily Beast. Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now! Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more. Ravi Shankar By Has mankind lost the rat race of democracy to racism? Last week, India slipped down the democracy index by 10 points to 51. The ranking criteria assess a countrys quality of electoral process, pluralism, governance, political participation, political culture and civil liberties. America is number 25. However, unethically partisan governance, corrupt election process and xenophobia in the Age of Trump have dredged up its racist socio-political culture which so far lay hidden in the dark swamp of its white soul where hate crimes against minorities, Latinos, blacks and Asians flourish. Even as the EU Parliament prepares to rap Indias knuckles on CAA, Brussels hasnt voted against Donald Trumps Wall which violates the spirit of Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door! Neither has the EU voted against the immigrant internment camps where around 2,500 children are separated from their parents; these families were fleeing war and violence in their countries to the Land of the Free. Media reports quote thousands of cases of sexual and physical abuse inside the detention centres. But not a whisper from the formulators of the democracy index who are horrified about refugee camps in India. Ironically after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour which forced the US into the World War, American citizens of Japanese descent were incarcerated in special camps, but not Germans whose country started the war and was committing the most horrific human rights violations in nations they conqueredNazis are white, Japs are yellow. The venality in Americas political culture is apparent in the ongoing trial of Donald Trump in the impeachment case. It is a complete sham with the Senate leader openly admitting before the trial that he would work to acquit the president. In spite of witnesses coming forward to nail Trumps lies, the Republicans are intent on holding the trial without calling witnesses, making a complete mockery of the process. Moreover, since Trump has packed the courts with his own judges, the judiciary is reluctant to expose its patron and resisting the demand to open up his tax records: both clear indications that the President has much to hide. By not censuring a lying, bigoted, foul-mouthed and corrupt boss and his fatuous administration, the index reveals the inherent racism in the European gestalt, which sent over 60 million Jews to Hitlers concentration camps. The bane of democracy is not citizenship. It is racism. Perhaps democracy, which evolved as a white mans concept, and now unable to adjust to the norms of other nations, is flawed in its present nature. It might be wise to set aside its global legacy and consider the process of choice using a domestic index with its own homegrown concepts of equality and justice. It's not for everyone, but if your idea of fun involves taking a plunge in icy water this may be your kind of event.That's exactly what some people did in Annapolis, Maryland, for a fundraiser for the Special Olympics of Maryland. Participants raised money for people with intellectual disabilities. The Diosdado sisters top priority when hunting for their first homes 15 years ago was to live close enough that their kids could grow up together. Amelia and Maria found a quiet street in northwest Houston where many fellow immigrants from Mexico also had settled. Eventually, a third sister moved there, too. None of them knew the business across the street, Watson Grinding & Manufacturing, contained a massive tank of highly flammable propylene that investigators now say may have been involved in the early-morning explosion that killed two people and rocked the Diosdados neighborhood, shattering windows, caving in roofs and rendering dozens of homes uninhabitable. Authorities say the catastrophic blast appeared have been triggered by a propylene leak and an electrical discharge. I wish I had known what was around me before buying the house, Amelia Diosdado said. Considering the blast rattled windows in homes halfway across town, the Diosdado sisters surely are not the only Houston residents wondering what sits inside the nearest warehouse. The question now confronting local officials and the citizens they serve is, What can be done about it? Ideas floated by local officials and environmental experts include requiring companies to disclose more information about the chemicals they use, ramping up inspections, perhaps even limiting what can be built near existing industrial sites, though advocates say lax state enforcement of environmental laws remains a hurdle. Harris County is home to thousands of facilities capable of putting their neighbors health at risk, either through typical operations such as the dust generated by concrete crushing plants or when something goes wrong at a business using dangerous chemicals. Those risks are particularly acute in Houston, the nations largest city without zoning laws that would better separate industrial facilities from homes and neighborhoods. The region has seen at least six major chemical fires since last March, incidents that killed three workers, injured dozens, exposed thousands to pollutants and, in the case of the Watson Grinding blast, may cost dozens of residents their homes. The broader umbrella of all these facilities is land use, and our failure as a city to recognize, accept and act to protect communities from the dangers of hazardous facilities in communities, said Bakeyah Nelson, executive director of Air Alliance Houston. Zoning or some form of land use policy that addresses the issue of industrial land uses near people and places they shouldnt be, thats a longer-term conversation. In the short term, we need to get a handle on what the hell everybody is living next to. Zoning would not be a cure-all, Nelson added. Enacting it would not only be a political fight voters rejected it in 1948, 1962 and 1993, embracing the view that Houstons free-wheeling ethos has driven its success but it would also have a muted effect because existing facilities would be grandfathered. Houston is built already, said Council Member Amy Peck, who represents the area around Watson Grinding. In District A, there are so many industrial pockets. To remove all of those industrial areas would be very, very difficult at this point, so we have to find other ways of keeping people safe. Mayor Sylvester Turner said he will convene a discussion to address what more should be done to protect the people in our city when we have both residents and businesses coexisting in the same space. The aim, he said, would be to produce a plan this year. There will be a very thoughtful, deliberative, methodical conversation about how to design and construct the city as we go forward, he said. Otherwise, these incidents will just keep happening, which is unacceptable. Little progress This is not the first time city leaders have reacted to an industrial explosion or inferno by promising to grapple with the risks posed by hazardous facilities. After a 1995 warehouse fire in the Pleasantville neighborhood sent thick smoke thousands of feet into the sky and drove residents from their homes, then-mayor Bob Lanier ordered that warehouses must publicly disclose their contents, the city launched its first database for hazmat permits, and the Houston Fire Department said it would ramp up warehouse inspections. The city council created a Committee on Environmental Standards, required businesses to post warning signs about their chemicals, and barred new hazmat facilities from opening within 1,000 feet of homes and schools. By the time a raging chemical warehouse fire in Spring Branch sparked several explosions and sent black plumes of smoke into the air in 2016, the environmental committee was defunct, the city had fined no businesses for failing to post warning signs, and the order on warehouse disclosures had been rescinded. The city had no idea where most hazardous chemicals were. Less than a quarter of hazmat facilities with permits were inspected. Firefighters were not regularly visiting businesses to plan for emergencies. And, when they did, the department was still logging that information in paper binders. Turner, then in his first year as mayor, said the city would improve its oversight of hazmat facilities, calling for more inspections and for HFD to improve its internal processes. A year later, Fire Chief Sam Pena said his staff still lacked the resources needed to properly police chemical stockpiles, saying, there are a lot of needs, a lot of gaps. The department has made progress since then, Executive Assistant Chief Richard Mann said, hiring two more hazardous material inspectors and loading inspections into a digital database that code enforcement teams in several city departments can access. Starting this month, firefighters will be able to access those inspections from a computer tablet in each fire engine. After the 2016 Custom Packaging and Filling Co. warehouse fire in Spring Branch, the city pulled a list of more than 5,000 businesses that potentially needed hazardous material permits. Site visits and inspections narrowed the list to about 170 facilities. Mann said HFD now inspects those facilities along with large chemical warehouses annually. Still, Mann said the risks posed by industrial facilities extend beyond those sites, noting there is no evidence that Watson Grinding, for instance, was required to have a hazmat permit. Houston is home to numerous facilities that could harm their neighbors despite not storing hazardous materials, he said including 516 compressed flammable gas facilities, 2,000 hot work facilities, and 3,300 flammable and combustible liquid facilities. It just takes one of those to potentially be dangerous, Mann said. Public in the dark Turner this week declined to list specific reforms he wants to pursue, but he and Pena floated the idea of requiring companies to disclose more information about the materials they have on site than is required under existing law. Businesses with more than specified amounts of various chemicals must disclose their inventories to a number of government agencies. The mayor and chief suggested dropping the thresholds at which disclosure is required. The public generally is in the dark about those inventories, however, despite federal laws meant to ensure communities know the hazards they may face. The Texas Attorney General's office has told local fire departments they do not have to make chemical inventories public, citing a state law that restricts information that could be useful to terrorists. The attorney generals position does not require local governments to block the records from release, though Pena declined to make Watsons inventory form available this week, saying, Those are conversations that need to happen at the state level. Those are not the only discussions that must happen in Austin if the Houston areas industrial facilities are to pose a lower risk to residents, environmental advocates said. Consider former mayor Bill Whites push to improve the regions air quality by targeting polluters. The city council in 2007 passed an ordinance barring concrete crushing plants from opening near homes, schools and churches, and another that forced large polluting facilities to register with the city and pay fees that were to fund inspections at the sites. In both cases, industry groups sued the city and won, with judges tossing out both measures on the grounds that state law preempted city regulations. The Harris County Attorneys office routinely confronts that preemption challenge. For example, cities and counties suing to levy civil penalties against violators of the Clean Air Act must give state officials the ability to claim jurisdiction and decide what punishment if any is appropriate. Rock Owens, the county attorneys special assistant for environmental matters, has been seeking injunctions to force companies to comply with environmental laws rather than civil penalties to avoid having to get the Texas Commission on Environmental Qualitys permission, and has begun using flood plain regulations to target violators. More often than not, the state is not there as our partner, but is there as our opponent and as an advocate for the industry, Owens said, so local governments have to be innovative and come up with creative solutions. Enforcement key, advocates say Old-fashioned grass-roots campaigning appeared to work twice this month, when firms proposing to add concrete crushing plants in the Acres Homes and Aldine areas abandoned their plans in the face of intense pushback from local leaders. State rules likely would have allowed the companies to secure the necessary permits had they continued to seek them. For most of this, even if TCEQ just got out of the way, thats helpful, said Victor Flatt, an environmental law professor at the University of Houston. Asked to address criticism of TCEQs approach to enforcement and its role after the Watson incident, agency spokesman Andrew Keese provided a written statement that discussed chemical inventory reports and the agencys oversight of the Watson cleanup. Advocates stressed, however, that the city and county can lessen the risk posed by industrial facilities without state help. Houston could prevent new homes from being built next to existing polluters or hazardous facilities, Nelson, of Air Alliance Houston said, noting that many homes damaged by the Watson explosion were built after the facility began operating. Even if local governments are unable to dictate where hazardous facilities locate, she added, officials could try to entice firms to avoid residential areas voluntarily, such as by offering expedited permitting. Above all, Environmental Defense Fund senior director Elena Craft said, local governments best defense would be more frequent inspections of potentially dangerous facilities. Many of these incidents are not preordained, Craft said. A lot of these facilities where weve seen these major incidents, theres been a rap sheet of violations. What did you think was going to happen after this five-year period of not fixing the same equipment over and over again? Near the Watson site, the Diosdados are among dozens of families weighing whether to rebuild or start over elsewhere. We havent even thought about it. I really like living there, I like my neighbors, Amelia Diosdado said. What if Watson reopens? Well think twice about it. mike.morris@chron.com perla.trevizo@chron.com matt.dempsey@chron.com Essencia is an expensive Hungarian wine. Almost,18 unique magnums were released last year which were designed by Hungarian-based artists named James Carcass, according to a daily. Once they started, the producing company said it was the most expensive wine in the world, which is hard to quantify, of course, but since you have to pay $40,000 to drink 1.5 liters, that makes it special on the market. In fact, the wine comes in especially hand-blown bottles so no two is completely identical. Know why Hungarian wines are the most expensive wines in the world The first bottle was opened and drank on a New Year's Eve party of a collector in China, but it was drunk daily by Pope Pius X (1903-1914) and lasted much longer than anyone anticipated. The Royal Tokaji Essencia is incredibly valuable because only the finest aszu grapes, made entirely from aszu berries juice, can be used for it. Read: Wine And Spirits Christmas Eve Hours - Opening And Closing Time However, the whole process takes many years of careful work, and for botrytis, Essencia can only be produced in years with perfect weather conditions. Even though it hits only a few degrees of alcohol, even after a few sips of it, people can feel light-headed. Hence the general manager at the Royal Tokaji Winery, Zoltan Kovacs, said the winemaker decides whether to bottle an Essencia or not in a given year. Thus, it can happen that four, five or even ten years will go by without even making one bottle of it. Read: Wines | Best Indian Wines That Every Wine Lover Should Definitely Try Royal Tokaji's managing director, Charlie Mount mentioned to a daily that the wine is one of its kind. He further added that he's not sure they'll ever be able to reproduce those 18 bottles. Since the Essencia's expiry date is 2300, the cost of the wine has hit the roofs with several wine aficionados willing to pay several extra dollars for it. Read: This Is Why 12 Bottles Of French Red Wine Were Sent To The International Space Station According to a daily, the Essencia 2008 is available at various restaurants and hotels in the USA and Italy. The winemakers reported that Hungary has everything to produce perfect winesclimate, culture, expertise, and a variety of wine stylesand there is a lot of unexplored potential in the country in this regard. Essencia is produced in the Tokaj wine region of Hungary, northeast of Budapest, which serves as a common day trip to the capital city for travellers. Visitors can even schedule winery private tours, and sample a wide variety of wines. Read: DIY Wine: Have A Fun Day With Friends By Making Wine At Home | Check Out Steps To Follow Three undertrial prisoners escaped from the high-security Amritsar Central Jail by scaling the boundary walls, prompting Chief Minister Amarinder Singh to order a review and revamp of prison security across the state. The three -- one accused of rape and the other two (both brothers) of theft and dacoity -- escaped on the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday by making a hole in the wall of their barrack by removing about 10 bricks, officials said. "They then appear to have scaled the inner wall -- which is about 16-feet high -- by standing one atop the other. While the outer wall -- approx 21-feet -- was crossed by them using a hook made of a steel bar and the cover of a quilt to make a ladder. "They finally escaped the jail complex from a point near Tower no. 10, which was not under CCTV cover," DGP Dinkar Gupta said, as per an official statement. The DGP said there was no evidence of any outside help, according to preliminary investigations, which suggests that the trio, among 61 prisoners in barrack no. 7, Ahata no. 2, had planned their escape on their own. Meanwhile, Chief Minister Singh ordered a magisterial inquiry which will be led by Commissioner Jalandhar. Singh has also directed the jails minister to immediately suspend, pending inquiry, all those responsible for prison security. He also asked the ADGP Jails to review and further strengthen prison security not just in this jail but in jails across the state, official said. A statewide hunt has been launched for the trio, they said. The jail authorities came to know about the incident at 3.20 am, almost two hours after the prisoners broke their barrack and escaped by scaling the inner and outer walls of the jail, as per the CCTV footage from the prison, officials said. The prison guards were alerted about the escape by other inmates, who included a brother of one of the escaped prisoners, according to initial information. One of the escaped prisoners has been identified as Vishal, aged about 22 years of Ara Colony, Majitha Road, Amritsar. He is accused in a rape case registered last year. "He was lodged in the jail on 05-04-2019. The other two are brothers, identified as Gurpreet, aged 34, and Jarnail, aged 25, residents of Chandigarh Road, Khadoor Sahib, Tarantarn," the DGP said. He said the two brothers were accused of theft and dacoity and were brought to the prison in July last year. Vishal's brother Gaurav, also in the same barrack, chose not to flee with them, said the DGP. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Montreal, CA (H4T1V6) Today Occasional snow showers. High -8C. Winds light and variable. Chance of snow 60%. Snow accumulations less than one inch.. Tonight Light snow in the evening will transition to snow showers overnight. Low -12C. Winds light and variable. Chance of snow 70%. Snow accumulations less than one inch. On the eve of Monday's Iowa caucuses, the unity pledges marked an early - and urgent - effort to avoid the divides that some Democrats say helped Trump win the presidency in 2016. After a year of campaigning, most polls show a tight race between Biden, Warren, Sanders and Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana. Those candidates, along with Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and businessman Andrew Yang, crisscrossed Iowa on Saturday seeking a breakout victory that would propel them deeper into the contests that will decide the Democratic nomination. Most surveys show the top four candidates jumbled at the top. And on Saturday, the final Des Moines Register poll - traditionally seen as the gold standard survey of the caucus electorate - was pulled from publication after questions about its methodology. The newspaper said Buttigieg may have been left off the list of candidates presented to a caucus-goer in at least one call. Candidate Michael Bloomberg also attempted on Saturday to align himself with his Democrat rivals, saying that to pay for his promises he would raise taxes on the wealthy, increase the corporate tax rate and curb tax-free inheritances of large estates, elements of a tax plan that he says would raise $US5 trillion ($7.5 trillion) over a decade. To break out of the pack, the candidates have focused on a wide variety of policy issues ranging from free college tuition to the role of government in health care, criminal justice reform, gun control and solutions to climate change. But the biggest issue on the minds of many voters is landing on a candidate who can beat Trump. Anxiety over the party's ability to unify grew over the past two weeks after Hillary Clinton, Sanders' 2016 primary rival, twice criticised the senator for not doing enough to bring Democrats together after their bruising battle. The divide was on display Friday when Democrat Rashida Tlaib appeared at a Sanders event in Iowa and booed at the mention of Clinton. She later issued a statement saying she "allowed my disappointment with Secretary Clinton's latest comments about Senator Sanders and his supporters get the best of me" and would "strive to come from a place of love and not react in the same way of those who are against what we are building in this country." Loading Shakir, Sanders' campaign manager, retweeted her statement and said: "We love your passion and conviction. Don't change." Clinton spokesperson Nick Merrill called that comment "unbelievable." "It's not enough that she booed her party's last nominee, but they're making sure it's clear she doesn't have to regret it," Merrill tweeted. The incident underscored questions about how Democrats can thread together clashing factions to develop a coalition that spans generations, races and economic status to defeat Trump. With Sanders showing some signs of strength in Iowa, some voters said they wouldn't support him because of concerns he would divide the party. Lisa Stolba, a retired school counsellor from Cedar Rapids who attended a Biden event in North Liberty, said she's undecided, considering Klobuchar, Buttigieg, Biden and Warren. Sanders was not on the list for a few reasons. He was too "socialistic," she worried about his health and age - Biden's too, she added - and she's wasn't confident Sanders could unite the party. Stolba, 59, noted she was still smarting over whether he told Warren that a woman can't win. Sanders denied the comment. "I think that he said it," she said. But Stolba said she'll still vote for Sanders if were the the nominee. "If he's the only one, yeah, I'm not going to vote for Trump." Sanders, for his part, has drawn crowds stretching into the thousands at his events, a clear demonstration of the enthusiasm surrounding his campaign. It's that energy, he and his supporters argue, that will bring the party together and inspire voters across the spectrum to support his candidacy in November. Some candidates saw an opportunity in the infighting. The 38-year-old Buttigieg has made generational change a central argument of his campaign and said Saturday that the divides underscore his point. Loading "I didn't much enjoy as a Democrat living through the experience of 2016 and I want to make sure 2020 resembles 2016 as little as possible," he told reporters after a rally in Waterloo. Buttigieg went on to emphasise that the candidates "are much more aligned than you would think." But on stage later in the day, he revived his criticism of Biden and Sanders, outlining what he called "a respectful difference of approach among people who share the same values, share the same goals." "The vice-president is suggesting this is no time to take a risk on someone new," he said. "I'm suggesting this is no time to take a risk on trying to meet a fundamentally new challenge with a familiar playbook. It's going to take something new." Buttigieg criticised Sanders for "offering an approach that suggests it's either revolution or it's the status quo, and there's nothing in between." And although he made a pitch to unity, Biden still went after Sanders' policy checklist on the stump - though he avoided naming the Vermont senator. "Talk is cheap. In politics, sometimes talk is very expensive, especially when you don't tell people how you pay for what you say you're going to do," Biden said in Waterloo. "Be straight. Tell the people what it's going to cost." Biden referenced some estimates that put Sanders' big-ticket proposals on single-payer health care, college debt forgiveness and tuition-free college tuition at more than $US60 trillion over 10 years. "I wonder why they don't know how much it's gonna cost," he added, an allusion to Sanders recently telling CBS News that he doesn't know exactly what his Medicare for All plan would cost the federal government. After creating a buzz with her recent low-key marriage, actor and model Pamela Anderson recently broke off her marriage with famous movie mogul Jon Peters, after just 12 days the wedding, reported Fox News. The couple got married on January 20 in Malibu, California in a private marriage ceremony. The Hollywood Reporter broke the news of the couple's split on Saturday stating that the pair has decided to "uncouple." "I have been moved by the warm reception to Jon and my union. We would be very grateful for your support as we take some time apart to reevaluate what we want from life and from one another," Fox News quoted Anderson saying. "Life is a journey and love is a process. With that universal truth in mind, we have mutually decided to put off the formalization of our marriage certificate and put our faith in the process, "she added. Fox News further quoted a source close to Anderson as saying, "She's known Jon forever, but she never lived with him, contrary to some reports. And until you live with someone... Well, let's just say Pamela asked for a break. She is heading back to her compound in Ladysmith, Canada, to be with her family." According to Fox News, the couple did not have any official marriage license. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A strategic culture arises from ideas and implementation. The ministry of external affairs (MEA) has made a laudable first step towards making such a culture possible by carrying out a major administrative restructuring. The idea is to make the ministry more responsive to the multiplicity of tasks that constitute 21st century diplomacy. Thus, some departments will be aggregated to focus on Indias burgeoning aid programme and the many strands of its economic diplomacy. More senior diplomats will be freed up so that they can serve as strategic interlocutors rather than mere overseers. The nature of Indias interactions with the world has also changed with technology, climate, and even adoption policies now finding their place on the international agenda. India is today a nearly $3 million-economy with interests and capacities that are growing at an exponential rate. As its strategic frontier expands, the country seeks to prevent disruptions that could disrupt its growth. Much of this is done through interactions with other governments. In some cases, it may be about reassuring external players, sometimes it is about persuasion or legitimate force. Whatever the case, controlled and calculated diplomacy is essential. India is at the forefront of defining the Indo-Pacific, holds Nordic and African summits, is pivotal to a global debate over telecom and data standards, is important to climate policy, and, if anything, struggles with the plethora of invites for consultations it receives. There have been times in the recent past when the Indian military has exhausted its budget for exercises with other countries or its foreign ministry has had to ask for favours from countries where it has no embassy. India can no longer afford such situations. There are still many gaps in Indias external relations. The MEAs staff strength is low. It continues to lag in trading negotiations. An even larger percentage of Indians remain unaware of their governments worldview. The MEA has yet to work out a means to tap the large pool of expertise that resides in the civil society. Attracting the best to the diplomatic service requires its own strategy. But the most important issue remains the creation of a sense of strategic thinking that permeates the structure of the foreign ministry. The restructuring will help. Experts: Russia Skirts Sanctions on N. Korean Workers to Defy US-led Pressure By Christy Lee February 01, 2020 Russia has been dodging U.N. sanctions and hiring North Korean workers to push back against the U.S.-led maximum-pressure policy, while supplementing the shrinking labor supply in its Far East, experts say. "Russia and, to a certain extent, China do not want to completely follow the U.S. sanctions lead," said Ken Gause, director of the Adversary Analytics Program at research group CNA. "That allows North Korea to continue to bring in resources and funding into the regime, which maintains stability inside the regime but also makes it very difficult for the U.S. to pursue its maximum-pressure strategy," Gause said. North Korean workers employed overseas see little of their wages, most of which provide Pyongyang with much-needed hard currency. Most North Korean workers whom Moscow employs work on construction projects or in the logging, agriculture and textile industries, and they are usually sent to Russia's Far East in North Asia, said Troy Stangarone, senior director of the Korea Economic Institute. "Russia faces a shortage of workers in its Far East and a declining population," Stangarone said, "so the workers provide Russia needed labor at cheap costs." Russia has been evading U.N. sanctions that required member states to repatriate North Korean workers back by a December 22 deadline, according to a Congressional Research Service report. "Russia has skirted the end-of-2019 requirement to send North Korean labor teams by issuing them tourism and education visas," the report said. Russia last year issued 16,613 tourist visas and 10,345 student visas to North Koreans, according to the Russian Interior Ministry, a sharp increase from 2,035 tourist visas and 2,610 student visas in 2018. The 2017 U.N. Security Council resolution requiring all North Koreans to be sent home by the 2019 deadline does not ban issuance of tourist and student visas. Joshua Stanton, a Washington attorney who helped draft the North Korea Sanctions Enforcement and Policy Enforcement Act in 2016, said, "Strictly speaking, the U.N. resolution only bans 'work authorization.' " Loophole Although not all North Koreans admitted to Russia on tourism and student visas are believed to be employed in Russia, the Congressional Research Service report suggests Moscow is using this loophole in the sanctions to permit North Koreans to enter the country to work there. The U.S. estimates North Korea makes more than $500 million a year from approximately 100,000 workers it sends overseas. Half of those workers are believed to be in China and 30,000 in Russia. Stanton said North Korean workers "keep very little of their own wages and toil under slave-like conditions, but they are still cheaper for Russian employers than Russian workers." Stangarone said that according to Russian Labor Ministry reports, "they make 40% less than the average salary in Russia." The average salary in Russia in November was a little over $600 a month, according to Trading Economics. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said last week that Moscow missed the U.N. deadline to repatriate North Korean workers because of limited train and flight options. "It wasn't possible due to objective difficulties to send everyone home by December 22," she said. "The majority of North Korean workers left our country. The rest, about 1,000 people, are in reality no longer workers since their work permits have expired and they don't receive income in Russia." In December, Russia, along with China, proposed that the U.N. Security Council lift sanctions on North Korea, including restrictions placed on its workers abroad, a move the U.S. rejected. Matthew Ha, a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said Russia's disapproval of North Korea sanctions emboldens Pyongyang to continue evading them. "Moscow has openly stated its disapproval of these U.N. sanctions and its urging of the UNSC to lift these measures," said Ha. "Consequently, such acts support helping Pyongyang evade such measures." Hanoi talks North Korea has been demanding the U.S. lift sanctions since last February, when its leader, Kim Jong Un, met President Donald Trump in Hanoi, Vietnam. Although Trump denied Kim's request for sanctions relief then, North Korea has been launching missiles in part to pressure the U.S. to make concessions. Denuclearization talks between Pyongyang and Washington have been stalled since October, when their working-level talks in Stockholm broke down, mainly because of sanctions. North Korea continues to evade sanctions that the U.N. issued to curb its nuclear weapons program. On a practical level, Gause said, Russia opposes the U.S. policy of applying pressure on North Korea through sanctions because it sees the policy as driving North Korea to continue develop nuclear weapons. Russians "see the U.S. policy of maximum pressure almost ensuring that North Korea will get a nuclear capability because it will continue to push back against that," Gause said. On a strategic level, Gause said Moscow's opposition to U.S.-led policy is, in part, its attempt to defeat Washington's effort to extend a liberal democratic order in the region as Moscow tries to exert its own influence there in the great-power competition with the U.S. "There's some of this that is part of the great-power competition in which Russia is pushing back against a liberal democratic order which the United States is part of," said Gause. "If the U.S. were to shift away from the maximum pressure to a policy more aligned with China and Russia, they could declare this as a victory in terms of their influence on the international stage." Stangarone said a way for Moscow to exert its influence on Pyongyang is by permitting North Koreans to work in Russia. Foreign labor as a tool "On a political level, the use of foreign labor is one tool the Russian government uses to maintain close ties with Pyongyang," he said. As a way to enforce sanctions, Stangarone said, "there needs to be a clarification that North Koreans are unable to work abroad regardless of what type of visa they may be on." Ha said the U.S. should sanction North Korean and non-North Korean companies that help employing North Korean workers in Russia, just as the Treasury Department did early in January against two North Korean entities that facilitate employment in China. "Increasing designations of similar companies abroad, such as in Russia, will remind these violators, whether it be the company hiring North Korean workers or the host nation of that company, that they risk penalties," Ha said. Connie Kim, Oh Taek-sung and Kim Seon-myung contributed to this report, which originated in VOA's Korean service. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address China has put in orders for a total of 200 million protective face masks from Turkish medical firms over the past 10 days, as the country wrestles an outbreak of the novel coronavirus, Anadolu agency reports. Anadolu Agency reached out to a stakeholder, Fatih Arpaci, in a medical firm based in Turkey's western province. Arpaci said as a "surprising" turnout of events, Chinese firms ordered a total of 200 million face masks in one go. "It is surprising to us as China is one of the biggest face mask producers in the world. Turkey produces a total of 150 million face masks in one year. But they wanted 200 million face masks," he said. "Demands keep coming not only from China, but also from other countries such as Italy, the Netherlands, France, Poland and Germany. We work 24 hours a day to meet this demand. We also work on Sundays." Arpaci said. As a respiratory illness, the virus can be transmitted through the air, with a protective mask covering the mouth and nose being a popular precaution against infection. With mask stocks dwindling in China, demand in the country for the face-gear has skyrocketed since the virus erupted late last year. One of the countries Beijing has turned to meet this demand was Turkey, where producers have since boosted activity. Arpaci said his company alone would make an initial shipment of 250,000 masks to China, adding that the requested numbers were very high, considering the firm's capacity. The prospect of Britain being a competitor 'terrifies' Brussels, Nigel Farage has said (Picture: REUTERS/Francois Lenoir) Brussels is terrified at the prospect of Britain being a competitor on its doorstep post-Brexit, Nigel Farage has said. The Brexit Party leader told the BBC that he felt the European Union was frightened of Britain as it left the bloc on Friday. He said: I got the sense [before leaving the European Parliament] that, for the first time since 2016, they are a little bit more frightened of us than we are of them. What they fear more than anything and bear in mind Italy is in recession, Germany is very close to being in recession what they fear is a competitor on their doorstep. That terrifies them. What we should be doing, in our national interest, is to make sure we are a competitor on their doorstep. Mr Farage said Britain should be a 'competitor on Brussels' doorstep' (Picture: REUTERS/Yves Herman/Pool) Mr Farage said the Brexit Party would remain active as an insurance to prevent any slip-ups by the Government on trade talks with Europe. He also welcomed prime minister Boris Johnsons tough approach to the forthcoming talks and supported moves by the government to move away from Brussels rules. READ MORE 'Once-in-a-lifetime party': How Leavers are celebrating Brexit at Parliament Square rally Brexit day in pictures: Crowds, costumes and placards as UK enters 'new era' If we finish up with alignment, then it means the 88% of our economy that does not sell goods into the EU is still bound by EU rules and that would not be Brexit, he said. I think he is saying all the right things. I think he is being consistent with the manifesto on which he was elected. Following the official departure on Friday, the UK will now enter a transition period until December 31, during which the UK will effectively remain a member of the EU while the government negotiates its future relationship with the bloc. By suspending travel on e-visas from China, India govt will now have the discretion of deciding whom to grant visas to. Paramedical staff screen Indians after they arrive at New Delhi airport from Chinas coronavirus-hit city of Wuhan on Sunday. India airlifted the second batch of 323 Indians on Sunday from Wuhan. (Photo: PTI) New Delhi: With a second person having a travel history from China testing positive for the coronavirus in Kerala, India in a major step aimed at preventing the spread of the deadly virus in the country from visiting Chinese or any other foreign nationals from China on Sunday temporarily suspended travel on e-visas with immediate effect from China, making it clear that only those with a compelling reason to visit India may apply from the Indian missions in Beijing, Shanghai or Guangzhou. In other developments, 323 Indians were evacuated by Air India in the second evacuation flight from Wuhan along with seven Maldivian nationals on Sunday. The health ministry said: The second positive case of a novel coronavirus patient has been reported in Kerala. The patient has a travel history from China. The patient has tested positive for novel coronavirus and is in isolation in the hospital. The patient is stable and is being closely monitored. It is understood that by suspending travel on e-visas from China, the Indian government will now have the discretion of deciding whom to grant visas to, as there will be a manual interface now at an Indian diplomatic mission if a foreign applicant from China wants to apply for a visa to visit India. In the case of e-visas granted online, such an exercise of discretion would not have been possible which is why the Indian government took this decision, observers point out. Due to certain current developments, travel to India on e-visas stands temporarily suspended with immediate effect. This applies to holders of Chinese passports and applicants of other nationalities residing in the Peoples Republic of China. Holders of already issued e-visas may note that these are no longer valid. All those who have a compelling reason to visit India may contact the Indian embassy in Beijing or Indian consulates in Shanghai or Guangzhou, and the Indian Visa Application Centres in these cities, the Indian embassy in Beijing tweeted. External affairs minister S. Jaishankar tweeted: Seven Maldivians brought back with 323 Indians from Wuhan on the second Air India flight today. #NeighbourhoodFirst at work again. India now has very close ties with the Maldives, which is now led by President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih. He roughed it out in the South African jungle for three weeks before being booted from I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! And Tom Williams, 49, looked fit and healthy as he stripped shirtless for a swim with his family at Sydney's Balmoral beach on Sunday. The former Daily Edition presenter appeared relaxed as waded through the shallows in a pair of black board shorts. Out of Africa! Tom Williams, 49, showed off his post-jungle physique on Sunday as he went for a dip at Balmoral beach in Sydney after returning from I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! Looking every inch the doting family man, Tom was also spotted carrying his two young daughters' swimming goggles. Tom shares daughters Storm, five, and Sloane, three, with his fashion designer wife Rachel Gilbert, 37, Following his elimination from I'm A Celebrity last month, Tom said his experience on the show had made him a 'better' person. Post-jungle glow! The former TV presenter looked trim and terrific as he stripped shirtless and waded through the water with his children's goggles in hand. Pictured L: before entering I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!, right: on Sunday 'My heart is full. I'll be a better dad, a better husband and a better mate. More appreciative of what goes on around your life,' he told 10 Daily. Tom also spoke to Now to Love about his plans to return to life as a stay-at-home father following his stint in the jungle. 'I am just heading back home to my wife and children, who are about to go to school,' the former TV star said. 'My heart is full': Following his elimination from I'm A Celebrity last month, Tom said his experience on the show had made him a 'better' person 'So I'll be doing plaits and ponytails and hearing about 'Daddy, I don't want my hair like that'. That's the best thing I could ever go home to... making lunchboxes and hanging with the mums at school drop off,' he added. Tom has been a vocal advocate for equal parental leave, having previously said he feels 'lucky' to have the chance to spend time at home with his daughters. 'I feel so lucky to have the luxury of spending valuable years with my girls while they were young thanks to the @dailyeditionon7 time scheduling and opportunities of my work life,' he wrote on Instagram in July last year. 'An awesome job with the freedom to attend to my children, something that has been instrumental in our family life. And I feel the need for Dads to be there in these early years as they are so important.' The agreement involves to review the restructuring of some of the NSPO companies to utilise them to generate more investments through the fund Egypt's sovereign fund will sign on Monday a deal in cooperation with the Ministry of Defence's National Service Products Organisation (NSPO) for the restructuring and development of several affiliated companies. Planning and Economic Development Minister Hala El-Said, who chairs the fund, said the framework agreement involves studying the restructuring of some of the NSPO companies to utilise them to generate more investment through the fund. Established in 1979, the NSPO is an armed forces owned entity operating in various crucial developmental sectors to meet the needs of the military and the local market. Its portfolio includes companies in the sectors of agriculture & food industry field, industrial field, engineering field, services field, and mining. The aim is to maximise the value of the organisation's assets and develop it in partnership with the private sector, she added. In recent months, Egypt has attempted to lure investors to its untapped assets, with the fund's CEO Ayman Soliman revealing that the fund plans to control some of the potentially valuable assets in industries such as power and real estate in order to attract private investors. Last month, the SWF agreed to team up with UK private equity firm Actis to help attract and bring private investment into Egypt and to cooperate in energy and infrastructure projects. The SWF has a paid-in capital of EGP 1 billion ($63.2 million), yet it could rise to several trillion pounds, according to statements made by President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi in October 2019. The plan is kicking off with selling a 25-year concession owned by the Egyptian Electricity Holding Co to operate three 4.8GW power plants built by Siemens under a $6.65 billion deal signed in 2015. Search Keywords: Short link: The Trinamool Congress (TMC) has given notice under Rule 267 in Rajya Sabha to discuss the "raging anti CAA-NRC-NRP people's movement in India" on Monday, sources said. The Rule 267 of Rajya Sabha rulebook entails suspension of the day's listed business in order to discuss an issue of critical importance. Peaceful protests have been going on across the country against the newly-enacted Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the proposed Register of Citizens (NRC). The CAA provides Indian citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Jains, Buddhists and Parsis fleeing religious persecution in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, and who arrived in India before January 1, 2015. The NRC exercise requires the people living in India to prove their citizenship by producing relevant documents. The people fear that the CAA and NRC will deprive a large section of Indian population, particularly Muslims, of their citizenship rights and render them stateless. The Rajya Sabha Chairman is empowered to accept the notice under the said rule or dismiss it on his discretion. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) New York City has tested a patient for coronavirus after they returned from a trip to China and exhibited symptoms associated with the deadly illness, officials said in a statement. The development comes after national health officials declared a public health emergency following the eighth confirmed case in the United States. That case, reported in Boston, Massachusetts, involved a patient who had reportedly travelled to Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak. Worldwide, infections of the rapidly-spreading virus have already topped 14,000. The NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene wrote on Twitter: The first person in NYC has been identified for testing for the novel #coronavirus. This means they had recently travelled from China & presented with fever and cough or shortness of breath without another common cause, like influenza and other cold viruses, identified on testing. Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Show all 154 1 /154 Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Paramedics wearing personal protective equipment carry patient on a stretcher on to an ambulance in North Point district in Hong Kong, China Getty Images Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A medical worker wearing protective gear takes a rest as he waits for ambulances carrying patients infected with the COVID-19 coronavirus at an entrance of a hospital in Daegu, South Korea YONHAP/AFP via Getty Images Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A medical worker sprays disinfectant on an ambulance after carrying a patient infected with the COVID-19 coronavirus at a hospital in Daegu YONHAP/AFP via Getty Images Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus People wearing protective face masks shop at a supermarket in Casalpusterlengo, one the northern Italian towns placed under lockdown due to the new coronavirus outbreak EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A trolley bus is disinfected amid fears over the spread of the novel coronavirus in Pyongyang, North Korea REUTERS Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Workers wearing protective gear spray disinfectant as a precaution against the COVID-19 coronavirus in a local market in Daegu, South Korea AP Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A man wearing a protective facemask walks outside a nearly empty shopping mall at lunch time in Beijing AFP via Getty Images Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A man wearing protective facemask and gloves puts a drawing made by a girl living in the area asking residents to wear protective gear, next to a quarantine notice for people who have travelled and a notice asking people to register outside a residential compound in Beijing AFP via Getty Images Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A woman is taken into an ambulance amid a coronavirus outbreak in northern Italy REUTERS Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Ambulances and health workers are seen outside the Padua's hospital, northern Italy EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Passengers in coaches leave MoD Boscombe Down in Wiltshire after being repatriated to the UK from a cruise ship hit by the coronavirus in Yokohama, Japan and head to Arrowe Park Hospital on Merseyside PA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus People rest in a temporary hospital situated in the Tazihu Gymnasium in Wuhan EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Buddhist monks wearing protective face masks pray during a blessing ceremony for the people affected by the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak, at a temple in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia REUTERS Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical workers wearing protective gears carry a patient infecting with a new coronavirus to a hospital in Chuncheon, South Korea AP Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Soldiers in hazmat suits sanitize cargo from a China Airlines plane at the Taoyuan International Airport in Taoyuan City, Taiwan EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Barricades are seen to block the entrance a the gate of a local mall in a nearly empty area in Beijing, China Getty Images Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A vendor wearing a protective facemask waits for customers at a shop in Beijing AFP via Getty Images Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus The body temperature of an Iraqi child returning from Iran is measured upon her arrival at the Najaf International Airport AFP via Getty Images Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Volunteers hand out free facemasks at a shopping district in Quezon city, Metro Manila, Philippines Getty Images Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical workers wearing protective gears carry a patient suspected of contracting the new coronavirus toward an ambulance at Daenam Hospital in Cheongdo, South Korea AP Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A worker disinfects a shop at a market in Shanghai AFP via Getty Images Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A restaurant worker wearing protective clothing as a preventive measure against the COVID-19 coronavirus passing a bag of food to a customer on the street outside their restaurant in Beijing AFP via Getty Images Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A recovered patient is discharged from Leishenshan Hospital, the newly-built makeshift hospital for novel coronavirus patients, in Wuhan AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Volunteers in protective suits disinfect a factory with sanitising equipment in Huzhou, China China Daily via Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical workers in protective suits attend to a patient inside an isolated ward of Wuhan Red Cross Hospital Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A drone operated by the Suwon municipal government flies around Changyong Middle School spraying disinfectant, in Suwon, South Korea EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Workers transfer medical waste at Leishenshan Hospital AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A man wearing a protective mask rides a bicycle with his children in Guangzhou, China EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Volunteers in protective suits disinfect a railway station as the country is hit by an outbreak of the new coronavirus, in Changsha, Hunan province, China cnsphoto via Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A woman repatriated from Wuhan carries a child as she walks upon her arrival at the Van Don airport in Vietnam's Quang Ninh province AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical staff checking the body temperature of a patient who has displayed mild symptoms of the COVID-19 coronavirus, at an exhibition centre converted into a hospital in Wuhan AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A medical worker in protective suit transports oxygen tanks at Wuhan Red Cross Hospital Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Boys wearing protection masks, gloves and modified water bottles sit on a cart at the airport arrival terminal in Guangzhou EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Employees work on a production line manufacturing protective suits at a clothing factory in Shijiazhuang, Hebei province cnsphoto via Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical workers in protective suits move a patient at an isolated ward of a hospital in Caidian district following an outbreak of coronavirus in Wuhan China Daily via Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A worker in protective clothing, including face mask and gloves, carries a bucket as he works inside of The County Oak Medical Centre in Brighton, southern England, after it closed for "urgent operational health and safety reasons", following reports a member of staff was infected with the strain of the novel coronavirus AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Workers of the ecology and environment bureau collect samples from the sewage system of a hospital in Xinle, Hebei province China Daily via Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A man in protective clothing cleaning the County Oak Medical Centre GP practice The British government warned the outbreak of novel coronavirus was a "serious and imminent threat" and reported four new cases that brought the total recorded in the country to eight. Two hospitals The Royal Free and Guys and St Thomas', have both been designated as "isolation" facilities, with both currently housing Britons who have returned from Wuhan, the Chinese city at the centre of the outbreak PA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical staff transfer patients to the newly completed Huoshenshan temporary field Hospital in Wuhan. The global coronavirus death toll rose again with Hong Kong announcing its first death from the outbreak on 4 February EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Members of staff wait as coaches carrying Coronavirus evacuees arrive at Kents Hill Park Training and Conference Centre, in Milton Keynes, after being repatriated to the UK from the coronavirus-hit city of Wuhan PA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A crew member of the cruise ship Diamond Princess talks to a worker wearing protective gear standing near the vessel, where dozens of passengers were tested positive for coronavirus, at Daikoku Pier Cruise Terminal in Yokohama Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Doctors scan a patient's lungs at Huoshenshan temporary hospital built for patients diagnosed with coronavirus in Wuhan Xinhua News Agency/AP Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus People wearing protective suits walk from the Diamond Princess cruise ship, with around 3,600 people quarantined onboard due to fears of the new coronavirus, at the Daikoku Pier Cruise Terminal AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Indonesians who arrived from Wuhan are sprayed with antiseptic at Hang Nadim Airport in Batam. People evacuated from the Chinese city at the centre of a deadly virus outbreak, were transported to a quarantine zone on a remote island at the edge of the South China Sea, shortly after landing Indonesian Foreign Ministry via AP Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A woman wears a protective mask as she shops in a market in Beijing Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical staff members hugging each other in an isolation ward at a hospital in Zouping in China's easter Shandong province AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A portrait of Dr Li Wenliang is left at Li's hospital in Wuhan. He is regarded a whistleblower on the outbreak and died of the coronavirus which triggered wide-spread mourning on Chinese media Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Officers in protective gear enter the cruise ship Diamond Princess, where people tested positive for coronavirus, after the ship arrived at Daikoku Pier Cruise Terminal in Yokohama, south of Tokyo Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Firefighters and personnel from the health ministry participate in a drill to prepare for the potential arrival of passengers infected with the coronavirus at the Viru Viru International Airport, in Santa Cruz, Bolivia Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Scientists are at work in the VirPath university laboratory as they try to find an effective treatment against the new Sars-like coronavirus AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical workers in protective suits attend to patients at the Wuhan International Conference and Exhibition Center, which has been converted into a makeshift hospital to receive patients with mild symptoms caused by the virus Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A girl wears a mask as a preventive measure against the coronavirus outbreak, in Bangkok, Thailand Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A man is transferred from the World Dream cruise ship to an ambulance at the Kai Tak cruise terminal in Hong Kong as health officials conduct inspections AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Workers from a disinfection service company enter Lotte Department Store in central Seoul, South Korea EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A man who arrived from Hubei province talks with police at a checkpoint at the Jiujiang Yangtze River Bridge Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A doctor holds a handheld digital thermometer near health officials preparing a health check for arriving passengers from China at Don Mueang Airport in Bangkok EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A resident walks across an empty track in Wuhan Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A scientific staff member works in a secure laboratory, researching the coronavirus, at the Pasteur Institute in Dakar AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical staff members preparing equipment to meet passengers of a military plane, which evacuated citizens of Russia and ex-Soviet countries from China's Wuhan province Vsluh.ru via Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Staff wearing protective suits as they prepare to disinfect a Vietnam Airlines plane at Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi Vietnam Airlines/AFP/Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A South Korean person, who was evacuated from Wuhan, arrives at the National Medical Center after showing suspected symptoms of novel coronavirus, in Seoul EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Officers in protective gear escort a person (under the blue sheet) who was on board cruise ship Diamond Princess and was tested positive for coronavirus Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A doctor being disinfected by his colleague at a quarantine zone in Wuhan AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Buses carrying British nationals from the coronavirus-hit city of Wuhan, arrive at Arrowe Park Hospital in Merseyside Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical staff transfer patients in Wuhan EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Indonesian health officials conduct an exercise drill in transporting a patient requiring isolation at the Belawan port in Medan AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus The Pasteur Institute in Dakar, designated by the African Union as one of the two reference centres in Africa for the detection of the new coronavirus that appeared in China, is hosting experts from 15 countries on the continent this weekend to prepare them to deal with the disease AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A government worker disinfects a co-worker after visiting a quarantined woman's home in Qingdao EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus An aerial view of the deserted roads and bridges in Wuhan Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical workers hold a strike outside the Hospital Authority as they demand for Hong Kong to close its border with China to reduce the coronavirus spreading Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A person has their tempriture checked in Qingdao, China EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Ultrastructural morphology exhibited by coronaviruses. Note the spikes that adorn the outer surface of the virus, which impart the look of a corona surrounding the virion, when viewed electron microscopically Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/AFP Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Malaysian nationals being directed from a bus by health officials in protective suits as they arrived at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang, after being evacuated from Wuhan Malaysia's Ministry of Health/AFP Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus People hoping to buy face masks crowd outside a medical supply shop that was raided by police for allegedly hoarding and overpricing the masks, as public fear over China's Wuhan Coronavirus grow in Manila, Philippines. The Philippine government has been heavily criticized after failing to immediately implement travel restrictions from China, the source of a deadly coronavirus that has now killed hundreds and infected thousands more Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Residents wearing masks and raincoats volunteer to take temperature of passengers following the outbreak of a new coronavirus at a bus stop at Tin Shui Wai, a border town in Hong Kong Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Italian citizens repatriated from Wuhan going though a health control zone after landing at the Mario De Bernardi military airport in Pratica di Mare, south of Rome, prior to be placed in quarantine Italian Defence Ministry/AFP Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Workers arrange beds in a 2,000-bed mobile hospital, set up in an exhibition center, in Wuhan EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A doctor checks conditions of occupants in a hotel accommodating isolated people in Wuhan EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical staff members wearing protective clothing to help stop the spread of a deadly virus which began in the city of Wuhan, arrive with a patient at the Wuhan Red Cross Hospital. The Chinese army deployed medical specialists to the epicentre of the spiralling viral outbreak that has killed and spread around the world AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A baby wearing a protective face mask is pushed by a woman as they arrive from Shenzhen to Hong Kong at Lo Wu MTR station AFP via Getty Images Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A health worker checks the temperature of a woman entering a subway station in Beijing Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A young child wears a protective mask and is covered in plastic while waiting to check in to a flight at Beijing Capital Airport The World Health Organization (WHO) on Thursday declared the coronavirus a public health emergency of international concern Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Ambulance crews arrive at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, as it prepares for a return flight from Wuhan, China. Eighty-three Britons and 27 foreign nationals who were trapped in Wuhan are being flown back to the UK Tom Maddick / SWNS Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A woman carries a baby wearing a protective mask as they exit the arrival hall at Hong Kong High Speed Rail Station Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Camp beds at a Medical Assessment Center set up at the airport in Frankfurt am Main, western Germany, on the eve of the arrival of German citizens evacuated from Wuhan AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Funeral parlour staff members in protective suits help a colleague with disinfection after they transferred a body at a hospital in Wuhan Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Muslims wearing masks pray for the victims of coronavirus at a mosque in Ahmedabad, India Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical officials waiting for people who wants to check the novel coronavirus at Myeongdong shopping district Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Children wear plastic bottles as makeshift homemade protection and protective masks while waiting to check in to a flight at Beijing Capital Airport Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A patient assisted by medical staff gets off an ambulance in Wuhan AFP/Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus People line up to buy face masks from a medical supply company in Nanning, southern China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Countries began evacuating their citizens from the Chinese city hardest-hit by a new virus that has now infected more people in China than were sickened in the country by SARS Chinatopix via AP Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Millions spent their normally festive Lunar New Year holiday under lockdown Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Children with face masks wash their hands before prayer at Erawan shrine in Bangkok. Thailand has detected eight Coronavirus cases so far AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus An Indonesian health officer points at the screen of a thermal scanner for passengers China confirmed that the deadly Wuhan coronavirus virus can be transmitted between humans AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Hospital workers wearing protective eyewear and masks examine an Indonesian student who returned from China in quarantine at a hospital in Banda Aceh AFP via Getty Images Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Ambulance staff dispose of an outfit at the hospital in Wuhan EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A person checks the temperature of a passenger to help stop the spread of a deadly virus as he arrives at the Sultan Mahmud Badaruddin II International airport in Palembang AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Nepali students, wearing face masks, attend a class at Matribhumi School in Bhaktapur, on the outskirts of Kathmandu AFP via Getty Images Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical staff at the Wuhan Red Cross Hospital AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Two Buddhist monks wear face masks while walking along a street in Yangon AFP via Getty Images Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Staff disinfecting a residential area in Ruichang, part of Jiujiang in China's central Jiangxi province AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Workers are seen at the construction site of a new hospital being built to treat patients from a deadly virus outbreak in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province on January 27, 2020. - China is rushing to build a new hospital in a staggering 10 days to treat patients at the epicentre of a deadly virus outbreak that has stricken thousands of people, state media reported on January 24. (Photo by Hector RETAMAL / AFP) (Photo by HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP via Getty Images) HECTOR RETAMAL AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Vapor blurs the goggles of an ambulance driver while they work, in Wuhan EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Workers producing facemasks at a factory in Yangzhou AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical staff getting on an ambulance in Wuhan AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A vendor of traditional masks wears a facial mask at his shop in Thamel EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus An airport official checks the temperature of a passenger upon his arrival at the Bacha Khan International Airport in Peshawar AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical staff members arrive with a patient at the Wuhan Red Cross Hospital AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus An ambulance driver talking with medical staff in Wuhan AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Wuhan Hygiene Emergency Response Team leave the closed Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market The new coronavirus appears to have its origins in a seafood market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, a popular transport hub AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Workers produce protective suits at a factory in Nantong AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Passengers scanned by thermal imaging for body temperature as they go through health measures and procedures after they landed at Rome's Fiumicino airport on a southern airlines flight from Wuhan Aeroporto Di Roma/AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A Thai royal guard wears a mask while on duty at the Grand Palace in Bangkok EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A man wearing a face mask rides a nearly empty subway train in Beijing AP Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical staff members at the Wuhan Red Cross Hospital AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A shopper wearing goggles with a face mask and gloves uses a self checkout machine at a supermarket in Wuhan AP Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical staff transfer patients to Jinyintan hospital EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Members of the Italian Red Cross putting on protective gear, getting ready to give health checks to passengers that landed at Rome's Fiumicino airport on a southern airlines flight from Wuhan Aeroporto Di Roma/AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A member of the Hong Kong government's Civil Aid Service gestures at the entrance to the Lady MacLehose Holiday Village which is being used as one of two quarantine centres for people who have been in close proximity with suspected cases of a SARS-type virus. Hong Kong will turn two holiday camps, including a former military barracks, into quarantine zones for people who may have come into contact with carriers of the Wuhan virus, officials announced AFP via Getty Images Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical staff wearing protective suits at the Zhongnan hospital in Wuhan STR/AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A Malaysia Health official checks passengers going through a thermal scanner upon their arrival at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Staff disinfecting Yingtan North Railway Station, China China banned trains and planes from leaving the major city at the centre of a virus outbreak on January 23, seeking to seal off its 11 million people to contain the contagious disease that has claimed lives and spread to other countries AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A passenger walks past a quarantine control station at Narita airport, Japan EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Patients queue up to seek treatment in Wuhan Tongji Hospital Fever Clinic, in Wuhan EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Quarantine workers spray disinfectant at Incheon International Airport, South Korea EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A member of staff checks the temperature of a guest entering the casino of the New Orient Landmark hotel in Macau, after it reported its first case of the new SARS-like virus AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical staff transfer patients to Jin Yintan hospital Little is known about the new disease which, if confirmed, would be only the seventh coronavirus known to science that can infect humans Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Members of the Three Gorges Medical Laboratory offering free masks to the public in Yichang, China AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Gabriel Leung, right, chair professor of public health medicine at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Hong Kong, speaks about the extent of the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak in China AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Members of staff of the Wuhan Hygiene Emergency Response Team conducting searches on the closed Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A quarantine officer at Incheon International Airport, South Korea, uses an electronic thermometer to check the temperature of passengers arriving by plane from Wuhan The virus causes symptoms of viral pneumonia, and has already led to several deaths EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A screen shows cancelled flights at Tianhe airport in Wuhan AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical staff transfer patients to Jinyintan hospital EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Health officials hand out information about the current coronavirus at Kuala Lumpur International Airport AP Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A store owner argues with security guards as he attempts to enter the closed Huanan wholesale seafood market AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Workers producing facemasks at a factory in Handan, China's northern Hebei province AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical staff and security personnel stop patients' family members from being too close to the Jinyintan hospital Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus maya-goodfellowAn airport staff member uses a temperature gun to check people leaving Wuhan Tianhe International Airport AP Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A rescue worker walks past a notice about new coronavirus that has broken out in China Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Health officials wear face masks at an inspection site at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang AP Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical staff members carry a patient into the Jinyintan hospital AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A staff member checks body temperature of a child after a train from Wuhan arrived at Hangzhou Railway Station in Hangzhou AFP via Getty Images Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A quarantine station measures passenger body temperatures at Narita Airport JIJI PRESS/AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Passengers walk past a notice displayed near a quarantine control station at Narita airport EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Passengers walk past a poster alerting on coronavirus screening ahead upon their arrival at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus An employee sprays disinfectant on a train, as a precaution against coronavirus, at Suseo Station in Seoul EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Kazakh sanitary-epidemiological service worker uses a thermal scanner to detect travellers from China who may have symptoms possibly connected with the previously unknown coronavirus, at Almaty International Airport, Kazakhstan Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Pharmacist Liu Zhuzhen stands near a sign reading "face masks are sold out" at her pharmacy in Shanghai AP Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus The Wuhan Medical Treatment Center, EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A worker in a protective suit at the closed seafood market in Wuhan Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Passengers wear protective face masks at the departure hall of a high speed train station in Hong Kong AP Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A notice for passengers from Wuhan Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A man wears a mask while riding on mobike past the closed Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market Getty The patient, who has not been publicly identified, was reportedly under the age of 40. They were taken to the Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan for testing, according to the New York City Department of Health. In a press conference on Saturday, Bill De Blasio, the mayor of New York City, and city health officials sought to reassure residents they were not at immediate risk of contracting the virus, which has already caused more than 300 deaths in China. New Yorkers should go about our lives, continue doing what we do normally, the mayor added. This is not something you are going to contract in the subway or on the bus, New York Citys health commissioner, Dr Oxiris Barbot said, while encouraging residents to wash your hands frequently, cover your mouths and nose when you cough or you sneeze. Recommended China state secrecy likely caused coronavirus outbreak to worsen There have been four reports of possible coronavirus cases across the entire state of New York prior to the latest testing in New York City, according to state officials. None of those cases have been confirmed as of Sunday. The department of health and mental hygiene said it was continuing to monitor the evolving worldwide situation daily and distributing educational materials so that people have the facts about how to protect themselves and their families. The World Health Organisation has declared coronavirus a global health emergency, noting how the virus could spread to countries with weaker health systems. At least 25 countries have confirmed cases of coronavirus since the outbreak began in December. In Boston, the latest patient was a student at the University of Massachusetts-Boston. The university confirmed the case in a statement to students on Saturday, writing: On occasions like this, it is possible for fear to get the better of any of us. Lets remember that viruses are no ones fault and anyone can find themselves ill. Press Release February 2, 2020 PRRD imposes temporary travel ban to cover all travelers coming from any part of China, says Bong Go Upon the recommendation of the Department of Health (DOH) and Senator Christopher Lawrence "Bong" Go, President Rodrigo Duterte will order the expansion of the temporary travel ban over the 2019-nCoV ARD or the Novel Coronavirus Acute Respiratory Disease to include travelers coming from any part of China and its Special Administrative Regions to help combat the spread of the disease. Go confirmed the President's decision in a statement and in various radio interviews on Sunday morning, February 2. "During my discussion with President Rodrigo Duterte last Saturday night on the government's efforts to address the 2019 Novel Coronavirus Acute Respiratory Disease situation, I recommended to the President to implement a temporary travel ban on travelers coming from any part of China and its Special Administrative Regions, on top of the existing temporary travel ban imposed on those coming from Hubei province and other affected areas," Go said. The move is based on and in line with the recommendations of DOH and members of the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases. Go confirmed that the President agreed to adopt the proposal, saying "(t)aking into consideration the concerns raised by key government officials and health experts, the President made an informed decision and has agreed to adopt this recommendation and implement it immediately as an additional precautionary measure to protect Filipinos and everyone in the Philippines." He added that the Office of the President (OP) will release further details to explain to the public the scope of the order. Go also clarified that the order covers all travelers from China to the Philippines, regardless of nationality. "I wish to emphasize that we are not singling out Chinese nationals. This order covers all travelers from China to the Philippines, regardless of nationality," Go said. A statement released by Presidential Legal Counsel and Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo states that the temporary travel ban will apply to all travelers coming directly from China and its Special Administrative Regions. The ban also applies to travelers who, within fourteen days immediately preceding arrival in the Philippines, have been to China and its Special Administrative Regions. While Filipino citizens and holders of Permanent Resident Visas issued by the Philippine government are not covered by the ban, they will be subjected to a fourteen-day quarantine period immediately upon arrival in the country. A repatriation and quarantine facility will also be established for Filipinos coming from affected areas. Filipinos will also be temporarily banned from traveling to China and its Special Administrative Regions. The statement also mentions that "the President will be presiding the next meeting of the Task Force on Monday and to be attended by other concerned agencies" while all government agencies are also directed "to adopt, coordinate and implement the said guidelines, and such other guidelines which the Task Force may subsequently issue on the matter." The military and other law enforcement agencies were also instructed "to give the necessary assistance to ensure the implementation of this directive to ensure the safety and well-being of everyone." The IATF was also given the authority, if necessary, to ban the entry of travelers from other areas with confirmed widespread 2019-nCOV ARD. Meanwhile, Go also expressed his empathy to China, adding that the government is committed to helping all countries affected by the outbreak. "We empathize with China given what they are going through but we are doing this to protect the country and its people. The Philippine government is committed to help China and other affected countries address this worldwide health concern," he said. As for the 40 Filipinos in Wuhan, China who have volunteered to return home, Go said that the government is ready to deploy aircrafts to bring them back home. "Handa ang pamahalaan na mag deploy ng aircrafts for the airlift," he said. "Sa mga naiwan dun, handa naman tumulong ang gobyerno. Nandiyan ang Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) at ang ating foreign affairs (department). Ready po silang tumulong sa mga naiwan po dun," he added. Meanwhile, asked on the objectives of the upcoming public hearing of the Senate Committee on Health on Tuesday regarding the virus, Go said that he aims to discuss the next steps to deter the spread of the disease in the country. "Sa hearing natin this Tuesday, alamin natin kung ano ano ang mga hakbang ngayon at ano ang kailangan pang gawin nating lahat upang maiwasan ang pagkalat ng Novel Coronavirus," he said, adding that all concerned agencies will be present in the meeting, including representatives from the World Health Organization (WHO) and health experts from various fields. Go also stressed that, as Chair of the Committee on Health, the welfare and interest of the Filipino people remain his top priority. "Lahat ng desisyon ng gobyerno, hindi basta-basta. Pinag-aaralan po lahat 'yan. Binabalanse lahat. Kailangan pong pag-aralan 'yan bago ginagawa... Rest assured, inuuna ang interes ng bawat Pilipino," he added. As for those who criticize the government's efforts to combat the virus, Go urged them to help provide solutions instead. "Sa bashers and netizens, walang naitutulong ang pambabatikos nyo... Hindi iyan solution. Magtulungan na lang tayo," he said. Ending the interview, the Senator urged all Filipinos to listen to government officials and health experts. Go also encouraged the public to unite amidst the current global health concern brought by the 2019-nCoV ARD. "I am urging the public to be informed and listen to our officials and health experts. Do not panic. Magtulungan tayo. Unahin natin ang kapakanan, interes, at kalusugan ng bawat Pilipino," he ended. How often do we think about our prisons? Inmates, and the reasons for their incarceration, are likely far from our minds. Designed to be out of societys sight and mind, prisons themselves are physically isolated. A tough on crime mentality has generally been considered to be a vote winner as public opinion demands safe, secure communities. In response to that trend, and since the 1976 abolition of the death penalty, successive governments of different partisan stripes have steadily increased the number of mandatory minimum penalties, originally designed to act as a deterrence, to impose uniform standards of sentencing and to satisfy a victims desire for justice. However, this conventional attitude may be running out of time as it collides with systemic discrimination, mental health issues, racist attitudes and a contemporary desire for reconciliations healing values with our Indigenous peoples. Do mandatory minimums, which some argue are unconstitutional, actually encourage wrongful guilty pleas from the marginalized and racialized who may not have access to timely and smart legal advice? Are they too arbitrary, taking away any discretion from judges, who could consider the history of the accused? Canada has a population of 37.59 million compared to an Indigenous population of 1,673,780 (5 per cent). You would expect that the percentage of any prison population would reflect those numbers. Yet, a recent report from the federal Office of the Correctional Investigator states that the proportion of Indigenous people behind bars has reached a historic high of 30 per cent. Since April 2010, the Indigenous inmate populations has increased 43.4 per cent whereas the non-Indigenous incarcerated population has declined over the same period by 13.7 per cent. At the current pace of incarceration, the number of Indigenous people will comprise 33 per cent of the total federal inmate population within the next three years. These numbers are not a badge of honour for a country that advocates fairness and equality in other countries. More troubling is that Indigenous women represent an incredible 42 per cent of the female prison population and worse, that about 4-in-5 women are incarcerated for poverty related crimes. As a result, organizations like the Basic Income Canada Network are advocating for a guaranteed livable income. How can we argue for gender equality abroad without appearing hypocritical? Taxpayers should also pay attention. For a female inmate, each additional year of her prison sentence was estimated by the Parliamentary Budget Officer is estimated between $343,000 and $600,000. In contrast, serving a sentence in her community would cost $18,000 and would allow her to reintegrate, keep children and decrease the likelihood of criminalization in the future. In light of these facts, surely it is time that judges be allowed discretion in sentencing, based on a persons history and family responsibilities. Independent Sen. Kim Pate certainly thinks so. A lawyer and teacher by training, she is an expert in the prison reform, having worked for in the field for decades. For years, she and others like Sen. Murray Sinclair, the former chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Marion Buller, chair of the National Inquiry into Missing Murdered and Indigenous Women and Girls, and Cindy Blackstock, a professor and tireless activist for child protection and Indigenous childrens rights have flagged warning signs. Indeed, Dr. Ivan Zinger, Canadas Correctional Investigator, noted that four years ago, his office had indicated that efforts to curb overrepresentation were not working. So, what can be done? Next week, Pate will introduce a Judicial Discretion Bill in the Senate. In spite of heated debate about the value of mandatory minimum sentences in the past, Pate will argue that the proliferation of mandatory minimum penalties has increased criminalization of those who are poorest, racialized (especially Indigenous Peoples), women and those with disabling mental health issues. If she and other like-minded Senators are successful, the elected House of Commons should pay strict attention. Minority governments are often said to bring about great social change. If there was ever a time for change, this is it. This 2020 snapshot of our prison system exposes historic wrongs, shames Canadas global reputation and leaves a dreadful legacy for our younger citizens. Its past time to reframe this picture. Jerusalem: China's acting ambassador to Israel apologised on Sunday after comparing the closure of several national borders to Chinese citizens amid fears of a new virus from China to the turning away of Jewish refugees during the Holocaust. Dai Yuming told reporters at a English-language press conference in Tel Aviv that the "errors to limit or even ban entries of Chinese citizens" reminded him of "the old days, the old stories that happened in World War Two, the Holocaust, the darkest days in human history." "Millions of Jewish were killed, and many, many Jewish were refused when they tried to seek assistance from other countries. Only very, very few countries opened their door, and among them is China," Dai said. The Chinese Embassy in Israel later issued a statement saying "there was no intention whatsoever to compare the dark days of the Holocaust with the current situation and the efforts taken by the Israeli government to protect its citizens." The Oregonians weekly look at the numbers behind the states economy. View past installments here. There are many factors that determine just how much an Oregonian earns, and education is among the biggest. A new analysis from state labor economist Erik Knoder shows that Oregonians with a college degree earn two-thirds more than those who only graduated high school. This is an important finding at a time when students in Oregon and elsewhere are struggling to pay off their college loans. For those with the means, advanced education appears to be one path to advanced earnings. And yet its far from the determining factor. In the same analysis, Knoder shows that things students cannot change their race and gender have similar effects. Workers with only a high school diploma earned a little more than $30,000 annually in Oregon during 2018, according to the most recent Census data. The median earnings for all Oregonians was about $40,000. The data shows a college education makes a big difference a median Oregonian with a bachelors degree earns more than $50,000 annually. And the gains increase with an advanced degree, with median earnings in that category nearing $70,000. Its only logical, of course, that more education leads to higher earnings. Additional education can better prepare workers for jobs and those who can afford advanced education may already be set up to advance professionally. So Knoder looks at other factors that affect earnings, including gender and race. He found men with only a high school degree make nearly $6,000 more each year than a better-educated woman who has attended college but doesnt have a four-year degree. Oregon men who graduated from college but didnt earn an advanced degree actually out-earn women with an advanced degree by more than $1,000 a year. Big gaps exist in Oregon based on race and ethnicity with whites and Asians significantly out-earning other demographics, according to a recent study by another Oregon economist, Sarah Cunningham. In his analysis, Knoder compared the earnings gaps between racial groups and educational groups and found them comparable. The variation in earnings by race, he wrote, is as stark as the variation by education. -- Mike Rogoway | mrogoway@oregonian.com | twitter: @rogoway | 503-294-7699 Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories. Mukesh Ranjan By RANCHI: Schools, which were merged in the last five years by BJP-led Raghubar Das Government, will soon be re-opened by the newly-elected Hemant Soren government. School Education and Literacy Minister Jagarnath Mahto said that the process for the same will be started soon after a review. Notably, more than 6,000 primary and middle schools so far have been merged in the past two academic sessions - around 1,400 in 2016-7 and around 4,600 in 2017-18. Officials claimed the merger was a part of a process of re-organisation of schools being done as per the guidelines issued by the Niti Ayog in order to optimise the resources in schools. However, people were unhappy and had been protesting against the move. There was so much resentment among the people against this move that all the 12 BJP Lok Sabha MPs of Jharkhand, including two the then Union ministers of state - Jayant Sinha and Sudarshan Bhagat - had jointly written to the chief minister, requesting to keep the move in abeyance at least for a year. As they feared that the move maydamage partys image as well as their electoral prospects. Those schools which are located in remote distant areas which were merged with other schools due to which children have to face problem in reaching to their schools, will definitely be re-opened, said the newly elected School Education and Literacy Minister Jagarnath Mahto. Merger of schools has largely hindered primary education of poor children, he added. Ex-Minister for School Education and Literacy Neera Yadav, however, said that merger was done to such schools which had very few students, so that quality of education could be maintained. The population inside Midland County was estimated at 173,576 in 2017, and it was thought that Hispanics would make up 52 percent of the population in 2020. That is what the U.S. Census Bureau is estimating this census year, said bureau senior partnership specialist Charlene Romero McBride. I think that is 20,000 short, McBride said of the total population. She told the Midland Republican National Hispanic Assembly last week that she expects Hispanics will make up 58 percent of the population. McBride, who is involved in the effort to count population in 13 counties in West Texas, said the No. 1 goal is to ensure an accurate count, no matter the population or demography outcome. Where you live, 51 percent of the time is where you are counted, McBride said. Last year, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated Midlands growth from 2010-18 was 25.9 percent. That ranked Midlands metropolitan area as the fourth fastest-growing community in the nation. McBride told those in attendance that the U.S. Constitution requires the counting of every resident and that the census matters because it is used in the drawing of congressional and state legislative districts; in the distribution of $675 billion annually; and in the planning for government, businesses and nonprofits. McBride said that for the first time, residents will be able to use the internet to participate in the once-a-decade count. Online is one of four ways to respond, she said. The other are by phone, by mail and in person. More Information Jobs are available in the 2020 census collection process. Applicants must be at least 18. Salary is up to $24.50 an hour and mileage is paid at a rate of 58 cents a mile. To apply, go to 2020census.gov/jobs. See More Collapse She also said that an educational campaign is underway to change the mindset of those who might not want to participate in the census process. She said a study of barriers, attitudes and motivators showed there were issues with apathy and efficacy, privacy concerns, fear of repercussions, distrust in government; few perceived personal benefits. She said the process has been slimmed down to nine questions and information is kept confidential. The Census Bureau states it will never even share a respondents personal information with other government agencies, and wrongful disclosure can result in prison time and/or a fine. We are not talking about taking people away from our communities, McBride said. The census process is set to move from its promotion phase to its motivation/action phase also described as a call to action for residents to respond. The motivation/action phase is expected to last from February through June. In March, the self-response part of the collection process will start. Non-response follow-ups will begin in May. The data collection is expected to be completed in August, according to the Census Bureau. Midland County demographics 2010 population: 138,872 2017 estimated population: 173,576 2010 Hispanic population: 45.3 percent 2020 Hispanic population estimate: 52 percent Source: U.S. Census Bureau Did you know? The first census started in 1790. It took 2 years to complete, and U.S. Marshals conducted the count, according to Charlene Romero McBride, senior partnership specialist for the Census Bureau. San Francisco Fire Department crews are at the scene of a 1-alarm fire in Visitacion Valley that started late Saturday night, according to fire officials. The blaze was reported before 11:30 p.m. in the 3300 block of San Bruno Avenue, firefighters with San Francisco Firefighters Local 798 said. An unsuccessful bid for a state senate seat in 2016, ended Trey Martinez 16-year tenure in the Texas House. Martinez took with him considerable amounts of savvy and knowledge. The Bexar County delegation also lost a fighter with strong instincts about when to compromise. In 2018, he regained his old seat in House District 116 and during the 86th legislative session demonstrated he hadnt lost a step. That is why we recommend Trey Martinez Fischer in the Democratic primary. For Republican voters, we recommend Fernando Padron, who once worked for Bexar County and has his own business. The 49-year-old Fischer, an attorney who grew up on San Antonios South Side, is now the dean of the San Antonio delegation and one of the most respected members of the Legislature. A ferocious debater when using his mastery of parliamentary procedure to stop or slow down controversial bills, Fischer has sometimes been labeled a firebrand. But hes a thoughtful legislator whos knowledgeable about the states most important issues and possesses a strong command of the legislation addressing those issues. Hes also shown an ability to count votes and build the coalitions needed to amass those votes. Besides dealing with the biennial issues of taxes, school finance, health care, guns among just a few, next years legislative session will also include redistricting, a new Speaker and, a possibility Democrats will take control of the House. Legislators with the experience and talents of Fischer will be needed for what could be a historic session. His 28-year-old Democratic primary opponent, Evan Bohl, has an admirable passion for public service but lacks the experience and fluency with issues needed to advocate and legislate for the best interests of the district and state. Padron, who faces fellow Republican Robert Litoff, has an interesting personal story having immigrated to the United States from Cuba as a child, and he reflects a strong grasp of state and local issues. He has supported dedicating state resources to the border, is an advocate for lowering taxes and would like to increase education spending, including for vouchers. If Fischer and Padron make the general election, it would be a rematch. In 2018, Fischer won with about 70 percent of a vote. A series of terror attacks has brought horror to the streets of Britain in recent years. The latest saw the death of a man who was shot by armed police officers in Streatham, south London, on Sunday, with the Metropolitan Police declaring it as a terrorist-related incident. Here are some of the major domestic incidents in recent years: May 22 2013: Fusilier Lee Rigby died as a result of multiple cut and stab wounds after being attacked in Woolwich, south-east London, by extremists Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale. Adebolajo was given a whole-life term and Adebowale was jailed for a minimum of 45 years. June 16 2016: Labour MP Jo Cox was stabbed 15 times and shot three times outside her constituency surgery in Birstall, near Leeds, a week before the EU referendum. Neo-Nazi Thomas Mair, who shouted Britain first in the attack, was given a whole life sentence for the murder. Expand Close Labour MP Jo Cox was killed by neo-Nazi terrorist Thomas Mair (Jo Cox Foundation/PA) PA Media / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Labour MP Jo Cox was killed by neo-Nazi terrorist Thomas Mair (Jo Cox Foundation/PA) March 22 2017: Kent-born Khalid Masood, 52, was shot dead by police after he drove a rental car into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge before fatally stabbing Pc Keith Palmer, 48, in the Palace of Westminsters forecourt. US tourist Kurt Cochran, Romanian tourist Andreea Cristea, and Britons Aysha Frade and Leslie Rhodes were also killed. May 22 2017: Around 10.30pm British-born Salman Abedi, 22, walked into the foyer of Manchester Arena as crowds streamed out of an Ariana Grande concert and detonated a device packed with shrapnel, killing 22 people, including children. June 3 2017: A white van hit pedestrians on London Bridge before three men got out of the vehicle and began stabbing people in nearby Borough Market, leaving eight people dead and 48 injured. Khuram Butt, Rachid Redouane and Youssef Zaghba were shot dead by police minutes later. June 19 2017: A group of Muslim worshippers were hit after a van slammed into them near Finsbury Park Mosque, north London, after many of them had attended evening prayers during the holy month of Ramadan. One person died. Darren Osborne was jailed for at least 43 years after being found guilty of murder and attempted murder. Expand Close Darren Osborne, 48, of Glyn Rhosyn in Cardiff, was found guilty of murder and attempted murder (Met Police/PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Darren Osborne, 48, of Glyn Rhosyn in Cardiff, was found guilty of murder and attempted murder (Met Police/PA) September 15 2017: Ahmed Hassans homemade bomb partially exploded on a London Underground rush hour train at Parsons Green, injuring more than 50 people. He was sentenced to life with a minimum jail term of 34 years. November 29 2019: Jack Merrit, 25, and Saskia Jones, 23, were stabbed to death by Usman Khan, 28, at a prisoner rehabilitation event. A man and two women were also injured before Khan, who was released from prison on licence in December 2018, was shot dead by armed officers on London Bridge. Karnataka Cabinet expansion to take place on February 6; 13 new MLAs to take oath India oi-Madhuri Adnal Bengaluru, Feb 02: The cabinet expansion of the Yediyurappa-led BJP government in Karnataka will take place on February 6. with 13 MLAs taking oath of office. "The cabinet expansion will take place on February 6 with the oath-taking ceremony at the Raj Bhavan at 10.30 AM," he told reporters. Thirteen MLAs, including 10 who had joined BJP from parties, including Congress and the JD(S), will take oath, he said. The cabinet expansion is on the cards for nearly two months ever since the BJP won the maximum number of seats in the December 5 2019 bypolls and got a majority in the Karnataka assembly. Currently there are 18 ministers, including the Chief Minister in the cabinet that has a sanctioned strength of 34. Sixteen berths are still vacant. Last year, the then assembly speaker had disqualified 17 Congress and JD(S) legislators after they revolted against the coalition government leading to its fall on July 13. Cabinet expansion: Karnataka CM BSY in Delhi for go-ahead Of them, 13 had contested the bypolls held for 15 assembly seats and barring A H Vishwanath (Hunsur) and M T B Nagaraj (Hoskote) all others emerged triumphant as BJP candidates. Opposition parties have been targeting the BJP and Yediyurappa over the delay in the cabinet expansion, alleging he was weak and that his administration had collapsed. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A Staten Island author is hosting a book signing scheduled for Sunday, Feb. 9, at The Richmond in Stapleton. Elen Krut, a long-time Staten Island resident and attorney practicing family law, is holding a signing for her book, Summer on a Poultry Farm," at the restaurant from 2 to 5 p.m. According to Krut, the book has an overall theme of being Staten Island made." She said its inspiration fiction -- inspired by true events that took place on Staten Island from the Memorial through Labor Day weekends. The book has been gaining consistent five-star reviews on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, and shes hoping she can spread the message further to help people apply the blue bird philosophy and help stop fears and uncertainty. The book is published by Boulevard Books and contains 208 pages. My book was inspired by a chain of events that took place in my life during the course of last summer," Krut previously told SILive.com. "As a newly admitted attorney, I was traveling through the journey filled with challenges, rejection, and uncertainty, and I kept noticing just how many people are faced with similar issues on a daily basis. Fears and doubts dont discriminate between social and economical statuses, education, or profession and equally target all. The event is public and open to all. You can view the book available here, https://www.amazon.com/Summer-Poultry-Farm-Elen-Krut/dp/1942500580/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=elen+krut&qid=1580655520&sr=8-1#customerReviews. Krut graduated with honors from the Elizabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University and was admitted to practice in New York in 2017. Prior to law school, she graduated with a masters degree in industrial and organizational psychology and a bachelors degree in psychology from Brooklyn College in 2008. FOLLOW ANNALISE KNUDSON ON FACEBOOK AND TWITTER. Three years ago, Paxinosa Elementary School got a big makeover. The schools wires, pipes and ducts were upgraded. But it took a few additional years to address the schools climate. Teachers union President Kevin Deely called on the Easton Area School Board to send help to teachers who were assaulted by students in early 2017. About half of the 52 Paxinosa teachers asked for a transfer prior to the start of the 2017-18 school year. Many of them got their wish. Now in 2020, the tide has turned. Last year there were only two requests to leave, said Principal Elise Jones. Elise Jones is the principal at Paxinosa Elementary School.Rudy Miller | For lehighvalleylive.com She called on parents, neighbors and teachers for a collaborative approach to address student misbehavior and job-related stress for the school in Eastons most disadvantaged area. New programs for kids, families and teachers have helped considerably. Paxinosa Elementary is certainly a success story, Deely said Thursday. The staff is incredibly dedicated to meeting the needs of the students in their charge and they go above and beyond on a daily basis to support one another as well. Jones took over as principal in 2017. She arrived to a school that underwent a $17 million renovation. She wanted a fresh outlook at the school to go along with the fresh paint. So she surveyed the community, the parents and teachers to see what the school could do better. The biggest challenge was boosting morale. Responses from her surveys led to healthy staff, happy staff initiatives. Jones found that teachers who work in schools with high transiency rates and with child victims of trauma are subject to higher stress than teachers in other schools. Now Paxinosa has a just press pause room for employees. There are dim lights, plants, recliners and an opportunity to quickly recharge. Teachers can get relief from stress in the "Just Press Pause" room at Paxinosa Elementary School in Easton.Rudy Miller | For lehighvalleylive.com Teachers suggested afterschool Zumba, yoga classes and nutrition classes. More than half of the teachers participate in at least one of of the healthy staff initiatives. Theres a staff advisory committee that meets monthly and shares ideas through an online document. About 10 to 15 staffers run staff development sessions for their peers. Part of changing the culture is giving voices to those who feel overwhelmed or disenfranchised. I believe doing things to make people happy will translate into school success for us, Jones said. The school is doing a better job communicating with families. Messages go out in Spanish as well as English so every family is engaged. The school has added bilingual staff. A group of parents called the Paxinosa Ambassadors has brought new ideas, such as lunch with a parent day once a month. About 80 to 100 parents typically participate. Theres heavy participation in afterschool and holiday events. Candis Swanson brings her fourth-grade son and fifth-grade daughter to most of the events, such as Cookies with Santa. She keeps up to date on their homework with the class dojo app. If anything, Jones wants teachers and administrators to overcommunicate with parents. I love the school, Swanson said. I have no complaints whatsoever. They have been awesome. The nonprofit Communities in Schools organization deserves credit for setting up programs for Paxinosas children and its families. Community School Coordinator Jeanine Stanilious has bulked up community programs since her arrival in January 2018. A room in the auxiliary gym is set aside for parent use. It hosts parent support and financial education classes. This space in the auxiliary gym is set aside for parents in Paxinosa Elementary School in Easton.Rudy Miller | For lehighvalleylive.com Next to the parent room is a clothes closet and food pantry for families in need. Children cant learn without these essentials. The school has teamed up with business sponsors and community members to keep these areas stocked. The food pantry is stocked for families who need it at Paxinosa Elementary School.Rudy Miller | For lehighvalleylive.com The school has helped kids by adding staff and reducing class size. Children are taught strategies to minimize class disruptions. Children who act out arent sent to the principal. They go to the calm corner. Each classroom has a bean bag chair with fidget toys to help children settle down. That gets them back into class sooner so they can keep learning. Since these initiatives went into place the suspension rate is down, Paxinosas discipline referrals are down and the attendance rate is up. Jones said the most recent test scores showed 87% of Paxinosas kindergarteners are learning at their grade level, a dramatic improvement decades in the making. Weve never seen data that good, Jones said. Were able to do that because the teachers are working hard to engage the students. It all starts with involving stakeholders in the process for improving the school, Jones said. We dont spend a lot of time talking about problems, Jones said. We spend time talking about solutions. Rudy Miller may be reached at rmiller@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @RudyMillerLV. Find Easton area news on Facebook. Chinas death toll from a new virus increased to 304 on Sunday amid warnings from the World Health Organization that other countries need to prepare in the event the disease spreads among their populations Beijing: Chinas death toll from a new virus increased to 304 on Sunday amid warnings from the World Health Organization that other countries need to prepare in the event the disease spreads among their populations as more nations report local infections. Meanwhile, six officials in the city of Huanggang, neighboring the epicenter of Wuhan in Hubei province, have been fired over poor performance" in handling the outbreak, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. It cited the mayor as saying the city's capabilities to treat the patients remained inadequate and there is a severe shortage in medical supplies such as protective suits and medical masks." Figures from the National Health Commission showed an increase of 45 in the death toll and 2,590 in the number of cases for a total of 14,380, well above the number of those infected in in the 2002-03 outbreak of SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, which broke out in southern China before spreading worldwide. With the outbreak showing little sign of abating, authorities in Hubei and elsewhere have extended the Lunar New Year holiday, due to end this week, well into February. The annual travel crunch of millions of people returning from their hometowns to the cities is thought to pose a major threat of secondary infection at a time when authorities are encouraging people to avoid public gatherings. All Hubei schools will postpone the opening of the new semester until further notice and students from elsewhere who visited over the holiday will also be excused from classes. Far away on China's southeast coast, the manufacturing hub of Wenzhou put off the opening of government offices until 9 February, private businesses until 17 February and schools until 1 March. With nearly 10 million people, Wenzhou has reported 241 confirmed cases of the virus, accounting for one of the highest levels outside Hubei. Similar measures have been announced in the provinces and cities of Heilongjiang, Shandong, Guizhou, Hebei and Hunan, while the major cities of Shanghai and Beijing were on indefinite leave pending developments. Despite imposing drastic travel restrictions at home, China has chafed at those imposed by foreign governments, criticising Washingtons order barring entry to most non-citizens who visited China in the past two weeks. Apart from dinging China's international reputation, such steps could worsen a domestic economic already growing at its lowest rate in decades. The crisis is just the latest to confront Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who has been beset by months of anti-government protests in the semi-autonomous Chinese city of Hong Kong, the reelection of Taiwan's pro-independence president and criticism over human rights violations in the traditionally Muslim northwestern territory of Xinjiang. Economically, Xi faces lagging demand and dramatically slower growth at home while the tariff war with the U.S. remains largely unresolved. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced similar travel measures Saturday, following Japan and Singapore. South Korea and India flew hundreds of their citizens out of Wuhan, the city at the center of an area where some 50 million people are prevented from leaving in a sweeping anti-virus effort. The evacuees went into a two-week quarantine. Indonesia also sent a plane. On Sunday, South Korea reported three more cases for a total of 15. They include an evacuee, a Chinese relative of a man who tested positive and a man who returned from Wuhan. The virus rapid spread in two months prompted the World Health Organization on Thursday to declare it a global emergency. That declaration flipped the switch from a cautious attitude to recommending governments prepare for the possibility the virus might spread, said the WHO representative in Beijing, Gauden Galea. Most cases reported so far have been people who visited China or their family members. The agency acted out of concern for poorer countries that might not be equipped to respond, said Galea. Such a declaration calls for a coordinated international response and can bring more money and resources. WHO said it was especially concerned that some cases abroad involved human-to-human transmission. Countries need to get ready for possible importation in order to identify cases as early as possible and in order to be ready for a domestic outbreak control, if that happens, Galea told The Associated Press. Australia, Germany, Japan, South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, the United States and Vietnam all reported new cases Saturday. Spain confirmed its first case a German man who had close contact with an infected person in Germany and then traveled to the Canary Islands with friends. Four friends who were hospitalized with him have not shown symptoms. Both the new virus and SARS are from the coronavirus family, which also includes those that cause the common cold. The death rate in China is falling, but the number of confirmed cases will keep growing because thousands of specimens from suspected cases have yet to be tested, Galea said. The case fatality ratio is settling out at a much lower level than we were reporting three, now four, weeks ago, he said. Although scientists expect to see limited transmission of the virus between people with family or other close contact, they are concerned about cases of infection spreading to people who might have less exposure. President of Maldives Ibrahim Mohamed Solih expressed his gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar for evacuating seven Maldivians from the epicentre of Coronavirus outbreak the Chinese city of Wuhan. Following the return of 323 Indian nationals and 7 Maldives nationals from Wuhan to Delhi on the second Air India flight on February 2, Solih took to Twitter and described the gesture as a "fine example of the outstanding friendship" between the two countries. My thanks and gratitude to PM @narendramodi, EM @DrSJaishankar and the Government of India for expeditiously evacuating the 7 Maldivians residing in Wuhan, China. This gesture is a fine example of the outstanding friendship and camaraderie between our two countries. https://t.co/2kdWLmYqft Ibrahim Mohamed Solih (@ibusolih) February 2, 2020 Furthermore, the Maldivian President also thanked the Chinese government along with China's ambassador to the Maldives, Zhang Lizhong for their 'support and assistance' amid the deadly outbreak. Coronavirus has already claimed more than 300 lives with nearly 14,000 confirmed cases in China. Following the evacuation of Maldivians living in Wuhan, China, Id like to take this opportunity to thank @AmbassadorZhang, and the Chinese government for their assistance and support to Maldivians living in China following the outbreak of the novelCorona virus. Ibrahim Mohamed Solih (@ibusolih) February 2, 2020 Read - Chinese FM Shifts Media Briefings Online As Coronavirus Death Toll Crosses 300 Maldivian FM thanks India Earlier, Maldivian Foreign Minister Abdulla Shahid had also thanked India and its leadership for evacuating Maldivians. Shahid not only expressed his gratitude to PM Modi and the MEA but also appreciated the efforts of India's envoy to China Vikram Misri and to the Maldives Sunjay Sudhir. He also thanked Chinese authorities for their assistance. Grateful to @MFA_China, @AmbassadorZhang and local authorities in #Hubei for the assistance. A very special thanks to our Ambassador in China Ms Azeema and Ambassador in Delhi @aishamdidi and their team. Thank everyone at @MoFAmv for the hard work. Abdulla Shahid (@abdulla_shahid) February 2, 2020 Read - China Reports H5N1 Bird Flu Outbreak In Hunan Amid Coronavirus Spread As per the statement of the Health Ministry, travel advisories have been sent to adjoining countries including China to spread information about the disease globally. The screening of passengers with travel history from China which was earlier being carried out only on seven airports has been extended to 13 more, taking the total to 20. According to the press release by the government, the authorities have been using thermal scanners for faster screening. Read - Chinese Central Bank Injects $173 Billion Into Economy Amidst Coronavirus Outbreak Read - IIT Research Used To Claim Rumours Of Coronavirus Being A 'bioweapon' - The coronavirus has continued to spread and this prompted the United States to take action - America announced a public health emergency, temporarily banning foreigners who had recently traveled to China - US citizens will also be affected, with mandatory 14-day quarantines implemented PAY ATTENTION: Read the best news on Ghana #1 news app. Install our latest app for Android and read the best news about Ghana The United States has clamped down amid the coronavirus panic and taken some drastic actions to prevent any further outspread. In a White House briefing, it was announced that a public health emergency and temporary travel ban would be put into place. Foreign nationals who had recently been to China would be barred from entering the country. American citizens returning from the province where the disease is suspected of originating would be placed under a mandatory 14-day quarantine. READ ALSO: Photo of well-built, handsome Barrack Obama leaves women thirsting like lovestruck teens Health Secretary Alex Azar commented on the situation, announcing the new measures would come into effect from Sunday: "I have today declared that the coronavirus presents a public health emergency in the United States. Foreign nationals, other than immediate family of US citizens and permanent residents, who have traveled in China within the last 14 days will be denied entry into the United States for this time." YEN reported that the World Health Organization had already declared the outbreak a global emergency, with the current death toll in China rising to 259, with 12 000 total infections noted. In response to the epidemic, three major US airlines, American, Delta and United all confirmed that they would soon be suspending all flights to China. Centre of Disease Control official Nancy Messonnier urged the public not to be guided by fear, encouraging the normal precautions for viruses: "We do not currently recommend the use of facemasks for the general American public. This virus is not spreading in your communities. Please do not assume that just because someone is of Asian descent that they have this new coronavirus." READ ALSO: Brexit: UK officially leaves European Union How convenient is it to use the new GHC 200 note at the market? | #Yencomgh READ ALSO: Zimbabwe turns to U.A.E to help save its economy after being ignored by China and the West Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish on YEN.com.gh? Please contact us on Facebook or Instagram now! Source: YEN.com.gh The second Air India special flight carrying 323 Indians and seven Maldivians evacuated from China's Wuhan, landed in New Delhi on Sunday morning, bringing the total number of Indians evacuated from the coronavirus-hit city to 647. The special Air India flight took off from Wuhan at 3:10 am (IST) on Sunday. In a tweet earlier today, Maldives Foreign Minister Abdulla Shahid expressed his gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar for the evacuation of Maldivians from Wuhan - the epicenter of the new strain of coronavirus. Shahid added that all seven passengers will be housed in Delhi for a quarantine period. "Seven Maldivians in Wuhan are on their way to Delhi on a special Air India flight. Upon arrival, they will be housed in Delhi for a period of quarantine. Deep gratitude to PM Narendra Modi and EM Dr. S Jaishankar. Special thanks to Ambassadors Vikram Misri and Sunjay Sudhir and their teams," Shahid tweeted. The flight carrying the first batch of Indians had landed at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi on Saturday. Of the 324 passengers, three were minors and 211 were students. The virus originated in Wuhan in December last year and has since then spread to various cities around the world. Several countries including India have sped up the evacuation process after the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the coronavirus outbreak as a global health crisis. Pianist George Winston has regularly performed in Flagstaff since the late 1990s. About 14 years after the release of his fourth solo piano album and highest-selling record to date, Winston performed at Ardrey Memorial Auditorium on the Northern Arizona University campus. In volume two, issue three of Flagstaff Live!, which ran Feb. 1 through Feb. 14, 1996, Cree Clover spoke with Winston about his life as a composer ahead of this performance. In the original article, Winston revealed he was about 22 or 23 when he made up his first tune. Now with more than 40 years of experience and 15 million albums sold, Winston is returning to Flagstaff once again. He will perform at the Coconino Center for the Arts, 2300 N. Fort Valley Road, on Thursday, February 6, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $45, $55 or $65 depending on the section. Visit www.flagartscouncil.org for more information Winston grew up mainly in Montana, and spent his later formative years in Mississippi and Florida. Inspired by R&B, jazz, blues and rock (especially The Doors), Winston began playing organ in 1967. In 1971 he switched to the piano after hearing recordings from the 1920s and the 1930s by the legendary stride pianists Thomas Fats Waller and Teddy Wilson. Winston plays nearly 100 concerts annually, bringing his evocative music to fans worldwide as solace in a chaotic world. He released his 15th solo piano album, Restless Wind, on Dancing Cat Records/RCA Records in 2019. I never consciously try to compose something. I might just have something, a fragment on the piano, and then create another fragment, he said in the 1996 Flag Live! interview. Once or twice a year I come up with something. Not real often, but my main thing is learning tunes I like, and arranging them. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Source: Xinhua| 2020-02-01 23:22:17|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close Staff members of a Chinese express company hold messages cheering up for China in front of medical supplies donated to China in Helsinki, Finland, Jan. 31, 2020. Overseas Chinese have responded earnestly to the novel coronavirus outbreak in China as the number of infected cases continues to rise. (Photo by Tong Shuai/Xinhua) CHANGSHA, Feb. 1 (Xinhua) -- Overseas Chinese have responded earnestly to the novel coronavirus outbreak in China as the number of infected cases continues to rise. Chinese health authorities announced Saturday that 11,791 confirmed cases of novel coronavirus infection had been reported in 31 provincial-level regions and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps by the end of Friday. As the outbreak of the disease has led to a rising demand for medical supplies, overseas Chinese have organized large donations for those in urgent need back home. On Jan. 28, the Hunan Provincial Federation of Industry and Commerce launched an initiative to overseas commerce chambers and business owners, calling for joint efforts against the epidemic. The initiative saw donations coming in batches from overseas Chinese business owners thanks to the help of the chambers. Chinese betel nut retailer Kouweiwang Group based in the United Arab Emirates was one of the first donors. The company has provided 93,000 medical masks, over 90,000 protective suits and over 3,000 pairs of goggles. Meanwhile, thousands of protective suits and medical masks have been shipped to China by business owners including Liu Chunying with the Hunan Chamber of Commerce in Thailand. More donation activities are being held in Bangladesh and Uganda. "We have bought 16,200 medical suits and the resources packed in 2,700 cases will be shipped to China as soon as possible," said Fan Xiaofang, chairperson of the Hunan Fellowship Association of Florida. Fan expects a timely delivery of the protective gear to the frontline. "I'm deeply worried about the rising number of infected people in my hometown Hunan, and I'm willing to make my due contribution," said Yin Hongxia, an overseas consultant to the Hunan Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and vice chairwoman of the Panama Chinese Federation. There are more than 300,000 Chinese in Panama and almost every Chinese is trying to help find supplies to overcome the epidemic, Yin said. Hunan Province, which borders Hubei that administers the hard-hit city of Wuhan, has become a favorable transport hub for the delivery of supplies from overseas Chinese since the airport in Wuhan has been closed for epidemic control and prevention. The customs in Changsha has streamlined the process for the delivery of relief supplies, set up a hotline and offered guidance for customs clearance. As of Jan. 31, over 6.34 million yuan (about 914,000 U.S. dollars) had been donated by overseas Chinese and people from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan through the efforts of Hunan authorities. A total of 68,518 protective suits, 38,765 masks, 87,718 pairs of medical gloves and 3,820 units of medical alcohol have also been donated. The Department of Homeland Security is enforcing restrictions for all passenger flights to the United States carrying people who recently traveled to China beginning Sunday night. The restrictions will begin after 5 p.m. Sunday and will send all United States citizens who have traveled to China within the past two weeks of their arrival to 11 designated airports. Boston Logan International Airport is not on the list of designated airports. DHS first announced the restrictions Sunday afternoon, naming seven designated airports. The agency announced that four more designated airports will be added as of 6:30 p.m. Monday. Each airport on the list has enhanced public health resources in order to implement enhanced screening procedures, DHS said. U.S. citizens returning from China will be rerouted to the following airports at no cost: John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), New York Chicago OHare International Airport (ORD), Illinois San Francisco International Airport (SFO), California Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA), Washington Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL), Hawaii Los Angeles International Airport, (LAX), California Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL), Georgia Washington-Dulles International Airport (IAD), Virginia Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR), New Jersey Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW), Texas Detroit Metropolitan Airport (DTW), Michigan The measure comes as Massachusetts saw its first case of coronavirus. As of Sunday, there were roughly 14,500 confirmed cases of coronavirus in China and eight cases in the United States. Additionally, U.S. citizens who have been in the Hubei province within 14 days of their return will be subject to up to 14 days of mandatory quarantine to ensure they are provided proper medical care and health screening, according to DHS. The U.S. citizens who have been in other areas of mainland China with 14 days of their return will undergo proactive entry health screenings and may see up to 14 days of self-quarantine with health monitoring to ensure they have not contracted the virus and do not pose a public health risk. Foreign nationals who have traveled to China in the past two weeks and are not immediate family members of U.S. citizens or permanent residents will be denied entry into the U.S. While the overall risk to the American public remains low, funneling all flights with passengers who have recently been in China is the most important and prudent step we can take at this time to decrease the strain on public health officials screening incoming travelers. These steps will also expedite the processing of U.S. citizens returning from China, and ensure resources are focused on the health and safety of the American people, said DHS Acting Secretary Chad F. Wolf. We realize this could provide added stress and prolong travel times for some individuals, however public health and security experts agree these measures are necessary to contain the virus and protect the American people. DHS and the Transportation Security Administration coordinated with air carriers and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to designate the seven U.S. airports. According to DHS, if a traveler who spent time in China outside the Hubei province is re-routed through one of the seven airports and shows no symptoms following a health screening, they will be re-booked to their destination and asked to self-quarantine at their homes. In Massachusetts, public health officials said the risk to people here remains low. The UMass Boston student with coronavirus, who is in his 20s, returned to the U.S. earlier this week after traveling to Wuhan, China, where the outbreak of the respiratory infection began. The student arrived at Boston Logan International Airport on Tuesday, recognized he was ill and sought medical attention Wednesday. For more information about coronavirus visit the CDCs website. Related Content: Leo Varadkar has urged the British government to tone down nationalist rhetoric over Brexit, and branded Dominic Raabs memo to UK diplomats to sit separately from their EU counterparts as petty. The Irish premier also warned Boris Johnson not to set out rigid red lines that could hinder the ability to negotiate a trade agreement, after No 10 insisted there would be no alignment or concessions in the talks. His intervention came just minutes after Mr Raab, the foreign secretary, insisted Mr Varadkar should refrain from interfering in UK politics as tensions escalated over the imminent trade negotiations. Speaking on the BBCs Andrew Marr Show, Mr Varadkar said: I think looking at your papers today, I would just really have one reflection. Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Show all 37 1 /37 Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Pro-Brexit supporters celebrating in Parliament Square, after the UK left the European Union on 31 January. Ending 47 years of membership PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Big Ben, shows the hands at eleven o'clock at night AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Pro Brexit supporters attend the Brexit Day Celebration Party hosted by Leave Means Leave Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage smiles on stage AFP/Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square People celebrate in Parliament Square Reuters Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square A Brexit supporter celebrates during a rally in Parliament square AP Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Police form a line at Parliament Square to prevent a small group of anti-Brexit protestors from going through to the main Brexit rally PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Nigel Farage speaks to pro-Brexit supporters PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square JD Wetherspoon Chairman Tim Martin speaks as people wave flags Reuters Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit supporters wave Union flags as they watch the big screen AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit Party leader, Nigel Farage arrives Reuters Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit supporters gather AP Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Ann Widdecombe speaks to pro-Brexit supporters PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit supporters wave Union flags as they watch the big screen AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square People wave British Union Jack flags as they celebrate Reuters Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Pro-Brexit demonstrators celebrate on Parliament Square on Brexit day Reuters Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square A pro-Brexit supporter jumps on an EU flag PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square AP Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square A man waves Union flags from a small car as he drives past Brexit supporters gathering AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square A pro-Brexit supporter pours beer onto an EU flag PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square An EU flag lies trampled in the mud Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square AFP via Getty I think we all learned a lot, certainly Ive learned a lot from, the past two and a half years dealing with Brexit and dealing with two different British prime ministers. One thing Id say to everyone is lets not repeat some of the errors that were made in the past two and a half years, lets not set such rigid red lines that it makes it hard to come to an agreement and lets tone down the kind of nationalistic rhetoric. As is always the case when it comes to negotiations, setting out so boldly such firm red lines actually makes coming to an agreement more difficult, because the other party you are negotiating with doesnt feel they got a fair deal unless those red lines get turned pink or bent in some way. Mr Raab was also pressed over his orders to diplomats following the UK ending its membership of the EU on Friday to sit separately from their counterparts in Brussels. In a telegram sent to UK missions, Mr Raab told diplomats to abandon attempts to seek residual influence with EU countries and adopt a stance as a confident independent country instead. The Irish premier said in response: I think it just comes across as being a little bit petty. Its kind of when youre in primary school or in secondary school that you get worried about who you sit beside in class. Most international forums that Ive attended, whether its UN or other international bodies, you tend to be seated either in alphabetical order or according to protocol. So I dont really know what thats about but it seems that seems a bit silly, surely everyone should be trying to work with everyone? But referencing the Irish elections, Mr Raab told Sky News programme Sophy Ridge on Sunday: I think Leo Varadkar is in the midst of, shall I say, very competitive election in Ireland and Im not going to interfere in Irish politics and Id probably suggest he wants to refrain from doing the same. Shadow chancellor John McDonnell also branded No 10s approach to future EU relations sabre-rattling, telling the BBC: Well its a bit puerile, this thing about where ambassadors sit, absolutely puerile. Fayez al-Sarraj, Prime Minister of Government of National Accord of Libya, speaks onstage during the 2019 Concordia Annual Summit at Grand Hyatt New York in New York City on Sept. 23, 2019. Riccardo Savi/Getty Images for Concordia Summit Libya and Turkey and the Jostle for Power in the Middle East Commentary Turkey recently signed an agreement with the U.N.-recognized government (Government of National Accord, GNA) in Libya. The GNA government has steadily lost ground in the ongoing civil war and is now largely isolated in the capital city of Tripoli and one other smaller city. Its probable that they will soon be completely defeated by forces led by Field Marshal Khalifa Belqasim Haftar, who is a dual U.S./Libyan citizen and supported by Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Russia. This agreement is unusual for a number of reasons. First, the cooperation between the GNA and Turkey includes badly needed military and logistical support in exchange for the formation of Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) between Libya and Turkey in the Eastern Mediterranean. This is an extremely aggressive tactic that provides not only material support for the hard-pressed GNA but also fighters. These fighters are proxy forces, which are mostly composed of Syrians who are former al Qaeda affiliates. This is risky for the security and stability of the region and could have negative implications for Europe and even the United States. Even more provocative, the EEZ creates an exclusive economic zone from Turkeys southern Mediterranean shore to Libyas northeast coast. This essentially cuts through the middle of Greek and Greek Cypriot waters and provides a flimsy excuse for Turkey to launch exploration efforts for oil and natural gas in waters that are not theirs. Turkey lost billions of dollars worth of construction contracts when Mohamar Gaddhafi was killed and the Libyan government subsequently disintegrated. So, Turkey is trying to regain the money that it lost in Libya. Greece and Cyprus have long had maritime and territorial disputes with Turkey and state that the agreement violates the international law of the sea. They see it as a cynical resource-grab and Greece expelled Libyas ambassador to Athens and filed a complaint with the United Nations. Cyprus also raised its own objections. At a Dec. 12 summit, E.U. leaders issued a statement unequivocally siding with member states Greece and Cyprus, according to Reuters. That said, it seems likely the Turkish government will claim the agreement is valid and argue that the agreement remains valid even if the GNA government falls to Gen. Haftar, since the GNA is currently recognized by the United States and E.U. Perhaps more importantly, Turkeys operation in Libya is being run by Hakan Fidan, the head of the Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MIT). In addition, theres a large body of information that shows the extensive relationship that existed between Fidan and the recently killed commander of the Quds Force, Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, and their respective intelligence agencies. Erdogan views Libya as another strategic battleground to push back against the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia for regional supremacy. Senior Turkish officials and Erdogan supporters have openly acknowledged Erdogans desire to establish a new Ottoman empire, which historically subjugated neighboring Arabic countries. Theres mounting evidence that Turkey has established a cooperative relationship with Iran against the interests of the United States and NATO, which would stand in the way of a reconstituted Ottoman empire. For example, theres conclusive proof Turkey helped Iran avoid sanctions, to include the high standard of proof used to obtain U.S. federal court convictions. Proof surfaced in late 2018 when the U.S. Department of Justice convicted a Turkish banker for his involvement in evasion of U.S. sanctions against Iran. In the court case, it was shown that Turkish businessmen were involved in laundering billions of dollars so that the Iranian regime could avoid sanctions and support its proxies in the Middle East that targeted U.S. servicemen in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and elsewhere. According to the Department of Justice, banker Mehmet Hakan Atilla used his high rank at a Turkish bank to disguise the transactions as humanitarian food payments and deceive American officials. Iranian-Turkish businessman Reza Zarrab pleaded guilty to seven charges in relation to the sanction-evasion scheme and turned into a key witness in the case against Atilla. According to his own testimony, millions of dollars were allegedly paid in bribes to Turkish officials and ministers to facilitate the laundering of billions of dollars to evade U.S. sanctions on Iran. What is left largely unstated is that all of bribery, corruption, and funneling of money to those attacking the United States could only have taken place with close cooperation between the two governments at many levels and the full backing of their respective political leadership. This coordination process could only have taken place between the two respective intelligence agencies as well as Fidan and Soleimani personally. While we expect this out of Iran, Turkey under President Erdogan is no longer a close and reliable ally, and, worse, appears to be shaping up into a dangerous enemy. Brad Johnson is a retired CIA senior operations officer and a former chief of station. He is the president of Americans for Intelligence Reform. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Michael Bloomberg's daughter secretly married a disgraced charter school advocate in 2019. Emma, 40, is said to have quietly tied the knot with Jeremiah Kittredge, who was once the CEO of Families for Excellent Schools-Advocacy, according to the New York Post. The billionaire's eldest daughter and Kittredge, 33, have kept their wedding a secret for nearly a year. A source told the Post that the wedding was held in New York City and Rabbi Daniel Gropper of the Community Synagogue of Rye in Westchester County, officiated at the ceremony. Michael Bloomberg's daughter, Emma (far left) secretly married disgraced charter school advocate, Jeremiah Kittredge (right), in 2019 Their marriage was confirmed on Saturday as Emma's father continues to vie for the Democratic presidential nomination. In 2018, Kittredge was terminated from his CEO position following sexual harassment allegations that stemmed from an incident that occurred in November 2017. According to Politico, a woman recalled the incident on social media, which led to the investigation. At the time, the woman wrote: 'Just three weeks ago, at the single ed reform conference I attend each year, another attendee, a guy much younger than me, sticks his head in my chest, tells me my boobs are supple (seriously? Who uses that word?) and then rides up an elevator with me late at night commenting on how big my boobs are.' The post was immediately sent to members of Families for Excellent Schools' board. He was fired nearly two months later. Their marriage was confirmed on Saturday as Emma's father continues to vie for the Democratic presidential nomination. Bloomberg is seen during his inauguration as the Mayor of New York in 2002 with his daughters, Georgina (left) and Emma (center) In 2017, Families for Excellent Schools-Advocacy, a New York-based group, paid more than $425,000 to Massachusetts as part of a campaign finance settlement. The civil forfeiture by the organization was the largest in the 44-year history of the Office of Campaign and Political Finance. Investigators say the group raised more than $15million from individuals and then contributed it to the Great Schools Massachusetts Ballot Question Committee in a manner intended to disguise the true source of the money. The money represented 70 per cent of the $21.7million reported received by the charter school committee. At the time, Kittredge said the organization believed it complied with all laws. Emma was previously married to Christopher Frissora. They wed in June 2005 and never publicly announced their divorce, according to the Post. Frissora and Emma have one daughter together, Zelda. Jamia firing: Two gunmen fire shots near gate 5 of university amid Anti-CAA protest India oi-Deepika S New Delhi, Feb 03: A shot was fired at gate No. 5 of Jamia Millia Islamia University in south Delhi on Sunday night by unidentified persons. A statement issued by the Jamia Coordination Committee (JCC) said, a group comprising students and alumni of the varsity, said the attackers were on a red scooty. No one was injured in the attack. One of the miscreants was wearing a red jacket, the statement said. Police said they were verifying the JCC's claims. The incident comes a day after a 25-year-old man fired two rounds in the air at Shaheen Bagh and was later taken into custody. No one was injured in the incident. Injured Jamia student Shadab Farooq discharged from AIIMS NEWS AT NOON, FEBRUARY 3rd, 2020 Earlier, Jamia Nagar was gripped in tension after a man fired a pistol at a group of anti-CAA protesters, injuring mass communications student Farooq, before walking away while waving the firearm above his head and shouting "Yeh lo aazadi" amid heavy police presence in the area. Farooq, who received a bullet wound on his left hand, was admitted to AIIMS. No injury to blood vessels or nerves were sustained, a doctor said. The first death from the coronavirus outbreak has been reported from outside China. BBC reported that the death was recorded in the Philippines. The patient was a 44 years old Chinese man from Wuhan, in Hubei province. This was were the virus was first detected in December before spreading to other provinces in the China. Currently, all the provinces are under lockdown by the Chinese government. According to the Philippines Department of Health, the dead man had travelled to the country from Wuhan through Hong-Kong with a 38 years old woman who also tested positive to the disease. His death was confirmed shortly after the Philippines announced that it will halt the arrival of foreigners coming from China. The country has also begun a contact tracing of persons who might have been in contact with the patients since they arrived in the country. Transmission Since the beginning of the outbreak, more than 300 people have died from the disease, most of them in the Hubei province. However, this is the first death reported from the disease outside China. As at Saturday, the disease has been exported to over 24 countries, there are uncertainties of how many countries would be reporting new cases anytime soon. Many of the cases have been confirmed in the Asian region, some parts of Europe, North America and the Middle East. So far, none has been confirmed in Africa, though there have been scares and suspected cases. The US, Australia and more countries are detecting increasing numbers of cases and as such have barred people arriving from China to enter into the countries. Also, some of their citizens coming in from China are required to undergo quarantine. These countries actions, however, contravene the advice given by the UN health agency after it declared the new coronavirus outbreak as a global health threat. China Meanwhile, in China, the death toll from the coronavirus outbreak has risen to about 300. This is still expected to rise as new cases are being reported in the country. According to the Chinese government on Saturday, at least 304 people have died and 14,380 people have been infected across the country. A newsletter on the status of the disease released by Chinas National Health Commission, shows that about 243 who had recovered from the disease have been discharged from the hospital. Most of the deaths have been recorded from the Chinese mainland. As at Friday 136,987 close contacts of confirmed cases had been tracked, and among them, 118,478 are under medical observation while 6,509 such people were freed from observation. READ ALSO: The statement states that the number of confirmed infections in Hong Kong is 13, in Macao 7 and Taiwan province 10 making 30 in total. The statement also condemned the action taken by the US in barring Chinese citizens from entering the country. It said the Chinese people are making their best efforts to fight against the outbreak. The Chinese government has released information and shared data with the US and the rest of the international community in a timely, transparent and responsible manner. As the saying goes, a friend in need is a friend indeed. Many countries have offered China help and support through various ways. In contrast, the US comments and actions are neither based on facts, nor helpful at this particular time. While the WHO has only just specifically advised against any travel restrictions, the US has decided to act in the opposite way. This has set a bad example. It is certainly not a gesture of goodwill, it said. Heightened surveillance Due to the increasing number of confirmed cases outside China, the World Health Organisation on Thursday declared the new coronavirus as a global health threat. This means that countries should be on the alert and heighten their health security surveillance especially at points of entries. Advertisements While many people saw the announcement as a welcome decision, some people feel that the UN health agency had tarried in making the announcement. WHO Director-General, Tedros Ghebreyesus, said while the disease has attained a level of global concern, it is important not to install too much fear into people and to have them lead a normal life as good as possible in these circumstances. Osagie Ehanire, the Minister of Health Meanwhile, Nigerian government said it has raised surveillance level at five airports across the county. The Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire, also added that the government has constituted a committee which would oversee the coordination of the prevention and treatment of the disease in case it is detected in the country. He also added that Nigeria will not be restricting passengers especially from China for entering into the country unlike countries like the US, Australia and the Philippines who have placed restrictions on foreigners from China. INDIANAPOLIS, Feb. 1, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- IMG's Chief Medical Officer (Dr. Geoff Tothill, MB, BS, FRCP Edin.) shares his latest thoughts on the coronavirus below: "The spread of the novel coronavirus within China represents a continuing health emergency for that country. We continue to see cases arising in other countries. Overwhelmingly those 'exported' cases are in people who have travelled from China. There have been cases of human to human spread outside China, but it is thought that close contact is required for this to occur. Only time will tell if case numbers grow around the world and it is hoped that the extensive efforts to control spread will be effective. Despite a huge amount of media coverage, it is important to keep this outbreak in perspective. Seasonal flu remains a far more significant risk to public health and the simple measures outlined above can go a long way to reduce your chance of catching the virus." The first case of a new virus that causes respiratory disease was reported to the World Health Organization China Office on December 31st, 2019, having been detected in Wuhan City (population 19 million), Hubei Province of China. Since then, the numbers of people infected in China increased as it spread to almost every province. At the time of writing, there are 11,822 confirmed cases in mainland China and 142 in 25 other countries around the world. What is the coronavirus? The virus (scientific name 2019-nCoV) comes from a family of viruses called coronavirus. It is thought that this virus was originally prevalent in animals and jumped to humans. Coronaviruses also caused the SARS and MERS outbreaks. What are the symptoms? The symptoms are like those of an upper respiratory infection. You may have a cough, sore throat, and fever. If you are experiencing any of these symptoms, please speak with your health provider. Most infections are relatively mild but a small percentage, especially in the elderly and those with pre-existing disease, can progress to more severe disease. A public health emergency of global concern On January 30th, 2020, the World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus a public health emergency of global concern. This declaration is made under strict criteria and is 'an extraordinary event which is determined to constitute a public health risk to other states through the international spread of disease, and to potentially require a coordinated international response'. In assigning this status, consideration is given to a range of factors that include assessment of the risk to human health, risk of international spread of disease, and risk of interference with international traffic. How can I protect myself from infection? Probably the most effective protective measure is regular hand washing and both the CDC and WHO have good advice on their websites. Other protective steps include coughing into the crook of your elbow (catching your sneeze), use of alcohol gels, avoiding large public gatherings, and teleworking where possible in affected areas. Are my travel plans affected? It depends airlines in North America, Europe and Asia have suspended flights to China. Delta Airlines has suspended all flights from U.S. to China beginning February 6th April 30th. Cruise lines are also cancelling and rerouting several ships. Over 60 countries have announced immigration control for Chinese citizens entering their countries. Countries including Russia, Pakistan, and Vietnam have enacted border closings with China. The U.S. State Department has issued a level 4 travel advisory do not travel. Several other countries have issued travel advisories, but they focus on Wuhan, not the entire mainland of China. About International Medical Group (IMG) International Medical Group (IMG), a Sirius Group company, is an award-winning global insurance benefits and assistance services company that has served millions of members worldwide since its founding in 1990. A leader in the global benefits and assistance services industry, IMG offers a full line of international medical insurance products, as well as travel insurance plans, medical management services, and 24/7 emergency medical and travel assistance. For more information, please visit www.imglobal.com. SOURCE International Medical Group (IMG) Related Links http://www.imglobal.com LONDON - A man recently released from prison after serving time for terrorism-related offences strapped on a fake bomb and stabbed two people on a busy London street Sunday before being shot to death by police, officials said. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 2/2/2020 (708 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Police attend the scene after an incident in Streatham, London, Sunday Feb. 2, 2020. London police say officers shot a man during a terrorism-related incident that involved the stabbings of a number of people. (Victoria Jones/PA via AP) LONDON - A man recently released from prison after serving time for terrorism-related offences strapped on a fake bomb and stabbed two people on a busy London street Sunday before being shot to death by police, officials said. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Lucy DOrsi said police identified the attacker as 20-year-old Sudesh Amman. He had been convicted for publishing graphic terrorist videos online and had stockpiled instructions on bomb making and knife attacks, according to police. Officers had been trailing Amman at the time of Sunday's attack, D'Orsi said, but were unable to head off the bloodshed in the commercial and residential south London neighbourhood of Streatham, where Amman struck outside a major pharmacy on a busy shopping afternoon. The incident in London recalled a November stabbing attack carried out by another man who had served prison time for terrorism offence. Two were killed in that attack. Items left on the pavement near the scene of a stabbing incident in Streatham High Road, London, Sunday Feb. 2, 2020. London police say officers shot and killed a suspect in a terrorism-related stabbing incident that injured two people. The Metropolitan Police Service said the incident in south London's Streatham neighborhood on Sunday afternoon was fully contained. (Victoria Jones/PA via AP) Prime Minister Boris Johnson said measures will be introduced Monday to bring fundamental change to the way people convicted of terrorism offences are handled in prison and afterward. The suspect had been recently released from prison where he had been serving a sentence for Islamist-related terrorism offences, D'Orsi said of Sunday's attacker. It seems likely the victims will survive Sundays attack. D'Orsi said a stabbing victim in his 40s thought to be in life-threatening condition has improved. She said the victim is no longer in danger and that a woman who had been hospitalized has been released. One other female victim is still in the hospital with lesser injuries police believe were caused by flying glass after the attacker was shot dead. DOrsi said the incident started at 2 p.m. Armed officers, who were part of a proactive counterterrorism operation and were following the suspect on foot, were in immediate attendance and shot a male suspect dead at the scene, she said. Undated handout photo issued by the Metropolitan Police of Sudesh Amman. Police in London say a man who strapped on a fake bomb and stabbed two people on a London street before being shot to death by police was recently released from prison, where he was serving for terrorism offenses. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Lucy DOrsi said police are confident" the attacker was 20-year-old Sudesh Amman. (Metropolitan Police via AP) She said police saw a device strapped to the attackers body and called in specialist officers who quickly determined the purported explosive device was a hoax. Officials praised the police action but questions are likely to be raised about why the officers trailing Amman could not prevent his attack. Video from the scene appeared to show three undercover police officers in an unmarked car making a quick stop just after the attack. Bell Reberio-Addy, a member of Parliament who represents Streatham, said the attacker had been under surveillance for some time." DOrsi said there was no continuing danger to the public, but the area remained cordoned off as the investigation continued. The usually busy area was deserted as the public heeded police requests to stay away. People stand next to a sign outside a bar in Streatham London following a incident in the area on Sunday, Feb. 2, 2020. A man with a fake bomb strapped to his body stabbed two people in a "terrorism-related" attack on a London street Sunday before he was shot to death by police, authorities said.(AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali) The drama about 5 miles (8 kilometres) south of central London marked a departure from recent terror attacks in the British capital that took place near landmarks such as London Bridge and the Houses of Parliament. The attack caused chaos and panic on what had been a typical Sunday afternoon, with the streets filled wish shoppers. Karker Tahir said he was at work when he saw police chasing a man down Streatham High Road, the area's main shopping district. "They kept telling him, Stop! Stop!'' Tahir said. But he didn't stop, and then I saw that they shot him three times. It was horrible seeing it. The man was on the floor and it looked like he had something, which police said may be a device. Police came to us and said, You have to leave the shop because he has a bomb in his bag." Images shared on social media showed a man lying on the sidewalk outside a pharmacy. Police attend the scene after an incident in Streatham, London, Sunday Feb. 2, 2020. London police say officers shot a man during a terrorism-related incident that involved the stabbings of a number of people. (Victoria Jones/PA via AP) Stephen Roberts, a former deputy commissioner for the Metropolitan Police, said if the stabbings were carried out by a self-starter someone acting alone it means any city in the country is vulnerable to a similar sort of low-tech attack. In November, British authorities lowered the national terror threat level to substantial,'' meaning an attack is considered likely. That is the third-highest rung in a five-step system used by British authorities and marked the first time since August 2014 that the threat level had been so low. It was lowered because of the belief that the threat of British jihadis returning to the country from Syria had been reduced by events there, including the Islamic State group's loss of territory. It is not clear if the two attacks since then will lead the independent analysts who make recommendation to the government to suggest raising the level. London Mayor Sadiq Khan urged community resolve in the face of another attack. Want to get a head start on your day? Get the days breaking stories, weather forecast, and more sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. Terrorists seek to divide us and to destroy our way of life,'' he said. Here in London we will never let them succeed. Also Sunday, police in Belgium shot a woman who stabbed and wounded passersby in the city of Ghent, but prosecutors said there was no suspicion of terrorism or a link to what happened in London. ___ Associated Press journalist Jill Lawless contributed to this report. __ This story has been updated to show that Roberts is a former deputy police commissioner in London. Three new cases in Pune of persons suspected of being infected with the Coronavirus, were reported by the state health department on Sunday. All three have been quarantined. Currently, a total of four persons are in isolation wards in the city. All the three new suspected cases are males who had travelled to either Beijing or Shanghai, the department said. Of the three, one is a 42-year-old man who travelled to Shanghai from January 15-18. He showed symptoms of a cough and sore throat since January 20. He was admitted to Naidu hospital on February 1 at 9pm, the health department statement said. The second patient is a 30-year-old man who travelled to Beijing from December 28 to January 22. He showed symptoms of a cold, cough, and throat congestion since January 23, and was admitted to Naidu hospital on February 1 at 6.30 pm, the statement read. The third suspected patient is a 27-year-old man who travelled to Shanghai from January 5-25, and showed symptoms of a fever, sore throat and cough for the past five days. He was admitted to Naidu hospital on February 2 at 1.15 pm, read the statement. Since January 18, eight persons have been isolated at the PMCs Naidu hospital for suspected Coronavirus infection. All had returned from China. Of the eight samples sent to the National Institute of Virology (NIV), five first samples are negative. All suspected patients whose second samples return negative for the Coronavirus have been discharged, the Pune Municipal Corporation has stated. It was almost the Lunar New Year and Pan Chuntao was feeling festive. He knew there were reports of a virus in his city, Wuhan. But local officials urged calm. There was no evidence it was transmitted person to person, they said. They had not reported a new case in days. On 16 January, the 76-year-old left his two-bedroom apartment to attend a government-organised fair. We told him not to go because we saw some rumours on WeChat [the most-used Chinese messaging app] of doctors getting infected, said Mr Pans son-in-law, Zhang Siqiang. But he insisted on going. He said: The government says its not a problem, there are no cases anymore. Mr Pan and his daughter may now be among the nearly 12,000 people infected with a new strain of coronavirus an outbreak that has killed at least 259 people in China, spread to more than 20 countries, disrupted the global economy and left 55 million people in Chinas Hubei province under an unprecedented lockdown. Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Show all 154 1 /154 Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Paramedics wearing personal protective equipment carry patient on a stretcher on to an ambulance in North Point district in Hong Kong, China Getty Images Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A medical worker wearing protective gear takes a rest as he waits for ambulances carrying patients infected with the COVID-19 coronavirus at an entrance of a hospital in Daegu, South Korea YONHAP/AFP via Getty Images Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A medical worker sprays disinfectant on an ambulance after carrying a patient infected with the COVID-19 coronavirus at a hospital in Daegu YONHAP/AFP via Getty Images Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus People wearing protective face masks shop at a supermarket in Casalpusterlengo, one the northern Italian towns placed under lockdown due to the new coronavirus outbreak EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A trolley bus is disinfected amid fears over the spread of the novel coronavirus in Pyongyang, North Korea REUTERS Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Workers wearing protective gear spray disinfectant as a precaution against the COVID-19 coronavirus in a local market in Daegu, South Korea AP Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A man wearing a protective facemask walks outside a nearly empty shopping mall at lunch time in Beijing AFP via Getty Images Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A man wearing protective facemask and gloves puts a drawing made by a girl living in the area asking residents to wear protective gear, next to a quarantine notice for people who have travelled and a notice asking people to register outside a residential compound in Beijing AFP via Getty Images Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A woman is taken into an ambulance amid a coronavirus outbreak in northern Italy REUTERS Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Ambulances and health workers are seen outside the Padua's hospital, northern Italy EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Passengers in coaches leave MoD Boscombe Down in Wiltshire after being repatriated to the UK from a cruise ship hit by the coronavirus in Yokohama, Japan and head to Arrowe Park Hospital on Merseyside PA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus People rest in a temporary hospital situated in the Tazihu Gymnasium in Wuhan EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Buddhist monks wearing protective face masks pray during a blessing ceremony for the people affected by the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak, at a temple in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia REUTERS Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical workers wearing protective gears carry a patient infecting with a new coronavirus to a hospital in Chuncheon, South Korea AP Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Soldiers in hazmat suits sanitize cargo from a China Airlines plane at the Taoyuan International Airport in Taoyuan City, Taiwan EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Barricades are seen to block the entrance a the gate of a local mall in a nearly empty area in Beijing, China Getty Images Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A vendor wearing a protective facemask waits for customers at a shop in Beijing AFP via Getty Images Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus The body temperature of an Iraqi child returning from Iran is measured upon her arrival at the Najaf International Airport AFP via Getty Images Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Volunteers hand out free facemasks at a shopping district in Quezon city, Metro Manila, Philippines Getty Images Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical workers wearing protective gears carry a patient suspected of contracting the new coronavirus toward an ambulance at Daenam Hospital in Cheongdo, South Korea AP Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A worker disinfects a shop at a market in Shanghai AFP via Getty Images Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A restaurant worker wearing protective clothing as a preventive measure against the COVID-19 coronavirus passing a bag of food to a customer on the street outside their restaurant in Beijing AFP via Getty Images Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A recovered patient is discharged from Leishenshan Hospital, the newly-built makeshift hospital for novel coronavirus patients, in Wuhan AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Volunteers in protective suits disinfect a factory with sanitising equipment in Huzhou, China China Daily via Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical workers in protective suits attend to a patient inside an isolated ward of Wuhan Red Cross Hospital Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A drone operated by the Suwon municipal government flies around Changyong Middle School spraying disinfectant, in Suwon, South Korea EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Workers transfer medical waste at Leishenshan Hospital AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A man wearing a protective mask rides a bicycle with his children in Guangzhou, China EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Volunteers in protective suits disinfect a railway station as the country is hit by an outbreak of the new coronavirus, in Changsha, Hunan province, China cnsphoto via Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A woman repatriated from Wuhan carries a child as she walks upon her arrival at the Van Don airport in Vietnam's Quang Ninh province AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical staff checking the body temperature of a patient who has displayed mild symptoms of the COVID-19 coronavirus, at an exhibition centre converted into a hospital in Wuhan AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A medical worker in protective suit transports oxygen tanks at Wuhan Red Cross Hospital Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Boys wearing protection masks, gloves and modified water bottles sit on a cart at the airport arrival terminal in Guangzhou EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Employees work on a production line manufacturing protective suits at a clothing factory in Shijiazhuang, Hebei province cnsphoto via Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical workers in protective suits move a patient at an isolated ward of a hospital in Caidian district following an outbreak of coronavirus in Wuhan China Daily via Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A worker in protective clothing, including face mask and gloves, carries a bucket as he works inside of The County Oak Medical Centre in Brighton, southern England, after it closed for "urgent operational health and safety reasons", following reports a member of staff was infected with the strain of the novel coronavirus AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Workers of the ecology and environment bureau collect samples from the sewage system of a hospital in Xinle, Hebei province China Daily via Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A man in protective clothing cleaning the County Oak Medical Centre GP practice The British government warned the outbreak of novel coronavirus was a "serious and imminent threat" and reported four new cases that brought the total recorded in the country to eight. Two hospitals The Royal Free and Guys and St Thomas', have both been designated as "isolation" facilities, with both currently housing Britons who have returned from Wuhan, the Chinese city at the centre of the outbreak PA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical staff transfer patients to the newly completed Huoshenshan temporary field Hospital in Wuhan. The global coronavirus death toll rose again with Hong Kong announcing its first death from the outbreak on 4 February EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Members of staff wait as coaches carrying Coronavirus evacuees arrive at Kents Hill Park Training and Conference Centre, in Milton Keynes, after being repatriated to the UK from the coronavirus-hit city of Wuhan PA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A crew member of the cruise ship Diamond Princess talks to a worker wearing protective gear standing near the vessel, where dozens of passengers were tested positive for coronavirus, at Daikoku Pier Cruise Terminal in Yokohama Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Doctors scan a patient's lungs at Huoshenshan temporary hospital built for patients diagnosed with coronavirus in Wuhan Xinhua News Agency/AP Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus People wearing protective suits walk from the Diamond Princess cruise ship, with around 3,600 people quarantined onboard due to fears of the new coronavirus, at the Daikoku Pier Cruise Terminal AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Indonesians who arrived from Wuhan are sprayed with antiseptic at Hang Nadim Airport in Batam. People evacuated from the Chinese city at the centre of a deadly virus outbreak, were transported to a quarantine zone on a remote island at the edge of the South China Sea, shortly after landing Indonesian Foreign Ministry via AP Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A woman wears a protective mask as she shops in a market in Beijing Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical staff members hugging each other in an isolation ward at a hospital in Zouping in China's easter Shandong province AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A portrait of Dr Li Wenliang is left at Li's hospital in Wuhan. He is regarded a whistleblower on the outbreak and died of the coronavirus which triggered wide-spread mourning on Chinese media Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Officers in protective gear enter the cruise ship Diamond Princess, where people tested positive for coronavirus, after the ship arrived at Daikoku Pier Cruise Terminal in Yokohama, south of Tokyo Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Firefighters and personnel from the health ministry participate in a drill to prepare for the potential arrival of passengers infected with the coronavirus at the Viru Viru International Airport, in Santa Cruz, Bolivia Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Scientists are at work in the VirPath university laboratory as they try to find an effective treatment against the new Sars-like coronavirus AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical workers in protective suits attend to patients at the Wuhan International Conference and Exhibition Center, which has been converted into a makeshift hospital to receive patients with mild symptoms caused by the virus Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A girl wears a mask as a preventive measure against the coronavirus outbreak, in Bangkok, Thailand Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A man is transferred from the World Dream cruise ship to an ambulance at the Kai Tak cruise terminal in Hong Kong as health officials conduct inspections AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Workers from a disinfection service company enter Lotte Department Store in central Seoul, South Korea EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A man who arrived from Hubei province talks with police at a checkpoint at the Jiujiang Yangtze River Bridge Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A doctor holds a handheld digital thermometer near health officials preparing a health check for arriving passengers from China at Don Mueang Airport in Bangkok EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A resident walks across an empty track in Wuhan Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A scientific staff member works in a secure laboratory, researching the coronavirus, at the Pasteur Institute in Dakar AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical staff members preparing equipment to meet passengers of a military plane, which evacuated citizens of Russia and ex-Soviet countries from China's Wuhan province Vsluh.ru via Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Staff wearing protective suits as they prepare to disinfect a Vietnam Airlines plane at Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi Vietnam Airlines/AFP/Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A South Korean person, who was evacuated from Wuhan, arrives at the National Medical Center after showing suspected symptoms of novel coronavirus, in Seoul EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Officers in protective gear escort a person (under the blue sheet) who was on board cruise ship Diamond Princess and was tested positive for coronavirus Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A doctor being disinfected by his colleague at a quarantine zone in Wuhan AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Buses carrying British nationals from the coronavirus-hit city of Wuhan, arrive at Arrowe Park Hospital in Merseyside Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical staff transfer patients in Wuhan EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Indonesian health officials conduct an exercise drill in transporting a patient requiring isolation at the Belawan port in Medan AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus The Pasteur Institute in Dakar, designated by the African Union as one of the two reference centres in Africa for the detection of the new coronavirus that appeared in China, is hosting experts from 15 countries on the continent this weekend to prepare them to deal with the disease AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A government worker disinfects a co-worker after visiting a quarantined woman's home in Qingdao EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus An aerial view of the deserted roads and bridges in Wuhan Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical workers hold a strike outside the Hospital Authority as they demand for Hong Kong to close its border with China to reduce the coronavirus spreading Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A person has their tempriture checked in Qingdao, China EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Ultrastructural morphology exhibited by coronaviruses. Note the spikes that adorn the outer surface of the virus, which impart the look of a corona surrounding the virion, when viewed electron microscopically Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/AFP Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Malaysian nationals being directed from a bus by health officials in protective suits as they arrived at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang, after being evacuated from Wuhan Malaysia's Ministry of Health/AFP Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus People hoping to buy face masks crowd outside a medical supply shop that was raided by police for allegedly hoarding and overpricing the masks, as public fear over China's Wuhan Coronavirus grow in Manila, Philippines. The Philippine government has been heavily criticized after failing to immediately implement travel restrictions from China, the source of a deadly coronavirus that has now killed hundreds and infected thousands more Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Residents wearing masks and raincoats volunteer to take temperature of passengers following the outbreak of a new coronavirus at a bus stop at Tin Shui Wai, a border town in Hong Kong Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Italian citizens repatriated from Wuhan going though a health control zone after landing at the Mario De Bernardi military airport in Pratica di Mare, south of Rome, prior to be placed in quarantine Italian Defence Ministry/AFP Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Workers arrange beds in a 2,000-bed mobile hospital, set up in an exhibition center, in Wuhan EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A doctor checks conditions of occupants in a hotel accommodating isolated people in Wuhan EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical staff members wearing protective clothing to help stop the spread of a deadly virus which began in the city of Wuhan, arrive with a patient at the Wuhan Red Cross Hospital. The Chinese army deployed medical specialists to the epicentre of the spiralling viral outbreak that has killed and spread around the world AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A baby wearing a protective face mask is pushed by a woman as they arrive from Shenzhen to Hong Kong at Lo Wu MTR station AFP via Getty Images Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A health worker checks the temperature of a woman entering a subway station in Beijing Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A young child wears a protective mask and is covered in plastic while waiting to check in to a flight at Beijing Capital Airport The World Health Organization (WHO) on Thursday declared the coronavirus a public health emergency of international concern Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Ambulance crews arrive at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, as it prepares for a return flight from Wuhan, China. Eighty-three Britons and 27 foreign nationals who were trapped in Wuhan are being flown back to the UK Tom Maddick / SWNS Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A woman carries a baby wearing a protective mask as they exit the arrival hall at Hong Kong High Speed Rail Station Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Camp beds at a Medical Assessment Center set up at the airport in Frankfurt am Main, western Germany, on the eve of the arrival of German citizens evacuated from Wuhan AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Funeral parlour staff members in protective suits help a colleague with disinfection after they transferred a body at a hospital in Wuhan Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Muslims wearing masks pray for the victims of coronavirus at a mosque in Ahmedabad, India Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical officials waiting for people who wants to check the novel coronavirus at Myeongdong shopping district Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Children wear plastic bottles as makeshift homemade protection and protective masks while waiting to check in to a flight at Beijing Capital Airport Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A patient assisted by medical staff gets off an ambulance in Wuhan AFP/Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus People line up to buy face masks from a medical supply company in Nanning, southern China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Countries began evacuating their citizens from the Chinese city hardest-hit by a new virus that has now infected more people in China than were sickened in the country by SARS Chinatopix via AP Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Millions spent their normally festive Lunar New Year holiday under lockdown Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Children with face masks wash their hands before prayer at Erawan shrine in Bangkok. Thailand has detected eight Coronavirus cases so far AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus An Indonesian health officer points at the screen of a thermal scanner for passengers China confirmed that the deadly Wuhan coronavirus virus can be transmitted between humans AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Hospital workers wearing protective eyewear and masks examine an Indonesian student who returned from China in quarantine at a hospital in Banda Aceh AFP via Getty Images Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Ambulance staff dispose of an outfit at the hospital in Wuhan EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A person checks the temperature of a passenger to help stop the spread of a deadly virus as he arrives at the Sultan Mahmud Badaruddin II International airport in Palembang AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Nepali students, wearing face masks, attend a class at Matribhumi School in Bhaktapur, on the outskirts of Kathmandu AFP via Getty Images Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical staff at the Wuhan Red Cross Hospital AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Two Buddhist monks wear face masks while walking along a street in Yangon AFP via Getty Images Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Staff disinfecting a residential area in Ruichang, part of Jiujiang in China's central Jiangxi province AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Workers are seen at the construction site of a new hospital being built to treat patients from a deadly virus outbreak in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province on January 27, 2020. - China is rushing to build a new hospital in a staggering 10 days to treat patients at the epicentre of a deadly virus outbreak that has stricken thousands of people, state media reported on January 24. (Photo by Hector RETAMAL / AFP) (Photo by HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP via Getty Images) HECTOR RETAMAL AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Vapor blurs the goggles of an ambulance driver while they work, in Wuhan EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Workers producing facemasks at a factory in Yangzhou AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical staff getting on an ambulance in Wuhan AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A vendor of traditional masks wears a facial mask at his shop in Thamel EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus An airport official checks the temperature of a passenger upon his arrival at the Bacha Khan International Airport in Peshawar AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical staff members arrive with a patient at the Wuhan Red Cross Hospital AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus An ambulance driver talking with medical staff in Wuhan AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Wuhan Hygiene Emergency Response Team leave the closed Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market The new coronavirus appears to have its origins in a seafood market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, a popular transport hub AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Workers produce protective suits at a factory in Nantong AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Passengers scanned by thermal imaging for body temperature as they go through health measures and procedures after they landed at Rome's Fiumicino airport on a southern airlines flight from Wuhan Aeroporto Di Roma/AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A Thai royal guard wears a mask while on duty at the Grand Palace in Bangkok EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A man wearing a face mask rides a nearly empty subway train in Beijing AP Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical staff members at the Wuhan Red Cross Hospital AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A shopper wearing goggles with a face mask and gloves uses a self checkout machine at a supermarket in Wuhan AP Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical staff transfer patients to Jinyintan hospital EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Members of the Italian Red Cross putting on protective gear, getting ready to give health checks to passengers that landed at Rome's Fiumicino airport on a southern airlines flight from Wuhan Aeroporto Di Roma/AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A member of the Hong Kong government's Civil Aid Service gestures at the entrance to the Lady MacLehose Holiday Village which is being used as one of two quarantine centres for people who have been in close proximity with suspected cases of a SARS-type virus. Hong Kong will turn two holiday camps, including a former military barracks, into quarantine zones for people who may have come into contact with carriers of the Wuhan virus, officials announced AFP via Getty Images Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical staff wearing protective suits at the Zhongnan hospital in Wuhan STR/AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A Malaysia Health official checks passengers going through a thermal scanner upon their arrival at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Staff disinfecting Yingtan North Railway Station, China China banned trains and planes from leaving the major city at the centre of a virus outbreak on January 23, seeking to seal off its 11 million people to contain the contagious disease that has claimed lives and spread to other countries AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A passenger walks past a quarantine control station at Narita airport, Japan EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Patients queue up to seek treatment in Wuhan Tongji Hospital Fever Clinic, in Wuhan EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Quarantine workers spray disinfectant at Incheon International Airport, South Korea EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A member of staff checks the temperature of a guest entering the casino of the New Orient Landmark hotel in Macau, after it reported its first case of the new SARS-like virus AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical staff transfer patients to Jin Yintan hospital Little is known about the new disease which, if confirmed, would be only the seventh coronavirus known to science that can infect humans Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Members of the Three Gorges Medical Laboratory offering free masks to the public in Yichang, China AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Gabriel Leung, right, chair professor of public health medicine at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Hong Kong, speaks about the extent of the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak in China AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Members of staff of the Wuhan Hygiene Emergency Response Team conducting searches on the closed Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A quarantine officer at Incheon International Airport, South Korea, uses an electronic thermometer to check the temperature of passengers arriving by plane from Wuhan The virus causes symptoms of viral pneumonia, and has already led to several deaths EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A screen shows cancelled flights at Tianhe airport in Wuhan AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical staff transfer patients to Jinyintan hospital EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Health officials hand out information about the current coronavirus at Kuala Lumpur International Airport AP Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A store owner argues with security guards as he attempts to enter the closed Huanan wholesale seafood market AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Workers producing facemasks at a factory in Handan, China's northern Hebei province AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical staff and security personnel stop patients' family members from being too close to the Jinyintan hospital Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus maya-goodfellowAn airport staff member uses a temperature gun to check people leaving Wuhan Tianhe International Airport AP Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A rescue worker walks past a notice about new coronavirus that has broken out in China Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Health officials wear face masks at an inspection site at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang AP Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Medical staff members carry a patient into the Jinyintan hospital AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A staff member checks body temperature of a child after a train from Wuhan arrived at Hangzhou Railway Station in Hangzhou AFP via Getty Images Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A quarantine station measures passenger body temperatures at Narita Airport JIJI PRESS/AFP via Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Passengers walk past a notice displayed near a quarantine control station at Narita airport EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Passengers walk past a poster alerting on coronavirus screening ahead upon their arrival at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus An employee sprays disinfectant on a train, as a precaution against coronavirus, at Suseo Station in Seoul EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Kazakh sanitary-epidemiological service worker uses a thermal scanner to detect travellers from China who may have symptoms possibly connected with the previously unknown coronavirus, at Almaty International Airport, Kazakhstan Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Pharmacist Liu Zhuzhen stands near a sign reading "face masks are sold out" at her pharmacy in Shanghai AP Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus The Wuhan Medical Treatment Center, EPA Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A worker in a protective suit at the closed seafood market in Wuhan Reuters Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus Passengers wear protective face masks at the departure hall of a high speed train station in Hong Kong AP Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A notice for passengers from Wuhan Getty Coronavirus: Cases soar of deadly new flu-like virus A man wears a mask while riding on mobike past the closed Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market Getty Mr Pan was one of millions of Chinese who mingled, travelled and carried on with daily life during the critical period from mid-December to mid-January. It was a time when Chinese officials were beginning to grasp the threat of a contagious new disease in Wuhan but did little to inform the public even with the approach of the Lunar New Year holiday that has hundreds of millions of Chinese travelling. An analysis of those early weeks from official statements, leaked accounts from Chinese medical professionals, newly released scientific data and interviews with public health officials and infectious disease experts reveals potential missteps by Chinas overburdened public health officials. It also underscores how a bureaucratic culture that prioritised political stability over all else likely allowed the virus to spread farther and faster. Its clear that a much stronger public health system could save China lives and money, said Tom Frieden, former director of the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. Recommended US bans foreign nationals who have visited China in last two weeks In 2002, China suffered an outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) that was caused by a genetically similar coronavirus, which sickened more than 8,000 people and killed nearly 800 as it spread to more than two dozen countries. Chinas government, which was blamed for covering up cases and reacting slowly, vowed to learn from its mistakes and established a surveillance system to quickly react to new pathogens. Parts of that system namely Chinese science held up well in the past two months. But obfuscation from public health officials and other government missteps showed a system that is more rigid and authoritarian than in 2002. Medical professionals who tried to sound an alarm were seized by police. Key state media omitted mention of the outbreak for weeks. Cadres focused on maintaining stability and praising party leader Xi Jinping as the crisis worsened. Chinas public health system has modernised but Chinas political system hasnt, said Jude Blanchette, head of China studies at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. If anything, theres been a regression. In mid-December, patients in Wuhan presented with what seemed like a mix of wintry symptoms: fever, trouble breathing, coughs. It looked like viral pneumonia. But doctors in Wuhan, a city of 11 million in central China, could not pinpoint the cause. Rumours of a mysterious virus started to swirl on Chinese social media, particularly among medical professionals. It is clear, now, that Chinese officials soon knew something was amiss. An account published on Thursday in Chinese news sites by an anonymous technician who claimed to work at a lab contracted by hospitals said his company had received samples from Wuhan and reached a stunning conclusion as early as the morning of 26 December. The samples contained a new coronavirus with an 87 per cent similarity to bat Sars. A day later, lab executives held urgent meetings to brief Wuhan health officials and hospital management, the technician wrote. The technicians account, which included extensive screenshots of test results and contemporaneous messages sent by the technician, could not be independently verified by The Washington Post. Scientists outside China would later confirm that the genetic sequence bore a striking resemblance to that of Sars. By the evening of 30 December, word was beginning to get out. At 5.43 pm, Li Wenliang, an ophthalmologist at Wuhan Central Hospital, told his fellow medical school alumni in a private chat that seven people had contracted what he believed to be Sars, and one patient was quarantined at his hospital. He posted a snippet of an RNA analysis finding Sars coronavirus and extensive bacteria colonies in a patients airways, according to a chat transcript he and other chat members later shared online. That same evening, Wuhans public health authorities took action. The health commission sent an urgent notice to all hospitals about the existence of pneumonia of unclear cause but omitted any mention of Sarsor a coronavirus and ordered all departments to immediately compile information about known cases and report them up their chain of command. The first official reports of a mysterious outbreak in Wuhan came 30 December, when Chinese authorities confirmed that they were investigating 27 cases of viral pneumonia. Wuhan health officials linked the outbreak to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, a destination for shoppers looking for all manner of live animals and quickly shut it down. Chinese officials began looking for others who may have been sickened, but they were focused on people with pneumonia and had some connection to the seafood and animal market. They were not looking for people with broader respiratory illnesses. Only later would scientists and officials suspect that many others were infected. But they had milder illnesses and were released after some medical care, allowing the virus to further spread, experts said. Chinese scientists would later confirm that the apparent presence of many mild infections posed a challenge to controlling the outbreak, according to a study published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine. On 31 December, the Chinese informed the World Health Organisations (WHOs) China Country Office of the mysterious pneumonia cases in Wuhan. WHO officials sent Beijing a list of questions about the outbreak and offered assistance. While scientists and public health experts scrambled to collect more information, Chinas security services tried to smother it. On 1 January, the Wuhan Public Security Bureau summoned eight people for posting and spreading rumours about Wuhan hospitals receiving Sars-like cases detentions that were reported on Xinwen Lianbo, a newscast watched by tens of millions. The police followed up in the state-run Xinhua News Agency with a chilling warning. The police call on all netizens to not fabricate rumours, not spread rumours, not believe rumours, the Wuhan authorities said, adding that they encouraged Web users to jointly build a harmonious, clear and bright cyberspace. All eight people detained that day were doctors, including Mr Li, the Wuhan ophthalmologist. Coronavirus checks in Wuhan (REUTERS) (Reuters) Wang Guangbao, a surgeon and popular science writer in eastern China, later said speculation about a return of Sars-like virus was rampant around 1 January within medical circles, but the detentions dissuaded many, including himself, from speaking openly about it. The eight posters getting seized made all of us doctors feel we were at risk, he said. With the world watching, Chinese scientists raced to decode the virus. On 9 January, with 59 cases on the books, China announced that it had isolated and obtained the genome sequence of the new form of coronavirus, confirming rumours that the mystery ailment was linked to Sars and Middle East respiratory syndrome (Mers). They went on to sequence the genome of the virus and post it on a publicly accessible genetic data repository, allowing scientists to quickly develop tests to diagnose and confirm the infection in people. Their work garnered praise from scientists and public health experts around the world but there was information missing. Epidemiologists need to know the details about when people get sick, what their symptoms are, and other demographic characteristics, such as age, gender, and underlying medical conditions that might make them at higher risk for respiratory diseases. That information is the best way for disease detectives to get an assessment in the early stages of the outbreak to determine how readily the virus spreads, and how potentially deadly it is. We need to know for each case when they first became ill so we can gauge when in the epidemic the case occurred, said Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Centre for Health Security. But key information about who got sick and when was not released publicly until weeks later, scientists and researchers said. The New England Journal of Medicine study published Thursday of the first 425 patients in Wuhan who became sick between 10 December and 4 January. It revealed long delays for patients to get admitted to hospitals. Those delays indicate how hard it was to identify and isolate cases earlier in their illness, according to the study, which was led by researchers at Chinas Centre for Disease Control and Prevention. Person-to-person spread occurred as early as mid-December, and cases were doubling every seven days. Yet in Wuhan, local cadres were focused on a days-long Communist Party conclave that was scheduled to run from 11 January to 17 January. During that time, the Wuhan Health Commission each day claimed there were no new infections or deaths. Then, at 10 minutes after midnight, on 18 January, the commission announced the existence of four new infections. Still, officials downplayed the risk of human-to-human transmission. Even after cases were being reported in Thailand and South Korea, Wuhan officials organised holiday shopping fairs like the one Mr Pan visited. They held a downtown community potluck attended by as many as 40,000 families. They distributed hundreds of thousands of tickets to local attractions. Everything was down to not collecting cases, not letting the public know, said Dali Yang, a prominent scholar of Chinas governance system at the University of Chicago. They were still pushing ahead, wanting to keep up appearances. Without clear government warnings, people kept travelling both within and beyond China. Yang Jun, a prominent sales executive in the photovoltaic equipment industry, travelled to a meeting in Wuhan on 6 January and returned home on the train to Beijing via Shanghai a week later. A day before he checked himself into a hospital, he attended a school event with his daughter and sat in a lecture hall with hundreds of other parents, according to urgent statement released later by the Beijing school that asked all parents to quarantine themselves. Mr Yang died this week. On 20 January, as more than 400 million Chinese prepared to travel home to mark the Lunar New Year, the mood shifted. For the first time that morning, Wuhan public health officials changed the wording of their daily statements to omit their previous references to limited human-to-human transmission. Later that day, renowned pulmonologist Zhong Nanshan, an 83-year-old veteran of the Sarscrisis who is considered a national hero, appeared on state media to announce that the virus was in fact transmissible between people. Beijing finally seemed to react. For weeks, the Communist Partys official newspaper, The Peoples Daily, had been extensively covering Mr Xis agenda for 2020, including his popular poverty alleviation effort. For the first time on 21 January, the paper mentioned the epidemic and Mr Xis response in an item on Page 2. Mr Xi issued important instructions to cadres to put the peoples health and safety first, said the report, which noted there were already 224 cases nationwide and the disease had spread to Thailand, Japan and South Korea. That day, a top Communist Party political commission warned in a commentary that any bureaucrat who covered up the epidemic would be nailed to the pillar of shame for eternity. Suddenly, the government seemed to grasp the looming scale of the crisis. Within days, all of Wuhan and several nearby cities an area the size of Washington state with more than 50 million people would be locked down in an unprecedented effort to curb transmission. Officials broke ground on at least three emergency hospitals around Wuhan. Intercity buses nationwide were halted. Many cities extended the new year holiday, delayed the spring school semester and encouraged residents not to hurry back to work. Hospitals all over the country dispatched volunteer medical teams into the quarantine zone to reinforce doctors. With the number of reported cases hitting 4,500, officials in Wuhan and beyond began to publicly accept blame and point fingers. In a 27 January state media interview this week, Wuhan Mayor Zhou Xianwang said he was not authorised by his superiors to disclose the epidemic earlier. On Friday, Wuhans Communist Party chief who outranks the mayor acknowledged his culpability for failing to taking strict, preventive measures earlier. Im in a state of guilt, shame and self-reproach, Ma Guoqiang told the country in state media interview. The Supreme Peoples Court also issued an unusual statement admonishing the Wuhan police for detaining eight scientists. If society had at the time believed those rumours, and wore masks, used disinfectant and avoided going to the wildlife market as if there were a Sars outbreak, perhaps it wouldve meant we could better control the coronavirus today, the high court said. Rumours end when there is openness. Mr Li, the detained ophthalmologist, was released by Wuhan police on 3 January after signing a document acknowledging that he committed illegal acts. He hurried back to work to see sick patients but became infected by the coronavirus himself. Today, he remains under intensive care at his workplace, Wuhan Central Hospital. Inside the quarantine zone, hospitals have openly pleaded on social media for donations of basic equipment such as masks and protective suits. Wuhan residents widely report a severe shortage of testing kits, raising the possibility that the true number of cases are far greater than the confirmed figures released by officials. After city hospitals were overwhelmed by patients who sought coronavirus tests, local authorities this week announced that hospitals would only give tests to those who showed severe symptoms and obtained a referral from smaller neighbourhood clinics. Patients who are admitted are jammed into hospital rooms, with beds overflowing into crowded hallways. Some patients died in waiting areas before spots could open up, said Chen Qiushi, a well-known Chinese video blogger who has been roaming and filming inside Wuhans hospitals. Pan Chuntao came home from his shopping fair and developed a fever six days later. His daughter, Pan Xia, fell ill the next day and her cough has been steadily worsening, said Zhang Siqiang, who is convinced his father-in-law should not have gone out on Jan 16. For the past week, MR Zhang has isolated his father-in-law and his wife in two separate bedrooms while he and his frail mother-in-law sleep in the living room. They leave food by the bedroom door three times a day. After venturing out every morning onto the empty streets to line up at Wuhans No 7. Hospital, Mr Zhang finally received virus testing kits on Saturday. I can say for sure that the misleading information early on resulted in our situation, he said. It didnt only hurt my family but many others, too. The Washington Post After Cristiano Ronaldo powered Juventus to a win over Fiorentina, the club's manager Maurizio Sarri said the 34-year-old is 'almost 100 percent physically fit' and making a difference for them. Sarri's comments came after the Portuguese international scored twice for Juventus to help them secure a 3-0 win over Fiorentina in Serie A on Sunday. "Cristiano continues to score, which is great for his mental conditioning. He is now almost 100 percent physically fit and he's making a difference for us," the club's official website quoted Sarri as saying. Ronaldo scored both the goals through a penalty in the 40th and 80th minute of the match. Matthijs de Ligt then netted a goal in the 90+1st minute. It was Ronaldo's ninth straight game in Serie A where he has scored a goal. He also brought up his half-century of goals for Juventus. Before this clash, Juventus had faced a 2-1 defeat at the hands of Napoli on January 27. De Ligt said the club wants to further improve. "We want to carry on like this and continue to improve. We reacted after Napoli, it was the answer that we had to give. In the first half, we had some difficulties against a compact team, then we stepped it up," De Ligt said. Juventus hold the top spot on Serie A table with 54 points followed by Lazio. The club will now take on Verona on February 9. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Air India evacuated 323 more Indians from Wuhan in China in its second special flight, which landed at Delhi airport on Sunday morning. Earlier, a special Air India plane carrying 324 Indians landed in the national capital on Saturday. Wuhan is the epicenter of outbreak of novel coronavirus, which has killed more than 300 people in China. An Air India spokesperson said at 9.45 am, "323 passengers were there in the second special flight, which landed at Delhi airport just now." The flight took off from Wuhan at 3:10 am (IST) and is expected to land in New Delhi at 9:20 am, Kumar said. "Second Air India special flight from Wuhan departed at 0540 hours, i.e. 0310 (IST). The flight time is six hours. It is expected to land in Delhi by 0920 hours Indian time," Kumar said. Meanwhile, Indian Ambassador to China, Vikram Misri tweeted on Sunday that the flight carries 323 Indian citizens on board, while 7 Maldives citizens "are also being evacuated". "The 2nd #AirIndia flight from #Wuhan has just taken off for #Delhi with 323 Indian citizens on board. 7 Maldives citizens are also being evacuated. Grateful once again to @MFA_China and local authorities all across #Hubei for their assistance," Misri tweeted. Earlier, Kumar had said that the team of doctors on the aircraft would be the same as on the first, while the crew has changed, adding that the flight operation would still be led by Air India's Director of Operations Captain Amitabh Singh. The flight carrying the first batch of Indians had landed at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi on Saturday. Of the 324 passengers, three were minors and 211 were students. The virus originated in Wuhan in December and has since then spread to various cities around the world. Several countries including India have sped up the evacuation process after the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the coronavirus outbreak as a global health crisis. On the other hand, the death toll from coronavirus on Sunday reached 304 following 45 new deaths in China's Hubei Province, NHK reported citing health authorities. The virus originated in Wuhan city in December and has since then spread to various cities around the world. The confirmed cases of coronavirus in China have now surged past 14,000. China has imposed quarantine and travel restrictions, affecting the movement of 56 million people in more than a dozen cities, amid fears that the transmission rate will accelerate as hundreds of millions of Chinese travel for the Lunar New Year. Health authorities around the world are taking action to prevent a global pandemic as the virus continues to spread, with cases reported in Australia, France, the United States and seven Asian countries besides China. (With ANI Inputs) Also Read: Coronavirus: 8 coronavirus cases reported in US Three people wounded, one in life-threatening condition, after stabbing incident in the UK capital, police say. Police have shot dead a man wearing a hoax explosive device after a stabbing attack in south London that left three people wounded and was described by police as a terrorism-related incident. The London ambulance service said three people had been taken to hospital after the attack on Sunday in Streatham, a residential district south of the River Thames. Police said one of the wounded was in a life-threatening condition and that the scene of the incident was fully contained. A device was found strapped to the body of the suspect and specialist officers attended. Cordons were put in place and it was quickly established that this was a hoax device, said Lucy DOrsi, deputy assistant commissioner in the Metropolitan Police. Some witnesses said the attacker had been armed with a machete and one described him as wearing silver canisters on his chest. One witness, who asked not to be identified, told the UKs Press Association news agency that he saw the dramatic events unfold. I saw a man with a machete and silver canisters on his chest being chased by what I assume was an undercover police officer as they were in civilian clothing, he said. The man was then shot. I think I heard three gunshots but I cant quite remember. Karker Tahir said he was at work when he saw police chasing a man down Streatham High Road, the areas main shopping district. They kept telling him, Stop! Stop!' Tahir said. But he didnt stop, and then I saw that they shot him three times. It was horrible seeing it. The man was on the floor and it looked like he had something, which police said may be a device. Reporting from the scene, Al Jazeeras Catherine Stancl said the area remained cordoned off on Sunday evening. Witnesses say they saw a man carrying a large knife running away and police dressed in civilian clothing managed to chase him and he was shot dead. The response was incredibly quick, she said. People here are in a lot of shock. They cant believe this happened on their doorstep. Officers responded quickly to the stabbings because of a proactive counter-terrorism operation that was underway, police said. Prime Minister Boris Johnson thanked the emergency services for their response. My thoughts are with the injured and all those affected, he said. Londons mayor, Sadiq Khan, said in a statement after Sundays incident: Terrorists seek to divide us and to destroy our way of life here in London, we will never let them succeed. The last such incident in London took place in November, when police shot dead a man wearing a fake explosive vest who stabbed two people to death and wounded three more before being wrestled to the ground by bystanders. Authorities had called it a terrorist attack. Bangladesh on Sunday temporarily suspended its visa-on-arrival services for Chinese nationals amid a global health emergency over coronavirus outbreak. Bangladesh's Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen on Sunday held a press briefing where he announced the recent development. Abdul in his statement said, "the government has requested Chinese nationals in Bangladesh not to go on leave especially over the next month while the global health emergency is in place." Read: Coronavirus: India Rescues 7 Maldivians In Wuhan, Foreign Minister Expresses Gratitude According to Bangladesh's local media reports, Foreign Minister Abdul also requested the authorities not to recruit any Chinese nationals for the ongoing projects in the country. Abdul further added that the development is a temporary measure and it will be removed once the virus outbreak is contained. Abdul stated that Chinese nationals can still apply for a visa after submitting a medical certificate along with the application. Read: 'Cancel Weddings, Scale Down Funerals': Chinese Officials Try To Curb Coronavirus Outbreak Measures taken by other countries Bangladesh is not alone in issuing the travel restrictions on Chinese nationals, India on Sunday temporarily suspended the e-visa facility for Chinese travellers. Russia, a close ally of China has stopped issuing electronic visas and also announced that it would halt visa-free tourism for Chinese nationals. Philippines, Malaysia, and Sri Lanka also imposed similar restrictions on Chinese nationals. Singapore has stopped issuing visas to Chinese travellers, while Vietnam has halted tourist visas. Read: Chennai Woman Returns To India In An Empty Flight Via Singapore Amid Coronavirus Outbreak India evacuated more than 500 citizens from Wuhan city. Air India flights carrying doctors from the Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) Hospital arrived at Wuhan to evacuate Indian citizens. The coronavirus outbreak has killed more than 300 people in China alone and has infected over 14,562 others. The deadly contagious virus has spread to 27 countries, including some developed countries like Australia, Canada, the USA, France, Germany, Japan, and the UK. The disease is believed to have originated in a market in Hubei's Wuhan city, where animals were being traded illegally. Read: Another Flight To Evacuate Indians From Coronavirus-hit Wuhan To Leave Delhi On Saturday: AI In 2020 we are celebrating the 100th year of the Ratification of the 19th Amendment, which assured most women the right to vote and also to serve in public office. Anti-suffragists at that time claimed that North Dakota women did not want the right to vote because they wanted men to make the decisions for our state and our communities. As I look at how many women are serving on our local boards and commissions in the Bismarck-Mandan community, perhaps the anti-suffragists were right. Our county commissions, city commissions, park boards and the Bismarck School Board (Mandan School Board has four out of nine) each have only one woman on the board out of five members 20 percent. All of these boards and commissions pay salaries to these elected officials. For example, the Burleigh County Commission pays $22,296 to a new commissioner. Women need to run in order to win. And they can win. Ask a woman you know to run for office. The North Dakota Womens Network is holding a Ready to Run workshop on Feb. 8. I hope we celebrate the centennial of the Ratification of the 19th Amendment by having more women on the ballot in our community this year. NORTH GREENBUSH The little red schoolhouse on Route 4 in North Greenbush is an anomaly. Over the years, town residents have watched rapid development and suburban sprawl gobble up the community's oldest structures. New townhouses and single-family homes have cropped up in the last year and hundreds more are forecast. Businesses have multiplied along the Route 4 corridor in recent years and streets are clogged with traffic during morning commutes. The new construction may turn out to be a boon to "Little Red," a tiny red-brick building that has served the community for 159 years. It is the sole structure operated by the North Greenbush Common School District. On March 4, the school community will vote to authorize a $3.7 million capital project that includes a 3.2-acre land purchase from the LaSalle Institute next door. The restoration of the historic building and expansion of its campus is expected to be funded largely by projected new tax revenues to come with increasing area development, school officials said. We realized that the towns residential growth posed new educational and financial challenges. The proposed project provides us with a window to create new space that better fits our growing needs while restoring and preserving a school originally built 159 years ago, school board President Susan OConnell said. The building is the last operating one-room schoolhouse in New York, according to a plaque out front. In previous generations, students up to eighth-grade were educated there. Now only kindergartners and first-graders go there. Amid the area's rapid development, enrollment last year reached the schoolhouse's 24-student capacity. Another 139 students from the district in grades two through 12 were bused to neighboring school districts that have tuition contracts with North Greenbush. "This is a hot area right now.... we've been very close to capacity a couple of times," district Superintendent Christine Hamill said. "We realized that we may have an opportunity here to do this project without putting it on the backs of taxpayers." In the summer of 2018, the board of trustees commissioned a study analyzing housing trends in the area. The study projected that the district would add 28 students, nine in Little Red alone, bringing district enrollment up to 197 by 2021-22. Talks of merging Little Red with neighboring school districts have in the past been met with strong opposition from residents who are sentimental about the schoolhouse and say the district's independence has kept property taxes down. The town of North Greenbush overlaps with three school districts, Wynantskill, Averill Park and East Greenbush, where property taxes are considerably higher than what homeowners pay within the North Greenbush district boundaries. In Averill Park, for example, taxpayers saw rates of $31.95 per $1,000 of home value in 2019, with about $20 going to school taxes. In North Greenbush, residents pay $16.45 per $1,000, with just over $5 attributed to district tax, according to figures from the state comptroller's office compiled by the Empire Center for Public Policy. By comparison, in the Capital Region, the median effective property tax rate is $26.09 per $1,000 of property value. The North Greenbush district's $2 million annual budget is split between Little Red and tuition contracts and transportation for the upper grades. With the exception of some expense-based state reimbursements, the district is funded by taxpayers. The district is ineligible for operations aid from the state because it has fewer than eight employees, Hamill said. Deep roots Little Red was built in 1861 on land deeded to the school district by Peter and Gitty Defreest, and Ruger and Helen Vandenbergh, who owned nearby farmland, according to town historian Jim Greenfield. In fact, the Vandenberghs lived in the house next door that later became the Country Grove Inn, a tavern and restaurant believed to have been built in 1797. After the bar closed in 2009, it fell into further disrepair and was torn down by developers in 2016 to make way for a plaza anchored around a Panera Bread restaurant, Greenfield said. "As a historian, I'm sad," Greenfield said. "I've tried to save some, but I've always tried to document them with a historical documental study with pictures because as the generations pass, people won't remember what was there." Ruth Dickson, whose now-grown daughter graduated from Little Red, recalled her first impression of the school when she moved with her family to the district in 1967. "There was a piano in the corner, there was just a chair and some tables," Dickson said. "Today, her friends go all the way back to that one-room school." An old potbelly stove has since been replaced by radiators, which will soon be replaced by a central heating system. Half a century ago, students sat in pairs behind desks; now they move around tables for center-based instruction. A blackboard has been traded for interactive Smart Boards, personal inkwells have turned into iPads for each child. Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. Hamill, who also serves as the school's principal and finance officer, said the school has also made significant investments in professional training and technological upgrades. While the one-room schoolhouse will technically become two rooms connected by a modern atrium, the school's individualized instruction students benefit from an 11:1 student-teacher ratio won't change, Hamill said. "Aside from it being quaint, we really have a strong educational program," Hamill said. "The teacher-student ratios are very low; we are able to teach in small groups." The landscape has also changed. The wooded patch of land that Little Red now shares the LaSalle Institute, a Catholic prep school on Williams Road, was once a horse and cow field. The Hudson Valley Community College campus, separated by South Drive, now wraps around both institutions. When Hamill pitched the idea of buying the plot owned by LaSalle to support the growing student population and preserve the area for educational use, LaSalle Principal Joseph Raczkowski said the plan made sense for both schools. "In recent years there have been a number of offers by developers for this parcel. However, when the idea of expanding (the schoolhouse) was proposed, there was little hesitation," he said. "Continuing our wonderful relationship and supporting our shared goals of educating students of North Greenbush and surrounding communities is of utmost importance." The proposed land purchase and construction project, if approved, would be the schools largest and most significant capital project since it was built. It will include repairs to the schoolhouse and the construction of a 4,000-square-foot annex for administrative offices and another classroom, enabling the district to again serve second-graders. The project would move the school's driveway entrance from bustling Route 4 to South Drive and install a dedicated parking lot and bus loop to create a more scenic backdrop and improve safety during pickups and drop-offs. It also would add a fenced-in playground and field area. A public hearing about the proposal will be held at the schoolhouse at 6 p.m. Feb. 25. If approved by residents in March, school officials would begin the bidding process this fall with the goal of occupancy in September 2021. The cost would be financed through the establishment of a debt service fund and the issuing of bonds and would have no impact on property taxes, school officials said. "People who have attended there have fond memories of the schoolhouse," Greenfield said, "If they are expanding it, there is life yet to come for Little Red." Advertisement By West Kentucky Star Staff Feb. 01, 2020 | FRANKFORT By West Kentucky Star Staff Feb. 01, 2020 | 06:34 PM | FRANKFORT A Louisville man arrested in 2018 in a cyber crimes case, has been arrested a second time. Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron issued a statement Saturday regarding an on-going investigation within the Offices Cyber Crimes Unit. On Friday, the Cyber Crimes Unit arrested 53-year-old Nigel Nicholas of Louisville, on a charge of tampering with a witness. Nicholas allegedly brought an out of state, third party to Kentucky, to coerce a human trafficking victim to recant their statement. The Office of the Attorney General stated in a press release that Nicholas offered property and finances to the victim in an apparent exchange for a retraction of the allegations. Nicholas was previously arrested in 2018 and charged with human trafficking, as well as promoting two or more prostitutes. He was alleged to be working with Abbey Varney and receiving profits from the sale of illegal sex with underage teenagers on Backpage.com. He was then released on a $10,000 bond before being arrested again on Friday. Said Attorney General Cameron, "Our Cyber Crimes Unit is committed to partnering with local, state, and federal law enforcement to apprehend human trafficking criminals who attempt to intimidate and coerce witnesses. I am grateful to our hardworking investigators and law enforcement for their diligent work on this case. Jefferson County Commonwealth Attorney Chris Foster is prosecuting the case, and more arrests are expected. When the United States Senate opened the trial into the impeachment of President Donald Trump each senator took an oath to render impartial justice as they assumed the posture of jurors in this historic proceeding. Despite a few bias-revealing slips before the cameras, the senators, for the most part, have been careful to maintain at least the appearance of objectivity. Senators took the same oath before the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson in 1868 but were not so careful. Personal animus against the president ran deep: Andrew Johnson, of Kentucky, was the object of outright derision by many in Congress. Abraham Lincoln had deliberately chosen him for vice president as an olive branch to the South, despite early warnings from party leaders like Thaddeus Stevens, who denounced Johnson during the campaign as a rank demagogue, and a damned scoundrel. Johnson did himself no favors by showing up drunk on the day he was sworn in. But the ultimate basis for the drive for impeachment was a deep ideological and policy divide in the country so deep that it in fact had led to a bloody civil war, creating wounds that still havent fully healed after more than a century and a half. Upon Lincolns death, Johnson saw it as his duty to proceed with an orderly restoration of the Union and ran right into the Radical Republicans who had other plans. They were having none of the martyred presidents admonition to proceed with malice toward none and charity toward all. Instead, they set their own terms for a slow and painful readmission to the Union with assurances that their own political majorities in the House and Senate would be enshrined. When Johnson declared that the insurrection was over and that peace, order, tranquility and civil authority now exist in and throughout the whole of the United States, the Radical Republicans declared war on the presidency. The Radical Republicans were led by the aging Thaddeus Stevens, a fierce abolitionist who was leading his last battle. He believed strongly that his cause was just and that a stern reconstruction was the only way to truly eradicate slavery throughout the land. The opening gambit was the passage of the Tenure of Office Act. This bill required that the president receive the advice and consent of the senate for not just any appointments but also any removals of members of his administration. It clearly was meant to provoke a reaction and it did. Johnson immediately demanded the resignation of his Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, and the stage was set for a prompt impeachment and trial of the president. In short, the authors of the articles of impeachment created the entire crisis by enacting legislation that the president felt obligated to defy. The Supreme Court eventually ruled that the Tenure of Office Act was unconstitutional, but it was the basis on which the Radical Republicans made their case. When the Senate received the impeachment articles from the House, the majority had its agenda and its marching orders. The rules were manipulated to limit evidence, and the biases of senators were made public daily. In fact, there were reports of bribery and other pressures brought to bear on anyone opposing the Radical Republicans. Nevertheless, fundamental American notions of justice prevailed in 1868. Most importantly, despite the partisan agenda, poisoned atmosphere, and biases, the leadership allowed for 41 witnesses to be called. The Senate jurors heard from defense and prosecution witnesses and could make judgments based on facts; not mere partisan talking points. In todays proceedings, the Senate is insisting on slamming the door on any witnesses whatsoever. This, despite one witness who could render absolute clarity on the key issue in the impeachment articles. It means that the modern-day Senate, unlike its counterpart in 1868, will not render impartial justice. It means that the current-day Senate trial is not a trial at all - it is a cover up. Today, as in 1868, the Senate alone determines whether a president should be removed from office through the impeachment process. It is the citizenry, however, who will pass judgment on the senators actions. The president and many of the senators will face that judgment at the ballot box this November. CHANGSHA, Feb. 1 (Xinhua) -- Overseas Chinese have responded earnestly to the novel coronavirus outbreak in China as the number of infected cases continues to rise. Chinese health authorities announced Saturday that 11,791 confirmed cases of novel coronavirus infection had been reported in 31 provincial-level regions and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps by the end of Friday. As the outbreak of the disease has led to a rising demand for medical supplies, overseas Chinese have organized large donations for those in urgent need back home. On Jan. 28, the Hunan Provincial Federation of Industry and Commerce launched an initiative to overseas commerce chambers and business owners, calling for joint efforts against the epidemic. The initiative saw donations coming in batches from overseas Chinese business owners thanks to the help of the chambers. Chinese betel nut retailer Kouweiwang Group based in the United Arab Emirates was one of the first donors. The company has provided 93,000 medical masks, over 90,000 protective suits and over 3,000 pairs of goggles. Meanwhile, thousands of protective suits and medical masks have been shipped to China by business owners including Liu Chunying with the Hunan Chamber of Commerce in Thailand. More donation activities are being held in Bangladesh and Uganda. "We have bought 16,200 medical suits and the resources packed in 2,700 cases will be shipped to China as soon as possible," said Fan Xiaofang, chairperson of the Hunan Fellowship Association of Florida. Fan expects a timely delivery of the protective gear to the frontline. "I'm deeply worried about the rising number of infected people in my hometown Hunan, and I'm willing to make my due contribution," said Yin Hongxia, an overseas consultant to the Hunan Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and vice chairwoman of the Panama Chinese Federation. There are more than 300,000 Chinese in Panama and almost every Chinese is trying to help find supplies to overcome the epidemic, Yin said. Hunan Province, which borders Hubei that administers the hard-hit city of Wuhan, has become a favorable transport hub for the delivery of supplies from overseas Chinese since the airport in Wuhan has been closed for epidemic control and prevention. The customs in Changsha has streamlined the process for the delivery of relief supplies, set up a hotline and offered guidance for customs clearance. As of Jan. 31, over 6.34 million yuan (about 914,000 U.S. dollars) had been donated by overseas Chinese and people from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan through the efforts of Hunan authorities. A total of 68,518 protective suits, 38,765 masks, 87,718 pairs of medical gloves and 3,820 units of medical alcohol have also been donated. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is personally monitoring the situation in the wake of emergent and imminent threat from the novel coronavirus, said Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan here on Sunday. "Prime Minister is personally monitoring it. I am also in touch with the Kerala health minister on a regular basis," said Vardhan while talking to media persons here. "For those returning from China, Thailand, and Singapore, we have ensured screening of the best possible nature. Even if you are put in the suspected category, put yourself in quarantine at home and isolate yourself in your home for two weeks," he said. A second case of novel coronavirus in India was reported again this morning from Kerala, the state health minister K K Shailaja said today adding that the patient was being monitored in an isolation ward at the Alappuzha medical college. The first case too had arisen from Kerala, three days ago. The virus originated in Wuhan in December and has since then spread to various cities around the world. The confirmed cases of coronavirus in China have now surged past 14,000. China has imposed quarantine and travel restrictions, affecting the movement of 56 million people in more than a dozen cities, amid fears that the transmission rate will accelerate as hundreds of millions of Chinese travel for the Lunar New Year. Health authorities around the world are taking action to prevent a global pandemic as the virus continues to spread, with cases reported in Australia, France, the United States and seven Asian countries besides China. Several countries including India have sped up the evacuation process after the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the coronavirus outbreak as a global health crisis. On Sunday morning, India evacuated 323 Indian nationals and seven Maldives citizens, from Wuhan in a special Air India flight. Earlier 324 Indians had been evacuated on Saturday too from Wuhan. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The one-man judicial panel constituted by the Aligarh Muslim University to probe into violent incidents that rocked the campus in December 2019 has asked students and staffers at the AMU to submit their written statements by February 7, according to an official notification. The probe is being conducted by retired chief justice of the Himachal Pradesh High Court V K Gupta. As per the notification issued on Saturday, students and staffers at the AMU should submit their written statements to the probe panel by February 7. Similarly, a seven-member committee of senior faculty members instituted by AMU Vice Chancellor Tariq Mansoor to review all the FIRs registered by police against students in connection with anti-CAA protests is also expected to start functioning shortly, AMU spokesman Omar Peerzada said. The committee is headed by Professor Najam Khalique of the Department of Community Medicine, Peerzada said. He said the purpose of this committee is to help out the students who have been booked under "false charges". "This committee would explore all legal and administrative steps for preventing undue harassment of all innocent students," he said. Meanwhile, AMU officials said that there was a "marked improvement" in attendance in all faculties on Friday. The university was closed early for winter vacations from December 16 last year, a day after students clashed with police during a protest against the contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Act on campus. The university was to reopen on January 6 but the vacation was extended owing to persisting tension over the changes in the citizenship law. Students have been boycotting classes seeking the withdrawal of "false cases" against those who took part in protests against the CAA on December 15. AMU Vice Chancellor Mansoor has sanctioned a grant of Rs 1,50,000 each to two students who were seriously injured in police action on December 15 last year, the AMU spokesman said. The decision was taken on the recommendation of a committee which had been constituted to decide compensation for the injured students, he said. A senior university official said one of the demands of the protesting students was to give a permanent employment in the teaching staff to a student who had lost his hand in the December 15 violence. "We have already decided to give an ad-hoc appointment. There is a procedure for making permanent appointments and we have paved the way for this appointment which would be done under the category of physically handicapped applicants," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) By Aditya Kalra and Chandini Monnappa NEW DELHI/BENGALURU, Feb 1 (Reuters) - India on Saturday raised taxes on imports of goods such as electronic items, toys and furniture, aiming to give impetus to domestic manufacturing in a move that will hit Sweden's IKEA and other foreign firms. The measures, announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her 2020-21 budget, come amid criticism from some companies that India has increasingly resorted to protectionist rules that discriminate against foreign companies. Listing the new taxes, the government said they were in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "Make in India" programme aimed at promoting domestic industry. Taxes on imports of items including kitchenware, fans and small electrical appliances will be doubled to 20%, while the levy on furniture including seats, lamps and mattresses will be raised to 25% from 20%. IKEA's India CEO Peter Betzel said the company was disappointed with the increase. "We are further evaluating the impact of the hike on our total business," he said. IKEA, which has committed more than 1.5 billion euros ($1.7 billion) in India investments, imports roughly 75% of goods sold in the country. Sitharaman defended the decision, saying the rationale was that if certain goods were being manufactured locally at "equal quality, if not better, (then) we had no reason to import." Taxes on imported toys would be tripled to 60%, a move one industry executive said could hit imports of toys made by firms such as Lego, Hasbro and Mattel, and boost smuggling of unbranded toys from abroad. "It's a protectionist move," said the executive. The new tariffs also come as India and the United States try to resolve trade differences and have been at odds over certain tariffs. Washington has been urging India to not impose trade barriers that restrict growth of American firms. The government also said a tax of 5% will be imposed on imported medical device imports to fund health infrastructure. The measure could hit firms such as Abbott which are already battling price caps imposed by the government. "It would make some imported medical devices costlier and that increase will likely be passed on to consumers," said an India-based executive of foreign medical device company. The duty on shelled walnuts will be raised to 100% from 30% while certain car and smartphone parts will also face higher import taxes. (Reporting by Aditya Kalra and Chandini Monnappa Editing by Sanjeev Miglani and David Holmes) AQAP claims responsibility for US military base attack: monitor Dubai, Feb 2 (AFP) Feb 02, 2020 Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has claimed responsibility for a December shooting at a US naval base in which a Saudi officer killed three sailors, the SITE monitor said Sunday. "In an audio speech delivered by its leader, Qassim al-Rimi, (AQAP) claimed credit for the December 2019 Naval Air Station Pensacola attack," SITE, which tracks jihadist media, said in a statement. The December 6 shooting in a classroom building at the naval base also wounded eight other people, including two responding sheriff's deputies, before police shot dead the assailant. The FBI formally identified the attacker as Mohammed Alshamrani, 21, a second lieutenant in the Royal Saudi Air Force and a student naval flight officer. The SITE monitor said he had posted a short manifesto on Twitter prior to the attack that read: "I'm against evil, and America as a whole has turned into a nation of evil." "I hate you because every day you (are) supporting, funding and committing crimes not only against Muslims but also humanity." The Twitter account that posted the manifesto -- which also condemned US support for Israel and included a quote from Al-Qaeda's deceased leader Osama bin Laden -- has been suspended. Saudi Arabia's King Salman was quick to denounce the shooting as a "heinous crime" and said the gunman "does not represent the Saudi people." Naval Air Station Pensacola hosts the US Navy's foreign military training programmes, established in 1985 specifically for Saudi students before being expanded to other nationalities. The shooting threatened a programme crucial to the US-Saudi relationship, which involves billions of dollars of military sales to the kingdom. Around 850 Saudis are among the 5,000 foreign military personnel being trained in the United States. Last month, however, the US Justice Department said it would send home 21 Saudi military trainees after an investigation into the attack, with Attorney General Bill Barr calling it an "act of terrorism". The attorney general said 21 of Alshamrani's colleagues were being expelled from the base's flight school after the probe found many of them were in possession of jihadist material and child pornography. While the material did not warrant criminal prosecution, Barr said Riyadh had "determined that this material demonstrated conduct unbecoming an officer in the Saudi Royal Air Force and Royal Navy," adding that the 21 cadets had been struck from their programme. He added that the Saudi government had said it would review each case under its code of military justice and criminal code. By PTI KERALA: Hitting out at the Centre over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Sunday said the "communal elements" today were using the British colonisers' strategy of disrupting people's unity by dividing them on communal lines. He also said that the CAA must be rejected as it was "against the Constitution", "divisive" and "seeks to impose the philosophy of Hindutva", due to which the country's secular fabric was facing a "profound crisis". According to him, the amended citizenship law has pierced the secular mind of the people and rekindled the spirit of nationalist movement. Vijayan, who heads the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) government in the southern state, was speaking at the 'Mumbai Collective' here on 'National struggle against communalism'. "In the past, our movement was against the colonisers, but presently our struggle against communalism is a movement against those who stood with the colonisers," he said. "In the past, the colonisers tried to disrupt people's unity by dividing them on communal lines. Today, the communal elements are using the same strategy experimented by their masters," he added. The fact that so many of us are out there on the streets, and gatherings such as this are happening across the country, are indicators of what our nation thinks at this point of time, Vijayan said. "We do not have an iota of doubt that India's secular structure is facing a profound crisis, that out Constitution is under threat, and that out democracy itself is sought to be fundamentally undermined by the communal forces," he alleged. "While a series of interventions with a communal agenda have been made by the ruling dispensation, it is the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 that has proved to be last weapon which has strongly pierced the secular mind of our people. It has rekindled the spirit of out nationalist movement," he said. He also defended the anti-CAA resolution passed by the Kerala Assembly. "The Kerala Legislative Assembly has passed a resolution demanding the central government to repeal the Citizenship Amendment Act. Constitutionally, a state assembly can do so; it is well within its constitutional powers," he said. Kerala was the first state to pass a resolution against the CAA, followed by Punjab, Rajasthan and West Bengal. "The CAA-2019 has imperiled the nation's constitutional values, and it must be rejected for three reasons," Vijayan said. "First of all, it is against the letter and spirit of our Constitution. Secondly, it is divisive, deeply discriminatory and violative of human rights. And third, it seeks to impose the politics and philosophy of Hindutva, with its vision of a 'Hindu Rashtra' on our entire people and on the basic structure of our polity," he said. Coronavirus Death Toll Grows to About 300 in Hard-hit Chinese Province By VOA News February 01, 2020 Chinese officials in central Hubei province, where the coronavirus outbreak began, said Saturday that about 300 people had died and more than 12,000 had been infected by the virus, according to news reports. Australia, Japan and Singapore announced strict travel controls Saturday on foreigners who have been in China recently, over fears of the coronavirus. The U.S. announced similar restrictions and declared a public health emergency the day before. Taiwan also announced more limited travel restrictions. Also Saturday, U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper approved a request from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for help in housing 1,000 people who may have been exposed to the coronavirus and need to be quarantined upon arrival in the U.S. from overseas, the department said in a statement Saturday. "HHS officials requested the Defense Department to provide several facilities capable of housing at least 250 people in individual rooms through Feb. 29, 2020," the statement said. It said the people would need to be held for 14 days, which is the incubation period for the virus. The statement said the Department of Defense "will only provide housing support, while HHS will be responsible for all care, transportation and security of the evacuees." Four military installations were identified for use two in California, and one each in Colorado and Texas if they are needed. The World Health Organization declared the outbreak a global health emergency on Thursday, fearing the virus could spread to poorer countries that would have great difficulty containing it. The WHO has said it does not recommend that countries initiate any travel or trade restrictions with China. The WHO estimates the virus has been detected in at least 23 other countries, with the majority of cases involving people who visited China. The continuing spread of the coronavirus led U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar to also declare a public health emergency on Friday and deny entry into the country to any foreign national who has recently traveled to China, except for those travelers whose immediate family members are U.S. citizens. He also said that any U.S. citizen who had traveled to China's Hubei province within the past two weeks would be subject to a mandatory quarantine of 14 days. Sixth U.S. case The announcement came as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed a sixth case of coronavirus in the United States. Health officials said the latest patient was a man in Santa Clara County, south of San Francisco, who became ill after traveling to China. Australia said Saturday it also was barring entry to foreigners who had recently traveled to China, and that it was requiring returning citizens to quarantine themselves for 14 days. Japan announced it was refusing entry to noncitizens who had visited Hubei province in the past 14 days, and to those who had passports issued there. Singapore also announced a ban on new visitors from China, the first Southeast Asian country to do so. The government, which earlier denied entry only to arrivals from Hubei province, will still allow entry to citizens and permanent residents. Taiwan said it would prohibit Chinese citizens from China's southeastern coastal province of Guangdong from entering the country beginning Sunday, Taiwan state media reported Saturday. Travelers who visited the Guangdong area recently will be quarantined for 14 days. The U.S. State Department raised the coronavirus Saturday in criticizing China for banning Twitter messages that reference Taiwan. "Blocking Twitter users who make reference to Taiwan's participation in international organizations, particularly given the global response to the coronavirus crisis, is outrageous, unacceptable and not befitting of a U.N. organization," said an official statement released Saturday. Chinese return home Also Saturday, two groups of stranded Hubei residents returned to China on chartered planes sent to Thailand and Malaysia by the Chinese government. The 199 Chinese nationals had been left without a way home when their return flights were canceled amid the virus scare. The state-owned Xinhua news agency reported the retrieved passengers were screened for fever and anyone who displayed symptoms of the coronavirus would be "quarantined immediately." Members of a Hong Kong union for medical workers voted Saturday to go on strike Monday after the government dismissed their demand to close all entry points from China. The Hospital Authority Employees Alliance said more than 9,000 of its members vowed to participate in a five-day strike. U.S. health officials Friday issued a two-week quarantine order for 195 Americans evacuated earlier this week from Wuhan, the Chinese city at the center of the outbreak. The CDC said this was the first federal quarantine ordered since the 1960s, when there were fears of a smallpox outbreak. Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden chided President Donald Trump on Friday for reducing U.S. oversight of global health issues before the onset of the coronavirus outbreak. Biden said now was not the time for Trump's "hysterical xenophobia and fearmongering to lead the way instead of science." Matt Wolking, a Trump campaign spokesman, said the president "is listening to medical and scientific experts and taking every responsible precaution to protect the American people." More flight suspensions Also Friday, the three U.S. airlines that fly to China announced they would suspend flights to the Chinese mainland. American Airlines said it would stop flights to mainland China through March 27 but would continue flights to Hong Kong. The decision came after the American Airlines pilots' union sued the company to immediately stop flights to and from China because of possible health threats posed by the coronavirus. Delta said it would wait until February 6 to stop flights and keep them suspended through April 30. Shortly after saying it would only reduce service to China, United Airlines also announced Friday that it would suspend flights from February 6 through March 28 but would maintain one flight from San Francisco to Hong Kong. For all three airlines, these suspensions followed travel advisories issued by the State Department and the CDC. The State Department issued a Level 4-Do Not Travel advisory on Thursday and recommended that all Americans leave mainland China, drawing criticism from China's government, which said the move was "certainly not a gesture of goodwill." Other international airlines have also suspended service to mainland China or announced plans to do so, including Air France, British Airways, Indonesia's Lion Air, KLM, Lufthansa, Qantas and Scandinavian Airlines. Global stocks fell sharply Friday over concerns the outbreak of coronavirus would negatively affect the world economy. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address China imposed a lockdown Sunday on a major city far from the epicentre of the coronavirus epidemic, as its death toll soared to 304 and the first fatality outside the country was reported in the Philippines. The events added to deepening concern about the potential for the virus to spread, as governments around the world closed their borders to people from China. Struggling to contain the virus, authorities took action in the eastern city of Wenzhou on Sunday -- some 800 kilometres (500 miles) from Wuhan, the metropolis at the heart of the health emergency -- closing roads and confining people to their homes. Since emerging out of Wuhan late last year, the new coronavirus has infected nearly 14,500 people across China and reached 24 nations. The G7 countries -- Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, all of which have confirmed cases of the virus -- will discuss a joint response, Germany's health minister Jens Spahn said on Sunday. In Thailand, which has 19 confirmed cases, doctors said Sunday an elderly Chinese patient treated with a cocktail of flu and HIV drugs had shown dramatic improvement and tested negative for the virus 48 hours later. Countries or territories with confirmed cases of the 2019 Novel Coronavirus as of February 1 at 08:30 GMT.. By John SAEKI (AFP) Most of the infections overseas have been in people who travelled from Wuhan, an industrial hub of 11 million people, or surrounding areas of Hubei province. The man who died in the Philippines was a 44-year-old from Wuhan, according to the World Health Organization, which has declared the epidemic a global health emergency. China has embarked on unprecedented efforts to contain the virus, which is believed to have jumped to humans from a Wuhan animal market, and can be transmitted among people in a similar fashion to the flu. Lockdowns The World Health Organization late last week declared the new coronavirus outbreak a global health emergency. By Hector RETAMAL (AFP) Those efforts have included extraordinary quarantines in Wuhan and surrounding cities, with all transport out banned, effectively sealing-off more than 50 million people. But 10 days after locking down Wuhan, authorities imposed similar draconian measures on Wenzhou, a coastal city of nine million people in Zhejiang province, part of the eastern industrial heartland that has powered China's economic rise over recent decades. Authorities are conducting temperature checks on people across China as they return to work following the Lunar New Year holiday. By NOEL CELIS (AFP) Only one resident per household is allowed to go out every two days to buy necessities, and 46 highway toll stations have been closed, authorities announced. The city had previously closed public places such as cinemas and museums, and suspended public transport. Zhejiang has 661 confirmed infections, with 265 of those in Wenzhou, according to the government. This is the highest tally for any province in China after ground-zero Hubei. Closing borders Internationally, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Israel have banned foreign nationals from visiting if they have been in China recently, and they have also warned their own citizens against travelling there. The coronavirus has seen airlines stop flights to China and countries close its borders to travellers from China. By ADAM TANJUNG (AFP) Mongolia, Russia and Nepal have closed their land borders. The number of countries reporting infections rose to 24 after Britain, Russia and Sweden confirmed their first cases this weekend. The death toll in China climbed to 304 on Sunday after authorities reported 45 new fatalities. There were 2,590 new confirmed cases in China, bringing the total to nearly 14,500. The number of confirmed infections in China is far higher than in the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak of 2002-03. People around the world are donning face masks in a bid to protect themselves from the virus. By Alberto PIZZOLI (AFP/File) SARS, caused by a pathogen similar to the new coronavirus and also originated in China, killed 774 people worldwide -- most of them in mainland China and Hong Kong. With hospitals in Wuhan overwhelmed, China will open a military-led field hospital Monday that was built in just 10 days to treat people stricken by the virus. And with the Chinese economy suffering, the central bank announced it would release 1.2 trillion yuan ($173 billion) Monday to maintain liquidity in the banking system -- the day markets re-open after the long holiday break. Holiday ending The emergence of the virus coincided with the Lunar New Year, when hundreds of millions travel across the country in planes, trains and buses for family reunions. The emergence of the virus came at the worst time for China, coinciding with the Lunar New Year Holiday when hundreds of millions travel across the country in planes, trains and buses for family reunions. By NICOLAS ASFOURI (AFP) The holiday, which was scheduled to end on Friday, was extended by three days to give authorities more time to deal with the crisis. With many due back at work on Monday, people were starting to return on planes and trains over the weekend, with almost everyone wearing face masks. Customs authorities had ordered temperature checks at all exit-entry points in Beijing, according to state media. Returning travellers were being checked and registered at residential compounds, while fever checks were in place in subway stations, offices and cafes. One 22-year-old arriving at a Beijing train station from northeastern China said her family had urged her to delay her return. "But I was worried it would affect my job," she said. Security guard Du Guiliang, 47, said he would be starting back at work in Beijing on Sunday, after returning from northeast Liaoning province. "Many colleagues (from Hubei) couldn't come back. Now, those who work the day shift at our company have to do the night shift as well," he said. Many businesses were to remain closed for at least another week, however, while some major cities -- including Shanghai -- had also extended the holiday. Many foreigners, meanwhile, have started to leave China to wait things out abroad. "(My family) said I need to go home," said 22-year-old South African student Jamie Bosch as she waited for a flight out of Beijing on Sunday. Its a new year! And with that comes a time of reflection and change. Reflections on what last year taught us. For me, it was a year of challenges as I discovered my fellow Christians are very diverse in thoughts and opinions (which is great!) but often this can create conflict and tension. My personal challenge going forward is a change of attitude when being confronted with different worldviews within the Christian worldview. To do this effectively, I will be focusing on our common ground, Jesus! Jesus, be the center Through all the politics, social injustices and privileges I hope we can all agree that Jesus was all about Aroha (love)! He had the wisdom to know when to be confrontational (Matthew chapter 21, verse 12-17 Jesus cleanses the temple) and when to be gentle (Matthew chapter 1, versed 28, Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest). Jesus was counter cultural for his time with his treatment of women and foreigners. He challenged the religious leaders of the day and spent most of his time with sinners. Jesus seemed to have a quality that attracted many diverse groups of people to his presence. They came together and created community despite their differences. Christian community Cultivating community takes work. You have to be intentional, loving and genuine. All things that Jesus was during his life and still is. If a community (Christian or otherwise) is going to grow, it needs to be a space that is safe, even for people we disagree with. Conflict and disagreement can be done in a healthy way and can be a great way to challenge and grow ideas. But this must be done with Christ like wisdom and care. Often times, these discussions can become emotionally damaging and can break down relationships. It takes a lot of intentional care and mutual respect to achieve a productive and challenging conversation. There are helpful tools out there such as author Glenn E. Singletons courageous conversations compass. Final thoughts We as Christians are never going to all agree on every piece of doctrine or policy out there. We need to show each other a little more grace and aroha (love), especially when we disagree. When in doubt, just ask yourself what would Jesus do?. Email Whatsapp Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment While God used apologetics to bring me back to faith, God uses theology to humble, awe, and comfort me before his amazing presence. Theology is a passion of mine. My resume will show how much I love theology. As I mentioned in a previous post, I realized that schools hiring teachers desire applicants to possess 18 hours of graduate study in a chosen field. Curious as to what hours I held, I began to investigate how many hours I possess in different fields. I realized that by the time I finish my Ph.D., I will carry 30 hours of theological study. I guess you could call me an overachiever. I certainly dont say this to sound braggadocios. I merely mention this to note the great impact theology has made in my life. Even while I have devoted much of my time to theological studies, I still find the words of Dr. Daniel Mitchell, Professor of Theology at Liberty University, to ring true, The more we study God, the bigger God becomes. I asked him about what he meant by that statement in a class that I had with him. Mitchell noted that he did not mean to say that we make God bigger in our imaginations, but rather we begin to understand how big God truly is the more we study him. When we understand the grandeur of God, our worries tend to fade away in the warm, strong arms of God. One divine attribute that provides both awe and serenity is Gods divine omnipresence. The word omnus means all. We all understand what the term presence means. Thus, God has the capacity to be in all places at all points of time. There is not a place where Gods presence is not found. Scripture indicates the omnipresent nature of God in many locations, but it is most explicitly found in Psalm 139. David writes as he speaks to God, Where can I go to escape your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I live at the eastern horizon or settle at the western limits, even there your hand will lead me. If I say, Surely the darkness will hide me, and the light around me will be nighteven the darkness is not dark to you. The night shines like the day; darkness and light are alike to you (Ps. 139:712, CSB). From the text at hand, God is shown to be present in every location at the same point in time. Wayne Grudem defines Gods omnipresence as the following: God does not have size or spatial dimensions and is present at every point of space with his whole being, yet God acts differently in different places (Grudem, Systematic Theology, 173). Divine omnipresence impacts the believer in multiple ways, but for the sake of space, I will concentrate on only five. 1. God is with you when no one else can be. Often, people feel alone. Widowers who lost their spouses may feel an overwhelming sense of loss. When my wife left on a business trip, I was overwhelmed with the sense of loneliness that overtook me, even if for a little while. People who must reside in assisted living homes or nursing facilities may feel like they are the loneliest people on earth. However, when we understand Gods omnipresent nature, we understand that none of us are ever truly alone. God promises that he will be with you now and for all eternity. Jesus says, And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20, CSB). God promised Abraham to be with him, saying, Look, I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go (Gen. 28:15, CSB). Gods presence accompanies us wherever we may go. This is only possible because of Gods omnipresent nature. 2. God is with your loved ones when you cannot. Gods omnipresent nature holds that God can protect your loved ones from afar. Israel (aka., Jacob) told his son Joseph that he knew that God would look after him even though he was about to die (Gen. 48:21). Consider also the Roman centurion. He had faith that Jesus could heal his servant even when Jesus was not present (Matt. 8:514). The centurion had faith in Gods omnipresent power to heal. Perhaps this was one of the things that startled Jesus about the depth of the centurions faith. Even when you are not present with your family members, God is. God can help those who suffer in distant areas far greater than you or I ever could. 3. God is with your loved ones who have already passed. God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Exodus 3:6). Jesus uses this argument to defend the reality of the afterlife (Matt. 22:32). Jesus understood that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were still alive in the spiritual watch care of God. Some of your loved ones may have died. However, with God, death has died. For those who died in Christ, they live in eternity. This indicates that God is with our loved ones in eternity. If we grasped this reality, even the fear of death dies in the omnipresent love of God. 4. God is working in creation even when you cannot see it. God is beyond the scope of creation but is always working in creation (Ps. 147:4). God is the One who established the sun, the moon, the stars, the galaxies, and even the universe itself (Jer. 31:35). Gods omnipresent nature indicates that he is in all places at all times in the universe and even beyond the universe. He does not depend on the universe, but the universe depends on God. There is not a molecular change in the far reaches of the universe that leaves God unaware. God knows when, if, how, and where the star Betelgeuse will explode into a supernova or transform into a neutron star. 5. Gods presence is with the believer in a personal fashion. While God is everywhere, God personally relates to those who receive Christ (John 5:38; 8:31; 15:4-9). Consider this: The God of all creation the transcendent, magnificent, holy, righteous, loving, omnipresent Creator of all things desires to have a relationship with you. Oh, that is so profound yet so difficult to grasp. What would God desire to love someone like us? I dont know. But God does. I write this being unaware of what you the reader faces as you read this post. But the amazing facet of this divine attribute is that no matter where you are, God is there with you. Paul said to the Athenians at the Areopagus that God had established from one man every person, nation, and language. God established boundaries and determined appointed times and seasons. God did this, Paul says, so that they might seek God, and perhaps they might reach out and find him, though he is not far from each one of us (Acts 17:27, CSB). Amazingly, God has blessed Bellator Christi Ministries to reach almost all the nations on our beloved Earth. No matter where you may be reading this, God is near you. God is willing to receive your worship. God is willing to forgive you by the sacrifice that Jesus made on your behalf. By his omnipresent nature, God can fill you with Gods Spirit. God is with you. God is always near you. What could be better than that? As Michigan bars, restaurants and regulators grew frustrated with the liquor shortage caused by Republic National Distributing Company last November, Joe Gigliotti was on the inside, looking at delayed delivery routes that were three, then four days behind. Already bad, the situation was nearing a tipping point. It started to get into day four behind. And at some point, youre going to what I call lap yourself... if youre five days behind youre a delivery week behind, so you now start duplicating orders. And that just would have sent the system over the edge, said Gigliotti, Region President of Control States for RNDC, in a January interview. Hed been sent in from Virginia to help address a shortage that stemmed back to issues at a new warehouse the company built in Livonia. But to get the companys deliveries back on track, first, he had to knock them completely off-course. RNDC -- the largest liquor distributor in the state -- threw away three days worth of orders and paused deliveries entirely to give itself a chance to catch up. It was a bold move and risked further angering customers. It wasnt approved by the Michigan Liquor Control Commission. It cost a lot of money (you have no idea," Gigliotti said) and required bringing people in on overtime, operating on weekends, and retaining 120-150 temporary workers. Youve got this plan to go forward, nobody wants to look and say well were going to take a step and go backward.' Those arent easy decisions, Gigliotti said. Was it the right decision? I would sit here and tell you absolutely. More than two months later, there are indications it worked, and the liquor shortage is over. I think the shortage is certainly pretty much passed, said Michigan Liquor Control Commission Chair Pat Gagliardi in a January interview. How stumbles became a shortage Michigan is whats called a control state in the liquor industry. A bottle of liquor goes from its manufacturer to the wholesaler, which in Michigan is actually the state. The state has three Authorized Distribution Agents that warehouse and deliver the bottle on its behalf to every bar and restaurant in the state. RNDC is by far the largest, comprising nearly two-thirds of Michigans liquor industry. Back in the spring of 2019, the Michigan Liquor Control Commission started getting an uptick of complaints about the company, Gagliardi said. They were hearing about retailers not getting their deliveries on time or at all, not getting complete orders and not being able to order certain items because they were out of stock. Some shelves were running low or empty because of these issues. And the complaints started ramping up in the fall, right ahead of the holidays, when the volume of liquor sales is the highest. Disasters can happen at any point in time in ones life... and this was a disaster, Gagliardi said. This was the State of Michigan as a wholesaler of distilled spirits contracting with a company that couldnt deliver. At RNDC, Gigliotti said the internal problems were multifold, but traced back to the companys transition to a new, upgraded facility in Livonia that didnt go as smoothly as planned. Some things were unpredictable, like a fiberoptic line accidentally getting cut and issues with the software behind one of their key systems. The company took the bulk of their existing talent to the Livonia facility and hired mostly temporary workers at their old Brownstown facility, which in hindsight I think was a mistake. Transitioning to the new warehouse exacerbated previous issues, resulting in the delivery and stock issues that would eventually be referred to as the liquor shortage. As the busy holiday season approached, it became clear the issue wasnt just growing pains. Thats when Gigliotti -- whose background is in wine -- came up from Virginia. November was, I dont know any way to put it but ugly, Gigliotti said. He made that key decision to stall orders and play catch-up. Then, he went back to work. Fixes and moving forward Walking thorugh the Livonia facility in January, Gigliotti greeted workers as he walked past. Part of the initial fix was manpower in the form of overtime, extra shifts and bringing temporary workers in. The software issues improved. The fiberoptic line remained intact. By the second week of December, RNDC was what I would term caught up on the issues stemming from the Livonia facility, Gigliotti said. He worked to balance the inventory, deciding which routes to run out of the older warehouse in Brownstown and which to run out of the new facility in Livonia. When it corrected too far toward running delivery routes out of the old facility, he re-balanced and has continued to move routes back to the Livonia facility in January. January has been, from a delivery standpoint, very very good, he said, acknowledging the volume in January is lower than in November and December. He said work on balancing the inventory would continue and be put to the test during the summer when Michigans tourism typically spikes liquor consumption. The company still faces potential fines from the state stemming from the shortage. And with its customers, the company essentially has to earn its stripes back, Gigliotti said. Related: Distributor behind Michigan liquor shortage touts improvements, but complaints persist Gagliardi of the MLCC said regulators continues to get complaints about RNDC workers being rude or short with people, and the coordination between the two warehouses is probably still not where it should be. But with the immediate shortage solved, Now its just going to be an amount of time to see that theyve really got it headed in the right direction. RNDC is aiming to do good work and be consistent, but Gigliotti knows the relationship with retailers will take time to repair. Candidly, I can talk all day long. But the only way that were really going to do it is by showing them, he said. Three teenage girls from Spokane took an across-the-state road trip in a stolen car, then robbed a woman in Bellevue for gas money and used her credit card to get their nails done, according to King County prosecutors. The girls two 16-year-olds and a 17-year-old were arrested by Bellevue police on Sunday afternoon and booked into the Youth Services Center in Seattle, court records show. Two of them remain in detention while the third was released, according to prosecutors. The two still in detention were charged Wednesday with first-degree robbery, possession of a stolen vehicle, and two counts of second-degree identity theft. They are next scheduled to appear in court on Thursday. The 16-year-old who was released was charged with taking a motor vehicle without permission and two counts of second-degree identity theft. A hearing on her case is set for Feb. 20. The charges relate only to alleged crimes committed in Bellevue. All three entered not guilty pleas on Friday. It was just a real odd case because it involved a trio of juvenile females and they went on a cross-state crime spree, said Bellevue police Sgt. Shelby Shearer. We were able to catch em and put a stop to it. It couldve turned out disastrous. Their crimes were very reckless, to say the least. The spree began in Spokane on Jan. 24: A woman was walking to her car after work in a lot not too far from the downtown business area when she feels that sense of foreboding and looked up and saw three teenage girls, who tried to take her car keys, a spokesman for the Spokane Police Department said. The woman later told officers she was rugby tackled and one of the girls pressed her knee across the womans throat as the keys were pried from her hand, the spokesman said. After driving 300 miles to Seattle, arriving on Saturday, the girls allegedly committed a couple robberies, a theft and a hit-and-run, according to Shearer. The Seattle Police Departments media unit on Friday was unable to confirm or provide details of the girls alleged crimes in the city. Early Sunday, the trio led Mercer Island, Wash., police on a chase across Interstate 90 but evaded capture, Shearer said. Then just after 11 a.m. Sunday, they pulled up alongside a woman near the Bellevue Home Depot, knocked her to the ground, stole her purse and ran over her arm as they drove away, according to Shearer and the criminal charges. Witnesses called 911 and the victim required multiple stitches to close a large gash on her arm, the charges say. Shearer supervised a team of officers who began tracking the girls from a variety of purchases they made with the victims credit and bank cards. They tracked the 17-year-old to a nail salon in a small strip mall in Bellevue, where the other two had already had their nails done, according to the charges. The girls paid $175 for nail treatments, the charges say. When officers arrived and arrested the 17-year-old, She was upset she didnt get one of her pinkies done, Shearer said. The two 16-year-olds were arrested in the produce section of a Safeway grocery store next to the nail salon and police found the stolen Honda Civic in the parking lot, he said. According to Shearer, the girls had planned to go to Tacoma next. They were surprised Bellevue wasnt Tacoma. They thought they were close, he said. Love 1 Funny 2 Wow 2 Sad 0 Angry 0 The Connecticut Coalition to Improve End-of-Life Care has honored the Den for Grieving Kids, Family Centers bereavement support program for children and their families, for clinical excellence. At its annual awards ceremony last month, CTEOL President Eileen OShea presented The Den with its Safe Passage Award for Outstanding Clinical Care. Chelsea McGee, Family Centers manager of clinical services, and Julianne Green, coordinator of The Den for Grieving Kids, accepted the honor. This award is validation that what we are doing at The Den is important, needed work, said McGee. We are continuously striving to provide support and create a safe place for the families who come to us during very difficult times in their lives. This award honors and recognizes this special grief community. The Connecticut Coalition to Improve End-of-Life Care, founded in 1999, is a statewide coalition that seeks to improve care for the dying and their families and to ensure that everyone has information about and access to compassionate, quality end-of-life care. The Den for Grieving Kids provides a safe, caring place for children, teens and families to explore their feelings about the loss and begin the journey toward healing. Free biweekly evening support groups meet at Family Centers Greenwich offices, and student support groups are offered in several schools across Fairfield County. For more information, visit www.familycenters.org/The-Den-for-Grieving-Kids. Family Centers is a private, nonprofit organization offering heath, education and human services to children, adults and families in Fairfield County. Visit www.familycenters.org for additional information. Pet Pantry Warehouse launches fundraiser for 75th anniversary GREENWICH Pet Pantry Warehouse has embarked on a $75,000 fundraising effort in honor of the 75th anniversary of the family-owned and community-based business. Executive Vice President Adam Jacobson announced the launch of the yearlong celebration at the PPW location at 1191 E. Putnam Ave. in Riverside. The community outreach theme for this milestone anniversary is inspired by Pet Pantry founders, World War II Army Air Forces servicemen, Mort Davis, and Jac Cohen. We are living proof that independent retail is not a thing of the past, said Jacobson. A companys success is not measured by the money it makes but by the difference it makes in the well-being of its customers and community it serves. Jacobson said his team evaluates every product sold at the seven retail locations and provides pet food and products that support animal health and well-being. The PPW staff is trained and tested in animal nutrition. In our world pets should thrive and not just survive, he said. The event was attended by nonprofit partners, which included Adopt-a-Dog, Guiding Eyes for the Blind, and the Greenwich Police Department K-9 Unit. We celebrate and applaud your 75 years in business. We know that youve been a success because youre an intricate part of our local community, said Marcia OKane, president of the Greenwich Chamber of Commerce. First Selectman Fred Camillo, a PPW customer, said, Were working on making Greenwich a more pet-friendly place and we will be reaching out to you to partner moving forward. ... I wish you success for the next 75 years. The first fundraiser of the year at Pet Pantry Warehouse, called Paws for Love, started Feb. 1 at all PPW locations to support Adopt-a-Dog. For more information, visit the Pet Pantry Warehouse website at ppwpet.com. Local student named to Deans List at West Conn Juztin Lord Reyes, a student from Greenwich who is majoring in accounting, was named to the Deans List at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury for the fall 2019 semester. Local residents make the Deans List at Sewanee The following local students have been named to the Deans List at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tenn., for the Fall 2019 term. To earn a spot, a student must earn a minimum grade point average of 3.625. The honored students are Alice Murray Belshaw of Greenwich; Lily Georgia Fox of Greenwich; Madeleine Clare Hitel of Riverside; and William Jamie Hitel of Riverside. Dean's List honorees for Emerson College The following local students have been named to Deans List for the Fall 2019 semester at Emerson College in Boston. The honor requires a grade point average of 3.7 or higher that semester. The honored students are: Ramsey Frank of Greenwich, who is majoring in media arts production and is a member of the class of 2023; Diana Bravo of Old Greenwich, who is majoring in journalism and is a member of the class of 2021; and Francesca Polistina of Riverside, who is majoring in marketing communications and is a member of the class of 2022. In an early morning shooting incident, Vishva Hindu Mahasabha state president Ranjit Bachchan was killed while he was out on a morning walk, in Lucknow's Hazratganj area. Ranjit Bachchan was taking a stroll in Hazratganj in the morning when bike-borne assailants opened fire on him and killed him on the spot. The Mahasabha leader was shot in the head multiple times. According to reports, Bachchans brother also suffered bullet injuries. He has been rushed to the trauma centre. Ranjit was a resident of Gorakhpur. twitter/@ChiluliVillage According to Uttar Pradesh Police, Ranjeet Bachchan founded the Vishwa Hindu Mahasabha and was serving as its state president. Dinesh Singh, DCP Central Lucknow, said, "The body has been identified as of Ranjit Bachchan, who had gone out on morning walk when some unknown assailant shot him. A police team has been formed and further investigation is being carried out." The armed tried to snatch mobile phones from the two, according to the police, but the motive behind the shooting is being investigated. Notably, Bachchan was associated with the Samajwadi Party in the past. Between 2002 and 2009 he participated in Cycle Yatra all over India started by the Samajwadi Party, and as per his wife, Ranjeet was even awarded on national level for his good work. We have also been informed that later he formed an organization with the name Vishwa Hindu Mahasabha and he was the national president. At present he was living in an OCR apartment, which was allotted to him when he did the Bharat Yatra. We have also come to know that there is some family related argument between the husband and wife and there probably is an FIR in Gorakhpur in connection to that. We are confirming that, Lucknow Joint Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) Naveen Arora told The Indian Express. Eight teams have been formed to investigate the matter. Photo: The Canadian Press An Indigenous community has overwhelmingly rejected a proposed underground storage facility for nuclear waste near Lake Huron, likely spelling the end for a multibillion-dollar, politically fraught project years in the making. After a year of consultations and days of voting, the 4,500-member Saugeen Ojibway Nation announced late Friday that 85 per cent of those casting ballots had said no to accepting a deep geologic repository at the Bruce nuclear power plant near Kincardine, Ont. "We were not consulted when the nuclear industry was established in our territory," SON said in a statement. "Over the past 40 years, nuclear power generation in Anishnaabekiing has had many impacts on our communities, and our land and waters." The province's giant utility, Ontario Power Generation, had wanted to build the repository 680 metres underground about 1.2 kilometres from Lake Huron as permanent storage for low and intermediate-level radioactive waste. The project was tentatively approved in May 2015. While Kincardine was a "willing host," the relative proximity of the proposed bunker to the lake sparked a backlash elsewhere in Canada and the United States. Politicians, environmentalists and scores of communities expressed opposition. Successive federal governments have withheld final approval. In August 2017, then-environment minister Catherine McKenna paused the process the last in a string of delays for the project to ensure buy-in from Indigenous people in the area. The generating company, which insisted the stable bedrock would safely contain the waste, items such as contaminated reactor components and mops, said it respected SON's decision. "OPG will explore other options and will engage with key stakeholders to develop an alternate site-selection process," Ken Hartwick, head of OPG, said in a statement shortly after the vote was announced. "Any new process would include engagement with Indigenous peoples as well as interested municipalities." Australians will be airlifted from the Chinese city of Wuhan as early as Monday in a mission to rescue hundreds of people from an escalating health crisis as the death toll from coronavirus hit 304 within China. The Morrison government is negotiating with Chinese authorities to evacuate as many as 300 people on a special Qantas flight to Western Australia before they are transferred to Christmas Island for at least two weeks of quarantine. The rescue flight comes as the Australian Border Force tightens controls on flights arriving in Australia from mainland China, with a handful of passengers sent to hospitals for screening after arriving on Sunday. Hundreds of passengers who arrived on Sunday were allowed entry into Australia despite coming from mainland China, but Australian Border Force commissioner Michael Outram said thousands of travellers had cancelled their journeys after visa bans were announced over the weekend. Queer Azadi Mumbai (QAM) -- which conducted Mumbai Pride Solidarity Gathering 2020 -- has disassociated itself from the slogans raised in support of Sharjeel Imam during Saturday's pride march here at the Azad Maidan. "We completely dissociate ourselves from and strongly condemn the abrupt radical slogans in support of Sharjeel and/or any other slogans against the integrity of India at the gathering," said the QAM in a statement on Sunday. QAM said: "Neither our organisation nor the individuals who have signed the permissions were communicated with or kept informed of the intent and/or content of this sloganeering (in support of Imam)." Imam was booked for sedition for his provocative speech delivered during the students' protest at the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) on January 16 against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the Register of Citizens (NRC). The organisation also said that slogans raised at the public march were "irresponsible and potentially detrimental." "We further add that QAM will co-operate with legal processes that may be required by law enforcement systems in this matter," the statement read. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) - Hollywood actor, Johnny Depp is currently trending on social media after his estranged wife got exposed - In a leaked audio recording, his wife, Amber Heard is heard admitting to abusing him in their 4 years of marriage - This comes barely a year after she accused him of domestic violence For Hollywood star, Johnny Depp, it appears the overwhelming evidence against his wife and actress, Amber Heard, may have just set him free from social media crucifixion. Almost a year ago, the Aquaman star, had accused him of domestic violence. Shortly after, he filed for divorce, suing her for $50 million (N17,975,000,000) for defaming his character with claims of abuse while they were married. This however did not stop the actor from getting boycotted. However, new evidence has proven that Heard was indeed the abuser in their marriage and not the victim, like she had led the public to believe. In several leaked audio recordings that has since gone viral, she is heard not only admitting to hitting him several times, she also admits to having an uncontrollable temper PAY ATTENTION: Get the Latest Nigerian News on Legit.ng News App She also goes on to mock him for being 'such a baby' and even though Depp tries to make her see why getting physical with him needs to stop, she is heard saying she can't make him a promise that she won't lose her tempter. The audio recording which have since gone viral, have left social media buzzing with reactions, considering Heard was one of the major speakers against domestic violence and gender equality. Many people have not only tagged Heard a liar, they are accusing her of being the reason actual victims of domestic violence find it difficult to come out for fear that no one would believe them. they are calling for her to be dropped from major movies roles including Aquaman 2, which she features in and is yet to be released. See reactions below: PAY ATTENTION: Do you have news to share? Contact Legit.ng instantly At what point should a person walk out of an abusive relationship? | Legit TV Source: Legit.ng Were highlighting some of the activities Staten Island students are engaged in -- both inside and outside the classroom. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Students at PS 1 were able to learn about the importance of college from four siblings who are alumni of the Tottenville elementary school. College Awareness Day, which took place earlier this month, is an opportunity to inspire students to pursue their goals and look forward to college, no matter their age. PS 1 invited sisters Eman, Mona, Salma and Nada Metwally to speak with students. We want to be able to take the time and relay that message to the children, said Eman Metwally. No matter how young, you can still set goals and become motivated and be determined to meet those goals. And growing up, that goal can translate into going to college and setting bigger goals for yourself. She is a lower school learning specialist at Staten Island Academy. Her three sisters have careers in the health and medical field. It was a pleasure to come back to our elementary alma mater, said the Metwally sisters in a joint statement. We hope to instill in those childrens hearts a desire to set goals, to become motivated, to pursue their dreams with determination and to never be afraid to say, I will make it to college. I will succeed. In addition to the four siblings, Principal Graziella Pietrangelo and Assistant Principal Nicole Sini said many PS 1 alumni returned to the school to speak with students. They thought it would be a great idea to invite former students who attended college back to PS 1 to serve as role models and the epitome of success to show young students that they can achieve their dreams and goals. Its exciting to know that our current fifth graders will graduate high school and potentially go to college in 2027 and that means our current kindergarten students will be off to college in 2032! Pietrangelo and Sini said in a joint statement. Pietrangelo and Sini said it was an honor to celebrate the day with alumni at PS 1, and share the successes of each and every individual who previously attended our school. Through this event, our students were taught the importance and value of education and attending college, the pair said in a joint statement. It was a memorable experience for our staff, students and alumni alike and brought back much nostalgia as we toured the school building and shared in the artifacts they brought with them from report cards to tests, artwork and awards. And students learned important lessons during College Awareness Day. You need to go to college to make money and help your family," said third-grader William Garcia. Ethan Kubasak, a third-grader, said he learned its important to work hard in school and be kind in school. As part of our education column, In Class, we are highlighting some of the activities Staten Island students are engaged in -- both inside and outside the classroom. Heres a look at some additional recent education-related happenings. Do you have a story idea for the In Class education column? Email education reporter Annalise Knudson at aknudson@siadvance.com. 20 STUDENTS HONORED Rep. Max Rose (D-Staten Island/Brooklyn) honored 20 students from New Yorks 11th Congressional District this month, including 13 from Staten Island schools, who he nominated to United States Service Academies. An Army combat veteran, Roses office conducted a thorough nomination process, and received applications from 43 students. These students are the prime example of what makes this the greatest country in the world -- they want to serve, and it is my absolute honor to help put them on that path, said Rose. I think back to the men and women I served with -- the selfless sacrifice, the willingness to put aside their differences because thats what their country asked of them. Those are the exact same qualities that I see in each of these incredible young individuals Im proud to nominate to our U.S. Service Academies. Here are the Staten Island students nominated: Adrian Abella for U.S. Military Academy -- Susan E. Wagner High School Ilyas Alyokhin for U.S. Air Force Academy New Dorp High School Sean Andres for U.S. Air Force Academy Susan E. Wagner High School Danny Berbari for U.S. Naval Academy Susan E. Wagner High School Justin Cohen for U.S. Air Force Academy Staten Island Technical High School James Colesanti for U.S. Naval Academy St. Joseph by-the-Sea High School Anuga Ekanayake for U.S. Naval Academy Susan E. Wagner High School Joseph Franco for U.S. Naval Academy and U.S. Merchant Marine Academy Tottenville High School Bernard Kelly III for U.S. Air Force Academy Staten Island Technical High School Dierdre McCafferty for U.S. Naval Academy and U.S. Merchant Marine Academy Notre Dame Academy Patrick Perosi for U.S. Military Academy Monsignor Farrell High School Frank Scafuri IV for U.S. Naval Academy -- Monsignor Farrell High School Amya White for U.S. Military Academy Curtis High School Members of Congress may nominate candidates for appointment to four of the five U.S. service academies: U.S. Military Academy, West Point, N.Y.; the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, Md.; the U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, Colo.; the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, Kings Point, N.Y. The fifth service academy, the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn., doesnt require a congressional nomination for appointment. The honor of attending a service academy comes with the obligation and commitment to serve in the military for a minimum of five years upon graduation. AQUARIUM CLUB The New Jersey SEA LIFE Aquarium, which is opening this spring at American Dream in East Rutherford, N.J., is looking to recruit SEA LIFE Junior Rangers -- the exclusive club of science fanatics. Children with an interest in science and/or environmental conservation can become part of the club, which is a group of kids who work with SEA LIFEs curator and his team of aquarists on fun events and activities at the aquarium, and off-site events that will contribute to local conservation efforts. Through Wednesday, Feb. 5, applicants ages 7 through 12 located in northern New Jersey and New York City, can enter to become a junior ranger by posting a 30-second to one-minute video recording to Facebook or Instagram with the hashtag, #sealifenjrangers, explaining what they love most about the planet. Eight to 12 winners will be announced on Monday, Feb. 10. As part of SEA LIFEs Junior Rangers, students and their families will get unlimited entry to the aquarium and be invited to participate in exclusive events throughout the year. The program lasts one year, from March 2020 to March 2021, at which time the group is asked to help select the next group of recruits. The 25,000-square-foot aquarium will be themed around New York Citys most iconic monuments and landmarks. It has been dubbed City Under the Sea. In total, the facility will be home to more than 3,000 creatures, with about 75 to 100 different species of fish and invertebrates from local and international waters. MORE STORIES FROM THE IN CLASS EDUCATION COLUMN: FOLLOW ANNALISE KNUDSON ON FACEBOOK AND TWITTER. The Palestinian Authority has cut all ties with the United States and Israel, including those relating to security, after rejecting a Middle East peace plan presented by U.S. President Donald Trump, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Saturday, Trend reports citing Reuters. Abbas was in Cairo to address the Arab League, which backed the Palestinians in their opposition to Trumps plan. The blueprint, endorsed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, calls for the creation of a demilitarised Palestinian state that excludes Jewish settlements built in occupied territory and is under near-total Israeli security control. Weve informed the Israeli side ... that there will be no relations at all with them and the United States including security ties, Abbas told the one-day emergency meeting, called to discuss Trumps plan. Israeli officials had no immediate comment on his remarks. Israel and the Palestinian Authoritys security forces have long cooperated in policing areas of the occupied West Bank that are under Palestinian control. The PA also has intelligence cooperation agreements with the CIA, which continued even after the Palestinians began boycotting the Trump administrations peace efforts in 2017. Abbas also said he had refused to discuss the plan by with Trump by phone, or to receive even a copy of it to study it. Trump asked that I speak to him by phone but I said no, and that he wants to send me a letter ... but I refused it, he said. Abbas said he did not want Trump to be able to say that he, Abbas, had been consulted. He reiterated his complete rejection of the Trump plan, presented on Tuesday. I will not have it recorded in my history that I sold Jerusalem, he said. The blueprint also proposes U.S. recognition of Israeli settlements on occupied West Bank land and of Jerusalem as Israels indivisible capital. The Arab League foreign ministers meeting in Cairo said the plan did not meet the minimum aspirations of Palestinians, and that the League would not cooperate with the United States in implementing it. The ministers affirmed Palestinian rights to create a future state based on the land captured and occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, with East Jerusalem as capital, the final communique said. Foreign ministers from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, three close U.S. allies, as well as Iraq, Lebanon and others said there could be no peace without recognising Palestinian rights to establish a state within the pre-1967 territories. After Trump unveiled his plan, some Arab powers had appeared, despite historic support for the Palestinians, to prioritise close ties with the United States and a shared hostility towards Iran over traditional Arab alliances. Three Gulf Arab states - Oman, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates - attended the White House gathering where Trump announced his plan alongside Netanyahu. On Tuesday, Netanyahu said he would ask his cabinet this week to approve the application of Israeli law to Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Such a move could be a first step towards formal annexation of the settlements and the Jordan Valley - territory Israel has kept under military occupation since its capture in 1967. Most countries consider Israeli settlements on land captured in war to be a violation of international law. Trump has changed U.S. policy to withdraw such objections. Committees will be formed in every Uttar Pradesh district to launch protests against CAA, NRC and NPR, a group of minority and social organisations announced on Sunday. The decision was taken at a meeting of organisations such as the Jamat-e-Islami, the Milli Council and the Jamiat Ahle Hadees. "It was an unanimous view that committees should be formed in every district in the state to start protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), the National Register for Citizens (NRC) and National Population Register (NPR)," Babri Masjid Action Committee convener Zafaryab Jilani, who was in the meeting, said. Protests are already being staged in Lucknow, Kanpur and Allahabad against CAA, NRC and NPR, he said. "Support of protestors from these places should be taken, and where protests are not taking place, efforts should be made to launch them," Jilani said. He said that a coordination committee has been formed for this, and Magsaysay recipient Sandeep Pandey has been made its convenor. "The coordination committee will have 60 members. It will consist of 50 per cent Muslims and 50 per cent non-Muslims. The next meeting of this committee is likely to take place in Lucknow on February 8," Jilani said. "The public wants an end to CAA, NRC and NPR. The government cannot suppress the voice of the people, and we will not go as per the 'marzee' (will) of the government," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The 2020 Honda Pilot is easy to recommend to family-oriented drivers. Matt Castrucci Honda is illustrating the utility and safety of the 2020 Honda Pilot for the benefit of families in Dayton, OH and its neighboring communities. Every 2020 Honda Pilot features three rows of seating and can accommodate seven or eight passengers depending on its configuration. In addition to its returning trim levels (LX, EX, EX-L, Touring and Elite) the 2020 Honda Pilot is also offered in a new, range-topping Black Edition trim. In terms of included features, the Black Edition trim is equipped similarly to the Elite trim in addition to a variety of black exterior accents and red interior trim. The 2020 Honda Pilot is powered by a 3.5-liter, V6 engine that works in conjunction with a standard six-speed automatic transmission or an optional nine-speed automatic transmission. This powertrain produces 280 horsepower and 262 pound-feet of torque. Front-wheel drive comes standard in the LX, EX, EX-L and Touring trims. All-wheel drive is optional for the previously listed trims and comes standard in Elite and Black Edition models. The cabin of the 2020 Honda Pilot features 168.2 cubic feet of interior volume. When the second and third rows of the 2020 Pilot are folded flat, this SUV has a maximum cargo capacity of 83.8 cubic feet. When all its seats are in place, the standard cargo capacity of the 2020 Pilot is 16.5 cubic feet. Passengers can store smaller items throughout the cabin, which features a center console storage compartment and spacious door pockets. Matt Castrucci Honda features more 2020 Honda Pilot information on its website, mattcastruccihonda.com. Drivers can also learn more about this SUV by contacting the dealerships automotive experts at 855-250-8986. Matt Castrucci Honda is located at 3013 Mall Park Drive and is one of several dealerships that make up the Castrucci Auto Group. Beijing: In the midst of the coronavirus epidemic that has become a curse for China, the Indian government is engaged in the task of bringing back its citizens trapped there. On Saturday, while the special flight of Air India reached New Delhi with 324 Indian nationals from China, on Sunday morning also a flight of Air India brought home for the second time of Indians. Pak students whipped PM of Pakistan, says 'Learn something from India...' 323 Indians have returned home from this flight of Air India flying from Wuhan city of China. Along with these, 7 citizens of Maldives have also been brought to New Delhi. The flight took off from Wuhan city of China for New Delhi at 3.10 am. In China, Ambassador of India Vikram Misri has told that 323 Indian and 7 citizens of Maldives were sitting in this aircraft. Maldives Foreign Minister Abdullah Shahid has expressed gratitude to PM Narendra Modi and Foreign Minister S Jaishankar, saying that 7 people returning from Wuhan will be kept under surveillance in New Delhi. Coronavirus creates havoc, death toll crossed 304 Along with crew members in this aircraft, 5 doctors and paramedical staff of Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital were also present. They also had essential medicines and other essential items including masks. With this batch returned from China to Delhi, 647 citizens of India have reached New Delhi so far. America imposed travel ban on these countries From: Microsoft- Corp. [mailto:webkk54@outlook.com] Sent: Sunday, December 29, 2019 1:11 PM Subject: Notification Email. Attn: Congratulation!!! Your e-mail address has won $2million for 2019 Microsoft award. Serial numbers MDB/002 0869958/09 Contact (ADVOCATE FRANKLIN EDWARD) immediately; through his email address ( advtfranklinedward@gmail.com ) or phone number + 27736394004 and forward him your Winning No.(19-45-87-36-76-38(77), to redeem your winning prize. Sincerely, Dr. Elizabeth Henning. Copyright 2019 Microsoft! Inc. All rights reserved. From: Franklin Edward [ mailto:advtfranklinedward@gmail.com ] Sent: Sunday, December 29, 2019 2:26 PM Subject: Re: Notification Email. FROM: ADVOCATE FRANKLIN EDWARD PROCESSING MANAGER/CLAIM AGENT PHONE: + 27-73-639-4004. FAX : + 27-86-514-2678 Congratulation, you are qualified and selected as one of our lucky winners with the Winning Number: 19-45-87-36-76-38(77), REF. NUMBERS: MDB/929/09 and SERIAL NUMBERS: MDB/002 0869958/09, FILL OUT THE WINNERS VERIFICATION FORM BELOW: And return it back to us to enable us process your winning prize, Please you are advised to complete the form and return it back to us immediately to enable us process your winning prize. 1. Your full names 2. Gender 3. Your address 4. Your country 5. Nationality 6. Your fax 7. Home phone number 8. Mobile phone number 9. Occupation 10. Your age Once again congratulations from Microsoft Corporation South Africa Any breach of confidentiality on the part of the winners may result to disqualification. You are to keep all lotto information away from the general public especially your lucky numbers: and your ref. numbers (This is important as a case of double claims will not be entertained). Regards, Advocate Franklin Edward, Attorney at Law. From: Franklin Edward [mailto:advtfranklinedward@gmail.com] Sent: Monday, December 30, 2019 11:54 PM Subject: Re: Notification Email. FROM: ADVOCATE FRANKLIN EDWARD PROCESSING MANAGER/CLAIM AGENT PHONE: + 27-73-639-4004. FAX : + 27-86-514-2678 Dear, I wish to inform you that I have submitted your cheque/check with your details to Mr. Peterson Dube foreign remittance/transfer manager First National bank here in South Africa, they promised to contact you today for the transfer of your funds, Please do let me know as soon as they contacted you, Once again this is my phone number + 27736394004, if you don't mind you can contact the bank through their email address (remittancedeptfnb@live.co.za) or (petersondube@firstnb.info), the contact person is Mr. Peterson Dube. Regards, Advocate Franklin Edward, Attorney at Law. From: Peterson Dube [mailto:petersondube@firstnb.info] Sent: Wednesday, January 08, 2020 6:19 PM Subject: Attn: PLEASE OPEN THE ATTACHMENTS GO THROUGH THE CONTENT AND GET BACK TO US. (c) First National Bank (F.N.B) South Africa All Rights Reserved. This email-communication and its attachments are strictly private, confidential and may be privileged or otherwise protected from disclosure. It is intended for the individual or entity for which it is being sent and/or communicated. If you are not the intended recipient, kindly do not read, copy, use, disclose, disseminate or distribute this communication to others and notify the sender by replying to this message and delete it and all of its attachments (if any) from your network. Thanks for your co-operation. Date: Wednesday, 05 February 2020, 01:26AM -08:00 Subject: Re: Re[2]: Funds FROM: ADVOCATE FRANKLIN EDWARD PROCESSING MANAGER/CLAIM AGENT PHONE: +27-73-639-4004 . FAX : +27-86-514-2678 Dear , I wish to inform you that I have submitted your cheque/check with your details to Mr. Peterson Dube foreign remittance/transfer manager First National bank here in South Africa, they promised to contact you today for the transfer of your funds, Please do let me know as soon as they contacted you, Once again this is my phone number +27736394004 , if you don't mind you can contact the bank through their email address (remitdeptfnb@live.co.za) or (petersondube@firstnb.info), the contact person is Mr. Peterson Dube. Regards, Advocate Franklin Edward, Attorney at Law. From: Franklin Edward franklinedward@execs.com Date: Wednesday, 05 February 2020, 01:26AM -08:00Subject: Re: Re[2]: Funds On Fri, Feb 7, 2020 at 3:30 AM First National Bank < remitdeptfnb@live.co.za > wrote: PLEASE OPEN THE ATTACHMENTS GO THROUGH THE CONTENT AND GET BACK TO US. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * (c) First National Bank (F.N.B) South Africa All Rights Reserved. This email-communication and its attachments are strictly private, confidential and may be privileged or otherwise protected from disclosure. It is intended for the individual or entity for which it is being sent and/or communicated. If you are not the intended recipient, kindly do not read, copy, use, disclose, disseminate or distribute this communication to others and notify the sender by replying to this message and delete it and all of its attachments (if any) from your network. Thanks for your co-operation. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Date: Saturday, 29 February 2020, 09:30AM -08:00 Subject: URGENT FROM: ADVOCATE FRANKLIN EDWARD PROCESSING MANAGER/CLAIM AGENT PHONE: +27-73-639-4004 . FAX : +27-86-514-2678 Dear, You should be informed that we received your email regarding the message you received from MICROSOFT AWARD, concerning your AWARD WINNING NOTIFICATION, which you were instructed to contact me, ADVOCATE FRANKLIN EDWARD for your immediate payment. NOTE: WE DO NEED YOUR BANK ACCOUNT FOR US TO TRANSFER YOUR WINNING FUNDS TO YOU. You have to be aware that we have forwarded your information to the account department to process your winning prize, I will let you know as soon as is ready, your winning prize will be transfer direct to any bank account provided by you, we will send your award-winning certificate by email attachment as soon as is ready after your money is transferred to your account we will mail you the hard copy of the certificate so that you can have the winning certificate as proof source of the funds. NOTE THE FOLLOWING: 1. We will make an urgent arrangement to see that we pay your money to you, and we have also make booking and arrange also with the bank here in South Africa, to transfer your money to you through TELEGRAPHIC BANK TRANSFER, this may take us between one week or less time (NOTE: THAT WE DO NOT POST CHEQUE TO OUR CLIENTS FOR SECURITY REASON. 2. Also, your WINNING CERTIFICATE, which we will send to you as soon as your winning prize is ready, is also on process, I will keep you updated. I hope to hear from you. Regards, Advocate Franklin Edward, Attorney at Law. From: Franklin Edward advtfranklinedward@gmail.com Date: Saturday, 29 February 2020, 09:30AM -08:00Subject: URGENT Date: Monday, 02 March 2020, 00:52PM -08:00 Subject: URGENT FROM: ADVOCATE FRANKLIN EDWARD PROCESSING MANAGER/CLAIM AGENT PHONE: +27-73-639-4004 . FAX : +27-86-514-2678 Dear, I wish to inform you that your winning prize is ready, the attachments is a soft copy of the check/cheque and your winning certificate, I will submit the check/cheque with your details to the bank tomorrow for transfer of your winning funds to your nominated bank account in your country, I will let you know as soon as I submitted the check/cheque to the bank. Regards, Advocate Franklin Edward, Attorney at Law. NB: Remember that the hard copy of the winning certificate will be send to you through courier services as soon as you receive your prize, you can call me on my phone number +27736394004 . From: Franklin Edward advtfranklinedward@gmail.com Date: Monday, 02 March 2020, 00:52PM -08:00Subject: URGENT Date: Monday, 02 March 2020, 11:48PM -08:00 Subject: URGENT FROM: ADVOCATE FRANKLIN EDWARD PROCESSING MANAGER/CLAIM AGENT PHONE: +27-73-639-4004 . FAX : +27-86-514-2678 Dear, I wish to inform you that I have submitted your cheque/check with your details to Mr. Peterson Dube foreign remittance/transfer manager First National bank here in South Africa, they promised to contact you today for the transfer of your funds, Please do let me know as soon as they contacted you, Once again this is my phone number +27736394004 , if you don't mind you can contact the bank through their email address (remitdeptfnb@live.co.za) or (petersondube@firstnb.info), the contact person is Mr. Peterson Dube. Regards, Advocate Franklin Edward, Attorney at Law. From: Franklin Edward advtfranklinedward@gmail.com Date: Monday, 02 March 2020, 11:48PM -08:00Subject: URGENT If you received a similar email, you should go to the homepage to read more about 419 fraud. Pennsylvania woman Ashley Menser, 36, was sentenced to at least 10 months up to seven years in prison last week for stealing $109.63-worth of groceries in 2018 A cancer patient with advanced ovarian cancer who requires surgery has been sentenced to at least 10 months in jail for stealing $109.63-worth of groceries from a Pennsylvania store. Last week Ashley Menser, 36, was sentenced to at least 10 months up to seven years in prison, a punishment that has been slammed as overly harsh. Menser was caught shoplifting the load of merchandise from a Weis Markets grocery store in Lebanon in 2018 and pleaded guilty to charges last year. On January 22, Menser appeared in court for her sentencing, hoping that the fact that she was being treated for ovarian and cervical cancer would persuade the judge to either delay or defer sentencing, but she was shown no mercy. Instead Lebanon County Judge Samuel A. Kline handed her the prison sentence and now Menser is behind bars, instead of getting treatment. Menser's family says she has just one month to live and is pleading for the court to allow her to get medical attention. Menser was caught shoplifting the load of merchandise from a Weis Markets in Lebanon in 2018 and pleaded guilty to charges last year. Menser was convicted of theft in 2017 and with drug possession and theft in early 2018. Pictured left in 2018 and right in 2016 She allegedly left a Weis grocery store in Lebanon without paying for all the items in her cart 'I sat there and sat there and was like, 'No, this can't happen',' Steve Via, Menser's father, said to the PA Post. 'She must have this operation or she's going to die.' Menser was diagnosed with cancer in 2011 and was being actively treated. Her family says she has advanced ovarian cancer as well as cervical cancer. Lebanon County Judge Samuel A. Kline handed her the prison sentence on January 22, referring to her criminal record She was due at the Hershey Medical Center's Cancer Institute later on the morning of January 22, the same day as her sentencing. Menser and her family believed the court would let her attend her scheduled oncology appointment where Menser was expected to be scheduled for a hysterectomy to remove the cancer that had already spread to her lymph nodes. Medical records show Menser also has a history of drug abuse and post traumatic stress disorder, which she was taking medication for. Menser's mother Stephanie Bashore said that she met with a doctor who said that without treatment, Menser would likely die within a month. 'She has no choice, it's life or death. The doctors sat there and told us this,' Bashore said. Menser has a record and her lawyer Scott Feeman said the judge made his decision based on her criminal history rather than her medical condition. Menser was convicted of theft in 2017 and with drug possession and theft in early 2018. 'We gave the judge documents outlining our concerns with her confinement to a jail, and we had hoped that she would be able to stay home and get the treatment she needed for her cancer,' he said. The sentencing has sparked outrage and now Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania John Fetterman is calling for her release, saying he will foot the $109.63 bill for the stolen groceries. He tweeted Friday: 'I'm sure @WeisMarkets doesn't support this. I'll personally pay the $109 back. Calling on Judge Kline to err on the side of mercy.' 'There are a lot of people who get clean and try to move on with their lives, and pardons can free them from the baggage of past convictions,' Fetterman said to the New York Times. 'If there is no victim, why carry this out. Why are we arguing over whether a woman with cancer should be denied the ability to see her doctor?' he added. Menser's lawyer intends to file a motion for re-sentencing. Sentencing guidelines allow judges to be more lenient or divert certain defendants into treatments if they've been diagnosed with mental illness, however there's been little research on how judges handle sentencing of defendants convicted of crimes who are also terminally ill. The sentencing has sparked outrage and now Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania John Fetterman (above) is calling for Menser's release, saying he will foot the $109.63 bill for the stolen groceries He tweeted Friday: 'I'm sure @WeisMarkets doesn't support this. I'll personally pay the $109 back. Calling on Judge Kline to err on the side of mercy'. A letter Ashley wrote from jail pictured above Fetterman says he'll pay for Menser's stolen goods and is demanding she receive the medical attention she needs Menser's parents say that since she was taken into custody, the corrections staff have neglected her cancer treatment. Menser wrote a letter Wednesday night begging for her release for the surgery saying, 'I am weak and in pain.' The Lebanon County Correctional Facility Warden Robert J. Karns has not commented on Menser's condition, citing health care privacy laws. However, court dockets show Judge Kline did urge she be moved to a state correctional facility 'promptly' to address her medical needs. At Lebanon County Correctional Facility inmates have their medical needs addressed through a company called PrimeCare. While inmates can request to see a doctor, a doctor is only available two days per week. In 2016, the Bureau of Justice statistics estimated that 22 percent of inmate deaths were cancel related. However, it's not clear among those how many were pre-existing illnesses. In Pennsylvania the leading cause of death for state prisoners is cancer, but the state also has an older prison population. Arab States Pledge Palestinian Support, Take No Action Against Trump Peace Plan By Edward Yeranian February 01, 2020 Arab foreign ministers pledged support Saturday for the Palestinian cause at an extraordinary summit in Cairo, criticizing the Trump administration's peace plan but taking no concrete action to oppose it. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the plan, though, saying he was "cutting security relations with both the U.S. and Israel." The foreign ministers applauded Abbas' fiery speech denouncing the Trump administration's "Deal of the Century" peace plan, which he vowed "never to accept." He also said he would not accept that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. Jerusalem, he insisted, "is our capital." Abbas read off other grievances against the peace plan, saying it would give the Palestinians "a piece of Swiss cheese," with "no sovereignty over either land, sea or air," and "just 22% of historic [British-mandated] Palestine," including several Arab towns now inside Israel. Dismissive of 'Sham' Palestinian peace negotiator Saeb Erekat, who sat next to Abbas, advising him at times over the choice of words, broke the monotony of Abbas' angry litany, mocking the Trump peace plan in English. "We strongly disapprove of the 'Sham of the Century,' " he said. Abbas also expressed displeasure with a provision in the plan saying Palestinians must "show good will," and another provision that the Palestinian Authority "must disarm Gaza," which is now controlled by the rival Hamas group. Arab League head Ahmed Aboul Gheit told the gathering the "change of America's position vis-a-vis the Palestinians" and its "disregard for historic U.N. resolutions" toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict "do not help the cause of peace." He said Saturday's meeting was meant to "examine the negative effects of the Trump peace plan," arguing it did "not meet the basic demands of the Palestinians" and would "sow the seeds of another 100 years of conflict." Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukri urged Israel "not to continue creating facts on the ground," alluding to the creation of new Israeli settlements in the West Bank or Jerusalem. "Delaying a just and fair solution," he added, "will promote regional and world instability." Jordanian: No changes in Jerusalem Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi also warned Israel not to tamper with the current religious situation in Jerusalem, in which Amman is responsible for Islamic holy sites, including the al-Aqsa Mosque. He said there must be no changes to the traditional situation in Jerusalem. The city, he insisted, is the symbol of peace and must continue to embody peace. Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed Ali Hakim urged "all Arab countries to help the Palestinians," and Bahrain's foreign minister, Sheikh Khaled al-Khalif, urged Palestinians and Israelis to "start [direct] negotiations immediately, in order to achieve an acceptable agreement." The UAE's minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Ghargash, reiterated the point, adding, "Dialogue is the key to a peace solution," and "Each side must make difficult decisions, given the serious regional situation." Verbal backing, but no more Egyptian political sociologist Said Sadek told VOA that Arab foreign ministers "gave verbal support to the Palestinians" but most Arab states are "too busy with their own problems and interests to do more than that." "Arab countries," he insisted, "are no longer willing to fight wars for the Palestinians, as they did in 1948, 1967 or 1973." "The Arab people had little reaction" to the Trump peace plan in the streets of most capitals, and "little to no reaction at Friday prayers in mosques across the region," he added. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address https://www.aish.com/jw/s/Red-Sea-Spies-The-True-Story.html Far from being passive victims, it was the Ethiopian Jews' incredible heroism, sacrifice and steadfast commitment that enabled them to be saved. Gunshots ring out, panic sets in, the black Jews are told to hurry take only what they can carry and get out of the village as heavily armed troops close in. Terrified, the Jews are helped onto a waiting truck and whisked from immediate danger by white men Israeli Jews from the Mossad, come to take them out. We leave no one behind, says one of their saviours, leaving the vehicle and leading the group across arid, sun-baked plains and mountainous terrain, all the way from Ethiopia to a safe-house in Sudan. Such are the opening scenes which set the narrative in the Netflix movie Red Sea Diving Resort a film which describes itself as inspired by true events. What it does not claim is that it is based on facts. (Whether it is a good or bad movie is for viewers to decide). Ethiopian Jew in Wallaka, Ethiopia, 1984 (Photo: Doron Bacher, Beit Hatefutsoth) It is, by now, well known that around 30,000 Ethiopian Jews were spirited to Israel, in epic operations carried out by the Mossad and the Israel Defense Forces in the 1980s and early 1990s, in such legendary missions as Operation Moses and Solomon. It is also commonly understood that they were rescued plucked from the brink of extinction as civil war, drought and famine gripped northern Ethiopia, an appalling situation which pricked the worlds conscience and culminated with the historic Live Aid charity event watched by billions of people. That the Jews were saved by Israel is unquestionable but the conception, and all too often depiction, that they were rescued is not only dubious, but incorrect. There is a difference and it is a big one. Red Sea Diving resort When I set out to write my book Red Sea Spies: The True Story of Mossads Fake Holiday Resort the incredible tale of how Israeli agents smuggled Ethiopian Jews to Israel while using a bogus holiday village as cover I laboured under the illusion that these hapless and endangered Jews owed their salvation entirely to the heroic actions of those carrying out the orders of then Prime Minister Menachem Begin to bring them to Israel. However, the more I researched and learned about this special community, the more I came to realize that they were not passive victims of circumstance whose destiny lay in the hands of the Israelis sent to retrieve them. On the contrary had it not been for the heroism, sacrifice and single-mindedness of the Ethiopian Jews themselves, Moses, Solomon and the other operations of their kind would never have happened. Period. As the Mossad commander who instigated and led the mission, Dani, told me in one of our many meetings: It was like two big wheels, two strong wheels, actually met one was the old Ethiopian Jews dream to go back to Zion and Jerusalem, and the other one was the Israeli Jews that came to help them fulfil this it was the fusion of wheels that was the strength of this operation. Arous resort in 2005 For centuries and even millennia, the longing to return to what they knew as the Land of Jerusalem was their life force. Jerusalem a land they literally thought of as paved with gold and flowing with milk and honey occupied their thoughts and prayers. Grandparents told grandchildren about a city which was Heaven on Earth, animals were shechted (the laws of kashrut were scrupulously observed, along with Shabbat and other tenets of the Jewish faith) in its direction and songs and poems were sung about it (Shimela! Shimela!" Ethiopian Jewish children would sing on catching sight of a stork, as migrating musters headed to the Holy Land. "Agerachin Yerushalem dehena?" "Stork! Stork! How is our country Jerusalem doing?") In 1862, a first valiant but futile attempt was made to walk en masse to Jerusalem. Led by a spiritual leader (kes), Abba Mahari, thousands of Ethiopian Jews headed towards what they believed to be the Red Sea, but they failed to cross and many drowned trying. Years later, when the Ethiopian Jews were visited by scholar Josef Halevy (the first foreign Jew to find them), he wrote how the villagers paid little attention to him until he mentioned the word Jerusalem, whereupon they were seized by a burning curiosity and he was showered with questions about Mount Zion and the Temple (they did not know it had been destroyed, assuming the land was still under the occupation of the Romans). In 1948, when Ethiopian Jews heard that the State of Israel had been declared, they danced jubilantly in the streets, and when they learned it had been attacked they fasted. It wasnt until 1975 that the State of Israel recognized the Ethiopian Jews as halachically Jewish, entitling them to settle in Israel under the Law of Return. Their immigration though was not encouraged, nor were they allowed to leave Ethiopia then ruled by an anti-Zionist Marxist dictatorship to go there. That all changed with the advent of Begin in 1977 and his instruction to the Mossad to do whatever it took to bring the Ethiopian Jews to the Jewish state. Getting them out of Ethiopia itself was an insurmountable challenge the country was riven by conflict and its topography meant airlifts were out of the question. The Mossad was stuck for an answer, until the arrival of a cryptic letter from an Ethiopian Jew, wanted by the Ethiopian authorities for Zionist activity, who had run away to Sudan. Send me a[n airline] ticket, it said. The name of the fugitive Jew was Ferede Aklum. Dani was sent to track him down (which incredibly he did, despite having nothing to go on), and the two of them hatched a plan to get more Ethiopian Jews to follow Feredes lead and come to Sudan, from where the Mossad would smuggle them out to Israel. Dani and Ferede got word back to Feredes village in the Ethiopian Highlands, and the first to respond were Feredes brothers, who made the journey without hesitation. When more villagers heard that a way was open to get to Israel, more followed at first a handful, then a trickle, and ultimately a deluge. Ethiopian Jews kissing the ground in Israel on arrival (Photo: Israel Intelligence Heritage Commemoration Center) Village after village emptied, Jews leaving behind the family homes they had lived in for centuries as well as their way of life, for the sole purpose of going to Israel and they risked their lives to do it. They travelled by foot up and down mountains, through jungle, across rivers and over desert men, women, children, the elderly and the infirm. They left quietly at night so as not to alert their Christian neighbours, who would have informed the authorities. On their way they were attacked by bandits and wild animals, and stalked by hunger and thirst. The trek was hundreds of kilometres long and took weeks in some cases, months. Some Jews were caught by Ethiopian soldiers patrolling the border with Sudan, arrested and sent back to where they started. Where they survived imprisonment, they just made the journey all over again. It is said that when the Jews got to Sudan they kissed the ground, in the mistaken belief that they had made it to Jerusalem; in one case, where an elderly Ethiopian Jew eventually arrived at an absorption centre in Ashkelon following an airlift, he ingested mouthfuls of soil, overcome at finally being in the Holy Land. More than 1,500 Ethiopian Jews died in their effort to get to Israel, to return to their ancestral home and fulfil an ancient dream. No the Ethiopian Jews were not passive, but very much agents of their own destiny, who took their fate in their own hands, and suffered greatly in doing so. Memorial in Jerusalem to Ethiopian Jewish refugees And they were incredibly brave, both those who made it out alive and those who did not. Not only did they put themselves through the most gruelling ordeal, but even after they had reached the camps, mothers sent their children, alone and into the unknown, to get smuggled out by the Mossad, because they knew it would save their lives, while they remained behind. Every year, their odyssey and their sacrifices are remembered at a ceremony attended by the president, prime minister and other leading state figures, on an occasion known as Memorial Day for Ethiopian Jews who Perished on their Way to Israel. By law, it coincides with Yom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Day), such is the level of its importance, and it is held on Mount Herzl, the resting place of the founding father of Zionism. Where the Ethiopian Jews were rescued by the Mossad and IDF, it was from the refugee camps in Sudan where they languished in terrible conditions. The Israelis operating behind enemy lines to get them out of there were heroic, for sure; but no less so were the Ethiopian Jews themselves who paved the way which enabled the secret operations to happen. For this they deserve our utmost respect and deepest admiration, and for the sake of history the narrative ought to be correct. Red Sea Spies: The True Story of Mossads Fake Holiday Resort (Icon Books), by Raffi Berg is released in the UK on 6 February, and in the US on 14 April. For me, this isnt suicide. This is what Minister of Defense of Armenia Davit Tonoyan told the relatives of the soldier who died on January 30 in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh Republic). For me, this isnt suicide. What else do you want to me to say? Ill be following revelation of this case, Davit Tonoyan told the relatives. The relatives demanded the name of the serviceman who was linked to the death of soldier Vahram Avagyan. The deceased soldiers brother claimed that they cant trust the minister since the presses have been writing about suicide for several days, to which the minister said they have no reason not to trust him and called on them to stop the protest. The relatives wanted to transport the body of the deceased serviceman to the Ministry of Defense, but returned to the village to bury the soldier after having a talk with the defense minister. The soldiers relatives dont believe the official version of the death (suicide). They told Armenian News-NEWS.am that the soldier, Vahram was murdered. Vahram was enlisted six months ago and was serving in Artsakh. He died on January 30 at around 1:15 p.m. The Investigative Committee of Armenia declared that the soldier had shot his chest with the AKM type of gun attached to him and had been transferred to a military hospital with firearm injuries, and he was pronounced dead at 2 p.m. The first garrison investigative division has instituted a criminal case in relation to the incident, and preliminary investigation is underway. The Shiromani Akali Dal on Sunday demanded an immediate dismissal of Punjab Jails Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa and a probe by a sitting judge of the High Court into the escape of three prisoners from Amritsar's high-security Central jail. Former minister and senior SAD leader Daljit Singh Cheema said the Amritsar incident had come in the wake of various other incidents taking place in Punjab jails, which have shaken the confidence of people in the government. He said besides ordering an independent probe into the incident, the government should tell what action it has taken in other cases and why the jail administration has "collapsed. " Asking the chief minister to fix accountability at the very top, the opposition party leader said the "jails minister should be asked to resign immediately till the pendency of the probe". "Prison security is the primary responsibility of the jails minister. He cannot shirk away from this responsibility," he said in a statement here. Rejecting the magisterial inquiry ordered by the chief minister into the incident, Cheema said a magistrate "could not do justice" in the case. "The magistrate will not be able to probe the role of the jails minister in weakening prison security," he said. The SAD leader said since the prisoners' escape took place in the wake of several incidents of the use of mobile phones in jails, it is necessary to "hold an independent inquiry into the functioning of the Punjab jails administration". Three undertrials had escape escaped from the high-security Amritsar Central Jail by scaling the boundary walls on the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday, prompting Chief Minister Amarinder Singh to order a review and revamp of the prison security across the state. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Honda Cars India only dispatched BS6 petrol cars in Jan 2019. They stopped dispatch of BS4 cars by end of Dec 2019. Honda Cars India Ltd. (HCIL) has announced its BSIV wholesale despatches to dealers were completed in December 2019. And only despatched BSVI cars in January 2020. As a result, in Jan 2020 they only dispatched City, Civic and CRV petrol BSVI variants. Honda will launch BSVI compliant variants of other models in time to meet the compliance deadline of April 1, 2020. There were no dispatches of Amaze BS6 in Jan 2020. Amaze BSVI was launched at the end of Jan 2020. The compact sedan its now available at a revised price range of Rs 6.1 lakhs to Rs 9.96 lakhs. Both petrol 1.2 liter as well as diesel 1.5 liter is on offer with BS6 compliant on board the Amaze. The Honda City BSVI compliant model being sold in India is an update on the last-gen model. While the next-gen model is available overseas, the new gen City is expected to launch in India next month. Current gen Honda City BSVI is now available only in a petrol range with the diesel to be launched later with new gen. The Greater Noida and Tapukara plants have both shifted to production of updated cars. For January 2020, HCIL reports domestic dispatches of 5,299 units. Down 70.98 percent from 18,261 units in the domestic market in January 2019. The company is ramping up production volume in the months to come. Export for the month is reported at 182 units, down from 200 units exported in January 2019. As the company ramps up BS-6 production, volumes are lean in coming months. HCIL is committed to enhancing the supplies and bringing down the waiting period which has gone up during this transition to BS-6. At present, Honda has less than a week of stock of BSIV compliant cars in the entire dealer network, and HCIL is thankful for their support in early sales completion of entire BS-4 cars. Its not just BSVI transitioning thats had an effect on processes but also the ongoing the sales slowdown, the industry has been combatting through 2019, and now into 2020. This has meant a wide range of discounts to strengthen buying decisions. Through January 2020, HCIL offered discounts starting at 20k cash discounts, and 25k exchange bonus, and upto 5 lakh in benefits on the CR-V. While Honda Amaze raked in huge numbers for a while after launch, in recent times, sales stands curtailed. And while Honda has always depended on the City, the current situation finds HCIL in need of a stepping stone. The detective department of the Kolkata police busted a Jharkhand-based gang, which fraudulently managed to get the bank details of a senior citizen in Kolkata and duped him of more than Rs 50 lakh. A senior officer of the detective department said that four people, including two 18-year-old youth, were arrested from Jamtara and Dhanbad in Jharkhand on Saturday. Earlier police had arrested seven people in connection with the same case in July 2019. The victim Pradip Kumar Chaudhury, a senior citizen residing in east Kolkata, had shared his bank details to the miscreants over phone. He lost almost Rs 88 lakh. Out of that we managed to block around Rs 30 lakh, said the officer, adding that the gang had opened at least 150 bank accounts across India. In another case, a 22-year-old youth was arrested from Deogharh in Jharkhand for duping a person of Rs 6.5 lakh. The accused had sent a message to the victims mobile asking him to update his KYC. The accused managed to access the bank details of the victim by planting a remote access app on the victims mobile. A Brisbane camper-trailer company has won separate injurious falsehood and contempt of court cases against the administrator of a Facebook group about "lemon" caravans and motorhomes. A Brisbane court ruled in November that Tracy Leigh, an administrator of the 51,000-member group Lemon Caravans & RVs in Aus, inflicted $357,000 worth of damage on Bruder Expedition Pty Ltd. The image used on the "Lemon Caravans & RVs in Aus" Facebook group. Credit:Facebook In December, Ms Leigh was found guilty of contempt of court for breaching a judge's permanent injunction banning her from posting about Bruder to the same, or substantially the same, effect. Both cases stemmed from a dispute between Bruder and dissatisfied customer Charles Coles, who bought a Bruder EXP-6 trailer in early 2018. A new weapon is being used as a means of pressure in the Libyan conflict. Namely, Libyas oil. The Tripoli-based National Oil Corporation (NOC) declared Jan. 18 force majeure due to the closure of oil ports in eastern Libya, which the Libyan National Army (LNA) controls. The NOC accused the LNA, led by Field Marshal Khalifa Hifter, and affiliated Petroleum Facilities Guards of giving orders to halt oil exports from Libya's oil ports of Hariga, Brega, Ras Lanuf, Zueitina and Es Sider in the eastern part of the country. The force majeure event exempts the NOC from liability in case it fails to fulfill its oil delivery obligations under the contracts. In response to the US Embassys call for work resumption, the NOC replied Jan. 21 that oil operations would only resume when the closed ports in eastern Libya reopen. LNA spokesperson Maj. Gen. Ahmed al-Mismari said Jan. 18, The Libyan people are the ones who shut down the oil ports and fields and stopped the export of oil. We just have to protect our people. " Speaking to Agence France-Presse, leader of the Zouaya tribe Mayor Senussi Haliq az-Zawi announced Jan. 17 the closure of oil ports, adding "it is designed to dry up the sources of terrorism financing with oil revenues," in reference to preventing the Government of National Accord (GNA) from spending oil revenues on fighters coming from abroad. The LNA, represented by the Petroleum Facilities Guard, is tasked with securing oil facilities. Yet all of the revenues generated from oil production go to the Tripoli-based and UN-recognized NOC. Libyas oil industry is burdened with an institutional divide. While the Benghazi-based NOC is affiliated with the interim Libyan government, the Tripoli-based NOC is recognized at the international level as an official institution authorized to conclude international oil contracts. Although the countries taking part in the Libya peace conference in Berlin Jan. 19 have all demanded that all conflicting Libyan parties abstain from hostilities against oil sites and infrastructure, Libyas oil ports were closed on the eve of the Berlin conference. While the LNAs demand consists of a new distribution of oil revenues, GNA head Fayez al-Sarraj rebuffed Hifters demand that the reopening of the closed oil ports in eastern Libya be associated with a redistribution of oil revenues. Libyas pro-LNA tribal leaders and notables affirmed at their Jan. 24 meeting that oil ports will only open after the GNA is brought down, oil revenues are fairly distributed and a caretaker government is formed. The Tripoli-based NOC indicated in a statement Jan. 25 that the closure of oil ports and suspension of oil operations dropped oil production to 320,000 barrels per day, down from 1.2 million barrels per day a fall of 75%. Youssef al-Aqouri, head of the parliamentary committee following up on the NOC performance, said the closure of some of the ports in eastern Libya is part of a popular movement to demand a fair and transparent distribution of oil revenues. This is added to the demand that the GNA be held accountable for its spending, particularly since it was accused of bringing in mercenaries to fight alongside its forces in cooperation with Turkey, he added. Speaking to Al-Monitor, Aqouri said oil has turned into a popular weapon against the GNA. He explained that the LNA-held areas are suffering from hard conditions because they are not obtaining their financial allocations. He indicated that the committee's endeavors to end the oil companys divide have failed because the GNA insists on taking over the oil wealth. Yet we hope the recent UN-sponsored economic dialogue results in finding mechanisms that would guarantee a fair distribution of revenues among the different parts of the country. This is because we believe the Tripoli-based NOC is monopolized by militias and is not operating fairly. The United Nations held a meeting in Tunis Jan. 7, bringing together the Libyan parties to discuss the economic course, the oil crisis, and how to unify the divided economic and oil institutions. Libyan parliament member Ali al-Saidi told Al-Monitor that shutting down oil ports reflects popular anger at the GNA practices and agreement it reached with Turkey to bring in mercenary fighters and pay them from the revenues of Libyas oil wealth. He said the Libyan people, particularly those in eastern and southern Libya, are being marginalized when it comes to oil revenues. The GNA is practicing punitive policies against these areas because they back the LNA, he added. Members of Parliament react during plenary session on BREXIT vote of the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium, 29 January 2020. EPA BRUSSELS - The European Parliament gave final approval to Britain's divorce from the European Union on Wednesday, paving the way for the country to quit the bloc on Friday after nearly half a century and delivering a major setback for European integration. After an emotional debate during which several speakers shed tears, EU lawmakers voted 621 for and 49 against the Brexit agreement sealed between Britain and the 27 other member states last October, more than three years since Britons voted out. Thirteen lawmakers abstained and the chamber then broke into a rendition of Auld Lang Syne, a traditional Scottish folk song of farewell. Britain's 73 departing EU lawmakers headed for an "Au Revoir" party in the EU chamber after the vote. Earlier on Wednesday, Britain's ambassador to the EU handed documents formalising Brexit to a senior EU official. Against a backdrop of British and EU flags at the bloc's Brussels headquarters, Tim Barrow, smiling, passed over a dark blue leather file embossed with the emblem of the United Kingdom. After protracted divorce talks, Britain will leave the club it joined in 1973 at midnight Brussels time (2300 GMT) on Friday, when British flags will be removed from EU offices and the EU flag lowered on the British premises there. With a status-quo transition period running only until year-end, fresh talks - covering everything from trade to security - will begin soon on a new relationship. "We are considering a zero-tariff, zero-quotas free trade agreement. But the precondition is that EU and British businesses continue to compete on a level playing field. We will certainly not expose our companies to unfair competition," European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen told the chamber. Chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier told envoys of the remaining 27 members earlier on Wednesday that a loose association agreement like the EU has with Ukraine should serve as the basis for new relations, diplomatic sources said. "We will not give ground on issues that are important to us," Barnier said, according to sources briefed on the closed-door meeting. On his last working day as a member of the European Parliament, leading Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage told reporters there was "no going back" once the UK leaves. "The UK didn't fit, we'd be better off out," he said, describing euroscepticism as a settled view in the UK, where "Leave" won the 2016 referendum by a narrow 52 to 48 percent margin. He said British Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised him there would be no so-called 'level playing field' clauses on fair competition in the new EU-UK deal, highlighting a major point of contention with the bloc in the coming talks. As Farage beamed, his Brexit Party lawmakers waved goodbye to the chamber with mini Union Jack flags and chanted "Hurray!", but their Socialist compatriot Jude Kirton-Darling choked back tears. "It's probably the saddest day of my life so far. Brexit is something that attacks the very foundation of our identity," said Kirton-Darling, who plans to stay in Brussels with her Belgian husband. Guy Verhofstadt, a liberal EU lawmaker from Belgium and a staunch europhile, lamented Brexit as a historic debacle: "It's sad to see a country leaving that twice liberated us, twice gave its blood to liberate Europe." As a new reality dawns on Europe from Saturday, the UK's Permanent Representation to the EU, or UKRep, will become a foreign mission - already dubbed "UKmissEU" by some. ((Reuters) [February 02, 2020] Children's Hospital Los Angeles Receives $25 Million for Pediatric Cancer, Vision and Rehabilitation Programs Children's Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) announced today that the Margie and Robert E. Petersen Foundation has contributed $25 million to establish an endowment supporting three of the hospital's signature programs: the Cancer and Blood Disease Institute (CBDI), the Vision Center and Inpatient Rehabilitation Services. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200202005017/en/ Children's Hospital Los Angeles is one of the nation's leading academic pediatric medical centers. (Photo: Business Wire) "This endowment expands the Petersen's legacy of generosity by providing CHLA with a resource that will forever advance our mission to create hope and build healthier futures for children," says President and CEO Paul S. Viviano. "I am so graeful for this gift that will support a wide range of initiatives including research projects, technology upgrades, clinical care, key physician recruitment, capital projects, unreimbursed care and more." The Margie and Robert E. Petersen Foundation, led by President GiGi Carleton, supports children's health and well-being throughout Southern California, fulfilling the Petersen's desire to care for the community by helping all children reach their full potential. Margie Petersen was a former CHLA Trustee, and both she and her husband Robert Petersen, founder and chairman of Petersen Publishing Co., were longtime supporters of the hospital. The Foundation has supported several CHLA programs and projects over the years, including an $8.5 million gift to open a state-of-the-art inpatient rehabilitation space in 2015, named the Margie and Robert E. Petersen Foundation Rehabilitation Center and honoring their sons Bobby and Richie Petersen. "Through their transformative philanthropy and leadership, the Petersens dedicated their lives to helping children overcome obstacles of all kinds," says Alexandra Carter, CHLA Senior Vice President and Chief Development Officer. "They would be proud to know that this gift will help save children from debilitating illnesses by helping one of the nation's top children's hospitals provide families and patients the multidisciplinary, family-centered care they need." In recognition of this transformative gift, CHLA will be naming the main driveway at its 4650 Sunset Boulevard campus the Margie and Robert E. Petersen Entry Plaza, in honor of Mr. Petersen's role as founding publisher of Hot Rod and Motor Trend magazines and founder of the Petersen Automotive Museum. About Children's Hospital Los Angeles Children's Hospital Los Angeles is dedicated to creating hope and building healthier futures for children. Founded in 1901, CHLA is one of the nation's leading academic pediatric medical centers and is acknowledged worldwide for its leadership in pediatric and adolescent health. The hospital relies on the generosity of the community to support its groundbreaking pediatric research and the complex care it provides for critically ill and injured children. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200202005017/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] Downtown Beaumont was filled with happy campers Saturday as folks filled Pour Brothers Brewery for their second Arts and Craft Beer event. Led by a local mom-and-daughter team, patrons filled their canvases with campers and mountains while enjoying a variety of craft beer on a sunny afternoon. Its a lot of fun, said Darrell Wiggins, of Groves, who was enjoying conversation with others while taking a break from his art work. You get to bring home one of your own creations when you leave. The biology/chemistry teacher admits that hes not an artist, and was quick to point out his inspiration. Shes the creative painter, he said, nodding to his wife, Vicki Wiggins. Vicki, who also makes custom jewelry, brushed mountains onto her canvas next to her glass of beer. Were painting campers, she explained, which is awesome because we love to camp. Instructing the group was Brandy Lee and her daughter Madalyn Lee, who worked on one piece with the group and had a completed one nearby. We just do this for fun. Its like therapy, Brandy said. Were not artists. We just started doing this on the side, just for fun. The duo used the proceeds made from the last Arts and Craft Beer to buy Christmas stockings for homeless people in the area. The brewery hopes to make the event a monthly occurrence, said co-owner Michael Broussard, as they have with Yoga on Tap. And vendor fairs are in the plans for the near future. Were just trying to reach out in general with the community by doing events, said Broussard. Were engaging local businesses and small businesses to help each other, while drawing people downtown. But even without a schedule, the Wall Street location includes a family-friendly backyard area with plenty of tables, games and things to keep visitors engaged. The inside of the building, which opened in September 2019, soon will be decorated with work from local artists as Pour Brothers owners work to show-off Southeast Texas talent. At the same time, locals can now find their work in multiple places: Ford Park, Amelia Farm and Market, the Logon Cafe and Pub, and soon Hooters, just to name a few. We just started canning, said Broussard. And then well be available in grocery stores. Theres a lot of bars where you cant take a tap, but theyll sell our cans. mbatson@beaumontenterprise.com twitter.com/mo_bats Gwyneth Paltrow's 'Goop' is drawing in criticism from a UK based official for promoting treatments that pose risks to health, reported CNN. Chief executive of NHS England, Simon Stevens during a speech in Oxford singled out Goop speaking about the rise of fake news about Terming the recent wellness products as "dubious," Stevens targeted the health procedures available on the internet and said that they mislead people. A recent Netflix docu-series 'The Goop Lab' featuring Paltrow's wellness brand's employees was released recently on the platform where the employees sample a range of the lifestyle treatments. According to CNN, Stevens said that the brand brings treatments like DIY coffee enemas and colonic irrigation that carry considerable health risk. He said that people are risking their health and are wasting their money by buying the 'Too-good-to-be-true remedies. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Former senator representing Kaduna central, Shehu Sani says the manual of Adolf Hitler, a former German chancellor, should not be a guide to the countrys anti-graft agencies. Hitler described as a brutal dictator allegedly oversaw the killing of millions of Jews. Sani spent 30 days in EFCC custody following his arrest on December 31. EFCC accused the former senator of extorting $15,000 from one Sani Dauda in November 20, 2019, promising to give it to Ibrahim Muhammad, chief justice of Nigeria, to influence some pending cases in court. He was also alleged to have collected another $10,000 from Dauda to bribe Ibrahim Magu, EFCC acting chairman. Sani, who was released on Thursday after a court granted him bail, has vehemently denied the allegations. In a statement on Saturday, Sani said while in custody, he was forced to declare his assets and subjected to traumatising interrogations. My incarceration for 30 days in the jail of EFCC was unfair, unjust and a clear breach of my fundamental rights and hence stands condemned. During my unjust stay in the EFCC cell, I was subjected to traumatizing interrogations my houses and offices were searched, he said. They compelled me to declare my assets, they tried to subject me to polygraph lie detector tests, my accounts were blocked, and my phone was seized, all in the name of fictional $24,000 or $25, 000 extortion. Any Information planted in the media by the EFCC spokesperson while I was in their custody about me is outrightly false and nothing but a bacterial and fungal infested concoctions, typical of their style. Our country will continue to be at the bottom strata of the Transparency International index as long as our anti-graft agencies only use their might and arsenal to crush ants while lacking the courage, the heart, and the liver to confront the snakes, the vultures and the hyenas of the ruling establishment. They can frame me, detain me but cant silence me. In an ideal democratic state, all agencies of the government are obliged to operate within the dictates and the ambit of the rule of law or the nation leaps into tyranny. The rule book of Stalin, The manual of Hitler or road map of Mussolini should not be the guidance and the compass of the nations security and anti-corruption agencies in their quest to sanitize our country. Horses, Hooves, and Heat in Today's Evolving Ethiopia Story and photos by Julia Hubbel In Ethiopia, the ancient and the modern clash as a surge in tourism produces begging children who grow up to become extortionists. There is still tribal warfare around the Danikil Depression of Ethiopia, but now it's over who gets to gouge the tourists. The two-to-four-day excursions are already very expensive. The guides pay a "tourist tax" to small towns along the route, one of the towns' few sources of Western income. By the time you arrive to begin your climb, late in the day, hot and tired, there is yet another conflict. Not an armed one, but just as challenging. Because now, more neighboring tribes are demanding identical fees from guides. They require that the guide wait for the tribal elders to decide if your group can make the journey to the top. This can take hours. In the meantime, you and your fellow trekkers sit in the car, in the heat, surrounded by masses of kids trying to open your windows and remove anything that isn't tied down. Some kids block the roads with three lines of large rocks, which forces the driver to stop while everyone rushes out to remove them. In our case, we barely made it back inside the car before we were mobbed by at least twenty kids armed with rocks and sticks. Some village elders have threatened the guides that if they don't pay up, they'll send the gangs of kids at night to slash the tires, break the windows, and ruin the paint. The Rising Costs of Special Places When I had landed in Lalibela, I was picked up at the airport, as was everyone else on the plane (all white, all old, and part of a Roads Scholar program), in dusty vans. I was hustled into one jammed with Germans. Kenaw, my guide, inserted himself next to me as we began the bumpy journey to town. We would be taking a bus ($60) to see Coptic churches in the countryside. Kenaw was $30 a day. Each church charged at least $30 per person. By day's end I'd be out $150, and that was after I skipped the big Coptic church in town. Locals there now charge $50 per person. At Christmas, not only would the entrance fees increase, but the local hotels would double or triple their rates. Kenaw and I reorganized our program to better meet my budget. I dropped my gear at my small hotel, which, due to all the construction, had sporadic running water. In just a few minutes we were driving through the wide, spreading valley, the golden wheat fields rimmed by the dark green trees stretching away in all directions. Farmers tossed forkfuls of hay skyward, shimmering in the early afternoon sun, as their animals gathered to graze. Small children, seeing the tourist bus, scampered from their chores to shriek greetings and wave. Kenaw translated; Money! Give us money!!!! Lalibela is growing fast. The once-tiny village, home of some of the world's oldest churches carved out of stone, is being overwhelmed. Six-hundred-room hotels are popping up along the canyon walls where kids used to be able to stand and enjoy the view. Now, they're shooed away like irritating wildlife. This in their own village, which is fast morphing into a small city. The Coptic churches are marvels of stonework. Ancient men who have worked here for more than fifty years point their cell phone flashlights at the ceilings to show off the paintings. Here, the cool dry air preserves what's left. Bees build bustling hives in the windows. Broken scaffolding tumbles along the walls, abandoned efforts to rebuild. The local kids have learned to claim that they're students in hopes of extracting funds. Each bus, each tourist car is mobbed in turn. Because people are so poor, you tip a local child five bucks to protect your boots when you tour the church. Or, lose your shoes. On the way back, we passed small groups of people herding their cows, sheep, and goats along the road. Kids who'd seen us pass the first time were closer to the road in hopes of money, candy, or pens. I had my window open to enjoy the breeze. Up ahead, one group had a young boy, who apparently made a decision right as the tourist bus came into view. For as we came alongside him, he launched a massive gob of spit at my window, only barely missing my shirt. The spit slid lazily down the sliding glass window, as pure an expression of hate as a human can muster. Kenaw was horrified. I wasn't. That boy spat at a symbol. Not me. His world is disappearing rapidly. In no time he will be an outsider in his own valley, not allowed where he and his ancestors played, grew up, and led a pastoral life. The same way a hunter becomes a poacher in a jungle where his traditional prey is now endangered. He didn't sign up for this "progress." If anything, it's deeply confusing, if not terrifying. Places like Lalibela, which are responding to surges of interest from all over the world, are responding to the opportunity. That has resulted in a combination of gross overpricing and even more overbuilding. By the time that boy reaches manhood, everything he knows and loves will likely be paved over with the government-sponsored, one-room homes built for the influx of job seekers. I don't blame him at all. I'd probably spit, too. Riding into Raw Ethiopia Ethiopia is a country stretched across values. The ancient, like the Coptic churches of Lalibela, and the modern, which is personified by the fast-growing suburbs of its capital city, Addis Ababa. There, the outskirts are sprouting huge apartment house and condos. In front of them, herders stand staring at these monstrosities, while their cows and sheep graze quietly. It won't be long before his hut will be gone, and all his memories of the open spaces of his youth will be dust floating into the open windows of endless concrete condos. In search of what is still ancient and magical in this remarkable country, I signed up with Unicorn Trails for an eight-day riding adventure through the Bale Mountains. This particular trip is still in its infancy. As a result, the rawness and newness make it pure magic. Each day, with the help of our guide Hussein, we would ride to a new village. There, the locals would present their horses for us to ride. These Abyssinian horses are tough, stringy, and remarkably durable. Each rider had to bring their own stirrup leathers and irons, as the local versions were too small for Western boots. My group was a mix of folks from the UK, the Netherlands and two Americans. The horses and tack were completely foreign to all of us. In most cases, rather than having a bridle with a bit, the owner would wrap a rope around the horse's lower jaw, toss one end around the saddle horn and tie it into a loop on the other side. Nothing else. We quickly adjusted to the comparatively primitive riding gear. The first day we headed up hills into the mountains. Our group rode up steep hills of thick, viscous African mud, the result of heavy rains. The horses labored under our weight. Suddenly in the near distance, a large group of villagers rounded the corner. On foot, on horseback they hurried as one down the mountain. In the middle were two litters, both with an inert form covered with blankets. They were the ambulance. As Hussein explained, this was actually an improvement. These villagers had to travel forty-five kilometers over rough terrain to reach any kind of medical care. It was only recently that a German concern had built the road. Forty-five kilometers, one way, no road, by litter. Now, it's forty-five kilometers, one way, by a curving road layered with mud so thick it would defeat a tank. It's a bad idea to get ill in Ethiopia. Continue to Page 2 Sudan said Sunday the US had invited the head of its ruling body to Washington for an official visit, the first such move in more than three decades. The ruling civilian-led sovereign council said its chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan received the invitation in a telephone call from US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo earlier on Sunday. "General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan said he would make the visit soon," the council said in a statement, without further details. Relations between the northeast African country and the US soured in the 1990s after now-toppled leader Omar al-Bashir seized power in an Islamist-baked coup in 1989 after ousting an elected government. In 1993, the US blacklisted Sudan as state sponsor of terrorism as Bashir's regime hosted Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, who resided in the country between 1992-1996. Washington further stepped up its measures against Sudan by imposing tough trade sanctions on the country in 1997. It lifted those restrictions in October 2017, but has kept Sudan in its state sponsor of terrorism list along with North Korea, Iran and Syria. However, talks to remove Sudan from the blacklist have gained momentum since Bashir's ouster last April. Several delegations of US officials and members of Congress have visited Sudan to analyse the situation. Bashir was removed by the army in a palace coup on the back of a nationwide protest movement against his iron-fisted regime. Since August, Sudan has been ruled by the civilian-majority sovereign council headed by Burhan, which is tasked with overseeing the country's transition to civilian rule, as demanded by protesters. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) ...debunks one of the biggest lies of our generation, the oft-repeated phrase "The Separation of Church and State." Nolan Lewallens book The Integration of Church & State: How We Transform In God We Trust From Motto To Reality ($16.99, paperback, 9781630505424; $8.99, e-book, 9781630505431), is available for purchase. In The Integration of Church & State: How We Transform In God We Trust From Motto To Reality, author Nolan Lewallen writes to interest the Christian community and those interested in politics as he explains the Church and State. Chapter 1 of The Integration of Church and State debunks one of the biggest lies of our generation, the oft-repeated phrase "The Separation of Church and State." The remaining chapters look at many crucial political issues that our country is facing today through the lens of God's Word. Nolan Lewallen has been an avid student of the Bible since 1978 and became interested in politics in 1988, when Pat Robertson ran for president. Although his campaign was unsuccessful, his run got many in the Christian community involved in an effort to take back our political system for the kingdom of God. He and his wife Kim love to travel. Liberty Hill Publishing, a division of Salem Media Group, is a leader in the print-on-demand, self-publishing industry. The Integration of Church & State: How We Transform In God We Trust From Motto To Reality is available online through amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com. New Delhi The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Sunday wrote to the Election Commission of India (EC) demanding a complete ban on Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath from campaigning in Delhi for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the run up to the February 8 assembly polls. The AAP also wanted Adityanaths arrest for his speech at a public gathering in the city on Saturday. Adityanath on Saturday had trained guns at Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and stated that protesters in Shaheen Bagh were being fed biriyani by the AAP government at a gathering in northwest Delhis Rohini neighbourhood. The BJP, later, hit back saying that the AAP was using tactics to stop the party from fielding strong campaigners in the city. Aam Aadmi Party demands complete ban on Yogi Adityanath from campaigning in Delhi and appeals for his arrest in the light of communal speeches in its complaint lodged with the election commission today, said the AAPs Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh. He further said, Yogi Adityanath has failed to fix pressing issues in Uttar Pradesh. But he delivers divisive speeches in Delhi. BJP leaders cant talk about education, health, electricity and water as they have miserably failed in states ruled by them. Speaking at a press conference, Singh also criticised Union home minister Amit Shah. Under the influence of home minister Amit Shah, Delhi Police is silent and indifferent towards the divisive tactics of the BJP. But the election commission cant remain indifferent to this grave issue. It is the misuse of democratic and constitutional institutions, he said. Questioning the loyalty of anti-CAA protesters in Shaheen Bagh, Adityanath on Saturday had spoken in length about issues related to terrorism, national security and attack on security forces in Pulwama, among others. Adityanath is listed among the BJPs star campaigners for the upcoming polls in Delhi. Senior BJP leader and the partys Rajya Sabha MP Vijay Goel said, Kejriwal can foresee his defeat and so he is using such tactics to stop our strong campaigners. The election commission is capable of taking up such cases suo moto. The weak leadership of the AAP should focus on their own public meetings and campaigns. At least 20 people have died during a stampede at an open-air evangelical Christian church service in the north of Tanzania, officials said on Sunday. Government official Kippi Warioba, district commissioner in the northern town of Moshi, said he feared the number of dead could still rise from the accident, which took place on Saturday afternoon. So far, 20 people have died, but the death toll could increase as there were also wounded, Warioba told AFP. ALSO READ: Herbal cure for coronavirus sparks frenzy buying in China The tragedy happened when a crowd of worshippers was attending a prayer ceremony on Saturday led by the popular preacher, Boniface Mwamposa, who heads the Arise and Shine Ministry Tanzania. The stampede occurred when Mwamposa, who calls himself the Apostle, poured what he said was holy oil on the ground and the crowd surged forward to touch it in the hope of being cured of sickness, witnesses said. The apostle Boniface Mwamposa poured sacred anointing oil on the ground, one witness, Jennifer Temu, told AFP. Dozens of people immediately fell being jostled and trampled, and some died. We have counted 20 people killed but there are also wounded. It was horrible, people trampled on mercilessly, jostling each other with elbows, said another witness, Peter Kilewo. It was like the preacher had thrown bundles of dollars about and there were all these deaths! Representative Andy Kim speaks at a town hall in front of Burlington Township to see what constituents on the home front want to talk about on Wednesday, August 14, 2019. Read more As recent polling numbers clearly demonstrate, voters are not happy with the partisan rancor that continues to consume Washington, DC. Most Americans believe Congress is more concerned with political posturing in advance of Novembers election than passing legislation that serves the interests of average citizens. One of these key areas that impacts each of us is the hard-to-fathom reality that the United States is losing between $400 billion to $600 billion per year in intellectual property theft. While last year, Congress took significant steps that included tasking the Secretary of Defense with developing a comprehensive plan to better secure our vital defense technology, as well as additional funding for developing more rapid cyber capabilities, it is clear that much more must still be done. The legislative record of 2019 bears them out: Because of the intense partisanship that has gripped the nations capital and the policy differences between a Democratic-majority House and a Republican-majority Senate, neither party can point to legislation passed that addresses the very real concerns of voters. Now Congress has an opportunity to take decisive action on an issue of increasing concern to every American cybersecurity and the proliferation of hacking activity against U.S. citizens and companies by foreign governments and their agents. We have seen a dramatic increase in these cyberattacks in the last decade, and Americans across the country have been forced to deal with the firsthand consequences. Russian-backed cyberattacks against everyone from American military spouses to the Democratic National Committee; North Korean hacks and blackmail against Sony Pictures; Chinas cyberattack on the Offices of Personnel Management (which involved the theft of the personal data of over 22 million Americans); and hacks orchestrated by foreign governments against state and municipal governments. These have compromised the security of millions, and this threat must be addressed. But amazingly, there is currently no legal recourse in the U.S. for citizens or entities that have been the victims of foreign-backed cyberattack. Under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), foreign governments have been ruled multiple times by U.S. courts to be immune from legal action on the part of American plaintiffs. FSIA was signed into law long before the existence of the Internet, and it does not account for the advances in technology since and the threats they pose. Consequently, a legal loophole is inadvertently providing hostile powers with blanket immunity for their hacking activity. Together, we introduced the Homeland and Cyber Threat (HACT) Act, a bill to hold foreign governments and their agents responsible for these activities that cause grave harm to our citizens and our businesses. Our bill would provide much-needed legal protection to victims of foreign-sponsored cyberattacks by creating an exception to the immunity provided under FSIA. Specifically, the HACT Act would remove the immunity of foreign statesincluding foreign officials, employees, or agentswith regard to money damages sought by a national of the United States for personal injury, harm to reputation, or damage to or loss of property resulting from cyberattacks. This should not be a tough call for Members of Congress of either party. In the 114th Congress, the House and Senate passed the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act to allow victims of international terrorism to file civil claims against foreign states responsible for those acts. That bill became law in 2016 and officially created a terrorism exception to FSIA. A cyberattack exception would simply extend those same protections to hacking victims, as well. We cant leave our citizens vulnerable any longer to the malicious activities of foreign governments. The HACT Act sends a message to the world that we will not be pushed around by those seeking to take advantage of our country. Lets come together and get this done. U.S. Rep. Jack Bergman (R-MI), a retired United States Marine Corps lieutenant general, is the highest-ranking military official ever elected to Congress. U.S. Rep. Andy Kim (D-NJ) is a former U.S. diplomat who served at the State Department, in Afghanistan and on the White House national security staff. Both are members of the House Armed Services Committee. U.S. Banks CEO reversed his companys position on two fired Oregon employees Saturday night, pledging, I will fix this. The bank fired Portland customer service representative Emily James and also fired her supervisor, Abigail Gilbert, after James came to the rescue of a client whose paycheck had been placed on hold by the bank. U.S. Bank steadfastly defended the firing for weeks after The Oregonian/OregonLive first reported on the situation. The situation triggered outrage from across the country and after a fresh, stinging critique Saturday in The New York Times, the bank reversed course. Our recent employment decision in Oregon does not reflect who we are as a company. It is important to acknowledge our mistakes and when we fall short of our own high expectations, CEO Andy Cecere wrote in a statement to The Oregonian/OregonLive. Cecere he takes full responsibility" for the situation and ordered a review of U.S. Bank policies. This weekend, after personally speaking with the employees involved I have a better understanding of their motivations and dont think we got this one quite right, Cecere wrote. I am committed to working with these employees and others on the team to understand how we can do better. As The Oregonian/OregonLive reported in January, James drove from her office to a nearby gas station on Christmas Eve to give a U.S. Bank customer $20 so he could buy gas to get home. The customers paycheck was on hold at the bank. The bank responded on New Years Eve by firing James and her supervisor, telling James the decision to meet the customer in person could have jeopardized her safety. Other employers expressed interest in hiring James as her firing became national news. U.S. Bank, though, stuck by its decision. The company initially refused to discuss the matter with The Oregonian/OregonLive, saying it did not comment on personnel matters. It later blamed James, saying the company fired her because rather than using the proper processes and procedures to help the customer, she chose to pursue a course of action that placed herself and the bank at risk. In a statement to The New York Times this week, the bank stood by its decision to fire James. She broke the rules, putting herself and the bank at unnecessary risk, the bank told columnist Nicholas Kristof. Soon after Kristofs national column appeared Saturday, however, Cecere changed course. This is not who we are, Cecere told Kristof. The columnist wrote on Twitter that Cecere told him companies sometimes make mistakes. I have an update for my column on US Bank firing two employees for tryingt to help a stranded customer on Christmas Eve: https://t.co/dWc9eZAVfA. Andrew Cecere, the bank CEO, just called me and said, "I will fix this." He also telephoned Emily James. I'm hopeful. Nicholas Kristof (@NickKristof) February 2, 2020 The Saturday night statement from Cecere did not explain just what triggered the change in thinking after more than a month. James confirmed Saturday that Cecere had called her but declined to discuss the details of their conversation until they have talked further. In his original column Saturday, Kristof was unsparing in his critique of Cecere and U.S. Bank. He wrote that the banks conduct illustrates how some companies have lost their souls and said Cecere hadnt returned his calls. Instead, Kristof wrote, a bank spokesman said the company had investigated James case and found evidence James had misled her manager. Though the company had previously said it couldnt discuss personnel matters, the bank told Kristof that James had faced disciplinary issues before the episode on Christmas Eve. I found the banks investigation a whitewash, Kristof wrote, and its explanations to be incoherent, meanspirited and contradicted by a series of internal bank messages that I reviewed. -- Samantha Swindler; sswindler@oregonian.com; @editorswindler -- Mike Rogoway | mrogoway@oregonian.com | twitter: @rogoway | 503-294-7699 Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories. If a dispute between 18-19-year-olds in the army ends with suicide or murder, the officers of the particular military unit are the first ones to blame. This is what leader of Republic Party Aram Sargsyan wrote on his Facebook page today. I deeply share the sorrow and grief of the relatives of the deceased serviceman. If a dispute between 18-19-year-olds in the army ends with suicide or murder, the officers of the particular military unit are the first ones to blame, and it doesnt matter whose son the serviceman is. Is there or is there no presumption of innocence in Armenia? Overall, the army reflects the society with a condensation of the good and bad, he stated. Gautam Chintamani By Right from the time of its creation to now, 70 years later, Pakistan has had a mostly tumultuous relationship with not only its neighbours but also nations that it calls its allies. If on the one hand, Pakistans anti-India stance on nearly most things defines its relationship with the country it was carved out of, on the other hand, its sometimes sweet, sometimes sour frenemy status with the United States sums up its rocky ride up until now. Shuja Nawazs The Battle for Pakistan: The Bitter US Friendship and a Tough Neighbourhood is not only the latest addition to the ever-growing list of treatises on US-Pak engagement but also tries to shed light on the path forward. A globally recognised political and strategic analyst and veteran of many books, Nawaz reportedly began this book as an update for a new edition of his much-discussed book Crossed Swords: Pakistan, its Army and the Wars Within that explored the impact of Pakistans military-industrial complex on the nations history. In an address during the books release in Washington DC in October 2019, Nawaz mentioned that when he realised that the first chapter for the update had run into over 200 pages, he urged the publishers to take just an essay for the new edition of Crossed Swords that would free him to work on an entirely new book that untangled the complex US-Pakistan relationship in the past decade. This is a period where the Americans found the brain behind the 9/11 attacks and at that time the worlds most wanted terrorist, Osama bin Laden, living in a state-of-the-art hideout in Pathan Gali that was at a short distance from the Pakistan Military Academy. With that at the back of ones mind, the intrigue for reading Battle for Pakistan becomes far greater. Drawing on extensive travel to the region, policy interactions, and many on-the-record interviews with key leaders, Nawazs book, on the one hand, is nothing less than groundbreaking, but on the other hand, makes you wonder if the people involved such as the political dispensation in both countries as well as the other players including policy makers, et al have any sense of the reality staring in the face. At the onset, Nawaz makes a case for Pakistans current state being a result of empty rhetoric and unfulfilled promises, arising out of the degradation of public institutions and absence of good governance, which, according to him, is a disease that ails many other struggling former states once governed by colonial Britain. Its not like Pakistan hasnt struggled to define itself. Nawaz makes it clear that since its creation in 1947 neither its leaders nor its people have been able to clearly define what country Mohammed Ali Jinnah wanted to place on the map of the worldan Islamic state or more liberal entity where Muslims could pursue their lives alongside other religious groups. Its one thing to say that Pakistan finds itself in a tough neighbourhood but its entirely different thing to acknowledge how much of this neighbourhood, namely Afghanistan, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka, were pushed into a tough spot thanks to state and non-state actors from Pakistan. Irrespective of how one views Nawazs work or a bias that permeates within the readers mind, rather unwillingly, of course, a book such as The Battle for Pakistan: The Bitter US Friendship and a Tough Neighbourhood makes for a compelling read. It puts out the intricacies surrounding the US-Pak relationship as plainly as possible and in this regard it offers a much-needed insiders perspective. In the light of the confusing relationship that the United States shares with Pakistan, Nawaz also puts out a road map of kinds for the path ahead. Two anecdotes in the book sum it all up. In 2008, the then ISI chief Lt Gen Ahmed Pasha explained the actions of outfits such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) to Pakistans ambassador to the US, Hussain Haqqani, as our guys but not our operation. A few years later, when President Obama was presented with the serious concern if Pakistan, which was technically an ally, were to engage with the Seal Team Six during their mission to retrieve Osama bin Laden from Abbottabad, he reportedly said, Thats interesting, and turning the Air Fore Chief of Staff asked, What do you need to rain hell on Pakistanbecause my guys arent surrendering to anybody. Turkey's health minister on Sunday announced that sample tests on 42 evacuees airlifted from Wuhan, China -- the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak -- would be released on Monday, Trend reports citing Turkish media. Speaking to press members in the capital Ankara, Fahrettin Koca reiterated that there were no signs of the coronavirus among the evacuees, who arrived in Ankara late Saturday, and that no coronavirus cases had been diagnosed in Turkey. "Thanks to our experience, strong health organization and dynamic staff, we were among the first countries to take action," said Koca. Emphasizing the wide measures against the virus in Turkey, he added that authorities had taken 18 samples to be studied in the country's National Virology Laboratory, where test results came out negative. He noted that follow-up processes continue for travelers coming from China through thermal cameras, quarantine rooms, negative pressure stretchers and medical facilities. Koca added that similar precautions would also be taken for other countries as well. In a separate statement, Turkey's Ministry of National Defense said the interior and exterior cargo plane that carried the evacuees had been treated by chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear specialists. In addition to other materials to meet their needs while under quarantine, the evacuees were also provided televisions to pass the time, it said. Specialists will monitor their rooms for 14 days -- in line with a virus's incubation period -- with all services, including meals, to be provided with disposable materials. Refuse will be treated as medical waste and will be disposed in special bags, it added. The Turkish Armed Forces' A400M type cargo plane departed from Wuhan on Saturday with the evacuees including Turkish nationals, along with citizens of Azerbaijan, Albania and Georgia, after health staff confirmed they did not carry any symptoms related to the fatal outbreak. The coronavirus, so named because under the microscope it resembles a crown, has killed at least 304 people in China, with over 14,000 infected. Since its outbreak late last year, China has put Wuhan under lockdown in a bid to contain the virus and is building a 1,000-bed hospital to treat those affected. Beyond China, the virus has spread to Japan, South Korea, Thailand, the U.S., Singapore, France, Vietnam, Malaysia, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, India, Nepal and Canada. Travelers from China are being screened for the virus at airports worldwide. Several airlines have suspended flights to Wuhan. Iraqi president names new PM, dividing protesters Baghdad, Feb 1 (AFP) Feb 01, 2020 Iraq's president named former communications minister Mohammad Allawi as the country's new prime minister on Saturday after an 11th-hour consensus among political blocs, but the streets were ambivalent about his nomination. Baghdad and the mainly Shiite south have been gripped by four months of anti-government rallies demanding snap elections, a politically independent prime minister and accountability for corruption and protest-related violence. Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi resigned in December but political factions had been unable to agree a replacement. Frustrated by the delays and worried about further instability, President Barham Saleh gave political blocs until Saturday to nominate a new premier, sending them into crisis talks that produced a consensus on Allawi. On Saturday evening, Allawi addressed Iraqis on state television, pledging to form a representative government, hold early parliamentary elections and ensure justice for protest-related violence -- all key demands of protesters. More than 480 people have died and nearly 30,000 have been wounded in protest-related violence since October but few have been held accountable for the bloodshed. "This nomination places a huge, historic responsibility on my shoulders," Allawi said in his formal address. He had earlier posted a video to Twitter announcing the nomination. "I will ask you to keep up the protests, because if you are not with me, I won't be able to do anything," Allawi said, addressing the camera in colloquial Iraqi dialect. The president's office published photographs of Saleh sternly handing a smiling Allawi the nomination papers. Outgoing prime minister Abdel Mahdi congratulated his successor and the United Nations welcomed the move. "The prime minister-designate faces a monumental task," said the UN's top official in Iraq, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert. "The United Nations has called time and again on all stakeholders to rise above partisanship and place the national interest first. Now is the time to act." - Protesters split - Allawi's nomination came after three days of intense talks over a shortlist of candidates, with senior government officials skeptical about a nomination until the evening. The contenders needed a green light from a dizzying array of interests -- the divided political class, the Shiite religious leadership, neighbouring Iran, its rival the United States as well as the protesters. One of the most influential political figures is Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, who led the anti-US Mehdi Army militia after the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and has since refashioned himself as a populist politician. He controls parliament's largest bloc and many ministerial posts but backed the protests when they erupted in October. Sadr immediately threw his weight behind Allawi. "This is a good step," the cleric wrote on Twitter. "I hope the president's appointment of Mohammad Allawi is acceptable to the people and that they have patience." But protesters across Iraq were unconvinced. Within minutes of the announcement, many in Baghdad's main protest camp of Tahrir Square began chanting "Allawi is rejected, Allawi is rejected!" Demonstrators hit the streets in the holy city of Najaf, pledging to escalate their movement further as Allawi was not the independent they had long demanded. "Mohammad Allawi's nomination came with the approval of the same corrupt political blocs we've been protesting against for over four months," said lawyer Hassan Mayahi, marching in the southern hotspot of Diwaniyah. And in Nasiriyah, whose non-stop protests have made it Baghdad's sister city in the anti-government movement, demonstrators sealed off two bridges with burning tyres in outrage at Allawi's nomination. - Challenges ahead - Allawi, a 65-year-old Shiite Muslim, served as communications minister twice under former PM Nuri al-Maliki but resigned both times, alleging corruption and interference in personnel appointments. Maliki, who still holds sway in Iraq's parliament, is said to have rejected his candidacy but other political blocs came to an agreement amid pressure by the president. According to the constitution, Allawi has one month to form a cabinet, which will be put to parliament for a vote of confidence. Much like the premier's nomination, the cabinet is typically formed by consensus among Iraq's political rivals after intense horse-trading over influential posts. Allawi pledged to resist such bartering, saying in his formal address on Saturday that he would reject any ministerial candidate put forth by political parties and would build a cabinet based on competence, not connections. He will oversee early parliamentary elections under a new electoral law passed last year and attempt to navigate Iraq through the geopolitical storm brewing between Iran and the US. Both are close allies of Baghdad but have been at loggerheads since Washington abandoned the landmark 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran and imposed a series of crippling sanctions. The US embassy in Baghdad issued a carefully worded statement on Saturday, saying it hoped Allawi's nomination would lead to "an independent and honest government committed to addressing the needs of the Iraqi people." There was no immediate statement from Iran. Family relationship with bond and care This years contribution room for the Tax-Free Savings Account (TFSA) is $6,000. It can be tough to come up with thousands of dollars right off the bat. Regular contributions of $500 a month will make it much more doable. You can set up your chequing account so that it automatically contributes the amount to your TFSA every month. If you save and invest $500 a month for total returns of 15% compounded annually, youll achieve more than $1,000,000 (specifically, $1,099,007) in 23 years! Here is a growth-oriented dividend stock that can potentially generate more than 15% in long-term returns for your TFSA. Grow your wealth with Savaria In the past 10 years, Savaria (TSX:SIS) has grown its earnings at a double-digit rate, specifically by about 19% per year on a per-share basis. Along with the help of valuation expansion, this resulted in an investment that was an 18-bagger turning a $10,000 initial investment into $183,246 by delivering total returns of almost 34% per year! Notably, the dividends received in the period almost contributed to twice the investment on its own, despite Savarias occasional dividend cut. At writing, Savaria provides a yield of 3.4%. Savaria has a long-term growth runway The growth driver for Savaria is still in place. The company benefits from a growing global aging population, as it improves peoples mobility (mostly for seniors) by providing products such as stairlifts, wheelchair lifts, ceiling lifts, and elevators. According to projections by the United Nations, the worlds aged 65+ population will more than double in 30 years. It also estimates that in 10 years, this age group will make up 26% and 23%, respectively, of the population in North America and Europe, versus 17% and 19% today. Savaria has made strategic acquisitions along the way to boost its growth. Its five-year return on equity (ROE) is high at about 16%, while in the last decade or so, its ROE has largely stayed between 10% and 20%. Story continues Its acquisition of Garaventa Accessibility in August 2018 greatly diversified its revenue base, helping the company to increase its European exposure substantially from 5% of revenue in 2018 to 15% today. In the first nine months of 2019, Savaria generated nearly $278 million in revenues: 59% from the U.S., 22% from Canada, and more than 15% from Europe. More recently, in July 2019, Savaria made a tuck-in acquisition in Silvalea, which is based in the U.K. and makes patient transfer slings and accessories. The acquisition added about $6.8 million of annual revenue. Strong insider ownership Not counting the interests of other insiders, Mr. Marcel Bourassa, the chair, president, and CEO of Savaria, alone has a roughly 29% stake in Savarias common shares that he directly or indirectly controls. Therefore, investors should feel at ease that managements interests are aligned with those of shareholders. Investor takeaway Savaria is a great growth-oriented dividend stock. However, the small-cap stock does come with above-average uncertainty and volatility. So, dont stop at one growth stock for your TFSA. Diversify your risk. For example, you can also consider Brookfield Asset Management as another growth-oriented dividend stock to ride a different megatrend. To further reduce your risk, consider building your positions in the businesses over time and especially add on meaningful dips. More reading Fool contributor Kay Ng owns shares of BROOKFIELD ASSET MANAGEMENT INC. CL.A LV. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Brookfield Asset Management. The Motley Fool recommends BROOKFIELD ASSET MANAGEMENT INC. CL.A LV and Savaria. The Motley Fools purpose is to help the world invest, better. Click here now for your free subscription to Take Stock, The Motley Fool Canadas free investing newsletter. Packed with stock ideas and investing advice, it is essential reading for anyone looking to build and grow their wealth in the years ahead. Motley Fool Canada 2020 (Natural News) With the first confirmed coronavirus death now recorded outside of China, and with confirmed infections rapidly accelerating across 18 nations, it is becoming increasingly obvious to intelligent observers that the coronavirus pandemic cannot be contained. The total number of confirmed infections has now skyrocketed past 14,000, with over 300 confirmed deaths and likely thousands more deaths being covered up by the communist Chinese government. The World Health Organization today issued an urgent warning that this pandemic looks set to go global, urging all the nations of the world, to be ready for a domestic outbreak. That warning from the WHO follows the publication of an alarming new study in The Lancet which warned that, Independent self-sustaining outbreaks in major cities globally could become inevitable because of substantial exportation of presymptomatic cases and in the absence of large-scale public health interventions. That scientific study also warned, Preparedness plans and mitigation interventions should be readied for quick deployment globally. With the coronavirus rapidly spreading outside of China, the window of opportunity to prevent this outbreak from going global is collapsing by the hour, and the chance of success against the virus is rapidly plummeting. Once the virus manages to achieve self-replication outbreaks in a place like Thailand or India, its almost certain to be impossible to contain on a global scale. And that means, sooner or later, the outbreak reaches Mexico. Can North America isolate itself from the rest of the world? Probably not In every outbreak, the first thing every government tries to do is quarantine the truth and deny reality. This caused China to avoid admitting to their own knowledge of human-to-human transmission in December, when the outbreak could have been more easily contained. In the United States, the lying left-wing media is also downplaying the pandemic, hoping to prevent panic, even at the cost of keeping people so ignorant that they will fail to protect themselves from infected carriers. The left-wing media, after all, really is the enemy of the People and now, theyre proving they are the enemy of humanity on a global scale. Its the same left-wing media and left-wing operatives who demand open borders between the USA and Mexico, resulting in a wide open vector for coronavirus outbreaks once Mexico is infected. If this virus spreads across any Central or South American nation, it will eventually end up in Mexico, and subsequently the United States. Thats the cost of open borders during a pandemic: A nation that cannot control its borders cannot control an outbreak, either. Watch for the coronavirus to spread in sanctuary cities first Once the coronavirus is in Mexico, its spread to the continental United States is an inevitability. Infected carriers from Mexico or South American nations will head for sanctuary cities, where they will spread the virus to virtue signaling liberals who have already decided they would rather be seen as tolerant than enforce border security. Soon, they may get to experience the real world ramifications of harboring illegals who are, themselves, harboring a pandemic virus. The virus will spread rapidly in sanctuary cities due to the fact that many of those cities also happen to be overrun with filth, feces, used needles and homelessness all factors that multiply the spread of infectious disease. Coronavirus has now been confirmed in human feces, by the way, just as I warned days ago in several podcasts (listen to all my podcasts at Brighteon.com). That means it will very easily spread in cities like San Franshitsco, where infected feces will be washed down the storm drains and into the Pacific Ocean, contaminating all the beaches along the West Coast with coronavirus. Before long, the Left Coast of America wont be limited merely to Trump Derangement Syndrome as its most devastating disease; it will be overrun by an engineered bioweapon that was deliberately designed to exterminate human beings. Isolation is the only cure against the coronavirus, and isolation means border security something Democrats absolutely despise for political reasons. If the pandemic goes global, no country can remain isolated for very long In summary, if Mexico, India, Thailand or almost any South American or African nation gets completely overrun by this coronavirus, its almost certain to spread globally and become endemic in the human population. Perhaps 5% 10% of the exposed population will be killed, leaving the other 90% 95% as survivors who now have immunity. These deaths will be concentrated in high density population centers (i.e. cities). The governments of the world will promise a vaccine cure, of course, but if they roll it out too quickly, it wont be well tested and may actually contribute to the spread of the pandemic in the same way that chicken pox vaccines spread the chicken pox. (Its called viral shedding.) Even if the vaccine gets fully tested and validated, that process will take at least a year, during which the wild strains of the coronavirus will further mutate into something the vaccine likely cant treat anyway. We see that every year with the flu, where the flu shot is almost always pointless unless youre a time traveler who might be exposed to last years strains of influenza. Ultimately, if this outbreak is not stopped very soon most likely by Feb. 8th the chances of preventing it from becoming a global pandemic are rapidly approaching zero. While it may take many months to spread from country to country, the math is irrefutable. Every one person infects 2.68 others, and many of those are stealth carriers who show no symptoms. The total number of infected people doubles every 6.2 days, and government health authorities are always one step behind the outbreaks, since symptoms take from 2 14 days to fully develop. If the odds of any one country achieving total success in containing the virus and halting all outbreaks is 50%, then the odds of all 18 countries currently infected with patients all successfully halting every outbreak with zero mistakes is 1 in 262,144. (Thats 2 to the 18th power.) Its the same odds as flipping a coin 18 times in a row and getting heads as the result every time. Listen to my podcast to understand where this is all headed: Brighteon.com/41383164-4313-4e9d-a1bc-28108b7a1a08 New Delhi: Terrorists carried out a grenade attack in Jammu and Kashmir's summer capital Srinagar on Sunday (February 1), leaving two CRPF personnel and two civilians injured. According to primary reports coming in, the terrorists lobbed the grenade at security forces deployed at Partap Park located in the Lal Chowk of Srinagar today. Following the attack, the security forces cordoned off the area and launched an investigation into the incident. In another development, the Jammu and Kashmir police detained local Jaish-e-Mohammad militant commander Zahid Sheikh's brother Suhaib from Karimabad area of Pulwama in north Kashmir. According to police, Suhaib is an overground worker. Truck driver Samir Ahmed Dar, who was arrested by the J&K Police from Nagrota on Friday, had named his as receiver of the foreign terrorist who arranged logistics. He is being taken to Jammu for interrogation. On January 31, the police killed at least three Jaish militants and arrested their three associates, including Samir Ahmed Dar, during an encounter in Nagrota. The police had also intercepted a Srinagar-bound truck at Ban Toll Plaza in Nagrota area. The police said that the ) terrorists were carrying 'armoured piercing steel core ammunition' which can go through Level 3 protection bulletproof vehicles that police and other security forces use. The ammunition was in large quantity and could have posed a grave threat. The truck-borne terrorists carried with them a powerful ready-to-use IED from across the border to carry out attack against the security forces on the highway, they said. They had "dumped it at a convenient location" near a hoarding on the highway to be used by a third person of their module, who is currently in Jammu, they said. Based on the disclosure during questioning of the three OWGs, a police team and bomb disposal squad swung into action and defused the IED fitted with RDX, grenades and other material and placed under a hoarding at Nagrota on the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway, the officials said. Efforts are on track down the person of the JeM module in Jammu who was to plant IED to target security forces, they said. The JeM terrorists also carried with them a deadly US-made sniper rifle, six rifles, five pistols, 11 hand grenades, explosives and high-end satellite communication phones and GPS. DGP said that JeM terrorists only carried such weapons, that too by its top commanders. They said M4 sniper rifle was used by militants in Kashmir in 2018 in five incidents fatally targeting police personnel. On January 31, Police and security forces detained five more truck operators from Rhembal and Udhampur and two of them had called Sameer Dar on telephone, but involvement of all of them was being investigated, the officials said. Police said the terrorist group is suspected to have infiltrated from along the International Border (IB) in Dayalachak area in Hiranagar sector of Kathua district and were picked by truckers around 2 am on Friday to carry out an attack. The group was on its way to Srinagar when the police team intercepted it at the plaza around 5 am on Friday, they said. (With PTI inputs) Saudi Arabia has barred an Iranian delegation from an Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) meeting in Jeddah on Monday where U.S. President Donald Trumps Middle East peace plan will be discussed, the Iranian foreign ministry said, Trend reports citing Reuters. Saudi authorities have not issued visas for the Iranian participants, ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said. The government of Saudi Arabia has prevented the participation of the Iranian delegation in the meeting to examine the deal of the century plan at the headquarters of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Mousavi said, the Fars news agency reported. Mousavi said Iran has filed a complaint with the OIC and accused Saudi Arabia of misusing its position as the host for the organizations headquarters. There was no immediate comment from Saudi officials. remaining of Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. The "cross-fertilisation" of ideas among people of India and the US has been the "heart and soul" of growing relations between the two great nations, Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla said on Sunday. The newly-appointed foreign secretary also said strength and resilience of Indo-US relations comes from strong people-to-people ties. Shringla, who was India's Ambassador to the US before assuming charge of the new responsibility, was speaking at a ceremony to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the prestigious Fulbright scholarship programme in India. "The strength and resilience of India-US relations is derived from ties between the people of our two countries. Our respective citizens embody the shared values of democracy, diversity, creativity, and entrepreneurship -- the characteristics that define our two great nations," he said in the presence of US envoy Kenneth I Juster. Shringla said the natural partnership between India and the US has been an "article of faith" for the people who have been the driving force in deepening the ties. "Academic exchanges and cross-fertilisation of ideas represent not only some of our old linkages but also the heart and soul of our ties. Sanskrit was taught in Harvard (university) in the 18th century too, stocking curiosity about the past," he said. Shringla said the US has been the most favoured overseas destination for Indian students seeking higher and that over 200,000 of them are now working in that country. "Over 200,000 Indian students work in the US. They represent one-fifth of all international students in the US. As per latest data of department of Commerce of the US government, they contributed USD 8.1 billion dollars to the US economy in 2018," he said. The foreign secretary also talked about the announcement in the Union Budget about foreign direct investment in the sector, saying it will provide for greater collaboration between Indian and US universities. On the Fulbright programme, he said it supported over 20,000 scholars from India in the past seven decades. In his remarks, Juster said, "The US-India relationship is growing rapidly. As I have said many times, I believe that the foundation of our partnership is our people-to-people ties." "The Fulbright-Nehru programme is a perfect example of the impact that our peoples have when they learn from each other and work together, Juster said. The event was also attended by US Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs Marie Royce. The Fulbright programme was created by Senator J William Fulbright in 1946 with an aim to increase mutual understanding among the people of the US and the people of other countries. For more than 70 years, Fulbright has provided opportunities to some 390,000 American and international scholars and students, according to the US embassy here. On July 4, 2008, the US and India signed a historic new Fulbright agreement that made India a full partner in the governance and funding of the programme. Following the new agreement, the Fulbright-Nehru programme has tripled in size. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) She left school at 14 because of the schoolboys continuously commenting on her looks. Bezor worked in a hairdressing salon where the male manager pinched her waist and told her You've got a bit of puppy fat a remark that led her to anorexia for four years. She had two short-lived marriages and then applied for the South Australian School of Art in 1974. Bezor graduated with a degree in Fine Art in 1977. During her time at art school, she often worked at home as she was stultified" working within the art school environment. She felt the department she worked in was totally male-oriented so, working in my bedroom at home without having the inhibition of someone looking over my shoulder, I came up with things that I might not have done otherwise. I felt I could be myself. Annette Bezor at an exhibition of her work in 2003. Credit:Melanie Faith Dove In the mid-1970s the women's art movement in South Australia was strong, so for Bezor, it was the most fantastic time to be a female aspiring artist. I don't think I would be the painter I am now if it weren't for that". "The message was 'you can do it' - you don't have to behave as women did in the past,'' she says. "I spent a lot of time at art school walking around in pyjamas and I rode a motorbike for 10 years. I don't think I could have done that at any other period. It wasn't so much about being a painter as about being empowered as a woman. Taipei Taiwan has accused the World Health Organisation on Sunday of providing incorrect information in a report on the new strain of virus sweeping China, which it says has led to Italy banning flights to the region. Taiwan's Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said that Taiwan is not part of China and the two countries are administered by separate and independent health authorities. "I would like to publicly call on the WHO to recognize a simple fact, that Taiwan is Taiwan, and it is not part of the PRC. Taiwan is not under China's jurisdiction...This is such a simple reality," said Wu. "We truly regret the decision made by the Italian government. We think it is a mistake based on incorrect information instead of on a true assessment of the danger of the coronavirus. The number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in Taiwan is not higher than in most countries that are affected," he added. Both Italy and Vietnam had banned flights from Taiwan, but Vietnam lifted its ban on Taiwanese flights on 1 February following negotiations via diplomatic channels. 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Mathrani replaces Artie Minson and Sebastian Gunningham, the co-chief executives. Minson and Gunningham took over in September from Adam Neumann, the WeWork co-founder whose growth-at-all-costs strategy brought the company to the brink of financial collapse last year. In a statement, Mathrani said WeWork had redefined how people and companies approach work with an innovative platform, exceptionally talented ... France will deploy 600 additional soldiers in the Sahel-Saharan strip to boost the op in the region, Defence Minister Florence Parly stated on Sunday, Trend reports citing Sputnik. "Another part of these reinforcements will be directly engaged with the forces of the G5 Sahel to accompany them in combat", she said. According to the minister, the military reinforcements would allow French troops to increase pressure against the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara - a Daesh-affiliated jihadist group in Africa. The situation in the region remains tense amid ongoing conflicts in the northern and western parts of the continent, including the civil war in Libya and clashes between Tuareg militants and Mali forces. There has been an increase in filling stations that are illegally selling fuel in foreign currency in Harare, despite the promulgation of laws which make the local currency the sole legal tender. This has made it difficult for motorists to access fuel. Fuel is being sold in foreign currency for anything between US$1,25 per litre and US$1,50. A litre of petrol fetches US$2 on the black market. Statutory Instrument 212 of 2019 (Exchange Control (Exclusive Use of Zimbabwe Dollar for Domestic Transactions) Regulations, 2019) allows guests of the State only to buy petrol, diesel or other petroleum products in foreign currency, but only at designated outlets. Last Friday, Energy and Power Development Deputy Minister Magna Mudyiwa said the sale of fuel in foreign currency was unlawful. It is only those few designated service stations that can sell in foreign currency. They exclusively sell to diplomats and guests of the State, she said. All other service stations doing that are violating the law and we shall, through the Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority (ZERA), enhance our surveillance system. It has to be clear to every trade, service stations included, that the Zimbabwe dollar is the only legal tender applicable in our economy except those who fall in the category I have made reference to. The sale of fuel in foreign currency has drawn mixed feelings from consumers with some complaining that they were being ripped off, while those with access to foreign currency viewed it as a better option. A survey carried by The Herald showed that some filling stations, particularly those in outlying areas of the central business district (CBD) were selling fuel in foreign currency. Last year, the Government liberalised the importation of fuel and gave companies with free funds permission to import fuel for their own use. The move was expected to augment supply gaps in the market. The envisaged beneficiaries of that policy were mining companies and those in the farming sector. Deputy Minister Mudyiwa said the Government, through the central bank, was finalising the renewal of letters of credit. I have not heard enough briefing from my officials since I am out of office, but I know the challenge relates to the finalisation of the letters of credit, but what we need to emphasise as a ministry is that we have enough fuel in the country at Msasa and Mabvuku depots, she said. Letters of credit are guaranteed by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) that payment will be made in future, and oil firms are allowed to pay in local currency for fuel to be delivered. They help reduce payment risks on international trade transactions, and with a letter of credit, a companys bank can guarantee payment to a seller if certain criteria are met. Most major oil companies like Total Zimbabwe, Engen, Petrotrade, Zuva Petroleum and Puma have adopted the use of these letters of credit to circumvent foreign currency shortages. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday announced a new scheme, Vivad se Vishwas (no dispute but trust) to resolve 483,000 direct tax disputes pending in various tribunals. The scheme offers waivers off penalty and interest if the disputed amount is paid before March 31, 2020. This year, I propose to bring a scheme similar to the indirect tax, Sabka Vishwas, for reducing litigation even in direct taxes, Sitharaman said in her budget speech. In her first Budget, presented on July 5, 2019, Sitharaman had proposed the Sabka Vishwas legacy dispute resolution scheme for litigation related to excise and service tax payments. The finance minister told Parliament that the scheme had resulted in settling of over 189,000 cases. Under the proposed Vivad Se Vishwas scheme, a taxpayer would be required to pay only the amount of the disputed taxes and will get complete waiver of interest and penalty provided he pays by 31st March, 2020, she said. Taxpayers in whose cases appeals are pending at any level can benefit from this scheme. I hope that taxpayers will make use of this opportunity to get relief from vexatious litigation process, finance minister said. Those who avail the scheme after March 31, 2020 will have to pay some additional amount, she said. A finance ministry official, who requested anonymity said 10% more will be charged as interest and penalty after March 31. In cases, where litigation is over interest and penalty, the matter could be settled by paying 25% of the amount by March 31 and 30% after the cut-off date. The offer will remain open till June 30, 2020, the official said. Experts said the effectiveness of the scheme depends on the details that would be notified by the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) soon. Introduction of Vivaad se Vishwas scheme, in line with the Sabka Vishwas scheme, for direct tax dispute resolution, is a welcome move. The details would need to be analysed, said Rajeev Dimri, partner and co-head of the tax practice at KPMG India. Fatema Hunaid, partner, Grant Thornton India LLP said the proposed scheme seems appealing as a one-time measure. According to data compiled by Dhruva Advisors in its research paper, Tax Dispute Resolution in India: Trends and Insights,at the Income Tax Commissioner (Appeals) level alone, the locked-in amount was 6.38 lakh crore as of March 31, 2018. An additional 4.96 lakh crore is stuck in disputes pending at other forums such as the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, high courts and the Supreme Court. By Ginger Gibson, Grant Smith and Jason Lange WASHINGTON, Feb 1 (Reuters) - Two billionaire Democratic presidential hopefuls, Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer, collectively spent about $389 million last year on their campaigns, more than the rest of the remaining Democratic field combined, according to disclosures filed on Friday. Bloomberg launched his campaign in November and spent more than $188 million in two months, a sum sourced entirely from his personal wealth. Steyer, who was also considered a late addition to the field of candidates when he launched his campaign in July, spent $201 million in 2019 which largely came from $202.5 million of his own money he put into his campaign and about $3 million raised in donations. While the rest of the Democratic field is heading to the Iowa caucuses that will be held on Monday, spending on advertising and staff in the small state, Bloomberg is skipping the first four contests. Instead, he has turned his focus to the more than one dozen states that will vote on "Super Tuesday" on March 3rd. The Iowa caucuses are the first contest in a series of state-by-state votes that are used to pick nominees. There are 11 Democrats vying to be their party's pick to challenge Republican President Donald Trump in November 2020. Bloomberg is hoping to overcome any momentum winners in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada might gain by blanketing the airwaves in Super Tuesday states with television ads touting his candidacy. Bloomberg's spending appears to be paying off, with his standing in national polls continue to climb. Steyer has done well enough to qualify for debates, but has struggled to exceed 2% in national polls. Spending by the rest of the Democratic field pales in comparison. U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, who ranked third in campaign spending, spent $90.7 million over the 10 months in 2019 he was running for president. Bloomberg even outspent Trump, whose campaign reported spending about $148 million since he launched his reelection in January 2017. Story continues Candidates for president are required by law to file regular disclosures with the Federal Election Commission detailing the how much money their campaigns have raised and how it was spent. Bloomberg's spent more than $132 million on television ads through the end of 2019. Independent media trackers estimate that the total Bloomberg has spent on his campaign exceeded $250 million in January. Steyer also spent mainly on advertising, pumping $117 million into TV ads and $44 million in online ads. U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren's largest campaign expense was salaries. She spent more than $16 million on staff in 2019. Over the course of the year, Sanders also spent the most on staff, disclosing almost $14 million in payroll. His spending on advertising was a close second, $13.5 million on television and about $9.7 million in online ads. Former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Buttigieg's biggest expense for 2019 was online advertising, spending about $11.6 million on the ads. His payroll came in at $9.9 million and he spent $9.4 million on television. Former Vice President Joe Biden also listed staff costs as his top category, spending $11.7 million on payroll in the year. He spent $7.2 million on online advertising, and trailed is rivals in television spending, spending on $2.3 million on ads. (Reporting by Ginger Gibson, Jason Lange and Grant Smith. Editing by Lincoln Feast.) If we aspire to build world class enterprises in India that do not thrive on cost arbitrage arising from cheap labour, we need to ask why is that we have only managed to create best in class education institutes that provide a launching pad for further education and not necessarily to global leadership? Arvind Krishna has been appointed as the global CEO of IBM, and this has caused much celebration in India. BJP MP Tejasvi Surya called this 'Indian domination'. There are many who agree with such sentiments, and are elated at Krishna's achievement. Make no mistake, Krishna's achievement is stellar. He has not just become the CEO in waiting of IBM, the company that unleashed the power of computing upon the world, but is being asked to lead the tech behemoth at a very crucial time of its journey. To be amongst the pantheon of leaders comprising of luminaries such as Thomas Watson and Louis Gestner Jr. is no mean feat. Krishna is currently the head of IBM's cloud business. Cloud is what made Microsoft, which had ceded its leadership position a few years ago, reclaim its numero uno status and be the first company ever to touch a market capitalisation of $1 trillion. Cloud is the key to growth and profits in today's computing world. Krishna is also the head of IBM's cognitive software division, which leads IBM's strides on new age technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, which are the technologies of the future. Krishna also spearheaded IBM's acquisition of Red Hat, which is IBM's largest acquisition till date. Clearly, Krishna has proven his capability to provide direction to the elephant, as the former CEO of IBM Louis Gestner Jr., had called the company. Notwithstanding his achievements, it will will be a big mistake if we look at the CEOs of Microsoft, Alphabet, Adobe Systems and IBM as the growth and domination of Indians. Satya Nadella, Sundar Pichai, Shantanu Narayen and Arvind Krishna are Americans of Indian origin, which is very different from being Indians. Indians are citizens of a nation that has a GDP per-capita of $2000. IBM on the other hand, with a revenue of $79.59 billion and an employee base of 3,50,000, has a revenue per-capita of $2,27,000, which is 113 times India's GDP per-capita. Alphabet, Microsoft, and Adobe have revenue per-capita at 660 times, 425 times, 210 times India's GDP per-capita respectively. Hence, before we celebrate their achievements as one of our own, we need to think hard as to why do such talented people leave India? Nadella, Krishna and Narayen were all born in Andhra Pradesh. Pichai was born in Tamil Nadu. But soon after completing their graduation, they all left India to pursue their higher education in the United States. If we aspire to build world class enterprises in India that do not thrive on cost arbitrage arising from cheap labour, we need to ask why is that we have only managed to create best in class education institutes that provide a launching pad for further education and not necessarily to global leadership? Be it a Raghuram Rajan or Abhijit Banerjee, their success has been largely scripted by their academic associations in the United States. And it is certainly not enough if governments under both the major political parties think that opening more IITs with inadequate physical infrastructure and low faculty quality will prepare India for the next level of opportunities. If excellence in education could be promoted by opening more institutes, then we would have many more Oxfords, Harvards, Stanfords and MITs. India does not even have a single university in the top 300 of the world. It's therefore not at all surprising that extraordinary talent such as Nadella, Pichai, Krishna and Narayen, among others, who hail from middle class families, exited India at their first opportunity. Indian policy makers need to seriously get their act right in preventing this, which can be accomplished in a meaningful manner, only by creating and allowing for world class universities in India. As much as it is important to build toilets and bring more than 300 million poor people into the financial net, it is also important that we take at least one Indian university into the global top 50. Even among the elite Indian Administrative Services, there is a huge clamour to go to the US and enroll in an Ivy League University at tax payer's expense. It's perplexing how a nation that can reach to the moon and Mars, can't build one world class university? Even more important is to ask why Indians living in India, who probably are as talented as many global CEOs of Indian origin, aren't able to transform Indian companies to global leadership standards? What is it about the business environment here that does not allow a single Indian company to enter the Fortune 100 list? The Indian leaders in the Fortune 200-500 list are predominantly oil companies and state-owned banks. India may be within striking distance of the 50th rank in the World Bank's Ease of Doing Business Index, but the entry of first-generation Indian companies that are neither conglomerates nor state-owned enterprises, is the real metric to measure the ease with which business could be carried out in India. The Solow growth model is a robust economic theory that explains the factors that go into facilitating the development of a nation. Nobel winning economist Robert Lucas expanded the theory and included human capital as a powerful component that contributes to the growth of a nation. Education as explained by Robert Lucas is not about merely increasing school enrollment or building more engineering colleges. While these objectives are mandatory, only quality of research and education can act as force multipliers. Building a world class research university that expands the imagination of technically trained minds is not easy to accomplish and therefore it is a national imperative. In addition to aspects detailed in the Solow growth model, another factor that accounts for economic growth is ease of doing business. Wealth is created by business enterprises - governments only spend it. Hence the ease with which businesses can function in India is a key metric that can power India's economic growth. It's probably as important as the government's ability to tax its citizens. So far, despite India's increase in global rankings on this front, any real and lasting change seems to be evasive largely because it calls for a serious behavioral and mind-set change at so many levels and layers of the governance machinery. Till such time we don't see Indians from Indian universities rising to great heights and till we don't see Indian companies rising to global stature, Sundar Pichai, Satya Nadella, Arvind Krishna and Shantanu Narayen are a stark reminder of the distance that India has to cover and not the distance that India has covered. The author is a Fulbright Fellow, Clinton Global Fellow and a current student of Economic Policy Management at Columbia University. Views expressed are personal. NJ church opening cafe staffed by individuals with special needs: 'The Kingdom of God in 3D Technicolor' Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment A New Jersey megachurch is opening a cafe staffed by adults with special needs to better reflect the Kingdom of God in 3D Technicolor, pastor Tim Lucas has revealed. This year, Liquid Church in Parsippany, New Jersey, will transform the Clean Water Cafe at its Broadcast Campus into a full-service coffeehouse operating Monday-Friday that will serve delicious breakfast, lunch, and specialty coffee creations in a warm, work-friendly environment. The coffee shop will provide over 30 jobs for those with Asperger's, autism and Down syndrome who have aged out of the education system. I think special needs ministry is singular in its ability to show the Kingdom of God in 3D Technicolor, Lucas told The Christian Post. When Jesus says, The last shall be first, He means that the way we love and care for the weakest members of His family will contribute to the strength of the community. Its lavishing the love of the King on His most vulnerable children. According to statistics, about 80% of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities are unemployed. Through the Clean Water Cafe, Liquid hopes to create a path for our special friends to be accepted, included, and valued in the workplace. In addition to supporting the local community, the cafe will have a global impact: Any profits from the shop will be added to the donations that Liquid is already giving to support the Clean Water Cause in Africa and Central America. According to Lucas, the 5,000-member church seeks to saturate our state with the Gospel of Jesus Christ without watering down the Gospel. And the rate of autism among children in New Jersey, he revealed, is the highest ever documented for a state. Starting a special needs ministry wasnt initially part of our vision, but its something we felt God called us to do, he shared. We said, What a beautiful opportunity to serve an underserved population. We looked at, How do we create space at the table for children and adults with autism, Asperger's and Down syndrome? In addition to employing individuals through the Clean Water Cafe, Liquid Church provides support to parents of children with special needs through support groups and parents night out events. Additionally, the church hosts an annual Night to Shine prom for those with special needs. But the churchs largest and most unique special needs ministry, according to Lucas, is its Buddy Program. At Liquid, every child with special needs is assigned a buddy who walks with them from fifth grade to high school, ensuring they can participate in all of Liquid Kids environments. Each buddy is trained to meet the unique communication and language needs specific to the child they are assigned. In general, the church is 30 years behind culture when it comes to special needs. They dont have the manpower and muscle even if theyre passionate about it, Lucas told CP. What happened at Liquid was, millennials stepped up and said, We understand inclusion, so most of our buddy volunteers are in their 20s and 30s. About 400 families participate in Liquids Buddy Program, Lucas estimated, adding that many families travel from all over the state to attend worship while their children participate in the program. There was one 10-year-old young man named Grady with Down syndrome, ADHD, and verbal apraxia, meaning the speech messages in his brain didnt transfer to his mouth, the pastor recalled. When his family came to us, they said, Weve been kicked out of our last three churches. It wasnt the churchs fault, but they didnt know what to do with Grady. All three churches treated him as a behavior problem because he was disrupting classes. People, Lucas continued, have no idea the toll special needs take on a family. Most people dont even attend church because their children are seen as a disruption. Grady was paired with Katy, a 20-something-year-old who met his energy, the pastor said. And at Liquid, we were OK with him being disruptive because we view it as the joy of the Lord that was uniquely put in Grady, Lucas said. For Gradys family, the 90-minute drive to church was more than worth it. Gradys mother told me, This isnt just for Grady. Its saving our marriage, he recounted. We only have one hour a week where we can go worship God and have a moment of respite and be spiritually renewed before we go back to being mom and dad to our son, Grady, as well as our other children. After attending Liquid Church for a time, Grady spoke his first sentence: I want to go to church. It was incredible. His mother said, Weve found a home, and Grady has found healing, Lucas said. Praise God. Isnt that what the church is supposed to be? Through our special needs programs, people have caught the Fathers heart. Brexit marks the chance for a new beginning. The chairmen of the Foreign Affairs Comittes of the Bundestag and the House of Commons make the case for a German-British Friendship Treaty. A guest column. EU-Supporters gather on Brexit-Day in front of the British Embassy in Berlin Bild: EPA More than three years after the referendum, Brexit on Saturday became reality as the United Kingdom formally left the European Union. After 40 years of European integration and being an integral part of a community as tightly intertwined as the EU, this departure not only fundamentally changes the relationship between the United Kingdom and the EU. It also requires us to rethink the bilateral relations between EU member states and the UK. While we have different perspectives on Brexit, we agree that it is now time to move on. Many aspects of our future relationship will be organized at the European level as part of the ongoing Brexit negotiations. But some issues are bilateral and require stronger direct ties. We think its time for a German-British Friendship Treaty, which regulates enhanced cooperation and strengthens our shared values, cultural and educational policy and, yes, our foreign affairs. A treaty would complement whatever the UK agreed with the 27 member states and deepen our bonds. One of the first consequences of Brexit will be that officials, ministers and parliamentarians from our two countries will no longer regularly meet in Brussels. We need to make sure understanding remains strong and encourage exchanges between us. Ramping up our embassy staff and the cultural and educational programmes run by institutions such as the Goethe Institute, the British Council or the German Academic Exchange Service can also change the tone. Irrespective of the UKs decision on remaining a full member of the Erasmus exchange programme after 2020, we should strengthen direct ties between German and British students and teachers and deepen scientific cooperation between our researchers. Creating new bilateral grants to fund joint projects no longer eligible for EU funding would promote collaboration and could culminate in shared clusters of excellence at German and British universities. Shared enterprise will boost much more than science and the economy, it will further entwine our values. Germany and the United Kingdom are home to some of the most tolerant and open societies in the world. And yet racism in general, and anti-Semitism in particular, are on the rise in our societies. To counter this we should launch a joint, high profile project that fights intolerance and promotes solidarity. For different reasons, taking a strong stance against anti-Semitism has particular importance for both societies: to Germans it is central to our historical responsibility for the horrors of the Second World War; to Britons forcefully condemning anti-Semitism it is a recognition of the proud history the UK has of providing refuge to Jews fleeing from prosecution and death in Nazi Germany. As important allies of Israel and on the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the time to act is now. Finally, Germany and the United Kingdom have shared interests overseas. Our two countries stood together on every major international issue, from global trade to the Iran nuclear deal. We both recognise that we share a continent, values, making our security indivisible. Geography and geopolitics is not changed by Brexit. For both of us, security in the Middle East has direct implications for the stability of our own societies, and those of our neighbours. As part of a wider initiative, as Europeans, or within the E3 format alongside France, Germany and the UK will no doubt cooperate in political and military engagements in the region, from working to stabilize Iraq, to helping to support parties trying to bring peace to Libya. With Britains EU membership coming to an end it is time to look ahead and to create a strong foundation for our future bilateral relations. A German-British Friendship Treaty would provide a framework. It will be the first draft of the next chapter which we will write together. Alappuzha : , Feb 2 (IANS) With the confirmation of the second positive case of the coronavirus in Kerala on Sunday, the state government has decided to closely monitor all those arriving from the countries which have reported the deadly virus, state Health Minister K.K. Shailaja said here. In India, only Kerala has reported positive cases of the novel coronavirus. "We have got the report of the sample sent from Alappuzha Medical College of a patient -- a student who returned from Wuhan, and it's positive. Since he was already in isolation, things are perfectly under control and he is stable. There is nothing to be worried," Shailaja told the media. "It has now been decided that all those people who are arriving from countries where coronavirus has been confirmed, will be observed in their homes," Shailaja added. She also pointed out that following the state government's request, the Centre has allowed the testing of samples at the laboratory attached to the Alappuzha Medical College. Currently, all samples are being sent to the National Institute of Virology in Pune. "Sunday onwards, the testing of samples has started here and this will speed up things,", Shailaja said. To date, 1,793 people are under observation in the state, of which 59 samples have been sent for testing and two have tested positive. Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19) After years of disappointing pay rises, Australian workers are set to see their employers superannuation contributions on their behalf increase from 9.5 per cent of wages today to 12 per cent by July 2025. Whats not to like? But while employers might hand over the cheque for super, workers ultimately pay for almost all of it through lower wages. Thats the finding of our latest research paper for Grattan Institute, No free lunch: higher super means lower wages. While employers hand over the cheque for super, workers ultimately pay for almost all of it through lower wages. Credit:Glen McCurtayne Using administrative data on 80,000 federal workplace agreements made between 1991 and 2018, we show that about 80 per cent of the cost of increases in super is passed to workers through low wage rises within the life of an agreement, typically two-to-three years. The long-term impact is likely to be even higher. These findings shouldnt come as a surprise. International studies of similar schemes also find that workers typically pay for most, if not all, of social security contributions made on their behalf. Which is why past federal governments have long assumed that compulsory super is paid out of workers wages, rather than by employers. Nadya Padilla (R) is a former classical ballet dancer who attended Shen Yun Performing Arts at the Long Center for the Performing Arts in Austin, Texas on Feb. 1, 2020 (Yawen Hung/The Epoch Times) AUSTIN, TexasBeauty doesnt only live in the eye of the beholder. It can live in peoples traditions, as well as their feelings, according to one former ballet dancer who attended Shen Yun Performing Arts in Austin, Texas. Nadya Padilla praised New York-based Shen Yuns performance and its mission, which is to revive authentic Chinese culture and its profound feelings and spirituality. She attended the Feb. 1, 2020, performance at the Long Center for the Performing Arts in Texas capital city. When you bring a company like this, they integrate their perspective and their traditions and how they feel, and how they look, and how the culturethat classical culture is very beautiful, is very beautiful to see, she said. I think its a wonderful mission. I think its a mission that should always All cultures should be continued and the history should be kept, you know, to its most basic form. And its a wonderful thing to be able to share that throughout the world, Padilla added. Shen Yun is not allowed to perform in China, even though that is the homeland of its cultural origin. This is because the Chinese Communist Party has systematically attempted to destroy traditional Chinese culture since the Cultural Revolution. Traditional Chinese culture is steeped in divine inspiration and personal self-refinement practices, which are also under attack. The CCPs campaign of violence against spiritual believers is still in full force today. The ballerina has a personal connection with communist suppression: her husband is from Cuba, a place, she says, that Americans know too little about. It was an eye-opening for me, that with, even though my husband, whos from Cuba, came from the communist system, you dont know whats happening in their world, she said. As part of Shen Yuns revival of Chinese culture, they include dance pieces that depict the persecution of spiritual believers in China, and how, according to ancient Chinese legend, the compassionate and faithful will be rewarded by the Creator while those who harm innocent lives will be punished. That freedom that they dont have to continue to their religion, or continue their spiritual beliefs is really sad, very sad, Padilla said. They dont have that freedom, and how important that freedom is, you know. So its a beautiful thing for us to see because a lot of us dont know that. So I appreciate that. I appreciate what the choreographer did. Padilla had high praise for many aspects of Shen Yun. My overall impression is incredible beauty. Coloring is so wonderful to see. The dancers are very nice. The choreography is simple but very beautiful, very harmonious, which is what I think the feeling of the Chinese culture, she said. When you see the dancers on the stagethey project beautifully, the costumes project beautifully. It really is a special thing to see, she said. You dont see that very often, you know. So, I really highly recommend people coming to see it. A piece that stood out to her among the 20 or so short dances in Shen Yun is called Water Sleeves, a dance by the female cast who throw and catch and dance with very long, silky sleeves. She described other dances, such as one with all men, and the use of other props like drums, and various stories that paint a picture of China. I would definitely tell anybody and everyone to come see [Shen Yun], Padilla said. My son lives in New York City, and he hasnt gone to see it. And I said, Well, why? He says, Oh, they, you know. I dont know, I guess because theres a lot going on, and Im going to tell him, You should go see it. I really would highly recommend them to go see it, because I think its, you know, its beauty. A lot of beauty, so. And thats a very nice thing to see. With reporting by Yawen Hung and Brett Featherstone. The Epoch Times considers Shen Yun Performing Arts the significant cultural event of our time and has covered audience reactions since the companys inception in 2006. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister on Sunday said when the provisions of Article 370, that gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir, were abrogated, pain was felt by Pakistan and chief Arvind Kejriwal. The Uttar Pradesh chief minister also termed the Shaheen Bagh protest a "malicious attempt to disturb peace and normal life". "When Article 370 was abrogated, pain was felt by Pakistan and Arvind Kejriwal," Adityanath said, addressing a rally in south Delhi's Badarpur. Adityanath said in the Delhi elections, on one side there is the leadership of Narendra Modi for development and nationalism, on the other, there is the and Kejriwal who "support divisive forces". "The is working with zero tolerance towards terrorism. But Kejriwal is busy with sponsoring and offering biryani in Shaheen Bagh," he said. (CNN) As the new coronavirus continues to cross international borders, the two key questions on public health officials' minds are: 'How deadly is it?' and 'Can it be contained?' The Conversation The two outbreaks in recent memory that give the most insight into these questions are the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak, which spread from China to 26 other countries but was contained after eight months, and the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic, which originated in Mexico and spread globally despite all containment efforts. The severity and mortality of a novel emerging virus, which we scientists in this case are calling 2019-nCoV, are very difficult to judge when new data are coming in on a daily basis. During the 2009 influenza pandemic, the earliest reports listed 59 deaths from approximately 850 suspected cases, which suggested an extremely high case fatality of 7%. However, the initially reported information of 850 cases was a gross underestimate. This was simply due to a much larger number of mild cases that did not report to any health system and were not counted. After several months -- when pandemic data had been collected from many countries experiencing an epidemic wave -- the 2009 influenza turned out to be much milder than was thought in the initial weeks. Its case fatality was lower than 0.1% and in line with other known human influenza viruses. The case fatality for SARS, during its eight months of circulation, was just under 10%. Is the current epidemic more similar in severity and transmissibility to the SARS outbreak or the 2009 flu pandemic? I am a professor of biology who studies the evolution and epidemiology of infectious disease, and in my view, in late January 2020, we do not yet have enough solid evidence to answer this question. I am optimistic that the scientific community's sharing ethos and rapid data analytics that we have seen over the past two weeks will soon generate the needed data. As with the 2009 pandemic, initial reports from Wuhan described small numbers of both deaths and cases. On January 20, there were six deaths out of 282 confirmed cases. By January 28, there were 106 deaths from about 4,500 confirmed cases. These numbers taken alone suggest a case fatality rate of around 2%, very high for a respiratory virus. But the true number of infected individuals circulating in the population is not known and is likely to be much higher than 4,500. There may be 50,000 or 100,000 additional cases in Wuhan that have gone undetected, and, if this is the case, it would put the case fatality of 2019-nCoV infections in the range of 0.1% to 0.2%. During these early stages of the outbreak investigation, it is difficult to estimate the lethality, or deadliness, of this new virus. So, with all of this uncertainty, how much effort should public health officials put into containment, quarantine and isolation activities? Should all airports be implementing temperature screening for incoming passengers? There are no easy answers to these questions, as there are only a few historical examples to look back on. And, none of them is guaranteed to be a template for this year's 2019-nCoV epidemic. Is this virus silent or deadly? Fortunately for human beings, a pathogen like 2019-nCoV cannot have its cake and eat it too. The virus cannot be both deadly and undetectable. To illustrate, we can consider the hypothetical examples of a severe and a non-severe respiratory virus. With a more severe symptoms profile, a respiratory infection will have more sudden onset, earlier symptoms, a higher chance of severity and death, and it will probably cause patients to report to hospitals at an earlier stage of infection. An outbreak of a respiratory virus like this will typically be deadly but containable. With a less severe symptoms profile, patients may stay in an asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic state for a long time, symptoms appearance may be more gradual than sudden, and progression to hospitalization and death would be rare. An infection like this is difficult to detect and thus difficult to control, but fortunately it is much less lethal. A key characteristic to examine in these two disease profiles is whether symptoms appear before transmissibility -- i.e. at a point when patients are not yet able to infect others -- or the other way around. For SARS, symptoms usually appeared before transmissibility. This feature made SARS containable. For the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, transmissibility appeared about one day before symptoms. This meant that even the best control measures missed 20% of transmitting patients, simply because they showed no symptoms. Can international spread be contained? For the 2019-nCoV epidemic, it appears that individuals can transmit the virus before being symptomatic. However, at this early stage, this is far from certain. Can a pathogen like this have its international spread controlled? Will airport screening and isolation of febrile cases be effective at slowing down the initial outbreak or perhaps containing it entirely? To answer this question, we can look at data from containment efforts during the 2009 pandemic. In 2009 I was working at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Ho Chi Minh City, where containment efforts relied on a live synthesis of airline passenger data, symptoms data, isolation data, and diagnostics data that were coming in on a daily basis. Data were assembled in Ho Chi Minh City for the first three months of the pandemic, covering a total of 760,000 airline passengers arriving from abroad. About 1,000 incoming travelers were suspected of being influenza-positive. That's about one passenger for every three incoming flights. The majority of these virus-positive individuals were isolated at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases and treated. During the early stages of the pandemic, about 80% of these patients' "infectious days" were spent in isolation, effectively cutting the virus's transmission rate by a factor of five. On the one hand, a containment effort like this can be viewed as a success. The virus's entry into the city was slowed down, and an epidemic that seemed imminent in mid-June was held off until late July. On the other hand, with about 200 influenza-positive cases coming in during the three-month containment effort, there were likely dozens of cases that came in undetected in their "pre-symptomatic" stage. The influenza pandemic was not destined to be locally containable. At this moment, 2019-nCoV looks to me like its severity and transmission profile is somewhere between SARS and the 2009 H1N1 influenza. If this is accurate, airport screening, case isolation, contact tracing and social distancing efforts may be enough in some cities to delay or fend off the arriving stream of new cases. In the next month or two, we will see how easily newly introduced seed cases are able to establish local epidemics outside the Chinese mainland. With a little luck some cities may be able to control their outbreaks. With open scientific collaboration we may learn which containment strategies work best, in preparation for our next pandemic later this decade. This story was first published on CNN.com 'How deadly is coronavirus, and can it be contained?' (Newser) Rack up another one for Albert Einstein. New research on a pair of stars confirms a prediction from Einstein's general theory of relativitythat a spinning object will drag space-time right along with it, Science Alert reports. Astrophysicists have spotted the effect, known as "frame dragging," in a white dwarf and a pulsar orbiting each other a few hundred quadrillion miles away. Radio telescopes in Australia revealed that the plane of the pulsar's orbit was slowly shifting (something like a wobbling top) around its interstellar companion; that's because the white dwarf is spinning so fast, it pulls on the very fabric of space-time and causes the pulsar's orbit to alter its orientation. story continues below For one thing, this gives scientists insight into the starsan older white dwarf (or highly dense core of a dead star) and the other a pulsar (or fast-spinning neutron star that died in a supernova), per Space.com. It's also our best evidence of frame-dragging, in which objects with energy bunch and bend space-time as it absorbs that energy. We knew objects alter space-time like orbs placed on a sheet of rubber; now there's fresh evidence of an object moving space-time "like dragging water along your body as you spin in a pool," says Gizmodo. Popular Mechanics says this "could explain a lot of things we don't understand yet about relativity, gravity itself, and forces that affect everything from celestial objects to subatomic particles." (Read more astronomy stories.) Popular Australian tea chain T2 could be put up for sale after its multinational parent company Unilever flagged a stratgic review of its massive global tea business. The British-Dutch consumer goods behemoth told investors last Friday morning it was cooling on its 3 billion ($4.9 billion) tea division after a sustained period of low sales growth, which it attributed to shifting consumer preferences and a drift away from traditional black tea to herbal varieties. T2 could soon be on the block again as multinational Unilever considers its options. Unilever's chief executive Alan Jope said on an earnings call with investors the company would conduct a stategic review of its tea business and T2 would be included in the reivew. "All options remain on the table" he said. T2 was founded in 1996 with its first store in the inner melbourne suburb of Fitzroy. Unilever purchased the business from co-founder Maryanne Shearer in 2013 for $60 million. Iraq bars foreign arrivals from China over coronavirus fears Baghdad, Feb 2 (AFP) Feb 02, 2020 Iraq's interior ministry announced on Sunday that it would not allow foreigners travelling from China to enter the country over fears of an outbreak of coronavirus. In an online statement, the ministry said the step was "part of the protective measures taken by countries around the world to combat the new coronavirus, and out of a commitment to protect its citizens from its disastrous effects and negative consequences for public health and safety". Iraqi authorities said Friday they had not detected any coronavirus cases in Iraq or among Iraqi expatriates abroad. Similar to the SARS pathogen, coronavirus emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan last year and has been declared a global health emergency by the World Health Organization. It has infected nearly 14,500 people across China and more than 100 in 20 other countries, including the United States. More than 300 people have died in China and on Sunday, the first foreign fatality was reported in the Philippines. Last week, a spokesman for Iraq's foreign ministry told AFP authorities were working to repatriate up to 50 Iraqi citizens -- students and their families -- from Wuhan. Iraq has no direct flights from China but hundreds of Chinese nationals work on lucrative oil fields across the country, which is OPEC's second-largest crude producer. Iraq's public health system has been ravaged by years of conflict and poor investment. Al-Futtaims Commercial Vehicle Division, exclusive distributor of Hino trucks in the UAE, has delivered a major order of 150 light duty Hino 300 series trucks to Dubai Refreshment, a local bottler and distributor of PepsiCo Beverages in Dubai and the Northern Emirates. This new agreement further extends Hinos association with PepsiCo bottler in Dubai which will use the new trucks to boost its fleet of refreshment delivery trucks in the UAE, said a statement from the company. Ramez Hamdan, general manager, Hino, Al-Futtaims Commercial Vehicle Division, said: Our presence in the F&B industry has been increasing year-on-year, thanks to the trust our partners put in the quality of our trucks and our Hino Total Support aftersales concept. The 150 Hino trucks are tailor-made to enhance PepsiCo beverages delivery operations in the UAE, and we have coupled the delivery with eco-driving training sessions to help the fleet users drive more efficiently and improve their road safety, he added. Tarek ElSakka, chief executive officer of Dubai Refreshment, said: We are extremely pleased to continue our association with Hino. We chose Hino trucks for their quality, performance and fuel efficiency, as they adhere to Euro-4 emission standards, helping our operations to have a positive impact on the environment, in line with our commitment to support the UAE governments 2021 vision. The eco-driving trainings come as part of the Hino Total Support and in addition to helping reduce the risk of major road accidents, the trainings also help drivers optimise total cost of truck ownership, contributing to the bottom line, improve fuel efficiency, minimise the cost of wear and tear, reduce service and maintenance costs as well as insurance premiums. Conforming to UAE safety standards, Hino has partnered with Gorica for the customisation of the body of the trucks to suit the specialised needs of Dubai Refreshment local PepsiCo bottler, it stated. TradeArabia News Service Ahead of the Delhi Assembly elections, AAP MP Sanjay Singh on Sunday slammed Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath for his 'Boli nahi goli se samjhaya jaayega' statement at an election campaign rally. Singh also said that Yogi must be arrested and interrogated over his remark on CM Arvind Kejriwal's link with Pakistan Prime Minister. While campaigning for BJP candidates in Delhi on Saturday, Yogi had accused Arvind Kejriwal of having Pakistan links which is why Pakistan federal minister was seeking votes for him. Following his remark, AAP on Saturday had asked the Election Commission to direct the police chief and other agencies to take appropriate measures to prevent unrest and violence planned by "certain political parties" in the city to sabotage the Delhi elections. Speaking to the media Singh said, "Here, people are shooting and you (Yogi) are saying 'boli goli'. Your students are not getting proper mid-day meal and all you do is incite violence. He says Kejriwal has a link with Pak PM. Arrest Yogi and ask him how does he know about Kejriwal's links with Pak PM. Has the BJP gone mad? Sometimes they call Kejriwal monkey and sometimes a traitor. BJP needs a medical attention. I'll give Yogi a free check-up in Delhi. Amit Shah is the one instigating violence and provoking everyone." READ | AAP Complains To EC About 'certain Political Parties' Trying To Sabotage Polls Yogi's remark Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister & BJP leader, Yogi Adityanath while addressing a rally in Rohini at Delhi threatened to use force for anyone who will try to create trouble during Kanwar Yatra. He said, 'Boli nahi goli se samjhaya jaayega'. Slamming Kejriwal, Yogi said, 'AAP can't provide clean drinking water to people of Delhi. A survey says that Delhi uses the most polluted drinking water. But Kejriwal govt provides Biryani to the people sitting in protest at Shaheen Bagh & other places'. READ | AAP Cries Conspiracy After Firing In Jasola; Accuses BJP Of Attempt To Delay Election Delhi election New Delhi will go to polls in a single-phase on February 8 and the counting of votes will take place on February 11. The last day of filing nominations for the candidates was on January 21. The BJP has fielded Bhartiya Janta Yuva Morcha president Sunil Yadav against Delhi CM Kejriwal from New Delhi constituency, and the Congress has pitted former NSUI Delhi president Ramesh Sabharwal against him. BJP is trying to make advances in the upcoming Assembly elections after the 2015 debacle where it won only 3 seats. During the 2015 elections, AAP won 67 seats out of the 70-seat Assembly. The Assembly elections take place in the backdrop of an extremely communal, hate drive campaign and various violent protests. On Thursday, a man opened fire before being arrested by the Delhi police. A similar incident took place on Saturday as well. READ | AAP Holds Silent Protests Against Parvesh Verma's 'terrorist Remark' READ | AAP Leaders Protest Outside EC Office Demanding FIR Against Verma The time draws near, THIS SUNDAY Soup R Bowl XII will take place February 2nd. From 11am - 2pm, at the Student Community Center at UNM-Valencia. Follow the signs to the South parking lot. This year we will be featuring 5 international soup stations, with soups made by gallery volunteers in the professional kitchen at the campus. Homemade breads and desserts will be donated by gallery and community members. Handmade pottery bowls and tickets are currently available for sale at the Tome Gallery, 2930 Highway 47 in Tome, at the UNM-Valencia Bookstore, and will be available at both the Gallery and the University the day of the event. You may purchase a ticket for $15 which includes a handmade bowl of your choice as well as soup, bread and dessert. All proceeds benefit the Virginia Casados-Clark Scholarship, the James Vaughn Memorial Scholarship, the Nancy Deas Memorial Scholarship and the James Taylor Memorial Scholarship. This year each award will be $1,000, given to deserving students in the Fine Arts, Media Arts and Humanities. This year we have received a number of sponsorships for our soups. The Walmart Distribution Center is sponsoring 2 soups, Romero Funeral Homes another, and Sopas Restaurant and Hub City Brewing Company are both donating soups. We have received many gift certificates from local businesses for the Silent Auction, including The Center For Ageless Living, Teofilos, Burritos Alinstante, Rutilios in Belen, Alicias Fine Jewelry, as well as amazing art work from many local artists. This is fast becoming one of the most popular events to take place in Valencia County. Stop in at the gallery today for the very best pick of all the bowls. Getting your bowls early really helps us know how much soup to make. The bowls are beautiful, the food is amazing and there is plenty of room to sit and enjoy the afternoon and still be home in time for the big game. Please bring your bowl and your spoon and help us avoid so much plastic trash at our event. We hope to see you there! Copyright 2020 Albuquerque Journal Youve never heard of fika? asks Swedish artist Gordon Skalleberg as he welcomes a visitor to his Santa Fe studio with freshly brewed coffee and rolls called bullar made by his wife Andrea. Asked what the word means, Skalleberg replies, Swedes dont like to translate it. Its a coffee break, but its also a conversation. Fika sounds like the Swedish cousin of the coffeeklatch, as social gatherings with coffee were known in 1960s suburban America. And, of course, that was the Yankee version of the German coffeeklatsch, which brought together java and gossip (klatsch). Skalleberg, whose father is Norwegian and whose mother is German, seems far too focused for something as frivolous as gossip. But he is no stranger to the history of Germany. Occupying a prominent spot in his studio is a painting called The Happy German Family. It is Skallebergs interpretation of a photograph of his great-grandparents holding his grandmother as an infant and her brother as a young boy. The family portrait was taken in Potsdam, Germany, in 1910, but Skalleberg has inserted a painting of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin on a wall in the background. Whats to account for the unlikely presence of Comrade Stalin in the home of a happy German family? Skalleberg holds the Soviet leader directly responsible for the deaths of his great-grandparents, who were shot by Russian liberators at the end of World War II. Such unlikely additions as Stalin show up in Skallebergs other pieces. On the easel in Skallebergs studio is a painting based on a photograph of a woman straight out of A Dolls House, the Ibsen play about a 19th-century wife who leaves her family. But, unlike the photo, Skallebergs painting depicts a woman partially concealing a knife in one hand and clenching her fist with the other. Skalleberg said the work expresses the pent-up rage of women who have been objectified and abused. We have the #MeToo movement in Sweden, too, he said. Like all of Skallebergs work, these portraits are painted on wood, and feature the contrast of light and shadow known in the art world as chiaroscuro. Although Skallebergs English is flawless, he doesnt immediately understand the word when it is haltingly pronounced. But then the self-taught artist nods in recognition. Yes, I love light and dark. Caravaggio and Rembrandt are two of my favorite painters, he said. The world of art is relatively new to Skalleberg. Not so long ago, he was working for the American subsidiary of Skaltek, a company founded by his father that makes packaging machines for electric cable. I worked with Dad in the family business until I was 45, he said. I was president of a company. It was a hard thing to take a break. But, 14 years ago, he made the break entirely and became an artist after painfully negotiating a separation package with his father. His younger brother Ralph now runs Skalteks U.S. operation, while his father, who is 82, is still involved in the Sweden-based parent company. Skalleberg embarked on his artistic career by taking a one-week painting course. I had no idea I had it in me until I took that course, he said. Before he was an artist, Skalleberg was a woodworker and a photographer. He has a workshop in his garage where he makes the canvases for his paintings and other artwork that he describes as sculptures. He built the kitchen cabinets in his studio, which doubles as a guest house. I havent painted on real canvas in 10 years. When you paint on wood, the grain becomes part of the work. Look, here, the grain is the sky, he said, pointing to a small minimalist painting of a landscape. In addition to large paintings, Skallebergs studio is filled with dozens of his so-called sculptures. Made from wood, these pieces are often painted with a slice of a face. Many of the faces are images of Skallebergs daughter, but near the door to his studio sit two paintings of Uma Thurman and Tony Goldwyn. Those sculptures were created at the request of a neighbor for the Netflix series Chambers. When the production was completed, the art was returned to him. With their European characters and style, many of Skallebergs paintings dont seem suited to a Canyon Road gallery filled with Southwestern art. Thats not as true of his sculptures and small landscapes, though. Nevertheless, hes not in a hurry to break into the Santa Fe art scene. To get into galleries is a huge struggle here, he said. In Sweden, Skalleberg is better known because he is a participant in an annual studio tour featuring 140 artists in the Helsingborg/Arild area. He also accepts commissions to paint portraits, though he doesnt want to be labeled a portrait painter because then youre not a real painter. For many years, Skalleberg and his wife lived in the Atlanta area, where they met and where Skaltek USA is based. But for the past seven years, they have been dividing their time between Santa Fe and Arild, which, like the City Different, is home to many artists. Skalleberg first discovered Santa Fe on a road trip from Atlanta to California in 2008. I called my wife in LA and said, I could live here. I felt so at home, he recalled. In 2013, the Skallebergs took the plunge, taking advantage of depressed real estate prices in the wake of the Great Recession, which arrived late in Santa Fe. They bought a property that had room to build a studio/guesthouse, which Skalleberg designed himself and had a contractor build. Unlike some transplants, Skalleberg had no trouble with the citys Historic Districts Review Board, which mandates earth-tone colors and stucco exteriors. Shortly after moving to Santa Fe, he bought a book about John Gaw Meem. He immediately became a follower of the late, Brazilian-born architect who popularized the Pueblo Revival Style in Santa Fe. I became fascinated by vigas, Skalleberg confessed. Still, hes not so much of a traditionalist to forgo solar panels on his roof to generate electricity. Skalleberg credits his familys arrival in Santa Fe with deepening his relationship with his wife. As he shows examples of his pocket art studies of eyes, the artist observes, Look at the pupils. Think of all the information that is being taken in. You can never really understand someone elses vision. Ive known my wife 35 years and Ive got no idea what shes seeing. Presidential adviser Jared Kushner said the Trump administration has high hopes for its proposed Middle East peace deal even though Palestinians rejected the plan outright. Speaking in an interview that aired Sunday on CNNs Fareed Zakaria GPS, Kushner said President Donald Trump still hopes that Palestinian leadership can be brought to the negotiating table. What we hope that theyll do is read the plan, it's a detailed document, but not try to negotiate the same way that theyve done it for many years because the way that theyve done it for years hasn't led to a result, said the presidents son-in-law in an interview recorded Friday. On Saturday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said he was cutting all ties, including coordination on security issues, with both Israel and the United States. Earlier in the week, Abbas rejected the Trump plan with an emphatic thousand nos and other Palestinian leaders and some Arab governments (though not all) made it clear they saw no point in even considering the proposal. Trump has become a popular figure in Israel for a number of reasons, including his decision to relocate the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and his decision to support Israels annexation of the Golan Heights, formerly a part of Syria. Kushner said it is now up to Palestinians to step up and see that the Trump administration has offered a reasonable deal. What they did is they rejected this before it came out. They called for a day of rage, and theyre saying, we want a state. But people who are ready to get a state arent calling for days of rage and then marching in the street, he said. The Peace to Prosperity Trump plan was released Tuesday in the presence of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In the 180-page document, the Trump administration outlined a proposal for a potential Palestinian state to be created four years down the road, with a section of East Jerusalem as its capital. It included a map that ceded some of the territory seized by Israel in the Six-Day War in 1967 to Israel. That map also included land swaps that would shift communities that have been within Israels borders since 1948 to the potential Palestinian state. Story continues Plans for economic assistance for Palestinians were detailed as well. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemns the Trump peace plan in Ramallah on Jan. 28. Critics of the plan noted it placed extensive conditions on Palestinians that reduce the possibility that theyd ever get a state and would then limit the ability of Palestinians to govern themselves going forward. Israelis, having seen previous peace plans fall on deaf ears over the decades, countered that Palestinians could not hope for a resolution if they treated every proposal as immediately dead in the water. Kushner called the Middle East peace process probably the most complicated problem in the world. He told Zakaria: What weve tried to do is take a pragmatic approach to it. We've tried to do it differently, and I think that for the first time theres a real offer on the table to break the logjam. And it's really up to the Palestinians to see if they have the opportunity to pursue it. Facebook says its working to limit the spread of misinformation and potentially harmful content about the coronavirus as bogus claims about the ongoing outbreak circulate online. Kang-Xing Jin, Facebook's head of health, announced that the social media platform will begin removing posts that include false claims or conspiracy theories about the virus that have been flagged by health authorities. The company said it will focus on posts that discourage people from getting medical treatment, or that make potentially dangerous claims about cures. The company will also limit the spread of posts debunked by its third-party fact checkers, and send users who shared the post a notification. Users who search for information on the virus on Facebook, or who click on certain related hashtags on Instagram, will receive a pop-up providing authoritative information on the virus. In addition, information about the outbreak will also appear at the top of Facebook users' news feeds based on guidance from the World Health Organization. "We will also block or restrict hashtags used to spread misinformation on Instagram, and are conducting proactive sweeps to find and remove as much of this content as we can," Jin wrote in a post. "Not all of these steps are fully in place. It will take some time to roll them out across our platforms. Since the outbreak began a number of misleading claims and hoaxes about the virus have circulated online. They include false conspiracy theories that the virus was created in a lab and that vaccines have already been manufactured, wildly exaggerations about the number of sick and dead, and potentially harmful claims about bogus cures. The coronavirus has now infected more than 9,800 people around the world, based on numbers released Friday. Some 213 deaths have been reported in China, with most of the deaths in the central province of Hubei. The number of cases grew in Japan, Thailand, Singapore, Taiwan and Germany on Friday, while Russia, Italy and England reported their first cases. The first person-to-person transmission of the virus in the U.S. was announced Thursday in Chicago. The U.S. declared a public health emergency on Friday, as the nation's seventh case was identified. Other internet companies have announced their own efforts to stem the flow of misinformation about the disease. Twitter users who search for information about coronavirus are now given a link to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website on coronavirus. YouTube and Google, meanwhile, say they're promoting authoritative information about the virus to the top of search results. Google also announced that users who search for information on the virus will see an SOS Alert at the top of their screen giving them links to the World Health Organizations references on the outbreak. -- The Associated Press In the end, it was kind of fitting that famed attorney Alan Dershowitz showed up to deliver the fatal blow. In the 1990s, the Harvard Law prof was part of a team of lawyers that established that if youre a star in America they let you do it, even when it is murdering your estranged wife. In the 2000s, Dersh helped put the exclamation point on the idea that American billionaires can even sexually abuse young girls and escape meaningful punishment. Fast forward to the first month of the 2020s, and comes now Dershowitz to declare the ultimate reversal of fortune, the overturning on appeal of the American Revolution. Defending President Trump at his impeachment trial last week, the 81-year-old author of Chutzpah found the nerve and a receptive audience to proclaim that the American president is in reality a king, because whatever he does, it is not illegal. READ MORE: About 50 Republicans are going to decide whether America becomes a dictatorship | Will Bunch If a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment," Dershowitz declared in arguing that what an accumulating mountain of evidence has already established that Donald Trump abused the power of the presidency to extort a foreign leader to manufacture dirt on a 2020 election rival doesnt merit his removal from office. True, Dershowitz spent much of the next 48 hours trying in television interviews to backpedal from that remark he still wants to get invited to parties with his liberal friends on Marthas Vineyard this summer but the damage had been done. Though often clumsily and sometimes dishonestly, Dershowitz and the rest of Trumps legal team led by a White House counsel who actively participated in the presidents abuse-of-power scheming with Ukraine had managed to create just enough fog to protect 50-plus GOP senators as they cowered in fear from an authoritarian bully. The fog allowed Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander seen as a swing vote because hes retiring at the end of 2020 and because hes a survivor from an era when the GOP clung to a shred of integrity to admit that Trump using taxpayer-funded security aid for Ukraine for a political scheme was inappropriate but somehow this didnt rise to the level of removal. Alexander insisted that under the Constitution, the people should decide when the President does something thats simply inappropriate a bizarre interpretation of Article I, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution, but not the most bizarre from the presidents blinking Republican hostages. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, whod been badgered and bullied as Little Marco right out of the 2016 presidential race by Trump, did, to be honest, come up small when he announced he will vote Wednesday to acquit the man whod bullied him, even while tacitly acknowledging Democratic House managers proved their case. Just because actions meet a standard of impeachment, Rubio said, "does not mean it is in the best interest of the country to remove a president from office. In 1973, while still overwhelmingly backing Richard Nixon politically, Senate Republicans nevertheless voted unanimously to investigate Watergate, with some having the moral curiosity to ask, What did the president know, and when did he know it? In 2020, 51 GOP senators are saying, I know what Trump did last summer, and it doesnt matter and putting it out in the open will only cause Trump to lean into the authoritarian tendencies hes shown for nearly five years as a candidate and as president. At the end of presenting the compelling case for Trumps removal, California Rep. Adam Schiff, the lead impeachment manager, declared dramatically that right matters, and truth matters. Because without it, we are lost. In the end, impeaching Trump even though his acquittal from a lock-step Senate was guaranteed from Day One was the right thing to do, not only because it allowed America to hear some if not all of the facts about how this president has abused and debased his office, but also because it exposed the deeper truths about the grand illusion that the American Experiment has increasingly become. I can still remember what things were like in 1977 when Nixon famously told his interviewer David Frost that when a president does it, that means it is not illegal. The remark has lingered because it managed on one hand to be kind of pathetic hadnt Nixon been disgraced and forced from office? yet also worrisome, because after all Gerald Ford did pardon Nixon. In the two generations since, while folks on the left and the center crowed that the system worked in Watergate, the right went to work in undermining it, and turning Nixon into a prophet. The president did it in the 1980s in the Iran-contra scandal, but for Ronald Reagan it was not illegal because he was too old and too politically popular. The notion of situational ethics regarding executive power now cemented, it was easy for a soulless, amoral partisan-power-player like Mitch McConnell to ram the guardrails of democracy again and again, whether that meant shutting down government to thwart the first black president or ignoring two centuries of precedent to hijack the Supreme Court in 2016-17. In hindsight, Merrick Garland was a trial run for the ultimate Merrick Garland-ing of the Constitution, on a date that will live in infamy, January 30, 2020. READ MORE: Reagans forgotten Iran-Contra escape may reveal more about Trumps fate than Watergate | Will Bunch Trumps ascension to the presidency only heightened the contradictions of Americas comatose democracy. Its almost laughable to go back four years later and re-read the wrongest opinion column in the history of American journalism, when the Washington Posts Kathleen Parker rationalized that D.C. would normalize Trump because thats the way our system of government is set up. She insisted that there wouldnt be a wall or a travel ban or an attack on Iran and that he would come to hate Vladimir Putin and that Congress would hold him in check, because not even Republicans are eager to follow Trumps lead. Instead, all it took was a few mean tweets from a presidential smartphone to intimidate semi-respectable Republicans and unleash the autocratic tendencies that were always dormant in the rest and show that maybe our system of government isnt set up to thwart dictatorship. That and a small army of semi-automatic toting supporters. In defending his vote to shut down the impeachment trial and not hear from other witnesses like John Bolton who actually could say what the president knew and when he knew it, Tennessees Alexander gave an additional explanation that should alarm every American. He said removing Trump for his misconduct would just pour gasoline on cultural fires that are burning out there. As Alexander spoke, a throng of men in camouflage with rifles slung over their shoulders were overrunning the Kentucky state capitol in a display of 2nd Amendment force. The threat of violence lurked behind the vote to grant Trump monarchical power. In the end, the fires of the American Experiment were extinguished by a crude demagogue and the power of his mean tweets and his ready-for-Riefenstahl rallies and his armed band of supporters, and their ability to intimidate the worlds greatest deliberative body, in which the senators who shut down impeachment and turned a president with fewer popular votes into a king represented 19 million fewer Americans than the ones who voted for a real trial. With Trumps inevitable acquittal just a few days away, some pundits are channeling their inner Kathleen Parker to still assert that well be just fine in an America where the president now has the receipts that he is, indeed, above the law. Former FBI chief Jim Comey who has a knack for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time (and whose firing by Trump to thwart a criminal probe was itself an impeachment-worthy offense) surfaced to say that, sure, Trump is bad but well be OK because the American center that great lump of us clustered around the middle always holds. Comey reminds me of both of the most famous lines ever written by the great Joan Didion, that the center is not holding, and that we tell ourselves stories in order to live. Its so fitting maybe its even intentional that Trump Acquittal Week somehow got wrapped up with Super Bowl Sunday, so that we can interupt the Trial of American Caligula to bring you four hours of bread and circuses. And so the F-16s will roar over the sun-soaked crowd and the massive American flag and the heirs to Len Dawson and Joe Montana will get their brains rattled and the messages commanding you to drown your anxieties in Doritos and Budweiser will keep coming, and the Jim Comeys of the world will look at their 52-inch screen and ask, how could anyone call this a dictatorship? READ MORE: White male rage is Team Trumps only response to impeachment. We shouldnt put up with this. | Will Bunch And somehow no one asks this of increasingly desperate refugees getting turned away at our southern border, or the toddlers whove been ripped away from their parents, or the trangender or indigenous women increasingly fearing for their lives in an America where open prejudice has been sanctioned at the top, or the black kid growing up with asthma in a smog-choked city, after Trump has reversed every rule for cleaner air he can find, or... And this was before the Senate on Friday passed what should be known in history as the Enabling Act of 2020, granting him virtually unlimited powers without fear of sanction. Just in the last few days, Trump has expanded his unconscionable travel ban to include a host of new nations including Nigeria, which he famously dismissed as a shole country," and OKed a new era of landmines because these are the hurtful, arbitrary and capricious things that dictators do. Can anyone look at this trend-line and not wonder, with both his newfound license to cheat and the vagaries of the Electoral College pointing toward a second term, what abuses of power from the jailing of dissidents and journalists to World War III could come in the next five years? It is so hard to find hope when the Friday night lights of democracy are turned off, and yet there is hope to find. On Saturday morning, an online friend who runs a Twitter feed of 1960s nostalgia posted a reminder that it was exactly 60 years ago this weekend that four unknown, seemingly powerless black college students walked into a lunch counter and decided to confront the American apartheid of the segregated South. Within five years, the regime of legal segregation in America had collapsed. Once again, a lost cause was worth fighting for, in a nation where every step back has always brought one step forward. Trumps impeachment trial may have ended our fantasies about constitutional government in these United States, but I do believe it will strengthen the resolve of the majority of us who not only wanted Trumps removal, but believe democracy is still worth fighting for. There is still an opportunity to vote on November 3 in such numbers, and with such unity of purpose, that a presidents ability to cheat wont matter. And Friday nights vote did not silence your ability to speak out, or shackle your ability to march for justice, not yet. Keep remembering that whatever you think you would have done to fight slavery or segregation or the worst horrors of the 20th Century is exactly what you are doing to fight tyranny today. Also remember that the American Experiment has been powered for 244 years by this one initial spark: Our hatred of monarchy. On Friday night, 51 senators all but voted to crown King Donald I, and with that vote a flame of democracy was effectively snuffed out. But the second American revolution begins today. Join us. Steve Eisman's plan to profit from Brexit appears to have backfired after the investor made famous in Hollywood movie The Big Short was forced to unwind his bets against UK bank shares. Eisman who cashed in during the financial crisis after he laid major bets against the US housing market has admitted he has slashed his so-called short positions after a poor year for his new fund. The hedge fund investor, whose character Mark Baum was played by Steve Carell in the Oscar-winning film, launched the fund last year at his firm Neuberger Berman, targeting British investors. 'Taking the pain': Steve Eisman cashed in during the financial crisis after he laid major bets against the US housing market He hoped to profit from Brexit chaos by 'shorting' shares in UK banks. Short-selling is a trading tactic which involves borrowing shares, then selling them before buying them back at a lower price for a profit when they are returned to the original owner. The Mail on Sunday revealed Eisman was shorting shares in Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds and Barclays over fears Brexit would knock their prices. Eisman warned that Britain could leave the European Union without a deal, which he said would have hit UK bank shares. 'I would lose money if a deal is done, I'd have to take the pain,' he said a year ago when he launched the new fund called the Absolute Alpha Fund. With Britain leaving the EU last Friday, Eisman has now told investors he has 'reduced significantly' his short positions in European banks, which are thought to include the UK banks. Barclays was among Eisman's top five short positions in the middle of last year. However, his fund is still shorting HSBC and Standard Chartered because he believes Hong Kong where they both have a heavy presence is in a recession, caused by the unrest there. He blamed the Federal Reserve for the rise in the bank shares he has been betting will fall. Barclays shares have surged around 25 per cent since August; RBS is up 24 per cent; and Lloyds has climbed around 17 per cent. He said he began to change his portfolio when the US central bank started its 'closet quantitative easing' programme in October buying around $300 billion of treasuries, 'flooding the market with liquidity'. 'We simply believed that the global industrial recession would infect the rest of the global economy. And here we were simply wrong,' Eisman told investors at the end of last month. But he appears more optimistic about the global economy for this year, adding: 'With the Fed on hold and with credit conditions as loose as they are, we believe that there is little reason, at this time, to expect a recession.' Eisman declined to comment on Brexit and the effect on his fund. To understand how some companies have lost their souls, consider what happened after U.S. Bank stiffed a customer before Christmas. Marc Eugenio had deposited a $1,080 paycheck into his account at U.S. Bank. The bank put a hold on most of the sum, and he spent many hours in a branch office over two days, trying to get access to the money so he could buy presents for his 9-year-old daughter and 13-year-old son. On Christmas Eve, Eugenio found himself parked at a gas station in Clackamas, Oregon, a Portland suburb, both his fuel gauge and his bank balance on empty. A bank employee had told him that money would soon show up in his account perhaps a ruse to get him out of the branch office. For hours Eugenio then tried his debit card at the gas pump so he could buy a few gallons and get home to his wife and children. I was stranded, he told me. I could have walked home, but it would have been 5 miles in the cold. Thats when Eugenio found an angel. He telephoned the banks toll-free number and spoke with Emily James, a senior officer at a call center in Portland. She spent an hour on the phone with Eugenio, trying to get some money released so he could at least get home. She soon realized that he had been misled, and that money wouldnt reach his account any time soon. Feeling bad for a customer stuck on Christmas Eve, James offered to drive over from her call center and personally hand him $20. No, no, no, Eugenio told her. He couldnt impose. But she suggested she could use her break, and she received permission from a supervisor to drive 20 minutes to Eugenio. She later recalled that when she arrived, she wished him Merry Christmas and handed him $20 of her own money. Twenty dollars wouldnt break me, she explained to me, and it would enable him to get home to his family. When U.S. Bank found out that it had such a generous employee, what did it do? It fired her. She broke the rules, putting herself and the bank at unnecessary risk, U.S. Bank said in a statement. The company bars call center workers from meeting customers, so it dismissed both her and the manager who had approved her trip. The manager, Abigail Gilbert, told me that James account was essentially correct. James had worked at the bank since 2017 and had received numerous commendations and awards that I examined, but the bank paid her no severance. She is single and used her last paycheck to buy sacks of food for her two dogs, Domino and Harley Quinn. She is now reduced to selling blood plasma, at $25 a visit. I wont let myself be homeless, she told me. Eugenio is horrified at what happened. I was lied to and treated like dirt by the bank, Eugenio said, and he cant understand why the bank axed the one employee who was helpful. I felt really bad, he told me. How could she get fired? U.S. Banks vision statement boasts: Our employees are empowered to do the right thing. So I tried to ask the companys CEO, Andrew Cecere, why the bank fired an employee who, with permission, rescued a frustrated customer on Christmas Eve. Cecere wouldnt return my calls. David Palombi, a bank spokesman, told me that an internal investigation had concluded that James misled Gilbert to get permission, that James could have found other ways to get money to Eugenio, that the $20 came from the manager (which Gilbert confirmed to me) and that James previously had disciplinary issues. I found the banks investigation a whitewash and its explanations to be incoherent, meanspirited and contradicted by a series of internal bank messages that I reviewed. The bottom line is this: Cecere, who was paid $14.1 million in 2018, presides over a company that has smeared a much-decorated employee who helped a customer and as a result survives by selling blood plasma. I suggest Cecere apologize, reinstate James and promote her; he might also show contrition by selling his own blood plasma and donating the proceeds to a charity of James choosing. When young Americans say in polls that they react more positively to socialism than to capitalism, its because of the hypocrisy of institutions like U.S. Bank. Ive often noted that companies have enormous capacity to help their communities. But too often they act like U.S. tobacco companies, which killed more people than Stalin did, or pharma companies peddling opioids, or McKinsey & Co. advising a business to get more patients on higher doses of opioids, or Boeing mocking regulators. Thats one reason to seek stronger private-sector labor unions: At least unions and corporations can then provide some check on each other. One bit of reassurance: Some chief executives do seem more enlightened than Cecere. After The Oregonian wrote two excellent articles about James, other companies reached out to her, saying that shes the kind of caring person they want to attract. No job offers yet, she told me, but there are a couple of possibilities Im really excited by. Contact Nicholas Kristof at Facebook.com/Kristof, Twitter.com/NickKristof or by mail at The New York Times, 620 Eighth Ave., New York, NY 10018.) This article originally appeared in The New York Times. World Wetlands Day is celebrated internationally each year on 2 February. It marks the anniversary of the signing of the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance, known as the Ramsar Convention, in Ramsar, Iran, on 2 February 1971. World Wetlands Day raises global awareness about the vital role of wetlands for our planet, paying particular attention to wetland biodiversity. This Copernicus Sentinel-2 image takes us over Lake George, in western Uganda. In 1988, Lake George was designated as Uganda's first Ramsar site, given its importance as a centre for biological diversity. This equatorial lake covers an area of around 250 sq km and has an average depth of around 2.4 metres. Lake George is fed by a complex system of rivers and streams originating from the Rwenzori mountains - supplying a system of permanent swamps surrounding the lake. A dense fringe of wetland grass, visible in bright green, can be seen around the edges of the lake in the centre of the image. The wetlands provide a natural living space for a number of mammals including elephants, hippopotamus and antelope. They also provide a habitat for over 150 species of birds including several rare species such as the saddle-billed stork. Seen from above, the waters of Lake George appear green as a result of the thick concentration of blue-green algae. Metal pollution, mine seepage and agricultural runoff has caused serious pollution to the lake's waters and are severely impacting the lake's health. Lake George drains through the Kazinga Channel in the image's centre. The wide, 32km long channel connects Lake George with Lake Edward, which lies on the border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Kazinga Channel flows through the Queen Elizabeth National Park. The almost 2000 sq km park is known for its wildlife including the African buffalo and the Nile crocodile. The park is also famous for its volcanic features, including volcanic cones and deep craters which can be seen dotted around the image. Many contain crater lakes, including the Katwe crater lake, whose salt deposits have been mined for centuries. Sentinel-2 is a two-satellite mission to supply the coverage and data delivery needed for Europe's Copernicus programme. The mission's frequent revisits over the same area and high spatial resolution allow changes in inland water bodies to be closely monitored. This image is also featured on the Earth from Space video programme. - Download the full high-resolution image. Please follow SpaceRef on Twitter and Like us on Facebook. Under Trumps deal, Israel is to formally annex about 30% of the West Bank, the Arab area it conquered in the 1967 war. This will include all Jerusalem and an archipelago of Jewish settlements on the West Bank that were implanted to thwart any possible creation of a viable Palestinian state. by Eric S. Margolis In 1916, as World War I raged on, a British diplomat, Mark Sykes, met with his French counterpart from the Quai dOrsay, Monsieur Picot, and signed an agreement to partition the Ottoman Empire once victory was achieved. The heart of the Mideast Palestine, Syria and Iraq was divided between Britain and France. Italy and Russia were offered other Ottoman lands: southern Turkey was promised to Italy and Constantinople to Russia. All this was top secret but was later revealed by the Bolsheviks after their 1917 revolution. We have not seen such an example of breathtaking cynicism and perfidy until this week when President Donald Trump unveiled his so-called Deal of the Century as his final solution to the fate of the long-suffering Palestinians. Standing next to Trump was Israels beaming Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who just got more land than his far-right, expansionist coalition had even dreamed of. It was not a coincidence that Trump had recently been accused of high crimes by the US House, while his buddy Bibi had just been indicted for low crimes by Israels attorney general. However, the real godfather in this historic theft was sitting almost unnoticed by media next to the presidential podium, looking very much the proverbial cat that swallowed the canary. Billionaire gambling mogul Sheldon Adelson and his wife beamed as their boys, Trump and Bibi, proclaimed their newly configured Mideast. Close by was Trumps son-in-law, Jared Kushner, a friend of the Netanyahu clan. Kushners father, Charles, served 14 months in federal prison for illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion, and witness tampering. Such is the milieu from which real estate developer Trump emerged. Under Trumps deal, Israel is to formally annex about 30% of the West Bank, the Arab area it conquered in the 1967 war. This will include all Jerusalem and an archipelago of Jewish settlements on the West Bank that were implanted to thwart any possible creation of a viable Palestinian state. Israel will control all borders of the resulting Palestinian entity, a patchwork of feeble, isolated South-African apartheid Bantustans with no airports, no control over its airspace or maritime borders and no interest in its increasingly important offshore energy resources. Israel gets most of the West Banks useful farmland and water resources. Palestinians are left with scrub, sand and some goats. Palestinians claim of a right of return for their 5 million refugees scattered around Israels borders will be forever rejected. Israels right wing says there is no room for any Palestinians, though room was found in previous years for one million Russians, Jews and non-Jews. More are hoped for if Vladimir Putin gives the green light. All attempts by Palestine to seek remedies from the International Court of Justice will be quashed. The rich oil Arabs of the Gulf and Saudi Arabia will be asked to buy off Palestinian refugees. They have stabbed the Palestinians in the back. Deeply fearful of Iran, these kleptomaniac Arab monarchies have thrown themselves at Trumps feet and are kowtowing to Israels far right. Israel has achieved a brilliant victory by enlisting the oil Arabs on its side and presiding over the deep split in Palestinian ranks between the PLO and Hamas. The Greater Israel crowd in the US has almost total control of Americas Senate. This is mainly thanks to Adelsons donations of over $100 million to the Republicans and relentless support from pro-Israel media like Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, NBC and Hollywood. Add to this the unquestioning support of 80% of Evangelicals who make up a quarter of Republican voters. This cult believes that Christ will return once modern Israel attains its Biblical borders, and then Earth can be destroyed by fire and brimstone. Israel has cleverly exploited these credulous rustics who form Trumps key electoral base. Trump is increasingly being compared to the Bibles King David of Israel. Thats a long way from Queens, New York. As they ask in my native New York City, Is it good for the Jews?, the answer is a resounding no! The Trump-Bibi theft of ancestral Arab lands condemns Arabs and Jews to another five decades of violence and hatred. The Promised Land was not supposed to be like this. Home Search ICH Imperialism and Liberation Strategies in the Middle East At the moment, the United States has great difficulty in retaining its hegemony in the Middle East. Its troops have been declared unwanted in Iraq; and in Syria, the US and their foreign legion of terrorists lose terrain and positions every month. The US has responded to this with a significant escalation, by deploying more troops and by constant threats against Iran. At the same time, we have seen strong protest movements in Lebanon, Iraq and Iran. By Pal Steigan February 01, 2020 " Information Clearing House " - When millions of Iraqi took to the streets recently, their main slogan was THE UNITED STATES OUT OF THE MIDDLE EAST! How should one analyze this? Obviously, there are a lot of social tensions in the Middle East class based, ethnic, religious and cultural. The region is a patchwork of conflicts and tensions that not only goes back hundreds of years, but even a few thousand. There are always many reasons to rebel against a corrupt upper class, anywhere in the world. But no rebellion can succeed if it is not based on a realistic and thorough analysis of the specific conditions in the individual country and region. Just as in Africa, the borders in the Middle East are arbitrarily drawn. They are the product of the manipulations of imperialist powers, and only to a lesser extent products of what the peoples themselves have wanted. During the era of decolonization, there was a strong, secular pan-Arab movement that wanted to create a unified Arab world. This movement was influenced by the nationalist and socialist ideas that had strong popular support at the time. King Abdallah 1 of Jordan envisaged a kingdom that would consist of Jordan, Palestine and Syria. Egypt and Syria briefly established a union called the United Arab Republic. Gaddafi wanted to unite Libya, Syria and Egypt in a federation of Arab republics. In 1958, a quickly dissolved confederation was established between Jordan and Iraq, called the Arab Federation. All these efforts were transient. What remains is the Arab League, which is, after all, not a state federation and not an alliance. And then of course we have the demand for a Kurdish state, or something similar consisting of one or more Kurdish mini-states. Still, the most divisive product of the First World War was the establishment of the state of Israel on Palestinian soil. During the First World War, Britains Foreign Minister Arthur Balfour issued what became known as the Balfour Declaration, which view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people. But what is the basis for all these attempts at creating states? What are the prerequisites for success or failure? The imperialist powers divide the world according to the power relations between them Lenin gave the best and most durable explanation for this, in his essay Imperialism the highest stage of capitalism. There, he explained five basic features of the era of imperialism: The concentration of production and capital has developed to such a high stage that it has created monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life; The merging of bank capital with industrial capital, and the creation, on the basis of this finance capital, of a financial oligarchy; The export of capital as distinguished from the export of commodities acquires exceptional importance; The formation of international monopolist capitalist associations which share the world among themselves; and The territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers is completed. But Lenin also pointed out that capitalist countries are developing unevenly, not least because of the uneven development of productive forces in the various capitalist countries. After a while, there arises a discrepancy between how the world is divided and the relative strength of the imperialist powers. This disparity will eventually force through a redistribution, a new division of the world based on the new relationship of strength. And, as Lenin states: The question is: what means other than war could there be under capitalism to overcome the disparity between the development of productive forces and the accumulation of capital on the one side, and the division of colonies and spheres of influence for finance capital on the other? The two world wars were wars that arose because of unevenness in the power relationships between the imperialist powers. The British Empire was past its heyday and British capitalism lagged behind in the competition. The United States and Germany were the great powers that had the largest industrial and technological growth, and eventually this misalignment exploded. Not once, but twice. Versailles and Yalta The victors of the First World War divided the world between themselves at the expense of the losers. The main losers were Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia (the Soviet Union) and the Ottoman Empire. This division was drawn up in the Versailles treaty and the following minor treaties. This map shows how the Ottoman Empire was partitioned: At the end of World War II, the victorious superpowers met in the city of Yalta on the Crimean peninsula in the Soviet Union. Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin made an agreement on how Europe should be divided following Germanys imminent defeat. This map shows how it was envisaged and the two blocs that emerged and became the foundation for the Cold War. Note that Yugoslavia, created after Versailles in 1919, was maintained and consolidated as a country between the blocs. So it is a country that carries in itself the heritage of both the Versailles- and Yalta agreements. The fateful change of era when the Soviet Union fell In the era of imperialism, there has always been a struggle between various great powers. The battle has been about markets, access to cheap labor, raw materials, energy, transport routes and military control. And the imperialist countries divide the world between themselves according to their strength. But the imperialist powers are developing unevenly. If a power collapses or loses control over some areas, rivals will compete to fill the void. Imperialism follows the principle that Aristotle in his Physics called horror vacui the fear of empty space. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter And that was what happened when the Soviet Union lost the Cold War. In 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist, and soon the Eastern bloc was also history. And thus the balance was broken, the one that had maintained the old order. And now a huge area was available for redivision. The weakened Russia barely managed to preserve its own territory, and not at all the area that just before was controlled by the Soviet Union. "Never has a so large area been open for redivision. It was the result of two horrible world wars that anew was up for grabs. It could not but lead to war." (Pal Steigan 1999) When the Soviet Union disintegrated, both the Yalta and Versailles agreements in reality collapsed, and opened up the way for a fierce race to control this geopolitical empty space. This laid the foundation for the American Geostrategy for Eurasia, which concentrated on securing control over the vast Eurasian continent. It is this struggle for redistribution in favor of the United States that has been the basis for most wars since 1990: Somalia, the Iraq wars, the Balkan wars, Libya, Ukraine, and Syria. The United States has been aggressively spearheading this, and the process to expand NATO eastward and create regime changes in the form of so-called color revolutions has been part of this struggle. The coup in Kiev, the transformation of Ukraine into an American colony with Nazi elements, and the war in Donbass are also part of this picture. This war will not stop until Russia is conquered and dismembered, or it has put an end to the US offensive. So, to recapitulate: Because the world is already divided between imperialist powers and there are no new colonies to conquer, the great powers can only fight for redistribution. What creates the basis and possibilities for a new division is the uneven development of capitalism. The forces that are developing faster economically and technologically will demand bigger markets, more raw materials, more strategic control. The results of two terrible wars are again up for grabs World War I caused perhaps 20 million deaths, as well as at least as many wounded. World War II caused around 72 million deaths. These are approximate numbers, and there is still controversy around the exact figures, but we are talking about this order of magnitude. The two world wars that ended with the Versailles and Yalta treaties thus caused just below 100 million dead, as well as an incredible number of other suffering and losses. Since 1991, a low-intensity world war has been fought, especially by the US, to conquer the void. Donald Trump recently stated that the United States have waged wars based on lies, which have cost $ 8 trillion ($ 8,000 billion) and millions of peoples lives. So the United States new distribution of the spoils has not happened peacefully. The Rebellion against Sykes-Picot In the debate around the situation in the Middle East, certain people that would like to appear leftist, radical and anti-imperialist say that it is time to rebel against the artificial boundaries drawn by the Sykes-Picot and Versailles treaties. And certainly these borders are artificial and imperialist. But how leftist and anti-imperialist is it to fight for these boundaries to be revised now? In reality, it is the United States and Israel that are fighting for a redistribution of the Middle East. This is the basis underlying Donald Trumps Deal of the Century, which aims to bury Palestine forever, and it is stated outright in the new US strategy for partitioning Iraq Again, this is just an updated version of the Zionist Yinon plan that aimed to cantonize the entire Middle East, with the aim that Israel should have no real opponents and would be able to dominate the entire region and possibly create a Greater Israel. It is not the anti-imperialists that are leading the way to overhaul the imperialist borders from 1919. It is the imperialists. To achieve this, they can often exploit movements that are initially popular or national, but which then only become tools and proxies in a greater game. This has happened so many times in history that it can hardly be counted. Hitlers Germany exploited Croatian nationalism by using the Ustasa gangs as proxies. From 1929 to 1945, they killed hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews and Roma people. And their ideological and political descendants carried out an extremely brutal ethnic cleansing of the Krajina area and forced out more than 200,000 Serbs in their so-called Operation Storm in 1995. Hitler also used the extreme Ukrainian nationalists of Stepan Banderas OUN, and after Banderas death, the CIA continued to use them as a fifth column against the Soviet Union. The US low-intensity war against Iraq, from the Gulf War in 1991 to the Iraq War in 2003, helped divide the country into enclaves. Iraqi Kurdistan achieved autonomy in the oil-rich north with the help of a US no-fly zone. The United States thus created a quasi-state that was their tool in Iraq. Undoubtedly, the Kurds in Iraq had been oppressed under Saddam Hussein. But also undoubtedly, their Iraqi Kurdistan became a client state under the thumb of United States. And there is also no doubt that the no-fly zones were illegal, as UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali admitted in a conversation with John Pilger. And now the United States is still using the Kurds in Northern Iraq in its plan to divide Iraq into three parts. To that end, they are building the worlds largest consulate in Erbil. What they are planning to do, is simply creating a country. As is well known, the United States also uses the Kurds in Syria as a pretext to keep 27 percent of the country occupied. It does not help how much the Kurdish militias SDF and PYD invoke democracy, feminism and communalism; they have ended up pleading for the United States to maintain the occupation of Northeast Syria. Preparations for a New World War Israel and the US are preparing for war against Iran. In this fight, they will develop as much progressive rhetoric as is required to fool people. Real dissatisfaction in the area, which there is every reason to have, will be magnified and blown out of all proportion. Social movements will be equipped with the latest news in the Israeli and US riot kits and receive training and logistics support, in addition to plenty of cold hard cash. There may be good reasons to revise the 1919 borders, but in todays situation, such a move will quickly trigger a major war. Some say that the Kurds are entitled to their own state, and maybe so. The question is ultimately decided by everyone else, except the Kurds themselves. The problem is that in todays geopolitical situation, creating a unified Kurdistan will require that one defeats Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. Its hard to see how that can happen without their allies, not least Russia and China, being drawn into the conflict. And then we have a new world war on our hands. And in that case, we are not talking about 100 million killed, but maybe ten times as much, or the collapse of civilization as we know it. The Kurdish question is not worth that much. This does not mean that one should not fight against oppression and injustice, be it social and national. One certainly should. But you have to realize that revising the map of the Middle East is a very dangerous plan and that you run the risk of ending up in very dangerous company. The alternative to this is to support a political struggle that undermines the hegemony of the United States and Israel and thereby creates better conditions for future struggles. It is nothing new that small nations rely on geopolitical situations to achieve some form of national independence. This was the case, for example, for my home country Norway. It was Frances defeat in the Napoleonic War that caused Denmark to lose the province of Norway to Sweden in 1814, but at the same time it created space for a separate Norwegian constitution and internal self rule. All honor to the Norwegian founding fathers of 1814, but this was decided on the battlefields in Europe. And again, it was Russias defeat in the Russo-Japanese War that laid the geopolitical foundation for the dissolution of the forced union with Sweden almost a hundred years later, in 1905. (This is very schematically presented and there are many more details, but there is no doubt that Russias loss of most of its fleet in the Far East had created a power vacuum in the west, which was exploitable.) Therefore, the best thing to do now is not to support the fragmentation of states, but to support a united front to drive the United States out of the Middle East. The Million Man March in Baghdad got the ball rolling. There is every reason to build up even more strength behind it. Only when the United States is out, will the peoples and countries in the region be able to arrive at peaceful agreements between themselves, which will enable a better future to be developed. And in this context, it is an advantage that China develops the Silk Road (aka Belt and Road Initiative), not because China is any nobler than other major powers, but because this project, at least in the current situation, is non-sectarian, non-exclusive and genuinely multilateral. The alternative to a monopolistic rule by the United States, with a world police under Washingtons control, is a multipolar world. It grows as we speak. The days of the Empire are numbered. What this will look like in 20 or 50 years, remains to be seen. Pal Steigan is a Norwegian veteran journalist and activist, presently editor of the independent news site Steigan.no. Translated by Terje Maloy. Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here ==See Also== The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House. Search Information Clearing House === Click Here To Support Information Clearing House Your support has kept ICH free on the Web since 2002. Click for Spanish , German , Dutch , Danish , French , translation- Note- Translation may take a moment to load. INDIANOLA, Iowa - Hillary Clinton has been leveling attacks on Sen. Bernie Sanders as he gains steam heading into the Iowa caucuses, prompting him to try to quell the conflict and manage his more combative supporters who are inclined to hit back. The strains were on vivid display Friday and Saturday as Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich.,, a top Sanders surrogate, booed a mention of Clinton's name onstage at a campaign event. Hours later, she expressed regret for her behavior - leading Sanders's campaign manager to send her a supportive message on social media: "Rashida, you're all good." This raises the prospect that the primary could plunge into darker territory in coming weeks, as Clinton appears determined to warn her party that Sanders is not the unifier they need and his backers respond with fury. And that is alarming Democrats who say the party must set aside its divisions to defeat President Trump in the fall. "I'm not really on board with the in-house Democratic bickering," said Joshua Fox, 44, a Sanders supporter who attended a campaign event here for the senator on Saturday. "I think we need to get together." That sentiment was echoed on Twitter by Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, who wrote, "It is 2020 not 2016 so please everyone act accordingly." He added in a second tweet, "Also, I mean EVERYONE." Other Democratic candidates, sensing voters' angst over a Clinton-Sanders feud that will not die, even now that the party seeks to focus on moving beyond the last election, have been trying to taking advantage by playing themselves up as unifiers. "I didn't much enjoy, as a Democrat, living through the experience of 2016. And I want to make sure 2020 resembles 2016 as little as possible," said Pete Buttigieg, former mayor of South Bend, Ind. Today's Clinton-Sanders dynamic is in some ways the reverse of 2016. Four years ago, Sanders was a rebel with little to lose from taking shots at the party establishment; this time he's a leading contender with more at stake and an interest in keeping the peace, and it's Clinton who does not risk much by settling old scores. Sanders on Saturday sought to dispel the notion that he is not a team player. "Certainly, I hope that we're going to win. But if we do not win, we will support the winner," Sanders said, returning to a line he has often used. "And I know that every other candidate will do the same. We are united in understanding that we must defeat Donald Trump." Such comments have not convinced Clinton, who has suggested that she thinks Sanders's behavior contributed to her defeat. In recent weeks, she has bluntly criticized her former rival, accusing him of not doing enough to help her after she won the primary. In an interview for the podcast "Your Primary Playlist" published Friday, she was asked what Sanders could do to unify Democrats against Trump. "Well he can do it, for one," Clinton said with a laugh. "That's not our experience from 2016." That followed the release of a new documentary about Clinton in which she says of Sanders, "Nobody likes him, nobody wants to work with him, he got nothing done." Asked later by the Hollywood Reporter if that assessment still stands, Clinton nodded and said, "Yes, it does." Sanders has shown little appetite to fan the flames. "On a good day, my wife likes me, so let's clear the air on that one," Sanders joked, before redirecting the conversation to Trump's impeachment. Humor aside, Sanders has a lot riding on his ability to quash any notion that he's ill-equipped to unify the party, and his campaign sought to lower the temperature on Saturday. "As Democrats, we have a responsibility to engage in debate with respect, civility, and empathy, modeling the best of what our nation can be," said Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., a national co-chair of the Sanders campaign. "Let that be common ground for both Clinton and Sanders supporters." But Sanders's supporters can be an independent lot, and many say that they will not take their cues from him and prefer to hit back. The kerfuffle over Tlaib's comments began when she appeared in a panel discussion in Clive, Iowa, on Friday evening, where a moderator raised the topic of Clinton. When some in the audience groaned, the moderator said, "No, we're not going to boo." Tlaib interjected, "No, no, I'll boo," and proceeded to boo emphatically. Some in the crowd cheered, and Reps. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., and Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., seated near her onstage, smiled. "That's all right - the haters will shut up on Monday," Tlaib added. Sanders was not present at the event, though it was on behalf of his campaign. Taking to Twitter on Saturday, Tlaib backpedaled. "In this instance, I allowed my disappointment with Secretary Clinton's latest comments about Senator Sanders and his supporters get the best of me. You all, my sisters-in-service onstage, and our movement deserve better," Tlaib wrote on Twitter. She added: "I will continue to strive to come from a place of love and not react in the same way of those who are against what we are building in this country." Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir then sent his "Rashida, you're all good" tweet, adding, "We love your passion and conviction. Don't change." Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill took issue with what he said was a suggestion that Tlaib had no reason to regret her action. "I can't imagine this kind of behavior is something Iowans want to see from candidates and their surrogates," Merrill said. "And I don't imagine the vast majority of voters in Congresswoman Tlaib's district, which Secretary Clinton won by over 60 points in 2016, want to see this either." The icy dynamic between Clinton and Sanders has caught the attention of other campaigns. In different ways, Sanders's top rivals - Buttigieg, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and former vice president Joe Biden - have focused their closing arguments on a promised ability to unite the party and the country. At an event Saturday, Warren, who herself has tangled with Sanders herself, spoke in front of signs reading, "Unite the party." But some of Sanders's allies are not backing away. At campaign stops in Iowa last weekend, filmmaker Michael Moore, who introduced the candidate, brought along a printed list of campaign events Sanders held for Clinton after losing to her in 2016, a pointed effort to rebut the notion that he did little to help her. And from Clinton's side, there were few signs she would ease her criticism anytime soon. "Her larger point is you've got to work toward unity - it's not handed to you," said Philippe Reines, a longtime Clinton adviser and confidant. "And he showed in 2016 he is not capable of going all in." - - - The Washington Post's Jenna Johnson in Des Moines contributed to this report. A deadline set by Iraq's president for parliament to name a new premier was set to expire Saturday amid renewed pressure from the street after influential cleric Moqtada Sadr called for fresh protests. Baghdad and the mainly Shiite south have been gripped by four months of anti-government rallies demanding snap elections, a politically independent prime minister and accountability for corruption and protest-related violence. Faced with pressure from the street and from the Shiite religious leadership, Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi resigned in December after just over a year in office. But rival parties have failed to agree on a successor, stoking fears of a spiral into chaos as the country tries to navigate the protests and rising tensions between its two main allies, Iran and the United States. In a bid to restore some stability, President Barham Saleh sent a letter to the deeply divided parliament this week saying he would nominate a premier unilaterally if lawmakers did not do so by Saturday. The ultimatum sent parties into crisis talks but on Saturday, there was still no clear consensus. "There's no agreement, no way to end the rivalries so far," a top government official told AFP on condition of anonymity. "And if Saleh names someone on his own, there will be a crisis because that shouldn't be his role." In a normal situation, parliament's largest bloc must nominate a prime minister within 15 days of an election, and the candidate is then tasked by the president with forming a government within one month. But Iraq is in an unprecedented situation: no premier has ever resigned and the constitution makes no provision for how to handle such a move. - Sadrists return to streets - Since a US-led invasion toppled longtime dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003, major decisions have been made by consensus among the country's Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish parties. Any contender for prime minister needs a green light from a dizzying array of interests -- the divided political class, the Shiite religious leadership, neighbouring Iran, its rival the United States and now the protesters. One of the most influential voices in Iraqi politics in recent years has been Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, who led the anti-US Mehdi Army militia after the invasion and has since refashioned himself as a populist politician. He controls parliament's largest bloc and many ministerial posts. But he backed the protests when they erupted in October and his supporters were widely recognised as the best organised demonstrators. A week ago, he appeared to rethink his support for the protest movement and his hard-core backers dismantled their tents in protest camps across the country. Within hours of Sadr's withdrawal, riot police moved into burn or tear down protest camps and around a dozen demonstrators were killed, medics and police said. But on Friday he seemed to flip again, calling for his backers "to renew the peaceful, reformist revolution". They were back in the streets on Saturday, setting up tents and mingling with politically unaligned protesters who had held their ground when the Sadrists pulled out. The violence dropped markedly, too. "Since the Sadrists came back, we've implemented a sort of ceasefire and haven't fired tear gas at protesters," a member of the security forces told AFP near Tahrir Square, the main protest camp in the capital. - Pushing for progress - More than 480 people have died in protest-related violence since October, the great majority of them demonstrators killed by live rounds or military-grade tear gas canisters. Protesters in Tahrir Square have already publicly rejected a number of names floated for prime minister, including former communications minister Mohammed Tawfiq Allawi and current intelligence chief Mustafa Kazemi. Their portraits, marked with large "X"s over their faces, were hanging in the square along with a big blue poster calling for the United Nations to intervene in the crisis. The top UN official in Iraq Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert has pushed throughout the week for progress, tweeting on Friday that solutions were "urgently needed" to "break the political deadlock". And the country's top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani piled on the pressure on Friday, saying Iraq must "accelerate the formation of a new government". "It is imperative to speed up holding early elections so that the people will have their say," he said. Analysts claim there wont any great savings under new tax regime. Mumbai: The perception that millennials like to spend more rather than save seem to have led to the introduction of a new personal income-tax regime. While the aim was to increase disposable income of people to boost consumption, analysts claim that taxpayers cant save much under the new tax regime, which requires people to forego all tax exemptions and deductions. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday proposed a simplified personal income tax regime wherein income tax rates will be significantly reduced but they have to forgo all deductions and exemptions. Under the new regime, an individual will be required to pay tax at a reduced rate of 10 per cent for income between Rs 5 lakh to Rs 7.5 lakh against the current rate of 20 per cent. For income between Rs 7.5 lakh to Rs 10 lakh he will pay at the reduced rate of 15 per cent against the current rate of 20 per cent. Similarly for the income between Rs 10 lakh to Rs 12.5 lakh the taxpayer will pay at the reduced rate of 20 per cent against the current rate of 30 per cent. The income between Rs 12.5 lakh to Rs 15 lakh will be taxed at the reduced rate of 25 per cent against the existing rate of 30 per cent. Incomes above Rs 15 lakh will be continued to be taxed at the rate of 30 per cent. The new personal income tax rates will entail estimated revenue forgone of Rs 40,000 crore per year. To further simplify the tax system and lowering the tax rate, the FM would remove 70 exemptions and deductions which got inco-rporated in the income tax legislation over the past several decades. Given the slowing economy, the finance minister has tried to stimulate consumption by reducing tax rates, especially to the people in the lower tax bracket, said experts. However, taxpayers were in a tizzy trying to assess which would be better the old personal income tax regime with exemptions or the new regime without exemptions. Rather than simplifying individual tax structure, analysts claim that the tax regime has become more complicated. Those earning more than Rs 15 lakh annually will be able to save about Rs 75,000 extra. However, without exemptions, it will come down to Rs 30,000, they claim. It is only for people who never plan for taxes that the new tax regime will be helpful. It will not make much difference to those who have been planning for taxes as there will be no tax savings for them. They will be saving more by sticking with the old tax regime which allows deductions rather than shifting to the new tax regime, a financial planner said. Experts claim that people now may not invest and opt for new tax regime but by doing so their savings habit would die which is not good for the common man. By splurging their money, people would be happy now but in the long run they will suffer, experts said. Latest News MFAA calls submissions for 2022 Excellence Awards The association also reveals a new award Playing it safe? Here are 50 of most consistent suburbs to invest in Hotspotting founder claims investors should look into stable markets, not booming ones Australian Broker talks to some of mortgage brokings biggest personalities, who feature among the top performers in the first annual Mortgage Global 100. They discuss their inspirations, plans for the turbulent year ahead, and much more Australian Broker is proud to be part of a global portfolio of leading mortgage publications across the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Together with its sister titles, including Mortgage Professional Australia (MPA), Australian Broker focuses on providing mortgage brokers, lenders, aggregators and other industry professionals with insights from some of the biggest names in this sector. The magazines global reach via print publications, news websites and events means it is in a unique position to engage with the very top performers in the mortgage industry worldwide. Indeed, as 2019 drew to a close, AB and MPA collaborated with their sister titles to put together the first-ever Mortgage Global 100. The list includes some of the industry's key personalities from Australia and beyond. These leaders are making a difference, whether through incredible advancements at their own companies; taking associations to new heights; providing education to industry members; or championing the key issues that will take it forward into a new era. Read on to find out what inspires and challenges these individuals and sets them apart from the rest. Drivers and inspirations One of the top Aussie personalities in the Mortgage Global 100 is Daniel Di Conza, chief executive of Acceptance Finance. Seeing his clients and team do well is what drives Di Conza and helped spur much of his success over 2019. He says, The uncertainty of the royal commission and the concern it caused drove us to support each other in a way like never before, and I believe this was a big win for our team culture. Looking ahead, Di Conza says there will be some challenges in relation to how the industry complies with the best interests duty, in particular how this impacts the sector commercially in light of the current clawback commission structure. He explains, One of the challenges we had in 2019 was how to provide brokers with high-quality back-office support at a commercially viable price. We reviewed and changed our processes to allow us to use international resources to complement our local admin team. Glenn Gibson, head of third party distribution and direct mortgages, ING I believe brokers are well-positioned to meet and embrace any changes that the new year may bring Brendan O'Donnell, Liberty Network Services To date, this has performed above our expectations and will remain a key focus for us in 2020. Glenn English, mortgage broker at Aussie Carnegie and fellow Mortgage Global 100 ranker, says he is driven mainly by setting the bar higher for himself and seeing his customers goals being achieved. That is what great service is built upon making my customers feel valued and confident, knowing that their best interests are always first and foremost. As we know, change is the one constant in our industry, and with the support of Aussie, Im confident I have access to the very best education, training and support network so I can stay focused on delivering exceptional customer experience in the year ahead. What drives Glenn Gibson, head of third party distribution and direct mortgages at ING, and another Aussie Mortgage Global 100 ranker, is a passion for the industry and collaborating to achieve great customer outcomes. I was very inspired by how we all worked together early in 2019, and Im proud of the stance ING took in supporting our brokers throughout the year, Gibson says. Its very easy to get distracted and pre-empt things we expect to happen, and then before you know it six months have disappeared. Its just a fact that theres a change in our industry every year, and every year we wonder how well manage it. Yet every year we pull together as an industry and move forward. Nevertheless, he says one key challenge will again be ensuring they focus on the business and customers as they navigate their way through the changing legislative landscape. But for Mortgage Global 100 ranker Tanya Sale, CEO at Outsource Financial, what drives and inspires her is all about educating consumers. Mark Haron, executive director, Connective Sale explains, I implore all Outsource Financial members to educate their borrowers on not just the lending transaction but that thereafter. This understanding and knowledge empowers the Australian consumer and enables them to make informed decisions about their financial future. This should be a driving factor for all in the third party channel, as I believe our borrowers are a key element in ensuring our industrys success and longevity. All brokers had to deal with a lot of change over the course of the year, and the way they dealt with it, focusing on the job at hand and their clients, was exceptional, says Mark Haron, executive director of Connective and yet another Mortgage Global 100 ranker. Theres a very good reason why the broker channel continues to grow its market share, and Im driven, and feel privileged, to advocate for our industry and tell our story, he says. Something that stood out for me in 2019 was the resilience of brokers from right across the industry. Mortgage Global 100 personality Brendan O'Donnell, managing director of Liberty Network Services, says he was most inspired by the dedication and drive of advisers who have worked tirelessly to build their businesses. He says, Having navigated some stormy seas in 2019, I believe that brokers are well positioned to meet and embrace any changes that the new year may bring. Moving forward, I expect we will encounter increased regulatory focus, with significant changes to how brokers must engage with customers to ensure good outcomes in an uncertain market." As well as this, he expects the industry will start to see competition in the local markets intensify, making it more important for brokers to diversify their service offering and keep up with competitors. With our time becoming more precious, technology that supports brokers to streamline their processes will play a key role in the success of broker businesses," he says. Looking forward, I am driven to support advisers to continue reaching their goals and take their businesses to new heights. Daniel Di Conza, chief executive, Acceptance Finance Biggest challenges The devastation caused by bushfires and drought has meant a tough start to the new year for many Australians and small businesses, so it is important to remember that brokers play a key role in their local communities, especially in times of need. According to Beau Bertoli, chief executive at Prospa and another top-ranking industry personality, brokers should familiarise themselves with the different funding options and relief packages available to their clients to help ease stress where they can. Small business owners have been hit hard especially those who rely on tourism over the holiday period and community involvement and support will be more important than ever, he says. But brokers also faced a changing regulatory environment throughout 2019 that brought an ever-increasing focus on compliance, and the industry expects this will continue into 2020 and beyond. Gibson says the challenge in any period of change and uncertainty is focusing on where you want to take your business, how to support your customers, and creating a detailed plan on how to achieve your goals. He explains, Key in 2019 was leaders and managers quickly getting their heads around the changes and supporting their teams and getting them on the journey to make it happen This, combined with an ongoing focus on staff training and development will be vital in 2020. He points out that in the last 12 months the industry has witnessed the passing of the Consumer Data Right legislation, the establishment of a senate committee on financial and regulatory technology, and the first fintech minister appointment. Beau Bertoli, chief executive, Prospa Bertoli says, Many Australians are realising they now have legitimate options, after years of inertia around switching lenders. For these reasons, he predicts that the rollout of open banking will not only be one of the biggest challenges for brokers and lenders but the biggest opportunity. It has the potential to revolutionise financial services in 2020. There will be more competition, more innovation, more transparency, and it will be easier than ever for customers to compare and then switch providers. The customer will have more power, and they will need brokers who are on top of the alternatives available and can present solutions beyond a bank. Indeed, its crucial that brokers understand the impact of open banking and the Consumer Data Right in terms of privacy and moving customer information securely. Bertoli adds, Brokers that educate themselves will be the ones that can best leverage the opportunities of shared data, benefiting their clients and their own businesses. Brendan ODonnell, managing director, Liberty Network Services Advice to brokers Brokers clients will continue expecting even more from their home loan application experiences as they become savvier than ever, especially with open banking just around the corner. But what does this mean for brokers? Change seemed to be the only constant in 2019, says Haron. Although our industry will continue to face change in 2020, this change will ultimately deliver certainty for brokers we are already seeing this play out with the release of ASICs updated guidance on responsible lending obligations. 2019 saw our industry truly come together as one. By banding together as a united voice, we were able to stave off significant challenges and influence decisions that deliver better outcomes for consumers. In the year ahead, we need to continue to demonstrate the value of mortgage brokers and how important they are to borrowers, particularly in their ability to act in borrowers best interests. Brokers will need to focus more than ever on compliance in 2020 and will be looking to their aggregators to support them not only from an educational point of view but also in more practical ways through the provision of digital solutions that embed the compliance requirements into their day-to-day operations. English adds that trust and the customer experience will be more important than ever, and that as a broker, we need to work hard to keep delivering those exceptional moments for our customers. Repeat customers and referrals account for over 80% of my business, highlighting how important it is to build strong customer relationships, he says. Tanya Sale, CEO, Outsource Financial English also encourages brokers to have a sense of urgency, following up with customers regularly and thoroughly understanding their goals, as well as staying on top of the discussions across the industry to determine the direct effects of pending regulation on their business and customers. Look at ways to make your business, the processes, data collection and follow-up into a seamless and effective structure, he says. Gibson suggests brokers should focus on purpose. Brokers are generally very passionate about the service they provide their clients, and its vital brokers continue to focus on this, he says. Glenn English, mortgage broker, Aussie Carnegie In Sale's view, brokers will need to ensure they have the right structures and processes in place to handle what is to come and ensure nothing slips through the cracks. She says, It is going to be critical for brokers to look within their own businesses to assess if they are currently meeting, or able to meet the additional requirements, responsibility and behaviours that are being placed upon them. Sian Louise Parsons said her cat went missing on Wednesday. (SWNS) A cat owner says she is heartbroken after her kitten was beheaded with a sharp implement. Sian Louise Parsons, 26, said she discovered her seven-month-old Turkish Van cat Neo had gone missing from her home in Brackley, Northants on Wednesday. She called her local vets soon afterwards and was told a cat fitting Neos description had been handed in. Sian then left work and arrived at Croft Veterinary Centre with her dad and partner Lee, 32, to identify the mutilated remains of her baby Neo. Police are said to be investigating Neo's death. (Facebook) She said: Hed had his head cut off and the police said it has not been recovered. I didnt look at him - I couldnt because I didnt want my last memory of him to be like that. I know its a cliche, but he is like my baby. He goes to sleep with me every night and cries when I leave the room. Hes been like my shadow from the day I got him. READ MORE FROM YAHOO NEWS UK: I used to rush home from work to see him. I havent slept, eaten or been to work since Wednesday. Northamptonshire police are looking for the attacker. Sian added: They dont even deserve words wasted on them. How can you call them a person for doing these sick and horrible things. ---How four years of utter Brexit chaos unfolded--- Sian also posted an emotional appeal on Facebook in which she encouraged anyone with information about the incident to come forward. It has since been shared thousands of times with scores of wellwishers posting sympathetic messages. According to Northamptonshire police the attack happened between 9.30pm on Tuesday and 11am the next day. A spokeswoman said: "This is obviously a very concerning incident and we are investigating what happened. Anyone with info should call us on 101 quoting reference number 20000055760." Summer in New York City isnt all rooftop parties, picturesque beach days, and breezy outdoor concerts. Less likely to make Instagram are the steaming hot subway platforms, streets packed with slow-walking tourists, and sweaty sticky nights spent in un-air conditioned apartments. Some might say theres no better time than summer to escape the concrete jungle. And there may be no better place for a summer escape than Alaska, especially if youre adventurous enough to venture inland. %image1 From mid-May through mid-September the days in Alaska are long, the temperatures are pleasant, and summer festival season is in full swing. Jackets give way to short-sleeved tops and businesses that closed their doors for the winter come roaring back to life. The Alaskan interior is as far away from the hustle and bustle of city life as one can get without leaving the U.S. Its a place where cellular service is limited, small planes are plentiful, and the pressures of unanswered calls and emails fade away. Endless sun, usually great summer weather and access to mountains and rivers via bush plane make Alaska the best summer destination I can think of, said Joe Irby, a Wyoming native who spends at least a couple of weeks each summer working at the Tordrillo Mountain Lodge on Judd Lake. The summer months bring over 19 hours of daylight to Anchorage. Head to Fairbanks and that stretches to 22 hours. And while the sun may be out, the oppressive heat and humidity that you find in states like Florida, Arizona, Louisiana, Texas, and even New York City, is rare. Even if you do experience [higher] temperatures while visiting Alaska, I imagine it is more pleasant among the wide open natural spaces than it is standing on a subway platform in New York City, said Rebecca Stropoli, a Brooklyn-based writer and editor who visited Alaska in 2018. Stropoli prefers cool temperatures and opts to spend her summers in places like Alaska, Scandinavia, Vancouver, and the Andean highlands in Ecuador. Getting out of New York in the summertime has been an aim of mine ever since I quit my corporate job to go freelance, she said. Story continues Daytime temperatures in Alaska tend to hover between 60 and 80 degrees during the summer, though evening temperatures can dip into the 40s and 50s. July and August can be especially rainy. Alaska is a place where travel itineraries are dictated by nature, not by a list of attractions that must be checked off. Fishing, hiking, biking, boating, and glacier peeping top itineraries while umbrella dotted beaches, towering cathedrals, and bustling city squares are nowhere to be found. At Judd Lake, 60 miles east of Anchorage, there isnt much beyond a few homes and the Tordrillo Mountain Lodge. This part of the Alaskan interior is a secluded summer paradise thats miles from roads and businesses. Helicopters fly visitors to fishing, hiking, and biking spots and the Tordrillo Mountain Lodges chefs keep guests fed by planning ahead and using ingredients flown in by plane or helicopter. To spur summer tourism, the lodge recently opened a 1,200 via ferrata (or climbing route) atop the soaring Triumvirate Glacier in the Alaska Range. The climbing route is constructed with a network of iron rungs that hikers clip themselves onto while wearing safety harnesses, a tactic that makes what would otherwise be a near-impossible climb accessible to novice hikers. For travelers who dont want to venture quite so far off the beaten path, the Alaska Railroad and the Alaska Highway provide additional ways to experience the states vast, undeveloped interior. The Alaska Railroad offers a number of summer travel packages, many of which include glacier cruises, wildlife safaris, and Denali excursions. The railroad also services Fairbanks, which hosts a summer arts festival and the World Eskimo-Indian Olympics, a four-day event aimed at showcasing and preserving the cultural practices and survival skills needed to manage life in circumpolar areas of the world. Travelers whod rather drive, can visit Denali National Park and Preserve. The park is a few hours from Anchorage and has only one road, a 92-mile stretch thats open to visitors from mid-May to mid-September. The park is home to North Americas highest peak, Denali, which has an elevation of more than 20,000 feet. The six-million-acre park is larger than the state of New Hampshire and about 16 percent of it is covered in glaciers. With its long days, cool temperatures, and numerous activities, Alaska provides travelers with the kind of summer you really cant experience anywhere else. A man has been charged over a suspected domestic violence incident after allegedly sexually assaulting a woman and attempting to suffocate a baby in Sydneys west on Sunday. Police from Quakers Hill Police Area Command were called to a house on Elgin Street, Schofields, about 12:30pm yesterday after reports of a domestic-related incident, police said in a statement. A 22-year-old man was taken into custody at the scene. A crime scene was established and investigators were making inquiries about the circumstances surrounding the incident. Police were called to a house on Elgin Street, Schofields, on Sunday. Source: Google Maps The woman and child were taken to Blacktown Hospital for assessment and have since been released. The man was charged with three counts of intentionally and recklessly choking a person and two counts of sexual intercourse without consent. Police will allege in court the man attempted to suffocate the 10-month-old child twice. It will be further alleged he choked a 25-year-old woman and sexually assaulted her twice earlier that day. He is due to appear in Blacktown Local Court today. Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and download the Yahoo News app from the App Store or Google Play. Source: Xinhua| 2020-02-01 22:51:15|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close BEIJING, Feb. 1 (Xinhua) -- In recent days, many leaders of international organizations have spoken positively of and supported China's efforts to battle the novel coronavirus outbreak through various means. International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach said he fully supports, highly appreciates and respects the efforts made by the Chinese people, adding that the Chinese people are fighting the epidemic in a proactive and orderly way. Noting that Chinese President Xi Jinping personally commands and deploys the prevention and containment efforts, which heightens the IOC's confidence, Bach said the IOC fully believes that preparations for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics will not be affected, and China will once again welcome world athletes to compete in the same field. Shanghai Cooperation Organization General Secretary Vladimir Norov commended the Chinese government for taking decisive and effective measures, especially its openness and transparency in releasing information about the epidemic, adding that it not only reflects China's high sense of responsibility for the lives and health of its own people, but contributes greatly to the development of public health in the region and the world. He expressed the belief that the Chinese people, with their diligence, courage and wisdom will win the fight against the epidemic in the shortest possible time. Chairperson of the African Union (AU) Commission Moussa Faki Mahamat, speaking on behalf of the AU, expressed solidarity with China in the fight against the epidemic, adding that the AU will remain firmly united with China at this difficult time. Other leaders of international organizations, including World Bank Group President David Malpass, Asian Development Bank President Masatsugu Asakawa, President of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank Jin Liqun, President of the New Development Bank Kundapur Vaman Kamath, Chairman of the Boao Forum for Asia Ban Ki-moon and Executive Director of the United Nations Children's Fund Henrietta Fore, commended the Chinese leaders and government for decisive and assertive measures against the epidemic, adding that they stand firmly with the Chinese government and people and are ready to provide assistance. The foreign ministers of Thailand, Indonesia, India, Iran, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Equatorial Guinea, Gambia, Sierra Leone and other countries also commended the Chinese leaders' decisive decision-making, correct command, swift and resolute measures, openness, transparency and responsible attitude, expressing their belief that China will secure a victory against the epidemic. Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. Pro-Brexit supporters gather in Parliament Square, London, as the UK prepared to leave the European Union at 11pm UK time. Picture date: Friday January 31, 2020. Photo credit should read: Matt Crossick/Empics Britain has officially left the European Union, beginning an 11-month transition period following years of turmoil around Brexit following the 2016 referendum. Yahoo News UK has put together a timeline detailing tense negotiations, multiple resignations, and a controversial prorogation in the years leading up to the UKs departure from the bloc on January 31, 2020. January 23 2013 Under intense pressure from many of his own MPs and with the rise of Ukip, Prime Minister David Cameron promises an in-out referendum on EU membership if the Conservatives win the 2015 general election. Mr Cameron pledges to campaign with all my heart and soul for Britain to vote to Remain in the referendum, which he says will take place by the end of 2017. May 7 2015 The Tories unexpectedly make sweeping gains over Ed Milibands Labour Party and secure a majority in the Commons. Mr Cameron vows to deliver his manifesto pledge for an EU referendum. June 23 2016 The UK votes to leave the EU in a shock result that sees 52% of the public support Brexit in a humiliating defeat for the Prime Minister. Mr Cameron quickly resigns, saying: I dont think it would be right for me to try to be the captain that steers our country to its next destination. July 13 2016 Theresa May takes over as Prime Minister. Mrs May, who had backed Remain, promises to rise to the challenge of negotiating the UKs exit. Prime Minister David Cameron with his wife Samantha and children Nancy, Arthur and Florence speaks with the press before leaving 10 Downing Street for the last time on July 13, 2016 (GETTY) Theresa May was David Cameron's successor following his resignation (GETTY) November 10 2016 The High Court rules against the Government and says Parliament must hold a vote to trigger Article 50, the mechanism that begins the exit from the EU. Mrs May says the ruling will not stop her from invoking the legislation by April 2017. March 29 2017 Mrs May triggers Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union. European Council president Donald Tusk says it is not a happy occasion, telling a Brussels press conference his message to the UK is: We already miss you. Thank you and goodbye. April 18 2017 Mrs May announces a snap general election to be held on June 8. Justifying the decision, she says: The country is coming together but Westminster is not. The Prime Minister adds that division in Westminster will risk our ability to make a success of Brexit. Story continues June 8 2017 There is humiliation for Mrs May as she loses her Commons majority after her election gamble backfires. She becomes head of a minority Conservative administration propped up by the Democratic Unionist Party. September 22 2017 In a crucial Brexit speech in Florence, Mrs May sends a message to EU leaders by saying: We want to be your strongest friend and partner as the EU and UK thrive side by side. She says she is proposing an implementation period of around two years after Brexit when existing market access arrangements will apply. December 8 2017 The European Commission announces it is recommending to the European Council that sufficient progress has been made in the first phase of Brexit talks. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker tells a press conference in Brussels that negotiations had been difficult for the EU and the UK. The announcement comes after Mrs May and Brexit Secretary David Davis make an early-hours journey to Brussels. The PM says the Brexit deal is a significant improvement which required give and take on both sides, and that it will ensure no hard border in Ireland. March 19 2018 The EUs chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, says he and Mr Davis have taken a decisive step towards agreeing a joint legal text on the UKs EU withdrawal. He warns there are still outstanding issues relating to the Irish border, saying: We are not at the end of the road and there is a lot of work still to be done. European Commission negotiator Michel Barnier arrives at 10 Downing Street for talks with Brexit Secretary David Davis. June 19 2018 Britain and the European Union publish a joint statement outlining the progress that has been made since negotiations in March. Brussels warns that serious differences remain over how to deal with the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic after Brexit. July 6 2018 A crunch Cabinet meeting at Chequers agrees Mrs Mays new Brexit plans, including the creation of a new UK-European Union free trade area for goods. But not all who attend are happy with the compromises. July 8 and July 9 2018 Brexit Secretary Mr Davis resigns from the Government. In his resignation letter he tells Mrs May the current trend of policy and tactics is making it look less and less likely that the UK will leave the customs union and single market. The following day Boris Johnson quits as Foreign Secretary, claiming the plans mean we are truly headed for the status of colony of the EU. November 14 2018 In a statement outside 10 Downing Street after a five-hour Cabinet meeting, Mrs May says that Cabinet has agreed the draft Brexit Withdrawal Agreement and she believes it is the best that could be negotiated. November 15 2018 Dominic Raab resigns as Brexit Secretary, saying he cannot in good conscience support the terms proposed for our deal with the EU. More resignations follow, including Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey. Leading Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg submits a letter of no confidence in Mrs May. November 25 2018 The 27 European Union leaders endorse the Brexit deal. December 12 2018 Mrs May survives an attempt to oust her with a vote of no confidence as Tory MPs vote by 200 to 117 in the secret ballot in Westminster. January 15 2019 MPs reject Mrs Mays Brexit plans by an emphatic 432 to 202 in a historic vote which throws the future of her administration and the nature of the UKs EU withdrawal into doubt. Mrs May reiterated that a no-deal Brexit is better than a bad deal in a speech to the British people after the EU rejected her Chequers Plan for leaving the European Union (GETTY) January 16 2019 Mrs May survives an attempt to oust her as Prime Minister, as MPs reject Labour leader Jeremy Corbyns motion of no confidence in the Government by 325 to 306. March 12 2019 MPs again reject the Governments Brexit deal by 391 votes to 242. March 14 2019 MPs vote to delay Brexit in dramatic parliamentary scenes which see the Conservative Party split down the middle. More than half of Tory MPs including seven Cabinet ministers, at least 33 other ministers and whips, and five party vice-chairs vote against Mrs Mays motion to put back the date when Britain leaves the EU. March 20 2019 Mrs May tells the House of Commons that she has written to Donald Tusk to request an extension to the Article 50 Brexit negotiations to June 30. The PM describes the delay to Brexit as a matter of great personal regret, adding: It is now time for MPs to decide. March 29 2019 MPs reject Mrs Mays Withdrawal Agreement by 286 votes to 344, majority 58, on the day when the UK was due to leave the European Union. April 10 2019 A flexible extension to Brexit is agreed until October 31. Mrs May says the choices we now face are stark and the timetable is clear. Nigel Farage, leader of the Brexit Party and a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for South East England is seen speaking during the EU election results press conference in Westminster (PA) May 21 2019 The Prime Minister says there is one last chance to help MPs deliver the result of the 2016 referendum, as she offered a new Brexit deal. She says a failure to reach agreement on Brexit would lead to a nightmare future of permanently polarised politics. May 23 2019 The UK votes in the European elections which Mrs May hoped would never have to be held. Nigel Farages Brexit Party come out on top, while the pro-EU Liberal Democrats also make gains. May 24 2019 Mrs May announces she is standing down as Tory Party leader on Friday June 7. She says: It is and will always remain a matter of deep regret to me that I have not been able to deliver Brexit. Read more: What happens with Brexit after Saturday? Your transition questions answered How will the UK's relationship with the EU change during the Brexit transition period? 16 pictures that tell the story of five years of utter Brexit chaos July 23 2019 Boris Johnson is elected as leader of the Conservative Party and becomes the UKs new Prime Minister after defeating Jeremy Hunt. Mr Johnson secures 92,153 of the vote compared with 46,656 for Mr Hunt. July 24 2019 Mr Johnson uses his first speech in Downing Street to say that critics of Brexit the doubters, doomsters and gloomsters are wrong. He says he is convinced we can do a deal to resolve the issue of the Irish border but he would prepare for a no-deal Brexit. August 20 2019 Mr Johnson is rebuffed by Brussels after demanding major changes in a new Brexit deal. European Council president Mr Tusk defends the backstop the contingency plan to keep the Irish frontier open and warns that those seeking to replace it would risk a return to a hard border. August 28 2019 The Queen is dragged into the Brexit row as Mr Johnson requests the prorogation of Parliament. Mr Corbyn says the Prime Ministers plan to suspend Parliament is an outrage and a threat to our democracy. The Queen approves an order to prorogue Parliament no earlier than September 9 and no later than September 12, until October 14. Crowd of protesters holds placards outside Downing Street in London demonstrating against British Prime Minister Boris Johnsons plans to suspend UK parliament for five weeks ahead of a Queens Speech on 14 October, just two weeks before the UK is set to leave the EU. The Queen has approved Boris Johnson's request to prorogue UK Parliament after the Prime Minister stepped up his plans for a no deal Brexit. (Photo by Steve Taylor / SOPA Images/Sipa USA) September 3 2019 Mr Johnson says Parliament is on the brink of wrecking any deal with Brussels after MPs voted to give a cross-party alliance control of the Commons agenda in a bid to block a no-deal Brexit on October 31. September 4 2019 MPs including 21 rebel Tories vote to approve legislation aimed at preventing a no-deal Brexit. The Benn Act compels the Prime Minister to ask Brussels for an Article 50 extension to the end of January 2020 if MPs do not back a deal by October 19. Mr Johnson, who had repeatedly ruled out requesting any further delay, accuses them of having scuppered negotiations. He withdraws the whip from the rebels in a major purge. Among those exiled are former chancellors Philip Hammond and Sir Kenneth Clarke, and Winston Churchills grandson, Sir Nicholas Soames. The PM attempts to trigger an early general election but fails because he does not win the required support of two-thirds of MPs. September 10 2019 Mr Johnsons second attempt to trigger an early general election fails after his motion does not secure the required support of two-thirds of MPs, with the Commons voting 293 to 46. September 17 2019 A legal battle over Mr Johnsons decision to suspend Parliament for five weeks begins at the UKs highest court. The Supreme Court in London hears appeals from two separate challenges brought in England and Scotland to the prorogation of Parliament over three days. September 24 2019 The Supreme Court rules that the Prime Ministers advice to the Queen to suspend Parliament until October 14 was unlawful because it had the effect of frustrating Parliament. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson delivers a speech outside 10 Downing Street following the Conservative Party's landslide victory in the UK General Election on 13 December, 2019 (GETTY) October 2 2019 Mr Johnson puts forward his formal Brexit plan to the EU, revealing his blueprint to solve the Irish border issue, and says it is a compromise, but European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker says there are still problematic points. October 10 2019 Mr Johnson and Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar say a Brexit deal is in everyones interest and they can see a pathway to a deal, in a joint statement after talks at a luxury hotel in Cheshire. October 17 2019 After intense negotiations, the Prime Minister announces the UK has reached a great deal with the EU which takes back control and means that the UK can come out of the EU as one United Kingdom England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, together. But the DUP says it cannot support the deal in Parliament, citing a series of objections over the integrity of the union and Northern Irelands economy. Boris Johnson welcomes the European Comission President Ursula von der Leyen on the steps of 10 Downing Street ahead of their meeting on 08 January, 2020 (GETTY) October 19 2019 The first Saturday sitting of the Commons in 37 years is set to see MPs hold a meaningful vote on the new deal and the pressure is particularly strong because it is also the deadline for the PM to ask for an extension under the Benn Act. But MPs instead vote for an amendment tabled by exiled Tory Sir Oliver Letwin to compel Mr Johnson to comply with the Benn Act requesting a delay to Brexit. Mr Johnson gets a senior diplomat to send Brussels an unsigned copy of a letter asking for the delay, with a cover note stressing his detachment from the move. He dispatches a second note to European Council president Donald Tusk saying the extension would be deeply corrosive. October 22 2019 Mr Johnson mounts an attempt to fast-track his Brexit deal through Parliament. This requires two votes: one on the Withdrawal Agreement Bill (WAB) to implement the deal, and another on the accelerated timetable. The WAB is approved in principle at its first hurdle when MPs vote 329 to 299 for it. But the blow comes when they reject the hasty timetable by 322 to 308. The PM puts his plans on ice, saying he will pause the WAB until the EU makes a decision on granting a delay. October 28 2019 EU leaders agree to a Brexit flextension until January 31 unless Parliament ratifies the deal sooner. October 29 2019 The Prime Minister succeeds in winning support for a general election on December 12. December 12 2019 Having campaigned on a promise to get Brexit done, Mr Johnson secures a landslide win at the election and with a comfortable 80-seat majority is able to command the Commons in a way Mrs May never could. January 8 2020 New European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen visits Downing Street for talks with Mr Johnson. She makes clear that the timetable for a Brexit trade deal is very, very tight and it will be impossible to agree everything by December 31. But Mr Johnson is clear there will be no extension to the transition period, which expires at the end of 2020. Boris Johnson marked the signing of the Withdrawal Agreement with a photo backed by Union Jacks (Picture: Twitter/Boris Johnson) January 9 2020 Mr Johnson gets his Brexit deal through the Commons as the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill is given a third reading with a majority of 99. Downing Street warns peers not to hamper the progress of the legislation as it heads to the Lords. January 31 2020 A special Cabinet meeting outside London, a clock counting down the moments until Brexit on the walls of Downing Street, and the Union flag flying in Parliament Square herald the UKs departure from the European Union. At 11pm the UK leaves the bloc but further wrangling with Brussels will continue on the terms of a trade deal due to be signed by the end of the year. SAN FRANCISCO (BCN) Two residents have been hospitalized in serious condition after being rescued from an a fire late Saturday night in San Francisco's Visitacion Valley, according to fire officials. The one-alarm blaze, reported shortly before 11:30 p.m. Saturday, charred a significant portion of a residential structure at 3326 San Bruno Ave. before it was contained by fire crews around 12:15 a.m. Copyright 2020 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. Washington D.C.: A recent study has linked a variety of blood cancers to a dangerous gene mutation that triggers a chain of biological events that hinders the pathway through which DNA sends instructions to the rest of a cell. This phenomenon has been revealed through research carried out by biologists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) in collaboration with an oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC). The deadly chain of events begins with RNA splicing, a process that converts messages from DNA into instructions for making proteins in a cell. Errors in RNA splicing can result in poorly formed proteins that are unable to do their job. The CSHL-MSKCC team found that in blood cancers, a process associated with splicing called Nonsense-mediated decay (NMD) is excessively active. After splicing converts DNA messages, the NMD process normally serves as "quality control," destroying messages that contain mistakes before a broken protein is made. The Krainer lab at CSHL determined that when the gene called SRSF2 is mutated, NMD destroys many more messages, including some that have not been likely targets of NMD before. Messages that are important for healthy blood cell production are one of these new targets. Live TV The result of excessively active NMD is less healthy blood cells and more sickly or immature cells -- a hallmark of blood cancer. "RNA splicing factor mutations are seen in virtually all forms of leukaemia, both chronic as well as acute myeloid leukaemias and also even chronic lymphocytic leukaemia," said Omar Abdel-Wahab, M.D. at MSKCC. "I`m a hematological oncologist -- I think a lot about blood cancer -- so this caught my attention right away. "Scientists have seen other cancers manipulate NMD into protecting solid tumours. However, the CSHL-MSKCC discovery, published in Genes and Development, is the first evidence of NMD contributing to blood cancer conditions. To stop the mutated SRSF2 gene from affecting NMD, the researchers experimented with a technique called antisense oligonucleotide (ASO) therapy. As shown by CSHL Professor Adrian Krainer in past works, ASO therapy has been effective in combating other diseases resulting from defective RNA splicing. The next step will be to test many ASOs in animals, perfecting the team`s approach until it is ready for the clinic. "Before this collaboration, I knew very little about splicing factors or this process of NMD. Conversely, Adrian`s lab didn`t have much disease-specific experience with blood cancers, so it`s been a synergistic experience," Abdel-Wahab added. "By combining forces, we`ve really been able to address what we`ve learned." ROME, NY The local community came together Saturday to raise money for a Remsen family whose home was destroyed by a fire back in December. 9-year-old Everett Newman lost his life in that fire. It was standing room only at the Rome Polish Home, as family, friends, and even complete strangers came together to honor the life of Everett and raise money for his family. There was plenty of food, beverages, and live music for everyone to enjoy. Not to mention a 50/50 raffle and a Chinese auction. Longtime family friend Mandy Richter, says the community has really stepped up to help the family. Our community has been wonderful. The outpouring of support from the school, all the businesses and private donations. Its been very overwhelming and very touching to everyone. Amidst the massive outbreak of coronavirus and the fear of how far and fast it's spreading, India is actively evacuating its citizens who are stuck in various parts of China and mainly Wuhan, which is considered to be the epicenter of coronavirus. Not just India, other countries too are evacuating their citizens from the virus-infected area, except one whose citizens are now begging their government to do something for them. The country we're talking about is Pakistan. Reportedly, Pakistan has said that they will not evacuate their citizens from Wuhan to show their "solidarity" with China. Reuters But, that's not even the weird part. According to a video featuring a group of Pakistani students, when they called the Embassy crying out for help, they were told "Zindagi aur maut allah ke haath me hai, yahan aaye chahe wahan aaye." (Life and death is in the hands of Allah. Whether it happens here or there.) Further, Pakistani students are also panicking because other countries' governments are evacuating their citizens but their government is not doing anything for them. In one such video, a Pakistani student shows how the Indian students are being evacuated in a bus. The student can be heard saying, "Bangladeshis will also be evacuated later. Then it is us Pakistanis who are stranded here and our government says we won't evacuate you even if you die, get infected or are still alive. Shame on you Pakistan government, learn something from the Indians." Pakistani student in Wuhan shows how Indian students are being evacuated by their govt. While Pakistanis are left there to die by the govt of Pakistan: pic.twitter.com/86LthXG593 Naila Inayat (@nailainayat) February 1, 2020 Dr. Zafar Mirza, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Health, told media, "We believe that right now, it is in the interest of our loved ones in China (to stay there). It is in the largest interest of the region, world, country that we don't evacuate them now." He later also said, "It (coronavirus) is now being transferred from human to human. It means that a person affected with the virus can also become a source for the transfer of the virus. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared the situation an emergency of international concern. Being a responsible nation, Pakistan wants to take steps that ensure the safety of maximum people." According to reports, nearly 324 Indians were evacuated from Wuhan, as WHO declared it a global health emergency. And an exclusive on the new coronavirus. The number of deaths greatly exceeds those released by the Chinese regime, according to sources, who say the Hankou funeral crematorium is operating 24 hours a day. It has a capacity of 30 cremation furnaces. As a result, actual numbers could exceed official figures by 10 times with no less than 200 deaths per day in Wuhan. Hong Kong-based media reports an elderly woman named Liu Rong was sent to an isolation ward nine days after getting infected, but died within a few hours. Her body was immediately sent to the Hankou funeral home for cremation. According to the article, 14 to 20 cremators were all operating around the clock. It takes a crematorium on average 1.5-3 hours to process a body, so the total number of dead being processed by the 14 crematoria of the Hankou funeral home could be between 112 and 224 per day. On Jan. 28, an article surfaced on a number of mainland china news websites titled Wuhan Civil Affairs Bureau Announces Exemption of Cremation Charges for the Remains of Patients Died in the Epidemic. The reason was the sheer number of family members complaining to the Civil Affairs Bureau and the funeral home of the cost of delivering and cremating corpses. The usual cost is 12,000 yuan. A manager of a funeral home in Wuhan told The Epoch Times that the government demanded all cremation of dead bodies due to the virus be handled by the Hankou funeral home. The government also supplied the funeral home with multiple vehicles to help meet the demand. The Epoch times tried calling the Hankou funeral home several times, but wasnt able to get through. When the reporter told a different funeral home about that, the worker said it was because the Hankou funeral home was too busy. A few days ago, a call for help came from medical staff in Wuhan on social media. In the recording, the lady said she faced a large number of infected people every day without being able to cure them all. She also said the actual number of infected people is more than 100,000. Amid tears, she explained there were more than 100 patients being seen by medical staff that day and that the majority of them are now dead. Man who supplied arms to Khalistan terrorists arrested India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, Feb 02: The UP Anti Terrorist Squad has arrested a man on charges of supplying weapons to the Khalistan Liberation Force. The accused Ashish Kumar, a resident of Meerut was wanted in an attempt to murder case. The Punjab police sought the help of their counterparts in UP to arrest Kumar. On the basis of the information collected, Kumar was arrested from Roorkee, where he was staying for the past three years. K2 cocktail: Why Pakistans Kashmir-Khalistan operation should worry India Kumar used to supply weapons to one Gugani Grewal, who was a close aide of Harmeet Singh, the chief of the KLF. It may be recalled that Singh was killed by a local gang at Lahore last week over a money dispute stemming from the drug trade. Kumar confessed that he had sold 8 pistols to Gugani over the past three years. He is an accused in two more cases that are being probed by the Punjab police. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Sunday, February 2, 2020, 8:31 [IST] Training to identify sex trafficking victims, health care works on front line to protect kids Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment WASHINGTON Before President Trump signed an executive order to combat human trafficking and online child exploitation Friday, leading medical providers came together to discuss how they're training healthcare professionals to recognize the signs of trafficking victims. At an event hosted by the Global Strategic Operatives for the Eradication of Human Trafficking in collaboration with The Selah Way Foundation, anti-trafficking advocates announced an they've initiative launched in conjunction with U.S. Homeland Security to help victims get to safety. GSO co-founder Deb OHara-Rusckowski said in remarks Thursday that while exact numbers are difficult to obtain, a 2014 study of survivors of the commercial sex trade indicates that approximately 88 percent of victims seek medical care while being trafficked. Thus, OHara-Rusckowski said, "healthcare has a great opportunity to identify and provide these victims with a path to freedom." She went on to explain how GSO has, since the fall of 2019, begun training front-line healthcare providers to identify trafficking and take appropriate action in several large healthcare systems in the U.S. Thus far, 1,368 people have been trained across four such systems. The organization plans to soon submit a proposal to the World Health Organization for the purpose of creating a universal policy on human trafficking for healthcare providers worldwide, a policy that does not presently exist. Elizabeth Melendez Fisher Good, co-founder and CEO of Selah Freedom & Selah Way Foundation and the author of the recently released book, Groomed: Overcoming the Messages That Shaped Our Past and Limit Our Future, mentioned in her comments that it's essential that, as a culture, the deep dark secrets that many have preferred to keep hidden are spoken of so children can get past theirs. An 11-year-old girl who ran away from home that her organization served once told her, "Whatever is on the streets has to be better than what happens in my bedroom every night with my dad and my brothers." "And so in their mind, they think out there is freedom. And the stats tell us that within 48 hours 80 percent of them will be approached by a predator," Fisher Good explained. With the proliferation of smart phones and digital technology, one of every nine children will at some point be approached by a predator through social media, she said. When the 11-year-old girl first hit the streets the first guy who came up to her was, according to her, "probably in his 50s," Fisher Good recounted. He told her, "I'll give you ten bucks to have sex with me." "And in her 11-year-old brain, she thought, 'Great, it's not my dad. This is awesome. I can buy McDonald's,'" she said. Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., chronicled some of the recent legislative history on trafficking in addition to other recent developments. The president just signed Smith's fifth bill into law, the Frederick Douglas Trafficking Victim's Prevent and Protection Act, he noted. Healthcare systems participating in the collaborative effort include: Advocate Aurora Health, Baptist Health, Common Spirit Health, Hackensack Meridian Health, Harris Health System/Baylor College of Medicine, Northwell Health, RWJBarnabas Health, and Selah Freedom. The Global Strategic Operatives for the Eradication of Human Trafficking was initiated at the United Nations in 2018. Trump signed an executive order Friday creating a new position within the domestic policy council "solely devoted" to combating human trafficking, said White House Domestic Policy Council Director Joe Grogan. The person who will fill that position has not yet been named. This is an all-of-government approach with a number of agencies involved, Grogan said Friday. Having someone established here in the White House who can coordinate on all these activities is going to really give us a leg up in combating human trafficking. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. The eyes of the country are on Iowa due to tomorrow's caucuses. It presents us with a unique opportunity to shape our future. As in past years, there has been some criticism of the state's prominence in the presidential selection process. However, even critics praise the seriousness with which Iowans conduct our role and note the lack of corruption or cronyism. The most frequent criticism is based on the lack of diversity. While the state has an underrepresentation of racial and ethnic minorities, caucus goers have demonstrated openness to candidates of color. Obviously, Barack Obama won the state in 2008. Less recognized is that Bill Richardson, who has Hispanic heritage, finished fourth that year. Back in 1988, Jesse Jackson finished fourth with 10 percent, well above the state's percentage of African Americans. On the Republican side, Raphael "Ted" Cruz, the Canadian-born son of a Cuban emigre, won the state in 2016. Further, Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, finished third and Ben Carson, an African American, finished fourth that year. Until this year, there have been few minority candidates. Due in part to the national rules created to reduce debate participants, many candidates of color withdrew before the caucuses. This is not meant to ignore the issue, but to put it in context. Another critique is that the caucus limits attendance by being held at a specific time. While it is a fair criticism, the national party and the state of New Hampshire have rejected many suggestions to address these concerns. A critical facet of the caucus is that it relies on the community in order to operate. Schools, churches, labor unions and other organizations open their doors for participants. A couple thousand people have undergone face-to-face training and online testing to ensure processes are followed. One of the most unique things about the caucuses is how they require ordinary citizens to step up and provide leadership. It is one of the last remnants of what Alexis de Tocqueville praised as the unique ability to form associations to improve civil life. Special thanks to Teresa Wolff, who has devoted countless hours securing 44 sites, and recruiting and training precinct chairs. She estimates that it will take over 500 volunteers to run the Democratic caucuses in Woodbury County. Attendees should keep these volunteers in mind and be prepared to help where needed. One way is to leave parking spaces close to the entrance available for those with limited mobility. Be patient if there is a line. The people working to conduct the event are your friends and neighbors. People support candidates for personal and policy reasons. Since Iowans get the chance to meet the candidates, usually several times, they sometimes get very attached to the candidate of their choice. For myself, my priorities have been whether the candidate is ready to be commander in chief, whether they seek to unify the country, and their ability to adapt to the seismic changes occurring internationally and domestically. The essential qualities of commander in chief are judgment and trustworthiness. Allies must have confidence that we are trustworthy and have the capability to follow up on our commitment. John Kennedy once said that America can only be as strong abroad as it is at home. The way that some people in positions of authority attack their fellow Americans ultimately undermines our security and our system of government. For my part, I believe Pete Buttigieg meets the criteria above. Others will disagree, and I respect their decision. In some countries, political assembly results in jail. Tomorrow, Iowans will get to show the nation and the world our volunteering spirit and civic duty in shaping a government of, by and for the people. Next week: Charese Yanney A Sioux City resident, Steve Warnstadt is government affairs coordinator for Western Iowa Tech Community College. He is a former Democratic state senator and retired Army National Guard brigadier general. He and his wife, Mary, are the parents of one son and one daughter. Love 0 Funny 3 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 The Chamber of Deputies and the Senate begin on Monday the first ordinary parliamentary session of the year. In the first meeting of each chamber, the new composition of the standing bureaus is chosen, that is the deputy chairs, secretaries and treasurers. The election of the members to the standing bureau follows the proposal of the parliamentary groups, according to their weight, political configuration and the negotiation of the floor leaders. The lists of candidates for the standing bureaus are submitted to the vote of the Chamber of Deputies, and the Senate, respectively. Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies Marcel Ciolacu has convened the meeting of the standing bureau for Monday, at 13:0hrs, to be followed by a plenary session at 16:00hrs. The Senate has the same schedule. The parliamentary session begins with the replacement of Senate Chairman Teodor Melescanu, whose election to office has been declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court. There are several candidates to the position, with the Social Democratic Party (PSD) arguing that it should be awarded to it again. PSD interim national chairman Marcel Ciolacu announced that the Social Democrats will support Titus Corlatean, currently the deputy chair of the Senate, to take over the position of interim chairman of the Senate until the Constitutional Court's reasoning for the replacement of Melescanu is revealed. The proposal is also to be voted on by the PSD floor group in the Senate. Also, PNL national chairman Prime Minister Ludovic Orban, announced that the Liberals will support Alina Gorghiu, currently Vice President of the Senate, for the leadership of the legislative forum. According to the regulations, the chair of the Senate is elected by secret ballot on ballot papers carrying, in descending order of the size of the parliamentary group, the name and surname of all the candidates proposed by the leaders of the parliamentary groups. Each parliamentary group can make a single proposal. Chairman of the Senate is declared the candidate who met, at the first ballot, the vote of the majority of the senators present. In this session, the government could assume responsibility before Parliament for other bills. The Liberals support the fats-tracking of a bill to modify the election of the county council chairs by indirect vote, a bill currently with the Electoral Code Commission. PSD does not want to modify the current system of election county council chairs by direct vote, and holds the majority in the commission. The lawmakers are also expected to settle on the VAT reduction bill initiated by the leader of the PNL deputies, Florin Roman, who was sent, at the PNL proposal, to the Chamber of Deputies' Committee on Budget and Finance after reaching the plenary sessionwith a proposal for adoption. Other legislative initiatives that could be discussed in this parliamentary session are: taxation of special pensions - initiated by PSD Senator Eugen Teodorovici and currently with the Chamber of Deputies' Committee on Budget and Finance, as well as postponing doubling children's allowances and amending Emergency Ordinance 114 in the Senate. OTTAWAIn 2014, Justin Trudeau booted senators out of the Liberal caucus as part of his bid to transform Canadas Senate into a more independent, less partisan chamber of sober second thought. Yet one of those turfed Liberals, Serge Joyal, has arguably demonstrated more independence throughout his 23 years in the upper house than any of the non-partisan senators Trudeau has appointed since becoming prime minister in 2015. Joyal retires from the Senate on Saturday, his 75th birthday. As a rookie MP from Montreal in 1976, Joyal sued his own government (led by Justin Trudeaus father, Pierre) over its directive that English be the only language used by air-traffic controllers. At that time, he got the message that if I would withdraw from the legal proceedings, my avenue to the cabinet would be quick, Joyal recounts in an interview. He refused and won the case. It would be another six years before he made it into the cabinet. Joyal was defeated in 1984, when Brian Mulroneys Progressive Conservatives won power. Thirteen years later, Jean Chretien appointed him to the Senate, where he continued to practise his unique brand of independence, both in the chamber and in the courts. A lawyer and constitutional expert, he has argued before the Supreme Court of Canada. And hes challenged the government of the day directly in court on more than one occasion. Just last fall, he launched a lawsuit seeking to force the federal government to adopt an official French-language version of Canadas constitutional documents. In 2013, Joyal intervened in the Supreme Court reference on Senate reform, arguing against Conservative prime minister Stephen Harpers bid to turn the upper house into an elected chamber with term limits. However, he later sided with the Harper government against a challenge of a bill giving Canadas consent to changes in the law of succession to the monarchy. The two Quebec professors who initiated the challenge are now seeking leave to appeal to the Supreme Court so, even in the midst of packing up his Senate office last week, Joyal was preparing his counter-argument for the court. Im a peculiar kind of animal, Joyal acknowledges of his dual political and legal activities. I choose to do that ... Im not paid by the Senate to do that or by pressure groups or a lobby group of some sort. I do it because I believe the issue at stake is an important one. Despite his independent streak, Joyal always considered himself a loyal Liberal. And so, when Trudeau kicked him out of the Liberal caucus, he admits, I was hurt. He had spent 20 years as the policy chair for the Quebec wing of the party. Hed helped draft Chretiens famous Red Book, the winning Liberal election platform in 1993. Hed helped Liberal leaders prepare for election debates. Hed represented the party on the No committee during the 1995 referendum on Quebec independence. I was very intimately involved in the life of the party, Joyal says. That I was unceremoniously kicked out with not even a letter of thanks, Im a human being ... Just a mere thank you, I would have appreciated it. Reflecting on the transformation of the Senate into a chamber where senators unaffiliated with parties now command the majority, Joyal regrets the loss of partisan groups that have an institutionalized responsibility, and the resources to back it up, to argue for and against government legislation. Without partisan appointees, including former cabinet ministers, MPs and party stalwarts, he says, its now left to individual senators to challenge the government and try to improve legislation. Trudeaus appointees typically have impressive resumes but most have little or no experience in public policy or Parliament. Sen. Peter Harder, a former senior public servant who was Trudeaus government representative in the Senate for nearly four years, doesnt disagree. The Senate needs to have, in my view, a number of senators who come with that (political) perspective and that experience, Harder says. It just adds to the ability to get stuff done because people are there with understanding of what it takes to legislate, what it takes to compromise, what it takes to understand the institutional role that the Senate plays. Hes one of the big names of Senate history, Harder said, calling Joyal extraordinarily effective on issues involving charter rights, national unity and language rights. But even if Joyal wont be physically sitting in the Senate anymore, his presence will still be felt on Parliament Hill. An avid collector of art and historical artifacts, he has donated many of his finds to furnish the Francophonie Room and the Indigenous Peoples Room, two Senate meeting areas in Centre Block, which is now closed for massive renovations. Back in when Joyal was an MP, Harder recalls walking into his office and thinking Id walked into a museum. His Senate office suite was furnished by Joyal at his own expense, from ornate chandeliers hanging from the ceilings to artwork on the walls to sculptures on pedestals dotting the rooms. Joyal said he figured if he was going to spend 23 years in that office, he wanted to be psychologically comfortable in it. He is donating everything in his office to the National Capital Commission for use in official residences. Read more about: A suspected US drone strike destroyed a building housing al Qaida militants last week in eastern Yemen, tribal leaders said amid reports it killed a senior leader of the terror group. US President Donald Trump has retweeted several reports that the January 25 strike killed Qassim al-Rimi, but it has not been officially confirmed. The Yemeni tribal leaders said the drone strike took place in the Wadi Ubaidah area in the eastern province of Marib. The area is known as a stronghold for al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). 3)Breaking: It appears that Qasim al-Rimi, leader of the Yemen-based #AQAP, was the individual targeted & killed in a U.S. drone strike on Saturday, January 25 in Wadi Ubaidah, east of #Sanaa - a longtime stronghold for the group. AQAP has yet to officially confirm his death. pic.twitter.com/ohDcH2d8wz Rita Katz (@Rita_Katz) January 30, 2020 They said at least three explosions hit the area, and the building was set ablaze. It was not immediately clear how many militants were in the building at the time or their identities. The tribal leaders said a handful of al Qaida militants arrived on the scene just after the strike and cordoned off the area. Mr Trump on Saturday retweeted several articles that seemed to offer confirmation al-Rimi, one of AQAPs founders and its current chief, was killed. The White House did not comment on whether his retweeting was confirmation of the death. Al-Rimi succeeded Nasser al-Wahishi, who was killed in a US drone strike in 2015, as the top leader of AQAP. 4)If true, and it seems to be, the dead of al-Rimi would mark a major blow to #AlQaeda on the whole. Al-Rimi was a candidate for succeeding AQ leader Zawahiri. Rita Katz (@Rita_Katz) January 30, 2020 Among Mr Trumps retweets was a thread by Rita Katz, director of the Site Intelligence Group which tracks messaging by militant groups. Ms Katz tweeted on Thursday: If true, and it seems to be, the death of al-Rimi would mark a major blow to #AlQaeda on the whole. Al-Rimi was a candidate for succeeding AQ leader Zawahiri. AQAP has long been considered the global networks most dangerous branch and has attempted to carry out attacks on the US mainland. UUP MLA Doug Beattie has accused the DUP of trying to wash their hands of the Stormont House Agreement after calls from the party to revisit Troubles legacy provisions. He made the comments after it emerged that DUP leader Arlene Foster has written to Secretary of State Julian Smith to express her concerns around certain provisions in the 2014 agreement, including the establishment of a Historical Investigations Unit (HIU) to re-examine unsolved murders. As part of the New Decade, New Approach deal the Government has promised to table legislation to implement the legacy provisions, agreed at Stormont House in 2014, within 100 days. Mrs Foster has also expressed a desire to amend the definition of a Troubles victim to a "person who was killed or injured through no fault of their own". Mr Beattie and his party have opposed the legacy mechanisms and repeatedly called for them to be dropped. The UUP justice spokesperson said that the DUP had expressed support for an investigations unit in their 2019 General Election manifesto and in response to the public consultation on legacy. "The DUP set us on this path at Stormont House and now it has left us for Westminster they are trying to distance themselves from what they created," he said. "It is positive that they are now seeing what I have been saying for the past few years, but is it too late? Is it unstoppable?" Mr Beattie accused the DUP leader of making "glib statements" around the HIU and challenged Mrs Foster to categorically state that her party cannot support it. He said that the DUP had known for years what was in the agreement and now that it was getting down to the wire they had changed tact. "It's not just myself, the Police Federation and retired RUC officers have spoken out against the HIU. It's absolutely disgraceful," the Upper Bann MLA said. "I'm not against the HIU because I am a unionist or former soldier, I do not support an amnesty. If introduced it will stop thousands of people from getting justice and how can anyone support that. "If you change the HIU in the way that's needed it will no longer resemble what was created in the first place." The UUP MLA said he believed the DUP may have changed their position due to pressure from the Police Federation, Orange Order and other policing groups. "This is the DUP preparing for the 2022 Stormont election. They are dancing on the head of a pin. The HIU is the brainchild of the DUP," Mr Beattie said. Expand Close First Minister Arlene Foster and (right) Deputy First Minister Michelle ONeill PA / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp First Minister Arlene Foster and (right) Deputy First Minister Michelle ONeill Sinn Fein's Michelle O'Neill rejected calls the from Mrs Foster to revisit the legacy provisions. Read More The party's vice-president said that the agreement must be implemented in full and pointed out that the DUP signed up to the agreement, alongside the UK and Irish Governments and other political parties. In her letter Mrs Foster wrote that in the five years since the agreement was signed "things have evolved" and that "the issues must now be addressed in light of the passage of time" She said that the concerns must be addressed before any legislation could be introduced. The DUP leader expressed concern that the HIU would "focus more on state-related deaths" and said that many victims and survivors were "losing confidence or not being supportive of the proposal". Mrs Foster also questioned the HIU investigating "non-criminal police misconduct", saying it cannot under law reach any meaningful outcome. "There are a range of additional issues that I would wish to raise with you, on how we can build on, improve and address issues since the high-level agreement on legacy as set out in the Stormont House Agreement," the First Minister wrote. Expand Close MLAs and members of the British and Irish governments at the signing of the Stormont House Agreeement PA / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp MLAs and members of the British and Irish governments at the signing of the Stormont House Agreeement Mrs Foster called on the Secretary of State to begin discussions as soon as possible as the 100 day deadline "does not give much time for what will need to be substantive discussions on the way forward". She outlined her reasoning in an interview on Sophy Ridge on Sunday. "I think we need to revisit the Stormont House Agreement because what is being proposed, and we made this clear in our consultation response at the time, is not acceptable to the victims' groups here and it's certainly not acceptable to us," the Fermanagh and South Tyrone MLA said. "There is a need to deal with these issues but it has to be done in a way that recognises fairness and recognises what actually happened here in Northern Ireland over 35-40 years, the fact that we did have a terrorist campaign and there were so many innocent victims as a result of that." Mrs Foster also called on Prime Minister Boris Johnson to protect members of the security forces based in Northern Ireland from "vexatious claims" alongside their mainland counterparts. Expand Close Northern Ireland Secretary Julian Smith (Liam McBurney/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Northern Ireland Secretary Julian Smith (Liam McBurney/PA) Speaking following the interview, deputy First Minister Ms O'Neill said the Stormont House deal could not be "cherry picked by the British Government or the DUP". She said that she had requested an urgent meeting with the Secretary of State to discuss legislation on victims persons and other legacy issues. The British government has been resiling from the commitments it made at Stormont House and has delayed implementing the agreement for more than five years, further delaying truth and justice to the victims and their families," the Mid Ulster MLA said. The British government needs to implement its commitments in full in a human rights compliant manner. The DUP has been contacted in relation to Mr Beattie's comments. Navy USS Detroit littoral combat ship US Navy/Mass Comm Specialist 2nd Class Devin Bowser A US warship sailed along the Venezuelan coast in a freedom-of-navigation operation, the top US military commander in the region told lawmakers this week. Such operations by the US are not uncommon, but US military activity around Venezuela has gotten more scrutiny amid talk by US leaders of military intervention in the South American country. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. The US Navy littoral combat ship USS Detroit conducted a freedom-of-navigation operation off of Venezuela's Caribbean coast, the US's top military command in the region said Thursday. At a Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing, Navy Adm. Craig Faller, head of US Southern Command, which is responsible for military operations in and around Central and South America, touted the Detroit's performance during the deployment, saying it had success in a counternarcotics and law-enforcement role. "We've also used the Detroit in a freedom of navigation operation off the coast of Venezuela, in waters that Venezuela claims that international law does not recognize," Faller added. "Detroit did a magnificent job, sailing close to the coast of Venezuela and providing that intelligence and reporting back to us." Navy USS Detroit littoral combat ship US Navy/Mass Comm Specialist 2nd Class Devin Bowser The Detroit left home port in Mayport, Florida, on October 31 to head to the Southern Command area of responsibility for its maiden deployment, which was to support operation Martillo, a multinational counter-drug effort. Faller appeared to be referring to an operation on January 21, when maritime trackers reported the Detroit sailing about 26 nautical miles off the Venezuelan coast in the vicinity of Caracas, the country's capital. Under the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea, territorial waters are considered to extend 12 nautical miles from a country's shore. Those trackers also picked up a Venezuelan patrol boat trailing the Detroit for part of its trip. The ships appeared to part ways that evening, when the Detroit turned north and the patrol boat turned toward Venezuela. Story continues Asked about that encounter on January 21, US Southern Command said the Detroit "asserts navigational rights and freedoms in international waters, outside of the lawful limits of Venezuela's territorial sea." "All of our operations are designed to be conducted in accordance with maritime laws and demonstrate that the United States will fly, sail, and operate wherever international law allows," the command added at the time. Asked about Faller's comments on Thursday, the command again said that US warships "routinely conduct freedom of navigation operations throughout the world," but added that for "operational security reasons, we are not disclosing specific dates or locations." 'The worst offender of the whole lot' Nicolas Maduro Nestor Reverol Reuters US Navy operations such as the Detroit's are not unheard of; they are frequently done to counter expansive Chinese claims in the South China Sea. Navy ships and planes have in recent months been seen sailing through waters and airspace close to Venezuela, which also has maritime-boundary disputes with its neighbors, especially Guyana. US military activity in the region has attracted closer attention amid heightened tensions between the US and Venezuela. In August 2019, President Donald Trump said he was considering a quarantine or blockade of Venezuela, and officials told Axios that month that Trump had periodically raised the idea of a naval blockade for a year and a half. US and other officials in the region have discounted such action. Faller and other US military leaders have declined to discuss any planning they might be doing regarding Venezuela, though he and others have said they remain prepared to assist in a "day after" scenario where the Maduro government is gone and aid is needed for the general public. Faller's comments about gathering intelligence also suggest the Detroit was monitoring illicit activity at sea and in the air, which has increased as Venezuela's economy craters and rule of law erodes. Drug plane seized Honduras REUTERS/Honduran Police/Handout Amid Venezuela's collapse, piracy and human smuggling have increased in the waters between it and Caribbean islands to the north, which have also become more popular way stations for drug traffickers. The US military has also been watching for drug-laden aircraft, which have taken off from Venezuela with increasing frequency since the 1990s, mostly heading for Central America. Colombian guerrilla and criminal groups are behind most of the smuggling, but the US and others have accused Venezuelan military and government officials of complicity. Officials told CNN in spring 2019 that traffickers had moved their takeoff spots from remote jungle areas in southern Venezuela to more developed areas in the country's northwest in order to shorten the flying distance. A US official also told CNN the number of suspected drug flights leaving Venezuela rose from about two a week in 2017 to almost daily in 2018. Asked about which countries in the region were aiding the US campaign against narcotics trafficking, Faller singled out Venezuela as "the worst offender of the whole lot" and "not a country that we can cooperate with right now." "We look at Venezuela, where the Maduro regime is being propped up by Cuba, Russia, and China, and we see the narco-trafficking that has increased substantially in the air and over land from Colombia," Faller said. "Then it becomes extremely difficult to track as it leaves [Venezuela] in commercial, privatized shipping [and] private airplanes." Read the original article on Business Insider Luka Magnotta who was jailed for life for murdering and chopping up another gay man in 2012 and then eating parts of him and mailing other body parts to schools and political parties in his native Canada has married. After signing up to dating forum Canadian Inmates Connect, in June 2015, Luka Magnotta, 34, fell for Anthony Jolin, an armed robber who is serving life for stabbing another inmate to death in the shower. On his dating profile, Magnotta, who was dubbed the Canadian Psycho, described himself as a single white male who was seeking a single white male, 28-38 years of age, white and in shape. He added: One who is loyal, preferably educated, financially and emotionally stable for a long term committed relationship. If you think you could be my prince charming, send me a detailed letter with at least two photos. Magnotta, a self obsessed model and escort, filmed himself eating his victim, had admitted killing Chinese student Jun Lin in May 2012, dismembering his body and mailing the wrapped hands and feet to schools and Canadian politicians. A poem he wrote, which he sent with a body part to a school read: Roses are red, violets are blue, the police will need dental records to identify you. Bitch. Toronto Sun reporter Alex West played a key role in the trial, testifying as to how he confronted Magnotta at a dingy hotel near Wembley Stadium in 2011 about sick internet videos of kittens being killed. That horrific act led Magnotta to be sought by internet sleuths and animal rights groups. Six months after uploading the sick videos, male escort Magnotta killed Lin, 33, and filmed himself apparently eating the corpse with a knife and fork. It took a jury eight days to throw out a not guilty plea that he was an insane schizophrenic not accountable for his actions and convict him of the first degree murder of Lin. A marriage licence from the Palais de justice de Sept-Iles with Magnottas mother Anna Yourkin listed as a witness enabled the convicts to be legally wed at the Pont-Cartier prison, where they are both serving time for murder. Neighbouring Rwanda and Uganda agreed a deal on Sunday to swap prisoners to help ease tensions following mutual accusations of spying and political meddling. Rwanda's President Paul Kagame and Uganda's Yoweri Museveni were once close allies but their relations have turned deeply hostile. Kigali and Kampala signed a deal in August last year to improve political and economic relations, but progress has since been slow. In the deal signed on Sunday by Kagame and Museveni in the Angolan capital Luanda, the two sides agreed to "the release of the national citizens of each country." No details were given on when or how the exchange would take place, or how many people it might involve. But the two leaders, who met at a summit hosted by Angolan President Joao Lourenco, and alongside Democratic Republic of Congo President Felix Tshisekedi, pledged to take "steps towards peace, stability, good neighbourliness and restoring mutual trust." They also agreed the two sides would meet again on February 21 for more talks at a common border post between the nations. "Both parties must refrain from all factors that may create the perception of supporting, financing, training and infiltration of destabilising forces in their neighbour's territory," the agreement read. Rwanda abruptly closed the border with its northern neighbour in February last year, severing a major economic land route. The country has also accused Uganda of abducting its citizens and supporting rebels seeking to overthrow its government. Then in May Ugandan police accused Rwandan soldiers of entering the country and killing two men -- a claim which Kigali denied. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Suspected jihadists killed nearly 20 civilians in an attack overnight on the northern Burkina Faso village of Bani, Seno province, security sources said Sunday, Trend reports citing Channels TV. The attackers, heavily armed and on motorbikes, literally executed the local inhabitants, the security source told AFP. The attackers left nearly 20 dead, the source added. A local health official, speaking from the town of Dori in the north, said the chief nurse at the nearby village of Lamdamol was among the victims. There is panic in the village and the surrounding area, the official added, saying local people were fleeing the area towards the centre-north of the country. Another security source said that the attack had come as a reprisal after jihadists had told local people to leave the area a few days earlier. The security forces worked day and night to make the zone safe, but it is difficult to be everywhere at once, said the source. This latest attack comes a week after several similar attacks in the north of the country. On January 25, an attack killed 39 civilians in the village of Silgadji, in the neighbouring province of Soum, northwest of Seno. Cyril Josh Barker in Amsterdam News: On Feb. 3, 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified prohibiting the federal government and each state from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizens race, color, or previous condition of servitude giving Black men the right to vote across the nation. Just under a month later the first African American vote was cast in Perth Amboy, N.J. on March 31, 1870 by Thomas Mundy Peterson. Born in 1824 in Metuchen, N.J., Peterson was the son of ex-slave Lucy Green. Peterson worked as a janitor and handyman in Perth Amboy. After the Fifteenth Amendment was enacted, Peterson participated in Perth Amboys local election held at city hall over the citys charter. A member of the Republican and Prohibition Parties, he cast his ballot in favor of revising the existing charter, making him the first African American to vote in any election in the nation. Along with being the first Black person to vote in America, he was also the first Black person in Perth Amboy to serve on a jury. Peterson would go on to be one of seven people appointed to make amendments to the charters revisions he voted in favor of. In 1884, in honor of his history-making ballot, the Perth Amboy community raised the equivalent of $1,800 in modern dollars to buy Peterson a gold medallion featuring Abraham Lincolns profile. Presented by the citizens of Perth Amboy, N.J. to Thomas Peterson the first colored voter in the provisions of the 15th Amendment at an election held in that city March 31st 1870, the medallions inscription states. Peterson died in 1904 at the age of 79. The medallion Peterson received is housed at the historically Black Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans. In 2017, the university loaned the medallion to the City of Perth Amboy for a presentation at St. Peters Episcopal Church. During the 19th century, and even up to the present day, many communities have attempted to stop African Americans from voting. Perth Amboy is different, that is, we encouraged the right to vote, said local businessman and historian John Kerry Dyke. The Thomas Mundy Peterson medal is more than just an award. It represents the efforts of all good people that want to enfranchise Americas voters. It embodies the concept that all men are created equal. More here. (Note: Throughout February, at least one post will honor The Black History Month. This years theme is African Americans and the Vote. Readers are encouraged to send in their suggestions) Poland Signs $4.6-Billion Contract For U.S. Fighter Jets January 31, 2020 Poland signed a $4.6 billion deal with the United States on January 31 for the purchase of 32 of its advanced F-35 fighter jets to enhance air defense on NATO's eastern flank at a time of increased Russian military activity. Polish President Andrzej Duda said it was an "exceptionally important day for Poland's air force and for the security of Poland and of our part of Europe." Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak signed the deal and handed the document to the U.S. envoy to Poland, Georgette Mosbacher, during a ceremony in the central town of Deblin. Duda said it was among the biggest deals in the history of Poland's armed forces and a sign of the strength of relations with Washington. The U.S. State Department commended Poland's commitment to modernizing its military, saying the aircraft "will improve Poland's ability to provide collective and self-defense." Poland expects to take delivery of the F-35A Lightning II aircraft between 2024 and 2030. It will be the 10th NATO member nation to fly F-35 fighters. Poland's contract includes training, logistics, and simulators. Poland's air force already has around 50 U.S. F-16 fighter jets. Opposition politicians have criticized the purchase as too expensive and critics say the army is not able to make full use of the capabilities of the state-of-the-art aircraft. The opposition has also denounced the right-wing Law and Justice government for choosing the F-35 without a call for tenders. Last year, Poland finalized a deal to buy American mobile rocket launchers worth $414 million, while in 2018 it signed a $4.75-billion contract for a U.S.-made Patriot antimissile system. Based on reporting by AP and AFP Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/poland- signs-4-6-billion-contract-for-u-s- fighter-jets/30410592.html Copyright (c) 2020. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iggy Azalea has spoken out about an embarrassing moment she'll never forget. The Fancy hit-maker recalled she once tripped and fell while shopping at beauty store, Sephora. Iggy, 29, joked about the moment on Twitter, asking: 'Okay, but when was the last time you fell over In public?' Not so fancy! Iggy Azalea suffers embarrassing fall while shopping in public at Sephora The Australian rapper quickly Tweeted her embarrassing moment to start of the discussion among her fans. 'I once slipped over and took down a makeup display in Sephora,' she said. Iggy added: 'I drove past a store today and had flash backs.' Her fans found the confession hilarious, writing 'IGGY!!!! I'm dead', 'OMG lmao', and 'that's so embarrassing'. 'I took down a makeup display': Iggy said she still has ' flash backs' about the embarrassing shopping moment Outspoken: Iggy is known for being vocal on Twitter, and uses the platform for a way to speak with fans and hit back at trolls Iggy is known for being vocal on Twitter, and uses the platform for a way to speak with fans and hit back at trolls. Last month, she took aim at a Twitter user who claimed Australia wasn't America's problem and that Aussies like Iggy should 'do something to help' the bushfire crisis. Responding, the rapper said: 'I've raised over $100,000 already to help. And climate change is everyone's problem. You sound so ignorant.' 'You sound so ignorant!' Last month, Iggy took aim at a Twitter troll who claimed Australia's bushfire crisis wasn't America's problem and that Aussies like Iggy should 'do something' Iggy helped an Australian animal hospital raise money for koalas and other wildlife injured by the bushfires when she was in her native country late last year. Taking to Instagram, the blonde bombshell shared photos of herself cuddling up to a koala at the Currumbin Wildlife Hospital in Queensland. She urged fans in the caption to donate to bushfire relief efforts. Prime Minister Boris Johnson will on Monday outline a hardline stance in post-Brexit negotiations with the European Union, arguing Britain does not need to follow various EU rules to strike a trade deal. In a keynote speech detailing his vision for the country's future, days after its historic departure from the bloc following nearly half a century of membership, Johnson is to say he will seek a "pragmatic agreement". The British premier will note London has been told in earlier divorce talks with Brussels that it has the option of an ambitious trade deal, "which opens up markets and avoids the full panoply of EU regulation". "There is no need for a free trade agreement to involve accepting EU rules on competition policy, subsidies, social protection, the environment, or anything similar," Johnson is set to say, according to excerpts of the address released by his Downing Street office. "The UK will maintain the highest standards in these areas -- better, in many respects, than those of the EU -- without the compulsion of a treaty and it is vital to stress this now," he will add. Johnson also insists that if that type of agreement, similar to one the EU recently struck with Canada, is not possible then Britain would opt for a less comprehensive trade deal. "The choice is emphatically not 'deal or no-deal'," he will say. But in a sign of the potentially fraught nature of the high-stakes talks, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar urged London on Sunday to "tone down" what he called "nationalistic rhetoric". Britain should avoid repeating the past mistake of insisting on "rigid red lines" which "makes it hard to come to an agreement", he said. - 'Infuriated' - Late on Friday, Britain ended almost half a century of often reluctant membership of the European Union, an organisation set up to forge unity among nations after the horrors of World War II. Upon leaving, the UK immediately entered an 11-month transition period agreed as part of the divorce, during which there will be little change in practical terms. Britons will be able to work in the EU and trade freely -- and vice versa -- until December 31, although the UK will no longer be represented in the bloc's institutions. Legally however, Britain is out, and attention is now turning to what may prove to be gruelling talks with Brussels this year to hammer out all aspects of the future partnership. Johnson, a polarising figure accused of glossing over the complexity of leaving the EU, is in a rush to seal an agreement. He has vowed not to extend the transition phase, giving himself just 11 months to find consensus on everything from fishing to finance -- not enough time, according to his critics. EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier, who will set out the bloc's negotiating positions also in a speech in Brussels on Monday, has warned that some items will have to be a priority. He wants handshakes on fisheries, internal and external security and, above all, trade in goods. France reminded Britain on Sunday that the UK exports most of its fish production to European Union countries, highlighting a potential bargaining chip in coming post-Brexit talks about fishing rights that promise to be thorny. But the bloc is also said to fear being undercut on their own doorstep if Britain's does not commit to following its regulatory framework. - 'New era' - British newspapers reported Sunday that the government is readying for a bruising battle, and unwilling to offer many of the compromises set to be demanded by the EU. The eurosceptic Sunday Telegraph said Johnson was "privately infuriated" at perceived EU attempts "to frustrate a comprehensive free trade deal". Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab acknowledged there was "a bit of frustration" in London that "commitments" seen as already agreed in the initial Brexit divorce deal were not being "lived up to". London is also now free to strike trade agreements around the world, including with the United States, whose President Donald Trump is an enthusiastic Brexit supporter. One of his top envoys on Friday hailed an "exciting new era". At a special Brexit day ministers' meeting in northeast England, Johnson discussed an aim to get 80 percent of Britain's commerce covered by trade agreements within three years, a spokesman said. Raab said Sunday that he would embark on a tour of Asia and Australia next week, a trip encompassing Japan, Singapore and Malaysia. The Foreign Office declined to release further details. The Sunday Telegraph reported that a trade deal is earmarked to be agreed with Japan by Christmas, followed by more agreements with Australia and New Zealand in mid-2021. The Edwardsville Intelligencer is announcing the new expansion of our The I on Local initiative, which aims to shine a light on why our community matters, by launching the Spotlight Series. The goal of the Spotlight Series is for local organizations to have a direct discussion with our readers about what they are doing in the Intelligencer coverage area. Its an opportunity for organizations, councils, alliances and other community-oriented groups to provide knowledge to our readers by focusing on relevant topics and providing access to appropriate and needed services. One of the challenges these groups face is reaching a broad audience to share with the community what they do and how they are impacting our community. We wish to inform and educate our readers by being a catalyst for building strong connections and driving community development. As a truly-local initiative, The I on Local focuses on the citizens in our community who make our hometown a better place to work, live, shop and play now and in the future. To this end, the Intelligencer is announcing a new staff member, Mary Cox, to act as our community liaison. Mary lived in Edwardsville while completing her MBA at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and later taught at the college for six years. She retired from teaching at Lewis & Clark Community College in 2005. She is currently the film critic for the Alton Telegraph and WBGZ 1430/94.3 radio. Cox is excited about developing more relationships with our readers and in our community. Cox will reach out to schools, clubs, churches, non-profit organizations, and other community groups to submit news releases, news briefs, and provide editorials of topics of interest to our readers. Please feel free to contact Cox if you have something to share. She can be reached at mary.cox@edwpub.net or call our office: 618-656-4700. The groundhogs of Pennsylvania have presented us with conflicting prognostications. The more famous Punxsutawney Phil earlier today told the groundhog gathered on Gobblers Knob that he did not see his shadow, meaning we are headed for an early spring. Uni, who makes his annual forecast in Myerstown after a float down Tulpehocken Creek on a small barge, yesterday reported that a brief period of sunshine allowed him to see his shadow and we will be having six more weeks of winter. The Myerstown woodchuck, who delivers his prognostications in Pennsylvania Dutch, the original language of Groundhog Day, this year performed his legendary skill on Saturday because Groundhog Day fell on a Sunday. According to members of the Union Kanal Grundsau Lodsch No. 17 of Eastern Lebanon County, who help with Unis forecast, its not all bad news. Although winter is going to stick around, there wont be a lot of snow this year. And, there may be reason to give more weight to Phils forecast. While Uni has been in the weather business since 1981, a Phil has been forecasting since 1887. Groundhog Day started in 1886, although its roots go back even farther. It's an offshoot of Candlemas Day, an early Christian holiday that doubled as a weather prediction occasion. An old English rhyme goes "If Candlemas Day is clear and bright, Winter will have another bite. If Candlemas Day brings cloud and rain, Winter is gone and will not come again." In Germany, they would wake up a badger or hedgehog to see if he saw his shadow. When early Pennsylvania settlers came over, they took the idea and simply replaced the hedgehog with a groundhog. Flash forward to 1886, and the editor of The Punxsutawney Spirit newspaper gives it the official name "Groundhog Day." A year later and The Punxsutawney Groundhog Club was founded and the annual trek to Gobblers Knob began. With the creation of the club came the rise of Punxsutawney Phil and the groundhog was soon elevated to global celebrity status. Thanks for visiting PennLive. Quality local journalism has never been more important. We need your support. Not a subscriber yet? Please consider supporting our work. Contact Marcus Schneck at mschneck@pennlive.com. 19442020 John Langan Merchant was an adventurous, loving Renaissance man. A creative force with boundless energy and a wonderfully dry sense of humor, he had a generous spirit that touched all who knew him. His extraordinary life began on March 10, 1944 in Sacramento and ended on January 14, 2020 in San Francisco. In his 75 eventful years, Johns path included serving in the Vietnam War, where he earned a Purple Heart; becoming a husband, father and grandfather; and co-creating Indian Springs, one of the most iconic resorts in the Napa Valley. John, along with his three sisters, spent his formative years in Yakima, Washington. He made lifelong friends there and briefly joined the Jesuit seminary after high school. Becoming a Jesuit brother, however, was not in the cards, and seeking adventure, John joined the military. He served honorably as an intelligence officer in Vietnam before suffering severe injuries from a grenade explosion. In San Francisco, John recovered at Letterman Hospital before completing the remaining months of his service commitment. He then obtained a degree in biology at USF, with the hope of becoming a doctor. Pursuing this goal, he attended medical school in Liege, Belgium. Returning to San Francisco, John supported himself as an ambulance driver. It was during this time that a friend encouraged him to invest in real estate. Borrowing a small amount of money from his mother, he purchased his first property. From that point on, one of his ongoing passions was real estate investment. It was also in San Francisco that John met his future wife, Patricia, a kindred spirit (and a spirited match). Together, they created a rich, experiential life for their family. John loved being a father and raised his three children in his own eclectic way. Erin, Ryan and Danny were at the center of his life and a part of countless adventures, including round-the-world trips, living abroad in Spain and France, African safaris, and yearly scuba diving trips to Mexico. John was proud of each of them and reveled in their accomplishments and successes. In turn, how John lived his life to the fullest while providing for his family set a lasting, invaluable example for his children. John continued to grow his real estate investment business before discovering a gem in Calistoga. When an historic but somewhat distressed resort property came up for sale, he fearlessly purchased it. Over many years, Johns energy and vision helped transform the property into the Indian Springs of today. The resort was also an emotional investment for John; he never tired of seeing and hearing how much people enjoyed being there. In addition to his business acumen, John had a constant desire to create beauty around him. It was an important element in his business projects and a key interest personally. With a great appreciation of art, Johns adventures took him to many of the worlds major museums and galleries. Not content to be a passive consumer, John drew and painted after taking classes in Paris and the Bay Area. He championed local artists and collected a variety of artwork. John had a curious mind and a continual need to seek out new experiences and share them with family and friends. He dreamed big and his enthusiasm for life and ideas encouraged others to do the same. John believed strongly in the benefits of real estate investment, always encouraging others to try their hand at it. As many of his friends have said, it was one of Johns ongoing themes, and he frequently handed out books on the subject to friends and strangers alike. Motivated by a desire to lift others up, he generously offered a helping hand whenever needed. With his zest for life, John was the focal point of many indelible memories and amusing stories. He could rap on nearly any subjectand did so often. He explored local farmers markets, the flea markets of Paris, and much of New York City with equal enthusiasm. An independent thinker, John read constantly on a wide range of topics. He savored a good steak or a plateau de fruits de mer, as well as the occasional after-dinner cigar. John valued his diverse, extensive circle of friends, many of whom he had known for decades. Although he enjoyed a crowd, he loved having one-on-one conversations, always deeply interested in other peoples lives. John leaves his beloved wife and partner, Pat Merchant, his daughter and son-in-law, Erin and Tom Furtney, his son Ryan Merchant, and his son and daughter-in-law, Danny and Jackie Merchant. He also leaves his adored grandchildren: Fiona, Ford, Audrey and John Ryan Furtney, and Oliver Merchant. John leaves his sister, Judy Neid, her family, and the families of his two other sisters, Mary and Peggy. Johns family has been touched by the many heartfelt messages they have received and would like to thank everyone who has reached out to them. A celebration of Johns life is planned for February 15 at 1:00 p.m. at Indian Springs, Calistoga. Assisted by Montes Chapel of the Hills, San Anselmo, CA. Joint Commissioner of Police Naveen Arora said Bachchan's cousin, Aditya Srivastava, was also injured in the incident Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh unit chief of Antarrashtriya Hindu Mahasabha Ranjeet Bachchan was shot dead in Lucknow on Sunday by unidentified assailants when he was out on a morning walk, police said. Joint Commissioner of Police Naveen Arora said Bachchan's cousin, Aditya Srivastava, was also injured in the incident and their mobile phones were snatched by the attackers, one of whom fired on them. The officer said while the 40-year-old Bachchan died on the spot after being hit by a bullet, Srivastava has received bullet injuries on his left hand. "On Sunday morning, Aditya Srivastava informed the police that he along with his cousin had gone on a morning walk. They were coming from OCR building (Burlington Crossing) and were going towards the Parivartan Chowk in the city when a person, who had a shawl wrapped over himself, stopped them, snatched their mobile phones, and fired," Arora said. He said as per initial information, Bachchan and his wife Kalindi Sharma were not in a cordial relationship and a case in this regard was registered in Gorakhpur. "This angle is also being looked into," he said. He said the deceased was also associated with the Samajwadi Party previously and took part in cycle rallies of the party between 2002 and 2009. "As per his wife, the deceased later founded an organisation called Vishwa Hindu Mahasabha and became its national president," Arora said. Arora said the police are also examining CCTV footage from the area and checking the background of the people whom Bachchan had any dispute with. "As many as eight teams of the crime branch are working to solve the case," he said. Despite a man in Boston testing positive for the coronavirus, health officials in Connecticut say the risk of residents contracting the virus remains low. Av Harris, director of communications and government relations for the Connecticut Department of Public Health, said state officials are monitoring the situation very closely. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health and the Boston Public Health Commission announced that both agencies received notification from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the positive test results late Friday evening, the DPH said in a Saturday news release. A Boston man, who is in his 20s, recently traveled to Wuhan, China ground zero for the virus. He sought medical care soon after he returned to Massachusetts, officials said. Despite the positive test in Massachusetts, the DPH said the risk to the public from the coronavirus remains low there. Massachusetts Department of Public Health in its statement to media on this today reiterated that the risk to its residents of contracting coronavirus is still low, Harris said Saturday night, adding that the same holds true for Connecticut. Thousands of confirmed human infections of coronavirus have been reported in more than 20 counties. More than 99 percent of the cases have been recorded in China. The unidentified man has been isolated since he sought medical care and will remain in isolation until public health officials clear him. The DPH said his few close contacts have been identified and are being monitored for any signs of symptoms. We are grateful that this young man is recovering and sought medical attention immediately, said Massachusetts Public Health Commissioner Monica Bharel. Massachusetts has been preparing for a possible case of this new coronavirus, and we were fortunate that astute clinicians took appropriate action quickly. Again, the risk to the public from the 2019 novel coronavirus remains low in Massachusetts. This man marked the eighth case of infection with coronavirus in the United States. Three of those cases were in California residents, two in Illinois and one each in Massachusetts, Washington and Arizona. Around 4 p.m. Saturday, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene announced that an individual in New York City is being tested for the coronavirus. This means they had recently traveled from China and presented with fever and cough or shortness of breath without another common cause, like influenza and other cold viruses, identified on testing, the agency said. The individual in New York City, who officials said is less than 40-years-old, is hospitalized at Bellevue Hospital Center in stable condition. Officials said testing to determine if the individual has the coronavirus will take a minimum of 36 to 48 hours and depends on CDC testing capacity. Boston Public Health Commission Exective Director Rita Nieves said residents can continue to go about their daily routine without any interruption after the positive test of the man. More Information Symptoms of coronavirus may include Runny nose Headache Cough Sore throat Fever A general feeling of being unwell See More Collapse Right now, we are not asking Boston residents to do anything differently, Nieves said. The risk to the general public remains low. And we continue to be confident we are in a good position to respond to this developing situation. The DPH and BPHC will continue to work closely with the CDC, officials said. More than 11,900 people have been infected from the coronavirus across the globe. The virus rapid spread over the past month prompted the World Health Organization to declare on Thursday that the outbreak is a public health emergency of international concern. That same day, the CDC reported the first case of person-to-person transmission of the coronavirus between household members in Illinois. U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar on Friday declared the 2019 novel coronavirus a public health emergency. Azar ordered any U.S. citizens returning from the center of the outbreak in Chine to be quarantined for two weeks as a precaution. In Connecticut, there are no confirmed cases of any resident testing positive for the coronavirus. A high school student from China who participated in the Yale Model United Nations conference on the New Haven campus last week was put in isolation pending a diagnosis on whether the youth had the coronavirus. The student tested negative. A Wesleyan University student was also monitored for coronavirus and was briefly in isolation until test results from Monday confirmed the student did not contract the virus. Dr. Matthew Cartter, state epidemiologist with the Connecticut state health department, said earlier this week that the state has started to see a stigmatization of people from China. He said this also happened in 2003 during the epidemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome, which also started in China. In Bridgeport, officials say the citys Office of Emergency Management and Department of Public Health are keeping a close eye on the coronavirus outbreak. Scott Appleby, director of emergency management and homeland security for Bridgeport, said all teams that staff the citys Emergency Operation Center are aware of the outbreak and the various cases throughout the United States. At this time the risk is very low for our residents as there has been no confirmed cases within Connecticut, Appleby said Saturday night. However, we do urge all residents to get familiar with the facts regarding the virus and practice healthy habits such as, for example, covering your cough, stay home or seeking medical assistance if you are experiencing a high fever, washing your hands regularly and disinfecting areas regularly to minimize germ spread. Andrea Boissevain, Stratfords director of health, said Saturday night that the towns Health Department as well as those across the state participate in CDC and DPH conference calls several times a week to stay abreast of the outbreak. We will work side-by-side with our partners at DPH should we have to follow any potential person under investigation identified in our area, Boissevain said. We are still operating under the assumption that the risk is low in our area, but we are prepared to spring into action should that change. Boissevain said for now, most officials in Connecticut are focused on reiterating the tips Appleby shared, adding that this is exactly the type of advice we publicize during flu season, which we are in the thick of right now. For more information on the coronavirus, visit the CDC website. Nguyen Van Phi (L) and his wife wear face masks and stay indoors all day as Wuhan is locked down amid the new coronavirus outbreak. Photo by Nguyen Van Phi. Vietnamese students are asking their country to follow suit as many foreigners are evacuated from Wuhan, the epicenter of deadly new coronavirus outbreak. Nguyen Van Phi, 27, a student of the Wuhan University, is besides himself with anxiety. His wife is eight months pregnant and they are trapped in Wuhan City of Hubei Province, which has been locked down for the past two weeks after the new coronavirus epidemic broke out from there. Phi said this year he and his wife decided not to return to Vietnam for Tet, or Lunar New Year, because the holiday was too short, he had an overloaded study schedule and his wife was about to give birth. However, with no immediate sign of the coronavirus epidemic under control anytime soon and the WHO declaring it a global emergency, his anxiety has peaked. The Chinese city of 11 million people has turned into a ghost town as it is cut off from the outside world. "I'm very worried because my wife is about to give birth, but all hospitals in Wuhan are overburdened and flooded with people suspected of being infected with new coronavirus," Phi said. "When healthy people themselves are at high risk of infection, pregnant women are far more vulnerable. If my wife has to deliver our baby here, I don't know what can happen," said Phi, expressing his ardent wish that the Vietnamese embassy in China and the Vietnamese government take urgent measures to evacuate them. The U.S., the U.K., Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and European countries have begun implementing their evacuation plans after cooperating with local authorities to complete repatriation procedures. Phi is one of many Vietnamese students stuck in Wuhan who want the Vietnamese government to evacuate them. Pham The Cuong, 33, a student with the Huazhong Agricultural University, said some foreign students in his school have been evacuated from Wuhan, leaving behind a few Pakistani students and him in their dormitories. "Health workers have come to my dormitory to spray disinfectant continuously. I am worried and living in fear. Every day, I receive hundreds of phone calls and messages from my family. I wish I could go home, too," he said. According to the latest report from the Vietnamese Embassy in China, there are 207 Vietnamese students staying with their families in China to celebrate Tet. Besides Wuhan, many Vietnamese students living in other provinces of China also wish to return to Vietnam. The embassy has been updating the number of people wishing to fly home so that supportive measures can be taken. Vietnamese students in Wuhan have nothing to do but wait, stressed out. Most shops and restaurants in Wuhan are closed and nearly all private cars have been banned. All flights to and from Wuhan have been canceled and the trains have stopped operating. Public transportation across the city has been temporarily suspended, forcing residents to stay indoors and follow the latest government guidelines. By PTI KOLKATA: The West Bengal Health Department on Sunday traced eight passengers who had travelled in the same flight as that of the coronavirus-affected Kerala resident and landed at the airport here on January 23, a senior official said. These passengers were seated in the two rows in front and behind the Kerala resident's seat, he said. While two passengers, who had landed at the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport on January 23, were identified as residents of Asansol and Odisha, details of the other six were also traced on Sunday, West Bengal Director of Health Services Ajay Kumar Chakraborty said. ALSO READ | Coronavirus outbreak: India's second positive case reported in Kerala's Alappuzha Three passengers of that flight, who were sitting either in the front or the back four seats of the coronavirus affected-Kerala man, were identified as Chinese nationals, he said. One of the passengers was from New Delhi, while two others were from West Bengal, he added. "All eight persons have been identified. The three Chinese have returned to their country and the Delhi resident has also gone back home," Chakraborty told PTI. The two from West Bengal have been advised to follow instructions of the state health department, another official said. "Blood specimens have been collected and sent for tests and they (passengers) have been sent to stay in isolation in their respective homes. We are in touch with them," he said. The first confirmed case of coronavirus was reported from Kerala on January 30 when a student studying in Wuhan University returned home. The student, who had returned to Kerala from Wuhan via Kolkata, went to the Thrissur General Hospital with possible symptoms of novel coronavirus and was quickly quarantined. A second case was reported from Kerala on Sunday as a person with a travel history to China tested positive for coronavirus. Furious anti-government youth dug in their heels in Iraq's capital and south on Sunday, rejecting the previous evening's nomination of Mohammad Allawi as premier after months of demonstrations and political paralysis. Allawi was named prime minister-designate after a hard-won consensus among Iraq's rival parties, who had struggled to agree on a candidate since outgoing premier Adel Abdel Mahdi resigned under growing street pressure two months ago. Mass rallies have rocked Baghdad and the mainly-Shiite south since October, with protesters demanding snap elections and an independent prime minister as well as accountability for corruption and recent bloodshed. Young demonstrators have expressed contempt for the ruling elite and on Sunday, they slammed Allawi -- a former lawmaker and minister -- as part and parcel of the system they want to overhaul. "Mohammad Allawi is rejected, by order of the people!" read a new sign hung in the holy city of Najaf on Sunday. Young men with their faces wrapped in checkered scarves had spent the night torching car tyres in anger at Allawi's nomination and smouldering remains still blocked the main roads on Sunday, an AFP reporter there said. In Diwaniyah, further south, protesters marched into government buildings to demand they close for the day while students began sit-ins at schools and universities. Protesters in Hillah blocked off all roads leading into the city and chanted, "Allawi is not the people's choice!" Students revolt in Baghdad In Baghdad, hundreds of students flooded the streets around the main protest camp of Tahrir Square, carrying Allawi's photograph with an "X" over his face. "We are here to reject the new prime minister because he has a well-known history within the political class," said 22-year-old university student Tiba. Allawi, 65, served as a parliamentarian immediately after the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled ex-dictator Saddam Hussein, then was twice appointed communications minister under former prime minister Nuri al-Maliki. But he resigned both times, accusing Maliki of turning a blind eye to graft in a country considered among the top 20 most corrupt in the world by Transparency International. His appointment came after days of crisis talks prompted by President Barham Saleh, who said he would select his own candidate if the political blocs of Iraq's parliament did not nominate someone by Saturday. Allawi had been among the top contenders for the post, but the stalemate continued into the late afternoon, Iraqi government sources told AFP on condition of anonymity. The talks were very secretive and it remains unclear what finally unlocked a deal, but on Saturday evening, Allawi announced his own nomination in a video posted to Twitter. There was no official statement from Saleh, but Abdel Mahdi congratulated his successor and the pair pledged to meet soon to ensure a smooth transition. Sadr seeks to curb rallies In his first formal address, Allawi vowed to form a representative government, hold early parliamentary elections and ensure justice for protest-related violence. More than 480 people have died and nearly 30,000 have been wounded since the rallies began on October 1, but few have been held accountable for the bloodshed. Allawi has one month to form his government, but ensuring its independence may prove a challenge, said Sajad Jiyad of the Iraq-based think tank the Bayan Center. "If we've learned anything from the previous PM, it's that this is the most difficult part: pushing back against the political blocs' demands," Jiyad told AFP. In Iraq, cabinets are typically formed after complex horsetrading whereby parties demand lucrative and influential ministerial posts based on their share of parliament. If Allawi fails to resist ministerial candidates proposed by parties, "it will back up what protesters are saying" about his allegiance to the factions, Jiyad added. Among the most powerful of Iraq's political players is populist cleric Moqtada Sadr, who welcomed Allawi's nomination on Saturday as a "good step". Sadr backed the protests in October and his die-hard followers are widely recognised as the most organised and well-equipped among anti-government demonstrators. But on Sunday, Sadr ordered members of his movement to organise with security forces to reopen roads and schools, contrary to what other protesters across Iraq were doing. "The revolution must go back to being restrained and peaceful," Sadr wrote on Twitter. That tweet and his endorsement of Allawi were seen as a betrayal by other protesters in Baghdad, who chanted "Don't tweet however you please," hinting at Sadr, and "We are a young, leaderless revolution!" Search Keywords: Short link: Park West Dental Care Innovative dental care in Idaho Falls, Idaho servicing two locations. Park West Dental Care is excited to announce that there will now be two locations to better serve our patients in the Idaho Falls area. Dr. Jacobson and Dr. Drake purchased Premier Dental Care located on Channing Way and have made the decision to unify these two great dental offices under the same name. Park West Dental Care, recently voted the 2020 Best Dentists Offices of Idaho Falls, offers new and innovative technologies in dental care. In the coming days, you will notice the Premier Dental Care brand/logo change and eventually the Premier Dental Care's social media pages will be shut down. In order to keep in touch with us, so that patients can continue to receive dental tips, information and participate in our giveaways, please go to our Park West Dental Care Facebook page and hit the like button. https://www.facebook.com/parkwestdentalcare/. The superior service and attention our patients at Premier Dental Care have come to rely on will not change. Rather, we expect that the service will even improve and the amenities will increase! In the very near future, patients of Park West Dental Care (and previously Premier Dental Care) can expect to find many new technological amenities at their fingertips, such as online booking of appointments at your convenience. You will be able to book appointments, pay bills, and better understand your treatment online! The doctors at Park West Dental Care are the owners of the practices and live here in Idaho Falls with their families. This should matter to the people of Idaho Falls because many dental practices are being bought up by big, national conglomerates who do not understand the needs of Idaho Falls residents. Park West Dental Care offers a variety of financing options that help you keep your health and you money. From an in-house dental plan that replaces insurance for many people, to easy monthly payments for crowns or fillings, Park West Dental Care is making every effort to remain the leader in Family, Cosmetic and Implant dental care. From cleanings to veneers to replacement teeth, Park West Dental care is the Premier choice for your all your dental care needs. Park West Dental Care has several motto's that everyone tries to live up too. "Perfect is the only Acceptable" is commonly heard in the office along with "We love to say Yes!" and "Our mission is to make life better for you." Park West Dental Care welcomes new patients every day at both the Pancheri Dr. and Channing way locations and invites you to come in for a No Charge consultation to find out how the doctors and staff can help you look and feel your best. Visit their website and social media sites to become a member of the Park West Dental Care family today. http://www.parkwestdentalcare.com Several political parties and Muslim organisations participated in a tricolour march in Coimbatore on Sunday against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), Register of Citizens (NRC) and Population Register (NPR). The political parties that participated in the march include DMK, Congress, TPDK, VCK, and several Muslim organisations. A large number of people including children took part in the march and protestors raised slogans against CAA, NRC and NPR while holding the posters in their hands. Earlier on Friday, several people including Muslim women and students staged a protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in Tamil Nadu's Madurai. Since December last year, demonstrations have been going on against the amended citizenship law in various parts of the country. The CAA grants citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis, Buddhists and Christians fleeing religious persecution from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh and who came to India on or before December 31, 2014. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Sunday hailed the Modi government for reaching out to Indians in trouble anywhere in the world as he cited the effort to evacuate more than 600 Indians from the coronavirus-hit Chinese city of Wuhan. Jaishankar also said that he joined politics as he saw a government for which reform and change means nutrition, mother's health, girl's education, middle-class services and reaching out to the last man in the queue. Speaking at an event of the Tamil Association here, he said earlier the approach was to push problems as nobody was willing to take difficult decisions. In this context, Jaishankar highlighted the abrogation of Article 370 and bringing in the amended citizenship act. "Everybody knows Article 370 was a 70-year problem. It was a temporary provision of the Constitution. For 70 years this provision continued as temporary," he said lauding the government for doing away with it. "From Gandhi ji to all our leaders have said we have to do something about" persecuted minorities from neighbouring countries, the Union minister said. "... Where will these minorities go, but our habit has been somebody will deal with it and while there is a problem let us push it down," Jaishankar said. "So today you have a caring government , a government with courage which will take decisions," he said. Talking about the reasons for his joining the government, he also said that under this government, a system was developed by which any Indian in trouble, anywhere in the world, could be looked after. "We are there for them. People today when they go out, they go out with more confidence that if something will happen, their government will be there to back them," he said. For example, many Indian students were there in the Chinese city of Wuhan and the government has worked really hard and brought back the second batch of students on Sunday, he added. On Sunday, 323 more Indians and seven Maldivians were brought back by air from the Chinese city, epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak, taking the number of evacuees to 654. "Today this feeling is there: (They are) our people, (and) our responsibility. We will take care of our people," Jaishankar said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) As campaigning for the Delhi Assembly election 2020 heats up, a massive rally has been scheduled in New Delhi's Burari constituency to campaign for JDU's candidate Shailendra Kumar. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will contest this year's assembly poll in alliance with the Nitish Kumar's JD(U) who is contesting from two seats. The rally to be held on February 2 will see Union Home Minister Amit Shah and party chief JP Nadda sharing the stage with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar together for the first time. Nitish's first rally will be held at Burari at around 12 noon where he shares the election podium with Amit Shah and together they will appeal address the public for JDU candidate. Nitish's second rally will be held at Sangam Vihar at 3 pm where he will be accompanied by JP Nadda. BJP, who had won only three of the 70 seats in the 2015 assembly election, is going in all guns blazing as it launches massive rallies with top leaders of the saffron party in attendance. Live TV On Saturday, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and BJP national president JP Nadda addressed two public rallies in Delhi while Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath also campaigned in the national capital and held four rallies. While Delhi Chief Minister and AAP national convenor Arvind Kejriwal held roadshows at Najafgarh and Bijwasan on Saturday (February 1) to campaign for the Delhi Assembly election 2020. Paul Makonda, politician and regional commissioner of Dar es Salaam, Tanzanias capital, who launched a crackdown on homosexuality in 2018 has been banned by the United States. According to Mike Pompeo, US Secretary of State, in a statement issued on Friday, the ban also affects members of his family. Makonda was acused by the US of being involved in gross violations of human rights, which include flagrant denial of the right to life, liberty, or the security of persons. The United States remains deeply concerned over deteriorating respect for human rights and rule of law in Tanzania, the statement read. Read Also: Brazilian Court Orders Netflix To Take DownGay Jesus Film This includes actions taken by the government that curtail freedom of expression, freedom of association, and right of peaceful assembly; target marginalized people and the political opposition, and jeopardize life. Section 7031(c) provides that, in cases where the Secretary of State has credible information that foreign officials have been involved in significant corruption or a gross violation of human rights, those individuals and their immediate family members are ineligible for entry into the United States. The law also requires the Secretary of State to publicly or privately designate such officials and their immediate family members. In addition to the public designation of Paul Christian Makonda, the Department is also publicly designating his spouse, Mary Felix Massenge. These actions against Paul Christian Makonda underscore our concern with human rights violations and abuses in Tanzania, as well as our support for accountability for those who engage in such violations and abuses. We call on the Tanzanian government to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the freedom of expression, association, and the right of peaceful assembly. Today we designated Dar es Salaam Regional Commissioner Paul Christian Makonda as ineligible to enter the U.S. for his involvement in gross violations of #humanrights. We are deeply concerned over deteriorating respect for human rights and rule of law in #Tanzania, Secretary Pompeo said. Meanwhile, Makonda had said he knew he would come under fire when he launched the anti-gay movement in 2015, explaining he would, however, forge ahead, claiming the act angers God. Others countries affected by the ban include Nigeria, Eritrea, Sudan, Kyrgyzstan, and Myanmar. To the Editor: Re The Known Unknown, by Shoshana Zuboff (Sunday Review, Jan. 26): Ms. Zuboff warns of the dangers of surveillance capitalism. Her solution is for the government to pass new laws limiting the ability of surveillance capitalists to use the data they collect. In a perfect world, this would be a reasonable response. In the real world, with our current government, this has pretty much zero chance of success. Heres another idea: Delete your Facebook account. Use a search engine other than Google, and dont use Gmail. Dont buy anything on Amazon. Dont use Microsoft products. Dont allow Alexa or any other listening device into your home. Dont install anything to make your home smart. And use your smartphone with a little discretion and thoughtfulness. These are things each and every one of us can do. There are alternatives to all of the products and services provided by the dominant surveillance capitalists. If we as citizens are truly concerned about our loss of privacy and individual agency, its time to take a little personal responsibility for our digital lives. Greg Rapp Boulder, Colo. To the Editor: Re Total Surveillance Is Not What America Signed Up For (The Privacy Project, editorial, Jan. 26): You say, Americans deserve the freedom to choose a life without surveillance. Quite so. Annastacia Palaszczuk has urged Queenslanders to unite behind the state's Chinese community, amid discrimination stemming from fears over coronavirus. The Premier told the community not to be afraid, as health officials worked to contain the spread of the virus. Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has urged Queenslanders to "show respect and treat everybody equally", as some in the Chinese community have experienced harassment. Credit:AAP "It is very important that people do not discriminate against our Chinese community," Ms Palaszczuk said. "They are so involved, they contribute so much to our community, and all of the communities are absolutely doing the right thing, especially families returning from China. An eyeshadow by make-up brand MUA has been found to contain asbestos. Testing conducted for the new BBC Three series Beauty Laid Bare found traces of the lethal chemical in the company's Silent Disco palette, which was discontinued last year. During the programme, four twenty-somethings with different attitudes towards cosmetics spend two weeks in America investigating the secrets of the multi-billion dollar beauty industry. The tests were conducted by Sean Fitzgerald, director of research and legal services at the Scientific Analytical Institute (SAI) - a private laboratory based in the US and an expert in asbestos contamination based in North Carolina. In a statement to Mailonline, MUA said they refuted the allegations and that other tests they had commissioned had found no trace of asbestos. In a programme airing tonight on BBC 3, Sean Fitzgerald, pictured, the director of research and legal services at the Scientific Analytical Institute (SAI) - conducted test on several talc-based beauty product to determine whether they contained traces of asbestos Testing conducted for the new BBC Three series Beauty Laid Bare found traces of the lethal chemical in MUA's Silent Disco palette, which was discontinued last year Contributor Queenie (pictured), who had selected the palette to be tested could not believe it contained traces of asbestos Contributors from the programme, including Queenie, provided Sean with talc-based products that they used for testing, in order to check whether there were any signs of asbestos contamination. The products were ordered directly from the store's website before being sent on to SAI to ensure there was no chance of contamination in transit. After testing, Sean discovered asbestos in three wells contained in the 'Silent Disco' eye shadow palette. Sean explained that cosmetic companies generally rely on their talc suppliers to certify that their talc and talc mine is asbestos free. Chloe, from Belfast (pictured), cannot believe that asbestos is present in the product the contributors presented to Sean A graphic shows the particles of asbestos found on the palette. Many beauty products use talc as a base, from eye-shadows to powder and foundations There is currently no regulation in the US or EU that requires the final, talc-based product to be certified asbestos free, other than relying on the certification from the talc supplier. 'None of them are being tested, we have no gatekeeper,' said Sean. Queenie, who admitted she was on the fence about using makeup even before the experiment, said she now felt more encouraged to 'disengage' with these products. 'I think it's deplorable that the method they're using is still too insensitive,' Sean added. Geologically, asbestos and talc can form naturally alongside each other. In recent years, there have been substantiated claims that some talc-based products manufactured by companies including Claire's Accessories and Johnson & Johnson have been contaminated by asbestos. Claire's switched to talc-free manufacturing in 2018, and Johnson & Johnson says its products are safe to use and do not contain asbestos. Pictured from left to right, contributors Chloe, Queenie, Resh and Casey are floored by the test results During Beauty Laid Bare, four twenty-somethings with different attitudes towards cosmetics spend two weeks in America investigating the secrets of the multi-billion dollar beauty industry. Pictured: Chloe, a make-up artist and influencer from Belfast Asbestos is a potential carcinogen, and some experts believe asbestos-contaminated talc is capable of causing cancers of the lung, mesothelium and ovaries. According to the World Health Organisation, there is no 'safe' lower threshold for asbestos in products; however the risk to health from low quantities is not clear. On February 4, 2020, the US Food and Drug Administration will hold a public meeting on testing methods for asbestos in talc and cosmetic products containing talc. A spokesperson for MUA told Mailonline: 'The product mentioned in the programme was discontinued months ago and we strongly refute the allegations. 'We commissioned new independent testing of this exact batch of product from the worlds leading authority in cosmetics testing, which conclusively show no signs of contamination. 'We understand customers may be concerned about talc which is why weve already reformulated our range which is now 99 percent talc-free and will be 100 percent free of talc by May 2020. The documentary also lifts the lid on how the 'ethical' beauty product candelilla wax is produced in some countries, as Resham Khan (pictured) travels to a farm in Mexico Acid attack survivor Resham Khan, from Manchester, was left horrified after visiting a farm in Mexico which produces an 'ethical' beauty product ingredient where workers handle dangerous chemicals without any protection The plant-based ingredient, used in many cosmetics including lip balm, is often marketed as a vegan and an ethical alternative to beeswax 'MUA will join a growing number of brands who have made this commitment. The documentary also lifts the lid on how the 'ethical' beauty product candelilla wax is produced in some countries. The plant-based ingredient, used in many cosmetics including lip balm, is often marketed as a vegan and ethical alternative to beeswax. In episode two, acid attack survivor Resham Khan, from Manchester, is left horrified after visiting a farm in Mexico where workers handle dangerous chemicals without any protection. She suffered devastating face and neck injuries after she and her cousin Jameel Muhktar were doused with corrosive liquid on her 21st birthday in June 2017 in Beckton, east London. Resham is shocked to hear the farmers who cut down the plant - an arduous and time-consuming task - are paid just $15 for producing three bunches of crop. They're then appalled to see the minimum wage workers producing the wax by handling sulphuric acid with no safety equipment, in a dirty, uncontrolled environment. Beauty Laid Bare is available on BBC Three from Sunday 2 February. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, February 2) President Rodrigo Duterte has expanded the coverage of the temporary travel ban amid the threat of the 2019 novel coronavirus or 2019-nCoV to now include foreign travellers to and from mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau. The wider travel ban, announced Sunday initially by Sen. Christopher "Bong" Go, came just two days after the President ordered to temporarily ban the entry of visitors from China's Hubei province where Wuhan, the epicenter of the novel coronavirus outbreak, is located. Go said Duterte accepted the recommendation of the Department of Health (DOH) along with the members of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases. Subsequently on Sunday morning, Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea announced in a statement that the temporary ban now covers the following: - The entry of any person, regardless of nationality, except Filipino citizens and foreigners holding permanent resident visas issued by the Philippine government, directly coming from China and its special administrative regions (SARs) Hong Kong and Macau - The entry of any person, regardless of nationality, except Filipino citizens and holders of permanent resident visa issued by the Philippine government, who within 14 days immediately preceding arrival in the Philippines, has been to China and its SARs - Temporary ban on Filipinos from travelling to China and its SARs Airport authorities said Sunday afternoon that foreigners who have traveled from China will be sent back to Hong Kong if they arrive before Monday midnight. Authorities, however, are leaving airline companies to deal with this. "It all depends to the airlines. I think kung may available flight, same flight na ginamit nila nung pumunta sila dito, 'yun din ang gagamitin [para ibalik sila sa Hong Kong,]" Airline Operators Council chairman Allan Nepomuceno said. [Translation: I think if there is an available flight, the same flight that sent them here would be used to send them back to Hong Kong.] Flights to and from China and its SARs to the Philippines will continue, airport authorities said, but only Filipinos would be allowed to land in the country. Filipinos, meanwhile, will be barred from boarding planes heading to China and its SARs. Cebu Pacific and AirAsia have cancelled flights between Manila and mainland China. Cebu Pacific is cancelling flights between the country and Hong Kong and Macau from February 2 until February 29. All other flights to and from mainland China (Beijing, Shanghai, Xiamen, Guangzhou, Shenzen) remain cancelled until March 29, 2020. AirAsia, meanwhile, is cancelling all flights between mainland China and its SARs, and the Philippines "until further notice." These include flights between Manila, Kalibo, and Cebu, and Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Macau. Philippine Airlines also issued an advisory saying it was cancelling all flights between Manila and Beijing, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Xiamen, Quanzhou, and Macau until February 29. The infectious diseases task force also recommended the establishment of a repatriation and quarantine facility and a mandatory 14-day quarantine for Filipinos and permanent resident visa holders coming from any place in China and its SARs. Manila International Airport Authority General Manager Ed Monreal, however, said Filipinos coming back to the country from China and its SARs would only have to be quarantined in their homes, where they would keep in touch with an epidemiologist who would check in with them through calls twice a day. "Taking into consideration the concerns raised by key government officials and health experts, the President made an informed decision and has agreed to adopt this recommendation and implement it immediately as additional precautionary measure to protect Filipinos and everyone in the Philippines," said Go, who also echoed the proposal. The senator clarified that they are not "singling out" Chinese nationals amid this recommendation. "I wish to emphasize that we are not singling out Chinese nationals. This order covers all travelers from China to the Philippines, regardless of nationality. We emphatize with China given what they are going through but we are doing this to protect the country and its people," Go said. Over the past week, some groups called on the public to refrain from being discriminatory, especially against the Chinese nationals following news of the virus. Philippines reports first nCoV death On the same day, the Philippines has also reported the first death of a patient who tested for novel coronavirus, bringing to two the total number of confirmed cases in the country. The DOH said the patient was the partner of the 38-year-old female Chinese national who was first confirmed in the country to have acquired the virus, after arriving from Wuhan last January 21. "Our persons under investigation have not been increasing rapidly. And I think, with the ban now of the President, it will be a lot easier for us kasi kakaunti na po ang babantayan nating papasok ng Pilipinas (because fewer individuals entering the Philippines will be monitored)," Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said. As of this morning, a total of 305 people had died from coronavirus in mainland China, according to the country's National Health Commission. The total number of confirmed cases worldwide has increased to 14,380, a CNN International report says. At least 36 patients who showed symptoms were under observation as of Sunday. Government efforts so far Airports and seaports across the country are still checking temperatures of travelers. All entry and exit points to the Subic Seaport have checkpoints where all foreigners are required to get their temperatures checked, while random checks on Filipinos are conducted. "While we already have a ban on travelers of nationals who are coming in from China, as instructed by the President, I think this is really more of a precautionary measure for all of us," Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) Wilma Eisma told CNN Philippines. Eisma said SBMA officials will report people who have fever to the nearest hospital, the Bureau of Quarantine or the Regional Epidemiological Surveillance Unit. Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said the DOH is already eyeing the naval station at Caballo Island, off Cavite province, and the drug rehabilitation center at Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija as a potential quarantine area for returning overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) from Wuhan. The Department of Tourism, on the other hand, said that it has already released to tourism establishments guidelines in handling guests against the nCOV. The Office of the President said Duterte on Monday will be presiding over the next meeting of the Task Force, including other concerned agencies. Someone smoking is being given as the cause of a residential fire that damaged a garage and two cars in Concord, the Contra Costa County Fire Protection District said. Crews responded just before 9:30 p.m. to 2626 Richard Ave., where they found the garage fully involved, along with two cars in the driveway. A high voltage wire that had come down complicated getting access, but the fire was extinguished in less than 20 minutes, officials said. The Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office is investigating a shooting incident involving a deputy that occurred Friday night in unincorporated Morgan Hill. On Friday at 10:32 p.m., an unknown vehicle approached a deputy on Uvas Road, and as the vehicle got closer to the deputy, the lights were turned off and someone inside the vehicle fired multiple shots at the deputy. The deputy returned fire as the vehicle fled the scene. It is not known if the return fire hit the suspect or suspects, according to the sheriff's office. The deputy suffered an injury that was not life threatening and was medically treated. The nature of the deputy's injury was not released. The sheriff's office is searching for the suspect or suspects involved in the incident. A man died and a dog was injured in a fire early Saturday at a large condominium complex in Walnut Creek, fire officials said. The two-alarm blaze was reported about 5:30 a.m. at a third-level unit of The Keys condominiums, 410 N. Civic Drive, according to the Contra Costa County Fire Protection District. The unit that burned was the only one damaged in the fire, Fire Capt. George Laing said. Residents in nearby condos were evacuated, but returned to their homes after the blaze was extinguished. The victim's name has not been released. The fire was contained shortly after 6 a.m. A cause has not been determined and the blaze is under investigation, Laing said. Fifty remaining homeless campers from the 250 who were camping along two miles of the Joe Rodota Trail in a Sonoma County Regional Park in Santa Rosa were gathering their belongings in compliance with a final deadline to leave Friday. Some left in loaded pickup trucks, 12 were going to a temporary emergency camp in east Santa Rosa that accommodates 60 people in mostly 64-square-foot structures, others were planning to go to the Sam Jones homeless shelter or the Redwood Gospel Mission in Santa Rosa. Some said they didn't know where they were bound. The county declared a health emergency in December along the trail containing makeshift tarp tents and simple wood structures because of unsafe and unsanitary conditions including human waste, discarded needles, fire hazards and a rat infestation. Neighbors living along the trail demanded action during meetings of Board of Supervisors and the Santa Rosa City Council. Employees of several Sonoma County departments and agencies were on hand Friday to access the health and human service needs of the campers, provide transportation and direct the campers to housing options. Then cleaning of the trail was to start immediately and finished by March. Sonoma County Regional Parks rangers and Santa Rosa police were present, but there appeared to be no arrests of campers who refused to leave as of early Friday afternoon. Campers were provided with two bins on wheels for their belongings and up to two more totes for storage up to 90 days in lockers at a nearby facility. Advocates for the homeless also were present, including Kathleen Finigan of Homeless Action. Police in Concord are investigating threats made on social media against Clayton Valley Charter High School on Friday. A student at the school made the threats, and that student has been identified and placed on a mental health evaluation hold, according to the Concord Police Department. On Friday at 7:17 a.m., the police department responded to the school after school staff learned of possible threats made against the school by a student on social media. School staff placed the school on lockdown prior to police arriving. The lockdown was lifted when it was determined the student was not on campus. Officers contacted the student at home, and the student was interviewed and placed on a mental health evaluation hold. Police said the investigation into the exact nature of the threats is ongoing, but there is no threat to the school or students. A fire Friday evening at a Daly City home displaced one resident, North County Fire Authority officials said. Crews responded about 7:15 p.m. to the fire at 1384 South Mayfair Ave. and found smoke coming from the roof and eaves of the two-story house. Firefighters forced their way in through the front door and encountered heavy smoke throughout the home and flames coming from the kitchen, according to a release from North County Fire. The blaze was contained to the kitchen, but smoke damaged the rest of the home. No injuries were reported in the fire. The displaced resident found housing arrangements on their own, fire officials said. The cause is under investigation. Oakland Police Department have released a home security photo of a suspect in a Jan. 20 armed robbery in the 700 block of Canyon Oaks Drive and are appealing to the community for help in identifying the two men they believe are responsible. Officers responded to the robbery report at 12:30 a.m. in the neighborhood off Keller Avenue in the hills, where a woman was robbed of her purse and cellphone at gunpoint. One suspect is described as an African American male in his 20s, with a thin build, a medium-dark complexion, short black hair, wearing a multicolored hoodie dark pants, and armed with a handgun. The second suspect is described as an African American male, 20s, with a thin build, dark complexion, wearing a black hooded sweatshirt. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Oakland Police Department's Robbery Section at (510) 238-3326. Police and Crime Stoppers of Oakland offer a reward of up to $2,500 for information leading to an arrest. Officials with City College of San Francisco acknowledged being unprepared during a hearing at City Hall on Friday, called by supervisors to examine how recent class cuts affect low-income students and those of color. The hearing called by Supervisor Shamann Walton in front the Joint City, School District, and City College Select Committee aimed to investigate how the cancellation of more than 300 classes from the school's Spring 2020 semester impacted students. "These decisions were made without proper community input and the way City College handled this situation has brought us to where we are today, with the city needing to step up to work to provide the resources to support our most vulnerable populations who would be and are disproportionately impacted by these cuts," Walton said. "We do deserve to know why these cut classes were chosen." Walton also took issue with the cancellation of all classes held at the Southeast Community College campus, located within his district. During a presentation, however, city college representatives failed to provide the committee with hard data about its students of color, those with disabilities and seniors. "It is impossible to have a conversation about closing the achievement gap if we don't even know what the racial demographic of the students of City College is," said Supervisor Sandra Fewer. The hearing is the second on the matter, as the first had been rescheduled because of scheduling conflicts with school officials. The committee will meet again for a third hearing at a later time, Walton said. Earlier this week, supervisors voted 7-4 to provide $2.7 million emergency funding to restore the cut classes. The Berkeley City Council is considering a proposal to open several parking lots on city-owned land to accommodate 25 RVs during non-business hours. The council was scheduled to discuss and vote on the measure at its meeting on Tuesday but because of a lengthy discussion on a plan to allow cannabis consumption lounges the matter was postponed until the council's Feb. 11 meeting. The measure is being proposed by City Council members Rashi Kesarwani and Kate Harrison and Mayor Jesse Arreguin. Kesarwani, who represents the West Berkeley area where many people live in RVs, said in a phone interview this week that the proposal is "a compromise that doesn't leave anyone fully satisfied." The plan would only cover a fraction of Berkeley RV dwellers, as a survey back in December 2018 found there were 193 RV campers and oversized vehicles parked on public streets in the city, including 100 in West Berkeley. Most observers think that number has increased since then. Kesarwani said she, Arreguin and other city officials have been trying to find a safe parking site for 24-hour parking for a large number of RVs but haven't been able to find a good location. She said, "This overnight parking plan is better than nothing," saying, "the status quo isn't working." Under the plan, Berkeley would give priority to RV dwellers with children, people who work or study in Berkeley and former city residents. Kesarwani said that so far the city has identified 18 RV households that would qualify for the program. Those eligible could park in the six proposed city lots for up to three months but would have to leave during business hours. Residents who live in the lots would receive social services and help finding work or a permanent place to live. RV dwellers would be allowed to stay in the lots overnight but would have to leave during the day. Copyright 2020 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. The grieving mother of Thomas Valva, who was allegedly killed by his New York cop father, had filed court documents warning officials that her children were being neglected and abused by her estranged husband and his fiancee. Eight-year-old Thomas, who died of hypothermia on January 17 after allegedly being starved, beaten and locked outside overnight by his NYPD transit cop father, Michael Valva, was laid to rest on Thursday in the Long Island neighborhood of Melville. Just days after the autistic child's funeral, it was revealed that his mother, Justyna Zubko-Valva, was worried about Thomas and his brother, Anthony, after Michael Valva received temporary custody over the children. In September 2017, a judge granted Michael Valva custody over all three boys and even barred Justyna from seeing her children, according to documents obtained by the New York Daily News. 'He's going to kill my kids,' Justyna reportedly told Kimberley Berens, who ran the Fit Learning school, which educated autistic children before they were sent to regular schools, during a phone call on the night of the ruling. Scroll down for video Justyna Zubko-Valva ( pictured), the grieving mother of Thomas Valva, who was allegedly killed by his New York cop father, had warned that her children were being abused by her estranged husband In September 2017, when a judge granted Michael Valva (left) custody over their son, Thomas Valva (right), Justyna warned her son's teacher that her estranged husband was 'going to kill my kids' An outraged Berens then sent a letter to the judge, but she reportedly heard nothing back. 'What was mind-blowing was she was the most devoted mother,' Berens told the Daily News. 'I worked with Anthony for two years and saw Justyna every day. She didn't neglect a single aspect about those boys, but I didn't see Valva at the school at all.' When Michael Valva got custody over the children, he removed them from the Fit Learning school. Two months after Michael Valva received custody of the children, Justyna filed her first child neglect complaint in Suffolk County via the state hotline on November 7, 2017. According to the Daily News, Justyna alleged that Michael Valva and his fiancee Angela Pollina abused her kids physically and emotionally. Her complaint stated that the children were starved and alienated from their mother. Justyna told the newspaper that her complaint was closed two days later with no investigation. Another complaint was filed against Valva and Pollina with Child Protective Services in January 2019 by a school official. 'Thomas, age 7, presented a right, swollen black eye today that he didnt have within the past two days,' the complaint said, according to the Daily News. 'There is a history of physical abuse in the home involving Thomas so his black eye is suspicious due to conflicting explanations and conflicting time frames.' That report listed Thomas and Anthony as 'maltreated'. Despite the claims, CPS concluded that the case did 'not rise to the level of immediate or impending danger of serious harm'. Justyna, who buried Thomas on Thursday, also filed court documents warning officials that her children were being neglected and abused by her Valva and his fiancee The funeral service for Thomas was held in the Long Island neighborhood of Melville on Thursday The agency did not intervene. A month later, another complaint was filed against Michael Valva and Pollina. This time the school official alleged that Anthony had been coming to school 'with his backpack soaked in urine'. 'Anthony has been staying in the garage and is not allowed in his room due to him urinating in his bed. As a result of the child being soaked in urine, he has a foul odor and he is extremely cold,' the official said, according to the Daily News. Three more complaints were filed in March, May and August, but nothing was ever done. Thomas, who had autism, died on January 17 while in the custody of his father Michel Valva, 40, and his fiancee Pollina, 42. They have both since been charged with second-degree murder but deny any wrongdoing It is alleged that the boy was forced to sleep in an unheated garage at the couple's home as temperatures dropped to under 20 degrees. Thomas was laid to rest on Thursday. Pallbearers carry the casket into the funeral service for 8-year-old Thomas at St. Elizabeth's Church on Thursday, About 100 mourners, including family, friends and strangers, gathered at St Elizabeth's Church for the service During his funeral service Bishop Andrzej Zglejszewski said: 'Thomas was just a little boy. He just wanted to be loved, wanted to be hugged, wanted to be cherished, he wanted to be wanted. He was a gift. 'Thomas, little boy, thank you for the gift of you. Thank you for the gift of life. I am sorry that it was way too short for you. But I thank you for your beautiful life.' The Bishop, who had baptized Thomas and delivered the homily at his funeral, told mourners that his story should inspire societal change. He noted that the legal and social system had failed the little boy. 'Another beautiful life was lost because of our human negligence, and in so many ways, I feel that we failed this little boy,' he said. 'The system failed... We as religious and social leaders, we failed him, because we are the ones supposed to make change. We are the ones supposed to protect life.' Thomas' death has since prompted an investigation into the social services department and how it dealt with abuse allegations against the couple and the children who lived with them. Thomas' mother Justyna clutched her youngest son tightly through the funeral on Thursday Officers stand in formation outside the funeral service for eight-year-old Thomas A separate task force will examine how the department handles cases of children with developmental disabilities. Authorities were dispatched to the home where Thomas had been living at about 9.40am on January 17 after his father said the boy had fallen in the driveway and lost consciousness while running for the school bus. Responding officers found Valva performing CPR on Thomas in the basement. Angela Pollina (pictured) has also been charged with second-degree murder after Thomas' death The little boy was rushed to Long Island Community Hospital where he was pronounced dead. Valva and his fiancee went on to collect donations from a GoFundMe page following the boy's death. They were charged with his murder after an autopsy revealed that Thomas had died of hypothermia. According to police, cameras and microphones that had been set up in Mike Valva's home captured audio of him and Angela taunting Thomas as he froze to death. The audio files allegedly recorded the couple discussing the fact that Thomas was suffering from hypothermia, had been washed with cold water, couldn't walk and was 'face-planting' on the concrete. They laughed as they said 'he's hypothermic' and that he had 'face-planted' the floor. Pollina remarked: 'You know why he's falling?'. Valva replied: 'Because he's cold.... boo f*****g hoo'. Following his death, Thomas' brothers were placed in the custody of their mother. Pollina's daughters were placed in the custody of their biological fathers. Two days after the first case of dreaded novel coronavirus case was confirmed in the state, one more person has tested positive for the killer virus in Kerala. A Wuhan university student who returned from China on January 24 has tested positive, according to Union health ministry. The patient is admitted in the isolation ward at the government medical college, Alappuzha. The patient's condition is stable and is being closely monitored at the isolation ward of the hospital, according to the ministry. Meanwhile, health minister K.K Shylaja said that the test result from National Institute of Virology is yet to be received. A total of 1,793 persons have been quarantined in the state, of whom 70 are in isolation wards of various hospitals, K.K. Shylaja told media persons in Kollam. The minister convened an emergency meeting and instructed officials to step up safety measures and facilities at Alappuzha medical college. Meanwhile, the minister urged those with recent travel history to China and other virus infected countries to seek immediate medical advice. "Though most of the people are voluntarily approaching health authorities, a few others are hesitant. The virus with two to seven per cent of mortality rate can be fatal for pregnant women and persons with other health complications. Hence, everyone with recent travel history to the Asian country should comply with the home quarantine guidelines until the incubation period is over," the minister added. Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi was on Sunday admitted to the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in New Delhi for check up after she complained of stomach ache New Delhi: Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi was on Sunday admitted to the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in New Delhi for check up after she complained of stomachache, sources said. Gandhi will undergo some tests at the hospital where she was admitted earlier on Sunday, they said. She is reportedly suffering a stomach ache, a source close to Gandhi said. The Congress chief did not attend the Union Budget presentation in Parliament on Saturday. A second Air India flight carrying 323 Indians and seven Maldivians from Wuhan in China landed at Delhi airport on Sunday morning. Photograph: / Rediff.com IMAGE: Medics screen Indian nationals after they were brought by an Air India aircraft from China's coronavirus-hit city of Wuhan, at the airport in New Delhi on February 2, 2020. In the first flight on early Saturday, 324 Indians were evacuated and were admitted to the two quarantine facilities set up by the Army and the ITBP, though none of them have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, according to officials. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said in a tweet on Sunday, "7 Maldivians brought back with 323 Indians from Wuhan on the second @airindiain flight today. #NeighbourhoodFirst at work again." Wuhan is the epicentre of outbreak of novel coronavirus, which has killed more than 300 people in China. Two Indians, both from Kerala, have been tested positive for novel coronavirus. Due to the outbreak, IndiGo has suspended all three flights between India and China. Air India has suspended its Delhi-Shanghai flight and curtailed the flight operations on the Delhi-Hong Kong route. WATCH: AI's 2nd flight lands in Delhi with 323 Indians, 7 Maldivians An Air India spokesperson said at 9.45 am, "323 passengers and seven Maldivians were there in the second special flight from Wuhan, which landed at Delhi airport just now." Five doctors from the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, who were onboard the first flight, were also present in the second flight, the spokesperson said. Out of the 324 people that have been evacuated through first Air India flight, 56, 53 and 42 are from Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, respectively. IMAGE: Indian nationals at the airport in New Delhi. Photograph: ANI Four Indians could not board the second flight after they reported high temperatures, Indian Ambassador to China Vikram Misri said. They may be quarantined to undergo tests to determine whether they have symptoms of the coronavirus, officials said. Twenty-five others stayed back, Misri said, adding that there may still be about 100 Indians who remained in Hubei province for which Wuhan is the provincial capital - the city where the virus first emerged in late December. Ahead of the evacuation, the Indian Embassy had informed its stranded citizens that they have to undergo health tests before boarding the flight and also undergo a 14-day quarantine in special camps after reaching India. Misri said that it was one of the most complex operations for the Indian officials as the entire evacuation process had to be conducted in Wuhan and Hubei province, which were under total lock down with all transportation including private vehicles banned as part of measures to curb the virus. IMAGE: Maldivian nationals who were brought along with Indians by an Air India aircraft from Wuhant. Photograph: ANI The entire operation needed to be conducted about 500-km away, he said. Indian diplomats Deepak Padmakumar and M Balakrishnan were on the ground to coordinate evacuation operations with the Chinese, he said. Besides the complicated process of identifying the stranded Indians and their addresses in the sprawling city and the province, the Indian Embassy in coordination with the Chinese officials arranged buses to pick them up from different destinations to drive them to airport. The Indian Army has set up a quarantine facility in Manesar near Delhi to keep those evacuated from China's virus-hit province. They would be monitored for any signs of infection for two weeks by a qualified team of doctors and staff members. IMAGE: Four Indians could not board the second flight after they reported high temperatures, Indian Ambassador to China Vikram Misri said. Photograph: ANI The evacuation of seven stranded Maldivian citizens along with Indians signifies the importance India attaches to its relations with the countries in the immediate neighbourhood, officials said. Air India has done such evacuations earlier also from countries such as Libya, Iraq, Yemen, Kuwait and Nepal. While India, the United States, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and many countries evacuated their nationals from Wuhan, the Pakistani government -- despite strong criticism from the opposition -- has declined pleas by several hundred Pakistani students in Wuhan to airlift them. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin A. Muh. Ibnu Aqil, Apriza Pinandita and Fadli (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta/Batam Mon, February 3 2020 Taking every precaution: Medical workers spray disinfectant on Indonesian citizens as they arrive at Hang Nadim International Airport in Batam, Riau Islands, on Sunday. As the coronavirus outbreak continues to spread across China, 238 Indonesians have been evacuated from Wuhan. The Indonesian returnees will be monitored in Natuna, Riau Islands, for two weeks to ensure they are free from the virus. (Courtesy of Foreign Ministry via Antara) After repatriating 238 citizens from Wuhan and other cities in China, the Indonesian government declared on Sunday that it would ban all travel to and from China to prevent the spread of a deadly and highly contagious novel coronavirus. The ban, which took effect at 12 a.m. on Monday, prevents visitors who have stayed in China for 14 days or more from visiting or transiting in Indonesia. The government will suspend visa-free and visa on arrival provisions for Chinese citizens. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,000/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Williamson, WV (25661) Today Sun and clouds mixed. Temps nearly steady in the mid 30s. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Clear to partly cloudy. Low around 20F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph. Members of Congress are continually beset by powerful media forces. Valerie Plame of Santa Fe has been through the worst of such trials by fire, after her husbands 2003 New York Times editorial debunking Vice President Cheney and Secretary of Defense Rumsfelds fabricated mythologies of Saddam Hussein buying Uranium from Niger to make those weapons of mass destruction. Valeries husband then was Joe Wilson, ambassador to Niger, and he made it clear that such purchases never happened. Bushs 2003 State of the Union Address included these 16 words: The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. In response, in his Times opinion piece, Wilson published What I Didnt Find in Africa. Wilson, who died last year, described the basis for his Niger mission: The vice presidents office asked a serious question (about the truth of allegations that Iraq was seeking to purchase uranium yellowcake from Niger). I was convinced before the war that the threat of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam Hussein required a vigorous and sustained international response to disarm him, Wilson wrote. Iraq possessed and had used chemical weapons; it had an active biological weapons program and quite possibly a nuclear research program all of which were in violation of United Nations resolutions. Having encountered Mr. Hussein and his thugs in the run-up to the Persian Gulf war of 1991, I was aware of the dangers he posed. But were these dangers the same ones the administration told us about? We have to find out. Americas foreign policy depends on the sanctity of its information. For this reason, questioning the selective use of intelligence to justify the war in Iraq is neither idle sniping nor revisionist history, as Bush suggested. The act of war is the last option of a democracy, taken when there is a grave threat to our national security. To retaliate for Wilsons op-ed, Cheneys office outed Plame as a CIA agent, endangering her by exposing them as CIA agents. Further, a bit later, Cheneys chief of staff Scooter Libby lied to Congress about all of that, saying it hadnt happened, for which he went to prison for two years for lying to Congress, until Donald Trump pardoned him. But Plames CIA career was over, ruined. This background would make her a superb member of Congress for northern New Mexico, someone who can instantly see through the machinations and perfidy of the mega kleptocracies, so full of corporate manipulations and distortions of the truth. The shallowest, most skeptical and least informed of New Mexicans mistakenly choose to assail Plame as a carpetbagger, yet her response rings true, that she got to New Mexico as soon as she could. Anyone who knows anything about government knows that, in todays political world, there are intelligent and valuable Americans who work internationally; the fact that they at one time recently lived in Georgetown or Alexandria, Virginia, doesnt make them any less effective on regional levels, whether it be discussing acequias in Taos or the defense expenditures of Los Alamos, the housing crisis in Santa Fe, or the largest questions of how New Mexico can diversify its economies over the next decade so as not to be so dependent on only oil, tourism, ranching and military weapons production. In 2020, if you want a hometown boy or girl to be your congress member, you have many to choose from. They just are not on the level with, or caliber of, Valerie Plame. Issues and specifics come and go, but what builds the strongest possible character to make a valuable member of Congress? Valeries story is a powerful and convincing one, which points to unparalleled and unprecedented service in our nations Congress. Shania Wheeler lives in Santa Fe. A large number of vehicles belonging to the Turkish military entered Syria from the Kafrlosin border crossing, Al-Arabiya reported on Sunday. According to the broadcaster, the convoy is heading in the direction of Aleppo and Idlib, Trend reports citing Sputnik. The news comes after earlier this week Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Damascus of violating a ceasefire in the region and warned that Ankara may launch a military offensive unless the operation there is "quickly halted". Syria launched a new military operation in the area on 19 December and managed to seize several cities in the province before striking a ceasefire that began on 12 January. The terrorists, however, continued their attacks, killing at least 40 Syrian servicemen and injuring 80 others last week, prompting Damascus to resume the offensive. A large part of the Idlib de-escalation zone, which was one of four safe zones created under an accord reached at the May 2017 Astana-format talks, is still controlled by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham* terrorist organisation. London: Ludwig Van Beethoven may not have been deaf after all when he composed his final masterpiece, according to new research. For over a century, it has been believed that the German composer and pianist had gone "stone deaf" years before he debuted his Ninth Symphony in May 1824. Not deaf after all? New evidence suggests Ludvig van Beethoven still had some hearing when he composed his most famous symphony. But now, a professor of musicology has uncovered crucial evidence that suggests that Beethoven actually retained some hearing in his left ear until shortly before his death in March 1827. Theodore Albrecht, a professor at Kent State University in Ohio, USA, told The Observer: "This is going to send everybody scurrying to revise biological concepts about Beethoven. The US Travel ban was one of the President's signature policies that Donald Trump introduced soon after taking over the White House. It was to prevent the entry of persons from certain countries that were considered to be security risks. The purpose of the travel ban was to ensure the safety of America and Americans. It led to chaotic situations at airports and the subject of travel ban landed at the Supreme Court. In the latest version, there is an addition of six new countries. There are four African countries covered by the ban apart from Kyrgyzstan and Myanmar (or Burma). The ban will exclude immigrants who have helped the US in one way or another. Critics interpret this as a move of the Trump administration to ban entry of Muslims into the United States. The president has signed the proclamation and it would take effect at 12:01 am on February 22. US President Donald Trump adds six more countries to the travel ban. The ban will take effect on February 22 pic.twitter.com/ACBVatRjLS TRT World (@trtworld) February 2, 2020 CNN says the updated version has raised controversy because it appears to be targeting certain African countries. In the opinion of a section of lawmakers and advocates, the changes appear to be discriminatory and without merit. The timing of the announcement coincides with the signing of the United StatesMexicoCanada Agreement (USMCA) trade deal and possible acquittal in the Senate impeachment trial. However, the administration says the travel ban is vital from the point of view of national security. It argues that its implementation would ensure that those countries have the necessary setup to adhere to a certain level of identity management and information sharing as required by the US. Discuss this news on Eunomia The US says the travel ban is necessary The current travel ban imposes restrictions on entry from seven countries to varying degrees and these will continue to remain in place. Chad was on the list but it improved its security measures and does not appear on the list now. Based on 2018 data, an estimated 12,398 people could feel the impact of the new ban, which will apply to immigrant visas, but not students, other temporary visitors or refugee processing. US travel ban: Nigeria's Buhari to comply with Trump's new visa rules https://t.co/YKhiBuCT2c BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) February 1, 2020 CNN quotes a DHS official as saying that any country can take suitable action to upgrade their deficiencies in the security infrastructure can remove itself from the purview of the ban. It says Chad has done it by making improvements on reporting of lost and stolen passport and exchange of information on terrorists. However, immigrant groups derided the expansion of the program. A person associated with the Immigrants' Rights Project says The ban should be ended, not expanded. Travel ban includes Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation According to BBC, the US has expanded the scope of the travel ban and it now includes Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation. The ban covers six more countries and its people would not be able to obtain certain types of visas. They can visit the US as tourists. An official explained that the new measures were because of the failures of the countries to meet the minimum requirements of US security and information-sharing standards. Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said officials would extend help to those countries in order to augment their security requirements. Once that is done, they can expect to be removed from the list. US President Donald Trump introduced a travel ban in 2017, which is applicable to seven countries. Most of them have Muslim majorities. The ban now will add six more countries. The Trump admin. announced an expansion of the travel ban which critics say is an attempt to ban Muslims from the US to include six new countries: Eritrea Kyrgyzstan Myanmar Nigeria Sudan Tanzaniahttps://t.co/mYxWJiQqs6 CNN (@CNN) February 1, 2020 Donald Trump and his travel ban After taking over the White House, one of the major decisions taken by Donald Trump was to introduce a travel ban on people from other countries. Most of these were Muslim majority ones. His intention was to ensure the safety of his people because some of the countries on the list are believed to have links with terrorist organizations. However, the exact reasons for adding another six countries to the earlier list are not very clear. Radio Amateurs - An endangered species TV station Saarlandischer Rundfunk broadcast a news item about radio amateur Harald Zeisig DL8EA A translation of the Saarlandischer Rundfunk description reads: Calling friends in America or Japan just like that is a simple matter nowadays thanks to mobile phones and the Internet. Each of us can be reached anywhere and from almost anywhere. The times when chatting across oceans and continents was a very costly affair seem almost forgotten. Unless you were one of the amateur radio operators at the time, of which there are still some in Saarland today, for example in Lebach. Watch the video at https://www.sr-mediathek.de/index.php?seite=7&id=82921 (Bloomberg Opinion) -- Every society in the world is going to pay a price for global warming. But its the poorest countries and communities who will suffer the most from rising seas and burning lands and likely also from any drastic measures taken to prevent climate change. The environmental crisis is closely linked to the humanitarian one, and requires the joint action of climate and human rights activists. Theyd seem to be natural allies. They both regard (with good reason) todays situation as the worst in their movements existence. Second, they share common foes: Leading climate change deniers and environmental despoilers tend to be dismissive of human rights (Presidents Rodrigo Duterte, Donald Trump, or Jair Bolsonaro, to name but three). Third, both movements are accused of being elitist by their opponents, a charge neither group of activists has done enough to overcome. But the two groups havent historically worked closely together. The early conservation movement promoted nature at the expense of people (even to the extent of expelling native populations from Yellowstone and Yosemite in the late 19th Century). And while theres much more understanding today that the two movements are complementary, this has not translated into enough concrete joint actions. Human rights must be at the front and center of every effort to fight climate change. Not just because climate change will threaten the rights to food, water, housing, livelihood and health for hundreds of millions of people, exponentially increasing the number of refugees. But also because, sooner or later, world leaders will finally wake up to the scale of the impending disaster. At which point they will likely respond with states of emergency that hugely undermine human rights, as with the internment of Americans of Japanese descent in the 1940s or justification of torture after 9/11. In a seminal UN report last spring, Philip Alston castigated the human rights community for its failure to face up to the fact that human rights might not survive the coming upheaval. The idea that democratic systems failed to prevent global heating may well take hold, with a resulting urge to strengthen state powers at the cost of rights and freedoms. Story continues To prevent this from happening, human rights advocates and environmentalists both need to broaden their mobilization campaigns by reaching out to groups who have traditionally not been allies of either movement. From Europe to the U.S. to Australia, an alliance of populist leaders, corporate lobbyists and the Murdoch-owned press have pushed the idea that any gains for human rights or environmental protection will come at the expense of jobs. For example, the gilets jaunes protests in France were provoked, in part, by a fuel tax hike designed to reduce carbon emissions. (Fin du monde, fin du mois was one rallying cry stop talking about the end of the world, when were just trying to get to the end of the month.) Fossil fuel workers, cattle farmers and others need to know that they will still have livelihoods after serious measures have been taken to reduce global heating. Governments, NGOs and the private sector can offer such assurances through reskilling programs and subsidies for alternative land management and carbon sequestration. Without job security, too many people will remain vulnerable to wealthy climate science deniers such as the Koch brothers who have been able to convince them that climate change is basically a hoax against the people perpetrated by the elite. Activists and sympathetic local officials must also work harder to win over indigenous people. In many countries, including Brazil, the Philippines and Honduras, there are examples of indigenous groups resisting renewable energy projects. Not because they are politically opposed to renewable energy, but because they have traditionally not been consulted about enterprises inflicted on them within their traditional lands and waters. Climate and human rights activists should be reaching out to these groups to get their buy-in. Governments should be transferring ownership of forested land back to the indigenous communities who have proven time and again to be the most effective guardians of their own ecosystems. Instead, indigenous people are being attacked literally. In 2017, an average of three indigenous, environmental or land rights defenders were killed every week. Collaboration between human rights advocates and environmentalists will make it more likely that we come together to reduce emissions and mitigate the worst effects of climate change and that we do so equitably. But the first step is to create far stronger bonds between the leaders and activists of each cause. Until both sides have fully recognized that neither agenda can be achieved without the other, they will continue to under-perform against their powerful opponents. To contact the author of this story: Andrew Gilmour at NYOHCHR@gmail.com To contact the editor responsible for this story: Sarah Green Carmichael at sgreencarmic@bloomberg.net This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners. Andrew Gilmour is the United Nations' former assistant secretary-general for human rights. For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source. 2020 Bloomberg L.P. 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, The people behind these mind-boggling designs should probably go back to the drawing board. Amusing snaps, taken by people from across the globe, highlight some of the worst designs out there - including bananas individually wrapped in plastic and water sprinklers propped in front of an electricity bank. Elsewhere in the images, which have been collated in an online gallery by Bored Panda, a pole can be seen constructed in the middle of a road, while an advert suggests holiday goers will end up somewhere 'totally unexpected.' If these hilarious snaps reveal anything, it's that common sense was most definitely not on the cards when the creations were designed. It does not take a genius to realise this sprinkler/electricity bank combination, which is situated in an unknown location, is dangerous for everyone involved This advert, spotted on the London underground, offers a confusing message to commuters - and is sure to raise a smile or two The instruction on this pot of paint, from an unknown location, offers mixed messages - leaving DIY fans confused whether to mix it up or not This lamp post in the US has been built right in the middle of the road - and we don't understand how it ever got granted permission This restaurant's architect did not think their window placement through, as visitors are left with no choice but to sit awkwardly at the tables This poster is designed so poorly, it actually turns the driving safety message into something much more sinister This design fail, in an unknown location, commemorates World War eleven instead of World War II - but at least it got the dates right Only a person who likes to live on the edge would buy these identical whiteboard and permanent marker pens The explanation in this lift, which is located in the US, is very confusing, and is sure to make matters worse for guests The unfortunate wet room/window placement of this room, which is situated in an unknown location, means the whole neighbourhood can see you do your business A slight oversight left this company with hundreds of these silly pens, which do not feature their logos This creepy image full of teeth was actually used by a dental practice to advertise their service The banner in front of this church in York makes the service sound slightly more menacing This 'No' sign suspended in the air at a crossroad in America is confusing for all drivers passing by Some pointed out that wrapping individual bananas in plastic was extremely wasteful and unnecessary The person who shared this tablecloth made from hair, reveled they came across it at an Air BnB they were staying out in an unknown location Over Christmas, I made a long trip to Lagos. Its one of my favourite cities in the world and Ive been countless times, but this time was different. In recent years, I have come to realise how much action needs to be taken over the climate crisis. The work of Greta Thunberg and others have made me feel acutely aware of my contributions to the environment both positive and negative as well as the larger issues. So when I went to Nigeria, it felt like my eyes had been opened. Never had I been so aware of the plastic filling the drains, sewers and Lagos Lagoon; of the pollution so thick it made my eyes water and my breath short; of the diesel-guzzling generators upon which millions of Nigerians rely due to the countrys intermittent electricity; of the chauffeurs that drive the upper classes the shortest of distances. That is not to say there isnt important work going on. Climate activists such as Oladosu Adenike who has worked with Greta deserve praise. But there is a lot of work to be done. My trip made me think of all the green initiatives being pursued in the UK. Compared to the dismal scenes I was seeing in Lagos, bike-to-work schemes suddenly felt futile. Environment news in pictures Show all 8 1 /8 Environment news in pictures Environment news in pictures Davos 2019: David Attenborough issues stark warning about future of civilisation as he demands practical solutions to combat climate change Sir David Attenborough has issued a stark warning about climate change to business figures gathered in Davos, telling them that "what we do now...will profoundly affect the next few thousand years". On the eve of this year's World Economic Forum, the renowned naturalist told the audience that the worlds of business and politics should "get on with the practical solutions" needed to prevent environmental damage. "As a species we are expert problem solvers. But we've not yet applied ourselves to this problem with the focus it requires. "We can create a world with clean air and water, unlimited energy, and fish stocks that will sustain us well into the future. But to do that, we need a plan," he said. The broadcaster made his speech after receiving a Crystal Award, which is awarded by the forum to "exceptional cultural leaders". AFP/Getty Environment news in pictures At least 60% of wild coffee species face extinction triggered by climate change and disease Two decades of research have revealed that 60 per cent of the worlds coffee species face extinction due to the combined threats of deforestation, disease and climate change. The wild strain of arabica, the most widely consumed coffee on the planet, is among those now recognised as endangered, raising concerns about its long-term survival. These results are worrying for the millions of farmers around the world who depend on the continued survival of coffee for their livelihoods. As conditions for coffee farming become tougher, scientists predict the industry will need to rely on wild varieties to develop more resilient strains Alan Schaller Environment news in pictures Warming Antarctic waters are speeding the rate at which glaciers are melting The Antarctic ice sheet is losing six times as much ice each year as it was in the 1980s and the pace is accelerating, one of the most comprehensive studies of climate change effects on the continent has shown. More than half an inch has been added to global sea levels since 1979, but if current trends continue it will be responsible for metres more in future, the Nasa-funded study found. The international effort used aerial photos, satellite data and climate models dating back to the 1970s across18 Antarctic regions to get the most complete picture to date on the impacts of the changing climate. It found that between 1979 and 1990 Antarctica lost an average of 40 gigatonnes (40 billion tonnes) of its mass each year. Between 2009 and 2017 it lost an average 252 gigatonnes a year. This has added 3.6mm per decade to sea levels, or around 14mm since 1979, the study shows Nasa/Getty Environment news in pictures Greater Manchester to ban fracking, paving way for confrontation with government over controversial industry Greater Manchester is to effectively ban fracking, raising the prospect of fresh confrontation with the government over the controversial industry. All of the regions 10 councils are to implement planning policies which create a presumption against drilling for shale gas in their areas, Manchester mayor Andy Burnham has announced. Campaigners said the move was the latest sign that the tide was turning against fracking, which has been the subject of multiple legal battles across the country. Critics of fracking say it poses environmental and health risks. Drilling at the UKs only operational fracking site, run by Cuadrilla in Lancashire, has repeatedly been halted due to earth tremors. But ministers support the industry and last year unveiled plans to accelerate the development of new drilling sites Ross Wills Environment news in pictures Japan confirms plan to resume commercial whaling in its waters from next year Japan will resume commercial whaling next year for the first time in more than three decades, in a move that has provoked strong criticism from campaigners and the international community. Chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga said his nation would leave the International Whaling Commission (IWC) to resume hunting the marine mammals in Japanese waters. However, he stated the activity would be limited to Japans territory and the 200 mile exclusive economic zone along its coasts. This means controversial scientific trips to Antarctica in which Japanese vessels killed hundreds of whales, as well as activity in the northwest Pacific, will stop in 2019 AP Environment news in pictures COP24: Environmental groups criticise morally unacceptable climate deal reached after major Poland summit Diplomats from around the world have agreed a major climate deal after two weeks of United Nations talks in Poland. But climate campaigners warned the deal effectively a set of rules for how to govern the 2015 Paris climate accord agreed between almost 200 countries lacked ambition or a clear promise of enhanced climate action. Activists cautiously welcomed elements of the plan, saying important progress had been made on ensuring that efforts to tackle climate change by individual nations can be measured and compared. But environmental groups were also highly critical of the agreement, warning it lacked ambition and clarity on key issues, including financing for climate projects for developing countries. The COP24 deal, which is aimed at providing firm guidelines for countries on how to transparently report their greenhouse gas emissions and their efforts to reduce them, was confirmed on 15 December, after talks overran Reuters Environment news in pictures Unprecedented changes needed to stop global warming as UN report reveals islands starting to vanish and coral reefs dying Greenhouse gas emissions must be cut almost in half by 2030 to avert global environmental catastrophe, including the total loss of every coral reef, the disappearance of Arctic ice and the destruction of island communities, a landmark UN report has concluded. Drawing on more than 6,000 scientific studies and compiled over two years, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) findings, released this morning, warn enormous and rapid changes to the way everyone on Earth eats, travels and produces energy need to be brought in immediately. Though the scientists behind the report said there is cause for optimism, they recognised the grim reality that nations are currently nowhere near on track to avert disaster AFP/Getty Environment news in pictures Africas three biggest elephant poaching cartels exposed using DNA from illegal ivory shipments DNA taken from massive shipments of ivory has been used to identify the three largest wildlife trafficking gangs operating at the height of Africas elephant poaching epidemic. Ivory tends to be shipped around the world from African ports in bulk, and scientists have used genetic evidence gleaned from intercepted batches to reveal their origins. Led by Dr Samuel Wasser from the University of Washington, they traced a number of these shipments to three cartels operating out of Kenya, Uganda and Togo. Evidence collected by Dr Wasser has already helped convict ivory kingpin Feisal Mohamed Ali, and as his team joins the dots between shipments they plan to shore up the cases against more of the continents most prolific smugglers Art Wolfe Its no secret that western countries and superpowers like China are the global leaders when it comes to CO2 emissions. Nations like the UK need to be leading the way and we must be sure we are doing all we can before trying to lecture anyone else. However, its now clear to me that if were serious about saving the planet there must be consolidated thinking with every nation particularly developing ones. These nations are currently building generational-lasting infrastructure and have a unique opportunity to make these projects green from the offset. Unlike developed nations who are desperately trying to reverse age-old systems and habits to be more planet-friendly. There are some existing initiatives in countries like Nigeria to help preserve and protect their environment. Lagos Assembly member Ibrahim Ajani Owolabi says the local government in Africas second most populous city is not ignorant to the fact that the environment is a growing cause for concern. We have youth empowerment programmes that now teach people how to turn plastic waste into things like playground equipment, school benches and chairs, roofing tiles, floor tiles. he says. Owolabi also cites a programme hes spearheading in his local constituency called Light Your Adugbo. Adugbo means neighbourhood in Yoruba. Gases from the melting of plastic which would be burnt anyway can be stored and used to power generators. A staple part of many Lagos homes as a power source, but nevertheless a source of pollution. These initiatives are a start but on a federal level and an international level the dots must join. A 2019 study published in the journal Nature Communications found 300 million people globally currently live in areas where by 2050 an annual flood will be expected. Places like Bangladesh, India and Thailand are the most vulnerable nations. Other developing countries like Nigeria must take the climate crisis seriously. Its 850km coastline is already feeling the effects of coastal erosion, particularly in parts of Lagos on the island that is prone to flooding during the rainy season. Olive Emodi is an ambassador for End Single Use Plastic NG, an initiative that does what it says on the tin by lobbying government and educating as many ordinary people it encounters about the cause. We are already in a critical state with the extreme weather conditions; the rains are lasting longer than they should and our streets are getting flooded, she says. Plastic is constantly blocking our drains and we may be in for some more flooding and displacement of people from their homes. This means action needs to be taken immediately. It begins with education about personal responsibility, such as not taking five plastic bags for 10 items while out grocery shopping. But its also the responsibility of governments around the world to unify and put pressure on big business to be more environmentally friendly. Emodi says there is still hope for cities like Lagos which has an estimated 21 million people in an area about three-quarters the size of London. But if people in power do not act swiftly there is an existential threat as the population continues to increase and more single-use plastic is consumed. This will lead to more floods that will lead to more displaced persons, more consumption of plastic in our food and water and even more deaths, she says. Political will must be conjured up to continuously share information and innovative ideas on how to be more green among different nations. Developed countries are beginning to wake up from their sleepwalk into an environmental crisis. They have a duty to make sure their developing counterparts arent left behind in this race against time. Sri Lanka's president ordered a fresh investigation Sunday into a multi-billion dollar aircraft purchase involving the island's loss-making national carrier, days after Airbus settled corruption probes in Europe and the US. A French court on Friday approved a deal allowing Airbus to pay 3.6 billion euros ($4 billion) in fines to Britain, France and the US to settle corruption cases sparked by suspicious equipment sales. One of the allegations cited in a judgement and released by a London court Friday concerned the purchase of aircraft by SriLankan Airlines. Investigators had accused Airbus of failing to prevent persons associated with the company from bribing directors or employees of the airline to "obtain or retain business or advantage". Gotabaya Rajapaksa's office said the president had ordered a comprehensive investigation into the reports. Sri Lanka's previous government also called for a criminal investigation into the 2013 purchase of 10 Airbus aircraft, but it petered out without conclusion. Sri Lanka's national carrier is deeply in the red, with estimated accumulated losses of $1.24 billion and debt of about $750 million. A woman was arrested after authorities found her 7-year-old daughter dead inside their Texas home, according to the Bay City Police Department. Lauren Kay Dean, 26, was arrested on three separate second-degree felony charges: abandonment, endangering a child, and imminent danger bodily injury, police said in a release. She was taken to the Matagorda County Jail. Police found the deceased girl, who had been bed-ridden due to medical conditions, while conducting a welfare check at the home around 2:36 p.m. on Jan. 31. Two other children were also in the home, a 5-year-old and 3-month-old, along with Dean, the mother of all three. The two children were removed from the residence, an apartment on 2200 Block of Bordeaux in Bay City, after Dean was arrested. Police detectives and crime scene investigators gathered evidence at the scene and an investigation is currently underway. Its unclear how long the girl has been dead. Neighbors were shocked to learn of the girls death, reported KTRK. There was all kinds of, you know, the police tape and police over there and people walking around and everything, a woman told the station. Another neighbor, a parent of a 7-year-old child, said the situation was sad. Thats really sad because I have a 7-year-old right there so I wonder how that happened without anybody knowing, and especially if she had other kids too, the neighbor said. Authorities are asking anyone with information to contact police. Texas mother Lauren Kay Dean, 26, was arrested Friday after cops discovered her seven-year-old bedridden daughter dead in the home during a welfare check A Texas mother has been arrested after her seven-year-old bedridden daughter was found dead in their home during a welfare check. Officers in Bay City conducted a welfare check on Friday around 2.30pm and found the child, who suffered from a medical condition that kept her in bed, dead. The girl's mother Lauren Kay Dean, 26, was arrested and charged with three second degree felony charges of abandonment, endangering a child and imminent bodily injury. The mother-of-three smiled in her mugshot after she was cuffed Friday. Two other children, a five-year-old and a three-month-old, were also found in the home when cops discovered the dead girl and removed from the residence in the 2200 Block of Bordeaux. It was not clear how the seven-year-old died or how long she had been dead for. Two other children, a five-year-old and a three-month-old, were also found in the home when cops discovered the dead girl and removed from the residence in the 2200 Block of Bordeaux (above) 'There was all kinds of, you know, the police tape and police over there and people walking around and everything,' a female neighbor told KTRK. 'Thats really sad because I have a 7-year-old right there so I wonder how that happened without anybody knowing, and especially if she had other kids too,' another neighbor added. Dean (pictured left and right on social media) was arrested and charged with three second degree felony charges of abandonment, endangering a child and imminent bodily injury. Police are still investigating the cause of her daughter's death and are asking anyone with information to come forward Dean is being held at the Matagorda County Jail. Police are still investigating the cause of death and are asking anyone with information to come forward. Anyone with additional information is encouraged to call Detective Stephen Lunsford or Detective Reyna Perez at 979-245-8500 Prince Charles is facing criticism over his use of a private helicopter (Victoria Jones/PA) Clarence House has defended the Prince of Wales after it was revealed that he flew more than 100 miles in a private helicopter to make a speech about lowering aircraft emissions. The royal flew 125 miles from Highgrove to Cambridge to speak to scientists from Cambridge Universitys Whittle Laboratory, who are leading research into the decarbonisation of air travel. It is estimated that his total journey of 368 miles cost at least 12,000 and caused about 2.5 tonnes of carbon emissions. In a statement, Clarence House said the carbon footprint left by the 71-year-olds travel was offset every year. The prince is not personally involved in decisions around his transportation arrangements, though he ensures all carbon emissions are offset every year, a spokesperson said. They are made based on what is possible within the constraints of time, distance and security. In order for him to undertake as many engagements as he does across the UK and around the world he sometimes has to fly. As he has often said, as soon as there is a more sustainable way of making these journeys, hell be the first to use it. The prince is not personally involved in decisions around his transportation arrangements, though he ensures all carbon emissions are offset every year.Clarence House spokesperson It is estimated that Charles could have cut his emissions down to just 0.2 tonnes if he had travelled by car. Campaign group Republics chief executive Graham Smith told the newspaper: He wants to play the role, but not walk the walk. His view seems to be that its one rule for him and one rule for the rest of us. Driving or using the train would have been pretty easy. The royal recently faced criticism for flying 16,000 miles in private jets and helicopters in the days leading up to this years World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Marysville, CA (95901) Today Partly cloudy skies early will give way to cloudy skies late. Low near 40F. Winds light and variable.. Tonight Partly cloudy skies early will give way to cloudy skies late. Low near 40F. Winds light and variable. For the sixth consecutive year, an annual report has declared Louisiana's public defense system is in crisis. The report, which was released Friday, reviews each judicial district in the state, details the year's strategic plan and recommends changes to the law. In an introduction, the new State Public Defender Remy Voisin Starns underscored the perpetual concerns over the system's funding that plagued his predecessor, James T. Dixon. Remy Starns elected as new state public defender following predecessor's abrupt exit As public defenders statewide grapple with fluctuating budgets, overwhelming caseloads and pending litigation, the Louisiana State Public Defe Outside of death penalty cases, there are no defendants sitting on a waitlist for a public defender. But Starns said the "age-old haunts" of public defense still loom large in 2020: unreliable, unstable and insufficient funding that threatens the constitutional right of poor people to receive legal help when accused of a crime. Public defenders' offices are funded largely through the fines and fees courts charge. That means their budgets are constantly in flux, which defense lawyers and public defenders throughout the state say is inherently problematic. Court fees hurt needy communities, don't fund the system, report says: 'We have more work to do' Louisiana needs to take a deeper look at how it uses fines and fees to pay for its courts, because the current system doesn't raise enough mon "Candidly, the current system fails its responsibility to deliver quality services," said Lake Charles attorney Walter Sanchez. "As a result of that, individual defendants who are represented by public defenders across the state are at risk of ineffective assistance of counsel." Orleans Chief District Defender Derwyn Bunton added that the public defense system has not fundamentally changed in the last 15 years, eroding community trust in criminal justice proceedings. "What our criminal legal system is plagued by in Louisiana is a lack of equity," Bunton said. "That produces a shortage of lawyers, a shortage of resources to represent poor people going through the system and puts people at risk for wrongful conviction." Starns acknowledged that a one-time influx of $3.9 million from the state legislature brought some short-term stability. But he said eight of state's 42 district defender offices remain in "restriction of services," a designation that means they are limited in their ability to represent clients. To demonstrate the state's uncertain funding model, Starns highlighted East Baton Rouge Parish, which faced a compounding crisis in the summer of 2016 with the death of Alton Sterling, the shooting of law enforcement officers weeks later and, finally, the catastrophic flooding in August that left much of the parish devastated. As officials responded to each disaster, they shifted public safety priorities, resulting in a drastic decline in issued traffic tickets. The East Baton Rouge public defender's office funding relies heavily on traffic fines and consequently saw its local revenue plunge dramatically. In an attempt to save the office from fiscal collapse, the Louisiana Public Defender Board was forced to pool together money that was intended for other districts and direct it toward East Baton Rouge. +2 East Baton Rouge Metro Council approves supplemental funding for DA, public defender's office The East Baton Rouge Parish Metro Council approved a nearly half million dollar budget supplement Wednesday for the District Attorneys Office The funds kept the beleaguered office from drowning, but left other districts gasping for air, Starns explained. Top stories in Baton Rouge in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up "To be sure, the funding problems at the Louisiana Public Defender Board are not the result of a single event but rather a recurring consequence of the unique way Louisiana funds public defense," Starns wrote. In the report, the Louisiana Public Defender Board offered two recommendations to the legislature: create a stable, reliable, sufficient funding source for public defense and reclassify misdemeanors. This would be the sixth time the board has suggested these same recommendations. But other anxieties persist beyond each district's daily struggles. The fate of those defendants accused of a capital crime, many of whom continue to wait for counsel, is a different matter entirely. They require vastly more resources for their legal defense. "The capital waitlist casts a dark cloud over, and threatens the solvency of, the entire Louisiana statewide public defense system," Starns wrote. "An outsized portion of the public defense budget is consumed by these relatively few cases." Starns noted 13 defendants accused of a capital crime do not have legal representation; some, he said, have been waiting for counsel for more than 200 days. Nicholas J. Trenticosta, a New Orleans lawyer who has spent much of his career representing persons facing the death penalty, finds this reality indefensible. "No one should be sitting in the can without counsel and be told, 'We want to kill you,'" Trenticosta said. "Its always been funny to me when I hear people say, 'Well, these guys dont deserve a Cadillac defense.' Why not? Theyre trying to take your liberty away. What do they deserve, then?" This "unsustainable" situation, Starns said, must be addressed by the legislature. It is a tall order in a state that features widespread poverty and a high rate of imprisonment, although Starns noted Louisiana has been trending away from incarceration a pattern that could alleviate the burden of insufficient funding for public defense. Orleans Public Defenders Office to call for increased city funding with Nov. 2 second line The Orleans Public Defenders Office (OPD) will host its fourth annual Second Line for Equal Justice Saturday, Nov. 2 repeating its call fo Bunton, who characterizes himself as a reformer, said he believes that change will eventually come to the system, though it will take time. As the saying goes, 'The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice,'" Bunton said. "I see the change coming, but its incremental." However, communities losing fathers, mothers and children to the criminal justice system cannot wait, he said. Bunton emphasized how those with the ability to affect change must remember how urgent this issue is for people who live each day under the shadow of a justice system that cannot afford justice. Is there a light at the end of the tunnel? I think there is," Bunton said. "Its going to be up to leaders in our community and in our criminal court system to determine how long that tunnel runs. In Louisiana, justice finds its way into the light of day a little slower than elsewhere. By LYNN BERRY and JILL COLVIN WASHINGTON A flurry of newly released emails from scientists and top officials at the federal agency responsible for weather forecasting clearly illustrates the consternation and outright alarm caused by President Donald Trumps false claim that Hurricane Dorian could hit Alabama. A top National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration official even called the president's behavior crazy. What the scientists and officials found even more troubling was a statement later issued by an unnamed NOAA spokesman that supported Trumps claim and repudiated the agencys own forecasters. The emails, released late Friday in response to Freedom of Information Act requests from The Associated Press and others, give an inside picture of the scramble to respond to the president and the turmoil it caused inside the federal agency. Whats next? Climate science is a hoax? Craig McLean, NOAAs acting chief scientist, wrote in an email sent to the agencys top officials. Flabbergasted to leave our forecasters hanging in the political wind. In a more formal letter, McLean wrote that what concerned him most was that the Trump administration "is eroding the public trust in NOAA for an apparent political recovery from an ill timed and imprecise comment from the President." As Dorian headed for the southeastern U.S. in early September, Trump tweeted that Alabama was most likely to be hit (much) harder than anticipated. The National Weather Service in Birmingham corrected him, tweeting that Alabama will NOT see any impacts from #Dorian. But Trump remained adamant, and NOAA came to his defense with the unsigned statement, which claimed some data provided to the president had indicated that Alabama could be hit by the hurricane and scolded the Birmingham office. The statement was issued after the White House and Commerce Department intervened, the AP and others reported at the time. It provoked angry emails from within the agency and from the public. Gary Shigenaka, a NOAA scientist, wrote to the agency's acting administrator, Neil Jacobs, asking him to reassure those of us who serve the public ... that we are not mere pawns in an absurd game." In response, Jacobs defended the forecasters and said, You have no idea how hard I'm fighting to keep politics out of science. The whole incident is perhaps best remembered for what became known as Sharpie-gate. In defending himself in the Oval Office, Trump displayed an NOAA map that was altered using a black marker to extend the hurricanes projected path. Apparently the President is convinced that Alabama was in the path of Dorian and someone altered a NOAA map (with a sharpie) to convince folks, NOAA official Makeda Okolo wrote in an email to chief operating officer Benjamin Friedman and others. Friedman replied: Yep, crazy. RELATED STORIES: Trumps Alabama Hurricane Dorian threat defender pushed out of job Alabama weather service right to contradict Trump on Dorian, NWS chief says Trump doubles down on Dorian flub: I was with you all the way Alabama' Did Trump draw on Dorian map to include Alabama in hurricanes path? Quang Binh is known far and wide for its virgin beaches and natural landscapes, and also a specialty known as Chao hau (oyster congee). Nguyen Thu Thuy recently visited Quang Binh and was impressed by the freshness and quality of the hau (oysters) she tried there. I enjoyed it so much and will never forget the delicious taste at a shop in Quan Hau town where quality hau are available in the brackish rivers running through the area." Local elder Ninh Thi Huong said the town was well known nationwide for tasty oyster dishes sourced from the Nhat Le River. Huong said no one knows why the oysters found on the stretch of the river near the town were better than anywhere else. Legend has it the farmers from surrounding areas used to bring their oysters to soak in the river near Quan Hau town to make them more tasty, but no one knows if that's true or not, she said. Oysters can be used in a variety of dishes including with dried onions rolled in rice paper, sour soup or simply grilled. Among these dishes, Chao hau is the most popular among locals and visitors, Huong said. Le Sung has run Hoa Sung eatery which specialises in Chao hau in the town for almost 20 years. He said being a specialty of Quan Hau, the oysters are dense and at their most delicious in spring, particularly during Tet. Asked about the secret to the dish, he said the oysters should be processed right after they are caught. After removing from their shells, the oysters should be mixed with dried onions, chilli, pepper, salt and fish sauce for half an hour before frying. I often use pig bones to make stock to make my chao more tasty and sweet, Sung said. Chao hau is best enjoyed with herbs and chopped chilli soaked in shrimp sauce, he said, noting that the dish could be eaten for breakfast, lunch or dinner. It is also suitable with a cup of wine. Teacher Ta Ngoc Anh from HCM City said each time she visits Quang Binh she often goes to Quan Hau town to enjoy a bowl at Sungs shop and learn how to cook it. My friends all agree that the dish is unforgettable, Anh said. Very few people know that harvesting oysters in the Nhat Le River is very tricky, said farmer Hoang Quoc Trung who has spent years in the business. In the past my parents collected oysters by diving deep in the river and used a bamboo basket to hold them. By doing it this way, they caught many high quality oysters. Nowadays with a machine, my catch isn't as good, Trung said, adding that many of his neighbours still use the old technique. During the oyster season in spring, they can earn 1 million VND a day, he said, adding that many of them had become rich. According to research by Dr Le Thanh Hai, oysters are good for the health. They boost the immune system and with cardiovascular, eye and skin problems, and improve brain function, mood, blood vessels, bones and sex drive. Molluscs like oysters are rich in nutrients including vitamins C, E and B12, Omega 3, and zinc and other minerals that are good for human health, so we should eat oysters every week, Hai advised./.VNA Vietnamese food: Sugar-coated lotus seed These sugar-coated lotus seeds are a popular gift for newlyweds, but the sweets are also bought for friends and family during Tet. The world is battling the outbreak of the deadly contagious coronavirus that has taken at least 304 lives so far in China alone. United States health officials have confirmed the eighth case in the country after the virus first broke out in December last year. According to media reports, the latest US patient is from Massachusetts and recently returned from the central Chinese province of Hubei, the epicentre of the outbreak. Media reports suggest that the Pentagon in the United States would provide quarantined housing for those affected by the disease. Read: Coronavirus Infected More Than 75,000 People In Wuhan: Study Estimates Coronavirus outbreak The disease is believed to have originated in a market in Hubei's Wuhan city, where animals were being traded illegally. According to US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), "Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that are common in many different species of animals, including camels, cattle, cats and bat." As per the US CDC, confirmed cases of the virus have been reported in 27 other countries that include, Australia, Canada, France, Spain, India, Nepal, Russia, Singapore, and Italy. Read: Russia Imposes Various Restrictions On Chinese Citizens Over Deadly Coronavirus According to the US health department, nearly 200 Americans were evacuated from Wuhan earlier this week and are placed under a 14-day quarantine after they arrived at a California military base. The evacuees underwent health screenings for 72 hours before they were placed under the mandatory quarantine. US health officials asked the defense department to provide facilities to house 250 people in individual rooms and as per reports, four military installations have been selected for the purpose. Read: Hindu Mahasabha Recommends 'miraculous' Treatment To Combat Deadly Coronavirus A recent study published in The Lancet suggested that more than 75,000 people have been affected by the disease in Wuhan city, the epicentre of the virus. The confirmed reported cases have reached up to 11,000 as of February 1. Chinese authorities have imposed a strict quarantine in 12 cities across the country, 11 of which is in Hubei province. Read: 'Cancel Weddings, Scale Down Funerals': Chinese Officials Try To Curb Coronavirus Outbreak The planning and execution of an international evacuation operation of any type is a complex affair with significant financial and diplomatic costs. The federal government's about-face on charging $1000 in cost recovery for Australians evacuated from Wuhan will increase these costs by creating new expectations for future support in the travelling public. For each government-assisted international evacuation of Australians that has occurred, there have been scores of others that have, thankfully, not got past the planning stage. In every case, whether it's an evacuation or just planning for it, someone must pay the bill: almost all of the time it's the taxpayer. The Palestinian Authority has cut all ties with the United States and Israel, including those relating to security, after rejecting a West Asia peace plan presented by US President Donald Trump. Cairo: Palestinian authority has cut all ties with the United States and Israel, including those relating to security, after rejecting a West Asia peace plan presented by US President Donald Trump, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Saturday. Abbas was in Cairo to address the Arab League, which backed the Palestinians in their opposition to Trumps plan. The blueprint, endorsed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, calls for the creation of a demilitarised Palestinian state that excludes Jewish settlements built in occupied territory and is under near-total Israeli security control. Weve informed the Israeli side ... that there will be no relations at all with them and the United States including security ties, Abbas told the one-day emergency meeting, called to discuss Trumps plan. Israeli officials had no immediate comment on his remarks. Israel and the Palestinian Authoritys security forces have long cooperated in policing areas of the occupied West Bank that are under Palestinian control. The PA also has intelligence cooperation agreements with the CIA, which continued even after the Palestinians began boycotting the Trump administrations peace efforts in 2017. Abbas also said he had refused to discuss the plan with Trump by phone or to receive even a copy of it to study it. Trump asked that I speak to him by phone but I said no, and that he wants to send me a letter ... but I refused it, he said. Abbas said he did not want Trump to be able to say that he, Abbas, had been consulted. He reiterated his complete rejection of the Trump plan, presented on Tuesday. I will not have it recorded in my history that I sold Jerusalem, he said. Palestinian Rights The blueprint also proposes US recognition of Israeli settlements on occupied West Bank land and of Jerusalem as Israels indivisible capital. The Arab League foreign ministers meeting in Cairo said the plan did not meet the minimum aspirations of Palestinians, and that the League would not cooperate with the United States in implementing it. The ministers affirmed Palestinian rights to create a future state based on the land captured and occupied by Israel in the 1967 West Asia war, with East Jerusalem as capital, the final communique said. Foreign ministers from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, three close US allies, as well as Iraq, Lebanon and others said there could be no peace without recognising Palestinian rights to establish a state within the pre-1967 territories. After Trump unveiled his plan, some Arab powers had appeared, despite historic support for the Palestinians, to prioritise close ties with the United States and a shared hostility towards Iran over traditional Arab alliances. Three Gulf Arab states - Oman, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates - attended the White House gathering where Trump announced his plan alongside Netanyahu. On Tuesday, Netanyahu said he would ask his cabinet this week to approve the application of Israeli law to Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Such a move could be the first step towards formal annexation of the settlements and the Jordan Valley - territory Israel has kept under military occupation since its capture in 1967. Most countries consider Israeli settlements on land captured in war to be a violation of international law. Trump has changed US policy to withdraw such objections. Thackeray and the Shiv Sena have been vocal supporters of the CAA, which is considered the precursor to the NRC. Mumbai: Chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on Sunday said that the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC) would not be implemented in Maharashtra, arguing that it would make proving citizenship complicated for Hindus and Muslims. Mr Thackeray, on the other hand, defended the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) which his own allies, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Congress, have opposed saying that it wont take away anyones citizenship but rather grant citizenship to persecuted minorities from neighbouring countries. Mr Thackeray and the Shiv Sena have been vocal supporters of the CAA, which is considered the precursor to the NRC. In an interview to the Sena mouthpiece Saamana, the chief minister said, The NRC will not be allowed in Maharashtra. Proving citizenship will be difficult for both Hindus and Muslims. I will not let that happen, he said. The Sena chief also reiterated that his party would continue to endorse Hindutva. We have not abandoned Hindutva and will never do so. Just that we have formed an alliance government in Maharashtra does not mean that we have changed our religion. We have not compromised anything on the ideology of Hindutva, he said. Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut, who is also the editor of Saamana, interviewed the Sena chief. A short clip of the interview was shared on Twitter while the full interview will be released in the coming days. The Shiv Sena had earlier criticised the Narendra Modi government over the new citizenship law and the proposed NRC, both of which have led to protests across the country. The Sena had earlier alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) wanted a Hindu-Muslim riot over the CAA. The CAA was passed by Parliament on December 11. Those opposed to the legislation have argued that it violates the basic tenets of the Constitution. However, the government and ruling BJP have been defending the Act, saying minority groups from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan have no other option but to come to India to escape religious persecution. Two men have been arrested on suspicion of murder after a teenager was stabbed and died outside an Essex pub. The victim, named locally as 19-year-old Liam Taylor, died at the scene of the attack outside the Rose and Crown in The Green, Writtle, on Friday night. Tributes to the teenager described him as a 'lovely and caring' individual, with more than 50 people arriving at The Green yesterday to lay flowers and release balloons. Essex Police today said it had arrested two men in connection with Mr Taylor's death. An 18-year-old, from Chelmsford, was detained on suspicion of murder and possession of drugs, and a 21-year-old, also from Chelmsford, is being held on suspicion of murder and attempted murder. Both remain in custody for questioning, police said. Liam Taylor died at the scene of the attack outside the Rose and Crown in The Green, Writtle Michelle Taylor, the mother of 19-year-old Liam Taylor, named locally as the victim Four men who were arrested on suspicion of murder on Friday have since been released without charge. Another 19-year-old who was said to have been stabbed in the incident has been discharged from hospital following treatment. Essex Police said it was carrying out extra patrols in parts of Chelmsford and had been granted authorisation to use additional stop and search powers for the Melbourne Estate area until 6pm on Sunday. It said two people were arrested on suspicion of drug driving and another person was given a cannabis warning. Well-wishers were led in a procession and prayer by local vicar Rev Tony Cant, before taking part in a minute's silence. Anglican priest Tony Cant led prayers and held a minute's silence for Mr Taylor on Saturday A soft toy and framed picture left on flowers near to the scene where a man named locally as Liam Taylor died after being stabbed outside the Rose and Crown pub in Writtle, Essex Flowers left near to the scene where a man died after being stabbed outside the Rose and Crown pub in Writtle Villagers in the area spoke of their shock after hearing news of the stabbing. On Facebook, Mr Taylor's mother Michelle wrote: 'Can't even believe my beautiful son has been taken from me.. son you are my world and I know you are looking down on me.' Connor Wise, 21, from the nearby village of Great Baddow who said he had known Mr Taylor for four years, said: 'He was a lovely and caring guy, I would hang out with him in town.' Anyone with information is asked to phone 101 and quote incident 1107 of Friday January 31 or anonymously via Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111. New Delhi/IBNS: Keeping in mind the recent outbreak of Coronavirus in China, which has claimed more than 300 lives so far, India on Sunday temporarily suspended e-visa facility for Chinese travellers and foreigners residing in China. The Indian Embassy in China tweeted: "Due to certain current developments, travel to India on E-visas stands temporarily suspended with immediate effect. This applies to holders of Chinese passports and applicants of other nationalities residing in the Peoples Republic of China." Advisory: Due to certain current developments, travel to India on E-visas stands temporarily suspended with immediate effect. This applies to holders of Chinese passports and applicants of other nationalities residing in the Peoples Republic of China. India in China (@EOIBeijing) February 2, 2020 "Holders of already issued E-visas may note that these are no longer valid. All those who have a compelling reason to visit India may contact the Embassy of India in Beijing or the Indian consulates in Shanghai or Guangzhou,and the Indian Visa Application Centres in these cities," the Embassy said. Holders of already issued E-visas may note that these are no longer valid. All those who have a compelling reason to visit India may contact the Embassy of India in Beijing or the Indian consulates in Shanghai or Guangzhou,and the Indian Visa Application Centres in these cities. India in China (@EOIBeijing) February 2, 2020 India on Sunday airlifted second batch of 323 stranded Indians and seven Maldivian citizens from Wuhan city. The city is being considered as an epicentre of the disease. India evacuated 654 people so far. Image: PIB India Twitter page PHOENIX - Authorities say man who pleaded guilty to murder before fleeing Arizona over 16 years ago to avoid being sentenced has been arrested in Canada. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 1/2/2020 (708 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. PHOENIX - Authorities say man who pleaded guilty to murder before fleeing Arizona over 16 years ago to avoid being sentenced has been arrested in Canada. Adan Perez Huerta pleaded guilty in 2003 to negligent homicide. This Thursday, Jan. 30, 2020 jail booking photo released by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office shows Adan Perez Huerta, 32, who was arrested in Toronto and returned to Arizona where he was booked into jail in Phoenix. Huerta, who pleaded guilty in 2003 to murder before fleeing Arizona to avoid being sentenced, has been arrested in Canada 16 years later after police followed digital footprints provided by social media posts of his family and friends, authorities said. (Maricopa County Sheriff's Office via AP) But he didn't appear for sentencing in the case stemming from a 19-year-old womans death in a 2002 DUI car wreck in a Phoenix suburb. Chandler police say a detective searched for Huerta by checking social media posts of his relatives and associates and eventually found posts by Adan himself and determined that Huerta was in Toronto. Police there arrested Huerta, and he was extradited Thursday. Huertas attorney declined comment Saturday. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has urged countries of the world to "provide safe refuge and asylum to those seeking to flee China." Pompeo spoke on February 2 alongside Kazakh Foreign Minister Mukhtar Tleuberdi at a news conference in Kazakhstan's capital, Nur-Sultan. Earlier in the day, Pompeo met with ethnic Kazakhs who said their relatives were being detained by Chinese authorities. Apart from Uyghurs, there are also thousands of Kazakhs reportedly held in China's detention centers. Kerala Minister VS Sunil Kumar on Sunday said that the Cyber Cell has arrested two women for spreading misinformation about the deadly coronavirus that traces its origins from the seafood market in the central Chinese province of Wuhan. "Cyber Cell arrested two women for spreading misinformation about coronavirus. The number of people arrested in connection with spreading misinformation has increased to five. Three people were arrested from Thrissur yesterday," said Kerala Minister VS Sunil Kumar. Earlier on Saturday, Kerala Health Minister KK Shylaja had stated that the cyber cell has arrested three people for spreading misinformation on social media about coronavirus. A case will also be filed against those who forwarded these messages, the minister added. The arrested persons hail from Thrissur. Meanwhile, providing updates regarding the condition of the patient found positive with the deadly virus after his return from Wuhan, the minister said, "The patient with coronavirus is stable. 69 people who were in contact with this patient have been identified. A total of 1793 people are currently under monitoring." In the latest development, the second patient has been tested positive for novel coronavirus in Kerala today. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) When he was jailed for 13 terror offences, Sudesh Amman couldn't stop laughing. The teenage extremist with a fascination for knives refused to stand for the judge at the Old Bailey and spent his sentencing hearing in December 2018 smiling and waving to his mother and brother in the public gallery. Wearing a black prayer cap and long black tunic, Amman smirked when he was told that he was facing a sentence of just three years and four months. The then 18-year-old Islamic State fanatic kept a notebook in which he wrote that his 'goals in life' were: 'Die as a shuhada', which means martyr, and 'go to jannah', which translates as paradise. The Old Bailey heard the maths and science student at North West London College told his girlfriend to kill her parents and tried to radicalise his younger brothers. He also sent Isis recruitment material and shared an Al Qaeda magazine to a family WhatsApp group that included his three younger brothers aged between 11 and 15, telling one of them he wanted to 'blow myself up'. ISIS fan Sudesh Amman, 18, was sentenced at the Old Bailey after he pleaded guilty to possessing and distributing terrorist documents Amman was said to obsessed with knives and had bought a combat knife and airgun in readiness for a terror attack. He had downloaded a number of manuals showing how to kill people, including one called Bloody Brazilian Knife-Fighting Techniques. The 79-page manual included instructions on inflicting damage to the body with knives and how to target the vital organs in order to inflict 'quick loss of consciousness and death'. Another manual called Close Combat was a 113-page US Marine Corps training manual which included instructions and photographs on how to use a combat knife to target the neck, groin and heart. Chillingly, he asked if he could have a knife delivered to his girlfriend's address and told her he considered Islamic State to be the best thing to happen to Islam. He sent her beheading videos, advising her: 'If you can't make a bomb because family, friends or spies are watching or suspecting you, take a knife, molotov, sound bombs or a car at night and attack the tourists (crusaders), police and soldiers of taghut (enemies of Islam), or western embassies in every country you are in this planet.' He told the girl he was thinking of conducting a terrorist attack in Queensbury, near his home in north-west London, and had conducted reconnaissance. Photos from the scene show a lifeless body, thought to be that of Sudesh Amman, face down on the pavement with what have been described as 'silver canisters' strapped to his chest with a large knife is lying beside him Armed police shot Amman dead after his horrific knife rampage in Streatham this afternoon Paramedics treat a victim of the horrific Streatham terrorist attack that took place on Sunday Kelly Brocklehurst, prosecuting, said: 'Much of his fascination with conducting an attack was focused on using a knife but reference was also made to committing acid attacks on mopeds.' Amman was arrested by armed police in a street in Harrow after posting an image to an encrypted forum of a knife along with two firearms on an Isis flag and the Arabic words: 'Armed and ready, April 3.' The date was said to be a reference to a letter posted to mosques by a Right-wing activist declaring the date 'Punish a Muslim Day'. When police searched the home where Amman lived with his mother and five younger brothers they found an airgun, a combat knife and a notebook with bomb-making instructions. Police then looked at Amman's computer and realised he had been discussing extreme views on jihad. Photographs posted to his family WhatsApp group showed his brothers in their bedroom posing with an Isis flag and BB guns. In a discussion about school with his 15-year-old brother, Amman said he would 'rather blow myself up' and wanted to 'know how to make bombs'. He expressed the belief that Yazidi women a group Isis committed genocide against in Iraq are slaves and therefore the Koran 'makes it permissible to rape them'. Amman later admitted possessing documents containing terrorist information and seven of disseminating terrorist publications. Commander Alexis Boon, head of Scotland Yard's Counter Terrorism Command, said Amman had a 'fierce interest in violence and martyrdom'. A former neighbour, Savita Khimani, 51, said Amman's mother still believed he was wrongly accused even after he was convicted. Mrs Khimani, whose son Jignesh went to school with the jihadi, said: 'He was a normal boy at school. There were no red flags at all. Sudesh had no social media whatsoever.' reuters China's new confirmed infections from the coronavirus outbreak increased by a daily record, up by 2,590 cases on Saturday to top 14,000, as the quickly growing epidemic prompted global travel restrictions and evacuations. Read more Heres more top news of the day: 1) Jamia Warns Students Of Holding Protests Inside Campus, Prohibits Sloganeering & Mass Gathering BCCL Jamia Millia Islamia has become a hub of student protests over the past two months. The university has prohibited students from holding any protest meeting or agitation inside the university campus, warning them of strict action, as per the officials. Read more 2) Amid Coronavirus Scare, China Reports H5N1 Bird Flu Outbreak In Hunan Province bccl/representational image The outbreak occurred in a farm in the Shuangqing district in the province, which lies on the southern border of Hubei province, the epicentre of the rapidly spreading coronavirus. Read more 3) Out On Morning Walk, Vishwa Hindu Mahasabhas UP Chief Shot Multiple Times; Killed On Spot Ranjit Bachchan was taking a stroll in Hazratganj in the morning when bike-borne assailants opened fire on him and killed him on the spot. The Mahasabha leader was shot in the head multiple times. Read more 4) For Peace And Harmony: In A First, Tricolor Hoisted, Preamble Read At Mumbai's Mahim Dargah The Preamble was unveiled at a formal ceremony attended by a few hundred religious scholars, secularists, lawyers, doctors and teachers. They raised their right hands solemnly and recited the texts. Read more 5) Watch: Indians Quarantined For Coronavirus Wear Masks And Dance At Isolation Camp In Manesar Twitter Even as the threat of novel coronavirus looms large, Indians who have been airlifted from China and quarantined in Manesar, were seen dancing in a video. Read more As the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management was handed its highest-ever target of Rs 2.1 trillion for 2020-21 (FY21), its Secretary TUHIN KANTA PANDEY spoke to Arup Roychoudhury a day after the Budget saying the four big transactions Air India, Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL), Shipping Corporation of India, and Container Corporation of India (Concor) could be completed before September. Edited excerpts: From your Revised Estimate of Rs 65,000 crore for 2019-20, you are at Rs 18,000 crore now. Which companies do you plan to divest or privatise before March 31 to reach that target? We have mopped up Rs 18,000 crore so far. From the latest tranche of Bharat 22 exchange-traded fund, we will get Rs 16,500 crore. We have reached Rs 34,500 crore. For the remainder Rs 30,500 crore, we have the strategic sale of THDC and NEEPCO to NTPC. We dont have the figures because the valuation is being done. We have some initial public offerings (IPOs) lined up, including IRFC, and some offer for sales and buybacks. For FY21, you expect Rs 90,000 crore to come from financial institutions. First you have IDBI Bank. Will the Centres stake (currently valued at Rs 18,000 crore) be offloaded or will Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India also offload its stake in the bank (LIC stake is currently valued at Rs 19,700 crore)? The finance minister has announced the sale of only the Centres holdings. We can only talk about our holdings. How much can the Centre expect from the mega LIC IPO? When we are doing a Budget Estimate, we are not giving the exact value of each transaction. These are estimates. You have to allow the government time to decide the structure, timing, quantum, and the number of transactions. We have to finalise with the Department of Financial Services (DFS). DFS has to take the lead in the LIC IPO. For the remainder Rs 1.2 trillion, what is the road map? A large part of this Rs 1.2 trillion will come by way of Realistically speaking, we think the four big transactions Air India, Bharat Petroleum, Shipping Corporation of India, and Concor could be concluded in the first half of the next fiscal year. If all goes well, we should have qualified bidders for Air India by March 31. Similarly for BPCL, the expression of interest will be issued in a few days. We would have a pipeline of big-ticket disinvestments when we step into FY21. Do you see a second wave of privatisation in FY21? We are moving towards privatisation after a long time. If you look at the Economic Survey, it has actually analysed some of those transactions done during the Vajpayee era, and how well those companies have fared, whether you consider the return on equity, return on capital, sales turnover, profit margins, or you look at the earnings per share. In a sense, there will be a second wave of privatisation. When they go low, she goes high. And Eva Mendes set the bar very high indeed on Saturday, when she tactfully clapped back at a negative Instagram user who commented on Eva's video that 'She's getting old.' Eva, 45, responded with, 'Yes your right. Thank God I'm getting old. That means I'm still here. I'm gonna be 46 soon and grateful everyday that I'm aging. Was your comment suppose to make me feel bad? It didn't. It makes me feel grateful. So thank you for the reminder that I'm still here. ' [SIC]. Classy broad: Eva Mendes set the bar quite high on Saturday when she clapped back at a negative commenter who wrote next to the video she posted that day with, 'She's getting old' The video in question showed the stunning Ghost Rider actress perched on the back of a couch in a cute patterned blazer and pants, enjoying a cute new bob haircut and a headband. She started the caption with, 'Back to work. Design meeting,' and concluded it with a sweet missive to her followers: 'Thank you for always sending me so much positivity and love through your comments. I read most of them when I can and it makes me so happy that theres so much love around. I send it all right back. Ten fold.' And after her rebuttal, many other followers came to Eva's defense, with Eva chiming in to many in response with personal messages of thanks for the support, while also insisting that she didn't need to be defended because, as she put it, 'I hope I get super old. That's the goal!!!' Best reply Eva: Eva responded in part with, 'Yes your right. Thank God I'm getting old. That means I'm still here. I'm gonna be 46 soon and grateful everyday that I'm aging' If this is 'old', I'm dead: The video showed the stunning actress perched on the back of a couch in a cute patterned blazer and pants, enjoying a cute new bob haircut and a headband Eva shares two children with Hollywood super-hunk Ryan Gosling. The pair have been partners since 2011 and share daughters Esmeralda, five, and Amada, three. Mendes, whose last screen credit goes all the way back to Gosling's 2014 directorial effort Lost River, said recently that she is waiting for 'something worthwhile to be a part of' before coming out of acting retirement. Other option: Eva, who shares two children with super-hunk Ryan Gosling, could have simply told the offending follower that her man is... super-hunk Ryan Gosling Perfection: The pair have been partners since 2011 and share daughters Esmeralda, five, and Amada, three; seen here at the 2013 premiere of their film The Place Beyond the Pines in NYC 'As a mother now, there are many roles I won't do,' she replied to a fan on her January 7 sponsored post for Avon. 'There are many subject matters that I don't want to be involved with, so it limits my choices and I'm fine with that. I have to set an example for my girls now. But no worry, I got some side hustles. Ha! Thanks for asking. All the best for 2020!' One of those 'side hustles' is designing for New York & Company, which has hosted her exclusive Eva Mendes collection since 2013. During her acting career, the Miami-born, LA-raised stunner worked with respected filmmakers such as Werner Herzog, Robert Rodriguez, James Gray, Frank Miller and Greg Mottola. LANSING Michigans national parks need more than $50 million for maintenance and repairs, according to a report that identifies $12 billion in such needs nationwide. The states need encompasses older parks such as Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore and Isle Royale National Park, as well as newer ones like River Raisin National Battlefield Park. I know that Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore has $10 million worth of deferred maintenance that is evident when you go visit the park headquarters, said Rod DesJardins, the mayor of Munising, one of the gateway communities to the park. They maintain it as best they can, but its a 100-year-old Coast Guard station and they need new facilities and they need to have money to preserve the historic facilities that theyre in, DesJardins said. Pictured Rocks isnt alone. In 2016, Isle Royale applied for funds to replace the 58-year-old MV-Ranger-III ferry that transports passengers and cargo to that park. Estimated cost: $25 million-$30 million. Isle Royale would need $17.9 million to address deferred maintenance projects, with $10.1 million of that needed to maintain the parks buildings, according to the Pew study. Similar problems loom elsewhere. We continue to compete for dollars to be able to develop the park and staff the park, and those come from a variety of sources both internal from the National Park Service through government sources, as well as through our nonprofit partners, said Scott Bentley, the superintendent of River Raisin National Battlefield Park. The deferred maintenance costs for River Raisin total $818,300, Pew reports. At Sleeping Bear Dunes, Pew data shows a deferred maintenance backlog of $16.3 million. These struggles have not gone unrecognized by Congress. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is working to increase funding to national parklands by about $50 million a year, according to a recent article published by Pew. Congress would also be granted authority to appropriate $300 million a year more. In addition to these measures, Pew is urging lawmakers to include a dedicated funding of $4.8 billion to account for high-priority transportation-related assets within the parks. This increase in funding would reduce the $12 billion national backlog. DEFERRED MAINTENANCE LIST Here is a breakdown of the maintenance backlog of national parks in Michigan, according to the Pew Charitable Trust. Pictured Rocks has $10 million of deferred maintenance $2.4 million of this is toward historic maintenance $4.9 million of this is toward transportation maintenance Isle Royale has a $17.9 million backlog of deferred maintenance $3 million of this is toward historic maintenance $465,000 of this is toward transportation maintenance Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore has $16.3 million backlog of deferred maintenance $6.9 million of this is toward historic maintenance $1.7 million of this is toward transportation maintenance River Raisin National Battlefield Park has a $818,300 backlog of deferred maintenance $247,700 of this is toward historic maintenance $329,400 of this is toward transportation maintenance Keweenaw National Park has a $5.3 million backlog of deferred maintenance $5.1 million of this is toward historic maintenance $335,400 of this is toward transportation maintenance Patchy drizzle, freezing drizzle & period of patchy dense fog is possible tonight with temperatures 31-34 rising to 34-38 late. Winds will increase from the southwest at 15-30 mph by early morning with wind chills in the 20s. Skies will clear tomorrow, leading to a very welcome mostly sunny afternoon. Highs of 55-60 are likely. I am forecasting 57 for Greater Lafayette with 55 north & as high as 60 south & southwest. I was surprised that our record high for West Lafayette tomorrow is a rather low 57 set in 1968. This is the lowest record high of the entire month of February or January with records back to 1879. So, climatologically-speaking, February 2 tends to have a low, low probability of getting very warm. A period of 30-40 mph gusts are possible amidst 15-25 mph winds Sunday. Potential is there for some 40-50 mph gusts for a brief bit. Winds greatly diminish tomorrow night with lows in the 30s to 40 a patchy to areas of dense fog develop. Monday should turn overcast & the wind crank up to gusts of 30-40 mph at times late in the day with overall winds of 15-25 mph. Highs should run 51-57 (coolest north). Rain should increase late Monday evening & right through Monday night to Tuesday morning. An isolated rumble of thunder is possible. Most models paint generally 3 waves of precipitation Monday late evening-Wednesday night or Thursday morning. Some even have 4. That said: 1. MONDAY EVENING-TUESDAY MORNING: Rain & isolated rumble of thunder possible. 2. TUESDAY EVENING-WEDNESDAY MORNING: Rain, freezing & sleet with some minor accretions/accumulations possible. 3. WEDNESDAY PM-NIGHT: Freezing rain, sleet & snow with some minor accretions/accumulations possible. A 4th round cannot completely be ruled out with some snow Thursday, but I feel more confident about 3 rounds than 4 at the moment. The band of heaviest frozen precipition in any round is shaping up just northwest of our area with substantial accumulations of snow & ice possible. However, we still look to get some with impacts in the area. We will need to monitor the band of heaviest icy precipitation & snow closely, as it is looking to not be far away. Some Ensemble members of various models bring the heaviest icy precipition & snow into our viewing area. We shall see how this evolves. One fly in the ointment with this is the flooding rainfall Kentucky to West Virginia & the severe weather outbreak that will occur over the South Tuesday-Wednesday. This could take away moisture that would bring down ice/snow amounts even if the heaviest sets up over our area. Looks like it could be two severe weather outbreaks with two waves of severe storms with unusually high dew points, warmth & instability given the deep-layer shear. ENHANCED to MODERATE RISK upgrades are likely coming in future Storm Prediction Center outlooks. Winds look gusty here 25-45 mph Wednesday night to part of Thursday with the cold air. Melted snow/ice & rainfall amount to 0.75-1.25" for late Monday-evening to mid-week. Cold weather by mid-week should moderate a bit by Friday. We will go from 20s & teens to 30s. Snow is possible late Friday to Friday night with minor accumulation possible with lows near 29 (with gusty winds). This will be an Alberta Clipper system that will dive southeastward rapidly & be in & out. However, given the dynamic support & brief shot of moderate snow is possible. Gusty winds from the northwest of 25-45 mph are possible behind the system. Another surge of cold air will follow. A sign is posted at a Raytheon Co. campus in El Segundo, Calif. on June 10, 2019. A former engineer at Raytheon Missile Systems was indicted on charges of violating U.S. export control laws. (Mario Tama/Getty Images) Former Raytheon Engineer Accused of Taking Missile Defense Secrets to China A Chinese-American former engineer at a major U.S. defense contractor has been indicted on charges of violating federal export control laws after he took his work laptop, which contained classified missile technology, without authorization to China. Wei Sun, a 48-year-old Chinese-born U.S. citizen, had worked as an electrical engineer for a decade at Raytheon Missile Systems, a subsidiary of Raytheon, the fourth-largest U.S. defense contractor, according to court documents. The Tucson-based unit produces missile and missile-defense systems for the U.S. military. During his employment, Sun held a secret-level security clearance and had access to sensitive advanced missile-defense technology. In December 2018, Sun told a Raytheon official that he planned on taking his work laptop on an overseas trip, court records said. The engineer was told, however, that doing so would be a violation of company policy and of federal export control law because his laptop contained sensitive data on a missile-defense project that he had been working on. Sun did so anyway, prosecutors allege. He also logged onto the Raytheon internal network while overseas and, using his work email, sent an email to the company in January 2019 saying he was resigning in order to study and work overseas. After returning to the United States a week later, he admitted to taking the laptop overseas, the documents said. While he initially told Raytheon security officials he had only visited Singapore and the Philippines during his trip, he later admitted to taking the laptop to China. Sun was arrested by the FBI the next day, according to Quartz, which first reported the case. An assessment of Suns laptop by a Raytheon lawyer confirmed that it contained defense data subject to export restrictions under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, the complaint said. Under those regulations, a person must apply for a license from the U.S. State Department to export any export-controlled data from the United States. Suns laptop had sensitive data relating to two missile programs: Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) used on U.S. fighter jets and Redesigned Kill Vehicle (RKV), a now-canceled Pentagon project that aimed to replace the interceptor that shoots down incoming ballistic missiles in U.S. missile defense systems. It also contained an IT security program that itself was subject to export controls, the complaint added. Sun was indicted in February 2019 in a case heard at the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona. He has pleaded not guilty and is currently being held without bail. He is expected to change his plea to guilty as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors, Quartz reported. Sun is set to appear in court on Feb. 14. Suns attorney and Raytheon didnt respond to requests for comments. The U.S. Attorneys Office for the District of Arizona couldnt immediately be reached for comment. The case forms part of a growing list of federal prosecutions related to espionage by the Chinese state. Last year, an adjunct professor at the University of California-Los Angeles was convicted for his role in a scheme to fraudulently acquire sensitive microchip technology from a U.S. firm, and illegally export it to China. The semiconductor chips in question had both commercial and military applications, including in missile-guidance systems for the U.S. military. Whitehall's most powerful mandarin has cost the taxpayer 175,000 in expenses in just one year, The Mail on Sunday can reveal on top of his 205,000 salary. The expenses for Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill include the use of a taxpayer-funded limousine costing an average of 250 a day. And a four-day trip to China last May, where he led a delegation of a dozen UK officials, cost more than 72,400. At the time, a Cabinet Minister labelled the China trip showboating, while last night the Taxpayers' Alliance described the expenses bill as Whitehall opulence. Under fire: The Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill Sir Mark's chauffeur-driven car from the ministerial fleet cost the public purse 22,000 every 90 days last year. That was an average of 10,000 more per quarter than the bill incurred by his predecessor, the late Sir Jeremy Heywood. Sedwill also claimed 15,000 for additional 'travel to meetings' not done in his car. As an explanation for the large bills, his defenders say that he is 'very active in getting out of Whitehall'. Sir Mark has never been far from controversy during his tenure as Britain's most senior civil servant. There was uproar when he was appointed to the top job by his ally Theresa May in October 2018 without going through the normal Whitehall recruitment process. He had been acting Cabinet Secretary since June 2018, but also retained his role as National Security Adviser, sparking accusations that he was 'double jobbing'. Sir Mark (pictured) has never been far from controversy during his tenure as Britain's most senior civil servant. There was uproar when he was appointed to the top job by his ally Theresa May in October 2018 without going through the normal Whitehall recruitment process Despite suggestions from senior Tories that Boris Johnson would seek to oust the powerful mandarin when he took the keys to Downing Street last year, Sir Mark is said to have abandoned a long-held ambition to become the UK's Ambassador to Washington, and instead wants to remain at the Prime Minister's side. Sir Mark's expenses are published alongside other senior Cabinet Office officials every three months. The figures available cover the period from September 2018 to September last year. Some of his costs are missing from this Government's transparency data, meaning his exact bill for his first year in the job remains unclear. Last night, Whitehall officials said the missing data was 'cock-up, not conspiracy' and would be published in due course. But furious campaigners accused the bureaucrat of 'becoming far too reliant on Civil Service perks'. James Roberts, director of the TaxPayers' Alliance said: 'Taxpayers don't expect their money to be wasted on Whitehall opulence, flying government functionaries to China and giving mandarins free rides in ministerial limos. 'With a Budget on the horizon and departments being probed for potential savings, these perks seem like a good place to start.' Last night, the Cabinet Office said: 'As the leader of over 400,000 civil servants, the Cabinet Secretary visits teams spread across all four nations of the UK. The Government Car Service provides his official transport.' The spokesman said that 11 Whitehall departmental heads had joined Sir Mark's delegation to China, adding: 'The expenses declared was the total cost for all the Permanent Secretaries who were on the visit, not just Mark Sedwill. The visit was designed to progress a range of UK priorities in China, across security, economic and global issues.' Seven years have gone by since the heinous crime took place but the convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case are still playing with the machinery of the judicial system, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told Delhi High Court on Sunday. (Photo: File) New Delhi: Seven years have gone by since the heinous crime took place but the convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case are still playing with the machinery of the judicial system, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told Delhi High Court on Sunday. A single-judge bench of justice Suresh Kumar Kait was hearing a plea moved by the Central government and Tihar Jail authorities challenging the stay on the execution of Nirbhaya convicts, which was earlier scheduled to take place on February 1. "Seven years have gone by and they are still playing with the machinery of the judicial system. Convicts are still trying the patience of the nation. The act so ghastly that it has shaken the conscience of the society," Mehta said during the hearing. He said that the credibility of the institution and "its own power to execute a death sentence" is at stake here. Mehta submitted a chart with the detail of the dates convicts filed their legal remedies and said that it "clearly seems there was a deliberate delay on part of the convict and prompt response on part of the institution". "There is a deliberate, well calculated well thought to design to frustrate the process of law. A gangrape was committed where the convicts inserted a rod in her private parts, pulled out her intestines, and threw her out of the moving bus," he told the court. The Solicitor General said that the convicts cannot be hanged separately "only during the time when judicial proceedings are ongoing" adding that "once the Supreme Court decides the fate of all convicts in finality, there is nothing barring them from being hanged separately". He said that according to Delhi Prison Rules in case of co-convicts, the convicts have to be hanged together only if an "appeal or application" is pending, which does not include mercy petitions. "The law requires a 14 days notice period to be given to the convicts to take care of their affairs before they are hanged. One convict will file some plea on the 13th day and then ask for the death warrant to be stayed against all. They are all acting in tandem," Mehta said. He said if President grants pardon to convict A in a case, that doesn't mean that there is a change in circumstances for the convict B, whose mercy petition has earlier been dismissed. Apart from Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, Additional Solicitor General KM Nataraj, Advocates Kirtiman, Amit Mahajan and Anil Soni were appearing for the Centre, State through Lieutenant Governor and Tihar Jail. On the other hand, advocates Rebecca John and Vrinda Grover are appearing on behalf of convict Mukesh while advocate AP Singh is appearing for the other three convicts in the case. Delhi High Court had on Saturday issued a notice to Tihar jail authorities and the Nirbhaya convicts and sought their response on a plea moved by the Centre challenging the stay on their execution. A Delhi court had last week stayed till further orders the execution of the four convicts -- Akshay Thakur, Mukesh Singh, Pawan Gupta, and Vinay Sharma -- which was earlier scheduled to take place on February 1. The case pertains to the gang-rape and brutal murder of a 23-year-old paramedical student in a moving bus on the night of December 16, 2012, by six people, including a juvenile, in Delhi. The woman had died at a Singapore hospital a few days later. One of the five adults accused, Ram Singh, had allegedly committed suicide in the Tihar Jail during the trial of the case. Here are todays leading news stories: Politics -- Head of Vietnams mission to the UN, Ambassador Dang Dinh Quy has chaired a session to review activities of the UN Security Council (UNSC) in January, during which Vietnam held the Presidency of the UNSC. The meeting was attended by more than 100 representatives from UN member countries and observers. Society -- Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc on Saturday signed Decision No.173.QD-TTg, declaring the acute respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus (nCoV) an epidemic in Vietnam. -- The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Health confirmed on Saturday that four people, including three French nationals and a Vietnamese, have been quarantined after showing signs of being infected with the novel coronavirus. All of the four had previously traveled to Wuhan, China. -- A 56-year-old South Korean man passed away due to health issues on board flight VN415 operated by national carrier Vietnam Airlines, which was traveling from Seoul to Hanoi on Saturday. -- A total of six people in the northern provinces of Thai Nguyen, Bac Ninh, and Vinh Phuc have been fined VND12.5 million (US$541) each for posting false information regarding the new coronavirus on Facebook. Business -- About 500 Chinese tourists and 3,000 Chinese workers were stuck in the south-central province of Khanh Hoa as of Saturday evening after all flights between Vietnam and China were grounded to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus. -- The Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam has resumed the flights between Vietnam and Taiwan to clear passengers who were unable to get on board after all services between Vietnam and China have been grounded since 1:00 pm Saturday. Education -- The Ministry of Education and Training on Saturday submitted a document to the prime minister, proposing that all students from kindergartens to high schools in northern Vinh Phuc Province, north-central Thanh Hoa Province, and south-central Khanh Hoa Province be allowed to stay home from February 3 to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! An 80-year-old woman who fell in love with an Egyptian toyboy has written to Boris Johnson to help wed her dream man. Iris Jones, from Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, first struck up a conversation with Mohamed Ahmed Irbriham on a Facebook group exploring aetheism last summer. Within a fortnight, the 35-year-old, from Giza, expressed his love for Iris who flew out to Cairo in November to meet him. Long distance lovers: Within a fortnight, Mohamed had professed his love and by November, Iris had arranged to fly over to Cairo to meet him in person Iris ended up revealing details of their sex life and said they used 'a whole tub of KY Jelly' during their steamy first night together. Pictured on This Morning last week Despite only having just met, they decided to get married in the city, but the British Embassy told Iris she would need her divorce papers and also a certificate of no impediment proving she was free to wed again. Grandmother Iris claims UK diplomats in Cairo blocked her marrying Mohamed, according to The Mirror. She said she has sent many emails but claims they have been ignored by officials. And in a bid to marry her dream man, Iris believes Mr Johnson will sympathise with her because of his 24-year age gap with girlfriend Carrie Symonds. In a letter to the PM, Iris wrote: Dear Mr Johnson, I know you are a man with a heart. Iris said Mr Johnson is 'a man with needs and desires like all of us' and has written a letter to him And in a bid to marry her dream man, Iris believes Mr Johnson will sympathise with her because of his 24-year age gap with girlfriend Carrie Symonds (pictured) 'I want to marry this gentleman from Egypt. Were meeting obstacles and setbacks. Time isnt on my side now. I just want to spend my last days with him. She added how Mr Johnson is 'a man with needs and desires like all of us' and decided not to contact the Queen because she is busy with Harry, Meghan and Andrew. The pensioner went viral last week when she appeared on This Morning alongside Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby to discuss the couple's 45-year age gap. Iris went viral last week when she appeared on This Morning alongside Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby to discuss the couple's 45-year age gap Mohamed Ahmed Ibriham swept Iris Jones from Somerset off her feet when they met on Facebook last year and she flew to Egypt to be with him Iris ended up revealing details of their sex life and said they used 'a whole tub of KY Jelly' during their steamy first night together. Speaking to MailOnline, Mohamed was slightly more coy: It was a beautiful and we had been waiting for that moment for a long time. I dont want to go into too much detail because we dont talk about such things in Egypt. But it was very passionate and felt special holding such a wonderful soul. Speaking to MailOnline from his home in Giza, south of Cairo, Mohamed said people may be skeptical about their relationship but that his love was real (above, together) Its not her appearance that interests me but what is inside. She has great mind and loving heart.' However Mohamed told Iris he was 'angry' at revealing personal details of their personal life on TV. Yet Iris was able to win back the heart of her man and described how she can 'easily calm him down'. Iris is set to meet a registrar tomorrow about a certificate of no impediment and is planning a spring wedding in Cairo. She plans to return to the UK with Mohamed, visa permitting, and said she is happy for him to inherit her 220,000 bungalow but will no change her will. Downing Street replied to her request saying: 'The PM appreciates you taking the time to write. Your correspondence has been forwarded to the relevant department.' MailOnline has contacted the British Embassy in Cairo. By Gabriela Baczynska BRUSSELS (Reuters) - When the British flag was lowered on EU headquarters in Brussels on Friday afternoon to mark Brexit becoming the new reality, it was the end of a long and exhausting divorce. For journalists who have covered three years of Brexit twists since Britain voted in a 2016 referendum to leave, it felt like closing off a longrunning repetitive cycle By Gabriela Baczynska BRUSSELS (Reuters) - When the British flag was lowered on EU headquarters in Brussels on Friday afternoon to mark Brexit becoming the new reality, it was the end of a long and exhausting divorce. For journalists who have covered three years of Brexit twists since Britain voted in a 2016 referendum to leave, it felt like closing off a longrunning repetitive cycle. It all started with unexpected news, for us in Brussels at least. A YouGov opinion poll released after polling stations closed in Britain on June 23, 2016 showed a narrow win for "Remain" and arch-Brexiteer Nigel Farage conceded defeat. In Brussels we went to bed, only to be roused a few hours later with the stunning news that - some 40 years after it joined - Britain had in fact voted to leave. After the initial shock and confusion, the EU's natural response kicked in: hold some meetings. And there were thousands of them in the ensuing years to work out when and how a member actually leaves a club that so far had only dealt with admission requests. Many were highly complex: on the divorce bill itself, expatriate rights, North Sea fishing quotas, space programmes, the status of Gibraltar, sharing sensitive data and customs procedures and of course the tricky Irish border question. We had to nurture multiple sources over years to break what was often market-moving news. Close collaboration with colleagues in London, where politicians were wrangling over what do about Brexit, was equally essential. Drama was conveyed in British politicians' sometimes fiery Brexit rhetoric, some memorable flourishes from officials such as EU negotiator Michel Barnier, all with a dusting of the dry texts that Brussels officials tend to produce. An obscure Brexit lexicon evolved that needed explaining to readers - from the "pathway to a tunnel" to "avoiding the cliff edge". After Theresa May's failure to get a Brexit deal approved by the British parliament doomed her premiership last year, it was Prime Minister Boris Johnson's turn. He secured a new deal with Brussels in October and armed with a decisive election win, got the agreement approved, paving the way for Britain's departure on Friday. All done. Not quite yet. A status-quo transition period started on Saturday, giving the two sides until the end of this year to work out the details of their new relationship. So what comes now? If the past few years serve as a guide, we shall get a few months of low-burning negotiations, followed by a crisis from late summer onwards. So we are getting ready to cover quite a few more late-night talks. (Editing by Frances Kerry) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. Feb. 1, 2020 Dear Colleagues: The University has received questions concerning monitoring for 2019 Novel Coronavirus from members of our community who have returned to or are arriving at the University and have recently been in China. In response, the University adopts the following procedure to support faculty, staff, students, and visitors. This procedure covers members of the University community regardless of whether they were in China for University business or personal travel, as well as visitors coming to the University from China to participate in scholarly activities. This procedure is aligned with the January 31, 2020, declaration by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services of a Public Health Emergency for the nation. ARRIVING FROM CHINA ON OR AFTER JANUARY 15, 2020: Faculty, staff, students, or visitors arriving from China on or after January 15, 2020, should not return to campus until 14 days after their arrival in the U.S. This is an expectation of the University for those arriving between January 15 and February 2. It is an expectation of the University and a requirement of the United States for those arriving on or after February 2. We ask that you make your supervisor aware and then contact UMaryland Immediate Care (UMIC) at (667) 214-1899 to speak with a clinician. The clinical team will discuss symptom recognition and how to arrange to be seen should symptoms arise. The office will also arrange for a follow-up appointment at UMIC at the end of the 14-day period. You will be given clearance to return to your regular work/school duties at the end of the 14-day period. Please note that we are acutely aware of the difficulty that this action places upon the individual and the office/department/area in which you work. We thank you in advance for placing the safety of your friends, colleagues and community above your individual needs during this very difficult time. At your request, we will also work with your supervisor or professor to help arrange work/school accommodations while you are away from campus. ARRIVING FROM CHINA BEFORE JANUARY 15, 2020: Faculty, staff, students, or visitors who arrived from China prior to January 15, 2020, do not need to take any additional action unless they feel sick with fever, cough, or difficulty breathing. If you are sick, please contact UMIC at (667) 214-1899. Please advise UMIC that you are calling regarding recent travel from China and have flu-like symptoms. UMIC will arrange for a health care provider to speak with you about your recent travel to China and determine whether you need to be seen in person. UMaryland Immediate Care is located at 408 W. Lombard St. in Baltimore. Faculty, staff, students, and visitors will not be charged for this medical review. The University stands ready to provide support to the community and its visitors. As events unfold, we will do our best to keep you informed of any changes in procedures and mandates. I encourage everyone to approach this evolving situation in a calm and thoughtful manner. Sincerely, Bruce E. Jarrell, MD, FACS Interim President Several journalists were wounded during the Syrian government's military operation against the Jabhat al-Nusra group in the al-Qarasi region in the vicinity of Aleppo. Syria's government and Russian forces have intensified air attacks and a ground offensive in the cities of Idlib and Aleppo after terrorists from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra, have staged assaults on the Syrian armed forces' positions with three car bombs in Aleppo. "Several journalists were injured while they were covering the advancement of the government army in the al-Qarasi region in the vicinity of Aleppo," Sputnik quoted Ikhbariya broadcaster as reported. According to Syrian state-owned broadcaster SANA, those injured as a result of a militants' attack are cameramen of two Iranian broadcasters., In December last year, the United Nations had said that over 235,000 people fled the Idlib region in the last two weeks after Russia and Syria launched airstrikes in a bid to take over the last major opposition bastion. Syrian Bashar al-Assad regime, backed by Iran, has reportedly promised to take back the rebel-controlled area and broke a ceasefire that was announced in August. They have since December 19 seized dozens of towns and villages from armed fighters amid clashes that have killed hundreds on both sides. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Al Pacino takes a tumble at the EE British Academy Film Awards 2020 at Royal Albert Hall. (Photo by Dave J Hogan/Getty Images) Al Pacino had to be helped to his feet after he suffered a dramatic stumble on the red carpet prior to the 2020 BAFTAs. The 79-year-old actor, who is nominated for his role in The Irishman, was pictured falling over on the stairs as he made his way to the Royal Albert Hall for the ceremony. Pacino was assisted into the building and appeared to be okay despite his tumble. Read more: Full list of BAFTAs 2020 winners He will compete in the Best Supporting Actor category for his performance as controversial union figure Jimmy Hoffa in Martin Scorseses three-and-a-half-hour Netflix mob epic. Al Pacino is helped to his feet after falling over whilst attending the 73rd British Academy Film Awards held at the Royal Albert Hall, London. (Photo by Ian West/PA Images via Getty Images) Pacino last won a BAFTA in 1976, when he was jointly recognised for his leading performances in The Godfather Part II and Dog Day Afternoon. He was nominated again in 1991 for playing the role of crime boss Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice in Dick Tracy. Among his fellow nominees this year is Pacinos co-star Joe Pesci, who is nominated for portraying Italian-American crime lord Russell Bufalino in The Irishman. Read more: Predictions for the 2020 BAFTAs Meanwhile, Pacinos fellow Best Supporting Actor nominee, Brad Pitt, was revealed to be skipping the ceremony as a result of a family obligation. Pitt is hotly tipped to emerge victorious at the BAFTAs, having already secured the Screen Actors Guild Award and the Golden Globe in the category for his performance in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. The Sun showbiz columnist Dan Wootton revealed on Twitter that Pitt was not expected to be in attendance. Good evening from the Bafta red carpet where sadly Ive just heard Brad Pitt has pulled out of attending tonight. Assured hes all good but has a family obligation. Hes the hot favourite to win for supporting actor. #EEBAFTAs #BAFTAs pic.twitter.com/G56knf23YU Dan Wootton (@danwootton) February 2, 2020 The Irishman and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood are among the most acclaimed movies at this years BAFTAs, with each securing 10 nominations. Story continues Only comic book drama Joker has more nods, with Todd Phillips movie up for 11 awards and Joaquin Phoenix widely expected to win Best Actor for his work in the title role. Read more: Most controversial BAFTA moments The winners of the BAFTAs will be hoping to repeat the feat at the Oscars, which will be handed out on 9 February in Hollywood. Tony Montoya was re-elected as president of the San Francisco Police Officers Association by a scant 86 votes Sunday after a runoff election. Montoya received 848 votes from the unions membership, edging out Rich Cibotti, who had 762 votes, according to election results obtained by The Chronicle. The election was forced into a runoff after Montoya failed to secure 50% of the votes during elections for the unions executive board late last month. Montoya pledged to take a more diplomatic approach to city politics than his predecessors after taking over when former President Martin Halloran resigned in May 2018. Montoya famously fired union consultant and former President Gary Delagnes over a controversial Facebook post shortly after the late Public Defender Jeff Adachi died last February. Cibotti, a San Francisco police sergeant at the Tenderloin Station and an attorney who defends officers in police discipline cases, ran to be a tougher leader in the mold of Delagnes and Halloran. While Montoya may have taken a more calculating approach in City Hall, his policies and decisions were never a significant departure from the unions long-held stances. Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts. Most recently, Montoya called on the federal government to step in when San Franciscos new progressive district attorney, Chesa Boudin, opted to pull back charges against a man accused of attacking police with a bottle. The defendant, Jamaica Hampton, 24, was shot by police in the altercation and his leg was amputated during his hospitalization. Evan Sernoffsky is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @EvanSernoffsky It's 2020 and a new February is upon us which means Black History Month is here and OP is here to celebrate some moments. This year some themes will be certain history making moments for the culture (such as this one), vintage black celebrities and just like overall black excellence.The groundbreaking directed was the first African-American and the youngest director ever nominated for Best Director, sorry Damian.The movie which if you haven't seen it, change that now was a story about the different pathways young black men in South Central Los Angeles. The movie was partly inspired by Singleton's life. To get cultured for the culture, check out some interviews Singleton did about his seminal work.He was the director and screenwriter.More than likely they'd probably look at some white directors if Spike Lee was busy. No one was going to tell his story the way it is meant to be told.The film granted critical acclaim and the awards soon followed, but Singleton made history twice being the first black and the youngest director ever nominated. The film was also nominated for Best Original Screenplay. Yes, playa ain't no Amistad give us free here. Yes, OP know there's are issues with the fact that a majority white male institution should not be the scale on which we measure success, but damn it, it's just nice to see a young black man get recognized for his work and for non mediocre work and there wasn't no slave film.He didn't win that went to another directing legend, Jonathan Demme, for, but we out here! Singleton, ever the humble, seemed quite stoked that Demme won.Sources 1 Branded school uniforms costing up to three times more than their supermarket counterparts could be banned, it has been revealed. A law requiring schools to only specify basic items, such as trousers and shirts, and not styles will be proposed by Labour MP for Weaver Vale, Cheshire, Mike Amesbury next week. If approved, it could save parents hundreds of pounds dressing their children, reports the Sunday People. Law requiring schools to only specify basic items, and not styles, will be put forward by Labour MP Mike Amesbury next week (stock) Parents have regularly struggled with the cost of branded uniforms - at 340 a year for secondary school and 255 for primaries. Nearly one in six families say they have been forced to cut back on essentials including food and electricity in order to meet the hefty bills. Mother-of-three Karen, a teaching assistant in Hull, told the Sunday People that her family 'can't afford' three branded sets of uniforms. Charity School-Home support, which helps parents afford uniforms, warned in the run-up to the 2019 to 2020 academic year that it had seen a spike in requests. 'Last year we were spending the most on beds, bedding, furniture and other essential household items,' said CEO Jaine Stannard. 'Now, we get the most requests for school uniform and shoes.' Parents regularly struggle with the cost of branded uniforms - which can cost 340 a year for secondary school and 255 for primaries (stock) Mother-of-four Kirsty Powell, who set up a school uniform donation group in Stratford-upon-Avon, told The Guardian that academies were increasingly using branded uniforms to imitate private schools, leaving parents out of pocket. 'If you send your child to a private school, you might expect to pay these costs,' she said. 'But these are state schools.' When MailOnline contacted the group, it received a message saying the group is receiving a 'high volume of messages and applications'. Mike Amesbury, pictured, will propose the law next week Conservative Education minister Lord Agnew promised new guidance on school uniforms in September last year after an inquiry heard blazers, trousers and socks can cost up to three times more when they are branded. 'It's mindless bureaucracy on the part of these schools,' he told the inquiry. 'They don't realise that actually this is an additional burden for a family that's not well off.' There is no legislation in place in the UK in relation to school uniforms. However, the Department for Education advises that no uniform should be 'so expensive as to leave pupils or their families feeling unable to apply to, or attend, a school of their choice'. 'The school uniform should be easily available for parents to purchase and schools should seek to select items that can be purchased cheaply, for example in a supermarket or other good value shop. 'Schools should keep compulsory branded items to a minimum and avoid specifying expensive items of uniform.' The Labour MPs decision to propose the law follows a Sunday People campaign on the issue. There was a celebration of sorts in the State Capitol complex the other day. No, not the latest loud backfire in the governors trucks-only toll legislation. That was a few hours later. But in a quiet second-floor meeting room of the Legislative Office Building, during a reunion of sorts, a couple dozen good-government types commemorated the 15th anniversary year of the landmark, bipartisan legislation that launched the states public financing program. There should have been a case of soda on hand, but more about that in a little while. In early 2005, Connecticut was still reeling from the continuous scandals that culminated in the first incarceration of federal inmate No. 15623014, known better to you as John G. Rowland, the felonious former Republican governor. No. 15623014 resigned at the end of June 2004, and M. Jodi Rell, the lieutenant governor, ascended. She immediately became the ethics governor, with soaring, crazy popularity. Throughout the summer of 2005, a commission developed revisions to the campaign-finance landscape, which while never as corrupt as nearby New York, gave special interests way too much access to the machinery of legislation. By the end of the year, Rell was signing into law the legislation that created the Citizens Election Program, which has had its ups and downs, namely the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court case that said corporations deserve unlimited free speech, too. Another downer was the 2013 law allowing state Republican and Democratic parties to make unlimited expenditures for legislative candidates, even those who participate in the public funding program. The 2014 move by state Democrats to raid their national bank account, transferring at least a million dollars, including banned contractor contributions for Gov. Dan Malloys re-election, finally resulted in a $325,000 fine in June 2016. Yes, there have also been regular attacks against the state funding program, as well as the regulatory State Elections Enforcement Commission, which is still investigating, among dozens of other cases, Bridgeports mayoral primary from last summer, where Hearst Connecticut Media reporters found evidence of illegalities, including Democratic workers for Mayor Joe Ganim filling out absentee ballots for voters. In 2018, a new law limited the amount of time the SEEC can spend on an investigation to one year. That deadline pretty much means there will never be a case like the one that led to the aforementioned record-setting $325,000 fine, because state Democrats fought the SEEC in court for two years, before finally settling. Oh, and lawmakers have slowly strangled the SEEC with budget reductions. But the funding program is still kicking. Back in 2005, lobbyists breathed sighs of relief. Yes, they cheered privately, now they didnt have to go to every fundraising event for every back bencher in the General Assembly. That bare-bones law lasted only a few years, and the $100 limits on personal contributions, have steadily risen are now up to $270 for House and Senate candidates. This year, House candidates will need to raise $5,300 in small contributions to leverage as much as $30,000 to run competitive races. Senate candidates will gather $16,000 to obtain as much as $104,000. By the way, the checks they will take from local voters will be contributions, not donations. You donate to nonprofits such as Kids in Crisis, the youth shelter in Greenwich, or community radio WPKN in Bridgeport. You contribute to candidates who you believe will represent your interests in your town, the State Capitol, or Washington. Beth Rotman, the founding director of the Citizens Election Program, came up from Washington for the little commemoration. Shes with Common Cause now down in Washington, where she is its national director of money in politics and ethics. Races are more-competitive, she said looking back on the genesis of the program and the effect it has had on cleaning up politics here. The Citizens Election Program has been embraced by candidates and many claim that the high participation by elected legislators has led to better policy outcomes. Well, lets not go overboard. We know that politics costs money and runaway campaign spending blocks better governmental policies because candidates turn to the wealthy and industry for support, Rotman said. The support comes with strings because big spenders are investing in policy outcomes. Public financing of elections steps in to create space for policies that favor large swaths of everyday Americans, particularly when combined with restrictions on lobbyist and government contractor contributions. So what about the case of soda they needed for the festivities? Well, the Citizens Election Programs funding sources has been unredeemed money about $24 million a year from the states bottle deposit law, and unclaimed property in the state treasurers office. So when some lawmaker tries to dazzle you by attacking public financing as taxpayer-funded, you can call them on it. Its from people too lazy to bring back their soda bottles. Makes me wonder if theyre too negligent to vote, too. kdixon@ctpost.com Twitter: @KenDixonCT No one injured in the incident, the third in five days NEW DELHI: NEW DELHI: In the third such incident inside of a week, two unidentified persons opened fire outside Gate No. 5 of Jamia Millia Islamia on Sunday night, the Jamia Coordination Committee (JCC) said. A statement issued by the committee, a group comprising students and alumni of the university formed to protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act, said the attackers were on a red Rcooty. No one was injured in the attack. One of the miscreants was wearing a red jacket, the statement said. "Firing has taken place at Gate No.5 of Jamia Millia Islamia right now by two unidentified persons. As per report, one of them was wearing a red jacket and driving a red Scooty having vehicle no. 1532 or 1534," the statement said. Police said they were verifying the JCC's claims. Asim Mohammed Khan, former Congress MLA from Okhla, said the incident occurred around 11.30 pm. "We heard the gunshot. That is when we stepped out to see and the two men left on a Scooty," a student said. "We have taken down the vehicle number and called police," he added. This is the third firing incident in the Jamia Nagar area in a week. On Thursday, a minor fired at anti-CAA protesters marching towards Rajghat, injuring a student. Two days later, a 25-year-old fired two rounds in air in Shaheen Bagh in Jamia Nagar. No one was hurt in the incident. The incident on Sunday night triggered panic in the area. A police vehicle had reached the spot after the incident but was chased away by angry students. Hundreds of students and locals gathered outside the university. Many raised slogans against the Delhi Police. They also staged a dharna outside the Jamia Nagar police station. Shezad Ahmed, a JMI student and resident of Zakir Nagar, said they were not even allowed to protest peacefully. "We are not going to be deterred by such incidents. We will continue with our protest," he added. Owing to the success of the new iPhone 11 lineup introduced in September last year, Apple has regained the top spot with 78 million units shipped globally in Q4 2019. However, even with the successful quarter, the Cupertino giant ended up at the third spot by shipping 198.1 million units in 2019 as compared to 212.5 million units in 2018. On the other hand, Korean smartphone player Samsung retained the top spot with 298.1 million units shipped in 2019, with 2 per cent annual growth. Even after the US Entity list saga, Huawei shipped 240.6 million units in 2019, registering a 17 per cent annual growth occupied. Despite global market growth in Q3 and Q4, the worldwide smartphone market fell by 2 per cent to 1.37 billion units in 2019, as compared to 1.39 billion units in 2018. Mo Jia, Analyst at Canalys, says, "The fortunes of Huawei and Samsung are the story of the year". "2018 saw Huawei take huge chunks of Samsung's market share. And 2019 was meant to be the year Huawei challenged Samsung for the #1 spot. Samsung knew this and was ready for all-out war. It drastically increased its portfolio, and slashed operating margin. But the battle never came, as Huawei's placement on the US Entity List in May stifled it overseas," adds Jia. Ultimately Samsung retained the lead in the 2019 smartphone market with 21.8 per cent share, followed by Huawei with 17.6 per cent, followed by Apple with 14.5 per cent of the global smartphone market in 2019. "As Huawei prepares to launch its next wave of devices without Google Mobile Services (GMS), its objectives are now very different. It must maintain as much channel support as it can in key markets like Western Europe. It must curate a developer ecosystem to support HMS. And most importantly, it must maintain scale. If it loses scale, it loses developer interest," added Jia. Due to the exceptional demand of the new iPhones - iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Max, iPhone revenue in the December quarter was $56 billion, up 8 per cent over a year ago. Apple claimed that the iPhone 11 was the top-selling model every week during the December quarter and the three new models turned out to be the three most popular iPhones. India along with many developed and emerging markets contributed to this growth. Madhumita Chaudhary, Analyst at Canalys, says, "Apple hit a home-run with its pricing strategy on the iPhone 11. The partnership with local bank HDFC made iPhones more affordable, with the entry-level iPhone 11 one of the cheapest 'new' iPhones in a while. The new iPhones have appealed not just to current iPhone users looking to upgrade, but also to value-conscious premium phone purchasers that are now presented with a formidable price-alternative to the Samsung or OnePlus flagships". Apple registered its best-ever performance in India, owing to a cheaper iPhone 11, and excitement around its dual and triple cameras. The vendor shipped close to 925 thousand iPhones in Q4 2019, growing by over 200 per cent annually. Its previous best performance was in Q3 2017 when it shipped 890 thousand iPhones to India. Apple also finished sixth, behind Oppo, its highest rank in India since Q4 2013. For the full year, Apple shipped 2 million iPhones versus 1.6 million in 2018. Also Read: Second case of deadly Coronavirus confirmed in Kerala Also Read: Second batch of 323 Indians evacuated from China's Coronavirus-hit Wuhan Also Read: Govt reduces spending on MGNREGA, allocates Rs 60,000 crore for FY21 A foreign-based Iranian human rights group has reported that twenty inmates in Irans Rajaee-Shahr prison near Tehran have been into solitary cells as a sign of their impending execution. Irans Human Rights Organization (IHRO) said Saturday that the inmates are on death row mainly for first-degree murder and asked world opinion and the international community not to be silent over the possible executions. Irans judicial authorities have not yet reacted to this report and there are no other reports about the prisoners who are said to have been moved to solitary confinement. IHRO says it has been able to obtain the names of seven of the inmates facing possible execution. IHRO reported last week that five people were executed at Rajaee-Shahr, including two women and two Afghan citizens. Rights organizations also reported the execution of another five inmates in Bandar Abbas, Isfahan and Shiraz. Rights organization believe Iran does not reveal the full number of executions and say that in the first half of 2019, at least 110 people were hanged in Iran. In 2018, the official number of executions were 253, second only to China globally. The state Heath Department has made all preparations to tackle the threat posed by novel coronavirus, officials said here on Sunday. Kangra Chief Medical Officer Gurdarshan Gupta said though no case of coronavirus has been reported so far in the state, a counselling centre has been set up for foreigners at the McLeodganj Primary Health Centre. The CMO said the Kangra district administration also held a meeting with regard to the virus with the Tibetan government-in-exile. Additional Deputy Commissioner Raghav Sharma said all tourists coming to Dharamsala will be asked to fill a self-declaration form with regard to their travel to China or other affected countries. A special ward has also been set up to deal with coronavirus patients at the Tanda Medical College Hospital. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Elsewhere, communities have been retrofitted to adapt to its senior population, with modifications to parks, new walking paths and bus services to ensure accessibility. The Iowa Democratic Partys 99 new satellite caucuses, created to make the process more accessible, includes more than two dozen assisted-living facilities or sites frequented by seniors. Its a hugely important constituency, said Bill Schickel, mayor of Mason City, which still broadcasts its City Council meetings on a public access channel to serve its large senior population accustomed to watching meetings on television rather than streaming on the internet. They have high voting numbers and are regular voters. Seniors concerns have dominated numerous campaign events in the state, so much so that younger voters have struggled for attention to their issues. O.K., so hi, Im a student here, said a young woman at Mr. Buttigiegs town hall, which was at Dubuque University. And Ive been to a couple town halls: Booker, Warren, Biden. And at every single one I was probably one of three or four college students. With so few of her peers in the crowd, she wanted to know: How important is this generation in this election? Broadly, the economic discussion on the 2020 trail has incorporated issues of general concern to younger voters: student debt and free college; a general progressive pitch for wealth tax. In Iowa earlier this month, though, one of the most intense battles between the leading candidates centered on a matter of great importance to older Iowans: Social Security. Senator Bernie Sanders, 78, and former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., 77, clashed repeatedly over the issue, as Mr. Sanderss camp questioned Mr. Bidens record on Social Security, seeking to cut into Mr. Bidens appeal with older voters, while Mr. Biden insisted that he wanted to strengthen the program and expand benefits. Its a dispiriting moment for an American system that in many ways was founded on the insight that, because humankind is frail and fallen and fallible, no one branch of government can have too much power, said Jon Meacham, an American historian and author. The presidents party, instead of being a check on an individuals impulses and ambitions, has become an instrument of them. Madam Gifty Twum-Ampofo, the Deputy Minister-in-charge of Technical, Vocational Education, and Training (TVET) is currently on a three-week familiarisation tour of all TVET institutes under the Ghana Education Service (GES). The visit is to find out the state of the schools in terms of facilities and how well the existing facilities are put into good use. She has so far toured schools in the Greater Accra and Eastern Regions. A statement issued by the Public Relations Unit of the Ministry of Education and copied to the Ghana News Agency on Thursday said the institutions visited in Accra were the Sacred Heart Technical Institute, Accra Technical Training Centre, Teshie Technical Training Centre, Tema Technical Institute, Ashaiman Technical Institute and Ada Technical Institute. The schools toured in the Eastern Region were the Akwatia Technical Institute, St Pauls Technical Institute, Koforidua Technical Institute, Abetifi Technical Institute, Amankwakrom Fisheries, Agriculture Technical Institute, St Marys Vocational Technical Institute, St Josephs Technical Institute and J.G Knol Vocational and Technical Institute. The statement said the Deputy Ministers next visit would be to schools in the Volta Region. The Minister of Education, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh, recently said government has invested over 500million Euros into a project in the TVET Sector. The statement said currently, AVIC International of China and VACE of Austria were building and upgrading training workshops for all eight Technical Universities, two Polytechnics and 17 Technical and Vocational Institutes under GES. Planet One is modernizing and Upgrading 35 TVET Institutions (NVTI, OIC) and establishing two new foundry and machining centers in Kumasi and Accra, it said. The statement said the Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contracts which include the construction of the state-of-the-art TVET institutions in all 16 regions of Ghana have been done and approval for phase one received, adding that; It is against this background that the Deputy Minister had embarked on the visits to know the state of the schools. Source: GNA Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray has said that National Register of Citizens (NRC) will not be implemented in the state. Maharashtra is the latest to have decided to not implement CAA, NRC or NPR. While the Shiv Sena party chief takes a more lenient attitude with the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), saying that the CAA does not take away the citizenship of any Indian. Thackeray is heard saying this in an interview with Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut a promo of which was released on Sunday (February 2). Live TV The law has been surrounded by controversy ever since it has been presented in the Parliament with protests breaking out against it across several parts of the country with some demonstrations getting violent in many places. Maharashtra has been among the states that voiced their dissent against implementing CAA. Other states include Kerala, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal. On January 14, Pinarayi Vijayan-led government in Kerala moved the Supreme Court against the CAA saying the amended law is against the provisions of Right to Equality granted by the Indian Constitution. The CAA grants citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis, Buddhists and Christians fleeing religious persecution from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh and who came to India on or before December 31, 2014. The daughter of a Queensland restaurant mogul allegedly attacked a woman on Melbourne Cup day at an exclusive waterfront bistro. Hayley Banks, 40, daughter of respected businesswoman Lorraine Banks, is accused of coward punching another woman in the head at the Rococo Bistro in Noosa. Police allege the mother-of-four approached a woman about 6.45pm on November 5 and unexpectedly punched her once in the side of the head. The Melbourne Cup is Australia's most famous annual thoroughbred horse race and is celebrated all over the country. Hayley Banks (pictured), 40, allegedly coward punched a woman on Melbourne Cup day at an exclusive waterfront bistro The Melbourne Cup is Australia's most famous annual thoroughbred horse race and is celebrated all over the country The woman Ms Banks allegedly punched was a 44-year-old mother who friends described as 'lovely' and 'decent', The Courier Mail reported. Both women are believed to be known to each other, but are not in the same social circles. The incident was captured on CCTV and Ms Banks was charged with assault. She appeared in Noosa Magistrates Court on January 28 but the matter was adjourned to February 11. Ms Banks' mother owns successful restaurant Bistro C, located across the road from the Rococo Bistro. Just last year the restaurant mogul was hit with another scandal when a worker at her business was charged with stealing $1million. The daughter of respected businesswoman Lorraine Banks (pictured) is accused of punching another woman in the head at the Rococo Bistro in Noosa The employee had worked for the restaurant for at least 18 years. Ms Banks' social media shows her raising money for the Starlight Children's Foundation this month. 'For my birthday this year, I'm asking for donations to Starlight Children's Foundation Australia,' she wrote. 'I've chosen this charity because their mission means a lot to me, and I hope that you'll consider contributing as a way of celebrating with me. Every little bit will help me reach my goal.' Countries in the Middle East and North Africa region are investing in smart energy projects as they look to diversify their economies and boost economic efficiency on a mass scale. Smart energy a general term for systems in which energy production (often, renewable energy production) and infrastructure are integrated using various technologies and digital interfaces is gaining popularity in Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates due to a combination of government initiatives and private company spending. Most of these initiatives include the installation of smart meters and smart grids designed to improve power distribution and boost efficiency. Smart grids can be considered a subset of the internet of things (IoT) concept: essentially networks of connected devices that collect information and provide a stream of data that can be analyzed and acted on. Smart grids typically consist of physical (generators, etc.) network, application and analytics layers. One of the largest smart-meter projects in the Gulf was recently announced in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Electricity Co, the Gulfs largest utility, awarded a contract to install smart meters across the country. Saudi Electricity deploys smart meters The project, which is expected to cost US$2.5 billion, is part of a plan to install around 12 million smart meters in the Kingdom by 2025. A smart meter, which records electricity consumption, is used by power producers for monitoring and billing purposes. Advanced Electronics Company (AEC), a privately-owned Saudi manufacturer that has been aiding the Kingdoms efforts, provides Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) which includes energy meters, water meters and related components. AMI deploys two-way communication channels, utility meters and accurate meter reading techniques to boost productivity, the company said on its website. These systems use multiple communications technologies, including radio frequency mesh, power line carrier (PLC), RF point-to-point, and cellular. The UAE made a similar announcement in 2018. Dubai utility company goes for smart grid The Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) picked U.S. conglomerate Honeywell to install 270,000 new smart meters across the city under its Smart Applications via Smart Grid and Meters initiative. Smart grids, which are designed to react to changes in power usage by consumers, often incpororate artificial intelligence features. Computer programs including expert systems, fuzzy logic, and neural networks are used for design, simulation and control in modern smart grid and renewable energy systems. Neural networks are key components of certain types of machine-learning systems that make more accurate predictions as they ingest more data. Kuwait joined its Gulf peers in announcing a smart meter project to connect hundreds of thousands of buildings. The government said it aimed to install a total of 800,000 electrical meters and 300,000 water meters in homes and offices across the country. As of June 2019, Bahrains Electricity and Water Authority (EWA) had installed over 102,500 smart meters. Meanwhile, Qatar expects all the meters on its grid to be smart meters by the end of 2020. Why does smart energy matter? In 2018, a report published by a university in Saudi Arabia showed that the Kingdom used more than 70 percent of its electricity on air conditioning and cooling. The regions electricity consumption shoots up during the summer months, and with massive infrastructure and economic reform programs being put into place, demand is expected to rise further. According to the World Energy Council, the GCC will require 100 gigawatts of additional power over the next 10 years, along with $50 billion of investment in new power generating capacity. So countries are now confronted with the challenge of using innovative ways of power supply, while adopting more renewable energy resources to address environmental issues. At an energy summit in September last year, Waleed Salman, Executive Vice President of Business Development and Excellence at DEWA, highlighted the regulators strategy in developing smart grids and connecting solar systems in buildings to the power grid. We work to provide state-of-the-art infrastructure and manage all facilities and services through smart and connected systems that use technologies including artificial intelligence, unmanned aerial vehicles, energy storage, blockchain, and the Internet of Things among others, he was quoted as saying by state media Sun, wind and data centres While utilities flirt with emerging technologies, tech firms are also looking for increased access to renewable power sources for their data centres. At the Khazna Data centres facility in Masdar City, Abu Dhabi, steps have been taken to bring more renewable energy into the mix. Last month, the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar) installed a solar photovoltaic (PV) system on Khaznas car park roof. Khazna, which is majority-owned by Abu Dhabis sovereign wealth fund, has operations at two facilities, located in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, with a combined 18+ megawatt of IT load. Through our collaboration with Masdar and Mubadala, we were able to create a successful project that will serve as a pilot for additional sustainable initiatives at other Khazna facilities in the future, Khazna Data centres CEO Hassan Alnaqbi said in a statement. AWS Bahrain data centres tap solar power Last year, Amazon Web Services launched three availability zones in Bahrain to offer more than 40 services for businesses as well as government, education and nonprofit organizations. The data centres will be powered by a solar farm that is currently being built in Bahrain. AWS chose Bahrain in part due to the countrys focus on executing renewable energy goals and its proposal to construct a new solar power facility to meet AWSs power needs, the company said in 2017, when it first made the announcement. Tech firms are setting up data centres to gain a foothold in the regions fast-growing cloud services market. According to projections from Research and Markets, data centre construction in the region is expected to grow 7 percent each year between 2019 and 2024. However, several challenges lay ahead. Ryan Kennedy, the CEO of power management tech firm Atom Power, said the majority of data centres lack the resources to rely solely on solar or wind power. Theres no way to seamlessly use these renewables in harmony with other power sources, he said, adding that the current largely analog electrical infrastructure makes it difficult and expensive for operators to integrate renewables into their existing systems. He also called for the modernization of power infrastructure, which would allow data centre operators to instantly switch between various power sources based on their need. We need to implement technology that lets us intelligently control and manage power within our buildings, he added. The Union Budget 2020-21 has earmarked an all-time high allocation of Rs 7,572.20 crore for the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises while announcing a string of initiatives for the sector including raising the turnover threshold for audit of their accounts to Rs 5 crore and a scheme to provide subordinate debt to MSME entrepreneurs. The flagship employment generation scheme of the ministry, Prime Minister Employment Generation Programme, has got an all-time high allocation of Rs 2,500 crore for generating self-employment opportunities through establishment of micro-enterprises in non-farm sector by helping traditional artisans and rural/urban unemployed youth. "Currently, only businesses having a turnover of more than Rs 1 crore are required to get their books of accounts audited by an accountant. In order to reduce compliance burden on small retailers, traders, shopkeepers who comprise the MSME sector, I propose to raise by five times the turnover threshold for audit from the existing Rs 1 crore to 5 crore," Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said while presenting the Budget in Parliament on Saturday. She said a scheme will be introduced to provide subordinate debt to MSME entrepreneurs. Besides, the government has also asked the Reserve Bank to extend the debt restructuring window for MSMEs by a year to March 31, 2021, Sitharaman said. "An app-based invoice financing loans product will be launched. This will obviate the problem of delayed payments and consequential cash flow mismatches for the MSMEs," the finance minister said. She further said necessary amendments will be made to the Factor Regulation Act 2011 to enable non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) to extend invoice financing to MSMEs through TReDS, thereby enhancing the economic and financial sustainability. A scheme of Rs 1,000 crore was also announced to extend hand holding support to mid-sized companies in selected sectors such as pharmaceuticals, auto components and others for technology upgradations, R&D, business strategy, among others, to make them export competitive. The Khadi Vikas Yojana and Gramodyog Vikas Yojana has been allocated Rs 472 crore to develop a sustainable model of Khadi based business enterprises in the villages. The allocation under MSE-Cluster Development Programme has witnessed an increase of 71 percent to Rs 391 crore from Rs 228 crore in 2019-20 for enhancing productivity, competitiveness and capacity building of Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs). Allocation for 'Scheme of Fund for Regeneration of Traditional Industries' (SFURTI) has gone up to Rs 465 crore from Rs 125 crore in the previous year to help traditional industries become more productive, profitable and capable of generating sustainable employment for artisans. Besides, Rs 805 crore has been allocated under Credit Linked Capital Subsidy and Technology Upgradation Scheme (CLCS-TUS) to improve competitiveness of MSMEs through various interventions aimed at upgrading technology. The National Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe Hub is given Rs 150 crore to provide professional support to SC/ST entrepreneurs and capacity building among existing and prospective SC/ST entrepreneurs through training programmes. Centra boss Martin Kelleher said the chain, supplied by Musgrave, plans to open 20 new stores this year to tap growing sales. Sales increased 4% to 1.7bn in 2019 as it navigated last years hard Brexit deadlines, having invested millions in refurbishing stores and refocusing to sell healthier product ranges, Mr Kelleher said. Part of the transformation also involved opening its Frank and Honest coffee outlets in most of the stores. We could see back in 2016 that things we would have sold a lot of, in the traditional convenience store, like tobacco and alcohol and newspapers, were coming under pressure, he said. With a total of 473 stores, the Centra business direct rival in the Republic is with BWG, which supplies a number of convenience store chains, including Spar and Mace. In the North, Centra also operates 89 store franchises. Most of the 20 new stores will be in Dublin because of the citys growing population and the others are spread around the country, including conversions from competitors and new sites. Asked about the election, Mr Kelleher said he would urge politicians to do all they could to help cut insurance costs, rates, and tackle crime that can affect local stores. On Brexit, he said Centra had managed sterlings fluctuations and had planned well for last years hard Brexit deadlines, in March and October. But Mr Kelleher said that the eventual trade deal between the UK and the EU could still have effects on retailing in Ireland. He also runs SuperValu, one of the big three supermarkets by sales. In very simple terms, the tariff question is still there and could and will have a significant impact on the price of goods here, he said. But we need to let that play out and see what agreement is made. Then it is the movement of goods which is the next thing which we have been planning around. Some of its British suppliers might supply Centra from factories on the continent where they also have factories but there is still work to be done to solidify that, he said. At the least, the ticking time bomb that was there has passed, Mr Kelleher added. The meeting was attended by more than 100 representatives from UN member countries and observers, including 23 ambassadors and head of missions. Taking the rotary presidency of the UNSC in the first month of the year marking the 75th anniversary of the UN Charter, Vietnam selected a priority theme of January as adhering to the UN Charter to maintain international peace and security. The initiative was intended to contribute to promoting the adherence to international law, the UN Charter, and to reiterate the importance of multilateral cooperation in maintaining international peace and security. The second initiative of Vietnam during the month was the first ever meeting at the UNSC on cooperation between the UN and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The event provided an opportunity for the international community in general, and the UNSC in particular, to get an insight into the ASEANs role in the region and discuss ways to further enhance the collaboration between the UN and the regional bloc. Vietnam took the occasion to affirm that as Chair of the ASEAN in 2020 and a non-permanent member of the UNSC, it will make efforts to promote the comprehensive and effective cooperation between the two organizations, with focus on priority fields such as the peaceful settlement of disputes, preventive diplomacy, disarmament, maintenance of peace, anti-terrorism, maritime cooperation and maritime security. Also, at the same time , Vietnam proposed organizing a high-level ASEAN-UN dialogue on sustainable development on the occasion of the ASEAN-UN Summit, slated for October 2020 in Vietnam. The initiatives aside, Vietnam has made timely reactions to arising issues that threatened international peace and security, responded to countries ideas and proposals, creatively utilized the UNSCs rules and practices and promoted consensus so that the council could make appropriate decisions. During the month under the presidency of Vietnam, the UNSC held 30 official activities, including two open debates, eight sessions to listen to reports and four sessions to approve resolutions, which were broadcast live on the UNs media system. As UNSC president, Vietnam also held an international press conference and many press briefings on the councils work. The council adopted 13 decisions, including four resolutions and a decision on extending the mandate of UN missions, forces and mechanisms, one declaration of the UNSC President, five press statements and two press releases. This is the largest number of decisions made by the UNSC in one month over many recent years. At the session, many delegates said Vietnam had performed well in its role as president of the UNSC right at the beginning of the first month of its tenure as a non-permanent member. They stated that Vietnam had built a reasonable agenda and handled complicated issues in a flexible manner. Many recognized Vietnams efforts to regularly provide information on the councils work to non-member countries, non-governmental organizations, and the media. On January 30 evening, Ambassador Quy hosted a reception to mark the end of the month in which Vietnam served as the UNSC president. Following Vietnam, Belgium will be the next president of the UNSC. Photo credit: U.S. Navy - Getty Images From Popular Mechanics The rapid spread of the Wuhan Coronavirus, while not particularly threatening outside China, could involve the Pentagon. The U.S. military can operate within the U.S. only under certain conditions. The Pentagon is designed to fight wars abroad, a mission that lends itself to quickly responding to public health emergencies, both at home and abroad. The World Health Organizations declaration that the coronavirus represents a global emergency highlights the growing danger the virus poses to public health. Relatively few cases of the disease have been reported in the U.S., but if the number increases by a significant margin, the U.S. military has substantial medical and logistical assets it could throw at the crisis. From hospital ships to heavy lift transport, the Pentagon can help civilian authorities respond to a medical emergencyboth here and abroad. The World Health Organization, addressing a news conference from its headquarters in Geneva, declared the coronavirus a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. The issuance of the emergency is meant to underscore the seriousness of the situation, and comes with a series of recommendations for countries reporting cases of the virus. At the same time the State Department has issued a Level 4 do not travel advisory for China, warning Americans to postpone travel to the country until it is safe to do so. Nearly 10,000 cases of the virus have been reported worldwide , the vast majority in China, with 213 deaths. As of today the U.S. has seen only six cases, none of them fatal. Photo credit: Handout - Getty Images But if an outbreak were to occur in the U.S.whether the Wuhan coronavirus or some other diseasewhat kind of medical and logistic resources could the U.S. military marshal? Quite a lot, actually. The same war machine that can move entire armies, fleets of warships, and swarms of warplanes can just as easily move large numbers of personnel and supplies within U.S. borders or abroad. Story continues The use of the U.S. military within American borders is a tricky exercise. Due to an aversion to the domestic use of armed troops reaching back to the Revolutionary War, the military can by law only perform certain missions. Active duty troops are generally prohibited from law enforcement missions, such as quelling riots or protecting medical facilities. Policing missions would typically go to National Guard units not federalized and under state control. Photo credit: Smith Collection/Gado - Getty Images Other missions, including transportation, search and rescue, and medical support could be undertaken without legal restriction. The Air Forces C-5M Super Galaxy , C-17 Globemaster III, and C-130J Super Hercules transports can move huge amounts of supplies by air. The C-5M, for example, can carry 120,000 pounds of cargo from Japan to California without midair refuelingand shuttle up to 281,000 pounds within the continental U.S. Medical personnel, medical supplies, food, temporary housing, and other relief supplies could be moved quickly and in large numbers. Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy has substantial medical assets. Most large ships, including aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships, have extensive medical facilities, including operating rooms, recovery rooms, x-ray machines, and other equipment. The services Naval Construction Battalions, or Seabees, could support any medical emergency by constructing emergency shelters or temporary medical facilities, and enlarging ports for the receipt of supplies. Photo credit: ERNESTO BENAVIDES - Getty Images Finally, the Navy has two hospital ships, USNS Mercy and USNS Comfort. The Navy describes each ship as having: ...12 fully-equipped operating rooms, a 1,000 bed hospital facility, digital radiological services, a medical laboratory, a pharmacy, an optometry lab, a CAT-scan and two oxygen producing plants. Each ship is equipped with a helicopter deck capable of landing large military helicopters. The ships also have side ports to take on patients at sea. When fully operational, the hospital ships have a crew of about 71 civilians and up to 1,200 Navy medical and communications personnel. Finally, the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps maintain dedicated units designed to operate in chemical, nuclear, radiological, and most importantly biological environments. The Marines Chemical Biological Incident Response Force is a battalion-sized unit based at Indian Head, Maryland. The CBIRF: ... is prepared to respond, with minimal warning, to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or high yield explosive (CBRNE) events in order to assist local, state, or federal agencies and the geographic combatant commanders in the conduct of CBRNE response or consequence management operations as part of its Defense Support to Civil Authorities (DSCA) mission. As such, CBIRF Marines and Sailors are skilled in the areas of command and control, agent detection and identification, search, rescue, and decontamination, and emergency medical care for contaminated personnel. The CBIRF is a high readiness force capable of deploying quickly to respond to crises. It can deploy one initial response force of 150 personnel within 24 hours, and the second force within 48 hours. Photo credit: U.S. Army National Guard photo by Col. Richard Goldenber The U.S. Army maintains the 20th CBRNE Command (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and high- yield Explosives or CBRNE. The Brigade concentrates 85 percent of the Armys Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear (CBRN) units, or approximately 4,000 personnel, under a single command. A similar unit is the 415th Chemical Brigade, a U.S. Army Reserve unit. Finally, there's also medical units and personnel within the U.S. military whose mission is to treat personnel in peacetime and wartime, on sprawling bases or battlefields far from home. The U.S. Army alone maintains four active duty and six reserve medical brigades of 7,000 personnel each, while the U.S. Marines have four medical battalions with about a third of the personnel of a brigade. In July 2019, the Pentagon made the decision to trim 18,000 medical personnel from the across the military, in some cases replacing them with contractors. While the details are still apparently being worked out and ultimately may not impact the Department of Defenses's ability to respond to domestic emergencies, 18,000 is a lot of trained personnel that can't respond to a crisis. The likelihood of this particular coronavirus involving the U.S. military is relatively slim, but a future emergencya terrorist attack, hurricane, earthquake, volcanic eruption, or another epidemiccould require the U.S. government to call on the Pentagon. You Might Also Like Security Council renews Central African Republic arms embargo 31 January 2020 - The UN Security Council on Friday renewed the arms embargo against the Central African Republic (CAR) and extended the mandate of the expert panel assisting its sanctions committee for the country. Thirteen of the 15 Council members voted in favour of the resolution, with China and Russia abstaining. The resolution prohibits the supply, sale or transfer of weapons, ammunition and military equipment to the country, including vehicles. Items for the UN peacekeeping operation there, MINUSCA, and European and French forces deployed on training missions, are exempt. Despite the signing of a peace deal between the Government and 14 armed groups last February, the CAR continues to experience violence and insecurity. The resolution was sponsored by France, and renews the arms embargo through the end of July, with the expert mandate expiring the following month. French permanent representative Anne Gueguen underscored support for the West African country. "Against a security backdrop which is still unstable, we deem it important to maintain a responsible approach and to ensure that we assist the Central African authorities in progress towards reforming security sector and towards the disarmament, demobilization and rehabilitation of former members of armed groups, as well as the management of weapons and ammunition. This is a key element for enduring peace and security", she said. China explained that it had abstained from voting partly because the resolution did not fully respect the wishes of the CAR authorities. Noting that political and security conditions are improving, deputy permanent representative Wu Haitao said the Council should lift the embargo which "will help the CAR Government enhance its capability to maintain national safety and security, and facilitate the political settlement of the CAR issue." Russia was unable to support the resolution as the text did not take all arguments into consideration, according to deputy permanent representative Dmitry Polyanskiy. He described the arms embargo as a "de facto obstacle" to the re-arming of the national forces, adding that "meanwhile, armed groups - the spoilers of the peace process - have no obstacles when it comes to obtaining arms through trafficking." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address In its third quarter 2019 earnings statement this week Sprint CEO Michel Combes said, "I continue to be impressed by the commitment of Sprint employees to deliver results during this period of uncertainty." Indeed. It is always difficult for employees to keep chugging along in a corporate environment of total uncertainty. In their hopes to live a private and independent life, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have found a sanctuary in Vancouver Island in Canada. It is also the place where they spent their six-week winter break before dropping the bombshell news of their decision to step back as senior members of the royal family. However, it looks like the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are not contented with the life they currently have in Canada. Rumor has it that the couple is planning to move farther away from their point of origin. Scouting For New Home According to a source, the 38-year-old Meghan and 35-year-old Harry are now eyeing the beautiful city of Los Angeles as their next stop. Apparently, the couple is hoping to spend some of their summertime in Meghan's native city. "They have started to look at homes online and are in the process of interviewing security teams. They are getting their ducks in a row and seeing if it's logistically possible," the insider told E-News. "They've reached out to people in L.A. and would like to assemble a team of locals." The insider revealed that Meghan is specifically looking for a place that will fit her needs. She is in search of the perfect home that would tick off some non-negotiable aspects that she would want her home with Harry and eight-month-old son, Archie, to look. "Meghan would like to be able to do meetings at the house and also be able to host friends and entertain. Those are two things that are important to her," the source said. The former "Suits" actress has previously lived in L.A together with her mother, Doria Ragland, during her early days as an actress. She then moved to Canada to film her most popular legal-drama series. Canadian Press Issue It could be recalled that during the early days of their new-found freedom in Canada, Meghan already had a rocky start with the Canadian paparazzi. Through their lawyers, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex immediately issued a legal warning on Canadian press after photos of Meghan were taken shortly after the infamous "Megxit." In the photos, Meghan could be seen spending time with Baby Archie and two pet dogs in a public park in Canada. The pictures are said to be taken and published without her consent. The royal couple's legal team also said that the paparazzi were spying on the Duchess as they were hiding the bushes when the photo was taken. Meghan and Harry were said to be alarmed with the paparazzi activity in their current waterfront mansion home in Canada. The statement says that photographers are "permanently camping outside" the mansion and trying to take photos of the royal family using long-ranges lenses. Why L.A? This previous incident makes fans wonder if the couple longing for "private life" is earnest in moving to Los Angeles. If they are already having issues with the almost-discreet paparazzi's of Canada, what do they expect after living in the L.A neighborhood when Hollywood paparazzi are just around the corner? People including some students of Jamia Millia Islamia University gathered outside the Jamia Nagar police station following a firing incident near gate number five of the university on Sunday night. The students returned from the Jamia Nagar police station after their complaint was registered. People also gathered in protest outside the university following the firing by two scooty-borne unidentified people. The protestors chanted slogans against Delhi Police. The Station House Officer (SHO) is present at the spot. An investigation is underway. According to Jamia Coordination Committee, the firing was done by two unidentified persons. One of them was wearing a red-coloured jacket and driving a red colour scooty. No injuries were reported in the incident. This is the third firing incident in the capital in the last few days. On January 30, a juvenile brandished a country-made pistol and fired at and injured a Jamia student, Shadab Farooq, who was part of the group that was protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) near the university. The juvenile has been sent to 14-day protective custody by the Juvenile Justice Board. On February 1, a man, identified as Kapil Gujjar, fired aerial shots at an anti-CAA protest site in Shaheen Bagh. Gujjar's weapon has been seized and sent on police remand for two days by a Delhi court. No injuries were reported in that incident. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) John Bolton Andrew Harnik/AP The Senate reconvened Friday to debate whether to call additional witnesses forward in President Donald Trump's impeachment trial. After several hours of debate, the Senate blocked a measure to call new witnesses, with 49 senators voting for it and 51 against. The schedule for the rest of Trump's impeachment trial is now up in the air as the Senate figures out how to "land the plane," according to one Republican senator. Scroll down to watch the trial and follow Insider's live coverage. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. The Senate on Friday officially blocked a measure to call additional witnesses in President Donald Trump's impeachment trial. The move came after a contentious debate during which House impeachment managers argued that the Senate has a duty to hear testimony from firsthand witnesses, like former national security adviser John Bolton, who can provide new evidence in Trump's trial. The president's lawyers, meanwhile, argued that the Senate already has enough information from the 17 witnesses who testified in the House's impeachment inquiry. Friday's proceedings came after The New York Times reported on another bombshell claim from Bolton's upcoming book, in which Bolton claims Trump personally asked him to help pressure Ukraine to cave to his personal demands. The House of Representatives impeached Trump last month for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The two articles of impeachment relate to the president's efforts to strong-arm Ukraine to deliver politically motivated investigations targeting his rivals. While doing so, Trump withheld $391 million in military aid to Ukraine and dangled a White House meeting that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky desperately sought and still hasn't gotten. Fifty-one senators need to vote in favor of calling witnesses for the motion to pass. There are currently 45 Democrats, two independents who caucus with Democrats, and 53 Republicans in the Senate. Story continues That means four Republican senators need to side with the Democratic caucus for the Senate to call witnesses. In the Republican caucus, only Sens. Mitt Romney of Utah and Susan Collins of Maine have publicly indicated they would vote in favor of calling witnesses to testify. Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, once considered a possible pro-witness Republican, announced Thursday night that he would not vote in favor of witnesses. Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, another closely-watched potential swing vote on the matter, confirmed Friday afternoon that she will also vote against calling more witnesses. Watch the trial below: Scroll down to follow Insider's live coverage of the trial. The Senate voted to reconvene on Monday for closing arguments, senators will get to speak on Tuesday, and a final vote is scheduled for Wednesday. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell walks into the Senate chamber. Reuters Monday is also the Iowa caucuses (four senators, Sanders, Warren, Klobuchar, and Bennet, are running for president). Tuesday is President Donald Trump's State of the Union address. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer offers up amendments, including attempts to subpoena witnesses and documents. Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer of N.Y., speaks at a news conference following a Senate policy luncheon on Capitol Hill, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) Associated Press The Senate reconvened on Friday night, as the schedule going forward with the impeachment trial firms up: The Senate will vote on both articles of impeachment on Wednesday. On Friday night, Sen. Schumer offered up several amendments related to subpoenaing documents and witnesses. Ahead of the votes on the amendments, Chief Justice Roberts clarified that he would not break a tie in the Senate, as he is not an elected official. While all four amendments failed, it again put senators on record regarding documents and witnesses. The Senate's impeachment trial schedule is now up in the air chuck schumer mitch mcconnell Associated Press/J. Scott Applewhite Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell motioned for a recess after the vote but didn't indicate what the schedule would look like going forward. "Senators will now confer among ourselves, with the House managers, and with the president's counsel to determine next steps as we prepare to conclude the trial in the coming days," McConnell told reporters. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer also said he would meet with Democrats to game out how to move forward. But right now, according to Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, "nobody has any idea" what's going to happen next. "We're still trying to figure out how to land the plane," Republican Sen. John Thune said. Senate votes against calling witnesses in 51-49 vote killing the measure U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks at the White House Summit on Human Trafficking in the East Room of the White House in Washington, U.S., January 31, 2020. REUTERS/Leah Millis ReutersProsecutors and defense lawyers conclude their debate on witnesses, and a Senate vote on the matter is coming up Mitch McConnell AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite The Republican-controlled Senate is widely expected to vote against calling new witnesses after two key Republican senators seen as swing votes Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee announced they would not vote to have more witnesses testify. In order for the motion to call witnesses to pass, four Republican senators need to defect from their party and join Democrats and two independent senators to reach a 51-vote threshold. But only two Republican senators, Susan Collins and Mitt Romney, have said they will vote in favor of calling new witnesses. Lead House manager Adam Schiff takes a shot at Trump defense lawyer Alan Dershowitz for promoting the 'principle of constitutional lawlessness' alan dershowitz Screenshot via ABC News/Senate TV Lead House manager Adam Schiff characterized the Trump defense team's argument as implying the president "has a God-given right to abuse his power, and there's nothing you can do about it." "It's the Dershowitz principle of constitutional lawlessness," Schiff said, referring to Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, one of Trump's defense attorneys in the impeachment trial. "That's the end-all argument for them," Schiff added. "You don't need to hear witnesses who will prove the President's misconduct because he has a right to be as corrupt as he chooses under our Constitution. And there's nothing you can do about it." Dershowitz made headlines earlier this week when he argued that Trump's conduct is not impeachable because he believes his re-election is in the public interest. Dershowitz, who has defended controversial figures like OJ Simpson and Jeffrey Epstein, faced harsh blowback afterward from observers who said he was essentially arguing that politicians can do whatever they want to get elected. Dershowitz later claimed he never said what the public heard him say. "I did not say or imply that a candidate could do anything to reassure his reelection, only that seeking help in an election is not necessarily corrupt, citing the Lincoln and Obama examples," he tweeted. "Critics have an obligation to respond to what I said, not to create straw men to attack." Fact check: It's not a straw man. Here are Dershowitz's exact words: "If a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment." Trump counsel Patrick Philbin says Trump blocked Congress' impeachment inquiry because he wanted to 'defend the separation of powers' U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks at the White House Summit on Human Trafficking in the East Room of the White House in Washington, U.S., January 31, 2020. REUTERS/Leah Millis Reuters Deputy White House counsel Patrick Philbin called the articles of impeachment against Trump "defective on their face." Referring to the second article, which charges Trump with obstruction of Congress, Philbin said the charge "is really trying to say that it's an impeachable offense for the president to defend the separation of powers." "No witnesses are going to say anything that makes any difference to the second article of impeachment," Philbin added. Fact check: The legislative branch is constitutionally tasked with the power to conduct oversight of the executive branch. Trump has not cooperated with a single congressional investigation, including the impeachment inquiry. In addition to issuing a sweeping directive ordering all executive branch officials and six federal agencies from providing any witness testimony or documents in the impeachment investigation, the president and his lawyers have also filed multiple lawsuits to stop congressional committees from obtaining any information about his presidential campaign, taxes, business dealings, or his time in office. Trump's defense lawyers argue that he has "absolute immunity" a nonexistent legal concept from not just prosecution but any investigation while he's in office. The president has also falsely asserted that Article 2 of the Constitution gives him the power to "do whatever I want." Trump's lawyers argue he did nothing wrong while urging Senate to vote against witnesses who could provide evidence of Trump's misconduct patrick philbin Screenshot via C-SPAN 2/Senate TV After House managers wrapped up their remarks, it was Trump's team's turn. Patrick Philbin, the deputy White House counsel and one of the lawyers defending the president, opened his presentation by suggesting it was absurd for the House managers to say a trial cannot be fair or complete without witnesses and documents, "as if it's just that simple." Philbin added that the managers invoked that argument as a "trope ... to disguise the real issues." He went on to say that before addressing the question of witnesses and documents in "any legal system," a court first has to decide if there's "even a triable issue." Fact check: The question of whether there's a "triable issue" has already been addressed. The House of Representatives' move to impeach Trump is akin to handing down a criminal indictment, meaning lawmakers believe the president engaged in impeachable conduct. The Constitution confers upon the Senate the "sole power to try" impeachment cases. It does not specify that the Senate must hold a trial, but current Senate rules indicate that it would. Lead House manager Adam Schiff addresses the Senate: 'You know, as well as we, that there are others you should hear from' adam schiff J. Scott Applewhite/AP Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the lead House impeachment manager and the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, closed out his remarks Friday afternoon by saying that a "trial without witnesses is no trial at all." "You know, as well as we, that there are others you should hear from," Schiff said, addressing the Senate. Here are the 4 witnesses Democrats want to call and why each one is relevant mick mulvaney Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images Former national security adviser John Bolton Bolton is a key figure in several events at the center of Trump's impeachment. He was at a July 10 meeting during which Gordon Sondland, the US's ambassador to the EU, pushed Ukrainian officials to deliver the political investigations Trump wanted in exchange for a White House meeting for Zelensky. Bolton will reportedly reveal in his upcoming book that Trump directly told him he would withhold Ukraine's aid until the country gave in to his demands for investigations. The former national security adviser also claims Trump asked him during a meeting in May to call Zelensky and push him to meet with Giuliani, who was spearheading Trump's pressure campaign. Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney Bolton claims Mulvaney was present at the May meeting in which Trump asked him to call Zelensky. Mulvaney is also the head of the Office of Management and Budget, which took on a lead role in carrying out Trump's order to freeze Ukraine's aid. Emails and other documents also indicate that Mulvaney was in the loop on Trump's decision to withhold Ukraine's military aid from the start. Mulvaney publicly acknowledged last year that part of the reason the White House froze the security assistance was because Trump wanted Zelensky to investigate a conspiracy theory about Ukrainian election interference that targets the Democratic Party. Robert Blair, an aide to Mulvaney Blair has direct knowledge of Mulvaney's involvement in the Ukraine pressure campaign. The New York Times reported that early on as Trump debated withholding aid, Blair wrote to Mulvaney in an email that the administration should "expect Congress to become unhinged" if the White House tried to pull back spending that was approved in Congress. Michael Duffey, an OMB official Duffey officially ordered the freeze in Ukraine's aid 91 minutes after Trump's phone call with Zelensky on July 25. Duffey wrote that based on "guidance" he had gotten and in "light of the Administration's plan to review assistance to Ukraine please hold off on any additional DoD obligations of these funds, pending director from that process." House impeachment managers dig in on calling witnesses after Murkowski deals a fatal blow to the motion trump impeachment trial graphic Screenshot via C-SPAN 2/Senate TV House manager Val Demings displayed the graphic above as she emphasized that the Senate had called witnesses in every one of the 15 previous impeachment trials in US history. Murkowski explains her decision to vote against calling witnesses: 'Given the partisan nature of this impeachment from the very beginning and throughout, I have come to the conclusion that there will be no fair trial in the Senate' Lisa Murkowski Mark Wilson/Getty Images Here's her statement: "I worked for a fair, honest, and transparent process, modeled after the Clinton trial, to provide ample time for both sides to present their cases, ask thoughtful questions, and determine whether we need more. "The House chose to send articles of impeachment that are rushed and flawed. I carefully considered the need for additional witnesses and documents, to cure the shortcomings of its process, but ultimately decided that I will vote against considering motions to subpoena. "Given the partisan nature of this impeachment from the very beginning and throughout, I have come to the conclusion that there will be no fair trial in the Senate. I don't believe the continuation of this process will change anything. It is sad for me to admit that, as an institution, the Congress has failed. "It has also become clear some of my colleagues intend to further politicize this process, and drag the Supreme Court into the fray, while attacking the Chief Justice. I will not stand for nor support that effort. We have already degraded this institution for partisan political benefit, and I will not enable those who wish to pull down another. "We are sadly at a low point of division in this country." Here's what Bolton says in his upcoming book Trump Bolton Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images According to The Times, Trump asked Bolton during a meeting in May shortly after Zelensky was elected to call Zelensky to ensure he would meet with Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer. At the time, Giuliani was planning a trip to Ukraine to push Zelensky to deliver two politically motivated investigations that Trump wanted. The first targeted former Vice President Joe Biden, who had recently launched his 2020 campaign, and his son, Hunter, related to Hunter Biden's employment on the board of the Ukrainian natural-gas company Burisma Holdings. The second was an investigation into a bogus conspiracy theory, pushed by Russia, that suggested Ukraine interfered in the 2016 US election. Bolton claims Giuliani, the acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, and the White House counsel Pat Cipollone were present at the meeting when Trump asked him to call Zelensky. Cipollone is currently leading Trump's defense in his Senate impeachment trial, raising the possibility that the president's chief defense lawyer is also now a potential witness to his alleged misconduct. Read the original article on Business Insider Britain officially leaves the European Union Iran Press TV Saturday, 01 February 2020 12:12 AM The United Kingdom has officially left the European Union after 47 years of membership, in a step cast by Prime Minister Boris Johnson as the dawn of new era. Britain formally withdrew from the EU at 23:00 GMT on Friday, marking by both celebrations and anti-Brexit protests. Thousands of Brexit supporters gathered outside the British parliament to celebrate the country's departure from the EU after more than three years of wrangling. London's Parliament Square was lined with national flags, and government buildings were lit up in the red, white and blue of the Union Jack. Candlelit vigils were held in Scotland, which voted to stay in the EU. In a public address ahead of Brexit, Johnson promised a new era of friendly cooperation with the European Union. He acknowledged there may be burdens ahead, but described Brexit an opportunity for "stunning success." In the pre-recorded statement, the premier stressed that the departure is not an end but a beginning. "The most important thing to say tonight is that this is not an end but a beginning," he said. After more than three years of wrangling, Britain remains as split over leaving the EU as it was in the 2016 referendum where Britons voted with a slight majority for their country to leave the union. "For many people this is an astonishing moment of hope, a moment they thought would never come," Johnson said. "And there are many of course who feel a sense of anxiety and loss. "And then there's a third group, perhaps the biggest, who had started to worry that the whole political wrangle would never come to an end. "I understand all those feelings, and our job as the government -- my job -- is to bring this country together now and take us forward." Johnson pledged to deliver a clean Brexit after winning the December 12 general election. Johnson had called for the election in order to break a deadlock in parliament, which had blocked the country's withdrawal from the European Union, more than three and a half years after he Brexit referendum in 2016. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Californians can start early voting Monday the same day as the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses. But they might want to wait. The results from Iowa may be grim for some of the Democratic presidential hopefuls, meaning some Californians favorite candidates could either pull out or be limping badly by the time votes are counted here and in the 13 other states that hold primary contests on Super Tuesday, March 3. If somebody is your choice on Feb. 3 and they dont do well in Iowa, then they dont do well in New Hampshire (on Feb. 11), then you might think about the viability of your candidate in California, said Michael Ceraso, who ran Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders 2016 campaign in California and Pete Buttigiegs New Hampshire operation for several months last year. Mondays results will remind Americans what an outsize influence Iowa has in electing the president, something that always infuriates voters in big, diverse states like California. More than 240,000 Iowa Democrats are expected to participate in the caucuses. That would be a record, but its still just one-third of the states registered Democrats. The vast majority of Iowans 92% are white, and Iowa contributes only 1% of the delegates to Julys Democratic National Convention. Yet little will change until and unless the national party dislodges Iowa from its lead-off spot in the campaign lineup. So, it is what it is. Here is what Californians should look for in Mondays Iowa caucus results: Do progressives line up behind Sanders or Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren? Iowa voters will provide the first peek at the favored candidate among left-leaning voters. But a strong showing in Iowa is more important for Warren, Ceraso said. If Warren pulls it off or at least comes in among the top two finishers, then people might evaluate these two progressives differently, Ceraso said. Iowa and New Hampshire could play a big role in elevating her or doomsdaying her. Sanders has a narrow lead in Iowa over Biden, with Warren and Buttigieg a few points back, according to an amalgamation of top polls by RealClearPolitics.com. Sanders is also leading in recent California polls. Sanders would not be as damaged in California as Warren by a poor showing in Iowa, because he has strong movement support here and his followers wont desert him, Ceraso said. He has a low floor, and she has a high ceiling here. But Rachel Paine Caufield, author of the book The Iowa Caucus, said she doesnt think Iowa will provide a lot of clarity on the Warren versus Sanders battle. Theres an expectation that theyre drawing from the same voter pool, said Caufield, a professor of politics at Drake University. But a lot of voters dont vote ideologically. There is actually a lot of overlap between Warren and Buttigieg voters here. Can Buttigieg do well enough to keep money flowing from here? The former mayor of South Bend, Ind., has raised nearly 22% of his $51 million in campaign contributions from Californians. He used that haul to fund three dozen field offices and 100 staffers in Iowa. Buttigieg needs to be telling some story of victory first or second place, said Lily Adams, a top adviser to Hillary Clinton in 2016 and to California Sen. Kamala Harris before she ended her campaign. You need to show people at every level in California donors, voters, volunteers that I am the alternative to some of the more progressive candidates. A poor showing, like a distant fourth, could doom him. Buttigieg already has potential problems as election season moves out of Iowa and New Hampshire hes barely getting any support among black or Latino voters in diverse states, including California. California investors have a long history of taking gambles on things that dont pay off, from Pets.com to Webvan, said Steve Phillips, a former San Francisco school board member who ran a super PAC backing New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker until he quit the race last month. Theres a likelihood ... that if Pete Buttigieg doesnt do well among the white voters of Iowa, then theres not a home for him in the other early, more diverse states, South Carolina and Nevada, Phillips said. Said Caufield: I think Iowa is a do-or-die state for Buttigieg. Does Joe Biden have poll power or people power? The former vice presidents final TV ad before the Iowa caucuses underscores the main selling point of his campaign: that he is the most electable Democrat. What we imagine today, you can make a reality, he says in the ad, but first we need to beat Donald Trump. Biden is leading many national polls, largely because of that belief in his electability. But his support in California tumbled from 22% in June to 15% in a Berkeley IGS Poll released last week, good for third place behind Sanders and Warren. A win in Iowa could give California voters confidence that he is the most electable Democrat. He is weak across the board with all kinds of voters in California, Phillips said. But if he were to win Iowa, then moderate voters would start to consolidate behind him. But Adams said Biden doesnt need to win Iowa because he has solid support among African American and Latino voters, which will help him in the Feb. 22 Nevada caucuses and the Feb. 29 South Carolina primary. I dont think theyve ever felt that they need a win out of Iowa, said Adams, a fellow at the Georgetown University Institute of Politics and Public Service. The Biden campaign, she said, feels that they need to get through Iowa and put up a good showing. Mike Bloomberg will be smiling Tuesday if ... Bernie Sanders wins the Iowa caucuses, Phillips said. The former New York mayor entered the race because he feared Democrats would nominate someone too far left to defeat Trump namely, Sanders or Warren. Bloomberg is taking the unorthodox strategy of skipping the early state contests to focus on Super Tuesday. If you doubt that, see if you can watch TV for 15 minutes in California without a Bloomberg ad coming on. He has spent $30 million on TV commercials in the state, according to ad trackers at the FiveThirtyEight website. His strategy will get a boost if the centrist candidates Biden, Buttigieg and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar tank Monday. There are enough people in the Democratic establishment who are put off by the potential of a Bernie Sanders candidacy, Adams said, that they will be seeking a more moderate candidate who can legitimately challenge Bernie. Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicles senior political writer. Email: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoli Relatives of Kapil Gujjar, the man who fired in Shaheen Bagh on February 1, expressed shock at the incident and denied having any prior knowledge of his intentions. They also said that Kapil has a clean record and had never previously got engaged in even minor tiffs in the locality. "He was at home at around 12 pm, we thought he had gone off to the dairy when he left the house. We do not know how he reached Shaheen Bagh at 4 pm. We got to know of his involvement through the television," Fateh Singh, Kapil's uncle told ANI on Saturday. Singh further said that Kapil was an educated guy who takes part in the family business. "He is not the guy who gets into fights with anyone even in the locality. He is an educated guy who minds his own business. We run a dairy and he keeps to it," Singh said. Kapil, a resident of Dallupura village near Delhi-Noida border, was detained by police on Saturday following the firing incident. "The police personnel overpowered and detained him on the spot while he was firing in the air. He is being interrogated. An FIR is being registered and further investigation is underway," Chinmoy Biswal, DCP, South-East had said. According to Delhi Police sources, Kapil told the police that the protest at Shaheen Bagh caused traffic jams in the area. His cousin's wedding was coming up and he used to get stuck in traffic for hours while going to Lajpat Nagar to make arrangements. Hence, he took this step and fired shots in the air. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) 2019 was, in many ways, a historic year for Lebanon. And it marked a turning point for the L'Orient-Le Jour group, too. Generational transition, editorial reform, economic shift: there were many changes that are worth sharing with you, dear readers. For the sake of transparency, and to follow on from something we first did last year, we are publishing a brief activity report as well as the list of our main shareholders. First off, it was a transition at the head of the group that marked 2019 out as an important year: Michel Edde, chairman for almost thirty years, who was the last link with the founding fathers of L'Orient and Le Jour, passed away in November. He left after having passed on the reins a few weeks before to Nayla de Freige, formerly the executive director, and already the chairwoman of Le Commerce du Levant. While there was change, there was also continuity, Michel Edde having himself appointed Nayla de Freige to the operational management of the group in 2004. Major developments have also taken place at the top levels of the newsroom: Ziyad Makhoul, a journalist since 1999 and editor-in-chief since 2015, who had greatly contributed to strengthening L'Orient-Le Jours editorial content and diversifying into the events segment, left his position in June, remaining true to the saying that journalism leads to everything, provided you get out of it... In September, a new team was entrusted with L'Orient-Le Jours editorial direction: Elie Fayad joined Emilie Sueur in news management; while Michel Touma is in charge of memorial projects in Greater Lebanons centenary year. Le Commerce du Levant, our economic sister publication, celebrated its 90th anniversary with a special issue devoted to Lebanese industry and its history, a timely topic as the overhaul of our national economy now appears to be a necessity. The management has evolved, yet our mission to inform with complete transparency and freedom remains. The shareholders, for their part, reiterate the commitment that makes our group an exception in the Middle East: its editorial independence, a cornerstone of the work of our newsroom. The ownership of the newspaper hasnt changed, with c. 90% of the capital held by four family groups: Edde, Choueiri, Pharaon and Rizk. Extraordinary news, unprecedented mobilization of our teams Just one month after the installation of the new editors in chief, Lebanon began a historic period with the October 17 revolt. An immense challenge for our journalists, due to the intensity of the events, the geographic and temporal spread, as well as the vast quantities of information broadcast on all sorts of media. This challenge remains all the more important given the proliferation of fake news on social networks, and the crumbling of a media sector already weakened by the economic crisis. What have we done to meet this challenge? We have, first of all, considerably increased our presence on the ground, in Beirut, at the heart of the demonstrations, as well as across the country, thanks to a strengthened network of stringers (in Tripoli, the Bekaa, Saida, Nabatiyeh), as well as throughout the diaspora (Paris, New York, Montreal, among others). In addition to real-time coverage of events, we have decided to focus on the verification of information, the deciphering of events as well as in-depth reporting To go even further in analyzing often dense news, we have focused on external contributions from experts, in order to offer you a diversity of opinions and analysis that will allow you to form your own, informed opinion And finally, we opened our columns wide to you, dear readers, through our letters to the editors section (courrier des lecteurs), in order to make our platforms a place of exchange and freedom of expression. Renewed interest in news and a shifting of the business model A key element of this crisis, the appropriation of the public debate by the citizens, took place to an unprecedented degree: politics, society, and economic issues have imposed themselves on the daily agenda, while they used to be all too often overshadowed by current affairs centered on regional geopolitical battles. As a sign of this growing interest, our website www.lorientlejour.com saw its traffic explode, by 48% in October compared to the first nine months of the year. Among this traffic, we have witnessed a surge in visitors from outside Lebanon, which comes as a beautiful reminder of the attachment the diaspora has to its country. At the same time, our digital subscriptions experienced unprecedented growth, by almost 50% in volume in 2019. Half of our online subscribers reside outside of Lebanon, a number we never thought to see. However, this increase in subscriptions does not compensate for the advertising drop recorded in the last quarter of the year. If 2019 has accelerated our switch to a model based on subscriptions and therefore on the quality of our content, substantial income from advertising and partnerships (including events and sponsorship) are essential to guarantee our financial viability. In these uncertain economic conditions, our shareholders, more convinced than ever of the vital role of an independent Lebanese press, are determined to provide the group with the means necessary to fulfill its mission. 2020, a year full of challenges Our new approach comes at a challenging time. 2020 got off to a flying start with the assassination of General Suleimani, which brought us closer to a confrontation between Iran and the United States. However, the Lebanese revolution did not let itself be entangled by potential war, instead gaining momentum from the middle of January, despite the formation of the Diab government. In this volatile context, two certainties: the triple crisis - political, economic, social - will intensify, and the evolution of the current system will be neither easy or smooth. Deciphering and explaining the inevitable convulsions will be our priority, while stimulating the debate of ideas regarding the refounding of the Lebanese model. Our coverage of regional news will also be strengthened, in order to better serve another major objective of our editorial approach: telling stories of the Middle East from here in Beirut, and building bridges between civilizations. Investing in content and technology To rise to these challenges, L'Orient-Le Jour group's strategy remains the same: invest, again and again, in journalism, and develop our digital platforms and marketing tools in order to better deliver this content to you. It is precisely to improve your experience that we are working on a redesign of our website, for a clearer, more readable presentation, better technical performance and easier access to all the publications that underscore the richness of our group, namely LOrient-Le Jour, Le Commerce du Levant and L'Orient Litteraire. Delivery is scheduled for spring, to be followed in late 2020-early 2021 by a redesign of our mobile application. Late 2018, we launched the English version of LOrient-Le Jour and Le Commerce du Levant, displaying translated articles from the French and a weekly newsletter. Now, English appears to be our "new frontier, and we aim at increasing our production in this language, while strengthening our content in French. Dear readers, this year, we are confident in our strategy, and remain, more than ever, committed to the values that we have espoused for decades: defending freedoms; promoting tolerance and openness; establishing the rule of law and institutions worthy of the name; strengthening the link between Lebanon, its diaspora and the world; and last but not least, promoting the values associated with the French language as well as multilingualism. This year, more than ever, all of our editorial staff will be mobilized to inform you of events and stories, to explain and unpack often complicated news. This mission is one we can only fulfill with you by our side. Continue to read us, to write to us, to criticize us, and to support us. You can find our 2018 report here (This editorial was originally published in French in L'Orient-Le Jour on the 3rd of February) Dileep V Kumar By Express News Service THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The state health departments revised guideline on novel coronavirus (nCoV), issued on Saturday, has come against the backdrop of the discharge policy of nCoV cases released by the Union health ministry. The policy which lists case classification, including a suspect case, probable case and confirmed case, also mentions how to deal with nCoV cases. Clinical samples of any suspect/probable case of nCoV will be sent for laboratory confirmation to designated labs. The case will be kept under isolation at the health facility till the time of receipt of laboratory results and given symptomatic treatment as per existing guidelines, read an excerpt of the discharge policy. It added, if the laboratory results are negative, the discharge of such patients will be governed by his provisional/confirmed diagnosis and it is up to the treating physician to make a decision. The case shall still be monitored for 14 days after their last contact with a confirmed nCoV case. At the same time, if the lab result is positive, the case shall be managed as per the confirmed case management protocol and shall only be discharged after evidence of chest radiographic clearance and viral clearance in respiratory samples, specimens of which should test negative twice for nCoV within 24 hours, read the policy. When asked about the revised guidelines, Dr Amar Fettle, state nodal officer, Public Health Emergency of International Concern, said, The department will make changes to the guideline from time to time as per the directions from WHO and the Union health ministry. The first guideline regarding nCoV was released on January 26. The new guideline will also be revised as per the feedback received from health workers monitoring nCoV cases. A detective leading a fresh probe into the death of a man at Michael Barrymore's home almost 20 years ago has said he believes the victim was murdered. Barrymore was one of the best-known TV presenters in the UK when the body of Stuart Lubbock was found at his then home in Roydon, Essex, in 2001 after a party. Six years later, the star was arrested in connection with the death. He was then released without charge before withdrawing from public life. The explosive new Channel 4 documentary, which has the working title Unexplained, has been 18 months in the making and features never-before-seen material from inside the unsolved Essex Police case. Now Detective Chief Inspector Stephen Jennings had made a fresh appeal for evidence surrounding the death of Mr Lubbock. Barrymore has always denied involvement in Mr Lubbock's death / PA According to the Mirror, DCI Jennings will tell Channel 4: I believe very much that Stuart Lubbock was raped and murdered that night. Michael Barrymore has always denied any involvement in Mr Lubbock's death. He sobbed as he recalled the events that ruined his career on Piers Morgans ITV programme Life Stories. The TV star told Morgan he couldnt be more sorry for his behaviour that night. Barrymore fled and stayed silent during an inquest into Mr Lubbocks death. But, struggling to hold back tears, the 67-year-old claimed he had left his home because he thought it would be surrounded by press. Stuart Lubbock was found dead in Barrymore's pool / PA He said he deserved to walk around with my head held high for the rest of my life after winning compensation from Essex Police last year for wrongful arrest. Recalling the events of 2001, he said: That family deserves proper answers. No parent should have to bury their young. I had nothing to do with Stuart. I am innocent. I am not 99.9% innocent. I am 100% innocent and I am entitled to walk around with my head held high for the rest of my life. Terry Lubbock, father of Stuart, protests outside the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh ahead of a show starring Michael Barrymore / PA Archive/PA Images He added: I didnt facilitate him taking drugs. I was advised (to stay silent) by lawyers at the time. You dont have to answer in a coroners court. I can see lots of things in hindsight. Im not making excuses. I f***ed up. I f***ed up. What more do you want? Im sorry. I couldnt be more sorry. I have to live in hope that somehow, somewhere, there will be an answer. I just hope it will be within what is left of my life. Barrymore also rubbished claims made in the press that he had been hosting a gay orgy, asking: How do you have a gay orgy with four girls and five blokes, two of whom are straight? Mr Lubbocks body was found in Barrymores pool after a party where drugs and alcohol were consumed. The outgoing boss of $148 billion funds-management powerhouse IFM Investors says misplaced fears about the 'industry' superannuation sector's links to the trade union movement is stifling investment in much-needed national infrastructure. Brett Himbury, 56, is poised to depart IFM Investors later this year after more than a decade in the job. During that period he more than tripled funds under management at IFM, which is owned by a group of industry super funds, and transformed it into the nation's top infrastructure investor. "We often get written up as union funds. And that's just wrong," Mr Himbury says. "With misunderstanding there potentially comes fear." Outgoing IFM boss Brett Himbury in the company's Melbourne office. Credit:Simon Schluter IFM invests on behalf of 27 not-for-profit industry super funds, which themselves are co-managed by trade unions. It poured more than $30 billion into infrastructure investments last year alone, according to Rainmaker research. By IANS LUCKNOW: The Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorism Squad (UP ATS), on Saturday, arrested Ashish, a key arms supplier of Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF) from Haridwar. The ATS is probing his supply channel and chains in UP. According to reports, the Punjab police had shared information about Ashish with its counterparts in Uttar Pradesh last week. The ATS spokesman said that Ashish Singh was arrested from Tikri on Jadugar road in Civil Lines area of Haridwar. He is an accused in a case of attempt to murder, rioting with deadly weapons, criminal conspiracy and harbouring offender in Punjab in 2018. Ashish is considered to be the right hand of Gugni Grewal a.k.a Harmeet Singh chief of KLF and supplier of weapons to the force. Ashish also has a role in murder of RSS and Shiv Sena worker. After the murder of KLF chief on January 27, 2020, in Pakistan, the Punjab police traced one Sukhpreet Singh of Monga in Punjab and on his tip-off, Ashish was traced. Additional Director General ATS, D.K. Thakur, said that Ashish was named in other cases including illegal sale of liquor. He came in touch with KLF chief while he was locked up in Patiala jail. Ashish had also supplied ten pistols of various bores to KLF chief. "We are tracing the links of Ashish and his channel of procurement of weapons," said Thakur. He also said that the case was worked upon by the information of Punjab police while a hunt is on about other partners and associates of Ashish in Uttar Pradesh. Sources said that call detail record of Ashish was scanned and revealed some numbers from Pakistan. VALPARAISO Actors could learn to fly soon at the Memorial Opera House. The Porter County Board of Commissioners not only gave permission to pay $6,925 for a manual flying track system for the upcoming production of Mary Poppins but instructed opera house director Scot MacDonald to start thinking about future changes to the theater. The exterior is going to need tuckpointing and other work soon to preserve the structure, Commissioners President Jeff Good, R-Center, said at a recent commissioners meeting. The compression is starting to happen there, and were watching, he said. But he also wants to look at getting the auditorium of the historic structure in shape for future shows. MacDonald said he is excited about using the temporary track for "Mary Poppins" and "Bert." You have to do flying in the show, he said. MacDonald said ZFX Flying Effects will install the track, actually attaching it to the building for stability, train the actors and crew on how to use it and then remove the equipment after the show is completed. Five weeks of pre-production. Seventeen days of filming. One break for Thanksgiving. This is the journey Anna Elizabeth James experienced while filming her independent feature, Grace, in New Mexico. Im glad to be wrapped, she says. It was a fun time filming there and I didnt ever expect to come to New Mexico. James is from Utah and originally submitted the film for production there. It was rejected and that left James scrambling to find a home for the project. I was on a set in Utah and a producer was shooting in New Mexico, she says. I was looking at Mississippi and Georgia for the film. When I learned of New Mexico and how the process is so streamlined, I changed my mind. The New Mexico Film Office was so accommodating and it was such a close flight. Grace tells the story of a best-selling female novelist suffering from writers block who hires an innocent young woman to watch over her twin children. As the novelist dangerously indulges in her new bestseller, the line between the life shes writing and the one shes living becomes blurred. The film stars Kristin Davis, Dermot Mulroney, Shanola Hampton and Greer Grammer. Filming was done in and around Albuquerque. Production also took place for a few days at the Albuquerque Journal. Production took 17 days and each day was filled with filming 12 pages of script. Everything James set out to find was accomplished. We found a beautiful home and the homeowner never had a feature film there, she says. It was something I wanted to film and then it was removed from the list. I wanted to see the house and I sat outside her gate until the woman came home and asked her personally to film inside her home. I begged her for 48 hours and she agreed to letting us film there. It was a win. In the film, there was a scene in a courtyard with a water feature. This is where James found the Albuquerque Journal campus. Once on the scene, she found that more scenes could be filmed there, as well. It turned out to be an incredible location, she says. We turned it into a police station, interrogation room, an office for Elaine. We also were able to use the library. We used six or seven locations in that one spot. James pulled double duty as both writer and director of the project. Its an idea thats been floating around in her head for a few years. Theres a scene from the film that kept appearing to me, she says. You have the perfect caretaker for your child and you invite them into your home, and let them be a part of your family. This is a person you trust. Then theres the juxtaposition of what they are like versus your imagination. It plays with your mind. James put pen to paper in January 2018 and pitched it to Grammer right after. By April 2018, the outline was in place with a bigger treatment complete in August. In January 2019, James took the script out to talent, which piqued the interest of Davis and Mulroney. New Mexico really came through in giving me the perfect space for the film, she says. Unfortunately, Utah is behind on things and they thought the films premise was a little out there. Its something that women in the state could have been proud to be part of and support. Another aspect of the film industry that James was happy with was the quality of actors and crew. The child actors that we had and their mothers were supportive of the story, she says. The local talent of New Mexico is unbelievable. In fact, James was impressed by Melissa Chambers, who plays Aunt Lotty in the film. The day of filming, people didnt understand that the aunt has two different personalities, James says. We were blocking in the rehearsal and blank stares were all around. Melissa walked in for the audition and just knew the part perfectly. I told her, You have the part. She is such a rich talent because she embodied Aunt Lotty. James goal is to submit to the Festival de Cannes, which takes place in April. She plans to submit to the Venice Film Festival, as well as the Toronto International Film Festival. The other thing that is happening is that Amazon and Netflix want to see a cut of the film, she says. There are so many avenues and I do hope that we get released this year. By Express News Service VIJAYAWADA: Annem Shruthi, one of the two engineers from Andhra Pradesh, who was detained at Wuhan Airport urged the Indian Government to bring them back to India, as they are not showing any symptoms of Coronavirus. In a video message, she said she was supposed to be evacuated from Wuhan along with other Indians, but she along with another person was asked to stay back and not to board the flight as their body temperatures were higher than normal. ALSO READ: India airlifts 323 more citizens, seven Maldivians from China's Coronavirus-hit Wuhan She said even for the second flight, we were told the same reason. Chinese people here have neither confirmed nor denied that we are having the virus. We are ready to prove that we are not having the virus, as we do not have any symptoms associated with Coronavirus, she said Shruti said an increase in her body temperature was marginal on that day due to stress and physical activity. We request Indian Government to take us back home, she appealed. Shruthi, who hails from Bijanavemula village of Kurnool district is scheduled to get engaged on February 14. Her family members are worried about her being detained in Wuhan and are requesting the Indian Government to initiate steps for her evacuation from Wuhan. Source: Xinhua| 2020-02-02 20:29:54|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close A woman takes part in a protest near the U.S. embassy in Awkar, Mount Lebanon, Lebanon, on Feb. 2, 2020. Hundreds of protesters demonstrated on Sunday near the U.S. embassy against the Middle East peace plan announced by U.S. President Donald Trump, the National News Agency reported. (Photo by Bilal Jawich/Xinhua) BEIRUT, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- Hundreds of protesters demonstrated on Sunday near the U.S. embassy in Awkar, Mount Lebanon, against the Middle East peace plan announced by U.S. President Donald Trump, the National News Agency reported. Protesters chanted slogans against the U.S. administration, saying that the Palestinian cause is the cause of the whole Middle East. Demonstrators also held the Lebanese and Palestinian flags while calling upon all Arabs to take to the streets to revolt against Trump's announcement. The protests turned violent as protesters threw stones at security forces who used a material that burns the eyes which caused fainting and suffocating among demonstrators. Trump unveiled on Jan. 28 together with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from the White House the peace plan, also known as the "Deal of the Century," which would give Israel full control of the settlements and recognize Jerusalem as Israel's "undivided capital." Trump's announcement prompted thousands of Palestinians to demonstrate in Gaza against the plan. Top Lebanese officials also criticized the announcement including President Michel Aoun who called the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, expressing "Lebanon's solidarity with the Palestinians facing the Deal of the Century." US presidential advisor Jared Kushner said on Sunday that if Palestinians are unable to meet the conditions of the new Middle East peace plan he crafted, Israel should not take "the risk to recognise them as a state." The plan laid out by Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law, and unveiled Tuesday was warmly embraced by Israel but curtly dismissed by the Palestinian Authority along with others in the region, including the Arab League. Kushner was challenged by CNN host Fareed Zakaria in a program aired Sunday to explain why demands made of the Palestinians before they are given a state -- a free press, free elections, religious freedom, an independent judiciary and a reliable financial system -- did not amount to "a killer amendment." "There is no Arab country that would meet these criteria, certainly not Saudi Arabia, Egypt" or other countries Kushner has worked with closely, Zakaria said. Kushner replied that the Palestinian territories amount to "a police state... not exactly a thriving democracy." "For the Palestinians, if they want their people to live better lives, we now have a framework to do it," he said. "If they don't think they can uphold these standards, then I don't think we can get Israel to take the risk to recognize them as a state." Kushner added: "The only thing more dangerous than what we have now is a failed state." Trump unveiled the plan in a White House event attended by a smiling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who applauded it as "a great plan for Israel... (and) a great plan for peace." No Palestinians were present. Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, said the plan reflected a persistent pro-Israel bias by the Trump administration and that it "will not pass." Under the plan, Israel would retain control of the contested city of Jerusalem as its "undivided capital" and annex settlements on Palestinian lands. Trump said Palestinians would be allowed to declare a capital within annexed east Jerusalem. Kushner has been criticized for what some saw as harsh language directed at the Palestinians in connection with the plan's roll-out. "If they screw up this opportunity -- which again, they have a perfect track record of missing opportunities -- if they screw this up, I think that they will have a very hard time looking the international community in the face, saying they're victims," he said Tuesday on CNN. "This is a great deal for them. If they come to the table and negotiate, I think they can get something excellent. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Nobody is applying for jobs in small mainly rural schools as teaching principals because of the burnout caused by the 'ridiculous' amount of work faced according to Laois Offaly Independent candidate Carol Nolan. She was responding to a teacher of a small school in Laois highlighted a lack of supports at an Irish National Teachers Organisation public meeting in Portlaoise. I taught as a teaching principal for three years and I would never go back again, said the outgoing TD who is a former teaching principal. Unfortunately that is the case with too many principals. I have met many of them and they really are suffering burnout at this stage. It is very hard to get principals in those positions now. They are being advertised and nobody is touching them. I cant blame them. "It is because of the workload and because there are no admin days there. The teaching principal is expected to do too much. Education should always be child-centred. We are not supposed to be technicians or secretaries or doing Revenues work. I remember when I started I was doing online returns for Revenue. It is just ridiculous. I believe passionately that you should be given supports. A principal is the leader of the school community. I believe they are not supported and most certainly, she said. INTO District representative Joe McKeown said there are 2,000 such principals in the country but all are faced with the responsibilities that bigger schools have. The challenges faced were highlighted to Laois Offaly candidates by a speaker who said she has zero funds recently going into the start of the school year because the Department of Education gives 70% of school funding in January and 30% in June. Noel Tuohy, Labour, said his party would make sure teaching principals would have one day a week outside of the classroom. Charlie Flanagan, FG, said there was scope through the Primary Education Forum for further investment and engagement to ease the burden. He said there may be schools that have higher than average special needs demands. Pauline Flanagan, FF, said teaching principals cannot be treated as be 'busy fools'. Stephen Tynan, PBP, said cuts to the education budget should end ad Governments should stop giving money to their friends and start putting it into education. Brian Stanley, SF, said there is obviously a problem and is an issue that needs to be addressed. The images are as beautiful as they are benevolent, much like the place and the people that are captured through the photographers lens. The lush landscapes of Kashmir are verdant, the pace bucolic, and the people look relatable and real an achievement, considering how most of them were perhaps facing the camera for the first time. But such was the virtuosity of Ram Chandra Mehta, that each photograph retains its precise gaze decades after they were shot. RC Mehta Exploring the Familiar and the Iconic was showcased in Hyderabad to mark the 17th edition of Krishnakriti Festival of Arts and Culture. The exhibition is a retrospective of the photographic work of RC Mehta, comprising both his practice as a studio photographer for the family run Mahatta Studios, the first Indian-run photography studio in Srinagar as well as his personal work that covers his interests in the land, the people of Kashmir, and the significant political events that he witnessed during his lifetime. There are a total of 123 photographs in the exhibition, covering a wide range of subjects, from the royalty of the region (Maharaja Hari Singh and son, Karan Singh), and the visits of Jawaharlal Nehru, to the magnificent Dal Lake, candid portraits of families, and fantastic visuals of landmarks like Nanga Parbhat and Shalimar Bagh. The origins RC Mehta was the youngest of three brothers who, along with his brothers, had to flee from their hometown of Dalhousie at the age of six, owing to their parents murder over a property dispute. His eldest brother, AN Mehta (who was 18 years older) moved to Kashmir where his sister was based, and set up a photography studio in 1915. The office was (and still is) located in Residency Road, where it slowly began to carve a niche for its portraiture. RC Mehtas grandson Hemant says that the decision to operate from a houseboat was in order to maximise resources. With electricity being scare, the reflectors set up on the windows of the houseboat mirrored light from both water and sun, he says. They used Kodak films, and though RC Mehta was largely self-taught, he improved his craft by referring to material from Cartier Press and Magnum, and succeeded in producing unique images. The technique While photography arrived in Kashmir in the late 1860s, it was majorly done by European photographers. Therefore, RC Mehta was in a unique position, as he was one of the first local photographers to have documented the state, its landscapes and people. The studio was called Mahatta, as the British had difficulty pronouncing Mehta. The brothers were pioneers in branding too, and they used to sell prints, slides and postcards of sceneries, which was a rarity back then. But more important was perhaps their documentation of people and political events, which helped the studio gain cult status. As Kashmir was a destination for both the rich and the royalty of India and abroad, many holiday-goers ended up at Mahatta Art Studio for their famous portraits. Hemant puts down the success of the studio to the character of his grandfather, who was a keen innovator. He was a chronicler of the time, as he was one of the few photographers of the time and was known for the quality of his output, he states. He stresses on his grandfathers technique of framing pictures, and points to an image of two men and a child, in which the latter is on the floor rather than in the arms of his parent, which used to be the norm then. He explains, He would analyse the dynamics of a group and alter their positions. The women were encouraged to smile, which is again a departure from the norms of the day. He had a gift in bringing out the character of people through his images, which made him a legend. The relevance of these images The intent of this show is not as much to provide a nostalgic view of a Kashmir from the past, but rather to examine, through RC Mehta's practice, both the familiar as well as the iconic imagery of the region, and how he was involved in shaping it, says exhibition designer Adira Thekkuveettil. Apart from the people, the images capture the stunning beauty of Khilanmarg and Fateh Kadal, the Chinar trees and houseboats which hold a strong nostalgic value for people across India. Hemant agrees and adds, Kashmir has an emotive connect with people. When we exhibited these images in Delhi, people wept upon seeing those familiar landmarks. For those who have moved out of Kashmir, these are windows into how life was. Thekkuveettil feels that RC Mehta's work has had a significant influence in the way Kashmir has been viewed over the course of the 20th century, both through photography as well as cinema. She adds: His work, therefore becomes a cornerstone for those interested in understanding how photography played an important role both for the visitors to the Mahatta studio, as well as for a larger public through the wide proliferation of RC Mehta's work. With the photographs evoking a strong reaction from people from all walks of life, it is clear that RC Mehtas work is as relevant today as it was when they were shot. With Kashmir remaining in the news perennially, these pictures are remnants of a quieter time in its history, when it indeed was paradise on earth. All photos by RC Mehta/Mahatta Archive, Srinagar Kashmir. NEW DELHI: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who is among the partys star campaigners in the capital, launched a scathing attack on Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday, he was drawing support from Pakistan. Hitting out at the Shaheen Bagh protesters at a rally in the city, Yogi said they are propped up by those who stand with the terrorists in Kashmir. He claimed a Pakistan minister has sought support for Kejriwal in the Assembly polls. If Pakistan wasnt affected by the revocation of Article 370 in Jammu & Kashmir, why would its minister seek support for Kejriwal in the Delhi elections? With the people of Delhi and across the country not falling for their nefarious designs, they have now sought support for Kejriwal, Yogi told a gathering at the tally in northeast Delhis Karawal Nagar. Accusing the CM of sponsoring the CAA protests in the Capital, Yogi said, Kejriwal doesnt want development. He only wants Shaheen Bagh. They (AAP) are depriving the people of rapid rail, clean water and good roads. Theyre spending public money on these protests. Biryani is being served to (Shaheen Bagh) protesters. These protests are an attempt to sully Indias image globally. He said the protests were more against the strong image that India has built globally under Prime Minister Narendra Modi than the citizenship law.Their (Shaheen Bagh protesters) ancestors divided the country. They are against Ek Bharat Shrestha Bharat (One India, Great India). These protesters are trying to hold back a rising India, the UP chief minister said. Shaheen Bagh targeted The UP CM said those propping up protesters at Shaheen Bagh stand with J&K terrorists Malawi's constitutional court is set to rule next week on whether to annul controversial poll results that saw the re-election of President Peter Mutharika, a verdict widely expected to stoke turmoil. The case has gripped the southern African nation and kept Malawians glued to radio stations for hours on end listening to live broadcasts of witnesses presenting evidence of alleged vote rigging. Sporadic protests have broken out across the country since Mutharika was declared the winner by a narrow margin in May presidential elections with 38.5 percent of the vote. Runner-up Lazarus Chakwera, who lost by just 159,000 votes, alleges he was robbed of victory. His Malawi Congress Party (MCP) and the opposition United Transformation Movement (UTM) have petitioned the courts to annul the poll. A panel of judges is scheduled to deliver the verdict on Monday morning. It is the first time presidential elections have been legally challenged in Malawi since the country gained independence from Britain in 1964. Protesters have been demanding the resignation of the electoral commission chief, and several demonstrations have turned violent. "There will be winners and losers and we are not sure how the losers will react," said Malawian politics professor Michael Jana. A number of schools and companies have closed for the week, fearing violence could erupt after the ruling is announced. - 'Expecting change' - Anticipation was high in the financial capital Blantyre, Malawi's second-largest city. "I'm expecting change," said Chatonda Jembe, who works as an administrator. "Not necessarily change in leadership (but) change in attitude." "The leadership on both sides of the political divide know they can no longer take people for granted." Anger flared last month after Chief Justice Andrew Nyirenda claimed bribes had been offered to the five judges presiding over the case. Malawi's anti-graft body vowed to probe the allegations and arrested top banker Thom Mpinganjira last week. Both Chakwera and UTM candidate Saulos Chilima have urged supporters to maintain peace and accept the court's decision, regardless of the outcome. "There is more that binds us than that which separates us," Chilima told reporters on Thursday in the capital Lilongwe. "No matter which corner of this country we come from, we are a peace-loving people and we look out for each other." Chakwera called on his supporters to welcome the ruling with "open arms" as a base for "rebuilding our nation". Meanwhile, the army and police said additional security measures would be deployed on judgement day. "Nobody should be worried about security," commander Vincent Nundwe told AFP. "The army and the police will work together to make sure there is enough security in the country." - 'Pivotal moment' - Opposition leaders allege the election's tally sheets were tampered with, even claiming that polling station agents used correction fluid to alter some results. Mutharika has repeatedly dismissed their accusations and brushed off doubts about the official results. "The government urges all political parties in the country and other stakeholders to respect the rule of law," said spokesman Mark Botomani. "Destruction of the country is counterproductive." If the judges rule in favour of the opposition, Mutharika's party is likely to appeal before the supreme court. Law professor Danwood Chirwa said that process was likely to be settled within two months. "If it takes longer than this there will be too much chaos," he told AFP. Fresh elections are expected to be held 60 days after the constitutional court ruling if the appeal is unsuccessful. A joint statement by British, American and several European ambassadors on Thursday referred to the verdict as a "pivotal moment" in Malawi's history. It echoes a historic decision by Kenya's judiciary to annul presidential election results over claims of widespread irregularities in 2017. "This impasse has held us back for a long time," said James Gobede, who sells dried goods in Blantyre's Limbe market. "It is time the nation resolved this so that we can get back to normalcy." OCAMPO, Mexico Hundreds of farmers and agricultural workers thronged the funeral of activist Homero Gomez Gonzalez in a homage to him that was like a tribute to the monarch butterfly he so staunchly defended. The butterflies annual migration, threatened by logging, avocado farming and climate and environmental change, also represents a ray of hope and income for the impoverished, pine-clad mountains of Michoacan state. Nobody worked harder than Gomez Gonzalez whose body was found last week at the bottom of a holding pond with a head wound to stop logging, reforest and bring tourists to the butterflies wintering grounds. In an area where crime, construction work and wood cutting provide some of the only sources of income, Gomez Gonzalez provided a way out, ensuring income for the communal farmers who own the land in the butterfly reserve. Thanks to him many of you had work, or more work those who sell food in the reserve, those who sell their handicrafts, those who bring their horses to carry visitors into the reserve, Rev. Saul Saucedo said in the funeral homily Friday. It may sound like low-wage jobs, but that tenuous economy keeps the pine and fir trees from being cut down and preserves the butterflies migration from the United States and Canada each year. It also feeds the family of farmer Raul Garcia Gonzalez. When theres no work here, I go out and look for day labor jobs, he said. Like many of the communal land owners, he fears Gomez Gonzalezs death could add to the already bad reputation that drug cartel violence has given to the state of Michoacan. Autopsy results showed Gomez Gonzalez drowned in the holding pond after leaving a party Jan. 13, but they also showed he had a head wound. There would have been no shortage of people for whom life would have been easier if Gomez Gonzalez wasnt around. While known as a friendly, big-hearted man who liked to pose for photographs surrounded by the swarms of black and orange butterflies that roost in trees here each winter, Gomez Gonzalez was a leader and a community activist a dangerous profession in Mexico. Global Witness based in London counted 15 killings of environmental activists in Mexico in 2017 and 14 in 2018. Authorities say said an investigation into Gomez Gonzalez death is continuing. Mark Stevenson is an Associated Press writer. New Zealand confirmed on Sunday they were banning foreign nationals arriving from mainland China, as worries over the deadly new strain of virus escalated worldwide. The US and Australia have been denying entry to all foreign visitors who've recently been in China.New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said while there is still a range of unknowns in the way the virus is being transmitted, they'd been advised to take a precautionary approach. She said because the goal for those arriving to New Zealand to visit the country was to travel and explore, it might increase the risk of the new strain of the virus spreading.Ardern did however say the policy would be reviewed every 48 hours. Earlier, countries including Vietnam, Russia, Japan, Pakistan and Italy announced similar travel restrictions.Global health officials have advised against such measures.The World Health Organisation has warned that closing borders could accelerate the spread of the virus, with travellers entering countries unofficially. (Image Credit: AP) Four warders and an undertrial prisoner were injured in a clash between two groups of inmates in the Central Prison here on Sunday, police said. All the injured have been admitted to a private hospital, they said. The clash broke out after four murder accused and the undertrial prisoner got into an argument, the police said. Associates of the undertrial and the murder accused hurled stones and used plates to attack each another, resulting in one of them sustaining injuries, they said. Four warders who intervened in the fight were also injured, they added. A case had been registered and the prison authorities are investigating the matter, the police said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A range of anti-government protests took place in Serbia's capital, Belgrade, on February 1. A gathering of the Alliance for Serbia opposition coalition -- which supports anti-government marches held in Belgrade every Saturday -- announced a boycott of the upcoming general elections. Another weekly march -- the 61st in a row -- then took off to the headquarters of Serbia's public broadcaster, RTS, accused by the demonstrators of pro-government bias. Earlier in the day, a separate rally outside the headquarters of the N1 station, a CNN affiliate in the Western Balkans, protested against the channel's unavailability on cable televisions distributed by a Serbian state-owned company. LONDON 1917, Sam Mendess visually extravagant World War I drama that takes viewers into the chaos of the trenches was the big winner at the EE British Academy Film Awards on Sunday, taking seven awards including best film. Mendes was also named best director at the event, better known as the BAFTAs, Britains equivalent of the Oscars. The haul adds to the movies wins for best drama and best director at the Golden Globes and will increase hype around the movie in the run-up to the Oscars. In the midst of all this hoopla, its sometimes easy to forget the actual experience of shooting a movie, Mendes said, accepting his best director award. I had a kind of directors paradise in this film that I think Ill never, ever have again. Mohammed Tawfiq Allawi introduced as new Iraqi PM IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Baghdad, Feb 1, IRNA -- Mohammed Tawfiq Allawi was finally appointed on Saturday as the new prime minister by the Iraqi president two months after Adil Abdul Mahdi's resignation and disagreement with political groups. Iraqi President Barham Salih has chosen Allawi from the five-man list. He was offered two weeks ago to elect a new prime minister. Alawi announced in a video released on Iraqi social networks and media that he had been formally appointed as the head of the new government. Allawi said via videotape posted on Facebook that President Barham Salih had assigned him an hour ago to form a new government. Allawi's appointment, after much bickering between political groups in the past two weeks, was finally agreed upon on Friday. After the appointment, he praised the president and promised that he would do his best to hold early elections. 9455**1430 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Advertisement Armed police have shot dead a suspected terrorist wearing a fake suicide vest after he grabbed a knife from a shop and stabbed a man and a woman during a brutal high-street rampage in south London. The attack comes just three months after the London Bridge attack where Usman Khan was shot dead by armed police after he killed two people and injured three others while wearing a fake suicide vest. Police believe the Streatham incident - where the suspect was shot dead by armed officers as part of a proactive Counter Terrorism operation - was Islamist-related. A man is fighting for his life in hospital while a woman has non-life threatening injuries. Another woman received minor injuries, believed to have been caused by flying glass following the gunshot. The attacker was known to police, sources told Sky News. Officers raced to the scene outside a supermarket on High Road in Streatham at around 2pm today following reports of gunfire. Photos from the scene show a lifeless body face down on the pavement with what have been described as 'silver canisters' strapped to his chest with a large knife lying beside him. Scotland Yard said the broad-daylight carnage was a terror-related incident around an hour after first reports from the scene. Armed police have shot dead a suspected terrorist wearing a fake suicide vest after he grabbed a knife from a shop and stabbed a man and a woman during a brutal high-street rampage in south London Officers raced to the scene outside a supermarket on High Road in Streatham at around 2pm today following reports of gunfire Photos from the scene show a lifeless body face down on the pavement with what have been described as 'silver canisters' strapped to his chest with a large knife is lying beside him Police officers inspect the suspect lying face down on Streatham High Road at around 2pm on Sunday (left) and officers suddenly backing off (right) The officers inspect the suspect (left) after he was shot and lying face down on the pavement (right) wearing a fake suicide vest Officers in a marked police SUV stop suddenly in the middle of the street (left) before getting out of the vehicle as the prepare to approach the suspect who is lying face down on the pavement on Sunday afternoon on Streatham high road In one video, armed police can be seen approaching the suspect before suddenly backing off after they spotted what is now known to be a fake suicide vest. The suspect is seen lying face down on the pavement as undercover officers train their guns on him. A police SUV then speeds down the south London high street and brakes suddenly in the middle of the road. Three officers leap from the marked car, approach the suspect with handguns drawn and appear to be examining him before they rush back. Nardos Mulugeta, 52, a mechanical engineer who lives in Streatham, said he heard gunshots before seeing one victim lying in the street. He said: 'I heard a shot and then there was a 20-second gap. Then there were three or four shots together. 'I went over and I saw the first victim, a male victim on the ground, near the White Lion Pub, and people were helping him. 'Then five minutes later a woman came over and said: "I've been stabbed too in the back." And then people starting helping her. 'I saw one body laying down further away. He was face-down between Argos and Iceland. It's really scary.' Witness David Chawner said: I was going to the cinema. I saw what I thought was just a shop lifting. I saw someone run down the street, bump into someone and then they fell to the ground, got up again, and then somebody shouted and then I heard what I thought was a car backfiring. 'I didnt assume it was a gunshot until I saw what later turned out to be two officers pointing guns at an assailant on the road.' He added: 'And because I was going to the cinema I always carry a blanket with me. Its a stupid thing but I always get really cold in the cinema. So I took that out my bag and gave it to them to compress the wound.' Student Rafe Askem was walking along the High Road when he heard a man shouting 'ahh' and then saw the victim bleeding. The 21-year-old said he saw two boys pushing a man against some shutters and heard a shout before looking over to see blood on the floor. The student, from Streatham in south London, said: 'I saw somebody getting stabbed. It all happened very quickly. 'Then I just heard shouting and I saw people running. I saw him bleeding out. 'He didn't say anything. All I heard was him shouting out "ahh".' A 19-year-old student from Streatham - who did not want to be named - claimed to have witnessed the shooting on Streatham High Road in front of a Boots store. Police forensic officers with a bag at the scene in Streatham High Road, south London, after an attacker was shot dead by armed officers Police can be seen behind a cordon in Streatham. London Ambulance Service Strategic Commander Graham Norton said: 'We were called at 1.58pm today (2 February) to reports of an incident in Streatham High Road' Streatham 'terror attack': How the incident - that left three injured - unfolded The suspected terrorist armed with a knife rampaged through Streatham High Street before undercover officers shot him dead at around 2pm. Police said that two people had been injured, one is believed to be in a serious condition in hospital. Witnesses said the attacker was armed with a machete and had silver canisters strapped to his chest. Plain clothes officers repeatedly told the suspect to stop, according to a bystander, before they opened fire. Three shots were heard. The suspect was seen lying face down outside a Boots shop as officers aimed their guns at him. The undercover officers appear to have been in the area when the attack unfolded and dozens more police cars, as well as ambulances rushed to the scene. People were ordered to leave the area and shops were evacuated over fears the suspect was wearing a suicide vest. Scotland Yard has described the incident as 'terrorist-related.' Advertisement He said: 'I was crossing the road when I saw a man with a machete and silver canisters on his chest being chased by what I assume was an undercover police officer - as they were in civilian clothing. 'The man was then shot. I think I heard three gun shots but I can't quite remember. 'After that I ran into the library to get to safety. 'From the library I saw a load of ambulances and armed police officers arrive on the scene.' He said people began running into nearby stores after the incident. 'We were all informed to stay in buildings by armed police, until we were evacuated,' he said. Dozens of emergency vehicles lined the area and an air ambulance landed on Tooting Bec Common a few hundred yards from the scene of the shooting. The Mets deputy assistant commissioner Lucy DOrsi said: 'At approximately 2pm on Sunday two people were stabbed in Streatham High Road, Lambeth. 'As part of a proactive Counter Terrorism operation, armed officers were in immediate attendance and shot a male suspect, who was pronounced dead at the scene. 'A third person also received minor injuries believed to have been caused by glass following the discharge of the police firearm. 'A device was found strapped to the body of the suspect and specialist officers attended. 'Cordons were put in place and it was quickly established that this was a hoax device. A man is fighting for his life in hospital while a woman has non-life threatening injuries. Police forensic officers work near a car at the scene Another woman received minor injuries, believed to have been caused by flying glass following the gunshot. Pictured: Forensic officers at the scene A woman reacts near to the scene where a man was shot and killed by armed police. The attacker was known to police, sources told Sky News 'Three victims have been taken to south London hospitals. One man is being treated as life-threatening, one woman has non-life threatening injuries and another woman has minor injuries. 'My thoughts are with the victims and their loved-ones at this time. 'The situation has been contained and officers from the Mets Counter Terrorism Command are now leading an investigation into the incident. The incident was quickly declared as a terrorist incident and we believe it to be Islamist-related.' London Ambulance Service Strategic Commander Graham Norton said: 'We were called at 1.58pm today (2 February) to reports of an incident in Streatham High Road. 'We worked closely with the other emergency services and sent a number of resources including five ambulance crews, an advanced paramedic practitioner, an incident response officer and a motorcycle responder, with the first of our medics arriving in four minutes. We also dispatched Londons Air Ambulance. 'We treated three patients for injuries at the scene, and took all three people to hospital.' The incident comes just three months after the London Bridge attack where Usman Khan was shot dead by armed police after he killed two people and injured three others while wearing a fake suicide vest. Pictured: An armed police officer recovers medical bags from the scene A police forensics officer works outside a Boots pharmacy at the scene. Emma Taylor, from Streatham Hill, told Sun Online: 'I was walking up the high street after going for brunch with some friends and we saw a woman screaming outside a small hardware shop next to Iceland' A police forensic officer was seen working at the scene. Dave Chawner tweeted to say: 'I had to stay with someone who'd just been #stabbed in #Streatham for 30 minutes before a single ambulance arrived' A 33-year-old woman who lives near the scene also MailOnline how she was locked in a nearby Odeon for 20 minutes after the attack, before being rushed out a fire exit round the back. Pictured: Forensic officers at the scene One officer was filmed telling pedestrians that the suspect was wearing a possible suicide vest before directing them away from the scene. Pictured: A forensic officer at the scene Just minutes after the attack in London, Belgian police also shot a 'knifeman' who is thought to have stabbed two people on a busy high street in Ghent. Pictured: An armed police officer recovers medical bags from the scene In the Belgium attack, the suspect was reportedly injured by officers in Ghent during the incident on Bevrijdingslaan, according to HLN. Pictured: A police officer at the scene Student Rafe Askem was walking along the High Road when he heard a man shouting 'ahh' and then saw the victim bleeding. Pictured: Forensic officers after the attack Dozens of emergency vehicles lined the area and an air ambulance landed on Tooting Bec Common a few hundred yards from the scene of the shooting. Pictured: Forensic officers at the scene One officer was filmed telling pedestrians that the suspect was wearing a possible suicide vest before directing them away from the scene. Just minutes after the attack in London, Belgian police also shot a 'knifeman' who is thought to have stabbed two people on a busy high street in Ghent. The suspect was reportedly injured by officers in Ghent during the incident on Bevrijdingslaan, according to HLN. Pictures show a man pinned to the ground by police on the busy road as witnesses watch in horror. Police were filmed standing behind an unmarked police car and pointing their guns towards a suspect who appeared to be lying on the pavement outside the Boots store on the high street Scotland Yard declared the broad daylight carnage as a terror-related incident around an hour after first reports from the scene In one video, police toting machine guns and masked undercover officers are seen approaching the suspect's body before rapidly moving away from the area A large section of the A23 remains sealed off to traffic as buses continue to be diverted. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has since tweeted about the attack. He said: 'Thank you to all emergency services responding to the incident in Streatham, which the police have now declared as terrorism-related. 'My thoughts are with the injured and all those affected.' He is expected to return from Chequers to Downing Street this evening to respond to the attack. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn posted his thanks to those who have been dealing with the terror-related incident in London on Sunday. 'My thoughts go out to those injured and affected by the incident in Streatham," tweeted the leader of the opposition. 'I would like to thank the police and emergency services for their dedication and quick response.' An officer was pictured crouching down to reach someone lying on the floor (left) as a large section of the A23 was cordoned off (right) Dozens of emergency vehicles are currently lining the area as well as reports of an air ambulance and police helicopter circling above An armed police officer was standing guard in Streatham after the scene had been fully contained by officers earlier this afternoon One officer was filmed telling pedestrians that the suspect was wearing a possible suicide vest before directing them away from the scene. Pictured: Pedestrians ducking under the cordon Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, wrote a statement which read: 'A man has been shot dead by armed police in Streatham following an incident that is being treated as terrorism-related. 'A number of people are believed to have been stabbed. 'I am in close contact with the Met Commissioner and local representatives and wanted to thank our police, security and emergency services staff for their swift and courageous response. 'They truly are the best of us. 'Terrorists seek to divide us and to destroy our way of life - here in London we will never let them succeed.' Labour leadership favourite Sir Keir Starmer added: 'Shocking reports from Streatham. My thoughts are with everyone affected. 'Huge thanks to our emergency services for everything they do to keep us safe. And Home Secretary Priti Patel wrote: 'I am being kept updated by @metpoliceuk on this afternoon's incident in Streatham, which has been declared terrorist-related. 'My first thoughts are with the victims, our brave police and emergency services and their families.' Similarly, Health Secretary Matt Hancock wrote: 'All our gratitude goes to the NHS paramedics and emergency services who responded so rapidly to today's incident in Streatham. 'Thinking of everyone involved. We must never be divided by terrorism.' Jack Odell, 28, from Streatham told MailOnline: 'Police came and knocked on the door and told us to evacuate. 'They just told us to move away from the area. I only saw what was pictured in my tweet of the junction.' Mr Odell said officers did not say when he could return to his property. Cars come to a standstill in Streatham after armed police officers stand guard (left). A police officer outside an Iceland store in Streatham (right) One police officer securing the area lifted the cordon for a woman to exit the high street following the incident A police officer stands guard in a car park behind a Boots store near to the scene where a man was shot and killed Richard Mustonen-Smith, 59, a response pastor for Ascension Trust, has lived in the area all his life. He said: 'I'm shocked it's happened in Streatham. I've been here all my life. We're always getting accidents down here but not this. 'My grandson was in the Odeon and they got told to go out the back because there was a bomb. They got them to go out of the back of the cinema. They were there to watch a film. 'When it's a member of your family so close to you you don't expect it. You're always worried about your family being on the streets but this is even worse. 'I heard two people got stabbed and apparently one man was shouting Allahu Akbar but people thought he was just a crazy man, so he got away. Apparently he had two rucksacks.' An unmarked police car pulled up in the middle of the road as members of the public huddled together as the suspect was laying on the pavement Police at the scene on Streatham High Road. Metropolitan Police tweeted: 'We believe there are two injured victims. We await updates on their conditions' A 33-year-old woman who lives near the scene also MailOnline how she was locked in a nearby Odeon for 20 minutes after the attack, before being rushed out a fire exit round the back. She said officers came in and ordered them to stand well away from the windows. She continued: 'I heard it and just thought it was a car backfiring. Everyone did. 'I ran into the Odeon just down the road. There were quite a few people in there. Only a few ran inside to start with.' She said staff shut the doors. 'Everyone just thought it was a car.' Four police cars and 12 officers were pictured taking control of the scene on High Road in Streatham earlier today. The incident has since been contained Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to return from Chequers to Downing Street this evening to respond to the attack. Pictured: Police swarmed the high street after reports of gunfire Metropolitan Police tweeted: 'We can confirm that the man shot by police at around 2pm today in #Streatham High Road has been pronounced dead'. Pictured: Streatham High Road She said another woman locked in the cinema, who had been on the way to Poundland, witnessed the shooting and was shaking with fear. 'She thought it was a gang shooting because the two men were dressed all in black. 'She was really shaking, she was quite distressed and was panicking and all over the place.' The woman ran upstairs in the cinema before people were let out the back. She said she sprinted home as police cars 'zoomed around the area and helicopters circled above'. She had to take a scenic route back home due to the main road being sealed off. Police cars are seen at the scene surrounding the police cordons. London Ambulance Service were called just before 2pm Members of the public have been commenting on social media. Rector Anna Norman-Walker, who works at St Leonard's Church in Streatham, said: 'Situated in the #Streatham Rectory with police tape both sides of us... prayers for our wonderful police who are doing such a remarkable job in a frightening situation.' One user wrote: 'What the hell is going on in Streatham?!? Helicopters circling above and sirens outside. Twitter saying a man has been shot dead. 'It's a Sunday afternoon and families are everywhere. Very scary.' Another added: 'Be careful out today I'm London, just seen about two dozen armed police, a man shot and a two stab victims receiving urgent medical care. 'I don't know but I think like I heard 3 gun shot in Streatham.' A third man said: 'Something major happening in Streatham High Road. Armed police and roads closed off.' Dozens of emergency vehicles are currently lining the area and a helicopter ambulance landed on Tooting Bec Common a few hundred yards from the scene of the shooting Two police officers wearing hazmat suits arrived on the scene on Streatham High Road a short time later. The road remains closed as they continue to investigate Clothing and used medical litter was left discarded on the street in Streatham where a man was shot by police after reports that he stabbed two people Emma Taylor, from Streatham Hill, told Sun Online: 'I was walking up the high street after going for brunch with some friends and we saw a woman screaming outside a small hardware shop next to Iceland.' She said the distressed woman, who owns a hardware shop, shouted 'he's just grabbed a knife from my shop and stabbed a lady.' The 31-year-old said the woman was just five yards in front her being treated by paramedics. Ms Taylor described how there were armed police everywhere and said the woman being treated was in 'pure shock'. Streatham High Road, Lambeth, London, has been cordoned off by police after reports of a man shot by police A car believed to be an armed response car that crashed on the way to the scene as officers investigate the incident Mr Chawner tweeted to say: 'I had to stay with someone who'd just been #stabbed in #Streatham for 30 minutes before a single ambulance arrived. 'I'm just over one mile from a hospital - I'm not having a go at anyone but that's not right. 'I just hope he made it.' Speaking to Sky TV later, he said: 'In that moment I did not think it was a terrorist attack, I did not think it was anything out of the ordinary, until I saw the guns... 'My only concern was the poor person in the street.' Rory Stewart, who is an Independent candidate for Mayor of London in the upcoming 2020 election, responded to Mr Chawner's post. He wrote: 'So much respect for your courage and presence of mind - remember to get to counselling immediately - at least have a chance to calmly talk it through. 'All my respect and best wishes.' BJP president J P Nadda on Sunday accused Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal of "insulting" the people from the poorvanchal region and wondered if he can do any good to them when he cannot respect them. In his tweets targeting the AAP leader, Nadda posted a brief video of Kejriwal, who is heard saying that poor people from Bihar come to Delhi by spending Rs 500 and avail of medical treatment of over Rs 5 lakh here free of cost. The BJP has often cited these comments to accuse Kejriwal of insulting migrants but the AAP has asserted that the chief minister was making a point about the quality of medical facilities being offered in the national capital. Nadda said people from poorvanchal have played a big role in the development of Delhi but Kejriwal does not "realise" it. "The way you have often insulted brothers and sisters from poorvanchal, is unbecoming of a chief minister," he said. The BJP president also attacked Kejriwal over the issue of drinking water, saying the AAP leaders has been making the promise of delivering piped water to every household since 2014 and then claimed in 2019 that it will take another five years. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) China's new confirmed infections from the coronavirus outbreak increased by a daily record, up by 2,590 cases on Saturday to top 14,000, as the quickly growing epidemic prompted global travel restrictions and evacuations. The death toll from the coronavirus outbreak in China had reached 304 as of the end of Saturday, state broadcaster CCTV said on Sunday, citing the country's National Health Commission. All the new deaths and most of the new infections on Saturday were in central Hubei province, the epicentre of the flu-like coronavirus outbreak. In India, one more person has been confirmed positive for the novel virus. A person who had a history of travelling to China tested positive in Kerala today, the health ministry confirmed. "The patient has tested positive for novel coronavirus and is in isolation in a hospital," the officials said. Meanwhile, second plane carrying 323 Indians from Wuhan landed in Delhi yesterday. reuters China is facing mounting isolation as other countries introduce travel curbs, airlines suspend flights, and governments evacuate their citizens, risking worsening a slowdown in the world's second-largest economy. Around two dozen other countries and regions have reported more than 130 cases, none of which have been fatal yet. Most of them have been in people who had recently travelled to or were visiting from Hubei. reuters The World Health Organization this week declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern, but said global trade and travel restrictions are not needed. However, some countries are responding to fears of the virus spreading by ramping up border controls. Singapore and the United States announced measures on Friday to ban foreign nationals who have recently been in China from entering their territories, and Australia followed suit on Saturday. Russia introduced visa restrictions and will start evacuating Russian citizens on Monday and Tuesday, Interfax and TASS news agencies reported. reuters More than 100 Germans and family members landed in Frankfurt on Saturday after being evacuated from Wuhan. Around 250 Indonesians were being evacuated from Hubei. U.S. health officials on Saturday confirmed an eighth case of the coronavirus in the United States, and the Pentagon said it would provide housing for people arriving from overseas who might need to be quarantined. The country has introduced mandatory quarantine for citizens arriving from Hubei. In Mexico, ride-hailing application Uber Technologies Inc said on Saturday that it suspended 240 accounts of users in Mexico who may recently have come in contact with someone possibly infected with the virus. reuters There are no confirmed cases in Mexico yet. Province In Lockdown The number of deaths in Hubei from the outbreak had risen to 294 as of the end of Feb. 1, with a total 9,074 cases, the majority in the capital Wuhan, where the virus is thought to have emerged late last year in a market illegally trading wildlife. New confirmed cases also surged by 276 in nearby Huanggang. One death was reported in the city, about 60 km (37 miles) east of Wuhan. Hubei has been under virtual quarantine for the last week, with roads sealed off and public transport shut down. The province extended its Lunar New Year holiday break to Feb. 13 in a bid to contain the outbreak. reuters But the province is not totally sealed. People are leaving Hubei on foot over a bridge spanning the Yangtze river, entering Jiujiang city in neighbouring Jiangxi province. Lu Yuejin, a 50-year-old farmer from a village on the Hubei side of the bridge, was trying to gain passage for her leukaemia-stricken daughter on Saturday. "Please, take my daughter. I don't need to go past... please, just let my daughter go past," Lu pleaded with the police. Her cries for help were almost drowned out by a loudspeaker playing a pre-recorded message that residents would not be allowed past to Jiujiang. Eventually, Lu and her daughter were both allowed through and an ambulance was called to pick them up. Police said a man in his 40s was initially considered to be in a life-threatening condition, but following his treatment at hospital, this is no longer the case. A woman in her 50s had injuries not considered to be life-threatening, authorities said. A third was hurt by glass shattered when police fired their weapons. Hours after the Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump adjourned for the evening in Washington on Friday, Elizabeth Warren bounded into a brewery in downtown Des Moines, Iowa. The Massachusetts senator and Democratic presidential candidate, displaying the energy of Bailey, her golden retriever and the breakout star of her campaign, hopped on top of a box and greeted the room, which was so packed the wait staff had to ask guests to pass their pint glasses to the bar to be refilled because they couldnt bus the tables and had run out of fresh ones. Warren had missed an earlier campaign rally across the street because of the impeachment proceedings, and thanked her supporters for turning out. And then she turned to thank her campaign co-chairs who have stepped in for Warren in her absence: congresswomen Deb Haaland of New Mexico, Katie Porter of California and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, who were all part of a wave of the record of women elected in the 2018 midterm elections. You know what I love best about them? Warren said on Friday night, pointing to the members of Congress. They prove that kickass women win. Related: Who is running for president? The full list of 2020 Democratic candidates In the final days before the Iowa caucuses, Warren is explicitly confronting concerns among some voters about nominating another woman to take on Donald Trump in November. And for anyone still haunted by Hillary Clintons defeat in 2016, the three women by Warrens side serve as a reminder of what has changed. Women have been doing very well since Donald Trump has been elected, Warren told supporters in a tele-town hall earlier this week. 2020 is not 2016. The sharp focus on relieving any lingering doubts about her electability reflects the overwhelming desire by Democrats in Iowa and around the country to unseat a president they view as a singular threat. That fear has reshaped the primary debate this cycle, sharpening the focus on who is best positioned to win in the November presidential election, a calculation that often works against women and minority candidates. Story continues While support for Warren has dipped in the last few months, she has one of the largest and most organized political operations in Iowa, which could prove decisive on Monday night. Recent surveys of Iowa show no clear frontrunner and a large number of caucus-goers still undecided. Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley campaigns for Senator Elizabeth Warren in Des Moines, Iowa, on 31 January. Photograph: Matt Marton/EPA Squeezed between Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, who has consolidated support on the left in recent months, and former vice-president Joe Biden, who has remained the top choice of moderate candidates, Warren is now making an explicit case for why Iowans should turn to her on Monday night. Were down in the final strokes, but understand, we will, we must come together as a party and beat Donald Trump, Warren told hundreds of supporters at a gymnasium in Cedar Rapids on Saturday. And Ive got a plan for that. In her final appeal to Iowans this weekend, Warren sought to cast herself as uniquely positioned to unite the party. Allies championed her as a consensus-candidate who can excite Democratic base voters without alienating either ideological flank. A recent Quinnipiac University poll found that Warren is the top second choice of Democratic primary voters nationally, a position that could matter in Mondays caucuses where a second round of balloting is required. At rallies and events, the senator was introduced by speakers who caucused for Bernie Sanders and Clinton in 2016 as well as by speakers who initially endorsed presidential candidates no longer in the race, including Cory Booker and Kamala Harris. A new advert released by her campaign features a man from rural Iowa who supported Trump in 2016 insisting that Warren can absolutely defeat the president. For people that say that a woman cant win, I say: nonsense, he says. I believe a woman can beat Trump and I believe Elizabeth is that woman. Ive talked a lot about how empathetic she is but let me give you another e word, Pressley said at a rally in Iowa City. Shes electable too. Supporters in Iowa say they like that she has detailed plans. They remark upon her grasp of policy and a can-do attitude. Many women are drawn to her personal story. Betty Wells, who plans to caucus for Warren in Ames, said she too grew up in a working class family in Oklahoma. Im an Okie, she said clutching her hands to her heart. Her story is my story. Dan OBrien, a caucusgoer in Cedar Rapids, says Warren is the opposite of Trump. She is a uniter, he said, adding that he likes her intellect and positive energy. His wife, Carol OBrien, is drawn to Warrens policy platform, and specifically her plan to overhaul Americas healthcare system. Some of the candidates want to nibble around the edges, she said. I dont think thats a strategy that will move the healthcare system to true affordability. Warren has proposed a version of Medicare for All that would eliminate private insurance and transition to a government-run healthcare system after three years. The plan drew criticism from progressives who were opposed to the transition phase, and from moderates who believe Medicare for All will hurt Democrats in a general election. Following the attacks on her healthcare position, polls showed her standing slip behind Sanders. I was leaning toward Elizabeth Warren in the spring but then she came up with this extreme idea on healthcare and I gave up on her, said Phillip Cantrell, a retired maintenance worker from Fruitland Iowa, who attended a Biden campaign event in Muscatine this week. He is considering supporting Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar. Tom Huber, 72, attended a Warren rally in Iowa City on Saturday as he tries to decide among Biden, Buttigieg and Klobuchar. Warrens a little liberal for me, he said. Im more middle of the road, which is why the other three are more middle of the road. But I like her in terms of her person and what shes done for her career, so well see what happens. Porter, a native Iowan who now represents a suburban California district that hadnt voted for a Democrat since the 1930s, argued that Warren can appeal to a wide demographic. I represent a Republican district, she told a crowd on Friday night, And I am all in for Elizabeth Warren. At Peace Tree Brewing on Friday night, Shireen Carter, an attorney in Norwalk, was among the hundreds of people who waited in Warrens now-famous selfie line. But she also had something to show the senator: a one-page summary of her student loan debts from law school. As of that evening, she owed $280,075.58. She gave me a big hug and said that we were going to fix that in nine months, Carter said after the exchange with Warren, who has a plan to forgive most student loan debt. I hope that voters give her the opportunity to do that. "We should not forget that the fashion and clothing market is dominated by underground designers and producers," an Iranian official in charge of "supervising and controlling fashion and clothing" admitted in an interview with an Iranian news agency (ILNA) on Saturday. The lady is also responsible for the Fajr Fashion and Clothing Festival, one of the several festivals to celebrate the 41st anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, next week. What Ms. Marzieh Shafapour admitted is the truth and the whole truth. Four decades after an Islamic Revolution which aimed to create an alternative to the western culture and fashion among other things, the Islamic Republic has gravely failed. The way Iranians, particularly women, dress is usually a big surprise to foreigners visiting the country who usually expect to see black-veiled women who are seen in photos and on western channels marching in official rallies. But many Iranian women simply follow the minimum Islamic dress code, meaning a headscarf and a tunic or coat called manteaux. It's compulsory and defying it is punishable by law. Ingenious designers, and fashionable women, however, always find ways to twist the compulsory headscarf and tunic into fashion statements rather than a statement of faith or belief in the ideals of the Islamic Revolution, always pushing the boundaries further and further. In the past ten years or so, with the advent of social media that allowed underground designers to showcase their creations and share them with others, underground fashion has experienced a boom. Amid internet censorship by throngs of government cyber-censors, many worked their way through proxy servers and VPNs to post professionally-taken photos of models donning their creations on Instagram and Telegram, and sell them to the fashion-hungry. The Islamic Republic now had to fight its war against fashion-savvy women and men on several fronts, on social media, on the streets, with modeling agencies they said promoted vulgarity, with underground boutiques and private fashion shows. In March last year the police raided a fashion show in Lavasan, a posh mountainous area near Tehran dotted with villas nestled in fruit orchards, and arrested everyone. The female models wore head covers and their clothes were not revealing at all, but they wore wings. Conservative websites said the designs resembled those of "Satan-worshipers". Needless to say, both organizers and participants got into serious trouble with the law for "promoting immorality". A sneaky video of a fashion show that was aborted by the morality police. Things haven't stopped there for the Islamic establishment. Since 2017 a campaign against forced dress code, founded by Masih Alinejad has been driving the hardliner religious and political establishment up the walls. Women who joined the campaign would drop their headscarves in public places, take selfies or videos and publish them online. Iranian security forces now tired of fighting women on the streets are hunting for campaign activists. Several of them are now in prison. In the 80s and 90s defying the dress code meant wearing short tunics or colorful scarves and letting a few strands of hair hang out from under it, now it is quite the norm. Defying hijab used to be punished by arrests at the hands of the morality police, facing trial, being sentenced to prison, fined or even lashed. In the summer of 1989 I went through the arrest, trial and lashes myself for wearing a colorful scarf and tunic, make-up and letting my hair show from under the tiny scarf. Women like me were called "bad hijab" which means a woman who is not properly observant of the Islamic dress code. My look was pretty tame compared with the way many women in Iran dress now, my tunic came down to my knees and at least had buttons in the front, but the judge who summarily tried tens of women on that hot summer day meted out six lashes to me. He was lenient toward me because I was just married, others got many more lashes. Source: Xinhua| 2020-02-02 10:55:05|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close HONG KONG, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government said on Saturday night that its Centre for Health Protection (CHP) is investigating one additional case of the novel coronavirus infection, the 14th confirmed case in the HKSAR. The respiratory sample of an 80-year-old man was tested positive for the novel coronavirus after the patient presented with cough and fever. The CHP has immediately commenced epidemiological investigations and conducted relevant contact tracing. Over the past days, the men visited the Chinese mainland for a few hours through Lo Wu control point, took a flight from Hong Kong to Tokyo, Japan, and board a cruise at Yokohama for Hong Kong. Investigations also revealed that he lived with his wife in the New Territories and traveled to Japan with his two daughters. He had been transferred to Princess Margaret Hospital and was in a stable condition. According to the latest statistics from the CHP, from Dec. 31, 2019, to this Saturday noon, the CHP has received reports of a total of 835 cases fulfilling the reporting criteria, with 634 cases ruled out as the novel coronavirus infection and 188 cases still hospitalized. Photograph: Mary F Calvert/Reuters Outraged by what they see as a coverup in the impeachment trial of Donald Trump, grassroots activists are planning a massive payback project designed to punish Republican senators at the ballot box. Related: By denying witnesses, Republicans made clear even a smoking gun would not be enough Even as key Republican senators acknowledged Trumps guilt on charges of abusing power and obstructing Congress, they defied public opinion on Friday by voting to block witnesses and documents, paving the way for the president to be acquitted and claim exoneration. Republican fealty to Trump has long wearied liberals but the senators move appeared to cause a new level of anger. The Indivisible Project, a progressive group, announced it would target nine senators, among them majority leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Trump loyalist Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, in Novembers elections. Indivisible said it would next week call out one of the nine Payback Project senators for their participating in a coverup by placing a full page newspaper ad in one of their biggest state papers. In an appeal to activists, it said rage is good for recruiting. Hello. Are you pissed about impeachment too? Trump was impeached by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives in December, for seeking to coerce a foreign government for his own personal political gain. Two articles of impeachment abuse of power and obstruction of Congress were transferred to the Senate for trial. But on Friday the Senate failed to allow documents and new witnesses including the former national security adviser John Bolton, who in an upcoming book accuses the president of making military aid to Ukraine conditional on an investigation into his rival Joe Biden. Every impeachment trial in US history, including the two that featured presidents, allowed documents and witnesses. But only two Republicans voted in favour: Susan Collins of Maine and Mitt Romney of Utah. Story continues Some said they did not think Trump did anything wrong. Others went through extraordinary contortions. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Rob Portman of Ohio reasoned that Trumps actions were wrong but not impeachable. In an interview with NBCs Meet the Press due to be broadcast on Sunday, Alexander said: If you have eight witnesses who say someone left the scene of an accident, why do you need nine? I mean, the question for me was: do I need more evidence to conclude that the president did what he did? And I concluded no. Alexander told the New York Times why that was not enough to require Trumps removal: The Senate reflects the country, and the country is as divided as it has been for a long time. For the Senate to tear up the ballots in this election and say President Trump couldnt be on it, the country probably wouldnt accept that. It would just pour gasoline on cultural fires that are burning out there. In a stunning Medium post, Marco Rubio of Florida, humiliated by Trump in the 2016 primary, went even further, arguing that impeachment would be too divisive even if a president engaged in clearly impeachable conduct. Just because actions meet a standard of impeachment does not mean it is in the best interest of the country to remove a president from office, he wrote. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, a moderate who Democrats courted, said the case was rushed and flawed. She told reporters she was angry at all sides and the prospect of a tie vote on witnesses weighed on her decision. She also said she knew how she would vote on the charges but: Will I share it with you tonight? Ive had so much drama today, Im just going to chill. Hows that? Was that fair? Trumps takeover of the Republican party appears complete. On Saturday the widely read Politico Playbook commented: Heres the truth: Republicans are not comfortable with the presidents behavior. They say it privately, some say it publicly on their way out. But they have no incentive to say this aloud no matter how egregious they believe the presidents behavior to be. To win as a Republican in any seat thats at all marginal, you need to appeal to Republicans to vote. Republicans who break from Trump can face a bitter backlash. Matt Schlapp, the chair of the American Conservative Union, announced on Twitter that Romney was formally NOT invited to the influential Conservative Political Action Conference. Lamar Alexander leaves the Trump impeachment trial. Photograph: Brendan McDermid/Reuters Democrats will seek to make Republicans pay in November, as they did in the 2018 midterms when victory in the House made impeachment possible. Under the headline, How impeachment could flip the Senate, Rahm Emanuel, a former White House chief of staff, wrote in the Washington Post that impeachment is likely to have an outsize impact and every Republican senator will own Trumps emboldened rhetoric of being exonerated. Related: Republicans clear final hurdle to acquittal, and other takeaways from impeachment today He added: Some 63% of voters in Arizona, Colorado, Maine and North Carolina look unfavourably on the Senates decision to disallow witnesses and hide documents... That may partly explain why the five Republican senators are underwater, meaning more constituents view them negatively than positively. The trial will resume on Monday for final arguments. That evening, Trump is sure to cruise to victory in the Iowa caucuses while Democrats battle for the right to challenge him. The president will deliver his state of the union address on Tuesday and is set to be acquitted by the Senate on the following day. As he did after special counsel Robert Muellers Russia investigation, Trump is expected to falsely claim total exoneration and that Democrats seek to overturn the last election. In turn, Democrats will warn that the president will solicit foreign interference again. David Axelrod, a former chief strategist for Barack Obama, suggested the trial could inflict lasting damage. For Trump, this trial is going to end swiftly, as he hoped, he tweeted. But its not ending well. Far from vindication, even some who oppose his removal, acknowledge his guilt. And the conspicuous avoidance of material witnesses like Bolton casts an inescapable shadow. Londons Metropolitan Police said it is investigating a terror-related incident after a number of people were stabbed and officers shot a man Sunday. Londons Metropolitan Police said it is investigating a terror-related incident after a number of people were stabbed and officers shot a man dead Sunday. The police force said the incident occurred in the Londons Streatham neighborhood. The Metropolitan Police tweeted details of the incident on Sunday afternoon, saying The circumstances are being assessed; the incident has been declared as terrorist-related. The BBC said that witnesses reported hearing two gunshots just after 2 pm on Sunday. Social media showed multiple ambulances on the scene and helicopters in the air as helicopters responded to the incident. Police warned people to stay out of the south London neighborhood. Gulled Bulhan, a 19-year-old student from Streatham, told Britains Press Association that he witnessed the attack. I was crossing the road when I saw a man with a machete and silver canisters on his chest being chased by what I assume was an undercover police officer - as they were in civilian clothing, he said. The man was then shot. I think I heard three gun shots but I cant quite remember. Bulhan said he ran into a local library to seek safety. From the library I saw a load of ambulances and armed police officers arrive on the scene, he said. The Prime Minister has expressed his concern for those injured in the terror-related incident in south-east London. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson tweeted: Thank you to all emergency services responding to the incident in Streatham, which the police have now declared as terrorism-related. Australian bikini designer and influencer Karina Irby has hit back at claims she is 'just some fake girl on the internet' who Photoshops her images, after she discovered a troll posted a comparison photo of herself online. The 30-year-old took to Instagram to address her one million followers after she had her attention drawn to a public forum where someone was comparing Karina on Instagram and in reality. Karina said she decided to share the image herself and 'redo their work, but do it better'. Australian bikini designer and influencer Karina Irby has hit back at claims she is 'just some fake girl on the internet' who Photoshops her images after she discovered a troll shared a comparison shot (pictured) In a post titled 'pose versus candid', Karina wrote that the troll posted the comparison snap in order to portray her as 'some fake girl on the internet'. 'No no. I'm real!,' she posted on Instagram. 'And I'm sorry I'm not walking around holding my s**t together and posing at anyone who looks at me from any angle. 'Posing for photos comes with angles, timing, lightening, location and cute outfits. 'Candid is from any angle, anywhere at any time from anyone.' Even though Karina (above) is known to share images of her impressive body to her one million followers, she said she also aims to show the real side of herself The Moana Bikini founder said she is 'always telling others' to not be self-critical about their bodies, and compare themselves to what they see online. 'I think that people are so heavily inundated with "perfect" content on social media that when someone shows the reality behind their image its really refreshing,' she told Yahoo. 'Everyone is always trying to showcase their best sides on social media - myself included, to an extent - and I get it. 'But I'm not afraid to show the "other" side of these "perfect" images and if it helps someone become more comfortable and confident in themselves, then I am all for it!' Karina's post currently has over 190,000 likes, with many of her fans commenting and saying she is beautiful, truthful and an inspiration. The Moana Bikini founder (pictured) said she is 'always telling others' to not be self-critical about their bodies, and compare themselves to what they see online In addition to her YouTube channel and Instagram page, Karina has a not-so-serious page called Karina_raw, which includes the description 'for a little less seriousness in your Instagram'. This isn't the first time the fashion designer has received backlash online, as in 2018 she was accused of having surgery and looking 'deformed'. After sporting one of Khloe Kardashian's Good American bodysuits and posting the look online Karina received an overflow of comments saying she must've had 'surgery'. This isn't the first time the fashion designer has received backlash online, as in 2018 she was accused of having surgery and looking 'deformed' (pictured) 'Everyone is always trying to showcase their best sides on social media - myself included, to an extent - and I get it,' Karina (pictured) said Despite the negative comments the Port Macquarie-based designer remains true to herself and her brand Over the last few years Karina has shared how she completely changed her body shape by taking up weights at the gym instead of cardio Despite the negative comments the Port Macquarie-based designer remains true to herself and her brand, while also speaking out about her past experiences of eczema. 'I would have killed to have seen another human talking about eczema, so that's exactly what I'm going to do here,' she said at the time. Along with this, over the last few years Karina has shared how she completely changed her body shape by taking up weights at the gym instead of cardio. Dar Es Salaam: At least 20 people have been killed and more than a dozen hurt in a stampede during a church service in northern Tanzania. Thousands of people were crammed into a sports stadium for the service on Saturday evening in the town of Moshi, near Mount Kilimanjaro. The deadly stampede occurred in Tanzania, not far from Mount Kilimanjaro. Credit:Shutterstock Many were crushed after the pastor called them to be anointed with "blessed oil". The pastor was later arrested for his role in the incident as he sought to leave the country, officials said. Poland has evacuated its citizens from the Chinese city of Wuhan and surrounding Hubei Province in connection with the deadly coronavirus outbreak, the countrys Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki on Saturday, Trend reports citing Sputnik. Due to the epidemiological situation in the Chinese province of Hubei, it has been decided to evacuate citizens of the Republic of Poland. Thanks to cooperation with our European partners, Poles are currently on their way to France, from where they will be taken by special military aircraft of the Polish Armed Forces to Wroclaw", Morawiecki wrote on his Facebook page. The prime minister said that none of the evacuees are suspected of having the coronavirus but will nonetheless undergo tests upon arriving in the country. Most governments began evacuating their citizens from Hubei Province in late January. Many are currently quarantined in their own countries and being monitored for signs of infection. The novel coronavirus was first detected in China's Wuhan in late December and has since spread to more than 20 countries. The virus has already killed 304 people in China and infected 14,411. Another death was reported on Saturday in the Philippines where a 44-year-old male resident of Wuhan died. The World Health Organisation earlier this week announced an international public health emergency to prompt all nations to take precautionary measures. https://www.aish.com/sp/pg/After-Losing-the-Love-of-Your-Life-Rabbi-Ahron-Hoch-on-Life-after-Death.html Tools for coping and moving forward in the face of pain. Dear Rabbi Hoch, Your emails to me have touched a chord. I've received notes from around the world telling me how valuable your wisdom is to them; how desperately they are seeking tools for coping and moving forward in the face of pain. You talked about the box you carry and how you compartmentalize in order to proceed with your life. How can one enjoy life's blessings when one big compartment is, as you put it, "smashed to smithereens"? People feel almost disloyal when they smile or take pleasure after a great loss. I remember when Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof sings, "God would like us to be joyful even when our hearts lay panting on the floor." Where does this idea come from in Jewish sources? Sincerely, Adrienne Hi Adrienne. I think we have to differentiate between being in a state of joy vs. being in a state of positivity. Currently, I do not walk around in a state of joy but I do walk around being positive. Also, there are different types of joy. There is a carefree type of joy (I've forgotten what that feels like) versus meaningful joy. When I see my grandchildren, I feel a deep joy and there is nothing disloyal in that. If anything, I would be disloyal to Faigy if I didn't feel feelings of joy or be happy around my grandchildren. In a deep state of grief you can't walk around feeling carefree joy, but you can have moments of meaningful joy which brings honor to the person you've lost. So when you're in a deep state of grief you can't walk around in a state of carefree joy, but you can have moments of deep meaningful joy which brings honor to the person you have lost. And one certainly has the capacity to walk around in a state of positivity despite the grief. What works to put me in that positive state is the following: First, I put in the extra effort to be thankful in detail for my gifts. Second, I try to look at the big picture. When Joseph was sold into slavery, there were sweet-smelling spices on the caravan that took him down to Egypt. That little touch was God telling him, "I am still with you." God is always with us, even in the dark times. He loves us and there is a bigger picture that we can't always see. I consciously look for God's spices, act upon them and thank Him for them. Third, I have meaningful goals and new directions that excite me. It includes creating light from the darkness. Fourth, I cherish my immediate and extended family and I cherish my relationship with close friends. Fifth, I know Faigy's neshama, soul, is alive and well and I can deepen her eternal attachment to the Almighty through the good I do. The last thought I will leave you with is that the Jewish people are a happy and funny people despite centuries of oppression and suffering. At their Passover Seders, locked in their ghettos, they said "Next year in Jerusalem!" They clung to their positive vision because they knew the Almighty loved them and that there was beautiful future in store for them and the world. This was the source of their ability to be a happy and positive people. And by the way, I do believe that one day, God willing, I will be able to walk around in a state of joy and experience what carefree joy actually feels like! Take care, Ahron Dear Rabbi Hoch, I have learned from you that emotions are the result of thoughts and that one's emotions can be managed by re-framing. But I imagine that the intellectual rigor required to do so must be hard to summon when one is broken hearted. I know also that there are so many people who are angry with a God they now doubt exists, as though somehow loss and pain are proof that He doesn't exist. What say you to that? Sincerely, Adrienne Good morning Adrienne, Let us first go back to the concept of compartmentalization. It does not work like a button that one can turn on and off. However, if one is determined to be able to do it they eventually will succeed. When my son first became ill I could not dance at weddings and had to leave after the chuppah. Eventually I was able to dance with joy and felt I was able to achieve something special, namely, to be happy for another person despite my fear and sadness over my son's situation. Compartmentalization is achievable if one is determined and patient. There are two types of growth. There is the growth we chase after and relish. This is the growth that we actively choose. And then there is the significant growth that comes from circumstances we never wanted. It's a growth that in some ways is forced upon us. Sometimes that growth is even greater. Regarding anger at God, the Talmud teaches an important insight. Based on a verse from Job, the Rabbis (Baba Basra 16a) learn that even if a person blasphemes God out of pain, God does not react. It may not be advocated but it is understood. Many years ago, I noticed the following cycle. People get angry at God, then feel guilty about their anger which makes them even more angry at God! If one feels angry at God, He understands and He can handle it. If one feels angry at God, He understands and He can handle it. Furthermore, Jewish sources teach us that God is in tremendous "pain", not only over the Jewish peoples collective pain but over the individuals pain. The key is to realize that anger at God is an unproductive rabbit hole which leads to bad places. We become embittered people who believe life is meaningless and random. Is this the role model we want to be for those we influence? The key is to work out the anger with a mentor or wise friend and then live one day at a time saying, I am going to be the best I can be today. Pragmatically, there is only one choice: Am I going to sink or swim? Am I going to attempt to push through the pain and strive to live with meaning, or am I going to remain angry and embittered? Hope this is helpful, Ahron Hi Rabbi, me AGAIN! I understand that there is only the choice to sink or swim, and sometimes we can barely tread water. Can you share with me what kind of things you say to yourself at the times youre struggling to just keep your head above water? Any phrases or meditations or even particular prayers or readings that help you get back in the pool? I am so grateful to you that you have gone outside of your comfort zone to answer these questions for me. Sincerely, Adrienne Hi Adrienne, One phrase I say is, "Be the best you can be today" and another is "What do I need to do today?" Taking things one day at a time makes the darkness easier to handle as you reduce the overwhelming situation to bite-sized pieces. It makes it much easier to focus on what needs to be done that day. A powerful three-word Hebrew prayer has been very helpful. It is "Leshuascha kivisi Hashem God I hope for and seek Your salvation." I also found the following saying in the Talmud very important. The Rabbis teach us, Even if a sword is on your neck do not hold yourself back from seeking and hoping for God's mercy." When things are very dark oftentimes the natural choice is one of hopelessness, thereby descending into darkness. The Rabbis are saying do not give into that temptation. Put in the effort to seek God's mercy and focus on what needs to be done on your part no matter the odds. This helped me immensely during the last stage of Faigy's life. As always, I hope this is helpful. Take care. Ahron Click here to read the first part of this dialogue. It will enable bison advocates of every stripe to submit restoration proposals for FWP to consider and the number of proposals will likely be overwhelming. It green lights the CMR Refuge to fulfill its pledge to cooperate with the State of Montana should a decision be made to restore bison as a wildlife species in eastern Montana. Director Williams decision to go forward with bison restoration and kick the can down the road to the next governor is simply wrong. It creates a hostile environment that will result in a boundless battle of wills and endless litigation. Its a whack-a-mole scenario landowners have experienced before and its time for the bison restoration concept to be sent to the dust bin of history. One should not be surprised to see renewed rural efforts to expand bison ordinances, negative bison easements, county bison resolutions and legislative innovations that address landowner concerns. Locked gates during hunting season and block management withdrawals will also be on the table. The Victorian Labor government says it will not compromise its environmental policies to clinch a multibillion-dollar energy and emissions deal with the federal government. But the state says it wants its fair share of money from Canberra after NSW and the Commonwealth struck a deal that will lead to nearly $1 billion in federal money flowing to NSW for green projects in return for a massive boost to its natural gas production. Credit:AFR The comments came as the resources industry joined calls for Victoria to lift its ban on onshore conventional natural gas exploration, which would remove a major hurdle to any state-federal deal. But any attempt to replicate a key part of the NSW agreement, the development of the Narrabri coal seam gas deposit in the states north, would breach Victorias constitution, which contains a permanent ban on the controversial fracking method of gas extraction which is to be used at Narrabri. Source: Xinhua| 2020-02-02 15:45:28|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close NEW DELHI, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- Four people are feared drowned after a car they were travelling in Sunday plunged into a canal in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, police said. The car with six people on-board fell into a canal in Ghaziabad, in the outskirts of Delhi, the capital city of India. However, two people managed to swim to safety. "Six people, including two women students of Uttaranchal University were on their way from Dehradun (Uttarakhand) to Mathura for a holiday. Early today in an accident, the vehicle skidded off the road and plunged into the canal," a police official posted in Ghaziabad said. "Two of the survivors managed to swim up to the bank but four others are missing." Police teams have rushed to the spot along with disaster response force personnel, who are carrying out searches for the missing in the canal. "The search for the missing students is underway, so far we have been unable to trace them," the police official said. Preliminary investigations carried out by police suggest the car was being driven at a high speed, after which it hit the roadside divider and then plunged into the canal. Deadly road accidents are common in India often caused by overloading, bad condition of roads and reckless driving. An official report says on average 400 deaths take place every day in India due to road accidents. "We consistently make world-class beer and have an aggressive and eclectic food menu. More importantly, we've set ourselves up to be in a position to truly become one of the best breweries in the Region by having quality beer, quality food and amazing customer service, said Drew Fox, owner of 18th Street Brewery. We're also conveniently located 22 miles outside of Chicago a big market for 18th Street Brewery as a whole and we continue to welcome the support from the state of Indiana, Illinois and the surrounding Midwest cities." Writers Note: Each brewery has its own unique culture, and no two craft brews are quite the same. This list is a great starting point, but be sure to seek out some of the smaller, newer and off-the-beaten path breweries. I always order a flight so that I am able to try more, and I use the Untapped app to track each beer I try, where I had it and to rate it. Other Hoosier breweries I recommend: Windmill Brewing in Dyer, Norris English Pub in Liberty, Studebaker Brewing Co. in South Bend, New Oberpfalz Brewing in Griffith, Junk Ditch Brewing in Fort Wayne and St. Benedicts Brew Werks in Ferdinand. List 4 Sweets Construction of the 340-kilometre Purvanchal Expressway is in full swing and the main carriage way of the expressway is likely to open by the end of 2020. A meeting of Uttar Pradesh Expressway Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA) was held on Saturday to review the construction works. Chief executive officer (CEO), UPEIDA, Awanish Awasthi directed the officers to dispose of all the disputes related with the acquisition of land on priority so that the project was completed on schedule. The quality of construction was maintained as well, he said. As much as 35% physical work of the 340.824 km expressway has been completed. Till February 1, 98% of the clearing and grubbing work and 70% soil work had been also completed, he added. The construction of 430 structures had been completed and the pending work would be over soon, Awasthi said. Purvanchal Expressway originates from Chandsarai village on Lucknow- Sultanpur highway. It will pass through Barabanki, Amethi, Sultanpur, Faizabad, Ambedkar Nagar, Azamgarh, Mau and terminate at Haideria village in Ghazipur district. The construction of the expressway has been divided into eight packages (parts) worth Rs 11,216 crore. The expressway will have six lanes that can be expanded into eight lanes in future. UPEIDA has also decided to launch a mobile app to monitor the construction works. The mobile app will enable the common people to keep track of construction of the expressway that will pass through nine districts. The construction of the Bundelkhand Expressway was also reviewed in the meeting. As much as 95% of the land acquisition and 2% of the soil work has been completed. The 296.07 km expressway will be opened in the year 2022. The expressway originates in Bharatkoop located in Chitrakoot district. It will pass through Banda, Hamirpur, Mahoba, Jalaun, Auraiya and terminate at Kudrail village on the Etawah- Bewar highway. Channel Seven star Larry Emdur and wife Sylvie has shelled-out $1.1 million for a holiday home in Berowra Waters, New South Wales. The The Morning Show host, 55, purchased the luxurious property as a getaway from his home in upscale Bondi in Sydney. 'The magical bay is much quieter than Bondi,' Larry told The Daily Telegraph this Sunday. Two bedrooms, an art studio and sweeping river views: Channel Seven star Larry Emdur, 55, has shelled out $1.1 million on a getaway in Berowra Waters, according to The Daily Telegraph The property is only accessible via a boat and boasts sweeping views across the river and national park. It features two large bedrooms, with the main featuring a full-bathroom, walk-in robe and a large balcony. A second large bedroom features an en suite and its own private balcony, where guests can take in the scenic views and fresh air. Glam: Larry and wife Sylvie purchased the home as a getaway, with the couple snapping up a number of properties in Sydney in recent years. Here: Sydney, 2019 It also features a fully-equipped art studio, gourmet style kitchen, and a large open plan living area which includes a fireplace. The space is bright and airy thanks to it's lofty 5 metre wall of windows that onto the river, while bamboo flooring gives the interiors a quirky, tropical look. Plenty of room! The home offers a lot of space with spacious, light-filled living areas and a gourmet kitchen Larry and Sylvie have amassed a large property portfolio around Sydney in recent years. They sold his impressive Dover Heights clifftop mansion for $11.5 million to celebrity Anthony Bell in November, 2017. In June of that year, the pair nabbed a $3.09 million three-bedroom apartment in The Rocks. Tropical touches: The stunning home features unique bamboo flooring The couple shelled out a further $1.08 million for a three-bedroom, one bathroom unit in affluent Bellevue Hill, earlier this year. Larry and Sylvie recently celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary. The couple have two adult children: Jye, 24, and Tia, 20. Manga are comic books created in Japan using their specific style of drawing characters. Everyone in japan reads manga; it is a very popular art form that features every genre one can imagine. Their popularity in the west has been growing for the past few decades. Manga should not be confused with anime, which are Japanese animated shows and movies. However, many anime (animated shows from Japan) are adapted from a manga source. The manga industry is huge, with certain series rivaling even the comic book titans such as Spiderman in sales. Artists in other parts of the world are greatly inspired by manga. Some countries even have comic books that are so under the influence of mangas that they make up their own category. Some examples are manhwas in South Korea and manhuas in China. History Of Manga The origins of manga can be traced as far back as the 12th century. Scrolls from that era were the basis for the reading style from right to left, used in Japan today. Some authors argue that Japanese picture books from the 18th century were the first comic books ever printed in the world. Comic books from the United States had a large influence on what we would come to know as manga. During the occupation of Japan after World War II, the influence of U.S. culture in Japan grew, and animated films by Disney were a huge factor in developing the style of manga. During the post-war period, mangas, as we know today, began to emerge. The most prominent figure of that era is Osamu Tezuka, whose work is still influencing artists today. His works were also adapted into animated shows, most notably Astro Boy. His comic book panels were drawn dynamically, almost like watching an animated show, and that style influenced many later manga artists. Another prominent figure was Machiko Hasegawa, with her manga Sazae-san. She focused on the daily lives of mostly female characters, which was novel at the time. In 1969, a group of female artists started to draw manga aimed especially at younger girls and women. That type of manga is called shoujo manga. Various mangas on display for sale in Akihabara. Credit: InfantryDavid / Shutterstock.com Manga Outside Of Japan Manga gained popularity throughout Europe as early as the 1970s since anime was broadcast in France and Italy back then. The tradition of reading manga in those countries grew stronger over the years. The US market started to open up to manga after Japanese animated shows and movies (anime) gained more popularity. Anime was more accessible to American audiences. During the 1980s, the first translation of manga started to show up in the United States. One of the earliest publications was Barefoot Gen, from the author Keiji Nakazawa. That manga tells a story about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. After more popular animated works such as Akira, Dragon Ball Z, and Sailor Moon started leaving their marks on American ground in the early 90s, manga began to gain popularity as well. The 90s also saw Japanese publishers trying to pursue the U.S. market actively. One movie that helped manga gain an even larger audience was Ghost In The Shell from 1995. It was an adaptation of a manga, and both the movie and its source material became very popular among American fans. More and more western manga publishers started translating manga then, such as Viz and Tokyopop. The comic book publisher Dark Horse opened up their manga subsidiary called Dark Horse Manga. The second half of the 1990s saw a rise in popularity of shounen manga, meaning comic books aimed at teenage and adolescent boys. Series such as Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece became global phenomenons. One Piece is especially noteworthy since it is still being published and is the best selling manga in the world. What Makes Manga Special Manga shares its art style with anime, the characters have large eyes and large spiky haircuts, that helps to distinguish them better. Manga is published in black and white, as opposed to western comic books that are mostly in color. The main reason for this is because mangas are drawn by a single person and are published weekly. Coloring them would take up too much time. Manga chapters are published in various weekly magazines and are later collected in volumes. There is a large number of genres present in the manga world, almost every single one you can imagine. That is why their target audience mostly classifies them. There are five large groups in total. We can start with shounen and shoujo. Shounen manga is for boys and is often action-packed and adventurous with some comedic elements. Shoujo manga is aimed at girls often involves romance and everyday life, although it does not shy from action and adventure as well. Seinen manga is aimed at men and deals with adult themes, drama, violence, and even sexually explicit material. Josei is written for women and deals with more mature themes than shoujo manga. It often deals with relationships but from the view of an adult. Finally, kodomo is manga for little children. Contributed Photo / North Haven Police Department NORTH HAVEN Police are asking for the publics help to identify two suspects that they say took hundreds of dollars worth of items from a local store without paying. The two male suspect described by police as Hispanic went into Stop & Shop around 5:30 p.m. Thursday with a white duffel bag. Indians are excelling everywhere in a variety of fields -- particular technology. Before today, three of the worlds biggest tech companies were led by Indian-origin CEOs. Reuters Googles parent company Alphabet is in the reigns of Sundar Pichai, Microsoft is being headed by Satya Nadella, whereas Adobe is being led by Shantanu Narayen. However, today, reports revealed that Arvind Krishna, Senior Vice President of IBM will be succeeding Ginni Rometty as the CEO. But how did these legends start their journey? How were they able to achieve what theyve achieved today? Lets find out. Arvind Krishna Arvind Krishna was born in Andhra Pradesh and completed his graduation in Electrical Engineering from IIT Kanpur in 1985. He later went on to complete his PhD in Electrical & Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign. IBM He got hired at IBM in 1990. He started his journey building data-related business. Post that he was promoted to the position of general manager of IBM's Systems and Technology Group's development and manufacturing organization. He has also co-authored 15 patents and written for journals ACM and IEEE. Currently, hes the Senior Vice President taking care of IBM Cloud, IBM Security and Cognitive Applications business, and IBM Research. The enterprise currently valued at $140 billion. He is expected to take over controls of IBM from Ginni Rometty in April. Sundar Pichai Sundar Pichai is currently the CEO of Alphabet -- the parent company that owns Google, Android, and other Google brands. He was born in Madhurai, Tamil Nadu and completed his graduation in metallurgical engineering from IIT Kharagpur. He further went ahead and got an M.S. degree in the field of material sciences and engineering from Stanford University in the US. Hes also completed MBA from Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Reuters He wasnt always in the field of tech and IT. He started his career working in engineering and product management at Applied Materials as well as management consulting at McKinsey & Company. He joined Google in 2004 where he headed product management and was key in the creation of the browser we all love -- Google Chrome. He took control of Android in 2013 and took the reigns of Google in 2015. He recently got promoted to being the CEO of Alphabet in December 2019. Google recently also crossed a trillion-dollar valuation. Satya Nadella Satya Narayana Nadella was born in 1967 and raised in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh. He completed his bachelors in Engineering from Manipal Institute of Technology, in 1988. Later he went on to complete his M.S in Computer Science at the University of WisconsinMilwaukee in 1990. He also completed his MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School Of Business. Reuters Before he entered Microsoft in 1992, he started his career at Sun Microsystems. When he came to Microsoft, the first-ever project that he worked on was the failed Windows NT. Over time, he has made some major transitions at Microsoft, including moving the companys focus to cloud computing -- something that saved the enterprise from falling into an abyss. Over the years, he was promoted to Senior Vice President of Research and Development for the Online Services Division and VP of Microsoft Business Division. Later he became the president of Microsofts Server and Tools business that transitioned the company to cloud infrastructure and services. Reuters He took control of Microsoft in 2014 in a time when Windows Phone wasnt doing very great and it was struggling with its cloud computing business. He made the controversial decision to allow open-source competitor Linux, which Ballmer had once called "cancer", to operate on Azure. Since then, the platform has shown impressive growth, though it still trails Amazon's AWS, and the revenue from is a massive chunk of their yearly earnings. Today Microsoft is the third trillion-dollar company in the world. Shantanu Narayen Shantanu Narayen, CEO of designing and editing software Adobe, might not be a popular name for many, but he was the first Indian-origin CEO to be appointed in a tech company. Reuters He grew up in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh. Hes completed his bachelors degree in electronics and communication engineering from University College of Engineering, Osmania University in Hyderabad. He further went on to complete his MBA from the UCLA Berkeley, as well as a masters degree in computer science from Bowling Green State University, Ohio. He started his career working for Cupertino giant Apple. Post that he was hired as a director of desktop collab products for Silicon graphics. After that, he went on to form his own company Pictra Inc that allowed people to share digital photos using the internet. Reuters He joined Adobe in 1998 as a Senior Vice President of worldwide product research and was later promoted to executive vice president, and then CEO of Adobe in the year 2007 at the age of 45 years, succeeding Bruce Chizen. Adobe has crossed $100 billion valuation in 2018, while also becoming a Fortune 400 company. This winter has been a mild one especially by Denny Andersons standards. Ive seen it 43 degrees below zero he recalled, walking the 220-acre ranch above Missoula where hes lived for 54 years. When he moved here, he remembered on a sunny morning last week, winters would bring at least three solid weeks at 20 degrees below. Those fierce cold spells are gone. So are the snowdrifts that would cover Miller Creek each year, and his ability to predict, reliably, when the soil would be just right for planting hay, grass, oats, and alfalfa in the spring. Its patchy now, he said. Some years its real moist, some years its bone dry. I really believe thats due to climate change. Nothing is standard anymore. As Anderson reflects on these changes, Missoula is bracing for a warmer climate in decades to come. The Climate Ready Missoula plan currently being drafted by the city, county and Climate Smart Missoula lists 29 climate change-adaptation goals for the area, and 67 strategies to reach them all to get Missoula County ready for a temperature increase of 5 to 8 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century. But climate change isnt just a future trend; it's a current reality. Earlier this month, NASA scientists announced the past decade was the warmest on record. And according to the 2017 Montana Climate Assessment, Northwest Montanas average annual temperatures increased by .39 degrees Fahrenheit every decade between 1950 and 2015 from just under 40 degrees in 1950 to just under 42 in 2015. That may not sound like much, but during that span, scientists and longtime residents have tracked plenty of shifts in the areas air and water. ***** In 2002, the changes came together in dramatic fashion at Spooner Creek Ranch. That year, Anderson recalled, one of the wooded hills cradling the property became a wall of orange as a wildfire drew close. It was advancing pretty rapidly, he said, and he and his wife, Becky, had a novel survival plan: both avid divers, they prepared to jump in our pond with scuba tanks on. The wind shifted at the last minute, and the ranch was spared. But future blazes remain a concern. Im worried about fire this year. This year, were really worried, all of us, because of the conditions. Its hard to say what the 2020 fire season will bring. While this years snowfall may seem like a dusting in the Missoula Valley, the overall snowpack is in line with the 1981-2010 average and, in any event, research indicates that summer rainfall has far more influence on fire than winter snowpack. But greater Missoula is becoming more of a tinderbox, said Phil Higuera, an associate professor of fire ecology at the University of Montana. Wildfire activity has been increasing consistently since about the mid-eighties, he said. This decade-long or 30-plus-year trend of increasing fire activity across the Western U.S. and in the Northern Rockies ... is well-correlated with increasing temperatures in the summer and decreasing precipitation. This doesnt mean that every fire is a product of climate change, explained one of Higueras colleagues at UM, Nick Silverman. A rise in temperature, he said, ripples through the rest of all these really complicated interactions, like wildfire and drought and snow ... and thats where it becomes more and more complicated to attribute these second-order effects to climate change. But the area has been trending towards more favorable fire conditions, he continued. That combination in the summer of decreasing precipitation and increasing temperature, that lends itself very well to wildfire conditions, and weve seen that historically too. From 1971 to 2000, Missoula County experienced about 10 days of extreme fire danger on average per summer, according to data Higuera provided. In 2012, that was 43 days; in 2017, 26 days. 2003 was a big year, and 2007 was a big year, and 2012 and 2015 (also were bad), and 2017 was our worst year so far, said Sarah Coefield, an air quality specialist with the Missoula City-County Health department. So it's not an every-year thing, but it has become a recurring scenario, and it's something that we don't expect to go away. Theres millions and millions and millions of acres of wilderness out there, that is in a condition that it can get burned. *** Its not just the forests that are taking more heat. The streams and rivers are, too. While this years snowpack is in line with the most recent 30-year average, mountain snowpack has been trending down throughout the West since the 1950s a trend Anderson has seen himself. Denny, he tells me stories about when they had 12 feet of snow, said his neighbor, Rellen Stewart. Ive lived here since 2006. Ive never seen anything like that. Just a few inches encrusted their land on Wednesday morning. They still get heavy dumps, Anderson said last year, the berms he plowed around his driveway reached the 12-foot mark. But overall, yes, Ive seen not as much snow over the last 50 years. What snow does fall eventually melts into Miller Creek, which snakes along the inside edge of his ranch on its 18-mile journey to the Bitterroot River. When the Clark Fork Coalition monitored water temperatures here in summer 2018, it recorded a high of just 54.5 degrees Fahrenheit. Its got really good, cold water said Jed Whiteley, the Coalitions project manager and monitoring coordinator, following the creek in his pickup truck. Around here, around Missoula, thats very unusual, he continued. We're losing our snowpack earlier, or having reduced snowpack, and therefore having lower flows ... That's correlating directly to warmer stream temperatures. A 2017 study by the U.S. Forest Service found that streams in the western United States warmed at a rate of .178 degrees Celsius per decade from 1976 to 2015. And that trend spells trouble for the areas aquatic icons. The waters are beginning to warm for bull trout. Theyre not doing so well, said Lisa Eby, a professor of equatic ecology at UM. As native bull trout retreat, non-native varieties are taking their place. Were seeing decreased bull trout numbers and increased brown trout numbers across many of the rivers and through many of the lower tributaries. Like if you think about Greenough Park, they're going up now pretty far up to like almost past Greenough Park, almost to the wilderness boundary. In a study of 280 sites around the Bitterroot Basin, Eby and her colleagues found that, from the early 1990s through the early 2010s, bull trout experienced a 9 percent reduction in occupancy. Jason Lindstrom, a fisheries biologist with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, is seeing the change. Middle-elevation streams that have traditionally been bull trout habitats, cutthroat trout habitats, weve just seen them warming, he said. Weve seen non-native species. As this trend continues, one stronghold of Montanas native fish could be the Spooner Creek Ranch. There is good cold water up here year round, the Clark Fork Coalitions Whiteley explained. It's a place that up here, 30 years from now there still should be cutthroat trout here, whereas other areas, they might not be able to make it anymore. Its one of the reasons the Coalition selected this stretch of Miller Creek for a $160,000 restoration project last summer, planting trees along its banks and re-shaping the corridor to better suit the needs of native species. It used to be a straight shot through, Anderson recalled. Now, its meandering. In recent years, hes also put the property under a conservation easement held by the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, and worked with the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation to mitigate wildfire fuels around his property. Anderson hasnt just had a window on Missoulas environmental history; hes also shaping its future. In an age of rising temperatures and unpredictable weather, the Climate Ready Missoula plan calls on residents and government to adapt. And up on Miller Creek, Denny Anderson and Rellen Stewart will keep tabs on how their own efforts are faring. I think both Denny and I, were pretty committed to leaving this place better than we found it, Stewart said. Weve made this creek a much better place. You must be logged in to react. Click any reaction to login. Love 3 Funny 6 Wow 1 Sad 1 Angry 0 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Whenever I write about letters to the editor, specifically when I address the shortage of letters from right-wing writers and extend the invit On Jan. 26th I received notification of Gov. Mark Gordons plan to conduct a public tour and listening session on his draft Executive Order (EO) for migration corridor management. The tour was set for Saturday. This is faster than a Congressional impeachment hearing. I barely had time from my day job to write a comment letter to this paper, let alone rearrange my schedule to attend these sessions. I feel the EO is unnecessary and presents more burdensome regulations to the oil and gas industry. The main impacts to migrating animals, roadways and residential development are only causally addressed and without actual reductions or denials. This represents a double standard that harms oil and gas. I am not a stranger to this issue having lived and worked in Wyoming for 40 years, observed some of the first collaring efforts back in 2005 and even gave a presentation to the Migration Advisory Committee assembled by the governor at their first meeting in Rock Springs on June 26 (only six months ago). The governors executive order begins with the phrase Wyoming has the longest intact mule deer and pronghorn antelope migration corridor in the world. I wonder how this happened despite oil and gas development occurring in the state since 1884? That is 134 years! We must be doing something right. When the sage grouse EO was put in place, the sage grouse was considered threatened by the Endangered Species Act. However, despite being actively involved in the governors advisory group meetings, I have yet to see any compelling evidence that mule deer are reaching such status, let alone that oil and gas development is the leading cause. Many legislators have echoed these sentiments at various committee meetings asking, What is the problem we are trying to fix? My biggest concern is that as state bureaucracy and regulations grow, we continue to send a message to companies that Wyoming is not open for business. Especially so for the businesses that pay the vast majority of taxes to run our state and local governments and most importantly, our schools. In 2018, oil and gas pumped in over $1.3 billion in taxes to the state. According to the Wyoming Taxpayers Association, a family of three pays $3,070/year in taxes and receives over $27,600/year in tax supported services. This does not come as a result of taxing the retail and service sectors. This luxury is a direct result of mineral taxes. Annually, the oil and gas industry contributes over $5 billion in gross domestic product to our economy. Agriculture and tourism combined account for less than $2.5 billion. Over 40 years an individual only pays half of what it costs to educate one child K-12. Increasing state government and regulations on the states largest taxpayer is not a good idea. A great example of the double standard is occurring just east of my house in Casper. The city of Casper is considering rezoning an area for residential development. While I doubt any mule deer have been collared in this area, the dead bodies I have observed along Wyoming Boulevard indicate this area is frequented by many mule deer at least until they are killed. However, I dont expect to see any letter from Game and Fish asking to reduce the speed limits on Wyoming Boulevard or denying building permits for the new residential development. I recommend the governor reevaluate the draft executive order. This EO does nothing but discourage mineral development in our state, and unless advocates of the EO pledge to start paying nine times more in personal taxes, we need to take more time to address exactly what problem we are trying to solve, and further, what the root cause of the problem actually is. Steve Degenfelder is a certified professional landman who has lived in Wyoming for the past 40 years. He and his wife have raised three children who enjoyed Wyomings public schools K-16. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 A grandfather who worked as a bank clerk during World War II stopped vital information making its way to Hitler's Germany while posing as a Gestapo agent. Eric Roberts, born in Wivelsfield, East Sussex, in 1907, served as agent Jack King to infiltrate UK fascist groups while working at Westminster Bank for the Euston Road branch. He was recruited in the 1920s by British spymaster Maxwell Knight who is believed to have inspired James Bond character M in the 1930s. Eric Roberts, born in Wivelsfield in 1907, served as agent Jack King to infiltrate UK fascist groups while working at Westminster Bank at the Euston Road branch During his work he gained the trust of 500 Nazi sympathisers and prevented information being leaked including the British Union of Fascists led by Oswald Mosley in the 1930s. The family lived in Epsom, Surrey, before settling in Nettlestone on the Isle of Wight. He took early retirement aged 49 in 1956 and moved with his wife Audrey with children Max, Peer and Crista to Vancouver, Canada. However his family were unaware of the extent of his espionage until it was published in National Archive papers in 2012. And even his son Max, 84, knew little about the double life his father led. Grandaughter Marilyn, 45, from Toronto, Canada, told the Daily Mirror: 'As a child I knew grandad was a spy during the war but our family had no idea what that really involved.' Sir Oswald Mosley walking down an avenue of saluting Blackshirts when he arrived the Albert Hall in April 1934 British spymaster Maxwell Knight who is believed to have inspired James Bond character M in the 1930s She recalled how as a child she would make up adventure stories with her cousins about her grandfather's double life. Marilyn said how her father remembers her father disappearing for days but was unaware of what he was doing. She said her father recalls having to walk five feet in front of Eric when in London and was told to hand over the phone when it rang. In 1968 MI5 contacted Eric after British intelligence officer Kim Philby and those who were part of the Cambridge Spy Ring. Philby was exposed as a double agent who passed information to the Soviet Union during the war. He was questioned by officers regarding his wartime activities and died four years later aged 65 after the worry affected his health. The book bears similarities to Amazon drama 'Hunters' where Al Pacino (pictured) leads a team bringing US Nazis to justice during the 1970s Author Robert Hutton published a book in 2018 on Eric's life named 'Agent Jack The True Story of MI5s Secret Nazi Hunter' after approaching the family. It relates how MI5 fooled dozens of British fascists into believing they were spying for Germany. Hutton said: 'People trusted Eric implicitly. He was fantastically outgoing, a real practical joker and very charming. His personality got him out of a lot of scrapes.' In the book it tells how Eric managed to calm a gang of fascists in Leeds in 1940. It also bears similarities to Amazon drama 'Hunters' where Al Pacino leads a team bringing US Nazis to justice during the 1970s. The group discovered he had given a false job and address however Eric told how he was 'able to set their mind at ease'. Even as the death toll from the Coronavirus in China rises to over 300 and infections continue to spread, Pakistan seems to have made up its mind that its citizens should be left there to show "solidarity" with ally China. Pakistan PM Imran Khan, who is often active on Twitter when it comes to bashing India, has maintained a deafening silence on the matter on the platform. That Pakistani students trapped in the viral outbreak's epicentre Wuhan have posted videos on social media "pleading" for help and compared their government's response with that of India, doesn't seem to ruffle a feather in Islamabad. Last week, Pakistan confirmed that four of its students have been diagnosed with Coronavirus in China. There are up to 800 Pakistanis studying in various universities in Wuhan a city of 11 million people that has been quarantined by the Chinese authorities. READ | AI's 2nd Flight Lands In Delhi With 323 Indians, 7 Maldivians From Coronavirus-hit Wuhan Excuse of WHO Nonetheless, Pakistan has decided not to evacuate its nationals from China in accordance with the recommendations of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Special Assistant to PM Imran Khan on Health Dr Zafar Mirza said. Earlier on Friday, WHO chief had said travel restrictions can cause more harm than good by hindering info-sharing, medical supply chains and harming economies. "We believe that right now, it is in the interest of our loved ones in China (to stay there). It is in the largest interest of the region, world, country that we don't evacuate them now," Mirza was quoted as saying by a prominent Pakistani daily. Neither has Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi tweeted on the issue nor did the principal spokeswomen in his ministry. India, on the other hand, has evacuated around 650 of its citizens from China, along with seven Maldivians. Countries like Japan, Germany, Bangladesh, Australia have all scrambled their airlines to get their citizens out. READ | Pakistani Student Appeals To Imran Khan Government To Evacuate Citizens From Wuhan Emotional appeal on social media Such a relaxed attitude at a time when social media is getting flooded with videos from Pakistani students in Wuhan appealing for evacuation. A Pakistani student's emotional appeal to its government has gone viral since they have been stuck in Wuhan. He then went on to narrate that the students had already approached the authorities, and were redirected to the Chinese government. In the 90-second video message, the student says, "I am a Pakistani student and my name is Nadeem Habaz. I am currently in Wuhan, where more than 500 Pakistanis are stuck. Yesterday, in my University itself, Coronavirus was detected in four Pakistani students and they are in a serious condition in hospitals. Thus, we had asked the Pakistan government and the Embassy to help us or to evacuate us from here because of the situation is worsening every day. Thousands of people have already been affected by the virus and many have died as well. The virus is spreading every day and till now, no solution has been found. Hence, I once again want to make a request to kindly rescue us." Pakistani student in Wuhan shows how Indian students are being evacuated by their govt. While Pakistanis are left there to die by the govt of Pakistan: pic.twitter.com/86LthXG593 Naila Inayat (@nailainayat) February 1, 2020 READ | Pakistan Declares National Emergency To Battle Locusts Pak President's ambiguous tweet on evacuating students from Wuhan Prophet's directions regarding disease outbreaks are a good guide even 2day If you hear of an outbreak of plague in a land, do not enter it, but if the plague breaks out in a place while you are in it, do not leave that place (Bukhari & Muslim) Let us help those stuck there. Dr. Arif Alvi (@ArifAlvi) January 31, 2020 READ | Crestfallen Imran Khan Blames Corruption For Pak Cricket's Fall, Claims He "Quashed" All (Image credits: AP) By Express News Service NEW DELHI: The Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee (DPCC) on Sunday released the partys manifesto for the upcoming Delhi state Assembly elections with a list of 55 promises to be implemented if they come to power. Congress after a long reign in Delhi had lost to Aam Aadmi Party in 2013 and 2015 elections. The party promised to implement unemployment allowance of Rs 5,000-7,500 per month, cashback schemes for water and power consumers and challenge the contentious CAA in Supreme Court if voted to power. The manifesto, titled Aisi Hogi Hamari Delhi, was released at the Delhi Congress office in presence of DPCC president Subhash Chopra senior leaders Anand Sharma, manifesto committee chairman Ajay Maken, Rajiv Gowda and Sharmishtha Mukherjee among others. The manifesto highlights that the party will challenge the Citizenship (Amendment) Act in the Supreme Court and demand the Centre to withdraw the law by February 21 under Article 131. The party will also not implement the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the existing form of the National Population Register (NPR) if elected. Chopra also said that Congress will give the city a strong Lokpal within six months and will launch Sheila Pension Yojna under which Rs 5,000 per month will be provided to senior citizens, persons with disabilities and transgenders. A Venice port area was evacuated on Sunday morning as a World War II-era bomb was defused and set to be exploded in the sea. The operation in the port of Marghera, a mostly industrial area separated from the tourist city by water, required the evacuation of about 3,500 residents beginning in the early morning. Boat, train and bus traffic was all halted during the operation and planes were prohibited from flying to and from Marco Polo Airport from 8:30am (0730GMT) until 12:30 pm. The bomb, which weighed about 225 kilos (500 pounds) and contained about 129 kilos of TNT, was discovered during an excavation to fix sewer lines in January. At mid-morning, authorities said the first two phases of the operation - the evacuation of residents, and the process to strip the fuses from the bombs, had been successfully completed. Gianluca Dello Monacco, commander of the Army regiment that carried out the work, told Rai24 that the precautions were justified. "It still carried a high risk of explosion," Dello Monacco said. Next was the transfer of the bomb on a ship to a remote area in the sea, where it was to be detonated. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Srinagar, Feb 2 : One soldier was injured in the Gurez sector as the Pakistani Army violated ceasefire on the Line of Control (LoC) in several sectors, sources said. The Pakistan violated ceasefire first in Tangdhar, then in Gurez, Balakote and Mendhar sectors, defence sources said. The army was giving them befitting reply, said a defence source. Ever since Carter established the Department of Education in 1979, presidents have at least pretended to select their DOE head by looking at that persons theories and expertise about educational opportunities for all students. Elizabeth Warren, however, has decided that all potential Education secretaries must pass muster with a single demographic: A young trans person. And no, this is not a story from the Babylon Bee. Its a genuine story of Elizabeth Warren pandering on the campaign trail. At a campaign event in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Elizabeth Warren was giving a speech to a young audience when she began to discuss her requirements for a Secretary of Education. The first requirement would be that the person had been a public school teacher, an exceptionally stupid and short-sighted plan that cuts out the enormous number of possible candidates who did not teach in public schools. Where Warren went from stupid to insane, though, was when she spoke about the way in which a question from a young trans person, who asked her about sex education and LGBTQ history in public schools, helped shape her policy for selecting a Secretary of Education. According to Warren, when she heard this question, she began by explaining to the questioner that, It starts with a Secretary of Education who has a lot to do with where we spend our money, with what gets advanced in our public schools, with what the standards are. After explaining to the young trans person (and to the audience to whom she was speaking) just how important the Secretary of Education is to public education in America, Warren then stated her core requirement for any person to make the cut as her Secretary of Education: Im going to have a Secretary of Education that this young trans person interviews on my behalf. And only if this person believes that our Secretary, or Secretary of Education nominee, is [garbled] committed to creating a welcoming environment, a safe environment, and a full educational curriculum for everyone, will that person actually be advanced to be a Secretary of Education. With this as Warrens standard for selecting a member of her cabinet, there is no reason why every young person who clams a specific identity other than American student in public school, shouldnt demand that he or she also has the right to have a direct say in Warrens choices for Secretary of Education. Its easy to imagine every candidate facing a long line of youthful interviewers: Female students, male students, gay and bisexual students, Asian students, black students, Hispanic students, students with learning disabilities, Native American students, etc. Elizabeth Warrens desperate pandering to special interest groups turns her into a follower, not a leader. Her general ideology, of course, is hard-left. With this monumental moment of pandering, though, Warren makes it clear that, despite her constant mantra of Ive got a plan, she desperately wants those special interest groups to fill in the details of her administration. Thankfully, unless something unexpected occurs in the next few months, Elizabeth Warren seems to be a declining political asset. Sanders is rising, Biden is falling, and Buttigieg and Bloomberg are in a battle for the normal Democrat voter. In this line-up, theres no place for a woman who has Bernies left-wing vision for America, but who lacks his socialist purity and, instead, opts for trying to be everything to all left-leaning voters. Chinese police wear protective masks as they stand guard on a main road on January 31, 2020 in Beijing, China. Kevin Frayer | Getty Images The coverage on this live blog has ended but for up-to-the-minute coverage on the coronavirus, visit the live blog from CNBC's US team. All times below in Beijing time. 9:31 pm: Plane evacuating French and European nationals lands in France A plane repatriating 250 French and European nationals from Wuhan, China the epicenter of the fast-spreading and deadly coronavirus landed at a military airbase in Istres, France Sunday afternoon local time. Some 65 French citizens will be quarantined in the south of France, French authorities said, while the other passengers will be repatriated to their home countries. 9:21 pm: Military aircraft will evacuate Russians from China Five military aircraft will evacuate Russian nationals from China over the coronavirus, Russian news agency Interfax said Sunday, citing the country's defense ministry. 9:19 pm: Medical resources in China are weak at county level, official says The conditions in Hubei province are "severe and complicated" and medical resources are weak at the county level, vice governor Xiao Juhua told a press conference Sunday, according to a Reuters report. Hubei province is home to Wuhan, the center of the deadly coronavirus outbreak and the site of the vast majority of deaths from the illness. Still, the accuracy of testing kits has reportedly improved, according to Wang Wei, director of Hubei's science and technology department, who also spoke at the briefing. The time required to confirm cases with test kits has halved to around two hours, Reuters reported. 7:38 pm: Iraq bars entry to all foreigners traveling from China: Interior Ministry Iraq is barring entry to all foreigners coming from China, its interior ministry said Sunday. The Middle Eastern country hosts workers from the China National Petroleum Corp, one of its top foreign investors. 5:54 pm: Formula E calls off race in Chinese city All-electric car racing series Formula E has dropped plans for a race in the Chinese city of Sanya, the organization said Sunday, citing concerns over the coronavirus outbreak. The event in the southern Chinese resort city, on the coast of Hainan island, was planned for March 21. Formula E said in a statement that it would continue working with its local partners to "study the viability of potential alternative dates should the situation improve." TweetFormulaE 5:10 pm: Indonesia halts flights to and from China Indonesia is the latest country to announce a temporary suspension of flights to and from China, to go into effect Wednesday, amid a mounting death and infection count from the deadly coronavirus. The southeast Asian country of 264 million will also suspend its policy of issuing visas on arrival to Chinese nationals, Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said Sunday. Foreign nationals who have visited China in the last 14 days will also be barred from entry. The vast majority of coronavirus deaths and infections now at more than 300 and 14,300, respectively are in Wuhan, China, where the virus first appeared. 5:00 pm: Myanmar students evacuated from Wuhan A group of 59 students from Myanmar are the latest foreign nationals to be evacuated from Wuhan, China, Burmese authorities said Sunday. They will be quarantined for 14 days in a hospital in Myanmar upon return, health officials said. At least three Burmese students are currently remaining in China, two of which had high fevers and are being kept there by Chinese authorities. Myanmar can't test for the virus itself, so is sending samples to neighboring Thailand, where results are expected within a week of testing. 4:27 pm: Saudi state airline and Oman suspend China flights Oman and Saudi state airline Saudia announced suspension of flights to China on Sunday amid mounting cases of the coronavirus. The number of confirmed cases in China early Sunday was at least 14,380 with 304 deaths, and one death outside China, announced in the Philippines on Sunday morning. Business has been shut down in more than half of China 21 provinces that accounted for more than 80% of national GDP last year in an effort to contain the virus. 2:42 pm: South Korea to ban entry from Hubei, China South Korea has become the latest country to announce a ban on travelers who have visited the province of Hubei, China, the center of the coronavirus outbreak. The ban will come into place on Tuesday, South Korea's Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said on Sunday, according to local news agency Yonhap. South Korea confirmed three new cases of the respiratory illness on Sunday, bringing its total confirmed cases to 15. 2:04 pm: India confirms second case The Indian government confirmed the country's second case of coronavirus. This case involves a patient in Kerala, a southwestern coastal state where India's first case was also reported. The person in the second case has been isolated in a hospital and is in stable condition, the government said in a statement. @MoHFW_INDIA: Update on #NovelCoronavirus : Second positive case of #nCov has been reported in #Kerala. The patient has a travel history from #China. The patient is in isolation in the hospital, is stable & being closely monitored. 12:36 pm: New Zealand raises travel advisory, restricts travel from China New Zealand raised its travel advisory for China to "Do not travel," recommending its citizens to leave the country as soon as possible. It also said it will place temporary entry restrictions for foreigners with recent travel history in China. The restrictions take effect Monday and will be in place for 14 days. The New Zealand government said it will review this position every 48 hours. Citizens, permanent residents and their families may still enter the country, but will be required to self-isolate for 14 days upon returning to New Zealand. "It is critically important that we both protect New Zealanders from the virus and play our part in the global effort to contain it. I am particularly mindful that we are a gateway to the Pacific, and must factor that into our decision making," Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said in a statement. 11:15 am: Philippines reports first death outside of China A man who tested positive for the new coronavirus died on Saturday in the Philippines. The 44-year-old man was the second confirmed case in the country and the companion of the person in the first confirmed case, a 38-year-old woman, officials said. Both people are from Wuhan, China the city at the epicenter of a coronavirus outbreak. Officials said the 44-year-old man was admitted to the San Lazaro Hospital in Manila on Jan. 25 after experiencing a fever, cough and sore throat. Officials said he developed a severe pneumonia due to viral and bacterial infections before stabilizing in his last few days. The man's condition, however, deteriorated rapidly in his last 24 hours, officials said. "This is the first reported case outside of China. However, we need to keep in mind that he came from Wuhan, China," Dr. Rabi Abeyasinghe, a World Health Organization representative in the Philippines said in a statement on Twitter. @WHOPhilippines: WHO Representative in the Philippines Dr Rabi Abeyasinghe said: This is the first reported case outside of China. However, we need to keep in mind that he came from Wuhan, China. 10:41 am: Trump and Trudeau discussed outbreak The White House said President Donald Trump discussed the coronavirus outbreak with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in a Friday call. They discussed their countries' "efforts to monitor, contain, and mitigate the spread of the 2019 novel coronavirus," according to the White House statement. 10:14 am: Philippines expands travel restrictions 10 am: South Korea confirms 3 additional cases Health officials confirmed three new cases of coronavirus in South Korea, bringing the total to 15. 9:32 am: Australia restricts entry for foreigners who have recently been in mainland China Foreigners who have recently been in mainland China have been barred from entering Australia, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced Saturday. He said, however, this is a temporary measure that will be reviewed in 14 days. This does not apply to permanent residents or Australian citizens. The government said it will require these groups to self-isolate for 14 days from the time of their departure from mainland China. Airline crews are also exempt, as long as they have been "using appropriate personal protective equipment." Morrison also said the Australian government has raised its travel advisory for all of mainland China to Level Four: "Do not travel." 8:03 am: China confirms additional 2,590 cases, 45 deaths China's National Health Commission said it confirmed an additional 45 deaths and 2,590 cases through the end of Feb. 1. All of the additional deaths were in Hubei, according to the NHC. It said it has confirmed a total of 14,380 cases and 304 deaths. 6:38 am: Hubei confirms additional 45 deaths, 1,921 cases Chinese health officials confirmed an additional 45 deaths and 1,921 cases in Hubei province, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak. Through the end of Feb. 1, Hubei authorities said they confirmed a total of 9,074 cases, 294 deaths and 215 cured people so far in this outbreak. All times below in U.S. eastern standard time. 4:27 pm: First person in New York City under investigation for coronavirus The first person in New York City is under investigation for coronavirus, according to the Department of Health. The individual, who is under 40-years-old, has been hospitalized and is in stable condition after showing symptoms following travel to mainland China. Testing by the CDC to determine whether this is a confirmed case of coronavirus will take at least 36-48 hours, according to health officials. "An individual with a travel history to China felt unwell and sought help from a medical provider who promptly contacted the Health Department," said Health Commissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot.3:15 pm: Pentagon will provide housing for those who need to be quarantined The Pentagon approved a request from the Department of Health and Human services to provide housing for 1,000 people who could need to be quarantined after traveling abroad due to the virus, according to a Pentagon spokesperson. 3:00 pm: Apple closing stores in China could impact 1 million iPhones As Apple temporarily closes its stores in China, roughly 1 million of Apple's iPhones in China are at risk of shifting out of the March and into the June quarter if the virus outbreak continues into late February, according to a Webush analyst note. However, the firm notes that it would be a less than 3% of Chinese annual iPhone sales at most and would have a negligible impact. 2:00 pm: Virus outbreak still largely centered in Hubei, WHO reports JEROME The History at the Barn events will feature Remembering the 1920s: Readings and Conversations about the Jazz Age programs at the Mountain View Barn, 392 E. 300 S., U.S. Highway 93, Jerome. The programs are presented by the College of Southern Idaho History Program, Idaho Humanities Council, Preservation Twin Falls and the Mountain View Barn. Dinner will be available for purchase at 6 p.m. and the free programs will begin at 6:30 p.m. The Jazz Age/Harlem Renaissance conversation will be held Feb. 6 with Dr. Jeff Fox and Professor Benjamin Britton of CSI. The reading is New World Coming: The 1920s and the Making of the Modern World by Nathan Miller. Prohibition conversation will be held Feb. 20 with Dr. Russel Tremayne of CSI. The reading is Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition by Dan Okrent. The Second Coming of the KKK conversation will be held March 5 with Professor Justin Vipperman of CSI. The reading is The Second Coming of the KKK: the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American Political Tradition by Linda Gordon. For more information, call 208-732-6885. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Source: Xinhua| 2020-02-02 23:56:17|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close DAR ES SALAAM, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- At least 71 illegal immigrants from different countries have been arrested by Tanzanian immigration authorities following a one-week operation, an official said on Sunday. Shaaban Hatibu, head of Immigration Department in Mbeya region, said the aliens were found working in the country's southern highlands region of Mbeya without valid residence and work permits. "The Immigration Department in collaboration with the police launched an operation in plantations owned by investors, in mining sites and in residential areas where the illegal immigrants were arrested," Hatibu told a news conference. Hatibu said six Tanzanians were also arrested during the operation for helping the aliens to enter into the country without valid permits. He said some arrested illegal immigrants will be repatriated to their countries of origin, others will be fined, and some of them will be charged in courts for illegal stay. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (Reuters) Moscow Sun, February 2, 2020 09:27 708 7f440ff09e92db75a02bbad206211023 2 News travel,destination,Russia,visa-free,China,coronavirus,Wuhan-coronavirus Free Russia said on Saturday it was suspending visa-free travel for tourists to and from China to help contain the outbreak of a new coronavirus that emerged in China. A bilateral visa-free regime for tourist groups agreed on in 2000 will suspended from Feb. 2, a government decree said. Russia will also temporarily stop accepting and issuing documents for work visas to Chinese nationals. Read also: 10,000 Chinese tourists cancel trips to Bali over coronavirus fears: Travel group Russia reported its first two cases of coronavirus on Friday and restricted direct flights to China, its biggest trade partner. The Russian military is to start evacuating Russian citizens from China due to the outbreak. The Police of Armenia refute the news according to which police officers apprehended the relatives of the serviceman who died on January 30 in Artsakh in order to restrain them. This is stated on the Facebook page of the Police of Armenia. Some Facebook users had spread information according to which police officers had apprehended the relatives of the servicemen in order to restrain them. The Police of Armenia clarify that the information is absolutely false and has nothing to do with the reality. Once again, we urge users to not disseminate misinformation. The Police of Armenia express condolences to the relatives of the deceased soldier, the statement reads. Credit: CC0 Public Domain China imposed a lockdown Sunday on a major city far from the epicentre of the coronavirus epidemic, as its death toll soared to 304 and the first fatality outside the country was reported in the Philippines. The events added to deepening concern about the potential for the virus to spread, as governments around the world closed their borders to people from China. Struggling to contain the virus, authorities took action in the eastern city of Wenzhou on Sundaysome 800 kilometres (500 miles) from Wuhan, the metropolis at the heart of the health emergencyclosing roads and confining people to their homes. Since emerging out of Wuhan late last year, the new coronavirus has infected nearly 14,500 people across China and reached 24 nations. The G7 countriesCanada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, all of which have confirmed cases of the viruswill discuss a joint response, Germany's health minister Jens Spahn said on Sunday. In Thailand, which has 19 confirmed cases, doctors said Sunday an elderly Chinese patient treated with a cocktail of flu and HIV drugs had shown dramatic improvement and tested negative for the virus 48 hours later. Most of the infections overseas have been in people who travelled from Wuhan, an industrial hub of 11 million people, or surrounding areas of Hubei province. The man who died in the Philippines was a 44-year-old from Wuhan, according to the World Health Organization, which has declared the epidemic a global health emergency. China has embarked on unprecedented efforts to contain the virus, which is believed to have jumped to humans from a Wuhan animal market, and can be transmitted among people in a similar fashion to the flu. Lockdowns Those efforts have included extraordinary quarantines in Wuhan and surrounding cities, with all transport out banned, effectively sealing-off more than 50 million people. But 10 days after locking down Wuhan, authorities imposed similar draconian measures on Wenzhou, a coastal city of nine million people in Zhejiang province, part of the eastern industrial heartland that has powered China's economic rise over recent decades. Only one resident per household is allowed to go out every two days to buy necessities, and 46 highway toll stations have been closed, authorities announced. The city had previously closed public places such as cinemas and museums, and suspended public transport. Zhejiang has 661 confirmed infections, with 265 of those in Wenzhou, according to the government. This is the highest tally for any province in China after ground-zero Hubei. Closing borders Internationally, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Israel have banned foreign nationals from visiting if they have been in China recently, and they have also warned their own citizens against travelling there. Mongolia, Russia and Nepal have closed their land borders. The number of countries reporting infections rose to 24 after Britain, Russia and Sweden confirmed their first cases this weekend. The death toll in China climbed to 304 on Sunday after authorities reported 45 new fatalities. There were 2,590 new confirmed cases in China, bringing the total to nearly 14,500. The number of confirmed infections in China is far higher than in the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak of 2002-03. SARS, caused by a pathogen similar to the new coronavirus and also originated in China, killed 774 people worldwidemost of them in mainland China and Hong Kong. With hospitals in Wuhan overwhelmed, China will open a military-led field hospital Monday that was built in just 10 days to treat people stricken by the virus. And with the Chinese economy suffering, the central bank announced it would release 1.2 trillion yuan ($173 billion) Monday to maintain liquidity in the banking systemthe day markets re-open after the long holiday break. Holiday ending The emergence of the virus coincided with the Lunar New Year, when hundreds of millions travel across the country in planes, trains and buses for family reunions. The holiday, which was scheduled to end on Friday, was extended by three days to give authorities more time to deal with the crisis. With many due back at work on Monday, people were starting to return on planes and trains over the weekend, with almost everyone wearing face masks. Customs authorities had ordered temperature checks at all exit-entry points in Beijing, according to state media. Returning travellers were being checked and registered at residential compounds, while fever checks were in place in subway stations, offices and cafes. One 22-year-old arriving at a Beijing train station from northeastern China said her family had urged her to delay her return. "But I was worried it would affect my job," she said. Security guard Du Guiliang, 47, said he would be starting back at work in Beijing on Sunday, after returning from northeast Liaoning province. "Many colleagues (from Hubei) couldn't come back. Now, those who work the day shift at our company have to do the night shift as well," he said. Many businesses were to remain closed for at least another week, however, while some major citiesincluding Shanghaihad also extended the holiday. Many foreigners, meanwhile, have started to leave China to wait things out abroad. "(My family) said I need to go home," said 22-year-old South African student Jamie Bosch as she waited for a flight out of Beijing on Sunday. 2020 AFP We have used your information to see if you have a subscription with us, but did not find one. Please use the button below to verify an existing account or to purchase a new subscription. There are three people arrested under the case of the soldier who died on January 30 in Artsakh, and one of them is the son of former MP Arakel Movsisyan (Shmays). This is what Minister of Defense of Armenia Davit Tonoyan told Armenian News-NEWS.am today. The defense minister is currently negotiating with the relatives of the deceased serviceman who are marching through Armavir-Yerevan highway and want to bring the coffin of the deceased soldier to Yerevan since they dont believe the official version of the soldiers death (suicide). Davit Tonoyan asked the relatives to stop and not continue the march to Yerevan. The relatives told Armenian News-NEWS.am that the soldier, Vahram was murdered. Vahram was enlisted six months ago and was serving in Artsakh. He died on January 30 at around 1:15 p.m. The Investigative Committee of Armenia declared that the soldier had shot his chest with the AKM type of gun attached to him and had been transferred to a military hospital with firearm injuries, and he was pronounced dead at 2 p.m. The first garrison investigative division has instituted a criminal case in relation to the incident, and preliminary investigation is underway. We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Go to form If a person has only half a day in Washington DC it is hard to understand what to do in such a short time. However, they do not have to worry as this place has many places one can visit in such a short duration. Here is a list of places and the things to do in Washington DC that one can cover in 12 hours of time. Take a Peek at the White House Washington DC's has many wonderful places and while enjoying them, one must not miss out the White House. Start the day early and walk west on Pennsylvania Avenue to reach the Presidents Park and the White House. The seven-acre public park across the street is a popular site for political protests and a good place for people to embrace the beauty of the structural building. Also Read | Things to do in Lakshadweep for a memorable trip with friends or family Visit the National Memorials The memorials and monuments are some of Washington DCs greatest historic landmarks. To visit the Washington Monument, a person has to book a ticket in advance. A person can visit all the memorials are very spread out and the best way to see them all is on through a guided tour. But, if a person is on a self walking tour of the memorials, note that the Lincoln Memorial, the Vietnam War Memorial, Korean War Memorial and the World War II Memorial are located within a reasonable walking distance from each other. Also, the Jefferson Memorial, the FDR Memorial, and the Martin Luther King Memorial are located near one another. So if the tour is planned wisely, one can visit three memorials in one go rather than just visit one. Also Read | Things to do in Melbourne within 12 hours in order to explore the best place Dinner in Georgetown If a person is left with time to spend the evening in the town, one can visit the Georgetown to experience the delicious cuisine. Georgetown is one of the oldest neighbourhoods in Washington DC. The place is home to a vibrant community of people with wonderful shops, bars, and restaurants. To enjoy the happy hours and a delightful dinner, M Street and Wisconsin Avenue are the two main arteries filled with plenty of good places. A person would also like to take a walk to Washington Harbour to enjoy the heartwarming views of Potomac Waterfront and popular outdoor dining spots. Also Read | Things to do in Mumbai for enjoying a thrilling weekend getaway Also Read | Things to do near Changi Airport when on a long transit layover in Singapore The 72nd Writers Guild Awards were held on Saturday, with two concurrent ceremonies in Los Angeles and New York. Writer, creator, producer and actor Tina Fey attended the festivities at the Edison Ballroom, near Times Square in Midtown Manhattan, with some of her Saturday Night Live pals by her side. Her appearance comes two years after she was honored with the Herb Sargent Award for Comedy Excellence from the Writers Guild Of America. Tina Fey attended the 72nd Writers Guild Awards in New York City on Saturday The SNL alum looked business-chic in a blue suit that consisted of flared pants and a double-breasted blazer. She also donned a black sweater over a white button-down shirt, but kept the pointed collar prominent in the ensemble. Fey, 49, rounded out the outfit with a pair of black heels, a black boxed-purse and her dark brown tresses styled long with some soft waves and a part on the slight right. Classy: The Saturday Night Live alum looked business-chic in a blue suit that consisted of flared pants and a double-breasted blazer Reunited! Fey was joined on the red carpet by SNL alums Rachel Dratch, Paula Pell, and Amy Poehler at the Writers Guild Awards ceremony in New York City After striking a number of poses on the red carpet solo, Fey was also joined by some of her old SNL colleagues and friends -- Amy Poehlerm Rachel Dratch and Paula Pell, who wrote for the legendary sketch comedy from 1995 to 2013. Fey has been best known for her on-screen roles in television and films, beginning in the 1990s. But inside the business she's also recognized, and paid handsomely, for her flare for writing, creating and producing. Prolific: Fey was honored with the Herb Sargent Award for Comedy Excellence from the Writers Guild Of America in 2018 Among her writing credits: Saturday Night Love ( 1997-2006), the hit film Mean Girls (2004), 30 Rock (2006-2013), Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (2015-2019), and Great News (2017-2018), In her latest projects for the small screen, Fey teamed up with Robert Carlock to create and write a still untitled sitcom that will star Ted Danson on NBC in 2020. She also paired with Meredith Scardino to create and write the upcoming comedy series Girls5Eva that's also slated to premiere in 2020. WASHINGTON - Inside the Mansfield Room at the Capitol, where Senate Republicans have held daily strategy sessions during President Donald Trump's impeachment trial, senators began walking through their arguments on why they should block witnesses from testifying in the proceedings. But at this lunch on Thursday, Utah Sen. Mitt Romney was getting visibly annoyed. If this is meant to persuade me, Romney told his colleagues, it's not helpful, according to two officials with knowledge of the exchange. The senator, a near-lone GOP voice in seeking witnesses for the trial, felt as if other Republicans were singling him out. That private remark illustrated how Romney has become a rarity in the Senate GOP conference and his party - the man Republicans rallied around for the presidency in 2012 was an outlier in a GOP bound to Trump and unwilling to challenge the president. That political reality helped Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., hold his conference together in preventing witnesses. Ultimately, Romney and Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine - who faces a tough reelection in a Democratic-leaning state - sided with Democrats, but other key Republicans such as Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee aligned with the rest of the conference on the critical vote Friday, paving the way for Trump's likely acquittal this week on charges of abuse of power and obstructing Congress. "There's never been arm twisting," Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., said. "It was going to disproportionately rest on a few shoulders because most in each conference were pretty clear what they wanted to do." This account of how McConnell and enough Senate Republicans blocked witnesses from entering Trump's trial - the issue that was most in question during the contentious proceedings - is based on interviews with 13 senators and other officials familiar with the deliberations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk frankly. Trump's acquittal was never in question in the Republican-controlled Senate, but the uncertainty about whether to call witnesses - as had been done in each of the previous 15 impeachment trials - created last-minute drama amid new revelations about Trump's move to strong-arm Ukraine into investigating his domestic political rivals. In the end, McConnell held his conference together, arguing that witnesses would drag the trial out for weeks and delay other Senate work. Several Republicans acknowledged that the president did use nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine as leverage to benefit himself politically, calling it inappropriate, but argued it wasn't grounds to oust him from office. "What was, I think, the most persuasive was just the open-ended consequences of starting down that path, and particularly the delays inherent in litigation that would ensue in the middle of the trial," said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. McConnell was among the first to argue that Republicans should avoid calling witnesses despite Trump's clamor for the whistleblower whose report triggered the House impeachment probe, former vice president Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, to testify. The leader warned in a mid-December lunch that a protracted witness fight would be dangerous for both parties. "Mutual assured destruction," he told them. But McConnell, navigating a narrow 53-47 majority, was contending with the influential clutch of four senators who - had they and others banded with Democrats to call witnesses - could have stretched the trial proceedings for weeks with fraught political ramifications for the Republican Party. Early on, the four prevailed in getting McConnell to include a vote on witnesses in the measure setting the scope of the proceedings. Just days before the trial began, former national security adviser John Bolton stunned Washington when he said he would be willing to testify before the Senate if subpoenaed. The ex-Trump official, who had likened the Ukraine pressure scheme to a "drug deal," according to one witness, left a message with McConnell to alert him of his announcement, but the senator never returned the call. The news, however, got Romney's attention. Receiving testimony from Bolton was a "no-brainer," he believed, according to an individual familiar with his thinking who, like others interviewed for this story, requested anonymity to speak frankly. "Here we have somebody who has obviously talked about this issue with the president who may have helpful information," the person said, summarizing Romney's thinking. "So why wouldn't we want to hear from him?" But there were other currents working against Romney. An idea promoted by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, of a Republican witness for every one proposed by Democrats was gaining traction within the conference - a clear signal from Republicans that any successful attempt in the Senate to summon witnesses would devolve into a messy, prolonged fight. Cruz and other Republicans met privately with McConnell in mid-January to pitch him on the idea. The majority leader was on board quickly, Cruz recalled. "He and I have famously disagreed in other contexts," said Cruz, who called McConnell a liar in a 2015 showdown on the Senate floor. "But in this instance, both of us were working to keep the conference together and ensure the outcome of the trial was the outcome dictated by the Constitution, which was an acquittal because the House managers hadn't proven their case." Meanwhile, McConnell was working to ensure Trump and the White House trusted him to handle the trial strategy as he dealt with a mercurial president who had his own ideas about the proceedings. In one phone call shortly before Christmas, McConnell bluntly told Trump that while the president was getting a lot of feedback about how the trial should be conducted, he knew the Senate better than anybody who had been advising the president and, most importantly, how to make his members comfortable. McConnell told Trump that he needed to trust him, according to a person familiar with the conversations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk frankly. Trump responded that he did. The administration mostly left the wavering senators alone - namely out of McConnell's insistence. He warned Trump in the fall not to alienate moderates lest he make the situation worse, according to Republicans. "The White House has not asked for calls," said one senior GOP official close to the moderate senators. "They've not asked for meetings. They've not texted." Indeed, the last time Alexander and Trump spoke directly was on Dec. 19 at a private Oval Office education bill signing. Trump summoned an aide to bring him acopy of the six-page letter he had fired off to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., two days prior in which he repeatedly criticized the impeachment process. The president wanted Alexander to read the letter, complaining that what the Democrats were doing to him was ridiculous, but the senator deflected and shifted to the topic at hand: the bill being signed into law. Early in the process, the four senators - Romney, Collins, Alexander and Murkowski - often talked strategy while McConnell found various ways to cater to them. For example, he gave Collins, Murkowski and Romney the first shot at querying the legal teams during the trial's question-and-answer session. Once the trial started, the swing votes stayed in touch during breaks in the proceedings, but otherwise, they primarily kept their own counsel. Alexander wouldn't give any hints of how he would vote on the pivotal witness question to McConnell - his closest friend in the Senate - until he privately informed the majority leader during a dinner break on Thursday evening. Aware that Collins and Romney would likely vote in favor of witnesses, Alexander also sat down with Murkowski later that night, informing her of his decision. Unlike other issues in the Senate, there were no substantive attempts to broker a bipartisan agreement that would cool tensions, ensuring that the impeachment proceedings began - and ended - as a near-partisan exercise. "It has just been a lot harder over the last two weeks to have conversations with Republican friends," said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn. "The mood in that room is super tense and super heavy." Democrats heavily pressured vulnerable Senate Republicans up for reelection this fall, driving a message declaring any trial without witnesses would be a "coverup." But GOP senators and aides were confident that voters were paying little attention based on a survey conducted by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the official campaign arm of Senate Republicans. "You know, Iowans right now - honest to God - they want us to get this thing over with," said Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa). "They're like, 'Why aren't you doing the business of the American public?' " In a closed-door party meeting in McConnell's suite of offices - where GOP senators have held some of their most consequential strategy sessions - it was those precise swing-state Republicans like Sens. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., and Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who said they were prepared to just move on to a final vote without calling additional witnesses. That was after Bolton's blockbuster allegation, laid out in an unpublished manuscript of his book as reported by The New York Times, that Trump directly tied the holdup of aid to Ukraine to the political investigations. The Times report rocked the GOP conference and made Romney believe it increased the likelihood that more Republicans would join in his effort to call Bolton. At a Jan. 27 lunch, Sens. Patrick Toomey R-Pa., and Bill Cassidy, R-La., spoke up about a witness trade, appearing to briefly consider the notion. Romney joined them, making a forceful argument that they had a duty as senators to hear all the relevant evidence. At that moment, the GOP conference was in chaos reacting to the Bolton news, with leaders worried for the first time that they might actually lose the witness vote. During the meeting, McConnell warned members to stay calm and hear out Trump's defense team. The majority leader delivered an even sharper message in a private meeting the following day. While McConnell, who faces his own reelection this year, often frames his argument in the context of retaining the Senate majority, he delivered a different message: The Senate exists to stop partisan fevers from jeopardizing our institutions, and Republicans must ensure that did not happen in the fight over Trump's impeachment. The news from Bolton's book emerged in the trial's question-and-answer session, as Cruz and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., worked with Murkowski and Alexander in the GOP cloakroom to devise a question to the White House counsel that Cruz and Graham hoped would help persuade the swing votes. That question: Even if Bolton's allegations of a quid pro quo were true, isn't that still not an impeachable offense, so would his testimony add anything? Patrick Philbin, a deputy White House counsel, responded that it would not be an impeachable offense. "That answer was pivotal, especially in getting Lisa's vote," Cruz said. Rishi Kapoor, who returned to India in September 2019 after a nine-month-long cancer treatment in the US, has been hospitalised in Delhi, presumably because of a relapse. A source close to the family reveals, Chintu ji was to attend a family function in Delhi when he suddenly had to be hospitalised, and he was accompanied by his wife Neetu Kapoor. On hearing about the deterioration of his fathers health, Rishis son Ranbir also flew to Delhi. Moreover, Ranbirs girlfriend Alia Bhatt is also said to be by the veteran actors side. The news of Rishis hospitalisation comes after his conspicuous absence at nephew Armaan Jains mehandi ceremony. It can be reacalled that Rishi fell seriously ill in October 2018 and went off to New York for treatment. The actor took the setback bravely, not willing to let the disease depress or defeat him. His older sister Ritu Nanda had bravely battled the same disease for nine years before succumbing to it last month. But Rishi will hopefully emerge a winner again. After all, only recently he announced another film a remake of the Hollywood film The Intern, starring him and Deepika Padukone. Meanwhile, actress Shabana Azmi was discharged from hospital after a very serious accident on January 18, when her car crashed into a truck on the Mumbai -Pune highway. The actress posted a picture of herself after emerging out from the hospital, and wrote with it: Thank you all for your prayers and wishes for my recovery. I am back home now. Thank you, Tina Ambani and Kokilaben Ambani hospital for the sterling care provided by the doctors team and the nursing staff. I am indebted and grateful. Peter Obi, a former Anambra State governor says the immigration visa ban imposed on Nigeria by the United States was caused by leadership failure. Countries affected by the ban alongside Nigeria are Burma, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Sudan, Tanzania. The travel ban for these countries will only apply to immigrant visa, according to an official. Its focused on people who want to reside in the U.S, not people who want to visit. More than 100 persons are battling with head, stomach aches, fever, diarrhea as strange ailment kills five in Benue state. The strange ailment reportedly broke out in the border settlement of Oye-Obi, an Island bordering Obi and Oju Local Government Areas, LGA, of Benue State. Caretaker Chairman of Oju LGA, Mr Alicia Eru while speaking in Makurdi on Friday said some of the victims had been moved from the Oju General Hospital, GHO, to the Benue State University Teaching Hospital, BSUTH, for further investigation and treatment. Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire, says the Nigeria has the capacity to detect and respond to the coronavirus if it finds its way into the country.More than 170 persons have been killed while thousands infected by the deadly coronavirus,which originated in Wuhan, China.There are reports that the new vurus originated from a food market that conducted illegal transactions of wild animals in Wuhan. Peter Obi, former governor of Anambra state, says living in Nigeria, is more life-threatening than anything else. Obi, who was the vice-presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2019 election, said this during an interview with ThisDay. On whether he has ever had a near-death experience, he said: What is more threatening to someone than living in Nigeria? We live under constant threats here. Shehu Sani, lawmaker who represented Kaduna Central at the 8th Senate has accused the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) of subjecting him to trauma, arising interrogation in their custody. The former Senator, who spent a month in the custody of the anti-graft agency, made this known in a press statement made available to the media on Saturday. He accused operatives of the EFCC of subjecting him to polygraph lie detector tests and also seized his phones. Godwin Obaseki, governor of Edo, has called on the presidency and inspector-general of police to caution Adams Oshiomhole, national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), saying no k e is above the law. According to the Edo state governor, Oshiomholes ambition to be ultimate godfather is not worth the lives of people of the state. In a statement by Crusoe Osagie, media aide to the governor, Obaseki said this when he received a delegation from the Omega Fire Ministries International led by Azemhe Azena, a pastor. Abubakar Malami, attorney-general of the federation says the N25 billion fraud case against Danjuma Goje, senator representing Gombe central, was withdrawn because the federal government has the constitutional right to do so.Shortly after Goje withdrew from the race for Senate president and endorsed Ahmad Lawan, the consensus candidate of the leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC), the criminal case against him by the FG was dropped. Atiku Abubakar, former vice-president, has urged President Donald Trump not to punish Nigerians for the shortcomings and failure of the Muhammadu Buhari-led administration. Atiku was reacting to the immigrant visa ban placed by the United States on Nigeria, saying that Nigeria has been a major force for Americas development. Apostle Johnson Suleman, senior pastor of Omega Fire Ministries (OFM), says President Muhammadu Buhari is not a religious bigot. Speaking in an open letter he wrote to Femi Adesina, presidential spokesman whom he had earlier lambasted over his comment against the Christian Association of Nigeria(CAN), the cleric said he has deep respect for Buhari. Click here to read the full article. Walking around Donald Judds old house at 101 Spring Street in New Yorks SoHo is one of the best ways to immerse yourself in the artists spare aesthetic. His enormous bedroom, which is so bare-bones that it makes a Japanese ryokan look gaudy, is the highlight. Sitting dead center is the wooden bed, low to the floor, with no headboard. It is the stuff of minimalist dreams but comes with a question mark as big as the statement it makes. Flavin Judd, son of the late, great artist, has the answer. The bed is plenty functional, he starts. But, yes, . . . the pillows will fall off. When visitors arrive at the first Donald Judd retrospective to be mounted in the US in 30 yearsopening at the Museum of Modern Art in New York on March 1the first thing they encounter wont be any of his iconic sculptures. Instead, just outside the exhibition entrance, they will see what he created to furnish his homes, erasing any doubt as to his furnitures importance in the eyes of curators. More from Robb Report Judd, who died in 1994 at the age of 65, railed against the term minimalism, but his wall-mounted stacks of galvanized iron boxes, and warehouses full of meticulously lined-up reflective cubes, did a lot with a little. And the artist was never one to surround himself with baroque curlicues or any kind of superfluous decoration. The furniture that he designed for himself is graphic and austere, but as quietly beautiful as it is prosaic. You can see his mind at work with stubborn, muscular practicality: If you can sit on a cube, then there you go . . . thats a chair. If you can sleep on a platform of wood, thats a bed. His uncompromising furniture designsnow commercially availablehave been as influential as his artwork. It was important to us to indicate that Judds vision extended from sculpture to design, says Ann Temkin, the chief curator of painting and sculpture at MoMA. We want our visitors to experience that aspect of his practice firsthand. Story continues Judds furniture has had a major impact on the aesthetics of the 21st century. You can see echoes of it in the linear simplicity of the Apple stores, in Mujis stacking shelves and in John Pawsons hard-edged furniture. He made us want to live with less, at a variety of price points. You can buy into the lifestyle by investing in some extraordinarily executed contemporary craft or by sitting on a wooden crate. Craig Bassam is the cofounder of BassamFellows, the modernist design studio behind the sleek, linear Tuxedo Bench for Geiger/Herman Miller, recently installed throughout the newly expanded MoMA. Bassam has a great appreciation for what Judd achieved with his furniture. Its important because its a continuation of his art and was made for his personal use, he explains. It wasnt designed as art, but it is like art. It embodies his minimalist sensibility and sensitivity to materials. We find that inspiringwe also design products that are for personal use, so they are meaningful and not what we necessarily think the market wants. You have to love what you design and make. The story behind Judds furniture is entwined with that of his fascinating, often turbulent life. Necessity, fueled by an inability to find anything that suited his ideal environment, inspired Judd to turn his hand to carpentry to create beds for his family, as well as chairs and tables. Much has been written about his volatile marriage to choreographer Julie Finch when they lived at 101 Spring Street, which he bought in 1968, eons before the arrival of Apple, Prada et al. That same year, the SoHo Artists Association was formed to legalize what many of its members were already doing: living in old industrial lofts. It wasnt a lifestyle choice per se but more a practicality. One significant anecdote concerns Judds outrage at a brown corduroy sofa Finch acquired from Bloomingdales. There would be no whimsical upholstery in the house. Not on his watch. The symbol of the TV-watching bourgeoisie stayed, but their daughter, Rainer, has said the marriage frayed soon after. Judd began making his own furniture, and with five stories of what had been a 19th-century factory to play with, he fashioned a paradigm of stark, chic loft living. Some astute current SoHo loft dwellers, including the fashion designer Phillip Lim, have mixed vintage Judd pieces with contemporary luxe furniture. I found a set of Judd chairs in a vintage store, says Lim. I was amazed and asked them if they had any idea of how important they were. I got them for $1,000 but would have paid $10,000. Judds way of living still looks as fresh as ever. It represents true modernism as much as it does minimalism: The materials used, whether plywood or refined black walnut, come to the fore visually, and the simple shapes accentuate the volumes of large living spaces. It was clear to me from when I was small that I was living in a different kind of home from most Americans, says Flavin Judd, now the artistic director of the Judd Foundation. People were proud to live in shoeboxes on the Upper West Side, and I felt sorry for them. Don designed what he needed, and he did so consistently. He made his own style. Disillusioned by the changes to the neighborhood and the art scene, Judd abandoned SoHo in 1977 for Marfa, a six-and-a-half-hour drive into the desert from Austin, Texas. The big skies, laser-sharp sunlight and remoteness are extraordinary: Marfa was, and still is, the middle of nowhere. The cult filmmaker John Waters created an artwork in 2004 in the form of a mock tourist-board poster: Take the whole family to Marfa, Texas. The Jonestown of Minimalism. See Donald Judds Bed! You cant fly there! Its a L-O-O-O-O-N-G DRIVE! Here was the perfect landscape of nothingness for a man who liked to be surrounded by as little as possible. Judds departure from New York was abrupt, disappearing with Flavin and Rainer before any custody battle had started with Finch (he subsequently won). Today, much of Marfa (population: 1,714) is given over to both the Judd and the Chinati Foundations, and it has become an art-world mecca. Chinati is the contemporary art museum that has taken over the sprawling old Fort D. A. Russell military base and that was conceived by Judd as a place where the natural landscape could be married with his large-scale artworks and those by his friends Dan Flavin and John Chamberlain, exhibited both inside and outside. German text, weathered but visible on some of the interior walls, is a reminder that the buildings were used to house POWs during World War II, but today they are full of works by those three men as well as by other artists, including Roni Horn and Ilya Kabakov. Outside, there are pieces by Richard Long, Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. When Judd moved to Marfa, he continued to create furniture for his familys new life, collaborating with a closely knit group of fabricators whom he gave exacting specifications. He worked with several carpenters in Marfaincluding brothers Celedonio and Alfredo Mediano, and later Ramon Nunezand from 1984 he had his metal furniture fabricated in Switzerland, at Lehni AG in Dubendorf. He had made desk sets for his children, says Christopher Longfellow, director of operations at Donald Judd Furniture. He also made a metal desk for gallerist Paula Cooper and other unique designs for friends. Slowly, Judds furniture evolved into something that was, if far from commercial, then at least accessible to a select group of people outside of his direct family. More than 70 of the furniture designs have been available, made to order, since he first conceived them. In 2017 Donald Judd Furniture began to offer the collection ready-made, with designs from his archive added periodically and all proceeds benefiting the Judd Foundation. It is still produced to the same specifications. The decision to introduce an online platform, and in-stock designs, was a result of demand, explains Longfellow. It allows for the full catalog of Judds designs to be seen in all materials. Production is limited to the designs Judd provided, so we are not actually adding but researching existing designs made during his lifetime. We are constantly looking at pieces in the archives, for example, with finishes in metal that have not been produced in many years and also frame metal designs. All require a high amount of craftsmanship: There is a precision with the slant of chairs in wood and plywood, and materials like copper and pine demand patience and considerable expertise. That expertise makes for expensive pieces. The Single Daybed 32, which boxes the user within five simple wooden panels and is still made in the same woodshop that has been run by carpenter Jeff Jamieson since the 1980s, starts at just over $17,000. For comparisons sake, a vintage example of the design was sold at auction for $47,500, at Phillips in New York in December 2018. Simplicity is usually expensive, and the cost to make the furniture is just what it is, says Rainer. We are not willing to make bad examples of his furniture just to sell more of it. In 2018, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art staged Donald Judd: Specific Furniture, bringing together 30 pieces made during Judds lifetime and eight newly fabricated ones, alongside Judds drawings. Curator Joseph Becker was inspired to organize the show after discovering just how serious Judds interest in modernist furniturebeyond his ownwas. He had a collection of crucial pieces, and his research was encyclopedic, says Becker. In recognizing his deference to the achievements of Rietveld, Aalto, Mies van der Rohe, Schindler and others, I was able to understand his approach to designing his own furniture in a way that made it distinct from his art. Taking inspiration from those earlier designers, Judd fashioned objects for use with the same purity of vision. For Becker, it is the 20 permutations of Chair 84 that represent peak Judd. At first sight it looks like a simple cube with a back panel that extends up from the rear of its core box, but each incorporates an architectural twist. For instance, the Forward Slant Plywood Chair 84s front panel below the seat is angled inward. It is an iconic design object in an age when the term has become cliche through misuse. As Becker says, The nuanced shifts in how he treats the volume under the seat reflect his sculptural works, such as the 100 untitled works in mill aluminum on permanent view at Chinati. The current version of the chair is available for $3,500. When you consider that some of his wall-mounted artworks change hands for millions at auction, the furniture is entry-level Judd, but still rich in resonance. Judds furniture satisfied his desire to explore production, utility and form in an explicitly more hands-on way than his sculpture, says Becker, refer- ring to the fact that Judd conceived his artworks meticulously but outsourced them for fabrication. He was also thinking deliberately about how furniture in a room defined the movements and the points of focus within a space, just as his works of art would. Its clear from the ways he organized his own spaces in Marfa, New York and Switzerland [where he turned the Eichholteren hotel on Lake Lucerne into a private residence] that the entirety of the architecture was considered simultaneously. MoMAs Judd show arrives at an interesting time for art and design, when dealers and practitioners are regularly challenging old definitions. The Pavilion of Art & Design (PAD) fairs in Paris and London, for instance, have put edition furniture and contemporary art on a shared platform. More clients who would traditionally be art buyers in galleries and art fairs are crossing between the two camps, says Longfellow. Among the most popular makers in this category are the Haas Brothers, whose furniture, though, is rarely used as such. Most furniture-as-art pieces are impractical or uncomfortable to use, says Bassam. Judds work is different. It was all about function. Look at the Seat/Table/Seat Bench 26 (from $10,500), which combines everything it says it does with economy and elan. Or the Shelf Plywood Stool 95 (from $2,900), which you can sit on or use for display or storage. Numerous contemporary designers have taken inspiration from Judds work and philosophy of late. When the School of the Art Institute of Chicago commissioned Navillus Woodworks to create seating for the deans office, the local design-build firm supplied walnut modular chairs inspired by Judds Library Chair 42. At Salone del Mobile last year, Draga & Aurel showed a series of Judd wall lights, with the simplicity of form of the artist they reference but elevated in tinted glass. Rarefied homage follows rarefied homage, but you can also see Judd in more commercial areas, such as Philipp Mainzers stark woodwork for e15. But are Judds pieces art, and are PAD and their ilk indicative of a blurring of the linesor full-on erasure? Flavin Judd says no: Unless you plan on sitting on your Baselitz painting, there is no inevitable merging of art and design. They do different things. His father defined the difference adroitly in his 1993 essay Its Hard to Find a Good Lamp: The art in art is partly the assertion of some- ones interest regardless of other considerations. A work of art exists as itself; a chair exists as a chair itself. And the idea of a chair isnt a chair. Furniture cant exist solely as a concept, Judd is saying. You have to use it. Jasper Morrison offers a strikingly different take on the subject. Morrison is responsible for some of the most pared-down designs of the 21st century, a result of research that focuses on the pure function of an object, not unlike Judds approach. Still, he admires what he sees as the conceptual artistry running through Judds designs. The interest for me is observing what an artist whose work I admire imagines furniture could be, Morrison says. They are not so much furniture as sculptures of furniture existing in a parallel object universe, inspired by the basic constraints of what makes a chair or a table. Nonetheless appealing for not being furniture. With that, Morrison points to where the tension and visual excitement are in Judds designs. No matter where you fall in that argument, Judds tables, chairs and such are utterly uncompromising objects. They are profoundly pleasing to look at, but youre never going to binge-watch anything while on your Donald Judd daybed, unless its festooned with (incongruous) cushions. These pieces sacrifice certain practicalities for a literally rigid aesthetic. They pose questions. They make you think about what furniture actually is, and they transcend style. In their own way, they are masterpieces. Best of Robb Report Sign up for Robb Report's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Senior CPI (M) leader Sitaram Yechury on Sunday said that political parties were not behind the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protest in Shaheen Bagh. Yechury said it was in fact a case of the protesters "leading us and we are walking behind them". He said the Shaheen Bagh protest, which has captured the imagination of the country since it started over a month ago and has spawned several replicas, reminded him of his days during Emergency. Yechury was speaking at the Mumbai Collective here. He was accompanied by NCP Lok Sabha member Supriya Sule. "There is no political party behind such protests. In fact they are leading us and we are walking behind them," he said. The senior Left leader said such (Shaheen Bagh) protests are taking place in at least 50 places and it is happening like in the case of civil disobedience. Speaking further, Yechury said every religion may have one holy book, and Hinduism may have several, but for the patriotic Indian, "the Constitution is the only holy book". Supporting the protests, Yechury said such strident opposition to the National Population Register (NPR) will automatically affect the rollout of the National Register of Citizens. Sule said issues like CAA and NRC are being used to divert attention of the people from "core factors such as the crumbling economy of the country". "India is scared while police is living on the edge. We call ourselves representatives of the people in the Lok Sabha but this (Modi) government and the Parliament is not responsive," Sule said. Taking a swipe at the Narendra Modi government, Yechury said, "At least 10 times, ministers in the Lok Sabha have said the NRC will be the basis of NPR." Sule said CAA and NRC would hurt the poor of the country, including Adivasis and banjaras (nomads) among others. Incidentally, on the backfoot after the protests, the BJP has distanced itself from the NRC exercise with Prime Minister Modi himself stating at a Delhi rally that no one at the Centre had spoken about NRC, and the one carried out in Assam was on the order of the Supreme Court. As per the government, the NPR is a list of "usual residents" of the country, with "usual resident" being defined as a person who has resided in a local area for the past six months or more, or a person who intends to reside in that area for the next six months or more. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A court in the United States has charged an Iranian-Canadian with fraud, circumventing sanctions imposed on Iran, and lying to federal agents about sending more than $115 million to Iranian individuals and entities in the Islamic Republic. "Bahram Karimi was charged with conspiring to commit bank fraud, and making false statements in connection with his involvement in a joint project initiated by the Governments of Iran and Venezuela in which more than $115 million was illegally funneled through the U.S. financial system for the benefit of various Iranian individuals and entities," the Department of Justice (DoJ) reiterated on Friday, January 31. Based on the documents presented to the court, In August 2004, the governments of Iran and Venezuela entered into an agreement regarding an infrastructure project in Venezuela, which was to involve the construction of 7,000 housing units in Venezuela. Iranian-Canadian, Bahram Karimi, was a member of the committee and responsible for managing the project in Venezuela. "Karimi lied to banks about Iranian involvement and took advantage of the U.S. financial system to benefit Iranian parties," Assistant Attorney General for National Security, John C. Demers, told the court on Friday. The prosecution of the case is being handled by the Office's Terrorism and International Narcotics Unit, and in a court presided by the U.S. District Judge Alison J. Nathan. There is no report yet on the reaction of 53-year-old Karimi and his attorneys to the charges. If convicted, Karimi could face up to thirty years in jail for the first two charges, and five years for the third. In the past, several other Iranians in the U.S. have been charged with fraud and attempting to circumvent U.S. sanctions imposed on Tehran. A forty-year-old Iranian woman, Negar Ghodskani, pleaded guilty last August, in Minnesota, for facilitating the unlawful procurement and export of U.S.-origin goods to the Islamic Republic of Iran. A 64-year-old Iranian resident of Central Ohio was sentenced last October to a twenty-month sentence for violating U.S. sanction by supplying industrial and oil technology to Iran, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. - Kenya Revenue Authority asked stockists not to receive bottled water and other drinks manufactured on or after November 13, 2019 - The authority had in August 2019 said it would target bottled water, juices and energy drinks in its tax collection - The said items that do not bear KRA stamp should be submitted to the nearest tax service office for further advice Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) has sent out a warning to all retailers, importers and customers to avoid receiving or purchasing bottled drinks with not tax stamp. In a statement on Thursday, January 28, the taxman said all bottled water, juices, energy drinks and non-alcoholic beverages manufactured or imported from November 13, 2019, must be affixed with excise stamp. READ ALSO: Ex-minister William Ntimama's youngest daughter is dead KRA commissioner in charge of domestic tax, Elizabeth Meyo has asked stockists to submit unstamped bottled water and other drinks. Photo: Business Daily. Source: UGC READ ALSO: Moses Kuria afurushwa katika mkutano wa BBI Kitui This is in compliance with Excise Duty Act 2015 and whose implementation been communicated through a public notice issued in October 2019 under Excisable Goods Management System ( EGMS). KRA will carry out sector based and general public participation fora on EGMS. The fora will target licensed manufacturers, importers, distributors and retailers of bottled water, juices, soda and other non-alcoholic beverages and cosmetics, KRA said in 2019. In October 2019, the Treasury had to readjust its 2019-2020 national budget by KSh 131 billion failing short of target. Photo: Business Daily. Source: UGC As a result, the authority urged the affected stockists to take full account of the said products manufacture and importation date. The said items that do not bear KRA stamp should be submitted to the nearest tax service office for further advice. At the same time, the KRA commissioner in charge of domestic taxes, Elizabeth Meyo, threatened his office will liaise with authorities to arrest and prosecute anyone found with unstamped bottled drinks. "However, any persons found in the possession of bottled water, juices, energy drinks, soda and other non-alcoholic beverages manufactured or imported into Kenya on or after November 13, not bearing an excise stamp will lead to seizure of all listed products in their possessions and offenders will be prosecuted," Meyo said. In October 2019, the Treasury had to readjust its 2019-2020 national budget by KSh 131 billion failing short of target. It emerged that in the first quarter of this financial year, KRA netted KSh 410.5 billion in total Cumulative Revenue against the target of KSh 495 billion. This reflected a shortfall of KSh 84.6 billion. In Ordinary Revenue collection, KRA fell behind its KSh 444.5 billion target by KSh 60.2 billion after it collected only KSh 384 billion. Do you have a groundbreaking story you would like us to publish? Please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690. Contact Tuko.co.ke instantly. Behind the scenes in Babu Owino's Day in court | Tuko TV. Source: TUKO.co.ke Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Jessicha Valentina (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sun, February 2, 2020 15:30 708 7f440ff09e92db75a02bbad20621fcc1 1 Health body-shaming,mental-health,health,Insecure,psychology Free Twenty-two-year-old Esther Agustine Mangunsong and 27-year-old Tika Lestari are strangers to one another. They live in two different cities, Jakarta and Yogyakarta, but they have one thing in common; both have been victims of body shaming since elementary school. Esther was born with a dark skin tone. Tika has a curvy body, curly hair and, like Esther, a dark skin tone. Both of them were bullied for their physical features which have been deemed unappealing by certain Indonesian beauty standards making them feel insecure about their own bodies. I feel insecure and not worthy to be loved, Tika told The Jakarta Post, sharing that she once punched a male friend for making fun of her. I used to try different skin-care products, said Esther regarding how she had tried to conceal her flaws. Mirna Marina, 35, who lives in Boyolali, Central Java, has received sexually degrading comments about her body hair. Some of my male friends blatantly said that a woman with excessive body hair increased their libidos, she said, adding that people had also called her a monkey or transgender. Body shaming is a common issue for women. About 62 percent of Indonesian women said they were victims of body shaming, according to ZAP Beauty Index 2020, research conducted by Indonesian beauty-clinic brand ZAP in collaboration with consulting and marketing research company MarkPlus Inc. The survey was conducted between July and Sept. 2019 in various cities across Indonesia and involved 6,460 female respondents aged between 13 and 65. ZAP Beauty Index 2020 found that 47 percent of Indonesian women experienced body shaming because of their curvy figures, 36.4 percent due to their acne-prone skin, 28.1 percent because of chubby cheeks, 23.3 percent because of their dark skin tone and 19.6 percent because they were skinny. Clinical psychologist Dyah Larasati told the Post that body shaming commonly occurred at a young age, particularly during adolescence, as bodies dramatically changed during this period. Girls start menstruating, gaining extra weight and undergoing physical transformations such as breast development and changes to their skin. Body shaming happens to both men and women, but Dyah said women were more vulnerable. Overweight males with chubby figures and fat bellies also experienced body shaming, but its not [as common], added Dyah. Read also: By the way: Sisters in sisterhood, but enemies in silence Dyah said that the way society perceived the role of women was one of the triggers of body shaming. According to objectification theory, which holds that girls and women are commonly treated as sexual objects, females have been seen as mere companions for decades. To attract males, it has been said, they became obsessed with their physical features and began to compete with one another. They are judged not as a whole human but based on separate [features] of their body, said Dyah. If people continuously receive negative comments about their bodies, it will influence their self-esteem and might lead to anxiety or depression. Basically, body shaming can make people feel insecure about themselves. It can keep going until theyre old, said Dyah. Child and family psychologist Anna Nina Surti Ariani said that body shaming could even lead to suicide, especially when it happened during adolescence. During the teenage years, the emotional part of the brain has fully developed. Meanwhile, the part of the brain that process logical thinking has yet to mature. So its easier for them to get emotional, said Nina. In some extreme cases, Nina said that the victims may want to undergo plastic surgery. "They can't accept themselves," she said. To solve this issue, Nina suggested that victims of body shaming find a good support system. If [their family or friends] like to make negative comments, it means they may need to find new friends [who are more accepting], she said. Nina also recommended that the victims share their experiences of body shaming with others. Lastly, she encouraged them to be grateful for their situation and focus on their strengths instead. (kes) Vijender Gupta election result 2020 live news and latest updates online - Read about Vijender Gupta BJP candidate who is fighting Delhi assembly (Vidhan Sabha) election from Rohini seat and many more at Firstpost.com. The Leader of Opposition in the outgoing Assembly, Vijender Gupta contested and from the BJP stronghold of Rohini by a margin of 12,648 votes. Gupta, a Bania by caste, was one of the three BJP candidates to win amid the unprecedented Aam Aadmi Party wave. In the last election, Gupta narrowly defeated CL Gupta of the AAP by a margin of 5,000 votes. The BJP leader has assets worth Rs 1.48 crore, while his wife owns immovable assets worth Rs 5.35 crore, according to his election affidavit. He declared an income of nearly Rs 10.66 lakh in the income tax returns filed for 2018-19, from Rs 6.28 lakh shown in returns filed for 2015-16. Gupta is a veteran of Delhi politics, having started his career as a student leader at Delhi University. He was a secretary of the Janta Vidyarthi Morcha in 1983 as well as the vice-president of the Delhi University Students Union in the 1980s. He rose to prominence as a capable councillor from Rohini, a ward which he represented thrice between 1997 and 2012. As per media reports, he is often credited for making Rohini a model municipal unit. He also served as the chairman of the standing committee of the MCD between 2007 and 2009. As the Delhi BJP chief in 2012, he led his party to a massive win in the municipal polls for the newly created North Delhi Municipal Corporation, East Delhi Municipal Corporation and South Delhi Municipal Corporation. After the win, Gupta began to be touted as a probable chief ministerial candidate of the BJP in the 2013 election. However, he lost the 2013 polls to AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal. The Shri Ram College alumni was later appointed the Leader of Opposition when he won his Assembly seat in the 2015 election. In August 2019, Gupta had to face suspension from the Assembly for the duration of the session for using unparliamentary language and creating ruckus over demanding a motion of thanks for the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution. CAIRO Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas threatened Saturday to cut security ties with both Israel and the U.S. in a speech at an Arab League meeting in which he denounced the White House plan for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The U.S. plan would grant the Palestinians limited self-rule in parts of the occupied West Bank, while allowing Israel to annex all its settlements there and keep nearly all of east Jerusalem. The summit of Arab foreign ministers in Egypts capital Cairo was requested by the Palestinians, who responded angrily to the American proposal. Abbas said he told Israel and the U.S. that there will be no relations with them, including the security ties following the deal that Palestinians say heavily favors Israel. The Western-backed Palestinian leadership has been under mounting pressure from ordinary Palestinians and its rivals in the Islamic militant group Hamas to cut off security ties with Israel and the U.S. or even dismantle the increasingly unpopular Palestinian Authority. That would leave Israel responsible for the complicated and expensive task of providing basic services to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank. The Palestinians have made such threats in the past, with few people taking them seriously. But this time might be different, especially if Israel proceeds with annexation of its West Bank settlements which the Palestinians and most of the international community view as illegal as well as the Jordan Valley, which accounts for roughly a fourth of the West Bank, according to the U.S. plan. Abbas could also cut off agreements with U.S. intelligence agencies to combat extremism. The Palestinian leader said he refused to take President Trumps phone calls and messages because I know that he would use that to say he consulted us. I will never accept this solution, Abbas said. I will not have it recorded in my history that I have sold Jerusalem. He said the Palestinians remain committed to ending the Israeli occupation and establishing a state with its capital in east Jerusalem. Abbas said the Palestinians wouldnt accept the U.S. as a sole mediator in any negotiations with Israel. He said they would go to the United Nations Security Council and other world and regional organizations to explain our position. Samy Magdy is an Associated Press writer. Sen. Bernie Sanders is expressing more confidence than his Democratic rivals that he'll have a good night Monday - when the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses are held. 'With your help, we're not only going to win here in Iowa, we're not only going to win the Democratic nomination, but we are going to defeat this dangerous president,' he said at a raucous stadium rally Saturday night in Cedar Rapids that featured the band Vampire Weekend. 'The reason we're going to defeat Trump is that we are the campaign that is going to bring about the largest voter turnout in America history.' The 2020 hopeful also gloated that his campaign volunteers had knocked on 500,000 doors in the last month in Iowa alone, and tens of thousands of doors in New Hampshire through this weekend. Sen. Bernie Sanders voiced confidence that he would win the Iowa caucuses if turnout on Monday was strong Sen. Bernie Sanders held a raucous rally in Cedar Rapids Saturday night featuring the rock band Vampire Weekend Sen. Bernie Sanders' supporters hold up white and blue Bernie Sanders signs. The Vermont senator boasted that his event brought in a crowd of 3,000 Filmmaker Michael Moore, one of the Sanders campaign surrogates, warmed up the crowd in Cedar Rapids, Iowa Saturday night Sen. Bernie Sanders (right) gives a kiss to his wife Jane Sanders (left), one of the speakers at Saturday night's rally in Cedar Rapids New Hampshire hosts the nation's first primary a week from Tuesday. 'We're going to win because we're the campaign of energy and excitement,' he said Saturday night to cheers. But he also warned his base that they had to show up. 'If there is low voter turnout, let me be very frank - we're going to lose,' the Vermont senator said. 'But if there is a high voter turnout we're going to win.' Sanders has a slight lead in the Hawkeye state - 3.6 points - according to the Real Clear Politics polling average. Another poll that was supposed to come out - one from the Des Moines Register and CNN - had to be tossed out over an error in how it was administered. Sanders has been bringing in the biggest crowds of any candidate during the final week of the Iowa campaign. His Saturday night event was held at the U.S. Cellular Center where the floor and the bottom deck were filled with people. Sanders onstage said the crowd was around 3,000 strong. The night before, in Clive Iowa, his event drew around 2,000 - and Sanders wasn't present. Most of the candidates, including the national frontrunner, former Vice President Joe Biden, have chosen to hold gatherings in more intimate venues in the run-up to the caucuses. On Friday, in an interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos Biden gave himself some wiggle room to underperform in Iowa. 'I think it's going to be really close, George. Neck and Neck. Bernie's up. I'm up. We're basically at a statistical tie,' Biden said. In 2016, Hillary Clinton, the long-standing frontrunner, nearly tied in Iowa with Sanders. He then went on to win his neighboring state of New Hampshire, but got crushed by Clinton in South Carolina. Sanders and the three other U.S. senators who are running for president - Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren and Michael Bennet - were kept out of the state all week due to President Trump's impeachment trial. Warren wouldn't use that as an excuse if she doesn't do well in the caucuses when asked by a reporter about it Saturday - though she didn't voice confidence either. 'I am here right now in Iowa reaching out to everyone as best I can,' she said during a gaggle after her campaign rally in Iowa City. Sanders arrival back in Iowa coincided with another Clinton-versus-Sanders tiff unfolding, after Rep. Rashida Tlaib, at a Sanders event Friday night that the senator did not attend, encouraged his crowd of supporters to boo Hillary Clinton She did so in reponse to Clinton saying in a documentary interview that 'nobody liked' the Vermont senator. When Sanders popped into an AFSCME event at the Tavern Pizza & Pasta Grill in West Des Moines Saturday morning, he was in no mood to talk about it. He ignored a question from DailyMail.com about the incident. It is not uncommon to see companies perform well in the years after insiders buy shares. On the other hand, we'd be remiss not to mention that insider sales have been known to precede tough periods for a business. So before you buy or sell British Land Company Plc (LON:BLND), you may well want to know whether insiders have been buying or selling. Do Insider Transactions Matter? It's quite normal to see company insiders, such as board members, trading in company stock, from time to time. However, rules govern insider transactions, and certain disclosures are required. Insider transactions are not the most important thing when it comes to long-term investing. But equally, we would consider it foolish to ignore insider transactions altogether. For example, a Harvard University study found that 'insider purchases earn abnormal returns of more than 6% per year. Check out our latest analysis for British Land The Last 12 Months Of Insider Transactions At British Land CEO & Executive Director Christopher Grigg made the biggest insider purchase in the last 12 months. That single transaction was for UK81k worth of shares at a price of UK5.35 each. That means that an insider was happy to buy shares at around the current price of UK5.55. While their view may have changed since the purchase was made, this does at least suggest they have had confidence in the company's future. We do always like to see insider buying, but it is worth noting if those purchases were made at well below today's share price, as the discount to value may have narrowed with the rising price. The good news for British Land share holders is that insiders were buying at near the current price. Happily, we note that in the last year insiders paid UK179k for 32.72k shares. On the other hand they divested 2973 shares, for UK17k. Overall, British Land insiders were net buyers last year. The chart below shows insider transactions (by individuals) over the last year. If you click on the chart, you can see all the individual transactions, including the share price, individual, and the date! Story continues LSE:BLND Recent Insider Trading, February 2nd 2020 There are always plenty of stocks that insiders are buying. So if that suits your style you could check each stock one by one or you could take a look at this free list of companies. (Hint: insiders have been buying them). Insider Ownership of British Land Many investors like to check how much of a company is owned by insiders. I reckon it's a good sign if insiders own a significant number of shares in the company. British Land insiders own about UK11m worth of shares. That equates to 0.2% of the company. We've certainly seen higher levels of insider ownership elsewhere, but these holdings are enough to suggest alignment between insiders and the other shareholders. So What Do The British Land Insider Transactions Indicate? It doesn't really mean much that no insider has traded British Land shares in the last quarter. On a brighter note, the transactions over the last year are encouraging. Overall we don't see anything to make us think British Land insiders are doubting the company, and they do own shares. Therefore, you should should definitely take a look at this FREE report showing analyst forecasts for British Land. Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking elsewhere. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies. For the purposes of this article, insiders are those individuals who report their transactions to the relevant regulatory body. We currently account for open market transactions and private dispositions, but not derivative transactions. If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Thank you for reading. US diplomat Marie Royce on Sunday said that India and the United States share strong ties including exchange programs in every area that bind the two countries. Royce, who is US Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA), is in India to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Fulbright Program. She said that it is very important to preserve India's antiquities and culture. "The reason I am here tonight is to celebrate Fulbright-Nehru (program) 70th anniversary promoting mutual understanding between our two countries. So this created the people-to-people contact and make them (ties) even stronger," Royce said on the sidelines of an event. "Our ties were have never been this stronger. We are also doing a number of cultural programs here in India through our Ambassador Funds for Cultural Preservation," she said. "It is very important for us to protect India's antiquities and culture. We have an exchange program in every area... There are many many ties that bind our two countries," Royce added. Royce arrived here on January 28 for a week-long visit to celebrate Fulbright Program anniversary. Along with that, Royce said that she is here to promote Indian students coming to the US for studying. The US diplomat said that she had an excellent meeting with Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) Secretary Amit Khare and discussed ways to increase the number of Americans visiting India for studies. "I had an opportunity to already met with human resources secretary. I would say we had a very successful meeting. We talked about having more Americans come to India which is a big part of my responsibility. I promote international student mobility," she said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) J&K: Grenade attack in Lal Chowk; 1 CRPF jawan, 2 civilians injured India oi-Madhuri Adnal Jammu, Feb 02: At least one CRPF personnel and two civilians have been injured in a grenade attack at Pratap Park in Srinagar's Lal Chowk area, Jammu and Kashmir on Sunday. The injured have been shifted to a nearby hospital. According to reports, suspected terrorists hurled a grenade towards CRPF jawans at Pratab Park in Lal Chowk. Following the attack, security forces cordoned off the area. Earlier on Jan 24, a jawan of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) was injured after terrorists had hurled a grenade on a police post in Jammu and Kashmir's Srinagar on Friday. The incident took place at Waniyar Chowk in Noorbagh area of old Srinagar city. J&K: Grenade attack on CRPF party in Srinagars Kawdara area, two injured The unidentified terrorists lobbed a grenade on troops of G/161 Battalion of the CRPF at the police post. Actor Rishi Kapoor on Sunday said he is suffering from an infection and is undergoing treatment for it. I have had an infection which am getting treated. Nothing dramatic. Pollution got me I guess, Kapoor told PTI. Multiple media reports claimed that the actors son, Ranbir Kapoor, rushed to Delhi from Mumbai along with girlfriend Alia Bhatt, to be with his father. Ranbir and Alia were spotted at the Mumbai airport on Saturday evening. None of them was seen at Ranbirs cousin Armaan Jains mehendi function in Mumbai on Saturday. Armaan is engaged to Anissa Malhotra and the two are set to tie the knot soon. He is the son of Rishis sister Rima Jain and Manoj Jain. Tara Sutaria, Karisma Kapoor and Shweta Bachchan Nanda at Armaan Jains mehendi function. (Varinder Chawla) Meanwhile, Rishi took to Twitter to share his thoughts after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the union budget on Saturday. He wrote on Twitter, Just had a thought. Respected Union finance Madame Nirmala Sitharaman whist preparing the Indian annual budget must talk a trillion rupees there a trillion rupees here. Billion would be small denominator. (Continued). Just had a thought. Respected Union finance Madame Nirmala Sitharaman whist preparing the Indian annual budget must talk a trillion rupees there a trillion rupees here. Billion would be small denominator. (Continued) Rishi Kapoor (@chintskap) February 2, 2020 How does she as housewife deal with local vendors or dudhwala at the door. Does she haggle. Aat Anna kam karo sava rupaya aur kam kar. Strange na?This is life! Rishi Kapoor (@chintskap) February 2, 2020 He wrote in another tweet, How does she as housewife deal with local vendors or dudhwala at the door. Does she haggle. Aat Anna kam karo sava rupaya aur kam kar. Strange na?This is life! Rishis brother Radhir Kapoor, niece Karisma Kapoor, her mother Babita and Shweta Bachchan Nanda were seen arriving for the function in Mumbai. Armaans brother Aadar Jains rumoured girlfriend and actor Tara Sutaria was also among the guests. Also read: Brahmastra gets release date as Ranbir Kapoor rants My parents ask me if I am still doing the film or running after football or Alia Also read: Armaan Jain-Anissa Malhotra mehendi: Karisma Kapoor, Shweta Bachchan attend. See pics Kareena Kapoor had also skipped the function as she flew to Hyderabad to walk the ramp for friend and fashion designer Manish Malhotra in Hyderabad. She strutted on the ramp in a white lehenga alongside Kartik Aaryan. Rishi returned to India in September 2019 after undergoing treatment for cancer in the US for almost a year. The actor recently announced his next project, a remake of Hollywood film The Intern, also featuring Deepika Padukone. He was recently seen in the role of a cop in Emraan Hashmis suspense thriller, The Body. The film also starred Sobhita Dhulipala and Vedhika. Follow @htshowbiz for more GOP rivals in Kansas district argue over wooing women voters OLATHE, Kan. (AP) - Three Republicans running in a suburban Kansas congressional district argued Friday over what qualities would bring women voters back to the GOP after Democrats flipped the Kansas City-area seat in 2018. Reality check for the right wing . . . Historic losses in 2018 were due to white middle-class ladies leaving the party en masse as a reaction to Prez Trump policy . . . Here's the effort to win back those votes. Read more: South Korean dark comedy Parasite, co-written by Han Jin-Won, has won another major award ahead of the Oscars (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello) South Korean dark comedy Parasite continues to build momentum ahead of the Oscars after winning another major award. The annual Writers Guild Awards honoured the years best scripts in concurrent ceremonies in Beverly Hills and New York on Saturday. Parasite director Bong Joon-Ho and his co-writer Han Jin-Won picked up the best original screenplay prize, winning in a category also featuring Sir Sam Mendess war epic 1917, with the pair widely considered rivals for the best picture Oscar. Expand Close Bong Joon-ho has been recognised at the Writers Guild Awards for his film Parasite (Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Bong Joon-ho has been recognised at the Writers Guild Awards for his film Parasite (Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP) Parasite has already picked up gongs at the Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild Awards, and it took the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Despite being a foreign language film, long seen as an insurmountable hurdle to winning the top prize at the Academy Awards, Parasite is a major contender ahead of the February 9 ceremony. It is also nominated for four Baftas, including best film. Elsewhere at the WGAs, the other major film award, best adapted screenplay, was won by New Zealander Taika Waititi for his comedy drama Jojo Rabbit. In the TV categories, dark comedy Barry was named best comedy series while Chernobyl won best original long form. Video of the Day Succession, HBOs acclaimed drama, took home the prizes for outstanding drama series and episodic drama. Netflix comedy Dead To Me was named best episodic comedy while HBO and Skys Chernobyl won best original long form. The winner of adapted long form went to the writers of Fosse/Verdon and Alex Gibneys The Inventor: Out for Blood In Silicon Valley was named the years best documentary screenplay. It's an honor to have Geena Davis with us tonight at the 2020 #WritersGuildAwards ceremony here in L.A.! https://t.co/6y842KyaeK Writers Guild of America West // #PROAct (@WGAWest) February 2, 2020 Many of the winners could not be at the ceremony at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, opting to either attend the east coast event or to be in London for Sundays Baftas. As is customary for the non-televised awards shows, the WGAs had a largely irreverent tone and featured jokes about the college admissions scandal, Nazis and the Writers Guilds ongoing war with Hollywood talent agencies. A handful of honorary awards were handed out. Nancy Meyers, director of films including The Parent Trap, What Women Want and Somethings Gotta Give, received the Laurel Award for screenwriting achievement. Prolific TV producer Brad Falchuk, who is married to Gwyneth Paltrow, received the Valentine Davies award and paid tribute to his wife in his acceptance speech. When Britain voted to leave the EU in June 2016, it felt to many observers that the bloc's economic and political foundations were crumbling before their eyes. Europe's second-largest economy and the EU's dominant financial centre decided to quit just as the 2015 immigration crisis provided fresh impetus to populist politicians the length and breadth of the continent. When Trump won the White House the following November, the first question the new US president asked Donald Tusk, the European Council president, when he called to congratulate him on his victory was: "How is Brexit going - and who is next in line to leave?" It wasn't just newly elected populist presidents who thought they could foresee the end of Europe as a coherent political entity; renowned Bulgarian political scientist, Ivan Krastev, wrote a bestseller on the subject gloomily entitled After Europe. But four years later, the EU has built a powerful counter-narrative to that story of imminent decline, arguing that Brexit has proved that their political construct is a great deal more durable than the "doomsters", to borrow a phrase, had predicted. As it turned out, Emmanuel Macron, not Marine Le Pen was elected to the French presidency in 2017 and as the UK found itself dithering and divided over what Brexit really meant, it was the other 27 EU states that successfully circled the wagons in the first phase of negotiations. At same time, dirty deals with Turkey and Libya halted the flow of migrants into Europe, and after some grudging internal fudges in Brussels the lid was put back on the migrant crisis. Europe's east-west culture war, which had threatened to boil over, returned to a simmer. At the same time, despite a manufacturing recession in Germany and continued anaemic growth, the eurozone plodded on, its own internal contradictions unresolved and its banking union incomplete but nowhere near the existential crisis Eurosceptics have long predicted. But as Europe contemplates a new future without the UK in its ranks, the more thoughtful among its thinkers know that the real story is a great deal more complicated than this simplistic "renaissance" narrative would suggest. That Brexit will have an abiding impact on the future shape of Europe is something that even the most ardent supporters of a supranational Europe accept - even if, at times, the EU's institutions, its Parliament and Commission, are in denial. Andrew Duff, the president of the Spinelli Group, which lobbies for a more federal Europe, says that Brexit represents the biggest shift in European power politics since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. "The EU has not yet, in my view, understood the full consequences of becoming smaller, poorer and therefore weaker," he says, accusing Donald Tusk of indulging in "wishful thinking about overturning Brexit" while failing to reflect on the changes the UK's departure portended. The most fundamental shift, says Christian Odendahl of the Centre for Europe Reform in Berlin, is the change in the big-power dynamic of Europe which over the past 40 years has seen Germany, France and the UK all working off each other. It is arguably this ever-moving political trinity at the heart of Europe that has kept Europe from turning in on itself, driving the evolution of the EU's single market and the expansion of the bloc to include eastern EU states in the early 2000s. That trinity will now be replaced by a Franco-German duopoly that unsettles other EU member states. As EU diplomats in Brussels now joke: "What are we going to do, now that the British have disappeared and left us alone with the French?" "Germany's role is shifting as a result of Brexit," says Mr Odendahl, noting that after Brexit "an important counterweight to France, and a close ally of the central and eastern EU countries, is now missing." The result of this loss can already be seen in Germany's deliberately tepid response to Macron's grand plans for Europe, Odendahl argues, with European defence plans and eurozone reforms all slowly strangled by a sceptical Berlin. "Germany needs to play the moderator more than in the past, and will not be able to formulate bold visions for Europe any time soon," he adds, as instinctive German resistance to a multi-speed, multi-tier Europe deepens "to keep everyone on board". And so Europe's grand plans for democratic renewal, led by Macron's ideas for an EU security council, defence co-operation and a green New Deal, will all ultimately be constrained by the new political limits at the heart of the EU. Ursula von der Leyen, the EU Commission president, has set in train a two-year conference to look at new ideas, the European Parliament wants "agoras" (Greek for "marketplace") of 200-300 citizens to drive the process, and yet already the Commission is soft-pedalling any talk of EU "treaty change" that would be needed for fundamental reforms. In practice, says Guntram Wolff, director of the Bruegel think tank, post-Brexit EU will probably mean a greater drift towards centralising forces in the EU and, at the margin, a more protectionist economic outlook. As a result, he argues, non-euro countries will come under greater pressure to join the euro, since the UK's departure means the club of non-eurozone states will now represent just 15pc of EU GDP. Sweden and Denmark are already scoping the costs of joining. "The EU institutions will drive convergence, which is a mistake in my view. Already the Eurogroup was where difficult decisions were made, and those outside will doubly feel in a 'second ring' - like it or not," said Wolff. With the bloc's hawkish competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, at the helm, the EU will not become protectionist overnight, Wolff says, but over a decade-long horizon, the risk is that the protectionist instincts of the German and French economies will start to assert themselves. "We will feel that the UK is no longer in these debates about industrial and competition policy. There will be pressure to become more 'protectionist' and the UK's absence will make a difference at the margin," he said. Much will depend on whether the EU can move past its current obsession with "winning" a narrow negotiation and grasp the bigger political picture, adds Andrew Duff of the Spinelli Group, who says that the importance of "getting Brexit right is huge" for the EU. "Two things need to happen: the EU side has got to change gear and learn to treat the UK as an important third country," he adds, "And the UK needs to move from ideology to pragmatism over the course of the next months. The June summit will be critical." But if the raw politics of divorce can somehow be put to one side - and the early omens are not encouraging - then strategic experts, like Malcolm Chalmers at the Royal United Services Institute, the defence and security think tank, are confident that the UK will continue to contribute to the EU's shared foreign policy goals. The recent decision by the UK to accept Chinese 5G technology from Huawei - in the face of repeated objections from Washington - alongside Britain's decision to stand with Europe on major global issues such as climate change, China trade policy and rebooting the Iran nuclear deal, all point to a future basis for consensus. The 'E3' group of countries (France, Britain and Germany) which most recently has helped coordinate a response to the Iran situation, could provide a way to keep the UK and France and Germany in the same room as each other on major issues. "Ironically, the Trump administration - being so far outside consensus on all these issues - has pushed us together," says Chalmers. Whether these shared strategic interests are sufficiently strong to overcome the fallout from the inevitable trade spats and the UK being shut out of key parts of the EU's defence industrial policy (such as its sixth generation fighter plane programme or Galileo satellite system) remains to be seen. Already UK sources believe Westminster would not now join Galileo - the EU's alternative to the US GPS system - even if it were offered the chance. This despite the UK helping to develop large amounts of the project's high-end technology in pre-Brexit days. In short, while the EU's centre looks certain to hold - driven in part by what Andrius Tursa, an analyst at the Teneo think tank, identifies as the rebalancing forces of higher wages in the east helping to reverse the talent drain of the past decade - Europe will not be immune from the uncertainties Brexit brings. It seems there are two visions for that future: one darker version that sees the EU turn inwards to protect itself; the other, assuming that Brexit Britain prospers as a nimble neighbour with shared strategic goals, is to embrace a more open global identity. For Krastev, the Bulgarian political scientist behind After Europe, the fact that the EU did not implode after 2016 spells only limited relief. The bloc remains in a defensive crouch, beset by populist demagogues, fragmenting electorates, ageing demographics and an ever-shrinking share of the world economy. As he wrote this year in an epilogue to After Europe: "You could say that Europe has transformed itself from a missionary, who wants to shape the world in its own image, into a monastery focused on protecting the very exceptional nature of its political project." But there is a more optimistic vision, espoused by the likes of Jean Pisani-Ferry, the French political economist, who served as director of the Macron presidential campaign in 2017, and believes that a successful Brexit Britain would ultimately be to the benefit of the EU. "The bet is far from won, both on the British side and that of the Union. The most probable remains that Brexit is only a station on the Way of the Cross of European decline," he wrote recently. "But let's not stop dreaming: since we are condemned to cohabit from now on, it might as well be productively. "Having an intelligent partner and competitor is the best thing that can happen to us." Telegraph Best Markets only New Jersey store is closing, according to a statement. The New York-based grocery chain is located at 2130 Route 35 in Holmdel. An exact closing date has not yet been determined, but the statement said its expected to be sometime in February. Lidl, which acquired Best Market in 2018, will not take over the vacant space, according to an Asbury Park Press report. A Lidl spokesman told the Press the location doesnt fit well with the companys real estate strategy. Once Best Market closes, employees will be offered a job at one of the following Lidl locations: Hazlet, Howell, Eatontown, Bergenfield, Union and Staten Island, New York. We appreciate the contributions team members in Holmdel have made and want them to be part of our growing network of Lidl U.S. stores, Lidl U.S. Regional Vice President Ysbrand Aukes said in a statement. Lidl is a German grocery chain that sells fresh produce, meat, bakery items and household products at discount prices. The company has continued to expand throughout New Jersey the past few years. Most recently, Lidl submitted an application to Cinnaminsons planning board office. Best Market has 22 locations in New York, according to its website. It was founded in 1994 by Ben Raitses. Nicolette Accardi can be reached at naccardi@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter: @N_Accardi. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips MORE RETAIL AND SHOPPING COVERAGE: Express to shutter about 100 stores over the next 2 years Spring break 2020 travel deals: Flights, hotels, cruises, trains, vacations Amazon joins the wireless earbud craze with Echo Buds The best bang for your buck! This option enables you to purchase online 24/7 access and receive the Sunday, Tuesday & Thursday print edition at no additional cost * Print edition only available in our carrier delivery area. Allow up to 72 hours for delivery of your print edition to begin. Print edition not available for Day Pass option. Zoe and I certainly walked the walk over the years. Jack Russell terriers are notoriously energetic, so even as age slowed her down we would head out every morning on a winding route through nearby woods. There were times that I was preoccupied with worries about family, work or politics or worse, Id start texting. But Zoes focus was always in the moment: I could see her nose twitching at the scent of a deer, or her ears standing erect at the sight of a squirrel. Sometimes shed stop simply to smell the wet grasses. While fans watch Saturday Night Live for its comedy, fans often remember SNL for unplanned incidents that sometimes got their performers in trouble. One of the strangest ejections was that of Adrien Brody. The actor was on a hot streak in the early 2000s, and with hot streaks often come SNL invites. However, Brody had an unpredictable streak, and a bizarre introduction he did got him uninvited from the show for good. What was Adrien Brody famous for? Adrien Brody | Matthias Nareyek/Getty Images Brodys acting career took off in the late 1990s, when he began making memorable appearances in movies by A-list directors, such as Summer of Sam by Spike Lee and The Thin Red Line by Terrence Malick. Other high profile projects in the early 21st century included Peter Jacksons King Kong remake, and he starred in a string of films by Wes Anderson, including The Darjeeling Unlimited, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, and The Grand Budapest Hotel. The most high-profile role came via The Pianist, in which Brody played the titular character who struggles to survive the Holocaust. The widely acclaimed film, inspired by director Roman Polanskis own experiences, won Brody the Best Actor Oscar, and he set a record doing so. At the age of 29, Brody became the youngest winner in that category. But Brody did more than set a record. When he won, he was so enthused, he passionately kissed presenter Halle Berry when he reached the podium. When Brody presented the Best Actress Oscar the following year, he spritzed mouthwash as a joke, but he did not repeat the kiss with Nicole Kidman, who won for The Hours. What happened to Adrien Brody on SNL? Brody hosted Saturday Night Live in 2003 after he won his Oscar. The host always introduces the musical guest, who that night was Sean Pau,l a reggae performer. Brody or someone thought it would be a good idea for Brody to introduce Paul wearing fake dreadlocks and speaking in a stereotypical Jamaican accent. Brody ad-libbed, Ya, ya, ya, ya, you know, man. We got original rude boy Sean Paul here. Respect all respect. My auntie. Respect all aspect, respect me neck, respect me knees, Big up Jamaica massive! Big up Kingston Massive! We got the whole family now, ya here! Big respect to my man Sean Paul the dance floor killer! Lorne Michaels, the creator and longtime producer of the show, wasnt laughing, and Brody hasnt appeared on SNL since. Writer Nathan Rabin opined: Brody showed us who he was in those infamous twenty or thirty seconds introducing a forgettable performance with a bit of calamitous improvisation that will, unfortunately for Brody, never be forgotten. Bans from SNL are not uncommon Brody is hardly alone in getting banned or fired from the show. One of the earliest examples came when Dallas actress Charlene Tilton hosted and performed in a spoof of her shows famous Who Shot Jr mystery. Cast member Charles Rocket played the man who got shot, and he dropped an f-bomb during the sketch. He was immediately fired. Musical guests have their share of trouble too. Elvis Costello got in trouble for stopping in the middle of his musical number and switching to the song Radio Radio, which he had been told not to play. Probably the most infamous incident with a musical guest came when Sinead OConnor tore up a picture of the Pope, declaring Fight the real enemy. Even legendary former cast member Chevy Chase, SNLs first breakout star, got banned when he hosted and slapped cast member Cheri Oteri on the back of the head. Chase had developed a reputation for being brash and aggressive, and that incident was a prime example of it. All of this just goes to show that while the unpredictability of live TV can be exciting, your credibility on the show will die if you go too far off-script. More fined in Vietnam for spreading coronavirus rumors Six people in northern Vietnam have been fined VND12.5 million ($541) each for spreading false information about the new coronavirus. In Thai Nguyen Province, Nguyen Thi Hong Minh, 30, had posted on January 31 on a group chat in Zalo, a Vietnamese social network, that a local hospital had admitted three patients infected with the coronavirus, according to the local police. "Parents should keep their children at home and away from crowded places, and take them to the nearest health facility should they show symptoms such as fever and running nose." Ngo Thi Trang, 30, saw the post and published it on her Facebook page, and urged people to share. The police fined them VND12.5 million for spreading rumors. In Bac Ninh Province, Nguyen Cong Hoang, 38, said on his Facebook page on January 30 that a local Chinese resident had returned to Vietnam from China with coronavirus infection. "In the worst case scenario, Bac Ninh could become the nations epicenter of the disease." The post attracted almost 600 likes and shares. Vu Quynh Mai, 25, who sells goods online, copied the message on her Facebook page. They were each fined VND12.5 million for spreading false information. Nguyen Cong Hoang (L) and Vu Quynh Mai were fined for spreading fake news on the 2019-nCoV outbreak. Photo courtesy of Bac Ninh police. In Vinh Phuc Province, two people were fined on January 31 for spreading similar rumors. Earlier, three people in Hue, Vung Tau and Hai Phong were also fined between VND10 million and VND12.5 million for spreading rumors about infected cases. Vietnamese authorities are cracking down on people spreading fake information about nCoV, which has been exercising the public. The HCMC Department of Information and Communication has demanded explanations from three celebrities for spreading inaccurate information about the outbreak, including Ngo Thanh Van, producer and lead actress of action flick "Hai Phuong" (Furie). Vietnam has so far recorded seven confirmed cases of infection. As of Sunday China said 304 people had died out of over 14,511 confirmed cases of the disease. The prospect of cutting fumes from cruise ships berthed at White Bay in Balmain has moved a step closer after the state's port authority opted to re-examine powering vessels from the shore in the wake of "global advancements". More than three years after a feasibility study deemed ship-to-shore power too expensive, the NSW Port Authority has commissioned Starcrest Consulting to consider whether the report should be "updated or revisited in light of more recent industry developments". Cruise ships berthed at White Bay cruise terminal have caused great concern for local residents. Credit:Wolter Peeters The study into shore-to-ship power in 2017 led to the NSW government ruling it out, largely because of the $36 million cost of installing the technology over a two-year period. Cruise ships have to keep their engines running while berthed at the White Bay Cruise Terminal because, like other ports in Australia, it lacks an on-shore power source. The White Bay terminal is located close to homes in Balmain, stoking fears among residents about fumes from ships. LAGOS (Reuters) - Eritrea denounced a U.S. ban on immigrant visas for its citizens as "unacceptable" on Saturday, while Nigeria's government said it had created a committee to address the issues that prompted U.S. President Donald Trump to add the country to the ban. Nigeria and Eritrea were among six countries, four of them in Africa, added to an expanded version of the U.S. visa ban announced on Friday in a presidential proclamation. U.S. officials said the countries failed to meet U.S. security and information-sharing standards, which necessitated the new restrictions. "Nigeria remains committed to maintaining productive relations with the United States and other international allies especially on matters of global security," a Nigerian presidential statement said. Nigeria, the most populous nation in Africa, is the biggest country on the list whose citizens will be suspended from U.S. visas that can lead to permanent residency. Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan and Myanmar were also slapped with a similar ban. Nigeria's information minister told Reuters they had no warning of their inclusion on the list before it appeared in the media. [L8N29W549] Eritrean Foreign Minister Osman Saleh Mohammed said the government saw the ban as a political move that would hurt the country's relations with the United States. "We find this move unacceptable," he told Reuters by telephone. "We will, however, not expel the U.S. ambassador," he added. The U.S. government also said it will stop issuing "diversity visas" to nationals of Sudan and Tanzania. The visas, which Trump has criticized, are available by lottery for applicants from countries with low rates of immigration. (Reporting by Libby George in Lagos and Felix Onuah in Abuja Additional report by Giulia Paravicini in Addis Ababa; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Helen Popper) China on Sunday resorted to more drastic measures like isolating coronavirus patients to designated areas and restricting the movement of residents in regions hit by the rapid spreading virus that has killed 305 people and infected over 14,000 others. The Philippines on Sunday reported the first death outside China from the deadly virus that has spread to 25 countries, including India, taking the total toll to 305. The victim, a 44-year-old Chinese man, was the companion of a 38-year-old Chinese woman who arrived in the Philippines on January 21 from Wuhan, the epicentre of the virus outbreak. So far over 140 coronavirus cases have been reported from abroad, including India where a second case of virus was reported from Kerala on Sunday. India airlifted 647 Indians and seven Maldivians on Saturday and Sunday from Wuhan. The evacuated Indians would be monitored for any signs of infection for two weeks by a qualified team of doctors and staff members. India also temporarily suspended e-visa facility for Chinese travellers and foreigners residing in China in view of the rapid spread of the virus. Two Indians who were not allowed to get into the special flight in Wuhan on Friday after they reported high fever told PTI that their temperatures have now come down to normal level and wished to travel back home. A total of 10 Indians were not allowed to board the AI flight by Chinese immigration officials after they were found to have high fever. Indian Ambassador to China Vikram Misri told PTI that about 100 Indians are still believed to be residing in Hubei province. By the end of Saturday, a total of 304 people had died of the disease in the country, China's National Health Commission said. The state-run CGTN reported that there were 14,411 confirmed cases of virus. However, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post said that the virus has infected 14,562 people. The commission said 19,544 people were suspected of being infected with the virus of which the condition of the 2,110 patients remained severe. Chinese health experts have been saying that the casualties will increase sharply for the next two weeks before they start declining. This is so because millions of travellers especially those from Wuhan and Hubei province who travelled to China and abroad during the New Year holidays are returning home. A top Chinese official said that about five million residents of Wuhan have travelled out of the virus-hit city before it was locked down on January 23. China is bringing back by charter flights hundreds of its citizens who had travelled abroad during holidays. They are directly being flown to Wuhan. The commission also highlighted that number of virus affected patients are recovering, saying that 328 people have been discharged. Since the virus is transmitted human-to-human, over 1.63 lakh close contacts had been traced of which 1.37 lakh are still under medical observation, state-run Xinhua agency reported. China has intensified measures to contain the virus by isolating the patients. Wuhan health authorities announced that people suspected of infection will be isolated in designated areas effective immediately. Wenzhou city in Zhejiang Province regulated that only one family member is allowed to step out of the house every other day for grocery shopping from Saturday to February 8, amid efforts to contain the epidemic, state-run Global Times reported. The National Health Commission also directed that bodies of coronavirus victims should be cremated close by and immediately. Burials or transfer of the bodies are not allowed, the Commission said. China also reported an outbreak of the deadly H5N1 bird flu in Hunan province, which lies on the southern border of Hubei province. "The outbreak occurred in a farm in the Shuangqing district of Shaoyang city. The farm has 7,850 chickens, and 4,500 of the chickens have died from the contagion. Local authorities have culled 17,828 poultry after the outbreak," a statement by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said on Saturday. No human cases of the Hunan H5N1 virus have been reported, the Post reported. The bird flu is highly deadly to humans who contract it, with a mortality rate of more than 50 per cent in cases over the last 15 years. China also geared up to open the makeshift 1,000 bed hospital built in Wuhan in record nine days. Another 2,300 bed hospital is getting ready in few days. President Xi Jinping has ordered 1,400 medical staff from the armed forces to treat patients in the newly-built Huoshenshan Hospital in Wuhan starting from Monday. Huoshenshan Hospital, with a capacity of 1,000 beds, is a makeshift hospital dedicated to treating patients infected with the coronavirus, Xinhua reported. The medics include 950 people from hospitals affiliated to the People's Liberation Army Joint Logistic Support Force and 450 from medical universities of the army, navy and air force of the PLA. Meanwhile, a joint expert group of 15 people has also been set up to guide the hospital's epidemic prevention and control on the spot. While India, the US, Sri Lanka and many countries evacuated their nationals from Wuhan, Pakistan has declined pleas by its stranded citizens in Wuhan to airlift them. Pakistan's Ambassador to China Naghmana Hashmi on Sunday said that Pakistani students should not be evacuated from Wuhan as medical facilities back home do not meet the standards required to treat a patient diagnosed with coronavirus. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Odisha Congress on Sunday charged BJD MP Anubhav Mohanty with submitting false affidavit on his educational qualifications during the Rajya Sabha polls in 2014 and urged Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to take stern action against the parliamentarian. Mohanty, however, denied the allegation. Senior Congress leader Nishikant Mishra alleged that Mohanty, who won the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from Kendrapara, had furnished false information about his educational qualification during 2014 Rajya Sabha polls. Mishra said, information obtained through RTI showed that the BJD lawmaker had stated in his affidavit that he became a graduate from a university in Meerut in 2014. However, the Union Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry had informed the Supreme Court in 2010 that it has de-recognised that institute, Mishra told reporters here. Besides, the RTI information obtained from the Utkal University showed that Mohanty graduated from Kandarpur College in Cuttack in 2003, the Congress leader said. The Utkal University has not provided migration certificate to Mohanty, he said adding that no university outside the state will allow admission to a student without a migration certificate. So, Mohanty had furnished false information to contest the 2014 election, and the Chief Minister who is also BJD president, should take stern action against the party MP, Mishra said. Terming the allegation as false and baseless, Mohanty said the Congress has levelled the charges in a bid to malign him. "This is a deliberate and malicious attempt to malign and defame me," the BJD MP said in a statement. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) By Jennifer Moses In the past few days, the Jewish community has reckoned with the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the astonishing announcement that Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu of Israel, with the backing of President Trump, intends to annex some one third of the Palestinian West Bank, and the author of Chutzpah arguing in the Senate chamber that what President Trump did regarding holding money for Ukraine back in return for political dirt doesnt constitute anything more than normal politics. How the world has changed. When my 90-year-old father became a partner at a white shoe law firm in Washington D.C., he did so, against the norm, as an avowed and observant Jew. In those days -- around the same time that Alan Dershowitz was clerking on the Supreme Court ambitious Jews in WASP-dominated firms, professions, or businesses usually kept their Jewish selves under wraps. Even so, my siblings and I grew up in a world where the active evils of antisemitism were far behind us. Death camps, pogroms, expulsions, expropriations, exile, starvation, auto-de-fe all of it was consigned at last to history books. Most recently, Nazism had been defeated, and in America, many Jewish families had long since left urban Jewish neighborhoods, and now lived in the suburbs. By the time my own kids were born, American Jews didnt think twice about inviting our Christian friends to our childrens bar mitzvah ceremonies or including them at our Shabbat dinner tables. And it wasnt just Woody Allen bringing Yiddishkeit humor to the masses: it was well, you name it -- topped by Adam Sandlers series of Hanukkah Songs in which, with every update, he kvells over a whole new long list of Jewish celebrities, scientists, inventors and comedians. My grandparents, had they been alive to see it, would have thought they were hallucinating: a celebrity Jew publicly (if comically) crowing to the mass public about being Jewish? But we Jews have long memories. We have to. Without our memories, our rootedness in where we came from, we wouldnt be Jews at all. Wed be whoever our nearest neighbors are. Jews from Subcarpathian Rus undergo a selection on the ramp at Auschwitz-Birkenau in May 1944. Of the 1.3 million people sent to Auschwitz, 1.1 million died. Thus it is with those memories that American Jews are now waiting and watching, alert and anxious. We have too long a memory not to know that when hatred gets stirred up, as is the case now, eventually that hatred is going to land, wholesale, on our doorsteps. If hatred is currently being aimed at immigrants, Muslims, Democrats and other assorted traitors, rapists, and losers, the question, for Jews, is: whos next? Most Jews understand that when the malignancy of hatred spreads, it wont matter what kind of Jew you are: assimilated, unaffiliated, Orthodox, Hasidic, city-or-country dwelling, Wall Street tycoon, organic farmer, or even converted-to-another-religion. Thats because anti-Semitism, like all the most enduring hatreds, is a hydra-headed beast, a fire that consumes all that it touches. It doesnt matter what gestures the president makes toward Israel: the beast has been awoken. Its no longer news that since Trump ascended to the White House, antisemitic incidents, including murder, have reached historically high records. Nor is it news that such incidents, once the perverse province of the fringe far-right, have now become a terrible normal so normal that its become yet another new normal. Antisemitism is on the rise in Europe, as well, but there its primarily fueled by Arab antisemitism, rather than by the old-school European brand. Here, its top down, the completely predictable result of a president whose natural inclination is to point fingers, assign blame and ignite hatred. If you spew vindictive and vendetta from the bully pulpit, how surprising is it when violence erupts? About as surprising as traffic during rush hour. Im not saying that Trump caused, or is even a primary cause, of the recent spike in antisemitic crimes, and it would be absurd to claim (given his inner circle) that he has any personal animus against Jews. But his rhetoric is hardly geared toward encouraging inclusiveness, civility, or so much as common decency. At synagogues across the country, including my own in suburban New Jersey, security has become a pressing issue, sometimes the most pressing issue. Not Hebrew education. Not social action. Not Torah study. Not payroll or fundraising or membership. Security. Because as peaceful as your town and community is, as welcoming and friendly, you just never know who might have both a vendetta and a gun. One of my closest friends grew up in a home that was regularly terrorized by her alcoholic father. She and others who grow up in dysfunction describe the awful feeling of walking on eggshells, tiptoeing around the emotional terrorist in the living room, waiting for the other shoe to drop. For American Jews marking 75 years since the liberation of Auschwitz, the question is: will it? Jennifer Moses is the author of seven books of fiction and non-fiction, with numbers six and seven to be published in 2020. She lives in Montclair. The Star-Ledger/NJ.com encourages submissions of opinion. Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow us on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and on Facebook at NJ.com Opinion. Get the latest news updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. (Editors note: This is the second and final part of our series Behavioral health answers: Where to find them. Part 1, RRPS, others address teens social media use, ran in the Jan. 26 Observer and is at rrobserver.com.) One in five teens and young adults lives with a mental health condition. Those conditions are seemingly easier to hide than other problems youth face: pimples, not making the varsity team, truancy, broken relationships and bad grades, to name a few. Mental Health America, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting mental health and addressing the needs of people living with mental illness, reports that 64.1 percent of youth with major depression do not receive any behavioral treatment, and 5.13 percent of youth report having a substance abuse or alcohol problem. The National Alliance for Mental Illness (NAMI) notes that one in five teens and adults lives with a mental-health condition. Where can parents and friends, and even those students affected, turn? Back in the day Several decades ago, when the only telephone a kid might have access to was in the family living room or kitchen and connected by a long cord, there wasnt any cyber-bullying only in person. Marilyn Salzman, president of NAMI-Westside, recalled, If anyone on my block in The Bronx was bullied, we just beat the crap out of them. We played in the streets. We rode our bikes up and down the hills of The Bronx. We had after-school programs in elementary and mid-school. We could play with a 10-cent pink Spaulding ball for hours and create a dozen games that cost nothing. We rode public transportation, she remembered. The problems for youth are the same as it is for adults: too much time texting and being exposed to things that were unmentionable in our day i.e., pornography, pedophiles, lack of parental supervision, etc. Im not sure if knowing/learning about these things is healthy or not, Salzman said. You dont have to go that far back to see youngsters behavior has changed. Barbara Bruce, a longtime educator and administrator with RRPS, said the parental buy-in with their childrens teachers has seemingly disappeared. One of the biggest changes: Parents understood they were turning their students over to you. Kids understood there was nothing worse than to have their teacher call home, she said. Now, when you want to correct them, parents get angry. The minority of students take up the majority of your time. This problem isnt unique to the City of Vision. Theres a disintegration of respect throughout our society, Bruce said. Retired from RRPS, Bruce is the director for Ending the Silence, a NAMI program; she also serves as secretary on the local NAMI board of directors. Ending the Silence is a free program designed to give audience members an opportunity to learn about mental illness through PowerPoint and video presentations. There are three types for students, for school staffers and for families and each outlines symptoms of mental health conditions. True mental illness is physical illness, Bruce said. The most-important organ is the brain if a friend or relative has kidney stones or a heart problem, it gets treated right away. The brain (often) doesnt get treated; they will hide it for 10 years. Thats because, People (in the past) didnt understand about mental health and mental illness; it was a stigma, she added. In the 21st century, It seems we have so much, but were isolated more than ever before, she said, wishing people would talk more rather than emailing and texting. Our brain needs a lot more input for communication. Another problem in society and schools, she noted, is self-medicating, or substance abuse. RRPS training & resources Rio Rancho Public Schools has been working hard to identify children needing help and then make referrals not to a particular practitioner depending on the type of assistance that could be useful. RRPS has also been adding counselors and half-counselors. A half-counselor is at a school for a half-day; some full-time counselors split their days between two campuses. In mid-December, a clinical psychologist from Presbyterian Medical Group presented training for school nurses on suicide prevention, warning signs and interventions, and community resources for students and parents. RRPS also added an online Bully Report form at rrps.net in March 2018. It asks for details and, if possible, name of reporting student for additional contact but can be done anonymously. Between its inception and mid-January of this year, Student Services Executive Director Tonna Burgos noted, there were 231 reports. That number, she said, included some invalid reports, which do happen with some people filling out fake information. Burgos noted, Since March 2018, RRHS has had the most reports, which is not surprising with over 2,600 students who attend RRHS. Some of the reports are not actually bullying, but one-time incidents. They are still addressed right away, as well. In a recent report to the school board, Burgos listed staff resources as: 42 counselors, 29 social workers, Three behavior specialists, 8.84 psychologists, The addition of a counselor at Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary, An additional counselor who will spend half of his/her time at Rio Rancho Elementary and half at Stapleton Elementary, and A new half-counselor each to Lincoln and Mountain View middle schools, bringing each to two full-time counselors; One counselor at the Rio Rancho Cyber Academy; Title IV funding to make available a one-time free visit for a student mental health referral for harm to self or others. Also, Burgos told the board about 10 programs: SOS (Signs of Suicide) at the high schools; QPR, a suicide-prevention curriculum taught in eighth-grade health classes for the last three years; PBIS (Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports); A Love and Logic Curriculum; Second Step Curriculum; Kelsos Choice; McKinney-Vento Homeless Program; The sixth-grade Jumpstart Day; Weekly kindness clubs at the elementary schools; GSA Club support for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth and their allies; and AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) at Eagle Ridge Middle School and Rio Rancho Elementary. Although these programs arent necessarily at every campus, they are widespread among the districts buildings. Maybe Collin Kartchner knows. Paying a visit to Rio Rancho High Schools Performing Arts Center at 7 p.m. Feb. 11 is this 38-year-old guy, Collin Kartchner, a cinematographer who started a parody Instagram account that featured him making fun of ultra-perfect Instagram influencers. That move paid off to the tune of 70,000 followers on Instagram and he uses that account to raise money for charity. After learning a friends daughters had committed suicide after suffering from depression resulting from social-media bullying, he rented several billboards in Utah proclaiming, You Are Loved. In Memory of Whitney. He has four children with Lizzie Kartchner, a blogger with a line of craft/DIY products. His presentation covers ways to battle thoughts of suicide, depression, anxiety and addiction. Hes free to see. The New Patriotic Party (NPP) says contrary to media report, it is unaware of any impending Presidential debate ahead of the 2020 Presidential Election. Last week, there was media report claiming that the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) was scheduled to organize three Presidential debates ahead of December 2020 polls. The NCCE was reported to have made the disclosure through the Commission's Director of Public Affairs, Joyce Afutu, during media interaction. But the NPP in a statement signed by its General Secretary, John Boadu, said the party, having taken notice of this publication, wishes to respond by, first of all, stating emphatically and for the records that the NPP is completely unaware of the claims by the NCCE, and therefore cannot be said to be a party to any such arrangements. It said the NCCE has, at no point, engaged the NPP and its leadership in any conversation regarding the Commission's intention to organize any debates involving the party's presidential candidate in the buildup to election 2020. The NPP has also not made any solicitation to the NCCE to this effect, it said. President Nana Akufo-Addo and ex-President John Mahama are the lead contenders for the 2020 polls. The two participated in the Presidential debate organized by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) ahead of the elections in 2012. However, the debate could not be held in 2016 as the then ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) boycotted it. Meanwhile, the NPP in its statement said it was surprising and mindboggling that the NCCE, not having had any prior engagements with the party on the matter, would go ahead to announce to the world that it had scheduled to hold three presidential debates in the months of September, October, and December among all the presidential candidates. Beyond the fact that the NCCE's action is in clear breach of courtesy and standard practice, the Commission also has absolutely no inkling of the NPP's calendar of activities for the party's 2020 electioneering campaign, it said. In the light of the foregoing, the NPP categorically dissociates itself from the purported 'presidential debates schedules' unilaterally announced by the NCCE, and appeals to the Commission not to include the NPP in these arrangements unless and until the party so permits, according to the statement. citinewsroom " " A duo of surgeons hope to transplant a living human head to a donor body within the next few years. Jolie Clifford/Getty Images Sometime in the next two years, if a plan conceived by Dr. Sergio Canavero comes to fruition, the following medical first will happen: In a surgical facility in Harbin, China, a living patient with a irreversibly dying body, and the body of a recently deceased donor one whose fatal injuries were above the neck will be wheeled into a specially-equipped operating room, where teams of surgeons will go to work. Doctors will cool the body of the living patient, putting him in a state of medically-induced hypothermia, and also cool the headless donor body to keep its cells and organs alive. Then they'll sever the living patient's head. The still-living head will be quickly strapped into a specially customized crane, which will whisk it across the room to the table where the donor body is waiting. Surgeons will then align the severed stump of the donor head's spinal cord with the donor body's spinal stump, and bind the two together with polyethylene glycol, which will serve as a glue. Then they'll start a long, difficult process of attaching and matching up neck muscles, spinal bones, and organs such as the esophagus and trachea. Finally, they'll try to connect the nerves that transmit signals from the brain to the heart and lungs, so that the head-and-body combination can breathe and regulate its own heartbeat. Advertisement This head transplant might sound like the plot premise of a particularly outlandish science fiction thriller. But in an email to HowStuffWorks, Canavero, who published a 2013 medical journal article describing the procedure, says he is confident that the operation has a high chance of success. "I am convinced that someday in the near future the first human head transplantation will be possible because surgical research will be able to solve the last medical problems to make it happen," he wrote. "I think that in 2017 or 2018 [at] the latest, we should be able to perform the surgery." Canavero is working with a Chinese colleague, Dr. Xiaoping Ren, who assisted in the first-ever human hand transplant in 1999. In a 2014 article in the journal CNS Neuroscience and Theraputics, Ren described experimental head-to-body transplants that he has performed with mice. According to New Scientist, Ren also recently carried out a partial head transplant on a monkey, connecting the blood supply but not the spinal cord. The animal survived for 20 hours before being euthanized. The idea of head transplants is far from new. Back in 1959, a Russian surgeon, Dr. Vladimir Demikhov, performed an experiment in which he grafted a puppy's head, shoulders and paws onto the shoulder of a larger dog. In 1970, American surgeon Dr. Robert White attached a monkey's head to another monkey's body, and co-wrote this 1971 medical journal article about the experiment. But no one has ever tried performing such an operation on a human being. Nevertheless, according to multiple media accounts, a 31-year-old Russian software entrepreneur who suffers from a genetic disorder that has destroys muscles and nerve cells, reportedly has volunteered to be the subject. The publicity about the plan has aroused a storm of criticism. Some experts think it has little, if any, chance of success. "We do not yet have the means/technology for the surgically attached brain and upper spinal cord (the head) to reconnect neurologically with the new body and lower spinal cord," Dr. John Adler, a neurosurgeon and professor emeritus at Stanford University's School of Medicine, says via a email. "Therefore, the brain would not 'control' the body to which it was attached.". It's a tricky procedure for sure, as our Fw:Thinking colleagues explain in this audio podcast: Arthur Caplan, founding head of the Division of Bioethics at New York University Langone Medical Center, says, "I think the science is not there." Caplan, who wrote a scathing critique last year of Canavero's proposal, said that a head-to-body transplant is simply too extreme of an experimental leap. "The key element is getting a spinal cord to regrow," he explains. "If you could do that, why not demonstrate it before you move on to transplanting severed heads?" Caplan says that such a head-to-body transplant would be unlikely to meet the approval of ethics committees at U.S. medical institutions, and that the fact that someone is willing to be a subject isn't sufficient justification for the experiment. "A patient is coerced by his disease, and not qualified to judge where the science is," he says. For their part, Canavero and Ren, in a 2016 medical journal essay defending their proposal, argued that head-to-body transplants are a justifiable option to explore because medicine so far has failed to find cures for many diseases. "For the longest time medicine has failed to find solutions for spinal damage," Canavero said in his email. A head-to-body transplant, he said, "could solve a lot of those problems." He boldly predicted that if successful, the experiment might "revolutionize medicine entirely and become one of its finest hours." Now That's Interesting In a joint letter published in the journal Surgical Neurology International last year, a physician and an ethicist argued that a patient whose head was transplanted onto a donor body might experience serious psychological problems: "The person will encounter huge difficulties," they wrote, "to incorporate the new body in its already existing body schema and body image that would have strong implications on human identity." The other day, in the Azerbaijani capital, the head of the Department of Culture of Moscow Alexander Kibovsky and the head of the Main Department of Culture of Baku Jalil Melikov signed a protocol on cooperation between the cities, providing for the development of relations in the field of concert and cultural and leisure activities, museum and exhibition work, library work, as well as the exchange of experience in the field of art and music education. The questions of the "Bulletin of the Caucasus" are answered by Alexander Kibovsky. - What caused the need to sign a cooperation document? How will cultural relations between the two capitals develop now? - Before signing, a representative delegation from Baku visited Moscow. We showed the guests our network of institutions, our projects. Due to the historical context, Moscow and Baku have a lot in common in matters of managing cultural processes, because the existing network of institutions, the principles of work in the field of theater, museum work, in the field of cultural and leisure and holiday events are all quite close in their structural foundations. It is clear that each metropolis has its own specifics, but in general, we are very close. We have very close ties at the level of our organizations. This year we will take part in the celebration of the anniversary of the Russian Theater in Baku. We met with the theater management. They interact with their colleagues in Moscow. Our task as a department is to provide assistance. In the spring we will hold large-scale Days of Moscow in Baku. Our experts have already looked at the site, appreciated their capabilities. We need to establish working contacts, because today we are in a very difficult point. - And what is the difficulty? - The challenges of the 21st century are associated not only with the change of generations, they are systemic in nature. Today, younger people come, they not only have some of their preferences in matters of culture, creativity, but they are different in terms of the perception of works of art. Now new directions and trends are emerging. What until recently was not considered art in principle, today is a universally recognized phenomenon, and we cannot but reckon with this. We cannot be preserved within the framework of traditional values, which are the foundation that holds together for our history and culture. Of course, we will support and develop them. But we need managerial decisions that will make the culture relevant, interesting, in demand by the new audience. In this regard, we can be very useful to each other, because our challenges are similar. We must understand what to do today, so as not to be at the tail of the process in 10-15 years. At the same time, in terms of cultural construction, a lot is being done today in Baku and Moscow, hundreds of objects are being repaired. Every year, renovated theaters, museums, art schools, and cultural centers open after repair. But doing all this without understanding the prospects, we can lose our position, and we would not like that very much. We would like the original culture of each of our cities to develop. We have common values, and contacts should not be lost. It is necessary to make sure that the next generations can also gather, come with joy to Baku, speak the same cultural language, it does not matter if it is Russian or Azerbaijani, so that they are also connected by friendly relations, mutual respect, joy from communication. So that guests from Azerbaijan would come to us, come to us at the Bolshoi Theater, at Helikon, at Sovremennik, at the Moscow Art Theater, and this was natural. So that the cultural agenda of Moscow would be interesting for Azerbaijan, and the cultural agenda of Baku would be interesting for us. This is a very large-scale task. - Is it fixed with a new document on cooperation? - We recorded that our goals are such, but now we need practical steps, and this is a very difficult task. It will require systemic relationships and the exchange of teams of specialists, because there will be no simple answers to these complex questions. And here we have a lot to tell each other, help. There are practices in Baku that are of interest to us. During these two days of my stay here I visited the Art Museum, the Carpet Museum, which, of course, was very interesting from the point of view of a modern specialized structural museum object, I visited the musical theater. - What else interested you in Baku? - Recently, we saw how Baku hosted Eurovision. Here are great opportunities for artists to perform. Now this platform is involved, including for the tour of Russian performers. A wonderful hall in the Heydar Aliyev Center. When such cultural venues appear, this is a good opportunity for artists from all over the world to come and perform in Baku. Today Baku is friends with the whole world, it maintains a huge number of contacts - business, political and, of course, cultural. We are interested in bringing the best samples of domestic art to Azerbaijan. Given our linguistic affinity, Baku is a strategic partner for drama theater for Moscow. Opera, ballet, puppet theater always find their audience, they are not connected by linguistic identity, they are well received all over the world. But our drama, of course, presupposes a special perception, and the Baku audience is capable of directly perceiving what is happening on stage without captions. The whole Russian drama theater is built precisely on the word, in the deepest sense, even on silence. This was taught by Stanislavsky. In such a situation, it is very important to have contact with the Baku public, because for us it is dear, close, understanding and subtly sensitive. Photojournalist Staff photographer with the Arizona Daily Star since 2003. Winner of a few awards, loser of many more. Ex-goalkeeper. Passengers wear face masks to protect against the spread of the Coronavirus as they arrive on a flight from Asia, at Los Angeles International Airport, Calif., on Feb. 1, 2020. (Mark Ralston/AFP via Getty Images) US Travel Restrictions Go Into Place to Curb Coronavirus Spread The U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued new rules Feb. 2 to place restrictions on Americans who recently have visited China in an attempt to curb the spread of the coronavirus that has ravaged several cities in China. Homeland Security said it will now begin to enforce restrictions for all passenger flights to the United States carrying individuals who have recently traveled from China, which will be implemented on flights after 5 p.m. New York time on Sunday, according to a news release. The new rules will restrict American citizens who have gone to China within the past 14 days of their arrival, the agency said. Americans who have been to Hubei Province, of which virus epicenter Wuhan is the capital, will have to undergo up to 14 days of mandatory quarantine upon returning to the United States, the agency said. This will be done to determine whether those individuals have contracted the contagious virus and ensure they dont pose a health risk to others. Foreign nationals who are not immediate family members of American citizens, permanent residents, and flight crew who have gone to China within 14 days wont be able to enter the United States, said Homeland Security. The Trump administration is limiting flights from China to seven major U.S. airports for enhanced screening, including the John F. Kennedy International Airport, Chicago OHare International Airport, San Francisco International Airport, Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Honolulus Daniel K. Inouye International Airport, Los Angeles International Airport, and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. While the overall threat to the U.S. posed by the coronavirus is low, its necessary to mitigate all flights with passengers who have recently been in China to decrease the pressure on public health officials screening incoming travelers, Wolf said. Medical staff in protective suits treat a patient with pneumonia caused by the new coronavirus at the Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, in Wuhan, Hubei province, China on Jan. 28, 2020. (China Daily via Reuters) We realize this could provide added stress and prolong travel times for some individuals, however public health and security experts agree these measures are necessary to contain the virus and protect the American people, he added. Dire Situation Over the weekend, the Chinese regime locked down more cities in Hubei Province and also placed restrictions on the movement of residents in Wenzhou, a port city located in Chinas coastal Zhejiang Province. Only one member from each family in the city can be out buying goods every two days. Whats more, the major southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, located near Hong Kong, reported that three new cases of coronavirus involved people who did not travel to Wuhan in recent days. They have not left Shenzhen in the past 14 days, Kong Dongfeng, deputy director of Shenzhens Center for Disease Control and Prevention said, according to a Feb. 2 article by Chinese news portal Sina. Kong said the three did not come into contact with people with acute respiratory symptoms. Residents in Wuhan have also suggested to The Epoch Times that the coronavirus outbreak is far worse than what the Chinese regime has told the rest of the world. Now I have had a fever for three days, my mother has a fever too, and so does my sister-in-law. We have no one to take care of us we cant go out we can only sit at home and wait for death, said Hu Weili, a teacher from Hangzhou City who recently visited her parents in Wuhan. Another woman, who only gave the surname Yu, made a plea via her children on social media. My mother contracted Wuhan pneumonia and the hospital hid her illness. She was in bed for 12 days with high fever The Communist-appointed community center director said he could not arrange a hospital bed and suggested waiting to die at home. My father was also infected and had to take care of my mom. They have no medicine, no food, no treatment. Please help them! the post read. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has shown total disregard for human life by shutting down the city without providing food and medicine to the people. New Delhi, Feb 2 : Congress' interim President Sonia Gandhi was on Sunday rushed to the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital here for a check-up after complaining of "uneasiness". Gandhi reportedly suffered an asthma attack but this was not confirmed. The first legislative week was filled with mixed emotions from lawmakers. The senators had resumed from a five-week break with many promises and utmost zeal to tackle issues of urgent national importance. Prior to its resumption on Tuesday, the Senate President met with journalists and disclosed some issues which he said will be prioritised in the upper chamber. Top among the issues are insecurity, Electoral Amendment Bill, Petroleum Industry Bill, among others. Below are highlights of the Senates activities last week. Tuesday: The lawmakers resumed plenary on a sober note as they had to adjourn to mourn a member of the House of Representatives, Muhammadu Gawo, who died on December 31. The adjournment was sequel to an executive session which lasted for about an hour where lawmakers discussed plans for 2020. Prior to the adjournment also, the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, read out a letter from President Muhammadu Buhari. President Muhammadu Buhari [Photo: Presidency] The President informed the Senate that he will recompose the board of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) and send to the Senate for confirmation. Mr Buhari also sought the confirmation of the appointment of Kingsley Obiora as the Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and other nominees. They were confirmed on Thursday. The Senate Spokesperson, Godiya Akwashiki, told journalists that the alleged conviction of the Deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege, by a U.S court, is not an issue of the Senate. READ ALSO: He said the Senate will only talk about it if there is a petition to it. Wednesday Senate decided to dedicate the whole of the day to discuss insecurity across the country and the need to reconstruct the security architecture. Shortly after the motion was read, the Senate Minority Leader, Enyinnaya Abaribe, faulted the Buhari-led administration and called on the president to resign. Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe After a lengthy deliberation, the lawmakers urged the president to dismiss all the service chiefs and appoint new ones. Thursday: The Senate urged the federal government to allocate more funds to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC). The funds, the lawmakers said, will be used to acquire the latest and most recent equipment that there is for research and diagnosis of tropical diseases disrupting human existence. The Senate asked the executive to appoint a minister among indigenes of the Federal Capital Territory as ruled by a court. This was based on a petition written to the Senate on the matter. Shortly after his second swearing-in, Chris Ekpenyong bragged about his victory over NDDC minister, Godswill Akpabio. He called the latter an uncommon failure and said he caused mayhem on his people. The Senate mandated its Committee on Downstream Petroleum Sector to carry out a holistic investigation on the turnaround maintenance expenditure and current state of the refineries in the country. It also urged the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to completely evaluate the dilapidated state of the refineries or total overhauling and rehabilitation to international standard. Last week, Huawei beat back US attempts to have it banned in Europe. The UK effectively sided with the Chinese telecoms equipment maker over the Americans. It was a tough blow for the US administration, especially coming from an increasingly isolated nation that needs its allies. But economics and the UK's own security briefings trumped Donald Trump. Right-wing Atlanticist pundits were enraged. "By allowing Huawei into their 5G network, Boris Johnson has chosen the surveillance state over the special relationship," tweeted Liz Cheney, a Republican congresswoman. "[It's tragic] to see our closest ally, a nation Ronald Reagan once called 'incandescent with courage', turn away from our alliance and the cause of freedom." In political terms, their anger is predictable. Johnson seemed to side with every other pinko, cheese-eating EU country in allowing the Chinese into Britain's networks. Sure, there were some crumbs for the Americans. London will place limits on 'high-risk' telecoms equipment vendors (a list almost certain to include Huawei). But the principle was ceded: operators can use Huawei kit in building out their 5G mobile networks. A few days later, the European Commission published its own security 'toolkit' guidelines that allow for Huawei equipment to be used. So is that it? Has Huawei won its war with western hawks? More importantly, have we come to any clearer understanding on the substantive issue - whether Huawei telecoms equipment is a security threat? Not fully, on either count. Even though it has won this round of skirmishes in Europe, Huawei still has the uncertainty over trading with US companies hanging over it. Crucially, that means Google, whose Android platform underpins its 55 million annual smartphone sales. Huawei's key problem is this: if you, a western phone consumer, thought there was a chance you may not get access to Gmail, YouTube or Maps in a few months, would you still buy a new Huawei phone? Huawei's response to this looks increasingly radical. The company is starting to act like it's planning for a future without Google at all. Last week, Huawei's Austrian country manager, Fred Wangfei, told the press that the company looked likely to choose a future product roadmap without Google, even if the current trade ban was lifted. A much more diluted version of this message was delivered at a Dublin Huawei event last week. There, mobile operators were briefed that Huawei will be putting a lot more emphasis on its own app ecosystem from now on and won't be selling itself as much as an Android device, regardless of whatever else happens. In other words, Huawei isn't risking its future on US administrative bans. The security issue is more complex. The answer to the question 'is Huawei networking equipment a threat?' varies depending on the person you ask, the industry they're in, and the potential loss or benefit they'll suffer based on the outcome. Telecoms operators, for example, are generally dismissive of security concerns. "I find it hard to accept that it's not to do with the China-US trade issue," Carolan Lennon, Eir chief executive, told me last week. "Our guys say their kit is fantastic. Most of the telcos in Europe are using them." And what of the argument that networks such as hers that use Huawei equipment are less secure? "I disagree with that. It's very hard to take the smoke away from everything that's going on around this. "But security is really important to us. We've just recently won the garda mobile business tender. "So it's not stopping us winning business. Do American multinationals mention it? Yes. But has it stopped us winning business? No, it hasn't." Lennon's view is a very commonly articulated one in the telecoms industry. But there's more to it than just the merits of their claims on security. Many operators have a massive pre-existing investment in Huawei equipment. If a European government was to tell them to strip it out, it would cost the operators (and then possibly consumers) billions and give their rivals a huge head-start in 5G. It may also have a substantial knock-on effect in other industrial development that's waiting for 5G to take off. This was almost certainly a pivotal factor in the UK's decision to allow operators to retain their Huawei kit. Still, that's their problem. Isn't the main issue here security? Does the UK decision settle this question? Not entirely, although it is a crucial intervention on the matter. Other than having Trump as their lead prosecutor, the biggest difficulty the anti-Huawei camp has is the lack of clear proof - of compromised networks, security breaches or unsavoury collusion with Chinese authorities. To those who argue against Huawei, this is a moot point; as the crown jewel in China's export technology industry, Huawei must be assumed to be bound to Beijing interference at some point in future. Therefore, they argue, it is naive to assume that just because there is no smoking gun now, it is perfectly safe to regard the company as just another equipment vendor. Some months back, I sat down with Jeanette Manfra, assistant director for cybersecurity at the US Homeland Security agency. I asked her pointedly about Huawei: is it genuinely a threat to security? To what extent? And where is the proof? She told me that the US believes it is, even though it cannot yet publicly point to instances. Manfra was nuanced, emphasising that Huawei was only one of her concerns; that she had a responsibility to be vigilant in assessing the entire supply chain to core infrastructure. But for now, it's advantage Huawei. Andrew Cole has been the CEO of OZ Minerals Limited (ASX:OZL) since 2014. First, this article will compare CEO compensation with compensation at similar sized companies. Then we'll look at a snap shot of the business growth. Third, we'll reflect on the total return to shareholders over three years, as a second measure of business performance. This process should give us an idea about how appropriately the CEO is paid. View our latest analysis for OZ Minerals How Does Andrew Cole's Compensation Compare With Similar Sized Companies? According to our data, OZ Minerals Limited has a market capitalization of AU$3.3b, and paid its CEO total annual compensation worth AU$2.4m over the year to December 2018. We think total compensation is more important but we note that the CEO salary is lower, at AU$780k. We further remind readers that the CEO may face performance requirements to receive the non-salary part of the total compensation. When we examined a selection of companies with market caps ranging from AU$1.5b to AU$4.8b, we found the median CEO total compensation was AU$2.0m. That means Andrew Cole receives fairly typical remuneration for the CEO of a company that size. Although this fact alone doesn't tell us a great deal, it becomes more relevant when considered against the business performance. The graphic below shows how CEO compensation at OZ Minerals has changed from year to year. ASX:OZL CEO Compensation, February 1st 2020 Is OZ Minerals Limited Growing? On average over the last three years, OZ Minerals Limited has grown earnings per share (EPS) by 19% each year (using a line of best fit). Its revenue is down 9.2% over last year. This demonstrates that the company has been improving recently. A good result. The lack of revenue growth isn't ideal, but it is the bottom line that counts most in business. It could be important to check this free visual depiction of what analysts expect for the future. Has OZ Minerals Limited Been A Good Investment? OZ Minerals Limited has served shareholders reasonably well, with a total return of 19% over three years. But they would probably prefer not to see CEO compensation far in excess of the median. Story continues In Summary... Andrew Cole is paid around what is normal the leaders of comparable size companies. The company is growing EPS but shareholder returns have been sound but not amazing. So upon reflection one could argue that the CEO pay is quite reasonable. If you think CEO compensation levels are interesting you will probably really like this free visualization of insider trading at OZ Minerals. If you want to buy a stock that is better than OZ Minerals, this free list of high return, low debt companies is a great place to look. If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Thank you for reading. Lenders wary of political risks in Russia, China, Central Asia By Park Jae-hyuk Immediately after the New Year began, the Moon Jae-in administration declared it would speed up efforts for its New Northern Policy in 2020, as Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin are supposed to visit Korea during the first half of the year. Nevertheless, the nation's four largest financial groups Shinhan, KB, Woori and Hana remained cautious about their expansion in the area embracing Russia, Northeast China and Central Asia, according to a recent survey by The Korea Times. Their attitude is in stark contrast to their supports for the New Southern Policy which was the key agenda last year in line with the Korea-ASEAN Commemorative Summit that took place in Busan. Throughout 2019, they expanded rapidly in Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia and Myanmar to seek new income sources in the fast-growing markets. The government hopes the country's private enterprises will support the New Northern Policy as they have done the New Southern Policy. President Moon Jae-in said in his New Year address, Jan. 7, that Korea will diversify its key diplomatic partners by accelerating efforts for the New Northern Policy. "As Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang are scheduled to visit Korea this year, the government will make efforts so that Korea-China relations can make a leap forward," he said. "Russia is a core partner of the New Northern Policy. This year, the 30th anniversary of establishing diplomatic relations between the two countries, I hope that a new turning point will be made in the New Northern diplomacy." Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki told reporters Jan. 9: "The government tried to pioneer new export markets with the New Southern Policy in the ASEAN region last year. I expect the government policy will focus on the New Northern countries this year." The financial regulator has been forcing financial institutions more strongly, so as to have them keep pace with the government initiative. Kwon Dae-young, director general of the Financial Services Commission's financial innovation bureau, told The Korea Times the nation's financial institutions and fintech firms need to pioneer the New Northern countries. "In Central Asia, there are many under-banked and unbanked countries with few banking accounts," he said. "But nearly 100 percent of population in those countries own mobile devices, so there must be opportunities for fintech businesses." The nation's banking groups, however, have been skeptical of the financial authorities' outlook for the area's growth potential, concerned about political risks inherent in doing businesses there. Korean banks in New Northern states Even before the administration pursues the New Northern Policy, the four financial groups have actually tapped the Russian, Northeast Chinese and Central Asian markets. Among them, Hana Financial Group has been most aggressive in doing businesses there. The company having a taskforce for the New Northern Policy has concentrated on its businesses in three Northeastern provinces of China Liaoning, Jilin, and Heilongjiang. Hana Chairman Kim Jung-tai formed a partnership with the Jilin provincial government in July 2018, and Vice Chairman Ham Young-joo was selected as an honorary citizen of Changchun City in the province in October 2019. The group, which has run KEB Hana Bank's Russian subsidiary since September 2014, also hosted a forum in Vladivostok in June 2019 to seek Korea-Russia economic ties in finance, tourism and logistics in the Far East. In addition, Hana Financial Investment CEO Lee Jin-kook visited Mongolia in June 2019 to discuss the country's capital market with Mongolian Parliament Speaker Gombojav Zandanshatar and form a partnership with Golomt Financial Group, the largest financial group there. Despite these efforts, Hana was cautious about additional expansion in those countries. "We have yet to come up with any plan to expand our businesses there," a Hana spokesman said. "We need more market studies, because it differs from the Southeast Asian market that has come under the spotlight regardless of the government policies due to its rapid growth." Other financial groups were no different from Hana in their views on the New Northern Policy. Shinhan Financial Group, which has a subsidiary in Kazakhstan and offices in Russia and Uzbekistan, said it has focused on financing Korean companies there, rather than pushing ahead with localization. According to the group, it has yet to generate a significant outlook in those countries, although Chairman Cho Yong-byoung accompanied the President on his trip to three Central Asian countries in April 2019. "Because the New Northern countries have shown slower growth than the New Southern countries and their political systems are unstable, Korean financial firms have been restricted from expanding," a Shinhan spokesman said. Woori Financial Group, which has a subsidiary in Russia, said its global strategies for this year do not include measures for the New Northern Policy, although Chairman Son Tae-seung formed a partnership with a Kazakh state-run investment agency in April 2019 when he accompanied the President on his trip to three Central Asian countries. KB Financial Group, which suffered a traumatic failure in Kazakhstan, said it has no plans for expansion in the New Northern countries. KB Kookmin Bank exited the Kazakh market in 2017, after suffering almost a 1 trillion won ($864 million) loss. The bank acquired a 41.9 percent stake in the Kazakh's fifth-largest Center Credit Bank for 954.1 billion won in 2008 and sold it for 158 billion won in 2017 as it could not handle the snowballing losses after the global financial crisis. Since then, KB has not established a network in the New Northern Policy countries. Yet, it partially financed a 110 billion won Korean-Eurasian cooperation fund which has been used to finance Korean companies participating in infrastructure and urban development projects in the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Caucasus countries and Mongolia. Potential demand from inter-Korean cooperation Experts said the government should guarantee political stability if it wants financial institutions to enter the New Northern countries. "China is still a socialist state, and there exists concerns about political risks in Russia, although it underwent structural change," said Lee Yoon-sok, the director of the Korea Institute of Finance's center for international financial cooperation. The researcher expected financial firms may seek opportunities from possible inter-Korean economic cooperation in Northeast China and Russian border areas, if political instability is resolved. "It will be recommendable for financial firms to enter Northeast China and Russia in advance, because there will be a demand for financing when inter-Korean development projects begin near the border areas," he said. As for Central Asia, however, the researcher admitted more market studies are needed. He said his think tank specializing in financial research will review each Central Asian country to understand their financial services needs. 01.02.2020 LISTEN I hope it would not amount to Hate Speech to make some confessions, especially, with a particular reference to Nigerias sociopolitical landscape. First and foremost, lets not deceive ourselves: Muhammadu Buhari has seen it all as one of Nigerias luckiest few, favoured by God. So, he has nothing to lose again. Having been privileged to serve Nigeria in various capacities, ranging from Military Governor, Federal Commissioner, Head of State, to a two-term tenure as president, among others, the only life that is meaningful to Buhari, going forward, is the royal life. Let the president just be fine and okay with himself. No more, no less! Two: The magic of some of the actors in Nigerias political space that is working today will expire at a known time; and, once it expires, that is the end! Impliedly, the gimmicks of those who are currently manipulating the people as if Nigeria is their private property will no longer work and Nigerians will heave a sigh of relief! No if, no but! Lastly on this, the philosophical understanding of human nature in any given society is that change, as a permanent issue, is inevitable. However, change, being a faithful leap into the future, sometimes has unintended consequences which, of course, ought to be taken into consideration in practical Public Administration. In other words, change inevitably must come from identifiable problems; or problems that are already identified in a particular system before a policy is accepted or rejected for another one to take the centre-stage. Taking a cue from the aforementioned, it is a fact of life that the countrys peace, political stability, economic prosperity, social enhancement and social integration, all derive their oxygen from the strength of a countrys Public Administration. The extent of how right we get it therefore determines how worse our situation is. A case in point is that of the Amotekun brouhaha. While yours sincerely joins other Nigerians in questioning the competence, as it were, of the Southwests Attorneys General for their inability to have foreseen the need for a legal framework for the project before the tendencys crude incursion into the Yoruba nations internal affairs, On Amotekun We Stand only served as sad commentary of our Nigerianness. It was an ingredient for the expression of Yorubas anger in the face of mounting casualties and wanton destruction of valuable property arising from escalating attacks. Unfortunately, the star-gazers in and around Aso Rock were so perverted in their vision that they failed to read the ominous signs of the time. Rome burns, Nero fiddles!Thank God, reasons prevailed; and the crisis surrounding Operation Amotekun was eventually resolved as a face-saving measure. Otherwise, Nigeria was already primed for a disintegration that would have, as a matter of fact, been more catastrophic than the civil war. If we are talking about revolution, it is advisable we go beyond Weber. Likewise, Trotsky will not be sufficient to do justice in matters relating to Revolutions and Social Uprisings. To get the best out of the two situations, a dose of the duo will be necessary. Well, anyone in doubt of this position should go through their theses after their death. For the avoidance of doubt, those who were treated to the nature and the stature of Social Formations during theWeber and Trotsky era and what they have experienced after their passing would have had a better understanding of the place of the society in an ever-changing world order. For example, while Weber held the notion that sufferings on the economic ground only were enough to trigger a revolution, Trotsky discovered that there were social ties which, once broken, would naturally make social crises inevitable. To a layman, Amartya Sens position on all of these is also economic! But, it is beyond that! It is an admission of the interconnectedness between economic and social relations. So, Trotsky was right on the Amotekun rumpus. Without doubt, events in the last couple of years have shown that the Buhari-led government has not been doing enough to protect Nigerians, which was a premise responsible for former President Goodluck Jonathans journey back to Otuoke on March 28, 2015. Five years on, governments claim to be on top of this trajectory has largely been an unproductive exercise. Instead, it is practically getting worse! Insecurity is not only a cankerworm that is fast eating into Nigerias fabric, that it is also currently threatening her fledgling democracy, peace and stability represents the ugly side of the flip. Sad that, sixty years after Nigerias independence; and fifty years after the end of her avoidable civil war, Nigerians are still struggling with the currency of peace which, ordinarily, should have cemented their Never again resolve to fratricide. Even, the most optimistic observer will concede that our situation, in what obviously looks like post-colonial slavery, is one of a compartmentalized country under siege. So, where do we go from here and how do we resolve the socially-but-self-inflicted malady of drifting in the sea of crises in order to thrive in politics? Obviously, the need for the Federal Government to understand the nuances of the nitty-gritty of the limits of Federalism cannot be more apt than now. It is important to note that Nigerians have not been asking for too much from their leaders. All they desire are vanguard leadership, food on their tables, empathy in times of distress and meaningful life while they are on planet earth. But then, how do you provide an enabling environment for the Next Level in an atmosphere of insecurity? Even as the handlers of our affairs at the national level have consistently been opposed to restructuring, have we forgotten that, under our terrible Constitution, the Chairman of Ife Central Local Government Area in Osun can send the revered Ooni of Ife packing and nothing will happen? Well, since the Police is the first power of the state, Operation Amotekun should be seen as a gift from the Southwest, a complimentary initiative to whatever steps the Federal Government may be taking to rejig the national policing architecture which, evidently, has collapsed. It should be seen as a conflict resolution mechanism that will benefit our democracy and restore the peoples confidence. However, should Amotekun lack administrative tact in its Modus Operandi, then, it will be difficult for the country to move even an inch forward towards development and progress. And this is where the handlers have to watch it! Top of Form May the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, grant us peace in Nigeria! *KOMOLAFE writes in from Ijebu-Jesa, Osun State, Nigeria ( [email protected] ) abiodun KOMOLAFE, O20, Okenisa Street, Ijebu-Jesa, Osun State. Jeff Bezos was sued for defamation by his girlfriends brother in a lawsuit accusing the Amazon.com Inc. chief executive officer of falsely claiming the brother provided lurid photographs to the National Enquirer. The lawsuit was filed late Friday in Los Angeles County Superior Court by Michael Sanchez, the brother of Lauren Sanchez and subject of media reports that he was a source for the Enquirers splashy report last year revealing the affair between his sister and Bezos. The story has expanded into an international controversy, now involving allegations that Saudi Arabias crown prince participated in a hack of Bezos phone and an investigation by federal prosecutors in New York. The lawsuit also names Gavin de Becker, a security consultant who works for Bezos, as a defendant. It accuses Bezos and de Becker of telling journalists that Michael Sanchez provided graphic nude photographs of the Amazon CEO to the tabloid. In the filing, Michael Sanchez acknowledges he entered a confidential agreement to cooperate strategically with American Media Inc., the National Enquirers parent company, but said he did so to get ahead of the story in an effort to limit the backlash against his sister and Bezos. He says he didnt provide the photographs to the Enquirer and couldnt have been the source for them because he never possessed them. A lawyer for Bezos, William Isaacson, said Bezos would respond to the accusations in court. Unforgivable Betrayal Michael is my older brother, Lauren Sanchez said in a statement provided by her lawyer, Terry Bird. He secretly provided my most personal information to the National Enquirer -- a deep and unforgivable betrayal. My family is hurting over this new baseless and untrue lawsuit, and we truly hope my brother finds peace. De Becker did not respond to a message seeking comment. A United Nations report last month accused Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of possible complicity in the hack of Bezos phone, based on an analysis conducted by a consulting firm hired by Bezos. Saudi Arabia has denied the allegation, and the report did not link Saudi Arabias alleged actions to the Enquirer report. Federal Case At the time the Bezos story was published, AMI was already operating under a non-prosecution agreement with the Manhattan U.S. attorneys office, after admitting its role in hush-money payments made to women who allegedly had affairs with President Donald Trump. In a blog post shortly after the Enquirers story about the affair, Bezos accused the tabloid of extortion and blackmail in their handling of the story. That prompted prosecutors to reopen their investigation to determine if AMI had violated its non-prosecution agreement. That investigation was still ongoing as of late last year, according to people familiar with it. Woman who wants to transition 7-y-o son James Younger into girl loses latest court battle Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment A Texas mother who intended to transition her 7-year-old son James into a girl named Luna has lost again in court. Dallas judge Mary Brown ruled Wednesday against the request of Anne Georgulas, who asked the court to revert to an October jury ruling that might have yielded her receiving sole conservatorship of her son James Younger, a 7-year-old boy she says is a transgender girl named Luna, and his twin brother, Jude, according to LifeSiteNews. Brown also ruled against another motion from Georgulas' team, that a parenting coordinator in the case, Stacey Dunlop, be dismissed. "The argument to disqualify the parenting coordinator centered mainly around the concern that he becomes a tie breaker rather than a mediator and would then ultimately be making most of the difficult decisions for the twin boys," LifeSiteNews explained. The case garnered international media attention in October after a jury awarded Georgulas sole conservatorship in an 11-1 decision, allowing her to continue "transitioning" James into "Luna." The father, Jeffrey Younger, has maintained that James shows "no signs of wanting to be a girl when given the choice." Amid massive public outcry, Judge Kim Cooks overruled the Oct. 21 jury verdict and ruled that conservatorship would be 50-50, shared between Georgulas and Jeffrey Younger, who has been resisting the transitioning of his son. The matter was back in court this week because Georgulas' attorneys were successful at getting a new judge after they argued Cooks had acted improperly when she posted an article about the ruling on her Facebook page following the conclusion of the proceedings. In the post, Cooks asserted that neither Texas Governor Greg Abbott nor any legislature influenced her decision. Cooks was summarily recused from the case. Georgulas' attorney said they would move to appeal Wednesday's ruling, arguing that both Brown's and Cooks' rulings were not authorized or enforceable based on the jury's verdict. Cooks' order also forbade both parties from speaking to the media about the case through a gag order. As a result, Jeffrey Younger's website, Save James, had to be shut down. A Facebook page of the same name that is being operated by friends of Younger noted that the quest to prevent James from being given puberty-blocking drugs and other experimental medical practices to "transition" him is not over. "Your prayers answered! Little James saved for now. Thank you all!" one post read, noting in a subsequent post that the only true winners were the lawyers. "Jeff's defense will cost him approximately $15,000. The plaintiffs side, Koonz Fuller, possibly much more because they filed several motions and amendments. Appeals court will be in the $100,000 range for Jeff," the Facebook page administrators noted. The tagline on Younger's original website was "Save James, Save Thousands of Kids," which was intentional because he and his team did not want to forget the other children and parents who are in similar situations but for whatever reason do not have the ability to resist the transitioning of their children. The Younger case has prompted several state legislators to call for the banning of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and transgender surgeries on minors. The South Dakota House passed a ban on such practices Wednesday, in a 46-23 vote, the first legislative body in the nation to do so. For Woodlands resident David Olowokere, one of Nigeria's sons, having a master's degree in engineering just wasn't enough for his people back home. So he got a doctorate. His wife, Shalewa Olowokere, a civil engineer, didn't stop at a bachelor's, either. She went for her master's. The same obsession with education runs in the Udeh household in Sugar Land. Foluke Udeh and her husband, Nduka, both have master's degrees. Anything less, she reckons, would have amounted to failure. "If you see an average Nigerian family, everybody has a college degree these days," said Udeh, 32, a physical therapist at Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center. "But a post-graduate degree, that's like pride for the family." Nigerian immigrants have the highest levels of education in this city and the nation, surpassing whites and Asians, according to Census data bolstered by an analysis of 13 annual Houston-area surveys conducted by Rice University. Although they make up a tiny portion of the U.S. population, a whopping 17 percent of all Nigerians in this country held master's degrees while 4 percent had a doctorate, according to the 2006 American Community Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. In addition, 37 percent had bachelor's degrees. In comparison To put those numbers in perspective, 8 percent of the white population in the U.S. had master's degrees, according to the Census survey. And 1 percent held doctorates. About 19 percent of white residents had bachelor's degrees. Asians come closer to the Nigerians with 12 percent holding master's degrees and 3 percent having doctorates. The Nigerian numbers are "strikingly high," said Roderick Harrison, demographer at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a Washington, D.C., think tank that specializes in researching black issues. "There is no doubt that these are highly educated professionals who are probably working in the petrochemical, medical and business sectors in Houston." Harrison analyzed the census data for the Houston Chronicle. Stephen Klineberg, a sociologist at Rice University who conducts the annual Houston Area Survey, suspects the percentage of Nigerian immigrants with post-graduate degrees is higher than Census data shows. Of all the Nigerian immigrants he reached in his random phone surveys 1994 through 2007 45 households total Klineberg said 40 percent of the Nigerians said they had post-graduate degrees. "These are higher levels of educational attainment than were found in any other ... community," Klineberg said. There are more than 12,000 Nigerians in Houston, according to the latest Census data, a figure sociologists and Nigerian community leaders say is a gross undercount. They believe the number to be closer to 100,000. Staying in school The reasons Nigerians have more post-graduate degrees than any other racial or ethnic group are largely due to Nigerian society's emphasis on mandatory and free education. Once immigrating to this country, practical matters of immigration laws get in the way. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 made it easier for Africans to enter the U.S., but mostly as students or highly skilled professionals not through family sponsorships, Klineberg said. So many Africans pursue higher levels of education as an unintended consequence of navigating the tricky minefield of immigration, said Amadu Jacky Kaba, an associate professor at Seton Hall University in South Orange, N.J., who has done research on African immigrants in the U.S. "In a way, it's a Catch-22 because of immigration laws you are forced to remain in school, but then the funny thing is you end up getting your doctorate at the age of 29," Kaba said. "If you stay in school, immigration will leave you alone." Although Kaba, who teaches Africana Studies, is not from Nigeria (he is Liberian), he said he, too, found himself pursuing a master's and then a doctorate to remain in this country legally. But not all Africans have to go this route. Some say their motivation is driven by their desire to overcome being a double minority: black and African. Take Oluyinka Olutoye, 41, associate professor of pediatric surgery at Baylor College of Medicine. He came to this country already as a medical doctor but decided to pursue his doctorate in anatomy to help set himself apart. "Being black, you are already at a disadvantage," said Olutoye, whose wife, Toyin Olutoye, is an anesthesiologist at Baylor. "You really need to excel far above if you want to be considered for anything in this country." Family expectations All this talk of education creates high expectations for children of Nigerian immigrants. The eldest child of David Olowokere, chairman of the engineering technologies department at Texas Southern University, for example, is already working on her master's degree in public health in Atlanta; the middle child is pursuing a bachelor's in pre-medicine. His youngest, a son, attends The Woodlands High School. He already has aspirations to go into engineering, just like his parents, Olowokere beams. "The goal is for them to do as good as us if not better," he said. Oluyinka Olutoye put it another way. "The typical saying in a Nigerian household is that the best inheritance that a parent can give you is not jewelry or cash or material things, it is a good education," he said. "It is expected." leslie.casimir@chron.com Pakistan said on Sunday that it had acquired nearly 1,000 coronavirus testing kits from its all-weather ally China to boost the country's capability of diagnosing the disease which has claimed over 300 lives. Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Health Zafar Mirza took to Twitter to share the development in the wake of concerns that Pakistan lacked capacity to test the deadly virus. "We have now capability of diagnosing coronarivus in Pakistan. I want to applaud our NIH (National Institute of Health) leadership and team for their hard work in securing the reagent for diagnosing," Mirza tweeted. At least 1,000 testing kits arrived from China, boosting Pakistan's efforts to tackle the disease, the health officials said, adding that no Pakistani national has contracted the virus. Initially, the tests will be carried out only at the NIH in Islamabad but later on the facility will be expanded to other parts of the country. Pakistan has more than 28,000 students in China, including 500 in the worst-hit city of Wuhan. Pakistan's Ambassador to China Naghmana Hashmi on Sunday said that the Pakistani students should not be evacuated from Wuhan as medical facilities back home did not meet the standards required to treat a patient diagnosed with coronavirus. Hashmi's remarks came a day after Mirza said the government will not bring its citizens back despite multiple requests from the students and their families for immediate evacuation. Pakistan had suspended all flights to China and also developed system to check the passengers from China and quarantine the suspected patients. Pakistan on Sunday sent medical supplies to Wuhan. Among the supplies were 0.3 million medical masks, 800 hazmat suits and 6,800 pairs of medical gloves, the Radio Pakistan reported. The coronavirus outbreak has killed 305 people and infected 14,562. The Philippines on Sunday reported the first death outside China from the epidemic that has spread to 25 countries, including India, the US, the UK and Russia. In China, all the deaths have been reported in central Hubei Province - the epicentre of the virus outbreak. The virus was declared a global health emergency by the World Health Organisation (WHO) on January 31. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pakistan is in the headlines once again. Many leaders of Pakistan become a joke on social media. This time a tweet by the President of Pakistan Arif Alvi has gone viral, in which he has told the countrymen on the coronavirus spread in China that if there is a disease spread then there should be no escape from it. He has further said that rather the people trapped there should help. For your information, let us tell you that at that time, when all the countries of the world are trying to get their citizens out of China, then the suggestion of the President of Pakistan is surprising to the people. Pakistan government is pretending to end its friendship with China by risking the lives of its citizens. The special thing is that he himself is a doctor by profession. President Arif Alvi has become a subject of mockery on social media regarding this matter. Let me tell you that hundreds of Pakistanis are still trapped in Wuhan, China. He is requesting to return from there. But the government of Pakistan is constantly making statements that Pakistani citizens will stay there to help China. He said that if you hear about the spread of plague in some place, do not go there. But if the plague spreads to a place where you are already present, then do not go anywhere from that place (Bukhari and Muslim). Let the trapped people help us. Apart from this, he said that all possible help is being provided to Pakistani students trapped in China. The health needs of Pakistani students are being met in China. These students are being brought back to Pakistan only after treatment. Also Read: This religious practice killed a 12-year-old innocent girl Iraq gets New Prime Minister, got big responsibility Wrestler Ravinder accused of consuming banned medicine, will not be able to participate for four years At Least 20 Killed in Stampede at Tanzania Church Service African countries have been called to increase investments in Africas fertilizer value chain to boost agricultural yields and build the industry across the continent. The call was launched by the Africa Fertilizer Financing Mechanism during its Governing Council held last week in the headquarters of the African Development Bank in Abidjan. The Governing Council, attended by its 12 institutional members, reviewed its 2019 activities and defined the bodys strategic direction for 2020, said the AfDB in a press release. The Africa Fertilizer Financing Mechanism (AFFM) has now effectively started implementing its activities as its first agreements were signed in 2019 to foster the fertilizer market in Nigeria and Tanzania. New projects are being prepared for implementation in other countries, said Marie Claire Kalihangabo, the AFFMs coordinator. Participants, who discussed ways to mobilize more resources to scale up AFFMs activities on the continent and the possibility to significantly transform the fertilizer value chain in Africa, recommended mainstreaming AFFMs projects into the lending program of the African Development Bank and other stakeholders, like Afreximbank, for increased impact. Josefa Leonel Correia Sacko, the African Union Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture who also serves as Chairperson of the AFFM Governing Council, called on the AFFM to work closely with key stakeholders to implement the resource mobilization objectives. She also called on the AFFM to build strategic partnerships that will speed up the implementation of the Abuja Declaration objectives. Transforming the fertilizer value chain requires that governments, development organizations, the private sector, civil society and farmers come together to strategize on solutions that can appropriately address challenges the agriculture sector is currently facing in Africa, the commissioner said. Sacko also provided an update on the second Fertilizer Summit, scheduled to take place in 2021. The summit will bring together African leaders and other stakeholders to evaluate progress since the 2006 Abuja Declaration, and chart the way forward. The AfDB considers the AFFM as an important mechanism to improve the availability and affordability of fertilizers at the smallholder farmer level. The Council also committed to supporting the review of the AFFM strategy and resource mobilization plan, which will spur the organizations activities in other countries. The AFFM was established by the 2006 Abuja Declaration in a bid to improve agricultural productivity by providing financing required to boost fertilizer use in Africa to achieve the target of 50 kg of nutrients per hectare. A man has been arrested from Dahanu in Palghar district of Maharashtra for allegedly killing a 25-year-old woman, with whom he had an extramarital affair, police said on Sunday. The accused, Sudam Wavare, 35, a driver by profession was arrested on Saturday for the offence that took place on the intervening night of Thursday and Friday, police said. "Wavare was married and had three children. He used to drive a van to transport factory workers in Kasa and nearby villages. He befriended the victim, who was unmarried, and established a physical relationship with her," inspector Anandrao Kale of Kasa police station said. "However, gradually their relationship soured as the accused started doubting her. They used to frequently argue. After an argument with her on January 30 night, Wavare smothered the victim to death in the village," he added. After local residents alerted the police, the victim's body was sent for post-mortem and the accused was arrested, police said. He has been booked under IPC section 302 (murder) and further investigation is on. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The appearance was the first of the year for Baldwin's Trump, who arrived shuffling behind a walker in a nod to the ongoing sexual assault trial of Harvey Weinstein. "Your honor, I'm a very sick old man, how could I hold aid from the Ukraine?" Trump asked the judge, who recognized the tactic. "Harvey and I overlap in a few areas," Baldwin's Trump admitted. He later donned a Phil Spector wig and confessed various sins, including his real weight and a fondness for CNN. Carl Vernlund NORTH HAVEN Police will close several roads today at 9:45 a.m. for the North Haven High School Girls Lacrosse 5k run. The road closures include Bailey Road between Standish Avenue and Maple Avenue., Pool Road between Maple Ave and South Ave, Tennyson Avenue between Pool Road and Virginia Road, Virginia Road between South Avenue and Tennyson Avenue. (Natural News) According to the communist Chinese government, novel coronavirus is spreading because of bats, rats and snakes. But Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas vehemently disagrees. In a recent statement, Sen. Cotton discussed a new study published in The Lancet showing that 14 of the original 40 people who developed coronavirus in Wuhan had never even stepped foot in the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market where the virus is said to have originated. As one epidemiologist said, That virus went into the seafood market before it came out of the seafood market,' Sen. Cotton is quoted as saying, pointing out the fact that China is suddenly changing its story now that the truth is being revealed. While nobody can yet say with absolute surety where novel coronavirus originated, Sen. Cotton pointed out that Wuhan has Chinas only biosafety level four super laboratory that works with the worlds most deadly pathogens to include, yes, coronavirus. This lab is known as the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and it just so happens to be Chinas only lab thats capable of working with this level of deadly pathogen, which suggests that novel coronavirus somehow escaped from it. Earlier in the week, Sen. Cotton publicly called for a ban on all travel to and from China, given the latest developments and the many unknowns about this virus. We ought to follow Benjamin Franklins maxim: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, Sen. Cotton wrote in a letter to the Trump administration. Sen. Cotton tells Americans in China to get out while they still can In lieu of an actual decree from Washington, Sen. Cotton is urging all Americans who are still in China to leave the country while theyre still able to do so. As other countries like Iran issue indefinite bans on travel in and out of China, the U.S. is reportedly considering increased restrictions, at least. But theres also talk of a full-on travel ban in the near future, which could leave Americans currently living in China without an option to flee. MESSAGE TO ALL AMERICANS IN CHINA: Get out now, reads Sen. Cottons public warning. Contact our embassy or consulates if you need help. The U.S. State Department, it is now being reported, has already confirmed that a second chartered flight back to America will soon commence to evacuate American citizens who live around the area of Wuhan, which is under a mandatory quarantine. Sen. Cotton also contends that China is lying about the number of people infected with and dying from coronavirus In addition to not trusting the official story coming from the Chinese government about the true origin of novel coronavirus, Sen. Cotton is also suspicious about the official numbers, which he believes are far too low. There was a 28% increase in coronavirus cases overnight in China, Sen. Cotton tweeted. Make no mistake, though: these arent new cases. Just what China is willing to admit. Its much worse. In Sen. Cottons view, China needs to be dealt harsh consequences for all of its deception surrounding this global health emergency, especially once it can be shown that theres a mass coverup taking place. For weeks, China did not come clean about the coronavirus that they first said was only being passed from animals to humans in a seafood market in Wuhan and China, Sen. Cotton wrote in another tweet. But now we know that it is increasingly being passed from person to person. We had our first confirmed U.S. case happen just in the last couple of days, and it is spreading around the globe. To keep up with the latest news about the spread of novel coronavirus, be sure to bookmark Pandemic.news. Sources for this article include: WashingtonExaminer NaturalNews.com TheEpochTimes.com Weather Alert ...Winter Storm System to Impact the Region this Weekend... A strong winter storm system will push east through the Quad State Saturday into Sunday. Wintry precipitation will spread eastward into southern Illinois and southeast Missouri late Friday night, and then southeast over the remainder of the region Saturday morning. The evolution of the storm for the remainder of the weekend is quite uncertain at this time. The ultimate path and intensity of the storm system, along with the temperature forecast, will determine how impactful it will be across the Quad State. For now you are encouraged to monitor the latest forecasts and follow your winter weather preparedness plans ahead of this potentially impactful winter storm. Afghan health authorities are establishing isolation wards across the country ahead of a potential influx of coronavirus cases, an official said Sunday, as governments worldwide monitor the disease's spread. No cases have been recorded in Afghanistan so far, and the war-torn country's health services have set up screening units at airports and borders, public health minister Ferozuddin Feroz said. "We have put serious measures in place," Feroz told reporters. He said that in Kabul, authorities have created a 100-bed isolation ward, and another 200 or so beds will be made available across the country in Afghanistan's creaking hospitals. Feroz said 262 peopleincluding 233 Afghanswho flew into Kabul's airport from China during the past week had all been screened, and health officials have remained in contact with them to check on their health. About 40 Afghan students are currently in Wuhanthe epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak in neighbouring China. Feroz said the Afghan government had a chartered plane at the ready to bring them home if needed. Coronavirus is similar to the SARS pathogen and has killed more than 300 people in China and spread around the world since emerging in Wuhan. On Sunday, China's National Health Commission said more than 14,000 people have been infected by the novel coronavirus. Outside mainland China, there have been more than 100 infections reported in more than 20 countries. The World Health Organization has declared an international emergency over the outbreak. Explore further Australia confirms first coronavirus cases 2020 AFP BRIDGEPORT The Beardsley Zoos own season-predicting prairie dog did not see his shadow Sunday morning when he emerged from his burrow, agreeing with Pennsylvanias Punxsutawney Phil that 2020 will see an early spring. Beardsley Bart is a very early riser and when he came out this morning, he confirmed that he did not see his shadow, said Zoo Director Gregg Dancho. But every year, Beardsley Bart says that spring is coming eventually, and he has always been 100 percent correct. Abu Dhabi-based Strata Manufacturing, the advanced composite aero-structures manufacturing facility wholly owned by Mubadala Investment Company, is celebrating the delivery of its first shipset of Flap Track Fairings for the PC-24, the twin-engine Super Versatile Jet produced by Pilatus Aircraft of Switzerland. The delivery of the first shipset of Flap Track Fairings comes within eight months following the agreement between the two companies and affirms Stratas position as the major supplier of both Belly and Flap Track Fairings for the worlds first Super Versatile Jet, added the Wam report. Flap Track Fairings are designed to enhance the aerodynamic of the aircraft, reduce drag and improve appearance. The first shipset delivery, comprising 22 components, marks the initial success of an expanded agreement between Strata and Pilatus announced in May 2019. Strata aims to deliver the next 40 shipsets of Flap Track Fairings comprising 880 components to Pilatus within this year. Ismail Ali Abdulla, CEO of Strata, said that the successful delivery is testament to our companies determination to fulfil its commitment and firm resolve to deliver such products to customers within world-class standards, and our Made with Pride in the UAE seal is raising the bar of quality benchmarks in the aerospace supply chain. The partnership between Strata and Pilatus began in April 2018 when the two companies signed a long-term agreement to manufacture the PC-24 Belly Fairings. Made up of 25 sub-assemblies designed to reduce drag on the Swiss aircraft manufacturers flagship business jet, Strata successfully delivered the first shipset of belly fairings in just eight months and has to date successfully shipped 40 shipsets of belly fairings comprising 1,160 components to Pilatus. The documents filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, said the Palumbos operated telecommunications carriers that facilitated hundreds of millions of unlawful robocalls, most of which originated in India. In one 23-day period from May to June last year, the couples businesses had a hand in carrying just over 720 million calls, that came from more than 133 million unique source numbers, according to court documents. More than 425 million of those calls lasted less than a second. Of calls transferred through TollFreeDeals.com, the filing said more than 24 million of those calls were made to phones with area codes in the Eastern district of New York. The Justice Department said in a statement that the calls often claimed to be coming from government agencies and threatened action such as arrests for tax fraud, frozen assets and deportation. In many instances, the calls falsely said the victims Social Security number had been compromised. The complaint said operators of companies that channel the robocalls receive a cut of payments made by victims. It also said the Palumbos provided toll-free phone numbers to fraudsters, allowing victims to return calls to scammers overseas. Ravi Shankar By Sometime in 1343, Kipchak khan Janibeg, chief of the Golden Horde, found himself in an unhappy situation in Crimea. The formidable general from China had laid siege to the port city of Caffa, from where he was forced to retreat leaving about 15,000 of his Mongol warriors dead. In 1345, he returned, only to face a greater enemy - the plague. It had arrived in Crimea along the Silk Road, carried by rodents hidden in the grain bags of merchant caravans. The plague swiftly swept through the Mongol army, whose soldiers died in the agony of putrid fever. Janibeg realised that there was a way to defeat the defiant Caffans after all. He strapped the corpses of dead soldiers on his catapults and flung them inside the city walls. Soon, plague raged through the city, which capitulated in a matter of months. Those who fled Crimea took the Black Death, as the bubonic plague was called, with them to Europe, Asia Minor and beyond. It took around 200 million lives, nearly 60 percent of Europes population and about half of Chinas population. In short, epidemics travel. Which is the reason why half the world is terrified of the invasion of 2019-nCoV as the coronavirus, which originated from China, has been christened. Infected travellers from China are being quarantined even as cases are mounting in the US, the UK, Asia, Europe, Australia and now India. Last week, over 100 deaths were reported in the secretive Communist-controlled country; however, Neil Ferguson, a disease modeller at Imperial College, London, estimated that 4,000 patients had contracted the virus. Another model predicted that by February 4, the number of infected people in Wuhan will be greater than 250,000; or between 164,602 and 351,396. What do we know of this new arrival? Almost nothing. Is it curable? The only fix for now is just common cold medicine. Like Janibeg did seven centuries ago, was it biowarfare gone awry? Reports speak of a secret Chinese facility near Wuhan experimenting with germ experiments. Is climate change causing mutating viruses and unfamiliar pathogens to infect millions of people? Most certainly. Can large migrations of displaced refugees fleeing warzones to live in refugee camps bring local strains which can interact with other viruses to form lethally morphed pathogens? Check. Unlike existing deterrents against nuclear warfare, there are few safeguards against mutating viral epidemics, which were previously treatable. A bioweapon in the hands of a terrorist could be a greater nightmare than a dirty bomb. Security experts are concerned about terrorist capability to re-engineer contagious viruses and release them into public utility systems: researchers recently conducted Exercise Mataika, the simulation of a smallpox bio-terror attack in Fiji, and realised that it could not be diagnosed since the disease is no longer familiar to modern doctors. FEAR MUTANT ATTACKS Coronaviruses are not new medical actors. They were behind both the SARS epidemic of 2002-03, which infected 8,098 people across the world and caused 774 casualties and the MERS contagion in 2012, which infected 2,494 and killed 858 as of November 2019. The current Chinese viruss R0, or basic reproduction number, is scariest part of the pandemic. R0 is the number health organisations such as WHO use to estimate the escalation of any new disease. R0, pronounced R-nought, refers to the average number of people who will catch the virus from a single infected person, in a previously unaffected population. For example, if the R0 of a disease is 5, then five people will be infected by every single infected person. One data model predicts an R0 of 3.6-4.0 for CoV - which means that if 75 per cent of the patients are not treated and quarantined, the pandemic will continue to spread unabated. Compare this with the SARS estimate of 1.1- 4.2 to calculate the deadliness of the new coronavirus. Going by the statistics, it appears that the new coronavirus strain is more infectious but less severe in terms of mortality rate than the SARS. SARS and the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) show some common flu-like symptoms, but the former prevalently affected upper respiratory tract, while nCoV is affecting the lungs and causing breathing issues. However, the most important difference is in the incubation period - the time delay between exposure and the appearance of the first symptom - which ranges from one-14 days for nCoV, while it was two-seven days for SARS, says Dr Vijay Dutta, Consultant, Internal Medicine for Respiratory Diseases, Indian Spinal Injuries Centre, New Delhi. Since the virus was initially traced to a busy seafood market in Wuhan, an apocalypse theorist quoted Nostradamus quatrains as a prediction of the virus attack: The great plague of the maritime city, Will not cease until there be avenged the death, Of the just blood, condemned for a price without crime, Of the great lady outraged by pretence. Nostradamus or not, the worrisome aspect of CoV is that it could just be a augury of a deadly contagion. WHO scientists had predicted an unknown and lethal new illness they titled Disease X with the power to create a potential global epidemic that could wipe out millions. Each year WHO draws up a list of such ominous diseases; this year it is Disease X accompanied by Ebola, SARS, and Zika. The doomsday scenario, which bio-scientists and researchers paint, is of a pathogen which has no known cause or treatment. Moreover, in the present scenario of antibiotic-resistant diseases and mutating viruses, WHO says that Disease X could be a mutation of a previously common sickness. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of the US estimates that at least 23,000 people die every year from germs which have developed resistance to antibiotics. Antimicrobial resistance, associated with inappropriate prescribing and antibiotic overuse, is a serious threat to global public health, according to WHO. According to CDC data, around 23,000 people die every year after developing resistance to antibiotics. Apart from the human cost, the adverse economic impact on epidemic-affected nations could be crippling. A UN report predicted in 2017 that Zika outbreaks would cost Latin America and the Caribbean up to $18 billion. It required $5 billion in emergency funds to control the Ebola epidemic in West Africa in 2014. Ebola, SARS, CoV and their siblings could be the beginning of the greatest challenge science is likely to face. A report prepared by a panel, which included former WHO director-general Gro Harlem Brundtland and the Red Cross among others, surmised that the swift penetration of a viral respiratory disease in the world population could kill up to 80 million people and wipe out 5 percent of the worlds economy. Such an epidemic could cause India to lose Rs 3.8 lakh crore or roughly twice the national agriculture budget in 2019-20. VIRUSES SEEK WARMTH Climate change campaigners like Greta Thunberg have attracted major attention - both positive and negative - as global warming brings dangerous ecological change. The earths surface is heating up. Glaciers and polar ice caps are melting or retreating. Sea waters are becoming acidic. Sea and river levels are rising. Weather patterns are changing, causing powerful changes in animal and bird migrations and earth fertility. All these phenomena encourage epidemics both new and renewed. Scientists studying Siberian polar cap conditions discovered the DNA of a 30,000-year old giant virus frozen in the permafrost. French research scientist Chantal Abergel, who studies polar conditions, has warned that ocean sediments and permafrost are very good preservers of microbes and viruses because they are cold, anoxic and in the dark. With glaciers disappearing rapidly, who knows how many other giant viruses lie locked in ancient sleep to be awakened by the man-made thaw? Genetic evidence of the Spanish influenza outbreak in 1918, which killed 50 million people worldwide, and the smallpox virus considered extinct, have been found in graves in Alaska and Siberia. Should a virus like those emerge today, it could travel around the globe in less than 36 hours - the time it takes for a person to travel around the world in an airplane. Warming temperatures have caused the rising graph in disease vectors such as mosquitoes and ticks which carry agents of Zika, yellow fever, and dengue in places which were previously inhospitable to them. Research by Stanford biologist Erin Mordecai and her colleagues found that warmer temperatures increase the transmission of vector-borne diseases only up to an optimum temperature. For the Anopheles mosquito, which dispenses malaria, the most conducive temperature is 25 degrees Celsius. Zikas is 29 degrees Celsius. Natural disasters such as floods and drought caused by rising temperatures and sea levels lead to epidemics like cholera. In the aftermath of the Kerala floods in September 2018, there was an outbreak of leptospirosis or rat fever across the state. Unusually heavy rains could produce a friendly environment for Ebola-carrying bats to flourish. With climate change causing drought and altered agricultural environments, African villagers are consuming bushmeat, such as bats suspected to be a CoV host. Almost 50 per cent of Ebola outbreaks have been directly linked to bushmeat consumption, according to Earth Institute, Columbia University. Rodent populations tend to multiply when drought forces predatory birds and animals to migrate in search of food, resulting in hantavirus pandemics. Medical scientists are concerned about shifting weather patterns in warm and rain-fed areas leading to the intermingling of different viruses inside mosquitoes to give birth to a hitherto unknown and untreatable pathogen, says Jonathan Day, PhD, professor of medical entomology at the University of Florida. He has predicted that once a weather phenomenon occurs to change the natural habitat of a mosquito, it would inevitably find new hosts to feed on, which could be carrying viruses themselves. PATHOGENS HAVE GOOD HOSTS As the world population of around 7.3 billion is expected to bloat to around 10 billion by 2050, according to UN estimates, the pressure on finding new places to live and more foodstuffs to consume will only increase. This will result in more urbanisation, migration and the conversion of pristine habitats to agricultural land: all causes for viral outbreaks. Forests get chopped down and large predators are either killed or migrate, thus vacating their turf to small animals like mice, rats and creatures that host killer pathogens. More international travel and interaction could also spread the viruses and face masks are of little help since they dont cover the mouth and nose completely. The Asian longhorn tick, which carries and transmits a deadly virus, was discovered in New Jersey. Between 2004 and 2016, nine new mosquito- and tick-borne germs were discovered or introduced into the US. CDC has included outbreaks of Zika, West Nile, Lyme, and chikungunya among a growing list of diseases caused by mosquitoes, ticks and fleas. The WHO has tracked 1,483 epidemics between 2011 and 2018 in 172 countries, including SARS, Ebola, Zika and the Nipah virus, detecting and mapping man-made and previously unknown viruses in the past half century. Animals and birds cause 60 percent of diseases today. Migrating birds are known to be the age-old carriers of influenza viruses in humans. To combat viral Armageddon, where and what are the means? Victor Dzau, president of the National Academy of Medicine, who is part of an internationally reputed group of 15 public health experts who prepared a new, independent report for WHOs Global Preparedness Monitoring Board, has cautioned that the world is unprepared for a viral pandemic of global proportions. He warned that bird flu and swine flu can morph into unique murderous viruses. Contagions are a national security threat and only action from the top can anticipate, prevent and contain the next epidemic. The report said that pandemic preparedness must be an integral part of national security strategy. It stressed the need for more government spending on simulation exercises, vaccine research, and rapid communication systems. Simple solutions do exist today: basic quarantine and sanitation can stop the viruses from spreading. But given mans propensity to treat Nature as his slave while exploiting and treating its resources with greed and contempt, it will come as no surprise when she fights back. The nightmare is just beginning. THE WORLDS DEADLIEST PANDEMICS Some of the most brutal killers in human history HIV/AIDS (2005-2012) Death toll: 36 mn First discovered in Congo in 1976, HIV/AIDS has killed more than 36 million people since 1981. Currently, between 31 and 35 million people are living with HIV, of which a vast majority live in Sub-Saharan Africa, where 5 per cent of the populationroughly 21 millionare infected. Of late, awareness and new treatments have made HIV manageable. Flu (1968) Death toll: 1 mn The category 2 Flu pandemic, also referred to as the Hong Kong Flu, was caused by the H3N2 strain of the Influenza A virus, a genetic offshoot of the H2N2 subtype. The first case was reported on July 13, 1968, in Hong Kong and in just 17 days, outbreaks of the virus were reported in Singapore and Vietnam. Within three months, it spread to the Philippines, India, Australia, Europe, and the US. Asian Flu (1956-1958) Death toll: 2 mn The outbreak of Influenza A of the H2N2 subtype originated in China in 1956 and lasted till 1958. In these two years, the flu travelled from the Chinese province of Guizhou to Singapore, Hong Kong, and the US. Flu (1918) Death toll: 20-50 mn Between 1918 and 1920, a deadly influenza tore across the globe. Of the 500 million people infected, up to 25 million deaths were reported in the first 25 weeks alone. The pandemic struck down healthy young adults, while leaving children and those with weaker immune systems still alive. Sixth Cholera Pandemic (1910-1911) Death toll: 800,000+ Like its five previous incarnations, the Sixth Cholera Pandemic originated in India, before spreading to the Middle East, North Africa, Eastern Europe and Russia. The pandemic was also the source of the last American outbreak of cholera (19101911). American health authorities quickly isolated the infected, and only 11 deaths occurred in the US. Flu (1889-1890) Death toll: 1 mn Originally called the Asiatic Flu or Russian Flu, this strain was thought to be an outbreak of the Influenza A virus subtype H2N2, though recent discoveries have instead found the cause to be the Influenza A virus subtype H3N8. The first cases were observed in May 1889 in three separate and distant locations, Bukhara in Central Asia (Turkestan), Athabasca in northwestern Canada, and Greenland. It was the first true epidemic in the era of bacteriology and much was learned from it. Third Cholera Pandemic (18521860) Death toll: 1 mn Considered the most deadly of the seven cholera pandemics, the third major outbreak of cholera in the 19th century lasted from 1852 to 1860. It spread from Indias Ganges River Delta before tearing through Asia, Europe, North America and Africa and ending the lives of over a million people. The Black Death (1346-1353) Death toll: 75-200 mn An outbreak of the bubonic plague ravaged Europe, Africa, and Asia. Said to have originated in Asia, the plague most likely jumped continents via the fleas living on the rats that lived aboard merchant ships. Plague of Justinian (541-542) Death toll: 25 mn It affected the Byzantine Empire and Mediterranean port cities, in its year-long reign of terror, wiping out perhaps half the population of Europe. Regarded as the first recorded incident of the bubonic plague, the Plague of Justinian left its mark on the world, killing up to a quarter of the population of the Eastern Mediterranean and devastating the city of Constantinople. Source: MPHOnline.org Viruses Explained Viruses are simply packets of nucleic acid, either DNA or RNA, surrounded by a protein shell and sometimes fatty materials called lipids. They are tiny, ranging in size from about 20 to 400 nanometres in diameter. Billions can fit on the head of a pin. Some are rod shaped; others are round and 20 sided; and yet others have fanciful forms, with multisided heads and cylindrical tails. Outside a living cell, a virus is a dormant particle, lacking the raw materials for reproduction. Only when it enters a host cell does it go into action, hijacking the cells metabolic machinery to produce copies of itself that may burst out of infected cells or simply bud off a cell membrane. For example, if you get the flu, your body will be riddled with some hundred trillion viruses in just a few daysmore than 10,000 times the number of people on Earth. Viruses cause a number of diseases in eukaryotes. In humans, smallpox, the common cold, chickenpox, influenza, shingles, herpes, polio, rabies, Ebola, hanta fever, and AIDS are examples of viral diseases. Even some types of cancerthough definitely not allhave been linked to viruses. Transmission Viruses spread from person to person mainly in droplets that fly out when you cough or sneeze. These tiny drops from a sick person move through the air and land on the mouths or noses of others nearby. Germs are also passed along when you touch mucus droplets from someone else on a surface like a desk and then touch your own eyes, mouth, or nose before you get a chance to wash your hands. Viruses like the flu can live 24 hours or longer on plastic and metal surfaces like cafeteria tables, doorknobs, and cups. New Pathogens In November 2019, the findings of a team from Karl Landsteiner University of Health Sciences under the lead of University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna identified a total of 43 bacteriophages in samples of human bodily fluids, particularly in blood samples. The discovery of such phages in the human body is especially significant because they can pass antibiotic resistance genes on to bacteria. The fact that viruses like the deadly Ebola and Marburg viruses, as well as the distantly related viruses that cause measles and rabies, are only found in a limited number of species suggests that those viruses are relatively newafter all, those organisms came along somewhat recently in evolutionary time. Many of these "new" viruses likely originated in insects many million years ago and at some point in evolution developed the ability to infect other speciesprobably as insects interacted with or fed from them. Sources: National Center for Biotechnology Information, US National Library of Medicine; webmd.com; University of California Berkeley; Scientific American Former U.S. Envoy To Ukraine Yovanovitch Retires From State Department By RFE/RL February 01, 2020 Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, who played a key role in the U.S. House hearings on the impeachment of President Donald Trump last November, has retired from the State Department, according to U.S. media reports on January 31. Yovanovitch was abruptly recalled from Kyiv in May 2019 following an intense campaign to oust her that was coordinated by Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani. After her recall following a 33-year career in the foreign service, Yovanovitch remained on the State Department payroll while teaching at Washington's Georgetown University. In November, Yovanovitch testified before the House impeachment inquiry, accusing Giuliani of organizing an "irregular channel" of diplomacy in Ukraine that was aimed, in part, at promoting Trump's domestic political interests. "Shady interests the world over have learned how little it takes to remove an American ambassador who does not give them what they want," Yovanovitch told the inquiry. According to a summary released by the White House, Trump told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy during a telephone conversation on July 25, 2019, that Yovanovitch was "bad news." "She's going to go through some things," Trump also said. The State Department announced earlier this month that it was looking into evidence that Yovanovitch may have been under surveillance while she was in Kyiv. That announcement came days after Lev Parnas, a Ukraine-born U.S. citizen who has been indicted on campaign-finance charges and who was an associate of Giuliani's, released documents relating to his efforts to help Giuliani find incriminating material against former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. The documents also indicated that Connecticut Republican congressional candidate Robert Hyde disparaged Yovanovitch in messages to Parnas and gave Parnas updates on her location and mobile-phone use. "We will do everything we need to do to evaluate whether there was something that took place," U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said during a January 17 radio interview. "I suspect that much of what has been reported will ultimately prove wrong, but our obligation -- my obligation as secretary of state -- is to make sure that we evaluate, investigate. Any time there is someone who posits that there may have been a risk to one of our officers, we'll obviously do that." On January 16, officials in Ukraine announced they would launch a criminal investigation into the information that Yovanovitch may have been under surveillance. On January 25, Parnas released an audio recording of an April 2018 meeting between Trump and a group of donors that appears to include Parnas. In the recording, Parnas can be heard telling Trump that Yovanovitch was "basically walking around telling everybody, 'wait, he's going to be impeached.'" "Get rid of her," Trump responds. "Get her out tomorrow. I don't care. Get her out tomorrow. Take her out." With reporting by NPR, CNN, and CBS Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/former-u-s-envoyto- ukraine-yovanovitch-retires-from- state-department/30411372.html Copyright (c) 2020. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Salman Khan, who was last seen on the big screen as Chulbul Pandey in Dabangg 3, is lately busy shooting for his next release, Radhe: Your Most Wanted Bhai. Directed by Prabhudheva, the film also stars Disha Patani and Randeep Hooda. The movie is reportedly a sequel to his 2009 hit, Wanted. Recent reports suggest that Salman Khan is all set to make a franchise based on Indiana Jones. A source close to the development said, Salman Khans team is using the popular action hero [only] as a reference point. The film will be inspired by the original, but its not a direct adaptation. The source further revealed, Several characteristics will be changed. There is a conscious effort to not replicate any of Salmans trademark charactersChulbul Pandey from Dabangg or Tiger from Tiger Zinda Hai. The hero leads a dual life, explained the source and said, He leads an exciting parallel life, which is a way to escape the dullness of his own existence. But the daddy-issues of the original character will be retained. Well we are super excited with this piece of information about the superstar. Comment below and let us know what you think of it... An Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) member received multiple stitches on the mouth after a group of eight men assaulted him at the boys hostel number 3 on the Panjab University campus on Saturday evening. Police have booked the unidentified assailants under Sections 147 (rioting), 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code. Investigating officials said preliminary investigation suggested that the accused were members of the Students For Society (SFS), and they were scrutinising video footage of the incident to identify the assailants. They said the attack on Divyansh Sharma, a chemical engineering student, came close on the heels of him making an objectionable comment on an Instagram post. The post was about a Citizenship (Amendment) Act protest held on the varsity campus recently. Thereafter, SFS president Varinder Singh had sought an apology from him in the comments. Divyansh told the police that he received an anonymous call on Saturday evening asking for his whereabouts. While he is an inmate of hostel number 4, he was at hostel number 3 to meet a friend, when he was attacked. He was taken to Government Multi-Specialty Hospital in Sector 16, where he received multiple stitches on the mouth. UNIVERSITY TO HOLD PROBE Following the attack, ABVP members gathered outside the residence of dean students welfare (DSW) Emanual Nahar on Saturday night, demanding action against the accused. They were pacified by policemen. On Sunday, a meeting was called at the vice-chancellors office around 12.30pm. One of the varsity officials, who attended the meeting, said, We discussed the matter with Divyansh. The university will conduct an independent inquiry into the case, and assist the police wherever required. The officials objected to how the students gathered outside the DSWs house at night. A passenger who flew from Russia to Ireland has revealed her horror after officials in hazmat suits removed a suspected coronavirus victim from her plane. Travellers were ordered to stay in their seats for two hours after their Aeroflot flight landed at Dublin airport at around 9pm last night while a man with 'flu-like symptoms' was taken away. Authorities wearing protective gear boarded the plane and escorted the passenger to isolation. Passengers were given leaflets saying the flight contained someone 'with a possible case of novel coronavirus' and were advised to limit contact with other people once they got home, and stay indoors. Ireland has had no confirmed cases of coronavirus as of Sunday afternoon. Laura Noonan, 36, has been visiting Moscow every three to four months since January 2018 for haematology treatment for her rare blood disorder. The GP and mother-of-one was returning home to Dublin with her husband Archie O'Connor, 39, when they realised a nearby passenger was unwell. Mrs Noonan wear a face mask due to her condition and its effect on her immune system - and her husband put on a face mask before the flight as a precaution. Laura Noonan, 36, has been visiting Moscow every three to four months since January 2018 for haematology treatment for her rare blood disorder. She wears a mask due to immune system difficulties when she travels Mrs Noonan revealed how a official in a hazmat suit boarded the plane and escorted a Chinese passenger to an ambulance Mrs Noonan said: 'We were not told that anything was wrong during the flight. 'We moved about the cabin and used the bathrooms as you usually would. 'Air stewardesses were very pleasant and enquired as to my wellbeing - at no point did we realise something sinister was also evolving on board. 'When we landed, passengers stood up to got their cabin baggage get ready to leave the plane but the captain then came on speaker and ordered all passengers to sit down, which they did. 'Shortly after a man boarded wearing a hazmat suit and gloves and walked down the plane, took a Chinese passenger from his seat and walked him back up the entire plane and exited at the front meaning the man passed lots of passengers during his retrieval. 'I could see ambulances, airport police and members of the garda siochana [Irish police] on the tarmac. 'The man was quickly taken into the ambulance but it remained on the airport tarmac for a very long time. 'We had still been left in the dark completely but obviously I suspected what the likely problem might be. Leaflets handed out to passengers stated: 'You have been on a flight from Moscow today with a possible case of novel coronavirus' Archie O'Connor and Laura Noonan are pictured on the flight back from Moscow to Dublin 'A while later we were told that there was a possible case of coronavirus being brought to hospital from our flight and we were given a leaflet about what to do.' The leaflets handed out stated: 'You have been on a flight from Moscow today with a possible case of novel coronavirus.' The document advised passengers to avoid contact with other people as much as possible, to stay home and phone 999 if they began to feel unwell. Mrs Noonan and her fellow passengers were told to stay on the flight and write down their seat numbers and personal contact information on forms provided by public health doctors. She said: 'It was almost two hours after we landed before we left the aircraft and made our way through passport control to baggage reclaim. 'Nobody who dealt with us in Dublin was wearing any personal protective equipment or even gloves when handling our passports. 'I was really unwell anyway and we had taken an earlier flight home from Moscow than originally planned as my treatment wasn't going to plan and I felt I would be happier back in Ireland with my family around me. Archie O'Connor, 39, on the flight back from Moscow. He put on a mask before the flight. His wife Mrs Noonan said: 'Nobody who dealt with us in Dublin was wearing any personal protective equipment or even gloves when handling our passports' Laura Noonan pictured with her husband Archie O'Connor. Mrs Noonan said: 'I was so weak and traumatised by the incident and all the extra time on the plane that we just drove straight home and we haven't left the house since' 'I was so weak and traumatised by the incident and all the extra time on the plane that we just drove straight home and we haven't left the house since. 'I have been literally to hell and back - just before Christmas I was hospitalised with sepsis and was in ICU in a critical condition in Ireland before going to Moscow for treatment. 'We are in a quasi unenforceable ''isolation'' at home until we get confirmation as to the diagnosis of the Chinese man taken off our flight after we landed in Dublin last night. 'We have a daughter called Freya who we haven't seen since leaving for Moscow who is with her grandmother and we are leaving her there until this is clearer.' A statement last night from the National Public Health Emergency Team read: 'Ireland has advanced plans in place as part of its comprehensive preparedness to deal with public health emergencies such as novel Coronavirus (2019 nCoV). 'These plans have helped us to respond to previous incidents such as pandemic influenza, SARS and MERS. An ambulance on the ground after the plane landed in Dublin. A statement from the National Public Health Emergency Team read: 'Ireland has advanced plans in place as part of its comprehensive preparedness to deal with public health emergencies such as novel Coronavirus' 'The aim of these plans in Ireland at this point in the response to novel Coronavirus is one of containment. 'This seeks to maximise the chance of a case being detected should one arise here and to prevent it being transmitted to another person. 'The activation of protocols that achieve this is a core and expected feature of our preparedness and ongoing response. 'The protocol always ensures that the people involved are fully communicated with and are aware of what is going on. 'Their activation is an indication of the quality and responsiveness of the agencies and the staff who carry them out in the health services, the emergency service and at the ports of entry into Ireland. 'No information will be provided about individual activations of these plans or about individual cases of novel Coronavirus (2019-ncCoV) other than confirmed cases. 'As of 1 February 2020, there are no confirmed cases in Ireland.' Joe Bidens White House bid began with false starts, pledges to do better in respecting womens personal spaces and a concerted effort to contain his gaffes. He never fully got it together and it may be why he is heading into Iowas caucuses as a strong but uncertain contender. Biden is viewed inside the Democratic Party as an authentic-if-old-school figure whose throwback style is part of his appeal. Despite decades in elective politics, he retains the rough-around-the-edges demeanor that endears him to so many. He wanders off stages and into the crowds on the regular. He inserts asides that do little to help his case, as he did on Thursday in Waukee, Iowa, reminding his audience that he did not, in fact, earn an endorsement from The New York Times. In Mount Pleasant, Iowa, on Friday evening, he recognized the towns Woman of the Year from an event he held on a front porch there in 1987. When he spots bored kids in his crowds, he offers to buy them ice cream as an apology. When babies cry, he says he can empathize. Bidens path to Iowas lead-off caucuses has been an uneven one, too. He seemed to accidentally announce his candidacy twice, went months without a campaign headquarters and kept a lighter schedule than rivals. His senior team argued that Biden began as a known quantity who didnt need a national introduction the way others did. The limited exposure also provided some safeguards against Bidens off-the-cuff candor, although he has made strides toward curtailing his long-windedness and dodged any campaign-derailing transgressions. Joe Biden speaks with a supporter at a Town Hall with John Kerry in Cedar Rapids, Iowa on Feb. 1, 2020. | September Dawn Bottoms for TIME It all adds up to make Biden a question mark heading into Mondays caucuses. His campaign machine is solid, but lags rivals Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. If its a ground game war, Elizabeth Warren wins, says former Rep. Dave Nagel, who attended Bidens rally Saturday night in Waterloo and helped out his 2008 bid. The Vice President has a lot of support but his ground game isnt as good as others. Story continues The uncertainty here only deepened Saturday evening when the final CNN/ Des Moines Register poll the gold standard in the state was canceled amid questions about how it was conducted. Real Clear Politics average of polls puts Sen. Bernie Sanders and Biden atop the field, at 25% and 21% respectively, with former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg in pursuit at 16%, Sen. Elizabeth Warren at 15% and Sen. Amy Klobuchar at 8%. In order to earn delegates, candidates have to log at least 15% support. Whether Biden does well or poorly, he will have done it his way. Biden started his campaign facing uncertainty over his physical but never sexual contact with crowds. He released a video that pledged to do better going forward, but stopped short of an apology. The boundaries of protecting personal space have been reset. I get it, I get it. I hear what theyre saying and I understand it, Biden said in the video. But Bidens reset on this front never happened. At events in Iowa, Biden is still hamming it up with visitors, hugging here and squeezing there. As often as not, he leans in close to supporters on the rope lines and presses his forehead to strangers. He is a master of the side-hug-and-selfie. Its just part of what it means to go up to introduce yourself to Biden after his events. Supporters at the Joe Biden Town Hall in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. | September Dawn Bottoms for TIME His audiences dont seem to mind. Hell, yes, 69-year-old Pat Taylor said after Biden hugged her on Saturday evening in Waterloo. Taylor backed Biden in 2007 and went on to work with the Obama-Biden campaign in 2008. When her husband died, Biden not only sent flowers but phoned to check in and give her his private cell number. I love his integrity. The others running are fine, but we need to go with someone we can trust. Joe is a quality person, she said. Ive always felt comfortable with him. To his credit, Biden has gotten more succinct on the trail. Before, hed try to stick a landing if a sentence started meandering or if he had lost his point; now he just bails. (Anyway has come to double as a go-to way to end run-on sentences.) He apologizes to his crowds for going on too long. Thats more than you wanted to know, Biden said Thursday in Newton, when he felt he had been answering a question about his running mate selection. The result has been a cleaner campaign than some anticipated. Sure, he cribbed an energy policy in a move that evoked his 1988 bid that ended in a plagiarism scandal, but the ensuing controversy didnt last beyond a news cycle. His debate performances have been mediocre, which is a win for Team Joe. He has largely sidestepped criticizing his rivals, insisting that theyre all good people while also saying voters deserve to know the costs of the big-ticket proposals. The impeachment of President Donald Trump unfolding in Washington has the Biden clan at its center, but it hasnt had a major factor in the Democratic primary. Most of Bidens pitch has been about being able to defeat Trump in November and bypasses the differences he has with his rivals for the nomination. Iowans are still undecided and shopping; the Monmouth University Poll of Iowa Democrats showed 47% with a firm decision and 45% open to switching their choices on caucus night, Feb. 3. (That poll was conducted Jan. 23 to Jan. 27.) The caucuses which take place at some 1,600 sites like churches and schools force Iowans to publicly declare support for candidates. They are a battle of organizing and persuasion that will test Bidens team. In the final days, Biden hasnt seemed nervous or hurried. I know you guys have been waiting a bit, Rep. Abby Finkenauer said Saturday night, introducing Biden. Doors to the National Cattle Congress Pavilion in Waterloo opened at 5 p.m. Biden entered the room at 6:52 p.m. New Delhi: Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday said that he has contested many elections but has never seen a government lying so much about its work like Aam Admi Parties government in Delhi. Shah said the statement while addressing a rally in Delhi's Burari constituency where he was accompanied with Bihar CM Nitish Kumar and Minister of Parliamentary Affairs Prahald Joshi. Shah was in Burari to campaign for JDU candidate Salinder Kumar. It is to be noted that out of the 70 seats in Delhi BJP is not contesting from Burari and Sangam Vihar seat as the party has given these seats to its ally JDU. In his address, Shah said, ''When you vote for NDA candidate in the upcoming elections do not think that you are only voting for him but think that you are electing a party that will safeguard Delhi and India.'' Live TV Slamming AAP government Shah said, ''Amidst several developmental competition between states, Delhi has never ranked first in the last five years. The only place where Arvind Kejriwal's government ranks one is in saying lies.'' He further also launched an attack on the AAP for removing its Ghoshna Patra from the website and said they did this because they were afraid that Delhi people will question them over their declarations. Raising the slogan 'Modi hai tho mumkin hai', Shah said that BJP is a party that delivers its promise and further urged people to vote for JDU candidate. Delhi will go to single phase election on February 8 and the results will be declared on February 11. The Union Health Ministry has reported the second case of Novel Coronavirus patient, has been reported in Kerala. The patient has tested positive for Novel Coronavirus and is in isolation in the hospital. The patient, who has travelled to China. is stable and is being closely monitored, the ministry said. Kerala Health Minister K K Shailaja said that the Central government has been informed about the possibility of the second positive case, adding that the patient is a student returned from China and is currently in the Medical College, Alappuzha. The infection is yet to be ... The report, from firm SB Friedman, is not the first to draw attention to affordable housing in Naperville. A state agency has twice cited the city for its lack of affordable housing, and it is the only Illinois town with a population of 50,000 or more recently faulted for a shortage. City officials have said they fear high housing costs could make it tough for recent graduates and middle-class professionals to come to the area and could be driving out seniors looking to downsize. COLUMBIA Joe Biden's hold atop South Carolina Democratic presidential primary polls has never wavered over nearly a year. But the former vice president's lead continues to slide with the South's first primary just under a month away. Biden, who once led by as much as 31 percentage points in South Carolina, holds a 5-point edge over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the latest Post and Courier-Change Research poll released Sunday. Biden sits at 25 percent to Sanders' 20 percent. Billionaire activist Tom Steyer, who has shown South Carolina is a top priority among early-voting states with his constant advertising, sits third not far behind the political veterans at 18 percent. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, once considered Biden's chief rival in the state, fell back to fourth, off pace with the leaders at 11 percent. Former Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, at 7 percent, is the only other Democratic White House hopeful polling above 3 percent in South Carolina, the new poll found. Ten percent of voters had no pick. This is the eighth Post and Courier-Change Research poll of the 2020 race in South Carolina and interestingly, no challenger to Biden has polled at more than 20 percent. Biden's lead in South Carolina has diminished because his support has fallen from a high of 46 percent in May. Few political observers expected Biden to win South Carolina by the 20-point leads he held over the summer when the Democratic field boasted two dozen contenders. His drop in S.C. support comes as the race becomes more focused with the field cut by more than half and the leading contenders consistently standing out in the early-voting states. Sanders has taken leads in Iowa and New Hampshire with Warren and Buttigieg joining Biden to round out the top four leaders. Iowa voters head to their caucus Monday. New Hampshire holds its primary on Feb. 11. Biden keeps a lead in South Carolina's Feb. 29 primary thanks to black voters who account for close to two-thirds of Democratic ballots cast. Sign up for updates! Get the latest political news from The Post and Courier in your inbox. Email Sign Up! The vice president to the country's first African American president received 30 percent backing from S.C. black voters in the latest Post and Courier-Change Research poll. Biden was receiving support from half of the state's black voters over the summer. Steyer's work to make in-roads with South Carolina's African American community, including visiting areas with large black populations and hiring black staffers, appear to be paying off. He received backing from 24 percent of black voters. Sanders follows at 16 percent with Warren at 10 percent. Buttigieg, whose ability to stay among the leaders for so long has been the surprise of the 2020 campaign, continues to struggle winning African American support. He received 2 percent of S.C. black voter backing, the same as Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard and tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang. Buttigieg, however, is third among white voters behind Sanders and Biden and ahead of Warren. Other findings in the new Post and Courier-Change Research poll include: Women prefer Biden, while men favor Sanders and Steyer. Biden, Sanders and Steyer hold leads among different age groups in South Carolina. Sanders has the younger voters under 34. Steyer leads among 35 to 49 year olds. And Biden dominates older voters 50 and up. Biden is ahead in the Midlands (Columbia) and Lowcountry (Charleston), while Sanders has the edge in the Upstate (Greenville) and is tied with Steyer for the lead in the Pee Dee (Florence/Myrtle Beach). About half of S.C. primary voters said they were absolutely certain they will vote for their preferred current candidate. Four out of 10 voters said there was a small chance they could change their minds. Ten percent put themselves at 50-50. The results in Iowa will not change the minds of 43 percent of S.C. primary voters. But 35 percent said they might consider another candidate if their first choice stumbles at the caucus. Just 13 percent they would likely change their support based on the Iowa outcome. The Post and Courier-Change Research Poll surveyed 651 likely South Carolina Democratic 2020 presidential primary voters from Jan. 26 to 29. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percent. Three capitals for Andhra Pradesh: State govt issues order to relocate offices from Amravati India oi-Madhuri Adnal Amaravati, Feb 02: Amid the three-capital row in Andhra Pradesh, the state government has decided to shift three government offices from Amaravati. State Chief Secretary Nilam Sawhney issued an order after midnight on Friday that these offices, along with the offices of the commissioners of inquiries "shall function at Kurnool on administrative grounds." These offices are currently located at the Interim Government Complex at Velagapudi in Amaravati capital region. As these offices are quasi-judicial in nature, the government has decided to shift them to Kurnool in the Rayalaseema region. TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu asks CM Jagan Reddy not to shift capital from Amaravati The Kurnool district Collector and Engineer-in-Chief (Roads and Buildings) have been directed to take necessary steps for identifying suitable buildings for locating the offices of Vigilance Commissioner and Chairman of Commissionerate of Inquiries. The Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy government failed to get a legislation passed in the Legislature during the recent extended winter session for giving shape to its three capitals idea. The Council referred the relevant Bill to a select committee for eliciting public opinion on the governments plan. At the same time, the High Court too said it would hold the government and the officials concerned responsible if any offices were relocated to the proposed new capitals. The court also asked the state not to shift any of its offices to any other place. The matter has been posted to February 26 for further hearing, on a batch of writ petitions opposing theAP Decentralisation and Inclusive Development of All Regions Bill, 2020 and the APCRDA (Repeal) Bill. The ruling YSR Congress failed to get the two billspassed by the Legislative Council last month as they were referred to the select committee at the insistence of the opposition TDP-dominated Upper House. Following this, the Assembly on January 27 passed a statutory resolution seeking the Council's abolition. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Sunday, February 2, 2020, 10:52 [IST] The Democratic candidates for president are looking for one last chance to make a splash before Iowans pick their winner on Monday. The top contenders are holding dozens of events all around Iowa on Sunday, racing across the state to make their case to as many voters as possible especially the senators, who have lost valuable days on the campaign trail to the impeachment trial in recent weeks. Each campaign has its own special twist on the final-day blitz. Pete Buttigieg is continuing his media-heavy strategy by hitting the Sunday shows. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are drawing on their support from high-profile surrogates, including former Ohio state legislator Nina Turner for Sanders and former 2020 candidate and Cabinet secretary Julian Castro for Warren. But some things look the same across even the most different Democratic campaigns, with drop-ins on Super Bowl watch parties set to be a regular event Sunday evening. Heres everything you need to know about what the campaigns are doing on Sunday and their strategies to sway as many voters as possible before the caucuses begin Monday night. POLITICO reporters are spread out across Iowa following the top candidates so check back throughout the day as we update this story with key moments and new developments on the campaign trail. Joe Biden Sunday's campaigning will conclude Biden's big cross-state Iowa swing ahead of the caucuses, which he's going into as a co-frontrunner. Biden starts the morning in Dubuque and ends with an early evening rally in Des Moines (timed, somehow, to partially coincide with the Super Bowl). Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks at a campaign stop at Roosevelt Creative Corridor Business Academy, Saturday, Feb. 1, 2020, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) Saturday marked some relatively larger crowds for Biden in Cedar Rapids and Waterloo. He's never managed to draw the kind of huge turnout that his three top rivals have seen (especially Sanders), even though he's won major local and congressional endorsements. But in Cedar Rapids, firefighters union chief Harold Schaitberger tossed T-shirts into the crowd, firing up the attendees before Biden took center stage inside a school gymnasium. Curiously, Biden took the first several minutes to highlight his friendship with several officials from outside of Iowa, including Delaware and Massachusetts, giving the rally the slight feel of a retirement tour. Story continues Biden's remarks seemed disjointed and went on at length. But he struck a chord in attacking President Donald Trumps decisions domestically and overseas. At one point, Biden told the crowd he refused to bow to Vladimir Putin, winning him an extended standing ovation. -Natasha Korecki Pete Buttigieg Buttigieg will appear on five Sunday shows and a pair of Iowa rallies the day before the caucuses. But the driving conversation on those shows and at those events will be the poll that never was. On Saturday, Buttigieg's campaign raised serious concerns with the Des Moines Register, CNN and Mediacom about their much-awaited final poll of Iowa, after a surveyed participant told the campaign that Buttigieg's name was not included in the poll. The media outlets canceled the poll release altogether, robbing observers and the campaign itself of a final closing-days barometer of the Democratic race. Buttigiegs Sunday show blitz is a big bet on the medium that helped launch his presidential hopes in earnest, when he was a constant presence on cable news early last year. And on the ground, hes hitting two high-density, largely suburban areas with his rallies in Coralville, a suburb outside of Iowa City, and Des Moines. Those places represent the type of demographics in which Buttigieg performs best. Expect many, many questions about what happened with that poll as Buttigieg tries to deliver a closing message focused on his electability. -Elena Schneider Amy Klobuchar Is there Klomentum? Were about to find out. Klobuchar packed a womens club in Cedar Falls, Iowa Saturday evening, her first full day back on the trail after being stuck in Washington most of the week. The number one thing that unites everyone, Klobuchar said Saturday, is beating Donald Trump. After a winding speech that covered the impeachment trial, farmers, and climate change, Klobuchar ended on her final, central pitch: electability. I have won in the most rural district, including the one bordering Iowa, Klobuchar said, And I have won in Michele Bachmanns district every single time, she continued, referencing the former Republican congresswoman who ran for president in 2012. Klobuchar is set to wrap up the final day before caucusing starts with get out the caucus events in Cedar Rapids and Mason City. She ends Sunday at a Super Bowl watch party in Johnston. -Laura Barron-Lopez Bernie Sanders Sanders is spending his last day on the pre-caucus campaign trail doing meet-and-greets at his field offices in Cedar Rapids, Iowa City and Newton, as well as dropping in on a Super Bowl watch party in Des Moines. The Sunday events have a lower-key vibe after Sanders' campaign said 3,000 people attended his concert event with Vampire Weekend Saturday night, which the campaign is calling "the largest rally any presidential candidate has held in Iowa this cycle." Sanders has no events scheduled today approaching that scale, wanting that high note of excitement and the huge crowd to be the closing image in caucusgoers minds before the big day. Good morning. Bernie Sanders first public event today is a meet-and-greet at a campaign field office in Cedar Rapids. pic.twitter.com/dUBmy03X7U Holly Otterbein (@hollyotterbein) February 2, 2020 Sanders will be joined at various events Sunday by prominent endorsers, including Rep. Mark Pocan, the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and campaign co-chairs Turner and Rep. Ro Khanna. -Holly Otterbein Elizabeth Warren One day more. After more than a year of campaigning and 117 events in Iowa, voters will finally deliver judgment on whether Warren is the best Democrat to face Donald Trump in November. Warren will spend her last day before the caucuses holding two rallies, in Indianola and Ames, and her surrogates will spread across the state to rally door knockers and organizers to push through the finish line. Rather than trying to hold a rally during the Super Bowl, Warren will stop by at least one watch party in Des Moines hosted by Progress Iowa. Warren is sticking to big population centers near Des Moines today rather than venturing to the far, rural corners of the state, like some of the other candidates are doing. Warren sees her path to victory running through these voters, who are more likely to be college-educated, closer to the cities. Warren changed up her stump speech a bit Saturday for her near-final pitch to voters. She focused on uniting the Democratic Party going into November and paid homage to Democrats who are no longer in the race, including Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, and Steve Bullock. Ive been building a campaign from the beginning that is not a campaign thats narrow, not a campaign that says its us and nobody else, Warren said Saturday in Cedar Rapids. Its a campaign that says come on in because we are in this fight together. That argument is part of a larger effort to address voters' concerns about Warrens electability. The campaign has been furiously trying to convince voters that Warren can win, with several of Warrens closing television and digital ads casting her as a way to bridge the remaining divides between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders supporters. At a canvass kickoff Saturday, Warren stood in front of new placards that read Unite the Party. 1:29 pm Overflow crowd greets Warren at rally Warren booked too small of a space Sunday at Simpson College in Indianola, where she spoke to about 300 people in the Kent Campus Center and to an overflow crowd beforehand. Senior campaign adviser Dan Geldon wrote on Twitter that on Warrens first swing through Iowa last year, a lot of people were counting us out. But thanks to the best message, messenger, and team in politics, we are now on our final swing with overflowing crowds and things feeling good on the ground. He added the hashtag #LFG (Lets F***ing Go) which many Warren staffers have been using since soccer star Megan Rapinoe used it as a rallying cry while endorsing Warren in December. "Well, we have a little saying on the National Team that we like to say, I don't know if you can cuss on here, but it's LFG. So, let's do this," Rapinoe said. Warren also addressed the impeachment trial, in response to an audience question about how Democrats can win back the Senate. We are going to run on decency and integrity, Warren said. "We are going to run on a Senate that doesnt believe in sham trials. -Alex Thompson Dont let the sermon title fool you. This is not a sermon about the famous Charles Dickens novel that some of you read during high school, but which I seem to have avoided. Nevertheless, according to Scripture, God has placed great expectations on Gods people. God is gracious and merciful, but God also sets a high bar for us. Here in the sixth chapter of Micah, an eighth-century prophet who lived outside Jerusalem, reveals Gods Great Expectations. The words we find in the eighth verse of this chapter are well known to us. They tell us what is good and what God requires of us. According to Micah, God would have us do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God. We hear these words in the context of a divine lawsuit that God brings against the people. The jury for this case is the mountains and the hills. Nature itself will hear and decide Gods case against Israel. When God stands before this jury, God asks the people, whom God had rescued from slavery in Egypt, through the ministries of Moses, Aaron, and Miriam: what have I done to you? How did I weary you? Do you hear in this reading a bit of divine frustration? After God lays out the prosecutions case, the defense responds. They seem to acknowledge their guilt because they ask what they can do to resolve the case. What do we owe? What do we need to pay so God can be appeased? How about burnt offerings? Is that sufficient, or what about the sacrifice of a familys firstborn child? Will any of these sacrifices suffice? In other words, how can I be more religious? My friend Brett Younger suggests that the defendants in this case are religious, but their idea of what religion means is far from Gods hopes for them. They think that religion consists of worshiping correctly and staying away from those who do not [ My friend Brett Younger suggests that the defendants in this case are religious, but their idea of what religion means is far from Gods hopes for them. They think that religion consists of worshiping correctly and staying away from those who do not [ Feasting on the Word, p. 293]. Or, we might think of the Godfather, who goes to church, has his children baptized, and then orders a hit on his enemies. Hes very religious, but also very evil. Being religious, doesnt necessarily absolve us from our responsibilities before God? We cant sweep bad behavior under the rug, because on Sunday we serve as a Sunday School teacher, an Elder or Deacon, or even a preacher! Over the previous three Sundays, weve heard words about being agents of light from the Book of Isaiah. While Micah doesnt speak of light here, his message is a continuation of what weve heard from Isaiah. God has commissioned Gods people to be a light to the nations. That is, God has commissioned us to be agents of Gods compassionate justice in the world. This involves doing justice, loving-kindness, and walking humbly with God. Theres another way of saying this. A lawyer asked Jesus what it would take to gain eternal life. Jesus responded by asking what was written in the law. The lawyer pointed to two commands: Love God and love your neighbor. Jesus then answered: Do this and you will live. ( Theres another way of saying this. A lawyer asked Jesus what it would take to gain eternal life. Jesus responded by asking what was written in the law. The lawyer pointed to two commands: Love God and love your neighbor. Jesus then answered: Do this and you will live. ( Luke 10:25-29 ). Of course, thats not the end of the story, because Jesus will go on to share a parable about a Samaritan. But, for our purposes, the lawyer got it right. In Deuteronomy 6 were told to love God with our entire being. Then in Leviticus 19 , were told to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. This is the path to eternal life. Rabbi Akiva, one of the great sages of Judaism, taught that the command to love ones neighbor summarizes the essence of the Torah. Rabbi Reuven Hammer writes that by choosing a verse that specifies that one must love others, Akiva makes clear that in all cases love is the requirement. It is not enough to insist that we treat each other as we want to be treated, since some people disdain themselves. It is not sufficient to say that all people are created equal. Love is the basic requirement ( Rabbi Akiva, one of the great sages of Judaism, taught that the command to love ones neighbor summarizes the essence of the Torah. Rabbi Reuven Hammer writes that by choosing a verse that specifies that one must love others, Akiva makes clear that in all cases love is the requirement. It is not enough to insist that we treat each other as we want to be treated, since some people disdain themselves. It is not sufficient to say that all people are created equal. Love is the basic requirement ( A Year with the Sages, p. 157). Jesus message about Gods realm stands in line with the prophetic tradition. Its rooted in the Torah. As followers of Jesus, God has great expectations of us, which are laid out for us in Micah 6. So, do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. Now, does that mean our worship is irrelevant? Is Micah saying that Judah should close up the Temple and cease the sacrifices? I dont believe so. The problem isnt the offerings made in the Temple. The problem isnt coming to church and singing songs of praise. The problem has to do with how we live out our relationship with God in daily life. These expectations arent that controversial, but we may find it difficult to put them into practice. The question for us, as followers of Jesus, concerns how we live out the expectations Micah reveals to us in answer to Gods lawsuit. We could focus on a number of areas of concern, but I thought this would be a good opportunity to speak about the way we use social media. Even if you dont own a computer or a smartphone, youre probably still impacted by social media. Its in the air. We cant get away from it. Since Ive been looking for an opportunity to explore our use of social media after reading Angela Williams Gorrells book Always On this past fall, this seemed like as good an opportunity as any. As I read this book, I began to examine how I use social media and how others use it as well. Its hard to believe that public access to the internet is only about twenty-five years old. Maybe you remember a movie starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan titled Youve Got Mail. It came out in 1998 and featured a relationship that was carried out through an email platform. Back then most of us used dial-up to access the internet. You may even remember the sound that dial-up access made. It was quite distinctive. A lot has changed over the past twenty-five years. New platforms emerge every day. I remember reviewing a book by Christian and Amy Piatt titled My Space to Sacred Space: That book came out in 2007 when My Space was all the rage. While My Space is still around, its been supplanted by Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and a multitude of other sites. Though Facebook is still the largest social media platform, depending on your age, you may prefer some other form of online communication. As I read this book, I began to examine how I use social media and how others use it as well. Its hard to believe that public access to the internet is only about twenty-five years old. Maybe you remember a movie starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan titled. It came out in 1998 and featured a relationship that was carried out through an email platform. Back then most of us used dial-up to access the internet. You may even remember the sound that dial-up access made. It was quite distinctive. A lot has changed over the past twenty-five years. New platforms emerge every day. I remember reviewing a book by Christian and Amy Piatt titled God for a New Generation. That book came out in 2007 whenwas all the rage. Whileis still around, its been supplanted by, and a multitude of other sites. Thoughis still the largest social media platform, depending on your age, you may prefer some other form of online communication. Whatever platform you use, and right now this sermon is going out into cyberspace through Facebook Live, the question is how should I be present online? More specifically, how might I fulfill Micahs declaration that God would have us do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God, through my use of social media? What rules should apply? Angela Williams Gorrells book offers some really good advice. She even provides some rules and spiritual practices that can guide us along the way. She proposes five questions that can help us decide what to post, how to reply to posts, and how to produce content on social media. Is this information true? In other words, does it pass the Snopes test? Even though I find this funny, is it mean, hateful, racist, marginalizing, and so forth? Does it qualify as harassment, bullying, gossip, or lying? Am I OK with my coworkers or peers, potential employers, family, and friends viewing this? What is my tipping point when I see something bad happening online? Am I affirming information or actions that are good and true? [Gorrell, Always On, pp. 155-156]. I think these questions resonate with what Micah is saying. He might not have had access to modern social media, but the point about justice, love, and humility transcends time and place. If we follow the command to love our neighbor, then it too applies to the way we engage with social media, whether its email or Instagram or some other platform. To borrow from Paul, we might ask whether what we post is edifying to others. Does it build up or does it tear down? We know that its very easy to share untruths on social media. We can do this without even knowing it. When things go viral, we can get caught up in the cycle and pass on misinformation and not even realize it. Since Im a pastor who has a public presence on Social Media, I always keep in mind my position. I assume that what I post will be seen by members of the congregation. I dont worry whether someone might disagree with what I post. Thats a given. But, if Im not comfortable with members of the congregation or my family seeing what I post, then perhaps I shouldnt share it. Social media offers us many opportunities to be Gods light to the nations, but we must use it carefully and prayerfully. Micah has told us what God expects of us as we go out into the world as agents of Gods light. He tells us to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God in every area of our lives, including what we post on Social Media. Preached by: Dr. Robert D. Cornwall, Pastor Central Woodward Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Troy, Michigan Epiphany 4A Im glad to hear the governor is still unhappy with the Pacific Gas and Electric Co. settlement. He should be. We need to re-form PG&E as a public utility. PG&E gets paid to sell energy. If it sells less of it, it makes less profit. This is a fundamental problem at the root of PG&Es dysfunction. PG&E should be seeking to save as much energy as possible and to be pushing as hard as possible on renewables. PG&Es leadership is struggling to preserve a system in which they seem to feel entitled to tens of millions of dollars in salary and bonuses. Throw the switch, change PG&E into a public utility, and the greedy ones at the top will desert like rats, leaving behind a capable cadre of dedicated people who actually care about reliable, safe, renewable and equitable energy production and distribution. It makes one wonder why things were set up the way they are, but thats water under the bridge. We have a chance, now, to literally give power to the people. John Schlag, Sausalito Nation of immigrants This country is a nation of immigrants and was founded by immigrants. Our nation never would have been developed had it not been for immigrants. Morality, ethics, our values as a nation and loving our brothers and sisters have been left out of this discussion. Immigrants are not second-class citizens. They work hard because they want their familys future to be successful, in jobs, education and life in general. Learning to respect each other is important. Value each other as human beings, not labels. We need to stop it. We must invite these men, women and children into our homes. Feed them, go to church with them, hug them, talk to them and become friends with them. Lifes about accepting differences and loving each other. This endless bigotry of pitting people against each other must end. Tyler Fahey, Dubuque, Iowa City must act on housing I read with dismay Heather Knights column City rejects free housing on derelict Tenderloin lot (Bay Area, Jan. 26). Anyone visiting Turk and Jones streets can see just how many homeless people have to endure difficult and unsanitary living conditions on our streets. Indeed, visiting almost any corner in a 2-mile radius of this location excepting Civic Center Plaza and Union Square would reveal thousands of human beings in similar predicaments. This is a crisis. The city needs to act, in small ways and large ways. The Mayors Office of Housing and Community Development needs to move quickly when proposals are valid, and not let the byzantine and bureaucratic Request for Proposal process create more human suffering. Five human beings could be given a new lease on life, and hundreds more could visit a health clinic that does not exist today if the proposed tiny house and wellness clinic is allowed to proceed. Mayor London Breed has said she considers homelessness a top priority well, she can get points on the board with units for the unhoused, right here and right now. Joe DiMento, San Francisco Irony of proposition Its indeed ironic that a ballot measure to Support schools at all levels (Editorial, Jan. 26), a $15 billion bond to build and repair Californias schools, bears the same name, Proposition 13, as the 1978 measure that locked in property taxes and began starving schools of the revenue needed to maintain them and support students. If The Chronicle really wanted to stand behind the title of this editorial, it would call for both supporting the new Prop. 13 and repealing the old one. Julian Grant, Pacifica Trump can be trusted In response to Rep. Adam Schiffs impassioned closing argument at President Trumps impeachment trial, Republicans dispute his assertion that Trump cannot be trusted. And in many ways, they are right. Trump can be trusted to lie and cheat. Trump can most certainly be trusted to punish his enemies and seek revenge against those who seek to shed light on his dangerous behavior. Witness the ways he focuses his ire on the state of California with threats of funding cuts and environmental rollbacks to try and get back at Schiff and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Its odd that Republicans would gasp at a report that any in his party who vote for a more honest and transparent trial would be on his enemies list. He has done it before, and he can be trusted to do it again. Trump can absolutely be trusted to do whatever he can to survive to wreak havoc on our democracy another day. Noelle Robbins, Alameda A true San Franciscan To Carl Noltes splendid column Going from newcomers to San Franciscans (Native Son, MainNews Jan. 26) on the distinction between transplanted and temporary San Franciscans, Ill add one point: The number of years it takes to become a true San Franciscan is strongly influenced by how awful life was for you before you escaped to here. Ive been here 45 years, and it took only one for me to be clear that San Francisco was so wonderful that Id never, ever go back. 02.02.2020 LISTEN Two illegal miners aka 'galamsey' operators have been arrested during a swoop by a taskforce from the Ghana National Association of Small Scale Miners in the Atwima Mponua District of the Ashanti Region. About 30 equipment used by the miners in the Offin River have been confiscated and others set ablaze. The miners were busily engaged in their activities before the taskforce got to the site. The illegal miners bolted upon seeing members of the force. The task force, set up by the Ghana National Association of Small Scale Miners is to complement the efforts by the government's existing task force fighting against the menace. Despite these efforts, activities of illegal miners are still rife in some hard to reach areas in the Ashanti Region and other regions. The destruction at these sites is visible as the water bodies and farmlands are the worse affected. Leader of the taskforce, Bresi Andoh is worried that these illegal miners who are arrested and handed over to the police are the same people they see in subsequent operations. After arresting them [the illegal miners], we hand them over to the police. At times, we hand them over and we dont know the outcome because my job is to come and arrest and destroy the things. So if we do that, we have finished our job. So they [the police] as the lawmakers will send them to court and do all the necessary processes but at times before you realise, then they are out of police custody. And they will come back to the same place to work gain. And that dampens our morale. But we cant say anything about it. All we know is small scale mining has to be protected and that is why we are doing this, he said. He further pleaded on the government to support them in playing their part in the fight against illegal mining. We are appealing to government that they should come to our aid. We have to get some resources so that we can conquer this menace or else we are in trouble. The main challenge is the lack of vehicles. It is one of our members who have donated his pick-up truck to us and the inter-ministerial committee also gave us one but they are not enough. Our men are more than 30 and some have to sit at the back of the pick-up which is dangerous. So we need vehicles, life jackets, and so many equipment that will help us with this operation, he said. Meanwhile, the taskforce has handed over the two illegal miners who were arrested during the operation to police at Nyinahin. citinewsroom L abour leadership hopefuls Rebecca Long-Bailey and Lisa Nandy have urged the party to accept Brexit and move on, during the first hustings since the UKs European Union exit. Friday marked Britains last day as a member of the EU, with the country leaving the bloc at 11pm. Shadow business secretary Ms Long-Bailey and Wigan MP Ms Nandy, who both represent Leave-voting constituencies, said efforts should now be redirected into ensuring a good trade is struck with Brussels. But, shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry predicted the exit talks were unlikely to go smoothly and argued that Labour would need a Remain-backing leader who had been on the right side of the argument all along. Ms Long-Bailey told supporters at a hustings in Bristol that the party could not campaign at the next general election, expected in 2024, with the message of we told you so if the countrys economic fortunes took a dip after leaving the EU. Brexit was the hot topic of the night after the UK left the EU at 11pm on Friday / Getty Images She admitted it was sad to see the UKs divorce from Brussels finalised this week but said the debate is over on Brexit. We cannot spend the next four years waiting to tell our constituents we told you so and that we knew it was going to be this bad all along, the 40-year-old urged. The Salford and Eccles MP said Labour instead had to make sure Boris Johnson negotiated the best possible trade deal that could help rebuild our communities. Ms Nandy was critical of Labours reaction to the referendum outcome, accusing the leadership under Jeremy Corbyn of looking backwards after the result rather than looking forward to the country we can be. We completely missed the point of that political earthquake, which was a clamour for more power, more control and more agency across this country, said the backbencher. Ms Nandy urged the party to place efforts in getting a trade deal with the EU / Getty Images The former shadow energy secretary, who voted for the Prime Ministers Withdrawal Agreement, admitted she had failed in her push for a Brexit deal that kept a close relationship with the EU. Ms Thornberry took an opposing view to her two female rivals and said she suspected the PM would not be successful in acquiring a trade agreement with Brussels, forecasting that the country would be back in no-deal territory by the summer. What do we do at that stage? We need to have someone leading the fight who was on the right side of the argument all along, said the Islington South and Finsbury MP, who is the only contender not to have secured enough backing to advance to the final stage. Shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer, one of the architects of Labours second referendum policy, said the divide between Leave and Remain voters must end, but accused the Government of failing to address the underlying reasons why the electorate voted out before Fridays historic moment. It came as Ms Nandy demanded that mention of Empire in the honours system is removed in order to create a more inclusive society. Ms Thornberry is the only candidate not to have secured a spot on the final ballot / Getty Images The Order of the British Empire recognises contributions to the UK across the arts and sciences, charity, public service and the military. Rallying for a re-brand, Ms Nandy pointed to the example of poet Benjamin Zephaniah, who turned down an OBE in 2003 because it reminded him of thousands of years of brutality in Britains colonial past. Ms Nandy said she wants to replace it with the word excellence, to celebrate those who built us rather than seek to alienate them. The South West hustings also saw a red-on-red clash, with Ms Long-Bailey and Ms Nandy disagreeing over whether to introduce open selections for Labour MPs. Ms Long-Bailey, dubbed by some critics the continuity candidate due to her left-wing politics, told members she would bring in open selections if she was elected leader. The move would make it easier for local party branches to deselect sitting MPs before elections. Being an MP is not a job for life, she told the audience, to loud cheers. But Ms Nandy said she disagreed with her rivals views on the issue, adding: The MPs I want to get rid of are Tories, not Labour. Hong Kong Protesters Face 'Abusive' Policing, Suppression of Promised Freedoms: Report 2020-01-31 -- Hong Kong protesters are 'bloodied but not broken' in the wake of abusive policing tactics for which the authorities have yet to be held accountable, according to an annual report from Amnesty International. The report tracked a wave of youth-led protests across Asia which had defied "escalating repression and a continent-wide crackdown on freedom of expression and peaceful assembly." "2019 was a year of repression in Asia, but also of resistance. As governments across the continent attempt to uproot fundamental freedoms, people are fighting back and young people are at the forefront of the struggle," said Amnesty International's regional director for East and Southeast Asia and the Pacific Nicholas Bequelin said. "From students in Hong Kong leading a mass movement against growing Chinese encroachment, to students in India protesting against anti-Muslim policies; from Thailand's young voters flocking to a new opposition party to Taiwan's pro LGBTI-equality demonstrators. Online and offline, youth-led popular protests are challenging the established order," he said. It said the Hong Kong protest movement, which began in June 2019 with mass popular opposition to extradition to mainland China, had demanded accountability in spite of increasingly harsh treatment by the authorities. "Since June, Hong Kongers have regularly taken to the streets to demand accountability in the face of abusive policing tactics that have included the wanton use of tear gas, arbitrary arrests, physical assaults and abuses in detention," Amnesty International said in a statement launching the report. "Police deployed reckless and indiscriminate tactics to quell peaceful protests, including torture in detention," it said. "Demands for a proper investigation into the conduct of the security forces have yet to be met." It said governments in the region had tried to justify repression by demonizing their critics as pawns of "foreign forces." But it said protest had yielded some results, especially in Hong Kong, where the government was forced to withdraw planned changes to the city's extradition laws. "Yet, with no accountability for months of abuses against demonstrators, the fight goes on," the group said. 'Stifled, but not silenced' Bequelin added: "Protesters across Asia in 2019 were bloodied, but not broken. They were stifled, but not silenced." Amnesty International's Hong Kong director Man-kei Tam said the Hong Kong government had used violent means to suppress peaceful demonstrations from the outset. "They didn't pay any attention to the protesters' demands, and they brought the police on the pretext of maintaining public order," Tam said. "They cracked down on peaceful demonstrators and the general public, and on freedom of expression." Tam said the city's government had breached the mini-constitution, the Basic Law, as well as human rights obligations under international rights treaties. "They promised to protect Hongkongers' right to freedom of expression and association, but they are getting more and more like mainland China, using force to crack down on any kind of dissent," Tam said. Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor spokeswoman Claudia Yip said the Amnesty International report should be cause for concern. "[It shows] that the human rights situation has gotten worse very rapidly for the people of Hong Kong," she said. She warned that the authorities could step up the use of state security charges like sedition or subversion, possibly after enacting new legislation, to suppress people's freedom of speech and association. Reported by Lau Siu-fung and Tseng Yat-yiu for RFA's Mandarin and Cantonese Services. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie. Copyright 1998-2020, RFA. Used with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036. For any commercial use of RFA content please send an email to: mahajanr@rfa.org. RFA content January not be used in a manner which would give the appearance of any endorsement of any product or support of any issue or political position. Please read the full text of our Terms of Use. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address A mother reacts as she pleads with police to allow her daughter to pass a checkpoint for cancer treatment after she arrived from Hubei province at the Jiujiang Yangtze River Bridge in Jiujiang, Jiangxi province, China, as the country is hit by an outbreak of a new coronavirus, February 1, 2020. REUTERS/Thomas Peter A scary new virus from China has spread around the world. So has rising anti-Chinese sentiment, calls for a full travel ban on Chinese visitors and indignities for Chinese and other Asians. Restaurants in South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong and Vietnam have refused to accept Chinese customers. Indonesians marched near a hotel and called on Chinese guests there to leave. French and Australian newspapers face criticism for racist headlines. Chinese and other Asians in Europe, the United States, Asia and the Pacific complain of racism. Two dozen countries outside of China have reported cases of the new coronavirus, which has killed more than 300 people and sickened thousands of others in China. Many countries have sent planes to the Chinese city of Wuhan to evacuate their nationals. The anti-China sentiments come as a powerful Beijing bolsters its global influence, and China's rise has caused trade, political and diplomatic disputes with many countries. But with rising fear of the mysterious disease has come a more acute anti-Chinese and, in some cases, anti-Asian backlash. Here's a look from AP journalists from around the world: A Chinese citizen undergoing testing for coronavirus while passing through a temporary corridor opened at a border checkpoint between Blagoveshchensk and Heihe. Temporary corridors are opened to return Russian and Chinese citizens to their countries as the Russian government orders to close the border with China as a measure to prevent the coronavirus spread. All the people passing through the temporary corridor are tested for the virus. The 2019-nCoV pneumonia-like coronavirus outbreak began in Wuhan, China, in late December 2019; according to the latest reports, about 11,000 people globally have been infected, 259 have died from the virus. Svetlana Mayorova/TASS SOUTH KOREA South Korean websites have been flooded with comments calling on the government to block or expel Chinese and racist remarks about Chinese eating habits and hygiene. A popular Seoul seafood restaurant frequented by Chinese tourists posted a sign saying ''No entry for Chinese'' before taking it down Wednesday after an online backlash. About 600,000 South Koreans have signed an online petition filed with the presidential Blue House calling for a temporary ban on Chinese visitors. Some conservative opposition lawmakers publicly back these steps, and about 30 people rallied near the Blue House on Wednesday demanding the government immediately ban Chinese tourists. ''Unconditional xenophobia against the Chinese is intensifying'' in South Korea, the mass-circulation JoongAng Ilbo newspaper said in an editorial Thursday. ''Infectious diseases are a matter of science, not an issue that can resolved through an emotional outpouring.'' THE UNITED STATES After news broke that someone attending Arizona State University has the virus, Ari Deng, who is Chinese American, said she sat down at a study table on the Tempe, Arizona, campus near five other students. Deng, who was the only Asian, said the other students began whispering. ''They got really tense and they quickly gathered their stuff and just left at the same time.'' In a recent business class a non-Asian student ''said 'Not to be racist, but there's a lot of international students that live in my apartment complex. I try my best to keep my distance but I think it's a good precaution for all of us to wash our hands,''' Deng said. ''It stings but I don't let it take up room in my mind or weigh on my conscience,'' she said. Meanwhile, the University of California, Berkeley's health services center removed an Instagram post Thursday that said ''fears about interacting with those who might be from Asia and guilt about these feelings'' were a normal reaction to the coronavirus outbreak. ''No matter how much time we spend in this country, at times we are almost immediately viewed as a foreigner,'' Gregg Orton, the national director of the National Council of Asian Pacific Americans, said. ''It's a pretty frustrating reality for many of us.'' A thermal camera scanning citizens passing through a temporary corridor opened at a border checkpoint between Blagoveshchensk and Heihe. Temporary corridors are opened to return Russian and Chinese citizens to their countries as the Russian government orders to close the border with China as a measure to prevent the coronavirus spread. All the people passing through the temporary corridor are tested for the virus. The 2019-nCoV pneumonia-like coronavirus outbreak began in Wuhan, China, in late December 2019; according to the latest reports, about 11,000 people globally have been infected, 259 have died from the virus. Svetlana Mayorova/TASS/ HONG KONG The virus has deepened anti-Chinese sentiment in Hong Kong, where months of street protests against Beijing's influence have roiled the semi-autonomous Chinese city. Kacia Gibson, 9, reads a book while shopping at the African American Children's Book Fair at the Community College of Philadelphia on Feb.1, 2020. Read more When the African American Childrens Book Fair started in Philadelphia 28 years ago, Tonya Bolden was among the authors who was there, then a fledgling writer with only a couple of books. A little boy named Edward in a black leather jacket showed up and stood beside her. She remembers him well, because he came back year after year and stood by her. Until one year, he just didnt. Hed outgrown the fair, she thought. Then a few years ago, she mentioned him on a radio show just before the fair. His mother heard. And at that years event, in walked Edward, now a grown man, carrying a book she had autographed for him all those years ago. And he brought his child, too. Its that kind of connection you establish with people," said Bolden, a New York City-based author, who has written more than 40 books. "The people who come, I often feel like theyre family. They come year after year. And they did again on Saturday, lining up down the street and flooding the multipurpose room at the Community College of Philadelphia. He needs books that reflect his skin color It makes a difference when children pick up a book and see an illustration of someone who looks like them, said Briana Sanders, 29, a program coordinator at Bustleton Learning Center, who brought her son, Drew Stevenson, 3. He is a young black boy in the city of Philadelphia and needs to know not only his history, but he needs books that reflect his skin color, his lifestyle, what he sees every day, she said. Its important to how he grows and develops and the way he sees the world, and thats important to me as a mother. READ MORE: Find black books for your kid's bookshelf: Experts recommend books for all age groups The book fair was scheduled to run three hours, but was still going strong 3 hours later. It draws about 3,500 students, parents, and educators each year with one of the largest selections of African American childrens books in one place. The first 500 children got a free book and there were other giveaways, too. Generations have come to the fair to purchase books and meet dozens of award-winning authors and illustrators. Some attendees view the fair not just as a place to buy books, but a celebration of black history, fitting for the start of Black History Month. Weve got the most amazing lineup of African American childrens books that you can imagine," said Vanesse Lloyd-Sgambati, founder and producer of the fair. Its all about getting books into the hands of children. Nurturing a love of reading As she walked down a crowded aisle on Saturday, Lloyd-Sgambati pointed out the distinguished authors, who have works on the bestseller list and who have won national awards. Among them: Jessica Curry, who cowrote a book with her daughter, Parker, called Parker Looks Up: An Extraordinary Moment, about the moment Parker first saw former first lady Michelle Obamas portrait in Washingtons National Portrait Gallery. There, too, was Joshunda Sanders, who was born in Chester and who has family in Philadelphia. She was promoting her fifth book, I Can Write the World, about a black woman who doesnt see her neighborhood reflected in the news, so she decides to become a journalist. Lined up in a row were New York illustrator Jerry Pinkney, his wife, author Gloria Jean Pinkney, and their granddaughter, Charnelle Pinkney Barlow, also an illustrator, who is from Atlanta. Jerry Pinkneys first book, The Adventures of Spider, published in 1964, is still in print, he said. Seven members of the Pinkney family are writers or illustrators, he said. Chris Gibson and Lisa Hindmarsh, of Manayunk, marveled at the illustrations on Pinkneys book covers as they passed. They were glad they came. Fabulous, so much to take in, and its great to get to talk to the authors, said Gibson, who came with his daughter, Kacia, 9. Jarrod Green, a preschool director from West Philadelphia, was there to get books for his school and for his toddler at home. Hes been coming for several years. Bolden has been to almost every book fair except for a couple, one because of a blizzard. The book fair is one of her favorite events to attend, she said, noting that it has a regional draw, but also a national one. She comes to support Lloyd-Sgambati, too, she said. Vanesse took a chance on me when I didnt have much going for myself, Bolden said, recalling the earlier fairs when she was just beginning her book career. READ MORE: African American Children's Book Fair keeps authors, families, and kids coming back Those who attend are passionate about nurturing a love of reading for children, she said. People will say, This is for my grandchild who is not yet born or for my grandchild who is 6 years old, and Im building a library, she said. Natalie Price brought her granddaughter and her brothers three granddaughters, spanning ages 7 to 12, to the fair last year and spent hours browsing the collection. They left with 10 books. I let everyone pick out their books until their budget was used up, said Price, an administrative specialist at the Community College of Philadelphia. They loved it. She couldnt make it to the fair this year, but no matter. Lloyd-Sgambati says the next ones only a year away. Its the 28th anniversary, she said. Why would we stop? The issue of migrants is a major global issue. Greece has been facing it for a long time and they come from Turkey using the water route. An influx of migrants has a direct bearing on life in general and puts a strain on the existing infrastructure and Greece wants to halt it by installing a floating wall in the Aegean Sea. It expects such an arrangement to help curb the flow of migrants. No one in his right mind would want to leave his homeland and seek refuge in another country. He does it under compulsion due to circumstances beyond his control. It could be a result of political unrest or climatic disturbances or to escape from poverty. Therefore, neighboring countries usually accept them on humanitarian grounds. However, they also put up their hands when the situation becomes unmanageable as is happening in Greece. It seems more than 18,000 migrants are accommodated in the Moria camp of Lesbos island. #Greece wants to install a floating barrier in the Aegean Sea to deter migrants arriving at its islands shores through #Turkey. https://t.co/sTvtFPO9FR Duvar English (@DuvarEnglish) January 31, 2020 Fox News says the government has set the ball rolling and the Defense Ministry based in Athens wants vendors to come forward with their offers. The brief specifications are - its length which should be 1.6-miles. It should be of floating type net-like structure of height about 1.64 feet above sea level. There should be provisions of lights to ensure visibility at night. The contract would be worth about $551,000. Greece unable to check the flow of migrants Defense Minister Nikos Panagiotopoulos opened up on the subject to a media outlet. Discuss this news on Eunomia He said - The invitation for floating barriers is in the right direction. We will see what the result, what its effect as a deterrent will be in practiceIt will be a natural barrier. He also made a mention of a cement and barbed wire fence that came up in 2012 to check the entry of migrants from Turkey. International Organization for Migration reveals nearly 60,000 migrants arrived on Greek shores in 2019. They landed on different islands. Many of them lost their lives in the process. Greece plans floating barrier in the Aegean Sea to stop migrant boats reaching its islands from Turkey, officials sayhttps://t.co/9XsauLZURx BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) January 30, 2020 Fox News highlights the problem, which began in 2016 with the Syrian refugee crisis. Human traffickers would send the migrants across the Mediterranean using rubber dinghies and overcrowded rafts. It led to the loss of lives when the dinghies outturned. The Coast Guard of Greece linked up with EU border patrol to check the movement of migrants. However, the proposed sea barrier has not found favor with migrant and refugee advocacy groups. In their opinion, its implementation would force asylum seekers to follow alternate travel routes that could be more dangerous. Floating barrier to prevent the entry of migrants According to the Guardian, the sea barrier could be in place by the end of April. The military would undertake the task of building it since they have experience of putting up camps across Greece. There are possibilities of extending the fence in case the pilot project is successful. However, the Greek government has earned criticism about its concept of a sea barrier off Lesbos. This was the island where nearly a million Europe-bound refugees landed on its beaches. It was at the height of the Syrian civil war. Amnesty International has also warned that installing such a barrier would increase dangers to asylum-seekers and refugees. Migrants seen as a problem for the United States The migrant crisis is not unique to Greece because the United States also faces a similar problem. While Greece wants to build a couple of miles of a sea barrier, President Donald Trump wants to build a wall between Mexico and America that will be strong enough to withstand breaking into. Its purpose would be to check the entry of illegal migrants who sometimes arrive by caravan. When they are unable to enter the US, the migrants try to go to Canada. A litany of red-button issues come together in legislation just enacted in Denmark. The latitude religious freedom affords, charges of veiled opposition to immigration, anti-Semitism and who defines that odious mindset and animal rights conflate in a decision to outlaw the religious slaughter of animals to produce halal or kosher meat. The decision mirrors a similar prohibition introduced in Belgium last month. There is a significant halal slaughtering business in Ireland. European regulations require animals to be stunned before slaughter, but allows exemptions on religious grounds. For meat to be considered kosher under Jewish law or halal under Islamic law, the animal must be conscious when killed. Defending the ban, the Danes minister for agriculture said animal rights come before religion. Unsurprisingly, the move has been described as anti-Semitic by Jewish leaders. European anti-Semitism is showing its true colours across Europe, and is even intensifying in the government institutions said Israels deputy minister of religious services. These issues may not enliven the last days of our election campaign, but animal rights are ever more a factor in todays world, as traditional husbandry has been replaced by industrialised production. The fate of the surplus of male dairy calves about to be born on Irish farms will feed this debate too. Many of those will be exported alive in conditions that are, at the very best, questionable. Aam Aadmi Partys Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh has called for the arrest of Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath for saying that his Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal has links to Pakistan. Yogi Adityanath says Kejriwal has links to Pakistan. Yogi should be arrested, jailed and should be asked to provide proof for his claims. Election Commission is silent on all this, his campaigning should be banned in Delhi, Singh was quoted as saying by ANI. The AAP also wrote to the Election Commission alleging that Adityanath had violated the Model Code of Conduct. We call upon EC to impose ban on Yogi Adityanaths election campaign till election is over, and register FIR against him, AAPs letter to the said, according to ANI. ALSO WATCH | Delhi will decide if Im their son or terrorist: CM Kejriwal hits back at BJP In one of his election rallies in Delhi on Saturday, the UP chief minister took a swipe at Kejriwal while referring to a tweet by Pakistans science and technology minister Fawad Hussain and accused the AAP boss of seeking support from Pakistan. This shows he doesnt trust the people of Delhi. He is asking his masters in Pakistan to tell Imran Khans minister to issue statement in his support, he had said. He had also accused Kejriwal of sympathizing with the protesters at Shaheen who chant pro-Pakistan slogans. Adityanath is one of the BJPs star campaigners in the campaign for the Delhi assembly elections on February 8. Last April, the Election Commission had banned Adityanath for 72 hours from campaigning during the Lok Sabha elections for violating the poll code with a provocative speech. The commission had then observed that Adityanath, as chief minister had the added responsibility to not only uphold basic tenets including secularism but also to display the same in his public statements and meetings. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Rajya Sabha MP from Tamil Nadu Sasikala Pushpa, who was expelled from the AIADMK in 2016, joined the ruling BJP on Sunday in the presence of the party's national secretary, P Muralidhar Rao, and former Union minister Pon Radhakrishnan. Inducting Sasikala into the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at a press conference here, Rao, who is the party's in-charge for the southern state, described her as a "very aggressive, vocal leader in Tamil Nadu". "Sasikala is a Rajya Sabha member and she has been a very aggressive, vocal leader in Tamil Nadu. Coming from south Tamil Nadu, she has also been a mayor of Thoothukudi, a port town, and has worked as the chief of the AIADMK's women's wing for the state," he said. Sasikala's tenure in the Upper House of Parliament will come to an end in a few months. She was involved in an altercation with a DMK MP in 2016 and was accused of slapping him. Subsequently, the then AIADMK supremo and former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa had expelled her from the party. At the press conference at the BJP office here, Rao made the announcement of Pushpa's joining, saying it would be advantageous for the saffron party in Tamil Nadu. "With the joining of Sasikala, the party's capacity to fight the coming Assembly election will definitely gain further advantage," he said. BJP's decision to induct Sasikala into the party highlights its efforts to strengthen its base in Tamil Nadu, ahead of the Assembly polls in the southern state next year. Despite its rise across the country under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the saffron party has been unable to make much of a mark in the Dravidian state so far. "In Tamil Nadu, the BJP is gaining in strength day by day. Our membership and penetration have increased in every district of the state. The appeal of Narendra Modi is enhancing the party's spread. "A number of leaders, who have worked in different parties, have been joining the BJP and expressing their willingness to strengthen it under the leadership of Modiji. We have an ideological and political fight with the DMK and the Congress. As we have been fighting all over the country, the fight in Tamil Nadu is also getting sharpened day by day. Even in Delhi, Tamil people are now supporting the BJP," Rao said. Welcoming Sasikala into the BJP, Radhakrishnan, the former Union minister of state in the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Shipping, said it will strengthen the party in Tamil Nadu. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) It seems to me the biggest thing anyone is looking for is purpose. People will strive and while away their lives just searching for some kind of reason to make the inescapable suffering of life worth it. I was part of a group a few weeks ago where we acted out sharing our testimonies and witnessing to each other. The common thing I heard from people about their lives before was that they felt like they had no reason to live; that they were trying to fill a hole in their hearts. Dont worry. Im going to bring this full circle. The Glory of God Throughout the Bible there are countless stories and events which work to show either Gods glory, or the glory of Gods works. The first book of the Bible even begins with two fantastical creation accounts which, in whatever order, show a majestic hierarchy proving Gods reign above all (although I would argue Job shows this much better in the poem from the storm). When engaging with the texts, we as readers can see that God is always moving in the background and anything he interacts with will turn to good for those who he follows. The Hebrew Bible shows Him as a grandfather among the universe aglow who sets things in motion on the world turning down below, and the New Testament shows Him as a loving, caring and good man that sacrifices himself to save humanity. Glory almost seems too weak a word to describe God, and yet I struggle to think of any grander. The purpose of man In the first letter to the church in Corinth, Paul suggests Believers to do all to the glory of God (1 Corinthians Chapter 10 Verse 31, ESV). A lot of other verses say stuff to the same effect, leading believers to act with the intention of bringing glory to God in all that they do. Theres a great idea that Thomas Merton articulates; he writes A tree gives glory to God by being a tree. For in being what God means it to be it is obeying Him. It consents, so to speak, to His creative love. It is expressing an idea which is in God and which is not distinct from the essence of God, and therefore a tree imitates God by being a tree. The more a tree is it like itself, the more it is like Him. If it tried to be like something else which it was never intended to be, it would be less like God and therefore it would give Him less glory (New Seeds of Contemplation). The glory of creation I LOVE this idea! What Merton suggests here is that we dont strive to be something else (not even like God) to glorify him, but we strive to be the most pure and whole version of the us that He created us to be. Our purpose is to be what He made us to be, not to try and twist and conform ourselves into something were not. Not that Im saying we should all be gluttonous, slothful dregs, Im saying that through God we purify ourselves into the glorious creation He envisions for us (please see my previous articles Made to Love and The Nature of Good and Evil for more words on the idea of purifying our nature) . When I was younger, I assumed that the purpose God made us for was to sort of do our own thing until we read just the right passage in the Bible that inspired us to a particular aspect of some sort of ministerial role. What I think Merton so clearly gets at is that God is glorified (and indeed, even preached) through our being what God made us to be. That leaves us with the question What did God make me to be?. The answer doesnt seem obvious to me from the Bible outside of bringing glory to God and presenting ourselves as living sacrifices. It doesnt actually say what we do day-to-day, its more a collection of wisdom to use in our navigation of life. A wise idea as to our role in society then, I will paraphrase from famed psychologist Dr. Jordan B. Peterson; Do something youre good at, and you enjoy, and that is beneficial to society. I hope you get what Im saying; were likely not meant to be trying to change ourselves into some completely different goal because it seems more superficially biblical (such as preaching) to bring glory to God, but we bring glory to God through being what he made us to be. The tree brings glory to God by being a tree, because it is being exactly what he made it to be. Our weekly roundup of books that should be on your radar. We love stories, and even in the age of Netflix-and-chill, there's nothing like a good book that promises a couple of hours of absorption whether curled up in bed, in your favourite coffeehouse, or that long (and tiresome) commute to work. Every Sunday, we'll have a succinct pick of books, across diverse genres, that have been newly made available for your reading pleasure. Get them wherever you get your books the friendly neighbourhood bookseller, e-retail website, chain store and in whatever form you prefer. Happy reading! For more of our weekly book recommendations, click here. *** FICTION The Lion of Kashmir By Siddhartha Gigoo Rupa Publications | Rs 295 | 268 pages Commonwealth Short Story Prize winner Siddhartha Gigoos novel follows Zooni, a human rights activist, who has returned home upon learning that her father, Commandant Abdul Aziz, has disappeared. He is reputed as a legendary police officer in the region, though not always for good reasons. Unimaginable events unfold the following night at a safe house, where shes forced to stay, and must confront disturbing truths about her life, and those of her father and half-brother. Read more about the book here. SHORT STORIES How to Tell the Story of an Insurgency: Fifteen tales from Assam By Aruni Kashyap HarperCollins India | Rs 399 | 248 pages Writer Aruni Kashyaps collection of short stories attempts to humanise the insurgency in Assam. The stories range from that of a former militant with a brutal past unable to adjust to domesticity and of a mother whose two sons a police officer and an underground rebel fight on opposite sides of the insurgency, to that of a deaf and mute child who sells locally brewed alcohol in dangerous territory through interacting with the local militant outfit. Read more about the book here. MEMOIRS AND BIOGRAPHIES Telecom Man: Leading from the Front in Indias Digital Revolution By Brijendra K Syngal, with Sandipan Deb Westland Publishing | Rs 699 | 300 pages Along with journalist Sandipan Deb, BK Syngal, dubbed the father of the internet in India, presents an account of his work and bringing about the Indian telecom revolution. By connecting India to the world through digital media, he was instrumental in Indias emergence as a global player in the software sector. He also went on to head several companies cellular telecom systems and was instrumental in exposing the 2G spectrum allocation scam. Irrfan Khan: The Man, The Dreamer, The Star By Aseem Chhabra Rupa Publications | Rs 500 | 224 pages Author and journalist Aseem Chhabra documents the story of actor Irrfan Khan. Aided by personal interviews and research, he tells of the actors personal and artistic life, in an account peppered with personal anecdotes. From growing up in a small house in Rajasthan to having his face on billboards in Hollywood, it traces Khans acting career, touching upon some of his performances, and discussing the power of cinema. Read more about the book here. NON-FICTION Sixteen Stormy Days: The Story of the First Amendment of the Constitution of India By Tripurdaman Singh Penguin Random House India | Rs 599 | 288 pages British Academy postdoc fellow Tripurdaman Singhs book narrates the story of the First Amendment of the Indian Constitution. Passed in June 1951 in the face of vigorous opposition, it discusses what led Prime Minister Nehru to radically amend the Constitution after only sixteen days of debate. Through looking at parliamentary debates, press, judicial pronouncements, official correspondence, and existing research, the book highlights the gulf between the Indian Constitutions liberal promise and the first governments authoritarian impulses. Read more about the book here. Behold, I Make All Things New: How Judaism, Christianity and Islam affirm the dignity of queer identities and sexualities By Devdutt Pattanaik and Loraine Tulleken HarperCollins India | Rs 499 | 280 pages Author Devdutt Pattanaik and journalist Loraine Tulleken expand the conversation around religion and human sexuality through examining the sacred texts of Abrahamic faiths Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as allies of queer emancipation, significantly informing the LGBTQ+ movements the world over. It follows in the same vein as the 2017 I Am Divine, So Are You, which presented perspectives from Karmic faiths like Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, and Hinduism about sexuality. Read more about the book here. From Oberoi to Oyo: Behind the scenes with the movers and shakers of Indias hotel industry By Chitra Narayanan Penguin Random House India | Rs 399 | 288 pages Journalist Chitra Narayanan takes readers through the tumultuous history and evolution of the Indian hotel industry. It discusses the major shifts which result from guest preferences and technological disruptions. Packed with profiles and strategy analysis, it also tries to provide a glimpse of the things lying in the industrys future. Read more about the book here. Maldives President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih on Sunday thanked India for expeditiously evacuating seven Maldivians from Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak, saying it was an example of the "outstanding" friendship and camaraderie between the two countries. India has evacuated 647 Indians and seven Maldivian citizens by special flights from Wuhan city. Air India's jumbo B747 made two flights to Wuhan - the ground zero of the coronavirus epidemic. In the first flight on Saturday, 324 Indians were evacuated and on Sunday another 323 Indians and seven Maldivian citizens were flown back. Expressing his gratitude to India, President Solih tweeted, "My thanks and gratitude to PM @narendramodi, EM @DrSJaishankar and the Government of India for expeditiously evacuating the 7 Maldivians residing in Wuhan, China. This gesture is a fine example of the outstanding friendship and camaraderie between our two countries." Maldivian Foreign Minister Abdulla Shahid also expressed his "deep gratitude" to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Indian counterpart S Jaishankar for the evacuation of Maldivian citizens. He also thanked India's Ambassador to the Maldives Sunjay Sudhir and Indian envoy to China Vikram Misri. The Indian Embassy in Maldives tweeted that the action "reflects historic ties of kinship between us, &, synergy between #NeighbourhoodFirst & #IndiaFirst policies." The evacuated Indians and Maldivians have been quarantined for 14 days in special camps. Air India has done such evacuations earlier also from countries such as Libya, Iraq, Yemen, Kuwait and Nepal. The virus that emerged in early December and traced to a market in Wuhan that sold wild animals has spread to 25 countries and has killed 305 people and infected over 14,000 others. The Philippines on Sunday reported the first death outside China. Several countries have evacuated their nationals from Wuhan by sending special aircraft. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A deputy U.S. Marshal was arrested Friday morning after being involved in a crash on the city's North Side that left one woman hospitalized, according to officials. In a news release, Christopher Bozeman, a spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Service, identified the deputy as 40-year-old Jonathan Jones. The deputy has been relieved of his operational duties and placed on administrative leave, according to the news release. Three prisoners escaped from one of Punjabs high security jailsAmritsar Central Jail by scaling its outer walls during the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday, police said. The prisoners who escaped have been identified as Gurpreet Singh, Jarnail Singh and Vishal Kumar. According to information, Gurpreet and Jarnail had been incarcerated in a snatching case while Vishal was in jail in a case under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. A jail official who did not wish to be named told HT over phone that the inmates fled from the jail at around 1:30 am. Sources said the prisoners first smashed through a wall of their cell, and escaped by scaling the outer walls. Police began a massive search operation early Sunday morning after the jailbreak was detected. Amritsar Central Jail was the first in Punjab to get a company of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) for deployment in the prison to tighten its security. A company of the CRPF was deployed in the prison in November last year. The jail has been in limelight since Punjab police busted a narco-terror module with the arrest of Army Naik Rahul Chauhan of Haryana, Dharminder Singh of Dhanoa Khurd village in Amritsar, and Bakar Singh of Kalas village in Tarn Taran district last September. Police had also claimed to have seized two highly sophisticated Chinese-made drones, two walkie talkie sets, 6.22 lakh in cash, believed to be proceeds of drugs, and the magazine of an INSAS Rifle at the instances of the accused. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON A woman suspected to be infected with coronavirus has been admitted to All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Rishikesh. The woman is being treated and is kept under observation. She had recently returned to the country from China's Wuhan city, the epicentre of the deadly coronavirus outbreak which has already claimed 304 lives. The virus originated in Wuhan in December and has since then spread to various cities around the world. The confirmed cases of coronavirus in China have now surged past 14,000. China has imposed quarantine and travel restrictions, affecting the movement of 56 million people in more than a dozen cities, amid fears that the transmission rate will accelerate as hundreds of millions of Chinese travel for the Lunar New Year. Health authorities around the world are taking action to prevent a global pandemic as the virus continues to spread, with cases reported in Australia, France, the United States and seven Asian countries besides China. Several countries including India have sped up the evacuation process after the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the coronavirus outbreak as a global health crisis. Earlier on Saturday, India evacuated 324 Indian nationals, including three minors and 211 students, from Wuhan in a special Air India flight. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Indian Youth Congress (IYC) workers on Saturday enacted a play to protest against the Budget Session of Parliament. In the play, the workers tried to show through a game that the Union Ministers are playing with the economy. They also wore masks with faces of Home Minister Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi among others. "They (BJP) are running the government as if they are playing marbles," one of the protestors said. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Union Budget 2020-21 in Parliament. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Chinese woman and Indian mans wedding in Mandsaur on Sunday would have perhaps gone unnoticed as just another marriage ceremony in the Madhya Pradeshs sleepy town had not it been for coronavirus outbreak that has claimed over 300 lives in China. The wedding kept Madhya Pradesh health department officials on their toes since the bride, Zhihao Wang, and her family arrived in Mandsaur for it on Wednesday. Mandsaur district hospitals civil surgeon, Dr AK Mishra, said a team of five to six doctors and paramedical staff has been medically examining Zhihaos family members since they arrived in the town. Though they do not have any symptoms of the coronavirus, we have been doing this as a precautionary measure. The moment we see any symptom, we will admit them to the hospital, said Dr Mishra. Also Watch | Second batch of Indians reach Delhi from Wuhan, undergo screening He added they were very cooperative and did not get annoyed over their daily checkups as part of a protocol. In fact, they appreciate it. India on Sunday temporarily suspended e-visa facility for Chinese travellers and foreigners based in China in view of the outbreak that has spread to 25 countries, including India, and prompted the World Health Organisation to declare it as a global health emergency. As many as 324 Indians were evacuated on Saturday. The evacuees have been isolated at two facilities set up near Delhi. She said she met her husband, Satyarth Mishra, while they were studying in Canada five years back. Zhihao said their courtship lasted for a few years before they decided to get married with the blessings of their parents. Zhihaos parents father, Shibo Wang, mother, Xin Guan, and two other relatives from China attended the wedding. Satyarth Mishra said that four other relatives of his wife were supposed to come from China for the wedding but could not get visas due to the coronavirus outbreak. Hence, they stayed put in China. Zhihao said her family visited certain places in India before reaching Mandsaur on January 29. They plan to visit certain tourist destinations before returning to China, she added. Shibo said they have had no problem in cooperating with the health officials. We know the reason behind it. In my city, there is no spread of the virus. Hence, we do not have any problem in returning home, he added. Olivier Masset-Depasse's retro psychological thriller "Mother's Instinct" swept the Magritte Awards on Saturday, winning nine of the 10 categories it was nominated in at Belgium's version of the Oscars. Favourite and Cannes-winner "Young Ahmed" won just two gongs -- most promising actor for Idir Ben Ali, 14, who plays a radicalised teenager, and best supporting actress for Myriem Akheddiou, who plays his teacher and victim. Adapted from Belgian author Barbara Abel's detective novel "Behind the Hatred" and with nods to David Lynch and Alfred Hitchcock, "Mother's Instinct" took home best film, best director and best original screenplay, in a night to remember for the 49-year-old director from Charleroi. Veerles Baetens won best actress for her role in Masset-Depasse's third offering that explores how the friendship between two neighbours descends into tragedy after the child of one of them is killed in an accident. Belgian actor Bouli Lanners won in the best actor category for his role in Claire Burger's "Real Love". "Mother's Instinct" also swept the field for technical awards, taking home gongs for best sound, best editing and best cinematography. Belgian-Guatemalan director Cesar Diaz won best first film for "Our Mothers", which delves into Guatemala's civil war and the search for "missing politicals". It also won the Camera d'Or at Cannes last year for best first feature. Belgian Mya Bollaers, 23, won most promising actress for her role in "Lola", which tells the story of a young transgender woman's struggles with her father as they both come to terms with the death of her mother. And it was only by chance that Bollaers, who is herself transgender, auditioned for the role. "The casting was wild," she told a French newspaper in December. "The announcement was made on social media. It was a Sunday, I had nothing to do. I said to myself: 'OK, I'll reply. If I get through the casting then that could be funny'." "Young Ahmed" and "Lola" will be in competition at the Cesar awards in France at the end of this month for best foreign film. Olivier Masset-Depasse's 'Mother's Instinct' won awards for best film, best director and best original screenplay Zeb Kazi had one key thing in mind when launching Halal Meats Online in 2012 saving time. "It was, 'can someone else go and get meat for me so that I can carry on with my other activities?'" he says. Zeb Kazi, founder of Halal Meats Online. Credit:Paul Jeffers Back in 2012, the answer to that question was mostly 'no': there were limited butcher delivery companies outside of the major supermarkets and there were even fewer options for halal meats, with Melbournians often having to drive some distance to pick up produce. Kazi started doing Google searches, mapping out feasibility and forming partnerships with suppliers to develop a delivery box service where customers could order meat exactly to their requirements to be delivered in a two day window. In the mid-eighties, my middle school Sanskrit teacher made me stand outside the classroom every day for being obharotiyo, because my accent was American and my Sanskrit non-existent, having spent much of my childhood abroad. (Photo: ANI) Old white men telling us what to do. Old brown men pontificating on our purpose in the world, if any. Self-important young jerks joining in. And the Women of Patriarchy, those handmaidens of mansplaining, parroting the same preposterous message. It doesnt matter who does it, it grates like the word itself. Because mansplaining is onomatopoeic, embodying its meaning perfectly in the heavy-handed violence of its sound. Its bludgeoning thud also gives me a sense of deja vu, because Ive been here before. Not only being mansplained to (who amongst us hasn't had that pleasure?), but on my Sherwood Forest soapbox telling yall about it. Writing about mansplaining and more seven years ago for a popular column, and for the book Memoirs of My Body that followed, I hadn't anticipated that we'd be agonising over it still, and with greater urgency than before. Because these seven years have sprung upon us a new-old mansplaining vocabulary, with new-old poster boys spreading it forth. Yet, chill. Not because you should roll over, but because this happy-hippie usage is now part of the Mansplainer-in-chief, Donald Trumps spiteful arsenal, and should fill you with icy horror. Incensed by Greta Thunberg's impassioned crusade against climate change and his Bully Boys Clubs remorseless resource-stripping of this planet (as well as her pipping him to the post of Time Magazines Person of the Year 2019!), the septuagenarian lashed out at the young activist, ordering her to go instead to an old-fashioned movie, and chill. And despite his disparagement of her at the World Economic Forum in Davos again last month, she hasnt rolled over, nor should we. Because, as Bangladesh drowns, Antarctica melts and Australia burns, killing a billion beautiful creatures, Emperor Gluteus Maximus' squawks and tweets, which wed dismissed as comedy gold, continue to fire up millions against the good sense that might save us. Merely a minion in comparison, but nauseating nevertheless, British actor Laurence Fox, of the inbred Fox acting family, insisted on BBC that even if, contrary to his own belief, Sikh soldiers had played a part in World War I, their casting in the Oscar nominated film 1917 was forced and incongruous. Nearly nothing could be incongruous in post-Brexit Britain, so wildly has it gone off the rails, but to hear a thousand racist slugs shriek from under their prehistoric rocks in support of this outrageous opinion still beggared belief. Britons, unsurprisingly mainly women, did speak up to put Laurence in his place, but the actor remained resolutely foxed. Well, PO-HA to you, Larrykins! You wouldnt think this innocuous cereal could sound offensive till it is shouted in your face. I may not be a fan of whats called 'chire' in Bengal, having grown up with folks who liked it moist and mashed with on-the-turn bananas, but never in my wildest imaginings (of which very little is about chire) did I think it could become a tool in the hands of the divisive. Yet politician Kailash Vijayvargiya saw in this humble staple a manifestation of otherness; a not-eating-North-Indian-roti-ness. He claimed that the poha-eating habits of poor Bengali migrants in Bengaluru marked them out as undesirable aliens a.k.a. illegal Bangladeshis, when all it is, is a measure of impecunity. This, of course, is just one in a long list of boxes you must tick to be a bonafide Bharatvashi, known nowadays as the CAA/NRC/NPR/Poha Test. Otherwise, you are necessarily 'anti-national', that favourite word of nitpicking aunty-nationals and the crafty uncles who pull their strings. Anti-nationals number in the millions, including those with an aversion to having Hindi rammed down their throats, native tongue as it is of only a section of India, or those who possess a healthy scepticism about the tall tales of our technological derring-do in Vedic times that are now being peddled as fact. And while poha is beginning to smell a lot like bratwurst before the Second World War (another war in which millions of Indian soldiers fought and died for the world, Larrypops), it aint new. In the mid-eighties, my middle school Sanskrit teacher made me stand outside the classroom every day for being obharotiyo, because my accent was American and my Sanskrit non-existent, having spent much of my childhood abroad. And if I wasn't being humiliated for the whole school to see, she ensured I stayed in after class to write a hundred clumsy lines on the blackboard in this (undoubtedly sophisticated but) defunct tongue. Other aliens like Muslims, dalits, Christians, idealistic students, dogged journalists, MANY nonconforming women, and other defenders of Indias civil liberties and the right to differ, are subjected to much worse. Especially assault, incarceration and assassination. Especially now. Yet the writing's been on the wall for decades. We cringed at the cries of 'Jai Shri Ram' from atop the demolished mosque in Ayodhya in 1992 but plugged our ears till they faded. We found ourselves at odds with the self-congratulatory 'India Shining' polemic that surfaced at the start of this new millennium. Some paid no heed, whilst others felt pushed out by the rising tide of insularity. But in recent years, even across the oceans, we can hear the blows that bludgeon dissenters, the bullets that obliterate the likes of Gauri Lankesh, and know no matter where we turn in this burning world, we can never outrun this hatred for 'the other'. So, the soapbox is back. Because words are never just words, and mansplaining can be a prelude to terror. Listen. By Express News Service THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: As part of heightening its vigil against nCoV, which has been declared as a public health emergency of international concern by WHO, the health department on Saturday issued a revised guideline for dealing with asymptomatic travellers, suspected and confirmed cases. It also mentioned about the risk stratification of contacts. The contact tracing is already on. It means the identification of persons who may have come into contact with the infected person. The guideline broadly classifies them as high-risk and low-risk ones. The follow-up action has also been proposed, said an officer of nCoV outbreak control and prevention state cell. Samples to be tested at NIV Alappuzha Bolstering the fight of the state against the novel coronavirus (nCoV), the National Institute of Virologys (NIV) Alappuzha unit will provide the sample testing facility from Sunday. According to the department, it will help address the delay involved in sending samples to NIV Pune and getting results back. The department on Saturday issued a revised guideline for dealing with nCoV-suspected or confirmed cases along with risk stratification of contacts. At the same time, the department said that, to date 1,793 people who had arrived in the state from coronavirus-affected countries have been identified and put under surveillance. Of these, 1,723 are under home isolation and 70 are in select isolation facilities. The department sources said that the health status of the student who tested positive for nCoV remains satisfactory. On Saturday, 322 new people were identified. The number of people who were put under home isolation on the day stood at 302. In the case of hospitalisation, it was 20. To date, 39 samples have been sent to NIV Pune for testing, of which results of 23 samples were negative, stated a bulletin issued by the department. The bulletin also added that the hospital authorities have confirmed that the health condition of all symptomatic persons under isolation in hospitals is stable. Meanwhile, with more persons getting shifted to isolation facilities at hospitals, the department said it has identified a minimum of two hospitals with isolation facilities in every district. In the wake of the nCoV threat, the department said people have been advised not only to adhere to health advisories issued by the department but also to follow the cough etiquette by covering nose and mouth using handkerchief/towel while sneezing/coughing. Till date 1,793 people who had arrived in the state from corona-affected countries have been identified and put under surveillance Of these, 1,723 are under home quarantine, 70 in select isolation facilities; health status of student who tested positive for nCoV satisfactory The relatives of soldier Vahram Avagyan, who died in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh Republic) on January 30, stopped their protest and are returning to Haytagh village of Armavir Province to bury the soldiers body. This morning, they marched to the Argavand intersection in Yerevan and were preparing to transfer the soldiers coffin to the Ministry of Defense as a sign of protest. The soldiers relatives dont believe the official version of the death (suicide). However, police officers prohibited them from moving forward. Minister of Defense Davit Tonoyan met with the relatives along with deputy of the My Step faction of the National Assembly and Chair of the Standing Committee on Defense and Security of the National Assembly Andranik Kocharyan. Davit Tonoyan said revelation of the case is a matter of honor for the Ministy of Defense and three servicemen have been arrested within the scope of the case. The relatives told Armenian News-NEWS.am that the soldier, Vahram was murdered. Vahram was enlisted six months ago and was serving in Artsakh. He died on January 30 at around 1:15 p.m. The Investigative Committee of Armenia declared that the soldier had shot his chest with the AKM type of gun attached to him and had been transferred to a military hospital with firearm injuries, and he was pronounced dead at 2 p.m. The first garrison investigative division has instituted a criminal case in relation to the incident, and preliminary investigation is underway. A dissident republican group linked to the New IRA killers of journalist Lyra McKee has been criticised after it turned out in force for the annual Bloody Sunday commemoration in Londonderry. More than 1,000 people gathered to remember the 14 who died on January 30, 1972 when members of the Parachute Regiment opened fire on a Civil Rights march in the Bogside. The march left Creggan and retraced the footsteps of the original event 48 years earlier. There was controversy this year after the announcement that a newly formed dissident republican band would be joining the parade. The dissident republican group Saoradh was represented at the march in great numbers, and dissident supporters used the event to launch the new Tommy Roberts/Stevie Mellon Republican Memorial Flute Band. Saoradh is regarded as the political wing of the New IRA, which was behind the murder of journalist Lyra McKee during street disorder in Derry last April. DUP MLA Gary Middleton earlier criticised the display. It is less than a year since dissident republicans murdered a young woman on the streets of Londonderry, he said. Having weathered the public outrage, those who seek to defend dissident terrorism appear determined to re-emerge and indoctrinate a new generation. March organisers said the event was all-inclusive and they couldnt dictate who could attend. Expand Close Members of Saoradh as a remembrance march for the 48th anniversary of Bloody Sunday takes place in the Creggan area Derry on February 2nd 2020 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph) Kevin Scott / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Members of Saoradh as a remembrance march for the 48th anniversary of Bloody Sunday takes place in the Creggan area Derry on February 2nd 2020 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph) Speaking at the march Kate Nash, whose teenage brother William was killed on Bloody Sunday, said it was important to keep the event going. We have been marching a long time, she said. It is important to keep going for the people who died that day, and for those who were shot and wounded. They deserve accountability. They were murdered. I will never give up the fight for justice. I couldnt let my brother down like that. Hes not here to fight for himself. But I am and I will continue to do so. The main address at the march was delivered by the Miami Showband Massacre survivor Stephen Travers. He said there would be those in attendance at the march that might not agree with his message, but he was going to say it anyway. I am completely and totally anti-violence, he told the crowd. Anybody who thinks that violence is going to solve any problems, or perceived problems, will not welcome these comments. Violence will put back the unification of Ireland another 50 years. That may be an inconvenient truth for some, but its still the truth. Presidente @MartinVizcarraC : Iniciaremos una ronda de reuniones de dialogo con todas las fuerzas politicas, al margen de las diferencias ideologicas. Tenemos el desafio de llegar al Bicentenario con una democracia fortalecida, mas representativa y legitima. pic.twitter.com/LoJTNV7DhP Presidente @MartinVizcarraC: Ademas, hemos publicado un Decreto de Urgencia con medidas extraordinarias para mejorar el acceso a financiamiento y creditos a las micro, pequenas y medianas empresas, con el fin de apoyar su crecimiento, productividad y la formalizacion. pic.twitter.com/qNiXJszyrb Three prisoners escaped from the high-security Amritsar Central Jail by scaling the boundary walls, prompting Chief Minister Amarinder Singh to order a review and revamp of prison security across the state. Following the incident, seven officials-- two assistant jail superintendents, four wardens and a home guard sepoy--posted in the jail were placed under suspension with immediate effect, ADGP (Jails) P K Sinha said in Amritsar. The action against the prison officials came after the chief minister directed Jails Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa to immediately suspend, pending inquiry, all those responsible for the prison security. The three undertrials--one accused of rape and the other two (both brothers) of theft and dacoity--escaped on the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday by making a hole in the wall of their barrack by removing about 10 bricks, officials said. "They then appear to have scaled the inner wall--which is about 16-foot high-- by standing one atop the other. While the outer wall--approx 21 feet--was crossed by them using a hook made of a steel bar and the cover of a quilt to make a ladder. "They finally escaped the jail complex from a point near Tower No. 10, which was not under the CCTV cover," DGP Dinkar Gupta said in an official statement in Chandigarh. The DGP said there was no evidence of any outside help, according to preliminary investigations, which suggests that the trio, among 61 prisoners in Barrack No. 7, Ahata No. 2, had planned their escape on their own. Chief Minister Amarinder Singh ordered a magisterial inquiry, which will be led by the Divisional Commissioner, Jalandhar. ADGP (Jails) P K Sinha said, "The security of the jail was being reviewed at the micro level. Gross negligence in the security system was also found." He said the Amritsar Central Jail has around 3,200 inmates against the capacity of 2,700. Earlier, the chief minister had asked the ADGP (Jails) to review and further strengthen prison security not just in this jail but in prisons across the state, officials said. A statewide hunt has been launched for the prisoners, they said. The jail authorities came to know about the incident at 3.20 am, almost two hours after the prisoners broke their barrack and escaped by scaling the inner and outer walls of the jail, as per the CCTV footage from the prison, officials said. The prison guards were alerted about the escape by other inmates, who included a brother of one of the escaped prisoners, according to initial information. One of the escaped prisoners has been identified as Vishal, aged about 22, from Ara Colony, Majitha Road, Amritsar. He is an accused in a rape case registered last year. "He was lodged in the jail on April 5, 2019. The other two are brothers, identified as Gurpreet, aged 34, and Jarnail, aged 25, residents of Chandigarh Road, Khadoor Sahib, Taran Tarn," DGP Dinkar Gupta said. He said the two brothers were accused of theft and dacoity and were brought to the prison in July last year. Vishal's brother Gaurav, also in the same barrack, chose not to flee with them, said the DGP. Reacting to the development, the opposition Shiromani Akali Dal has demanded an immediate dismissal of the Punjab jails minister besides a probe by a sitting judge of the High Court. Asking the chief minister to fix accountability at the very top, former Punjab minister Daljit Singh Cheema said the "jails minister should be asked to resign immediately till the pendency of the probe" and the government should tell why the jail administration has "collapsed". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Hundreds of scientists have written an open letter to Prime Minister Scott Morrison begging him to take action against climate change. The letter, which has been signed by 274 climate experts, demands the government reconsider its position on global warming as the nation struggles through the worst bushfire season on record. So far, 33 people have died in the horror infernos and millions of hectares of land has been destroyed. 'Scientists have been warning policy makers for decades that climate change would worsen Australia's fire risk, and yet those warnings have been ignored,' the letter read. Prime Minister Scott Morrison speaks at a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra, Sunday, February 2, after scientists penned an open letter demanding climate action Poll Is Australia doing enough about climate change? Yes No Is Australia doing enough about climate change? Yes 84 votes No 217 votes Now share your opinion The letter predicts extreme weather conditions will worsen should Australian leaders ignore the issue at hand. 'Science tells us these extreme events will only grow worse in the future without genuine concerted action to reduce global emissions of greenhouse gases.' Experts used the open letter to call on the Australian government to reduce emissions. Australian National University climate scientist Professor Nerilie Abram said the letter is the product of despair as scientists witnessed the deadly fire season unfold. They believe there is 'no strong, resilient Australia without deep cuts to greenhouse emissions' and hope the letter might silence climate deniers. Pictured: A bushfire in the Orroral Valley, south of Canberra in late January Clair Cowie defends her home from an out of control spot fire on February 01 in Canberra 'Australia has near-to the highest greenhouse gas emissions per person of any country. We need to pull our weight in reducing our emissions, and influence the rest of the world to take urgent and co-ordinated action. Any other policy is window dressing.' Other predictions include Melbourne and Sydney experiencing 50C days by 2040. 2019 was the hottest and driest year on record in Australia at 1.5C above the climate average for the century. Scientists fear for the environment when that average climbs to 3C above the average, which is predicted to happen within 80 years. Seperately, Oxfam says the government must demonstrate it has fully grasped the lessons of this 'horrific' bushfire season. A firefighter hosing down trees and flying embers in an effort to secure nearby houses in Nowra on Tuesday 'In spite of the scientific evidence and the extreme weather we're living through - bushfires, hail storms and drought - the government still hasn't joined the dots and taken action to tackle the root causes of the crisis,' Oxfam Chief Executive Lyn Morgain said in a statement. She said Australia's policies must dramatically strengthen emissions reduction targets and move beyond fossil fuels. 'The government's narrow-minded focus on adaptation and resilience simply, does not go far enough,' she said.. While Mr Morrison hasn't commented on the letter yet, he last week vowed to support hazard reduction burns. Mr Morrison has also revealed the government was considering a way to name and shame states which don't complete required hazard reduction burns. Two men stand in horror as they watch plumes of smoke and sky-high flames tower over Batlow 'Hazard reduction is as important as emissions reduction,' the prime minister told Sky News. 'Many would argue even more so, because it has a direct practical impact on the safety of a person going into a bushfire season.' Mr Morrison flagged clear national standards for meeting hazard reduction targets, along with a review of land-clearing laws, native vegetation rules and allowing grazing in national parks. 'We report all the time on what our emissions reductions are, but across the country there is not a national system of reporting to track how hazard reduction is progressing,' he said. 'There's been plenty of chat around emissions reduction and that's fine, hazard reduction though is the thing that is going to take a more practical effect on how safe people are in future fire seasons.' He said a proposed royal commission should look at how states were performing on reducing fire risks in the face of hotter, longer and drier summers. The Trump administration announced Friday that non-U.S. citizens who had been in China recently and not just in Wuhan or in surrounding Hubei province will be temporarily barred from entering the United States, with a few exemptions. American citizens who had been in Hubei province in the previous 14 days would be allowed to return but would be quarantined. U.S. citizens who had been elsewhere in China would be required to self-quarantine at home and report any symptoms to health officials. Headquarters of the PBOC, the central bank, is pictured in Beijing SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China's central bank said it will use various monetary policy tools to ensure liquidity remains reasonably ample, and added that the broader economic impact from a fast-spreading coronavirus outbreak in the country should be temporary. In multiple statements issued on Saturday afternoon, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) said that it will appropriately lower lending rates to support firms affected by virus outbreak. It added that the impact from the epidemic on the broad economy should be temporary. So far, the virus has claimed the lives of nearly 260 people. Investors are bracing for a volatile session in Chinese markets when onshore trades resume on Monday after a break for the Lunar New Year which was extended by the government due to the virus outbreak. The statements from the PBOC were jointly issued with banking and insurance, securities, foreign exchange regulators and the finance ministry. The virus outbreak will have a short-term and temporary impact on the country's financial markets, said Cao Yu, vice chairman of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC), in a separate statement made on Saturday. He also called on banking sector to offer comprehensive credit support to listed companies that might have reasonable funding needs in the wake of disruptions caused by the epidemic. The efforts to contain the virus have caused major disruptions and threaten to knock growth in China and globally, just when it looked like some relief was in store following the recent preliminary Sino-U.S. trade deal to defuse their protracted tariff war. Authorities in China had already stepped up support measures last year when growth in the world's second-biggest economy slumped to a near three-decade low, as demand at home and abroad shriveled. (Reporting by Winni Zhou, Cheng Leng and David Stanway in Shanghai, Zhang Lusha in Beijing; Editing by Shri Navaratnam) Grab our rova app and stay tuned to More! We love our family of listeners, and we want to make sure you've got the easiest way to listen to us when you are on the go, wherever you are! Somalia on Sunday declared a locust infestation sweeping the Horn of Africa to be a national emergency, as insects devastate food supplies in one of the poorest and most vulnerable regions in the world. "The Ministry of Agriculture... has declared a national emergency in view of the current desert locust upsurge, that poses a major threat to Somalia's fragile food security situation," the ministry statement read. Experts say the locust swarms are the result of extreme weather swings, and Somalia's declaration -- the first country in the region to do so -- is aimed at boosting national efforts in tackling the hungry insects. The locusts -- part of the grasshopper family -- have led to what the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has termed the "worst situation in 25 years" in the Horn of Africa. "Food sources for people and their livestock are at risk," the agriculture ministry added. "The desert locust swarms are uncommonly large and consume huge amounts of crops and forage." The emergency declaration was made to focus efforts and raise funds, because it was critical to contain the locust swarms before harvests are due in April, the ministry said. Desert locusts -- whose destructive infestations cause major crop damage and hunger -- are a species of grasshopper that live largely solitary lives until a combination of conditions promote breeding and lead them to form massive swarms. "Given the severity of this desert locust outbreak, we must commit our best efforts to protect the food security and livelihoods of Somali people," said Minister of Agriculture Said Hussein Iid. "If we don't act now, we risk a severe food crisis that we cannot afford." According to the regional Food Security and Nutrition Working Group, East Africa is already experiencing a high degree of food insecurity, with over 19 million people facing acute hunger. Swarms formed in eastern Ethiopia and northern Somalia and have moved through the region. The FAO says the current invasion is known as an "upsurge" -- when an entire region is affected -- however, if it gets worse and cannot be contained, over a year or more, it would become what is known as a "plague" of locusts. There have been six major desert locust plagues in the 1900s, the last of which was in 1987-89. The last major upsurge was in 2003-05. Search Keywords: Short link: Saudi Arabia's General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) concluded its participation in the regional symposium on "Innovation and Cyber Security" which was held from January 28 - 30 in Marrakesh, Morocco. The symposium was under the auspices of GACA in the belief of the importance of sharing expertise and experiences in the fields of innovation and cyber security. During the symposium, Saudi GACA presented a working paper in which it reviewed its vision towards the importance of technology and aviation security at a time when the kingdom is achieving rapid growth in the aviation sector that has managed to exceed 100 million passengers in 28 domestic and international airports around the kingdom. "There is a need to keep pace with all this achievements by making a synchronised technical environment using the latest global technical standards to increase airports capacity and quicken the check-in times by using the passengers biometric data and benefiting from the experiences of others," it said. The paper stressed that the increase in airport expansions and digital transformation requires providing information and integration with external parties while maintaining the confidentiality of sensitive information. It has become necessary to combat cyber attacks and the usage of necessary standards to maintain information security that has become a necessity, not an option. GACA also participated in the interactive exhibition held on the sidelines of the symposium, in which it displayed the latest industry technologies in the field of civil aviation security and a set of products and services related to civil aviation security, where it provided an opportunity for the participants to get acquainted and communicate with manufacturers and relevant service providers. The symposium was organized by the Arab Civil Aviation Organisation (ACAO) in partnership with the European Civil Aviation Conference (ECAC) and the African Civil Aviation Commission (AFCAC), and with the attendance of more than 200 participants representing nearly 40 Arab, African and European countries. - TradeArabia News Service Irish people are spending more on extra activities, food and beverages at Center Parcs in Longford than visitors to the chain's holiday resorts in the UK. The company is meeting expectations with an occupancy rate of over 80pc for its first six months at Ballymahon. It is expecting this level to increase in line with levels in the UK, which are in excess of 90pc. Reviewing the first six months of Center Parcs' performance in Ireland, chief executive Martin Dalby said additional purchases, known as on-park spend, "had taken us by surprise, particularly on leisure activity". He said: "The families are so keen to take part in activities that actually the level of revenue there has been higher than expected. "We have had to put on more programmes and more activities, and change some of [the] labour scheduling to accommodate those activities." "The expectation was based on what we have seen in the UK," he added. "So actually the Irish families are spending a little bit more on dining out as well, which is fantastic and really sets us up for a successful business as we get everything established." He said visitor numbers had been strong throughout the six months. "Ireland has got off to a fantastic start," Dalby said. "We've got an average occupancy of over 80pc for the first six months of trading, which to be honest with you is probably a little bit better than what we expected, particularly given the winter months of November, December and January, which for Irish families is not normally a time when they would take a short-break holiday." He said there have been over 100,000 guests to Center Parcs Longford since it opened on July 29, and 3,000 visitors have re-booked. Some 76pc of guests are coming from the Republic, around 11pc from Northern Ireland and 11pc visiting from Britain. Dalby said he was aware of social media commentary that the resort was expensive and unaffordable for many budgets. He said: "We get social media comments in the UK quite often about pricing; it can be a common theme. But what we always say to people is if you take a look at the website and you search around our website, there is a price point for everyone there. "If you come in the summer, if you come in the school holidays, just through the laws of economics and supply and demand, it's going to be more expensive than if you come in an off-peak period." February can feel like no mans land. The holidays are over and the weather is crummy. The gentlest iPhone chime sounds like a bugle call in the morning and you need two Americanos to have a civil conversation. Over the past week or so, youve been holed up in your cramped apartment and your inbox is overflowing with alerts about the spread of a deadly virus. Like 84% of the population, youre probably stressed, according to a recent study by Cigna Corp. and Asia Care Group. The cost of burnout is no longer just emotional. The global economy loses $1 trillion a year in productivity as a result of depression and anxiety, the World Health Organization found. While the U.S. puts $133.2 billion, or 4% of its annual health expenditure, toward treatment, that proportion reaches 19% in Australia, 18% in Singapore and 17.6% in Hong Kong, Cigna says. The good news is that theres a solution, and its cheap. The bad news is that its difficult. After years of considering mental health to be a personal affliction, focus is turning to the role employers can play. The type of changes needed better communication and support from managers, for example require a shift in attitude more than financial resources. In Asia, however, the very wokefulness thats made mental health a priority for Fortune 500 CEOs and U.S. presidential candidates is uncomfortable territory. My family never, ever talked about this topic. Its a taboo, said Deborah Seah, a 38-year-old Singaporean who lived with bipolar disorder for more than two decades before it was diagnosed. As a girl of eight, she recalls going to the kitchen of her familys high-rise apartment in the middle of the night, looking out the 11-story window and fighting the urge to jump. More than 90% of people in Asia say theyre stressed, and eight out of 10 feel like they operate in an always on culture. These can be early symptoms of burnout, which is marked by chronic exhaustion, cynicism and detachment from your work, as well as feelings of ineffectiveness. Seah experienced her first burnout episode in 2016, while working at an academic institution. She recalls the rising levels of stress as managers kept pushing work on her plate. She also felt pressure to keep her mental condition under wraps because colleagues gossiped viciously. Managers who knew of Seahs struggles urged her to stay quiet. Seah remembers breaking into sobs in the washroom, hoping no one would see, and coming home to dinner, where she would erupt into screams. Her husband begged her to quit her job, but she couldnt let go: I didnt want to give up my career, she said. Seah eventually admitted herself to Singapores mental-health institute when she began to feel suicidal. Successive burnout episodes were equally dramatic, with daily panic attacks, hot and cold flashes, uncontrollable shivering and the inability to get out of bed. Beyond social stigmas, Asias often inflexible work culture can be a hurdle, too. In a recent survey of Hong Kong employees by Deacons, a law firm, 65% of respondents cited long hours as their primary concern, closely followed by domineering senior management and uncommunicative bosses. The trouble is, even flexible work arrangements have their pitfalls. Ben,(1) 43, started his career in public relations in London, and moved to Singapore in 2013. He struggled with depression and anxiety after his father and half-brother died unexpectedly within less than a year of each other. He was relieved to get a transfer to Hong Kong for a change of pace, and was initially encouraged by the corporatespeak about working from home and unlimited vacation time. Very quickly, Ben found that working anywhere meant working all the time. He was pulling 12-hour days and putting in time on weekends; he compulsively checked his phone for messages. A much-anticipated trip with his wife to the tropical island of Flores, east of Bali, was spent on a deck chair: I saw it over a laptop, he recalls. It also became apparent that making a big transition during a period of emotional strain was a bad idea. When Ben asked for help with his workload, his manager said he should be able to cope. As the demands increased, Bens symptoms became physical: He lost weight, his cheeks hollowed and his skin turned ashen. One day, he simply couldnt get up, and stayed bedridden for a week. Though Ben worked for a U.S.-based company, he felt caught between Asias cultural expectation of being in the office and the 24/7 demands of his industry. When I was working in London, our general rule was if you saw someone working late regularly, you would take them aside and say, Hey whats going on? Whats wrong? whereas in Asia, its celebrated much more. Ben eventually decided to leave his job and took seven months off. Now he does contract work in the marketing-services industry, and tries to stick to a four-day week. In 2018, Gallup Inc., a market-research company, looked at the main causes of burnout, as well as what employers and managers can do. Whats striking is how simple some of the solutions appear to be: Employees whose managers are willing to listen to their work-related problems are 62% less likely to be burned out, and those who have the opportunity to do projects where they excel are 57% less likely to experience frequent episodes, the study found. Does a trillion-dollar problem really come down to intangibles such as making work purposeful, promoting teamwork and giving positive feedback? Seah, the Singaporean, eventually left her job, and now works as an executive assistant at Oracle Corp. In her application, she included her volunteer work as an ambassador at Beyond the Label, a government initiative to raise awareness about mental health. Seah marvels at the California-based companys openness to her condition and the willingness to let her work from home. The approach and attitude of my manager makes a whole world of difference. The workplaces of the future should not only better equip its managers with soft skills, but give employees the time and space to care for themselves. Think about it: With people working well into their 70s, careers can plausibly span half a century; a recent study puts the age of peak unhappiness smack in the middle, at 47.2. The key to heading off burnout, then, may be clearing your calendar. The Wall Street Journal recently chronicled the experience of one insurance executive who took a two-year sabbatical. The break actually accelerated her progress: She returned to work and became a CEO. For those who cant afford to put their paychecks on pause, even mini breaks or meditation can help. One Singaporean-based app, MindFi, has breathing exercises that even allow skeptics like me to keep their eyes open. Managing stress this way should be natural in cities like Hong Kong and Singapore. After all, Asia is the home of meditation, says Bjorn Lee, MindFis founder. What happened? Theres perhaps no better time to put these tools to work. The spread of the coronavirus has produced stress triggers that are both extraordinary (with thousands of confirmed cases) and mundane (its more difficult to get your Starbucks coffee). With millions of people on lockdown, companies from HSBC Holdings Plc to Facebook Inc. have asked staff to work from home. The novelty of wearing your pajamas all day can wear off quickly when youre squinting at a tiny laptop screen and keeping your toddlers sticky fingers off the keyboard. But if youre safe and virus-free, this could be a welcome opportunity for a deep breath. A baby showed up on one of my video conferences last week I cant imagine Im the only one who cracked a smile. (1) Ben asked that we keep out his surname. To contact the author of this story: at rrosenthal21@bloomberg.net (This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.) Follow more stories on Facebook and Twitter SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Kerala government said the condition of the medical student, kept in an isolation ward after testing positive for coronavirus is satisfactory and that 3 people have been arrested for spreading false information on social media about the disease. Thrissur: The Kerala government on Saturday said the condition of the medical student, kept in an isolation ward after testing positive for the novel coronavirus is satisfactory and that three people have been arrested for spreading false information on social media about the disease. The woman, who tested positive, is a student of Wuhan University and is undergoing treatment at the Thrissur Medical College Hospital. "The health status of the student who tested positive for coronavirus remains satisfactory. The hospital authorities have confirmed that the health condition of all symptomatic persons under isolation in hospitals is "stable", a bulletin said. Health Minister KK Shailaja said Kerala has strengthened surveillance and control measures against the epidemic, which has been declared by WHO as a global emergency. She told reporters that three people have been arrested for spreading false information about those who had arrived in the state from coronavirus affected countries and are under home surveillance. Six others had forwarded the posts and the cyber cell was probing the matter, Shailaja said. The minister had earlier warned that strong action would be taken against those putting out false news on the disease. Police said Sabari was arrested on Friday and released on bail, while two others Shafi and Siraj were arrested on Saturday. Two cases have been registered in two police stations in Thrissur in this connection, they said. A medical bulletin said that till date, 1793 people who travelled from coronavirus affected countries have been identified and placed under surveillance. Seventy of them have been admitted in select isolation facilities and 1,723 are under home quarantine. So far 39 samples had been sent to the National Institute of Virology (NIV) Pune for testing, of which 23 samples were negative, it said. A 24x7 control room has been set up in the state. A minimum of two hospitals with isolation facilities has been identified in each district. The sample testing for nCoV at NIV, Alappuzha Unit will be functional from 2 February onwards, the release stated. It said those who have arrived from the corona affected countries should remain under strict home isolation for 28 days from the date of arrival in India, irrespective of whether they are symptomatic or asymptomatic. Following the outbreak, the government advised all people to adhere to health advisories and follow the cough etiquette by covering their noses and mouth with handkerchiefs/towels while sneezing and coughing. Frequent handwashing with soap and water is necessary. A release from the Chief Minister's office said coronavirus clinics would be opened at the medical college hospital and General hospital in the state capital. A district control room, which will function round the clock, would also be started. Special surveillance will be launched to monitor those coming to the state via Thiruvananthapuram airport. The release said that of the total 1,793 under observation, 268 are in Kozhikode, 238 at Ernakulam, 265 in Malappuram and 156 in Kollam districts. A vaccine for coronavirus could be ready to test on patients in four months amid a global push by scientists backed by 20million from the British Government. An unprecedented target has been set to find a vaccine and start clinical trials by June, it is announced today. The Government made its cash pledge to an international team of experts who specialise in speeding up the development of vaccines in response to major outbreaks around the world. A vaccine for coronavirus could be ready to test on patients in four months amid a global push by scientists backed by 20million from the British Government. Pictured: Tourists in Chinatown, London, yesterday Scientists admit the timescale set by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) is extremely ambitious but say the global spread of coronavirus means the urgency is crucial. The death toll within Chinas borders has risen to more than 360 and the virus has claimed its first victim outside the country as it was reported a 44-year-old man from Wuhan had died in the Philippines. The only two confirmed cases in the UK remain a student from York University and their relative, who fell ill at the Staycity apartment in the city and are now being treated at a specialist unit in Newcastle. An unprecedented target has been set to find a vaccine and start clinical trials by June, it is announced today Another 264 people have tested negative, while officials from Public Health England are still trying to trace 385 people who flew to the UK on direct flights from Wuhan in China between January 10 and January 24. Yesterday 11 more Britons were evacuated from China to spend a fortnight in quarantine at Arrowe Park Hospital in the Wirral before returning home. They will be quarantined at the facility for 14 days along with the 83 people who were taken there last week. As the funding for a vaccine was announced, Dr Richard Hatchett, chief executive of the Norway-based CEPI, said: We welcome the UKs continued support and funding for our vital work, which comes at a crucial moment as the world races to respond to the emergence of a novel coronavirus. The rapid global spread and unique epidemiological characteristics of the virus are deeply concerning. Our hope is that, with our partners, we can get an investigational vaccine from gene sequencing of the pathogen through to clinical testing in 16 weeks. Currently there is no protection against coronavirus, which has now infected more worldwide than the 2002 Sars epidemic. At the weekend Steffan Atherton (pictured with his Peruvian wife Diana), a British art teacher in the Chinese city of Fuzhou, posted a video of himself fighting tears during a phone call with the British Embassy in which he was told he could not be evacuated But technology moves faster now, and the Chinese provided the DNA code for coronavirus early on in the outbreak. That led scientists worldwide to enter the race for a vaccine, with Professor Robin Shattock, head of mucosal infection and immunity at Imperial College London, saying he already has one with a very good chance of being effective. A vaccine is probably at least a year away from being widely available, but phase one trials to check one for safety could be finished in around six months if the CEPI-funded scientists are successful. Dr Hatchett warned: This is an extremely ambitious timeline. Indeed, it would be unprecedented in the field of vaccine development. It is important to remember that even if we are successful and there can be no guarantee there will be further challenges to navigate before we can make vaccines more broadly available. Pilots in protective suits were seen on board a Sri Lankan Airlines flight which evacuated 33 of its citizens from Wuhan on Saturday CEPI is a global partnership between public, private and philanthropic organisations set up at Davos three years ago to prevent future epidemics, and receives funding from governments as well as charities and foundations such as the Wellcome Trust and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Announcing the 20million funding from the UK which will also target other deadly diseases Health Secretary Matt Hancock said: Vaccines are our best defence against a host of deadly diseases, including coronavirus. The UK is a hub of world-leading and pioneering research, and it is vital we lead the way in developing new vaccines to target global threats with scientists from across the world. In total last night there were 14,557 confirmed cases of coronavirus worldwide, with 305 deaths. Countries as far apart as Japan, the US, France and Germany have been affected. Pilots in protective suits were seen on board a Sri Lankan Airlines flight which evacuated 33 of its citizens from Wuhan on Saturday. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said the Government was doing everything it could to help British nationals in China. However, some Foreign Office staff have been withdrawn and the British Consulate-General in Wuhan has been closed. At the weekend Steffan Atherton, a British art teacher in the Chinese city of Fuzhou, posted a video of himself fighting tears during a phone call with the British Embassy in which he was told he could not be evacuated. Mr Atherton, who has a newborn baby with his Peruvian wife Diana, held his head in his hands as he was told no flights were planned from the area. He also posted a video of the abandoned streets, with red flags and a recorded message playing on a loop. The World Health Organisation has classified the coronavirus outbreak as an international emergency and governments have been stepping up evacuation flights out of China. China updated the death toll from the coronavirus outbreak to 361 on Monday, with an additional 2,829 new cases reported in the last 24 hours, bringing the total to 17,205. (Newser) Two dozen emails kept from Congress show President Trump's reasoning for withholding military aid from Ukraine, the Justice Department has conceded. The revelation came in a court filing midnight Friday that argued against releasing the content of the emails, the Washington Post reports. An OMB lawyer wrote that "presidential privilege" protects 24 of the 111 heavily redacted emails that were released after the Center for Public Integrity filed suit under the Freedom of Information Act. The filing provides the most complete description so far of the content of the documents, per Politico. The lawyer, Heather Walsh, wrote that they "reflect communications by either the President, the Vice President, or the Presidents immediate advisors regarding Presidential decision-making about the scope, duration, and purpose of the hold on military assistance to Ukraine." story continues below Democrats could cite the filing to say Trump's impeachment trial in the Senate was fatally flawed; the case concerned Trump's decision to keep nearly $400 million in military aid from Ukraine, an ally. Just hours before the DOJ's admission, Republicans in the Senate cut off attempts to subpoena documents and witnesses. "Every single Republican senator voted to endorse the White House cover-up of these potentially important truth-revealing emails," Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader, said Saturday. The truth will come out eventually, he said, and "Republicans will have to answer for why they were so determined to enable the president to hide it." Mitch McConnell, the Senate's majority leader, declined to comment. (Read more Trump impeachment stories.) CHISINAU -- No one knows exactly why 25-year-old Alexandru Rjavitin snuck back into the breakaway Moldovan region of Transdniester late last year. After all, the self-proclaimed authorities in the territory had earlier filed criminal charges against him for allegedly "deserting" from the region's illegal paramilitary formation -- charges that carried a penalty of up to 20 years in prison. When Rjavitin disappeared from his relatives' home in the Transdniestrian village of Pervomaisc on December 18, his family immediately suspected he'd been abducted by local security forces. The case, which has become something of a cause celebre among Moldovan rights activists, has thrown a harsh spotlight on widespread allegations of abuse, hazing, and torture inside Transdniester's unrecognized paramilitary. On January 15, the de facto authorities in Transdniester finally acknowledged that Rjavitin was in their custody. According to Alexandru Postica, director of the human rights program of the Chisinau-based Promo-Lex Association, Rjavitin's mother was allowed a supervised visit with her son on January 20 or 21. "From what she was able to tell her lawyers, Rjavitin was in [a prison] in Tiraspol," he told RFE/RL's Moldovan Service on January 30, referring to the main city of the breakaway region. "During the meeting, there was an officer of the authorities present, so Rjavitin did not provide any detailed information about his case." On January 27, Postica said, Rjavitin's mother visited her son again, this time at the same paramilitary base from which he fled in 2015. The "desertion" charges against her son had been dropped, she learned, and he had been returned to serve out the rest of his conscription. "We are nonetheless repeating our demands for access to him," Postica told RFE/RL, "because we have no evidence that his rights were observed except for the illegal conclusions [of the Transdniestrian authorities]. We need to determine that he was not tortured or otherwise intimidated." In the meantime, prosecutors in Chisinau have opened a criminal case in the matter looking into suspicions that Rjavitin had been kidnapped. Alexandru Rjavitin's story really began in August 2015, when he escaped from the paramilitary unit into which he'd been conscripted and swam across the Dniester River. In his separatist military uniform and light indoor shoes, he walked for three days to the capital, Chisinau. "I was wearing a military uniform and showing up in public like that wasn't a good idea," Rjavitin said in a short 2017 documentary film produced by RFE/RL's Moldovan Service. "There are plenty of Transdniestrians in those villages, so I had to be careful. I was frightened.... I was in Moldova for the first time in my life." When he reached the capital, Rjavitin found his way to the rights activists at Promo-Lex and unfolded a tale of horrific abuse in Transdniester's paramilitary. "Soldiers are very often beaten up, humiliated, and blackmailed for money," Rjavitin said in the RFE/RL documentary. "Newcomers are first broken and mocked, and forced to pay. The amount varies -- 20 rubles [$1.25 according to the official exchange rate the de facto authorities have established for the nonconvertible currency] and up. Some boys even had to pay $100 to $150. [The officers] don't care where or how you got the money. But if you come up empty, you are guaranteed a beating." Rjavitin detailed the many ways fellow soldiers had devised to beat and torture conscripts without leaving telltale marks. Nonetheless, he showed the scars of the abuse he'd suffered. "Here I have a scar from a bayonet. He was fooling around," Rjavitin said, showing the side of his hand and gesturing to show how his attacker was stabbing between Rjavitin's fingers with his weapon. "And he cut my hand. He was drunk out of his mind." "Those guys drink hard and beat us regularly," he concluded. 'That's Just The Way It Is' Rjavitin's accusations have been echoed by the statements of many people displaced from the unrecognized Transdniester region. "Fugitives from Transdniester tell their own stories and those of other people, of young men who are abused but who remain silent because they might be killed," Promo-Lex lawyer Vadim Vieru said in the 2017 documentary. "In addition, you can't really call it an 'army.' It is actually an illegal paramilitary formation that unlawfully takes away the liberty of these young men. It is grounds for criminal charges It would be more accurate to call it an organized criminal group and its purpose is to extort money from fresh servicemen." Earlier this year, a book titled A Year Of Youth was released with the support of the Czech nongovernmental aid organization People in Need. The book details the stories of 12 former Transdniester conscripts and is available in full online in Russian. The accounts were assembled by Larisa Kalik, an activist from Tiraspol. "This book is my attempt to give voice to people who are never asked about this important subject," Kalik told RFE/RL on January 12. "Behind the glitz of propaganda stories shown on regional television about how great it is to be a defender of the motherland stands people who have no love for their motherland. For them, their motherland is just a place to get your first gray hairs at the age of 20, to lose your teeth, to be disenchanted, and to develop the desire to buy a one-way ticket out of the country." "This project began more than a year ago," Kalik said. "In November 2018 I met a young man who served in the Transdniester army. He half-jokingly told me about his service -- about the lack of hygiene, the hazing, the disgusting food. When I asked him how he could stand such humiliating treatment...he just answered the same way that many people do: 'Nothing will change in the army. That's the way it is, the way it was, the way it is going to be.'" 'We Are Moldova' Pro-Russian separatists in Transdniester declared independence from Moldova in 1990 amid concerns that officials in Chisinau would seek reunification with Romania as the Soviet Union disintegrated. The separatists fought a war against government forces two years later in which about 1,000 people were killed. The conflict has been frozen since Soviet troops stationed in Transdniester intervened on the side of the separatists. Since then, Russia continues to provide military, economic, and political support to the unrecognized de facto administration. Moscow maintains troops in the region, despite Chisinau's repeated requests for them to be withdrawn and replaced by international peacekeepers. Young men between the ages of 18 and 27 are required to completed one year of service in the region's illegal paramilitary organization. Rjavitin said the experience reinforced the narrative of the de facto authorities that the Moldovan government is their enemy. He described how one captain told the troops not to worry about a possible war with neighboring Ukraine. "'Moldova will attack us first. Moldova is our enemy,'" Rjavitin quoted the captain as saying. "People get this idea nailed into their heads from their first breath," Rjavitin said in the 2017 documentary. "All the stations air this idea. 'Moldova is the enemy. If a war begins against Moldova, you must fight to the end because this is your home.' If Moldovan television stations were there, it would stabilize the situation, and Transdniestrians themselves would want to return to Moldova." "They call me a traitor and say I betrayed my motherland," Rjavitin said. "In reality, though, I have not betrayed my motherland. Moldova is my motherland. We were born in Moldova. We are Moldova, part of Moldova." Written by Robert Coalson based on reporting by Lina Grau and Serghei Ursul of RFE/RL's Moldovan Service. Eugenia Cretu and Nicolai Gusan of RFE/RL's Moldovan Service also contributed to this report When two neutron stars slammed together far off in space, they created a powerful shaking in the universe gravitational waves that scientists detected on Earth in 2017. Now, sifting through those gravitational wave recordings, a pair of physicists think they've found evidence of a black hole that would violate the neat model drawn from Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity. In general relativity, black holes are simple objects: infinitely compressed singularities, or points of matter, surrounded by smooth event horizons through which no light, energy or matter can escape. Until now, every bit of data we've gleaned from black holes has supported this model. But in the 1970s, Stephen Hawking wrote a series of papers suggesting that the borders of black holes aren't quite so smooth. Instead, they blur thanks to a series of effects linked to quantum mechanics that allow "Hawking radiation" to escape. In the years since, a number of alternative black hole models have emerged, where those smooth, perfect event horizons would be replaced with flimsier, fuzzier membranes. Related: The 18 Biggest Unsolved Mysteries in Physics More recently, physicists have predicted that this fuzz would be particularly intense around newly formed black holes substantial enough to reflect gravitational waves, producing an echo in the signal of a black hole's formation. Now, in the aftermath of the neutron star collision, two physicists think they've found that type of echo. They argue that a black hole that formed when the neutron stars merged is ringing like an echoing bell and shattering simple black hole physics. If the echo is real, then it must be from the fuzz of a quantum black hole, said study co-author Niayesh Afshordi, a physicist at the University of Waterloo in Canada. "In Einstein's theory of relativity, matter can orbit around black holes at large distances but should fall into the black hole close to the event horizon," Afshordi told Live Science. So, close to the black hole, there shouldn't be any loose material to echo gravitational waves. Even black holes that surround themselves with disks of material should have an empty zone right around their event horizons, he said. "The time delay we expect (and observe) for our echoes ... can only be explained if some quantum structure sits just outside their event horizons," Afshordi said. That's a break from usually unshakable predictions of general relativity. That said, data from existing gravitational wave detectors is noisy, difficult to properly interpret and prone to false positives. A gravitational wave echoing off some quantum fuzz around a black hole would be an entirely new sort of detection. But Afshordi said that in the immediate aftermath of the merger, that fuzz should have been intense enough to reflect gravitational waves so sharply that existing detectors could see it. Joey Neilsen, an astrophysicist at Villanova University in Pennsylvania who wasn't involved in this paper, said that the result is compelling particularly because the echoes turned up in more than one gravitational wave detector. "That's more convincing than combing through data looking for a specific kind of signal and saying, 'aha!' when you find it," Neilsen told Live Science. Still, he said, he'd need to see more information before he was absolutely convinced that the echoes were real. The paper doesn't account for other gravitational wave detections gathered within about 30 seconds of the reported echoes, Neilsen said. "Because significance calculations are so sensitive to how you pick and choose your data, I would want to understand all those features more fully before I drew any firm conclusions," he said. Maximiliano Isi, an astrophysicist at MIT, was skeptical. "It is not the first claim of this nature coming from this group," he told Live Science. "Unfortunately, other groups have been unable to reproduce their results, and not for lack of trying." Isi pointed to a series of papers that failed to find echoes in the same data, one of which, published in June, he described as a "a more sophisticated, statistically robust analysis." Afshordi said that this new paper of his has the advantage of being far more sensitive than previous work, with more robust models to detect fainter echoes., adding, "the finding that we reported... is the most statistically significant out of the dozen searches [I discussed], as it had the false alarm chance of roughly 2 out of 100,000." Even if the echo is real, scientists still don't know precisely what sort of exotic astrophysical object produced the phenomenon, Neilsen added. "What's so interesting about this case is that we don't have any idea what was left after the original merger: Did a black hole form right away, or was there some exotic, short-lived intermediate object?" Neilsen said. "The results here are easiest to make sense of if the remnant is a hypermassive [neutron star] that collapses within a second or so, but the echo presented here isn't convincing to me that that scenario is what actually happened." It is possible there are echoes in the data, Isi said, which would be enormously significant. He's just not convinced yet. Regardless of how all the data shakes out, Neilson said, it's clear the result here is pointing at something worth exploring further. "Astrophysically, we're in uncharted territory, and that's really exciting." he said. The paper was published Nov. 13, 2019, in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. Originally published on Live Science. (Bloomberg) -- The centerpiece of Japans response to U.S. calls for a Middle East security coalition -- a single warship -- sets sail Sunday, on a mission that highlights just how few American allies have signed up. The Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyer Takanami, as well as two patrol planes, are taking part in what Prime Minister Shinzo Abes government has said will be a yearlong intelligence-gathering deployment to protect vital oil shipments from the region. But Japan has made sure those assets will be operating independently from the U.S. and staying away from potential flashpoints in the Persian Gulf. U.S. allies such as Japan are walking a fine line to show support for President Donald Trump while minimizing the risk of getting drawn into a larger conflict with Iran. Many disagreed with Trumps decision to withdraw from a 2018 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action to curb Tehrans nuclear program and were alarmed over a flurry of violence last month that included the U.S.s targeted killing of top Iranian General Qassem Soleimani. While Australia and the U.K. have each committed ships and are part of the U.S.-led International Maritime Security Construct, others such as Japan, India and South Korea have sent vessels to the region with orders to act independently. France said it would deploy its Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier to the Middle East from January to April to support European countries. The international response has varied from lukewarm to hostile, said Ashley Townshend, director of foreign policy and defense at the University of Sydneys United States Studies Centre. Most U.S. allies and partners have sensibly sought to stay out of the Persian Gulf deployment, which is -- or at least could have been -- an entirely avoidable mission, had Trump not withdrawn from the JCPOA and eschewed a cool-headed path of diplomacy. Zero Compensation The U.S. began recruiting backers for the security coalition last summer after a series of attacks on tankers near the Persian Gulf, a strategic choke point that handles about one-third of the worlds seaborne crude oil. Trump singled out Japan, which gets almost 90% of its oil from the Middle East, among the countries that were providing zero compensation for U.S. protection. Story continues Three regional rivals of Iran -- Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates -- as well as Albania, have also signed up for the International Maritime Security Construct. Australia dispatched its frigate HMAS Toowoomba, while the U.K. sent the HMS Montrose and HMS Defender -- a frigate and a destroyer - to accompany British-flagged ships through the Strait of Hormuz. The demand posed a particularly difficult problem for Japan and South Korea, which used to get significant shipments of oil from Iran before the U.S. imposed sanctions. Both also rely on a large U.S. troop presence for their security and are under pressure from Trump to pay more for those deployments. Next year, Japan is set to renew a five-year deal with the U.S. that determines how much it contributes for local staff, utilities and training relocation. Tokyo is expected to pay 197 billion yen ($1.8 billion) this year, although the U.S. doesnt publish the costs of maintaining the bases. Japans Abe Resumes Constitution Quest to Burnish Legacy Abe has to balance Trumps demands with the concerns of voters who believe overseas deployments violate the countrys commitment to pacifism enshrined in its post-World War II constitution. With Sundays Takanami mission, Abe appears to have done just enough to avoid upsetting any parties. Similarly, South Korea has announced that it would temporarily expand anti-piracy patrols by its Cheonghae naval unit to include the Strait of Hormuz and transfer troops already nearby in the region to the Persian Gulf. By operating outside the U.S. coalition, Japan and South Korea hope to minimize their military exposure while also preserving diplomatic ties and economic relations with Iran -- something Prime Minister Abe has so far dexterously achieved, Townshend said. --With assistance from Jihye Lee. To contact the reporter on this story: Jon Herskovitz in Tokyo at jherskovitz@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Scott at bscott66@bloomberg.net, Isabel Reynolds For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source. 2020 Bloomberg L.P. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Sunday slammed the BJP-led central government on the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and said that the new law only serves the objectives of the Sangh Parivar of turning India into a Hindu Rashtra. (Photo: File) Mumbai: Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Sunday slammed the BJP-led central government on the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and said that the new law only serves the objectives of the Sangh Parivar of turning India into a Hindu Rashtra. He said that in order to achieve their objectives, the "communal elements" are trying to divide India's people through the same strategy as employed by the British colonisers in the past. Lauding people in Mumbai for their protests against CAA, the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the National Population Register (NPR), the Kerala chief minister also outlined three reasons for his government's decision to reject the Citizenship Amendment Act. "Over the last several weeks, Mumbai citizens made clear their unyielding opposition to efforts made by Hindutva elements to tear apart the secular fabric of our society. I express solidarity with struggles being made across the city in defence of secularism and the Indian Constitution," Vijayan said at an event here. The chief minister was addressing the 'Mumbai Collective' here on the topic of 'National struggle against communalism'. "The government of Kerala is acting as per the Constitution. Like Kerala, other states are also looking at CAA as against the fundamentals of the Constitution. It (CAA) violates basic human rights and is divisive and deeply discriminatory," CM Vijayan said, adding that the new citizenship law only furthers the Sangh Parivar's objective of creating a Hindu Rashtra. He said the CAA needs to be rejected for three basic reasons. "First, it is against the letter and spirit of our Constitution. Secondly, it is highly discriminatory and violative of human rights. Thirdly, it seeks to impose philosophy of Sangh Parivar with its mission of Hindu Rashtra," the chief minister said. Vijayan also participated in the human chain organised by Left Democratic Front (LDF) against CAA and NRC and said that "the law is a threat to the secularism of this country". The newly enacted law is facing stiff opposition across the country with several non-NDA states including Kerala, West Bengal, Rajasthan and Punjab refusing to implement it. Rajasthan, Kerala and Punjab have passed resolutions against the recently amended law in their respective state Assemblies. The CAA grants citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis, Buddhists and Christians fleeing religious persecution from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh and who came to India on or before December 31, 2014. One of the great biannual migrations is about to begin as cruise ships leisurely move from their winter homes in the Caribbean to Europe for the summer. These trans-Atlantic repositioning voyages are a rite of spring. The reverse occurs in the autumn, when vessels flock back to warm Caribbean waters. It can be tough for lines to sell these longer, shoulder-season voyages. "A lot of people ... Indias union budget presented on Saturday has left expats in the Kingdom confused with the finance ministry making amendments on the definition of Non Resident Indians (NRIs) and proposing changes in taxation. The amendments stipulate 240 days, instead of 182 days, of overseas stay to be considered as an NRI and any Indian staying in India for 120 days or more will be considered as a resident and taxed. Another proposal is to impose taxation on worldwide income if an NRI is living in different countries, according to Indias Revenue Secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey. This particular provision would impact those Indian citizens living in taxfree countries like the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and many other Middle-East countries. This is a big jolt for many Indian citizens living on these jurisdictions. India and Bahrain are yet to sign a Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement Treaty. Militants du MRC a Paris capture d'ecran Prof. Maurice Kamto, National President of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement, CRM, has addressed a thick crowd of supporters at a rally Saturday, February 1, 2020 at Place de la Republique in Paris, France. Setting the stage for Maurice Kamto to mount the rostrum, Christian Penda Ekoka said they will not leave to their children the battles they are supposed to fight during their lifetime. He said Kamto has through the CRM taught the masses to be honourable so they can achieve great things, to be free because only a free people can be developed and to be courageous because no great thing can be realised through fear. Penda says the masses have been taught to be Cameroonians, to put Cameroon first and take their appointment with destiny. There is a wind of change. And it has taken a human face in the person of Prof. Maurice Kamto. Mounting the rostrum, Maurice Kamto said the February 1, 2020 rally in Paris is an exceptional moment. He went on to open his speech with a chant of the countrys National Anthem in the French language, hoping as it were that during the next rally, it will be song in English. He thanked the French authorities for authorising them to organise the rally, something he said is near impossible back home in Cameroon. We have to be ready to pay the supreme price for our freedom. We have come to France to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your engagements during the election campaigns in 2018, said Kamto. He regretted that the crisis in the North West and South West regions has degenerated into an armed conflict, leading to between 3,000 and 12,000 deaths, with hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons and thousands of refugees. The candidate at the 2018 presidential elections said the role of a government is to address the issues of the country and open its hands to welcome its compatriots. He regrets that the current regime has failed to meet the needs and aspirations of the people, recalling that he took a commitment during the presidential elections that if voted, his first visit will be in the English parts of Cameroon because his commitment is to resolve the Anglophone crisis. If we put our heads and hearts together, we can settle that crisis, said Kamto, adding that, We will be relentless in searching appropriate solutions to the crisis. In the coming months, we will solve that crisis. Kamto went on to demand for the unconditional release of CRM 1st Vice National President, Mamadou Yakouba Mota and many others held in detention centers in Cameroon. He said Mota is an authentic hero for the fight for change in the country. He read out names of those held in detention and standing trial for simply asking for change. Hear Kamto: Fear has left us. Cameroon is not the property of a few. Cameroon is our fatherland. No one can put us on our knees so we can get favours. If I fall tomorrow, take the baton and continue to struggle. No need for flowers on my grave. They should know that we will never give up. Many of our parents paid the supreme price to fight dictatorship. We have to fight. We did not create the CRM to give posts to our comrades. We created the CRM to bring change for our people. We invite our militants to understand the spirit of the boycott of the February 9, 2020 elections. I am waiting for you. The wind of change, the national renaissance has started. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) walks on his way to enter the Senate chamber in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, on Jan. 24, 2020. (Mario Tama/Getty Images) GOP Senator: Trump Will Think Twice After Impeachment Trial Sen. Lamar Alexander says he will vote to acquit after voting against calling witnesses After voting against calling witnesses in President Donald Trumps impeachment trial, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said he believes Trump will be dissuaded from the kind of alleged conduct that led to the impeachment inquiry. Enduring an impeachment is something that nobody should like. Even the president said he didnt want that on his resume, I dont blame him, he told NBCs Meet the Press on Sunday. Alexander also said he is voting to acquit the president next week. If a call like this gets you an impeachment, I would think he would think twice before he did it again, Alexander added, referencing a call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky where Trump asked Zelensky to look into circumstances surrounding former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, who sat on the board of a Ukrainian gas company that has been long accused of corruption. Alexander, who is not seeking reelection in 2020, said that he hopes Trump can realize he shouldnt have done it. Hopefully hell look at this and say Okay, that was a mistake, I shouldnt have done that, I shouldnt have done it that way, Alexander noted, adding Trumps reelection campaign should place focus on the burgeoning U.S. economy and other fulfilled campaign promises. In the interview, Alexander said that Trump should have first spoken with Attorney General William Barr about his concerns about corruption in Ukraine and whether the Biden family was involved. What the president should have done was, if he was upset about Joe Biden and his son and what they were doing in Ukraine, he should have called the Attorney General and told him that, Alexander remarked, adding that maybe [Trump] didnt know to take that step. Trump was impeached in by House Democrats in a partisan vote on Dec. 18 for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. No Republicans voted in favor of the articles. Democrats have said he abused the power his office for allegedly withholding military aid to Ukraine in exchange for investigations, which both Trump and Zelensky have denied. Senators cast their vote on the motion to allow additional witnesses and evidence to be allowed in the impeachment trial against President Donald Trump in the Senate at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, on Jan. 31, 2020. The motion failed with a vote of 51-49. (Senate Television via AP) During the impeachment trial, Trumps legal defense team argued that the House rushed the impeachment inquiry and sought to politically wound the president. The Democrats, they said, also were threatening to usurp the balance of power between the three branches of government and warned the future Houses could threaten presidents with impeachment over what they have described as spurious claims. Alexander echoed their warning in the interview and said thats the main reason why he will vote to acquit Trump. Im going to vote to acquit. Im very concerned about any action that we could take that would establish a perpetual impeachment in the House of Representatives whenever the House was a different party than the president. That would immobilize the Senate, the Tennessee Republican said. Before Alexander cast his decisive vote against witnesses last week, there was speculation that he might break ranks with Republicans in the Senate. But just hours before Fridays session, both he and fellow moderate Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) announced they would vote against calling witnesses, while Sens. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) voted in favor. - Celebrity couple Kim Chiu and Xian Lim recently travelled together to Grindelwald - For their trip, the couple booked a 'sleeper train' from Vienna, Austria to Switzerland - At one point in the video, Kim got shocked inside the train after she pressed a couple of light switches - The said video also garnered various reactions and comments from netizens on social media PAY ATTENTION: Click "See First" under the "Following" tab to see KAMI news on your News Feed Kapamilya star Kim Chiu has recently shared a new experience about her trip to Grindelwald, Switzerland with her boyfriend, Xian Lim on her social media account. The celebrity couple who went to Vienna, Austria recently booked a 'sleeper train' or 'sleeper cabin' for a 10-hour ride to Grindelwald, Switzerland. Following this news, KAMI learned that Kim shared her experience inside the capsule hotel-like train as she toured her viewers around the room in her vlog. Watch the video below: However, at one point in the video, Kim got the shock of her life after she showed how the light switches work as their room suddenly turned red and was accompanied by an automated recorded message. Xian then jokingly said, "Ano ano daw pinaggagagawa mo?" to which Kim replied, "Malupit daw. Malupit ang samon. Baka samon ng pagkain?" The said vlog also garnered reactions and comments from netizens on social media. "Couple goals + travel goals talaga 'tong dalawa." "Haha natatawa ako sa pagpindot ni Kimmy ng ilaw." "Hahahah grabe kalog talaga itong si Kim super tawa ko sa pinaggagawa niya.." "I like her na aside from being a good actress. Humorous din pala." PAY ATTENTION: Enjoyed reading our story? Download KAMI's news app on Google Play now and stay up-to-date with major Filipino news! As reported earlier by KAMI, Kim Chiu has stirred buzz in the online community after she posted their Chinese New Year celebration online. The actress shared some snaps from the traditional event together with her siblings and their father. Her family welcomed the Year of the Rat with fireworks display and a lion dance. Her post garnered countless comments and reactions from netizens on social media as well. Kimberly Sue Yap Chiu, famously known as Kim Chiu, is a Chinese-Filipino actress, recording artist, and endorser. She gained her popularity after joining and winning the first season of Pinoy Big Brother Teen Edition. POPULAR: Read more news about Kim Chiu Please like and share our Facebook posts to support KAMI team! Dont hesitate to comment and share your opinion about our stories either. We love reading about your thoughts! Source: KAMI.com.gh CARBONDALE Early Tuesday afternoon, Tony Graham stood along the East Main Frontage Road holding a cardboard sign that read God Love All of Us. In the o of God, hed drawn a smiley face. Some people waved. Others seemingly avoided eye contact. A few rolled down their window to offer cash. One woman dropped off a McDonalds lunch. Graham said he doesnt expect people to give, and doesnt hold it against anyone who doesnt stop. Though, he said, it can be hurtful when people are unkind. At its worst, Graham said hes been called the n-word. More frequently, he said, people yell Get a job! out their windows as they drive by. A lot of people dont understand, maybe, what youre going through, he said. They just look, and they just naturally think that if youre holding a sign, youre just the lowest person on Earth. Graham, 58, is among the hundreds of people across Southern Illinois experiencing homelessness. He said he has been without shelter for about two years, since around the time he lost his job at Gilster-Mary Lee. Graham said he spends his nights in a friends shed in Carbondale. On Tuesday social service providers, fanned out across the region, attempted to count how many people here are in similar situations living in homeless shelters, sleeping outside or making due in places unfit for human habitation, such as abandoned buildings, sheds or cars. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development requires regional agencies that oversee homelessness services known as continuums of care to conduct the annual count on a single night the last week in January. Now in its 15th year, the data collection serves multiple purposes. It partially drives a formula that determines how federal resources are distributed nationally. Homelessness data also help demonstrate the extent of the problem and are used to track progress toward the goal of ending homelessness in the U.S., according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, a Washington-based research and advocacy organization. Collecting data on homelessness and tracking progress can inform public opinion, increase public awareness and attract resources that will lead to the eradication of the problem, the organization explained on its website. Data from the 24-hour count was not immediately available because it takes a while to compile and fact check, according to officials involved in the process. In 2019, there were 294 homeless people identified in the annual count living in Illinois southernmost 27 counties, up slightly from the previous years 282. The region saw its 10-year high in 2017, when 435 people experiencing homelessness were counted. Those numbers have fallen somewhat more recently, and returned to roughly the same levels as a decade ago. The data is flawed, however, according to those who help coordinate the count locally. Its relatively easy to identify people who are homeless and living in area homeless shelters, or who visit soup kitchens for daily meals, they say. But not everyone who is without housing seeks these services. And in a rural area, its difficult to locate people spread out across a large region, said Camille Dorris, executive director of the Southern Illinois Coalition for the Homeless, a Marion-based provider of affordable supportive housing. Of the more than 400 continuums of care nationally that oversee homelessness services in their region, Southern Illinois is the largest geographically. Its especially challenging in the areas outside of population centers such as Marion, Benton and Harrisburg, said Dorris, who served as the point person for the data collection in the Williamson, Franklin and Saline county areas. Further, HUD has a rather narrow definition of what it means to be homeless. People on the streets or in shelters are counted, but people doubled up with family or friends or couch surfing usually arent. Graham said hes been homeless for several years. He said he would like to work again. He also acknowledged he needs to reconnect with a therapist, as that had helped him in the past, though he did not have immediate plans to do so. Graham said he tries to live one day at a time, and not dwell on his past. That past, he said, included alcoholism and illegal activity. Graham said that drinking turned him into a different person one who itched for a fight, and whom he didnt much care for when the booze wore off. The change that has made the biggest difference in his life, he said, was the decision to get sober in 2017, and recommit his life to God. Graham said hes maintained sobriety while experiencing homelessness. He said that when he receives money from strangers, he uses it to buy food, hand warmers and other necessities for himself and other homeless people he knows. You got some beautiful people that you wouldn't even believe, Graham said. God, the man upstairs that I really believe in, He looks out for me. Patty Mullen, executive director of Good Samaritan Ministries, which operates a shelter and soup kitchen in Carbondale, said that some of the people who seek out her agencys services have been homeless for years, while many others are experiencing it for the first time. She was in charge of collecting data on homelessness for Monroe, Randolph, Perry and Jackson counties. Different circumstances lead to people becoming unsheltered, she said. Common ones include loss of a job, rising housing costs that are unaffordable on minimum-wage pay, new parents expecting a baby and unprepared, barriers to housing that people face who have criminal or eviction records, and people who are experiencing mental health or substance use issues and not getting the treatment that they need. She said that the state budget crisis under former Gov. Bruce Rauner exacerbated the mental health provider shortage for low-income people, including those experiencing homelessness. The two-year standoff that left Illinois without a full budget for several fiscal years came to an end in 2017. But reversing the damage it caused has been a slow process, she said. Mullen said that homelessness in Southern Illinois has been a relatively steady problem without any major spikes or declines. Recently, she said, it seems as though theres been a slight increase in the number of people in Carbondale experiencing homelessness. But some of that increase may be because there are more services here, especially for people with complex backgrounds that may be turned away in other communities. Nathan Rodriguez, 40, said he spent his entire life living with his parents in Marion until recently, and is among those experiencing homelessness for the first time. His mother died in November, and his relationship went sour with his father, he said. According to Rodriguez, his father took out a restraining order against him, and he was arrested in late November for violating it when he returned to the property. He spent 45 days in jail. Afterward, Rodriguez said he had nowhere to go. Because of his legal record, The Lighthouse Shelter in Marion turned him away, he said. Without specifically discussing Rodriguezs case, Sharon Atchison, a retired director and vice president of the Lighthouse Shelter board, said generally that the shelter does not admit anyone with an order of protection, history of domestic violence, or who is intoxicated or tests positive for drugs upon arrival. Because of what she described as a push by the government to encourage homeless shelters to adopt more liberal admittance policies, Lighthouse, a faith-based organization, declined to accept government funding for the first time this fiscal year, forgoing about $30,000 in annual funds in order to maintain its policies that have been in place since its inception 13 years ago. Having exhausted all options, Rodriguez said he spent part of three January days and nights outside. On the first day, Rodriguez said he tried to warm up at the Williamson County Courthouse but was told that wasnt allowed. He said he slept that night on the square under a cardboard box that he found. Well, I didnt really sleep, he said. The second night, a gas station attendant allowed him to spend a few hours inside after realizing he had nowhere to go. On the third day, Rodriguez said he contacted Centerstone, a social service provider, and reported that he was struggling with suicidal thoughts, because he wasnt sure if he was ever going to find shelter. Rodriguez said a case worker told him to meet a police officer at Walmart. From there, he was transported to the emergency room, where he was evaluated. A social worker determined he was not at imminent risk of self-harm, and upon discharge, Rodriguez said a nurse gave him a taxi voucher to get to The Warming Center in Carbondale. Later that morning, he followed another individual hed met there to Good Samaritan Ministries, which serves three meals a day. He ate breakfast, and also found respite at least temporarily. He was admitted to the shelter for short-term lodging. Case workers have helped him obtain a new social security card, and he had an interview on Thursday with a job placement service in Marion. Hes put his name on the list for transitional or public housing. Rodriguez said hes feeling more optimistic about getting his life back on track. I really didnt even know these things were possible, he said. Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 3 Angry 0 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Amid heightened communal tensions in the country, politicians from a specific political party have been unrelentingly making hate speeches and communal remarks that incite violence. However, despite such remarks, not enough action has been taken by authorities to curtail such incidents. So far, the Election Commission temporarily ordered two senior BJP leaders off the Delhi campaign trail as they continue a crackdown on controversial public remarks targeting protesters opposing the amended Citizenship Act. Union Minister Anurag Thakur, who was filmed leading chants of, "Desh ke gaddaron ko, goli maaro s**lon ko (shoot the nation's traitors)" on Monday, has been banned for 72 hours. BJP MP Parvesh Verma, who said on Tuesday that protesters at Shaheen Bagh were capable of raping and killing women, has been banned for 96 hours. The story will be updated when authorities actually take action against such hateful remarks. In mid-2013, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a proposal from the Sultanate of Oman to mediate a back channel between Israel and Iran, believing it would legitimize the secret U.S.-Iran talks that ultimately led to the 2015 nuclear deal, according to four former Israeli officials involved in the negotiations. Why it matters: Knowledge of the dramatic Omani initiative had until now been restricted to a small group of Israeli officials. When he came into office in 2009, Netanyahu banned the Israeli Mossad from engaging in any direct or indirect talks with the Iranians without his clear approval, Israeli officials told me. Such an order doesnt exist for any other country in the world. The backdrop: In early 2013, Israel discovered that the U.S. and Iran were holding secret talks behind its back in Muscat, Oman. Yaakov Amidror, who was then Netanyahus national security adviser, told me he protested to his American counterpart Susan Rice at the time, telling her it was insulting that the U.S. thought Israel wouldn't find out about the secret U.S.-Iran back channel in Oman. "I was disappointed that the Americans more or less cheated us and I told them that," Amidror said. In May 2013, after Hassan Rouhani who is perceived by many as a moderate won the presidential elections in Iran, the Sultan of Oman Qaboos bin Said sought to move forward into the second part of his initiative and promote Iranian-Israeli talks under his auspices, former Israeli officials told me. Several weeks after Rouhanis victory, the then-director of Mossad Tamir Pardo arrived at his weekly meeting with Netanyahu and presented him with sensitive information from the Sultanate of Oman, according to the former officials. Israel and Oman had a secret relationship that started five decades ago, and the Omanis had a very good reputation for being discreet and effective mediators. Behind the scenes: According to the former Israeli officials, the director of Mossad told Netanyahu the Sultan of Oman proposed establishing a secret back channel between Israel and Iran that would enable the parties to talk to each other and de-escalate tensions. The officials said the Omanis thought Rouhanis victory opened a window of opportunity and that U.S.-Iran talks could yield better results if Israeli-Iranian negotiations were taking place at the same time. The message from Oman to Israel at the time was, Even if you dont agree on anything, engagement leads to de-escalation and non-engagement could lead to war, according to the former Israeli officials. Netanyahu heard what Pardo had to say and got national security adviser Amidror into the picture. Amidror told me the Omani interest was to be involved in everything and show that they could be effective mediators, but Israel had to consider whether the proposal served its interests. Pardo and a group of senior Mossad officials thought the Omani initiative was serious and that Israel should at least explore the possibility of talks with Iran. Amidror was vehemently against the idea, and told me: "The whole purpose of the Omani initiative was to give cover to the Iranians and the Americans who cheated us." Netanyahu had more meetings with Pardo and with Amidror and eventually decided to reject the Omani initiative. Amidror still believes that the Mossad position was wrong and that Netanyahu was right to say no to the proposal. The Israeli response to the Omanis was warranted as long as the Iranian leadership seeks to destroy us, we have got nothing to talk about with them," Amidror told me. The other side: Other former Israeli officials who were deeply involved in the affair still believe today that the Omani proposal was genuine, that the Iranians would have played ball and that it was a missed opportunity for de-escalation. Go deeper: Netanyahu tells Security Cabinet Israel must not be dragged into Soleimani killing The Department of Justice a few days ago hosted the launch of a report by the Economic and Social Research Institute on the role immigrants play in creating new businesses across the country. Under discussion was the scheme that allows entrepreneurs from outside Europe to apply for residency permits to set up businesses in Ireland. Government policy appears to have come a long way from the days when all foreigners seeking to move to Ireland were viewed with deep suspicion by officials. The scheme has met with mixed success. Over a five-year period, 129 permissions have been granted, marking a small move in the right direction. The truth is we may soon need all the wealth creators we can get at a time when traditional drivers of growth are under threat. The economy is seriously lopsided. It relies heavily on the product of waves of foreign investment that has served well so far. But the conditions that helped produce those investment waves could soon no longer exist at least in the ways we have known. Ireland has performed well on the economic front with a record 2.3m now in paid work. We take what is a remarkable success story for granted. This election campaign has been all about equity and securing the greater availability of public goods. But if the economy disappears back down the pan, along with it will go most of the worthy social projects. The parties on the left appear to target the business sector for unwelcome attention. Yet, in targeting the best off, we need to distinguish between genuine wealth creators and economically parasitical activity, much of which is in the property sector. The concern is that we could end up driving entrepreneurs away just when we may need to rely on indigenous enterprises. The political and business establishment has questions to answer. Many, if not most, of the employees who are driving production in the economy are caught in a series of traps. Workers with families are particularly affected. But strangling the golden goose will not boost the nations well being. There are worse things than congested roads. Some politicians have been resorting to the same tactics of Jeremy Corbyn. The British Labour party set out plans to extract large taxes from large companies and many British voters grasped that this would hit directly their own salaries, bonuses, and other perks, along with their prospect of a decent pension. Many others view the corporate sector as avaricious rather than creating prosperity. In the UK, the wealth and income gaps have widened since the 1970s. The digital revolution has created a new generation of footloose companies that have avoided paying their proper dues to society. These companies are now feeling the heat as pressure to overhaul global tax regimes grows. Ireland has ridden a rising tide of foreign direct investment, particularly among intellectual property-rich companies. Irish governments have not behaved with morality on international tax issues, but the business model has nonetheless been effective so far. Over the past five years, 112,000 jobs have been created by IDA backed companies, including 55,000 jobs outside Dublin. Back in the 1980s, it was commonly assumed that foreign investors would stop by briefly to collect the grants before quickly shipping out. But the sector has grown and created generations of skilled managers and business owners. Foreign investments have been good for the economy and the cynics have been proven wrong. But the economy depends on a small number of very big multinationals in an increasingly uncertain world. IDA chief executive Martin Shanahan has warned of tougher times ahead, as more countries target Irelands lunch. Many have warned that profound change is coming that will shake up the way multinationals are taxed around the world. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development which is driving the changes puts it succinctly: Multinational enterprises exploit gaps and mismatches in the international tax rules to artificially shift profits to low or no-tax jurisdictions, and avoid paying their fair share of tax. It adds: Examples involving famous brands have filled the headlines in recent years, spurring public and political outrage. University of Limerick professor Stephen Kinsella believes we are on the cusp of a Thunberg moment in global tax. He says the world this year could wake up to the toxic relationship that exists between very large firms weaving their way across tax jurisdictions and beneficiary states. The consequences for Ireland could be huge, as the winds of change blow. In Ireland, we are like the three little piggies, blithely confident that the house will not blowdown. The baby porkers found out the hard way that their defences were not so secure. The State needs to start preparing and carefully place a lid on public spending. For sure, redistribute resources based on need, but also challenge wasteful spending programmes. Brexit, climate change, and international corporate tax reform loom ever larger as threats Islamic extremists hack 36 to death with machetes, including Christian pastor in DRC Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Suspected Islamist militants hacked to death over 30 people, including an Anglican pastor, in overnight attacks on villages in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo. On Tuesday, four villages were raided by the Allied Democratic Forces, an Islamist group, in the west of Beni territory, Reuters reports. The rebel group has its origins in Uganda but is now based in DR Congo's Beni region. Beni Governor Donat Kibwana told AFP that members of the terrorist group hacked all victims to death with machetes. In total, 36 individuals were killed, including an Anglican pastor. The main attack took place in Manzingi, a village northwest from Oicha, while the pastor was killed in the village of Eringeti. "The victim had the misfortune to pass them on his way to the field with his wife," Omar Kavota from rights group CEPADHO said in a statement, according to Reuters. Launched in the mid-1990s by Ugandan Muslim rebels forced out of Uganda, the ADF has become the conflict-stricken DRCs most active and violent rebel group over the past two years. Led by Musa Baluku, the group is known for committing crimes such as murder, rape and abduction of women and children, as well as slavery and indoctrination. The Beni region has seen a surge of violence since Oct. 30 when Congolese troops launched an offensive against the rebels. In total, 265 people have been killed by the ADF since November, according to the Kivu Security Tracker, a research initiative that maps unrest in Congo's east. Persecution watchdog group Open Doors USA notes that the operation to push ADF out the area has come at great cost to the mostly Christian population. In November 2019, attacks carried out by the ADF killed at least 84 people, including men, women and children. Over half of the victims were Christians. In March, six Christians, including a 9-year-old child, were reportedly killed when rebel forces attacked the largely Christian village of Kalau near the city of Beni. Additionally, 500 families were forced to flee from their homes. In August 2016, ADF was blamed for carrying out what is known as the Beni massacre, where at least 64 people were hacked to death. Pastor Gilbert Kambale, president of the Beni city civil society organization, urged the international community to pray to God for deliverance for Beni and the DRC. Even as the night is long, day will surely dawn, Gilbert told Open Doors. In December, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on the leader of the ADF and five others for perpetrating serious human rights abuses including mass rape, torture and killings, Reuters reported. According to the Treasurys Office of Foreign Assets Control, Baluku assisted the group through recruitment, logistics, administration, financing, intelligence, and operations coordination. The ADF continues to perpetuate widespread violence and innumerable human rights abuses including the abduction, recruitment, and use of children during attacks and other violent operations." As the field of has gone global, improvement in curriculum development, teaching, learning and capacity building has become a basic necessity in higher level, Professor A Balasubramanian, director, Educational Multimedia Research Centre, University of Mysore, said. He spoke during a two-day national seminar on Role of academic and administrative audit in achieving quality excellence in higher institutions, organised by RCA Girls (PG) College, Mathura on January 30 and 31. Education, in fact, is for imparting knowledge, empowerment, intellectual development, upgrading skills and improving capabilities of the student, he said. The professor with experience of conducting academic and administrative audit (AAA) in more than 160 colleges addressed the delegates of the seminar through webcast. The professor delivered his lecture through video-conference owing to his pre-occupation in some other programme, Preeti Johari, college principal and seminar director said. Conducting academic and administrative audit is a tool employed by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) to evaluate and accredit universities and colleges, she added. In his lecture, Balasubramanian said IQAC (internal quality assurance cell) should become a very important part of the education system in higher education as it is meant to work towards realisation of goals of quality enhancement and sustenance. Since achieving academic excellence in higher education is a priority of the government and the University Grants Commission, certification by NAAC by 2024 has been made obligatory for institutions imparting higher education, he pointed out. According to Balasubramanian, academic audit and administrative audit are two important elements of quality enhancement that are complementary to each other. As there is no specific methodology for quality enhancement to certify the norms of NACC, every institution has to evolve its own methodology for continuous qualitative improvement, he said. Good practices that are undertaken by good institutions may be incorporated without deviating from the main goal, he opined. Delivering his keynote address, Professor Satyasheel from MNNIT, Allahabad, who has engaged in academic audit of few universities, stressed on the need for employing external auditors to review and assess academic activities of an institution. He also explained various steps/methodologies, audit benefits, stress on product, focus on objectives of programmes, use of support activities, proper approach of questioning, remedial measures, focus of research work, upgrading faculty, etc to be adopted by the institutions for quality enhancement. Presenting a conceptual model of such audits comprising three components -input, process and output, institutions may opt to take in academicians from prestigious institutions in their institutional committees like IQAC to incorporate their experience for their benefit," Satyasheel said. Professor Pushpendra from Delhi University discussed a seven-point norm needed for NAAC evaluation/accreditation for higher educational institutions in the country. Over four dozen papers by eminent educationists including K K Kanaujia, member Ucchatar Shiksha Seva Ayog (Higher Education Service Commission), Shobha Pathak, S K Saxena, Shikha Malviya, Swati, Himani Rawat, Ravi Sharma, Anil Saxena and Tripta Sharma, the convenor of the seminar Kalpana Vajpeyi said. RCA Girls College has been given status of mentor college for assisting other colleges who are expected to get NAAC accreditation, principal Johari said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) K Shiva Kumar By Express News Service MYSURU: The Centre seems to have taken a leaf out of Karnatakas success story in as far as increasing farmers income is concerned. The Union Budget 2020-2021 proposes to increase incomes of farmers through solar power generation on fallow/barren land which can be sold to the power grid. Farmers across the country will also be provided with solar pumps to encourage solar power generation. The Siddaramaiah-led Congress government in the state had introduced a policy where farmers were encouraged to set up solar power generation units on their barren land. It had also set up the worlds biggest solar power generation plant at Pavagada in Tumakuru district. Referring to the Prime Minister -KUSUM scheme, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in her budget speech, said the annadata can become an urjadata too as it has helped remove farmers dependence on diesel and kerosene. She also announced that the scheme will be expanded to help 20 lakh farmers set up standalone solar pumps. We will also help another 15 lakh farmers solarise their grid-connected pump sets," she said. The Union Government is focusing on improving agri infrastructure like setting up cold storage chains and creating warehouses in taluks under PPP model on land provided by the state governments. The budget also lays stress on organic, natural, zero budget and integrated farming systems. However, Dr M Mahadevappa, former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad, expressed reservations over natural farming. When countries like Israel, Japan and Vietnam have achieved wonders by adopting science and technology, we are going back to natural farming when there is an increasing demand for food, he observed. He said the government should encourage the adoption of science and technology in the farm sector for increasing productivity. Contract farming should have laws to check misuse by MNCs or corporate companies. The budget is also silent on labour issues, fragmentation of land and on ensuring scientific prices, he felt. State Sugarcane Growers Association President Kurbur Shantha Kumar pointed out that the budget has no specific programmes to double farmers incomes. It is also silent on fixing scientific prices for farm produce and on agriculture loans. The Centre should have earmarked Rs 10,000 crore for agriculture, he said but however, welcomed the Krishi Udan scheme. ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan, Feb. 2 By Huseyn Hasanov Trend: Discussions over the protocol on cooperation in the fight against poaching in the Caspian Sea will take place in Ashgabat on Feb. 3-5, 2020, Trend reports with reference to the Turkmen Government. Moreover, a discussion of the draft agreement on cooperation in the field of scientific research in the Caspian basin will be held at the regional level on Feb. 6-7. Representatives from the relevant ministries and departments of Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan are expected to participate in the events. The agenda includes the text of the protocol, in particular, defining the competent authorities responsible for the implementation of this document, the mechanism, forms and framework of cooperation of the Caspian littoral states in the designated area. The Caspian Sea is the largest inland water body in the world, not connected to the world ocean and having important climate-forming significance. It is unique with the presence of diverse flora and fauna, including the world's largest schools of sturgeons. Turkmenistan's state news agency earlier noted in its commentary that today all economic activity in the Caspian Sea needs strict scientific support, must be based on a holistic perception of the natural and anthropogenic processes that are taking place, as well as a monitoring and forecasting system. Jeep V Hummer Gets Into The Mud SEE ALSO: Jeep News Archive 1994-2020 DETROIT January 18, 2004; Michael Ellis writing for Reuters reported that a long-simmering dispute between the beefy sport utility brands Hummer and Jeep has heated up with one-upmanship claims and accusations of copied designs. The mud-slinging between the off-road SUV brands began nearly three years ago when DaimlerChrysler AG's Jeep claimed the about-to-be launched Hummer H2 from General Motors Corp. copied its grille. That battle ended when a judge allowed the H2 to go into production, but now the war has moved from the courtroom to television commercials, the printed page and the auto show floor. At stake is one of the fastest-growing and most profitable segments of the market. With sales of the Hummer H2 far above forecasts since it was launched 19 months ago, and GM making plans to expand the brand, Hummer is making a serious run at Jeep's claim to be the premier American off-road SUV. The latest spat began when Jeep took a shot at Hummer with a recent TV ad that claims Jeeps are better in the mud. The commercial shows several kids in Jeep pedal cars slogging through an obstacle course, while a yellow Hummer-like SUV, labeled "Imitator," gets stuck in the muck. A boy in the Hummer look-a-like can only shake his head when a girl says; "If it's not Trail-Rated, it's not a Jeep 4x4." The ad recalls a Hummer spot, set to the song "Happy Jack" by rock group The Who, in which a boy wins a soapbox derby with a Hummer-like car by outsmarting his opponents and driving off-road. Chrysler spokesman Jason Vines said the Jeep ad is "good-natured fun," and it's common for competitors to knock other products in commercials. He was more irritated with suggestions that Jeep has copied Hummer. Earlier this month, Jeep took the wraps off a concept SUV, the large and boxy Jeep Rescue, that bears a strong resemblance to the Hummer H2. Like the H2, the Rescue has round headlights, a slotted grille and exposed hinges around its four doors. Both vehicles also sit high for easy ground clearance in rocky terrain. "WHO'S ZOOMING WHO?" "You know how this business is, you show something and it's copied," Hummer General Manager Mike DiGiovanni, standing amid the Hummer exhibit at the Detroit auto show, told Reuters. "My reference point is this auto show with all the, as the media calls it, the Hummer wannabes." "Who's zooming who here? Who's copying who?," Chrysler's Vines said, noting that Jeep has been around for 60 years. "I personally don't think it's a copy." Indeed, the Rescue also shares similarities with its smaller cousin, the Jeep Wrangler. Both the Jeep and the Hummer trace their roots to military vehicles, where function dictates form, and to the same company. Jeep's former owner American Motors created AM General in 1971 to build military vehicles, and eventually the Humvee truck. Looks aside, Chrysler group marketing chief Joe Eberhardt questioned the ruggedness of the Hummer H2 in January when he said in an interview with Automotive News that the SUV wouldn't be able to negotiate the Rubicon Trail, an off-road route in California that is the traditional test of every Jeep. Hummer's DiGiovanni said he would send a letter and documentation to Automotive News challenging Eberhardt's assertion. This is quite a bit of bluster for two brands that don't directly compete against each other yet. Prices for the Hummer H2 start at about $50,000, far above any Jeep. But that will change next year when Hummer launches the smaller H3, which will be priced starting in the $30,000 range, competing directly with the new Jeep Grand Cherokee, which will debut at the New York Auto Show in April. Longer-term, Hummer officials are talking about adding an even smaller, less expensive model, while the Rescue hints at a larger, H2-size model in Jeep's future. "Hummer is the relatively new kid on the block, making waves. The head-to-head competition is going to get extremely severe in the next couple of years," said Dennis Virag, president of The Automotive Consulting Group, based in Ann Arbor, Michigan." Mahmoud Abbas Says Palestinian National Authority Severing All Ties With Washington Including Security Sputnik News Tim Korso. Sputnik International 12:29 GMT 01.02.2020(updated 13:58 GMT 01.02.2020) The Palestinian Authority warned in the past that it would not accept the "deal of the century", unveiled by President Donald Trump on 28 January, citing perceived US bias in favour of the Jewish state. Head of the Palestinian National Authority Mahmoud Abbas has stated that all ties including cooperation on security, between Israel and the US on the one side and the Palestinians on the other will be severed following the publication of Trump's "deal of the century" peace plan, which he sees as a rejection of all previously reached accords as well as of international law. The PNA president stated that the "deal of the century" can't be the basis for a future peace deal with Israel under any conditions. "There is no place for even a part of the American deal on the negotiating table", the PNA president said. Abbas further stated that he sent official notification to the US saying that the PNA rejects the American peace plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The PNA president added that despite the cut in ties and opposition from some Palestinian factions, he still remains committed to the Authority's demilitarisation. The Palestinian president reiterated his statements that the US can't be the sole mediator in the Palestinian-Israel conflict. He also confirmed the reports that he didn't respond to Trump's calls and messages prior to the plan's unveiling to deprive him of the opportunity to claim that it had been negotiated with the Palestinians. Following an extraordinary meeting of the Arab League, members of the organisation have supported the PNA's position and also rejected the US president's peace plan in a joint presser on its results. The organisation of Arab states gathered on 1 February to specifically discuss Trump's deal. Trump's "deal of the century" plan suggests the creation of a Palestinian state on the scattered patches of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, connected by a system of roads, bridges and tunnels with a capital on the outskirts of East Jerusalem, of which the planned state would get only a tiny fraction. At the same time, the Palestinian state's borders would be secured by Israel itself, rather than by its own forces. Israel in turn would get all of its West Bank settlements recognised and would have the Jordan Valley at its disposal. The plan was harshly condemned by the PNA and Hamas movement, since it essentially doesn't meet some of the core Palestinian demands, such as a capital in East Jerusalem and the implementation of the right of return for refugees from the 1948 war and their descendants to their previously owned lands. The plan received mixed reactions among Middle East states. Saudi Arabia appreciated the US efforts, but didn't evaluate the plan per se. Egypt in turn urged both Israel and the PNA to "carefully study'' the plan arguing that it defends the "legitimate rights'' of the Palestinians. Iran outright condemned the "deal of the century", calling it a global "nightmare". Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address The US House of Representatives says it will soon establish a no ban act against the immigrant visa ban of President Donald Trump. Trump had included Nigeria among the six countries he imposed an immigrant visa ban on. Other countries are Myanmar, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Tanzania and Sudan. The ban did not apply to other US visas such as those for official, business, tourism and student travel. Reacting, Nancy Pelosi, US speaker, said Trump's travel ban undermines the US global leadership, constitution and heritage. Pelosi said the house will soon establish an act to limit the president's ability to impose such biased and bigoted restrictions. Nancy Pelosi @SpeakerPelosi 18 h The Trump Admin's expansion of its un-American travel ban is a threat to our security, our values and the rule of law. Barring more than 350 million people from predominantly African countries from traveling to the US, this rule is discrimination disguised as policy. Nancy Pelosi @SpeakerPelosi In the coming weeks, the House will bring the NO BAN Act to the Floor to prohibit religious discrimination in our immigration system and limit the President's ability to impose such biased and bigoted restrictions. https://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/13120-2 Pelosi Statement on President Trump's Expanded Travel Ban The Trump Administration's expansion of its outrageous, un-American travel ban threatens our security, our values and the rule of law. The sweeping rule, barring more than 350 million individuals speaker.gov 6,704 2:13 AM Feb 1, 2020 Twitter Ads info and privacy 3,265 people are talking about this The Trump Administration's expansion of its outrageous, un-American travel ban threatens our security, our values and the rule of law. The sweeping rule, barring more than 350 million individuals from predominantly African nations from traveling to the United States, is discrimination disguised as policy, the statement read. America's strength has always been as a beacon of hope and opportunity for people around the world, whose dreams and aspirations have enriched our nation and made America more American. With this latest callous decision, the President has doubled down on his cruelty and further undermined our global leadership, our Constitution and our proud heritage as a nation of immigrants. In the Congress and in the Courts, House Democrats will continue to oppose the Administration's dangerous anti-immigrant agenda. In the coming weeks, the House Judiciary Committee will mark-up and bring to the Floor the NO BAN Act to prohibit religious discrimination in our immigration system and limit the President's ability to impose such biased and bigoted restrictions. We will never allow hatred or bigotry to define our nation or destroy our values. President Muhammadu Buhari has set up a committee to study and address the issues that made the US suspend issuance of immigrant visas to Nigerian passport holders. Boris Johnson received a boost for his Brexit plans today as the former European Council president said Britain and the EU can agree a free trade deal by the end of the year. Donald Tusk said that a year was enough time to 'finalise our negotiations' after the PM flatly ruled out extending talks past December this year. But the former Polish PM Mr Tusk suggested the UK would be focused on 'damage control' in the talks and warned Downing Street against planned divergence from continental rules. In a further tweak of the nose of No 10 he also suggested that Brussels would be keen on an independent Scotland seeking EU membership, remarks that won approval from the SNP. Speaking to the BBC's Andrew Marr programme, Mr Tusk said: 'There is no desire for punishment. 'For Brexit, and the negotiations after Brexit, this is a process of only damage control. 'The problem is, objectively, that there will be some losses and damages, no doubt, on both sides - but not as an intentional ''game''.' The Polish politician said he did not think Britain would return to the European Union in his lifetime and called for Remain voters 'not to dream about another referendum'. Donald Tusk said that a year was enough time to 'finalise our negotiations' after the PM flatly ruled out extending talks past December this year Boris Johnson is taking the UK down a path that diverges from the EU as it seeks trade deals around the world Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said following EU rules after 2021 'just ain't happening' His remarks came after Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said following EU rules after 2021 'just ain't happening'. Speaking to the BBC, the Cabinet minister said: 'We are entering into these negotiations with a spirit of goodwill. 'But we are just not doing that other stuff. The legislative alignment, it just ain't happening.' Mr Tusk, who stood down as European Council president last December, said that Brussels felt 'empathy' towards an independent Scotland rejoining the EU. He added: 'Emotionally I have no doubt that everyone will be enthusiastic here in Brussels, and more generally in Europe.' First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has launched a renewed attempt to win a referendum on independence that would allow the country, which oveerwhelmingly voted for Remain, to rejoin the EU. An opinion poll last week found a majority of support for splitting up the UK for the first time since 2015. The SNP's foreign affairs spokesman Alyn Smith said: 'What senior Europeans are saying in public is what they have been saying in private for some time. 'Scotland has been taken out of the EU against our will by a Tory government with no mandate here - but Scotland remains a European country with European values, and we can protect our place at the heart of Europe with independence.' But Mr Raab hit out at the comments, telling the BBC: I think it was frankly rather un-European and rather irresponsible, given the secessionist tendencies in Spain, in France, in Italy. 'Im not sure that European leaders, let alone here in the UK would actually welcome that kind of language.' The protesters at Shaheen Bagh wrote peaceful messages on copies of the Preamble on Saturday, shortly before a man opened fire at the site which has been the epicentre of the agitation against the Citizenship Amendment Act since 50 days The protesters at Shaheen Bagh wrote peaceful messages on copies of the Preamble on Saturday, shortly before a man opened fire at the site which has been the epicentre of the agitation against the Citizenship Amendment Act since 50 days. Under the campaign Tum Kab Aaoge (when will you come?), the messages were to be sent to the 311 Lok Sabha MPs who had voted in favour of the contentious Bill on 10 December last year. In some messages, protesters invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi to join them at Shaheen Bagh for tea and listen to their Mann Ki Baat. The press release further added, "Many had a grouse that the government doesnt seem to consider them as their own and asks to prove their citizenship in their own motherland. One of the messages read: 'Why dont people from the government, and custodians of the rights of the citizens of India, come to Shaheen Bagh to speak to us?'" The statement also noted that the protesters addressed Modi and said, "Its been 50 days since we have been sitting here with our children braving the chilly winters and immense hardships. We are waiting for you and we are bewildered by your apathy." At the protest event titled Preamble from The People, the "oldest protesters", also dubbed as 'Dadis of Shaheen Bagh', held a massive 60 feet copy of the Preamble, and urged Modi to have a discussion with the people at Shaheen Bagh. Many said they had a grouse against the government for not considering them their own and asking them to prove citizenship in their own country. The Preamble was also recited during the protest, both in Hindi and English, with a special focus on the liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship enshrined under it. We are the sons and daughters of Bhagat Singh, Chandra Shekhar Azad, Savitribai Phule, and Kartar Singh. We are against NRC, CAA and NPR because they are unconstitutional, a protester wrote. The protest was organised by a group of volunteers Friends of Shaheen Bagh. In response to the questions about what the protesters want azaadi (freedom) from, a protester said, We want freedom for all the rights enshrined under the Preamble the liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship. A similar event was also held on 19 January, during which over 2,000 postcards in Hindi, English, Urdu, and other languages were collected to be sent to the Prime Minister, a member of Friends of Shaheen Bagh told Indian Express. On the same day as the event, firing was reported at Shaheen Bagh around 5 pm. The shooter was taken into custody and no injuries were reported. While being whisked away by the police, the man identified as Kapil Gujjar, was heard as saying, "Iss desh mein kisi ki nahin chalegi, sirf Hinduon ki chalegi. (In this country, no one but Hindus can have their say)." He told police that he was angry at the continuous protest and wanted to only scare them. Soon after, women formed a human chain at Shaheen Bagh. The incident comes two days after a man shot during an ongoing protest near Jamia Milia Islamia despite a heavy police presence. A Jamia student, Shadab Najar, was injured in the firing. The gunman who is a minor, had shouted 'ye lo azaadi' as he shot at protesters marching towards Rajghat on the occasion of Mahatma Gandhi's death anniversary. Two such attacks within a span of three days have come shortly after Union Minister Anurag Thakur had passed provocative statements against anti-CAA protesters during a rally in Delhi. The Election Commission had imposed a 72-hour ban on Thakur for passing statements like Desh ke gaddaron ko, goli maaro saalon ko (Shoot those who betray India). With inputs from agencies QAM, which was earlier denied permission to hold the pride gathering in Mumbai in case there were protests against CAA and NRC, has said in its statement that 'neither QAM nor the individuals who have signed the permissions were communicated with or kept informed of the intent and/or content of this sloganeering.' Queer Azadi Mumbai (QAM), which organised the Mumbai Pride Solidarity Gathering 2020 on 1 February, 2020 at Azad Maidan, has issued a statement dissociating itself from the 'radical' sloganeering that occurred in support of Sharjeel Imam at the gathering. A case of sedition was lodged in January against Imam for allegedly delivering inflammatory speeches against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC). Following his arrest, a group of people, supporting the activist, gathered at the Mumbai pride and raised slogans such as "Sharjeel tere sapno ko manzil tak pahunchayenge," (Sharjeel, will fulfill your dreams). QAM, which was earlier denied permission to hold the pride march in Mumbai in case there were protests against CAA and NRC, has said in its statement that "neither QAM nor the individuals who have signed the permissions were communicated with or kept informed of the intent and/or content of this sloganeering." The statement adds, "It was irresponsible and potentially detrimental and none of the individuals raising these slogans were part of the organizing process or permissions process with us. These slogans, performances and protests happened abruptly and precipitously without the consent of the organizers." Condemning the abrupt sloganeering 'against the integrity of India,' QAM says that the individuals who took up this performance were not known to the organsiers personally. "However, as soon as the organizers realized that some sloganeering was inaudible on the stage, the organizers proactively used their microphones to stop all activities and clearly advised all the attendees that any sort of speech/slogan/communication within the gathering must happen from the stage and with official consent of the organizing members." "We would like to reiterate that permission was granted for our gathering by Mumbai Police on express conditions, which we communicated to all the attendees and visitors one day before, through our social media channels. The responsibility of the gathering was taken by individuals who signed the permission, and we feel that irresponsible sloganeering under the garb of dissent not just affects the safety of individuals who signed the permission but QAM as an entity," the statement says. All of these things make up part of my fabric, Jackson said in an interview ahead of the announcement. I suspect that the symbolism of it, in so far as it is inspiring to others who may feel they have permission to go for these big jobs, is helpful. But I hope the appointment was made on the basis of substance rather than symbolism. But at times like these, in this political climate, it is worth noting. New Delhi: Samajwadi Party leader and former telecom minister Beni Prasad Verma quit Samajwadi Party just ahead of the 2009 Lok Sabha polls to join Congress. He was nominated to contest from Gonda in central UP, a seat once represented by former CM Sucheta Kriplani. Since 1971, the district politics was dominated by Raja Mankapur Anand Singh and his immediate family. In the 2009 polls, Beni Babu as he was popularly called in the area was caught in a four-cornered battle. All three serious candidates against Verma belonged to one caste group the Rajputs which are the socially and politically dominant caste in the district. Mayawati, who was in power in UP, had nominated Anand Singhs son Kirti Vardhan to challenge Congress foray into Gonda. So Beni Babu a Kurmi leader in his own right coined a new slogan for his seat in particular: ek dabao, teen girao which roughly translates to press one button on the voting machine and defeat three from a particular community. The messaging was drafted to exploit caste fault lines to polarise all caste groups other against one. And Beni Babu did manage to win the election on a Congress ticket to become a minister in the Manmohan Singh government. In electoral politics, slogans are the great disruptors. The effective ones as history demonstrates succinctly re-iterate palpable social tensions to make a sense of it all to the electorate. When Bill Clinton challenged incumbent George Bush senior for US Presidency in 1992, his campaign manager James Carville drafted three slogans for the Democrat candidate: Its the economy, stupid; Change vs. more of the same and Dont forget health care. Of the three, only the first one has survived the test of time. Its the economy, stupid has a nice ring to it; and most importantly, it encapsulates what would have made American people worried in the aftermath of the first Iraq war that is jobs and economy. If the economy improved, everything else would change, including the health care. Many people and organisations, including Cambridge Analytica, have attempted to appropriate Donald Trumps victory in the last US elections. Scholars have imputed Trumps success to troll armies operating out of St. Petersburg. Some recent research, however, suggests that despite all this, Trump came up trumps because a) his team made the best and optimum use of digital avenues to reach out to the voters; and b) he could effectively exploit the prevailing social tensions to mobilise support. His voters were anxious, and were looking for economic stability of the yore. So Trumps campaign managers borrowed the masthead of their pamphlet from a book titled Taking Our Country Back! Ironically, the book authored by American political scientist Daniel Kreiss spoke about how digital affordances were harnessed by former DNC chief Howard Dean and how this exercise catapulted Obama to Presidency in 2009. Back home, and two decades before Bill Clintons first term at White House, Indira Gandhi sought to overcome the challenges both within and outside her party by taking a strident socialistic approach through her policies and programmes. She brought in a bill to scrap privy-purse guaranteed to erstwhile Rajas of British India and nationalised banks. Garibi Hatao was Congress slogan for the 1971 Lok Sabha polls. But two slogans that became very popular during the campaign were: Jat pe na pat pe, Indira ji ki baat pe, Muhar lagegi haath pe. Drafted by Hindi poet and former Rajya Sabha MP Srikant Sharma, the refrain was an attempt to build a larger social coalition of the subaltern by subsuming caste identities. In that election and 1980 after the failed Janata experiment at the Centre, Congress has sought to showcase its ability to provide a stable government by claiming barson ka nata hei, Sarkar chalana ata hei. In the run-up to the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, BJP media strategists set about to finalise their campaign tagline. Narendra Modi had emerged as the prime ministerial candidate after rigorous political scrutiny and opposition within. Drawing inspiration from Vajpayees bid in 1999, the tag line initially drafted was Abki Baar, BJP Sarkar. But a section strongly felt that the votes as in the case of Vajpayee were being sought in the name of the PM candidate and not the party. Subsequently, BJP in the campaign was replaced with Modi. In the ongoing campaign in Delhi, AAP has interestingly tweaked its slogan from Ache beete panch saal to Acche honge panch saal, lage raho Kejriwal. The change in tack, planned in advance or otherwise, is aimed to make the campaign more forward looking. The best of social sector schemes are no guarantee to favourable electoral outcome. Voters maange more, especially in an aspirational cosmopolitan constituency like Delhi. Secondly, the new tag line also aims to imbue a sense of finality to the campaign; an assurance of sorts that victory is a foregone conclusion. That the future is bright. An empirical study on Delhi elections in 2013 showed nearly a quarter of the electorate decide their poll preference in the last 36 hours before casting their vote. Political parties understand the vicissitudes of election campaigns. So watch out for more twists and turns, tweaks and triggers this coming week before voters in Delhi queue up at polling booths to elect a new government. Adient, a global leader in automotive seating, said on Jan. 31 it has entered into a definitive agreement with Yanfeng Automotive Trim Systems Co., Ltd. (Yanfeng) to make certain changes to their existing joint venture relationships. As part of these changes, Adient has agreed to sell its 30 percent ownership stake in YFAI to Yanfeng for US$ 379 million. Adient and Yanfeng have also agreed to extend the term of their YFAS joint venture to Dec. 31, 2038. The extension demonstrates Adient's continued commitment to the partnership and the region. In addition, Adient has agreed to sell certain patents and other intellectual property exclusively used in its seating mechanisms business to AYM for US$ 20 million, and AYM will license such intellectual property back to Adient. Going forward, Adient and AYM have also agreed to license to each other certain other intellectual property related to the seating mechanisms business. Further, Adient and Yanfeng have agreed to amend the AYM joint venture agreement to update AYM's business scope to allow AYM to carry out its seating mechanisms business both in and outside of the People's Republic of China (PRC) for both PRC and non-PRC customers. Adient intends to leverage AYMs expanded presence in the global seating mechanisms market as it continues to right-size its own metals business. The amended AYM joint venture agreement also will reflect certain governance changes such that Yanfeng will have consolidation rights of AYMs financial results. Adient will continue to hold a 50 percent ownership interest in AYM. The agreed transactions are cross-conditioned on each other and closing is subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions. Adient expects the transactions to be completed within its 2020 fiscal year. We value our strong relationship with Yanfeng. These pending transactions expand that valuable strategic partnership while allowing Adient to continue to focus on our core business, further positioning us for long-term success, said Doug Del Grosso, Adients president and CEO. Proceeds from the transactions are expected to be used by Adient to pre-pay a portion of the company's debt and for general corporate purposes. Further details about these transactions will be provided during Adients first quarter earnings announcement, scheduled for Jan. 31, 2020. While polling data shows support for Trump among US farmers is high, one group of Iowa farmers bucks trend. Osage, Iowa For years, Iowa residents across rural areas have seen their downtowns shrink, as farms consolidate and businesses, schools and maternity wards regularly close. In Osage, a town of about 3,500 people near Minnesotas southern border with Iowa, Main Street is noticeably active. Talking with other main street businesses, it wasnt nearly as good as it was five years ago, but main street is still strong, said Josh Olson, coowner of Limestone Brewers, which opened in 2018. Olson said they were lucky to buy keg equipment right before prices on stainless steel jumped due to new tariffs. He sees Limestone Brewers as a place for people to gather on a cold evening. Josh Olson, coowner of Limestone Brewers, which opened in 2018 in Osage, a farming community caught in the crosshairs of a trade war between the United States and China [Teresa Krug/ Al Jazeera] We see a lot of conversation. And they may be talking about finance, about the state of the farm, or they may just come in to talk about something else. It almost acts as a relief for some of these families, Olson said. Okay, Ive been discussing how were gonna survive the next year with every other guy, lets go have a beer and talk about the Super Bowl. Osage, a farming community heavily reliant upon the soybean and corn markets, has been caught in the crosshairs of a trade war between the United States and China that began in 2018, following years of already falling prices. This is probably the most difficult time in my farming life on making decisions to market corn and soybeans, said Jon Gisleson, who has farmed corn and soybean for 45 years, including during the 1980s farm crisis. Softening the tariff sting To lessen the effect of those tariffs, Trump introduced funds to assist affected producers, including growers of soybean and corn, in 2018 and 2019. Last year, he authorised the USDA to provide up to $14.5bn. Alec Amundson, who has been farming for four years, said those payments have helped, but they are not enough. That money in a lot of cases was a persons only income for the year. Even then, some people operated at a loss, and that loss was just made smaller. If it werent for those payments, there would have been a lot more farm auctions, a lot more people getting forced out of farming, Amundson said. He said he and friends often joke about the Trumpcare they are getting, but that he like everyone else interviewed would rather earn money through trade, and not aid. The ripple effects have been felt throughout Osage and surrounding areas. Amundson said churches are seeing fewer donations, and farm equipment dealers are seeing fewer profits. Nationally, farm bankruptcies have gone up. Even in our business of selling equipment, we havent sold as much of the big stuff as we used to. Its all been smaller sales. People arent looking to spend money unless they can really justify that expense or they made a small profit and have decided to upgrade technology, said Amundson, who also works at an agricultural technology provider company. In the 2008 and 2012 general elections, Mitchell County, where Osage is located, voted for Democrat Barack Obama. In 2016, it pivoted to Donald Trump, a Republican. Heading into the 2020 campaign season, it is unclear how well Trump will do this time. Ronald Solomon of Las Vegas sells hats and clothing supporting Trump at Manning Farms in Waukee, Iowa [Brenna Norman/Reuters] A lot of farmers I talk to voted for Trump because he was going to be tough on trade, and they want to see that through, said Amundson, noting that the recent announcement of a phase one deal has buoyed support for the president. There were also a lot of people within the last couple years whove said: You know what, maybe we should have stayed out of this trade battle.' Trump addressed farmers across the nation at the annual American Farm Bureau Federation conference earlier this month, to lots of applause. Gisleson, who was at the meeting, said he was flabbergasted by how many people still support Trump, despite their finances taking a direct hit due to the trade war. He does not understand why he should thank Trump for attempting to replace the income that he took away from farmers through Market Facilitation Program (MFP) payments. Gisleson said he also often tells fellow recipients to consider what that money was otherwise earmarked for. Tariffs have crippled us and will cripple us for years, said Gisleson. Boyd Campbell, who said he did not vote for Trump in 2016, is a lifelong Republican and farmer for almost 50 years. He is on the board of directors at First Security Bank in the nearby town of Charles City. After reviewing so many balance statements that rely heavily on the MFP payments, Campbell has also been surprised that there is such high support for Trump among farmers. I think theyve been hoodwinked a little bit. Theyve lost a little perspective of the fact that the trade wars have hurt us. Were going on almost two years now. Weve lost an awful lot of soybean business to Brazil, Campbell said. Tariffs have crippled us and will cripple us for years Jon Gisleson, Iowa farmer He said farmers, who are famously patient and optimistic, are not yet blaming Trump. Many also offer up that something needed to be done about China. Since when are we supposed to be leading the charge? Campbell said. I dont understand, if we get this intellectual property nailed down, I dont see IBM or Intel or Sysco coming back to the farmers and saying, Gee, were so glad that you did this for us. You know? I think theres other ways we could have handled this. Looking towards the next election, Campbell has already begun actively urging Democrats to pick a moderate candidate, someone who independents and moderate Republicans can get behind. He has attended town hall meetings and even registered as a Democrat, in order to caucus across the aisle on Monday. If Senators Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren both more progressive candidates wins the Democratic nomination, Campbell said he will just write in someone else. This is kinda like pulling me through a knothole backwards, Campbell said. For now, Campbell said, there is no revolt, due in part to farmers general optimistic and patient natures, a statement backed up by Purdue Universitys most recent monthly Ag Economy Barometer report that reviews farmers outlook. A lot of them will be on the verge of bankruptcy before they complain, Campbell said. Gisleson said the tipping point might only come when they are unable to access the necessary line of credit to fully fund their operations, an idea supported by a 2019 Iowa State University report that shows 44 percent of Iowa farmers experienced financial hardship. I think that might be a turning point. I dont know, Gisleson said. The General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Pastor Enoch Adeboye, this morning in Lagos Nigeria led members of his congregation on a street protest to press home the severity of the killing of Christians in the northern part of the country. The march against insecurity and killings of Christians across the nation, started from the church headquarters in Lagos. Recall that there was an earlier directive by a leader of one of the most influential Pentecostal churches in Nigeria that its members should conduct the protest nationwide. The Assistant General Overseer (Admin and Personnel) of the church, Pastor J.F Odesola, in a circular dated January 29, 2020, and addressed to all regions and provinces of the RCCG, parishes of the church were asked to end their service not later than 11am on Sunday to enable members march round their immediate environment, praying for Gods intervention on the ongoing insecurity situation in Nigeria. The circular, read: The Christian Association of Nigeria, the umbrella body for all Christians and Christian organisations in Nigeria, has made a clarion call for prayers and advocacy to all Christians in Nigeria in response to the inhumane acts against Christians in the country. Nigeria has been experiencing in recent times series of issues of killings, kidnapping and banditry. Christian leaders and members in the north were mostly targeted in this ugly situation in Nigeria. Tension erupted in Aatmail area in Malda district on Sunday after activists of Jharkhand Disom Party blocked National Highway-34 protesting against a mass wedding organised by Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), officials said. A policeman was also injured after he was hit by an arrow, an official said. Members of VHP and Jharkhand Disom Party (JDP) clashed and pelted stones at each other, the official said. They also hurled plastic chairs at each other, he said. The incident happened when JDP members alleged that the VHP was organising the adivasi mass wedding by ignoring their rituals. A large police force was sent to the spot to control the situation, the official said. "Today's mass marriage, which was organised by the VHP, was being held as per Hindu rituals. We feel that by doing this the aadivasis are being converted," a leader of JDP, Mohan Hansda said. "They are taking advantage of our poverty. The couples were given Rs 12,000 each and they fell into the trap," Hansda said, adding, the police and the block development officer have been asked to stop the wedding. The Block Development Officer (BDO) of Old Malda, Irfan Habib said that the situation was brought under control by the police and people have returned from the site where the mass wedding was organsied. Approximately 40 couples got married on Sunday during the programme, the BDO said. VHP's Convenor of North Bengal, Tarun Pandit said that the programme concluded successfully. The JDP initially thought that the couples were being converted but later they understood since the mass wedding was organised as per adivasi rituals. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The West Bengal government has managed to trace all seven co-passengers, hailing from Bengal, who travelled on the same flight in which the Coronavirus-affected Kerala student arrived at the NSCBI airport in Kolkata on January 23 in a flight from China. Three of the co-passengers are still in West Bengal, while one has gone to Delhi. Three others have flown back to China, said a top official of the health department. At least seven passengers on the flight in which the Thrissur woman was flying, hail from Bengal. The rest are from other states. Till Saturday the mobile phones of some of the co-passengers were switched off and we could contact only two. We have managed to contact all of them on Sunday. They have been asked to stay at home. We have also asked them to contact us if they show any symptoms such as fever and respiratory problems, said Ajoy Chakraborty, director of health services in West Bengal. HT had earlier reported that the West Bengal government had initiated a search to track down the co-passengers of the Coronavirus-affected Kerala student who arrived at the NSCBI airport in Kolkata from China. Initially we got information that six were from Bengal. But later we came to know that another co-passenger who also hails from Bengal has gone to Delhi. We are keeping track. The union health ministry has also been informed, he added. Meanwhile, the state health department and the Border Security Force have started screening people entering India through the three entry points along the Indo-Bangla border in south Bengal. These three points are Hili in Dakshin (South) Dinajpur, Petrapole in North 24 Parganas and Gede in Nadia. The state health department had last month initiated similar measures in Mirik, Pashupati market and Panitanki village along the India-Nepal border. Nepal confirmed its first case of Coronavirus a week ago. Mr. Bezos, who owns The Washington Post, suggested that the Saudis had been angry over the newspapers coverage of the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident and columnist for The Post who was murdered by Saudi assassins weeks after writing critically of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the paper. Mr. Bezos also cited the wooing of Prince Mohammed by David J. Pecker, the chief executive of American Media, the publisher of The Enquirer, who was seeking Saudi investment in the company. Last month, the results of a forensic analysis commissioned by Mr. Bezos became public. It concluded with medium to high confidence that the Amazon founders iPhone X had been hacked after he received a video from a WhatsApp message sent to him from an account reportedly belonging to the Saudi crown prince, with whom the billionaire had swapped contacts at a Los Angeles dinner. The analysis did not reveal a Saudi connection to the materials obtained by The Enquirer. American Media said in a statement last month that Mr. Sanchez was the single source for the expose. According to an October 2018 contract reviewed by The New York Times, Mr. Sanchez granted American Media the right to publish and license text messages and photographs documenting an affair between Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez in exchange for $200,000. In his lawsuit, Mr. Sanchez did not address whether he had provided text messages or photographs other than his denial of supplying nude pictures or whether he was compensated by the tabloid. When federal agents and prosecutors examined allegations of wrongdoing in connection with The Enquirers handling of the story, American Media gave them evidence showing that Mr. Sanchez had obtained text messages and photos of Mr. Bezos from his sister, four people with knowledge of the matter told The Times. In his blog post last year, Mr. Bezos quoted emails sent to Mr. de Beckers lawyer by an American Media lawyer and a company executive, who wrote that the photos obtained during our news gathering included a nude below-the-belt selfie. American Media said in the emails that it would refrain from publishing the photographs if Mr. Bezos said publicly that he believed the expose was not politically motivated. (The Enquirer had been a booster of President Trump, who was at odds with Mr. Bezos.) You can have innovation or you can have regulation. Thats what the governor of North Dakota in 2016 told Tad True, vice president of Bridger Pipelines, after more than 12,000 barrels of oil leaked into the land when a hillside crumbled and broke a pipeline. The rate of the leak was small enough that we didnt detect it right away, True said. The pipeline leaked for several days, and when all was said and done they realized one of their meters had been malfunctioning, which is why it took so long to catch the problem. After the major spill, the company decided it needed to take steps to avoid similar events in the future by developing a new, more intuitive detection software. Somebody in the Bridger Pipelines information technology department suggested using IBMs Watson, a computer-learning program that you may recognize as the robot that in 2011 beat Ken Jennings in a game of Jeopardy. Bridger began working with IBM to develop an artificial intelligence program to detect oil leaks about two years ago, under the umbrella of the True companies, which is the parent of Bridger Pipelines. Now theyre ready to test the product and put it out into the world. So they called Jerad Stack. Stack is a longtime Wyoming entrepreneur and former director of the Wyoming Technology Business Center in Casper. Now, hes the CEO of Flowstate, a pipeline leak detection software company funded by the True companies. Stack and his business partner Angie Schrader plan to finish developing the software in Casper. They said eventually they would like to expand the products functionality to other pipeline industries, not just oil. Both Stack and True said their main priorities are safety and environmental protection. If the software works the way they hope it does, even when there is a leak, theyll be able to catch it before it gets too bad. Ideally, you never use the software, because ideally there would never be a leak, Stack said. But if and when there is one, he said the software would serve as the first line of defense. Pipeline leak detection isnt a new idea. Once upon a time, it looked like a ditch rider on a horse looking for oil spots in the dirt. Today, detection software is an industry all its own. But Flowstate is different, Stack said, because theyre using artificial intelligence. Bridger Pipelines alone has enough sensors on its pipes to gather 15,000 data points every second. True said that the amount of data collection made AI uniquely suited for the project. Artificial intelligence, or computer learning, is really the ability to take a computer and make it learn, Stack said. The software takes all the data Bridger has and teaches the computer what a healthy pipeline looks like. Stack said Flowstates partnership with Bridger is another aspect of the company that makes it unique in the industry. Not only does Flowstate have access to Bridgers data, but the company also has access to Bridgers pipes, which means they can test the software internally before putting it out to market. Bill Salvin, a Bridger spokesman, said thats done by removing oil from the pipeline with a tanker truck, which creates leak-like conditions in the pipe. If the software works, the next metering station on the pipeline should light up as if theres been a leak. But because pipeline leaks are relatively rare compared to the amount of data the company collects, simulating a leak in this way also helps the AI program learn. The software has already been installed on a handful of Bridger Pipeline segments, and True said more are on the way. The software isnt yet ready for market, though. Stack and Schrader are still gathering data and testing the product, but they hope to have something to sell this year. The pair plan to hire around 12 people to work in their Casper office, which will soon run out of The Nolan in the former Plains Furniture building. Stack hopes the business can serve as a catalyst for a tech industry in Casper. They anticipate recruitment to be a challenge, given that Casper is still a small town to most of the country and doesnt have a reputation for technology innovation. He hopes that by launching Flowstate in Casper, it sets up the pins for future technology industry growth in the city. Follow local government reporter Morgan Hughes on Twitter @morganhwrites Love 2 Funny 0 Wow 1 Sad 0 Angry 3 Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Tokyo (AFP) - Japan sent a naval destroyer to the Middle East on Sunday for a rare overseas mission to ensure the safety of its ships amid lingering tension between Iran and the US. The vessel left the Yokosuka naval base, south of Tokyo, for an information gathering mission in the Gulf of Oman, northern parts of the Arabian Sea and parts of the Gulf of Aden. Japan earlier decided not to take part in the US-led Operation Sentinel to protect shipping routes in the region. "Securing safety of vessels related to Japan is an important duty of the government," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told the crew members of the 4,650-ton ship -- the Takanami -- as it readied to leave port. Energy-poor Japan has traditionally enjoyed warm ties with Middle Eastern countries, including Iran, as the world's third largest economy relies heavily on energy from the resource-rich region. Abe has held a series of meetings with Middle Eastern leaders over the last year, including Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani, in an attempt to calm the soaring tension between Washington and Tehran. The naval destroyer will join two Japanese surveillance patrol airplanes that have been operating in the region as part of the same mission. Cape Town, South Africa (PANA) The Department of Health on Sunday said South Africa remains free of the deadly coronavirus, but warned that claims that influenza vaccinations can prevent the virus are untrue By Caitlin Johnstone February 01, 2020 " Information Clearing House " - Senior Huffington Post UK editor Chris York has published what is by my count his twelfth smear piece against a small group of academics and independent journalists whove expressed skepticism of establishment Syria narratives. Yorks obsessive deluge of hit pieces revolve around British academics Tim Hayward and Piers Robinson, as well as independent journalist Vanessa Beeley. Every word in this sentence hyperlinks to a different article smearing them. Yorks twelfth such hit piece is much like the preceding eleven: it omits fundamentally crucial facts, it hides the shady nature of its sourcing, it makes outright false claims, and will only be believed by individuals who either dont research this subject very deeply or whose paychecks depend on their not thinking about it too hard. But, more importantly, its his twelfth such hit piece. A dozen smear articles. A dozen. Not against politicians. Not against powerful government leaders or massive celebrities. Yorks smears focus on two professors with some 22,000 Twitter followers between them both, and Beeley, whom York himself refers to as an obscure blogger while authoring smear piece after smear piece after smear piece about her. The 'useful idiots': How these British academics helped Russia deny war crimes at the UN https://t.co/UGvquum1nm Chris York (@ChrisDYork) January 29, 2020 Now Beeley, Hayward and Robinson all do great work asking the important questions that no one else is asking about the many, many glaring plot holes in the narratives were being fed about whats happening in Syria by the western political/media class. I am a fan. But only a relatively tiny number of people have ever heard of them. I dont want to minimize the importance of what they do, but they are generally unheard of outside of small esoteric internet circles which focus on deep dives into questionable government narratives about Syria. We can take it as a given, then, that Huffington Post UKs goal with these relentless smear pieces is not to generate clicks or organic virality. No normal person is scrolling through their social media feed and going Oh I do hope theres some fresh gossip about Piers Robinson today! Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter Nor is the goal to educate the public with important pertinent information. Even if Yorks hit pieces contained lots of accurate information (and they dont), you wouldnt need twelve articles to say Hey the ideas these people are sharing are harmful in the following ways. You could say it once and move on to reporting on the many, many, many important stories that are unfolding around the world as we speak. The goal is not to inform. So what is the goal? The goal is narrative management. Chris York pestered me for months by DMs, and I even agreed to meet him, as he 'wanted to understand' why people have critical questions about the White Helmets; then he just smears us all, repeatedly. This thread documents a dozen of his smear pieces:https://t.co/yldwNlcvbZ Tim Hayward (@Tim_Hayward_) January 30, 2020 If you look through Yorks smear jobs, youll notice many of them arent even actually addressed to the public. The ones about Robinson and Hayward are really addressed to the academic institutions which employ them, designed to pressure them into ceasing to do so (and proclaiming victory when that campaign is perceived to have succeeded). This smear piece here was clearly designed to help generate pressure for the Leeds Museum to cancel an event where all three of Yorks targets were scheduled to speak, and this one celebrates the Leeds City Council cancelling the event. If you look at whos sharing Yorks latest smear piece on Twitter, youll notice that a weirdly large percentage of them are blue-checkmarked accounts which pour a lot of time and energy into managing the dominant narrative about Syria. I dont know what chat groups or private message boards this article appeared in, but it generated a lot of social media firepower very quickly. The purpose of these smear pieces is not to generate clicks, and it is not to inform the public. Its to manipulate public thought. Its to deplatform voices which are skeptical of what were being told to believe about a nation long targeted by the western empire for regime change, its to provide a resource that other narrative managers can circulate and cite in their own spin jobs, and its to inoculate the mainstream herd from any potential outbreak of wrongthink. Nobody sets out to become a propagandist. No eight year-old kid is sitting around dreaming of one day selling her integrity to help the western empire manufacture consent for the deployment of more highly profitable military equipment to yet another resource-rich geostrategic region. It just kind of happens. You go to journalism school, you get a job, if youre clever you learn that theres some coverage which gets rewarded and some which gets you marginalized, and before you know it youre sitting at your desk typing up your twelfth smear piece about some small time teachers and bloggers and wondering what the hell happened to your life. Risings Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjati did a great segment a few months ago where they laid out all the various kinds of pressure to defend the establishment line that youll experience when you get a job with a mainstream media outlet, speaking from their own experience in such outlets. There are certain pressures to stay in good with the establishment to maintain the access that is the life blood of political journalism, Ball said in the segment. So what do I mean? Let me give an example from my own career since everything Im saying here really frankly applies to me too. Back in early 2015 at MSNBC I did a monologue that some of you may have seen pretty much begging Hillary Clinton not to run. I said her elite ties were out of step with the party and the country, that if she ran she would likely be the nominee and would then go on to lose. No one censored me, I was allowed to say it, but afterwards the Clinton people called and complained to the MSNBC top brass and threatened not to provide any access during the upcoming campaign. I was told that I could still say what I wanted, but I would have to get any Clinton-related commentary cleared with the president of the network. Now being a human interested in maintaining my job, Im certain I did less critical Clinton commentary after that than I maybe otherwise would have. This is something that a lot of people dont understand, Enjati said. Its not necessarily that somebody tells you how to do your coverage, its that if you were to do your coverage that way, you would not be hired at that institution. So its like if you do not already fit within this framework, then the system is designed to not give you a voice. And if you necessarily did do that, all of the incentive structures around your pay, around your promotion, around your colleagues that are slapping you on the back, that would all disappear. So its a system of reinforcement, which makes it so that you wouldnt go down that path in the first place. Right, and again, its not necessarily intentional, Ball added. Its that those are the people that youre surrounded with, so there becomes a group-think. And look, you are aware of what youre going to be rewarded for and what youre going to be punished for, or not rewarded for, like that definitely plays in the mind, whether you want it to or not, thats a reality. We are leading on this fascinating and important story from @ChrisDYork today about how a group of British academics have been used by Russia to help them deny war crimes by the Assad regime at the UN. Its quite a tale - please give it a read. https://t.co/HzJf9oUdOq Jess Brammar (@jessbrammar) January 29, 2020 Yorks boss, HuffPo UKs executive editor Jess Brammar, shared Yorks latest smear piece on Twitter with a gushing thread about what a fascinating and important story it is and whining that his is subject to abuse online whenever he publishes one of his many hit jobs against people who remember Iraq. Thats one hell of a pat on the back if I ever saw one, and its coming from an executive editor who happens to currently serve on the UK governments Defence and Security Media Advisory (DSMA) Committee. The DSMA Committee is a British advisory body which functions as an overlap between British journalism and the British government in its responsibility for issuing DSMA Notices (formerly known as D-notices), which advise British news outlets not to report on certain matters deemed sensitive to national security. This system has previously been used to ask that editors consult with the UK government before reporting on revelations in a 2010 WikiLeaks publication. I am sure that Chris York didnt set out to become a war propagandist. He just found himself funneled through the same system of positive and negative reinforcement as so many other young, bright-eyed journalists have before him, and now here he is with a job his family is proud of because journalism is a noble profession, surrounded by people telling him hes doing the right thing. Hes got every incentive to stay and keep doing what hes doing, and that little nagging he feels in his heart in those quiet moments alone is nothing a little alcohol or other form of escapism cant numb. But a propagandist he has indeed become, like everyone else who is successfully making their way up the mainstream media ladder. Keep smearing the dissident voices, keep proving yourself a loyal empire lackey, and the rewards will keep on coming. Im sure that little nagging voice inside that you cant kill no matter how hard you try is totally worth it. Caitlin's articles are entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking her on Facebook, following her antics on Twitter, checking out her podcast, throwing some money into her hat on Patreon or Paypal, or buying her book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers. https://caitlinjohnstone.com Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here ==See Also== The Congress on Sunday promised to implement unemployment allowance of Rs 5,000-7,500 per month, cashback schemes for water and power consumers and challenge the contentious CAA in the Supreme Court if voted to power in Delhi. The manifesto presented by Delhi Congress chief Subhash Chopra also committed to spend 25 per cent budget each year on fighting pollution and improving transport facilities. The party has promised to provide free electricity up to 300 units per month. He said the Congress will open 100 Indira Canteens in the city to give subsidised meals at Rs 15, Chopra said. An unemployment allowance of Rs 5,000 for graduates and Rs 7,500 for post graduates will be provided monthly under the Yuva Swabhiman Yojna, he said. The announcements come in the backdrop of promises and initiatives by its rivals AAP and BJP. The Congress will challenge the Citizenship (Amendment) Act in the Supreme Court and demand the Centre to withdraw the law. The party will also not implement the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the existing form of the National Population Register (NPR), if voted to power in Delhi. The manifesto, titled 'Aisi Hogi Hamari Delhi', was released at the Delhi Congress office in presence of senior leaders Anand Sharma, manifesto committee chairman Ajay Maken, Rajiv Gowda, Sharmishtha Mukherjee among others. "We will get a strong Lokpal in first six months," Chopra said. The Congress will launch flagship cashback schemes for power and water supply to benefit consumers saving these resources. If voted to power, the Congress will launch Sheila Pension Yojna under which Rs 5,000 per month will be provided to senior citizens, persons with disabilities and transgender. The manifesto also promised opening of a 'Yaari Startup Incubation Fund' of Rs 5,000 crore to incentivise entrepreneurs. A major focus area of the manifesto is pollution mitigation and boosting public transport. "We will now make Delhi India's first electric vehicle city via DEVI-Delhi Electric Vehicles Initiative," stated the manifesto, promising procurement of 15,000 electric buses. It also stated that fares of the Delhi Metro will be subsidised for women, students and senior citizens. For students, a subsidy of Rs 300 per month will be given through direct benefit transfer. The manifesto also cited a scheme proposed by party leader Rahul Gandhi in the last Lok Sabha election, promising Rs 7,2000 per year to five lakh families. For women empowerment and safety, the manifesto promised to revive 'Ladli' scheme, free education to girls upto PhD and free health check up for women. Another area of focus in the manifesto is urban renewal and infrastructure promising a 350- square flat for residents of JJ clusters, renewal of TransYamuna Development Board and creation of a Resettlement Colonies Development Board and Shahjahanabad Development Board. These boards will be provided Rs 1,000 crore annually for smooth functioning, it added. While the BJP has promised to set up a water taxi service between Wazirabad and Sonia Vihar, Jagatpur and Tronica City at affordable prices; free rides for women on DTC buses and subsidised electricity are some of the initiatives taken by the AAP government in Delhi. The Aam Admi Party is yet to release its manifesto. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The man has been identified as Kapil Baisla (25), a resident of East Delhis Dallupura village and is a milk supplier. Police take away an unidentified person after he opened fire at Shaheen Bagh in New Delhi on Saturday. (Photo: PTI) NEW DELHI: A gun-wielding man fired two aerial shots from a country-made pistol near the police barricades in Shaheen Bagh area, which resulted in chaos and panic among the protesters. He was nabbed by the protesters on the spot and handed over to police. Even when the man was in the grip of police, he was heard chanting Jai Shri Ram and was also shouting Hamare desh mein kisi ki nahi chalegi, sirf Hinduon ki chalegi. The man has been identified as Kapil Baisla (25), a resident of East Delhis Dallupura village and is a milk supplier. The incident occurred around 4:45 pm on Saturday. Two days back, a teenager fired from a pistol at anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protesters at Jamia Millia Islamia, injuring a student. According to sources, couple of days ago Baisla got stuck in traffic jam while going to his sisters wedding in Lajpat Nagar from Noida. He felt agitated which made him very upset and angry. He was claiming that he took this initiative due to that inconvenience. However, police said that they are verifying his identity. Eyewitnesses said that while shouting Hindu Rashtra Zindabad, the man fired two rounds in air, standing near the police barricades, nearly 100 metres from Shaheen Bagh protest site. The accused fired in air near police barricades. He was overpowered by police personnel and taken into custody. A case has been registered under relevant sections, said DCP (Southeast) Chinmoy Biswal. Recounting the horror, Mirza Azhan Beg (25), a local resident said when he was standing in front of the accused, he started raising slogans Jai Shree Ram, desh ke gaddaro ko goli maro and Yaha bas Hinduon ka raz chalega. One of the women protesters said they were inside the tent when the incident happened. We rushed to the spot after hearing gunshots. Many women and children were there inside the tent when incident happened and started crying. Everyone is scared about their safety, she said. Another woman protester said that those who are against their protest are trying to scare them but the protesters will not step back. The outsiders are trying to derail this movement but we will not let this happen, she said. A day after attempts were made by some groups to call off the anti-CAA protest at Nagpada here, the stir, which has now come to be known as "Mumbai Bagh", entered its eighth day on Sunday. Confusion and high drama had prevailed on Saturday at the sit-in demonstration being held by women against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) on Morland Road in Nagpada after a section of the protesters decided to call off the protest as the police told the volunteers to vacate the area saying they did not have permission for it. However, soon after the announcement was made that the protest was being called off, a huge crowd came to the site and started raising slogans. Following this, the plan was given up and the protest continued. Talking to PTI on Sunday, Feroze Mithiborwala, organiser of the protest, said, "Despite the attempts to sabotage the 'Mumbai Bagh' protest by certain inside elements as well as by the police, the protest continues. We are now stronger and more resolute than before." "The all-women protest, which began on the night of January 26, entered the eighth day on Sunday. We request to the Mumbai Police to cooperate with the organisers of this peaceful protest," he said. "Mumbai Bagh has become another Shaheen Bagh and it has successfully resisted all attempts to end the protest," he added. Mithiborwala appealed to the citizens to join the stir in large numbers and show solidarity with the protesters. Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union (JNUSU) president Aishe Ghosh, who visited the protest site at 10.30 pm on Saturday to give a speech, was stopped by the police from using a megaphone saying the use of loudspeaker or public address system was prohibited after 10 pm. Ghosh addressed the gathering without the megaphone. "When Ghosh arrived there, police told the organisers that they cannot use loudspeakers or public address system as the 10 pm deadline has ended. They were also asked to remove the sound boxes as well," a police official said. Mithiborwala said, "Police refused to let Ghosh use the megaphone. So she addressed the gathering without it and inspired the people. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) She is often spotted at London's hottest haunts in an array of stylish ensembles. And Francesca Allen dressed to impress as she stepped out for a big night in the capital on Saturday. The Love Island beauty, 24, wore a flowing beige shirt-dress as she left a dinner date with friends at Sumosan Twiga in Knightsbridge. Party: Francesca Allen dressed to impress as she stepped out for a big night in the capital on Saturday She accessorised the look with matching barely-there heeled sandals and a Fendi mini bag. Her brunette hair was styled in glamorous curls that accentuated her bronzed complexion with a radiant make-up look. The reality star later donned a baby blue coat to keep warm, but was still happy to show off her beautifully toned legs. Chic: The Love Island beauty, 24, wore a flowing beige shirt-dress as she left a dinner date with friends at Sumosan Twiga in Knightsbridge Looks: Her brunette hair was styled in glamorous curls that accentuated her bronzed complexion with a radiant make-up look During a recent Q&A session on Instagram, Francesca was asked if she had ever thought about changing up her look and going blonde. She explained: 'I thought I could do blonde because I've got light eyes but it doesn't work ... omg I've got a blonde wig.' Clearly excited, Francesca quickly jumped up and the next Story showed her with a light blonde wig on her head. Changing up: The reality star later donned a baby blue coat to keep warm, but was still happy to show off her beautifully toned legs In her finest American accent, the beauty said: 'When I've got this wig on I feel like a Kardashian, like I'm American ... I don't think it suits me to be honest, it's fun though.' During the videos Francesca appeared to be relaxing on a cream bed while wearing a chic mustard yellow blazer. The stunner had perfectly curled her brunette locks and wore a slick of makeup including a touch of nude lipstick to accentuate her pretty features. Socialiser: The former Islander is often spotted at London 's hottest haunts in an array of stylish ensembles Ensemble: She accessorised the look with matching high strap heels and a Fendi mini bag Since Love Island wrapped several months ago, Francesca has become recognised for her love of vintage fashion, with the star landing her very own collection. As well as owning her own Essex boutique and online store Bonnie & Clyde with her sister Claudia Allen, Francesca has launched multiple collections with In The Style alongside Anna, Amy Hart, Yewande Biala and Joanna Chimonides. However, Francesca claims that while going on the ITV2 dating show has boosted her profile on the fashion front, it's actually hindered her chances of getting a boyfriend, despite her initially signing up to the series to find love. Mixing it up: Francesca looked sensational as she donned a blonde wig during an Instagram question and answer session last week New look? The Love Island star said she made a 'really ugly blonde' (left) but joked that she did find it fun wearing a wig (right) and felt like a Kardashian She told MailOnline some men are too intimidated to approach her at parties but after years of being in relationships she's learned to be content on her own. Francesca said: 'You go out and you'll see guys and they look at you because maybe they recognise you but then they're shyer. I'm not going to meet anyone at an event! 'I'm still single but I was always in a relationship prior to going on Love Island. 'I feel like now after being on the show that I've got much more confidence and I feel it is OK for me to be myself. I'm quite content with being on my own.' YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 2, ARMENPRESS. A group of Armenian passengers were not allowed to board an Ural Airlines flight from Xian to a Russian city despite having tickets. Among those who were refused check-in were also citizens of other countries. Given the situation over the coronavirus outbreak in China, a number of international airlines are gradually limiting their flights from Beijing and other Chinese cities. Citizens currently in China are required to contact the given airline beforehand to clarify information about the flight, the foreign ministry of Armenia said. On February 1, a group of Armenian citizens were denied check-in with Ural Airlines flight tickets. At the same time, citizens of a number of other countries were also denied check-in to the same flight. They were compensated for the tickets. The Armenian Embassy in China has advised the Armenian citizens to head for the nearest city from where it will be possible to board another flight of other airlines to Armenia, and to clarify the given airlines regulations beforehand. The embassy and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia are taking measures to prevent such developments. At the same time, we inform that the Embassy is maintaining constant contact with all Armenian citizens who are in China and who have registered with the Embassy and is responding to all questions, the foreign ministry said. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan Mayank Singh By Express News Service NEW DELHI: Indian citizens back from China have been taken to the Manesar facility created for the people to be quarantined by the Army. Meanwhile, Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat visited the facility. An army officer said, 220 people have been shifted to our facility at Manesar. None of the people there were found infected of virus, he added. The people suspected of infection having any signs of fever and/or cough and/or respiratory distress were to be directly transferred to Base Hospital Delhi Cantonment. Sources informed, 324 Indians have been airlifted so far. Of them, 211 are students and rests are professionals. The highest number, 56, of those evacuated are from Andhra Pradesh followed by 53 from Tamil Nadu, 42 from Kerala and 34 from Rajasthan- 34. The people who have been airlifted are from 23 states and Union Territories. The quarantine facility in Manesar was created in an isolated area to house the students who were brought back to India from Chinas Wuhan in light of the outbreak. Its been set up away from the population in temporary barracks. The facilitys basic structure already existed, but we started setting it up as a quarantine facility on the evening of January 27. The facility is now ready to receive evacuees, told an officer. The Army said the students can be monitored for two weeks. 2nd flight to China AI will send another special flight for airlifting remaining Indians from China. An airline spokesperson said the flight will depart to Wuhan from Delhi with a different set of crew but same doctors team. Its crunch time, and Crystal Meier knows it. The Iowa presidential precinct caucuses are Monday. So Meier, one of thousands of undecided Iowa Democrats, has narrowed her list down. To four. There are more quality people and there are more people who have similar beliefs and goals, and that makes it more difficult, she said. In this second installment of a series on undecided caucus participants, Lee and Cedar Rapids Gazette reporters reconnected with the undecided Iowa Democrats to see whether they have chosen a candidate to support in the caucuses on Monday. Some said they finally have made their choice. But others, like Meier, remained on the fence with just a few days to go. We have to decide what paths are most important and what we are willing to compromise on, Meier said. In a Monmouth poll published this week, roughly half of the Iowa Democrats who responded said they could still change their minds. Shari Loftsgard, a 55-year-old woman from Robins who has made up her mind, offered her theory as to why so many Iowa Democrats have had a difficult time picking a favorite candidate despite the caucus campaign lasting for more than a year. Theres a wealth of good candidates. And that is a good thing. It is hard to choose from the range of options we have. There are a lot of ideas I want, Loftsgard said. I wish we could put a few of these together and make a perfect candidate. Meier is a longtime caucus participant and Mason City resident. She said she has caucused in nearly every presidential cycle since 1988, and that she knew the 2020 Democratic presidential race would be a tough decision because of the number of candidates, but that she didnt think she would still be undecided at this point in the process. Reached Thursday, just four days before the caucuses, Meier said she is still considering former vice president Joe Biden, former South Bend, Indiana, mayor Pete Buttigieg, Massachusetts U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and Minnesota U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar. But Meier did manage to cross one name off her list: New York entrepreneur Andrew Yang. Meier said she dropped Yang not because she doesnt like him, but because he does not have the foreign policy experience she feels is necessary for the commander in chief. Theres no getting around that, she said. You can surround yourself with excellent people, but I believe you should have some experience in that portion of the job. Meier said her goal is to narrow her list to one candidate before caucus night. She said she planned to attend several campaign events before then. Meier is not the only member of this project still tortured by the decision. Jeremy Dusenberry is still undecided. The fast-food worker from Muscatine is wavering between Sanders, Biden, former Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, and even more candidates he likes. And Dusenberry said he feels no rush to decide. Theyre all over TV, he said. Dusenberry conceded he may enter his caucus precinct on Monday still undecided. It might have to happen that way, he said. Nelson Kraschel, from Clear Lake, hopes to go into the caucuses with a favorite candidate in mind, but he, too, conceded its possible hell walk into the precinct still undecided. Kraschel, whose list had included Klobuchar, Buttigieg and former New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg, said he remains undecided but is giving more attention to Bloomberg. Mike Safleys priority has not changed he still wants the candidate who has the best chance of defeating Republican incumbent President Donald Trump but neither has his list of finalists. Safley, a semi-retired electrical engineer from Muscatine, said he remains undecided between his first choice, Biden, and Sanders. A close poll watcher, Safley worries that the impeachment trial might dampen support for Biden, whose son Hunter has become Republicans target of thus far unsubstantiated claims of corruption. The optics of Bidens son was not a good deal for Joe Biden, Safley said. Theyre fighting him in the Senate, trying to poison him with that. Safley said he is waiting for last-minute polls to gauge Bidens viability. If Biden starts to fall in the polls, Safley said he will consider switching to Sanders. Safley said he also prefers Buttigieg over Sanders, but worries about Buttigiegs apparent lackluster support among black voters. He also fears that Buttigieg who is openly gay and married would be penalized by general election voters for his sexuality. I think a lot of conservative elderly people may have a problem with (Buttigiegs) sexuality, Safley said. It doesnt bother me, but thats old folks set in their ways. I dont discourage him at all, myself. I like him actually more than I do Bernie, but I think Bernie has a better path forward to the Democratic nomination. But some Iowa Democrats are making headway. Loftsgard said she was sufficiently impressed by Buttigieg at a recent campaign event and has decided to caucus for him. Although she also left open the door to having her mind changed in these final days. As recently as nine days earlier, Loftsgard had been considering Buttigieg, Warren, and Klobuchar. I really liked what he had to say, Loftsgard said. He seemed sincere and smart and seems like he has a lot of good ideas. At this point, I guess right now my intent is to caucus for Buttigieg. She noted the other candidates didnt do anything to lose her support, and that she could still see herself changing her mind by the time she caucuses. We need an adult. Not that other Democrats arent adults, she said. I just like the way he presents himself. Doug Kennedy, a 24-year-old supply management worker for John Deere Co. who lives in Cedar Falls, has picked his candidate, too. After considering each of the races longtime polling leaders Biden, Buttigieg, Warren and Sanders Kennedy said this week thinks hes set on caucusing for Biden. Kennedy said he based that decision not on any candidate appearances he said he had not seen any other candidates since January 20 but he said he read more information about each candidate. I am likely going to select Biden at this moment, Kennedy said Wednesday. I realized he is the most likely to beat Trump based on polling, and his moderate views align the most with mine. Reporters Graham Ambrose, Amie Rivers, Jared McNett, Ashley Stewart, and Brian Morelli contributed. Love 0 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 2 Angry 0 Google is celebrating the legacy of Scottish science writer Mary Somerville with a doodle. The first female member of the Royal Astronomical Society along with Caroline Herschel, Mary Somerville was a polymath. One of Mary Somervilles experimental physics papers was read by the Royal Society of London, the UKs National Science Academy on this day in 1826. She was also the author of the book The Connection of the Physical Sciences (1834). This became one of the best selling science books of the 19th century. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Maldivian president Ibrahim Mohamed Solih on Sunday expressed gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar for the evacuation of seven Maldivian nationals from the coronavirus-hit Chinese city of Wuhan. Male: Maldivian president Ibrahim Mohamed Solih on Sunday expressed gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar for the evacuation of seven Maldivian nationals from the coronavirus-hit Chinese city of Wuhan. Taking to Twitter following the return of the Indians and Maldivians from Wuhan to Delhi on a special Air India flight, Solih described the gesture as a fine example of the outstanding friendship and camaraderie between the two countries. "My thanks and gratitude to PM Narendra Modi & EAM Dr. S Jaishankar & Govt of India for expeditiously evacuating the 7 Maldivians residing in Wuhan, China. This gesture is a fine example of the outstanding friendship and camaraderie between our two countries," Solih tweeted. Today, as many as 323 Indians and seven Maldivians were rescued from Wuhan, a Chinese city of 11 million people which is the epicenter of the new strain of coronavirus. The evacuees have been sent to quarantine centers set up by the Indian Army and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police in Manesar and Chhawla respectively. The virus originated in Wuhan in December last year and has since then spread to various cities around the world. Several countries including India have sped up the evacuation process after the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the coronavirus outbreak as a global health crisis. Elizabeth Warren told Iowa caucus-goers the Democratic Party would unite at the end of the divisive primary season a day after prominent Bernie Sanders supporters trashed Party power-brokers and encouraged supporters to 'boo' Hillary Clinton. Warren pointedly lauded her fellow presidential candidates, including drop-outs, but said they had 'one job' after the primaries to beat President Trump. 'People who stay in the race because thats whats critical. We may have had differences. We may still have differences. But at the end of the day all of us have exactly one job and that is beat Donald Trump,' Warren said, referencing the primary field on the eve of the first major winnowing event. 'Were going to come together as a party and make this happen yeah!' she pledged. Senator Elizabeth Warren called for 'big structural change' in Iowa and said the Democratic Party would come together after a fractious campaign Sounding like she was anticipating some changes in the composition of the field, Warren saluted her rivals on what for some could be one of their last days as a candidate. 'I also want to say a very special thank you to every single person who ran for president for the Democratic ticket. Some are still in. Some are not. But every single one of them got into this because they wanted to serve their country. They wanted to make this a better nation,' Warren said. 'And I am grateful for their good ideas for their energy for their heart,' she added. Her remarks came after Michael Moore, a backers of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, teed off on the Democratic National Committee for hosting an 'all white debate' and changing its rules to allow Michael Bloomberg on stage 'because he's got a billion f***ing dollars.' Another Sanders supporter, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, said Friday at a Sanders even she would encourage people to 'boo' Hillary Clinton, who had disparaged Sanders. 'No, I'll boo!' Tlaib said. 'You all know I can't be quiet. No, we're gonna boo,' she told a crowd. Warren and Sanders clashed at the Iowa debate last month over whether Sanders told her a woman couldn't beat Trump. Warren finally found a few days to get out of the Washington D.C. impeachment trial of President Trump and touted united before a few hundred who came to see her on the Iowa St. University campus in Ames at a hastily-scheduled event. She not only had to set her final campaigning around the Trump impeachment: like other candidates she had to contend with the Super Bowl. 'I know you could already be digging into the chips and guacamole,' she told a few hundred who came to see her in the college town. When saluting her fallen rival candidates, she also quipped that she had picked up some 'really good staffers and some really good volunteers' from some of the drop-outs. Moore tore into Bloomberg, who will be on stage for the Nevada debate after the lifting of a fundraising requirement, and blasted the DNC Saturday: He doesnt have to show he has any support amongst the American people. He can just buy his way onto the debate stage, and I got to tell you what is so disgusting about this,' Moore fumed. 'I watched the debate in Iowa two weeks ago the all white debate. And the fact that the DNC will not allow Cory Booker on that stage. Will not allow Julian Castro on that stage. But they are going to allow Mike Bloomberg on that stage because hes got a billion fucking dollars,' Moore continued. Senator Elizabeth Warren campaigned in Ames, Iowa Sunday on the eve of the Iowa Caucuses Both Moore and Tlaib tried to clean up their remarks amid blowback. Moore was responding to news that Bloomberg would be allowed on the debate stage after new rules won't exclude people who don't meet a fundraising threshold. Bloomberg isn't accepting campaign contributions, although his polling is sufficient to get him on stage. Warren kept up her frenetic and compressed campaign schedule by storming into Ames, Iowa for an event at the Iowa State University Memorial Union Sunday. Her appearance came during a brief break in the Trump impeachment trial, where she is due back in Washington Monday to hear closing arguments. She held a get out the vote rally on the Iowa State campus, jamming a few hundred reporters into the early 20th Century venue. Warren's pitch came as campaigns could only guess about how impeachment, curtailed campaigning, and the unexpected wildcard of a polling mishap could play out. "This is going to go right down to the last second," said Symone Sanders, a top advisor to former Vice President Joe Biden. 'We view Iowa as the beginning, not the end,' she said at a Bloomberg News event Sunday. A new poll puts Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and former Vice President Joe Biden in a tie on the eve of the Iowa caucuses after the mainstay Des Moines Register survey was yanked shortly before its scheduled releases. The two longtime lawmakers were each tied at 25 per cent, according to the final CBS News survey before Monday's Iowa caucuses. Trailing closely behind was South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg, at 21 per cent. He was followed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, at 16 per cent, with her colleague Sen. Amy Klobuchar at 5 per cent. The results don't present a major break with earlier polls although it does provide a smidge of information for politics watchers who were clamoring for information out of the Des Moines Register poll, known as the gold standard here in Iowa. It comes hours after Sanders drew the biggest crowd to date of the campaign, with about 3,000 coming to see him in Cedar Rapids, in eastern Iowa. The event featured the band Vampire Weekend, along with filmmaker Michael Moore, who trashed the Democratic National Committee at the event for allowing billionaire Michael Bloomberg onto the debate stage in the future. Biden is the second-choice among lower-tier candidates in the CBS poll, meaning his support could get a boost on caucus night when those backing candidates who aren't 'viable' reallocate their preferences. His supporters aren't registering as much enthusiasm for their candidate as Sanders backers have been in surveys. But Biden has stressed an electability message and touted polls showing him performing strongly against President Trump. He is back in Des Moines Sunday for an event along with his wife, Jill Biden, one of several 'community events' his campaing has been staging. Iraqs president appointed Mohammed Tawfiq Allawi as prime minister on Saturday after parties failed to name a candidate nearly two months after Adel Abdul-Mahdi was ousted by mass protests, Global News reports. In his first address, Allawi said he would hold early internationally-monitored elections. Karl Lagerfeld's heiress cat dubbed the richest kitty in the world is now starring in new Instagram photos. The photographers were snapped by the Chanel fashion designer himself, prior to his death last year. Many of them were taken as the cat observed the designer while he sketched. Karl Lagerfeld's heiress cat Choupette has a silky white coat and deep blue eyes The photographers were snapped by Karl Lagerfeld, prior to his death last year Karl Lagerfeld's heiress cat dubbed the richest kitty in the world is now starring in a new Instagram album The photographers were snapped by the Chanel fashion designer himself, prior to his death last year Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld pictured holding his beloved cat Choupette The late iconic fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld pictured with his feline Caroline Lebar, head of communications for the Karl Lagerfeld brand in Paris, said the feline came to her office recently and they took photos which will appear on Karl's Instagram feed every month. 'She is a famous cat,' Caroline told The Times. 'She has an agent because she has a lot of requests. So far she hasn't done anything because they are ultra-selective.' Beloved cat Choupette pictured among piles of paper and stationary Choupette. Caroline Lebar, head of communications for the Karl Lagerfeld brand in Paris, said the feline came to her office recently and they took photos which will appear on Karl's Instagram feed every month. She reportedly used to eat sitting opposite him in his Paris apartment on the Quai Voltaire According to German friend Gerhard Steidl, the iconic designer would take as many as 50 snaps of Choupette per day. She reportedly used to eat sitting opposite him in his Paris apartment on the Quai Voltaire. The beloved cat - who Lagerfeld famously said he would marry - is understood to have inherited part of his 150million fortune following his death from pancreatic cancer in February 2019. According to German friend Gerhard Steidl, the iconic designer would take as many as 50 snaps of Choupette per day According to Caroline, Choupette has an agent 'because she has a lot of requests' The beloved cat - who Lagerfeld famously said he would marry - is understood to have inherited part of his 150million fortune The feline was Lagerfeld's great love, flying with him on private jets, adorned in diamond necklaces and raking in millions as a 'model'. Originally belonging to French model Baptiste Giabiconi, Lagerfeld 'met' Choupette while house sitting for him in 2011. After two weeks, Lagerfeld simply told Giabiconi: 'I'm sorry but Choupette is mine,' and would later joke that he abducted her before turning her into an international model. The feline was Lagerfeld's great love, flying with him on private jets, adorned in diamond necklaces and raking in millions as a 'model' Originally belonging to French model Baptiste Giabiconi, Lagerfeld 'met' Choupette while house sitting for him in 2011 After two weeks, Lagerfeld simply told Giabiconi: 'I'm sorry but Choupette is mine' Lagerfeld would later joke that he abducted her before turning her into an international model From the moment the creative director was gifted Choupette, her life was changed forever From the moment the creative director was gifted Choupette, her life was changed forever. Choupette began her modelling career in August 2012, posing in the arms of French supermodel Laetitia Casta by the Eiffel Tower. The cat has since been used in numerous advertising campaigns, including for Opel cars and various make-up ranges. A whole collection titled 'Choupette in Love' was launched in honour of the feline and a Chanel range was inspired by the cat's eyes. The stunning cat, which has a silky white coat and deep blue eyes, has nearly 128,000 Instagram followers. Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Sunday ordered a comprehensive probe into a multi-billion dollar aircraft purchase involving the national carrier SriLankan Airlines and Europe-based Airbus. A statement from the Sri Lankan President's office said the President reacted to the media reports alleging financial irregularities. "Upon seeing these reports President Rajapaksa immediately ordered officials to initiate a full scale inquiry into these allegations, covering all aspects of the deal and report back to him," the statement said. The president has ordered a comprehensive investigation into reports of allegations over financial irregularities said to have been committed during the deal between SriLankan Airlines and Airbus SE for the purchase of aircraft. Accorrding to a statement issued on January 31 in a court case in London, as part of the Deferred Prosecution Agreement reached between Airbus and the prosecuting authorities, Airbus had agreed to pay a sum of USD 16.84 million to a company registered in Brunei under the wife of an executive at SriLankan Airlines. The statement said that the Airbus had paid out a sum of USD 2 million of the agreed amount to the company. "Between July 1, 2011 and June 1, 2015, Airbus SE failed to prevent persons associated with Airbus SE from bribing others concerned with the purchase of aircraft by SriLankan Airlines from Airbus, namely directors and/or employees of SriLankan Airlines, where the said bribery was intended to obtain or retain business or advantage in the conduct of business for Airbus SE," the statement noted. UK prosecutors said Airbus failed to prevent individuals associated with the company from bribery involving Malaysia's AirAsia and AirAsia X, SriLankan Airlines, Taiwan's TransAsia Airways, Garuda Indonesia and Citilink Indonesia. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Credit: CC0 Public Domain Tests for the coronavirus on about 20 people who arrived on France on an evacuation flight from China have come back negative, authorities said Monday. A total of 254 people arrived in France on Sunday from the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the deadly virus was first detected, on the second such flight. Thirty-six of those on board displayed symptoms of the coronavirus, Health Minister Agnes Buzyn said on Sunday. Sixteen of those were flown back to their respective countries, but about 20 stayed at Istres airport in the south of France to undergo further testing. They included French and non-European nationals. "All these tests were negative and so all these persons were able to go to the (two) centres" in the south of France where they will remain in quarantine for 14 days, junior health minister Adrien Taquet told BFMTV Monday. Tests were conducted on "persons, who when they boarded the plane, had some symptoms", which are similar to those for a cold, and "had to be checked when the plane landed," said Taquet. The second evacuation flight carried people of 30 different nationalities, most of them from Europe. Sixty-five were French. The first planeload of evacuees from China arrived in France on Friday and are in quarantine at a resort on the Mediterranean coast. Two passengers from that flight were identified as possibly infected with the coronavirus, but tests on them also came back negative. Government spokeswoman Sibeth Ndiaye told France 2 television Monday that there are no more French citizens who have requested to be repatriated from China. More than 17,200 people in China have been infected with the virus, which has spread to about 20 countries. There have been more than 360 deaths in China. So far in France, six cases of coronavirus have been detected. France and its fellow G7 countries will be discussing a joint response to the coronavirus epidemic, Germany's health minister said on Sunday. Explore further Five people in France confirmed to have coronavirus 2020 AFP She's the former Love Island Australia star known for her phenomenal figure. And Shelby Bilby struggled to contain her ample bust in a pink plaid bikini, in a candid photo shared to Instagram on Sunday. Standing in shallow water in a Queensland swimming hole, the 26-year-old also drew attention to her toned tummy and lean legs. Curves ahead: Love Island's Shelby Bilby, 26, (pictured) struggled to contain her bust in a pink plaid bikini in a photo shared to Instagram on Sunday The blonde bombshell ran one hand playfully through her wet tresses, and tilted her head downwards. Her beauty look was pared back and consisted of defined brows and false lashes. 'Hiking to secluded swimming holes is my favvvvv! (sic),' Shelby wrote in the post's caption. Instagram sensation: Shelby's Instagram page is littered with pictures in scantily clad attire The glamazon's Instagram page is littered with sizzling pictures in scantily clad attire. But Shelby has admitted her racy photos often create problems with Instagram's strict censorship policies. In October last year, she revealed one of her photos had been removed by the social media app for being in breach of their nudity rules. Challenges: But the Queenslander has admitted her racy photos often create problems with Instagram's strict censorship policies Nudity rules: In October last year, Shelby revealed one of her photos had been removed by the social media app for being in breach of their nudity rules 'Take #2 cause apparently me holding my boobs is "sexual activity" yet there is 7192929293 accounts way worse than mine,' Shelby captioned a photo of herself covering her naked breasts with her arms. She added: 'What's wrong with a woman being confident in her own body? Stop being a prude and block yourself hun... Whyyyy you be like this @instagram? #Haters #JogOn.' Shelby rose to fame as an intruder on the 2018 season of Love Island Australia, and has since become a social media influencer. 1 / 10 A vehicle is half-buried in the mud after a landslide in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Over 30,000 people have been displaced by heavy rains in southeast Brazil that also killed more than 50 people. (AP Photo/Gustavo Andrade) 2 / 10 A female police officer covered in red paint stands by during a women's protest against the latest murder of two women, in Mexico City. In past weeks, two women activists, attorney Yunuen Lopez Sanchez and Isabel Cabanillas de la Torre, where murdered. (AP Photo/Ginnette Riquelme) 3 / 10 Luis Cassiano is standing on his home's green roof in Arara Park favela, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Cassiano said he felt the temperature rise to a point that became unbearable, and online research for a solution led him to install a green roof. (AP Photo/Renato Spyrro) 4 / 10 A police officer cuts a pistol in half with a torch during a weapons destruction presentation in Panama City. According to Panama's police, they have seized and destroyed 589 weapons over the last six months. (AP Photo/Arnulfo Franco) 5 / 10 A relative of Charlot Jeudy, the late leader of the prominent LGBTQ organization "Kouraj," cries during his funeral in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. According to his friends, Jeudy's body was found at his home in the capital on November 25, 2019, and an investigation into the cause of his death is underway. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery) 6 / 10 Demonstrators protesting the death of Jorge Mora, a fan of the Colo Colo soccer team who was killed by a police vehicle, clash with police in the Pudahuel neighbourhood of Santiago, Chile. Mora was run over Tuesday by a police truck outside the Monumental Stadium after a match between Colo Colo and Universidad de Chile. (AP Photo/Luis Hidalgo) 7 / 10 Bolivia's Moises Villarroel celebrates scoring, from the penalty spot, his side's first goal against Uruguay during a South America Olympic qualifying U23 soccer match at Centenario stadium in Armenia, Colombia. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara) 8 / 10 Mexican National Guards stand watch over the Suchiate River where locals transport cargo and ferry people between Mexico and Guatemala, near Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexico, a location popular for Central American migrants to cross from Guatemala to Mexico. One National Guard said it's easy to distinguish local Guatemalans who cross for ordinary workday reasons for their manner of speaking, and they're welcome "because they're neighbours." (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte) 9 / 10 Visitors soak in the "Termales de Santa Rosa" hot springs in Santa Rosa de Cabal, Colombia. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara) BJP leader and former Maharashtra minister Babanrao Lonikar has landed in a spot after an audio clip surfaced on social media in which he purportedly called a woman tehsildar a "heroine" during his speech, although he did not take anybody's name. He was speaking at a function in Karhala village of Partur tehsil in Maharashtra's Jalna district on Saturday. In the speech, Lonikar said, "If farmers want aid of Rs 25,000 from government, then we can plan the biggest rally in Marathwada here in Partur. We can involve 25,000 to 50,000 people in it. If Zilla Parisad and Panchayat Samiti members decide then we can have the biggest march in the state in Partur." "We can call (former chief minister) Devendra Fadnavis, (former ministers) Chandrakant Patil and Sudhir Mungantiwar. You tell who should be called...We can call a heroine for it. If not, then we have our tehsildar madam as heroine," he said. When contacted, Lonikar on Sunday defended the use of the word saying that by heroine, he meant to say a "leader who does good work". "I have not insulted our tehsildar through my statement. The word heroine or hero is used for a leader who does good work. You can check the dictionary. This is not an abusive word and it does not have a negative meaning," he said. "We planned to take out a rally over the issue of aid to farmers," he added. BJP spokesperson Shirish Boralkar said that Lonikar was speaking about development of farmers. "His statement was presented in a twisted manner by the media," he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Stocks plunge in China over coronavirus fears. Stocks in China plunged in early Monday trading as investors returned from a long holiday to the prospect of the worlds No. 2 economy virtually shut down by the coronavirus epidemic. Stocks in Shanghai opened 8.7 percent lower, while shares in the southern Chinese boomtown of Shenzhen fell 9 percent. The markets had been closed since Jan. 23 for the Lunar New Year holiday, and government officials extended that closure until Monday while the authorities dealt with the outbreak. Other markets in the region, which have already digested much of the impact, opened lower as well. Shares in Tokyo and in Australia were down about 1.5 percent in early Monday trading. Stocks in Hong Kong opened about half a percent lower. Thank you for reading! Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue. Hundreds of nurses and caregivers of Swedish Medical Center walked as a group into the hospitals First Hill campus at 7:30 a.m. Friday, marking the end of a three-day strike that included 7,800 staffers. Some workers had planned to return to their jobs at 7:30 but were turned away and told theyd been temporarily replaced, meaning a temporary worker had their shift for the day. Many had already received text messages and phone calls saying they werent needed Friday, but said they still wanted to try to come for their regularly scheduled shifts. Swedish officials later Friday said nearly 2,000 union-represented caregivers had returned to their jobs and the hospital system will continue to bring back more as work becomes available. No new contract talks are scheduled. Hospital spokeswoman Tiffany Moss said federal mediators are being brought in to schedule the next meeting. Diane Sosne, president of the union that represents the workers Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Healthcare 1199NW said members are coming off the strike relieved that they sounded the alarm on whats happening to patient care. Outside the hospital Friday morning, workers held a rally and then moved together toward the hospitals main doors, led by Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan, King County Executive Dow Constantine and Sister Helen Brennan of the Sisters of Providence. Smaller groups then tried to get into the hospital through other entrances. Outside a staff entry point, workers were being stopped by security and then let in five at a time to check in with hospital employees. If their name wasnt on the list, they were turned back. The strike, which began at 7 a.m. Tuesday, included workers from the hospitals seven campuses, including First Hill, Cherry Hill, Ballard, Issaquah, Edmonds, Redmond and Mill Creek. In advance of the strike, Swedish temporarily closed emergency departments on its Ballard and Redmond campuses, as well as its Ballard labor and delivery unit. Some services at the Issaquah campus, including the Level II nursery and adult ICU, were moved to other facilities. Swedish reopened the emergency departments at 8 a.m. Friday and the labor and delivery unit at 9 a.m. Friday. The hospital postponed all elective surgeries, patient classes and other non-urgent procedures until after the strike ended. Swedish spokespeople say the hospital is still working to set new dates for some procedures. In preparation for the walkout, Swedish hired a few thousand replacement nurses and caregivers from three different health-care agencies to fly in from all over the country and staff its hospitals from Tuesday to Sunday morning. Although the strike was planned to last three days, the temporary workers will stay five days because the agencies require a five-day minimum contract, hospital spokespeople said Thursday. On Friday, workers who had been turned away were handed a letter from Swedish, dated Jan. 23, stating that striking employees could be replaced through Sunday. Swedish declined to give any more information about which agencies were used. They said all procedures under the replacement caregivers went remarkably well. Betsy Scott, a registered nurse at the Swedish Cancer Institute, had planned to return to work Friday morning but received a phone call Thursday from a manager who told her she wasnt needed. She still showed up at the hospital Friday, ready to go to work. Its heartbreaking, knowing patients wont get the same care from temp workers, she said, as union members around her chanted, Hey Swedish, look what weve done, we stood up for everyone. A National Labor Relations Board representative said the agency couldnt comment on the labor dispute at Swedish because its an ongoing matter that could potentially come before the board at some point. The union planned the walkout after almost 10 months of bargaining with hospital management. The most recent contract the hospital offered included an 11.25% raise over four years 3% retroactive to 2019; 3% in 2020; 2.75% in 2021; and 2.5% in 2022. SEIU countered with its own proposal, a 23.25% increase in wages over four years. Some of the caregivers other primary concerns, which they say werent adequately addressed in the hospitals contract, include staffing shortages, faulty equipment and a lack of security for patients and workers. The last contract expired at the end of July, and caregivers had been working without one for almost six months. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 A truck carrying meals for the Wuhan evacuees enters the Police Human Resources Development Institute in Asan, South Chungcheong Province, Sunday./ Yonhap By Kim Se-jeong The government said Sunday that 701 Koreans who were evacuated from Wuhan, China, due to the outbreak of a new deadly corona virus, spent a calm weekend. According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the National Human Resources Development Institute in Jincheon, North Chungcheong Province was housing 173 people, while the Police Human Resources Development Institute in Asan, South Chungcheong Province was sheltering 528. The evacuees returned to Korea via chartered planes Friday and Saturday, and the majority were driven directly to the facilities. However, 25 were taken to hospitals for testing before being taken to the quarantine facilities after their results came back negative for the virus. One among the 701 was sent to the National Medical Center in Seoul, Sunday, after he was confirmed to have been infected. He had passed the initial screening at Gimpo International Airport where he arrived Friday, but began showing symptoms of fever at the facility Saturday. A British graduate has told how he is 'lucky to be alive' after spending eight days in a coma when he suffered a rare brain haemorrhage that doctors had never seen in a patient so young. Leyth Hampshire, 23, from south London, had just landed an exciting new job in climate change with the EU and had travelled to Budapest to attend a networking event when he suddenly collapsed with a seizure. What started off as a seemingly normal day in October quickly descended into a nightmare, as the devoted vegan - who competed in triathlons in his spare time - was left fighting for his life and minutes from death. Leyth explained he had been mingling with colleagues when he unexpectedly dropped to the ground. Leyth Hampshire, 23, woke up one cold October morning excited to navigate life in a new job in Budapest 'It was early morning I don't remember much,' Mr Hampshire recalled. 'I told my colleagues I needed to go to the loo, turned around and passed out. No one around me knew what was happening and I started having a fit on the floor. I don't remember anything I was out to the world.' Mr Hampshire was rushed to a Hungarian hospital where doctors discovered he was barely breathing on arrival. What was initially thought to be an asthma attack turned out to be something far more serious - it was his brain. He had suffered a grade-5 aneurysm. An artery in his brain had suddenly and inexplicably burst open and caused an instant stroke. It's a such a serious occurrence that almost 80 per cent of people fail to wake up from it. Lying in a strange bed in a Hungarian hospital with dozens of wires snaking out of him, Mr Hampshire was in a coma for more than a week as his body desperately fought not to shut down. Mr Hampshire, from south London, was rushed to hospital where doctors discovered he was barely breathing on arrival Every 24 hours Mr Hampshire was fighting for his life his body was in constant tension as it tried to feed what little energy it had to his brain to stop it from shutting down. 'When I woke up I was very disorientated I opened my eyes and saw lots of nurses surrounding my bed,' he said. 'I was strapped to my hospital bed so I couldn't move as I had three implants in my brain doing tests. Doctors were worried that when I woke up I would become anxious and rip the wires out.' 'Waking up in a Hungarian hospital is something I can't even describe the fear. I couldn't move my body, I was in a lot of pain, I was shaking and sweating and things were blurry. Every 24 hours Mr Hampshire was fighting for his life his body was in constant tension as it tried to feed what little energy it had to his brain to stop it from shutting down 'I was actually given a sedative to make me fall back asleep because I was so anxious.' The graduate, who studied business at the University of the West of England, was the last person his family and friends would ever expect to have serious health problems. A vegan, he competed in triathlons, practiced yoga and loved climbing. He was chasing a high-flying job in finance after completing an impressive masters course jetting between San Francisco, Barcelona and Taiwan. Mr Hampshire says doctors confessed they had no idea why such an active and healthy young man was reduced to life support with a tube helping him to breathe. When Mr Hampshire woke up for the second time, he was met by loved ones who had flown from all over the world to be by his bedside. 'Suddenly I wake up again and I see my family and friends there, and it filled me with joy but also filled with fear as to why am I in this place, ' he said. 'My dad lives lives in Iraq, and he was by my bed and I thought I was dreaming and then seeing my mum and one of my best friends who had been travelling in New Zealand I was crying in a state a joy and of terror.' An avid vegan, he competed in triathlons, practiced yoga and loved climbing. He was chasing a high-flying job in finance, after completing an impressive masters jetting between San Francisco, Barcelona and Taiwan 'They had to call a doctor to calm me down when they told me I'd been in a coma. 'Your heart heart drops. They said I had been here for a while with a tube in my throat feeding me. I had 14 wires attached me, on my brain, chest, needles up my arm and I couldn't move.' Medics were forced to break the horrifying news that he had suffered a serous brain injury, telling Mr Hampshire he had a stroke, a brain haemorrhage and a ruptured aneurysm. 'Doctors told me they'd never seen this in someone so young. They said I arrived barely breathing when I arrived at the hospital,' he said. Mr Hampshire had to be operated on four times. On the day after he collapsed, his mother who had quickly flown to the hospital to be with him had to sign paperwork to waiver a high chance of death before he was wheeled into surgery. 'The second operation actually failed. When they told my mum she dropped to her knees and said "Whats going to happen now?'. Fortunately, one of the top neurosurgeons in the world is Hungarian and was at the hospital the day Mr Hampshire was admitted. He was quickly drawn in to perform a life-saving operation on him. Mr Hampshire had to be operated on four times. On the day after he collapsed, his mother who had quickly flown to the hospital to be with him had to sign paperwork to waiver a high chance of death One of the surgeon's specialist operations is to send a camera through an opening in the groin, feeding it through a vein into the brain where a 4cm tube is inserted to replace a ruptured artery. 'Maybe 2 hours earlier if I had collapsed in the shower or travelling on a train I would be dead,' Leyth admitted. 'Before the accident I got the train through Paris and Munich and arrived in Budapest. I usually fly but getting the train turned out to be a decision that saved my life. 'If I got a plane the pressure would have ruptured the artery and I would have never woken up. I feel very lucky.' During his hospital stay, Mr Hampshire spent most of the time bed bound unable to move and due to the heavy dose of sedatives he often hallucinated. 'Opening your eyes on a Sunday and remembering you'd passed out, I thought it was the same day. Mr Hampshire says doctors confessed they had no idea why such an active and healthy young man was reduced to life support with a tube helping him to breathe 'I could feel people in the room with me, and I actually imagined my best friend's brother lying next to me. 'I also thought I could hear my mum and sister talking. I was hallucinating so much.' Due to the stroke, Mr Hampshire lost all feeling on his right side and was unable to walk following the accident. But just two months later he went from unable to leave his bed to fully mobile, with his physiotherapist saying they had never seen someone heal so quickly. 'Due to the stroke I had no movement, over time I slowly got movement in my hand and when I started moving my arm its like Christmas came early,' he said. 'It was not a reality in my head that I would not walk again. Every day I would lie in the hospital bed and stare at the ceiling and envision myself running and walking, through forests and beaches, and each day my leg got better,' he added. When Mr Hampshire woke up for the second time, he was met by loved ones who had flown from all over the world to be by his bedside 'One memory that kept me going whenever I start to feel stressed was the doctor looking me in the eye and smiling saying, "We didn't think you'd wake up".' Mr Hampshire says he still has to wear a brace on his leg, and is working with an acupuncture and private yoga teacher as he recovers but reveals he is '95 per cent there'. 'I'm healing so well. These kind of accidents usually happen to 40 to 50-year-olds and I'm 23. The well-being of my body helped in my progress.' The horrific accident has now changed Mr Hampshire's outlook on life. Before the accident, he was wanted a high-flying City job in London. Now, he wishes to focus on his health and nutrition while helping others with theirs. Following the horrific accident, Mr Leyth is now in a deep recovery stage and is spending his time with family and friends 'A lot of the old me died in that hospital bed. My sense of identity and the things I believed in. 'I was chasing a job in finance but I realised working 12 hours a day behind a desk for a big salary is not a life worth living. 'I was after a status and money. But if you don't have your health, what do you have?' 'I want to focus on brain power and the human body. Getting myself back to full recovery and competing again I want to learn about the brain and body and I want to help others who want to achieve those things.' Following the horrific accident, Mr Leyth is now in a deep recovery stage and is spending his time with family and friends. He said: 'Everything happens for a reason. It was a horrible, horrible experience for everyone involved but because of my new outlook on life I am so glad and so lucky and so happy.' Second of two parts The first aircraft I was assigned to on these missions was the Lockheed C-130 Hercules, an aircraft I was already familiar with, having traveled on one over much of the Central Highlands of South Vietnam at one time or another. But loading and unloading the aircraft brought me a new appreciation for this beast of burden. Wed load pallets of goods on the ground, then roll them up the reclining back gate and strap them in. Unloading was much quicker, of course, especially those instances when we dropped pallets of goods while still in the air. When this occurred, it was done at low altitude and speed, because the landing strip was too short, compromised or under attack. We also transported troops, Vietnamese civilians and their livestock on occasion. Whenever we transported livestock, the interior would require a good hosing down, as pigs, sheep and chickens did not enjoy flying. (Nor did some of those tending them). I mostly lived on these aircraft for three- and one-half weeks, and the least favorite aircraft of which I was assigned to was the Fairchild C-119. The flying boxcar, as it was called, dated back to pre-Korean War days, and was loaded from the rear also. Smaller than the C-130, and less durable, the aircraft held no charm for me. One of the missions I went out on was on a C-123 Provider. Also built by Fairchild, the C-123, infamous for dispersing the lethal toxin Agent Orange throughout the war, was the smallest aircraft I flew on. Flying out of Pleiku, the mission was a resupply effort for the Marine outpost at Dak To. The outpost had been under attack on and off and though our landing was uncertain, we made it in, rubber side down, and got out of there in a damn hurry! Not a fun trip. Several of my flying days were spent on a Douglass C-47 Skytrain. This was my favorite aircraft by far. Notable as the WWII paratrooper carrier, it was another durable vessel capable of flying under many adverse conditions. Most of the duty on this aircraft involved moving people; troops, civilians or both. We always left the jump door open, and took turns sitting on the floor, hanging onto the webbing with our legs dangling out. From the air, Vietnam was a beautiful country and those flights on the C-47s, legs dangling in the wind, lost in my thoughts, was to be the most pleasant of all my time in Vietnam. The flight crews on all of these aircraft had my admiration. Up and down, day and night through all kinds of weather and conditions. And although the Vietcong had no air force, and the North Vietnamese knew better than to send its Russian Migs up against the formidable American flying machines, the VC still managed to cause problems. They would sit off the end of the runways and shoot at the planes landing and taking off, usually with recoilless rifles or AK-47s. To counter that threat, the ascents and descents from all of these airfields and bases were very steep. The pilot and co-pilots carried their own butt plates with them. These were steel plates, formed in the shape of the human seat, which placed over the aircraft seat offered the crews protection from ground fire. It was a bit humorous, watching senior officers carrying this comical looking device around with them, but it no doubt saved a lot of lives and injuries. Weather was also a considerable factor in the Southeast Asian theater. Fog, heavy cloud cover and monsoon rains made for some treacherous flying, and many aircraft in the conflict were lost as a result of it. The Central Highlands of South Vietnam was loaded with mountain ranges, so that hazard was added to the mix. I cannot say enough about the courage and dedication of all of the flight crews who dealt with these conditions on a day to day basis. A flight to remember My last flight assignment during this time was on another C-130, and it was a memorable one. The loadmaster and I had worked together for a couple of days on the same aircraft. Loaded up and headed down the runway, we took our usual seats in the far back, opposite of each other. There was an old parachute on one of the seats, that we hardly took notice of, up until that point. Flying out of Pleiku airbase, we left around mid-afternoon. As usual, the ascent was steep, but not as steep as needed, evidently, because we were soon hit by ground fire from a Vietcong recoilless rifle. The round hit the C-130 in the tail section, and for a moment the aircraft shuddered like a dog in the rain. A bit stunned, the loadmaster and I looked at each other, then at a small hole below the tail section which was clearly visible. The wind now whistled through the hole, canceling out the usual noise and racket the large aircraft made. As if on que, we both looked at the lone parachute sitting on the webbed seat, and then at each other with a blank stare. (Who would get it?) Almost immediately one of the pilots came down from the cockpit, walked back and inspected the damage hole. He made a couple of comments about it not really being a big deal, made a hand gesture indicating he was not impressed, and walked back to the front of the aircraft. We watched him a bit anxiously as he climbed back up to the cockpit. Soon, we felt the aircraft turning around and descending in altitude. In just a short time, we landed back at Pleiku, where a couple of emergency vehicles waited on the runway. They were not necessary, however, as the minor damage to the tail did not affect the operational capability of the stalwart C-130 in the least. Our nerves, however, were definitely affected and we exited the aircraft on wobbly legs. The damage to the tail section was visibly evident, but not really that bad considering the hit it had taken. The loadmaster and I were given a couple of days off, and the major back at Nha Trang, upon hearing of the incident, allowed me to return to Phu Cat to resume my normal duties. The Air Force did me a good turn by continuing my flight pay for several more months, well into my next duty station at March Air Force base in Riverside, California even though I no longer flew on any missions. In my second month of duty at March Air Force base I was given the opportunity to fly to Hawaii and stay for a week, if I agreed to act in my old capacity as an assistant loadmaster. (Mule again!) Not wanting to pass up a free trip to Hawaii, I agreed to go. The aircraft turned out to be another C-119 flying boxcar, which I disliked, but had a great time in Hawaii. On the return trip, the last item I off loaded from the C-119 was a surfboard I had paid twenty dollars for in Honolulu. (I always was a scrounger). Those were the last of my flying days with the U.S. Air Force. Manure clean-up, shootings and sick passengers aside, I thoroughly enjoyed the duty. And Phu Cat airbase was turned over to the South Vietnamese just one year after I left. In 1975, it fell to the North Vietnamese Army. Joe Campolo Jr., a lifelong Kenoshan, is an accomplished author of three books, historical fiction, relating to the Vietnam War. This item from his blog is reprinted with his permission. For more, visit his website, namwarstory.com. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 The cold rivalry between America and Russia is known to the entire world, since the time of the Cold War. Apparently, the countries are not done spying on each other on Earth. They are so distrustful of each other that, they have taken it to the next level - outer space. Zuzus Apparently, an American spy satellite is being stalked by a Russian satellite in the Earth's orbit. According to The Verge, space trackers have found that the Russian device is up to some snooping; it is apparently purposed for the inspection of other satellites. Satellite spotters have been closely monitoring the behaviour of the Russian Kosmos 2542 that was launched last November. It is now orbiting in the same path as National Reconnaissance Office's classified spy satellite which is designated as USA 245. The drive NRO is an US military arm that carries out reconnaissance and surveillance with its vast constellation of spy satellites. However, that Russian satellite is actually following the American, is just a speculation. NASA Michael Thompson, a satellite and astrodynamics expert from Purdue University told the Verge that "[It] is suspicious, but doesn't prove anything, as there are a lot of different satellites in that plane." Well, seems like the spy is being spied on. The Indian Army and its Bangladesh counterpart will hold a two-week-long joint military exercise in Meghalaya from February 3, a Defence official said here. The exercise, termed 'Sampriti-IX', to be held at Umroi till February 16, will stress particularly on counter-terrorist operations, the official said. The exercise is part of the ongoing Indo-Bangladesh defence cooperation. This will be the ninth edition of the joint endeavour hosted alternately between the two countries. During the joint exercise, a command post exercise (CPX) and a field training exercise (FTX) will be conducted, the official said. For the CPX and the FTX, a scenario where both countries are working together in a counter-terrorism environment will be simulated under the UN Charter. The FTX curriculum is progressively planned where the participants will get familiar with each others organisational structure and tactical drills. Subsequently, a joint tactical exercise will be conducted during which battle drills of both the armies will be practised. The training will culminate with a final validation exercise in which troops of both armies will jointly practice a counter-terrorist operation in a controlled and simulated environment, the official said. In addition to understanding each other at tactical level, greater cultural understanding will be emphasized to strengthen military trust and cooperation between the two nations, the official added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi repeatedly said that the current rate of population growth poses a threat to the nation and restricts Egypt's progress. Egypt's population will hit 100 million people next week, the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) said on Saturday. The country's population reached 99.945 million at 10 a.m. (local time) on Saturday, CAPMAS added. The number excludes Egyptians abroad, which are estimated at over 9 million people. Cairo is ranked Egypt's most populated governorate with 9.924 million persons, followed by Giza with 9.75 million people then Sharqia with 7.536 million, CAPMAS pointed out. South Sinai governorate got the last place in terms of Egypt's population with about 108,742 persons, followed by North Sinai with 450,528 people and then Matrouh with 477,172, it noted. Since 2017, Egyptian officials have described the country's rapid population growth as an "actual catastrophe" that threatens national development plans and demands immediate attention, just like the country's war against terrorism. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi repeatedly said that the current rate of population growth poses a threat to the nation and restricts Egypt's progress. Last year, Egypt launched a two year initiative dubbed, "Two Is Enough", to encourage people to have fewer children. It is mainly financed locally, with the Social Solidarity Ministry spending EGP 75 million Egyptian pounds ($4.7 million) and the UN providing EGP 10 million. Search Keywords: Short link: Veteran actor Rishi Kapoor on Sunday said he is suffering from an infection and is undergoing treatment for it. There were reports that the 67-year-old actor, who is in the capital to attend a family function, has been admitted in a hospital. "I have had an infection which am getting treated. Nothing dramatic. Pollution got me I guess," Kapoor told PTI. Multiple media reports claimed that the actor's son, Ranbir Kapoor, who was in Mumbai, rushed to Delhi to be with his father along with girlfriend Alia Bhatt. Kapoor returned to India in September 2019 after undergoing treatment for cancer in the US for almost a year. The actor recently announced his next project, a remake of Hollywood film "The Intern", in which he will feature along side Deepika Padukone. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Delhi unit has promised free electric scooters to girls from economically weaker sections, who take admission in colleges. The BJP in its manifesto for the ensuing Delhi Assembly elections has also promised free cycles to girls of Class IX and XII, who belong to economically weaker sections of the society. The assembly elections in Delhi will be held on February 8. The counting of votes will take place on February 11. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Members of the EuroMoonMars III crew complete their mission at HI-SEAS and explore the "lunar" terrain on an extravehicular activity (EVA). A crew of six scientists returned from "the moon" Saturday to wrap up two weeks exploring a mock lunar landscape on the side of a Hawaiian volcano. The scientists began their mission on Jan. 18 and have been working and living at the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation, or HI-SEAS, habitat as part of the third EuroMoonMars mission (EMMIHS-III) a series of analog missions run in collaboration with the European Space Agency, the International MoonBase Alliance and HI-SEAS. The habitat, located on a remote slope of Mauna Loa on the Big Island of Hawaii, has hosted groups of researchers and explorers on analog moon and Mars missions since its installation in 2013. Analog missions such as this put researchers in remote environments that mimick a stay on Mars or, in this case, the moon. In this environment they can conduct research while testing what it might be like for humans to spend time at a remote, off-Earth location. Related: One-Year Mock Mars Crew 'Returns to Earth': HI-SEAS Photos A small model of the HI-SEAS habitat, spotted at the HI-SEAS headquarters in Hawaii. (Image credit: Chelsea Gohd/Space.com) This mission was led by astrobiologist Michaela Musilova who, in addition to serving as the commander of the mission, is the director of HI-SEAS. "The mission was great and I'm very sad that it's nearly over," Musilova told Space.com in an email about the mission. Besides Musilova, the crew included Kyla Edison, a native Hawaiian from the island of Kauai who is a geologist and materials science technician; crew executive officer Priyanka Das Rajkakati, an aerospace engineer and visual artist; lead scientist Marc Heemskerk, an earth scientist who specializes in in-situ resource utilization; Robert Heemskerk, Marc's brother and a mechanical engineer; and Lucas Brasileiro, an aerospace engineer and doctoral student. Aside from Musilova, who has been a part of other analog missions, this was the first for the other crew members, who were all thrilled to take part. "I have always been passionate about space and when you're passionate about space, being an astronaut is obviously a dream, and I am really looking forward to this experience at least to see if I'm capable of an analog mission at least on Earth before going off to space," Das Rajkakati said before entering the habitat. "I've always wanted to [do an analog mission] but I've also been interested in seeing, with the stress of being in a simulation and being on 'another planet,' how would I be able to make my construction materials, would I still be able to work on the same level it's kind of like a 'put up or shut up' type of thing," Edison added. "I'm just really excited for the experience in all I've also been really interested in 'how far can I push my limits.'" A crew of researchers ends a two-week mission at HI-SEAS in Hawaii this Saturday (Feb. 1) (Image credit: Chelsea Gohd/Space.com) The crew members arrived on the same day that the Sensoria I group was leaving the habitat after their two-week mission. Since then, they have worked in the habitat and around it t on extravehicular activities (EVAs) as if they were working and living on the moon. The crew members have been testing robots and rovers, performing drilling operations, studying lava tubes and mapping techniques, investigating the local "lunar" landscape's geology and so much more. Missions like this help researchers to collect valuable data that can broaden our understanding of what it might be like to live and work on off-Earth locations like Mars. And analog researchers "return to Earth" with data from their work in the habitat that often informs additional work. Follow Chelsea Gohd on Twitter @chelsea_gohd . Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook . Ranbir Kapoor is currently busy finishing up the shoot of the much-awaited film of 2020, Brahmastra, with co-actor Alia Bhatt. Spotting him on the streets is atypical. In fact, the only time we've caught hold of him is either at the airport or at the film set. So, recently for an airport look, Ranbir Kapoor stepped out in a rather mysterious outfit that intrigued us. Take a look here: Instagram/ Manav Manglani Ranbir Kapoor like his fellow actor Shahid Kapoor stepped out in a mask. While the reasons may have been entirely different for him, yet both were seen in masks. Shahid Kapoor had injured his lip while shooting for a film, and the mask was merely present there to hide the bruise. Take a look here: Instagram/ Manav Manglani However, in the case of Ranbir Kapoor, we believe that either he wore the mask against pollution or for protection from the rumoured Coronavirus that is quickly spreading. This mask was just like a regular mask, it was no N-95 which made people wonder whether the protection given by Ranbir's mask was even enough. Take a look here: 1. People wondered if he is coming from China 2. People even assumed that this is for Coronavirus protection. But coming back to Ranbir Kapoor's outfit, he was seen wearing a crisp white t-shirt with brown linen pants and to complete the outfit he chose a pair of converse. This was a rather simple look. However, what made it interesting was the pair of shades and the mask which made him barely recognisable which is probably the reason why we don't see anyone around him. It also seems to be an outfit inspired by H.G. Wells' Invisible Man. We think that this is a great way of stepping out when you don't want anyone to recognise you. Props to Ranbir Kapoor for coming up with such outfits. That never quite came to fruition, and Cuban said the rationale behind bolstering classroom laptop supplies began to change. Nowadays, school systems are more likely to argue that providing students with computers is necessary for developing everyday skills. In communities where laptops are used for standardized testing, educators say students must acclimate to the devices to prepare for exams. By William Schwartz | Published on 2020/02/01 Sang-min (played by Jeon Do-yeon) is the mother of Jong-hwa (played by Noh Kang-min), a severely autistic child. In dreary, snow-covered Finland, there seems little hope for their future even assuming that Jong-hwa does well at the international camp Sang-min is taking him to. Enter Ki-hong (played by Gong Yoo), an architect with similar family problems that aren't really anyone's fault. "A Man and A Woman" chronicles their love affair, the bulk of which ends up taking place back in South Korea. Advertisement "A Man and A Woman" is a very quiet movie that largely expresses itself through the strong understated performances from the lead actors. Powerful visuals are also key. While Finland is bleak, Korea is mundane, and the love affair between Sang-min and Ki-hong contrasts excellently with both moods. These two moods also provide critical backdrop for who initiates the lovemaking when. Sang-min takes the initiative in Finland motivated by loneliness while Ki-hong's desire for excitement has him move the relationship forward in Korea. Which is not to suggest that Ki-hong is a particularly dynamic character. Indeed, as we start to see more of his family, Ki-hong's main issue is soon exposed as passivity. Ki-hong is always running away from his problems. Even coming back to Korea was another form of escape for him. Ki-hong's character development is heartbreaking, as we slowly see him come to grasp with the fact that he isn't a good person. This isn't because Ki-hong is having an extramarital love affair so much as it is the same personality defects which caused Ki-hong to seek out Sang-min are also hurting his family. Sang-min's family has a very different dynamic. She and her husband both work and they're reasonably wealthy. There's no obvious problems with their relationship, not even their autistic son. They just lack passion, having drifted into a businesslike approach to their lives. The way Jae-seok (played by Park Byung-eun) refers to his wife by name is weirdly formal even as we start to see that he, like her, is neglectful more out of busyness than general malice. Though "A Man and A Woman" is an extremely sexy movie with some fairly racy sex scenes it wasn't as fetishistic as I was expecting. By the closing shot director Lee Yoon-ki appears to be suggesting that the film's central love affair was a mistake. Sang-min and Ki-hong's connection was facilitated by their both feeling isolated by their parenting responsibilities. If they abandon those responsibilities for each other, are they really even the same people they fell in love with? This subtextual conflict permeates "A Man and A Woman" and prevents the project from feeling overly romantic. Which is just as well. Some things are beautiful precisely because we can't have them. Exceptional cinematography and superb pacing make "A Man and A Woman" nearly impossible to dislike on an ascetic level, leaving most of the focus on the emotional causes and ethical dilemmas posed by the affair. This allows "A Man and A Woman" to be thought-provoking on top of everything else. Review by William Schwartz ___________ "A Man and A Woman" is directed by Lee Yoon-ki, and features Jeon Do-yeon, Gong Yoo, Park Byung-eun, Lee Mi-so, Park Min-ji, Min Moo-je. Release date in Korea: 2016/02/25. Available on DVD and Blu-ray from YESASIA, and on Prime Video New Delhi/Beijing, Feb 2 : India's evacuation of its nationals who were stranded in China's Wuhan, the epicentre of novel coronavirus epidemic, was completed on Sunday with around 650 people brought back in two phases. Official sources said as of now the evacuation process is "complete" even as six Indians down with fever and other flu-like symptoms could not board the second Air India flight on Sunday. "We had planned to send two flights of Boeing 747 and they have as per the plan evacuated around 650 Indians on two consecutive days. However, six people had to be left behind because the consent forms which all the evacuees signed beforehand, explicitly required everyone to get a medical clearance after a basic screening," an official told IANS. Wuhan city of Hubei province in central China with 11 million population has been placed under a lockdown, since the outbreak of the 2019-nCoV. There is no official figure of Indians living in Wuhan where over 300 people have died and over 14,000 are infected due to the virus. However, the government had shared consent forms with several Indian groups online and required them to sign conditional evacuation. Apart from a mandatory quarantine on their arrival in India, the government had mentioned that evacuation of an individual could be rejected on the basis of a preliminary medical examination. Official sources in Beijing said that some Indians on their own refused to return to India. "Some students didn't want to waste their time and resources in going back and forth and suffer on account of their studies. Others were too fearful of catching the coronavirus infection during the evacuation process," a source said. In New Delhi, sources said, the government will closely monitor the outbreak of the virus which has already spread to all other provinces of China. As per rough estimates, around 50,000 Indians live in China, with many of them studying medicine. The Air India jumbo B747 carrying 324 Indians from Wuhan, the central Chinese city in Hubei province at the centre of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak, landed at the Delhi airport around 7.30am on Saturday while countries across the world evacuated their citizens as death toll from the contagion rose to 259. After an initial screening for symptoms at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in the Capital, all of the evacuees, most of whom are students, were taken to the two quarantine facilities set up by the Indian Army and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) in Delhi and neighbouring Manesar, Haryana. None of the evacuees has so far shown symptoms of being affected by the virus, government officials said. The 324 incoming Indian citizens from Wuhan, China have reached today. Of these, 104 are housed at Indo-Tibetan Border Polices Chhawla Camp [southwest Delhi] and 220 are in Manesar. They are being effectively monitored, the Union health ministry said in a statement. Both facilities can hold up to 900 people. Those quarantined will be observed for any signs of the infection for at least two weeks by a qualified team of doctors and staff trained at the facilities. Chinas National Health Commission said on Saturday there were 2,102 new confirmed infections in China on Friday, bringing the total to 11,791. Around two dozen other countries -- including the first confirmed case in India -- have reported another 137 cases. The death toll rose by 46 to 259. Of the 324 Indians evacuated from Wuhan, 211 are students, 110 working professionals and three minors. Of them, 56 are from Andhra Pradesh, 53 from Tamil Nadu and 42 from Kerala. About six others were not allowed to board the plane by immigration officials in China as they showed symptoms such as high fever, officials in Beijing told news agency PTI. They may have to undergo tests to confirm if are infected with the virus. Another flight of the airline, which departed for the Chinese city from Delhi around 1:37pm on Saturday, is set to airlift the remaining Indian citizens in the worst-affected province. Five doctors from the Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) Hospital, who were on board the first flight, are also in the second flight to monitor the evacuees, an Air India spokesperson said. India on Thursday reported its first case of coronavirus, with a woman student in Kerala who had recently returned to the country from Wuhan testing positive. The woman, who is in an isolation ward at a hospital in Thrissur, is stable and her condition is improving, the state government had said earlier. Till Friday, eight people were admitted to isolation wards set up in Delhis Ram Manohar Lohia hospital for suspected infections, hospital authorities said. New Delhi: Amidst the massive outbreak of coronavirus in some parts of China, the Indian government on Sunday issued a fresh travel advisory asking travellers to refrain from visiting China. The Centre also said that the passengers who have recently returned from China will be quarantined. The decision was taken in a high-level meeting of Cabinet Secretary along with Secretaries of Health and Family Welfare, External Affairs, Home Affairs, Civil Aviation, Dept of Health Research, and representatives from ITBP, AFMS and NDMA to bring out precautionary measures towards the virus outbreak. It is to be noted that this was the sixth such meeting called by the Cabinet secretary since the outbreak of coronavirus. The government in its advisory said that anyone who has returned to India from China after January 15 will be quarantined. The Centre on Sunday (February 2) also temporarily suspended e-visa facility for Chinese travellers and foreigners residing in Beijing with immediate effect. Till date, a total of 58,658 passengers from 445 flights have been screened in view of the coronavirus emergency. Live TV The Indian government has also issued a 24-hour helpline number (91-11-23978046 ) for any query on coronavirus. As per reports, a total of 142 symptomatic travellers picked up by the IDSP have been referred to the isolation facilities. Out of the 130 samples tested so far 128 have been found to be negative. The two positive cases found in Kerala are being monitored and are clinically stable. According to PTI, sixty-four persons who returned to Gujarat recently from China are under observation at their homes, but no suspected case of coronavirus infection has been found among them so far. Earlier on Sunday, the second batch of 330 passengers including 7 Maldivan citizens was landed in Delhi from Wuhan. These passengers are currently housed at ITBP Chawla Camp and 30 are in Manesar and are being effectively monitored. Maldives President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih thanked India for its friendly gesture after it expeditiously evacuating seven Maldivians from Chinese city of Wuhan which is the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak. My thanks and gratitude to PM @narendramodi, EM @DrSJaishankar and the Government of India for expeditiously evacuating the 7 Maldivians residing in Wuhan, China. This gesture is a fine example of the outstanding friendship and camaraderie between our two countries. https://t.co/2kdWLmYqft Ibrahim Mohamed Solih (@ibusolih) February 2, 2020 After the second Air India flight returned to India the total number of people evacuated from China has reached to 654, Indian officials said. The death toll due to coronavirus has raised up to 300 and 14,562 infected cases are reported till dates. The deadly virus has spread to over 20 countries, including India, the US and the UK. Seventeen years after the American invasion of Iraq, Baghdad continues to make headlines. Just this past month massive popular protests against a corrupt regime and ongoing Iranian intervention were undermined by the extrajudicial killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani. Ironically, the ruthless leader of the infamous Quds Force had, at least until recently, collaborated with the United States in its struggle against the ISIL (ISIS), and therefore did not see the drone attack coming. As reports of the assassination proliferated, images of the dilapidated city where it took place appeared on screens across the West, revealing that Baghdad has yet to recover from the 2003 war and the protracted occupation that followed. But now, for what is likely the first time, Western audiences can also get a sense of what it meant from an Iraqi perspective to live in Baghdad under US occupation, and, in this way, gain insight into why after so many years the country is still in a shambles. On February 3, the UKs Channel 4 will be airing a six-part detective series called Baghdad Central. Following inspector Muhsin Khadr al-Khafaji (played majestically by Waleed Zuaiter), an ex-Baathist police officer with a dodgy background and a love for poetry, the series dramatises what it has meant to live under a foreign military power that had promised the inhabitants democracy and freedom, but failed to deliver. Baghdad as noir Typical of many noir thrillers, Baghdad Centrals plot is messy and the protagonists are motley. There is a talkative taxi driver, called Karl, an arrogant American military captain and an ex-police officer from the UK. There is Zubeida Rashid (Clara Khoury), an enigmatic university professor who may be recruiting Iraqi women as translators for the Coalition Provisional Authority, or providing prostitutes to American mercenaries, or, alternatively, may actually be a leader of the newly established Iraqi resistance. There is also a mukhabarat thug, a bodyguard, a handful of opposition fighters, and al-Khafajis two daughters, bedridden Mrouj (July Namir) and the allusive Sawsan (Leem Lubany). In the wake of his countrys occupation, ex-police officer al-Khafaji, like so many of those who had been employed by the Baathist regime, struggles to keep himself and his sick daughter, Mrouj, safe. When he learns that his estranged elder daughter Sawsan is missing, he sets out on a desperate search to find her, only to discover that she has been leading a double life. Al-Khafaji is then mistakenly arrested by the Americans, interrogated and tortured Abu Ghraib style, and later recruited by Frank Temple (Bertie Carvel), who has arrived from the UK on a mission to rebuild the Iraqi police force from the ground up. We need experienced local police officers like you, Temple tells al-Khafaji, offering him dollars and medical treatment for his sick daughter. Left with few options, al-Khafaji, whose wife had died of cancer due to the collapse of the Iraqi health system following years of American sanctions, decides to become a collaborator. Collaboration By watching the twisting and twisted trail of money, sex and violence, one begins to understand that neither the collaborator nor the culture of collaboration is something that can be readily controlled. While every occupier needs individual collaborators to govern the population, collaboration gains a life of its own. Deception necessarily infects everyone. Some use it for good, others for bad, but duplicity, corruption, and deceit, as the series suggests, are the foundations upon which the new Iraq was built. The more al-Khafaji works for the occupiers, the more he also understands that he can advance his own ends. In fact, his story is that of an individual struggling to protect his family and those he loves as his reality and the country around him collapses. Some of the scenes are as funny as they are tragic. For instance, upon returning to his flat after being tortured, al-Khafaji is asked about his moustache (which had been brutally torn off by his interrogators after he had been water-boarded). It was, he responds, confiscated. It will be sent to Washington as an example of Iraqi culture. Cherchez la femme, Baghdad style Much of the plot is taken directly from the novel Baghdad Central, written by American scholar Elliott Colla. But scriptwriter Stephen Butchard has also introduced several significant changes as he adapted the book to the screen. He introduced Frank Temple, the British handler, which may have been partially to cater to British audiences, but ends up forcibly underscoring the UKs never-ending complicity with American imperial adventurism. Perhaps most noticeable, however, is the pronounced role of Iraqi women characters in the script. Challenging the media representation of Middle Eastern women as oppressed victims of barbaric patriarchy and religious fundamentalism, the series presents three powerful protagonists (the two sisters and Professor Rashid) who grew up during Saddam Husseins reign and whose lives have become much more precarious due to the increased violence, political instability, lack of security and religious resurgence following the military occupation. There is nothing radical or radically new about this. Feminists and postcolonial critics have, for years, demonstrated that women tend to suffer most during the war. Even though the US might present itself as fighting for womens rights, it frequently ends up endangering and undermining further the very women it set out to save. Yet, Butchard does provide a vital corrective to popular representations of Middle Eastern women, which are often informed by stereotypes and thinly veiled racism. Unfortunately, though, he may have taken this one step too far, since by portraying only powerful Iraqi women, we are offered a somewhat skewed image of the gender dynamics in the country. By contrast, the men depicted are more diverse and multifaceted. Baghdad Central ultimately provides an intimate look at the inner workings of military occupation and the dire effects that all such occupations inevitably produce. The series importantly highlights that when corruption and violence are rife, there is no firewall to prevent them from spreading. Like a contagious virus corruption and violence end up seeping deep into the political body. Yet, unlike other kinds of exposes of these dynamics, Baghdad Central does so in an extremely captivating, and one might even say, entertaining way. The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance. Indian students, who were brought back from China in view of coronavirus outbreak, danced at the quarantine facility of the Indian Army here on Sunday. The facility consists of accommodation barracks for the students, administrative areas and medical facility area where the students are monitored by a team of qualified doctors and other staff members. The facility has been divided into sectors, each with a maximum capacity to accommodate 50 students. Each barrack has been further subdivided. Those living in sectors will not be allowed to intermingle with each other. Coronavirus has so far claimed 259 lives in China alone, while positive cases have been reported from several countries across the world. The Central government has also issued a travel advisory, asking the people to refrain from travelling to China. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Angelina Church was last seen on January 27, according to the Waxahachie Police Department. Her phone has been untraceable since she last spoke to her parents on Monday Texas authorities believe a 14-year-old girl who reportedly left school with a boy she met on Instagram could be in serious danger. Angelina Church was last seen on January 27, according to the Waxahachie Police Department. Her phone has been untraceable since she last spoke to her parents on Monday. Debbie Church, the Waxahacie High School freshman's mother, said she last heard from her daughter in a text during second period. 'Everything seemed extremely normal, but between second and third period is when she left the school,' Church said to NBC DFW. The teen's parents believe that she was picked up from school by a boy that she met off Instagram. Scroll down for video Debbie Church, the Waxahacie High School freshman's mother, said she last heard from her daughter in a text during second period Police later questioned the boy, who told them he dropped Angelina off at the Whataburger in Red Oak. Surveillance video from a nearby Walmart shows the girl a short time later at around midnight. 'It's the most unexplainable feeling whenever you have no idea where they are. You can't protect them,' the mother added. 'You can't do anything to take care of them. You're just so helpless, completely. You just don't know how to feel. You just want to be able to know, are you okay?' The teen's parents believe that she was picked up from school by a boy that she met off Instagram. Police later questioned the boy, who told them he dropped Angelina off at the Whataburger in Red Oak Angelina was last seen wearing a black and white hoodie with a bits of red on the front. Police say she was also wearing black jeans with rips in the front, black converse, black framed glasses and a black backpack Angelina was last seen wearing a black and white hoodie with a bits of red on the front. Police say she was also wearing black jeans with rips in the front, black converse, black framed glasses and a black backpack. Church still has hope that her daughter will be found. Community volunteers have put up fliers across Red Oak, Waxahachie and Midlothian. 'We love her so much. She's amazing, and she is our whole world,' Church said. People wear medical face masks on the streets of Chinatown in New York City on Jan. 29, 2020. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images) Pentagon Approves Request to Provide Coronavirus Quarantine Housing for 1,000 People The Pentagon is preparing housing for up to 1,000 people who may need to be quarantined as they travel back to the United States due to the Novel Coronavirus, the department announced on Saturday. [Defense Secretary Mark Esper] has approved an RFA from [the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)] for housing support for 1,000 people who may need to be quarantined upon arrival from overseas travel due to the novel coronoravirus [sic], chief department spokesman Jonathan Rath Hoffman said in a statement. Under the request, DOD will only provide housing support. This comes as U.S. health authorities confirmed the eighth case of the Novel Coronavirus in the United States earlier on Saturday. The Boston man in his 20s had recently traveled to Wuhan, the central Chinese city where the outbreak originated, the Massachusetts Department of Health announced in a press release. The man, who is a student at the University of Massachusetts, has been in home isolation since Jan. 29, after he started showing symptoms. The installations selected by the department are the 168th Regiment Regional Training Institute in Fort Carson, Colorado, Travis Air Force Base in California, Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, and Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in California, Hoffman said. The spokesperson said that Defense Department personnel will not have direct contact with any potentially quarantined people and those people will not have access to any base location other than their assigned housing. The departments primary responsibility is the safety of our force, our families and our base communities, he said. DOD has assessed this support will not negatively impact readiness or critical operations at this time. On Friday, U.S. Secretary of Health Alex Azar declared the coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency in the United States. The United States will also bar entry to foreign nationals who have been in mainland China in the past 14 days. The temporary ban will not apply to the immediate families of U.S. citizens or permanent residents and will take effect at 5 p.m. EST on Sunday. Currently, more than 20 other countries and territories have reported confirmed cases of the virus. No deaths have been reported outside China. Inside China, state figures place the number of infections at more than 10,000 and over 200 deaths, with numbers sharply rising on a daily basis, however, experts say the actual number of infections is likely to be far higher. The Pentagon said in a statement on Friday they are working with other departments in an effort to address the coronavirus outbreak. A department press secretary, Alyssa Farah, said in a statement that the March Air Reserve Base in California and the Department of Defense was ready to provide housing support for nearly 200 people who have been evacuated from Wuhan, including State Department employees, their families, and U.S. citizens. She said that if they identify ill individuals, the HHS has procedures in place to transport them to a local civilian hospital. Coronavirus is a name describing a large classification of viruses that are common in many animal species including camels, cattle, cats, and bats, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The virus originates from animals and can infect people, albeit rarely, and can spread from person to person such as in the 2019 Novel Coronavirus. Common symptoms of the virus include fever, cough, and shortness of breath. Cathy He contributed to this report. Islamabad [Pakistan], Feb 2 (ANI): Arman Loni was a professor of Pashto literature, and a poet, who died last year on February 2. But the death of the poet is something you cannot ever forget. This author still remembers when, barely twelve, the Italian poet and intellectual Pierpaolo Pasolini was brutally murdered: a political murder in disguise. Arman Loni, the poet, has been killed last year in Loralai while participating in a peaceful sit-in outside the local Press club. He was protesting, along with many other members of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM). After the sit-in, he was taken by the police, beaten up and struck in the neck with a gun. He died immediately after, while on his way to the hospital. After his death, torture marks were found on his body, but the police insisted he had died of a heart attack. And, following a well-known pattern, an FIR was not registered against his murderers. Despite the protests and the calls of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch on Pakistani authorities to investigate Arman's death in a clear and transparent way, nothing has been done until today. And Arman's death has been added to a long, long list, of people killed by the same authorities who were supposed to enforce their right to protest in a peaceful and democratic way. Three days later, on February 5, 2019, in Islamabad, more than eighty activists of PTM were detained for days without any formal charge and realised only much, much later despite the protests of human rights organisations and of the civil society. Back then, Manzoor Pashteen commented: "During the same day in the same city there was a protest of mujahedin fighters in solidarity with Kashmir. The security forces didn't disturb them but tortured and arrested the peaceful nonviolent PTM members asking for human and civil rights". A year later, nothing has changed. Activists and members of PTM are again on the streets, commemorating Arman's death and asking for the release of Manzoor Pashteen, arrested few days ago with the charges of sedition and anti-state activities and sent for 14 days into judicial custody, after being denied bail even after his prosecutors are unable to produce any evidence of his so-called 'sedition'. The arrest of Manzoor has been followed by protests all over the country and abroad, and by another crackdown on PTM activists with more than 25 people have been taken in the past days and their whereabouts are not known yet. Again, following a well-known pattern. The last one to be taken, a few hours ago, has been Alamzeb Mehsud, recently released after a year of jail for protesting peacefully against enforced disappearances. And, as happened, throughout this year marked by protests against Islamabad. The Pakistani press could not or did not want to report the whole story: the news, as happens more and more often in Pakistan, travel almost exclusively via social media and tell the story of a country increasingly torn by discrimination and violence against most of its citizens. The Army propaganda, endorsed by the 'army of trolls' set up by Major General Asif Ghafoor and not dismantled after his 'promotion', travels also on social media, trending hashtags which are meant to slander the PTM and pass the official narrative: they are financed by 'foreign powers' and 'foreign agencies'. Very rich ones, of course, to fund thousands and thousands of ordinary people demonstrating on the streets. But the contradictions and the irony are lost in the military and their supporters. Truth is, to quote again Manzoor: "We have been sacrificed for years on the altar of so-called strategic interests because of terrorist groups authorized to operate on our land. Our villages have been bombed and our people have been forced to abandon their homes in the name of counter-terrorism operations. Thousands of young people have been illegally detained or have simply disappeared. Many of our tribal leaders, many religious, political and student leaders have simply been murdered. The state has totally failed to prosecute those guilty of these crimes in the FATA and neighboring regions inhabited by the Pashtuns, such as the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan". Waziristan, according to locals, looks every day more like an occupied country. "The good Taliban," they say "are still recruiting young people, still harbouring terrorists coming from other parts of Pakistan and helping them crossing the border with Afghanistan when they need to. They all work under the patronage of the Pakistani military." And the Pakistani military has a standard way to deal with protesters: violence, abuses, harassment, disappearances, extra-judicial killings. It is an old recipe and proved to be a very bad one but the Pakistani Army prefers Twitter to history books. Otherwise, they would know that East Pakistan, undergoing the same treatment, became Bangladesh. And they would also know that killing poets and intellectuals is never a good idea. They become immortal, and their words as seeds ready to bloom and inflame minds and hearts. . (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) New Delhi: The man who fired aerial shots at Shaheen Bagh protest site on Saturday (February 1) has told the police that he was angry with the traffic blockade as his cousin's wedding is approaching and he had to run around a lot make arrangments, police sources said. The police have detained the man, identified as 25-year-old Kapil Gujjar, a resident of Dallupura village near Delhi-Noida border. He is a student of a private college, said Chinmoy Biswal, DCP, South-East. The accused opened fire near the barricade of the protest site near the Jasola red light. "The police personnel overpowered and detained him on the spot while he was firing in the air. He is being interrogated. He said his name is Kapil. An FIR is being registered, further investigation is underway," said DCP Biswal while speaking to the reporters here. Live TV According to Delhi Police sources, Kapil has told the police that the protest at Shaheen Bagh caused traffic jams in the area. His cousin sister's wedding was coming up and he used to get stuck in traffic for hours while going to Lajpat Nagar to make arrangements. Hence, he took this step. The man had fired in the air, Biswal said. The weapon used by him has been seized. Empty bullet shells were seen at the site where the man, a resident of Dallupura village (near Noida border), opened fire in Shaheen Bagh today. However, no injuries have been reported in the incident. Protests against Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) have been going on in at Delhi`s Shaheen Bagh for over a month now. After the firing women formed a human chain at the site of the firing. The people in the area started protesting against the firing at Shaheen Bagh. The shooting comes in less than 48 hours since the shooting in the Jamia area. On January 30, while the Jamia Milia Islamia University students were marching from Jamia to Rajghat, an attacker shot a student named Shadab while raising slogans. Demonstrations against the CAA and National Register of Citizens (NRC) have been taking place in Jamia and Shaheen Bagh for the last nearly 50 days. OneWeb, the British internet firm armed with billions of pounds of investment, is preparing to launch dozens of satellites this week as it closes in on another giant funding round. It has ambitious plans to have thousands of small satellites connecting the most remote parts of the world to the internet. On Friday, OneWeb will launch 34 of its fridge-sized satellites from Kazakhstan the first in a series of launches to fill the sky with an initial 648 satellites. Going into orbit: OneWeb is backed by SoftBank and Sir Richard Branson, but it faces competition from Amazon and Elon Musk's SpaceX, which have similar plans Orbiting the earth 750 miles above its surface, they will act as a link between homes and much larger satellites 22,000 miles high. These larger ones provide homes with internet via phone masts. OneWeb is backed by SoftBank and Sir Richard Branson, but it faces competition from Amazon and Elon Musk's SpaceX, which have similar plans. The first of OneWeb's regular launches is about six weeks late, with chief executive Adrian Steckel blaming 'a couple of snags'. But he said the company was already signing contracts with partners around the world, however declined to name them. He confirmed OneWeb was in talks with investors about another big funding round after reports suggested it was seeking a further $1 billion to fund its project. He said: 'Our last big round was about 11 months ago and we're in lots of discussions and they're progressing very, very well.' He said the Government's decision to let Huawei operate parts of Britain's 5G network 'makes the most sense for the UK and I applaud them for it'. Bahrain is gearing up to host the ninth edition of the annual Bahrain for All festival, which will bring together more than 50,000 people from over 40 local and expatriate communities to showcase their respective cultures, said a report. Capital Governor Shaikh Hisham bin Abdulrahman Al Khalifa unveiled the plan for the upcoming festival, said a report in BNA. Held under the theme Leaving Nobody Behind, this years festival will take place at Bahrain Bay on February 6 and 7 on the 7,000-sq-m site, which will house more than 250 market stalls and a 128-sq-m stage that will feature performances by the Indian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, Filipino, Jordanian, Thai, Bangladeshi, and Egyptian communities, among others. What we see in Bahrain today is a testament to its long history of tolerating and respecting different religions, sects and beliefs, where people are able to live in harmony and dignity, Shaikh Hisham said. This is evident by the many mosques and maatams that exist in Bahrain side by side with churches, some more than 100 years old, as well as synagogues and other places of worship belonging to different religions and denominations. Bahrain For All is a celebration of Bahrains many economic, social and political accomplishments, and its desire to create a society in which all people live in peace and dignity, no matter their religions, sects or backgrounds. Bahrain has shown the world that it values these elements which indicate the advanced level of development it has achieved, he added. We congratulate the Bahraini police force on its security achievements under the leadership of Lieutenant General Shaikh Rashid bin Abdullah Al Khalifa, the Minister of Interior, the capital governor said. The kingdoms stability owes a lot to the leadership of His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, His Royal Highness the Prime Minister, Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, and the Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander, and First Deputy Prime Minister, His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa," he said. Joaquin Phoenix is nominated in the best actor category (Ian West/PA) Bafta nominees and film stars have attended a party at Kensington Palace ahead of the awards ceremony on Sunday. Expand Close Florench Pugh is nominated for best supporting actress (Ian West/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Florench Pugh is nominated for best supporting actress (Ian West/PA) Joker star Joaquin Phoenix, 1917s George MacKay and Little Women actress Florence Pugh were among those who went to the party. Expand Close 1917, which stars MacKay, is nominated for best film (Ian West/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp 1917, which stars MacKay, is nominated for best film (Ian West/PA) Sir Sam Mendes, who is up for the best director award for 1917, attended the nominees party while wearing a thick scarf over his suit. Expand Close Sir Sam is up for the best director gong (Ian West/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Sir Sam is up for the best director gong (Ian West/PA) Taron Egerton, who is nominated for best actor for his portrayal of Sir Elton John in Rocketman, was also photographed at the red carpet event. Expand Close Egerton is nominated for best actor (Ian West/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Egerton is nominated for best actor (Ian West/PA) EE Bafta Rising Star award nominee Kelvin Harrison Jr also rubbed shoulders with the other celebrities at the party. The Waves star is competing against four other actors for the gong, which is voted for by the public. Video of the Day Expand Close Harrison Jr is nominated for a rising star award (Ian West/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Harrison Jr is nominated for a rising star award (Ian West/PA) Saoirse Ronan was pictured wearing a sparkly black dress to the event. TV presenter Dermot OLeary was also photographed with his wife Dee Koppang OLeary at the event on the same day that they publicly announced they are expecting a child together. The pair smiled as they posed for the cameras side-by-side. Suspected jihadists killed around 20 civilians in northern Burkina Faso in an attack overnight on the village of Bani, in Seno province, a security source said Sunday. "The attackers, heavily armed and on motorbikes, literally executed the local inhabitants," one security source told AFP. Search Keywords: Short link: Donald Tusk repeatedly offered the UK a Canada-style Brexit deal during negotiations at one point dangling the prospect of David Davis beloved Canada Plus Plus Plus. To which Theresa May used to reply that we will not accept the rights of Canada and the obligations of Norway. As the Union Flags, empty champagne bottles and bunting are cleared away from Parliament Square, we are being reminded that, to quote another of her phrases, nothing has changed at least from the EU. It is still seeking to bind Britain to the economic, regulatory and social model laid in its legal framework. The difference this time round is that, unlike May, Boris Johnson knows what he wants. Or at least seems to and, certainly, the mass of former Vote Leavers in Number Ten do, from Dominic Cummings downwards. The Prime Minister is letting it be known that he wants that Canada-type deal and the right to diverge. And if he cant get it without such a right, but is offered Norwegian-style alignment, he will opt instead for what is being described as an Australia-type model. As far as we can see, this is simply a new phrase for No Deal with knobs on. It sounds much like the Managed No Deal that Andrea Leadsom floated last year when she was angling for the Conservative leadership No Deal plus side deals on aviation, travel, security, minimal border checks and so on. The EU will claim that Johnson has backed down before and will do so again. Maybe. Perhaps all this post-Brexit noise is simply a negotiating pose. Certainly, the Prime Minister signed up to checks in the Irish Sea (though Northern Ireland will still benefit from future UK trade deals). But that was before last months general election returned him a near-landslide. Philip Hammond is no longer in Parliament. Nor are Oliver Letwin, Dominic Grieve, Rory Stewart, David Gauke, Amber Rudd and so on. The new intake of Tory MPs owe much to Johnson, and they know it. Without Conservative Commons backing, big business and the pro-immigration lobby are not the forces they were. This is not to say that Johnson will get everything his own way. The stage is set for a trade-off between what the UK wants on financial services and what the EU wants over fishing access. Furthermore, there is a Unionist downside to divergence. The more Great Britain diverges, and Northern Ireland does not, the less firmly anchored in the United Kingdom the latter will look. That spells trouble. But if the Prime Minister is really set on a Waltzing Matilda Brexit as his last resort option, he doesnt look in a bad position at all to get it. Another version was that there was a hole in the freezer through which the rats got to the body. ELURU: Rats have gnawed at the eyes of a body kept in the mortuary of the government hospital at Eluru of West Godavari. District Collector Revu Muthyala Raju has ordered a probe into the incident which is believed to have occurred three days ago. Deputy Chief Minister and health minister Alla Kalikrishna Srinivas aka Nani and Mr Raju visited the government hospital on Saturday. Mr Srinivas expressed anger over the grave negligence. The hospital authorities had two explanations, one that only one out of the four freezers were working, and that freezer could hold just two bodies. Due to lack of space, the body was kept outside the freezer and was attacked by rats. Another version was that there was a hole in the freezer through which the rats got to the body. The minister blamed it on the negligence of the officials and promised stringent action against those responsible. The minister also apologised to the affected family members and said that the state government would ensure such an incident does not repeat. Indian students, who were brought back from China in view of coronavirus outbreak, danced at the quarantine facility of the Indian Army in Manesar on Sunday. A video of a group of men, staying at the facility, singing and dancing while wearing masks has been shared widely on social media. The facility consists of accommodation barracks for the students, administrative areas and medical facility area where the students are monitored by a team of qualified doctors and other staff members. The facility has been divided into sectors, each with a maximum capacity to accommodate 50 students. Each barrack has been further subdivided. Those living in sectors will not be allowed to intermingle with each other. Coronavirus has so far claimed 259 lives in China alone, while positive cases have been reported from several countries across the world. The Central government has also issued a travel advisory, asking the people to refrain from travelling to China. WATCH THE VIDEO BELOW : Telangana Minister for IT and Industries KT Rama Rao has received an invitationto attend the India Conference which will be held atHarvard Business School in Boston, USA on February 15 and 16. The theme for the 17th edition of the India Conference is "20/20 Foresight," an official release said on Sunday. Rama Rao has been invited to speak on 'Smart Cities in India' panel at the conference which is jointly conducted by the Harvard Business School and Harvard Kennedy School. The meet is the largest conference focusing on India in the US with over 1,000 attendees comprising students from both within and outside Harvard, faculty, young professionals and industry leaders of Indian descent from the region. Former Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian and former union ministersSuresh Prabhu and Jayant Sinha are among the key speakers at the event, the release said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) HELENA A Billings Republican legislator said Saturday he believes the U.S. Constitution calls for the shooting or jailing of those who identify as socialists. State Rep. Rodney Garcia, from House District 52 on the South Side, first made a statement in the form of an unprompted question at a state party gathering in Helena Friday meant to kick off election season and offer training for party members and candidates. In his question after a speech by former Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke, who was Montanas representative in the U.S. House for two years, Garcia said he was concerned about socialists entering our government and socialists everywhere in Billings, before saying the Constitution says to either shoot socialists or put them in jail. The Montana Republican Party later condemned Garcias remarks. In this years presidential election, President Donald Trump has often called Democrats radical socialists in an attempt to use the term socialism, which is defined as theories about collective or government ownership and operation of the means of production and distribution, as a boogeyman-like phrase to criticize proposals from Democrats where the federal government would play a larger role in areas like health care or education. All but one of the Democratic Party candidates have repeatedly explained they are not socialists, while Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders calls himself a democratic socialist. After Zinke responded with a non sequitur You know, Montanas a great state, Garcia said back: We have to do something. Zinkes answer to Garcia didnt engage in Garcias statement and pivoted to talk about the former Secretarys effort to open satellite offices of the Interior department in the western part of the U.S. On Saturday, a reporter asked Garcia to clarify his remarks. So actually in the Constitution of the United States (if) they are found guilty of being a socialist member you either go to prison or are shot, Garcia said. Garcia could not to point to where in the Constitution it says socialists could be shot or jailed. Asked to clarify if he thought it was fair to shoot or jail a socialist, including those who live in Montana, Garcia said yes. Theyre enemies of the free state, Garcia said. What do we do with our enemies in war? In Vietnam, (Afghanistan), all those. What did we do? Asked if that was an appropriate response to his opponent from the last election cycle, Garcia said according to the Constitution, Im telling you. I agree with my Constitution, Garcia said. Thats what makes us free. Were not a democracy, were a Republic Constitution. In 2018 Garcia ran against Amelia Marquez for the House District 52 seat in Billings. Marquez said Saturday she is associated with the Montana Democratic Party and is an eastern member at-large with the partys executive board. She said she is also a democratic socialist and her political views align with those of Sanders. Marquez said Saturday after being told about Garcias statements she wished the state legislator would spend more time talking to his constituents about their needs. I wish Rep. Garcia would continue to focus on the issues rather than this constant worry over things that are somewhat ludicrous, Marquez said. Garcia said he views what he sees as an influx of socialism in Montana as a very dangerous situation and that socialism has destroyed countries like Venezuela. Theyre teaching that to kids. Thank God my grandkids know its wrong because I teach them. And its a very dangerous situation, Garcia said. Garcia added he believes socialism is growing, citing advertising he says is done by socialists on Facebook. The Montana Republican Party issued a statement Saturday censuring Garcias comments. When Garcia spoke Friday there was laughter after his question; some of those asked by a reporter about it said it was a response to an uncomfortable situation. The Montana Republican Party wholeheartedly condemns the comment that was made and under no circumstance is violence against someone with opposing political views acceptable, said Spenser Merwin, the MT GOP executive director. Its disappointing that this isolated incident took away from the weekends events which showcased the strength of our statewide candidates and the importance of the upcoming election. Billings Gazette reporter Mari Hall contributed to this story. Love 1 Funny 5 Wow 0 Sad 1 Angry 6 Premium Gene Kerrigan Opinion Taking the credit like only Fine Gael can There was a time when Fine Gael wasnt arrogant and aggressive. Hard to believe, after listening to Regina Doherty blowing the partys trumpet last week. God be with the days when you could have a bit of crack with a Fine Gaeler. Some of them were snobbish, some were reactionaries, and there was the odd conniving gobdaw but there were plenty of them who lived in an Ireland familiar to the rest of us. I came back from the Chinese New Year vacation on the last flight of the last day of Jan 2020. UA 890 shot across the Pacific in under 10 hours. It was also the first time I didn't need to fill out a form for customs. "Have you visited Wuhan during your trip?" was the only question for me. "No. Sir. I stayed home in Beijing all 10 days." "Welcome home." He greeted me with a smile and I passed in record-breaking time. They didn't even take my temperature. Perhaps they thought, correctly, that the Chinese side had done enough of that. It was only 6:40pm when I got off the bus at Milbrae for the next south-bound train. The past two weeks had been a slow torture ended with a rollercoaster ride. From the day I arrived at Beijing, the novel coronavirus situation had gone from bad to worse. Entrances to villages were blocked and I couldn't go to see my aunt. (I could have walked but guessed that it would only bring her trouble.) We were penned in all day long watching TV, mostly news of decisions from the great leader, experts' insightful analysis, reassuring progresses, praises from other nations and the United Nations and the heroic deeds from doctors, nurses, and other common folks. Government people came regularly to ask about returning family members and to take our temperatures. The US embassy sent out increasingly alarming alerts and evacuated citizens out of Hubei. Folks urged me to leave early. Meanwhile, the first of the two flights of my return trip, from Beijing to Shanghai, was canceled. Among all the turmoil, however, I was able to keep cool. (I probably worried for one hour in total.) I spent a lot of time reading the dictionary and taking notes, writing down in English whatever struck me, and surprised myself by doing yoga and lifting weight in the frosty outdoors, everyday. On Jan 27, I read a few poems including Psalm 23: The Lord is my sheperd; I shall not want. ... Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. ... Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. and a couple of paragraphs on Buddhism from Harrari's book Sapiens, and of course remembered this gem from Epictetus: Don't seek to have events happen as you wish, but wish them to happen as they do happen, and all will be well with you. I felt thankful and blessed. I kept to the original plan in spite of evidences suggesting taking early actions. I told my cousin that it would be fine if I died there. There were a few hiccups on the last day: the battery in his car died just before he picked me up for PEK, I tried to switch to an even earlier flight to Shanghai for the first leg, I had to take a 50-min shuttle from SHA to PVG, and once there United Airlines couldn't find my record in their system. We went through them one by one and overall, things went much better than I feared. Back in Mountain View, the greetings from my own family were lukewarm at best. The school was alarmed, I was told, and I had better stay away. I went to the new house only to gather stuff for the following two-week voluntary quarantine. It felt like an exile, the kind that Seneca or Napoleon enjoyed. I didn't even get to see Tim. What I took the initiative to do must have turned me into a monster in their minds. Munching on a hamburger and fries at MacDonald's at 10:30pm and feeling lonely for the first time in a long time, I checked my emails and paid the bills online. At 11:30pm, tired, feeling abandoned by the tribe, and with a lump in my throat, I drove across the bridge and got back to my old place in Fremont. Most household items had been moved out in the past month, the floors dirty, the rooms littered with unwanted stuff gathered over the years, but my old home still felt welcoming. It was here I won my financial freedom for the first time. This house had brought me nothing but security, prosperity and peace of mind. I left the heat off, got into a sleeping bag on my Jiu-Jitsu mat, slumbered for about four hours, and the next morning the air felt Alaskan and me Dick Penneke. I made coffee and it suddenly dawned on me that I was being blessed with a new kind of freedom and I was up for it. It was a breakthrough. Not feeling sad or angry, I was going to practice living when even those I had been devoted to might not care about me out of ignorance and fear, which I could not imagine until now. Thank You! Police in Hanoi have closed a pharmacy as well as dealing with several other medical stores and individuals for selling face masks at exorbitant prices amid rising concerns over the novel coronavirus. The police unit in Kim Giang Ward, Thanh Xuan District confirmed on Saturday it had sealed off the Thien Tam pharmacy, located on Kim Giang Street, for hiking the prices of their face masks. Officers are finalizing necessary procedures to impose a suitable penalty upon the owner of the store. Thanh Xuan District police on the same day detected a similar violation at one of the stalls inside Hapulico Medicine Market, situated on Nguyen Huy Tuong Street. The stall operated by the Son Bao Duong medical store was selling two boxes of face masks at VND270,000 (US$11.6) each. Officers also found and confiscated 90 face masks of unclear origin. Outside of the medicine market, two female hawkers, Nguyen Thi T. and Bui Thi L.A., who are both 34, were caught selling face masks at VND200,000 ($8.6) per box. A hawker is booked for selling face masks at a high price in Hanoi in this photo supplied by police officers. According to an official of the police unit in Thanh Xuan, multiple other drug stores in the district have recently been found raising the prices of face masks and hand sanitizers. A regular box of face masks has had its price increase from VND50,000 ($2) to around VND250,000 ($10.8), while the cost of a bottle of alcohol-based hand sanitizer rose from VND100,000 ($4.3) to VND300,000 ($12.9), he elaborated. We will continue inspecting local medical stores to ensure they do not overcharge customers for these types of products, the police official added. The novel corona virus, which first surfaced in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019, has caused over 300 deaths and infected nearly 15,000 people globally. It has spread to 25 countries and territories, including Vietnam, where seven people have been infected. News of the infected patients in Vietnam has fueled fears among the public while increasing local demand for face masks, one of the measures believed to reduce the risk of infection. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Syria liberates two villages in Idlib eastern countryside Iran Press TV Saturday, 01 February 2020 11:20 AM The Syrian army has retaken control of two villages in the eastern countryside of the northwestern Idlib Province as part of an operation to liberate the last major terrorist-held territory in the Arab country. Syria's official SANA news agency reported on Saturday that army units had engaged in fierce clashes with foreign-backed Jabhat al-Nusra terrorists in Louf and Qamhana villages near the city of Saraqib. The Syrian forces, it added, finally recaptured the two villages and inflicted heavy losses on the Takfiri elements in terms of their personnel and equipment. Idlib and the area north of Aleppo Province form part of the only large territory in the hands of terrorists after the Syrian military managed to undo militant gains across the country and bring back almost all of Syrian soil under government control. This week, Syrian troops, backed by Russia's air cover, made rapid advances in Idlib retaking the city of Ma'arat al-Nu'man, which is situated 100 kilometers southwest of the militant-controlled city of al-Bab. Ankara-backed militants attack govt. positions in Aleppo In another development on Saturday, Turkish-backed anti-Damascus militants attacked positions held by the Syrian government forces northeast of Aleppo. Militant sources said that the raid was focused on territory adjacent to al-Bab and that their elements had taken three villages so far. Meanwhile, the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the fierce attack had been "carried out by factions loyal to Ankara." Speaking on Friday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country may launch a military operation in Idlib if the ongoing counter-terrorism operation by Syrian government forces continues there. "Turkey with complete sincerity wants Syria's stability and security, and to this end, we will not shy away from doing whatever is necessary, including using military force," he said. Erdogan further accused Russia of violating agreements to reduce the fighting in Idlib. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia was fully compliant with its obligations in Idlib, which was a haven for militants targeting Syrian troops and a Russian airbase in Syria. Turkey has intervened militarily in Syria three times to date in cross-border operations with the declared aim of eradicating Kurdish militants and Daesh terrorists near borders. Damascus has strongly condemned Turkish military operations against Kurdish forces in northeastern Syria, saying the offensive is a violation of the United Nations Charter and Security Council resolutions. Syria has vowed to confront "brutal" Turkish aggression by all legal means. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Mutinous Britons held in quarantine after returning from coronavirus-ravaged China last night pleaded with doctors to explain why they must stay in isolation despite getting the all-clear. Some of the 83 evacuees are already bored and frustrated and have questioned why they are being detained after testing negative for the deadly coronavirus, it emerged yesterday. Although legally they cannot be forced to stay there, doctors have told evacuees cooped up in nurses accommodation next to Arrowe Park Hospital, on the Wirral, that there is no way they will be allowed to leave before the two-week period is up. Mutinous Britons held in quarantine in nurses accommodation next to Arrowe Park Hospital, on the Wirral (pictured) last night pleaded with doctors to explain why they must stay in isolation despite getting the all-clear A source told the Mail that none of those detained at the block dubbed Camp Corona had tested positive for the infection and, although grateful for the care they are receiving, several are frustrated they will not be allowed home sooner. They have been given games consoles, televisions and radios to keep them entertained and there is a pool table in one communal area. They are also allowed into a small fenced-off courtyard for fresh air, but the perimeter is being patrolled by police to stop them leaving. The insider said many were already feeling bored and unimpressed at having to stay in the block for another 11 days. It is understood counsellors will be on hand to talk to them in case the situation starts to affect their mental health. Some of the 83 evacuees are already bored and frustrated and have questioned why they are being detained after testing negative for the deadly coronavirus, it emerged yesterday. Pictured: A view inside one of the blocks where the evacuees are staying So far nobody has shown any signs of having contracted the illness, so there is a sense of relief among everyone, the source said. But already there is a growing feeling the next two weeks arent going to be easy. One or two are already saying, Do we really need to be here this long? and pointing out they have jobs to get back to and lives they want to lead. Several of those who flew into the UK from the coronavirus-hit city of Wuhan, China, on Friday have been keeping video diaries or talking to the outside world via social media. The coronavirus death toll within Chinas borders has risen to more than 300 and the virus has claimed its first victim outside the country as it was reported a 44-year-old man from Wuhan had died in the Philippines Eleven more British nationals and their family members yesterday boarded a French flight and arrived at the quarantine facility last night but they will not be allowed to mix with the evacuees already there. The group is thought to include a baby and two young children. Teacher Kharn Lambert, 30, said staff had told the evacuees to stay as isolated as possible from one another. Weve been told that if we go to any communal area we must keep our masks on at all times, he said. We can take them off in our rooms. We can move around and talk to each other but if we can stay isolated as much as we can they prefer that. The source added: Generally people are keeping themselves to themselves and a lot of the time people are alone in their rooms. Everyone is naturally a bit wary of mixing too closely in case the disease is among those in the unit and it suddenly spreads. Thats the nightmare everyone dreads. Every time someone sneezes or coughs you can sense the tension. Lecturer Yvonne Griffiths, 71, from Cardiff, said she had been put in a shared flat with four bedrooms, a kitchen and a lobby area, and food and drinks were being delivered to them. People go [to the lobby] to collect things and pick up food and some people will stand having their food together, but all wearing masks, she said. Obviously you have to put your mask down a little to eat. BERKELEY (BCN) Berkeley police are searching for a 67-year-old woman last seen Thursday at a University Avenue motel. Elaine Young-Igie was last seen about noon Thursday at the La Quinta Inn in the 900 block of University Avenue. She is considered at-risk because of "memory impairments," Berkeley police said. Young-Igie is 5-feet-7-inches tall, and weighs about 100 pounds. She has brown hair and brown eyes, and was last seen wearing a black head wrap, a black leather jacket and green-and-black leggings. She has frequented the Berkeley Marina area in the past, police said. Anyone who has seen Young-Igie or who may have information about where she may be is urged to call the Berkeley Police Department. Copyright 2020 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. Dozens of residents gathered outside a block of flats saying 'thank you' in a variety of European languages after a 'Happy Brexit Day' poster was put up in their tower block demanding they 'only speak English'. The racist notice told tenants that 'Queen's English' is 'the spoken tongue here' at Winchester Tower flats in Norwich. Demonstrators from Stand Up To Racism joined up with locals to give a 'crystal clear message' to the poster's author at around 2.25pm today, Dave Hannant wrote on Twitter. Signs telling residents 'we are now our own country again' have reportedly been seen by residents inside the Winchester Tower in Norwich. Around 50 people gathered outside the tower block of flats to offer their support to give a 'crystal clear message' of support to European friends, Dave Hannant wrote on Twitter More than 50 took part in the peaceful demonstration, Eastern Daily Press reported. Hugh Stanners, of Norwich's branch of Stand Up To Racism, said: 'It is a really nasty racist poster, obvious from someone who is far right or fascist, because it talks about infecting our once great island.' The posters, which were noticed by residents at the tower in Norwich were stuck in the communal areas of the building, The Huffington Post reported. Today Norfolk Police confirmed that officers attended the block of flats last night and the posters kept by the residents had been seized for forensic enquiries. The message was first spotted by one anonymous resident on Friday morning who then reported it to the council as a hate crime. The resident told The Huffington Post: 'It's scary knowing that people feel emboldened to say this kind of thing openly, knowing it's going it's going to be seen by some of the European residents who live here. The message, which has since been shared on social media, read: 'As we finally have our great country back we feel there is one rule to that needs to be made clear to Winchester Tower residents. 'We do not tolerate people speaking other languages than English in the flats. 'We are now our own country again and the Queen's English is the spoken tongue here. 'If you do want to speak whatever is the mother tongue of the country you came from then we suggest you return to that place and return your flat to the council so they can let British people live here and we can return to what was normality before you infected this once great island. 'It's a simple choice obey the rule of the majority or leave. 'You won't have long till our government will implement rules that will put British first. So best evolve or leave. God save the Queen, her government, and all true patriots.' Today Norfolk Police confirmed they were investigating the incident and that no arrests had been made. Norfolk's chief of constabulary Simon Bailey said there is 'no place in society for hatred and intolerance' and 'nobody should have to face intimidation because of who they are'. He told the Eastern Daily Press: 'It is more important than ever that we stand together in the face of hostility. We remain committed to helping people feel safe and secure as they go about their lives.' The messages were reportedly stuck in the communal areas of The Winchester Tower in Norwich A Norfolk Police spokeswoman said: 'We can confirm we are investigating this incident, which was initially reported yesterday (Saturday 1 February) at 5.40pm. 'Officers attended Winchester Tower last night and all posters had been removed. Those posters kept by residents have since been seized for forensic enquiries and we will be working with the council to examine any available CCTV. 'There is no place in society for hatred and intolerance. Nobody should have to face intimidation because of who they are and it is more important than ever that we stand together in the face of hostility. We remain committed to helping people feel safe and secure as they go about their lives. 'The matter is being dealt with as a racially aggravated public order incident and anyone with information which could help officers with enquiries should contact Norfolk Police on 101 quoting crime reference 36/7964/20.' The incident come just days after the United Kingdom stopped being a member of the European Union on January 31. MailOnline has contacted Norfolk City Council for comment. Padmaja Chunduru By The Union Budget presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday is very balanced and mostly addresses the key pressing issues. Although most people had expected big bang budget announcements to accelerate economic growth, the thrust is right on sectors that need continuing priority and budgetary support. The Budget has allocated a significant portion to the agrarian sector, irrigation and to boost rural incomes. This is further supplemented with measures like provisions for transporting perishable food items through rail and air through Krishi Rail network and Krishi Udaan flights respectively. Thrust is also on education, healthcare, women upliftment and backward sections of the society through budgetary support. Focus on infrastructure building to cater to the nations economic growth needs in coming years through development of highways, the rail corridor and inland waterways continue and the Budget has made necessary provisions for coming fiscal FY2020-21. The banking sector continues to receive attention. After recapitalisation and consolidation of the banking system, the government has reiterated its commitment in allowing banks to infuse more funds through the capital market. For the depositors raising the insurance limit to protect them against loss has been raised five times from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 5 lakh, which is a welcome announcement. Realising the domestic MSME sector is the backbone of the countrys economic growth, the Budget has made an effort to ease their working capital stress. Single clearance cell for start-ups and more income-tax benefits too are welcome and in tune with Make in India objectives as well as fostering the entrepreneurial culture. NBFCs liquidity squeeze problems too have been looked into. The government will also sell a part of its holdings in LIC via an IPO, this will largely help in meeting disinvestment targets of Rs 2.11 lakh crore in FY2020-21. The common man has received the much-needed attention and accordingly the new tax slabs which is optional with no deductions will leave some more income in their hands. The DDT on companies has been been removed and will now be taxed in the hands of recipients. The government has likely missed the fiscal deficit target which is expected to be 3.8 per cent in FY2020 (as against an envisaged 3.3 per cent) and 3.5 per cent in FY2020-21. This was expected considering sops in corporate tax cut and GST rates announced earlier and; the Centres own borrowing programmes. There is not much to be concerned about this as the balance /correction will be possible in coming next 2-3 years. (The author is MD and CEO of Indian Bank) A total of 159,217 people visited the Autumn Fair, held at the Bahrain International Exhibition and Convention Centre (BIECC) from January 23-31. Bahrain Tourism and Exhibitions Authority (BTEA) CEO, Nader Al Moayyed, said that the 31st edition of the event featured an extensive variety of merchandise that was sold by over 650 exhibitors from 16 countries around the world, namely, Bahrain, China, Egypt, India, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Tunisia, Turkey, UAE, and Yemen. Held under the patronage of the Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism and Chairman of BTEA, Zayed bin Rashid Al Zayani, the fair also included specialty food stalls featuring culinary delights from around the world, alongside the variety of stalls dedicated to fashion, beauty, home decor, technology, toys, textiles and more. Autumn Fair is one of Bahrains biggest and most popular events which brings together local, regional and international retailers who offer a variety of products, attracting a large number of visitors from Bahrain and abroad. This event comes in line with the BTEAs efforts to drive the development of the tourism sector and we will continue to support such events as we also strive to further promote the kingdoms meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (Mice) sector, said Al Moayyed. The Autumn Fair 2020 aims to support the development of the meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (Mice) sector, one of the fundamental pillars of the BTEAs strategy aimed at developing and strengthening the tourism sector under the slogan Ours. Yours, which contributes towards the kingdoms economy and 2030 Economic Vision. - TradeArabia News Service The winner of the worlds latest piano competition is Jiale Li of China. Jiale won the gold medal of the 2020 Gurwitz International Piano Competition in San Antonio on Saturday night after his performance of Sergei Rachmaninoffs Piano Concerto No. 2 with the San Antonio Symphony conducted by Music Director Sebastian Lang-Lessing. The silver medal went to Yedam Kim of South Korea, who performed the Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 5, Emperor, on Saturday night in front of a sold-out audience 1,700 people at the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts. The bronze medal was awarded to Leonardo Colafelice of Italy, who presented the Sergei Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 3. Jiale receives the gold-medal award of $25,000. As silver medalist, Yedam receives $15,000 and Colafelice $10,000 as bronze medalist. But these winners also gain boosts to their careers, using the medals to seek opportunities to book future performances with orchestras, recitals and possible recordings. Lang-Lessing doubled as the competitions jury chairman during the week, heading a panel of six judges that included Russian-American piano star Olga Kern, who performed the Peter Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 with the San Antonio Symphony on Jan. 24-25 and who holds her own international piano competition in New Mexico. Jiale won the gold medal by besting an initial field of 76 entrants from 21 countries. Months ago, the field was narrowed to 12 pianists. They gathered in San Antonio over the past week for the early rounds of solo performances at Trinity Universitys Ruth Taylor Recital Hall and at the Charline McCombs Empire Theatre. The 12 contestants in the early rounds each performed solo programs lasting about 50 minutes, all from memory and displaying the utmost in concentration and physical stamina. The three finalists exhibited the same attributes in their Saturday concerto performances with the San Antonio Symphony. Jiales total command of the keyboard was evident from the beginning of the Rachmaninoff concerto. The concerto is an account of the composers recovery from depression, and Jiale gave the piece a strong sense of journey from illness to strength and health. His technique was impeccable and natural as the music, the most emotional of the three concertos, seemed to seek an inner peace. Yadems account of the Beethoven concerto was marked by its smoothness, along with strong volume and pace dynamics and sparkle. Her polish lent a distinctive style to a faithful interpretation. Colafeliches Prokofiev concerto came across with flair and fluid confidence as he negotiated the angular contours of the dizzying melodies. His highlight came in the roller-coaster ride at the very end. Earlier in the week, contestant Jongyun Kim of South Korea won the $5,000 Latin Prize, and Russian pianist Artem Kuznetsov was presented the $2,500 Junior Jury Award. A $5,000 Audience Favorite Award went to Colafelice. The other pianists received $1,000 each. The orchestra, under Lang-Lessing, proved its high level of professionalism with warm, spirited and sharp performances of all three concertos, especially given that the musicians had less than three days notice of which concertos would be scheduled. Begun in 1984 and held every four years, the piano competition expanded this year, for the first time under the management of Musical Bridges Around the World and adding the Gurwitz name, after a founder of the original San Antonio International Piano Competition, Ruth Jean Gurwitz, who died in 2015. It also was the first time that the San Antonio Symphony participated. With larger cash awards, San Antonio becomes fully in the swing of holding one of the worlds prized global piano competitions. hendrickd53@yahoo.com Jammu and Kashmir Lt Governor G C Murmu has said his administration is working tirelessly towards the welfare of the people and a discernible change would be visible on the ground in the union territory in the next few months. He also said the government alone cannot sustain the economy and it is the entrepreneurs who drive the economic engine of a country, emphasising that the dream of a five trillion USD economy will be a reality if the energy of youth is harnessed to its full potential. "The government is committed to strengthening the socio-economic fabric of Jammu and Kashmir and is always open to the ideas which can take this march forward...the government is working tirelessly towards the welfare of the people and in the coming few months, a discernible change would be visible on the ground," Murmu said at a function at Bari Brahmana in Samba district. In a boost to entrepreneurship and silk farming in the Jammu region, the Lt Governor inaugurated the newly-constructed, state-of-the-art administrative cum faculty block of the Jammu and Kashmir Entrepreneurship Development Institute (JKEDI), besides a government silk weaving factory and silk filatures facility at Bari Brahmana. The Lt Governor emphasised the importance of entrepreneurship and exhorted the youth to learn from the success stories to make a difference. "There is no dearth of talent and only a little hand-holding of the youth is required to give them a purposeful direction," he said and advised the EDI officials to ensure advanced skill development and specialised training to the youth in consonance with the emerging requirements. While launching a book on the success stories of entrepreneurs from Jammu and Kashmir, the Lt Governor appreciated the local entrepreneurs for scripting these success stories and felicitated them for achieving exceptional milestones in their respective ventures. "You are the job creators and wealth creators. The government alone cannot sustain the economy; it is the entrepreneurs like you who drive the economic engine of a country. The dream of a five trillion USD economy will be a reality if the energy of youth is harnessed to its full potential," he said. The government silk weaving factory and silk filatures have been established with project cost of Rs 16.80 crore and Rs 6.64 crore, respectively in a record time of about two years. Both the units have been equipped with modern machinery and equipments under the expert guidance of Union Central Silk Board. The Silk Filatures will provide stable market to about 10,000 farmers in the Jammu region, whereas the Silk Weaving Factory will have the capacity of producing 4,60,000 m of silk fabric creating direct and indirect employment opportunities for the people. "The facilities would go a long way in addressing the issues of unemployed youth and the silk farming community. With the coming of silk factory at Jammu, in addition to the one at Srinagar which is under reconstruction, the silk farmers would be able to find a ready market, fetching good returns," Advisor to the Lt Governor, K K Sharma, said. He said 900 m silk cocoons produced in Jammu and Kashmir could not find sufficient processing facilities resulting in loss to the silk producers. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) - Tanzania said on Saturday it had not been officially notified by the United States about a travel ban after it was targeted alongside five other countries by President Donald Trump's expanded travel restrictions on Friday. Of the six new countries slapped with travel restrictions, four are African nations and three have Muslim-majority populations. 'We don't have official communication from the U.S. DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) - Tanzania said on Saturday it had not been officially notified by the United States about a travel ban after it was targeted alongside five other countries by President Donald Trump's expanded travel restrictions on Friday. Of the six new countries slapped with travel restrictions, four are African nations and three have Muslim-majority populations. "We don't have official communication from the U.S. government. We haven't received a formal diplomatic communication, which is the official way of communicating between governments," Emmanuel Buhohela, spokesman for the ministry of foreign affairs, told Reuters. U.S. Democrats and immigration advocates have accused the Trump administration of seeking to expand its original 2017 ban that targeted Muslim-majority countries and of disproportionately focusing on African countries. Tanzania also has a sizeable Muslim population. Under the new travel restrictions, the United States will stop issuing "diversity visas" to Tanzanian nationals. The visas are available by lottery for applicants from countries with low rates of immigration. (Reporting by Nuzulack Dausen; Writing by Elias Biryabarema; Editing by Helen Popper) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. Athens: As Greece struggles to deal with a seemingly endless influx of migrants from neighbouring Turkey, the conservative government has a contentious new plan to respond to the problem: a floating net barrier to avert smuggling boats. But rights groups have condemned the plan, warning that it would increase the perils faced by asylum-seekers amid growing tensions at camps on the Aegean Islands and in communities there and on the mainland. The potential effectiveness of the barrier system has also been widely questioned, and the centre-right daily newspaper Kathimerini dismissed the idea in an editorial Friday as "wishful thinking." Refugees and migrants aboard an overcrowded dinghy cross the Aegean Sea, from Turkey to the coast of Lesbos island, Greece in 2015. Greek authorities have invited private contractors to bid on supplying a 2.7-kilometre floating barrier. Credit:AP Moreover, the main opposition party, the leftist Syriza, has condemned the floating barrier plan as "a disgrace and an insult to humanity." Authorities aim to install a 2.7 kilometre barrier between the Greek and Turkish coastlines that would rise 50 centimetres above the water and display flashing lights, according to a description posted on a government website this past week by Greece's Defence Ministry. Police have arrested eight insurgents from the southern Kandahar province over the past few days, provincial police spokesman Jamal Barikzai said Sunday, Trend reports citing Xinhua. A number of arms and ammunitions including two rocket propel grenades have also been seized from the possessions of the arrested persons, the official asserted. The arrested men were involved in terrorist attacks and criminal activities, Barikzai further said. Taliban militants who are active in Kandahar and the neighboring Helmand and Zabul provinces haven't commented. As the Western Heritage Parade and Cattle Drive began Saturday morning, horsemen Leonard Gonzalez and Jesse Garcia felt a swelling of pride. Astride their horses, Chewbacca and Tito, the duo were proud to be among a dozen cowboys who herded more than 50 longhorns along downtowns streets just like area cowboys in the late 19th century. They felt honored to be among the procession that included chuck wagons, rope-twirling vaqueros and military members bearing the nations flag. Their spirits were buoyed by the roar of cheering crowds mixed with hoofs clopping on the brick-paved Houston and Alamo streets. And there was a sense of dignity in sharing the experience of riding by the Alamo with Diego Martinez, a first-time participant and Garcias 20-year-old nephew. Garcia, 48, a mechanical bull operator at Market Square, said a spiritual feeling came over him when his horse loped past the historic Shrine of Texas Liberty. Its an honor and a blessing, said Gonzalez, 47. Its sacred ground. Not many people can say theyve done it. The 13th annual parade and cattle drive kicked off the official start of the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo, which opens Thursday and runs through Feb. 23. Thousands watched the procession, which started at Interstate 35 and West Houston and ended at La Villita at Nueva. The event was one of several scheduled during the Western Heritage Weekend, which began Friday and ended Saturday night. La Villita was the site for the start of the Stampede 5K and free biscuits and gravy at the Wrangler Breakfast. A new addition, the Longhorn Corral, offered paid seats for an up-close view of the festivities from the Alamo Plaza gazebo. Across from the plaza, spectators at second-story windows at the Guinness World Records Museum building had a birds-eye view of the event. It also was where the cowboys corralled the longhorns, owned by Dr. Scott Kimble, for their return trip to Karnes City. In a pen outside the Magik Theater, Kimble and a cowboy herded the longhorns toward open trailers. The cattle drive is a year in the making, said Don Brehm from the rodeos cattle drive committee. Im not sure if people know how much time and work these men put into preparing these things, he said. The crowds swarmed the 3-mile route. They sat in low, folding chairs and stood and snapped photos with cellphones. They wore longhorn head bands, cowboy hats and hoodies to ward off the morning chill. At the end of Houston Street, the procession passed Leticia Gonzalez, 48, who drove from Alice to see the parade and cattle drive. Gonzalez, a member of the rodeos barbecue committee, attended the event with her boyfriend, Ronald Rangel, 48, and his granddaughters Parker, 2, and Desiree Mendez, 4. This is San Antonio right here, Gonzalez said. This is their first (rodeo) event, and were trying to break them in easy. The youngsters sat in a gray wagon, peering through the orange protective netting as the official parade pickup rolled past. Rangel bought baby cowboy hats from a vendor, but Desiree was the only one to keep hers on. Leashed dogs in the crowd captured the toddlers attention until Gonzalez pointed to the approaching herd of longhorns. Theres a big ol cow coming! Gonzales said. Look, Parker shouted, cows! Attention then swung to a sheepdog with a red bandanna trotting behind a herd of sheep, keeping his flock moving. Then came the twirling, colorful, ruffled dresses of dancers from Grupo Folklorico de Bendiciones followed by the precision of the San Antonio Pipes & Drums, complete with the skirl of bagpipes and booming of drums. Richard and Maryann Jennings, both in their early 50s, watched the parade with their daughter Ashley and dog, Suzie. They sat with rows of other spectators near the Alamo Cenotaph. The couple said they were concerned about the citys plan to move the monument and possibly alter the parade and cattle drives route. This is my city, Maryann Jennings said, and my Alamo. As the parade veered around La Villita, back toward the starting location, kids stretched across the protective netting to give Garcia high-fives. A father, with his son on his shoulders, tried to prompt the boy to touch the mane of Gonzalezs horse. Martinez was lost in thought. Holding the reins of his horse, Honey, he pondered his induction into a select group privileged to drive Texas longhorns past skyscrapers and the shrine of San Antonio. Vincent T. Davis is a reporter in the Greater San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | vtdavis@express-news.net | Twitter: @vincentdavis Budget 2020: Startups hail tax changes, say will help attract, retain talent India oi-PTI Mumbai, Feb 02: The budget proposal for the startups ecosystem, especially the one on tax on employees stock options (Esops), received a big thumbs up from the fledgling sector. The budget recommends a five-year tax holiday on Esopss, a 10- year tax exemption for startups with under-Rs 100 crore turnover and also talks of a seed fund to push new businesses. India is the third biggest startup ecosystem in the world and the government has been focused on pushing innovative startups through policy interventions for some years now. New Income Tax slabs 2020 "The finance minster has delivered a fantastic budget for startups. The measures announced on Esops, taxation and seed fund will infuse tremendous energy into the ecosystem," Indian Angel Network chairman Saurabh Srivastava said. He said the commitment to having no harassment will also boost the confidence of entrepreneurs. Restructuring the taxation on Esops is a great breather along with definition of turnover for scaled startups doing good work, said Paynearby chief executive Anand Kumar Bajaj. "The ESOPs always has been a very strong mechanism for start-ups to incentivize, attract and retain high performing talent. The government proposal would allow startups to leverage ESOPs more effectively," trading platform Connect2India CEO Pawan Gupta commented. Anuj Golecha, co-founder for the platform Venture Catalysts said the ecosystem has reasons to be satisfied with the budget announcements. "A dedicated investment clearance cell for providing end-to- end facilitation and support including pre-investment advisory, information on land banks and quicker clearance of funds at the state-level will boost the entrepreneurship culture," he said. Currently the paperwork and the channels to engage with both pre and post investments are huge and the one-stop clearance would allow entrepreneurs more time to focus on their business, the Connect2India CEO observed. Harsh Jain, co-founder of Groww, said the move on the Esops will encourage more startups to get incorporated, and make it easier for them to attract and retain good talent. The budget also proposes to provide early life funding, including a seed fund to support ideation and development of early stage startups. "The proposed seed funding support for 'ideation and development' of early-stage startups would encourage more people to take the entrepreneurship plunge as well as support the existing startups," Gupta said. Budget 2020 has both vision, action; will give push to the economy: PM Modi Terming the startups as "engines of growth", finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the present Esop taxation leads to cash-flow problem for the employees who do not sell shares immediately and continue to hold the same for the long-term. "To give a boost to the start-up ecosystem, I propose to ease the burden of taxation on the employees by deferring the tax payment by five years or till they leave the company or when they sell their shares, whichever is earliest," she said. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Sunday, February 2, 2020, 10:33 [IST] - Pete Kadens was pulled by the dier need of students at Scottland High School - To him, he needed to give back to the community and his idea was to send high school graduands to college - The kind tycoon offered to part ways with GHC16.3 million and promised to clear all their pending bills at school - Pete believes dreamers at the school are a vital part of development and need to be taken care of and nurtured - Our Manifesto: This is what YEN.com.gh believes in January, 31 2019, started off normal for students at US school Scott High School. Soon after, their lives were changed forever by a man they had never seen, met or even heard off in all their years. READ ALSO: 5 inspirational facts about Osei Kwame 'Despite' READ ALSO: 5 Kofi B songs Ghanaians will always remember him for Pete Kadens, a wealthy businessman from Ohio, decided he wanted to give back to the society and the lucky recipients of his goodwill were Scottland learners. So, while in class, the students were directed towards the schools gym and asked to take their seats as they all wondered what in the world was happening. READ ALSO: Mohamed Salah flaunts GHC5.8million worth garage to celebrate brace against Southampton A lean man then got on the podium and greeted them with a mighty smile on his face. Pete then told them any seniors in the room who were about to graduate should worry no more about how they were going to clear their fees. If you are sitting here in this room today, as a soon-to-be graduating senior, tuition, room and board, books and fees will be paid for you, the tycoon told CBS news. Immediately, the students who were previously quiet erupted in cheer and thanked the heavens for the miracle that fell on their laps. ATTENTION: Read the best news on Ghana #1 news app. Install our latest app for Android and read the best news about Ghana But wait, there was more! Pete then added the learners would also receive college scholarships and would not have to struggle to look for funding to further their studies. Then came the icing on the cake. Pete offered to school each students parent if they were interested in gaining an education. All his kindness meant the billionaire parted ways with GHC16.3 million in one day. Pete who was born and raised in Ohio said he always wanted to give back to the society. READ ALSO: Coronavirus: Ghana named among 13 top-risk African countries If you want to make a difference, you go to the epicentre of inequity, the kind billionaire said. Mathew Anim Cudjoe showered with money after Hearts - Kotoko game in Accra | #Yencomgh READ ALSO: Fuel prices go down by 2-4% effective Feb 1 Have national and human interest issues to discuss? Know someone who is extremely talented and needs recognition? Your stories and photos are always welcome. Get interactive via our Facebook page Source: YEN.com.gh The Russian government has decided to restrict the entry of Chinese nationals in the country amid the outbreak and spread of deadly Coronavirus. In an order on Saturday, the government has decided to halt visa-free tourism and has also restricted work visas to Chinese citizens. More than 300 people have lost their lives due to the virus. READ: WHO Declares Coronavirus Outbreak A Global Health Emergency Russia imposes restrictions In order to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus infection to the Russian territory, temporary restrictions have been imposed on the movement of Chinese citizens at cross border checkpoints in some sections of Russias border with Mongolia Government of Russia (@GovernmentRF) February 1, 2020 The order said that the decision was taken to contain the spread of the virus. The decision comes two days after Russia closed its land border with China, to restrict the spread of the disease. The USA, Australia, Singapore and Japan have imposed travel restrictions and Vietnam suspended all flights to China. The USA declared a public emergency over the outbreak of the virus. Under the ban, no foreign national who has travelled to China in the last two weeks will be allowed to enter the country. The country has also asked it's citizens to not travel to China. READ: Coronavirus: 324 Indians Evacuated From Wuhan, Another AI Flight Departs From Delhi On Saturday, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced strict new restrictions for people travelling from China and warned Australians not to travel to mainland China in an attempt to reduce exposure to the deadly new virus. The Government expanded the area covered by restrictions to include all of mainland China, not just Hubei province where the Coronavirus first emerged. Australian citizens, permanent residents and their immediate families will be exempted from the restriction but will be forced to undergo a self-isolation period of 14 days after leaving mainland China. READ: US Imposes Entry Ban On Foreigners Who Travelled To China Over Last 2 Weeks The virus has been declared as a global public health emergency by the World Health Organisation (WHO). The organization has maintained that it has full faith in the efforts taken up by the Chinese government to control the virus and that the government is doing a remarkable job. India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, South Korea, and Turkey are the latest countries to have started evacuating their citizens on Saturday. READ: Amid Coronavirus Outbreak, Sri Lanka & Turkey Evacuate Their Citizens From Wuhan (Photo: AP) A bizarre row has broke out between Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein over a planned leaders' debate on radio station Today FM. The debate was to include Leo Varadkar, Micheal Martin and Mary Lou McDonald - but the Taoiseach was unavailable. Fianna Fail claimed that Mr Martin offered to go head-to-head with Ms McDonald and that she pulled out. Deputy leader Dara Calleary claimed Sinn Fein was "far more interested" in complaining about not being in debates. Sinn Fein's Pearse Doherty claimed Fianna Fail "falsely accused" Ms McDonald of pulling out, saying she was the first to indicate she would be there. He claimed the other parties got in touch with Today FM on the debate, the broadcaster "let it go at that stage". Ericsson Middle East and Africa announced seven commercial 5G agreements with operators in different countries during 2019: Etisalat UAE, Ooredoo Qatar, STC Saudi Arabia, Zain Bahrain, Batelco Bahrain, MTN South Africa and Mobily. On a global level, to date, Ericsson signed 78 commercial 5G agreements or contracts with unique operators, of which 24 are live networks with Middle East and Africa region contributing to around 29%. In the MEA region, Ericsson has already cemented its 5G leadership position during 2019 by implementing the 5G networks and by improving our customers network capabilities in both 4G and 5G. With the advent of high speed and low latency dependent applications like Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality as well as industrial automation; Ericsson is among first to market with solutions to enable today's networks to evolve smoothly to support them via next generation 5G networks. The benefits of 5Gs high speeds, low latency, and superior reliability will make a real difference. Preparing for these 5G opportunities is a must for service providers. In fact, service providers in the Mena region can target a potential revenue opportunity from $15.18 billion to $45.91 billion by 2030 provided they adapt their business model to become service enablers and creators. With consumer and personal communication-centric commercial 5G networks already live, the next wave of 5G expansion will allow businesses to digitalize with more mobility, flexibility, reliability, and security taking IoT and industrial applications to never-before-seen levels. Industry digitalization opens new opportunities for service providers to build and extend their businesses beyond connectivity. The 5G-IoT landscape offers enormous potential but is complex to navigate and demands a comprehensive understanding of the different driving forces and barriers for different industries in focus. The probability to be successful in capturing parts of this potential is higher in the next 5-7 years when roles and market shares are established rather than later. First movers advantage is clear. Addressing these opportunities could enable service providers to unlock additional revenue streams of up to 35 percent, on top of the current scope of business by 2030. Ericssons standalone 5G solutions ensure super-fast response times as well as the future-readiness of the network architecture, opening up new service-creation opportunities. The new solutions extend network capacity and capability, enabling smooth network evolution, and facilitating new consumer and industry use cases. In addition, existing Ericsson Radio System portfolio is ready to enable 5G New Radio capability through remote software installation. This applies to more than 150 different radio variants in more than 190 networks around the world. Ericsson is also evolving its cloud solution with an offering optimized for edge computing to meet user demand. This will enable service providers to offer new consumer and enterprise 5G services such as augmented reality and content distribution at low cost, low latency, and high accuracy. TradeArabia News Service Delhi chief minister and AAP national convenor Arvind Kejriwal will hold roadshows at Kirari, Mundka, Vishwas Nagar, Laxmi Nagar and Rithala New Delhi: Union Ministers Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh and Smriti Irani will address rallies in the National Capital on Sunday ahead of the Delhi Assembly elections slated for next week. Union Home Minister Amit Shah during 'Jansampark Abhiyan' in Delhi Cantonment area ahead of the #DelhiElections2020 scheduled on February 8. pic.twitter.com/scmwXeENeS ANI (@ANI) February 2, 2020 BJP national president JP Nadda will also hold rallies in the city. Also, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath will also address two public gatherings. On the other hand, Delhi chief minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convenor Arvind Kejriwal will hold roadshows at Kirari, Mundka, Vishwas Nagar, Laxmi Nagar and Rithala. Delhi: Chief Minister of Delhi and Aam Aadmi Party Chief Arvind Kejriwal holds roadshow in Kirari, ahead of #DelhiElections2020 scheduled on February 8. pic.twitter.com/0343ANPqjS ANI (@ANI) February 2, 2020 Speaking at a rally in Dwarka, Singh, in a veiled reference to Kejriwal, on Saturday accused the AAP leader of betraying his mentor and social activist Anna Hazare by joining active politics and questioned that how he will be able to maintain the trust of people. "Anna Hazare repeatedly told them (AAP) to not form a political party. He said they are fighting against corruption. He had promised people of India that those fighting beside him will not join active politics for some time. But despite that, they formed one," he said. "They formed government too as they had joined the political arena through Anna Hazare. But AAP did not implement any of the policies of the Narendra Modi government in Delhi, even when other state governments did that," the defence minister added. Voting in all 70 Assembly constituencies of Delhi is scheduled to take place on 8 February. Counting of votes will take place on 11 February. We understand this development will cause concern and anxiety among our students, staff, and the wider community. PHE (Public Health England) has advised us that the risk of infection being passed to others on campus is low. Current information from PHE suggests that the student did not come into contact with anybody on campus whilst they had symptoms, but investigations are ongoing to fully establish this. Our immediate concerns are for the affected student and family, along with the health and continued wellbeing of our staff, students and visitors. New Delhi, Feb 2 : The government will list LIC in the second half of the next fiscal on the exchange with minimum 10 per cent equity dilution which is the extract norm, a senior government official said on Sunday. "The listing of LIC will be taking place in the second half of the next fiscal and the quantum will be as per extract norm which is minimum 10 per cent," Rajeev Kumar, Finance Secretary, told IANS in an interaction. He said the exact timing, manner and the quantum is to be decided. He however said the dilution could also include private equity players, with follow-on public offers as well. But as per norms, it cannot be less than 10 per cent. As per market regulator SEBI's norms all companies with a post-issue capital above Rs 4,000 crore are compulsorily required to offer at least 10 per cent stake in the IPO. Further, companies that dilute less than 25 per cent in an IPO will be given three years to comply with the minimum public shareholding norms. Kumar said without divulging the details on LIC listing that there will be a change in the Act to enable LIC be listed on the market which will happen in due course and the law ministry is kept in the loop for the necessary legal changes. On the IDBI Bank which LIC owns now with 51 per cent and government with 46 per cent stake, the Budget had announced that government will fully exit IDBI Bank and it will be a private bank. The government exiting IDBI Bank may happen earlier than LIC listing, Kumar hinted. In the Budget 2020, the government announced its decision to list LIC in the exchanges and together with government stake sales in financial institutions (banks), it is targeting to get Rs 90,000 crore as part of the huge disinvestment limit of Rs 2.10 lakh crore. He did not give a break-up of LIC equity dilution portion from the Rs 90,000 crore target. LIC is the largest domestic financial institution in India with total investment assets of Rs 32 trillion as on September 30. (Anjana Das can be contacted at anjana.d@ians.in) Curious people have been gathering in large numbers at a site which police have been besieging in Cu Chi District, Ho Chi Minh City, since Thursday, as a suspect who had shot to death four people over a gambling quarrel is believed to be hiding there. The suspect, 33-year-old Le Quoc Tuan, is a senior lieutenant in the detention unit of the District 11 police bureau in the same city. Tuan gambled at a gambling ring in Tan Thanh Dong Commune, Cu Chi District, which is about 30km from the city center, around Wednesday afternoon, eyewitnesses said. He lost all his money and then engaged in a quarrel with other fellow gamblers. The suspect left the ring, returned with an AK gun, and shot four gamblers to death. He seemed to be drunk at the time of the crime. The gunshots also injured a fifth victim at the site and killed a dairy cow nearby. A photo of Le Quoc Tuan supplied by police in Ho Chi Minh City As police officers are trying to track the suspect, they have been surrounding a densely vegetated area in Cu Chi with armed forces since Thursday. The days-long siege has attracted large numbers of curious people, including those from the southern provinces of Binh Duong, Dong Nai, and Tay Ninh which neighbor Cu Chi, to the site at the intersection of Trung An Street and 472 Street in Trung An Commune. The large crowd caused congestion in the neighborhood. Although police dispersed the crowd that had gathered on Friday evening, another throng of people emerged just 30 minutes later. Many people even lingered until 00:00 am on Saturday. Curious people gather in droves at a site which police have been besieging in Cu Chi District, Ho Chi Minh City, on January 31, 2020. Photo: Minh Hoa / Tuoi Tre In the latest update, Vu Chi Tam, a 40-year-old man from Ho Chi Minh Citys Thu Duc District, has become the fifth person killed by Le Quoc Tuan. Tuan took Tam's life with seven shots to steal the victims motorbike on Provincial Road 15 at around 00:15 am on Thursday. At least three other people, including one woman and two men, were shot and had their vehicles stolen by Tuan on the suspects way to escaping police officers on Wednesday and Thursday. Police in Ho Chi Minh City decided to launch legal proceedings against Le Quoc Tuan for murder, robbery, and possession and illegal use of military weapons on Thursday. With a total of five casualties and four people injured by Tuan, police considered the suspect a particularly dangerous criminal. On Saturday morning, Ho Chi Minh City police expanded search areas for Tuan to the neighboring provinces of Tay Ninh, Long An, Binh Phuoc, which also border Cambodia and are considered the possible gateways for him to flee Vietnam. The municipal police have also collaborated with authorities in these provinces in hunting for Tuan. Curious people gather in large numbers at a site which police have been besieging in Cu Chi District, Ho Chi Minh City, on January 31, 2020. Photo: Minh Hoa / Tuoi Tre Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! By Paul Schaumburg, Graves County Schools Feb. 01, 2020 | 02:27 PM | GRAVES COUNTY Dolly Partons Imagination Library offers each child, one free book monthly to Inspire a Love of Reading through a book gifting program that mails one free book, each month, to children from birth to age 5, says the imaginationlibrary.com website.According to Graves County DPIL, Lowes Elementary School principal Ryan Marchetti recently worked to bring Dolly Partons Imagination Library to Mayfield and Graves County, to develop early literacy throughout the county.The DPIL international web site says show business icon Parton initiated the program in 1995. She did so, based on memories of how her own fathers illiteracy contributed to the familys inability to escape poverty.The project now mails more than one million free books monthly to children throughout the United States and three other English-speaking countries.When I was growing up in the hills of east Tennessee, I knew my dreams would come true, Parton said on the website. I know there are children in your community with their own dreams The seeds of these dreams are often found in books and the seeds you help plant in your community can grow across the world.To register a child at the Graves County programs internet address, the child must be a resident of Mayfield or Graves County. Log on to bit.ly/gravesdpil, or visit one of the nine local donation partners. The site has links to all the partners which are: the Annie Gardner Foundation, the City of Mayfield, First Kentucky Bank, FNB Bank, Independence Bank of Mayfield, the Jackson Purchase Medical Center, the Graves County Public Library, Mayfield Independent Schools, and Graves County Schools. On the Net: After a terrifying flight home from Moscow, a doctor from the Midlands has posted an update on her Facebook page. Longford doctor Laura Noone explained on her Facebook page, Laura's Russian Lifeline that she and her husband Archie finally got off the plane and are in self-enforced isolation at their home. "We finally got off the plane last night. Exhausted, weary and traumatised doesn't adequately explain how we both felt. That compounded by the fact that the only reason we were on that plane was because I was too unwell to stay any longer," she explained. "We felt I needed to urgently seek medical care back home this time. Instead, we made our way home almost silently, both lost in our own thoughts. Sleep didn't come easy and was interrupted every hour by me waking, feeling so unwell. Archie had a long night reassuring me and at one point suggested taking me to the hospital, as planned when we boarded that flight home. "But we couldn't. We are observing the self-enforced isolation in our home. We won't be seeing anyone or going anywhere until this case of suspected coronavirus is either confirmed or excluded. I must say I have a bad feeling, but maybe that's just all the bad luck I have had lately resonating in my brain." Laura and her husband were on a flight home from Moscow yesterday - a day earlier than planned - due to complications in her treatment in Russia. When they landed in Dublin, a man was taken off the plane to an ambulance, with symptoms of the suspected coronavirus. Passengers were held on the plane for some time and given a leaflet of information before being sent home and warned to stay away from other people. "Each minute feels like an hour," said Laura. "I need to see my family. I need one of Freya's fix all hugs and epic smiles in real life after making do with FaceTime for the last little while. I also need to know... I need my thoughts to stop going at a million miles in an hour... the what-ifs? I hope the other (passengers) are following their directions with the same diligence as we are but I wonder. And finally, I await the call - the one from the doctor that will either allow us back to our already complex lives or the one that will complicate it beyond all comprehension." AFMC, ACC expand weapons system collaboration By Marisa Alia-Novobilski, Air Force Materiel Command / Published January 31, 2020 WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio (AFNS) -- A new weapons system collaboration program aims to synergize communication between program offices and operational wings, ensuring warfighters have the right technology to meet current and future warfighting needs. Gen. Arnold W. Bunch, Jr., Air Force Materiel Command commander and Gen. Mike Holmes, Air Combat Command commander, signed a memorandum of agreement establishing the Lead Wing Collaboration Program during the Technology and Acquisition Sustainment Review Conference Jan. 29, at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia. The agreement creates a new culture paradigm for the acquisition and operational communities, focused on improved communication and continuous collaboration. It also establishes a framework for bilateral immersions of Airmen to create better understanding of the maintenance and operational requirements of a weapons system throughout its life cycle. "Strong lines of communication and a robust exchange of information between our operators and acquisition professionals is critical to delivering what the Air Force needs to succeed," Bunch said. "This MOA lays out a framework to strengthen the relationship between our acquisition professionals and operators so they better understand and appreciate the value each brings to delivering combat capability." In order to ensure the Airmen in program offices meet the needs of operators, it is crucial that they understand the impacts of training, tactics and procedures on combat requirements, Bunch said. Similarly, operators need to visit program offices to understand how their requirements translate into executable programs to deliver weapons systems ready to deploy. "These visits are more than a quick immersion," Bunch said. "They will create an enduring relationship that builds upon the unique talents that every Airman brings to the fight." The program, born out of feedback received during the AFMC We Initiative, is one way the command is working to improve communication to meet the needs of the National Defense Strategy. It aims to expand upon engagements that already exist between AFMC and ACC and will be reviewed annually to determine if it will be expanded to other weapons systems or centers. "I am excited that we are doing this," Bunch said. "Together we can deliver the Air Force We Need." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address British police on Sunday shot dead a man in London wearing a "hoax device" and suspected of stabbing two people, leaving one of them with life-threatening injuries, in an "Islamist-related" terrorist incident. The Metropolitan Police said armed officers responded immediately "as part of a proactive counter terrorism operation" when they shot the attacker, who was declared dead at the scene -- a busy south London street packed with Sunday shoppers. An eye-witness described seeing a man "with a machete and silver canisters on his chest" fleeing from police before they opened fire. Sunday's events in Streatham, a largely residential neighbourhood in the capital, came just over two months after a convicted terrorist on early release from prison was shot dead by police on London Bridge after he stabbed two people to death. The government responded by announcing longer sentences for terrorism offences, an end to early release and an increase in the counter-terrorism police budget in the coming financial year. The latest attack unfolded at around 2:00 pm (1400 GMT) on Streatham High Road, a busy thoroughfare lined with shops. The Met said a device was found strapped to the suspect's body and, after cordons were put in place, "it was quickly established that this was a hoax device". "The incident was quickly declared a terrorist incident and we believe it to be Islamist-related", police said. Three victims were taken to local hospitals, with one man's condition "life-threatening" and a woman described as receiving non-life threatening injuries. A second woman received minor injuries, believed to have been caused by glass following the discharge of the police firearm. Prime Minister Boris Johnson thanked the emergency services for their response. "My thoughts are with the injured and all those affected," he said. London Mayor Sadiq Khan added: "Terrorists seek to divide us and to destroy our way of life -- here in London we will never let them succeed." AFP reporters at the scene said the high street was blocked off with police tape, with buses backed up outside the cordon, as uniformed police officers kept the public away. Helicopters circled overhead. One eye-witness, who asked not to be identified, told Britain's domestic Press Association agency that he saw the dramatic events unfold. "I saw a man with a machete and silver canisters on his chest being chased by what I assume was an undercover police officer -- as they were in civilian clothing," he said. "The man was then shot. I think I heard three gun shots but I can't quite remember." The eye-witness said he then sheltered in a library as other passers-by ran into nearby stores. Unverified footage posted to social media purporting to capture some of the incident showed armed police officers surrounding a man lying on the ground on Streatham High Road. They then abruptly moved away, urging onlookers to move back, as other emergency vehicles arrived at the scene. Another eye-witness who gave first aid to one of the victims told LBC radio he heard what he thought was a car backfiring, then two, possibly three armed police officers. "I didn't realise at the time I would be swept up in a terrorist incident. I thought this was someone who had shoplifted or people larking around," he added. He used a blanket on one of the injured victims as a compress on their wounds, while first-aid equipment was brought from a nearby pharmacy, he said. Local Green Party councillor and national Green Party co-leader Jonathan Bartley, called the incident an "absolute aberration". He told AFP the area was "a very safe community with wonderful diversity". Former police tactical firearms advisor Andy Redhead said it was too early to speculate whether the dead man had been under surveillance. British police do not routinely carry firearms but armed units can make the decision themselves to use lethal force. "If they believe there's a threat to life... the only way to deal with that is to use firearms," he told LBC radio. Britain downgraded the country's terrorism threat level from "severe" to "substantial" -- warning a terrorist attack is "likely" rather than "highly likely -- in early November, its lowest rating in more than five years. There have since been two terror incidents in the capital. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A man was arrested in the southern Vietnamese province of Dong Nai on Sunday after a gunfight with police, as he had been hunted for unlawfully storing weapons at his home in Ho Chi Minh City earlier this week. The police unit in Tan Phu District, Dong Nai Province confirmed they had apprehended Tran Duy Chinh, 49, who resides in Ho Chi Minh City. According to officers, Chinh was suspected of possessing weapons at his home on Ly Thai To Street in District 10, Ho Chi Minh City on Thursday. Officers surrounded the house for hours, but the suspect eventually managed to escape on a motorbike. Chinh was believed to carry a gun with him. The location where Chinh engaged in a gunfight with a police officer. Photo: AT / Tuoi Tre Officers then searched his home and found multiple types of weapons as well as some suspected homemade explosives. Police were able to track down the suspect in Phu Hoa Commune, Dinh Quan District, Dong Nai on Sunday morning, according to a source close to Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper. Officers in Ho Chi Minh City coordinated with their counterparts in Dinh Quan to prepare a plan on arresting Chinh. An officer in his guise as a motorbike taxi driver was able to trick Chinh into getting on his vehicle. He then carried the suspect to the police station in Phu Hoa Commune. A bullet was found at the scene. Photo: AT / Tuoi Tre Upon arrival, Chinh pointed his gun at the head of an officer and pulled the trigger. The gun, however, did not go off, and Chinh fled the location with his weapon. A police officer chased after Chinh and engaged in a gunfight with him. Chinh continued to run away until being surrounded in Phu Dien Commune, Tan Phu District and captured then. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Los Angeles, Feb 2 : Movies 'Parasite' and 'Jojo Rabbit', and series 'Succession' and 'Barry' were big winners at the Writers Guild of America's award ceremony held on Saturday night. The awards were handed out in concurrent ceremonies on both the East and West Coasts. Bong Joon Ho and Han Jin Won took home the award for original screenplay for 'Parasite'. Bong expressed his gratitude to WGA members for reading his script in translation. "You understood the structure of our story and the nuance of our dialogue - it's amazing," he said, reports variety.com. In English, Bong made a reference to President Donald Trump's polarising political agenda by observing: "Some people make the barriers higher. We writers, we love to destroy the barriers." 'Jojo Rabbit' by Taika Waititi won over competitors including Todd Phillips and Scott Silver. On the TV side, HBO dominated the winners' list, starting with 'Succession', which won both best drama and best drama episode. It also bagged the best comedy prize for 'Barry' (although the pilot to Netflix's 'Dead to Me' won for comedy episode). And in longform, HBO did it again with its Emmy winner 'Chernobyl', which won for original screenplay, while FX's 'Fosse/Verdon' won the top honour in adapted screenplay. HBO's "Last Week Tonight With John Oliver", won the comedy/variety talk prize, its fourth in a row. Screenwriter-director Nancy Meyers ("Private Benjamin", "Something's Gotta Give") received WGAW's Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement. Comedy writer Merrill Markoe ("Late Night with David Letterman") got WGAW's Paddy Chayefsky Laurel Award for Television Writing Achievement. Creator-director-producer Brad Falchuk ("The Politician," "Glee") received WGAW's Valentine Davies Award, in recognition of his impact on young writers to increase literacy and promote self-esteem through arts education in schools. Screenwriter Charles Randolph ("The Big Short") received WGAW's Paul Selvin Award for his "Bombshell" screenplay. In New York, honorary winners included writer Richard Price ("The Color of Money", "The Night Of") who was presented with the Ian McLellan Hunter Award for Career Achievement; writer/actress Paula Pell was given the Herb Sargent Award for Comedy Excellence and Mentorship; writer Lisa Takeuchi Cullen ("Law & Order: Special Victims Unit") was presented the Richard B. Jablow Award for Devoted Service. The Los Angeles ceremony was hosted by comedian-actress Ana Gasteyer. The New York event, on the other hand, was hosted by actor John Fugelsang. Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas announced Saturday a cut of all ties with Israel and the United States, including security cooperation, after Washington unveiled a controversial Middle East plan seen as favouring Israel. Abbas has made similar declarations before and it was not immediately clear what it would mean in practice. His comments came as the Arab League rejected US President Donald Trump's plan, which had enraged Palestinians. "We are informing you that there will be no relations with you (Israel) and the United States, including on security cooperation," Abbas said at an extraordinary meeting of the pan-Arab bloc in Cairo. He said the move followed the "disavowal of signed agreements and international legitimacy" by the US and Israel. Israel will have to "bear responsibility as an occupying power" for the Palestinian territories and Palestinians will press ahead with resistance using peaceful means, he added. Abbas made a similar declaration in July 2017, announcing the suspension of security coordination with Israel during a dispute over the flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem. It was resumed later that year, though the Palestinian police chief said that even during the suspension they had maintained regular contact, with 95 percent of the activities continuing. "The only thing we stopped is we didn't meet them in the field," Hazem Atallah said at the time. - 'Minimum rights' - The Cairo meeting brought together senior Arab officials, including Saudi Arabia's foreign minister and the United Arab Emirates' minister of state for foreign affairs. Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit said the US plan was tantamount to creating "a one state with two categories of people, meaning an apartheid system, as it makes Palestinians second class citizens". "It is our right to accept or reject (the plan)... though the American proposal in reality appeared to be a dictation, or an offer that cannot be rejected or even discussed," he added. The Arab League rejected Trump's plan, saying in a statement it failed to meet "the minimum rights and aspirations of Palestinian people". Arab leaders also vowed "not to... cooperate with the US administration to implement this plan". They insisted on a two-state solution that includes a Palestinian state based on borders before the 1967 Six-Day War -- when Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip -- and with east Jerusalem as its capital. There was no immediate reaction from the Israeli government, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's chief rival in next month's general election, Benny Gantz, criticised the Palestinian response, saying Abbas "doesn't miss an opportunity for refusal". "The time has come to begin working for the future generations and toward peace, instead of remaining stuck in the past and preventing a future of hope in this region," Gantz added. The US plan suggests that Israel would retain control of the contested city of Jerusalem as its "undivided capital", but Palestinians would be allowed to declare a capital adjacent to Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem. Trump announced the plan on Tuesday flanked by Netanyahu and in the presence of Arab ambassadors from Bahrain, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. Other Arab states gave carefully worded initial responses to the plan. On Saturday, Abbas met Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who called for direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. - 'Violation of accords' - Abbas told the Arab League the US plan was in "violation of the (autonomy) accords" launched in Oslo in 1993 by Israel and the Palestinians. The accords included the creation of the Palestinian Authority, currently led by Abbas, and outlined delineations of the West Bank. They were seen as key to Israeli-Palestinian peace process, which hit an impasse in the years following the signing. The Trump plan also gives Israel the green light to annex the strategic Jordan Valley -- constituting some 30 percent of the West Bank -- and all Israeli settlements, which number more than 200. Abbas said that while Israel would immediately start annexation, under the plan the Palestinians would have to wait four years, until they show "good will", to get a limited state. He said he would go to the United Nations Security Council soon to call for an international conference to re-launch negotiations with Israel, under the auspices of the diplomatic Quartet comprised of the US, the EU, the UN and Russia, Abbas said. "But we will not accept the US alone. We have tried it already," he added. Our very own favourite internet celebrity Elon Musk is having the time of his life. Business is booming for Tesla and the stocks are at an all-time 'high'. Even the new Tesla Model Y SUV is coming early. In a typical Elon Musk fashion, Musk decided to celebrate the good times by releasing a new song. Internet's favourite billionaire is also a rapper, after all. So yeah, Musk's new track is out now and it's called 'Don't Doubt Ur Vibe'. Musk released the track after teasing it for quite sometime on his Twitter profile. Well, it's now available for the world to listen on SoundCloud and Spotify, courtesy a record company called "Emo G". Yeah, very funny. The new track is essentially a follow up of Musk's first single RIP Harambe, that played homage to our beloved Cincinnati Zoo gorilla. As far as the new song goes, Musk says he wrote it and performed the vocals himself. Dont Doubt ur Vibe now on Spotifyhttps://t.co/yyLgnF4d7q Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 1, 2020 Not going to comment on Musk's music making skills, but it's a pretty cool thing to listen to. Like, how many CEOs do you know who have the time to save a car company from getting bankrupt, launch and bring back rockets from space, dig tunnels underground and drop a sick track, all at the same time? Abu Dhabi Airports announces the signing of a cooperation agreement with The Emirates Red Crescent Authority (ERC) to enhance its role in community, charitable and humanitarian initiatives. The new agreement also defines frameworks of cooperation humanitarian services and fundraising and supports relevant government strategies at a local and international level. The signing took place at an official ceremony held at the new Midfield Terminal Building in the presence of Sheikh Mohammed Bin Hamad Bin Tahnoon Al Nahyan, chairman of Abu Dhabi Airports, Dr. Mohammed Ateeq Al Falahi, secretary-general of ERC, and Bryan Thompson, CEO of Abu Dhabi Airports, and several officials, leaders and employees from ERC. Under the agreement, Abu Dhabi Airports will explore initiatives to support local community and international humanitarian projects supervised by the ERC. The Airports Company will also promote ERC within terminals at Abu Dhabi International Airport. Commenting, Sheikh Mohammed bin Hamad bin Tahnoon Al Nahyan, said: We take great pride in partnering with organisations such as The Emirates Red Crescent Authority (ERC), which under the guidance of His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Ruler's Representative in the Al Dhafra Region and Chairman of the ERC, serves as a beacon of hope to people around the world through its effective and compassionate disaster response and humanitarian development efforts. As a major contributor to both the economic and social growth and development of Abu Dhabi, we are dedicated to continually enhancing our corporate social responsibility efforts through supporting various humanitarian and charitable initiatives. This agreement will play a pivotal role in further developing our status as a leading socially responsible institution, in line with our vision of becoming the worlds leading airports group. Dr Al Falahi said: Abu Dhabi Airports is a key partner and supporter of the ERC as we strive to achieve our humanitarian and development goals at home and abroad. In line with the directives of His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the ERC is committed to establishing and strengthening collaboration with national institutions, in order to better serve those under its care and enhance the reach and impact of its projects and programs. The ERC continues to make great strides in developing mutually beneficial partnerships with national entities, enabling the substantial expansion of its humanitarian and disaster relief efforts around the world. Abu Dhabi Airports is a leading example of an organisation that not only supports the countrys economic growth and prosperity but also contributes to humanitarian efforts around the world through its corporate social responsibility programmes. - TradeArabia News Service Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Sunday said Sukhbir Badal's praise of the Union Budget 2020-21 as pro-farmer and pro-poor a case of brazen sycophancy. "It a case of brazen sycophancy with nothing to substantiate the tall claims of the Akali chief," Captain said. "The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president was apparently so blinded by his sycophant love for the ruling party that he could see nothing wrong in their actions," he added. Captain said despite having three ministers in the Union Cabinet from the state, the BJP-Akali combine have failed to secure a debt relief scheme for the farmers, who continue to reel under massive debt burdens, not just in Punjab but across the country. Questioning Sukhbir's reaction hailing the Rs 15 lakh crore budgetary allocation for the agriculture sector, Captain Amarinder asked: "How the Akali leader thought the mere 10 per cent increase over last year for agriculture and allied sectors to be sufficient to tackle the grave crisis faced by the debt-ridden farmers." "Without farmer uplift, there was no possibility of rural consumption going up, which would naturally scuttle economic growth even further," he further said. "How else can one explain Sukhbir's complete failure to accept that his own state's farmers are crying for help, which only the central government can provide?" he asked. Captain Amarinder said, "A holistic policy, encompassing debt waiver, MSP for all crops and diversification etc is the only long-term solution to the problem." He pointed out that despite the fact that buffer stocks of food grains are already putting the states and farmers under extreme stress, nothing has been proposed in the budget to encourage crop diversification. "There was nothing in the budget to ensure the procurement of alternative MSP crops, which was critical to promoting diversification and breaking the vicious wheat-paddy cycle that alone could alleviate the farmers' woes and boost their income," he said. He said, as for the changes in Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) and Contracts Act, Punjab had already implemented the same, with all farmers in the state having Kisan Credit Cards, observed the Chief Minister, noting that the SAD chief seemed to be completely clueless about any of these developments in his own state. So busy was he prostrating himself before his political masters that he was simply not concerned about what was happening under his very nose, quipped Captain Amarinder. "As of now, one does not know whether the much-touted budget schemes of Kisan Rail and Krishi Udaan will even connect Punjab, hoping the Akali ministers in the Union Cabinet will at least work to ensure this is done, and Punjab is not again meted out step-motherly treatment by the Centre," Captain said. Pointing to the exclusion of the water-stressed areas identified by the central government for its water conservation schemes, Captain Amarinder said it is time for Sukhbir and his colleagues to open their eyes to these problems and to stop sacrificing Punjab and its people to their own political interests. The Chief Minister, said, "Centre has failed to come out with any meaningful schemes for the marginalised and financially weaker sections of the society. From education to health, there has been no significant increase in budgetary allocation, nor are there any far-sighted plans for the betterment of the people. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Wedding photo of Liu Shaoti and his fiancee. (Photo provided by Liu Shaoti) Nearly 1,000 couples in Wuchuan County, Zunyi City in southwest Chinas Guizhou province have proactively postponed their weddings in an effort to control the spread of the coronavirus, a move that has received high praise from the public. Liu Shaoti, a doctor at a local health center, is among them. Amid growing concerns of person-to-person transmission of the coronavirus outbreak, Liu and his fiancee, who works as a nurse, decided to postpone their wedding. "In order to effectively prevent and control the epidemic and reduce large gatherings, I decided to postpone the wedding after discussing with my fiancee," Liu said, adding that he shouldnt put the health of his family and friends at risk. After informing their wedding guests about the decision, Liu returned to work. He, together with his colleagues, made joint efforts to combat the epidemic, including checking the temperatures of local villagers and collecting information regarding visitors arriving from Wuhan that showed symptoms of fever or pneumonia stemming from unknown causes. To raise public awareness regarding the novel coronavirus, cadres in Wuchuan County went from village to village to publicize knowledge pertaining to prevention as well as control of the epidemic in order to reduce large gatherings and furthermore to help avoid further spreading of the coronavirus. Zhu Tao, a villager from Changjiao Village, Baicun Town, also postponed his wedding originally scheduled on the fourth day of the Chinese New Year after village cadres explained the spread and harm of the epidemic to him. Due to this, Zhu and his fiancee decided to reschedule their wedding after the coronavirus outbreak ends. In the fight against the coronavirus outbreak, couples from Wuchuan County made a valuable contribution towards preventing the spread of the coronavirus by postponing their weddings. Exporters see rebound when virus crisis ends Global Times By Chu Daye and Yang Kunyi Source:Global Times Published: 2020/1/31 21:50:04 Restrictions on outward shipping remain biggest concern There are mounting concerns from Chinese exporters over trade hours after the World Health Organization (WHO) on Thursday declared the coronavirus outbreak originating in China a global emergency. The announcement on the new virus, which has been spreading in China and at least 18 other countries and regions, could potentially have huge implications on Chinese exports, which, however, have good odds for a rebound to make up for short-term losses, analysts said. There was a surge in order inquiries on Friday morning, shortly after the WHO declaration, smaller manufacturing companies in China told the Global Times, adding that they are feeling increased pressure to accommodate their international clients. "A few small clients withdrew their orders over fears of future restrictive measures," said Lin Musong, general manager of Shenzhen Enle Industrial Co, a Shenzhen-based company that produces electronic components catering to markets in the US and Europe. The withdrawal of orders accounted for only a fraction of the company's business, but he said larger clients have been seeking information about the potential impact of the coronavirus on trade. "The biggest concern is whether restrictions will be imposed on outward shipping," Lin said, "and the current work delay is also putting some pressure on our delivery capacity." Although the WHO announcement on Thursday does not recommend any travel or trade restrictions based on the current available information, there have been global indications of a cut in the flow of people and goods. Russia has closed its Far East border with China, and Trinidad and Tobago has imposed a 14-day ban on travelers from the Chinese mainland. Multiple airlines have suspended flights to China. The diversion of international traffic and foreseeable, more stringent quarantine checkups at borders don't bode well for Chinese exports, said Guo Xin, general manager of Nanning Xinjinhang Logistics Co. "A container that could arrive at its destination in 12 days could now potentially require two months," Guo said. "Air cargo and shipping could drop by as much as 40 percent during the first quarter." Guo's company operates more than 100 trucks, carrying "middle products" such as electronics and cotton yarn overland to ASEAN, China's second-largest trading partner. Guo's business has thus far remained largely unaffected. He said orders for his company's services had actually multiplied, with freight rates even doubling as customers seek alternatives to air and sea trade. As an exporter, Guo believes border closures between China and ASEAN member states are not likely, as the economies have deeply integrated with each other. "There is no substantial trade between China and the Russian Far East. The ASEAN case is not the same. The supply chain there is too important to be cut," Guo said. Liu Min, a China market analyst at FXTM, told the Global Times on Friday that the WHO's latest classification of the epidemic will definitely lead to a spike in costs for existing orders due to stricter quarantine measures, the time needed to load ships and the probability that new orders face delays or cancellations. "But taking into account past experience from SARS, exports face good odds for a rebound to make up for short-term losses," Liu said. "Exports will recover once vaccines are discovered for this deadly epidemic." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Wellington: Mike Moore, who overcame cancer and a lack of formal education to become prime minister of New Zealand and head of the World Trade Organization (WTO), died Sunday aged 71, his wife said. Moore was WTO director general from 1999 to 2002 and oversaw China's entry into a global rules-based trading system. He launched the Doha Development Round in 2001 aimed at lowering trade barriers globally, and was New Zealand's ambassador to Washington from 2010 to 2015. Moore was prime minister of New Zealand for 59 days before the October 1990 general election, then leader of the opposition for three years following the Labour Party's defeat. He survived three bouts of cancer as a young man, but had been in declining health in recent years following a stroke in 2015. Moore was at his at his home in Auckland when he died, his wife Yvonne Moore said. He grew up in New Zealand's Northland region in the far north and wanted to spend his final months there, but had to return to Auckland in January because of his health. "Northland made him the battler and fighter for ordinary Kiwis he was throughout his life and career, and that was what drove him to become a member of the New Zealand Labour Party at 16 years old. He was stubborn, optimistic, generous and kind," Yvonne Moore said. "Having left school at 15 for a job in the freezing works, Mike always believed that his love of reading and hard work would overcome his lack of formal education. "Mike was always a good reminder to the Labour Party of its working class roots and will probably be its last blue collar Prime Minister." Moore was first elected to the New Zealand parliament as a 23-year-old in 1972. One of his portfolios during the Labour government from 1984 to 1990 was overseas trade minister, where he came to believe in the power of a rules-based global trading system and how that, more than international aid, could lift nations out of poverty. He was appointed New Zealand's ambassador to the United States in 2010, playing a significant role enhancing the relationship between the two countries and promoting the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement. In 1999 he was awarded the Order of New Zealand, the nation's highest honour, and in 2012 was made an honorary office of the Order of Australia. He also had five honorary doctorates in commerce, economics and law. Donald Trump attacked Michael Bloomberg for wasting his money after the billionaire presidential hopeful bought a Super Bowl advertisement costing $10m (7.6m) the same amount the presidents campaign spent on advertising during the big game. The former New York City mayor was set to release a 60-second ad focusing on his efforts to combat gun violence, while the presidents ad would highlight how America has become stronger, safer and more prosperous under his administration. Mr Trumps re-election campaign also purchased an additional 30-second ad to run during the Super Bowl. Mr Trump slammed Mr Bloomberg in a series of late-night tweets the night before the Super Bowl, dubbing him Mini Mike and claiming the newcomer to the Democratic primaries was part of the Fake News. Mini Mike is part of the Fake News, the president tweeted. They are all working together. In fact, Bloomberg isnt covering himself (too boring to do), or other Dems. Only Trump. That sounds fair! Its all the Fake News Media, and thats why nobody believes in them any more. Mr Trump also said Mr Bloomberg was going nowhere, just wasting his money while alleging without evidence he was somehow getting the Democratic National Committee to rig the election against Crazy Bernie, using the offensive nickname for Bernie Sanders. Mr Bloomberg, who has largely funded his presidential campaign with his own money, said in a statement that he chose to devote an entire minute during the coveted advertising slot to gun safety because it matters to communities across the country and it will be a top priority for me as president. All the president's lawyers: The team fighting Trump's impeachment Show all 6 1 /6 All the president's lawyers: The team fighting Trump's impeachment All the president's lawyers: The team fighting Trump's impeachment Alan Dershowitz Dershowitz is a controversial American lawyer best known for the high-profile clients he has successfully defended. Those clients have included OJ Simpson, Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein. One longtime Harvard Law associated told the New Yorker Dershowitz "revels in taking positions that ultimately are not just controversial but pretty close to indefensible." Getty All the president's lawyers: The team fighting Trump's impeachment Ken Starr Starr became a household name in the 1990s as the independent counsel who led the investigation that led to Bill Clinton's impeachment. That investigation began as a look into a real estate scandal known as Whitewater, and eventually led to impeachment after Mr Clinton lied under oath about having an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. AP All the president's lawyers: The team fighting Trump's impeachment Jay Sekulow Sekulow is the president's longtime personal attorney, and, now, personal lawyer in the White House. He has been accused by former Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas of being "in the loop" during the Ukraine scandal. Getty All the president's lawyers: The team fighting Trump's impeachment Pam Bondi Bondi is the former attorney general in Florida, and a longtime backer of the president's. She made a name for herself in Florida for taking hyper partisan stances on issues, and her penchant for publicity. She is likely to be a prominent public-facing figure during the trial. AFP/Getty All the president's lawyers: The team fighting Trump's impeachment Pat Cipollone Cipollone is the White House counsel, and leading the president's defence team. Getty All the president's lawyers: The team fighting Trump's impeachment Rudy Giuliani While not officially named as one of the president's impeachment lawyers, it is hard to ignore Giuliani's outsized role in this process. The former mayor of New York has been making headlines for months as he defends his client, and for his apparent role in the effort to compel Ukraine to launch the investigation into Joe Biden. We'll see how he figures in the actual trial, which he has said he would like to be a part of. Reuters He added: All Americans including people in both parties and a majority of gun owners support universal background checks and other common sense gun laws. The billionaire Democrat, who launched a late bid for the White House after switching parties in 2018 and spending millions in support of Democratic campaigns during the midterms, has vastly outspent all other presidential candidates in advertising. Mr Bloomberg has already reportedly spent an estimated $250m (189m) in ads after announcing his campaign in November of last year. In response to the presidents Twitter attacks, Mr Bloomberg responded in a tweet: Looks like our ads are keeping you up at night. Weve got one in particular you should watch today. A record number of ambulances are being forced to wait for long periods outside crammed hospitals to offload patients, shocking official figures reveal. Crews routinely have to wait more than an hour to hand over the seriously ill and injured, not only putting the health of patients at risk, but delaying responses to other emergencies. Guidelines state patients should be handed over to hospital staff within 15 minutes of arrival, but ambulances queued for more than an hour outside English hospitals more than 30,000 times in December and January exceeding the total number of such delays for the whole of the previous winter. A record number of ambulances are being forced to wait for long periods outside crammed hospitals to offload patients, shocking official figures reveal 'Destined to die': Samantha Brousas and partner Simon Goacher Since the start of December, one in every 25 ambulance call-outs where the patient was taken to hospital has resulted in the crew waiting for more than an hour to offload patients. The figure for the same period last winter was one in 43. At Leicester Royal Infirmary, a staggering one in five ambulances has been forced to wait over an hour this winter. The figure at United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs three A&Es across the county, is one in six. Two years ago, Samantha Brousas, 49, died of sepsis after being forced to wait for three hours in an ambulance outside Wrexham Maelor Hospital because no beds were free. An expert witness at her inquest said that by the time Samantha was taken inside, she was 'desperately sick' and 'destined to die'. Warning of the potentially catastrophic knock-on effect of the delays, Richard Webber, of the College of Paramedics, said: 'The worry is the patient who has dialled 999 with chest pains or a stroke, who is not being seen quickly [by paramedics] because ambulance crews are waiting to offload. 'Attending a call getting there, doing an assessment and conveying the patient to hospital typically takes an hour, so if we are having to wait another hour at hospital, that's doubling the time it takes us to deal with one call.' The alarming figures come just days after it emerged that about 4,000 'high-priority' patients in England are having to wait more than an hour for an ambulance every week. Such patients, who are one step below those with immediately life-threatening problems, should wait no longer than 18 minutes. Two years ago, Samantha Brousas, 49, (pictured with daughters Sophie and Eleni) died of sepsis after being forced to wait for three hours in an ambulance outside Wrexham Maelor Hospital because no beds were free. An expert witness at her inquest said that by the time Samantha was taken inside, she was 'desperately sick' and 'destined to die' Rachel Harrison, the GMB union's national officer for the NHS, said: 'These shocking figures must be a wake-up call because patients' lives are at risk. Ambulance services are under incredible pressure but resources have not increased in line with rising demand.' Scotland and Wales have also experienced big increases in ambulance handover problems, but officials do not routinely report the number of delays exceeding an hour. In Scotland, the number of ambulances delayed at hospitals for more than an hour doubled from 20 a day in 2016 to 43 last year, according to data released under Freedom of Information rules. In Wales, only a third of ambulances offload patients within 15 minutes down from 54 per cent in December 2016. An NHS spokesman said most patients were not kept waiting in ambulances but accompanied by paramedics into the A&E. A handover was completed when the patient was 'signed over' to A&E medics. He added: 'The rise in people's need for care underlines the need for more beds and staff across hospital and community services, which is why the Government's commitment to increase the number of nurses by 50,000 and invest in new facilities will be crucial.' Kerala health minister KK Shailaja on Sunday said 120 people are under home quarantine in Alappuzha district. "There are 4 cases in Alappuzha Medical College who are in isolation ward, one of them has tested positive for Coronavirus. 120 people are under home quarantine in Alappuzha. Public functions should not be held at the houses of any of these people," she said. "People returned from China, Nepal and Sri Lanka should contact the Health Department," she added. The second case of novel coronavirus in India was reported from Kerala, the state health minister said that the patient was being monitored in an isolation ward in the Alappuzha medical college. She, however, said that the state government was waiting for results from the Pune Virology Institute. Minister said the incubation period is 28 days. Do not leave the house during that period. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Just off the golden Greek beaches of Paros, Paul Young, co-founder and chief executive of Oscar-nominated Irish animation company Cartoon Saloon, sketched out his first business lesson - that his talent for illustration could make him money. In the early 1990s, Young was travelling across Greece with friends, having completed a degree in art and design at the University of Ulster. The "extended holiday" included having to take on odd jobs to finance the trip. It was on the tiny Greek island that he learned there was money in animation. "I started working selling sandwiches outside the front of nightclubs to make money," he laughs. "I soon learned that I could make far more sitting next to these two Ukrainian guys on the beach doing caricatures of tourists, while they were doing longer portraits. "I found I was making more money than my mates by just selling one caricature, that wouldn't take so long, direct to tourists. "You could say I learned my first bit of business on the streets of Paros; it was the first time I really earned money from drawing anything." Armed with his first experience of earning money from his passion, Young returned to Ireland with an appetite to embark on a full-time career in illustration. In 1995, he enrolled in Ballyfermot Animation College in Dublin, where he met his fellow co-founder, Tomm Moore. After college, the pair went on to form Cartoon Saloon in 1999, alongside Nora Twomey, starting with a small team of 12. Young says the animators were scrambling to find investors and grants to allow their collection of drawings to jump from the storyboard and on to the screen. He found himself drawn toward the business side of the venture, mainly because his desk was next to the phone. Cartoon Saloon attracted the attention of Frenchman Didier Brunner, who ran Les Armateurs at the time, following a trip to Berlin. He backed The Secret of Kells animation project, going on to co-produce the film and helping it to secure investment in his homeland and Belgium. "Kells came out and didn't really make much of an impact in Ireland," he says. "It made more waves in the US. It got picked up by GKIDS Films, which was the first time they had theatrically distributed a movie." The project went on to achieve success, leading to the Kilkenny firm's first Oscar nomination. Buoyed by more internationally successful productions, including Angelina Jolie's Oscar-nominated The Breadwinner and a partnership with Canadian company Mercury Studios, Cartoon Saloon is thriving. It now employs 300 animators, across its studio and Lighthouse Studios, its joint venture with Mercury. "It all grew very organically," Young says, "but driven by our creativity." The story of Cartoon Saloon's growth is one synonymous with many other animation studios. Animation in Ireland has flourished over the past decade. According to figures from Animation Ireland, 10 years ago, only 70 people worked in the industry. That figure has grown to over 1,600. The demand internationally for original content has also increased exponentially. According to Loup Ventures, a venture capital firm, Netflix was projected to have spent $1.1bn (997m), 11pc of its overall original content budget, with Amazon spending $300m on animation in 2018. By 2022, the firm estimated that this investment would grow dramatically to nearly $5bn for Netflix and $1.86bn for Amazon Prime Video. According to figures released by Screen Ireland on Friday, the annual production activity in the animation sector has increased fourfold over the last 10 years to 180m in 2019. The screen industries contributed 357m to the Irish economy. Traditional broadcasters including the BBC, Nickelodeon and Disney are well in there with the Irish industry, as are the new streamers such as Netflix, Amazon and Apple. John Gleeson, a tax partner at Saffery Champness specialising in the Irish film and television sector, believes the animation industry in Ireland is probably the biggest per capita in the world. "I think the Irish animation sector has a far higher profile than the UK sector or any other European country for that matter," he says. "As far as my perspective on it is, Ireland has a very scaled industry, and Canada does. They both seem to be the international market leaders. If you look at the amount of content spend per population compared to any other jurisdiction, I'd be surprised if it were not the largest one per capita." Gleeson, who has advised on over 600 individual film and TV projects since 2005, and helped raise 500m in equity finance for projects, says the sector here has enormous potential for further growth thanks to several strengths, including the favourable environment for investment, the skilled studios and the flourishing relationship with new, content-hungry online streamers. "The online streamers have been a real catalyst for growth," he says. "Their need for content has driven the sector." But Gleeson also has concerns for the sector. He says there is a need to attract more talent to help feed the streamers' insatiable demand for content. He also mentions some issues with the Section 481 tax credit. The rate of the tax credit is worth up to 32pc of eligible Irish expenditure, with an additional 5pc uplift for projects shooting in the regions, bringing the value of the tax credit up to 37pc in these circumstances. Earlier in the year, the animation industry highlighted concerns over moves to make claiming the tax credit self-assessed and also a lack of guidelines for the process from Revenue. While industry sources believe many of these issues have been addressed, Gleeson says there is still a bit of "bridging". One issue is the coupling of animation and live-action within the same rules under Section 481, despite animation creating longer-term jobs compared with live-action filming. He also says the regional uplift system, which was designed to boost industry training schemes and skills development across the regions, is not working for everyone in the industry. This issue had affected rurally located indigenous animation studios such as Cartoon Saloon, which mostly provides full-time, pensionable jobs and has its own training schemes. "It could potentially [be an issue for foreign direct investment]," says Gleeson. "Foreign companies could be coming here with the expectation of achieving the regional uplift and then not get it." Overall, Section 481 has been a driver of growth for animation, making it easier for creatives to attract the backing of deep-pocketed investors. Louise Cornally, senior vice president of finance and business affairs at the animation studio Brown Bag, says Section 481 has played a massive role in driving the sector's growth: "People misconstrue the importance of Section 481. If we didn't have it, we wouldn't have an industry here. It is really that plain and simple." Cornally says one of the main challenges the industry is facing is accessing and attracting more talent. She says the sector was bolstered by changes to employment permit regulations, which made it easier for businesses in animation sectors to source talented animators from outside the European Economic Area (EEA). Brown Bag, which was bought by Toronto-based 9 Story Media Group in 2015, has established a relationship with the Department of Business due to the high number of employees from outside the EEA it requires. "It has certainly helped matters," says Cornally, who adds that the business has also been supporting schemes to bolster local talent entering the sector. Business at Brown Bag has been positive, with Cornally recognising that it can be challenging at times for her as a business person, rather than a creative, to get people to acknowledge the importance of specific policies. According to the most recent accounts for Brown Bag's parent company, Niagara Films Ireland, revenues were 50.7m for the year to August 2018, up 24pc, while pre-tax profits were 6.8m. The need to embrace business skills within the industry is something noted by John Phelan, independent chairman of Animation Ireland. He says it is essential for the industry's long-term growth that it becomes more professional. "Growth is one thing that we need to do, but it's reliant on the talent coming in," he notes. "What we've been trying to do over the years is professionalise the industry so it's not just a creative, fluffy bunny industry, but one that is getting wrapped up with deep technical skill sets and professional accountants, project managers and commercial employees." Of further importance for Phelan is to see more Irish studios not just service the explosion in demand for the online streaming companies, but also move their work up the value chain by creating more intellectual property (IP). Paul Cummins, founder and chief executive of Galway-based Telegael, says that developing IP is such a significant and sustainable revenue generator that it has been a policy to retain as much of it at the animation studio as possible. "In our case, we try to retain some of the rights, and that has been significant for us and allowed us to build up a library of rights and intellectual property," he says. "That's important for the industry, animation in particular. If a series is successful, you can generate revenue from selling broadcast rights internationally, merchandising, spin-offs, publishing and music." "Everyone is trying to create a Peppa Pig," he adds. "That's probably worth a billion euro." The rise of the streaming companies has meant some animation studios in Ireland have solely acted to serve the need to produce content while ignoring developing IP. Young, Cummins and Cornally all agree that the rise of the streamers has been the catalyst for growth in the industry in recent years, but that it is important for studios to produce IP and create new revenue streams. Industry tax expert Gleeson says the demand for more content could end up putting pressure on the Irish industry as it attempts to "keep up" with the market, while maintaining its solid reputation for delivering. The demand has also led to some studios setting their sights on further expansion. Cornally confirms that Brown Bag has three or four new projects, meaning it could be hiring up to 60 new roles. Young also confirms there will be job growth across Cartoon Saloon's two studios, growing from 300 employees to around 400. As Young reflects on the company's success, he mentions that Cartoon Saloon is currently carrying out an exercise to help it "figure out" what is likely to occur over the coming six years. With the high-profile release of Wolfwalkers coming up through Apple's streaming service and the development of My Father's Dragon with Netflix, the studio is also exploring opportunities, with particular focus on China and Japan. Young says when it released its series Puffin Rock in China through the streaming service Tencent Video, it accrued 100 million views in one month. "It inspired us to do more," he notes, mentioning that the company is actively trying to get its original productions into more regions. With business booming, Young says he is looking ahead with confidence. The entrepreneur believes retaining IP is essential and will help keep the pennies rolling in, even if the demand from streaming services drops. But with the appetite for content showing no signs of abating, Young is excited about the future. "I've never felt better," he says. "It's a great time to be producing content; maybe it's a feeding frenzy. These kinds of periods come and go but one thing is for sure: there is definitely a thirst for content." Thousands of birds are seen taking over a Texas parking lot, leaving the area practically deserted in a video that evokes flashbacks to the 1963 Alfred Hitchcock film The Birds. One clip shows the swarm of grackles dominating the area in Fort Worth suburb Burleston on January 24, with a woman recording the moment later calling it 'terrifying'. 'This is just [expletive] crazy. Look at these birds, they're like everywhere,' the amateur videographer says. 'Just thousands and thousands and thousands' As the camera pans, it shows many of the black birds soaring over the sky for an extended period of time. Grackles are seen soaring over the sky for an extended period of time January 24. Grackles had taken over this parking lot for several days prior to the recording Some are also seen taking over areas on the ground where vehicles are positioned in bays and no people are seen walking through the lot. The footage evokes reminders of Alfred Hitchcock film The Birds. In the 1963 motion picture starring Tippi Hedren, an iconic scene shows birds attack townsfolk at a gas station. It had been a similar scene in the days prior to the video being captured. 'The grackles had taken over this parking lot for several days prior to me shooting the video,' Tracy Miller told Storyful. 'It was truly terrifying with them swarming like flies. They were everywhere: rooftops, cars, on the ground, in the trees. The sky was abuzz with them all, and they were so loud!' Videographer Tracy Miller said: 'It was truly terrifying with them swarming like flies. They were everywhere: rooftops, cars, on the ground, in the trees' Great-tailed grackles are one of North America's fastest-expanding bird species. Houston Audubon says that since the 1960s, they have followed the spread of irrigated agriculture and urban development into the Great Plains and West. The birds are a permanent sight in Houston and can be found in any area inhabited by humans that has some trees, according to the website. 'They tend to congregate in large flocks and prefer shopping centers and fast-food store parking lots where there's trash for food and trees or light posts for perching,' Houston Audubon states. The website also explains why Miller found them to be so loud. 'Great-tailed Grackles have a wide repertory of songs and sounds including piercing whistles and creaks,' Houston Audubon states online. 'In the evening, raucous flocks pack neighborhood trees creating noisy roosting aggregations.' The clip evokes reminders of Alfred Hitchcock film The Birds, where townsfolk are attacked by them at a gas station - The former chairperson of Ghana's Electoral Commission, Charlotte Osei, has expressed her gratitude to God for a lovely birthday - In a post released on social media, she also took the opportunity to thank Ghanaians for wishing her well on her birthday - Ghanaians took to social media to react to a lovely photo and message she shared on the day after her birthday Our Manifesto: This is what YEN.com.gh believes in The former chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC) Charlotte Osei, has released a lovely photo to mark the celebration of her birthday. A day after she turned 51 years, she took to social media to thank God for giving her such a special day. She also took the opportunity to thank Ghanaians for all their good wishes on sent to her on her birthday. READ ALSO: Sharon Okai: meet the beautiful office worker who quit her job to become a photographer To Charlotte, the celebration of a birthday is a chance to press on, right the wrongs and carve a better future. Social media users, touched by her message, wished her well after she posted a lovely photo of herself and the caption: @kofitsedey: Glorious birthday to you madam @dean_g_cartergh: Happy birthday auntie @char_osei be blessed with greatness, happiness and health Amen , Happy Sunday. @iamforeverallnice100: You are looking so sweet dear @yesli_ice: God bless your new year madam @beauty_haven_gh: Belated birthday wishes. Hope you had a lovely day @pauligath: Happy birthday Ma'am...you are an inspiration. God keep, bless and sustain you! In other news, a video of primary school children in a classroom with cement blocks as tables have surfaced online. In the video, some of the children can be seen placing exercise books on arranged cement blocks and writing in them. Others are however seen with proper desks of a table and chair while some of the blocks are arranged at the back of the classroom. The video, shared by Class91.3FM has since gone viral and attracted comments from social media users READ ALSO: Video of 'charged' soldier leading jama session on his wedding day drops; Ghanaians react Enjoyed reading our story? Download YEN's news app on Google Playstore now and stay up-to-date with major Ghana news! How convenient is it to use the new GHC 200 note at the market? | #Yencomgh Want to be featured on YEN.com.gh? Send us a message on our Facebook page or on Instagram with your stories, photos or videos Source: YEN.com.gh The simple overarching truth about North America railroad operator CSX (NYSE:CSX) is that, as goes the U.S. and global economies, so goes CSX stock. Look for New Highs From CSX Stock as the Economy Heats Up Source: Jonathan Weiss / Shutterstock.com When the global economy was rebounding from the 2008-09 Financial Crisis, CSX roared from $10 in 2010, to $25 by mid-2011. When the global economy started to flat-line in late 2011 amid escalating federal debt concerns, CSX dropped to $20. Over the next several years, the global economy regained its footing. By mid-2015, CSX stock had soared to $40. Then, the economy slowed again in 2015/16 amid multiple geopolitical and economic risks (a slowdown in China, a debt crisis in Greece, Brexit, the devaluation of the Yuan, etc). CSX stock fell back to $20 by early 2016. InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips Lather, rinse, repeat over the past four years. An economic upturn from 2016 through 2018 thanks to tax cuts pushed CSX stock up near $80. An economic slowdown in 2019, thanks to rising trade tensions, has caused CSX stock to trade in a sideways choppy fashion ever since. Long story short, history shows that as goes the economy, so goes CSX stock. Fortunately for bulls, the economy is in the early innings of yet another upswing. This economic upswing will provide sufficient firepower to drive CSX stock to new all-time highs in 2020. The Economy Is an Upswing Looking at the big picture, the U.S. and global economies are in the early innings of yet another multi-quarter upswing. This upswing has mostly to do with two things. First, what were rising U.S.-China trade tensions in 2019, are now easing trade tensions in 2020. This easing will continue for the foreseeable future since the U.S. doesnt want to rock the boat ahead of the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election and China doesnt really have the resources to rock the boat amid the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak. Story continues Consequently, over the next several quarters, U.S.-China trade tensions will meaningfully ease, stability will be injected back into the global geopolitical landscape, corporations will re-up investment and spend, and the global economy will pick up steam. Second, monetary policy across the globe remains supportive of sustained economic expansion. That is, rates everywhere remain at or near record lows, and central banks appear committed to keeping rates low for the foreseeable future. At the same time, the U.S. Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, and the Bank of Japan are all injecting additional stimulus through significant asset purchases. Even further, the Peoples Bank of China just dramatically expanded bank lending capacity. Alongside easing trade tensions, these continued favorable monetary conditions will spark a multi-quarter recovery in the global economy. Sure, there are risks out there. See the coronavirus outbreak in China. See tensions in the Middle East. But, such risks are either ephemeral (disease outbreaks historically are contained to small areas and last just a few months, before disappearing for good) or overstated (Iran doesnt have the resources to provide a meaningful threat to the U.S. at the moment). Net net, the economy is going to pick up steam in 2020, and thats great news for CSX stock. CSX Can Power to New Highs Source: Chart by Luke Lango At the risk of sounding like a broken record, let me repeat this one more time for emphasis purposes. As goes the U.S. and global economies, so goes CSX stock. See the attached chart, which graphs the OECDs Composite Leading Indicator (CLI) data for the U.S. and the world, next to CSX stock price, over the past decade. Theres a clear correlation. When U.S. and global CLI data swings higher, so does CSX stock. When U.S. and global CLI data swings lower, CSX stock struggles for gains. Importantly, this correlation makes complete sense, because the better the economy is doing, the more companies are pushing goods across North America, and the more demand there is for CSXs rail services to transport those goods. As weve already discussed, the U.S. and global economies will pick up steam in 2020. Indeed, they already are. For the first time since late 2017, U.S. and global CLI data are rising, not falling, month-over-month. Such reversals usually arent short-lived. They last for several quarters, adding further support to the idea that the economy is in the first few innings of a multi-quarter upswing. Against that backdrop, CSX should rally as it normally has. Valuation is a slight problem. At 18-times forward earnings, there isnt much room for multiple expansion (the five-year-average forward earnings multiple is 17). But, there is room for CSX to deliver better-than-expected numbers throughout 2020 and for analysts to up their forward profit estimates, the sum of which should provide enough firepower to drive CSX to new highs. Bottom Line on CSX Stock As goes the economy, so goes CSX stock. The economy is going to improve over the next few quarters. As it does, CSX will push to new highs. As of this writing, Luke Lango did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities. More From InvestorPlace The post Look for New Highs From CSX Stock as the Economy Heats Up appeared first on InvestorPlace. Dance music has been off to a flying start in 2020, but this might top all the releases so far. Tesla big dog Elon Musk has returned to the EDM realm with a new release called 'Don't Doubt Ur Vibe' - the follow up to last year's 'RIP Harambe'. You can't make this stuff up. Of course, pretty much as soon as the track hit the internet everyone jumped on it, including our favourite Belgian producer Netsky, who quickly turned around a bootleg and shared it on social media. Give Netsky's version a listen below and check out Musk's first track further down. COLONIE As a landmark legal fight over liability for the U.S. opioid epidemic inches toward what many hope will be a global settlement, a broad coalition of Capital Region professionals seeks a shrewd allocation of an expected multibillion-dollar payout. Exactly how many billions is not yet known, nor is the framework for the hypothetical deal. Which is why Prescription for Progress a regional coalition of health care, law enforcement, media, education and government groups devoted to combating the epidemic is urging all involved to learn from the master tobacco settlement of 1998 and earmark the anticipated funds for specific epidemic-related purposes. We join now in asserting that this money must be spent on those affected by the opioid crisis, rather than to subsidize other government programs, the coalition wrote in a widely distributed letter published Sunday. The statement is a reference to the $453 billion received by states as a result of the tobacco settlement so far, including $156 billion directly and an additional $297 billion in tobacco tax revenues. Citing estimates from the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, the group notes that only $11.6 billion, or 2.6 percent, has been spent on programs that prevent kids from using tobacco and help smokers quit. The rest supported other government programs. If we are to stop the senseless loss of life to opioid abuse, we must not tolerate a similar diversion of opioid settlement funds, the letter states. We need a structure that prioritizes efforts to save lives and help make our communities whole again. Prescription for Progress is recommending a slew of areas it argues deserves support, including evidence-based treatment and harm-reduction initiatives proven to help people who struggle with opioid addiction. Expansion of medication-assisted treatment should be prioritized, the group wrote, and barriers to accessing those medications should be eliminated. Law enforcement and corrections officers should receive support to assure continuity of care for addicted people who pass through the criminal justice system. And health professionals and peer recovery advocates should have access to better training, both in the area of addiction treatment and pain management. Members of the coalition also say better public awareness and education are needed to prevent substance misuse in the first place, and to reduce the stigma that prevents people from seeking or receiving help. This scourge knows no boundaries, said Times Union Publisher George Hearst, who first convened the coalition in 2018. The opioid crisis is everywhere throughout our community, across socioeconomic lines, ethnicity, you name it. It knows no bounds. Hearst said the coalition is publishing its letter in print, television and online news outlets, and will also be emailing and mailing hard copies to state assembly members and senators, local county legislators and boards of supervisors, New York representatives in Congress, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, and relevant state agency heads. Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. In its letter, Prescription for Progress notes that many of its recommendations were guided by a recent report of the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health, which called for settlement funds to go toward science-based prevention, treatment and the underlying root causes of the epidemic. Drug overdose deaths have risen steadily in the U.S. over the past 20 years, with more than 770,000 lives claimed since 1999, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Over 70,000 people died of an overdose in 2017. About two-thirds of them had used opioids at the time of their death. Albany County is one of more than 2,500 municipalities that have sued opioid manufacturers and distributors in federal court, arguing their negligence and lust for profit helped fuel the crisis. They claim manufacturers grossly misrepresented the risks associated with long-term use of their products and say distributors failed to properly monitor orders they knew or should have known were suspicious. Manufacturers and distributors have disputed these allegations, saying they downplay the role that physician-prescribing and individual decision-making played in the crisis. A number of Capital Region municipalities have also sued in state court, but officials say a global settlement deal in the federal court case could funnel funds to these localities as well. If we have anything to do with causing class action monies to flow toward the people who need it instead of pork, well have done something good, Hearst said. NUR-SULTAN -- U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has lauded what he said were "real reforms" in Kazakhstan, saying Washington was "here to help" in the oil-rich country's "transformation." Speaking to RFE/RL in the Kazakh capital Nur-Sultan on February 2, Pompeo urged the former Soviet republic to join Washington in pressing China over its treatment of Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang region and said the United States wanted to see Central Asia "prosper." The secretary of state also commented on the message Washington was sending about press freedoms following the U.S. State Department's removal of a journalist from the pool of reporters covering Pompeo's trip. Pompeo was meeting with top officials in Nur-Sultan to express U.S. support as Washington competes with Moscow and Beijing for influence in the region. Washington has seen energy-rich Kazakhstan as a counterweight to Russia in Central Asia, and U.S. oil companies have invested billions in joint ventures to develop Caspian Sea fields. "We want each of the nations in Central Asia to be independent and sovereign, not a supplicant or a vassal state of any other country in the region," said Pompeo. Pompeo, who arrived late on February 1, met with President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev and his predecessor, Nursultan Nazarbaev, before heading to Uzbekistan for the final stop of a tour of five countries. He was scheduled to meet on February 3 with Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev, and jointly with the foreign ministers of all five Central Asian states. In Nur-Sultan, Pompeo lauded what he said was a "real improvement here in Kazakhstan," adding that there had been "real changes" since Toqaev came to power following the resignation in March 2019 of Nazarbaev, who ruled the country for nearly 30 years. "You can see that when more American businesses come," Pompeo said. "They come as a result of the fact that conditions here are improving, that the real reforms are being made." Toqaev was inaugurated as Kazakhstan's president in June after a weakly contested election that was marred by what international observers called "widespread voting irregularities." Nazarbaev, 79, continues to control social, economic, and political spheres by leading the ruling Nur-Otan party and the influential Security Council. Opponents, critics, and rights groups say Nazarbaev, who tolerated little dissent, denied many citizens basic rights and prolonged his hold on power in the country of 18.7 million people by manipulating the democratic process. The capital, formerly called Astana, was renamed in his honor after his sudden resignation last year. Protests over poor living conditions and financial shortcomings have been held across Kazakhstan for almost a year after five children from one family died when their home in the capital burned down in early February 2019. When pressed on human rights issues in Kazakhstan, Pompeo said that "every nation has to get this right for itself." "The Kazakhstani people must demand it, they must require it, and they need to continue to talk about it. We hope these improvements will continue," he said. WATCH: Pompeo urged countries of the world to "provide safe refuge and asylum to those seeking to flee China." Xinjiang 'A Problem' Pompeo also urged Kazakh officials to join Washington in pressing China over its treatment of Muslim minorities in Xinjiang. Human rights groups say Chinese authorities have subjected Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other mostly Muslim ethnic groups in the northwestern region of Xinjiang to intense surveillance, arbitrary detentions, and forced indoctrination. China is a major trading partner for the Central Asian country and the Kazakh state-controlled media have generally avoided reporting about the internment centers in Xinjiang. Pompeo said the plight of Muslims in Xinjiang was "a problem that's got to be taken care of," as he praised Kazakh authorities for not repatriating ethnic Kazakhs from China who have sought refuge in the Central Asian country. "The United States urges all countries to join us in pressing for an immediate end to this repression," Pompeo said earlier on February 2 in a joint press conference with Foreign Minister Mukhtar Tileuberdi. "We ask simply for them to provide safe refuge and asylum to those seeking to flee China. Protect human dignity, just do what's right." Tleuberdi, whose government has so far refused to criticize China over Xinjiang, made no comment on the issue and focused instead on economic and security cooperation. In August 2018, the United Nations said an estimated 1 million Uyghurs and members of other indigenous ethnic groups in the region were being held in "counterextremism centers." The UN said millions more had been forced into so-called "reeducation camps." China denies that the facilities are internment camps. Pompeo's trip came days after the U.S. State Department removed a reporter from National Public Radio (NPR) from the traveling press pool for his five-country trip, including Great Britain and the former Soviet states of Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan. The removal of the NPR reporter from the pool accompanying Pompeo came after NPR journalist Mary Louise Kelly had pressed him about Ukraine and the dismissal of U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch in a January 24 interview. Kelly alleged that Pompeo yelled and swore at her during a post-interview discussion in a private room, and has said that she was never told that the conversation was off the record, which the secretary of state disputes. Asked whether the removal of the NPR journalist came in retaliation to his confrontational interview with Kelly, Pompeo denied that the interview was confrontational in the first place. "I didn't have a confrontational interview with an NPR reporter any more than I have confrontational interviews all the time in America," he said. "That is the greatness of our nation. Reporters like yourself get to ask me any question, all questions. We take hundreds and hundreds of questions. We talk openly; we express our view; they ask their questions. That's how we proceed in America." Regarding the removal of the NPR journalist from the reporters' pool, Pompeo said that "with respect to who travels with me, I always bring a big press contingent, but we ask for certain sets of behaviors -- and that is simply telling the truth and being honest." "And when they'll do that they get to participate and if they don't it's just not appropriate," he added. When asked what kind of message the NPR reporter's removal from the pool sends to countries with a poor record when it comes to press freedoms, Pompeo replied: "It is a perfect message about press freedoms." "They are free to ask questions," he said of journalists. "A reporter from that very business [NPR] was at a press conference just yesterday. It is wide open in America. I love it. I hope the rest of the world will follow our press freedoms and the great things we do in the United States." Uzbekistan Pompeo also discussed his upcoming "C5+1" meeting in Tashkent with his counterparts from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. "We'll talk about security matters for sure, we'll talk about economic integration amongst those countries, and we'll talk about how each of these nations can transform their own countries" in terms of political freedoms, economic conditions, and human rights, Pompeo said. Pompeo will meet separately with Uzbek President Mirziyoev and Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov. Mirziyoev, a former prime minister, became president after predecessor Islam Karimov's death was announced in September 2016. Karimov had ruled Central Asia's most populous country with an iron fist since before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Mirziyoev has taken steps to bolster the country's struggling economy and to implement reforms in Uzbekistan -- where rights abuses had been widespread under Karimov. Still, rights watchdogs have expressed concerns about conditions in Uzbekistan. Freedom House, for instance, ranked Uzbekistan "not free" in its Freedom On The Net 2018 assessment and said the Internet environment there remained "repressive." Uzbekistan also has sizable oil and gas reserves, and it has also been seen as a counterweight to Russian influence in the region. It has allied with Washington in the war in Afghanistan and the fight against radical Islamist fighters. During his stay in Tashkent, the top U.S. diplomat will also participate in a C5+1 ministerial summit with his counterparts from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan "to stress U.S. support for a better-connected, more prosperous, and more secure Central Asia, consistent with the U.S.s new Central Asia strategy," the State Department said. With reporting by AFP and Reuters Wake up, make breakfast, get the kids to school, drive to work, break into the chief financial officer's inbox and steal the entire company's employee tax records. Maybe later you'll grab a bagel from across the street. For "red teams" or offensive security researchers it's just another day at work. These offensive security teams are made up of skilled hackers who are authorized to find vulnerabilities in a company's systems, networks and their employees. By hacking a company from within, the company can better understand where it needs to shore up its defenses to help prevent a real future hacker. But social engineering, where hackers manipulate their targets, can have serious consequences on the target. Although red team engagements are authorized and are legal, the ethics of certain attacks and efforts can go unconsidered. Newly released research looks at the ethics involved in offensive security engagements. Is it ethically acceptable to send phishing emails, bribe a receptionist or plant compromising documents on a person's computer if it means preventing a breach down the line? The findings showed that security professionals, like red teamers and incident responders, were more likely to find it ethically acceptable to conduct certain kinds of hacking activities on other people than they are with having those activities run against themselves. The research a survey of more than 500 people working in both security and non-security positions, presented for the first time at ShmooCon 2020 in Washington, DC this week found that non-security professionals, such as employees working in legal, human resources or at the reception desk, are nine-times more likely to object to receiving a phishing email as part of a red team engagement than a security professional, such as a red teamer or incident response. It is hoped the findings will help start a discussion about the effects of a red team's engagement on a company's morale during an internal penetration test, and help companies to help understand the limits of a red team's rules of engagement. "When red teamers are forced to confront the fact that their targets are just like themselves, their attitude about what it's OK to do to another person about testing security on other people changes dramatically after they confront the fact that it could happen to them," said Tarah Wheeler, a cybersecurity policy fellow at New America and co-author of the research. Story continues The survey asked about a range of potential tactics in offensive security testing, such as phishing, bribery, threats and impersonation. The respondents were randomly assigned one of two surveys containing all the same questions, except one asked if it was acceptable to conduct the activity and the other asked if it was acceptable if it happened to them. The findings showed security professionals would object as much as four-times if certain tactics were used against them, such as phishing emails and planting compromising documents. "Humans are bad at being objective," said Wheeler. The findings come at a time where red teams are increasingly making headlines for their activities as part of engagements. Just this week, two offensive security researchers at Coalfire had charges dropped against them for breaking into an Iowa courthouse as part of a red team engagement. The researchers were tasked and authorized by Iowa's judicial arm to find vulnerabilities in its buildings and computer networks in an effort to improve its security. But the local sheriff caught the pair and objected to their activities, despite presenting a "get out of jail free" letter detailing the authorized engagement. The case gave a rare glimpse into the world of security penetration testing and red teaming, even if the arrests were universally panned by the security community. The survey also found that security professionals in different parts of the world were more averse to certain activities than others. Security professionals in Central and South America, for example, object more to planting compromising documents whereas those in the Middle East and Africa object more to bribes and threats. The authors of the research said that the takeaways are not that red teams should avoid certain offensive security practices but to be aware of the impact they can have on the targets, often which include their corporate colleagues. "When you're setting up a red team and scoping your targets, consider the impact on your co-workers and clients," said Roy Iversen, director of security engineering and operations at Fortalice Solutions, who also co-authored the research. Iversen said the findings may also help companies decide if they want an outside red team to carry out an engagement to minimize any internal conflict between a company's internal red team and the wider staff. The researchers plan to expand their work over the next year to improve their overall survey count and to better understand the demographics of their respondents to help refine the findings. "It's an ongoing project," said Wheeler. A Chinese woman infected with the new coronavirus showed a dramatic improvement after she was treated with a cocktail of anti-virals used to treat flu and HIV, Thailand's health ministry said Sunday. The 71-year-old patient tested negative for the virus 48 hours after Thai doctors administered the combination, doctor Kriengsak Attipornwanich said during the ministry's daily press briefing. "The lab result of positive on the coronavirus turned negative in 48 hours," Kriengsak said. "From being exhausted before, she could sit up in bed 12 hours later." The doctors combined the anti-flu drug oseltamivir with lopinavir and ritonavir, anti-virals used to treat HIV, Kriengsak said, adding the ministry was awaiting research results to prove the findings. The news comes as the new virus claimed its first life outside China -- a 44-year-old Chinese man who died in the Philippines -- while the death toll in China has soared above 300. Thailand so far has detected 19 confirmed cases of the virus believed to have originated in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, which is under lockdown. That is the second highest number of cases outside of China, with Japan recording 20. So far, eight patients in Thailand have recovered and returned home, while 11 remain in hospital. In a video released Sunday, health minister Anutin Charnvirakul visited a patient from Wuhan who had recovered from the coronavirus, chatting with her amicably in Mandarin as she thanked him and the medical staff. Thai authorities are trying to balance screening of inbound Chinese visitors with the economic needs of its tourist sector, which is heavily reliant on arrivals from the mainland. Messages of support saying "Our hearts to Wuhan" in English, Chinese and Thai were plastered on a Bangkok mall popular with tourists. The bulk of confirmed cases have been Chinese visitors to Thailand, but on Thursday the kingdom recorded its first human-to-human transmission when a Thai taxi driver was diagnosed with the disease. The taxi driver had not travelled to China, but may have had contact with tourists. Thailand's government is also battling public criticism that it has been slow to evacuate scores of its citizens from Hubei province, at the centre of the outbreak. Anutin said evacuation would happen on Tuesday, and the returnees would be quarantined for 14 days. Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union president Aishe Ghosh said on Saturday that had society raised its voice against the scrapping of Article 370, "we would not have had to see this day". Ghosh, who was injured in an attack by masked assailants on students on the campus of JNU in Delhi on January 5, was speaking at a panel discussion on 'Students as the Vanguard' at 'Mumbai Collective' here. "The first attack on our Constitution was when Article 370 was removed in Kashmir. Had we raised our voice then, we would not have had to see this day," she said, referring to the current situation in the country. Provisions of the Article 370 of the Constitution, which gave a special status to Jammu and Kashmir, were abrogated last August and the state was bifurcated into two Union Territories. "This is not the fight of only students and they cannot end it alone, but they are hoping that every section of society will rise and fight together," Ghosh said. "Why do we have to wait for a student to die, to commit suicide, to be killed? Or for an Aishe Ghosh to be hit by an iron rod? This is not just a fight only for students," she said. When the history of the current phase of politics in our country is written, the women from Shaheen Bagh and elsewhere in the country who are leading the protest (against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act) will feature prominently, she said. Being a good student is not about only doing well in examinations, Ghosh said. "If we are learning democracy in civics, then we need to implement it in society. A student is not someone who just reads about Hitler. Education and being a good student is to see similarities and stop it from happening in India," she said. It was the "system" in the county which claimed the lives of Rohith Vemula and Fathima Latif (the IIT Madras student who committed suicide), Ghosh contended. She also spoke about JNU student Najeeb Ahmed, who went missing in October 2016. "If we had raised voice then that Islamophobia is existing in our system, the current situation would not have arisen," Ghosh stated. During an earlier session, writer-director Rasika Agashe said she was not "scared of" Prime Minister Narendra Modi or Home Minister Amit Shah, but she was scared of "hate- filled kids who now have guns". She was apparently referring to incidents of firing outside Jamia Millia Islamia and at Shaheen Bagh protest venue in Delhi. "We must figure out how we are to root out this hatred," she said. Robert Leroy Edwards, 38, was arrested Wednesday in Manatee County, Florida, after he allegedly strangled a disabled veteran's emotional support dog A Texas man allegedly strangled a disabled veteran's emotional support dog with an electrical cord because he was annoyed by her barking. Robert Leroy Edwards, 38, was arrested on animal abuse and child abuse charges after he killed Richard Hunt's black Labrador retriever, Midnight, early Wednesday morning. Edwards had been boarding at the home of Hunt's teenage son Ian when he reportedly got enraged over Midnight's barking and hanged the dog in a chicken coop. Ian, who had been caring for six-year-old Midnight while his father was living in an RV, frantically called his father as the horror killing unfolded. 'Come now!' the teen said. 'He's killing our dog!' Hunt stayed on the phone with his son as he sped from Sarasota to the farm in Manatee County. By the time he arrived, Midnight was dead. Edwards is accused of using an electrical cord to hang Midnight, a six-year-old black Labrador retriever (pictured), because he couldn't stand her barking Midnight's heartbroken owner, Richard Hunt (pictured), is a disabled Navy veteran Investigators said that after Edwards murdered the dog he went into the home and woke Ian, asking the boy to help him hide the body. When Ian refused, Edwards repeatedly punched the boy in the face, Hunt told The Washington Post. The disabled Navy veteran found Midnight's corpse stuffed into a back compartment of the family's boat, the makeshift noose still tied around her neck. Edwards was charged with torture inflicting pain and serious injury resulting in death of an animal; child abuse without great bodily harm; battery by touching or striking; and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. The 38-year-old smiled in his mugshot, sporting a black eye and cuts on his face. He is being held on $62,000 bond. Midnight was being cared for by Hunt's teenage son Ian, who lives on a farm in Manatee County. Edwards, who is from Texas, had been boarding at the property for about a week before the horror killing Hunt said Edwards had been living at his son's home for about a week before the incident. He said that while the boarder drank a lot, he hadn't caused any trouble up until that point because he made a living doing handy work. 'We have no idea what brings him to that point,' Randy Warren, a spokesman for the Manatee County sheriff's office told The Post. Hunt has also been left in disbelief over the incident, and horrified by the thought of Midnight's final moments. 'I hope and pray that she was able to think of one of us who loved her and not that piece of scum,' he said. Hunt plans to attend all of Edwards' court appearances and ensure that he is held accountable. 'Biblical justice would be wonderful,' he said. 'Nothing that they can do to him will be bad enough in my opinion.' Hunt has vowed to attend all of Edwards' court appearances to ensure he is brought to justice At the time when most countries around the are walling off China to contain the spread of coronavirus outbreak, Pakistan on Sunday announced it would immediately resume suspended flight operations to and from China. The announcement was made by Pakistani Aviation Ministry spokeswoman Duriya Amir just days after Islamabad suspended flight operation to and from China. Air China will make the first flight to land in Karachi in Pakistan on Monday morning, Amir was quoted by Anadolu Agency as saying. National carrier Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) and two Chinese airlines -- Air China and China Southern Airlines -- will operate a total of 12 flights per week between the two countries. This comes as Pakistani students in China have been complaining about the failure of Prime Minister Imran Khan government to evacuate them from Wuhan, the epicentre of coronavirus. In the past few days, several videos appeared on social media where students have repeatedly requested the government to evacuate them from the city as the virus is spreading at a faster rate. So far, four Pakistani students out of 500 students stranded in Wuhan have been diagnosed with coronavirus. However, Islamabad reiterated that it would not repatriate its citizens stranded in China. A few days back, Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Health Zafar Mirza had said that the Pakistani government has decided not to repatriate its citizens stranded in China from the coronavirus-hit Wuhan city to show "solidarity" with Beijing. The virus was diagnosed first in December and has spread to most parts of the The deadly virus has so far claimed more than 300 lives and 14,000 cases have been confirmed. As the virus spread, Beijing faced global isolation with neighbouring countries like North Korea Russia, Mongolia closing its borders with China. The US, Australia and Singapore have temporarily shut their doors to non-citizens who have recently travelled to China. Vietnam has also barred all flights to and from China. Many countries, including India, the US, Germany, Iran and Sri Lanka have repatriated their citizens from China. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) https://www.aish.com/tp/i/sacks/The-Divided-Sea-Natural-or-Supernatural.html The splitting of the Reed Sea is engraved in Jewish memory. We recite it daily during the morning service, at the transition from the Verses of Praise to the beginning of communal prayer. We speak of it again after the Shema, just before the Amidah. It was the supreme miracle of the exodus. But in what sense? If we listen carefully to the narratives, we can distinguish two perspectives. This is the first: The waters were divided, and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their leftThe water flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed the Israelites into the sea. Not one of them survived. But the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left. (Exodus 14:22, 28-29) The same note is struck in the Song at the Sea: By the blast of Your nostrils the waters piled up. The surging waters stood firm like a wall; The deep waters congealed in the heart of the sea. (Ex. 15:8) The emphasis here is on the supernatural dimension of what happened. Water, which normally flows, stood upright. The sea parted to expose dry land. The laws of nature were suspended. Something happened for which there can be no scientific explanation. However, if we listen carefully, we can also hear a different note: Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the Lord drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. (Ex. 14:21) Here there is not a sudden change in the behaviour of water, with no apparent cause. God brings a wind that, in the course of several hours, drives the waters back. Or consider this passage: During the last watch of the night the Lord looked down from the pillar of fire and cloud at the Egyptian army and threw it into confusion. He made the wheels of their chariots come off so that they had difficulty driving. The Egyptians said, "Let's get away from the Israelites! The Lord is fighting for them against Egypt." (Ex. 14:24-25). The emphasis here is less on miracle than on irony. The great military assets of the Egyptians making them almost invulnerable in their day were their horses and chariots. These were Egypt's specialty. They still were, in the time of Solomon, five centuries later: Solomon accumulated chariots and horses; he had fourteen hundred chariots and twelve thousand horses, which he kept in the chariot cities and also with him in JerusalemThey imported a chariot from Egypt for six hundred shekels of silver, and a horse for a hundred and fifty. (I Kings 10:26-29) Viewed from this perspective, the events that took place could be described as follows: The Israelites had arrived at the Reed Sea at a point at which it was shallow. Possibly there was a ridge in the sea bed, normally covered by water, but occasionally when, for example, a fierce east wind blows exposed. This is how the Cambridge University physicist Colin Humphreys puts it in his The Miracles of Exodus: Wind tides are well known to oceanographers. For example, a strong wind blowing along Lake Erie, one of the Great Lakes, has produced water elevation differences of as much as sixteen feet between Toledo, Ohio, on the west, and Buffalo, New York, on the eastThere are reports that Napoleon was almost killed by a "sudden high tide" while he was crossing shallow water near the head of the Gulf of Suez.1 In the case of the wind that exposed the ridge in the bed of the sea, the consequences were dramatic. Suddenly the Israelites, traveling on foot, had an immense advantage over the Egyptian chariots that were pursuing them. Their wheels became stuck in the mud. The charioteers made ferocious efforts to free them, only to find that they quickly became mired again. The Egyptian army could neither advance nor retreat. So intent were they on the trapped wheels, and so reluctant were they to abandon their prized war machines, the chariots, that they failed to notice that the wind had dropped and the water was returning. By the time they realized what was happening, they were trapped. The ridge was now covered with sea water in either direction, and the island of dry land in the middle was shrinking by the minute. The mightiest army of the ancient world was defeated, and its warriors drowned, not by a superior army, not by human opposition at all, but by their own folly in being so focused on capturing the Israelites that they ignored the fact that they were driving into mud where their chariots could not go. We have here two ways of seeing the same events: one natural, the other supernatural. The supernatural explanation that the waters stood upright is immensely powerful, and so it entered Jewish memory. But the natural explanation is no less compelling. The Egyptian strength proved to be their weakness. The weakness of the Israelites became their strength. On this reading, what was significant was less the supernatural, than the moral dimension of what happened. God visits the sins on the sinners. He mocks those who mock Him. He showed the Egyptian army, which reveled in its might, that the weak were stronger than they just as He later did with the pagan prophet Bilaam, who prided himself in his prophetic powers and was then shown that his donkey (who could see the angel Bilaam could not see) was a better prophet than he was. To put it another way: a miracle is not necessarily something that suspends natural law. It is, rather, an event for which there may be a natural explanation, but which happening when, where and how it did evokes wonder, such that even the most hardened sceptic senses that God has intervened in history. The weak are saved; those in danger, delivered. More significant still is the moral message such an event conveys: that hubris is punished by nemesis; that the proud are humbled and the humble given pride; that there is justice in history, often hidden but sometimes gloriously revealed. This idea can be taken further. Emil Fackenheim has spoken of epoch-making events that transform the course of history.2 More obscurely, but along similar lines, the French philosopher Alain Badiou has proposed the concept of an event as a rupture in ontology through which individuals are brought face to face with a truth that changes them and their world.3 It is as if all normal perception fades away and we know that we are in the presence of something momentous, to which we sense we must remain faithful for the rest of our lives. The appropriation of Presence is mediated by an event.4 It is through transformative events that we feel ourselves addressed, summoned, by something beyond history, breaking through into history. In this sense, the division of the Reed Sea was something other and deeper than a suspension of the laws of nature. It was the transformative moment at which the people believed in the Lord and in Moses His servant (Ex. 14:31) and called themselves the people You acquired (Ex. 15:16). Not all Jewish thinkers focused on the supernatural dimension of God's involvement in human history. Maimonides insisted that Israel did not believe in Moses our teacher because of the signs he performed.5 What made Moses the greatest of the prophets, for Maimonides, is not that he performed supernatural deeds but that, at Mount Sinai, he brought the people the word of God. In general, the sages tended to downplay the dimension of the miraculous, even in the case of the greatest miracle of all, the division of the sea. That is the meaning of the following midrash, commenting on the verse, Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea went back to its full flow [le-eitano] (Ex.14:27): Rabbi Jonathan said: The Holy One, blessed be He, made a condition with the sea [at the beginning of creation], that it should split asunder for the Israelites. That is the meaning of the sea went back to its full flow [read not le-eitano but] letenao, the condition that God had earlier stipulated.6 The implication is that the division of the sea was, as it were, programmed into creation from the outset.7 It was less a suspension of nature than an event written into nature from the beginning, to be triggered at the appropriate moment in the unfolding of history. We even find an extraordinary debate among the sages as to whether miracles are a sign of merit or the opposite. The Talmud8 tells the story of a man whose wife died, leaving a nursing child. The father was too poor to be able to afford a wet-nurse, so a miracle occurred and he himself gave milk until the child was weaned. On this, the Talmud records the following difference of opinion: Rav Joseph said: Come and see how great was this man that such a miracle was wrought for him. Abbaye said to him: On the contrary, how inferior was this man, that the natural order was changed for him. According to Abbaye, greater are those to whom good things happen without the need for miracles. The genius of the biblical narrative of the crossing of the Reed Sea is that it does not resolve the issue one way or another. It gives us both perspectives. To some the miracle was the suspension of the laws of nature. To others, the fact that there was a naturalistic explanation did not make the event any less miraculous. That the Israelites should arrive at the sea precisely where the waters were unexpectedly shallow, that a strong east wind should blow when and how it did, and that the Egyptians' greatest military asset should have proved their undoing all these things were wonders, and we have never forgotten them. NOTES 1. Colin Humphreys, The Miracles of Exodus, Continuum, 2003, 247-48. For a similar analysis see James K. Hoffmeier, Israel in Egypt: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Exodus Tradition, Oxford University Press, 1996, 199-215. 2. Emil Fackenheim, To Mend the World, New York, Schocken, 1982, 14-20. 3. Alain Badiou, Being and Event, trans. Oliver Feltham, Continuum, 2006. 4. Being and Event, 255. 5. Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Yesodei ha-Torah 8:1. 6. Genesis Rabbah 5:5. 7. In general, the sages said that all future miracles were created at twilight at the end of the six days of creation (Mishnah, Avot 5:6). 8. Shabbat 53b. CONNECT WITH THE CHIEF RABBI Download the Chief Rabbis new iPhone and iPad app via www.chiefrabbi.org for mobile access to his video study sessions as well as his articles and speeches. Alternatively, search for Chief Rabbi in the App Store on your iPhone. SUBSCRIBE TO COVENANT & CONVERSATION To receive Covenant & Conversation and other news from the Office of the Chief Rabbi direct to your inbox each week, please subscribe at www.chiefrabbi.org. The Phillies have agreed to sign infielder Logan Forsythe to a minor league deal, MassLive.coms Chris Cotillo tweets. Forsythe will receive an invitation to Philadelphias big league Spring Training camp. This will mark the second minor league deal in as many years for Forsythe, though last winters pact with the Rangers translated into some pretty regular playing time (and $2MM in salary) at the MLB level. Forsythe played in 101 games for Texas and received 367 plate appearances, hitting .227/.325/.353 with seven home runs. Fueled by a .404 BABIP over his first 167 PA, Forsythe began his year with a scorching .307/.410/.486 slash line before his fortune turned, and he hit only .164/.255/.249 over his final 200 PA (with a .221 BABIP over that stretch). The 33-year-old Forsythe will now look to win himself a bench job amidst a Phillies infield that has some moving parts. Philadelphia is set to go with Rhys Hoskins at first base, Jean Segura moving to second base, the newly-signed Didi Gregorius installed at shortstop, and Scott Kingery at third base. Kingery, however, is still expected to get his fair share of time in center field or elsewhere around the diamond, leaving room for another infielder. The Phillies will have Forsythe, Josh Harrison, T.J. Rivera, Ronald Torreyes, Neil Walker, and Phil Gosselin in camp battling for that job, with that entire group perhaps ultimately slated for pure backup duty if and when top prospect Alec Bohm is called up to the Show. After excelling as the Rays regular second baseman in 2015-16, Forsythe has struggled at the plate over the last three seasons and gradually became a utility player with the Dodgers, Twins, and Rangers. He saw action at all four infield positions in 2019 and also has past experience as a corner outfield, so that extra versatility could give him a bit of a leg up in garnering a spot on Philadelphias 26-man roster. Fake news and conspiracy theories about the origin of the coronavirus have swiftly followed the outbreak around the world. As The Guardian reports, the quick spread of the virus from its origins in Chinas Hubei province, and the lack of early detail about where it comes from or how to treat it, has provided ample room for speculation. One week after the city of Wuhan was placed under effective lockdown, the tide of misinformation is so high that Twitter, Facebook, and Google are struggling to cope. On Friday, after the WHO declared the outbreak a global health emergency, Facebook said it would remove content with false claims or conspiracy theories that have been flagged by leading global health organisations and local health authorities that could cause harm to people who believe them. On Thursday, Twitter announced it would adjust search prompt in key countries across the globe to feature authoritative health sources when you search for terms related to novel #coronavirus. Here are some of the examples of misinformation spreading around the world. 1. People eating bats in Wuhan The biggest piece of misinformation about the cause of the virus is the widely circulated video of a woman eating a bat. It has been spread by the Daily Mail, RT and far-right YouTuber Paul Joseph Watson among others. The Chinese celebrity Wang Mengyun said she has received death threats since the video went viral this month. The origins of the coronavirus are believed to have been from illegally sold wildlife at a seafood market in Wuhan, and bats could potentially have been the source, but the video was not filmed in a Wuhan restaurant as some had claimed, but in Palau, Micronesia, for a travel video in 2016. 2. Its a deliberate plot Proponents of the QAnon conspiracy theory, such as Jordan Sather, have been spreading the idea that the outbreak of the coronavirus was timed to coincide with the start of Donald Trumps impeachment trial. Sather claimed in a thread posted to his 100,000 followers that the disease was planned and manufactured. He pointed to a coronavirus patent granted to a firm with ties to the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation. The firm, Pirbright, had to issue a statement correcting misinformation. The firm said it researches infectious bronchitis virus, a coronavirus that infects poultry and pigs not humans. 3. Its a bioweapon The Washington Times claimed in a story that the coronavirus outbreak could be linked to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, quoting a former Israeli military intelligence officer who claimed a bioweapon was one possible option. Other conspiracy theories have suggested the virus was smuggled out of Canada into China. The Washington Post, however, spoke to a number of experts who said based on the virus genome there is no indication it was engineered. The MIT professor Vipin Narang said in a tweet that there is no evidence it is a bioweapon, and if it were, it would be a bad one, because a good bioweapon should be more deadly but not as easily spread. 4. 5G caused the spread of coronavirus These days 5G is blamed for everything, from cancer to bushfires, so it is not surprising that conspiracy theories that 5G caused, or helped spread coronavirus have been shared into the anti-5G groups on Facebook. One post debunked on Facebook claimed Wuhan was where 5G was first rolled out, and 5G wrecked immune systems and thereby boosted the virulency of the normal cold. Wuhan was one of a few places where 5G was rolled out in China in 2020, along with other parts of the world. There is no evidence that 5G weakens immune systems or is harmful to humans. 5. Just take oregano oil, vitamin C or salt water Prominent anti-vaxxers and natural medicine groups have been sharing posts suggesting oregano oil, vitamin C, and salt water are either good ways to prevent coronavirus or cure it. They will not. 6. Just drink bleach One of the more dangerous remedies again comes from prominent QAnon conspiracy followers, with Daily Beast reporting the pro-Trump conspiracy theorists have told people to buy their miracle mineral solution that is supposed to cure everything, including autism or HIV/AIDS. The Food and Drug Administration has said the solution is a dangerous bleach. 7. Chinese Red Bull and fortune cookies are virus carriers There have been various viral posts on social media all trying to appear to be an official health-related update about what people should do to try to prevent them from getting in contact with the coronavirus. One of the most prominent spread in Australia, via childcare centres, is an apparent urgent notice from the Department of Diseasology Parramatta. This non-existent department warned of food that could be contaminated including wuxhang rice, fortune cookies, migoreng noodles, Yakult, and Chinese Red Bull. The New South Wales health department was forced to issue a statement stating there was no such entity as the Department of Diseasology Parramatta. NSW Health would like to assure the community that the locations mentioned in this post pose no risk to visitors, and there have been no positive readings at train stations. 8. The no-go suburbs Another warning spread on social media claims to come from Queensland Health and warns people to stay away from certain suburbs in Brisbane and any populated areas that have a certain proportion of Chinese residents. The Brisbane MP Duncan Pegg tweeted that the warning was fake and designed to malign the community. Urbanisation and industrialisation come at the cost of affecting and razing forests and ecosystems. According to a national study by a non-profit group, Wetlands International South Asia (WISA), Mumbai has lost the maximum number of wetlands among 22 cities in India - 71% between 1970 and 2014. India Water Portal According to the study, the wetland loss was a result of the increase in built-up area to 1074 sq km from 149 sq km. Wetlands in Maharashtra, especially Mumbai, are threatened by high level of water pollution and solid waste dumping, combined with developmental threats. Sites are either not properly governed, management plans are missing or exact area demarcation has not been done, which is impacting the wetlands, thereby water security, HT quoted Ritesh Kumar, Director of WISA as saying. Other cities that lost their wetlands are, Ahmedabad (57%), Bengaluru (56%), Hyderabad (55%), Delhi NCR (38%), and Pune (37%). Analysing published land use and land cover data over 44 years, the study calculated the reduction using satellite images. ECO Media The ministry of environment, forest and climate change (MoEFCC) has identified the current threats to major wetlands in India and is working towards its restoration, which according to the report has been going on for sometime now. The Bombay High Court (HC) banned reclamation and construction on wetlands, after an environment group filed a petition to protect them in 2014. In September 2017, the MoEFCC notified new Wetland (Conservation and Management) Rules 2017, replacing the 2010 version. According to the new rules of industrial development, garbage dumping or discharge of wastewater at wetland sites is disallowed, while derecognising wetlands in coastal regulation zones and salt pans. Wordpress/Sandrp However, more conservatory measures need to be taken to take care of these rapidly disappearing wetlands. (Newser) In Politico's words, "Mike Bloomberg's campaign just went there." Facing a wave of attacks from President Trump, the Democratic candidate fired back Sunday with "pathological liar"not an unusual retort for Demsthen dared to engage in a game of personal insults. "The president lies about everything: his fake hair, his obesity, and his spray-on tan," said Bloomberg spokeswoman Julie Wood. This after Trump slammed the billionaire New Yorker on Twitter, calling him "Mini Mike," accusing him of being "part of the Fake News," and saying he has to "stand on boxes, or a lift, during the debates." Bloomberg responded in Los Angeles that "I stand twice as tall as he does on the stage that matters." In other Sunday chatter: story continues below Rep. Adam Schiff : "I'm not letting the senators off the hook," he said on CBS' Face the Nation. "We're still going to go into to the Senate this week and make the case why this president needs to be removed." : "I'm not letting the senators off the hook," he said on CBS' Face the Nation. "We're still going to go into to the Senate this week and make the case why this president needs to be removed." Pete Buttigieg : "SNL's mockery of the trial almost seemed like it was a process that had more integrity than the actual trial having no witnesses at all and it beats you down, but if the Senate is the jury right now, we are the jury tomorrow," he said on NBC's Meet the Press. : "SNL's mockery of the trial almost seemed like it was a process that had more integrity than the actual trial having no witnesses at all and it beats you down, but if the Senate is the jury right now, we are the jury tomorrow," he said on NBC's Meet the Press. Jared Kushner on the new Middle East peace plan: "If [Palestinians] don't think that they can uphold these standards, then I don't think we can get Israel to take the risk to recognize them as a state," he said on CNN's Fareed Zakaria. on the new Middle East peace plan: "If [Palestinians] don't think that they can uphold these standards, then I don't think we can get Israel to take the risk to recognize them as a state," he said on CNN's Fareed Zakaria. Sen. Amy Klobuchar: "It was a tragic case, it was a big deal within the African American community and our focus was on bringing the people to justice and doing justice for [Tyesha Edward's] family," she said on Fox News Sunday about a black man, Myon Burrell, her office imprisoned in the death of Edward when she was a prosecutor, per the Hill; an AP report questions the evidence against Burrell. (Read more politics stories.) President Donald Trump walks along the South Lawn of the White House to Marine One on Jan. 28, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images) Trump Interviewed by Foxs Sean Hannity Ahead of Super Bowl Trump reveals he 'would love' to run against Michael Bloomberg President Donald Trump, in a pre-Super Bowl interview on Fox on Sunday, again criticized the impeachment inquiry against him, saying its very unfair to [his] family and the families of his associates. Its been a very, very unfair process, Trump told Fox News Sean Hannity, saying that the effort to oust him from office probably started when he made his announcement to run for president in 2015. Trump then touted some of his campaign accomplishments, including that unemployment levels among certain demographics, such as African-Americans, are at record low levels. Trump said that media reports havent highlighted his accomplishments regarding the economy and have sought to focus on more divisive issues like impeachment. Trump last week signed the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, a trade deal that is to replace the 25-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which he will likely highlight in his upcoming State of the Union Address and in reelection campaign stops. The Senate is slated to acquit Trump sometime in the next week, and Trump is also expected to deliver his State of the Union address. Last Friday, the Senate voted down a resolution to call impeachment witnesses, setting up an up-or-down vote that will likely acquit him. House Democrats impeached the president for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, saying he violated his oath of office by holding up millions of dollars in security assistance allegedly in exchange for investigations of a Ukraine company connected to Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden. Trump and Ukrainian officials have denied the claims. In the Senate trial, Democratic managers led by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) claimed that if Trump is acquitted, he will likely engage in impeachable offenses. When asked about whether he could work with Congressional Democrats such as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) following the inquiry, Trump said he would like to but added that its going to be hard. Im not sure they will be able to work with his administration, the president remarked. Hannity then asked Trump about potential 2020 Democratic presidential nominees, and he listed off a number of nicknames hes created for them. Theyre very accurate, the president told the Fox pundit. Trump was also asked about who he would prefer to run against in 2020. But I would love to run against Bloomberg. I would love it, Trump told Hannity. [Democratic senator from New Jersey] Cory Booker and all these people couldnt get any of the things that Bloomberg is getting now, he continued. I think its very unfair for the Democrats. Trump was then asked about the coronavirus outbreak, which spread from the Chinese city of Wuhan and has prompted lockdowns and quarantines in several other Chinese cities. The White House has reached out to help China, and Trump touted the current U.S.-China relationship in the interview. However, We cant have thousands of people coming in who have this problem, the coronavirus, Trump said in the interview, referring to U.S. travel restrictions on people who recently traveled to China. In the interview, Trump did not make a prediction on who will win the Super Bowl. The Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers are slated to play starting at around 6:15 p.m. ET. President Donald Trump boards Air Force One as he departs Washington for travel to Michigan at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, January 30, 2020. Voters are roughly split on whether the Senate should remove President Donald Trump from the White House ahead of a historic vote slated for this week, according to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Sunday. The survey found 46% of registered voters say the chamber should vote to remove the president from office, while 49% think it should not do so. Even so, 52% of respondents believe Trump abused his power by asking a foreign government to investigate a political opponent, and 53% say he obstructed Congress by not cooperating with the impeachment investigation. Those are the two charges the House leveled against the president in the articles of impeachment it passed in December. The poll also found 39% of voters think the Senate has enough information to make its decision, while 37% say it needs to collect more information. Another 22% responded that they do not know enough to say. The GOP-held chamber voted against calling additional witnesses Friday in a 51-49 vote. The poll, conducted Jan. 26-29, comes only a few days before the Senate is expected to acquit Trump on Wednesday. The trial started about two weeks ago, and Democrats had pushed for the chamber to seek more documents and testimony from former national security advisor John Bolton, among others. The House charged Trump with abusing his power by urging Ukraine to investigate 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter as his administration withheld critical military aid. It also charged him with obstructing the congressional probe into his conduct. The poll also gauged who voters would choose in hypothetical general election matchups between Trump and Biden and other top 2020 Democratic presidential candidates. The first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses on Monday start the process of voters choosing which Democrat will face Trump in November. The former Vice President Biden fares best against Trump in the early head-to-head surveys. He leads the incumbent by a 50% to 44% margin, the poll found. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has a 4-percentage point advantage, 49% to 45%. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., leads 48% to 45%. Former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg has a 1 percentage point edge, 46% to 45%. Biden, Sanders and Warren all hold smaller leads over Trump than they did in a December survey. Biden and Sanders are jockeying for position at the top of the Democratic field. The poll found the pair in a virtual tie nationally among Democratic primary voters. Sanders has a 27% to 26% edge over Biden. Polling averages in the first three nominating states of Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada show potentially competitive contests, while Biden has enjoyed big leads in the fourth state of South Carolina. The poll surveyed 1,000 registered voters and has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 3.1 percentage points. Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube. The Philippines has reported the first death outside China from the coronavirus that has killed over 300 and spread to other countries, the World Health Organization said Sunday. The fatality is a Chinese man from the city of Wuhan, where the virus was first detected. "This is the first reported death outside China," Rabindra Abeyasinghe, the WHO representative to the Philippines, told reporters. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, February 2) Vice President Maria Leonor "Leni" Robredo urged President Rodrigo Duterte to be the one heading the frontline response against the threats of the 2019 novel coronavirus or nCOV, instead of letting his spokesperson do the talking. Robredo on Sunday slammed the "unnecessary" and "tentative" remarks coming from some public officials, particularly from Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo, when giving updates on the government's efforts in addressing the outbreak. "Pinakamabuti sana kung si Pangulo iyong lumabas in public para mag-make ng statements. Kasi alam natin na very popular si Pangulo, na kapag siya iyong mag-assure sa mga kababayan natin na lahat ginagawa ng pamahalaan, tingin ko hindi ganoon kagrabe iyong takot, eh," she said in her weekly radio show. [Translation: It would be better if it's the President who would come out and give statements to the public. Because we know that the President is very popular, if he is the one assuring our fellow Filipinos what the government is doing, the fear will probably not be as massive.] "Pero ang problema kasi, iba-iba iyong mensahero, iba-iba pa iyong mensaheng binibigay. Masyado pang tentative iyong pagkabigay. Gaya noon, sabi ni Secretary Panelo, 'eh papaano ibibigay, kayo ang nagsasabi na wala naman.' Parang... Parang dapat hindi iyon sinasabi ng opisyal, di ba?" said Robredo. [Translation: But the problem is, there are multiple messengers giving different information. Even the way they give it is so tentative. Like before, when Secretary Panelo said, 'how can we provide if there's nothing to give.' It sounds like...an unnecessary statement from a public official, right?] The Vice President, in particular, pointed to Panelo's comment last Friday that the government is unable to provide free face masks to the vulnerable sectors due to undersupply in the country. READ: Filipinos on surgical mask frenzy mode as PH confirms first novel coronavirus case Amid the shortage, Senator Richard "Dick" Gordon, who also chairs the Philippine Red Cross, announced that it took only six hours to ship "badly needed Philippine-made face masks" worth $1.4 million to Wuhan, the epicenter of the virus. Duterte on Sunday already issued a directive coursed through Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea about the recommendations of the Inter-agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases in managing coronavirus in the country. Just hours after this announcement, the Department of Health announced the first death of a patient who tested positive for the 2019-nCOV in the Philippines, bringing to two the total confirmed cases in the country. The Philippine National Police said it will assist the Department of Trade and Industry and local government units in identifying possible storehouses and tracking down persons suspected to be hoarding supplies of face masks. The Office of the President said Duterte will be presiding the next meeting of the Task Force on Monday, along with other concerned agencies. Exclusive: Uniper to shut down German hard-coal power plants by 2025 - sources FILE PHOTO: The coal power plant Scholven of German energy utility company Uniper is pictured in Gelsenkirchen By Christoph Steitz, Tom Kackenhoff and Vera Eckert FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Uniper over the next five years aims to close three German hard coal-fired power plants, half its European coal-fired capacity, two people familiar with the plans told Reuters. The German cabinet on Wednesday backed plans to exit coal as an energy source by 2038 as part of efforts by Chancellor Angela Merkel's ruling coalition to protect the climate and restore its green credentials. Uniper, formed in 2016 as part of an asset swap by German utilities, has drawn up plans to shut down about 1.5 gigawatts of capacity involving three blocks at its Scholven and Wilhelmshaven power stations by the end of 2022, the sources said. It will then shut a further 1.4 GW at its Staudinger and Heyden sites by end-2025. Uniper declined to comment. The planned closures represent about half of Uniper's total hard coal-fired capacity in Europe and come as investors and governments demand sustainable business models that do not rely on fossil fuels. The planned closures would cut Uniper's carbon emissions by about 18 million metric tonnes per year, the sources said. CEO Andreas Schierenbeck told Reuters last week that the group planned to significantly slash its CO2 emissions, which stood at 59.5 million metric tonnes in 2018, half that of larger peer RWE, Europe's biggest polluter. COMPENSATION In return for the closures Uniper will likely qualify for government compensation payments. Based on compensation terms announced by the government this week, Uniper could receive 365 million euros ($405 million) if it succeeds in planned auctions that will allocate closure permits to the least expensive bidders. Uniper has said it plans to develop former plant sites to help preserve jobs. The government wants former coal sites to be used for facilities such as gas-fired combined heat and power plants. The plans do note affect Datteln 4, Uniper's new 1.5 billion euro state-of-the-art coal-fired power plant which is scheduled to go on-line in mid-2020, the sources said. Story continues Uniper's largest shareholder is Finland's Fortum, which holds a 49.99% stake. That holding could top 70% if a deal with activist funds Elliott and Knight Vinke goes through. ($1 = 0.9014 euros) (Editing by Riham Alkousaa and Jason Neely) Betty said she doesnt mean any disrespect by her observations. What she really enjoyed were death notices that went beyond a mere resume and gave a sense of the person, such as the death notice for Robert Winkler of Adelphi, Md., who revved his engine and tore down the highway to the danger zone. By Express News Service THRISSUR: Health Minister KK Shailaja on Saturday said the health condition of the girl tested positive for novel coronavirus (nCoV) infection remains stable. Shailaja said she has been interacting with the medical staff continuously about her condition. The minister said more people, who had returned to the state from China, were placed under observation on Saturday. It is appreciable that most of those who returned from the affected province in China reported voluntarily to the health officials, she told reporters here. According to the health department, as many as 322 people reached Kerala from China in the last 24 hours. Till date 1,793 people who had arrived in the state from coronavirus-affected countries have been identified and placed under surveillance. Of them, 1,723 are under house observation and 70 have been admitted to selected isolation facilities. Meanwhile, the family members of coronavirus-infected girl tested negative when the results from the National Institute of Virology, Pune, came on Saturday. The minister said a girl, who returned from Wuhan along with the infected girl and initially refused to take medical treatment, showed minor symptoms while being admitted to the hospital on Friday. However, her condition is stable now. The girls family is under home quarantine as a part of precautionary measures. Health officials on alert in state, says minister As many as 39 samples, including the alternative sample of the infected girl have been sent to NIV, Pune, of which 24 results were out, including the positive confirmation. Though many have been tested negative for infection, we have to be very careful until the incubation period of 28 days gets over. Surveillance in the state has been tight and health officials and volunteers are on alert across the state, said Shailaja. Meanwhile, three persons were arrested in Thrissur district on Saturday for spreading fake news about the infection. The arrested are Shafi from Moonupeedika, Sirajudheen from Perinjanam and Sabari from Pazhayannur. Another case of insulting the girl tested positive for nCoV infection through social media has also been identified and the cyber cell is tracking the source of the messages. The police will act tough against those spreading false information or talking ill about infected or home-quarantined people, said Shailaja. Black smoke filled the air as protesters burned tires to block main roads in the holy city of Najaf on Sunday, expressing their anger at the appointment of Mohammed Allawi as Iraq's Prime Minister-designate. Protesters are demanding an independent Prime Minister and an end to Iraq's sectarian political system, alongside early elections and the stepping aside of the ruling elite. The uprising began on October 1 when thousands of Iraqis took to the streets to decry rampant government corruption, poor public services and a scarcity of jobs. Allawi was named prime minister-designate by rival Iraqi factions on Saturday after weeks of political deadlock. The choice comes as the country weathers troubled times, including ongoing anti-government protests and the constant threat of being ensnared by festering U.S.-Iran tensions. The selection of Allawi to replace outgoing Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi was the product of many backroom talks over months between rival parties. Allawi was born in Baghdad and served as communications minister first in 2006 and again between 2010-2012. He resigned from his post after a dispute with former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. (Image Credit:Pixabay) Bike-borne assailants on Sunday shot dead a man who was out on a morning walk in Lucknow's Hazratganj area, police said. The deceased has been identified as Ranjit Shirivastav, a resident of OCR building in Hazratganj area. "Ranjit was shot dead while he was on his morning walk. Unknown men attacked him. We are yet to find out whether the deceased was associated with some organisation or not," said Dinesh Singh, DCP Central Lucknow while speaking to ANI here. The investigation into the matter is underway. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) OTTAWAPolice have made an arrest in the hate-crime investigation into the defacement of an Indigenous painting on an Ottawa campus. Investigators say a 32-year-old man faces one count of mischief over $5,000 in the Jan. 28 vandalism incident at Algonquin College. Officers arrested the man at the college on Saturday. Police say any evidence to support an alleged hate motivation is presented during sentencing. The investigation is ongoing. Read more about: Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack will face a leadership spill on Tuesday morning as angry Nationals MPs return to Canberra for the first time following a summer plagued by drought, fire and political scandal. Queensland MP Llew O'Brien, a leading agitator for months against the current party leadership, phoned Mr McCormack on Monday afternoon to inform him he would move a spill motion at a special party room meeting. Former leader Barnaby Joyce confirmed Mr O'Brien had told Mr McCormack he would call the spill when MPs meet to elect a new deputy leader following the resignation of Bridget McKenzie over the "sports rorts" saga. Mr Joyce said on Monday morning he would run for the leadership of the party if his colleagues voted for a spill of both the leader and deputy leader positions. Rajesh Abraham By Express News Service KOCHI: The Union Budget, presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday, has given a big push to the core sector such as roads, national gas grid, agri-warehousing, etc. A total of Rs 1 lakh crore has been set apart for the infra push. But, is Kerala equipped to cash in on the initiative by procuring its share of investments? Though there have been instances where the work on key infrastructure projects in the state got stalled due to violent protests by the activists and so-called environmentalists, the last couple of years saw many of the projects coming back on track, thanks to the tough stance taken by the government. But the price paid by the state due to the violent agitations and hassles in land acquisition is huge. Consider this: Indian Oil Corporations (IOC) LPG terminal at Puthuvype, which was to be completed in February 2018, will now get over only in September 2021. The 504-km GAIL pipeline, which was to be completed in December 2013, is now set for commissioning in March nearly eight years behind the original schedule. The cost overrun for the IOC terminal is about Rs 300 crore as the Puthuvype terminal cost is expected to shoot up from Rs 700 crore to Rs 1,000 crore. For the GAIL pipeline, the cost increased by a whopping Rs 1,288 crore from Rs 1,746 crore as per the original plan to `3,024 crore now. Similarly, work on several crucial NH stretches faced violent protests, forcing the government to delay the works. G Vijayaraghavan, a former Planning Board member, reckons Kerala can claim its rightful share in many projects outlined in the Union Budget if it sits down and restructures its projects. For instance, the budget proposes to expand the national gas grid from the present 16,200 km to 27,000 km. If we carefully structure it, we can link Kochi with Trivandrum in the national gas grid, from where it connects to Tirunelveli and other southern districts of TN, he said. Kerala can also capitalise on the accelerated development of highways proposed in the budget. The plan includes development of the 2,500 km access control highways, 9,000 km economic corridors, 2,000 km coastal and land port roads and 2,000 km strategic highways. Vijayaraghavan said Kerala can easily corner its share for the coastal land and land port roads. City gas project where households received piped gas can be extended to Alappuzha, Kollam, Attingal and Thiruvananthapuram, he said. Tony Mathew, GM (construction), GAIL, said there has been a significant improvement in the business environment in the state. Now, projects are not stalled by every Tom, Dick, and Harry. For our Gail pipeline stretch alone, there were even instances of MPs staging protest. But the government has adopted a strong stand, which is helping the key projects to come back on track, he added. Meanwhile, Rajesh Kumar Singh, principal secretary, PWD, said all the NH-66 projects in Kerala are proceeding as per plan. There are massive funds for the taking for right projects in the budget. But the question is whether the state, known for its militant trade unions and activist environmentalists, will chart a new path to provide basic infrastructure opportunities to its people. PROJECT COST OVERRUN Rs 300 cr IOC LPG terminal, for which the schedule had to be shifted from Feb 2018 to Sept 2021 Rs 1,288 cr GAIL pipeline, for which the schedule was shifted from 2013 to March 2020 Two people were taken to a hospital in serious condition after firefighters rescued them from a burning home in San Franciscos Visitacion Valley neighborhood early Sunday, authorities said. Flames billowed out of windows as firefighters scaled the building at 3326 San Bruno Ave. to rescue the pair, according to a video the San Francisco Fire Department shared on social media. The Aam Aadmi Party on Sunday demanded the Election Commission to ban Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath from campaigning in the national capital over his alleged provocative speeches. AAP leader Sanjay Singh also demanded an FIR against him for his remarks. Singh told a press conference here that it has been 48 hours since the AAP asked the Election Commission time to meet them but it has not been granted. "If the EC does not give us time, we will stage a sit-in in front of the ECI office on Monday," Singh said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Photographing an alien planet is incredibly difficult. Now try doing it from a massive balloon high in Earth's atmosphere. That's the task Christopher Mendillo, an astronomer at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, and his colleagues have tackled with a project called PICTURE-C, which made its first test flight in September 2019. That flight was never going to capture an image of an exoplanet but it could pave the way for a future mission to do just that. Mendillo recounted the successes and challenges of the test flight earlier this month at the 235th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Honolulu. "We were able to demonstrate everything we wanted to demonstrate," Mendillo later told Space.com. "We met all of our success criteria, we had a great flight, everything worked." Related: The Biggest Alien Planet Discoveries of 2019 PICTURE-C spotted a meteor during its test flight in September 2019. (Image credit: NASA/CSBF) Scientists have never seen most of the 4,000 exoplanets discovered to date : these worlds are just passing shadows or invisible dance partners of their stars. Directly imaging a planet is difficult because such objects are so much fainter than but so close to their stars: Astronomers have to block out the starlight without losing sight of the planet. That's the promise of direct imaging, and the sort of work that Mendillo hopes a system like PICTURE-C could do, perhaps about five years down the line if all goes well. That future instrument would need to be able to latch very precisely onto a specific star, blot it out, revisit it after studying other targets and reveal a planet, all through some of Earth's blurring atmosphere . From, you'll recall, a massive balloon. The direct imaging that has been done to date has used massive telescopes on the ground. And many dreamed-of future space telescopes will follow the same approach, but not for at least a decade. Suborbital, balloon-lofted instruments might bridge that gap, Mendillo and his colleagues say. "It's sort of unanswered question," he said of the potential for such research. "We know we can do it from space, we know what we can do on the ground. No one's ever done a balloon before. We think that we can do really compelling science from a balloon, but we're not sure." And so they're finding out. Mendillo first worked on two similar projects that launched on sounding rockets that don't reach orbit. But such a flight can only ever give an instrument a few minutes to work, which isn't long enough for direct imaging. So the team turned to a balloon unlike any you've ever seen. It inflates to 400 feet (122 meters) across and takes 3 hours to climb to an altitude of about 127,000 feet, or 24 miles (39 kilometers). And there, it hovers. PICTURE-C prepares for flight in New Mexico in September 2019. (Image credit: Chris Mendillo) Well, it's more complicated than that. The launch site, which is located in New Mexico, only operates in the late summer and early autumn. The weather has to cooperate with winds that won't snatch the balloon away. The balloon must set off around dawn, but the instrument can't study the stars until night falls, making the flight a 28-hour workday for the team. Retrieving the data requires that the PICTURE-C apparatus jettison the massive balloon and parachute toward land, ideally someplace soft. "We can watch it falling, which is really fun," Mendillo said. "It's nosediving and swinging all around and doing all this violent, very fast swings that you never thought your telescope would do as it skydives." But PICTURE-C's first flight went smoothly, Mendillo said, and overall the team is pleased with how the telescope performed. (An onboard camera even spotted a meteor as a bonus.) For next flight, in September, they'll turn on a system they flew and tested but did not connect, which will block additional starlight and improve the telescope's images. The scientists also discovered one key issue they'll need to fix, an interfering vibration that prevented the rig from gathering more than 6 minutes of data at a time. With that addressed, the telescope should be able to stare at any given star for a few hours at a time. That should be long enough for PICTURE-C to spot features like asteroid belts , dust rings and perhaps particularly bright planets. The team has a list of a half dozen nearby, bright stars that seem to sport such accessories that the telescope may be able to image during its next flight. "No one's actually taken a picture of these dust rings or planets before," Mendillo said. "That's the goal." PICTURE-C and its successors could not just fill the time before space-based direct imaging is a reality, Mendillo said, but could also prepare engineers for those missions. NASA's Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) will carry a technology demonstration mechanism to block starlight, and two of the four missions NASA is considering to launch in the 2030s would rely on such technology to meet their science goals. "Actually being able to build something that's autonomous," Mendillo said, "that can fly on its own, that can survive the environment and have all the systems operating together in a place where you can't go in and turn a screwdriver if you need to all the lessons you learn developing a system like that are applicable to building a space mission." Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her @meghanbartels . Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook . Maharashtra Home Department has issued a government resolution (GR) banning the consumption of alcohol at ancient forts in the state. As per the GR, first-time offenders could incur a fine of Rs 10,000 and six months imprisonment under section 85 of the Maharashtra Ban on Liquor Act 1949, on violation of the order. Whereas second-time offenders are liable to face imprisonment of one year and a fine of Rs 10,000. Maharashtra is home to at least 350 forts so as to prevent alcohol abuse, the government has taken a precautionary step by issuing a GR. The state home department also directed the respective authorities to install warning notices at historical sites. Maharashtra Tourism Minister Aditya Thackeray, son of Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray has welcomed this decision of the government. "I welcome this decision. I thank this government of Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and Mahavikas Aghadi," Aditya tweeted. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) This week on The Sound Kitchen, you'll hear the answer to the question about voter turnout in Hong Kong's District Council elections. There's a little lesson on leap years, listener news, great music and of course, the new quiz question. Just click on the Audio arrow above and enjoy! Hello everyone! Welcome to The Sound Kitchen weekly podcast, published every Saturday. You'll hear the winner's names announced and the week's quiz question, along with all the other ingredients you've grown accustomed to: your letters and essays, On This Day, quirky facts and news, interviews, and great music so be sure and listen every week. Send me your music requests! I'll make programs of your favorite music when I can't be in the kitchen to cook something up new for you write to me at [email protected] For our DX enthusiast and shortwave listener friends: I am sad to announce we no longer have a shortwave frequency; we have severe budget constraints which no longer permit us to broadcast via shortwave. "Paris Live", our afternoon news program, is on-the-air Monday Friday, from 13:00 to 14:00 UTC/GMT. You can hear "Paris Live" on our website, rfienglish.com, or on World Radio Network. For North America: WRN broadcasts the quotidian RFI English programme three times a day from Monday to Friday, from 05:00 to 05:59, from 09:00 to 09:59 and from 15:00 to 15h59 UTC/GMT. For Africa and Asia: WRN broadcasts the quotidian RFI English programme three times a day from Monday to Friday, from 05:00 to 05:59, from 09:00 to 09:59 and from 15:00 to 15h59 UTC/GMT. For Europe: WRN broadcasts the quotidian RFI English programme three times a day from Monday to Friday, from 06:00 to 06:50, from 11:00 to 11:59 and from 19:00 to 19:59 UTC/GMT. In Paris, you can hear us on World Radio Paris on DAB+, Monday to Friday from 16:00 to 16:59. To listen to our features (now podcasts only), go to our website and click on the three horizontal bars on the top right, choose Listen to RFI / Features, and you've got 'em ! You can either listen directly, or subscribe and receive them directly on your mobile phone. Teachers, take note! I save postcards and stamps from all over the world to send to you for your students. If you would like stamps and postcards for your students, just write and let me know. The address is [email protected] Did you know there's an RFI English newsletter? If you subscribe, you'll receive our newsletter every day. Just click on Newsletters, fill out the form, and you'll stay up-to-date with RFI English. RFI Clubs: Be sure to always include Audrey Iattoni ([email protected]) and Chrystelle Nammour ([email protected]) from our Listener Relations department on all your RFI Club correspondence. Remember to copy me ([email protected]) when you write them so that I know what is going on, too. N.B. You do not need to send them your quiz answers! Email overload! We've made a Facebook page just for you, the RFI English Clubs. It is a closed group, so when you apply to join, be sure you include the name of your RFI Club and your membership number. Everyone can look at it, but only members of the group can post on it. If you haven't yet asked to join the group, go to the Facebook link above and fill out the questionnaire!!!!! (if you do not answer the questions, I click decline). Welcome to our 15 (!) new RFI Listeners Club members: Rehana Nusreen; Fareeha Rubab Anjum; Rifat Sultana; Maira Hassan; Kousar Parveen; Asma Bashir; Muhammad Sadeem Dur-e-Aab; Muhammad Hasnain Malik; Javed Raza Saqi; Khawar Hussain Sadiq; Fahad Hussain Anjum; Muhammad Nawaz Afzal Paio; Muhammad Shakeel Anjum; Shahid Hussain Anjum and Muhammad Aqeel Bashir. They are all members of the International Radio Listeners Organization in Jhang City, Pakistan. So glad you have joined us! You too can be a member of the RFI Listeners Club just write to me at [email protected] and tell me you want to join, and I'll send you a membership number. It's that easy. When you win a Sound Kitchen quiz as an RFI Listeners Club member, you receive a premium prize. RFI's Planet Radio department is sponsoring an e-POP (e-Participatory Observers Project) competition. It's a video contest, with some really great prizes! This is the first year that English speakers have been invited to participate, so let's show RFI how many of you are out there, and are an active part of the RFI English service! It's a really cool project: Planet Radio is looking for two-minute videos about climate change, told by the humans who are experiencing it first hand the people we rarely get to hear from. Your grandfather. Your aunt. People in your community. It can be in any language you just have to provide the translation into English to Planet Radio. And it can't be more than two minutes. It is open to everyone, although there is one prize for women under the age of 25 (young sisters! Get to work!). Most of the prizes involve a trip to Paris, and I would get to meet you! Plus, there's video equipment, meetings with other ePOPers the prizes are great! Here's the link for the guidelines. The deadline for entries is 15 March. I fully expect Planet Radio to be bombarded with entries from you, the RFI English service listeners! This week's quiz: On 30 November, I asked you a question about elections in Hong Kong. On 24November, Hong Kongers cast their votes for their District Council representatives. The pro-democracy candidates won 389 out of the 452 elected seats, up from the 124 they previously held - and far more than they've ever won. The government's allies held just 58 seats, a remarkable collapse from their previous 300 seats. This election was viewed as a referendum on the unrest, which has created the city's worst political crisis in decades. In a semiautonomous part of China where greater democracy is one of the protesters' biggest demands, it gave residents a rare chance to vote. I asked you to send in the voter turnout count how many people went and voted - in not only the 24 November 2019 elections, but in the last District Council elections, in 2015. The answer is: Voter turnout this past year was 71 %. Typically in district council elections, it's not much more than 40 %. The previous poll in 2015 which increased as well turnout climbed to 47 %. This year the number of registered voters hit a record: 7 in 10 eligible voters went to the polls! The winners are: Muhammad Shamim S, the president of the RFI Golden Eagles Club in Keralam State, India and RFI Listeners Club member Muhammad Nasyr from Katsina State, Nigeria. From Sindh, Pakistan, Amin Laghari; from Rangpur, Bangladesh, Rasheduzzaman; from Telangana, India, Dr S Indu Kuamri. Congratulations winners! Here's the music you heard on this week's program: Concerto Grosso in the Style of Handel: Lady Madonna (an arrangement of the song Lady Madonna by Paul McCartney and John Lennon by Peter Briener) performed by the Briener Chamber Orchestra; Hallelujah from Handel's Messiah, sung by the Royal Choral Society; Valse Triste by Jean Sibelius, performed by the Chamber Orchestra of Europe conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy; Water Lily by George Fenton and John Leach, and the traditional Firn Di Mekhutonim Aheym (Escorting the parents of the bride and groom home), performed by Itzhak Perlman and the Klezmer Conservatory Orchestra. Do you have a musical request? Send it to [email protected] This week's question ... You'll have to listen to the show to participate. You have until 2 March to enter this week's quiz; the winners will be announced on the 7 March podcast. When you enter, be sure you send your postal address in with your answer, and if you have one, your RFI Listeners Club membership number. Send your answers to: [email protected] or Susan Owensby RFI The Sound Kitchen 80, rue Camille Desmoulins 92130 Issy-les-Moulineaux France or By text You can also send your quiz answers to The Sound Kitchen mobile phone. Dial your country's international access code, or + , then 33 6 31 12 96 82. Don't forget to include your mailing address in your text and if you have one, your RFI Listeners Club membership number. To find out how you can win a special Sound Kitchen prize, click here To find out how you can become a member of the RFI Listeners Club, or to form your own official RFI Club, click here AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi on Sunday called both persons who opened fire in Delhi's Jamia area and Shaheen Bagh as "terrorists". "A minister in an election meeting said 'desh ke gaddaro ko goli maaro saalo ko'. After his statement, Naturam Godse's illegitimate son fired at a Jamia student who was part of the group carrying our rally. We should call him a terrorist. He was live telecasting on Facebook. A man also commented that Owaisi should also be shot dead," Owaisi said at an event here. "Another man went to Shaheen Bagh and opened firing. He said that this country is for Hindus. I want to tell that terrorist that this country is not for only religion. This country also belongs to those who do not believe in any religion. We have to save the country from Hindutva," he said. Earlier, a man opened fire at Delhi's Shaheen Bagh while in another incident a juvenile brandished a country-made pistol and fired at in which a Jamia University student, Shadab Farooq, who was part of the group that was protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), got injured. The Lok Sabha MP from Hyderabad alleged that someone who speaks against Prime Minister Narendra Modi is charged with sedition. "A time is going to come when we will decide to launch 'jail bharo andolan'. All the jails in the country can lodge only 3 lakh people, if people come out on roads, jails will be insufficient," he said. Continuing his tirade, Owaisi said: "You are fighting with people who believe in RSS ideology of Hindutva. You have to face people like that. We have filed a case against CAA and NRC in the Supreme Court... You have to be ready for a big fight. We stand by protesters across the country." "We cannot forget that students of AMU and Jamia Milia Islamia raised their voices against this... After the violence in Uttar Pradesh, CM said that they will take revenge. UP Police shot 24 Muslims dead... We will not forget their sacrifices. This fight is to save the country and its Constitution," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The United States Department of Justice announced Wednesday that a Harvard University professor and two Chinese nationals have been charged in connection with aiding China. Charles Lieber is head of Harvards Chemistry and Chemical Biology Department. U.S. officials say he was arrested and charged with making false statements to the Defense Department about his ties to a Chinese government program. The Justice Department claims that Lieber lied about his involvement with a program known as the Thousand Talents Plan. It said the Chinese government and the Wuhan University of Technology (WUT) gave him more than $1.5 million dollars to set up a laboratory and carry out research in China. In exchange, WUT gave the Harvard professor $50,000 a month and also paid for housing and other living expenses. Nearly 200 investigations into threat The Justice Department also announced charges against Yanqing Ye, who is currently in China. The charges include visa fraud, making false statements and acting as an agent of a foreign government. U.S. officials arrested Zaosong Zheng, another Chinese national, in December 2019 at Bostons Logan International Airport. He is accused of attempting to secretly transport 21 containers of biological research to China. One month later, he was charged with smuggling goods from the United States and making false statements. The New York Times reports there are at least 180 investigations of intellectual property theft at 71 universities and other institutions across the United States. The Thousand Talents "foreign experts" program is a major focus of the investigations. The Justice Department has described the plan as one of Chinas top talent recruitment programs. It is designed to interest and help high-level scientific researchers who would then support Chinas scientific development, economic growth and national security. Serious charges "The charges brought by the U.S. government against Professor Lieber are extremely serious," said Harvard, in a statement to the technology website The Verge. When U.S. researchers get financial help from the government, they must tell the truth about their connections with foreign organizations. The punishment for making false statements in this situation could include up to five years in prison and a fine of $250,000. In the past six months, other university researchers have faced criminal charges for passing knowledge to China. One of them was Turab Lookman, a scientist who formerly worked at the Los Alamos laboratory in New Mexico. Last week, he admitted in court to lying about his involvement with the Thousand Talents Plan. U.S. officials said they became interested in Lookman after he told a co-worker he had citizenship in four countries, including India, where he was born. Cancer institute leadership involved In December, Alan List resigned as chief executive officer and president of the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute in Tampa, Florida. An investigation found that List and Thomas Sellers, a vice president and director at Moffitt, and four of the cancer centers researchers hid their ties to a Chinese medical university. Additional employment Feng (Franklin) Tao worked as a chemist at the University of Kansas. In August, federal officials charged him with four counts of fraud for working full-time for a Chinese university while receiving U.S. government money. Tao has denied the charges. His lawyer said that the case could have been a misunderstanding because of the researchers employment in China over the summer holidays. The university says Tao is on administrative leave from his position as a professor of chemical engineering. Last month, the government announced more charges against him. Wang Longmeng is a political commentator who lives in France. He said the Thousand Talents program had for many years tried to steal high technology from around the world. "[Some] scholars and officials who live in a democratic system and enjoy all its freedoms will aid...those who would harm it for personal gain. Wang added, "Western countries should get hold of a list of those recruited to China's Thousand Talents Program and investigate them one by one." Im Jill Robbins. Quiz - Harvard Professor Among Researchers Charged With Making False Statements About China Ties Start the Quiz to find out Start Quiz Ng Yik-tung and Sing Man reported on this story for Radio Free Asias Cantonese Service, and by Jia Ao reported on it for RFAs Mandarin Service. Jill Robbins adapted the report for VOA Learning English. George Grow was the editor. What do you think of intellectual property theft by university researchers? We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section. ____________________________________________________________ Words in This Story talent n. a person or group of people with a special ability to do something well fraud n. the crime of using dishonest methods to take something valuable from another person intellectual property n. something (such as an idea, invention, or process) that comes from a person's mind theft n. the act or crime of stealing recruit v. to persuade (someone) to join you in some activity or to help you focus n. a main purpose or interest A former cop wanted over an alleged domestic assault has been Tasered, pepper sprayed and smashed in the face with a radio while six police officers tried to arrest him. Police were on the hunt for the 40-year-old after an alleged incident at a home in Bowral, in the NSW Southern Highlands, on Christmas Eve. Officers eventually found the man in Zetland, in Sydney's south, on Friday at 5pm following a tip off. Dramatic footage showed three police officers attempting to arrest the man before a fourth officer hit him over the face multiple times with a handheld radio. It then took six officers to bring the bloodied former policeman to the ground. The dramatic footage showed three police officers attempting to arrest the cop, before a fourth officer hit him over the face multiple times with a handheld radio It then took six officers to bring the bloodied ex cop to the ground In a statement, NSW police alleged the man 'failed to comply' with directions, before being pepper-sprayed. After a struggle in traffic, an officer fell to the ground with the man landing on top of him. The man managed to break free and fled, while officers gave chase behind him. After catching up to the man a short distance away, officers deployed pepper spray for a second time, before a further struggle in traffic. The man allegedly attempted to punch the officer before running off through a nearby park. More police arrived on the scene, and the man was found nearby on Portman Street in Zetland around 10 minutes later. The man was wanted after an alleged domestic assault in Bowral on Christmas Eve After a further struggle, the man was wrestled to the ground and arrested. He was taken to St Vincents Hospital under police guard for treatment and assessment. He was later taken to Mascot Police Station, where three outstanding arrest warrants were executed. He was charged with armed with intent commit indictable offence, two counts of stalk/intimidate intend fear physical etc harm (domestic), and two counts of common assault (domestic). He was also charged with two counts of resist officer in execution of duty, assault officer in execution of duty, intimidate police officer in execution of duty, three counts of use carriage service to threaten to kill, and use carriage service to menace/harass/offend. The former cop appeared in Parramatta Bail Court on Sunday, where he sported a black eye and cuts to his body. The prosecutor said he had 'lost all respect for the rule of law'. But the man's lawyer argued he would be 'incredibly vulnerable' if he was detained due to his prior job as a police officer. He was refused bail and instead sent for psychological assessment. Haiti - Coronavirus : Emergency meeting of Caribbean Health Ministers Monday, February 3, Health Ministers of the Region will hold an emergency meeting on Chinese coronavirus (2019-nCoV) which the World Health Organization (WHO) has now classified as "public health emergency of international concern". The Minister of Health in Haiti, Dr. Marie Greta Roy Clement is expected to participate in this meeting. Since the first case of coronavirus originating from the city of Wahun, Hubei Province, in China, detected in December 2019, 14,380 cases have been laboratory confirmed on February 2, 2020 including 167 cases outside of China, in 26 countries : Japan (20), Thailand (19), Singapore (16), Hong Kong (13), South Korea (12), Australia (12), Taiwan (10), Malaysia (8), Germany (8), United States (8), Macau (7), France (6), Vietnam (6), United Arab Emirates (4), Canada (4), Russia (2), United Kingdom (2) , Italy (2), Philippines (1), Spain (1), Sweden (1), Nepal (1), Cambodia (1), Sri Lanka (1), Finland (1) India (1) (Source WHO, Ministry China, Singapore... as of February 2, 2020) 303 deaths have been reported in Wuhan province in China and only one death outside of China, specifically in Philipine concerning a Chinese citizen from Wuhan. The CARICOM Council for Human and Social Development (Health) meeting on Monday, which will also include other senior health and safety officials, will provide regional updates. The Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA), the main CARICOM institution for public health issues, has activated its emergency response management team and has worked with regional and international partners in the health to monitor developments and support national response efforts. CARPHA urged CARICOM member states to be vigilant and to intensify surveillance at their points of entry. While 26 countries around the world have reported cases of coronavirus (all Chinese from Wuhan), Caribbean Community member states (CARICOM) have started to take steps to ensure the impact is minimized in the region https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-29858-haiti-flash-chinese-coronavirus-haiti-is-preparing-and-activating-its-alert-system.html . Monitoring teams have been put in place and other preventive measures have been put in place. See also : https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-29919-haiti-flash-chinese-banned-to-go-out-of-a-plane-to-port-au-prince.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-29879-haiti-health-chinese-coronavirus-the-ministry-of-health-is-reassuring.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-29858-haiti-flash-chinese-coronavirus-haiti-is-preparing-and-activating-its-alert-system.html HL/ HaitiLibre Its Feb. 2, otherwise known as Groundhog Day in the U.S. On this day a group of Pennsylvanians pull a groundhog out of his hidey-hole early in the morning to give us a prediction six more weeks of winter or an early spring? This year Punxsutawney Phils forecasting won raves: He didnt see his shadow, so the prediction is an early spring is on its way. But wait a second, say meteorologists, whos least-favorite day may just be Groundhog Day. It turns out, according to NOAA, that Phil is only right about 40 percent of the time when you look at his track record over the past 10 years, making correct predictions in 2011, 2013, 2014 and 2016: NOAA put together a look at Phil's predictions since 1887. Forecasters compared Phils predictions with U.S. national temperatures to get that statistic. One of Phils bust years was 2019. The groundhog also forecast a short winter last year, but according to NOAA the U.S. as a whole saw below-average temperatures in both February and March last year (meteorological spring begins March 1). According to NOAA the average temperature in February 2019 in the contiguous U.S. was 32.0 degrees Fahrenheit, which is 1.8 degrees below the average for the 20th century. It was also the coldest February since 2010. But that wasnt the case everywhere. While parts of the West and northern Plains saw bitterly cold temperatures, they were above average in parts of the Southeast. Several states, including Alabama, had their top-10 warmest Februarys on record, according to data from the National Centers for Environmental Information: Temperatures in Alabama, and several southern states, were above average in February 2019. Speaking of Alabama, Phils prediction may actually come true this year. The Climate Prediction Centers temperature outlook shows a higher chance of above-average temperatures in February, March and April: The Climate Prediction Center is suggesting Alabama has a shot at above-average temperatures for the next three months. By the way, Alabama has its own furry prognosticator, Sand Mountain Sam. Sam made his prediction a day early, on Saturday, and predicted an early spring as well. Rajasthan and Gujarat are hoping the African cheetah would be introduced to suitable habitats in the two states as one of the three places--Madhya Pradeshs Kuno Palpur Wildlife Sanctuary--chosen for the purpose a decade back may no longer be suitable for it in the absence of necessities like a proper prey base. The Supreme Court last week allowed the Centre to take a call on the introduction after the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) sought its permission for introducing the cheetah from Namibia. The top court had put on hold the plan when then Union environment minister Jairam Ramesh envisaged it almost 10 years back. The last Indian cheetah became extinct around 70 years back. Madhya Pradesh officials said Kuno Palpur now has a tiger, lesser grasslands and fewer chinkara and blackbucks, the prey base necessary for the survival the Cheetah, the fastest animal on the planet. Their counterparts in Gujarat and Rajasthan insisted habitats in their states having better grasslands and better prey base. An expert panel had selected Kuno Palpur, Gujarats Velavadar Black Buck Sanctuary and National Park and Tal Chhapar Sanctuary (Rajasthan) for the African cheetahs introduction. Madhya Pradeshs additional principal chief forest conservator (wildlife), J S Chauhan, said they will welcome the decision if a Supreme Court-appointed panel selects Kuno Palpur for the cheetahs introduction. But he added the task of creating an African savanna-like ecosystem is not easy. It will take a lot of time. We are well equipped to do it as we did it efficiently in Kuno Palpur earlier to make it a suitable habitat for lions proposed to be brought from Gujarat. Chauhan cited the presence of a tiger in Kuno Palpur unlike in 2010 and added large parts of the sanctuary are now wooded. We do not know how the tiger will react to the presence of a carnivore like a cheetah. Another challenge will have to maintain genetic diversity. A relocation of just a couple of cheetahs will not do. We will have to bring more cheetahs later to ensure the genetic diversity of cheetahs, he said. Genetic diversity helps a species to adapt to changing environments. Madhya Pradeshs forest department wrote to the NTCA in August 2018 seeking the cheetahs introduction to Nauradehi Sanctuary, calling it a more feasible site. Officials said the move indicated the state government was no more keen on introducing the cheetah to Kuno Palpur because of changes to its ecological biodiversity. If we agree to cheetahs in Kuno, our claim to have lions from Gir National Park in Gujarat would weaken, a Madhya Pradesh forest department official said on condition of anonymity. Translocation of Gir lions to Kuno Palpur was proposed as part of an Asiatic Lion Reintroduction Project in 1995 to prevent threats of epidemics, natural disasters and to create another sanctuary for them. Gujarat has been opposing the proposed shifting. Retired forest conservator Jagdish Chandra said cheetahs have been indigenous to Madhya Pradesh and were spotted in the Gwalior region about seven decades back. He added cheetahs and lions can coexist. Environmentalist Ajay Dubey said the cheetah relocation project will succeed in Madhya Pradesh as the region was home to cheetahs before 1950. But this cannot succeed until there is good grassland management and prey base available for the cheetahs. Rajasthan and Gujarats forest officials said they were very keen on getting cheetahs. A Gujarat official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said their state provides several options for the cheetah relocation. We have huge grassland habitats in the states western part which could be developed into a natural habitat for the cheetah. Velavadar is one of them, the official said. Experts agreed Velavadar has a bright chance given its good savanna grasslands that are necessary for the survival of the cheetahs. Mumbai-based Wildlife Conservation Trust president, Anish Andheria, said Velavadar also has adequate blackbuck population, the prey for cheetahs, and enough open spaces for them to catch them. But Andheria pointed out the park in Bhavnagar district is spread over only about 35 square km and its expansion would not be easy as it is surrounded by densely populated villages. Rajasthans chief wildlife warden, Arindam Tomar, said they were looking for habitats apart from Tal Chappar where cheetahs can be introduced. Another forest official said Tal Chappar may not be developed into a good habitat as it is very small. But he added they have other strong options. Alternatively, Desert National Park [Jaisalmer] spread over an area of about 100 square km with adequate prey base of blackbucks can be developed for the cheetah introduction, the official said on condition of anonymity. He added the Desert National Park has good savanna grasslands. Forest officials from the three states said that they would make presentations before the Supreme Courts expert committee to stake their claims for habitat for the cheetah introduction. M K Ranjitsinh, who has been appointed as the panels head, said they would revisit the previously selected possible cheetah habitats before recommending a name to the Supreme Court for the cheetah introduction. (With inputs from Sachin Saini in Jaipur) A man was beheaded at Hakaru Creek during the early years of milling at Mangawhai Before early settlers in and around Mangawhai could get organised into cultivating their new land allotments, timber wolves were scouting about buying timber from newcomers. The main attraction was kauri and rimu. The massive size of kauri in the early logging days meant financial rewards for those who could export the timber to Auckland. As kauri is a floater, logs were formed into herringbone-style rafts, then towed by scow, or later by steamer, down to mills at Auckland. Some rafts reached up to half-a-mile long. It did not take the new settlers long to set up timber mills all about the district, but it was a dangerous business with consequences for some. The mill near Bob Browns house, on Brown Road, was equipped with a water wheel and was run by Ted Browne, who had bought timber rights over much of the area. Whenever the mill needed repairs, workers blocked the creek off at its head, forming a dam. One day the dam was breached, bringing logs straight through to the water wheel and the mill, wiping them all out. After that, two more mills were built at the head of the Hakaru Creek, in the Mill Gully past Pebblebrooke Road. One was Cashmores Mill and one was the Tara Mill, owned by Russell Ross. Several accidents happened at these mills. The worst was at Tara when Tassie Morrison was killed by a wire, which broke free of a winch while being worked. The flying wire beheaded the unfortunate man, and the winch operator was so traumatised that he took off into the bush and was never seen again. Ross sold Tara soon after to the Cashmore brothers. Sometime later, a large slip came down the hill, blocking the creek. Water dammed up, and when the dam broke tree heads and logs wiped out the mills. In later years, the boiler from one of the mills was dragged down by Ken Leslies bulldozer to make a culvert for the crossing over the creek to Roly Browns cowshed. Another much-respected mill owner was written about in 1864 in the Daily Southern Cross: On the North Oruawharo [Hakaru], Mr Penman, an enterprising settler, has a sawmill worked by water power in full operation. The machinery is his own workmanship and reflects great credit on his ability and perseverance. It answers admirably that both mill and hand-sawn timber have become articles of export from Mangawai. John Penman was killed in 1879 while he worked alone on a piece of timber that flicked back, knocking him unconscious into the water, where he drowned. His 13-year-old son found him. The boy ran for 40 minutes to get help from Te Arai, but to no avail. That boy, James, later became renowned for his fine workmanship in the building of schools, churches, and halls in Auckland. New Delhi/Srinagar, Feb 2 : The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Sunday raided the house of a Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist who was ferried out of Kashmir by a Jammu and Kashmir Police officer, DSP Davinder Singh, last month. Official sources said two teams of the NIA, which has taken over the intriguing case of the police officer's involvement with terror groups in Kashmir, reached Shopian on Sunday. While one NIA team went to Zainapora, the other went to Imamsahab in Pulwama, sources said. One of the teams raided the house of Hizb terrorist Rafi Ahmed in Shopian. Rafi, alias Maaz Baie, was arrested along with Hizb commander Naveed Babu, Irfan Shafi Mir, a Shopian lawyer and a Hizb logistics man and Davinder Singh, Deputy Superintendent of Police. Sources said Rafi, an IED expert was active as a terrorist since July 2019. Naveed Babu, whose real name is Syed Naveed Mushtaq, was a police constable till 2017 when he deserted his post at a Food Corporation of India warehouse in Budgam along with four rifles. He assumed prominence after his involvement in the murder of a truck driver from Rajasthan and fruit trader from Punjab, when traders in Kashmir attempted to defy the lockdown imposed by militants last year. After the state of Jammu & Kashmir was reorganized and Article 370 nullified, on August 5, terror groups issued threats and diktats against trade and routine activity in Kashmir. Naveed's threats had so much impact that police in his search, had to put up his posters in towns and villages. Sources said around the time, Naveed reached out to Davinder Singh for help with securing safe houses and storing weapons and paid him Rs. 1.5 million for his assistance. Davinder Singh personally drove Naveed and his aides to Jammu and planned to take them to New Delhi. However, phone call intercepts led the Shopian cops to nab them. During his interrogation, Singh has claimed that he was working acting on the orders of intelligence agencies so that he could cultivate Naveed and infiltrate the Hizb. However, Jammu and Kashmir police officials have rubbished Singh's claim saying that he is a highly corrupt cop and would do anything to earn an additional buck. Singh worked in Jammu and Kashmir's Special Operations Group, Traffic police and airport security but consistently carried an image of a corrupt official, sources said. He was also accused of his involvement in the Parliament attack by the convict Afzal Guru. A former Kaduna central district senator, Shehu Sani, has narrated his traumatic experience during his 30 days detention by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). Mr Sani was released on bail on court orders on Thursday. He described his incarceration as a clear breach of his fundamental rights, according to a statement he issued on Saturday. The former rights activist said the EFCC tried to subject him to a polygraph lie detector tests, blocked his bank accounts, searched his houses and offices, an action he said was traumatising, all in the name of fictional $24,000 or $25, 000 extortion. Mr Sani, who represented Kaduna Central in the last Senate, was arrested in December for allegedly collecting $25,000 in the name of the EFCC acting chairman, Ibrahim Magu. The former senator denied the allegation and described his detention as unfair, unjust, prearranged and politically motivated. The EFCC on January 2 obtained a court order to detain him for 14 days pending trial. PREMIUM TIMES also reported how operatives of the EFCC searched his Abuja residence. Mr Sani finally secured bail at the Federal High Court in Abuja on Monday before Justice Inyang Ekwo, in the sum of N10 million with one surety in like sum. The former senator accused the anti-graft agency of using the manual of former German dictator, Adolf Hitler, as its compass in Nigerias fight against corruption. He said the country would continue to be at the bottom strata of the Transparency International index if her anti-graft agencies continue to go after ants and leaving out persons that have stolen the nations commonwealth. The international anti-corruption watchdog dropped Nigeria in its recent ranking released last week by two places from 144th to 146th position out of the 180 countries surveyed worldwide. Nigerias latest placement by TI has drawn debates about the success of the fight against corruption in the country. Both the EFCC and the ICPC condemned the report. Read part of Shehu Sanis statement My incarceration for 30 days in the jail of EFCC was unfair, unjust and a clear breach of my fundamental rights and hence stands condemned. During my unjust stay in the EFCC cell, I was subjected to traumatizing interrogations my houses and offices were searched, he said. They compelled me to declare my assets, they tried to subject me to polygraph lie detector tests, my accounts were blocked, and my phone was seized, all in the name of fictional $24,000 or $25, 000 extortion. Any Information planted in the media by the EFCC spokesperson while I was in their custody about me is outrightly false and nothing but a bacterial and fungal infested concoctions, typical of their style. Our country will continue to be at the bottom strata of the Transparency International index as long as our anti-graft agencies only use their might and arsenal to crush ants while lacking the courage, the heart, and the liver to confront the snakes, the vultures and the hyenas of the ruling establishment. They can frame me, detain me but cant silence me. In an ideal democratic state, all agencies of the government are obliged to operate within the dictates and the ambit of the rule of law or the nation leaps into tyranny. The rule book of Stalin, The manual of Hitler or road map of Mussolini should not be the guidance and the compass of the nations security and anti-corruption agencies in their quest to sanitize our country. This isn't the first time Victoria's Secret has been called out for its misogyny and culture of sexual harassment, but The New York Times has gone into a deep investigation and found some pretty gruesome details regarding the toxic work environment within the lingerie company. Models and other VS employees have gone on the record to talk in detail about their horrible experiences. According to The Times' report, multiple complaints have been made against Ed Razek, former Chief Marketing Officer at VS's parent company L Brands. He's allegedly made unwanted sexual advances towards models, such as asking them to kiss him or sit on his lap, and he's also touched one model's crotch. A model named Andi Muise came forward and claimed that the brand stopped giving her work after she rejected Razek's advances. Two years into her work as a VS Angel in 2007, The Times learned that the then-19-year-old Muise was invited to dinner by Razek. He kept trying to kiss her, she said. And based on e-mails the publication was able to review, the L Brands executive also sent intimate messages that, at one point, suggested that they move in together. He wrote in one e-mail, "I need someplace sexy to take you!" Four employees also told The Times that Razek made disturbing comments as he watched supermodel Bella Hadid's fitting for the 2018 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. "Forget the panties," he said. He then allegedly said that the bigger question was if the TV network would let Bella walk "down the runway with those perfect titties." During the same fitting, three employees also claimed that Razek touched another model's crotch. And though people brought these issues up with L Brands's CEO Leslie Wexner, they went nowhere. Wexner himself has also reportedly been heard demeaning women. Razek denies the allegations made against him, and told The Times via e-mail, "The accusations in this reporting are categorically untrue, misconstrued or taken out of context. I've been fortunate to work with countless, world-class models and gifted professionals and take great pride in the mutual respect we have for each other." Complaints have also been made against VS photographer Russell James, who asked models to pose nude for him. And though they consented, this was work that they did not get extra pay for, whereas the photographer made (and still makes) money from the books he later published with the nudes. To read more about the findings of The New York Times regarding "The Culture of Misogyny" within Victoria's Secret and L Brands, click here. The Peoples Committee of Ho Chi Minh City decided on Sunday that kindergarteners and school students will stay home for one more week to prevent the possible spread of the novel coronavirus. The citys K-12 students were slated to get back to school on February 3 after the Lunar New Year festival, which ends on Sunday. But they are now allowed to stay home until the end of February 9. All kindergarteners and school students are required to resume their study on February 10, according to the municipal Peoples Committee. School students in Can Tho, Hau Giang, Vinh Long, Hai Phong, Long An, and more have also been asked to stay home amid the novel coronavirus outbreak in Vietnam. Over 60 universities in the Southeast Asian country have requested their students to take a similar week off. Over 300 people have been killed and almost 15,000 have been infected around the world since the first outbreak in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019. Vietnam has confirmed seven infections so far, including four Vietnamese, one Vietnamese American, and two Chinese. One of the Chinese has been cured. The World Health Organization has declared the new coronavirus a public health emergency of international concern. The virus can spread through close contact or airborne droplets, according to Vietnams Ministry of Health. Medical experts have advised the general population to avoid crowds; close interaction with those having a fever or coughing; and touching the eyes, nose, and mouth. People are encouraged to properly wear face masks and frequently wash their hands with soap and clean water to stay safe. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! A medical staff examines blood sample of a patient suspected of nCoV infection at the Hanoi's National Hospital of Tropical Diseases. Photo by VnExpress/Giang Huy. A Vietnamese-American quarantined in Saigon has tested positive for the new, China-originated coronavirus, bringing the number of confirmed infections to seven in Vietnam. The 73-year-old U.S. citizen boarded Flight 660 of China Southern Airlines to Vietnam from the U.S on January 14, transiting at the Wuhan Tianhe International Airport in Wuhan City, China, on January 15, for two hours, the Ministry of Health said Sunday. He arrived at Tan Son Nhat International Airport in HCMC on January 16 and stayed at a hotel on Nguyen Thi Minh Khai Road, which runs through downtown Districts 1 and 3. He started coughing on January 27 and hotel staff took him to the HCMC Hospital of Tropical Diseases in District 5 on January 31. He is now being quarantined at the hospital and on oxygen support to aid respiration. The hotel where he stayed had six customers and eight staff. A rapid response team is observing them for signs of infection. Local police have asked the hotel to not receive any other customers till they are cleared by authorities to do so. The 73-year-old American is the seventh confirmed nCoV case in the country, the others being two Chinese nationals and four Vietnamese citizens - three returning from Wuhan, and a female hotel receptionist who has caught the coronavirus infection from the two Chinese nationals presently quarantined in Saigon. Vietnam declared the novel coronavirus (nCoV) an national epidemic Saturday. Three members of a French family have also been quarantined at the HCMC Hospital of Tropical Diseases after showing symptoms of 2019-nCoV. As of Saturday, the country has reported 92 suspected cases with symptoms like high fever and cough, including some who visited infected areas in China. Of these, 27 remain quarantined pending test results. The death toll from the coronavirus outbreak in China had reached 304 by Saturday, according to Chinas National Health Commission. The virus claimed the first life outside China on Saturday, with a 44-year-old Chinese man succumbing in the Philippines. North Wales Police and Crime Panel members approve 4.5% rise in police precept This article is old - Published: Sunday, Feb 2nd, 2020 A police authority has rubber-stamped a rise in its council tax revenue after revealing it had already started recruiting 62 new officers. North Wales Police and Crime Panel members approved the 4.5% rise in police precept at Fridays meeting in Conwy county councils headquarters. It means an extra 12.51 per year, equivalent to a little more than 24p per week for a band D council tax payer. A presentation on the forces finances revealed it had received the same amount of grant as 2019-2020 from the UK Government. However it also revealed it received and extra 6.8m in central government funding under Operation Uplift to recruit 62 new police officers. Deputy chief constable Richard Debicki said they had already started training the first tranche of new recruits. He said: Those new recruits are already planned in over the next 12 months. We have already taken on 18 who are in training at the moment and the other 44 will be recruited June and July. It emerged 23 officers will got to local policing and 34 into crime services such as the protecting vulnerable persons unit and major crime teams. The new economic crime unit will comprise five officers with the remaining five recruits filling support roles. The force is also recruiting direct entry officers through a not-for profit training company established by the UK Government called Police Now. It trains graduates with no police experience to become detectives. The commissioner said he would use some of the extra cash generated by the council tax precept to target fraudsters with the creation of a new economic crime unit. He said there had been 4,671 financial crimes up to March 2019. That represented a 17% increase year-on-year. Losses to victims totalled 8.9m an increase of 24% from the previous year. By Jez Hemming BBC Local Democracy Reporter (more here on the LDR scheme) The cause of a January fatal crash on the Pennsylvania Turnpike could take up to two years before its determined, according to a Western Pennsylvania media report. The reason for the length of our investigations is that they are a detailed and thorough look into not only the crash itself, but into why it happened and whether we can make recommendations on ways to prevent similar crashes in the future, said National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Eric Weiss told PennLive. The crash, which killed five, including the bus driver, and injured 55 others, is waiting in line behind other crashes to be investigated by NTSB, the Pittsburgh Tribune reported. The Westmoreland County crash happened on Jan. 5. The NTSB has other crashes under investigation and only a single laboratory to process evidence for incidents across the country, the report stated. "We have one laboratory, but that is by design, Weiss said. "It is large enough to handle all of the agencys needs. Initial reports indicate the bus struck a concrete barrier, eventually flipping onto its side, the Pittsburgh Tribune reported. Police called it a chain-reaction crash with three tractor-trailers and a car. The final determination will not be made until there are further tests done, Weiss told the Pittsburgh Tribune. Once that is done, then officials will issue recommendations to improve national road safety, the report noted. "They have to wait for different tests to come back, Weiss said. The laboratory handles testing for investigations from highway, aircraft, marine, pipeline and hazardous materials incidents, Weiss explained to the Pittsburgh Tribune. "We try to do everything, but we do have a caseload, Weiss said. Thanks for visiting PennLive. Quality local journalism has never been more important. We need your support. Not a subscriber yet? Please consider supporting our work. China faced deepening isolation over its coronavirus epidemic on Sunday as the death toll soared to 259, with the United States and Australia leading a growing list of nations to impose extraordinary Chinese travel bans. With Britain, Russia and Sweden among the countries confirming their first infections, the virus has now spread to more than two dozen nations, sending governments scurrying to limit their exposure. China toughened its own quarantine measures at the centre of the outbreak in Hubei province, a day after the United States temporarily barred entry to foreigners who had been in China within the past two weeks. "Foreign nationals, other than immediate family of US citizens and permanent residents... will be denied entry into the United States," Health Secretary Alex Azar said. Australia said it was barring entry to non-citizens arriving from China, while Australian citizens who had travelled there would be required to go into "self-isolation" for two weeks. Vietnam suspended all flights from mainland China effective Saturday, while Russia announced it would halt visa-free tourism for Chinese nationals and stop issuing them work visas. Similar expansive restrictions have been announced by countries including Italy, Singapore, and China's northern neighbour Mongolia. The United States, Japan, Britain, Germany and other nations had already advised their citizens not to travel to China. Thousands of Hong Kong medical workers voted to commence a four-day strike from Monday to push the government to close its border with mainland China to stop the virus, which has already spread to the financial hub. Britain said Saturday it was temporarily withdrawing some diplomatic staff and their families from across China, a day after the US State Department ordered embassy employees to send home family members under the age of 21. - 'Unkind' - Beijing insists it can contain the virus and called Washington's advice against travel to China "unkind". "Certainly it is not a gesture of goodwill," foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said. The US emergency declaration also requires Americans returning from Hubei province to be placed in mandatory 14-day quarantine, and health screening for American citizens coming from other parts of China. The virus emerged in early December and has been traced to a market in Hubei's capital Wuhan that sold wild animals. It spread globally on the wings of a Lunar New Year holiday rush that sees hundreds of millions of Chinese people travel domestically and overseas. The economic fallout continued Saturday as Apple announced that all its China stores would be closed until February 9. China's central bank said it would offer financial support to businesses hit by the public health emergency. - Mea culpa - With public anger mounting in China, Wuhan's top official admitted late Friday that authorities there had acted too slowly. "If strict control measures had been taken earlier the result would have been better than now," said Ma Guoqiang, the Communist Party chief for Wuhan. Wuhan officials have been criticised online for withholding information about the outbreak until late December despite knowing of it weeks earlier. China finally lurched into action last week, effectively quarantining whole cities in Hubei and tens of millions of people. Unprecedented safeguards imposed nationwide include postponing the return to school, cutting bus and train routes, and tightening health screening on travellers nationwide. On Saturday, authorities in Hubei extended the new year holiday until February 13 and announced a suspension of marriage registrations from Monday to discourage public gatherings. The city of Huanggang, east of Wuhan, said only one member of each household would be permitted to leave the house every two days to buy necessities. But the toll keeps mounting at an ever-increasing pace, with health authorities on Saturday saying 46 more people had died in the preceding 24 hours, all but one in Hubei. Another 2,102 new infections were also confirmed, bringing the total to nearly 12,000 -- far higher than the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome outbreak of 2002-03. SARS, which is caused by a pathogen similar to the new coronavirus and also originated in China, killed 774 people worldwide -- most of them in mainland China and Hong Kong. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak a global emergency on Thursday but later warned that closing borders was probably ineffective in halting transmission and could accelerate the virus's spread. But authorities around the world pressed ahead with preventive measures. - 'Latent racism' - Thai health officials on Friday said a taxi driver became the kingdom's first case of human-to-human transmission. Thailand joins China, Vietnam, Germany, Japan, France and the United States with confirmed domestic infections. The health crisis has dented China's international image and put Chinese nationals in difficult positions abroad, with complaints of racism. More than 40,000 workers at a vast Chinese-controlled industrial park in Indonesia -- which also employs 5,000 staff from China -- were put under quarantine, the facility said on Friday. On the same day, China flew overseas Hubei residents back to the centre of the outbreak in Wuhan on chartered planes from Thailand and Malaysia, citing "practical difficulties" the passengers had encountered overseas. Countries have scrambled to evacuate their nationals from Wuhan, with hundreds of US, Japanese, British, French, German, South Korean, Indian, Bangladeshi and Mongolian citizens evacuated so far, and more governments planning airlifts. burs-dma-gle/lth/tom/cs/bfm By Oliver Stone & former Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa January 31, 2020 " Information Clearing House " - The United States has become a force of evil against the people who want to reform things, renowned director Oliver Stone told former Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa during an interview Wednesday in his RT show 'Conversando con Correa' (Speaking With Correa). The conversation started with an overview of Stones life and career, before plunging into the subject of politics, the worlds current woes, the role played by the U.S. in global politics and the presidency of Donald Trump. Midnight Expresss author considers that Trump has done horrible things like pulling out of the Paris climate accords and the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. However, he argued that at least, he had the merit to ask why the U.S. needs to fight with Russia, alarming thus the mainstream media who kept on attacking him from the first day. Its all right-wings fighting with right-wings [...] Democrats are no better than Republicans, Stone said, adding that there is no party in the United States, no democratic voice except third parties that are small, that would say Why are we fighting wars? Hillary Clinton and her group, and Joe Biden, are just as pro-war as any Republican Dick Cheney. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter In short, the U.S. is "the greatest hypnosis the world has ever seen (...) It sells the same story, again and again, that it is the best country in the world, the filmmaker claimed adding that all evidence shows the opposite and the U.S. has been responsible for the death of millions of people all around the world, from Iraq to Syria, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korea, among other countries. Correa and his guest also evoked the documentary film 'Al Sur de la Frontera' (South of the Border) made by Stone, released in 2009, in which the filmmaker interviewed then progressive leaders of Venezuela, Bolivia, Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Cuba, and Ecuador. "[Hugo] Chavez was the base, the nucleus, who introduced me to all the leaders: we went to visit Lula, Nestor Kirchner and Cristina Kirchner, [Fernando] Lugo in Paraguay, and you in Ecuador, and Cuba ... And Bolivia ... it was an experience that opened my eyes, Stone said, adding that the documentary was totally ignored by the mainstream media in the U.S. "I was an enemy," he said, recalling that he was once invited to the New York Times where journalists asked him how he had come to respect Chavez. "It was then clear to me: there is no way to win the debate on South America," he noted, describing events such as those that occurred in Brazil when former President Dilma Rousseff was impeached and Lula imprisoned, as a "comedy. Stone concluded that what happened with the Soviet Union will happen to the US. Something is going to happen because we have pushed ourselves to the limit, we are completely corrupting history. Unfortunately, because I want my country, we have become a force of evil. A force of evil against people. Against people who want reforms, who want to change things. This article was published by "teleSUR" - Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here ==See Also== Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (Agence France-Presse) Sun, February 2, 2020 07:08 708 7f440ff09e92db75a02bbad20620e327 2 News Google,travel,destination,climate-change,Heritage-on-the-Edge Free As a call to action on climate reform, Google has created digital exhibits, models, and tours of over 50 historical sites across the world to document how they've been affected by climate change. To encourage the world to take action against the climate crisis, Google launched Heritage of the Edge on Jan. 29, a collection of more than 50 online exhibits, 3D models, Street View tours and interviews or about historical places touched by climate change. The selected areas, items and buildings have been chosen as a result of their national, spiritual or cultural significance. Read also: Indonesia works on preserving heritage for world peace This online experience, which resulted from a collaboration between CyArk a nonprofit digital archivist of heritage sites and Google Arts & Culture, brings users to places like Easter Island to view the region's iconic statues, Bangladesh to see the city of Bagerhat and Scotland to explore the Edinburgh Castle so that they can experience each one's "stories of loss, but also of hope and resilience". Complementing these exhibits are stories outlining what can be done to combat the crisis and conserve these historical sites and, therefore, human history. The Heritage of the Edge experience is available now for exploration. The Congress on Sunday (February 2) released its manifesto for the upcoming Delhi Assembly election 2020. Delhi Congress president Subhash Chopra and party leaders Anand Sharma and Ajay Maken released the party's manifesto. Prominent among its poll promises is to allot Rs 72,000 for poor under NYAY scheme and provide free bus rides for senior citizens in the national capital. Congress has also promised to provide unemployment allowance of Rs 5,000 to graduates and Rs 7,500 to postgraduates per month. The grand old party has also promised free education for girls in government institutions from nursery to Phd. As many as five new AIIMS-type super-speciality hospitals will be built, to tackle pollution 20% of the budget has been allotted and 200 units of electricity will be free for all. Live TV The party's manifesto comes just two days after the BJP released its 'Sankalp Patra', promising wheat flour at Rs 2 per kg for the poor, cycles and scooties for girl students as well as a 10 per cent increase in the health and education budget annually. Also, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is also likely to release its manifesto today. The election is a three-cornered fight between AAP, BJP and Congress. The Congress is contesting on 61 of the 70 seats while AAP is contesting on all 70 seats, BJP is fighting on 67 seats. The election for the 70-member Delhi Assembly will take place in single-phase and the counting of votes will take place on February 11. Photograph: Michael Reynolds/EPA As a growing number of Republican senators confirmed they will vote to acquit Donald Trump at the conclusion of his impeachment trial on Wednesday, the saga threatened to overshadow the first contest of the Democratic primary season in Iowa on Monday. Related: 'My party is a cult': Republican Joe Walsh on his Iowa challenge to Trump On Friday, the Senate voted 51-49 to block testimony from new witnesses and the admission of new documentation in Trumps trial, the first time the body has elected to block such evidence in history. Just two Republicans, Mitt Romney of Utah and Susan Collins of Maine, broke ranks in the vote. Although neither has publicly stated how they will vote next week, a super majority of 67 would be required to remove Trump from office a figure that appears all but impossible in a hyper-partisan era. On Sunday, in an interview with the Fox News host Sean Hannity broadcast as part of coverage of the Super Bowl, Trump said impeachment proceedings, in which state and intelligence officials provided firsthand testimony of the presidents attempts to secure foreign investigations of his political rivals, had been hurtful to his family. He also suggested the process would make it harder for his administration to cooperate with Democrats in passing legislation. They [Democrats] dont care about fairness, he said. You look at the lies, you look at the reports that were done that were so false. The level of hypocrisy. So Im not sure if they can do it to be honest. I think they just want to win. It doesnt matter how they win. Some senior GOP senators predicted on Sunday every Republican in the chamber would vote to acquit Trump on Wednesday, and suggested a handful of Democrats up for re-election in swing states might also vote to acquit. I think he shouldnt have done it, I think it was wrong Lamar Alexander Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, who last week briefly wavered on whether the former national security adviser John Bolton should provide potentially damning testimony, confirmed to NBCs Meet the Press he would vote to acquit. Story continues Despite that, Alexander labelled Trumps behaviour in the Ukraine scandal, in which the president pressured Kyiv to investigate the Biden family and other political rivals, as wrong and inappropriate. I think he shouldnt have done it, Alexander said. I think it was wrong. Inappropriate was the way Id say improper, crossing the line. The Democratic-controlled House sent two articles of impeachment to the Senate, one concerning abuse of power and the other obstruction of Congress. Bolton has reportedly detailed direct interactions with Trump over Ukraine in a book which the White House is seeking to block. Few observers doubt that even without Boltons testimony, the case against Trump was proved. But Republicans have said that does not mean the president should be removed. Like other members of his party, Alexander said his vote to acquit was linked to the fact that removing Trump would mean he could not run in the election in November. You know, he said, it struck me, really for the first time, early last week, that were not just being asked to remove the president from office. Were saying, Tell him he cant run in the 2020 election which begins Monday in Iowa. Joni Ernst of Iowa, who faces re-election, also confirmed she would vote to acquit, despite meekly criticising the presidents behaviour. I think ferreting out corruption [in Ukraine] is absolutely the right thing to do, she told CNNs State of the Union. Now if he was tying it to other things, thats the president. Its probably something that I wouldnt have done. Adam Schiff, the Democrats lead impeachment manager, said Republicans acknowledgment of wrongdoing but decisions to acquit were remarkable. The House proved the corrupt scheme that they charged in the articles of impeachment, Schiff told CBSs Face the Nation, adding it was pretty remarkable when you now have senators on both sides of the aisle admitting the House made its case and the only question is, should the president be removed for office because hes been found guilty of these offences? The Senate is the jury today, but we are the jury tomorrow Pete Buttigieg Polling released by NBC and the Wall Street Journal on Sunday indicated that the country remains split over Trumps impeachment, with 46% of registered voters supporting his removal and 49% believing he should remain. Although Iowa holds the first vote for the Democratic nomination on Monday, many of the candidates, including Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, will be forced to return to Washington to hear closing arguments in the Senate trial. Trump is scheduled to deliver his state of the union address on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, giving him a primetime platform. Joni Ernst talks to the media at the Capitol on Thursday. Photograph: Steve Helber/AP Though his likely acquittal will be on Wednesday, many observers expect him to claim exoneration anyway, as he did, inaccurately, after the release of special counsel Robert Muellers report on Russian election interference last year. Related: 'Kickass women win': Warren makes case to Iowans why she can beat Trump Democrats are looking to turn the Senate trial to their favour, branding it a cover-up and mobilising grassroots organisations to punish Republicans at the polls. The former South Bend, Indiana, mayor Pete Buttigeg, polling in third place in Iowa, told CNN on Sunday: The Senate is the jury today, but we are the jury tomorrow. And we get to send a message at the ballot box that cheating, lying, involving a foreign country in our own domestic politics, not to mention abuse of power more broadly and bad administration, thats not OK, that we can do better. Senate Republicans also plan to capitalise on Trumps likely acquittal. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina on Sunday urged colleagues to commence investigations of the Bidens activities in Ukraine and to examine the start of the FBI investigation into Russian election meddling, which led to Muellers appointment. Were going to get to the bottom of this to make sure it never happens again, Graham said on Fox News Sunday. Addressing Republican voters, he added: You should expect us to do this. If we dont do it, were letting you down. The growth in Katy ISD has necessitated new schools opening year after year. The newest junior high school for the 2019-20 year is Adams Junior High. While classes have been ongoing since the start of school in August 2019, the formal dedication is just now happening. Dignitaries will gather from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 4, to formally dedicate Adams Junior High School at 4141 Cross Creek Bend Lane in Fulshear. The school is named after Joe M. Adams, who served on the Katy ISD board of trustees for 27 years. During his tenure as a trustee, Adams experienced the district's exponential growth and was instrumental in ensuring that Katy ISD's reputation, for educational excellence, continued, the district reported in a news release. He brought a wealth of knowledge to his position, and along with his genuine passion for public schools, he made decisions based on what was in the best interest of the district's students and employees. Adams Junior High is the 16 in the district, joining 42 elementary schools, eight high schools and three other campuses. For more information go to www.katyisd.org. Ribbon cutting The Katy Area Chamber of Commerce will welcome Burn Boot Camp-Cinco Ranch from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. Monday, Feb. 3. The ribbon will be cut at 11 a.m. Burn Boot Camp-Cinco Ranch is located at 23930 Westheimer Parkway No. 111 in Katy. For more information, go to https://tinyurl.com/wrw9z7h. Summer school registration Getting a jump on thing, Katy ISD will open online registration for summer classes on Monday, Feb. 3. According to the district, Katy Summer Academic Term offers in-person courses for high school original credit and credit recovery courses. Parents of elementary and junior high students will be notified if their students need to attend summer school. For high school students, summer school takes place at Morton Ranch High School, at 21000 Franz Road in Katy from 7:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Summer Session One takes place June 1-11. Session Two takes place June 15-30. The course fee is $225 per semester. Physical education course fees are $250 per semester. For more information and to access the registration link for high school courses visit the Katy Summer Academic Term website at https://tinyurl.com/y3y2awwy. Networking luncheon The Houston Area Realtors will host a networking meeting from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 6, at Willow Fork Country Club, 21055 Westheimer Road in Katy. There is no charge for HAR members with current HAR membership card to attend. Late cancellations and no-shows will be charged $25. The fee for those without current HAR cards and guests is $25 payable to Willow Fork Country Club at the door. The featured speaker will be Chad Prior. To register go to https://tinyurl.com/vvxtml8. GOP meet and greet The Greater Richmond Area Republicans have scheduled a candidate meet and greet from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 6, at County Line Bar & Grill, 19412 Farm to Market 1093 in Richmond. Early voting for the March primary starts Feb. 18 and this serves as an opportunity to get to know the candidates. While this is a free event, tickets are required. For more information contact Justin Schiro at justingschiro17@gmail.com. To register go to https://tinyurl.com/uyy2534. Chamber gala While it is already sold out, a waiting list is being maintained for the 2020 Katy Area Chamber of Commerces annual gala featured a Roaring 20s theme. If you can get in the door, attendees are encouraged to dress as flappers, gangsters or silent screen stars. The gala will be held from 6:30 to 11:45 p.m. Friday, Feb. 7, at Embassy Suites by Hilton Houston West-Katy, 16435 Katy Freeway in Houston. To get on the waiting list, send an email to ashley@katychamber.com. rkent@hcnonline.com After many Temptation Island fans accused Morgan Lolar of faking her breakup with Evan Smith so they could appear on Ex on the Beach, the real estate agent is now under fire for retweeting a racially insensitive joke. Morgan Lolar, Evan Smith | Mario Perez Morgan Lolar received hate after Temptation Island In January 2019, Evan Smith met Morgan Lolar in the first season of Temptation Island. He arrived at the island with his longtime girlfriend, Kaci Campbell, and wanted to prove his loyalty and commitment to her. However, after choosing Morgan for his second date, he ended up falling for the real estate agent. The two then began a romantic relationship on the island, even though Evan hadnt technically broken up with Kaci yet. While Kaci watched their relationship form in minute-long clips, Evan did not send her a video explaining what happened between him and Morgan. Therefore, Kaci felt blindsided at the Final Bonfire once Evan revealed he wanted to end their nearly decade long relationship and fully pursue Morgan. Im still not here for Evan and Morgan #TemptationIsland pic.twitter.com/5AgtDCCJwr Kandi Hart (@hearts_kandi) December 20, 2019 During the six-month update, Evan proposed to Morgan, and some of the TI audience reacted negatively to it. They believed Morgan stole Evan away from Kaci and encouraged him to cheat. Additionally, Morgan vigorously defended her fiance in a way some perceived as hurtful towards Kaci. Therefore, the real estate agent began receiving hate from loyal TI fans who called her racist names, and some even sent death threats. Fans accused Morgan Lolar of faking her breakup In December 2019, Morgan and Evan announced they were moving to California. However, a month later, she wiped all her pictures with Evan from her Instagram account and removed his name from her bio. While fans thought this meant they broke up, she assured everyone she was still moving to California a few days later. Then, Morgan revealed Evan already left for the West Coast for work but allegedly had nightly sleepovers with 21-year-old Instagram models. She then admitted she had been crying for weeks over it on Twitter. After the accusations, fans spotted her still wearing her ring in other photos. Because of her vagueness despite insisting how real she is, many followers began accusing the real estate agent of staging the breakup to get on another reality television show. It takes a lot to offend me, for obvious reasons. But Im actually offended. One thing Ive always been is real. Get out of here with that shit. If I wanted to get on a show that bad, I would. I wouldnt need Evan, Kaci or a publicity stunt to do so. I think Kaci would agree. https://t.co/MPjB0uMHpa Morgan Lolar (@morganlolar) January 23, 2020 Even though Morgan has denied doing anything for a show, a spoiler page revealed a week later that MTV called them for casting for Ex on the Beach. In the reality series, singles live with their ex and decide if they will get back together or move on for good. Currently, Season 4 is airing, and three former TI stars are on the series. Additionally, both Morgan and Evan have expressed an interest in competing on MTVs reality competition series, The Challenge. Morgan Lolar under fire for retweeting racially insensitive joke Almost a month after the assumed breakup, Morgan quote tweeted TI co-star Val Osipov, who wrote, I had an Asian waiter ask me if I want a Corona, nah Im good fam. She added three laughing emojis. The offensive joke referred to the coronavirus that originated in Asia. While a few commented directly on her and Vals tweet, many TI fans took to Reddit to express how disappointing it is that Morgan retweeted it when she has spoken out about being a victim of racist trolling. One user explained these jokes are offensive because theyre saying everyone should stay away from Asians, assuming every person of the race has the virus. Similarly, jokes about Iraqis, blowing something up are offensive as it insinuates everyone in Iraq is a terrorist. As of now, Morgan nor Val has acknowledged the tweet. A series of traffic incidents has caused delays for the Monday-morning peak in Brisbanes south and north. A truck breakdown on the Gateway Motorway northbound at Eight Mile Plains, blocking the left lane above Logan Road, had pushed congestion back beyond Compton Road by 7.20am. Congestion northbound on the Pacific Motorway at Rochedale. Credit:Department of Transport and Main Roads TransLink advised commuters travelling on services inbound along and from the motorway at Runcorn to expect major delays. A tow truck arrived to begin moving the truck after 8am. On the Pacific Motorway, a crash in the northbound right lane near exit 26 at Loganholme had traffic stretched back to exit 28. Source: Xinhua| 2020-02-02 10:41:04|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close LANZHOU, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- Twenty-three flocks totaling 815 wintering whooper swans have been recorded in northwest China's Gansu Province, according to a latest survey. It was the first joint survey of the species in Gansu, covering a wide area along the Yellow River, China's second-longest river, and another three inland rivers including Heihe River and Shiyang River in Hexi Corridor, Gansu. "The survey mainly covers the distribution, survival status, population and behavior of the species," said Zhang Lixun from the School of Life Sciences, Lanzhou University. "It provides important information for the protection of the whooper swan." Launched on Jan. 5, the survey was conducted by 12 teams from Lanzhou University, local nature reserves, government departments, scientific institutions and voluntary organizations. Among the total wintering swans, 142 are adolescents. Meanwhile, 574 whooper swans were recorded along Heihe River, the second-longest inland river in northwest China. Researchers also found eight whooper swans in Xigu District of Lanzhou, capital of Gansu. "It is the first time that the birds have been spotted in this area," said Zhang. "It shows that the local environment is getting better." The whopper swan is under second-class national protection. Gansu is one of the important habitats for the species, as well as a key monitoring region. China has been strengthening wildlife protection in recent years. With the development of national parks, wild animal populations have been growing in areas where the ecosystems and biodiversity protection and restoration are improving. President Muhammadu Buhari says posterity will always remember the labour and sacrifices of Arthur Nwankwo, a chieftain of the defunct National Democratic Coalition and prolific writer who died on Saturday at the age of 78 years. Mr Buhari said this in a statement by his spokesperson, Femi Adesina, on Sunday. Below is the statement from the presidency: STATE HOUSE PRESS RELEASE PRESIDENT BUHARI MOURNS NADECO CHIEFTAIN, ARTHUR NWANKWO President Muhammadu Buhari condoles with government and people of Anambra State over the death of former Vice-Chairman of National Democratic Coalition and prolific writer, Dr Arthur Agwuncha Nwankwo, noting that the labour and sacrifices of the nationalist will always be remembered by posterity. The President commiserates with family, friends, professional and political associates of Dr Nwankwo, urging them to find solace in the contributions of the writer to national and global development by consistently pursuing and projecting values of peace, unity and love. President Buhari affirms that the late writers bridge-building efforts, like supporting the famous Handshake Across the Niger, and carefully picking the themes of his many publications to reflect national unity, while advocating for a collective vision, had served the purpose. The President believes Dr Nwankwos investments in humanity will endure, especially standing for democracy and development at great risks, and working hard to ensure that the pivotal institutions are strengthened and sustained. President Buhari prays that the almighty God will receive the soul of the departed statesman, and comfort his family. Femi Adesina Special Adviser to the President (Media & Publicity) Two people were shot late Saturday at an apartment complex on the North Side, according to San Antonio police. Officers responded to reports of a shooting on the 11700 block of Vance Jackson Road around 11:40 p.m. Police say they found a woman in her 20s shot to death in the living room and a male victim suffering from multiple gunshot wounds, still alive. A group of locals staged a demonstration near the anti-CAA protest site in Delhi's Shaheen Bagh, demanding the removal of barricades from the road connecting Noida with Kalindi Kunj New Delhi: A group of locals on Sunday staged a demonstration near the anti-CAA protest site in Delhi's Shaheen Bagh, demanding the removal of barricades from the road connecting Noida with Kalindi Kunj. The protesters demanded that the people, who have been sitting on dharna there for over a month to protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act, should clear the stretch as the commuters are facing difficulties, police said. Senior officers, including Joint Commissioner of Police (Southern Range) Devesh Srivastava and Deputy Commissioner of Police (Southeast) Chinmoy Biswal, are at the spot monitoring the situation to ensure no untoward incident takes place. The officers are trying to negotiate with the protestors and asking them to maintain peace. The protestors, including women, raised slogans like "Jai Shree Ram", "Vande Matram" and "Khali Karao Shaheen Bagh wallo ko". "We want the roads to be cleared. They (anti-CAA protesters) have been sitting on protest for 50 days now. It has been causing inconvenience to us. Our children have not been able to go to school because the roads are blocked," said Rekha Devi, a resident of Jasola. Around 52 people have been detained. They will be released shortly, police said. Chinmoy Biswal, DCP South-East district (Delhi): No permission granted to anyone to hold demonstration in&around Shaheen Bagh area against the ongoing protest here over #CAA. Still some people called on the protest today; so, they were stopped and dispersed by police. https://t.co/Wgplse7FPn pic.twitter.com/RdLto1M8ch ANI (@ANI) February 2, 2020 Deepak Patel, a resident of Jasola, said he somehow managed to go to work after crossing the area. "With heavy barricading, police don't allow us to enter the protest site where women have been sitting for over a month. I somehow managed to go to work crossing the area. But since yesterday, there has been strict checking and we were not allowed to pass through the stretch without showing an identity card," Patel said. On Saturday, a 25-year-old man fired two rounds in the air at Shaheen Bagh and was later taken into custody. No one was injured in the incident. Rekha Khanna, another protestor, said they want the road to be cleared at the earliest. "It's been 50 days now. My husband works in Noida and my children also go to school through the same route. We want the road to be cleared at the earliest. We only came here to protest for a day and we are being asked to disperse from here. But those who are protesting at Shaheen Bagh are not even asked to vacate. At least they should open one side of the road." Khanna added. Somalia on Sunday declared a locust infestation sweeping the Horn of Africa to be a national emergency, as insects devastate food supplies in one of the poorest and most vulnerable regions in the world. "The Ministry of Agriculture... has declared a national emergency in view of the current desert locust upsurge, that poses a major threat to Somalia's fragile food security situation," the ministry statement read. Experts say the locust swarms are the result of extreme weather swings, and Somalia's declaration -- the first country in the region to do so -- is aimed at boosting national efforts in tackling the hungry insects. The locusts -- part of the grasshopper family -- have led to what the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has termed the "worst situation in 25 years" in the Horn of Africa. "Food sources for people and their livestock are at risk," the agriculture ministry added. "The desert locust swarms are uncommonly large and consume huge amounts of crops and forage." The emergency declaration was made to focus efforts and raise funds, because it was critical to contain the locust swarms before harvests are due in April, the ministry said. Desert locusts -- whose destructive infestations cause major crop damage and hunger -- are a species of grasshopper that live largely solitary lives until a combination of conditions promote breeding and lead them to form massive swarms. "Given the severity of this desert locust outbreak, we must commit our best efforts to protect the food security and livelihoods of Somali people," said Minister of Agriculture Said Hussein Iid. "If we don't act now, we risk a severe food crisis that we cannot afford." According to the regional Food Security and Nutrition Working Group, East Africa is already experiencing a high degree of food insecurity, with over 19 million people facing acute hunger. Swarms formed in eastern Ethiopia and northern Somalia and have moved through the region. The FAO says the current invasion is known as an "upsurge" -- when an entire region is affected -- however, if it gets worse and cannot be contained, over a year or more, it would become what is known as a "plague" of locusts. There have been six major desert locust plagues in the 1900s, the last of which was in 1987-89. The last major upsurge was in 2003-05. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) While much of Britain was celebrating wildly, Remain diehards took to the streets to mourn the UKs exit from the European Union their candles and tears giving the vigils a funereal air. In Oxford, dozens of the downhearted gathered for a pro-EU meeting on Friday evening. Layla Moran, Liberal Democrat MP for Oxford West, said: It feels good to be here together. I am not going to lie, I have not been holding it together very well today. Opponents of Brexit stage a silent demonstration in London on the day that the UK formally left I woke up this morning and shed a little tear. I walked into this room and I did again. She added: Having worked in it for half a lifetime, I have absolutely no doubt that the European Union is the greatest peace project the world has ever seen. Unfortunately, it will be weakened tonight as the UK pulls out. Despite the clear result of the referendum three-and-a-half years ago, many still seemed to be in a state of disbelief. One man who spoke at the rally said: We are peace-loving people but I do not think we are resigned to what has happened. I think we should say that we are not reconciled to what has happened, but that is not an aggressive, war-like statement, that is a statement that we are fighting for sanity against insanity. Another, dressed in a European Union apron, who introduced himself as an Oxford resident, EU citizen, said: I just have one very simple thought, which is that at 11 oclock all of us Remainers, we become Rejoiners. Meanwhile, in Ramsgate, Kent, Remain supporters projected a message of support to the EU on to a cliff face in the hours before the UK officially departed. Antony Hook, a Lib Dem MEP for the last nine months, beamed a huge sign that read: We still love EU. He said it was a reminder that for a good half of the country, Brexit is happening against their wishes. I am devastated Brexit is happening today. My fear is that there are some for whom Brexit is just the beginning. Earlier, the protest group Led By Donkeys projected a 32,000 sq ft video message to Europe on to the White Cliffs of Dover. Protesters held candles at the London protest in one of several pro-EU rallies The film, beamed in English, French and German, included Second World War veterans Sid Daw, 95, and Brigadier Stephen Goodall, 97, describing their grief at leaving the EU. The video concluded with an image of a golden star against a blue background denoting the UKs membership of the EU and the words: This is our star, look after it for us. Elsewhere, protesters in Glasgow sang the EU anthem Ode To Joy in German and English at 11pm. In Northern Ireland, anti-Brexit campaigners took part in demonstrations at six points along the Irish border. The protests, organised by Sinn Fein and the Border Communities Against Brexit group, saw hundreds of people carrying placards that read No border in Ireland and 56 per cent in the North voted remain. Air Force medic and Molly the service dog to star at benefit Adam LeGrand and Molly. Adam LeGrand, who adopted Molly from the Henderson County pound, will celebrate the service dog's positive effect on his life during the Cause for Paws luncheon benefiting Blue Ridge Humane Society at noon Tuesday, March 24, at Champion Hills Clubhouse. After enlisting as a medic in the U.S. Air Force, LeGrand was deployed over a 10-year span in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan) and Operation Noble Eagle (homeland security) before being medically retired for physical injuries, PTSD and traumatic brain injury-related problems. Suffering from the combat-related injuries, LeGrand applied to the K9s for Warriors program, which provides service dogs to veterans, and adopted Molly from Henderson County Animal Services. Since completing their training in 2015, Adam and Molly have served as K9s for Warriors ambassadors, traveling the country advocating for veterans health care. In addition to Adam and Molly, the luncheon will feature the presentation of the first K9 Hometown Hero Award presented by Hunter Subaru to celebrate the dogs who do extraordinary things in the community. Dog owners may nominate their guide, hearing, law enforcement, military, search and rescue, service or credentialed Animal-Assisted Therapy (AAT) dog for the Hunter Subaru K9 Hero Award at https://www.blueridgehumane.org/get-involved/fundraising-events/k9-hero/. The top three finalists will be invited to be the guests of Hunter Subaru and Blue Ridge Humane Society Cause for Paws luncheon for recognition and for the announcement of the winner. Tickets and sponsorships are available now, starting at $75 per person, online at https://www.blueridgehumane.org/get-involved/fundraising-events/lunch or by phone at (828) 692-2639 ext 304. For information contact Laresa Griffin at lgriffin@blueridgehumane.org or (828) 692-2639 ext 304. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has claimed responsibility for a December shooting at a US naval base in which a Saudi officer killed three sailors, the SITE monitor said Sunday. "In an audio speech delivered by its leader, Qassim al-Rimi, (AQAP) claimed credit for the December 2019 Naval Air Station Pensacola attack," SITE, which tracks jihadist media, said in a statement. The December 6 shooting in a classroom building at the naval base also wounded eight other people, including two responding sheriff's deputies, before police shot dead the assailant. The FBI formally identified the attacker as Mohammed Alshamrani, 21, a second lieutenant in the Royal Saudi Air Force and a student naval flight officer. The SITE monitor said he had posted a short manifesto on Twitter prior to the attack that read: "I'm against evil, and America as a whole has turned into a nation of evil." "I hate you because every day you (are) supporting, funding and committing crimes not only against Muslims but also humanity." The Twitter account that posted the manifesto -- which also condemned US support for Israel and included a quote from Al-Qaeda's deceased leader Osama bin Laden -- has been suspended. Saudi Arabia's King Salman was quick to denounce the shooting as a "heinous crime" and said the gunman "does not represent the Saudi people." Naval Air Station Pensacola hosts the US Navy's foreign military training programmes, established in 1985 specifically for Saudi students before being expanded to other nationalities. The shooting threatened a programme crucial to the US-Saudi relationship, which involves billions of dollars of military sales to the kingdom. Around 850 Saudis are among the 5,000 foreign military personnel being trained in the United States. Last month, however, the US Justice Department said it would send home 21 Saudi military trainees after an investigation into the attack, with Attorney General Bill Barr calling it an "act of terrorism". The attorney general said 21 of Alshamrani's colleagues were being expelled from the base's flight school after the probe found many of them were in possession of jihadist material and child pornography. While the material did not warrant criminal prosecution, Barr said Riyadh had "determined that this material demonstrated conduct unbecoming an officer in the Saudi Royal Air Force and Royal Navy," adding that the 21 cadets had been struck from their programme. He added that the Saudi government had said it would review each case under its code of military justice and criminal code. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Seven years ago, Navy SEAL Chris Kyle died. Kyle, a decorated veteran, served in Iraq and helped veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. He and a friend were killed in Texas by another military member. The murder at a gun range Feb. 2, 2013, led to the shooter being sentenced to prison for life. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott called Kyle an American hero who defended others on and off the battlefield. Kyle wrote American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History, which was later made into a movie. The impeachment trial of President Donald Trump continues to draw letter writers' attention, along with recent proposed legislation up in Phoenix. Plus, another question for Sean Miller, in this edition of Letters to the Editor. 02.02.2020 LISTEN The Lord's prayer is the most familiar prayer in the Christian tradition. It has been memorized from years of repetition to the point of becoming a public recital. Yet, when the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, their concern was not about learning a new recital or prayer formula per se. They came from a long tradition of Jewish devoted prayer lifestyle. They knew how to pray from their religious perspective. However, their walk with Jesus made them to understand the fundamental gap between the way Jesus prayed and their own daily devotional routine. What was new about the Lord's prayer? Jesus prayed from heaven's priorities down to earth, contrary to religious traditions that petition from earthly perspective while asking for heavenly assistance. The order of request works in a reverse mode in the Lord's prayer. Indeed, heaven's priorities seem at odds with the preoccupations of a fallen man. Thus, to pray as we ought, we must download heaven's policy planning to become functional on earth. Put another way, prayer is a "co-operation" with God to build a heaven on earth, starting with our own action. Rightly so, to prevent from asking amiss, Jesus taught his disciples his own prayer protocol by way of building codes, regulations, and patterns of heaven's government blueprint. The Lord's prayer takes its parameters and borrows its purpose from heaven, and then makes inroads into earth. As a matter of fact, Jesus was teaching heaven's mission priorities to his disciples in the form of a policy statement so that believers will work out those priorities into reality on earth. The radical change in the Lord's prayer in comparison with religious prayers is that we pray to successfully advance God's government policies on earth rather than petition God for redress of earthly grievances. As we thoughtfully analyze the Lord's prayer in Matthew 6: 9-13, we notice that there are 7 Government's Policy Statements that form the protocol of prayer. Obviously, the Lord's prayer is not about submitting to some formal recital procedures, but rather teaching the protocol or pattern of praying from a heavenly mission statement perspective. I. Hallowed Be Your Name The Lord's prayer sets out the believer to achieve a government's mission with intended and tangible results. It is not an exercise in persuasive rhetoric. The Lord's prayer is a "performative utterance". To claim the utterance is to embark on a journey of performing the missionary action or duty. When a city Mayor declares: "I hereby declare the bridge open!" Immediately, this new city facility becomes open to the public. In the same protocol, when we make the utterance: "Hallow be thy Name!", we submit our actions to take an immediate effect on the environment. We hallow the Lord's name by our life, not by our lips service. Our daily actions create the hallow or defile God's name. The actions and the conduct of our character are the proof or the token of the honor we show to God. We hallow the Lord's name when we revere Him, believe Him, give Him glory, obey, and trust Him.Threefold component of the meaning of "hallowed be thy name". First, 'Hallowed be thy name' means, cause your commandments to be obeyed. Second, cause your Word to be believed. Third, cause your words to be trusted and glorified. Taking upon us the mandate to hallow God's name is to obey and keep his commandments. We defile God's name and honor when we break or transgress his commandments. Like in a father and son relationship, we prove our sonship by honoring and respecting the words given by a father. Likewise, in a state, the token of our loyalty to the state is demonstrated through the way we abide to the laws regulating public life. Hallowed be your name actually implies the very act of causing God's commandments to be obeyed on earth. As Psalm 67: 2 says, "May your ways be known throughout the earth, your saving power among people everywhere". The second level implies trusting God when we hallow his name. The better we know a person, the more we trust that person. And the more we trust that person, we become bold to take risks and sacrifice for that person. "Those who know thy name put their trust in thee" Psalm 9:10. The third dimension of God's name being hallowed refers to the necessity to cause people to believe in Him, and trust his word. In the wilderness, the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and demonstrated a lack of faith and belief in God because of a shortage of water. Moses became so impulsive to the point of not obeying God's words. So, God took this careless behavior as a way of failing to hallow his name and trust Him. A lack of trust in God's words is a sign of distrust, misjudgment, disloyalty, and suspicion. God is not hallowed when our heart is still restless, seeking for other alternative ways for self-security, and lacking peace despite his words. "Because you did not believe in me, to sanctify me (hallow me) in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land I have given you." Numbers 20:12 II. Your Kingdom or Government Come God's kingdom (basilea) refers to his reign, his lordship, his sovereign governance. The coming of God's kingdom is God's reign through his people by the Holy Spirit. Without the work of the Holy Spirit, there is no kingdom manifestation on earth. When we pray, "Your kingdom come", we enter into motion to work for a government of justice, peace, joy, and righteousness on earth. Indeed, the essential characteristics of God's government are manifested through righteousness, justice, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. Therefore, "Let your Kingdom come" strongly suggests the action of causing us to govern the earth in Righteousness. It also implies that we are to govern the earth in a peaceful rule and not through violence and wickedness. Micah 4: 1-3 foretells us that in God's coming government, nations "will hammer their swords into plowshares And their spears into pruning hooks". Along with peace, God's government is concerned about the restoration of joy on earth. We are to work to bring joy in the earth. The visible evidence of the arrival of divine government is when disease, sickness, and death have loss their power over humankind. If ever mankind has to be restored to divine government on earth, joy must return to man's heart. That's why the miracles are an essential component of the Kingdom. In a joint session of preaching and demonstration about God's government, Jesus sent out the disciples to proclaim the kingdom of God and to perform healing. God's government is not about organized rallies and religious symposium. It is a demonstration of a new world order with power over the status quo of evil rule, sickness and disease. III. Your Will be Done on Earth For God's government to be manifested on earth, submission to God's sovereign will is required. It is a pledge of obedience to God's will. Without God's will, the kingdom cannot be manifested. To implement God's will on earth, we have to know the government's portfolio.The Lord's prayer is teaching us that God's kingdom is the manifestation of his sovereign rule in heaven that must be replicated on earth. Thus, the prime objective of an effective prayer is to line up our will with God's will. IV. Give Us Our Daily Bread Praying for bread is intimately correlated with God's kingdom goals. God's plan of salvation is that no one should be lost or perish. The bread provision for a spiritually dying world answers and fits into the divine rescue mandate for all. It becomes imperative for people to partake to a life-giving bread, lest they will surely perish. "For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior; who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth." (1 Timothy 2:3-4) In a welfare state, citizens are looking to government rather than God for bread. Here, perishable bread is not the issue at all. Bread in the Lord's prayer refers to something much more than the eating commodities on our table. A genuine life requires for man not to bank on bread alone, but on every Word that comes from the mouth of God. Life does not run on a full belly insurance alone. Eternal life strictly depends on salvation. Unsaved lives are destined to perish no matter how much well fed they have been all along the way. Without salvation, eternal life is lost. There are 3 aspects of bread we need to depend on to sustain our daily life. Hebrews 9: 4 speaks about three items placed within the Ark of the Covenant: Manna, Aaron's rod, and the 10 commandments. These three items point to the same reality. First, Manna as heavenly bread represents the living Word of God. The bread we are praying for in the Lord's prayer refers to the bread of salvation found only in Jesus. "Truly, truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but its my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." John 6: 27-36. God's Word is the living bread for man to live by and with. Second, Aaron's rod that budded represents a resurrected life through Christ. Third, the 10 commandments speak about God's Word or divine standards of righteousness through his spoken Word. Receiving God's Word is eating the living bread. The bread from heaven is life-giving. As the Word of God made flesh, Jesus is the bread of life from heaven. He is the resurrection and life. He is our righteousness. Consequently, salvation is man's daily bread. In Matthew 5:6, we read: "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled." Without righteousness, peace, and justice, life on earth will be a nightmare in individuals as well as in nations. God's reign of salvation on earth is the very bread we need to run divine government on earth. Salvation refers to prosperity, safety, welfare, deliverance, liberty, being protected from harm, and freedom from sin and evil. Salvation is causing one to be rescued from : illness, poverty, enemies or opposition bringing trouble and violence, domination, slavery, insecurity, and iniquity. The Hebrew root word for savior is - Yeshua. Joshua or Yeshua means, God saves. Convincingly, God's ultimate goal in feeding mankind with Living bread answers to his divine redemptive plan to have back his lost family. Through bread provision, his lost children are brought back home at his table through relationship with Jesus. The bread of salvation is the means for bringing back God's lost children home. The banquet table is an intimate family reunion. It is a way of adoption into God's royal family. God's purpose in giving us the Living bread from heaven was both to adopt and redeem. For it was not enough to simply rescue us from slavery to sin, but most importantly, to turn slaves into sons. As God has given us the bread of salvation, so we have the mandate to feed those who are lost to sin and evil so that they must come to saving knowledge of God's Word. As we receive bread, so we must share it to all. V. Forgive Us Our Debts Because of our sins and iniquity, we committed a treasonous trespass. We owe to God the debt of treason, that is eternal death. Jesus paid that debt of treason by taking upon himself our own death sentence. Through Christ's death and the spilling of His blood for our sins, we obtained forgiveness. Now, where is the relationship between debts forgiveness and God's government on earth? Forgiveness is not about lips service utterance. In God's economy, forgiveness of sins goes hand and hand with restoration. It's not enough to forgive without restoring the person who committed an offense. The mission of Jesus in bringing us salvation fits into a restoration plan for a fallen man. Salvation is all about restoration to the prime position of man.Through salvation, man is restored back into his position of sonship and fellowship with God. The parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15: 11-32 gives us the clue of how a lost and indebted son is restored back to his full position of authority and kingship with his Father when he received forgiveness from his transgressions and iniquity. Indeed, not only was the prodigal son forgiven. He was restored back to his original position of sonship through a royal robe, a ring of authority on his fingers, and royal sandals, on top of a fat cow to seal the deal. The salvation mandate would have been incomplete without the restoration plan. Joseph was sold for 20 pieces of silver by his own brothers into slavery in Egypt. When he rose to position of authority and power in a foreign land, Joseph forgave them and restored the entire family to fellowship with him a the royal palace. Thus, forgiveness of sins and trespasses necessarily take into account restoration. Forgiveness without restoration will be a shallow and unfinished business. It's not enough to forgive people who did us wrong without restoring them. I forgive you your wrong, means, I restore you back to your original position. As we go about forgiving others, we restore them. Because God has restored us, we have the mission to restore others. The purpose of salvation and forgiveness is the restoration of a fallen mankind. The forgiveness mandate on earth is simply a replica of what Jesus purchased for us through salvation: our long awaited restoration to God. King David so well understood the intrinsic link between forgiveness and restoration when he pleaded in Psalm 51:12: "Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you." God is in the restoration mission, that's why He sent his Son to bring us salvation. God longs to do more for us than stop at the doorsteps of simple forgiveness. God wants to restore us. And then, He expect those who have been restored to help restore others. VI. Lead Us Not Into Temptation In Genesis 22, Abraham was proven by test trials so that he could demonstrate his loyalty to God. Immediately after Jesus' baptism, satan came to tempt him. Satan's goal was to get Jesus to misuse his authority and privileges to oppose God's Word and will and fall out of fellowship with the Father. Jesus overcame temptations by using God's words as a weapon. Satan tempted Job through misfortune to get him curse God and die. Job remained faithful to God despite his trials. Joseph was tempted in Potiphar's house to commit evil and gamble with the glorious destiny awaits him. He overcame the trial to become victorious. And here is the crux to avoid from misguided debates ! Sins, temptations, and trespasses are the main stumbling blocks that hinder and prevent the coming of God's kingdom on earth in a double sense. First, when sin and temptations are not overcome, man cannot enter the Kingdom of God. Adam lost his fellowship with God at Eden because he failed to overcome the temptation of disobedience to God's Word. As long as sins prevail and have the upper hand, God's kingdom cannot be manifested. That' s why Jesus come for us to overcome sins. Second, wherever temptations and sins are not overcome, God's will cannot be manifested. Temptations and sins run counter to God's will and character. 7. Rescue Us From The Evil One. In Genesis 3, when Adam and Eve fell in disgrace in Eden, they run into hiding from God's presence. God came looking for them. Since then, God has not stopped pursuing mankind in a rescue mission bearing in mind that evil is real and brings havoc in the world. Praying to be rescued from evil is working with God to achieve a divine mandate. Man betrayed God and was under control by the evil one. Yet, God never stop looking for mankind. The rescue mission is God's plan, not man's plan. From Genesis to Revelation, God has never stepped back from rescuing his children. God rescued Noah from being eradicated by the flood caused by wickedness prevailing in the world. God rescued Abraham. God rescued Israel from slavery and restored the nation back to freedom. The Messiah comes to rescue and restore the lost and perishing people. When evil and wickedness run the world, God has to intervene to rescue mankind from the peril of darkness. That's why it is so relevant to pray daily for divine intervention against evil. Matthew 8:28 gives us a clear picture of the mission of the Son of God in this world. Jesus came to rescue us from the prince of darkness. During Jesus' public ministry, he encountered a man who had been controlled by evil spirits. The violent demon-possessed man from the region of the Gadarenes was completely out of control, living among the tombs. The evil one took control of all his faculties and tormented him day and night. When Jesus visited the area, the demonic kingdom was in total panic. Jesus delivered the man from the powers of darkness and restored him to God. Narcisse Jean Alcide Nana is the author of, Virus Militarises. To read a more expanded version of this article visit www.feetonthemountains.com A 31-year-old man was arrested late Saturday in connection with a stabbing that killed a 44-year-old man Friday, authorities said. Abel Garcia was arrested without incident around 9 p.m. Saturday near a vacant building on the 1400 block of Pleasanton Road, said San Antonio police spokeswoman Alisia Pruneda. He faces one charge of murder and is being held on $200,000 bail. FIND OUT FIRST: Get San Antonio breaking news directly to your inbox Around 12:30 Friday, police responded to reports of a cutting in progress on the 400 block of West Harlan Avenue. When officers arrived, they found Albert Adame with a major cut to his neck, Pruneda said. He was taken to a local hospital, where he later died from his injuries. Police canvassed the South Side area Friday and Saturday and were able to locate Garcia with help from community members. "Citizens that know their area, know their homes, know the people that walk in their area gave some really good information to our patrolmen and they made the arrest," Pruneda said. "They had seen him before and they knew where he might have been hanging out. Through that information we were able to make that apprehension." Officials believe an argument led to the stabbing. The investigation is ongoing. By IANS KASGANJ: The family of Chandan Gupta, who was killed while taking out a 'Tiranga Yatra' here on the Republic Day in 2018, has no sympathy for the youth who opened fire at the Jamia protesters in Delhi on January 30. The accused, who is now in custody, had said that he opened fire to avenge the murder of Chandan Gupta. The youth's now deleted Facebook post also had several mentions of 'Chandan bhaiyya'. Chandan's mother, Sangeeta Gupta, meanwhile, has condemned the firing incident at Jamia. ALSO READ: Jamia firing - Accused considered anti-CAA protests to be anti-national activities "I condemn the act of opening fire at the Jamia protesters in the strongest possible words. We are a non-violent society and protest should always be peaceful. I have lost my son to one such act of violence," she told local reporters. Gupta further said that she had lost her son to violence and even he did not approve of violence. "I do not approve or appreciate violence in any form," she said. ALSO READ: Jamia Millia Islamia prohibits students from holding protests inside campus, warns of strict action Sources said that the accused in Jamia firing wanted to whip up a frenzy that would help him avenge Chandan's death. Another family member, who requested anonymity, said: "The Jamia incident was wrong. There should be no support for the accused because this will encourage others to follow the same path." Chandan Gupta and his friends were taking out a 'Tiranga Rally' in Kasganj on the Republic Day in 2018 and a dispute emerged over clearing the road for the rally. This led to violence and the 22-year-old was shot dead, after which communal riots broke out in Kasganj. TRENTON An armed suspect who was holed up for hours inside a North Trenton home following a shooting surrendered just after 11 p.m., authorities said early Sunday morning. Police initially believed two subjects were involved but it appeared only one climbed through a window on the first floor of a home on the first block of Middle Rose Street after shots were fired, Mercer County Prosecutor Angelo Onofri said. No one was hit by the gunfire, but a vehicle was struck. The armed gunman was described as a thin, dark-skinned man with facial hair, the prosecutor said. Trenton Police Capt. Stephen Varn said police responded to the first block of Middle Rose Street at 4:02 p.m. Saturday on a reported shooting. Officers were told a man was allegedly firing outside. The gunman barricaded himself inside a home on the block as police arrived, Varn said. The residence was secured and neighbors were evacuated as police called in tactical teams from the State Police and the Mercer County Sheriffs Office, Varn said. Onofri was notified about the standoff around 5:30 p.m. Police initially used a PA system to try to communicate with the suspect but werent getting any response, Onofri said. Tear gas was deployed during the standoff, Onofri said. The suspect surrendered to police around 11:06 p.m, following a seven-hour standoff. He has not been identified or charged as the investigation continues, Varn said. The circumstances of why the gunman began firing are unclear. Police expected to release more information Sunday, Varn said. Saturdays standoff did not last as long as one in 2017, involving Tyleeb Reese. Reese was involved in a deadly 35-hour standoff with police on the 300 block of Centre Street. Reese, a wanted sex offender, fired on police when they went to pick him up for failing to show up to court. Three Mercer County sheriffs were wounded and 56-year-old innocent bystander Robert Powell Jr. was killed during the melee. Reese barricaded himself inside his home before finally surrendering to cops. When Apple launched its 2012 version of Maps, the product was so bad that Apple chief executive officer Tim Cook actually apologized, and encouraged consumers to use other companies' products. Big winners as a result: apps like Google Maps and Waze (which is also owned by Google). Fast-forward a little over seven years, however, and Apple says it's revamped Apple Maps and played catch-up. In a statement Thursday, Apple announced that it has rolled out its new-and-improved version of Maps to every customer in the United States. Here's what Apple says is different this time: Privacy Let's start here with privacy, which appears to be an important part of Apple's plan to take on Google. "We set out to create the best and most private maps app on the planet ... with privacy at its core," said Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. Among the key features Apple is touting: No sign-in required, and Apple Maps "is not connected to an Apple ID." "Personalized features, such as suggesting departure time to make the next appointment, are created using on-device intelligence." Data sent to Apple to improve the app is "associated with random identifiers that continually reset," so that individual users can't be identified. Possibly the most interesting feature: When you search for location information, Apple uses a process called "fuzzing" that "converts the precise location where the search originated to a less-exact one after 24 hours, and does not retain a history of what has been searched or where a user has been." It's smart for Apple to promote privacy features; this is something people care about more now than they did in 2012. Perhaps related: there's no mention at all of advertising in Apple Maps. "Look Around" You're familiar with Google Street View? Apple Maps now has "Look Around," and it functions a lot like Street View: "high-resolution, 3D photography" that provides "street-level imagery." Even if this doesn't seem new, it was conspicuous by its absence before. It was also expensive and a big effort. Apple said it sent cars and airplanes covering millions of miles in the United States to create the images. So far, "Look Around" is covers a limited number of cities in the U.S., and will expand to Europe "later this year." Transit info and indoor maps Apple isn't the only maps app to offer real-time transit information, but as someone who commuted in several major cities over the years, I suspect it will be very welcome. The Apple version includes, "detailed transit schedules, live departure times, arrival times, the current location of a bus or train en route, and system connections," according to the announcement. It's currently available in the San Francisco Bay Area, Washington D.C., New York, Los Angeles, among other cities, with Miami added just this week--in time for Super Bowl XIV. Also new: indoor maps of airports and shopping malls. "By simply opening the Maps app, users can see what level they're on, restroom locations and even which stores and restaurants are open," the announcement says. Sheer numbers There are some other features as well, but these seem like the main ones. And, while I've been using the new Apple Maps recently, I don't mean to position this as an app review. In other words, I'm here neither to praise Apple Maps nor to bury it--just to draw lessons from it. Perhaps the most important is how one giant tech company tries to figure out the best consumer value proposition, so that it can go head-to-head with another giant tech company. That reminds me of Cook's 2012 statement (still available on the Internet Archive) when he pointed out the scale of his user base: "There are already more than 100 million iOS devices using the new Apple Maps ... [who] have already searched for nearly half a billion locations. The more our customers use our Maps the better it will get ..." Any app gains at least part of its potency from a critical mass of users. When it comes to maps, Google hasn't only had a seven-years-plus head start over Apple; it has a cadre of very devoted users, especially on Waze, which has 30,000 devoted volunteers working to keep it updated, for free. In a major security breach, a 25-year-old man on Sunday evening sneaked into the Madhya Pradesh government's hangar inter-connected to the Raja Bhoj airport here and "damaged" a parked helicopter before running towards the apron area where a flight was taxiing for take- off, a senior CISF officer said. He was overpowered at the apron area by personnel of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF). Due to the incident, a Udaipur-bound flight with 46 passengers on board got delayed by one hour at around 8 pm, CISF Deputy Commandant Virendra Singh told PTI. The intruder was identified as Yogesh Tripathi, a resident of Bhopal. He was handed over to the local police. Singh said Tripathi appeared mentally unwell, as he shouted slogans like "I want to serve the nation, "I am a commando trying my skill". The state hangar is guarded by the Madhya Pradesh police while the airport by the CISF. "The intruder was overpowered by CISF personnel within seconds when he ran towards the airport's apron, before he could enter the runway," he added. He said Tripathi "damaged the chopper with his hands". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Brooklyn park will be renamed in honor of a transgender woman who took part in the 1969 Stonewall uprising, New Yorks governor announced on Saturday. Governor Andrew Cuomo told a gay rights group on Saturday that East River State Park in Brooklyn will be renamed after Marsha P. Johnson, who has been dubbed the Rosa Parks of the LGBTQ movement. Cuomo said the honor is part of the states efforts to promote inclusivity at a time when hate crimes against minorities are surging. New York State is the progressive capital of the nation, and while we are winning the legal battle for justice for the LGBTQ community, in many ways we are losing the broader war for equality, Cuomo told a gala staged by the Human Rights Campaign in New York City on Saturday. A New York State park in Brooklyn will be renamed to honor Marsha P. Johnson, a trans activist who died in 1992 Governor Andrew Cuomo announced on Saturday that East River State Park in Brooklyn would be renamed after Johnson Cuomo made the announcement during a gala hosted by the gay rights group Human Rights Campaign in New York City on Saturday Even in New York, attacks against African Americans, Jewish Americans, Muslim Americans and LGBTQ Americans went up by double digits. These attacks are motivated by fear and intolerance against those who are different, and they are blind to the commonality of humanity. We are fighting back, and we will continue achieving progress and showing the rest of the nation the way forward. We will do it again this year by passing gestational surrogacy to complete marriage and family equality. And we will name the first State park after an LGBTQ person and we will name it after Marsha P. Johnson - an icon of the community. Johnson, who was known as Saint Marsha and the mayor of Christopher Street, pioneered gay liberation and transgender people's rights in New York in the 1960s. Cuomo praised Johnson as 'an icon of the community' She is best known for her participation in the uprising at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village which was raided by police in June 1969 She is believed to have been the first person to throw a brick at police during a raid on Stonewall Inn, the famous gay bar and tavern in New Yorks Greenwich Village. The Stonewall uprising of June 28, 1969, is considered a landmark event in the gay rights movement. A drag performer and activist, she was known to be surrounded by friends and supporters as she attended gay rights rallies and protests across the city famously proclaiming that shed been jailed, lost her home and her job over her sexuality but still refused to be silenced. But when Marsha died in 1992, her body was found alone, floating in the Hudson River. Since then, her death has been shrouded in mystery the cause deemed undetermined by medical examiners. Police originally ruled it as a suicide, but Marshas friends are adamant that she was murdered. In 2017, Netflix released a documentary, The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson, which revisited the case and examined her legacy. In 2002, the designation of suicide as a cause of death was changed to undetermined due to a lack of evidence but it wasnt until December of 2016 that the Manhattan District Attorneys office agreed to revisit the case. DailyMail.com has reached out to the New York County District Attorneys Office seeking comment on the status of the case. Mint The Finance Bill has, perhaps unintentionally, introduced TDS (tax deduction at source) on capital gains in mutual funds, along with TDS on dividends, experts said. Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced her intention to abolish Dividend Distribution Tax (DDT) on mutual fund dividends. These were to be made taxable at slab rate and TDS was to be deducted on them at 10% for dividends exceeding 5,000 per year. Experts say the Bill also introduced TDS on capital gains in mutual funds for resident individuals. Income under the act includes capital gains. Hence capital gains in the hands of investors would also be liable for deduction of TDS at 10%, said Dhruv Rawani, a Mumbai based Chartered Accountant. Prima Facie, mutual funds will be liable to deduct TDS on capital gains as well as dividends as per the Finance Bill. This gets strengthened while reading the definition of income under Section 2(24) which includes capital gains, said Balwant Jain, a Mumbai based Certified Financial Planner and Chartered Accountant. This will cause a lot of hardship to mutual fund investors and would opens up an arbitrage with direct equity and insurance investment products, he said. Currently, TDS is deducted for NRI investors in mutual funds but not resident individuals. The latter have to calculate and pay tax on the basis of self-assessment. Three persons who were admitted to a hospital here have tested negative for the novel coronavirus, officials said on Sunday. They were admitted to the hospital on Saturday and were kept under observation. "All three have tested negative for coronavirus," Dr DS Meena," Superintendentof SMS Hospital said on Sunday. Arrangements have been made at Alwar's ESIC Medical College for keeping nearly 300 Indian citizens airlifted from China's Wuhan city, the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak. The batch of passengers has not yet arrived and is likely to arrive on Monday, said Ravi Sharma, a state health department official coordinating with the Centre. He said 300 beds have been prepared in two hostels and adequate staff has been deployed. Deputy CMHO, Alwar, Dr Chhabil Kumar said the passengers will be quarantined and kept under observation for 28 days. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) People in Portland truly care about homelessness. The Jan. 25 town hall at Jefferson High School with Rep. Earl Blumenauer of Oregon and Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan was jam-packed. Theres a crisis of affordable housing for singles and families. Too few units. Insufficient affordable ones. People get evicted and rights get trounced on. Both representatives are concerned with how we restore justice in housing policy. They both have developed robust policies they are promoting in Congress. One of them is a tax credit for renters who are paying too big of a percentage of their income on housing. Some people are paying 30% to 60%. I hope Blumenauer and Tlaib witnessed how fired-up the people are supporting them in bringing light to these complex issues. Portland needs solutions from the city, county and state, but generous federal intervention is long overdue. Patsy OShea, Portland iStock(FARMINGTON, Conn.) -- Before Fotis Dulos took his own life by inhaling poisonous carbon monoxide inside his Farmington, Connecticut, home, he allegedly wrote a suicide note proclaiming his innocence and that of everyone charged in connection with his estranged wife's disappearance. Amid a bitter divorce and custody battle in May 2019, Jennifer Dulos mysteriously disappeared. Fotis Dulos and his girlfriend, Michelle Troconis were arrested weeks later, charged with tampering with or fabricating physical evidence and hindering prosecution. On Jan. 7, Connecticut State Police charged Fotis Dulos with felony murder, kidnapping and murder. Troconis, 44, was charged with conspiracy to commit murder. But Fotis Dulos' allegedly handwritten suicide note, obtained by ABC News from a source -- which he addressed to "all" -- was littered with self-serving statements to clear his and Troconis' names. "I refuse to spend even an hour more in jail for something I had NOTHING to do with," he allegedly wrote with blue ink on a notebook-sized single sheet of paper. "I want it to be known that Michelle Troconis had nothing to do with Jennifer's disappearance. And neither did Kent Mawhinney." Mahwinney, an attorney and a friend of Fotis Dulos, was also charged with conspiracy to commit murder. Fotis Dulos was allegedly seen on surveillance video throwing out 30 garbage bags in multiple receptacles, according to a police report. Items in the bags included clothes belonging to Jennifer Dulos and plastic zip ties that later tested positive for her DNA, according to the arrest warrant. "My attorney can explain what happened with the bag on Albany Avenue. Everything else is a story fabricated by the law enforcement," Fotis Dulos allegedly wrote. Regarding the bags, Fotis Dulos' attorney, Norm Pattis told the Stamford Advocate in July 2019 that "there's an explanation, but we're not going to give it." Fotis Dulos was expected in court on Tuesday for a bail hearing and when he didn't show up, police did a wellness check at his house. Police saw Fotis Dulos through a window sitting in his car in the garage. He died two days later. Fotis Dulos was 51. Pattis said at a press conference after his client was declared dead, that he's filing an "unusual motion" with the court to ask them to continue to prosecute Fotis Dulos as an estate. "To force the state to show its hand in a trial filled with evidence we think amounts to no more than innuendo and unsupported suspicion," said Pattis. If you are struggling with thoughts of suicide or worried about a friend or loved one help is available. Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 [TALK] - for free confidential emotional support 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Even if it feels like it you are not alone. Copyright 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved. A trip to much of Europe has gone costlier from Sunday with increase in Schengen visa fees to Euro 80 from the current Euro 60, officials said. A Schengen visa is needed to visit 26 European countries, including Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Switzerland and Spain. "The visa fee increases from Euro 60 to Euro 80. This increase is the first one since 2006," an European Union (EU) official told PTI. The increase in the visa fee comes as an updated Schengen Visa Code takes effect from February 2 this year. It brings the fee in line with the level where it would be today if it had been aligned to the general EU-wide inflation rate since 2006, they said. "The increased visa fee will provide member states with additional financial resources to process visa applications quickly and more efficiently. By international standards, the visa fee remains low," the official said. For regular travellers, the fee increase is offset by the new rules on long-validity visas. These travellers may actually save money under the new provisions, since they have to apply for visas less often, they said. Visa fee is still waived for children below six-years-old (as it was the case in the previous rules). "The visa fee for minors between the age group of 6 and 12 years remains half of the general fee, and thus increases by Euro 5 (to Euro 40)," the official said. In addition, it is now possible for member states to waive the visa fee for minors between the age group of 6 and 18 years under the new visa regime. According to the latest exchange rates, a Euro is equivalent to Rs 79.37. People can now apply for the Schengen visa six months before the intended date of travel to Europe instead of three months timeline. The minimum time period will now be nine months for seafarers, they said. In addition to this, frequent travellers with a positive visa history are to be granted multiple-entry visa with a gradually increasing validity period from one year to a maximum of five years, which will save applicants time and money, the official said. For instance, an applicant who has obtained and used correctly three visas within two years would be granted during this period a multiple-entry visa valid for one year. An applicant who has obtained and used a multiple-entry visa of one year would be granted (if applied within two years) a multiple-entry visa valid for two years, they explained. An applicant who has obtained and used a multiple-entry visa of two years would be granted (if applied within three years) a multiple-entry visa valid for five years, the official added. The visa code also provides for the possibility to adapt the rules for individual countries according to assessment of local circumstances and migratory and security risk, by the local Schengen cooperation, they said. Such adaptation would be adopted by the European Commission. The new rules also foresee the possibility to submit an electronically-filled application form, which can also be signed electronically if recognised by the member state competent for examining and deciding on the application, the official said. Each Schengen member state sets its rules regarding recipient of submissions either directly at an embassy/consulate/mission, or through an external service provider. More than 16 million Schengen visa applications have been filed at the embassies, consulates and visa centres of the 26 Schengen member countries across the globe in 2018, according to SchengenVisaInfo.com In 2018, India was listed as the third largest source for Schengen visa applications with 10,81,359 such requests made from the country, it said. The Pakistan Army on Sunday shelled forward posts and villages along the Line of Control in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir, a defence spokesperson said. There was no immediate report of any casualty in the Pakistani firing and shelling in Balakot and Mendhar sectors, he said. "Pakistan initiated unprovoked ceasefire violation by firing with small arms and shelling with mortars along LoC in Balakot and Mendhar sectors around 7 pm, prompting befitting retaliation by the Indian Army," the spokesman said. The cross-border firing between the two sides was on when last reports were received. Official sources said Pakistan also targeted forward posts and villages in Tangdhar sector of north Kashmir's Kupwara district during the day. The firing and shelling from across the border in Tangdhar sector started around 11 am, they said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) (Natural News) It appears that the Vatican used a respected charity to bail out a Church hospital plagued by corruption in a transaction that may have violated European regulatory commitments. Leaked documents show how Vatican officials used expensive and apparently deceptive means of diverting 50 million euros from the Bambino Gesu, a childrens hospital in Rome, to a bankrupt Italian dermatology hospital, going against warnings not to go through with the transaction from a cardinal who had been put in charge of financial transparency. Documents seen by the National Catholic Register showed that officials worked with two cardinals to arrange for the childrens hospital, which falls under Vatican authority, to guarantee the loan in question to the dermatology hospital, which is known as the Istituto Dermopatico dellImmacolata (IDI). Two lay consultants who were involved were given six-figure commissions in addition to their other salaries for their work on the transaction. At the time, the IDI was facing closure and debts of more than 600 million euros. A foundation was set up in 2015 in an effort to save the hospital and keep it as part of Catholic health care. The loan was strongly opposed by Cardinal George Pell at the time, but Pope Francis overrode him and let the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA) move forward. Although the pope later canceled the hospitals loan guarantee when he realized his mistake, APSA has yet to return the 50 million euros to the childrens hospital. Vatican officials reportedly used APSA to hide the origins of the loan. They had the Bambino Gesu deposit the funds with APSA in the form of an APSA-issued certificate of deposit, which was used as collateral for guaranteeing the IDI loan. This made it appear that the financing came from APSA rather than the respected childrens hospital, which is mostly state-funded. One source told the Register that the move was all smoke and mirrors, and the paper saw documents showing the funds transfer to the foundation from the congregation. In a statement, the head of APSA, Bishop Nunzio Galantino, acknowledged that the central bank of the Vatican had loaned 50 million euros for the purchase of the IDI despite APSA being prohibited from making loans for commercial transactions by policies that exempt it from external oversight. Scandal-plagued Vatican cant stay out of the headlines Its not the only money laundering scandal to hit the Vatican recently. Reports emerged last fall demonstrating the movement of Vatican money though European slush funds, along with a $250-million-plus Vatican investment into luxurious London apartments through a financier who raked in profits while the Vatican investment tanked. Italian media outlets also reported that prosecutors found evidence of fraud, money laundering, embezzlement and abuse of office among the higher tier of Vatican management. Although Pope Francis made some strong initial moves toward cleaning up Vatican finances, seasoned Vatican bureaucrats always seem to be one step ahead of the group he assigned to reform their bureaucracy thanks to their immense influence and support. A powerful Vatican official canceled an external audit that had been planned for April 2016; the Vaticans auditor general was forced out the following year after allegedly discovering financial improprieties carried out by his superiors. A report by the anti-corruption authority of the Vatican last year showed that the Secretariat of State used around $725 million for off-book operations, most of which came from the popes charity fund. The Catholic Church has suffered scandal after scandal in recent years, and news like this wont do much to repair its reputation. Its time for the Pope to use his power to get serious about cleaning up the corruption in the Vatican and provide greater transparency about how funds are spent and improper behavior is addressed. Sources for this article include: LifeSiteNews.com NCRegister.com NYPost.com CatholicNewsAgency.com China's death toll from a new virus has increased to 304 with more than 14,000 cases, amid warnings from the World Health Organization that other countries need to be prepared in the event the disease spreads among their populations. Figures from the National Health Commission released Sunday show an increase of 45 in the death toll and 2,590 in the number of cases for a total of 14,380, well above the number of those infected in in the 2002-03 outbreak of SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, which broke out in southern China before spreading worldwide. Meanwhile, six officials in the city of Huanggang, neighbouring the epicentre of Wuhan in Hubei province, have been fired over poor performance" in handling the outbreak, the official Xinhua Agency reported. It cited the mayor as saying the city's capabilities to treat the patients remained inadequate and there is a severe shortage in medical supplies such as protective suits and medical masks." Despite imposing drastic travel restrictions at home, China has chafed at those imposed by foreign governments, criticising Washington's order barring entry to most non-citizens who visited China in the past two weeks. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced similar measures Saturday, following Japan and Singapore. South Korea and India flew hundreds of their citizens out of Wuhan, the city at the centre of an area where some 50 million people are prevented from leaving in a sweeping anti-virus effort. The evacuees went into a two-week quarantine. Indonesia also sent a plane. The virus' rapid spread in two months prompted the World Health Organization on Thursday to declare it a global emergency. That declaration flipped the switch from a cautious attitude to recommending governments prepare for the possibility the virus might spread, said the WHO representative in Beijing, Gauden Galea. Most cases reported so far have been people who visited China or their family members. The agency acted out of concern for poorer countries that might not be equipped to respond, said Galea. Such a declaration calls for a coordinated international response and can bring more money and resources. WHO said it was especially concerned that some cases abroad involved human-to-human transmission. Countries need to get ready for possible importation in order to identify cases as early as possible and in order to be ready for a domestic outbreak control, if that happens, Galea told The Associated Press. The United States declared a public health emergency on Friday and President Donald Trump signed an order barring entry to foreign nationals who visited China within the last 14 days, which scientists say is the virus' longest incubation period. The restrictions don't apply to immediate family of American citizens and permanent residents. China criticized the US controls and unfriendly comments alleging that Beijing was failing to cooperate. Just as the WHO recommended against travel restrictions, the U.S. rushed to go in the opposite way. Certainly not a gesture of goodwill, said foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying. Australia, Germany, Japan, South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, the United States and Vietnam all reported new cases Saturday. Spain confirmed its first case - a German man who had close contact with an infected person in Germany and then travelled to the Canary Islands with friends. Four friends who were hospitalized with him have not shown symptoms. Both the new virus and SARS are from the coronavirus family, which also includes those that cause the common cold. The death rate in China is falling, but the number of confirmed cases will keep growing because thousands of specimens from suspected cases have yet to be tested, WHO's Galea said. The case fatality ratio is settling out at a much lower level than we were reporting three, now four, weeks ago, he said. Although scientists expect to see limited transmission of the virus between people with family or other close contact, they are concerned about cases of infection spreading to people who might have less exposure. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) New Delhi: In further trouble for arrested Jammu and Kashmir DSP Devinder Singh, the National Investigation Agency on Sunday (February 1) conducted multiple raids across Kashmir. According to report, the investigating agency carried out the raids at the locations connected to the three terrorist - Naveed Babu, Irfan Mir and Rafi Ahmed, who were arrested with the DSP on the Jammu-Srinagar highway near Qazigund early this year. J&K's Deputy Superintendent of Police Devinder Singh, who has since been suspended, was caught in south Kashmir while ferrying three terrorists out of the valley on January 11. The police also recovered five grenades from the vehicle Singh was travelling in, along with the terrorists. The team later carried out a search at Singh's properties and recovered two AK-47 rifles. It is to be noted that Devinder Singh has served on many senior posts in Jammu and Kashmir police department. He was also decorated with Presidents medal for bravery in the last years Independence Day event. At the time of the arrest, he was serving at the sensitive Srinagar International airport. Live TV The Jammu and Kashmir Police handed over the case to the five-member NIA team. A team of 20 member NIA team, which had arrived in Kashmir on Saturday, carried out the raids at some private offices and residences, connected to the three arrested terrorists. Later on January 23, the J&K police apprehended the brother of Naveed Babu, a Hizbul terrorist, from Jammu and handed him to the NIA. Sources said Naveed operated through Irfan who was a pointsman for communication across the border. He was on the police radar for two months. According to the police, Naveed Babu's brother Syed Irfan Ahmed was in constant touch with him and had asked him to look for an accomodation in Chandigarh, to beat the harsh weather condition in Kashmir. Naveed accused of being involved in the killing of 11 non-local workers in South Kashmir in October and November last year. Devinder Singh's name was pulled up in controversy after a letter written by Afzal Guru, the Parliament attack convict, in 2013 claimed that the officer had asked him to accompany a parliament attack accused to Delhi and arrange his stay there. Rend Collective have released their new single 'Sing It From The Shackles', available now from all streaming and download platforms. The song is from the Irish band's forthcoming album I Choose to Worship, releasing March 13th. Explaining the new song, the band said, "Have you ever felt imprisoned or stuck in your life circumstances? Honestly, we've been there. Days where it's been hard to get out of bed, days where we're not sure anything we do matters, days where we feel like we're spiraling out of control. Paul and Silas were actually stripped and beaten before being thrown in the most securely guarded cell in the prison. In the midst of that humiliation, despair and pain, they chose to worship. As they sang the prison doors flung open and their shackles fell off. We believe this story isn't just an allegory or specific to them-- we ALL have access to the same power of God. We all have the ability to sing in our darkest moments. We hope this song gives you an anthem for the dark nights of the soul, and encourages you to sing His praise from the shackles!" About Rend Collective: Hailing from a small town off the coast of Northern Ireland, Rend Collective (Gareth Gilkeson, Chris Llewellyn, Ali Gilkeson, Patrick Thompson and Stephen Mitchell) wants to be known as a celebration band, worshiping for God's Glory and fame. Since the release of their first album, Organic Family Hymnal, the group's authentic and energetic style of worship has attracted an international audience, with career sales of more than 300,000 albums. The group saw early success as their first ever single "Build Your Kingdom Here," peaked at No. 12 on the National Christian Audience Chart. Their 2014 release, The Art of Celebration, charted at No. 1 on the Billboard Christian Albums Chart within the first week of its release. Known for their electric lively worship, the band has been a part of several major tours with top artists such as Chris Tomlin, MercyMe, Kari Jobe, Lecrae and more. The group released critically acclaimed As Family We Go in 2015, followed by, Campfire Christmas Volume 1, their first Christmas record, and Campfire II, both in 2016. The critically acclaimed Good News released in 2017, followed by Good News: Deluxe Edition (2018), now available everywhere. Get Connected with Rend Collective: Website: http://rendcollective.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rendcollective/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/rendcollective Instagram: @rendcollective Tags : Rend Collective New Single 'Sing It From The Shackles' rend collective rend collective new single Rend Collective I choose to worship One way to understand the budget presented on Saturday is to focus on three key themes the fiscal deficit, tax, and expenditure. The estimates presented in the 2019-20 budget were unrealistic, because the actual tax collections in 2018-19 had been much lower than those used as the basis. The corporate tax cut was also subsequently announced. Therefore, tax revenues were expected to fall short. The conflict over the Reserve Bank of Indias economic capital came to a head at an opportune time, yielding additional non-tax revenue. The 15th Finance Commission also gave a relief by reducing states share of centres tax collection by 1 percentage point. However, the shortfall in tax revenue and disinvestment receipts was much larger. Seeing these difficulties and expecting them to continue, the government has invoked the escape clause in the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act, and allowed itself additional fiscal deficit of 0.5 percent of GDP in 2019-20 and 2020-21. The statement to justify this is comprised of three short paragraphs, saying that the deviation is because of the structural reforms such as reductions in corporation tax. Overall, expenditure increased from 12.2 percent of GDP in 2018-19 to 13.2 percent of GDP in 2019-20 the first fiscal expansion by Union government in recent years. Two points need to be considered regarding the deficit estimates. First, the government has now made it a norm to rely on extra-budgetary resources (loans from small savings fund to public sector enterprises; public sector enterprise bonds repaid by government) to finance its expenditure. Until last year, these seemed to be measures to avoid invoking the escape clause of the FRBM Act. This year, the government has invoked the escape clause, but it has also made the reliance on extra budgetary resources more formal. In 2019-20, 1.51 lakh crore were budgeted for Food Corporation of India (FCI) for food subsidy, but the revised estimates show only 75000 crore. The FCI is borrowing the remaining amount (and more) from small savings. This practice of putting the subsidy on budget at the beginning of the year, but giving less was going on since 2016-17. In 2020-21, the budgeted amount itself is less, and it is now a norm that loans from small savings will fund the food subsidy bill, among other things. Second, even the relaxed fiscal deficit targets will not be easy to meet. In 2020-21, the budget projections of gross tax revenues are ambitious, given the continuing slowdown and recent experience. The budgeted disinvestment and spectrum auction receipts are very ambitious. The state of the telecom sector does not support robust proceeds from spectrum auctions. Big ticket strategic disinvestment could help meet the target. While tax collection has been disappointing in recent years, tax disputes have been rising. Income tax collection under dispute increased from 2.2 lakh crore at the end of 2017-18 to about 4 lakh crore at the end of 2018-19. Corporation tax collection under dispute had increased from 3.07 lakh crore in 2016-17 to 3.99 lakh crore in 2017-18. Perhaps this is encouraging the government to change its approach. The FM expressed the intent to make the tax system more taxpayer friendly by empowering the taxpayer through a charter, reducing conflict with taxpayers, and other measures. This is a good step. However, the announcements in the budget are only a modest beginning. While the taxpayers charter appears to be a good move, the amendment to the income tax act says that the tax authorities will adopt and declare a charter. This is a principal-agent problem. If the Parliament or the Minister want to empower the taxpayers, they must give the basic charter in an instrument that cannot be changed by the very tax authorities whose discretion the charter will limit. This is more important because the division between tax policy and tax administration is not sharply defined in India. Further, a charter needs to be backed up by systems to enforce it. Otherwise, it is just a few nice, but ineffective, words. The scheme to reduce the number of disputes waives interest and penalties for those who settle. However, this only focuses on the symptoms of the problem. The amnesty will benefit those who think they are going to lose in the dispute, while those who think they are right are likely to continue the dispute, especially if the amounts are large. Even though it will lead to a reduction in the number of disputes, and might also benefit some hapless taxpayers who are tired of the dispute, the amnesty is asymmetric in the wrong way. Therefore, it is not clear whether it serves public interest. Disputes are symptoms of the problem, and not the problem. Building a tax administration that is both effective and fair is a big challenge for any country. While the government has expressed its intent, it should begin by reforming the tax laws and making structural changes to tax authorities. Looking at the expenditure decisions in the budget, two things are becoming clear. First, while the government has reformed the mechanisms of expenditure of procurement processes and scale up of direct benefit transfer it has little imagination to strategise on expenditure allocation. It seems to assume that every social and economic problem is amenable to a small government scheme. Experience tells us that such schemes keep piling up, and are easier to start than to close. Since there is no expenditure strategy, strange decisions are taken. In a difficult time as this, allocation to MGNREGS has been cut substantially. Second, some of the decisions taken during the previous tenure of the government are showing their consequences. A consequence of one rank one pension is that between 2015-16 and 2020-21 (budgeted), the average rate of increase in defence pensions is 17.3% per annum, while that for non-pension defence expenditure is 7.6%. Similarly, the cash transfer to farmers (PM-KISAN) is now a permanent part of the budget about 2.5% of total budgeted expenditure. Overall, one can say that in spite of its political capital, this government prefers tactics and operations to strategy when it comes to the economy. Suyash Rai is a fellow at Carnegie India The views expressed are personal He's once again embroiled with legal dramas with ex baby mama, Jen Harley, after she allegedly assaulted him with eyeliner. And Jersey Shore's Ronnie Magro-Ortiz, 34, appeared to have no worries in sight when he was seen leaving the E11EVEN nightclub in Miami with two curvaceous brunettes at 6am on Sunday morning. Ronnie was dressed in a black T-shirt and trousers for the night out. Jen who? Ronnie Ortiz-Magro was seen leaving a Miami nightclub at 6:00 am on Sunday morning with two brunette ladies He accessorised with diamond chains and a pair of trendy white high-top sneakers. Ronnie's female friends opted for bright and bold looks. One was in a neon green mini-dress that had very large cut offs on the side of either hip. She teamed the look with over-the-knee boots and styled her long black hair out. His other lady pal rocked a ivory colored frock that saw her ample cleavage close to busting out. Casual: Ronnie was dressed in a black T-shirt and trousers for the night out Bright looks: The brunette women were both dressed in bold racy outfits when they left Ronnie's appearance comes after his latest explosive spat with on-and-off ex Jen Harley. The reality star was granted a protective order against Jen after she allegedly assaulted him last Saturday night. She already has a restraining order against him. During part of the attack, she allegedly attempted to gouge his eye out with an eyeliner pencil. The fight all started after Jen says she found makeup belonging to another womanat his home, according to TMZ. She accused him of cheating on her, allegedly assaulted him with eyeliner she found in the trash, and hit him in the face. Eyeliner gate: Jen and Ronnie got into another physical altercation last week when she allegedly attempted to gouge his eye with an eyeliner pencil after she found makeup in the trash belonging to another woman (pictured October 2019) Jen must stay 100 yards away from him until February 25, when the order expires. The exes share one-year-old daughter Ariana Sky. Jen also has an older son named Mason from her marriage to her former high school sweetheart. Ronnie shot to stardom on the hit MTV reality series Jersey Shore, which followed the antics of a group of young adults living in a vacation home in Seaside Heights. The cast have returned to the small screen for Jersey Shore: Family Reunion, which will premiering season three February 13 on MTV. It sounds great in theory, but would anyone really want to live next to Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex? Theres a rumor going around right now that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have narrowed down their house hunt to one lavish property in Vancouver. This tidbit comes just weeks after the duo shocked the world with their announcement that theyd be stepping down as senior members of the royal family and forging a completely new path for their future. Part of Harry and Meghans new strategy includes spending part of their time living in Canada along with their son, Archie, plus their various staff and security team members. Now we know that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are eyeing up one exclusive property. But do the neighbors want these internationally known celebrities moving into their community? Prince Harry and Meghan Markle | Kirsty Wigglesworth Pool/Getty Images Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are considering a $36 million Vancouver mansion Its become apparent that Prince Harry doesnt know how to spend money like a regular person. Instead of settling for a modest new home in Canada, he and Meghan are supposedly interested in a jaw-dropping $36 million Vancouver abode in the Kitsilano neighborhood. The waterfront home has 6,900 square feet of living space with six bedrooms and five bathrooms. And perhaps most importantly for this famous family, it also features 20-foot beach-side walls and extra tall hedges to keep prying eyes away. Kitsilano residents have mixed feelings about Harry and Meghan in the neighborhood Famous residents can cause major headaches for local residents, especially for anyone as popular as Prince Harry and Meghan. After rumors broke that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex were considering the property at 3019 Point Grey Road, locals were split on whether theyd be happy with the royals moving in. I think its great, theyre good people and they want to sort of get away from the royal family-ish, so I think its great, Trina Littlejohns, a former U.K. resident, told local CBC News reporter Jon Hernandez. She also said the British media was very in your face, which made her sympathetic to Meghans plight. But resident Richard Roy was concerned about interruptions to his daily routine. I dont know, Im very conflicted because people should be able to do what they want, he told Hernandez. From a selfish viewpoint, it will screw up our lives because this is a daily walking point and I dont think it will be quite the same anymore. He continued, explaining, There would probably be too much ruckus. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle | Chris Jackson/Chris Jackson/Getty Images Their new neighbors might be worrying about a repeat of Frogmore Cottage The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are currently living at Frogmore Cottage in Windsor and neighbor drama persisted ever since they moved in. First, they were criticized for the multi-million dollar renovation, which was at least partially funded by taxpayers. (The couple plans to pay that money back now that they are no longer senior royals). Then a rumor went around that Harry and Meghan forbid any of the neighbors from speaking to them and set up a huge perimeter around their home to keep locals from parking anywhere near it. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex denied that they made the rule about never saying Good morning or Hello. But either way, the locals werent thrilled to have them around. Overall, the atmosphere in Canada is much more relaxed compared to the U.K., which is what drew this couple there in the first place. But with aggressive paparazzi and less stringent rules for tabloid reporters, it may be very frustrating to be neighbors with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Protesters in Jordan calling deal, which will see Israel provide $10bn worth of gas to the country, an enemy invasion. Protesters in Jordan are decrying a deal that will see Israel pump $10bn worth of gas into the country, calling it an enemy invasion. Although Jordan has a peace treaty with Israel, it is also home to the largest population of Palestinians outside the Occupied Territories. Al Jazeeras Natasha Ghoneim has been speaking to those rallying against the deal in Amman, Jordan. (Natural News) More shocking video has been released of Bernie Sanders campaign employee Kyle Jurek, who was caught on video by journalists working for Project Veritas Action, founded by James OKeefe. Jurek has already been exposed in a previous video as calling for the mass executions of both liberals and conservatives once Bernie Sanders takes the White House. Its all part of a violent communist revolution being planned by Bernie supporters. If Trump wins the election, these radical Leftists say cities will burn. As the video below clearly shows, these communist-leaning Leftists have ties to Antifa and are very often active members of the DSA (Democratic Socialists of America, a front group for hard-core communism). This new video, now posted at Brighteon.com (see below), reveals how Kyle Jurek sounds almost exactly like eco-fascist AOC, and he claims that mass killings of conservatives must be carried out because the communists are fighting for survival of the entire human race. He says, There are things that are more important than the rule of law in the United States when it comes down to the existence of the human race. He justifies the mass killing of human beings by claiming that only the most far-left communists can save the planet and save the human race despite the history of communist regimes carrying out mass murder and ecological destruction in places like China and Venezuela: [W]ere at the end, were at the end of the road, and like the way we choose to go, is going to determine like hey are we going to continue as a species or are we going to f**king burn up in a f**king century? Like were here to preserve the planet, to preserve people. We dont want to f**king have to like eliminate people, right? But if people are going to try to fight back against the revolution, like when you hear about like, uh, so like atrocities committed by like, in Cuba, by like Fidel and Che, like killing people, like those people who were actively like, they were like anti-revolution, they were fighting against the revolution. [I]f youre going to take up arms against the revolution, then you should expect a violent response. Right? Like its f**king natural Watch the full video here and see for yourself. Brighteon.com/952d8b4e-d9d9-4e2d-a17b-8dcc187a23e8 More complete transcript: Im all aboard for gulags, like, I feel there needs to be re-education for a significant portion of our society. I mean the alternative, instead of trying to like re-educate these people and put them back into society the only other alternative is to f**king you know what I mean? Theres a lotta mes in the Bernie campaign. Like were here to preserve the planet, to preserve people. We dont want to f**king have to like eliminate people, right? But if people are going to try to fight back against the revolution, like when you hear about like, uh, so like atrocities committed by like, in Cuba, by like Fidel and Che, like killing people, like those people who were actively like, they were like anti-revolution, they were fighting against the revolution. Like in any ware, like if you guys were in war, and you encounter people that were fighting against you, what did you do to those people? Right? The same thing holds true in a revolution. Right? Like you cant abide people actively working against your f**king revolution. Like you can give them a choice like hey, you can join the revolution, you can not be a bootlicker, you can sit idly by and allow it to happen, but if youre going to take up arms against the revolution, then you should expect a violent response. Right? Like its f**king natural Yeah, and thats kind of where were at right now. Were at one of those moments in human history, where its like were fighting for survival, were fighting for both survival of the entire human race, were fighting for the survival of living creatures on planet Earth, and theres some people that will stop at nothing to preserve that, right? Like to see that, to see the human race continue into the future, right? To try to save the f**king planet from f**king destruction. And no matter what country and what laws that exist, theyre irrelevant to, there are things greater than those systems, right? There are things that are more important than the rule of law in the United States when it comes down to the existence of the human race. And thats where were at. Unfortunately, in like this is like there are very few, there are probably no other points in human history, in like recorded human history where like the stakes were as high as they are right now. Like we are at a f**king, were, were at the end, were at the end of the road, and like the way we choose to go, is going to determine like hey are we going to continue as a species or are we going to f**king burn up in a f**king century? Journalist: So, I know you have an Antifa sticker on your laptop, have you ever done or been in any of those crazy Kyle Jurek: There was a couple things, events that they came to. They came to Lansing and they came to Ann Arbor. I was there for those. Journalist: Did you ever like, help out or participate in any of it? Kyle: Yeah, I mean, so, I didnt help organize any of it, but I was there in support. Ive yet to punch a Nazi. Journalist: Are there any Antifa people here? Kyle: There are some here, a lot of them are probably on the Bernie campaign, but there is a DSA chapter here so like some of the DSA folks would probably, weve been looking for an action to like participate in But like in regards to immigration and ICE, weve been looking for something to pop off so we can f**king pop right back off. Im an anarcho-communist. So Im as far to the left as you can possibly get but Im also very libertarian. See more breaking news on all this: ProjectVeritasAction.com Expose2020.com Brighteon.com HAMMOND One person was sent to the hospital after their car crashed into a tree Saturday evening, police said. Police were called to 1500 block of River Drive in Hammond at 8:35 p.m. Saturday, Lt. Steve Kellogg said. A vehicle had crashed into a tree at the location and was taken to Community Hospital in Munster, Kellogg said. As of Saturday night, the driver's condition was unknown. As of 9:45 p.m. investigators were still at the scene determining the cause of the crash and no further information was available. Love 0 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. The foreign ministers of the 22 member states of the Arab League unanimously rejected the Trump administration's proposal to end the Israeli-Palestine conflict unveiled last week. The resolution said the plan "does not satisfy the minimum of the rights and aspirations of the Palestinian people." It's considered a win for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who threatened to cut security ties with Israel and the U.S. on Saturday, and the Palestinian Liberation Organization because it means the White House can't claim to have support from neighboring Arab countries. Huge diplomatic victory for Abbas and the PLO. Even states that attended the Trump/Bibi ceremony (UAE, Oman, Bahrain) are now on record as rejecting. Anything less wouldve allowed the admin to claim some Arab support. Thats no longer possible. https://t.co/v9b4ZOxi3E Khaled Elgindy (@elgindy_) February 1, 2020 To clarify, not every country condemned the plan. Some, like the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Morocco have suggested it could be the basis for future talks and applauded Washington's efforts, but they don't think the current iteration is viable. The plan has been criticized in several circles, with many analysts arguing it does little to curb Israeli settlements in the West Bank one of the main grievances held by Palestinians and could increase tensions. More stories from theweek.com Mitch McConnell's rare blunder John Bolton just vindicated Nancy Pelosi All the president's turncoats ST. JOHN'S, N.L. - Climate scientists say a blizzard that paralyzed eastern Newfoundland signals that greater preparations are needed for extreme precipitation and tidal surges even if a direct line cannot be drawn between individual storms and climate change.The historic Jan. 17 blizzard dropped more than 76 centimetres of snow on St. John's amid winds gusting over 150 kilometres per hour, breaking a record for single-day snowfall in the city. The provincial capital was under a state of emergency for eight days as crews worked to clear roads, and other municipalities responded to infrastructure damage and similarly deep snowfalls. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 2/2/2020 (708 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Soldiers from the 4th Artillery Regiment based at CFB Gagetown get help from a snowblower-equipped neighbour as they clear snow at a residence in St. John's on Monday, Jan. 20, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan ST. JOHN'S, N.L. - Climate scientists say a blizzard that paralyzed eastern Newfoundland signals that greater preparations are needed for extreme precipitation and tidal surges even if a direct line cannot be drawn between individual storms and climate change.The historic Jan. 17 blizzard dropped more than 76 centimetres of snow on St. John's amid winds gusting over 150 kilometres per hour, breaking a record for single-day snowfall in the city. The provincial capital was under a state of emergency for eight days as crews worked to clear roads, and other municipalities responded to infrastructure damage and similarly deep snowfalls. Researchers who spoke with The Canadian Press said more intense storms are likely on the horizon for Atlantic Canada, and the region should prepare accordingly. "I think what the storm showed is that we're not really prepared either for the increased intensity of storms, or the possibility that such storms could become more frequent," said Brad DeYoung, an oceanographer at Memorial University of Newfoundland. According to the federal Canada's Changing Climate Report published last year, the Atlantic region is facing rising seas and falling coastlines. It noted that eastern coasts are continuing to sink while projecting between 75 centimetres and one metre of relative sea level rise for the area by the end of the century. Blair Greenan, a federal oceanographer who oversaw the oceans chapter of the report, said in an email that existing science points to the likelihood of heavier precipitation. "There is some well understood physics that as we warm the atmosphere, the capacity of air to hold water vapour increases," he said. "It is therefore expected that a warmer atmosphere will result in an increase in extreme precipitation events when you look at this from a global perspective." Greenan added "there certainly is some potential that climate change will change the frequency and magnitude of storms in Atlantic Canada," though it's too early to confidently say how often, or with what intensity. For Ashlee Consulo, director of Memorial University's Labrador Institute, governments need to start preparing for frequently intense weather. "There should be an assumption now from an adaptation perspective that these are things that may be more frequent," Consulo said by phone. "There's no harm preparing things that support healthier, stronger, more resilient communities." Ryan Ness, who directs the adaptation team at the Canadian Institute for Climate Choices, said local capabilities to deal with major rainfall and snowstorms should be built up so that "we don't have to call in the troops" after every weather event. Canadian Forces personnel were in Newfoundland for a week following the storm, responding to hundreds of calls from people unable to dig out of their homes. Responding to weather has become an increasingly frequent activity for Canada's Armed Forces, especially in Atlantic Canada. Soldiers were deployed to assist with flood response in New Brunswick last spring and to help with the cleanup in Halifax after post-tropical storm Dorian hit the Maritimes in September with heavy rain and wind that felled trees and knocked out power to thousands. Analysis by The Canadian Press last year showed military assistance was requested for 10 weather-related disasters over the previous two years, compared with 20 calls between 2007 and 2016. Ness said looking to the experiences of those most vulnerable to storms, like the elderly or lower-income people, will be essential when planning for future events that may affect a city's ability to function. He also suggested looking at more sustainable housing design, legislating what can be built in high-risk areas and reviewing building code standards for entrances and exits in provinces subject to severe weather. Joel Finnis, a climatologist at Memorial University of Newfoundland's geography department, said heavy snowfall is not unknown in St. John's. But he said some characteristics of the "weather bomb" that ravaged the region, like intense winds up to 150 kilometres per hour in some areas, are more likely to be seen again, resulting in storm surges that wreak havoc on essential infrastructure in coastal communities. He said continued sea level rise and the expansion of ocean water due to heating could aggravate the storm-surge risk. In Bonavista, north of St. John's, the storm surge from last month's blizzard battered already deteriorating sea walls that protect homes along the historic community's shoreline. Nine-metre high waves, completing destroying the sea wall in some areas. Mayor John Norman said the crucial infrastructure won't withstand another beating, and replacing the sea wall has become an urgent issue for the town. He estimates the recent damage will cost over $1 million to repair, but a future storm could cause extensive damage to homes, sewer and roads and end up being far more costly if the sea wall isn't repaired. Other coastal communities in eastern Newfoundland also sustained storm surge damage climbing into the millions. Terry French, mayor of Conception Bay South, said the damage to infrastructure, from roads to storm drains, could cost into tens of millions of dollars. Finnis said blizzards with heavy snowfall should not worry people as much as other, more damaging events. "This storm that produced the state of emergency in St. John's was what I might think of as a soft, or even a benevolent, disaster," Finnis. "It was it was really not a terrifically expensive hazard compared to other kinds of things that we might expect to see very frequently in the future." He said a greater threat to the city would be a heavy rain-on-snowfall event, which was forecast but narrowly avoided the week after January's blizzard. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb 2. 2020. With files from Michael Tutton Source: Xinhua| 2020-02-02 21:35:01|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close BEIJING, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- Chinese authorities on Sunday stressed providing greater medical supplies support to central China's Hubei Province, particularly the key regions -- the city of Wuhan and its surrounding areas -- to help curb the epidemic caused by the novel coronavirus. Authorities in some provinces were urged to flexibly arrange their work for the epidemic battle and step up efforts to prevent and control the novel coronavirus outbreak and ensure market supply, said an official statement issued after a Sunday meeting of the leading group of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee on the prevention and control of the novel coronavirus outbreak. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, who is a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and also head of the leading group of the CPC Central Committee on the prevention and control of the novel coronavirus outbreak, presided over the meeting. Noting that great manpower and material resources support from all aspects has been delivered to Hubei in China's response to the novel coronavirus outbreak, the statement said that "the shortage of medical resources is still a prominent issue in Hubei." The meeting underscored efforts to speed up the construction of hospitals to provide more beds, step up medical personnel support and organize more quality medical personnel in respiratory, intensive care and nursing fields from other provinces to support Hubei. Authorities stressed accelerating production resumption by manufacturers of medical supplies and protective items, with a priority to meeting the needs of Wuhan and other key areas in Hubei, and quickening efforts to make up for the shortage of key items such as medical face masks and protective clothing in Hubei, according to the statement. The State Council has agreed that to help curb the outbreak in some provinces, while arrangements are made to ensure the timely return of workers to key posts, enterprises and projects that are of high importance to the virus battle, public services, national economy and people's wellbeing, flexible ways can be adopted to arrange people's work in other sectors, the statement said. The measure will help reduce the risk of virus spread by avoiding large-scale population movement after the Spring Festival holiday ends, it added. The meeting also stressed efforts from local authorities to ensure a stable supply of epidemic prevention and control materials and daily necessities. Wang Huning, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and deputy head of the leading group, attended the meeting. Source: Xinhua| 2020-02-02 21:47:02|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close BEIJING, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- As China makes its utmost efforts to fight the novel coronavirus outbreak, the U.S. side has recently released unfriendly comments and actions towards China, which are neither based on facts nor helpful at this particular time. Taking advantage of other people's difficulties is the last thing we need in state-to-state relations. The U.S. moves are certainly not a gesture of goodwill. The World Health Organization (WHO) commended China's timely and effective measures to control the outbreak and made it clear about its opposition to travel or trade restrictions against China. The United States has decided to act in the opposite way, as the U.S. Department of State on Jan. 31 raised its travel advisory for China to the highest level, the same as for Iraq and Afghanistan. In the meantime, the U.S. secretary of commerce said the outbreak would help to accelerate the return of jobs to the United States. Some other U.S. officials suggested that China is not cooperating with the U.S. side. The U.S. side regarded the challenges faced by China as opportunities for its own development. The U.S. moves highlight its meanness and irresponsibility. In fact, China is doing its best to prevent and control the epidemic, and has released information and shared data with the United States and the rest of the international community in a timely, transparent and responsible manner. The outbreak of the epidemic is unwilling to be seen by the whole world. In today's globe, many common challenges require countries to work together to respond. As the saying goes, a friend in need is a friend indeed. In sharp contrast with U.S. unfriendly moves, many countries have spoken positively of and supported China's efforts to battle the outbreak through various means. According to Chinese Foreign Ministry, several international organizations or countries, including the United Nations system, Belarus, and Japan have provided anti-epidemic materials. Although the U.S. side is trying to create panic, people can tell right from wrong and widely recognize that only when China is good can the world be good. China has the capacity, confidence and determination to win the final victory in fighting the outbreak, and it is hoped that the U.S. side refrains from making irresponsible decisions that cannot benefit the world and neither make itself great. The terrorist shot dead in Streatham today may have started his horrific rampage after realising he was being followed by police, a security expert has suggested. The suspect, 'well known' to counter-terror police, is thought to have been the subject of a live police investigation at the time of his attack. Police confirmed he was shot dead as part of a 'proactive Counter Terrorism operation', suggesting he was being monitored before launching his rampage. Scotland Yard confirmed at least three people were injured in the attack and have been taken to hospital. David Videcette, a former counter-terrorism officer who investigated the 7/7 attacks in London, has also suggested that the attacker may have launched his rampage shortly after realising he was under surveillance. Photos from the scene show a lifeless body face down on the pavement with what have been described as 'silver canisters' strapped to his chest with a large knife is lying beside him Mr Videcette tweeted: 'It's being said the dead suspect entered Low Price Store on Streatham High Road, picked up a knife, removed the packaging, and then stabbed a man and woman - he was then shot dead moments later by armed, plain clothes police officers. 'As I said earlier, this all points towards an armed police surveillance team, on a pre planned operation, having to react to a spontaneous event in front of them, perhaps even after the suspect identified he was being surveilled.' Streatham MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy told the BBC: 'The perpetrator was shot dead by police. The police and the emergency services have been fantastic in their response. 'They got here quite quickly, responded to the incident, taking down the perpetrator, who, as you may know, they had been watching for some time, so hopefully we'll hear more information about that tomorrow.' Police have also confirmed that the attack is Islamist related and that the suicide vest strapped to his body was a fake. Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Lucy D'Orsi said in a statement: 'At approximately 2pm on Sunday, February 2 two people were stabbed in Streatham High Road, Lambeth. 'As part of a proactive Counter Terrorism operation, armed officers were in immediate attendance and shot a male suspect, who was pronounced dead at the scene. A third person also received minor injuries - believed to have been caused by glass following the discharge of the police firearm. David Videcette, a former counter-terrorism officer who investigated the 7/7 attacks in London suggested the attacker may have launched rampage after realising he was being monitored 'A device was found strapped to the body of the suspect and specialist officers attended. 'Cordons were put in place and it was quickly established that this was a hoax device. 'Three victims have been taken to south London hospitals. One man is being treated as life-threatening, one woman has non-life threatening injuries and another woman has minor injuries. 'My thoughts are with the victims and their loved-ones at this time. Armed police have shot dead a suspected terrorist feared to be wearing a suicide vest after he grabbed a knife from a shop and stabbed a man and a woman during a brutal high-street rampage in south London 'The situation has been contained and officers from the Met's Counter Terrorism Command are now leading an investigation into the incident. The incident was quickly declared as a terrorist incident and we believe it to be Islamist-related. 'However as you would expect, officers continue to work in the area to ensure there is no continuing danger to the public and that all evidence is gathered. Streatham High Road remains closed at this time, and cordons are in place. We will reopen these as soon as we can.' Davinder Singh case: NIA raids multiple places in south Kashmir India oi-Madhuri Adnal Srinagar, Feb 02: The National Investigation Agency on Sunday morning carried out searches in connection with a case in which a senior Jammu and Kashmir police officer Davinder Singh was arrested while ferrying terrorists outside the valley, officials said. Multiple NIA teams fanned in various parts of south Kashmir and carried out the searches at some private offices and residences, they said. The NIA had taken over the case in which Jammu and Kashmir's Deputy Superintendent of Police Davinder Singh, who has since been suspended, was caught in south Kashmir while ferrying two terrorists out of the valley on January 11. Protection in lieu of money: Davinder Singhs close association with Hizbul revealed The searches come days after NIA officers interrogated all the accused arrested in the case. Besides Singh, the others arrested were: Syed Naveed Mushtaq Ahmed alias Naveed Babu, who is a self-styled commander of Hizbul Mujahideen, Rafi Ahmed Rather and Irfan Shafi Mir, who claims to be an advocate. They were arrested from the Srinagar-Jammu National Highway near Qazigund in South Kashmir. Later, Naveed's brother, Syed Irfan Ahmed, was also arrested on January 23 after he was brought from Punjab. He was in constant touch with his brother and had asked him to look for an accommodation in Chandigarh where they could escape the harsh winters months of Kashmir. Mir, who was driving the vehicle when they were caught by the police from a national highway in Kulgam district, may become a prize catch for the NIA as it is alleged he was acting on the orders of his masters in Pakistan. He had visited the neighbouring country five times on an Indian passport. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Sunday, February 2, 2020, 12:06 [IST] This years Delhi assembly election will see the highest share of candidates with declared criminal cases in over a decade, according to figures by election watchdog Association for Democratic Reforms based on analysis of affidavits filed by the candidates with the Election Commission of India. Twenty of these candidates have been convicted in at least one case. The election will also see the highest share of crorepatis, higher-educated, women and older candidates in over a decade. Of the 672 candidates contesting the election, nearly 20% have a criminal case against them. This is the highest share of such candidates at least since the 2008 assembly elections, when the figure was nearly 14%, and has since been increasing in every consecutive election. This is in harmony with the nationwide trend of increasing criminalisation in politicsin the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the share of candidates with criminal cases was the highest in a decade. Not all candidates have cases of a serious nature against them. But the share of candidates with serious criminal cases has also been growing over time. This year, more than 15% of candidates have criminal cases of serious nature against them, also the highest since 2008. (Chart 1) These include cases such as those related to murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping, rape and other crimes against women. This year, 32 candidates have cases related to crimes against women, one of them for rape, while four candidates have cases related to attempt to murder. Eight candidates have a case related to hate speech. The overall figure of 20% of candidates having criminal cases against them hides the fact that big political parties have a larger share of such candidates. 60%candidates of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have self-declared criminal cases against them. This figure is nearly 39% for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and 27% for the Congress. Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has the highest number of criminal cases, 13. The AAP said the criminal cases against its candidates, including Kejriwal, are all an outcome of the political vendetta by the Centre. It is not hidden from the people of Delhi the Centre has been after the AAP ever since it came to power in 2015. They slapped cases after cases against Kejriwal, other ministers like Satyendar Jain and Kailash Gahlot, and many more AAP MLAs. They even raided Kejriwals home. Each attempt has miserably failed as no case could last in the court of law, said AAP Delhi unit convener Gopal Rai. Of all the candidates contesting the election, 36% are crorepatis, the highest in four assembly elections. This figure is higher for the three big parties -- 83% candidates of the Congress, 73% of AAP and 70% of the BJP are crorepatis. Four wealthiest candidates are from AAP. Dharampal Lakra, the AAP candidate from Mundka constituency, is an outlier with 292 crore worth of assets, nearly four times more than the total assets of the second wealthiest candidate Pramila Tokas, the AAP candidate from RK Puram constituency, who owns assets worth 81 crore. The election this year also has the highest share of women candidates (11.8%) since 2008. Fifteen percent of the Congress candidates are women compared to 13% of AAP and 9% of the BJP. The election will also see a slightly smaller share of younger candidates compared to the previous three elections. This year only 8.5% of candidates are up to 30 years old while 27.5% of candidates are between 31 and 40 years old. This is the lowest since 2008. On the contrary, there is a higher share of candidates who are more than 50 years old. (Chart 2) The share of higher-educated candidates has increased. Forty-five per cent candidates contesting thiselection are at least graduates. This figure was 40% in 2015, 36% in 2013 and 32% in 2008. The share of literate but uneducated candidates has decreased in this period. (Chart 3) We gave maximum seats to women and candidates from the Sikh communities unlike other parties. Besides, AAP and BJP have the highest number of candidates with criminal cases. In the Congress, the candidates who may have cases against them are mostly political rather than being criminal, said Delhi Congress chief Subhash Chopra. Former Delhi BJP chief Vijay Goel said, As far as representation to women is concerned, we have given an almost equal number of tickets as other political parties have. We might have given one or two tickets less. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Predicted weather conditions for Sunday, including dense fog and high wind gusts, are prompting advisories from area agencies. The Fairfield Police Department is warning of low visibility below -mile through noon for drivers due to dense fog that has formed in the southern Sacramento Valley. A public safety warning for high winds predicted by the National Weather Service to reach 30 to 40 mph from Sunday through Monday morning in the Bay Area and Central Coast. The East Bay hills have been added to the advisory, the NWS said. "Travel will be difficult, especially for high profile vehicles," the agency said. PG&E is asking customers to be alert for the possibility of downed power lines due to the winds and to call 911 if one is encountered. Copyright 2020 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. The evidence of President Donald Trump's actions to pressure Ukraine was never in serious dispute. After a systematic presentation of the facts of the case, even some Senate Republicans concluded that what he did was wrong. But neither was the verdict of Trump's impeachment trial ever in doubt. The Senate's jurors are scheduled to etch an almost-certain acquittal into the historical record on Wednesday. The impending judgment that the president's actions do not warrant his removal from office serves as a testament to Washington's extraordinary partisan divide and to Trump's uncontested hold on the Republican base. The expected acquittal also has profound and long-term ramifications for America's institutions and the balance of power between the executive and legislative branches, according to numerous historians and legal experts. In effect, they say, the Senate is lowering the bar for permissible conduct for future presidents. "It's a dispiriting moment for an American system that in many ways was founded on the insight that, because humankind is frail and fallen and fallible, no one branch of government can have too much power," said Jon Meacham, an American historian and author. "The president's party, instead of being a check on an individual's impulses and ambitions, has become an instrument of them." Since the moment House Democrats opened their impeachment inquiry last September, Trump has projected a sense of persecution and self-pity. He called the effort a coup to overthrow him and defraud the results of the 2016 election. Again and again, Trump proclaimed on Twitter, "READ THE TRANSCRIPT!" - though the notes from his July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky did not seem to exonerate him. Rather, the notes made plain Trump's scheme to get Ukraine to open an investigation into former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden. With Trump commanding such exceptionally high approval ratings among Republican voters, however, even senators who acknowledged his actions were wrong voted Friday to block new evidence in the trial and pave the way for acquittal. One of Democrats' great hopes to permit fresh testimony from firsthand witnesses, including former national security adviser John Bolton, had been Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., a self-described institutionalist who is retiring and would not have to face the wrath of the GOP's pro-Trump base. But Alexander demurred. Although he said Trump's actions were "inappropriate" and had "already been proven" by House impeachment managers, the senator from Tennessee said there was "no need for more evidence" and that he believed Trump's conduct did not meet the Constitution's standard of "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors" for an impeachable offense. "Let the people decide," Alexander said in a lengthy statement Thursday explaining his position. Another Republican seen as a possible supporter for permitting witness testimony, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, also came down against doing so. Although she did not comment specifically on Trump's actions with Ukraine, she faulted the overall impeachment process as too partisan and unfair. "I don't believe the continuation of this process will change anything," Murkowski said in a statement. "It is sad for me to admit that, as an institution, the Congress has failed." Only two Republicans - Sens. Mitt Romney of Utah and Susan Collins of Maine - voted to allow additional testimony, two votes shy of the threshold required for the measure to pass. And with next week's final impeachment vote requiring a two-thirds majority to convict the president, the outcome seems preordained. "This impeachment was a fait accompli at all times," said Bill Whalen, a fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution at Stanford University. "You talk to congressional Republicans and there's a feeling that the president is being persecuted, that impeachment was a conviction in search of a crime." William A. Galston, chair of the Brookings Institution's Governance Studies Program, said acquittal "was not only perfectly predictable, but in my judgment, completely inevitable." "The United States political scene is as deeply polarized along partisan lines as it has been for at least a century," Galston added. Noting Trump's high ratings among Republican voters, he said, "It would take a very brave Republican indeed to break ranks with the president under these circumstances." This is not the first instance in which Trump has skirted penalties for wielding the powers of his office for personal or political gain. Former special counsel Robert Mueller III found that the president repeatedly worked to block or thwart the Russia investigation, acts to obstruct justice that would have prompted charges were he not a sitting president. But Trump sidestepped any punishment then, just as he appears to now with Ukraine. One of the president's lawyers, Alan Dershowitz, proffered a sweeping argument on the floor of the Senate last week that Trump using the powers of his office to pressure Ukraine to open a corruption investigation into the Bidens was not impeachable or illegal because it was done in pursuit of his re-election. "If a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment," Dershowitz said during the trial. In the face of stinging criticism from constitutional scholars and legal experts, Dershowitz said later on Twitter that his comments were being mischaracterized. "A president seeking re-election cannot do anything he wants," Dershowitz wrote. "He is not above the law." Still, Dershowitz's argument was persuasive for some Republican senators looking for arguments with which to defend Trump irrespective of what the evidence showed. "Let's say it's true, OK? Dershowitz last night explained that if you're looking at it from a constitutional point of view, that that is not something that is impeachable," Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., told reporters. Timothy Naftali, a historian at New York University and former director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, said the arguments advanced on Trump's behalf in the Senate trial could have lasting consequences for the future of presidential power. "The Republicans have embraced a theory that permits future abuses of power," Naftali said. "The outcome of acquittal was predictable ... but I'm afraid that this process in the Senate is more enabling of an abusive president than expected." The nation's founders gave Congress oversight responsibilities and powers of impeachment as a check on the executive. Yet, with this week's likely acquittal of Trump, Meacham argues, the Senate instead has become a tool in the president's perpetuation of his own power. "It is not hyperbolic to say that the Republican Party treats Donald Trump more like a king than a president," Meacham said. "That was a central and consuming anxiety of the framers. It is a remarkable thing to watch the party of Lincoln and Eisenhower and Reagan and the Bushes become an instrument of Donald Trump's. That's a massive historical story." A very important project I did when I was the head of antiquities in Egypt was a master plan or site-management plan for the Valley of the Kings on the west bank of the Nile at Luxor. I was assisting the Ministry of Tourism with a new site-management plan for the valley. We were working on the protection of the tombs and setting up a schedule so that the tombs opened in rotation, with cleaning and restoration work carried out in the closed tombs. I hope that the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities will be able to work on the implementation of this project now. The ministry is working with the US Getty Conservation Institute on several projects supervised by my friend Tim Whalen, the head of the Conservation Institute at the Getty. One is in the tomb of Tutankhamun, where dark spots have marred the decoration on the walls of the burial chamber. These were present at the time of the excavation of the tomb in the 1930s by Howard Carter, but no one had studied the problem. Samples have been taken since, and the Getty Conservation Institute has discovered the real cause of the spots. It seems that the curse of Tutankhamun is still working. Tutankhamuns large quantize sarcophagus is still inside his tomb, and his mummy was enclosed in three coffins, the first and second from the bottom (one of solid gold) being moved to the Egyptian Museum and soon to the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM). But the third on the top, inside the quartzite sarcophagus, was in a bad condition. This coffin is made of wood and covered in gold, and I asked Whalen to find an expert to restore the coffin. Brian Considine was chosen, but just before Brian planned to begin his work he suffered from a bad accident that required three months of treatment. Everyone connected this accident with the curse of Tutankhamun. Egyptian restorers eventually restored the coffin beautifully, and it was taken to the GEM a few months ago. I saw the coffin recently when I visited the GEM and saw the great work that had been done.The Getty is also interested in working to protect the Valley of the Queens, namely the tomb of Nefertari, since this has not been restored for a long time, and the Getty did great work in the conservation of the tomb. In 2010, the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) finished the site management at Deir Al-Bahari, and visitors can now see the Mortuary Temple of queen Hatshepsut in an even more beautiful way. They can enter from the visitors centre and see a film about Hatshepsut and a model of the temple. Then they can walk or take an electric vehicle up to the temple and return to walk in a small bazaar where they can buy souvenirs at the end of the trip to the site.We received a loan from the Spanish government to protect the West Bank, and now the Ministry of Antiquities is preparing for the protection of the rest of the mortuary temples of the New Kingdom.When I was in charge of antiquities, the SCA finished properly lighting all the monuments on the West Bank, allowing tourists to visit them at night. I recently went to the Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir Al-Bahari to see the new lighting system there. It was absolutely amazing to see the temple lit up so beautifully.I do hope that Minister of Antiquities Khaled El-Enany will be able to convince the security authorities to let tourists visit the Valley of the Kings at night, because for the protection of the tombs it is not good for all tourists to visit them in the morning. It would be better for them to do the visit three times a day, in the morning, at noon, and then at night. The Carter House, the house in which Howard Carter lived during the excavation of Tutankhamuns tomb, has been converted into a museum. The rooms have been restored so they appear as they did in Carters day, and visitors can watch a 20-minute lecture given by a holographic version of the famous archaeologist.Do not miss the chance to relax in Carters House and see the objects that he touched every day during the years when he explored the golden tomb.EXCAVATIONS ON THE EAST BANK: There was also a major salvage excavation project underway in the modern town of Luxor, focusing on the avenue of the sphinxes that once connected the Temple of Karnak with the smaller Luxor Temple.Over time, this avenue was destroyed, and in modern times people began to build their houses, roads, mosques, and churches above it. Thanks to Samir Farag, the previous governor of Luxor, the people living in this area were relocated and paid compensation. This campaign was even carefully followed by former president Hosni Mubarak and his cabinet, and it received special attention from Ahmed Nazef, the former prime minister.We know from previous archaeological work that the avenue of the sphinxes was 2,700m long, and it consists of 1,050 statues of human-headed sphinxes from the reign of king Nectanebo I of the 30th Dynasty (380-362 BCE). The avenue began with six chapels with ram-headed statues representing the god Amun built by queen Hatshepsut. It was then followed up by Amenhotep III and Tutankhamun, but Akhenaton (Tutankhamuns father) destroyed the heads, which were restored by other kings until Nectanebo built the human-headed sphinx avenue.For many years, visitors to the Luxor Temple could see the beginning of the avenue of about 200m long, which originally held 64 statues just north of the first pylon. Work to restore it began there and continued another 150m to the north, uncovering an additional 29 statues. In this area, we found a Roman city and houses belonging to the Middle Ages.The most exciting discovery was a relief bearing the cartouche of queen Cleopatra VII perhaps she brought Julius Cesar or Mark Anthony to walk in the avenue of the sphinxes. In the next section we excavated, between Al-Adra (meaning the Virgin) Church and Al-Mathan Street, we cleared 150m and found evidence for a few statues. The ones on the west side are in good condition, but only the bases remain on the east.Also in this area there was a Late Period chapel and a Ptolemaic chapel. The final and largest site was behind the library where we cleared 620m and found 104 sphinxes. The archaeologists loved working there because the area was so rich: one day they discovered the head of a sphinx, and the next the body came to light. In the past, there was a viewing platform in this area, so that one could go and watch the archaeologists, architects and restorers working together to tell the story of the avenue of the sphinxes.We were planning to open the avenue in 2012, but the events of 2011 halted our plans. I sincerely hope that the project will pick up again so that the avenue can be completed.The archaeological story of Luxor has also added several new chapters in recent years. The discovery of foundation deposits in the Valley of the Monkeys may lead to a new tomb, perhaps belonging to Ankhsenamun. I am undertaking two excavations on the East Bank right now, and we hope to find a royal tomb soon.We have made a major discovery in the Valley of the Monkeys, where we found an industrial area containing a storage shaft, KV T, and near it, a water tank KV (U). Between these, we found inlays that were used to cover royal coffins, as well as a ring with the name of Amenhotep III and a silver ring of a queen. We also found an ancient workshop area with 30 houses for making gold, pottery, and furniture, with pottery dating to the 18th Dynasty. Additionally, we discovered KV65, which contained tools that the ancient Egyptians used in the construction of the tomb.Lastly, we found a mummification workshop that contained tools used to mummify kings. An Egyptian expedition under Mustafa Waziri has recently found the Asasif cache containing 30 decorated coffins on two levels for men and women as well as children in this area, all decorated with scenes from the Book of the Dead. Inside the coffins were mummies.An Egyptian mission also worked on the facade of the Luxor Temple last year, which had two seated statues, with one standing to the west. Today, all the other statues have been restored, and we can see the other two standing on the east of the seated statue and the one on the west. The facade is now complete.It is important to have work clearly organised for sites to be preserved. For example, the creation of the Carter House Museum allows visitors to see where Carter lived during his famous excavation of Tutankhamuns tomb, and they can see the tools he used in his excavation.Moreover, salvage archaeology is very important in the work done near the Luxor Temple and in the avenue of the sphinxes. With more and more important sites being uncovered in the country, the need to preserve and manage them increases, not just for us today, but for upcoming generations and the future of Egyptology. *A version of this article appears in print in the 30 January, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly. Search Keywords: Short link: The Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's Budget 2020 failed to cheer D-Street as market witnessed its biggest fall on the Budget Day in the past 11 years, according to CNBC-Tv18 data. Both Sensex & Nifty posted their biggest single-day fall in nearly 5 years. The Nifty Bank posted the 2nd biggest one-day fall ever. Nifty Midcap index slipped nearly 500 points, its biggest 1-day fall in 16 months. The S&P BSE Sensex was down by nearly 1,000 points while the Nifty50 plunged over 300 points on the Budget Day. Investor wealth as per average market capitalisation of the BSE listed companies was down by nearly Rs 4 lakh crore. Sectorally, Realty sector was the biggest loser followed by Capital Goods, Industrials, public sector, finance, and metal indices. IT index was the lone gainer. Experts are of the view that Budget was below par and uninspiring. The need of the hour was much more than what the Budget delivered. Income tax changes were positive but additional riders disappointed the Street, they say. We have collated 15 data points to help you spot profitable trades: Key support and resistance level for Nifty According to the pivot charts, the key support level is placed at 11,524.3, followed by 11,386.8. If the index starts moving upward, key resistance levels to watch out for are 11,908.3 and 12,154.8. Nifty Bank The important pivot level, which will act as crucial support for the index, is placed at 29,409.73 followed by 28,998.57. On the upside, key resistance levels are placed at 30,575.33 and 31,329.77. Call options data Maximum Call open interest (OI) of 18.19 lakh contracts was seen at the 12,000 strike price. It will act as a crucial resistance level in the February series. This is followed by 12,200 strike price, which holds 17.11 lakh contracts in open interest, and 12,100, which has accumulated 11.42 lakh contracts in open interest. Significant call writing was seen at the 11,800 strike price, which added 9.34 lakh contracts, followed by 12,000 strike price that added 8.61 lakh contracts and 11,900 strike which added 6.43 lakh contracts. There was hardly any Call unwinding on February 1. Put options data Maximum Put open interest of 16.99 lakh contracts was seen at 11,500 strike price, which will act as crucial support in the February series. This is followed by 11,000 strike price, which holds 12.42 lakh contracts in open interest, and 11,300 strike price, which has accumulated 10.65 lakh contracts in open interest. Put writing was seen at the 11,800 strike price, which added 4.5 lakh contracts, followed by 11,700 strike, which added 4.2 lakh contracts and 11,200 strike which added 3.57 lakh contracts. Put unwinding was seen at 12,000 strike price, which shed 2.41 lakh contracts, followed by 12,100 strike which shed 0.99 lakh contracts. Stocks with a high delivery percentage A high delivery percentage suggests that investors are accepting delivery of the stock, which means they are bullish on it. 5 stocks saw long build-up Based on open interest (OI) future percentage, here are the 5 stocks in which long build-up was seen. 53 stocks saw long unwinding 78 stocks saw short build-up 7 stocks witnessed short-covering Bulk deals (For more bulk deals, click here) Upcoming analyst or board meetings/briefings Visa Steel: To consider and approve the financial results for the period ended December 31, 2019, and other business matters. R Systems: To consider and approve the financial results for the period ended December 31, 2019, and other business matters. Ansal Housing: To consider and approve the financial results for the period ended December 31, 2019. Kiri Industries: To consider and approve the financial results for the period ended December 31, 2019. Stocks in news Results on February 2: IG Petrochemicals, Tata Chemicals, Ujjivan Financial Services, HUDCO, Galaxy Surfactants, Dr Lal Pathlabs, Umang Dairies, Sutlej Textiles, Borosil Glass, Sharda Motors Mahindra & Mahindra: Mahindra and Mahindra on Saturday reported a 6% decline in total sales at 52,546 units in January. The company had sold 55,722 units in the same month last year, M&M said in a statement. In the domestic market, sales were down 3% at 50,785 units last month compared to 52,500 units in January 2018. Exports dropped by 45% to 1,761 units as against 3,222 units in the year-ago month. Maruti Suzuki: The country's largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki India on Saturday reported a 1.6% increase in sales at 1,54,123 units in January. The company had sold 1,51,721 units in January last year, Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) said in a statement. Domestic sales increased by 1.7% at 1,44,499 units last month, as against 1,42,150 units in January 2018, it added. Tata Motors: Tata Motors on Saturday reported a 17.74% decline in total sales at 47,862 units in January. The company had sold a total of 58,185 units in January 2019, Tata Motors said in a statement. Total domestic sales were down 18% at 45,242 units as compared to 54,915 units in January last year, it added. Coal India: January coal production grew 10.3% at 63.11 mt against 57.21 mt (YoY). January coal offtake grew 6.9% at 56 mt against 52.44 mt (YoY) Eicher Motors: January Sales - Total motorcycle sales went down 13% at 63520 units against 72701 units (MoM). Total exports went up 22% at 2228 units against 1829 units (MoM) Chambal Fertilisers Q3: Consolidated net profit at Rs 479.2 crore against Rs 159.6 crore YoY. Consolidated revenue went up 36.5% at Rs 3,832 crore against Rs 2,807 crore YoY. Fund Flow FII and DII data Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold shares worth Rs 1,199.53 crore, while domestic institutional investors (DIIs), bought shares of worth Rs 36.64 crore in the Indian equity market on February 1, provisional data available on the NSE showed. Actress Song Hye-kyo. Courtesy of United Artists Agency (UAA) By Dong Sun-hwa Actress Song Hye-kyo showed her support Saturday for the people of Wuhan, a central Chinese city at the epicenter of the new coronavirus outbreak. Wuhan has been shut down following the global epidemic of pneumonia-like infections caused by the virus. Song uploaded to her Instagram a video of a green globe with the text, "LOVE FOR WUHAN." As the video goes on, the word "WUHAN" turns into "HUMAN." The actress also added emojis featuring "preying hands," but blocked comments. Actress Song Hye-kyo has shown her support for Wuhan and its people on Instagram. Capture from Instagram (@kyo1122) Technology Afternoon Cyber Tea with Ann Johnson Ann Johnson, Corporate Vice President, Business Development, Security, Compliance & Identity at Microsoft, talks with cybersecurity thought leaders and influential industry experts about the trends shaping the cyber landscape and what should be top-of-mind for the C-suite and other key decision makers. Ann and her guests explore the risk and promise of tools and systems powered by AI, IoT, machine learning, and other emerging technology, as well as the impact on how humans work, communicate, consume information, and live in this era of digital transformation. Please note, the opinions expressed by guests on this podcast are their own and are not endorsed by, nor do they necessarily reflect opinions of, Microsoft or Ann Johnson. A resolution opposing the Citizenship Amendment Act would be moved in the Assembly on February 12, Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy said on Sunday while dubbing the legislation as "ill-conceived". The Congress-ruled Puducherry would be the fifth dispensation to adopt the course after the West Bengal, Kerala, Punjab and Rajasthan assemblies passed resolutions against the amended citizenship law. Launching a 'massive' signature campaign against the CAA, the National Register of Citizens and the National Population Register in the union territory, Narayanasamy said,""We will never give room for the CAA as it is ill-conceived and injurious." The resolution condemning the Centre's initiative and also protesting against the CAA would be adopted on the floor of the territorial Assembly when it meets on February 12, Narayanasamy said. "Come what may we will protest tooth and nail the CAA and will give no room for introduction of the Act in the union territory," he said. The signature campaign has been announced by the DMK-led Secular Progressive Alliance which includes the Congress. DMK president M K Stalin launched the initiative in Tamil Nadu. Others who participated in the campaign here included the DMK legislator and convenor of the DMK (south) wing R Siva, PCC leader and PWD Minister A Namassivayam, leaders of the CPI, CPI(M), VCK, DK and other parties affiliated to the alliance. The signature campaign would go on till February 8. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Copyright 2020 Albuquerque Journal Most people will recognize 1969 as the year that the massive concert Woodstock took place in Bethel, New York, and American astronaut Neil Armstrong planted the Stars and Stripes on the Moon. But 1969 was also the year that crafts came into their own as a recognized art form in the U.S., thanks to the exhibition OBJECTS: USA at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The wide-ranging show featured 308 craft artists and more than 500 objects. A little more than 50 years later, some of those objects have arrived at the form & concept gallery in Santa Fe. From Jan. 31 to March 27, OBJECTS: REDUX 50 years of Craft Evolution, which features the work of both historical and contemporary artists, will be on display at the Guadalupe Street gallery. The show is inspired by OBJECTS: REDUX How 50 Years Made Craft Contemporary curated by Kathryn Hall and Perry Price at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft. It deftly juxtaposes work by the Smithsonian shows participants, such as J. Fred Woell alongside modern-day artists such as as MJ Tyson. Its wonderful to be a part of this shows continued legacy, said form & concept curator William Dunn. Having the opportunity to work with Kathryn Hall and Perry Price, and traveling this exhibition as it was originally, is nothing short of a dream. Among the pieces on display at form & concept is Woells Search for Neverland, which to the untrained eye might look like a sardine can stuffed with mementos, including a picture of John F. Kennedy. Actually, the piece made of steel, aluminium, plastic, brass and paper is a somewhat oversized brooch. Woell, who died at age 81 in 2015, was a metalsmith from Evergreen Park, Illinois, who specialized in found object assemblages. At least six of his pieces are in the Smithsonian American Art Museums permanent collection, including Nov. 22, 1963, 12:30 p.m. created with found objects after JFKs assassination. Those who grew up Catholic might be tempted to pick up Pray For Us, Tysons necklace made out of religious medals, but alas, no touching is allowed. A New Jersey native, Tyson received a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2008 and returned for her MFA in 2017. Her artists bio says she is centered on the relationship between people and their possessions. Some of the modern-day artists featured in the form & concept exhibit enjoy experimenting with historical processes. Trained in indigo farming and dyeing in Japan, Rowland Ricketts uses traditional methods to create contemporary works. Among the pieces featured in OBJECTS: REDUX are two pieces from Ricketts Unbound series. The rustic, checkered textiles look like something your grandparents would have thrown in a basket to lay out a picnic lunch on the grass. In an artists statement, Ricketts says of his Unbound works, Exposed for fading and selectively unwoven, these textiles are a meditation on the process of historicization, the formation of American identity, and the prevailing culture of the image. One of the most interesting conversations of the show is between a silk hanging created by Trude Guermonprez in 1965 and a piece by her student Kay Sekimachi called Ogawa II, completed in 1969. Both artworks greet the visitor as they walk into the gallery. According to Dunn, Guermonprez taught Sekimachi, but the student also influenced the teacher. Metalwork and jewelry are among the many crafts featured in the form & concept show. There are textiles, pottery, woodwork, glass, sculpture, among other mediums. In addition to Woell, among the artists from the original Smithsonian show are Ken Cory, Guermonprez, David Gilhooly, Otellie Loloma, Sekimachi and Bob Stocksdale, to name just a few. In addition to Ricketts and his wife, Chinami Ricketts, and Tyson, contemporary artists represented in the show include Sonya Clark, Kat Cole, Jennifer Ling Datchuk, Raven Halfmoon, Yuri Kobayashi and Nancy Worden. There are several studies looking at the effects of alcohol intake on the brain. A new study adds to the existing knowledge. The large study with around 11,651 participants from United Kingdom shows that each gram of alcohol consumed could lead to around a week of ageing of the brain. The new study titled, Association of relative brain age with tobacco smoking, alcohol consumption, and genetic variants was published in the latest issue of the journal Scientific Reports this week. Image Credit: Vaclav Mach / Shutterstock For this study the team of researchers gathered data from the UK Biobank on participants aged between 45 and 81 years and were of European ancestry. The Biobank is the national health register for UK. Consumption of alcohol was studied and those who consumed alcohol every day or on most days of the week had around 0.4 years or 5 months of additional brain ageing compared to those who did not. This meant that drinking regularly led to an accelerated brain ageing explained the researchers. The team explained that each unit of alcohol contains 8 grams of alcohol. A single shot of spirit is a single unit and a pint of strong beer or a large glass of wine is considered to be three units. Senior researchers Arthur Toga, professor at the University of South California explained that the actually way in which alcohol ages the brain and affects the quality of life is unknown. However, he added, the effects are clinically significant. He said, The 0.4 years of difference was statistically significant. We suggest that daily or almost daily alcohol consumption can be detrimental to the brain. For this study the team looked at daily alcohol use by the participants as well as the Relative Brain Age seen in MRI scans of the brain. There are two measures of the brain, wrote the researchers. One of these is the Predicted brain age or PBA. PBA is defined as the ageing of the brain that is based on its anatomical features and is calculated based on brain anatomical measurements of the entire brain. The second measure developed by these researchers is the RBA or relative brain age. They wrote that this is independent of chronological age or CA of the brain unlike PBA. They explained the RBA, indicates if a subjects brain has experienced accelerated or decelerated ageing compared to peers. MRI scans could be done on 5193 participants. The age seen in the scans was compared to the actual chronological age and the two parameters were linked to alcohol consumption, explained the researchers. The team found that on MRI there was a significant reduction in the white matter and grey matter of the brain as well as brain volume. These reductions correspond to brain ageing they wrote. The team also looked at smoking habits of the participants. The third association they looked at the genetic variants and their association with brain ageing. For every gram of alcohol consumed per day, the results showed that the brain aged around a week. Those that drank every day or on most days had the most accelerated brain ageing found the team. Further cigarette smoking was also associated with ageing wrote the researchers. For every pack of cigarettes smoked per day, the brain aged around 11 days (0.03 years), the team found. Those that smoked often or on a regular basis had brains that were 6 to 7 months older than their counter part non-smokers of the same age, wrote the researchers. They also noted that a particular genetic mutation or SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism) located in the MAPT gene on chromosome 17 was associated with accelerated brain ageing. The authors wrote, We found that daily or almost daily consumption of tobacco and alcohol were both significantly associated with increased RBA [relative brain age]. Our results suggest that both environmental and genetic factors are associated with structural brain ageing. According to the researchers and experts, the easiest way to avoid these adverse brain changes would be avoid smoking and drinking altogether. The genetic predisposition, they added would not be subject to modification but the lifestyle factors could be changed to improve brain health. Kaitlin Casaletto, the first author of the study said that the best way to improve cognition would be avoid these bad habits and start on good habits such as regular exercise. The team wrote in conclusion, Further studies potentially with even larger sample sizes will be needed to provide a clearer picture of factors associated with brain ageing. With the outbreak of coronavirus causing panic in global financial markets, Indian exporters see a reason to worry if the virus is not tamed soon. The real impact of trade can be gauged after February 8, when the Chinese Lunar Year holidays end. But despite the direct hit to trade with China, the Indian industry may get to fill the gap left by Chinese traders. Fertiliser firms stand to gain Fertilisers and organic chemicals, along with plastic materials are among the top five items in the list of imports from China. The outbreak of the virus could hit Indias non-urea or ... David Oyedepo, Founder, Living Faith Church (LFC), says the plans are in full gear by the church to build additional 10,000 new churches across the country in 2020. The cleric said this while addressing the church workers forum at the International Headquarters of the church in a live telecast in Ota, Ogun. The project will commence this February, adding that each church worker is expected to win 10 souls into the church this year in its Operation 10, 2020 to fill the new churches, News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports. Read Also: US Embassy Debunks US Visa Refusal To Bishop Oyedepo Oyedepo revealed that the first 1,000 of the new churches would take-off this February and that the project would cost the church a total of N10.3 billion to accomplish. According to the cleric, the project was in fulfillment of Gods agenda for the church, as the knowledge centre of the world. Ending suspense over the much-delayed Cabinet expansion, Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa announced here on Sunday that 10 of the 11 newly-elected MLAs, along with three BJP old-timers, will be inducted into the ministry on February 6. Yediyurappa told reporters that the new ministers will take oath at 10.30 am on February 6 at the Raj Bhavan. He said he was yet to decide whether the Cabinet will be reshuffled or expanded. We will allot portfolios to new ministers as soon as they are sworn in, the chief minister said. With the induction of 13, the strength of the Cabinet will be 31, including the present 18 ministers. After the announcement, the underlying discord within BJP ranks especially among those who joined the saffron party recently came to the fore with leaders like H Vishwanath reiterating Cabinet demands and urging Yediyurappa to fulfil his promise. On the demands by Vishwanath and M T B Nagaraj, the two defectors who lost the December bypolls, Yediyurappa said the question of inducting them does not arise as per the Supreme Court ruling on their disqualification petitions. The announcement caused discontent among a few BJP legislators vying for Cabinet berths. According to sources, Yediyurappa had delayed Cabinet expansion till February 6, anticipating disgruntlement in the BJP camp. The chief minister is expected to reach out to BJP MLAs who are unhappy, and is likely to convince them of positions when the Cabinet is reshuffled in the future. Attempts to reach out to MLAs who defected to BJP began on Sunday as the CM held talks with Gokak MLA Ramesh Jarkiholi on demands by Athani MLA Mahesh Kumathalli, Vishwanath and Nagaraj. Kumathalli said it was unfair that he was not part of the Cabinet, but demanded that at least Vishwanath be made a minister. China is grappling with an outbreak of infections from a new coronavirus that began in December. Caixin Global will continue covering this story as it develops. Please check back regularly for updates. Saturday, Feb. 15, 9:00 p.m. Today, Europe recorded its first coronavirus-related death and Africa its first case. A Chinese tourist died in a Paris hospital, while a visitor in Egypt was diagnosed with the disease. The U.S. confirmed reports it would evacuate American citizens and their families by chartered aircraft from the Diamond Prince cruise ship, which has been quarantined off of Yokohama, Japan. The ship is the largest infection cluster outside China, with 67 additional cases reported there on Saturday, according to Bloomberg. There are thought to be around 380 Americans on board. Medical worker becomes Thailands 34th coronavirus case Thailand recorded a new case of coronavirus in a 35-year-old medical worker who caught it while treating a patient, the Bangkok Post reported. Authorities said the patient who passed the virus onto the medical worker was not known to have Covid-19 when the infection occurred. Twenty-four of the medical workers colleagues at the private hospital where she works reportedly tested negative for the virus and have no symptoms. The first case of a health worker being infected in Thailand brought the Southeast Asian countrys total to 34, the third-highest outside of China. The Thai economy relies heavily on Chinese holidaymakers. While the nation has stepped up checkpoint health screenings and is quarantining travelers with fever, it is one of the few in the region not to close its borders to visitors from the Chinese mainland. Read more Coronavirus Latest (Jan. 15 - Feb. 1): China Infections Reach 14,411, Apple Closes All Mainland Stores In other virus news China's central bank has been cleaning cash. People's Bank of China (PBOC) Deputy Governor Fan Yifei said Saturday (link in Chinese) that it was sanitizing bank notes as well as blocking their movement between cities in regions most affected by the outbreak in order to limit the transmission of the virus. New Zealand has extended its ban on visitors who have been in China over the past 14 days. New Zealand's immigration authorities said the ban had been extended for an additional eight days, but would be reviewed every 48 hours. The nation has temporarily shuttered its visa office in Beijing. Compiled by Flynn Murphy Saturday, Feb. 15, 7:20 p.m. France reports first coronavirus death A Hubei man has died of Covid-19 in France, in Europe's first death from the disease and the first outside Asia. French Health Minister Agnes Buzyn said the 80-year-old tourist had arrived in the country on Jan. 16, and had been hospitalized in Paris since Jan. 25, according to the New York Times. The man died on Friday. It is the third reported death from the disease outside of China. Saturday, Feb. 15, 11:00 a.m. Egypt has reported its first case of coronavirus, the first in Africa, as the disease once concentrated around a seafood market in Wuhan spread to a fifth continent. South America and Antarctica are now the only two continents with no confirmed cases. In China, 2644 cases were added overnight, according to the nations top health body. Most of the new cases were in Hubei, the epicenter of the outbreak, and 849 of the new cases were severe. They brought Chinas official diagnosis count to 66,576. The death toll climbed by 143 to 1,524. Elsewhere, researchers cautioned against vaccine hype, Vietnam became the latest country to turn away a cruise ship, and a struggling car plant in Serbia showed how the contagion was spreading to global supply chains. The U.S. State Department will evacuate Americans and their families from the Diamond Princess Cruise Ship, which has been quarantined in Yokohama, the Wall Street Journal reported citing an official at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A Fiat Chrysler assembly plant in Serbia was poised to become the first European carmaker to halt operations as a result of the coronavirus's impact on supply chains, Bloomberg reports. The factory has been unable to source the Chinese parts needed to make the Fiat 500L. Despite an abundance of capital and resources flowing into the research and production of a vaccine for the new coronavirus, researchers have told Caixin of the limitations surrounding the science and cautioned against hyperbolic claims. We should not bet on seeing a vaccine up and running anytime soon, they said. Read the story. Wuhan authorities have further tightened the quarantine restrictions confining all residents to their neighborhoods unless they are seeking medical care, directly fighting the outbreak or running essential services, according to a notice (link in Chinese) from the local government. Concerns are mounting about the true state of the situation in North Korea, which has not reported any coronavirus cases, after the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent National Societies issued an urgent call (link in Chinese) for personal protective gear and testing kits to prepare for a possible outbreak there this week. Hong Kong Disneyland has agreed to lend vacant land to the region's government to build coronavirus quarantine facilities, the South China Morning Post reports. An AIDA Cruises Ltd. ship with more than 1,100 passengers canceled plans to visit Vietnam after a provincial government enforced a directive barring those on cruise liners that were in China recently from disembarking there, according to Bloomberg. As people have begun to head back to Beijing after an extended Lunar New Year break, city authorities have ordered all returnees to remain at home in self-isolation for 14 days. Those who fail to do so could be punished, a notice from the municipalitys coronavirus crisis group said (link in Chinese). Compiled by Flynn Murphy * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Friday, Feb. 14, 9:00 p.m. Today there was some much-needed transparency as China released figures on the number of frontline health care workers who have been infected while fighting the new coronavirus Covid-19. The bad news is the numbers are bleak. The outbreak is continuing to wreak havoc on Chinas economy too, with small and midsized businesses, the backbone of the nations private sector, emerging as some of the hardest hit. In other virus related news From Jan. 24 to Jan. 30, the Chinese box office took in less than 20 million yuan ($2.9 million). It had expected to earn 6.9 billion. Chinas services sector has taken a battering from the coronavirus. Now its pulling out all stops to survive. Singapores total number of coronavirus cases grew to 67, after nine new cases were confirmed today. Six of those were linked to the Grace Assembly of God church, which has suspended services for two weeks after it emerged as a major cluster of coronavirus infections in the city state, according to The Straits Times. An intensive care doctor dispatched to Wuhan as part of a medical relief team has told Caixin of scenes of devastation at a hospital on the brink of collapse. Major cruise lines are dodging Asia entirely for the remainder of the season, putting the brakes on one of the regions fastest-growing tourism sectors, as more ports in the region shut their doors to cruise ships amid fears over the spread of the coronavirus. The Beijing-based American Chamber of Commerce in China said in a WeChat post that its member companies had donated at least 360 million yuan ($51.5 million) in cash and materials to the coronavirus relief effort in Wuhan. Compiled by Flynn Murphy Friday, Feb. 14, 4:30 p.m. 1,700 medical workers infected with Covid-19 More than 1,700 medical workers on the frontlines of Chinas battle against Covid-19 have fallen ill from the disease, with almost 90% of those in the epicenter of Hubei. Six have died. The figures were disclosed by Chinese National Health Commission deputy head Zeng Yixin at a press conference in Beijing on Friday. Its the first time China has released an official count of the number of infections among medical workers. Among the dead are Li Wenliang, the hero doctor who sounded an early alarm about the human spread of the new virus before the information was made public, and was punished by authorities for doing so. Aside from demonstrating the impact of the disease on frontline staff, such information is considered important by infectious disease researchers because it provides insights into a diseases transmissibility and spread. Compiled by Flynn Murphy Friday, Feb. 14, 11:00 am Chinas total recorded Covid-19 cases increased by 5,093 overnight, and an additional 121 deaths were recorded, according to the latest figures from Chinas top health body. That brought the total to 63,932 confirmed cases, 10,204 of which were severe. There had been 1,381 deaths overall in China, and a total of 6,728 cases were recorded as cured. In addition, 1,043 previously confirmed cases were removed from the count, with no reason given. 116 of the new deaths were in Hubei, the province at the center of the outbreak, where authorities said 108 double-counted deaths had also been removed from official statistics. Hubei health authorities added 4,823 new cases on Thursday, with 3,095 diagnosed by clinical methods, or chest X-rays, as opposed to standard lab tests. Caixin reported on Thursday that the inclusion of X-ray-diagnosed viral pneumonia cases in Hubeis count intended to catch more cases of the disease for early treatment caused a massive spike in Chinas figures yesterday and rattled markets. But experts generally see it as a positive move. In other virus related news A Feb. 10 report from the official Xinhua news agency shows Beijings Ditan Hospital was treating coronavirus patients as early as Jan. 12, more than a week before the city's first cases were publicly announced at another hospital in the Daxing district, and Chinese epidemiologist Zhong Nanshan confirmed the disease was being transmitted from person-to-person. This year's Chinese Grand Prix has been postponed due to coronavirus fears. The FIA and Formula One said in a joint statement they had decided to postpone the race, which was to take place on April 19 in Shanghai, after the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus outbreak a global health emergency. Research teams from Guangdong and Zhejiang have isolated the live virus in stool samples of patients diagnosed with the disease as part of ongoing work to explain how it is transmitted. The presence of live viruses in the stool raises prospects it may be spread via the oral-fecal route, such as in water contaminated by sewage. In a study by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the experimental Gilead Sciences drug remdesivir successfully prevented monkeys infected with Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) from falling ill, raising hopes it will benefit patients suffering from the related disease Covid-19. Early human trials of the drug in China are ongoing. More than a third of Australian companies in China are reviewing their strategies as a direct result of the coronavirus outbreak, according to a poll of 100 member companies of the Australian Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai released Friday. Almost all respondents said the coronavirus would negatively impact their business, with more than half predicting first quarter revenue would drop more than 20%. The Chambers CEO and Executive Director Jack Brady said, unfortunately the outbreak is not only having profound health impacts, but also impacts to local and foreign business in China. Australian organizations here are far from exempt from that. If your relationship is strong, every day is a good day. That's the Valentine's Day message coming from the Xuecheng District Civil Affairs Bureau in Zaozhuang, Shandong province, which has asked marriage-minded couples to postpone registering their unions in order to curb the virus spread. The virus is ruthless, but there is love in the world, the bureau said in a public notice. Compiled by Flynn Murphy Friday, Feb. 14, 4 a.m. U.S. health officials confirmed the countrys 15th case of coronavirus in a person who was evacuated from China on a government flight. The patient is among a group of people under quarantine at a military base in Texas, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday. It was the first time a person among the quarantined group developed symptoms and tested positive for the virus, the CDC said. Vietnam locked down a village with more than 10,000 residents for coronavirus control. The village, Son Loi in northern Vietnam, is about 40 kilometers northwest of Hanoi. Son Loi will be sealed off for 20 days after a recent confirmed infection case suggested that human-to-human transmission is taking place in the area, according to local officials. More than 90 other people at Son Loi were under close monitoring as of Wednesday. It was the first country outside China to lock down a village to contain the virus. Vietnam confirmed 16 cases as of Wednesday. In China, there is still no agreed estimate of how many people could have been infected by the virus in Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak. A preprint research paper posted at medical research archive medRxiv suggested that the number of infection as of Feb. 9 could have totaled 54,000 to 90,000 in the city of 11 million. Outside Wuhan, about 21,00 people have been infected by the virus in the rest of Hubei province, according to the paper. The paper was written by Zhou Yongdao, a statistics professor at Nankai University, and Jianghu Dong, an assistant professor at the Department of Biostatistics & Division of Nephrology of the University of Nebraska. The papers estimate of the number of infected patients in Wuhan was based on the overall infection rate calculated with a sampling survey of infections in Wenzhou city, which has a better data collection system, and different samples of Wuhan tourists to Singapore. Based on the estimates, the paper said additional medical capacity is still needed to care for the rising number of patients. In other coronavirus-related news Oil demand this year will record the slowest rate of growth since 2011, reflecting the impact of the coronavirus epidemic, the International Energy Agency said. The organization cut its 2020 growth forecast to 825,000 barrels a day from the previous forecast of 1.2 million as the outbreak weighs on Chinese consumption and the global economy. There havent been dramatic increases in coronavirus cases outside China, the World Health Organization said Thursday. The comment came as global markets were shaken after China reported a surge of confirmed cases. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO health emergencies program, said the increase reported Thursday reflected older cases and doesnt represent a sudden surge in new infections. Airbnb Inc. has extended a suspension on all Beijing business by two months. The U.S. home-sharing giant is now suspending check-ins at all of its listings in the Chinese capital until April 30, instead of the end of February. Customers who had reservations in Beijing during the period will be refunded, said Airbnb. Compiled by Han Wei * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Thursday, Feb.13, 8 p.m. Japan reports first death Japans top health authority reported the countrys first death from the coronavirus on Thursday, according to (link in Japanese) Japanese broadcaster NHK. The authority confirmed an additional 44 infections aboard the quarantined Diamond Princess cruise ship. The myth of data Hubei province, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, reported nearly 15,000 new confirmed cases within a single day, bringing its total to more than 48,000 as of Wednesday. The surge comes about one week after the National Health Commission required (link in Chinese) Hubei to put suspected cases whose CT scans show symptoms in a new category clinically diagnosed cases and then confirm whether they test positive for the virus as soon as possible and treat them in a timely manner. This category applies only to the central province. Caixin has previously reported that some nucleic acid tests have yielded false negatives, potentially resulting in data underrepresenting the real number of infections. Hubeis provincial health body said (link in Chinese) that it has included all clinically diagnosed cases which totaled over 13,000 as of Wednesday in the confirmed case category of its data releases, putting its classification categories in line with other regions in China. It is widely believed that many, if not most, of the clinically diagnosed cases are coronavirus infections. Among the 1,310 total deaths from the virus in Hubei as of Wednesday, over 10% had been classified as clinically diagnosed cases, according to official data (link in Chinese). A commentary (link in Chinese) by a Caixin editor calls official death toll counts to include those who should have been counted as infections but were put into other categories. Provincial and city heads removed China has removed Hubeis and Wuhans Communist Party chiefs from office, and dispatched two senior officials from Shanghai and the eastern province of Shandong to take over their positions. The moves come days after two senior Hubei health officials were discharged from their posts. When they have no idea what consequences they will face for flawed epidemic control, local officials may struggle to come up with the best solutions, the Caixin editor said (link in Chinese), suggesting that the replacement officials may bring more transparency and efficiency to efforts to contain the virus. The day in numbers Total confirmed cases globally exceeded 60,000 as of Thursday afternoon. Confirmed cases in China, including clinically diagnosed cases in Hubei, climbed to 59,901. The official death toll remained unchanged at 1,368. Confirmed cases in 24 other countries rose to 501, including two deaths. In other coronavirus-related news Singapore confirmed eight new cases, bringing its total to 58. Vietnam reported (link in Vietnamese) one additional infection, bringing its total to 16. The U.K. confirmed its ninth case of infection on Wednesday. Australia has extended its travel ban due to expire on Saturday for people who have traveled through China by another week, the Guardian reported, citing Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Compiled by Lin Jinbing Thursday, Feb. 13, 11:20 a.m. Jiang Chaoliang, party chief of Hubei province at the outbreak's epicenter, has been removed and replaced by Ying Yong, mayor and deputy party chief of Shanghai, state media said. The move followed a huge surge of total confirmed infections in China on Wednesday, most of those in Hubei. Thursday, Feb. 13, 9 a.m. The number of confirmed Covid-19 coronavirus cases in Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, jumped by 13,436 on Wednesday as the nations health authority has implemented a new way to diagnose and confirm the virus, according to official data (link in Chinese). The rise is well above the citys daily increases of infections between 1,000 and 2,000 during the past week. On Wednesday, the local death toll from the virus surged 216 to 1,036. The new diagnosis criteria, released on Feb. 5, allows for the use of CT scans, in addition to nucleic acid tests, in the confirmation process in Hubei province. There had been criticism that earlier diagnostic criteria for the coronavirus were too stringent, and experts had called for the inclusion of CT scanning as a key basis for diagnosis. An additional 14,840 cases of infection were confirmed in Hubei, the province around Wuhan, on Wednesday, bringing the provincial total to 48,206, which is higher than the entire national figure for the previous day. The death toll in Hubei rose by 242 to 1,310. Compiled by Guo Yingzhe Thursday, Feb.13, 5 a.m. A bullet train cleaning staff member tested positive for the new coronavirus, now known as Covid-19, fueling fears that the virus might have been spread to passengers on more than a dozen trains. The worker, surnamed Tao, had a fever Feb. 8 while at work and was sent to a hospital. Tao later tested positive for the virus, the Xuzhou city health authority in Jiangsu province said Thursday at a briefing. Tao worked aboard 15 high-speed trains between Jan. 20 and Feb. 8 that traveled through cities including Beijing, Nanjing, Ningbo, Hangzhou and Yancheng, according to the Xuzhou health commission. The commission has started tracing people who potentially had contact with Tao. Train crews have been among the riskier groups exposed to the virus. Since the outbreak, several infection cases have been reported involving railway staff, including a cluster infection case in Tianjin in which 15 people were infected and more than 400 were quarantined. Amid fears of the spreading disease, a cruise ship that was turned away by several countries and regions finally found a port to land. The Westerdam luxury cruise liner is sailing to Sihanoukville, Cambodia, to disembark more than 2,200 passengers and crew. The Westerdam, operated by Holland America Line, began its cruise in Singapore last month. Its last stop was in Hong Kong Feb. 1. Since then, the ship was refused entry by Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, Guam and Thailand and faced risks of low food supply. The operator of the ship said theres no reason to believe there are any coronavirus cases aboard. However, fears on the disease have heightened since Japan's health ministry confirmed at least 174 cases aboard another cruise ship that is quarantined in Yokohama, Japan. In other coronavirus-related news: Warm weather may not slow the outbreak of the new coronavirus as many expected, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Although it is expected that the epidemic will ease as the weather warms up, its premature to assume that, said Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDCs National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. The 2020 Chinese Grand Prix motor racing event, scheduled for April 17-19, joined a list of global events being canceled or postponed because of the epidemic. The organizer, Formula One, said it is considering potential alternative dates if the situation improves. MWC Barcelona, the wireless industrys top annual event, is facing great uncertainties after some of the biggest telecom companies withdrew amid concerns about the outbreak. The event is scheduled to run Feb. 24-27, drawing around 100,000 people. However, several major exhibitors including Deutsche Telekom AG, Vodafone Group Plc, Nokia Oyj, Ericsson AB and Sony Corp. pulled out. The organizer is deliberating on whether to cancel the event, Bloomberg reported. Compiled by Han Wei * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Wednesday, Feb. 12, 7 p.m. Singapores Ministry of Health said Wednesday it had confirmed three more cases of the new coronavirus, bringing the total number there up to 50. None of the three cases, all of whom are men aged between 34 and 62, have a recent history of travel to China, the ministry said. The news came as a major Singaporean bank, DBS, evacuated around 300 employees from its office at the citys Marina Bay Financial Center after a member of staff was confirmed to have contracted the coronavirus. Japan, the country outside China hit hardest by the coronavirus outbreak, will bar entry to travelers from East Chinas Zhejiang province from Thursday, according to the Kyodo news agency. The move extends an initial prohibition on travelers from Central Chinas Hubei province, whose capital Wuhan is the epicenter of the epidemic. As of Wednesday morning, Japan had reported 203 coronavirus cases, including 174 aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship currently moored at the port of Yokohama. Zhejiang, meanwhile, had confirmed 1,131 cases of the virus, also known as Covid-19, the fourth most of any Chinese province after Hubei, Guangdong and Henan. On Tuesday night, authorities in the southern city of Guangzhou evacuated a residential housing block and put its residents under medical observation after three households in the building were confirmed to have the coronavirus. The successive infections recalled the Amoy Gardens apartment complex in Hong Kong, where 321 people fell sick during the 2002-2003 SARS epidemic after that virus spread through the plumbing system. Meanwhile, reports from the stricken city of Wuhan continue to raise questions about the work and living conditions of medical workers. Two migrant hospital workers said they spent two nights on the streets earlier this week after showing signs of illness. Chen Cuilan, 48, was confirmed Sunday to have contracted the coronavirus. Her colleague, 52-year-old Zhang Lan, is suspected to have the disease but is awaiting confirmation. Both Chen and Zhang live and work on the campus of the Central Hospital of Wuhan. However, hospital bosses ordered them to leave the premises for public health reasons after they reported coronavirus-like symptoms, they told Caixin (link in Chinese). With nowhere else to go, they slept in the communal area of a nearby apartment block. Below is our roundup of some of todays other coronavirus-related developments. Finally, if you want to check whether a major international event is affected by the epidemic, theres a good chance itll be listed here. 1. Standard Chartered revised down (link in Chinese) its 2020 economic growth forecast for China to 5.8% from 6.1%, citing the black swan event of the epidemic. The British bank also tweaked its global growth prediction fractionally downward to 3.2% from 3.3%. 2. A number of home renters in the eastern city of Hangzhou told Caixin they have been prevented from living in their apartments after some residential compounds barred entry to residents who didnt own their homes. 3. An article published Monday in the government-backed China Society News triggered widespread concern that charitable donations aimed at supporting epidemic relief efforts in Wuhan ended up flowing into state coffers. The article claimed that the Wuhan Charity Federation had received more than 3 billion yuan ($430.5 million) in public donations toward epidemic control efforts, of which 2.7 billion yuan had already been transferred to the city finance bureau. On Tuesday, the Wuhan Charity Federation sought to clarify the situation. In a post on its WeChat account, the federation said that under local authorities guidance, all the unrestricted funds it receives needs to be transferred to a designated bank account overseen by the finance bureau. Some of the 2.7 billion yuan has been spent on creating isolation wards and supplying treatment facilities and medicines to hospitals, it added. Compiled by Matthew Walsh Wednesday, Feb. 12, 11:00 a.m. The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in China had risen to 44,742 as of 10 a.m. Wednesday, while 24 other countries had reported a combined 441 infections. Another 97 people died (link in Chinese) from coronavirus infections in China on Tuesday, according to the National Health Commission (NHC), bringing the countrys death toll to 1,114. A total of 2,015 more cases were confirmed on the Chinese mainland yesterday, the NHC said. Authorities also noted a further 3,342 suspected cases, bringing that figure to 16,067. Some 746 people in China left hospital yesterday after recovering sufficiently from the illness, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,742. Hubei, the province at the center of the epidemic, said (link in Chinese) it added 1,638 new cases on Tuesday, 1,104 of which were in the provincial capital of Wuhan where the virus is thought to have originated. The province also reported 94 new deaths, 72 of those in Wuhan. Hubei is by far the Chinese province hit hardest by the outbreak. Of the more than 44,000 cases confirmed so far in China, around 33,000 are in Hubei. The province has also witnessed 1,068 deaths from the virus, or 96% of the nations total. In other coronavirus-related news: Japans health ministry said (link in Japanese) that 39 more people on board the Diamond Princess cruise liner have tested positive for the coronavirus, bringing the total number of infected people aboard the ship to 174. The United States on Tuesday permitted nonessential staff at its consulate in Hong Kong to leave the city if they wished to do so, according to the South China Morning Post. Hong Kong confirmed seven new coronavirus cases Tuesday, bringing its total to 49. Nearly 200 Americans who had been evacuated from Wuhan on a government-chartered flight were released from a two-week federal quarantine in California, CBS News reported. Compiled by Matthew Walsh Wednesday, Feb. 12 4:00 a.m. Shortages of oxygen (link in Chinese) and other medical gear are still major constraints at the epicenter of the coronavirus epidemic, medical workers said. China has dispatched 12,000 medical workers from across the country to support Hubei. Hospitals in Wuhan, the provincial capital of Hubei where the disease first broke out, are in desperate need of oxygen cylinders for severe patients, according to doctors in the city. Patients with lung infections caused by the coronavirus often require additional oxygen. In large hospitals such as Wuhan Tongji Hospital, where a large number of severe patients are hospitalized, the daily shortage could amount 100 oxygen cylinders. In addition, many Wuhan hospitals also face a shortage of ventilators. The situation remains severe in Huanggang, one of Hubeis hardest-hit cities in the epidemic, its party boss said (link in Chinese) Tuesday. Huanggang, a city of 7.5 million, reported 2,332 confirmed infections, including 204 severe cases, as of late Monday. The death toll reached 52, the second-highest total after Wuhan. An additional 8,437 people are under observation. The city faces shortages of medical supplies including masks, goggles and protective suits. As of Sunday, Huanggang completed virus tests for cases previously recorded as suspicious and screened 13,000 people with fevers. Ten institutions in the city now have the capacity to test 900 samples a day. In other coronavirus-related news The World Health Organization Tuesday officially gave the new disease the name COVID-19. The name consists of CO for coronavirus, VI for virus and D for disease; 19 stands for the year 2019, the United Nations health organization said. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the name was carefully chosen to avoid stigma and inaccuracy. We had to find a name that did not refer to a geographical location, an animal or an individual or group of people, he said. Several institutions in China started animal tests (link in Chinese) of vaccines for the novel coronavirus. Caixin learned that the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Shanghai Tongji University and Siwei (Shanghai) Biotechnology Co. initiated animal tests Sunday of a jointly development vaccine. But animal testing is only an early step in the long journey of vaccine development, experts said. More than a dozen research institutions and biotech companies in China have also reportedly launched vaccine development. Blood transmission of the new coronavirus is possible, an expert said (link in Chinese). Although there is yet to be clear evidence that the virus can be passed through blood, people with potential contact with the virus should stop making blood donations for four weeks, according to a circular issued by the National Health Commission (NHC). The NHC confirmed that the virus can be transmitted by respiratory droplets and direct contact. A virus expert said that theoretically any virus that infects the bloodstream can be transmitted through blood. Compiled by Han Wei * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Tuesday, Feb. 11, 6 p.m. Two senior Hubei health officials have been discharged from their posts (link in Chinese) the Health Commission of Hubei Provinces Communist Party chief Zhang Jin, and its Director Liu Yingzi. Their positions have been filled by Wang Hesheng, a vice minister of the National Health Commission. Chinas coronavirus epidemic may peak in mid-to-late February, Zhong Nanshan, a leading respiratory expert noted for his role in the fight against SARS, said in Guangzhou on Tuesday. However, it is still hard to forecast a turning point, he said. As the economic and social shockwaves from the coronavirus outbreak continue to spread across China, the countrys small and midsize enterprises are particularly vulnerable. Several local branches of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission have instructed banks to loosen up standards (link in Chinese) for recognizing companies nonperforming loans. Additionally, some factories and offices resumed work Monday. The National Development and Reform Commission, the top economic planner, said (link in Chinese) Tuesday in a briefing that in regions where the epidemic is relatively mild, full resumption of work should be carried out as soon as possible with reasonable protections in place. Otherwise, the supply of medical supplies would be affected in the short term, and in the long run, all kinds of daily necessities might also face the risk of shortage, the agency said. In other coronavirus-related news Total confirmed cases around the world rose to 43,142 as of Tuesday afternoon, as those in China climbed to 42,744. The official death toll in the country remained unchanged at 1,017. A total of 24 other countries have confirmed a combined 398 infections. Hong Kongs government urgently evacuated people in a residential building unit after two infected patients were found to live in the same building but 10 floors apart. Thailand will not allow the Westerdam cruise ship to let passengers disembark at the Laem Chabang port, the Bangkok Post reported. The ship has been turned away from Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines and the U.S. territory of Guam due to a suspected coronavirus infection onboard. British Airways has canceled all its flights to the Chinese mainland until the end of March, Reuters reported. Some of Chinas major internet companies, including Tencent, ByteDance, Baidu and Didi, have further pushed back the date for their employees to return to their offices to Feb. 17 or Feb. 24, though work has resumed remotely. The Baibuting neighborhood in Wuhan has again made headlines for its lack of information transparency. The neighborhood has not yet disclosed information of confirmed and suspected cases, leaving residents anxious, several told Caixin. Despite signs that the virus was already spreading in the broader Wuhan area, the local government lent its support to a massive Lunar New Year event in the neighborhood on Jan. 18 similar to a Western potluck, where about 40,000 families brought meals to share with one another. Compiled by Timmy Shen Tuesday, Feb. 11, 9:30 a.m. As of the end of Monday, China had reported 42,708 infections, this number includes 1,017 deaths and around 4,000 recoveries, official data show (link in Chinese). An additional 108 new deaths were confirmed on Monday, the largest daily death increase so far, continuing a general upward trend in daily fatalities that began since the first death (link in Chinese) from the coronavirus was reported in January. On Monday, a total of 2,484 new cases of infection were reported in China with 2,097 of them being reported in Hubei, the province at the center of the epidemic down from 3,073 new cases the day earlier. As of the end of Monday, the number of suspected cases on the Chinese mainland stood at 21,675, marking the second straight day of falling figures. Hong Kong had reported 42 cases, with one death, as of the end of Monday. Macao had reported 10 infections with one recovery. Taiwan had reported 18 cases and one recovery. Compiled by Timmy Shen Tuesday, Feb. 11, 3:30 a.m. Chinese President Xi Jinping (link in Chinese) made a public appearance Monday on the front lines of the coronavirus outbreak, visiting a Beijing hospital treating infected patients and a local disease-control office, according to state-run media Xinhua. Beijing so far has 337 confirmed cases and two deaths. As some factories and offices across China resumed work Monday following an extended Lunar New Year holiday, Apple iPhone maker Foxconn (link in Chinese) is planning to keep its mainland factories stay shut for another week and to delay a complete reopening until the beginning of March, according to employees. Workers at a Foxconns Shenzhen factory, which makes tablets and cell phones, were originally scheduled to resume work Monday, but they received notice Sunday night that production would remain suspended, the employees told Caixin. Medical updates Amid growing fears that nucleic acid tests (NATs) used to identify the coronavirus are failing to catch large numbers of people with the disease, California-based diagnostics company Cepheid said Monday it is developing an automated molecular test, which is expected to deliver results in about 30 minutes. Once the product is finalized, Cepheid intends to use the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Emergency Use Authorization pathway for regulatory approval and make the test available globally. But the company didnt say when the new test would be available. International measures Kazakhstan is sending two more planes to evacuate citizens from China, CNN reported Monday, citing an official in the Embassy of Kazakhstan in London. The planes, operated by Air Astana, will depart from Kazakhstan for Beijing Monday and Wednesday. This is the second evacuation effort carried out by Kazakhstan, with the first taking place last Monday. Mongolia will suspend deliveries of coal across its southern border into China until March 2, Reuters reported Monday, citing the countrys National Emergency Commission. The commission also recommending that the country suspend its Lunar New Year celebrations later this month. Mongolia has not yet reported any cases of the coronavirus. Taiwan will ban most people traveling from Hong Kong and Macao starting Tuesday, Taiwans Mainland Affairs Council said Monday. Meanwhile, South Korea said Monday that it will temporarily suspend entry to any cruise ships after more than 130 people on a cruise ship stuck in Japan were confirmed with coronavirus. Business impact More than 300 Chinese companies including smartphone-maker Xiaomi and Chinas ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing are seeking bank loans totaling at least $8.2 billion to ease the impact of the coronavirus epidemic, Reuters reported, citing two banking sources. Xiaomi, the worlds fourth-biggest smartphone maker, is requesting $716.24 million in loans to produce and sell medical equipment including masks and thermometers, according to documents sent to banks, according to the report. Office-sharing startup WeWork temporarily closed 100 buildings in China because of the outbreak, WeWork Executive Chairman Marcelo Claure told CNBC Monday. Tech giants Amazon and Sony are the latest to pull out of the Mobile World Congress, one of the worlds biggest annual business meetings, citing the coronavirus outbreak. The withdrawals follow the exit of Ericsson and LG electronics, which said last week they also wouldnt attend the event. The organizers of the conference, scheduled for Feb. 24-27 in Barcelona, Spain, said Monday that the event will go ahead as planned and that they would ban access to all travelers from Hubei province. Compiled by Denise Jia * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Monday, Feb. 10, 6 p.m. Worldwide infections Confirmed cases in China rose to 40,261 on Monday afternoon. The official death toll remained unchanged at 909. Infections in 24 other countries climbed to 389, as Japan and the U.K. confirmed more cases. Cruise ships Diamond Princess: A total of 136 people on board the cruise ship have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, U.S.-based operator Princess Cruises Inc. told Caixin. Japans health ministry confirmed six additional cases Sunday, bringing the total confirmed cases onboard the Diamond Princess to 70. By Monday afternoon, this tally had jumped again by another 66. This brings Japans total number of cases to 162 individuals. According to the ministry, those with confirmed infections have been transported to medical facilities onshore, and screening for infections will continue. This contradicts previous remarks made by Princess Cruises that Japanese health officials were concluding their tests. Princess Cruises said in a statement that despite the new cases, the ships quarantine is still slated to end on Feb. 19. World Dream: The Hong Kong government announced Sunday that its health department had finished screening the crew of the World Dream cruise. All samples tested negative for 2019-nCoV, and all individuals onboard were permitted to disembark and passengers could proceed to immigration. Westerdam: Holland America Line, the U.S.-based operator of the Westerdam, said Monday that the ship, which has been turned away from Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines and the U.S. territory of Guam due to a suspected coronavirus infection onboard, was granted permission to dock in Bangkok, Thailand. The company said that it had no reason to believe there were any cases of the new coronavirus onboard. For an explainer of all ships affected by 2019-nCoV, click here. Medical updates Despite the fanfare and record speed at which Wuhans two new makeshift hospitals were built, they appear to be operating far below capacity. Huoshenshan Hospital, which began admitting patients on Feb. 3 and touts accommodation for more than 1,000 patients, had only 286 beds in use and zero vacancies as of Saturday, according to data released Sunday by the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission. Leishenshan Hospital, which touted at least 1,500 beds, opened Saturday with just 30, according to the data. New research based on data gathered from 1,099 2019-nCoV patients from 552 hospitals in 31 provincial-level regions in China found that the incubation period of the new coronavirus was as long as 24 days, though the median was three days. The median age of patients was 47 years and 58.1% were men, according the findings, which have not yet been peer-reviewed, posted Sunday on medical research archive medRxiv. Only 1.18% of patients had been in direct contact with wildlife, whereas 31.3% had been to Wuhan and 71.8% had been in contact with someone from Wuhan. The study was co-authored by at least three dozen researchers from Chinese hospitals and medical universities. The outbreak in Wuhan will peak in mid-to-late-February, according to another study by scientists affiliated with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The non-peer-reviewed findings were posted Friday on repository hosting service Github. The disinfection of the seafood market believed to be the origin of the deadly coronavirus outbreak means it will be virtually impossible to trace the source of the pathogen, a renowned epidemiologist has said. In an interview with Caixin, American epidemiologist and virus hunter Walter Ian Lipkin said that based on conversations he had with experts who visited the South China Seafood Market in Wuhan, ground zero of the outbreak, he believes that the areas subsequent decontamination had destroyed any remaining potential samples. International measures North Korea, which has yet to report a single case of the novel coronavirus, has expanded epidemic prevention measures (link in Chinese), according to the countrys state media. Instead of focusing on its borders and individuals with an overseas travel history, it is now screening individuals across the country. The country has set up disease prevention stations in cities, on roads, railways and other major transport routes. China may not be the only country delaying classes. Australian universities are offering deferred starts or refunds to students affected by the epidemic and are trying to keep accommodation available for students that may be able to travel later on. About 106,600 Chinese students set to attend higher education in Australia have had plans derailed due to travel restrictions placed by both Chinese and Australian governments, The Straits Times reported. Economic impact Rising food prices helped to fuel a 5.4% year-on-year jump in consumer prices in January, 0.9 percentage points higher than the previous month and the highest since October 2011, as Chinas economy began to feel the pain of the novel coronavirus outbreak, official data showed. BHP Group Ltd., the worlds top miner, is in talks with Chinese customers to delay shipments of copper concentrates as the nation extended factory shutdowns to combat the spread of the coronavirus, according to people familiar with the matter. ByteDance appears to be a beneficiary of the coronavirus outbreak, with three of its apps making it onto App Annies top 5 list of non-game apps by downloads on Apples App Store in China in January. Hon Hai Precision Industry, better known as Foxconn, Apples main iPhone production partner, said its factories worldwide are coordinating with authorities in carrying out virus protection and are preparing safety measures with the approval of local governments. Compiled by Dave Yin Monday, Feb. 10, 10:00 a.m. As of late Sunday, China had reported 40,235 infections, 909 deaths, almost 24,000 suspected cases, and 3,283 recoveries, the latest data (link in Chinese) from the countrys top health commission show. That represents an increase of 97 deaths from the day before, the highest daily increase so far, continuing a general upward trend that began since deaths were first reported. With the exception of six deaths spread across Anhui, Heilongjiang, Jiangxi, Hainan and Gansu provinces, all other new fatalities took place in Hubei province, the epicenter of the 2019-nCoV epidemic. Regions outside of Hubei reported 455 new cases as of late Sunday, marking the sixth consecutive day of declines in new confirmed cases. As of late Sunday, Hong Kong had reported 36 infections including one death, Macao had reported 10 cases and one recovery, while Taiwan had reported 18 cases and one recovery. By Saturday night, the death toll from the new strain of coronavirus in China alone exceeded that of the SARS epidemic globally in 2003, which resulted in 774 deaths worldwide. Compiled by Dave Yin * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Sunday, Feb. 9, 6:00 p.m. Since the coronavirus epidemic began in December, it has disrupted Chinas entire economy, suspending business across sectors, rattling financial markets and turning bustling megacities into virtual ghost towns. But now, after an over a week of extra holiday for the Lunar New Year, most of the country is finally set to go back to work (link in Chinese). However its unlikely to be business as usual as the fragile economy gets moving again. A special group formed by the central government to tackle the crisis said in a Thursday meeting that businesses outside the worst-province of Hubei should resume work in an orderly fashion. While emphasizing the need for scientific control of the disease, this is the first time the group has called for the country to return to work since its formation on Jan. 25. To prevent the disease from spreading further as millions return to their workplaces, local governments have been put on high alert. For example, Beijings residential communities were told to ramp up their examination of people returning to the capital. A race against time With the total death toll from the coronavirus now exceeding that of the SARS epidemic in 2003, doctors in China are racing to prevent further fatalities. By the end of Saturday, among the 37,198 confirmed cases on the Chinese mainland, 6,188 remained in a critical condition mostly in Hubei. Although the coronavirus fatality rate is generally thought to be low, the chance of a patient deteriorating into a critical condition may be as high as 20%, even with medical intervention, according to Caixins latest cover story (link in Chinese), which cites numerous doctors on the front line of the fight against the coronavirus. In Wuhan, critical patients are being treated in designated hospitals, which have been under huge strain due to a lack of available beds. On Saturday, a rare bit of good news came when a second new quarantine center, called Thunder God Hospital, opened (link in Chinese), providing an additional 1,500 beds for critical patients. More news from Hubei Jiang Chaoliang, Hubei Communist party secretary, said on Saturday that the government would aim to have every person suspected of having the virus tested by Monday (link in Chinese). About 4,000 more suspected cases were reported on Saturday, more than half in Hubei. On Sunday, the Hubei government gave official coronavirus fatality rates for the first time. Unexpectedly, Wuhan, with a rate of 4.06%, came in second (link in Chinese) and was topped by Tianmen, a nearby city, with a death rate of 5.08%. Since Feb. 5, Huanggang has been overtaken (link in Chinese) as the second most hard-hit city after Wuhan. As of end of Saturday, Xiaogan, a city with a population of 4.92 million to the west of Wuhan, reported 2,436 confirmed cases. That compares to the 2,141 cases found among the 7.5 million-strong population of Huanggang, a city to Wuhans east. Other coronavirus-related news Aerosol transmission of the coronavirus can only happen under certain special situations, (link in Chinese) a health expert said in National Health Commission media briefing Sunday. This is an apparent attempt to calm the public after warnings from Shanghais health experts on Saturday that aerosol transmission of the novel coronavirus could be a risk, fueling public fears of infection. Aerosol transmission happens when people inhale small particles of a virus which are suspended in the air. The researcher, Feng Luzhao, from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said that aerosol transmission was more likely in a clinical context, for example when a doctor applies a breathing tube to a patients trachea. Feng said the most common transition channel is through droplets on a surface. This can be combated through good hand hygiene and wearing face masks. The U.S.-based Royal Caribbean Cruises, the worlds second largest cruise operator, said on Friday that it has banned Chinese citizens from its cruises (link in Chinese) regardless of when they were last in the country. On the same day, Norwegian Cruise Lines, the worlds third-largest cruise line, announced a similar move. Another six passengers on a Princess Cruises ship quarantined in Japan have been diagnosed with the disease, bringing the total number of infections on the Diamond Princess to 70, Bloomberg reported, citing a statement by the cruise operator. As of Sunday, at least 307 infections, with at least one death, have been reported outside China, from a total of 24 countries. Compiled by Mo Yelin Sunday, Feb. 9, 10:00 a.m. As of the end of Saturday, the total death toll in China reached, according to the latest data (link in Chinese) from the countrys top health ministry. That means the death toll from the coronavirus in China alone now exceeds that of the SARS epidemic globally in 2003, which resulted in 774 deaths worldwide. An additional 89 new deaths were confirmed on Saturday, the largest daily increase so far. The official number of people dying each day from the coronavirus has risen this week, climbing past 60 for the first time on Monday, past 70 on Wednesday and past 80 on Friday. By the end of Saturday, total infections in China rose to 37,251, including 2,657 new cases reported on Saturday. On the Chinese mainland, regions outside Hubei the stricken province of which Wuhan is capital recorded 509 new cases on Saturday, marking the fifth consecutive day that figure has declined. The number of suspected cases on the Chinese mainland rose to 28,942 after 3,916 new suspected cases were reported on Saturday; A total of 2,649 people have officially recovered. Hong Kong has reported 26 cases, with one death. Macao has reported 10 infections, and Taiwan 17. As of 10 a.m. Sunday, 301 confirmed cases, with one death, were reported outside China in a total of 24 countries. Compiled by Mo Yelin * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Saturday, Feb. 8, 7:00 p.m. A tough fight Its now more than two weeks since the government locked down the 11 million-strong city of Wuhan in a bid to halt the spread of the deadly new coronavirus. Across the country, the situation on the frontline of the epidemic remains serious. An emerging need is to improve diagnostic accuracy after public health experts said commonly used coronavirus tests were returning worrying numbers of false negatives, fueling concerns that the virus may have spread far further than reported. Some people with symptoms have undergone CT scans showing viral infection in the lungs, but not been diagnosed with the coronavirus as so-called nucleic acid tests perhaps inaccurately returned negative results. Shortages of medical staff and supplies persist, especially in lower-profile cities in Hubei, the stricken province where Wuhan is located. The mayor of Suizhou, Ke Ke, said (link in Chinese) Thursday that the city only has three days worth of medical supplies, and the government of a region it administers published a letter (link in Chinese) online pleading for emergency support. As of Friday, Suizhou had confirmed 953 (link in Chinese) cases of infection, the fourth-highest out of all cities in Hubei. Across the province, cities outside Wuhan now account for over 50% of total cases. Xiaogan and Huanggang are the worst hit cities, with both reporting more than 2,000 infections. Aerosol transmission has again fueled public fears of infection. The novel coronavirus can be transmitted through aerosols, a Shanghai official cited health experts (link in Chinese) as saying at a press briefing on Saturday. That means a person can get infected by viruses through inhalation of the mix of the air and infected patients droplets. Multiple studies have found that viruses such as the SARS and H5N1 bird flu viruses can be transmitted through aerosols, which can remain suspended in the air. Read more In Depth: How Wuhan Lost the Fight to Contain the Coronavirus The day in numbers Total confirmed cases around the world rose to 34,915 as of Saturday afternoon, as those in China climbed to 34,664. The official death toll in the country edged up to 724. Experts say it remains unclear when the epidemic will see a turning point, which some interpret as continuous declines in daily new infections or deaths. A total of 24 other countries have confirmed a combined 291 infections. Other coronavirus-related news A U.S. citizen aged around 60 died from the coronavirus in Wuhan on Thursday, the New York Times reported, citing the U.S. embassy in Beijing. The U.S. government is prepared to spend up to $100 million to assist China and other impacted countries in an effort to combat the coronavirus, the U.S. State Department said Friday, adding that it had this week facilitated the transportation of nearly 18 tons of donated medical supplies to China, including masks and gowns. Its too early to get excited about American biotech company Gilead Sciences Inc.s coronavirus drug, experts say. Following the death of whistleblower doctor Li Wenliang on Friday, a Caixin editorial has urged Chinas government not to repeat the same mistakes it made during the SARS epidemic 17 years ago, which infected thousands across the country and resulted in 774 deaths worldwide. At the time, large numbers of medical staff were among the thousands infected in China, the piece said. It was one of the most tragic chapters in Chinas medical history. Compiled by Lin Jinbing Saturday, Feb. 8, 11:30 a.m. New appointment A senior Chinese health official has assumed a key position at the top policymaking organ in the central province of Hubei, the region worst affected by the epidemic. Wang Hesheng, a vice minister of the National Health Commission (NHC), has been appointed as a senior member of the Communist Partys Hubei provincial committee, according to a local party-backed media outlet (link in Chinese). The move was rubberstamped by the partys central committee, which is led by President Xi Jinping. Wang, 58, is a member of the task force dispatched to Hubei by the central committee to supervise and guide epidemic control. In 2016, he became a vice minister of the NHCs predecessor organization following more than a decade working in Tianjin, a port city bordering Beijing. While there, he served in multiple party and government positions, including a more than six-year stint as chief of the municipal health bureau. Wang has a robust health background, having graduated from a medical college in Tianjin in the 1980s. As of Friday, Hubei had reported nearly 25,000 confirmed cases of infection by the new coronavirus, over 70% of the national total, according to government data (link in Chinese). The death toll in the province rose to 699 on Friday, accounting for nearly 97% of the countrys total deaths. Numbers on the rise Confirmed cases in China rose to 34,621 on Saturday morning, including 723 deaths. A total of 24 other countries have confirmed a combined 278 infections, as Japan (link in Japanese) and the United Arab Emirates respectively reported three and two additional cases. Compiled by Lin Jinbing Saturday, Feb. 8, 10:00 a.m. China recorded 86 more deaths from the new coronavirus on Friday, the largest daily increase so far, according to the latest data (link in Chinese) from the countrys top health body. That brings the total death toll to 723. Numbers of daily deaths have risen this week, climbing past 60 for the first time on Monday and past 70 on Wednesday. By the end of Friday, Chinese authorities had confirmed 34,598 infections, including around 3,400 new cases reported on the day. From Monday through Friday, more than 3,000 new cases were confirmed each day. On the Chinese mainland, 2,050 patients had been recorded as having recovered and been discharged from hospital as of Friday. Suspected cases climbed further to more than 27,600 on the mainland at the end of Friday. Mainland authorities said that they had tracked over 345,000 close contacts of infected people, nearly 55% of whom were under medical observation. Compiled by Lin Jinbing Saturday, Feb. 8, 3:30 a.m. As Hubei faces a severe shortage of medical workers and supplies, the National Health Commission established a nationwide support system Friday. Under the plan, 16 provinces will commit to providing targeted medical support to 16 Hubei cities that have been hit the hardest by the epidemic. It isnt clear whether this means some of the patients in Hubei will be transferred to the designated provinces. Wuhan is converting four universities and a Communist Party training school into hospitals to accept patients confirmed with coronavirus infection but with minor symptoms. The schools will provide 5,400 beds, Wuhan Vice Mayor Hu Yabo said Friday at a daily press briefing. In addition, the 1,600-bed Leishenshan makeshift hospital will be ready Saturday to accept patients with severe conditions. The Wuhan government found that the death of Li Wenliang, a doctor and one of the whistleblowers punished by police for trying to warn others of the new coronavirus, was work-related injury, making his family eligible for 820,000 yuan ($117,000) of benefits. Li died Friday after being infected with the virus earlier this month. A doctor in Maanshan, central Chinas Anhui province, faces a criminal charge of endangering public safety for concealing symptoms of the deadly coronavirus while working. The doctor surnamed Jiang, a thoracic surgeon at a large public hospital in Maanshan, continued receiving patients for days while experiencing fever and flu-like symptoms, until some of his family members were confirmed with coronavirus infection, local police said Friday in a statement (link in Chinese). The doctor tested positive for the infection in a primary test, the police said. In response to a media report that China is considering delaying the annual meeting of its top legislative body scheduled for March, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying (link in Chinese) said Thursday she has not heard anything on the matter. Reuters reported the possible postponement, citing five people familiar with the matter. In other coronavirus-related news: Hospital workers in Hong Kong ended a five-day strike after a vote by the Hospital Authority Employees Alliance Friday fell short of enough support to extend the strike until next Wednesday. The union started its strike Monday to protest the governments decision not to fully close its border with mainland China. Taiwan is suspending numerous flights to and from mainland China starting Monday, the islands Central Epidemic Command Center said Friday in a statement. The suspension is expected to remain in place until April 29, longer than most other government-imposed flight restrictions. Routes to several major cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Xiamen and Chengdu, will remain exempt from the suspension. Compiled by Denise Jia Friday, Feb. 7, 6:00 p.m. Graft buster steps in As grief and anger have spread across China after whistleblower Li Wenliang died of the coronavirus, the countrys top graft buster has decided (link in Chinese) to dispatch a task force to Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak where Dr. Li worked, to conduct a comprehensive investigation into what happened to him. Last month, Li was criticized by police for trying to warn others of the virus. I believe there should be more than one voice in a healthy society, Li said in an interview with Caixin last month. I dont agree with the use of public power to overly interfere. Whistleblowers in China should be better protected, a Caixin editor said in a commentary. We must make sure they wont be punished, or bear excessive, harsh consequences because of their words. Read more Q&A: Whistleblower Doctor Who Died Fighting Coronavirus Only Wanted People to Know the Truth Supply shortages remain On the frontlines of the fight against the disease, shortages of medical supplies and daily necessities remain a tough issue despite efforts at home and abroad. A number of Chinese manufacturers, including Apple Inc. manufacturing partner Foxconn Technology Co. Ltd. and several carmakers, have decided to refit their production lines to produce medical supplies such as face masks. The National Development and Reform Commission, Chinas top economic planner, said (link in Chinese) Friday that it is set to transfer 2,000 tons of frozen pork from elsewhere in the country to Wuhan, which has been locked down for over two weeks. In addition, the commission asked (link in Chinese) more than 100 logistics firms to set up fast tracks for transporting medical supplies to Wuhan and other cities hit by the epidemic. It has also designated state-owned China Post Group Co. Ltd. to transfer overseas donations to Wuhan after they arrive in China. Multiple countries, including the U.S. and Japan, have sent medical supplies to the epicenter in an effort to stop the disease. Xi, Trump talk Chinese President Xi Jinping told his American counterpart, Donald Trump, that he hopes the U.S. government can calmly assess the epidemic, and properly design and adjust its countermeasures. The remarks were made in a phone conversation on Friday morning, the official Xinhua News Agency reported (link in Chinese). Earlier this month, the U.S. suspended the entry into the country of foreign nationals who pose a risk of transmitting the novel coronavirus. Trump said that the U.S. will view the epidemic and take corresponding actions with a calm attitude, and is willing to help, including by sending experts to China. Singapore reports more infections Singapore had confirmed three additional infections as of 2 p.m., bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 33. So far, no links have been found to previous cases reported in the country or travel history to China, its health ministry said. The country moved its disease outbreak response up a level to Orange in response to the virus spread. In other coronavirus-related news: Confirmed cases of infection by the virus have climbed to 31,257 in China, while the official death toll remained unchanged at 637. Infections in 24 other countries have risen to 272. Multiple regulators have required all types of financial institutions to give a helping hand to businesses, especially those impacted by the epidemic, and those who make or sell urgently needed medical supplies and daily necessities, central bank Deputy Governor Pan Gongsheng said (link in Chinese) at a press briefing on Friday morning. A Caixin in-depth report said that the previously slow process for diagnosing coronavirus, due chiefly to stringent diagnostic criteria, stymied disease control efforts in the early days of the outbreak. Compiled by Lin Jinbing Friday, Feb. 7, 5:30 p.m. Dig into data While Hubei, the province around Wuhan, has drawn much attention and received donations from across the globe, other parts of the country are also facing a grim situation. Outside the central province, China reported over 9,000 confirmed cases of infection as of Thursday, nearly 30% of its total. That said, infections in other Chinese regions have climbed at a slower clip than those in Hubei. In Hubei, the fatality rate stood at around 2.8% as of Thursday. The gauge measures how many people who catch the disease actually die from it. The province had reported 618 deaths from the virus by the day, accounting for 97% of the national total. Compiled by Lin Jinbing Friday, Feb. 7, 2:30 p.m. More details on cruise ship Among the most recent batch of people onboard the Diamond Princess cruise revealed to have tested positive for the new coronavirus Friday, 21 are from Japan, eight are from the U.S., five are from Canada, five are from Australia, one is from the U.K., and one is from Argentina. Princess Cruises, the operator of the ship quarantined off of Yokohama, Japan, confirmed the figures to Caixin in a written statement. The U.S.-based company said that the Japanese health ministry confirmed that this was the last batch to be tested and that the quarantine of the cruise ship is expected to end Feb. 19, unless there are any other unforeseen developments. Travel restrictions The transportation department of southern tech hub Shenzhen has rebutted (link in Chinese) rumors that the city and Guangdong province, where it is located, will undergo a lockdown, calling such reports false. Rather than close roads, as some have speculated, some provincial roads will have disease prevention stations, and individuals entering Shenzhen will have to register their information, including their body temperature. Health measures The Wuhan government announced (link in Chinese) Thursday evening that it would begin daily monitoring of the body temperatures of all of its roughly 11 million residents, through a combination of self-reporting and door-to-door checks by Communist Party members, district police, property managers and volunteers. Those with elevated temperatures will be brought to local health centers, tested, and quarantined if necessary. Residents have been notified via SMS among other mediums. Medical research The pangolin, a scaly mammalian anteater, is the latest animal to be identified as an intermediate host of the novel coronavirus. On Friday, scientists at the South China Agricultural University in Guangzhou, Guangdong, announced (link in Chinese) the results of their research, which they conducted jointly with the Peoples Liberation Army Academy of Military Science in Beijing, and the research department of the Guangdong Zoo. According to local media reports, analysis of genome sequences of viruses isolated from pangolins were a 99% match with those of the 2019-nCoV coronavirus. Compiled by Dave Yin Friday, Feb. 7, 10:00 a.m. Twenty-four countries outside China have now reported a combined 266 infections. The worst-hit countries are Japan (86 cases), Singapore (30), Thailand (25), and South Korea (24). Australia, Germany, and the U.S. have respectively confirmed 15, 13, and 12 cases. Compiled by Lin Jinbing Friday, Feb. 7, 9:00 a.m. Virus spreads further in China As of the end of Thursday, Chinese authorities had confirmed 31,211 cases of infection by the new coronavirus, of which more than 4,800 were severe, according to the latest daily data (link in Chinese) from the countrys top health body. That included over 3,150 new cases reported on the day. Seventy-three additional deaths were recorded on Thursday, including 69 in Hubei, the central province surrounding Wuhan, the city at the epicenter of the outbreak. That brings the official death toll to 637. On the Chinese mainland, 387 additional patients were recorded as having recovered and been discharged from hospital, bringing the number of such patients to a total of 1,540. The number of suspected cases rose to over 26,300 on the mainland, up from around 24,700 a day earlier. Mainland authorities said that they had tracked more than 314,000 close contacts of infected people, nearly 60% of which were under medical observation. Japan confirms more infections Japans top health authority confirmed (link in Japanese) Friday morning that 41 of 171 additional people screened aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship had tested positive for the new coronavirus. Combined with previously confirmed cases, infections on the ship had reached 61. That brings the total infections in Japan to 86, the highest tally for any country outside China so far. Compiled by Lin Jinbing Friday, Feb. 7, 4:30 a.m. The Chinese doctor who tried to warn others about coronavirus died Friday after he was infected with the virus. Li Wenliang, an ophthalmologist in Wuhan, was one of the whistleblowers on the coronavirus outbreak who were punished by local police. After he was later vindicated by the Supreme Peoples Court, Li returned to the front lines and continued fighting the virus. He disclosed on his social media account Feb. 1 that he was diagnosed with the coronavirus. More than 10,000 doctors from across China have been dispatched to Hubei province, but the epicenter of the coronavirus epidemic still faces a gap of 2,250 medical workers, a senior provincial official said. Nine cities in the province are requesting medical team support, and local retired medical workers are being encouraged to return to work, Hubei Vice Governor Yang Yunyan said Thursday at a press conference. The head of the Wuhan health commission said the city has an inventory of 109,000 coronavirus test kits and can test 4,000-5,000 patients a day. But the city lacks testing facilities, protection supplies and testing staff. The government of Guangshui, a county-level city in northeastern Hubei province, is requesting emergency support as the city with a population of 950,000 has confirmed 219 coronavirus cases. In a letter posted online Thursday, the city said its in urgent need of medical supplies, doctors and policy support and is requesting help from the public. In other coronavirus-related news: Singapores health ministry confirmed two more cases Thursday, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the country to 30. One of the two new patients did not travel to China recently and does not seem to be linked to previous cases. Yum China Holdings Inc., which runs more than 9,000 KFCs, Pizza Huts and other restaurants in China, said its same-store sales plummeted 40% to 50% since the Lunar New Year holiday from a year earlier, reflecting shorter opening hours, reduced traffic and other factors. Yum China, which temporarily closed about a third of its restaurants in the country, warned it could report an operating loss in the first quarter. Several more U.S. government-chartered evacuation flights were expected to depart Wuhan Thursday. The U.S has evacuated about 350 people in two planes. The World Health Organization (WHO) is inviting scientists from around the globe for a two-day international research forum starting Feb. 11. Theres still a lot we dont know, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. We dont know the source of the outbreak. We dont know what its natural reservoir is and we dont properly understand its transmissibility or severity. U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the Trump administration doesnt think the coronavirus outbreak will hamper the implementation of the phase-one trade deal with China. Toyota Motor said it is looking for alternatives to auto parts suppliers in China because of the coronavirus. The automaker has halted production at its China plants through Sunday but may extend the shutdown if the situation worsens. Compiled by Denise Jia Thursday, Feb. 6, 6 p.m. When it comes to the ongoing fight against the coronavirus, all eyes are now on the local authorities in Wuhan, and how they are stepping up efforts to deal with an awkward situation theyve struggled with from the beginning: a lack of medical resources. In a late night CCTV interview Wednesday, Wang Chen, a well-known respiratory specialist and dean of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, said the city still faced a grim situation as a large number of infected were unable to be hospitalized. Building makeshift hospitals has been one major solution to bridging the gap between supply and demand for medical treatment. After converting three public venues into medical facilities on Monday, Wuhan authorities now plan to convert eight more, including gymnasiums, exhibition centers and sports centers, as well as a provincial Chinese Communist Party school (link in Chinese), according to a report by the state-run Xinhua News Agency. Wuhan health officials revealed that 28 hospitals designated to treat coronavirus patients have 8,245 beds (link in Chinese) in total. The two newly built quarantine hospitals have more than 2,000 beds. And the makeshift hospitals, mainly used to accept confirmed patients suffering mild symptoms, will have 4,400 beds. Putting those patients under quarantine and treating them according to their symptoms could be effective at controlling the virus. Meanwhile, a war over masks (link in Chinese) has been fought between two southwestern areas of China. Local authorities in the popular tourist destination of Dali, Yunnan province, confiscated an unknown number of masks bound for Chongqing, a nearby municipality. Chongqing had purchased the masks from vendors in Dali and planned to have them shipped via express delivery services. The Yunnan provincial government reprimanded Dali officials for the expropriation of the masks. As of Thursday, Chongqing had confirmed 389 cases of the new coronavirus, while Dali had eight. As of Thursday, authorities had arrested 294 people (link in Chinese) related to 1,116 fraud cases involving the coronavirus epidemic, recovering property worth about 6.6 million yuan ($941 million), according to Chinas Ministry of Public Security. In other coronavirus news: Confirmed cases of infection have risen to 28,130 in China, while the official death toll remained unchanged at 564. A total of 24 other countries have reported at least 218 infections, including one death. China is stepping up efforts to offer incentives to firms (link in Chinese) that are directly involved in the fight against the virus. According to a post by Chinas State Council on Wednesday, the measures proposed include cutting the value-added tax and encouraging banks to offer loans with interest rates below 1.6% to companies in certain industries, such as those that make everyday necessities. Four more infections were reported Wednesday in Singapore, including the case of a 6-month-old who is the child of an infected couple. The baby is the youngest coronavirus patient confirmed so far in the Southeast Asian country. One Malaysian and two South Koreans who attended a conference at Singapore tested positive for the coronavirus, Malaysian and South Korean authorities said Wednesday. These cases indicate that the virus is now being transmitted via human-to-human contact outside of China. The World Health Organization is investigating (link in Chinese). Japans Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare confirmed coronavirus infections among at least 20 passengers on the cruise ship Diamond Princess. Combined with what the ministry classifies as 21 confirmed cases with symptoms and four asymptomatic pathogen carriers, total infections in the country have risen to 45, by far the highest tally of any country outside of China. Another cruise ship, the World Dream, which has 1,800 crew members and more than 1,800 passengers, has also been quarantined. As of Wednesday night, health officials have ruled out 2019-nCoV infections among 32 of 33 crew members they have tested. Those crew members had reported symptoms akin to those of an upper respiratory tract infection. Nevertheless, three crew members who had developed fevers had been sent to the hospital. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told parliament that the Tokyo 2020 Olympics would not be canceled or postponed due to the coronavirus, Bloomberg reported. 1. Starting from Friday, Taiwans government would suspend most visa applications from residents of Hong Kong and Macao, as part of efforts to control the spread of the virus, Reuters reported. 2. The government of Tajikistan said it would evacuate 58 people from Wuhan as early as Thursday, Reuters reported, citing the head of the Central Asian countrys emergency committee. 3. Saudi Arabia has said it would ban citizens and residents from traveling to China, the Associate Press reported, citing the kingdoms General Directorate of Passports. Compiled by Mo Yelin Thursday, Feb. 6, 10:00 a.m. By the end of Wednesday, Chinese authorities had confirmed a total of 28,060 infections, including 3,697 new cases reported on Wednesday. An additional 73 new deaths were confirmed, bringing the total death toll to 564. At the end of Wednesday, suspected cases on the Chinese mainland rose to 24,702 after 5,328 new suspected cases were reported on Wednesday; A total of 1,153 people had recovered, including 261 who were categorized as having officially recovered yesterday. Hong Kong had reported 21 cases, with one death. Macao has reported 10 infections, and Taiwan 11. Local authorities in Ningbo say they have footage of the moment they believe a person with coronavirus was infected. The 56-year-old man from Ningbo, Zhejiang province, who was diagnosed with the virus Tuesday, was caught in a surveillance video visiting a local vegetable market late last month. He is seen standing alongside another person, who has since been confirmed to have had the disease at the time, at the same booth for about 15 seconds. Neither were wearing masks. Wang Chen, a respiratory physician and dean of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, said in a CCTV interview on Wednesday Wuhan still lacks medial resources to deal with the increase of infections even as two new hospitals were built and had already started accepting patients. Chinese president Xi Jinping met with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen in Beijing on Wednesday, the official Peoples Daily reported. Sen was quoted as saying he came to China at this special time to express his support for the Chinese government and Chinese people in their fight against the coronavirus epidemic. Yum China has warned its sales and profit this year could take a hit due to the coronavirus, which has forced it to shut more than 30% of its stores, Reuters reported. The operator of KFC and Pizza Hut restaurants in China also warned it could shut more stores depending on the situation. Similarly, Disney has also warned it could lose $175 million in the current quarter from the closures of its two parks in Shanghai and Hong Kong due to the coronavirus. Compiled by Mo Yelin Thursday, Feb. 6, 3:00 a.m. Coronavirus patients with severe conditions increase in Hubei The testing process to confirm coronavirus infection is speeding up in Hubei province, leading to a drop in the number of suspected cases in recent days but a marked increase in the number of confirmed patients with severe conditions, an expert said Wednesday. The number of patients with severe conditions increased by more than 400 cases each day for the past two days, most of them in Hubei province, data from the National Health Commission shows. These patients conditions usually worsen in the ninth to 12 days of their illness, said Li Xingwang (link in Chinese), an infectious disease expert with Beijing Ditan Hospital at a daily press briefing on the epidemic. The National Health Commission eased (link in Chinese) the diagnosis criteria for coronavirus, designating patients with either fever or respiratory symptoms for diagnosis as suspected cases. The previous criteria also included pulmonary imaging showing infection symptoms. Li said removing the pulmonary imaging requirement aims to increase the diagnosis ability of lower-tier hospitals that do not have CT imaging equipment. The revision means the number of suspected cases might further expand but will also help to control the spread of infection. A Chinese infant was diagnosed with coronavirus just 30 hours after birth Sunday in Wuhan to a woman who had tested positive for the deadly disease, according to state broadcaster CCTV. Doctors at the Wuhan Childrens Hospital cited the case Wednesday as evidence that pregnant women infected with the virus may be able to pass it to unborn children, CCTV reported. In other coronavirus-related news: Singapores health ministry confirmed four more coronavirus cases, including a six-month-old baby. Both parents of the infant, a Singapore citizen, have also been infected, the ministry said. On Tuesday, Singapore reported its first cases of patients who had contracted the virus without recent travel to China. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said it will spend as much as $100 million to improve detection, isolation and treatment efforts for the new coronavirus. The worlds largest private charitable foundation said it also hopes to accelerate the development of vaccines, drugs and diagnostics. The World Health Organization (WHO) played down reports of a drug breakthrough against the coronavirus. There are no known effective therapeutics against this 2019-nCoV and WHO recommends enrollment into a randomized controlled trial to test efficacy and safety, the United National health agency said Wednesday. The international community has launched a $675 million preparedness and response plan covering the months of February through to April 2020, the WHO announced Wednesday. The Strategic Preparedness and Response Plan (SPRP) for the new coronavirus lays out activities and resources needed by international health organizations globally, including WHO, to implement priority public health measures in support of countries to prepare and respond to the outbreak. Almost 2,000 tourists are being held on a cruise ship in Hong Kong and being tested for the coronavirus after several crew members reported symptoms. The ship World Dream, operated by Gentings Dream Cruises, arrived in Hong Kong from Taiwan Wednesday with 1,871 passengers aboard, most of them from Hong Kong. Compiled by Denise Jia * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Wednesday, Feb. 5, 6 p.m. Cruise ships are the big story of the day, as Japan confirmed 10 infections among more than 3,700 passengers on board one of the floating resorts. At least four infections have been reported among the about 4,000 passengers on a cruise ship that traveled from the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou to Vietnam in January, the Guangdong province government said. The ship, which arrived in Hong Kong Wednesday with a new batch of passengers but the same crew has been placed into quarantine, according to media reports. Airlines are also taking significant measures amid the outbreak. Hong Kongs Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. asked all of its nearly 27,000 employees to take three weeks of unpaid leave as the outbreak continues to take a toll on its business. The Hong Kong airline plans to cut 90% of flights to the Chinese mainland. As for the economy, the impact of the epidemic on China will be felt mainly in the first quarter, when GDP growth could be 1 to 1.5 percentage points lower than under a scenario without the outbreak, said Zhong Zhengsheng, director of macroeconomic analysis at CEBM Group, a subsidiary of Caixin Insight Group. However, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said it has confidence in the resilience of Chinas economy amid fears that the coronavirus outbreak will harm the worlds second-largest economy. Domestically, China on Tuesday recorded the highest single-day rise in deaths and new infections. Chinas death toll hit 493, while the total number of infections reached 24,421. Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, is scrambling to set up makeshift hospitals. So far, a stadium, a local exhibition center and a cultural complex have been converted into temporary medical facilities capable of holding 3,400 beds in total. See the photos here. In other coronavirus-related news: Internationally, Japan suffered a surge in infections as of 6 p.m. Wednesday, with total infections at 34, mainly due to its new confirmed cases on the cruise ship. Outside China, the total number of infections reached 195. Hong Kongs Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced a two-week quarantine for all visitors crossing the border from the mainland, including foreigners and Hong Kong residents. Hong Kongs securities watchdog and the citys stock exchange said in a joint statement that if listed companies face difficulties in publishing preliminary results or audited financial statements, they should contact the stock exchange to discuss the situation. If an issuer is unable to obtain a sign-off from its auditors but is otherwise able to publish its preliminary results, it should publish such results. Key public health measures to respond to the coronavirus outbreak will cost an estimated $675.7 million through April, the WHO said in a draft plan, Bloomberg reported. Hong Kongs first death reveals that young people may be more vulnerable than previously thought. A 39-year-old man who died Tuesday was one of the youngest victims so far reported in the epidemic, as most fatalities have been among elderly people. Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. Ltd., which makes the vast majority of the worlds iPhones in the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou, cut its 2020 revenue growth outlook. It is now projecting a sales increase of 1% to 3% this year, down from a Jan. 22 forecast of 3% to 5%. Schools in Shanghai will remain closed until the end of February. Compiled by Timmy Shen Wednesday, Feb. 5, 10:00 a.m. By the end of Tuesday, Chinese authorities had confirmed 24,363 infections, including over 3,800 new cases reported on Tuesday, representing the highest one-day rise in new reported infections. The official death toll in China also saw its highest one-day rise on Tuesday, with 66 new deaths bringing the total to 491. On the Chinese mainland, suspected cases rose to 23,260, and 892 patients had recovered from the virus, as of the end of Tuesday. Hong Kong had reported 18 cases, with one death. Macao has reported 10 infections, and Taiwan 11. Ho Iat Seng, chief executive of Macau, said Tuesday that the government will suspend operations (link in Chinese) in gambling and other related entertainment industries for about two weeks, after he consulted with Zhong Nanshan, Chinas leading respiratory expert and a hero of the fight against SARS. The Baibuting neighborhood in Wuhan has reported many fever cases and has listed 57 buildings as fever buildings, Caixin has found (link in Chinese). Despite earlier signs that the virus was spreading in the broader Wuhan area, the local government gave its support to a massive Lunar New Year event in the neighborhood on Jan. 18 similar to a Western potluck, where about 40,000 families brought nearly 14,000 meals to share with one another. Compiled by Timmy Shen Wednesday, Feb. 5 4:00 a.m. As the viral coronavirus continued spreading globally, the central China province of Hubei and its capital Wuhan remained the hardest-hit as a top health official cited shortages of medical supplies and hospital beds. As of Tuesday, 74% of the 425 deaths caused by the virus in China were in Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak. The city, which has been under quarantine since Jan. 23, has recorded a fatality rate among those sickened by the fast-spreading disease of 4.9%, according to Jiao Yahui, an official with the National Health Commission. The broader Hubei region accounted for 97% of the national death toll with a fatality rate of 3.1%. Nationwide, the death rate for the viral pneumonia is 2.1%. Excluding Hubei, the fatality rate of the disease in the rest of China was 0.16%, Jiao said Tuesday at a press briefing (link in Chinese). China has confirmed 20,522 infections of the new coronavirus and an additional 23,214 suspected cases as of Tuesday evening, Wuhans lack of hospital beds and shortages of medical supplies in the face of surging numbers of patients were the main factors behind the citys high fatality rate, Jiao said. Elderly people, especially men or those with chronic diseases, are most vulnerable to the virus, he said. There has yet to be clear data on recovery rates, although China reported that 632 patients recovered. The average hospital stay for those discharged ranges from five to 20 days. In other coronavirus-related news: The British government asked its citizens to leave China amid the epidemic. In a statement, the Foreign Office told all Britons who are able to leave China to do so. The government is advising against all but essential travel to the mainland. An estimated 30,000 British citizens remained in China, according to Britains Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab. Hong Kongs Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. plans to cut 90% of flights to mainland as the city reported its first death from the coronavirus. The move is part of Cathay Pacifics plan to slash 30% of its capacity over the next two months as its business struggles in the face of the viral disease. By Caixins count, 59 airlines from 44 countries and regions as of Tuesday said they were suspending some or all flights to the mainland. Vietnam said it will quarantine anyone who entered the country from China over the past two weeks. The country has confirmed 10 infection cases of the virus as of Tuesday. The World Health Organization said Tuesday that the deadly coronavirus outbreak does not yet constitute a "pandemic the worldwide spread of an epidemic. The strategy is still to extinguish transmission, and the UN health organization will be able to provide a better estimate of the severity of the disease in coming days, the WHOs Sylvie Briand said at a briefing in Geneva. U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb warned Monday that the viral disease is likely to become a pandemic. Compiled by Han Wei * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Tuesday, Feb. 4, 8:15 p.m. The economic impact of Chinas deadly coronavirus outbreak continued to be felt Tuesday despite no repeat of the vertiginous near-9% slump that greeted yesterdays reopening of the countrys stock markets. The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index closed up 1.34% on Tuesday, while its Shenzhen-based equivalent ended the days trading up 3.17%. Those heartening figures came despite the largest single-day rise in the number of confirmed coronavirus-related deaths so far, with 64 people in China reportedly succumbing to the disease on Monday. On Tuesday, a 39-year-old Hong Kong man became the second person outside the Chinese mainland to die from coronavirus infection. The total number of infections worldwide now exceeds 20,000. On Tuesday, Singapore confirmed six new coronavirus cases, bringing the countrys confirmed total to 24, according to The Straits Times. In Thailand, six new cases were reported, including four Thai citizens, Reuters reported. The country now has 25 confirmed cases. The epidemic is still sending ripples through the global economy. Experts from OPEC and its allies are meeting today and tomorrow in Vienna to discuss supply cuts in order to prop up sliding oil prices. Brent crude was selling for a mere $54.17 per barrel on Monday, its lowest price in more than a year. Domestically, too, businesses continue to feel the outbreaks unpredictable repercussions. Casino operators in Macau will be asked to shutter their businesses for two weeks to help control the outbreak, Reuters reported. The former Portuguese colony, which is the worlds largest gambling center, currently has 10 confirmed coronavirus cases. Meanwhile, the nearby Guangdong province city of Zhuhai has required bars, cafes, barbecue joints, teahouses, and farms in some areas to suspend business indefinitely (link in Chinese), while other food and beverage sellers are restricted to providing takeout services. The move, which has been echoed by other cities in the province, came as many restaurateurs there said revenues during the Lunar New Year period fell by more than half compared with last years holiday, prompting them to consider staff cuts. Elsewhere, an estimated 2,700 medical personnel, including hundreds of doctors and nurses, went on strike in Hong Kong to protest the governments handling of the outbreak, according to the South China Morning Post. The mass walkout went ahead despite the semiautonomous territorys Chief Executive Carrie Lam Yuet-ngor announcing an expanded, but not total, closure of the border with the Chinese mainland. The Hong Kong Hospital Authority said the strike seriously affected a number of important services. In other coronavirus-related news: Belgium said (link in French) a person who returned to the country Sunday on a repatriation flight from Wuhan tested positive for the virus, making them the nations first case. Malaysia confirmed two new cases, one of whom is the first Malaysian citizen to test positive, according to The Straits Times. The countrys other nine cases are all Chinese nationals. South Korea also added one new case, bringing the total number of infections there to 16, according to the Yonhap News Agency. A further case was confirmed in Vietnam, marking the 10th coronavirus diagnosis in the country, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said. Taiwan said that from Feb. 7 it will bar entry to most nonlocal residents who have visited or resided on the Chinese mainland in the past 14 days, Reuters reported. Authorities in Hubei reprimanded three high-ranking members of the provincial Red Cross Society for mismanaging relief work tied to the outbreak. Zhang Qin, the deputy head of the humanitarian organizations Hubei arm and a member of an affiliated Communist Party leading group, was dismissed from his position and subjected to internal party discipline. Two further Red Cross officials held onto their jobs but didnt escape a slap on the wrist from their party comrades. The Hubei Red Cross came under fire Sunday after it was revealed that donations of critical medical supplies from across the country had failed to arrive at the overburdened hospitals at the center of the outbreak. Compiled by Matthew Walsh Tuesday, Feb. 4, 1 p.m. The death toll in China from the virus logged its highest one-day rise on Monday, with 64 new deaths bringing the total to 425. The number of confirmed infections also passed (link in Chinese) the 20,000 mark, the National Health Commission said. The top health authority also confirmed that 157 more people have recovered from the virus. All of Mondays deaths as well as 2,345 of the new diagnoses occurred in Hubei, the province at the center of the epidemic. Nationwide, 492 of the new cases are considered serious, with 442 of them in Hubei. Hong Kong reported Tuesday its first coronavirus-related death when a 39-year-old man succumbed to the pneumonia-causing pathogen, according to Hong Kong Cable TV (link in Cantonese). The semiautonomous territory has closed all but three border crossings with the Chinese mainland on the orders of Chief Executive Carrie Lam. A rapidly built makeshift quarantine hospital in Wuhan designed to treat people with coronavirus began admitting its first patients on Tuesday morning, state-owned broadcaster CGTN reported. The Bavarian health ministry said (link in German) another man in the southern state had tested positive for the virus, bringing Germanys total number of confirmed cases to 12. Japan on Monday quarantined a cruise ship containing some 3,700 people at a port in the city of Yokohama after a former passenger was diagnosed with the virus upon leaving the vessel in Hong Kong late last month, Japanese news agency Kyodo reported. Chinas foreign ministry once again told the United States not to overreact to the coronavirus outbreak. Hua Chunying, a ministry spokeswoman, also said Beijing hopes Washington will soon send aid to help control the epidemic, Reuters reported. Chinese stock markets clawed back some of the losses sustained during Mondays dismal 8% drop, with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index up 1.21% as of 2:45 p.m. Chinas civil aviation administration said its affiliated carriers had delivered more than 4,600 tons of epidemic control supplies (link in Chinese) as of Sunday, including a combined 600,000 facial masks, prevention suits, and containers of sterilization fluid. Around 1,200 tons of supplies went to Hubei, the authority said. Compiled by Matthew Walsh Tuesday, Feb. 4, 5 a.m. As markets and businesses gradually resume after the extended Lunar New Year holiday, the impact of the fast-spreading coronavirus on all aspects of the economy are starting to show as experts evaluate how profound and lasting the damage could be. Chinas financial regulators took a series of measures to bolster confidence, including lowering interest rates on reverse repurchase agreements and injecting liquidity. Kristalina Georgieva, head of the International Monetary Fund, offered backing for the Chinese economy. We support Chinas efforts to respond, including recent fiscal, monetary and financial actions, Georgieva wrote Monday on Twitter. We are confident that Chinas economy remains resilient. But the deadly epidemic will take a toll on Chinas already slowing e The coronavirus outbreak has killed 305 people and infected 14,562 others as the Philippines on Sunday reported the first death outside China from the epidemic that has spread to 25 countries, including India, the US, the UK and Russia. The Philippines on Sunday reported the first coronavirus death outside mainland China, hours after China's National Health Commission said a total of 304 people had died from the disease till Saturday. In China, all the deaths were reported in Hubei Province - the epicentre of the virus outbreak, according to the commission. The virus, which has infected more than 14,562 people, continues to spread beyond China. The victim in the Philippines was a 44-year-old Chinese man, who died on February 1. He was the companion of a 38-year-old Chinese woman, who arrived in the Philippines from Wuhan on January 21 after travelling through Hong Kong, the South China Morning Post reported. "This is the first reported death outside China," said the World Health Organisation representative to the Philippines, Rabindra Abeyasinghe. On Sunday, India airlifted a second batch of 323 stranded Indians and seven Maldivian citizens from coronavirus-hit Wuhan city, taking the total number of people evacuated to 654. Air India's jumbo B747 made two flights to Wuhan city - the ground zero of the coronavirus epidemic. In the first flight on early Saturday, 324 Indians were evacuated and on Sunday another 323 Indians and seven Maldivian citizens were flown back. The Indian Army has set up a quarantine facility in Manesar near Delhi to keep those evacuated from the virus-hit province. They would be monitored for any signs of infection for two weeks by a qualified team of doctors and staff members. The virus that emerged in late December in Hubei province capital Wuhan has now spread to 25 countries, including India where a second case of coronavirus was reported from Kerala on Sunday. India's first novel coronavirus case was also reported from Kerala with a student testing positive. The United Arab Emirates also confirmed a new case of the coronavirus, taking the total number of people affected by the disease in the Gulf country to five. The Ministry of Health and Prevention (MOHAP) on Saturday said the new case involves a Chinese travelling from Wuhan. Meanwhile, the National Health Commission in China said that 4,562 new suspected cases were reported on Saturday. On Saturday, 315 patients became seriously ill and 85 people were discharged from hospital after recovery, the Commission said. The commission added that 2,110 patients remained in severe condition, and 19,544 people were suspected of being infected with the virus. A total of 328 people have been discharged from hospital after recovery. The commission said 1,63,844 close contacts had been traced, adding that among them, 8,044 were discharged from medical observation on Saturday, with 1,37,594 others still under medical observation, state-run Xinhua agency reported. While India, the US, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and many countries evacuated their nationals from Wuhan, the Pakistani government - despite strong criticism from the opposition - has declined pleas by several hundred Pakistani students in Wuhan to airlift them. Pakistan's Ambassador to China Naghmana Hashmi on Sunday said that Pakistani students should not be evacuated from Wuhan as medical facilities back home do not meet the standards required to treat a patient diagnosed with coronavirus, Geo reported. Hashmi's remarks came a day after Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Health Dr Zafar Mirza said that the government will not bring its citizens despite multiple requests from the students and their families for immediate evacuation. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Senate minority leader Schumer has stated, "[I]f my Republican colleagues refuse to consider witnesses and documents in this trial, the president's acquittal will be meaningless, because it will be the result of a sham trial." Republican senators did go on to reject a proposal to "consider witnesses and documents" in President Trump's Senate trial, so Schumer's view must be that the acquittal expected next week "will be meaningless, because it will be the result of a sham trial." This no doubt will be the position of the Democrat Party as a whole and is sure to be featured prominently in their response to the State of the Union address. Well, so be it. I offer the following: The man, who had taken 23 children captive at an Uttar Pradesh village, had apparently planned it over a month and studied similar cases of hostage crisis, police said on Saturday. Subhash Batham, a murder accused, took the children hostage after inviting them for a birthday party at his house in Farrukhabads Kasaria village on Thursday afternoon. The children were freed after police barged into the house late on Thursday night and shot Batham dead. It seems Batham had planned it (the hostage taking) for a month, Inspector General of Police, Kanpur Range, Mohit Agarwal, told reporters, adding that his mobile phone has been seized. Bathams wife, who was lynched by villagers, was involved and had demanded one crore to free each child, he said. Police have analysed Bathams phone and it has been found that he was planning it for a long time, searching and downloading bomb making techniques, the officer said. He had studied in detail a similar case in 2004 in Russia where children were held hostage, besides some other similar cases, the IG said. The 40-year-old had earlier served jail for 10 years and was out on bail, Agarwal said. He was in jail last time four months ago for robbery. It seems that he had planned this (the hostage taking) there, learning the fine details from other inmates. He collected arms and explosives with their help, he said. Bathams mobile phone is being checked to find out who he was in contact with and the people he had met. Investigations are being carried out to ascertain if any one else was also involved in the incident, the IG said. The officer said that Batham had threatened on Thursday that he had bombs and had planted them in the his houses basement where he was holding the children hostage. We tried to pacify him but he fired two shots and threatened to detonate the bombs, Agarwal said, adding that locals kept him engaged as the police carried out the operation to free the children. Locals saw Batham pouring some inflammable material on the floor. This suggested that he was going to take a major step, he said. The Bomb Disposal Squad from Moradabad has seized a .315 bore rifle, a country-made gun, 20 live cartridges, 11 empty cartridges, one rifle round, 135 country-made bombs, cylinder bombs and material used for making bombs, the officer said. Similarly, the task force recovered a clay-more mine, detonators and other explosives during the combing operation at Bangarugudi area. Meanwhile, the Odisha police has beefed up security on border districts, including Malkangiri after a Maoist was stoned to death following a face-off with locals at Janturai village recently. Bhubaneswar: Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) jawans seized a huge cache of arms, ammunition and other articles used by Maoists during combing operation in a forest under Chandrapur police limits in Rayagada district on Saturday evening. The 8th Battalion of CRPF launched the combing operation based on specific intelligence regarding the presence of ultras in the region. Though the left-wing extremists managed to escape, the security personnel seized nine guns, 15 detonators, eight rounds of live bullets and other articles of the red rebels from the spot. In another incident, Andhra Pradesh task force also recovered a huge cache of arms and ammunition of the Maoists at Vijayanagar district near Odishas Koraput district. Similarly, the task force recovered a clay-more mine, detonators and other explosives during the combing operation at Bangarugudi area. All the explosives were reportedly dumped at an isolated place. Meanwhile, the Odisha police has beefed up security on border districts, including Malkangiri after a Maoist was stoned to death following a face-off with locals at Janturai village recently. DGP Abhay said the state government has decided to make Malkangiri district, free from Maoists and elaborate plans have been made for the same. 02.02.2020 LISTEN The Ghana Association of Certified Registered Anesthetists has called on government and all other relevant stakeholders to find lasting solutions to their problem as soon as possible in order to stop their impending strike. The group laid down their tools on Friday, January 31, 2020 to, among other things, protest the refusal of the Medical and Dental Council to rescind its decision to change the group's name to Physician Assistants. Responding to a question on when they will call off the strike on Eyewitness News, the General Secretary of the group, Frederick Kpoha, said until they are called into a meeting for a solution to their grievances, the strike will stand. We are just pleading that the stakeholders will quickly call us to the table for discussions. We want changes to a lot of things and not just our names. We've been left behind for far too long. Background The Certified Registered Anesthetists have, over time, complained about various things, including the move of the Mental and Dental Council to change their name. Several petitions to the Council and threats to lay down their tools have been made to no avail. We petitioned the MDC in a letter dated 2nd October 2018 for which a copy was submitted to the office of the Health Minister during the discussion stage of the harmonization of the curriculum for training. An acknowledgement of the said letter has not been received by the MDC. The MDC has gone ahead to direct the various training schools to implement the proposed curriculum to award Bsc Physician Assistant-Anaesthesia, instead of the BSc. Anaesthesia, the PRO for the anesthetists Seth Mc-Andoh said. The Association also says that the Medical and Dental Council's approach of introducing a new curriculum for their training in a bid to change the already existing Bachelor of Science Anesthesia to Bachelor of Science Physician Assistants is a clear violation of the Health Professions Regulatory Bodies Act 857 (Act 2013). ---citinewsroom In Minsk, Pompeo Calls For 'Real Progress' In U.S.-Belarus Relations By RFE/RL February 01, 2020 U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called for "real progress" in bilateral relations with Belarus following a meeting in Minsk with Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka. "We are confident that together we can make real progress across every dimension of our relationship," Pompeo said at a joint press appearance with Lukashenka on February 1. For his part, Lukashenka told Pompeo it was "very good that you risked coming to Minsk after various misunderstandings between Belarus and the U.S." Pompeo's historic visit is the first by a U.S. secretary of state to Belarus since Warren Christopher accompanied then-President Bill Clinton to Minsk in 1994. Former U.S. national-security adviser John Bolton met with Lukashenka in Minsk in August 2019. Lukashenka added on February 1 that he hoped to "open a new chapter" in relations with the United States. Pompeo's visit also comes at a time of relief in Belarus as the country learned it will not be included in an expanded version of U.S. President Donald Trump's travel ban after initial reports suggested it would. Lukashenka, who has been president since the position was created in 1994, has been portrayed in the West as "Europe's last dictator," but he has sought to improve relations with Washington while at the same time recognizing his country's heavy reliance on Russia for energy supplies and funding. "The secretary will meet with President Lukashenka and Foreign Minister [Uladzimer] Makei to underscore the U.S. commitment to a sovereign, independent, stable, and prosperous Belarus, and affirm our desire to normalize our bilateral relations," the State Department said in a statement before the visit. Lukashenka has accused Moscow of pressuring his country to merge with Russia, using oil and natural gas supplies as a weapon. "We have our own country; we're sovereign and independent. With our brains and hands, we earn what we can, we're building our own country. And we can't be a part of some other country," Lukashenka told factory workers on January 24. "I can't betray you and dissolve Belarus, even in the brotherly Russia." "Even if I agree to that, Belarusians would eat me alive within a year," said Lukashenka. Pompeo told Makei that the United States was prepared to boost its energy supplies to Belarus. "Our energy producers stand ready to deliver 100 percent of the oil you need at competitive prices," Pompeo said. "Your nation should not be forced to be dependent on any one partner for your prosperity or your security." In comments earlier in the day to Lukashenka, Pompeo noted Belarus's "long history" with Russia. "It's not about picking between the two," Pompeo said. "We want to be here." U.S. relations with Belarus -- a country of some 10 million people -- deteriorated more than a decade ago when Washington imposed sanctions on Lukashenka following the 2006 Belarusian presidential election on allegations of "human rights abuses related to political repression." Belarus then recalled its ambassador to Washington and told the U.S. envoy to leave Belarus. Pompeo told Lukashenka on February 1 that Washington would name a new ambassador to Belarus soon. On January 31, a U.S. official said that Trump was issuing an expanded version of his travel ban, a decision that could impact thousands of immigrants. But acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said that Belarus, which had been considered for inclusion in the expanded list, had taken measures to correct deficiencies lately and will not face visa restrictions. Nationals of Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Nigeria, Sudan, and Tanzania will be affected by the partial ban, officials said. Pompeo arrived in Belarus after stops in London and in Ukraine as part of Washington's efforts to express support for Kyiv in its battle to combat what U.S. officials label as "Russian aggression." Pompeo's trip will also take him to the former Soviet states of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan before it ends on February 4. With reporting by RFE/RL's Belarus Service and dpa Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/pompeo- belarus-relations-normalize-counter-russian- aggresion/30411255.html Copyright (c) 2020. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Amid ongoing anti-CAA protests, local poll officials and police authorities held a meeting to take stock of the situation in Shaheen Bagh ahead of the elections, officials said on Sunday. "A meeting was called for Saturday evening at the Shaheen Bagh PoliceStation. But due to a firing incident near the protest site, some of the officers could not join. So, we sat and discussed the situation afterwards," a senior poll official in Okhla constituency said. A man fired two rounds in the air at Shaheen Bagh before being taken into custody on Saturday. Shaheen Bagh has been the epicentre of protests against the country's new citizenship law and the incident had created panic among people. Asked if the environment is conductive to hold elections, another senior officer said, "Yes, nothing to worry, authorities are extra vigilant". "The situation is being assessed across the city on a daily basis," he added. Saturday's firing incident came two days after a youth fired a pistol at a group of anti-CAA protesters near the Jamia university in which a student was wounded. Amid the ongoing protests, Delhi CEO Ranbir Singh had on Friday visited the area to assess the situation and preparedness ahead of the assembly elections, and said there was no obstruction in areas where poll activities will be conducted. Singh said, police forces and election machineries are on "extra vigil" and assessing the situation all the time across the national capital. Shaheen Bagh falls in Okhla constituency. The anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act protests in the national capital and the agitation at Shaheen Bagh, which has been going on for nearly 50 days, has been thrusted by political parties into a poll issue. Polls for the 70 assembly seats in Delhi are due on February 8 with counting of votes on February 11. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Donny Eberhid was embracing his freedom. Im liberated, he told me, proudly flourishing his Union flag over Parliament Square. His friend Tracey Chandler concurred. Nothing was getting done. I was so angry. Then Boris came in and sorted it out. Britannia not her real name had been on a different journey. I voted Remain, she explained, but Im here as a patriot. I believe in democracy. Her costume wasnt quite as elaborate as it seemed. Its basically just a bed sheet. Though the shield took a bit of work. In the background, a video was showing the road to Brexit. Nigel Farage and Boris drew enthusiastic cheers. Tony Blair got booed, as did the BBC Six OClock News logo. Then they played We Are The Champions. The mood was festive, party more than political rally. The picture posted to Twitter by Karen Hoyles, showing a 50p coin with a heart and 'EU' scrawled on it in permanent marker, in an attempt to anger Brexit voters Someone who wasnt partying was Alastair Campbell. The champion of the Peoples Vote campaign was presumably out drumming up support for his latest crusade a boycott of the new 50p Brexit coins. I for one shall be asking shopkeepers for two 20p pieces and a 10p if they offer me a 50p coin pretending that Brexit is about 'peace, prosperity and friendship with all nations', given it puts all three at risk, he announced last week. Terry Christian also gave the festivities a miss. Hard on the heels of his description of Leave voters as pitiable saps, the Mancunian TV presenter tweeted: As the zombies and xenophobes gather in Parliament Square tonight to celebrate their forthcoming poverty and job losses, Im proud that MANCHESTER IS REMAIN. Lord Adonis was also conspicuous by his absence. Though earlier in the week the ex-Labour Minister had made his views clear in an article for The New European, headlined: The case for rejoining the EU is growing we may be back sooner than you think. In it, he observed: We are once again, as Orwell put it, a family with the wrong members in control. I GET the anger and pain of the Remainers. I was once a Remainer myself. But we lost. Actually we didnt lose. We were obliterated. Annihilated in the most catastrophic and seismic defeat in British political history. And what I cant fathom this morning is the myopic unwillingness of my former Europhile comrades to try to understand why. The answers are right there in front of them. Take the reaction to the minting of the commemorative 50p coin. When the debate began, it was the Leavers who were caricatured as Brexit ideologues David Camerons infamous fruitcakes and loonies. Champion of the Peoples Vote campaign Alastair Campbell (pictured left) and broadcaster Terry Christian (pictured right) gave the Brexit festivities a miss last night But as we leave the EU, the roles have been reversed. It is Steve Baker who is now issuing mature pleas for reconciliation, while Campbell rages against politically incorrect coinage. Picture the scene: Blairs former spin doctor defiantly lecturing a teenage shop worker about how the 50p coin in his hand is putting the peace and prosperity of Europe in mortal peril. Role reversal: Conservative MP Steve Baker is now issuing mature pleas for reconciliation following the referendum result But lecturing has become the Remainers default setting. To be fair, few are foolish or honest enough to go as far as Christian in openly expressing the hope people who voted for Brexit will die soon. But his cartoonish outpourings expose a deeper reality. The Remainers have transitioned from fearing Brexit to actively hoping Brexit will indeed prove the catalyst for national catastrophe. Their entire world view is predicated on Brexits failure. The economy has to slump, then crash. The NHS and other vital public services have to collapse. Britain has to be isolated, then shunned, by the global community. These are no longer things that fill Remainers with trepidation, but with longing. They absolutely have to be proved right. And the only way they can be proved right is through Brexit Armageddon. Because if Brexit works, the world as they know it vanishes around them. And then they have to adopt the Brexiteers old lament: I dont recognise my own country any more. Lord Andrew Adonis (pictured in 2018) deserves praise for his honesty when he writes 'we're a family with the wrong members in control'. He would claim those words refer to Boris and Dominic Cummings and the rest of their evil Brexiteer cabal The nation knows this. Everyone can now see the extent to which the hard-core anti-Brexiteers are invested in catastrophe. And they resent it. People dont want their jobs and livelihoods and futures sacrificed just so the Remainers earn the right to say I told you so. Over the past three and a half years, there have been many occasions when Brexit seemed an incomprehensibly complex and insoluble issue. But at its heart there has always been a single, simple truth. After the referendum had been lost, I had a conversation with Ryan Coetzee, who worked for Remain. He told me the story of attending one of the first focus groups of the campaign. The respondents had all been telling him they would use the referendum to send a message to the politicians. He asked what that message would be. One of them I think he said he was a fireman looked him straight in the eyes. I want respect, he said. The referendum has always been about respect in the eyes of Ryan Coetzee, who worked for Remain. Pictured are opponents of Brexit staging a silent demonstration in London on January 31 Ms Hoyles, from Devon, also posted a picture of the permanent marker used to scrawl on the coin (right), while Nigel Callaghan claimed to find two defaced coins in his change (left) Its never really been about trade. Or laws. Or sovereignty. Or even taking back control. Its always been about respect. The politicians actually respecting the views of the people, rather than talking down to them. And the Remainers dont respect the people. They have pretended to. But they have been found out. They have mouthed their mantra We must respect the result. And then done everything in their power to overturn it. So again, Andrew Adonis deserves praise for his honesty. When he writes, were a family with the wrong members in control, he means it. He would claim those words refer to Boris and Dominic Cummings and the rest of their evil Brexiteer cabal. But they dont. He was talking about the people I met out in Parliament Square. The people who voted the wrong way. The wrong sort of people. The anti-Brexit cavalry have mouthed their mantra We must respect the result and then done everything in their power to overturn it. Pictured are more opponents attending a silent demonstration on the eve of Brexit day Thats why the Remainers lost. Because they proved to be just as ideologically obsessed and blinkered as their opponents. Because they had no interest in listening, only in proving they knew best. Because when they were asked to show some respect for the British people, all they could muster was contempt. The nation saw all this. They saw it three and a half years ago. And they see it this morning. So the Remainers will lose again. And again. And again. And they will keep losing until they finally pause to ask themselves why its always the wrong sort of people who end up partying in Parliament Square. The situation in Hubei province, the centre of China's virus outbreak, remains "severe and complicated" and medical resources at county level are relatively weak, vice governor Xiao Juhua told a news conference on Sunday. Wang Wei, director of Hubei's science and technology department, told the briefing that the time needed to confirm cases with test kits had halved to no more than two hours, and that the kits' accuracy had improved. Search Keywords: Short link: Jonathan Ananda By Express News Service NEW DELHI: The Finance Ministry on Sunday clarified that even if an NRI is deemed a resident of India under new provisions proposed in the Union Budget, such an individual will be taxed only on income earned in India or derived through an Indian business or profession. The Finance Bill, 2020 had proposed that an Indian citizen shall be deemed to be a resident in India if he is not liable to be taxed in any country or jurisdiction. Consequently, such an individual's earnings would be taxed by Indian authorities. Sunday's clarification, however, comes as a relief to millions of Indian workers in countries like the United Arab Emirates (UAE) who feared to have to shell out taxes in India on their overseas incomes too, since the UAE is a zero income tax nation. ALSO READ: Union Budget 2020 goes long on delivery, short on stimulus "The new provision is not intended to include in tax net those Indian citizens who are bonafide workers in other countries. In some sections of the media, the new provision is being interpreted to create an impression that those Indians who are bonafide workers in other countries, including in the Middle East, and who are not liable to tax in these countries will be taxed in India on the income that they have earned there. This interpretation is not correct," the finance ministry said. "In order to avoid any misinterpretation, it is clarified that in case of an Indian citizen who becomes deemed resident of India under this proposed provision, income earned outside India by him shall not be taxed in India unless it is derived from an Indian business or profession. Necessary clarification, if required, shall be incorporated in the relevant provision of the law," the statement from the ministry added. The Finance Minister had proposed in the Union Budget on Saturday measures to limit tax avoidance by individuals managing their overseas stays in such a way as to avoid tax. ALSO READ: Fiscal deficit challenge for Finance Minister The expanded tax obligations are proposed to be made through two major tweaks: one to the definition of NRIs and another on their tax obligations. First, Indian citizens will now have to stay a longer period outside India to be classified as NRIs. Currently, Indian citizens not resident in India for more than 182 days a year are classified as NRIs. However, the government proposes to change this requirement. "Now in order to become non-resident, he/she has to stay out of the country for 240 days," pointed out revenue secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey. In parallel, the Union Budget also proposes to extend income tax liabilities to any NRI who is not liable pay taxes in any other country during their stint outside India's borders. If passed by the Parliament, these amendments are set to take effect from April 1, 2021, and will, accordingly, apply in relation to the assessment year 2021-22 and subsequent assessment years, Budget fine print says. ALSO READ: Budget with 20:20 vision for future The government holds that these changes are necessary since NRI status is being misused to evade tax. "Instances have come to notice where the period of 182 days is being misused. Individuals, who are actually carrying out substantial economic activities from India, manage their period of stay in India, so as to remain a non-resident in perpetuity and not be required to declare their global income in India," the finance ministry said in the Budget memorandum. "It is entirely possible for an individual to arrange his affairs in such a fashion that he is not liable to tax in any country or jurisdiction during a year," said Budget memo says. The mother was dubbed Britain's worst mother for kidnapping her own daughter Set to go to Spain with her convicted child sex offender fiance Paul Saunders Karen Matthews is reportedly set to make her first overseas holiday to Spain with her convicted child sex offender fiance. The 44-year-old mother from Dewsbury, Yorkshire, who was dubbed 'Britain's worst mother' after she staged her daughter's kidnapping in 2008, is planning a holiday to Benidorm with her paedophile boyfriend Paul Saunders, 57. The reported holiday comes just weeks after the mother was seen buying trainers, visiting a Pets at Home store and getting a fish and chips with Saunders who was jailed for abusing a 15-year-old girl. Matthews first became interested in the Spanish destination after she becoming an avid viewer of the show Benidorm while serving her eight-year sentence at New Hall prison, near Wakefield, West Yorkshire, and Foston Hall prison in Derbyshire. Karen Matthews (right with Paul Saunders),44, from Yorkshire, is reportedly planning her first overseas holiday to Spain with her convicted child sex offender fiance Paul Saunders (pictured in mugshot), 57, was jailed for five years in 2010 for abusing a 15-year-old girl A source told The Daily Record: 'One of Karen's favourite telly shows is Benidorm and she's also a fan of A Place in the Sun and Bargain-Loving Brits in the Sun on Channel 5. 'She has never set foot outside the UK but now with the passport in the works she is dreaming of the Costas. 'She hopes Paul can join her.' Last month, Matthews was spotted leaving a B&M store and smoking inside a white transit van with convicted paedophile Saunders who was jailed for five years in 2010. The pair, who met when Saunders went to carry out work at her residence, reportedly got engaged to each other just six weeks after they began their relationship. The couple reportedly fell out after Matthews found out about his criminal past but have since reconciled. A friend told The Sun at the time: 'The recent behaviour has shocked me. She knows about his past, she doesn't care. Matthews and her then-partner Michael Donovan, now 51, were arrested in 2008 for staging her daughter's kidnapping 'She thinks he's the victim in all of this. Now she's planning on having a baby with him. God forbid if they ever have a child.' In 2008, Matthews and her then-partner's uncle Michael Donovan, now 51, were arrested for faking her daughter's kidnapping in an effort to collect reward money. Police later found the schoolgirl, who had been drugged, hidden inside a divan bed base at Donovan's flat. The pair were each jailed for eight years after being convicted of kidnapping, false imprisonment and perverting justice. Matthews was freed in 2012 after doing just four years of her sentence. Dr Marc Lamont Hill is an award-winning journalist and author and is the Steve Charles Professor of Media, Cities, and Solutions at Temple University. Hill is known for his work addressing the intersections of race, justice, politics and culture. His latest best-selling book is We Still Here: Pandemics, Policing, Protest and Possibility which follows on the success of Nobody: Casualties of Americas War on the Vulnerable from Flint to Ferguson. Hill has received numerous prestigious awards from the US National Association of Black Journalists, GLAAD, and the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. Don Walker had never been homeless before. When he was released from prison earlier this year after spending more than half a decade behind bars, everything changed. He made his way to a shelter on 38th Street, where he spent the next few nights and met people who had lived this way for years. My perception of the homeless used to be way different, he said. Denvers homeless arent all heavy drug users or criminals, and many are troubled by some deeply rooted stuff, way down to the core. The same, in many ways, can be said of Denver city governments Sisyphean efforts to help the homeless, or at least rid the streets of them. There are no simple solutions, and the ongoing issues of drugs, tax money, civil rights, politics and mental illness course through it. For years, the city has fought and failed to get at the heart of its homelessness problem. From housing to health care, Denvers leadership has been criticized for falling short on all fronts . Meanwhile, a battle is brewing in courts of law and public opinion around the citys urban camping ban. The 2012 law gives cops the power to fine or jail a person who sleeps on public property rather than in a shelter. In practice, campers are rarely cited or arrested by police officers. Instead, they end up shuffling their way around the city to find a safe spot to squat. Mayoral and City Council races have pivoted on the homeless conundrum for years, and John Hickenlooper, the former Denver mayor and Colorado governor hoping to be the next U.S. senator, promised a Road Home program that was a dead end and an unkept promise. Proponents of the camping ban, such as the National Association of Realtors and the Downtown Denver Partnership, say without the law in place, public safety is put at risk without helping people access housing. Speaking specifically about the Right to Survive Initiative that was shot down by 82% of Denver voters in 2019, the Downtown Denver Partnership said it would have significant unintended consequences for those experiencing homelessness, and creates serious economic, safety and quality of life issues for all Denver residents and guests. But opponents of the ban say casting out the homeless is a lose-lose for everyone. Criminalizing homelessness is futile and wasteful of public resources, said Tristia Bauman, senior attorney at the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty. There are better policy models to pursue. 20200122Colwell-CoPo-homelessness-2AC7768.jpg photos by Andy Colwell, special to colorado politics Tents at 21nd and Welton streets in Denver on Jan. 22. Cruel and unusual, says judge The urban camping ban was ruled unconstitutional on Dec. 27 by Denver County Judge Johnny Barajas, who cited the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. Following the ruling, the City Attorneys Office wasted no time appealing the decision. Denvers Police Department has since resumed enforcement of the ban, pending the appeal. We are still exploring our options and next steps, but it is important to remember that this is a narrow ruling on a criminal matter, said Ryan Luby, spokesman for the City Attorneys Office, in an earlier statement. The city will continue to enforce its ordinances, including those necessary to protect public health and safety. On Jan. 15, Denvers Health Department evicted homeless encampments in Liberty Park, citing an infestation of rats. The park, on East 14th Avenue near the Colorado Capitol and also called Lincoln Park, will be closed indefinitely, city officials said. About 100 people were told to leave who had set up camp in the park during the two weeks prior. The timing of the sweep is suspect, said Benjamin Dunning of Denver Homeless Out Loud. The rats have been in the park for years, he said, but they only became an issue when tents began popping up. It just goes to show that the city really doesnt care about the law, Dunning said. What they really care about is visible homelessness, and they will use any means necessary to disperse them. 20200122Colwell-CoPo-homelessness-2AC7694.jpg Sleeping mattresses are pictured in storage at the Denver Rescue Mission on Jan. 22 in Denver. How we got here The urban camping ban traces its roots back to the Occupy Denver movement in 2011. At that time, encampments had been cropping up all over Civic Center Park as activists took to the streets in protest of economic inequality, a movement happening across the country. Denver City Council, in response, the next year passed an ordinance, 9-4, that barred camping on public property. They saw that it worked so well, they decided to continue using it for the homeless population, which I thought was really just a trashy, immoral mindset, said former Democratic Rep. Joe Salazar, who has tried to pass numerous times a Right to Rest bill that would outlaw urban camping bans across Colorado. Although no longer in the Legislature, Salazar said he anticipates another Right to Rest bill will be introduced during the legislative session. Denver City Councilwoman Candi CdeBaca called the camping ban an iteration of black code vagrancy laws that were once used against the black population on Jan. 19 at the Shorter Community AME Church. The councilwoman, a self-proclaimed democratic socialist, pledged in her speech to repeal the law this year. She would need nine council members votes to trump a veto from Mayor Michael Hancock, who supports the ban. Denvers approach to assist people living in homelessness which is overwhelmingly supported by the public is to address their needs indoors in a dignified and compassionate fashion, said Mike Strott, spokesman for the mayors office. We do not believe outdoor encampments are healthy or safe, and the unauthorized-camping ordinance has proven to be an effective tool to connect people with services, including overnight shelter, of which there are typically a couple hundred vacant beds each night. 20200122Colwell-CoPo-homelessness-A8C8073.jpg Don Walker, 48, was recently released from prison after serving a six-year sentence and is a guest at the Rescue Mission while experiencing ho Dire shortage of affordable housing After John Hickenlooper was elected mayor in 2003, he accepted a challenge as part of the U.S. Conference of Mayors to create a 10-year plan to end chronic homelessness. The plan, called Denvers Road Home, was not actually intended to end all homelessness in the city, Hickenlooper spokeswoman Melissa Miller said. Rather, it was a federal initiative intended to promote problem-solving in cities challenged with homelessness. Denver is currently experiencing an affordable housing shortage. Meanwhile, its population has boomed over the last decade, and its median rent has risen for the past four years. An estimated 35% of Denver households are spending more than 30% of income on housing, according to city data. Today, an estimated 3,943 people are homeless in the City and County of Denver, according to the 2019 Point in Time survey, a 24-hour count of the homeless across the city. Homelessness in the city increased by 18% from 2017 to 2019, the survey found. 20200122Colwell-CoPo-homelessness-2AC7699.jpg Andy Colwell Denver Rescue Mission guest Michael Hoffpauir, 40, is pictured January 22, 2020 in Denver while he speaks with Colorado Politics Advocacy organizations tend to agree that the prevailing answer to solving homelessness is affordable housing. Denver needs about 27,000 more affordable rental units to house residents that make less than $19,500, according to the Colorado Division of Housing. An additional 11,900 units are needed for the very low-income bracket. The city also is short 3,340 units in the low-income bracket. We need to think intentionally about how to expand access to housing which is what ends homelessness, Bauman said. A shelter is not housing. A 2019 report by the REMI Partnership a policy organization made up of business groups like the Colorado Association of Realtors and the Colorado Bankers Association found that there are 1.2 shelter beds for every homeless person. Opponents of the camping ban disagree with the figure and say there is not enough space to house all of Denvers homeless. They also argue that shelters arent a feasible option for families, couples, people with pets or those who work night shifts due to some shelters closing their doors for the night at 6 p.m. Josh Geppelt, the vice president of programs for the Denver Rescue Mission, said the shelter serves between 900 and 1,000 people daily. He estimates he sees 15 to 20 new faces a day. There are a few reasons for this, he says, one being that shelters are seeing a growing aging population, as well as an increase in younger people who cant afford rent despite holding down a job. Last month, Denver City Council approved more than $5 million in funding for shelters, including Denver Rescue Mission. Last year, Hancock set aside roughly $51 million toward services for the homeless, according to the mayors office. With the 2020 budget and the newly created Department of Housing Stability, most of the housing and homelessness services now fall under one departments purview, where $72 million of the $98 million in housing and homelessness funding now sits. The rest of the funding flows to programs run by Denver Human Services, Denver Health, the public library, the citys Health Department and more. What were doing is working, Strott of the mayors office said in a statement. But homeless advocates dont agree. Were not responding to scale, which is why things are going to get worse, Dunning said. A performative art piece on the strength of Indian women at the was interrupted on Sunday after police arrived at the venue following a complaint that some paintings against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) were being exhibited. "We received a PCR call that some paintings depicting the CAA were being exhibited at the fair. A police team was sent to check it, but no such painting was exhibited, a senior police official said. Curated by artist Myna Mukherjee, the art at the Italian Embassy Cultural Centre booth featured paintings as well as songs including Faiz Ahmad Faiz's Hum Dekhenge, and poetry recitations talking about the love, beauty, tenderness and the strength of women across the country, Gargi Chandola, a participating artist told PTI. The artwork was not about any one particular protest or issue. It is about women of India. We had together created a space to celebrate women. It was purely in solidarity and celebration of the resilience and strength of the women in India. This was in no way political. We don't know what the problem was. The audience was very receptive. But, someone complained, Chandola said. Another participating artist Indranil Roy said the incident was very unfortunate, and alleged that the fair's organisers behaved unprofessionally. The management behaved very unprofessionally and made the matter out of proportion. Police did apologise for the misunderstanding and fair's management came charging on us without even trusting the artists works or the curator. That's very unfortunate Without even knowing anything or the Urdu language which no one could read, everything was stopped, he said. The fair's organisers said that while they embrace the freedom of expression, ensuring safety and security of their visitors was paramount. They said exhibitors were expected to share "details of the all activities to take place at their booths during the course of the four day art event, which was not done for the performance in question. We were informed about an incident that occurred at the booth of the Italian Embassy Cultural Centre where a performance was ongoing. Our contract with the Italian Embassy Cultural Centre, consistent with others, required them to share with us the details of all activities which were to take place at their booth over the course of four days of "We were not informed about the activities at the booth. In fact, post the incident, the fair director spoke with the Italian Ambassador in New Delhi who confirmed that they too had not informed of the activities taking place in their booth, the fair organisers said in a statement. They said they found out about the commotion only after the police arrived and then followed it up with the Italian Embassy Culture Centre. "The organisers of the India Art Fair only became aware of the activities when the police arrived. They informed us that they had received a complaint. In fact, post the incident, the fair's director spoke with the Italian Ambassador in New Delhi who confirmed that they too had not been informed of the activities taking place in their booth. "India Art Fair embraces freedom of expression and believes individuals have the right to express their opinions in their own way. Artists are conscience keepers of a society and we place their voice at the centre of our programme. "This was demonstrated through the strong line-up of artists, art and programming throughout the Fair. As event organisers, ensuring the safety and security of all our visitors is paramount. Each year, the fair hosts a large number of visitors, including young children and the elderly, many of whom were onsite when the incident took place, they said. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Former presidential candidate Ahn Cheol-soo announces his plan for a new party at the National Assembly in Yeouido, Seoul, Sunday. Yonhap By Yi Whan-woo Former presidential candidate Ahn Cheol-soo announced a plan for an envisioned new party, Sunday, but will the fourth time be a charm for this party leader? This comes after Ahn rode a roller coaster of failure and success as a co-leader or co-founder of three parties in the local, general, and presidential elections from 2013 to 2018. The three were the ruling Democratic Party of Korea's (DPK) predecessor the New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD), the centrist People's Party, which later merged with center-right Bareun Party and changed their name to Bareunmirae Party. Ahn retreated from politics following his defeat in the Seoul mayoral race in June 2018 and stayed abroad before making a political comeback in January. This time, Ahn vowed to create a party aimed at shoring up a pragmatic and middle-of-the-road brand of politics in the lead-up to the April 15 National Assembly election. The name of the party and when it will be launched will be announced after a preparatory committee is formed, possibly Monday, according to Ahn. "The party I will launch will not be the same kind as the existing parties," he said during a press conference at the National Assembly in Yeouido, Seoul, Sunday. "The new party will be based on a sense of urgency that the Republic of Korea can't go on like this. And with this party, I will seek to rescue today's irresponsible and destructive politics by overcoming ideological and political divisions." The new party will be characterized by being less dependent on the National Assembly's financial support, more engaging with private think tanks and policymakers, sharing thoughts with the public using mobile platforms and financial transparency. To do so, Ahn vowed to overhaul the National Assembly Law and cut the number of lawmakers and subsidies provided by the Assembly by half, when the next parliamentary session opens. He said interacting with private think tanks and policymakers is critical to expand networks outside the party, while using mobile platforms can help the public understand the party's decision-making process. Regarding financial transparency, Ahn says this will help the party be innovative. Asked whether he was considering running in the April 15 general election, he said "No." Ahn maintained his Bareunmirae Party membership even during his stay abroad, but left the party Jan. 19 after a dispute with incumbent Chairman Sohn Hak-kyu over reform measures. He said forming a new party was "a must," adding "It was impossible to pursue a new way under a conventional and outdated party." Ahn, a former doctor and software mogul, became popular with his "new politics." He entered the political arena in 2012 as an independent candidate. In 2013, he co-founded the NPAD, which suffered a crushing defeat a year later in the local elections. He defected from the NPAD in 2016. In 2016, he made a successful comeback as a political leader when his nascent People's Party secured 38 of the 300 parliamentary seats to become the third largest party in Korea. He made his second presidential bid in 2017 but failed. He ran for Seoul mayor in 2018 and also lost. Donald Trump said during a Super Bowl pregame interview that aired Sunday afternoon that he is just going to 'sit back and watch' the Democratic primary, but claimed the election is 'rigged' against progressive candidate Bernie Sanders. 'You look at Bernie. I call him crazy Bernie,' Trump said of Sanders. 'They're now sort of rigging the election against him again. I see what's going on. They're rigging it against him.' The president's insistence is likely a move to further divide the Democratic Party which has split in recent years between establishment Democrats and those who are more progressive. Trump has also used impeachment to claim that the Democrats holding off on transmitting the articles from the House to the Senate for all of December hurt Sanders' campaign as he, and the other senators running for president, where forced to spend much of the time leading up to the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary in Washington, D.C. Donald Trump said in his Super Bowl pregame interview that the DNC is rigging the Democratic primary election against Bernie Sanders. 'They're now sort of rigging the election against him again. I see what's going on. They're rigging it against him,' he insisted Trump pre-recorded the interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity Saturday where he weighed in on the Democratic primary field, claiming he's going 'to sit back and watch' to see who he'll take on in November Trump is attempting to pin Democrats who support Joe Biden (left) and those who support Sanders (right) against each other and he is also referencing 2016 when Sanders' supporters felt the DNC rigged the election in favor of Hillary Clinton He claimed the move was beneficial to Biden, one of a few other frontrunner candidates who are not currently serving in the Senate but Trump made no mention of the other candidates who may have benefitted from extra time on the trial. 'Many of the ads you are watching were paid for by Mini Mike Bloomberg. He is going nowhere, just wasting his money, but he is getting the DNC to rig the election against Crazy Bernie, something they wouldn't do for @CoryBooker and others. They are doing it to Bernie again, 2016,' Trump tweeted overnight Saturday. This sentiment also resonates with those who supported Sanders in the 2016 primary and believe the Democratic National Committee worked against him in that election because they wanted Hillary Clinton to win the nomination and take on Trump. But Trump suggested in his interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity Sunday that he doesn't really care who he goes up against in November. 'You've got the Democrats, they're vying to go up against you in 275 days. Is it one candidate running more than another that you'd like to take on?' Hannity, who pre-recorded the interview with Trump Saturday at his Mar-a-Lago resort, asked. 'I have to sit back and watch,' Trump said. 'Doesn't matter to you?' Hannity said. 'I mean I'm watching and I have little nicknames for all of them,' Trump said. 'I'm sure they love your nicknames.' 'But they're accurate,' the president insisted. 'I mean they're very accurate. You look at Sleepy Joe. What's going on with him? He's having a hard time.' Trump said he would 'love to run against [Mike] Bloomberg' and attacked the billionaire for his height. Bloomberg stands at 5ft 8in compared to Trump's 6ft 3in Biden is more of an establishment Democrat and he has become the focus of much of Trump's ire throughout the impeachment proceedings. Hannity went into a sort of lighting round with Trump during the interview, asking him to say what comes to mind when he mentions different names. 'We'll start with Joe Biden,' Hannity said. 'I just think of sleepy,' he said, right off the bat. 'I just watch him. He's sleepy. Sleepy Joe.' Hannity then posed Sanders, who Trump asserts is 'far beyond a socialist.' 'Well, I think he's a communist,' Trump said. 'I mean you know, look. I think of communism when I think of Bernie. Now you could say socialist, but didn't he get married in Moscow? And that's wonderful, Moscow is wonderful. 'Might have been his honeymoon, I'm not sure,' Hannity said. 'But you don't necessarily think in terms of marriage, Moscow,' Trump said. 'And it's wonderful. I'm not knocking it, but I think of Bernie sort of as a socialist but far beyond a socialist.' He then asked about Elizabeth Warren, another front runner candidate and senator who has taken off the trial to hear the impeachment trial. 'At least he's true to what he believes, that's one thing because you mention now, Elizabeth Warren,' Trump said, referencing back to Sanders. While both Sanders and Warren are progressive candidates, Warren insists she is a 'communist to my bones,' while Sanders embraces being a Democratic socialist. 'She's not true to it,' Trump said. 'I call her fairy tale because everything is a fairy tale.' He said that 'fairytale' mentality is part of why he decided to call her Pocahontas, a nickname that was invoked due to Warren's now debunked claims to Native American heritage. 'That's how Pocahontas got started,' Trump continued. 'Everything is a fairy tale. This woman can't tell the truth.' In his interview, Trump also called Sanders a 'communist' and made reference to his nickname for Elizabeth Warren, 'Pocahontas,' which he claims comes from the fact that she doesn't embrace the fact that she's actually a socialist 'I call her fairy tale because everything is a fairy tale,' Trump said of Warren. 'That's how Pocahontas got started,' Trump continued. 'Everything is a fairy tale. This woman can't tell the truth' Hannity also asked about billionaire Mike Bloomberg a latecomer to the Democratic primary race. 'I just think of little,' Trump said of the former New York City mayor, who is 5ft 8in. 'You know, now he wants a box for the debates to stand on,' Trump, who is 6ft 3in tall, insisted in the interview. 'Okay, it's okay, there's nothing wrong. You can be short,' the president continued in his first sit-down interview since the Senate voted against calling witnesses. 'Why should he get a box to stand on, okay? He wants a box for the debates. Why should he be entitled to that? Really. Does that mean everyone else gets a box?' The president often refers to Bloomberg as 'mini Mike' and slammed him in a tweet late night Saturday as needing a 'lift' for the debate. 'Mini Mike is now negotiating both to get on the Democrat Primary debate stage, and to have the right to stand on boxes, or a lift, during the debates. This is sometimes done, but really not fair!' Trump tweeted. Trump also said he 'would love' to go against Bloomberg in November. 'But I would love to run against Bloomberg. I would love it,' he told Hannity. No one has ever explained the logic of releasing someone from prison with a heroin addiction and an unmet need for treatment. But New Jersey does it. And no one has ever explained why our Department of Corrections doesnt mandate hepatitis testing one-third of the prison population could have the virus and then allows people with this deadly and infectious disease to go out into society untreated. But we do that, too. No matter how hard New Jerseyans cling to the tough-on-crime rubric written by the same folks who authored the catastrophic War on Drugs, we can agree that this demented practice needs a correction. So our lawmakers have proposed multiple fixes designed to end the ludicrous cycle of sending sick people back into the community without health services, without life-saving medication, and with no access to a doctor. Essentially, this safety net comes in the form of eight bills that will significantly improve the health and treatment of offenders before and after they are released. The premise is irrefutable: There are no second chances if there is no access to health care, says former governor Jim McGreevey, whose prison reentry program is a national standard. So just as you want it for every able-bodied person, it should be available for those returning to society from a very difficult place. McGreevey led a commission that was tasked with studying reentry issues in 2018 including addiction, treatment, and physical and mental health and many of the panels recommendations were converted into bills by Sens. Joe Vitale (D-Middlesex), Brian Stack (D-Hudson), and Joe Cryan, the former Union County sheriff. The bills passed Vitales Health Committee Monday, and they include pre-enrolling prisoners in Medicaid at least two months before their release date; implementing an opt-out screening protocol for hepatitis B and C, which our DOC doesnt currently provide during the intake process; and offering all addicts medication-assisted treatment (MAT), which currently has a limited scope, even though an estimated three-quarters of inmates have addictions. Other proposals focus on easing the transition of re-entry, including one that creates peer counseling programs, and another that provides two weeks of medicine upon release. So when they are released, Vitale said, their first stop is their therapist, not their dealer. This package, which has been applauded by Americans for Prosperity the advocacy group funded by the Koch Bros. now moves to the Budget Committee. But this isnt a complicated fiscal equation, as McGreevey points out: This is a classic case of preventive medicine being uniformly less expensive than the alternative, he says. Its the difference between treating hepatitis in an early stage and needing a liver transplant. Its the difference between providing Suboxone or another MAT treatment and dealing with a full-blown addiction. A Rutgers-Camden study shows that poor health increases the chance that incarcerated individuals will return to prison, so the costs of this bill would be offset by savings derived from not having to re-incarcerate. It costs taxpayers $55,000 per inmate per year. These are people who exist on the margins of society poor, alone, and disenfranchised. The snake pit of challenges they face upon release can be overwhelming, because they usually lack a job, they probably need housing, they must re-integrate with their families and community, and their only sense of civic identity is the DOC ID in their pocket. Now imagine what its like for someone who has undiagnosed and untreated hepatitis. Or a heroin addiction, which makes them 129 percent more likely to die of an overdose upon release. For generations, we have debated the level of support for ex-offenders: Do they deserve interventions or second chances? Should they be left to fend for themselves? This much is clear: If we believe the 9,000 who leave New Jerseys prisons each year should be on their own, we must be willing to live with the consequences. The smart alternative is to pass laws that help their transition. Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook. Twenty-five percent of AAP candidates and 20 percent of BJP contestants in the fray for the 8 February Delhi Assembly polls have declared serious criminal cases against them in their affidavits. Editor's Note: This PTI wire, originally published on 2 February, erroneously quoted an Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) report as stating that 25 percent of AAP candidates and 20 percent of BJP nominees for the Delhi polls have criminal cases against them. The wire and headline have been updated to reflect the correct figures from the ADR report. Fifty-one percent of AAP candidates and 25 percent of BJP contestants in the fray for the 8 February Delhi Assembly polls have declared serious criminal cases against them in their affidavits, according to an Association of Democratic Reforms report entitled Analysis of Criminal Background, Financial, Education, Gender and other details of candidates for Delhi Assembly elections 2020. Twenty percent of Congress candidates also have declared serious criminal cases against them, the ADR report said. In the Delhi Assembly polls, 672 candidates are in the fray, one less than in 2015. The top three richest candidates are from the AAP. They are Dharampal Lakra from Mundka (Rs 292 crore), Parmila Tokas from R K Puram (Rs 80 crore) and Ram Singh Netaji from Badarpur (Rs 80 crore). It said 32 candidates have declared cases related to crime against women. Of 32 candidates, one candidate has declared a case related to rape. Four contestants have declared cases related to attempt to murder. Nations Choose Different Approaches to Combat Coronavirus Outbreak By Megan Duzor February 01, 2020 Countries around the world are taking differing approaches to prevent a coronavirus outbreak in China from spreading to their borders, with some nations instituting outright bans on Chinese citizens, with others issuing travel warnings or setting up quarantines. While almost all of the roughly 11,000 cases of the virus are confined to China, more than 100 infections have been reported outside the country. The list of countries with confirmed cases is growing almost daily and currently includes: Australia, Cambodia, India, Japan, Malaysia, Nepal, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Canada, the United States, Britain, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Sweden, and the United Arab Emirates. The rapid spread of the virus in just two months has led the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare the outbreak a global emergency, with the organization citing fears the virus could spread to poorer countries that would have great difficulty containing it. In China, 258 people have died from the virus, but so far no deaths have been reported outside the country. The WHO said it does not recommend countries around the world initiate any travel or trade restrictions with China, but that advice has not stopped dozens of nations from putting some kind of restriction in place. Travel bans The most restrictive measures taken include travel bans on Chinese citizens. The United States announced Friday that any foreign national who has recently traveled to China would be barred entry, except for those travelers whose immediate family members are U.S. citizens. Singapore, a major Asian travel hub, has stopped entry of passengers who have recently traveled to China. Both Singapore and Vietnam have ordered the suspension of new tourist visas for Chinese passport holders. Several South American countries, including Guatemala and El Salvador, have announced blanket restrictions on travelers who have recently been to China. In Israel, Interior Minister Aryeh Deri on Friday barred foreign nationals from entering the country by land or sea if they had traveled to China within the past two weeks. The country has already halted flights from China. Mongolia's government plans to bar entry to Chinese nationals as well as foreigners coming from the country beginning Saturday until March 2. In addition, it barred its own citizens from traveling to China during that same period. Mongolia, along with Russia, North Korea and Kazakhstan have all closed their borders with China. The WHO warned Friday that closing borders is probably ineffective in stopping the spread of the virus and said it could even increase the spread of the virus by encouraging illegal or unofficial crossings. Travel warnings To prevent travelers from visiting China and possibly bringing the virus back to their home country, several nations have issued travel warnings. On Thursday, the U.S. State Department issued what it calls a Level 4-Do Not Travel advisory, and also recommended Americans currently in China leave. The measure raises the warning for China to the same level as Afghanistan and Iraq. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a Level 3 notice advising Americans to avoid all nonessential travel to China. Japan, Germany and Britain have advised against nonessential travel to China. Bahrain has recommended that its citizens not travel to any country hit by the virus. Quarantines Governments around the world are evacuating their citizens from the central Chinese province of Hubei, where the outbreak began, and putting them in quarantine. In some countries, the quarantine measures are the first of their kind in decades. On Friday, U.S. health officials issued a two-week quarantine order for 195 Americans evacuated earlier this week from Wuhan, the Chinese city at the very center of the outbreak. The CDC said this was the first federal quarantine ordered since the 1960s, when there were fears of a smallpox outbreak. In addition, the U.S. government said Friday that any U.S. citizens who had traveled to China's Hubei province within the past two weeks would be subject to a mandatory 14-day quarantine. Many other countries that have chartered planes to bring home citizens stranded by a lockdown in China's Hubei province have also made plans to quarantine them for two weeks when they get home, the incubation period for the virus. Those countries include Germany, India, Bangladesh and France. In South Korea, residents near two quarantine centers in Asan and Jincheon cities about 80 kilometers south of the capital, Seoul held a protest Thursday against bringing the evacuees to the cities, with some demonstrators throwing eggs at officials. More than 300 South Koreans were flown home from China Friday and entered the quarantine facilities without incident. More South Koreans are expected to arrive at the facilities Saturday. In Indonesia, authorities have quarantined more than 40,000 workers at a Chinese-controlled industrial complex on Sulawesi island, although the country has not reported any cases of the virus. Flight cancellations Other travel restrictions have come not from governments but from corporations around the world. All three major U.S. airlines announced Friday they would suspend all flights between the U.S. and mainland China, joining several international carriers that have also canceled flights. American Airlines said it would stop flights immediately through March 27. Delta said it would wait until Feb. 6 to stop flights and keep them suspended through April 30. Shortly after saying it would only reduce service to mainland China, United Airlines also announced Friday it would suspend flights from Feb. 6 through March 28. Friday's decision came after the American Airlines pilots union sued the company to immediately stop flights to and from China because of possible health threats posed by the coronavirus. Other international airlines that have suspended service to mainland China or announced plans to do so include Air France, British Airways, KLM, Lufthansa, Scandinavian Airlines and Indonesia's Lion Air. Iran suspended all flights to and from China, and many other airlines have reduced flights to China. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Furious anti-government youth in Iraq's capital and south on Sunday rejected the nomination of Mohammad Allawi as prime minister, but came up against rival sit-ins by supporters of an influential cleric backing the new premier. Allawi was named prime minister-designate after a hard-won consensus among Iraq's rival parties, who had struggled to agree on a candidate since outgoing premier Adel Abdel Mahdi resigned under growing street pressure two months ago. Mass rallies have rocked Baghdad and the mainly-Shiite south since October, with protesters demanding snap elections and an independent prime minister as well as accountability for corruption and recent bloodshed. Young demonstrators have expressed contempt for the ruling elite and on Sunday, they slammed Allawi -- a former lawmaker and minister -- as part and parcel of the system they want to overhaul. "We are here to reject the new prime minister because he has a well-known history within the political class," said 22-year-old university student Tiba protesting in Baghdad. Hundreds of students flooded the streets around the capital's main protest camp of Tahrir Square, carrying pictures of Allawi with an "X" over his face. They blared upbeat Arabic music through speakers to drown out somber Islamic hymns played by demonstrators loyal to populist cleric Moqtada Sadr. Sadr backed the protests in October but has split with the main movement over Allawi, whose designation he welcomed as a "good step". Dozens of hardcore Sadrists responded by storming a key Baghdad building known as the Turkish restaurant, a symbol of the uprising, to drive out activists and remove banners listing their demands. - 'A mockery' - Late Sunday Sadr posted new tweets condemning student sit-ins and road closures -- the two main tactics used by anti-government demonstrators. "No burning, no cutting, no ignorance, no disobedience," he tweeted late Sunday, even while insisting, "I loved the October revolution... It and I are one." Despite his appeal, angry protesters in the holy city of Najaf blocked roads with burning tyres and held up a sign reading "Mohammad Allawi is rejected, by order of the people!" In Diwaniyah, further south, protesters marched into government buildings to demand they close for the day while students began sit-ins at schools and universities. "Naming Mohammad Allawi is a mockery," one demonstrator there told AFP. "It represents a total disregard for those killed in the protests and for the demands of the Iraqi people who have been demonstrating for four months to reject parties affiliated with Iran." In addition to calls for better services and an end to graft, demonstrators have accused Iraq's ruling elite of being beholden to powerful neighbour Iran. Tehran has seen its influence grow in Iraq since the US-led invasion that toppled ex-dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003. Allawi, 65, launched his political career in the aftermath of the invasion, first as a parliamentarian and then twice as communications minister under former premier Nuri al-Maliki. But he resigned both times, alleging mass graft in a country considered among the top 20 most corrupt in the world by Transparency International. - Obstacles ahead - His appointment came after days of crisis talks prompted by President Barham Saleh, who said he would select his own candidate if Iraq's parliamentary blocs did not nominate someone by Saturday. The negotiations were very secretive and it remains unclear what finally unlocked a deal, but on Saturday evening Allawi announced his own nomination in a video posted to Twitter. There has been no official statement from Saleh. Abdel Mahdi has congratulated his successor and the pair met on Sunday. The outgoing PM said he would no longer conduct high-level meetings or take major decisions, in order not to interfere with his successor's preparations. He pledged "a smooth transition process." In his first public remarks, Allawi vowed to form a representative government, hold early parliamentary elections and ensure justice for protest-related violence. More than 480 people have died and nearly 30,000 have been wounded since the rallies began on October 1, but few have been held accountable for the bloodshed. Allawi has one month to form a government, but ensuring an independent line-up may prove a challenge, said Sajad Jiyad of the Iraq-based think tank the Bayan Center. "If we've learned anything from the previous PM, it's that this is the most difficult part: pushing back against the political blocs' demands," Jiyad told AFP. In Iraq, cabinets are typically formed after complex horsetrading whereby parties demand lucrative and influential ministerial posts based on their share of parliament. If Allawi fails to resist ministerial candidates proposed by parties, "it will back up what protesters are saying" about his allegiance to the factions, Jiyad added. An Iraqi protester flashes the victory sign in the holy city of Najaf where demonstrators blocked roads with burning tyres to protest against the nomination of Mohammad Allawi as the country's new prime minister Iraqi protesters demanding an independent premier say Allawi is part and parcel of the system they want to overhaul In Baghdad, hundreds of students flooded the streets around the main protest camp of Tahrir Square, demonstrating against Allawi's appointment Iraqi President Barham Saleh (R) presented Allawi with the decree to appoint him as Iraq's new prime minister on February 1, 2020 No cases have been reported in the Middle East, except in the UAE The World Health Organization (WHO) has said that no cases of the fast spreading coronavirus have been reported in Egypt, state news agency MENA reported. The deadly epidemic, which has spread to 24 countries, has not been detected in the Middle East region, with the exception of the United Arab Emirates, where six people have been diagnosed with the virus, WHO representative in Egypt John Jabbour said during a press conference organised by the WHO regional office in Cairo on Sunday. He added that Egypt will be provided with coronavirus detection kits on Sunday and that most of the region's countries will be equipped with these kits by the end of this week. Egypt sent a special jet earlier on Sunday to bring home around 300 Egyptian nationals from the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the coronavirus outbreak began. The virus has killed 304 people in China so far. Search Keywords: Short link: Concern: A doctor puts on a protective suit and goggles at a hospital in Wuhan in central China. Photo: AP A man in the Philippines has become the first person outside China to die from the coronavirus outbreak, while the overall death toll has risen above 300 and the number of confirmed cases of infection increased to more than 14,000. The 44-year-old man from Wuhan, the Chinese province where the outbreak is believed to have originated, was admitted to a Manila hospital on January 25 with a fever, cough and a sore throat, the Philippine Department of Health said in a statement. He developed severe pneumonia but "showed signs of improvement" in the days before his death, and the 38-year-old woman he was with has tested positive for the virus and remains in hospital isolation. President Rodrigo Duterte approved a temporary ban on all travellers, except Filipinos, from China and its autonomous regions. The US, Japan, Singapore and Australia have imposed similar restrictions despite criticism from China and an assessment from the World Health Organisation (WHO) that they were unnecessarily hurting trade and travel. The death toll in China climbed by 45 to 304 and the number of cases by 2,590 to 14,380, according to the National Health Commission. The number of confirmed cases in China has surpassed the number in the 2002-03 outbreak of Sars (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome). With the outbreak showing little sign of abating, authorities in Hubei and elsewhere have extended the Lunar New Year holiday, due to end this week, well into February. The annual travel crunch of millions of people returning from their hometowns to the cities is thought to pose a major threat of secondary infection at a time when authorities are encouraging people to avoid public gatherings. Despite imposing drastic travel restrictions at home, China has criticised those imposed by foreign governments. Beijing has criticised Washington's order barring entry to the US to most foreigners who visited China in the past two weeks. Among a growing number of airlines suspending flights to mainland China was Qatar Airways. The Doha-based carrier said on its website that its flights would stop on Monday. It blamed "significant operational challenges caused by entry restrictions imposed by a number of countries" for the suspension of flights. Oman also halted flights to China, as did Saudi Arabia's flagship national carrier, Saudia. Saudi Arabia's state-run TV reported that 10 Saudi students were evacuated from Wuhan on a special flight. It said the students would be screened upon arrival, but did not say whether they would be quarantined for 14 days. This weekend, South Korea and India flew hundreds of their citizens out of Wuhan. They went into a two-week quarantine. On Sunday, South Korea reported three more cases for a total of 15. They include an evacuee, a Chinese relative of a man who tested positive and a man who returned from Wuhan. India reported a second case, also in southern Kerala state. South Korea also barred foreigners who have stayed or travelled to Hubei province within the last 14 days from entering the country. Indonesia flew back 241 nationals from Wuhan on Sunday and quarantined them on the remote Natuna Islands for two weeks. A Turkish military transport plane carrying 42 people arrived in Ankara from Wutan on Saturday night. The 32 Turkish, six Azerbaijani, three Georgian nationals and an Albanian will remain under observation for 14 days, together with 20 personnel who participated in the evacuation, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said. Vietnam counted its seventh case, a Vietnamese-American man who had a two-hour layover in Wuhan on his way from the US to Ho Chi Minh City. The virus' rapid spread in two months prompted the WHO on Thursday to declare it a global emergency. That declaration "flipped the switch" from a cautious attitude to recommending governments prepare for the possibility the virus might spread, said the WHO representative in Beijing, Gauden Galea. Most cases reported so far have been people who visited China or their family members. WHO said it was especially concerned that some cases abroad involved human-to-human transmission. "Countries need to get ready for possible importation in order to identify cases as early as possible and in order to be ready for a domestic outbreak control, if that happens," Mr Galea told The Associated Press. Both the new virus and Sars are from the coronavirus family, which also includes those that cause the common cold. The death rate in China is falling, but the number of confirmed cases will keep growing because thousands of specimens from suspected cases have yet to be tested, Mr Galea said. "The case fatality ratio is settling out at a much lower level than we were reporting three, now four, weeks ago," he said. Although scientists expect to see limited transmission of the virus between people with family or other close contact, they are concerned about cases of infection spreading to people who might have less exposure. Dr Raman Kapur By Facial paralysis affects one in 60 individuals over the course of their life. One-third of affected patients experience inadequate recovery, which results in physical and social impairments. In addition to the idiopathic type of paralysis, facial palsy can be caused by viral or bacterial infections, benign or malignant tumors of the head or neck and by traumatic facial palsy, including facial nerve injuries and trauma caused by external force, resulting in intracranial bleeding, temporal bone fractures or soft tissue injuries. Symptoms of peripheral and central types of facial paralysis are almost identical and include the loss of facial expression and hemifacial weakness. Low-Level Laser Therapy (LLLT) has shown favourable outcomes in preclinical and clinical studies in the regeneration of peripheral nerves. Laser Acupuncture Therapy (LAT) is defined as the stimulation of traditional acupoints with low-intensity, non-thermal laser irradiation.A patient described in this case report suffered from a longterm, severe type of facial paralysis that had failed to improve with other interventions. Case presentation: A 52-year-old man was presented to the Acupuncture Department of China Medical University Hospital with a severe left-sided facial paralysis caused by a traumatic brain contusion 12 years ago. He was unable to close his left eye, he had saliva drooling and speech difficulties. The man had been hospitalised in the emergency department of Taichung Armed Forces General Hospital after a traffic accident. During the first two years after the surgery, he received acupuncture treatments, mainly for pain relief, an unsteady gait and left-sided facial paralysis. He was treated by several Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) doctors, none of which resulted in any improvement in his left-sided facial paralysis. After living with his condition for 12 years, the patient visited the Chief Doctor of the Acupuncture Department at China Medical University Hospital, who suggested that he try LAT. The patient described his speech difficulties, saliva drooling and his inability to eat solid food. His level of facial muscle stiffness was relatively low. He was given a total of 30 LAT sessions over 17 weeks, delivered as two-three treatments per week in the first 12 weeks, then once-weekly for the remaining five weeks. The patient attended the clinic for a follow-up appointment after the first four weeks. He and the investigator both wore protective goggles to prevent any disturbance of visual perception during laser irradiation. Notwithstanding, LLLT is considered to be a very safe treatment. The most significant improvement during the LAT sessions was the patients progressive ability to close his left eye. After the 10th treatment, there was a noticeable movement of the left eyelid. After the 22nd treatment, the patient could fully close his left eye and this improvement persisted at follow-up. From the 10th treatment, the patient reported that his left eye was shedding fewer tears and he no longer used an eye cover before falling asleep. Moreover, he reported an improvement of his facial muscles, giving him the ability to eat solid food. He was able to bite into an apple without the problems he experienced before LAT. He also reported that his mouth drooling had ceased and his family members were noticing more clarity in his speech. Conclusion: We found that LAT improved long-term sequelae of facial palsy. This case report provides strong support for the use of LAT for subacute and chronic cases of paralysis that fail to respond to other treatment modalities. LAT is a fast, noninvasive, pain-free method that is easy for the physician to apply and easy for the patient to undergo. These characteristics, combined with the safety features of LAT, make it a promising complementary therapy for chronic facial paralysis.This study was done by Gil Tona, Li-Wen Leeb, Yi-Hung Chena, Cheng-HaoTua , Yu-Chen Leea, Graduate Institute of Acupuncture Science, China Medical University, Taiwan. The author is Head of the Department of Acupuncture, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, Delhi In light of the recent Canadian Urological Association (CUA) and other urological association (America Urological Association, European Association of Urology) recommendations for the treatment of benign prostate hyperplasia (BPH) with lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS), open simple prostatectomy (OSP) remains the recommended approach for large prostates with measured volumes over 80 cc. 1 We sought to assess the current state of OSP and other BPH surgical training across Canadian urology residency programs and the use of guideline-recommended imagery prior to BPH surgery. A survey was distributed among Canadian urology program directors in June 2019. We identified the various surgical modalities available for the treatment of BPH offered by each program and obtained the annual number of OSP performed at each academic residency program. Additionally, we evaluated if preoperative transrectal ultrasound (TRUS) of the prostate was routinely performed to obtain the prostate volume during patient counselling as recommended by 2018 CUA guidelines. All 13 program directors from the Canadian urology programs responded to our survey. OSP and monopolar transurethral resection of the prostate (TURP) remain the most common across programs and are practiced in all centers. Greenlight photo-vaporization, bipolar TURP, holmium laser enucleation of the prostate and robot-assisted simple prostatectomy were practiced in 76.8%, 69.2%, 23.1%, and 23.1% of centers, respectively. The mean number of OSP per academic training program was 4.7 cases annually. Moreover, only five (38%) academic centers routinely performed a preoperative TRUS to evaluate prostate volume for BPH counselling. Although recognized and referenced as the BPH gold standard for the treatment of prostates over 80 cc, Canadian urology trainees' annual OSP exposure remains extremely limited. Considering the degree of importance given (category A) to the direct observation (of a minimum of five) of this intervention during residency training in the new Royal College's practice guidelines, it may be unrealistic to reach these national standards considering the annual case OSP volumes in Canadian academic urology faculties. Canadian Urological Association journal = Journal de l'Association des urologues du Canada. 2020 Jan 20 [Epub ahead of print] Patrice Levasseur-Fortin, Kyle W Law, David-Dan Nguyen, Ahmed Zakaria, Vincent Misrai, Dean Elterman, Naeem Bhojani, Enrique Rijo, Kevin C Zorn Faculty of Medicine, Universite de Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada., Faculty of Medicine, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada., Division of Urology, Centre hospitalier de l'Universite de Montreal, Universite de Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada., Department of Urology, Clinique Pasteur, Toulouse, France., Division of Urology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada., Department of Urology, Hospital Quiron Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain. PubMed http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31977302 LONDON (AP) If you thought the drawn-out battle over the U.K.'s departure from the European Union was painful, wait until you see what comes next. While Britain formally left the EU at 11 p.m. local time Friday, the hard work of building a new economic relationship between the bloc and its ex-member has just begun. There are difficult negotiations ahead as the U.K. goes its own way while trying to preserve links with its biggest trading partner, covering everything from tariffs and product standards to British industry's ability to recruit foreign workers and the EU's access to U.K. fishing grounds. Theres a massive agenda to be agreed: trade in goods, trade in services, data protection, security cooperation, aviation, road haulage, fishing, you know the list is endless,'' said Jill Rutter, a senior research fellow at U.K. in a Changing Europe, a think tank that studies Britain's relations with the now 27-nation bloc. It is unprecedented.'' For now, little has changed. The two sides agreed on a transition period that keeps current rules and regulations in effect until Dec. 31. But that gives the U.K. government just 11 months to negotiate a comprehensive trade deal that could decide the prospects of British businesses for decades to come. The EU accounted for 54% of Britain's imports and 43% of its exports in 2016, according to the Office for National Statistics. French President Emmanuel Macron published a letter on his Facebook page Saturday morning in English, addressed to his dear British friends, that sought a conciliatory tone. Never has France or the French people or, I think it is fair to say, any European people been driven by a desire for revenge or punishment, he said. Hours after Britain officially departed, a group of 17 members of the now diminished EU bloc sent a message that the union will remain strong despite losing one of its largest members. Its the first day the European Union is with 27 member states, and in this moment of division, it is important to send a message of cohesion, Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa said Saturday. Story continues Costa spoke before a meeting of the Friends of Cohesion, a group of member states from southern and eastern Europe interested in maintaining the EU funding that helps redistribute wealth in Europe. With challenging trade talks expected to begin fairly quickly, British Industry groups are already lining up to protect their interests. Hotel and restaurant owners say they need to maintain the existing supply of workers from the continent to ensure rooms are cleaned and dinners are prepared. Car makers want to preserve prompt deliveries from European suppliers to avoid manufacturing delays. Banks and insurance companies are lobbying to maintain access to the lucrative European market. And fishermen want to regain control of fishing grounds they believe have been plundered by European rivals for the past four decades. If that wasn't enough for Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his ministers, the British government also is keen to negotiate separate trade deals with individual countries now that the country has broken away from the EU. Johnson's top trade prize outside the EU is the United States, the world's biggest economy. But the Americans have already made difficult demands. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was in London last week warning of security concerns linked to Chinese telecoms giant Huawei and pressuring British officials to overturn their decision to let the company take part in upgrading the country's wireless network. Reconciling all these demands will be difficult because any attempt to meet U.S. demands by lowering British standards will push Britain further away from European rules. The EU has already made clear that the price of access to its markets is continued adherence to the bloc's regulations. Even the most difficult issue settled during the first round of negotiations between the EU and the British government the knotty question of Northern Ireland remains problematic. In an effort to protect the peace process in Northern Ireland and finally win approval for his EU withdrawal deal, Johnson agreed that Northern Ireland would keep the same rules as the bloc's single market for goods after Brexit. As a result, customs checks won't be needed on the border between Northern Ireland, which is part of the U.K., and the Republic of Ireland. Instead, some checks will have to be conducted on goods that enter Northern Ireland from the rest of the U.K. that are destined for the EU. This essentially means that Johnson agreed to place a trade border in the Irish Sea upsetting many of his own allies because it treats Northern Ireland differently to other parts of the United Kingdom. Unionists who want to remain part of the U.K. fear the deal will push Northern Ireland closer to the Irish Republic over time. Meanwhile, Brexit is already reshaping the economy and workers from the EU have started to vote with their feet. London Mayor Sadiq Khan said last week that fewer EU citizens are coming to work in the city these days, and too many are leaving, causing employment shortages in industries like construction, hospitality and social care. At a small gathering of reporters, he repeatedly stressed his dismay at the turn of events and insisted that London was a global city that welcomed EU citizens. ____ Associated Press writers Thomas Adamson in Paris, Gregory Katz in London and Helena Alves in Beja, Portugal contributed. New Braunfels, TX (78130) Today Partly cloudy this morning, then becoming cloudy during the afternoon. High 58F. Winds NNE at 15 to 25 mph.. Tonight Mostly cloudy skies. Low near 40F. Winds NNE at 5 to 10 mph. Business leaders have joined forces to demand that Boris Johnson ends decades of dithering over a third runway at Heathrow and publicly endorse the 14 billion scheme. The Prime Minister is yet to throw his weight behind the airport expansion after vigorously opposing it in 2015 when he became MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip just a few miles from Heathrow even pledging to lie down in front of the bulldozers. Fears that Mr Johnson could yet derail the project are holding back progress, sources told The Mail on Sunday. Business leaders have joined forces to demand that Boris Johnson ends decades of dithering over a third runway at Heathrow and endorse the 14m scheme (pictured, Terminal 3) The company that runs Heathrow has already said the project has been delayed by at least 12 months after its spending plans were rejected in December by the aviation watchdog over planning permission concerns. Now groups representing tens of thousands of businesses are urging Mr Johnson to publicly endorse the expansion, which they argue would give Britain a major economic boost following the departure from the EU. They said unleashing Heathrows full potential as a cargo and trading hub by vastly increasing capacity would play a crucial role in opening up Britain to the world. According to estimates, building a third runway would add 150 billion to GDP over 60 years, create 70,000 jobs potentially rising to 180,000 across the country and add up to 260,000 more flights in and out of the UK each year. Prime Minister Boris Johnson (pictured on December 13) is yet to throw his weight behind the airport expansion after vigorously opposing it in 2015 when he became MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip Those calling for urgent action include major airlines such as easyJet and JetBlue Americas sixth biggest carrier as well as Britains largest pension fund, the 60 billion Universities Superannuation Scheme, construction giant Balfour Beatty and trade union Unite. Weve spent too long dithering on Heathrow so its vital construction begins as soon as possible, said Jasmine Whitbread, chief executive of trade body London First, whose board members include Legal & General boss Nigel Wilson and Virgin Group chairman Peter Norris. She added: As we leave the EU, its more important than ever that the UK has world-class transport links so we can forge new trade deals across the globe. An expanded Heathrow would also connect all regions of the UK with each other and with global trading partners it would be a great way for the Government to meet its objective of levelling up the country. The project at Heathrow (pictured) was already delayed by at least 12 months after its spending plans were rejected in December by the aviation watchdog over planning permission concerns Heathrow has operated at full capacity for years after political wrangling frustrated expansion plans. It now operates three quarters of long-haul flights from the UK, accommodates 80 million passengers a year and employs more than 75,000 people. It also handles a third of the UKs exports, by value, sent outside the EU each year. A string of airlines, including easyJet, Ryanair and Virgin Atlantic which in September announced plans to fly to 84 new destinations from Heathrow if a third runway is opened have backed a third runway, which would see rivals to British Airways given more access and break its dominance at the hub. An easyJet spokesman said last night: Not only will expansion at Heathrow bring significant benefits to all parts of the UK, it is in the best interests of all passengers and would enable low-cost airlines like easyJet to operate from Heathrow. EasyJet (file image) is calling for urgent action as well as Britains largest pension fund, the 60 billion Universities Superannuation Scheme, construction giant Balfour Beatty and trade union Unite. The new run way would create 70,000 jobs potentially rising to 180,000 across the country and add up to 260,000 more flights in and out of the UK each year Robin Hayes, chief executive of low-cost US giant Jet Blue, who also worked at British Airways for 19 years, said a third runway would result in very significant fare reductions. We are in furious agreement with the need to build a third runway at Heathrow and the sooner it happens the better, he told The Mail on Sunday. At the moment fares from Heathrow to the US are obscene. The relationship between the UK and US will be even more important going forwards and lowering fares for air travel is one of the things that can spur trade between the two nations. The debate on expansion has raged for the past two decades. An Airport Commission report by Sir Howard Davies, published in 2015 under former PM David Cameron, said the choice of Heathrow against rivals such as Gatwick as the airport to be expanded was clear and unanimous. Davies warned the Government at the time to move as quickly as it can or be seen as unwilling to take the steps needed to maintain its position as a well-connected open trading economy. In 2018, MPs voted in favour of Heathrow expansion. But the plan still requires official planning permission after a period of consultation with a host of interested parties. Under the plans, 761 homes will be demolished and compensation paid to local residents. Heathrow has outlined green initiatives to limit noise and air pollution. These include boosting public transport around the airport, using renewable energy, strict emissions targets and a ban on late-night flights. However, environmental concerns and local opposition have not gone away, adding to the sense of nervousness among businesses about the PMs intentions. In 2008, Mr Johnson laid out a plan for a floating Thames Estuary alternative to a third runway dubbed Boris Island but abandoned the idea. Transport Minister Grant Shapps, a long-term supporter of a third Heathrow runway, will begin making a decision later this year over whether to grant the consent order. Even if it passes smoothly, construction might not be completed until 2028 or 2029. It is understood that if the PM signals his endorsement, Heathrow could start buying land and potentially speed up the timetable. Leo Quinn, group chief executive at Balfour Beatty, said: Building and maintaining confidence in vital major infrastructure schemes such as the Heathrow expansion is paramount to ensuring the UK retains the capability and skills needed to deliver them. Hannah Essex, of the British Chambers of Commerce, which represents 75,000 businesses, said: Britains businesses know additional capacity at Heathrow is essential for the UK to remain a global trading nation. Its time for the dithering to end, and for work to begin. Len McCluskey, general secretary of the Unite union, said: Its the correct thing to do for jobs, the economy and to maintain Heathrow as a hub for international business. Music is the language all refugees can understand. SITE Santa Fe will host two international musicians from Yo-Yo Mas famed Silk Road Ensemble on Friday, Feb. 7. Originally from Damascus, Syria, composer and clarinetist Kinan Azmeh will perform original music with Sri Lankan-born Canadian pianist and composer Dinuk Wijeratne. Presented by Serenata of Santa Fe, Migrations combines both classical music and jazz, Serenata artistic director Pamela Epple said. Its a stunning program, she said. Its beautiful and sometimes heavy. It comes from stories of their homeland. A graduate of The Juilliard School, Azmeh is a Grammy Award-winning musician. Wijeratne is a JUNO Award-winning composer, conductor and pianist. Epple met Azmeh in New York when Syria erupted into war in 2011. He couldnt go home again, she said. His home was destroyed. Hes really made quite a career for himself. Dinuk was raised in Saudi Arabia and Dubai, and studied composition at the Royal Northern College of Music, Juilliard and the University of Toronto, and with Pultizer and Oscar-winning American composer John Corgliano at Juilliard in New York. He lives and works in Halifax, Nova Scotia. This music is very captivating, Epple said. Its beyond definition. It reflects the atmosphere in a time of crisis. Both musicians take fragments of folk or indigenous music, riff on it and make it their own, she added. Its so personal; its so reflective of another place in the world, Epple said. Its beautiful, but its also terrifying the sense of displacement and loss. Azmehs Ibn Arabis Postlude is an Arabian postlude, Epple said. Its almost painfully sad, she said. The clarinet is so expressive and beautifully exuberant. The music tells stories in one note. Source: Xinhua| 2020-02-02 20:41:56|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close ADDIS ABABA, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- The Ethiopian government has embarked on various initiatives that envisaged replicating recent successes in the blossoming Ethiopia-China comprehensive strategic ties into the tourism sector as part of an ambitious plan to lure more Chinese tourists to the East African country, an Ethiopian official has said. "In light of the growing number of Chinese overseas tourists, Ethiopia plans to attract more tourists from the country," state-run Ethiopian News Agency (ENA) quoted the Ethiopian Minister of Culture and Tourism, Hirut Kassaw, as saying on late Saturday, emphasizing that the ongoing efforts would see the East African country become "the best destination for Chinese tourists." According to Kassaw, the Ethiopian ministry of culture and tourism has formulated a new approach, which mainly envisages further investments in the country's hospitality sector with particular emphasis on the needs of Chinese tourists. The Ethiopian minister also noted that her ministry is also planning to launch promotional campaigns in China concerning Ethiopia's diverse tourist attraction sites and events so as to attract potential Chinese tourists into Ethiopia. "Despite our country's untapped tourism potential that would attract lots of Chinese tourists, Ethiopia has not benefited from the powerful Chinese outbound market," said Kassaw, as she underscored various opportunities that could further benefit Ethiopia's tourism sector with growing Chinese tourists. Noting that Ethiopia and China have been enjoying a comprehensive bilateral relationship that also helped the East African country to become a top investment destination for Chinese companies, the minister also stressed that "this has to be developed into the tourism business." "As China has brought huge positive impacts in Ethiopia's development during the last decade, opportunities have grown to exploit the tourism business," Kassaw said, adding "we, however, have failed to exploit this prospect in the tourism sector," the minister pointed out. According to Kassaw, a recent study conducted by the ministry also revealed that Chinese tourists often encounter difficulties during their stay in Ethiopia in many ways, including foods that meet their taste and inability to speak the Chinese-language. "Based on the findings of the study, Ethiopia plans to open Chinese restaurants in different cities," the minister told the state-run news agency. "What we have observed is the interest of Chinese tourists to eat their own food wherever they travel. They have repeatedly commented that we prepare Chinese foods. In this regard, we are working closely with different hotels and planning to improve accommodation services for the tourists from China," she added. She also called on both Ethiopian and Chinese businesses to forge joint ventures in the hospitality sector of Ethiopia -- Africa's second populous nation with an estimated 109 million total population, according to data from the World Bank. Figures from the ministry show that Ethiopia had recorded about 190 million U.S. dollars in revenue from 50,626 Chinese tourists that visited the country in 2018, making China the third largest source of tourists visiting Ethiopia, only after the United States and Britain. Speaking to Xinhua recently, Gezahegn Abate, public and international relations director at the ministry, also said that the number of Chinese tourists visiting Ethiopia in 2018 had registered a surge of 11.7 percent from that of the previous year, at 45,307. Abate also stressed that better food and accommodation facilities "will likely attract more Chinese visitors to Ethiopia." Ethiopia has eight cultural sites registered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organizational Organization (UNESCO), which includes the obelisks of Aksum, Fasil Ghebbi or the castle of Gonder, the fortified historic town Harar Jugol, Konso cultural landscape, the Lower Valley of the Awash, Lower Valley of the Omo, Rock-Hewn Churches of Lalibela, and Tiya. The Horn of Africa country has also one natural endowment registered by UNESCO, the mountainous Simien National Park in the northern part of Ethiopia. It has also four intangible heritages inscribed by the UNESCO that are the Ethiopian epiphany, the Gada system -- an indigenous democratic socio-political system of the Oromo, the Fichee-Chambalaalla -- New Year festival of the Sidama people, as well as the commemoration feast of the finding of the True Holy Cross of Christ. Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa, known for hosting various international and regional organizations, including the African Union headquarters and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, is also another growing tourist attraction places in the country. European Union's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell addresses the European Parliament regarding the situation in Iran and Iraq, in Strasbourg, France, on Jan. 14, 2020. (Vincent Kessler/Reuters) EUs Foreign Policy Chief to Travel to Iran in De-escalation Mission BRUSSELSThe head of the European Unions foreign service, Josep Borrell, will travel to Iran next week to meet the countrys leaders in a bid to reduce tensions in the Middle East, the EU said in a statement on Sunday. During in his trip on Monday and Tuesday, Borrell will meet Irans President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif among others. Borrell received a strong mandate from the EU foreign ministers to engage in diplomatic dialogue with regional partners, to de-escalate tensions and seek opportunities for political solutions to the current crisis, the statement said. Tensions in the region stepped up after the killing in early January of Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani by the United States in Iraq. Irans Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani attends a meeting with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Revolutionary Guard commanders in Tehran, Iran, on Sept. 18, 2016. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP) The visit will also be an opportunity to convey the EUs strong commitment to preserve the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the statement said, referring to the nuclear deal that Iran reached with six major powers in 2015, and from which the United States withdrew in 2018. The EU serves as guarantor of the nuclear deal, and Borrell has a formal role in its dispute resolution process, which Britain, France and Germany activated in January after Iran said it was no longer abiding by some limits on nuclear material. Technicians work at the Arak heavy water reactors secondary circuit, as officials and media visit the site, near Arak, 150 miles (250 kilometers) southwest of the capital Tehran, Iran, on Dec. 23, 2019. (Atomic Energy Organization of Iran via AP) China's central bank has said on February 2 that it will pump $173 billion into the economy to help fight the nationwide outbreak of the Coronavirus. As the deadly virus claims more than 300 lives with nearly 14,000 confirmed cases in China, the People's Bank of China released a statement which said that it would launch 1.2 trillion yuan reverse purchase operation to maintain 'reasonable abundant liquidity' in the banking system. In order to further stabilise the currency market as the nation deals with the epidemic, the banking system would be 900 billion yuan more than it was in the same period last year. The announced move will kick in the day China's financial markets reopen after an extended Chinese Lunar Year holidays. A day before, China's Central bank also announced another range of measures to ramp-up the monetary as well as the credit support to enterprises which are currently contributing to the battle against the 2019-nCoV including medical companies. Read - How To Survive Coronavirus Quarantine, French Style Furthermore, the PBOC also urged the financial institutions to provide 'sufficient credit resources' to hospitals along with other medical facilities. The latest development of injecting liquidity into the financial system came after the Coronavirus outbreak took a toll on an already slowing economy. According to international reports, China's economic growth last year was the slowest in the last three decades with only 6.1 per cent. Moreover, the virus outbreak could further slow down the economy if it goes on for an extended period of time. Read - Only One Swab Sample Enough For Coronavirus Testing, Says WHO US ready to house 1000 quarantines As WHO has already denoted the Coronavirus outbreak a 'global health emergency', countries around the globe are stepping up their health security. The United States not only declared an 'emergency' and imposed a travel ban to China in order to contain the spread but recently, the country's defence department also announced that it would provide accommodation to 1,000 people if they need to be quarantined because of the deadly coronavirus outbreak. Several facilities capable of housing at least 250 people in individual rooms will be made available for suspects or patients until February 29. The US was also one of the countries which have been isolating citizens who travelled to the Chinese city of Wuhan which has also been identified as the epicentre of the outbreak. According to reports, two US Air Force bases in California and Texas along with Marine Corps air station in California and a training institute in Colorado will be offered by the department in case of need. Read - No Coronavirus Case Reported In Kashmir So Far: Officials Read - US Military Ready To Provide Quarantine Housing To 1,000 Amid Coronavirus Outbreak (With Agency Inputs) The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Sunday demanded the immediate dismissal of Jails minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa as well as an independent probe into the Amritsar jailbreaking incident. Dr Daljit Singh Cheema said the Amritsar jailbreak had come in the wake of various other incidents taking place in Punjab jails which had shaken the confidence of the people in the government. He said, "Besides ordering an independent probe into the incident, the government should also tell what action it had taken in other such cases and why the jail administration had collapsed." Asking the chief minister to fix accountability at the very top, Dr Cheema said, "The Jails minister should be asked to resign immediately till the pendency of the probe." "Prison security is the primary responsibility of the Jails minister. He cannot shirk away from this responsibility especially since his role is already under a cloud," he added. Rejecting the magisterial inquiry ordered by the chief minister into the incident, Dr Cheema said a magistrate could not do justice in the case. "The magistrate will not be able to probe the role of the Jails minister in weakening prison security. Since this incident has exposed prison security and comes in the wake of the earlier incident of mass uprising in the Ludhiana central jail besides several incidents of use of mobile phones in Jails, it is necessary to hold an independent inquiry into the functioning of Punjab jail administration", he said. The prisoner who escaped have been identified as Vishal, Gurpreet and Jarnail. Vishal is accused in a rape case registered last year, while Gurpreet and Jarnail, who were brothers, were jailed for snatching. Giving details on the escape, DGP Dinkar Gupta said the men apparently made a hole in the wall of their barrack by removing about 10 bricks. Vishal's brother Gaurav, also in the same barrack, chose not to flee with them, said the DGP. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Nigeria has not recorded any case of coronavirus, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control has said. The health agency in a statement on Saturday said it is aware of the circulating news of a coronavirus case in Lagos. It, however, debunked the new as untrue saying there has been no reported or suspected case of the disease in the country as at when the statement was being issued. The agency said the individual had truly arrived the country from China last week but he had went on a routine medical check-up as advised by his employers as soon as he got back to Nigeria. This individual returned from China last week and went for a routine medical check as requested by his employers. He showed no symptoms of illness and has not been diagnosed with the novel coronavirus virus. NCDC said it has an agreed national case definition to identify suspected cases and established a laboratory testing platform to test samples from patients that meets this case definition. We urge members of the public to disregard rumours and discourage further spread. NCDC, port health service and state epidemiologist are aware of the process of case identification and confirmation. We will investigate every suspect case to ensure Nigerians are safe. Though no case has been reported, NCDC advised Nigerians to take necessary precautions while travelling or returning to the country. Those who had travelled from China to Nigeria in the last 14 days are also advised to report immediately to NCDC through the existing communication centres, if they feel sick. From China Similarly, the Lagos State Ministry of Health said there is no confirmed case of coronavirus in the state. Akin Abayomi, the commissioner for health, in a series of tweets Saturday, said the suspected carrier of the infection arrived Nigeria from China on Wednesday and submitted himself for quarantine. The subject in question is an adult male Nigerian who arrived from China 4 days ago, the commissioner said. He was in Shanghai throughout his stay in China and during his stay he did not have any contact with anyone who was ill or from Wuhan region. The commissioner said the report from the epidemiology officers and the doctor that attended to the subject at the hospital in Lekki indicated that he is in perfect health with no symptoms of the virus. He is, therefore, clinically not a suspected case of nCoV as he is not exhibiting any symptoms. Nevertheless we will continue to monitor his welfare till the end of his self quarantine period, the ministry said. Mr Abayomi had earlier said that the state government was working with the Chinese embassy in Nigeria to prevent the entry of coronavirus into the state. Changing the role of teachers in classrooms and upgrading the quality of lessons, AI is expected to change the face of education in the future. Many general school teachers in Hanoi have heard about chatbot teacher, a project utilizing machine learning and AI developed by Le Van Anh, a teacher, and Le Viet Dung, a student, from the FPT High School. The virtual teacher used in teaching geography has surprised many teachers with its high effectiveness. The tool to build a virtual teacher is from IBM Watson. This is software using AI developed by IBM so as to give answers to questions in natural languages. One doesnt have to have deep knowledge about programming to be able to easily access the product. The virtual teacher created by Anh is believed to be a very effective online learning method. The use of chatbot allows it to easily find information and raise questions to the chatbot and get accurate answers within shortest time. The higher flexibility and attractiveness in comparison with the traditional online teaching method (direct or indirect) are very clear. It can be used in two different channels which have relation with each other one chatbot and one video channel. The use of chatbot allows it to easily find information and raise questions to the chatbot and get accurate answers within shortest time. The higher flexibility and attractiveness in comparison with the traditional online teaching method (direct or indirect) are very clear. Real teachers will use virtual teacher standard knowledge as provided by the Ministry of Education and Training, while the virtual teacher will provide knowledge to students. More and more education establishments have utilized AI in teaching and management and gained very encouraging initial achievements. With utilities and the ability to synthesize knowledge, AI will affect classic classes and teaching methods. According to Truong Nguyen Thanh, Vice Rector of Van Lang University, it is clear that AI can do a lot of teaching work in the future. The role of teacher in the 4.0 era will change a lot of in the next 10 years, when AI gets involved more deeply in school activities. I believe that AI will revolutionize the teaching environment and studying. However, we should consider AI as aids that support the teaching, or assistant teachers. After all, teachers will still play the key role in the process of teaching and learning, while technology will be just supporter, Thanh said. Agreeing with Thanh, Tran Manh Ha, Vice Rector of the Hong Bang International University said AI will make study more interesting and effective for students and teachers, but it will not be able to completely replace the teachers role. Thanh Mai STEM education to be applied in Vietnams schools General schools will have to prepare to organize STEM education, including the building of curricula, material facilities and upgrading of teaching staff. Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Abia State chapter, Donatus Nwankpa, says Senate Minority Leader, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, lacks the moral standing to call for President Muhammadu Buharis resignation. Abaribe, Abia South senatorial district senator had called on Buhari to resign over the worsening state of security in the country. However, Nwankpa, while speaking with journalists in Isuochi, Umunneochi LGA, Abia State, said that the Senator had abandoned his constituents to abuse Buhari. He said; Senator Enyinnaya Harcourt Abaribe lacks the moral right to ask President Buhari to resign from office. Abaribe is suffering from diarrhoea of the mouth and does not know when to play politics and when to be serious on an important national issue. He should tell us what he has achieved as senator representing Abia South for 13 years now. There is no good road to his country home at Ohuru, Obingwa LGA. Abaribe should be the first person to resign because he has failed to perform as a senator. He has no constituency project for his constituents. Read Also: Senator Abaribes Call On President Buhari To Resign Is Foolish: Presidency The statement made by Abaribe is irresponsible, unacceptable and basically childish. Its also immoral on his part to have made that statement because its said that he who comes to equity must go with clean hands. You all are living witnesses of abysmal performance since he became a senator for 13 years now. We had expected senator Abaribe to first resign for non-performance. And you know that when we come to the issue of violence, hes among those that we should query. Every politics is local and crime can also be local. If you check the electoral behaviour of Obingwa LGA where he came from since his entry into politics and every other thing there, youll see that it has not gone without crisis. He lacks the competence and morals to ask President Buhari to resign. Insecurity has a chain reaction. It takes a lot of systems. Its not a one mans responsibility. I challenge every journalist in Abia to mention how many times theyve visited Abaribe for empowerment programme for youths of his zone? He is known for abandoning his constituents after every election. Put this on record. How many people today can come out today in Abia to specifically say that this is what Abaribe has impacted on their lives? Even the road that leads to his village in Ohuru community is not motorable. So for that singular act, hes contributing to insecurity for not doing doing anything to help the people hes representing. Everybody in Abia is aware that one of the areas with much insecurity problem is his Obingwa area. With due respect to the people of Obingwa, I must make it clear to the world that those people there need empowerment. Most of them were used as political thugs. Theyve been abandoned and today, nobody has been able to give them employment. We challenge him to publish how many empowerment programmes and projects he has attracted for his people. Its not just coming out every time to talk about the president; what has Abaribe has achieved as a senator in 13 years? Nothing. When a group of self-described patriots known as Three Percenters flashed a hand gesture popular with white supremacists outside the state Capitol in January last year, there were few people around to notice. But one year later, their cause has joined the cacophony of voices opposing newly enacted criminal justice reforms from within a Facebook group called Repeal Bail Reform that is moderated by high-ranking New York Republican operatives, where a link to the photo has appeared more than two dozen times in recent weeks among the comments on various posts. The groups moderators include state Republican Party Political Director James Thompson, Erie County GOP Chair Jesse Prieto and Assembly Minority Director of Conference Press Operations Nick Wilock none of whom answered questions sent to them by City & State. The Facebook group has rapidly grown to more than 160,000 members since Sheriff Jeff Murphy of Washington County, which borders Lake George and Massachusetts, created it in early January. Many of the posts concern news stories about the purported excesses of bail reform, the laws that passed last session to reduce the use of bail in minor offenses, but these in turn have led to more inflammatory commentary that targets Democrats, immigrants, Muslims and others in the comments sections. It exposes the what has been the undercurrent for us of the bail rollback movement, Jessica Wisneski, a co-director of Citizens Action of New York, said of the Facebook group. It's this undercurrent of racism and it's an undercurrent that is perpetuating this kind of Trumpian fear-mongering, racist, anti-immigrant, anti-woman rhetoric that is all over right wing national politics showing up right here in New York. The Repeal Bail Reform page is hardly the only online forum filled with incivility, but it is one used by GOP lawmakers and political operators to promote their views on the politically charged bail issue. Their success in reaching a wide audience in turn has catalyzed a response from group members that includes inflammatory comments that violate the groups stated code of conduct in a variety of ways, whether it is profane, racist, or violent language. One user said Gov. Andrew Cuomo needs to have some low life he released curb stomp him. Another post tied bail reform to an international conspiracy against western civilization: This is exactly what happened in Germany Sweden etc only they used Muslims Our legislators are using the indigenous lowlife population and crying racism Who is to say that these people havent been paid by the likes of Soros etc al? While Murphy acknowledges that such incivility has required him to step up oversight of the group, he appears to view it as the cost of reaching such a large number of bail reform opponents with just a few clicks. We cannot monitor it 24/7, Murphy said in an email, about the Facebook page. The small percentage of people who made these inexcusable remarks does not take away from the more than 160,000 good New Yorkers from all backgrounds and ethnicity who are outraged by this policy and participate actively on this site. He said more than 400,000 posts and comments have been made to the group in January. To join the group, a Facebook user must request membership on the page that is subject to moderator approval based on their agreement to obey a code of conduct and their answer to a yes or no question about whether they support bail reform. We have a zero-tolerance policy and have already blocked and deleted many of these comments and users already, Murphy said. Moderators later contacted by City & State did not clarify by publication time whether posts and comments are subject to the approval of moderators. The new criminal justice reforms include limits on cash bail for most non-violent misdemeanors and felonies, which supporters say even the playing field between rich and poor criminal defendants. Criticisms posted to the page cross the boundary of normal political discourse on a number of fronts. This includes misogynistic comments directed at state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes, racial dog whistles, suggestions of vigilante justice against criminal defendants, references to Islamophobic tropes, and a general demonization of supporters of bial reform. Why are all democrats evil and not just the lawmakers you agree with, commented one group member. Why does the whole party have to be evil? Time for Action NY/Facebook While GOP lawmakers and their staff have not made such comments themselves, their posts have offered digital space for others to do so. In a comment under a post by state Sen. Fred Akshar, for example, another group member wrote that hog farms make good disposal sites for criminal defendants who might be targeted by vigilantes. Another comment thread, in response to a post by Senate GOP spokeswoman Candice Giove, included the comment that we are OBLIGATED to take back our government by force if necessary directly before Giove made her own comment warning that Democrats want to enact additional criminal justice reforms. The Senate GOP did not provide comment for this story. The moderators have not condoned the use of politically incendiary language. And the groups code of conduct technically prohibits degrading comments about things like race, religion, culture, sexual orientation, gender or identity. At least one time, a moderator pushed back. A Jan. 18 post by Murphy promoting a petition against bail reform asked members to please be civil and courteous on this page because not doing so will get you blocked and you will be of no help to our cause. But rhetoric that violates the groups rules, is routinely posted in the comments, without drawing any response from the moderators. Republicans have seized on bail reform as an issue that could help them find their way out of the political wilderness in a state where Democrats control the state Legislature and the governors mansion. We're going to hammer this every single day, state Senate Minority Leader John Flanagan of Long Island, who is not affiliated with the Facebook group, told reporters at the state Capitol on Jan. 9. It remains to be seen whether the issue will propel the GOP to regain some of the political ground they lost after the 2018 elections, allowing Democrats to gain control of the state Senate for the first time in a decade. While the Facebook group is just one part of their social media outreach to voters, it has clearly allowed them to reach a large audience through a minimal investment of money and time. In addition to stoking resentment against Democrats and criminal justice reforms, some posts have also contributed to misconceptions about how the new criminal justice reforms work. A case in point is a Jan. 24 opinion column in the New York Post that includes a stock image photo that shows a man with a handgun robbing another person for a stack of $100 bills under the headline It looks like New Yorks getting the crime uptick politicians have been asking for. The column concerns a rise in some reported crimes in New York City in January 2020 compared to January 2019, but it should be noted that armed robbery with a handgun is a criminal offense where the applicability of cash bail has not been affected by the new law. Such nuance has evidently been lost among some members of the group who responded to a post that linked to the column in a comment thread focused on how Democrats are supposedly intentionally promoting lawlessness to promote a Marxist takeover of state government. Fears like these have helped drive new recruits to causes including an upstate chapter of the Three Percenters, which is organizing a March rally in Albany against bail reform that has been plugged in the Repeal Bail Reform group in the comments by various users more than two dozen times. While that might be just a tiny fraction of the overall comments on the site, the Three Percenters have gotten a lot more attention than they typically do. There could be a couple hundred people came off that bail reform page and came onto my page, said John Smaldon, a resident of Booneville in the Adirondacks, who manages a Facebook page of New York Three Percenters. Weve done a lot of marches in the past, and not many people come in New York. Even a few comments among hundreds of thousands can make a big difference for groups on the political fringes. The Three Percenters name is a reference to the 3% of American colonists who supposedly took part in the American Revolution. That is what Smaldon said his group was referencing by pinching the forefinger and thumb and holding up the other three fingers. That same gesture has also been identified with white supremacists who adopted it in recent years following its introduction into right-wing political circles through the website 4chan. It began as a fake gesture of White Power to troll liberals, but eventually became a real gesture. The 'okay' gesture hoax was merely the latest in a series of similar 4chan hoaxes using various innocuous symbols, reads a post on the website of the Anti-Defamation League. In each case, the hoaxers hoped that the media and liberals would overreact by condemning a common image as white supremacist. Extremists now use it at times to signal white power, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. While the Three Percent movement in the past has been identified with white supremacy movement members reportedly provided security for white nationalist protesters at the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia there have been efforts in recent years to draw a distinction, including in Smaldons group. You cant say its anything racial because we take anybody: black, white, Puerto Ricans, he said. It has nothing to do with race. The group was among those that participated in a January rally in Richmond, Virginia that brought together a broad array of groups from the political right to protest new gun control laws. Smaldon said that he, like other supporters of President Donald Trump, believes bail reform is just another sign that the country is getting overrun by undocumented immigrants, political radicals and general lawlessness. All law-abiding citizens right now are at risk we are all at danger for what our government did, Smaldon said. It just seems like everybody is against us all of a sudden. While Smaldon and his fellow Three Percenters exist on the fringes of the political right, they are taking advantage of the same political opportunity that mainstream Republicans see in bail reform. With a significant segment of the statewide electorate in opposition, both the GOP and the fringe groups the party has flirted with in recent years stand to gain if they can only reach their target audiences. This has really been a real hot topic, said Smaldon. Northern Ireland has faced many historic moments over recent decades and tonight will be another one of those landmarks. At 11pm the United Kingdom will officially leave the European Union. Over three and a half years have passed since people across the UK voted in the largest democratic exercise we have seen in living memory. Since that time, the rhetoric from all sides of the debate has been divisive and common ground has not always been easily found. It has been a period of great uncertainty, but following last December's General Election result it became clear that the Prime Minister's Withdrawal Agreement would see the UK leave today. There is not now any debate on whether the UK should or will leave the European Union. That is happening and the focus should be on securing the very best outcome for Northern Ireland as we move forward. Securing that best deal was the basis for the letter which the then Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness and I sent to the then Prime Minister in August 2016. I am pleased there are once again ministers from all parties at Stormont, and we must work collectively if we are to mitigate the challenges Northern Ireland faces. As a unionist I recognise the importance of maintaining relationships and trade across the border with the Irish Republic. However, there was an almost singular focus on this cross-border dynamic over the last three years whilst our trade on an East-West basis was almost ignored. In alleviating many of the predicted problems for trade between Northern Ireland and the Republic, they have instead been transferred to our single largest market. Northern Ireland trades more with the rest of the UK than we do with the rest of the world combined and obstacles to that trade will have a real impact on businesses and on people's lives here. There is a challenge to many of those in political life and in wider civic society whose voices were raised so loudly in support of maintaining frictionless trade across our land border. They were right to raise those concerns, but they must also step up and use their voices in support of ensuring Northern Ireland has the access it needs within the United Kingdom's single market. There are many different political viewpoints in Northern Ireland and each of us will have different constitutional aspirations. However, what we can unite together on are issues which are in the common good of everyone in Northern Ireland. Our economic wellbeing must be one of those issues upon which we can all unite. I am disappointed that we will not leave the European Union on the same terms as the rest of the UK. We must look forward, however, and work collectively on the challenges which face us and seize the opportunities presented. About 1,000 Americans evacuated from China and at risk of contracting the deadly coronavirus will be quarantined at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland and three other military installations in the United States. The Department of Health and Human Services and Pentagon agreed to house at least 250 people at Lackland, military officials said Saturday. The evacuees could arrive in San Antonio over the next few days. They will remain here through the end of the month. This action is a precautionary and preventative step to maximize the containment of the virus in the interest of the health of the American public, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. Coronavirus has been declared a public health emergency by the World Health Organization and President Donald Trump, who on Friday barred non-U.S. citizens who recently visited China from entering the United States. Now Playing: While insisting the risk to the American public is low, the Trump administration declared a public health emergency from the coronavirus that began in China and announced it will bar entry of foreign nationals who pose a transmission risk. (Jan. 31) Video: Associated Press The ban does not apply to Hong Kong and Macau. There were eight confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States as of Saturday. Two were in Illinois, three in California and one each in Washington, Arizona and Massachusetts, health officials said. The University of Massachusetts at Boston told its campus community that one of its students had contracted coronavirus. The CDC issued federal quarantine orders for Americans returning to the United States from Chinas Hubei province, where the outbreak originated. The quarantine applies even to travelers who have no symptoms of the virus. It is described as precautionary. At Lackland, evacuees will be quarantined at hotel rooms on the base, spokeswoman Maj. Kim Bender said. She said those who had been in Wuhan would remain under quarantine for 14 days. San Antonio City Manager Erik Walsh, in a memo Saturday to Mayor Ron Nirenberg and the City Council, said that while this situation poses a very serious global public health threat, based on what we know at this time, we believe the risk to us here in the San Antonio community is currently low. An Air Force statement said JBSA personnel will not be in direct contact with the evacuees and that those flown from China to the United States will not have access beyond their housing. The Pentagon said evacuees could be sent to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar and Travis AFB, both in California, and Fort Carson, Colo., as well as Lackland. While the military will provide housing, the Department of Health and Human Services will manage care, transportation and security for those evacuated from China. The Pentagon said anyone falling ill with the virus would be transported to civilian hospitals. The decision follows an evacuation flight out of Wuhan carrying about 200 State Department employees, dependents and U.S. citizens. They landed Wednesday at March Air Reserve Base in Ontario, Calif. They, too, will live under quarantine in base housing. The CDC said that early on in the outbreak in Wuhan, many patients had some link to a large seafood and animal market, suggesting an animal-to-human spread. The agency said that a growing number of patients had no exposure to animal markets, suggesting the virus now is being transmitted person-to-person. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Friday that there were a lot of unknowns with the coronavirus, including how it spreads between people. As it travels around the world, however, more is being learned. As you can see just from the media, the number of cases has steeply inclined each and every day. You know that, in the beginning, we were not sure if there were asymptomatic infection, which would make it a much broader outbreak than what were seeing. Now we know for sure that there are, he said. It was not clear whether an asymptomatic person could transmit it to someone while they were asymptomatic. Now we know from a recent report from Germany that that is absolutely the case. So far, more than 60 million people in China have been quarantined. The Hubei Province Health Commission on Saturday announced 45 new deaths from coronavirus, raising the toll to at least 304. All the deaths have occurred in mainland China. In addition, 1,921 cases of the virus were reported in Hubei province, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in China to 13,742 out of 13,874 confirmed cases worldwide. The White House said late last week that 114 cases have been confirmed across 22 other countries. In several of those cases, it said, the victims had not visited China. The most recent case had no travel history to China but was a close personal contact of one of the previous cases that we had identified through our aggressive contact tracing, the CDCs director, Dr. Robert Redfield, said Friday at the White House. In addition, there are currently 191 individuals that are under investigation. Symptoms include mild to severe respiratory illness with fever, coughing and shortness of breath. The first signs of illness can occur as soon as two days after exposure to the virus or as long as 14 days, the CDC said. CDC advises people to avoid those who might have been exposed to the virus and wash hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds or use a hand sanitizer that contains at least 60 percent alcohol. Those with flu symptoms are urged to see a doctor, calling ahead to report symptoms, and to avoid contact with other people. Those developing symptoms that include coughing or shortness of breath within 14 days of traveling to China also should seek medical help. Those in close contact with someone having those symptoms should call a doctor immediately. The Pentagon said that although the immediate risk of the virus to Americans is low, people should get flu shots and take influenza antivirals if necessary. Those in the health profession were advised to be on the lookout for people with a history of traveling to China and exhibiting fever and respiratory infection. The State Department recently adjusted its travel advisory for China to a Level 4, meaning individuals should not travel there. The U.S Indo-Pacific Command has restricted all Defense Department travel to China for military, civilian employees and contractors. The CDC adjusted its travel advisory as well, recommending people avoid all nonessential travel to China. Fauci said such measures are being taken to minimize the risk of a coronavirus outbreak in the United States. We still have a low risk to the American public, but we want to keep it at a low risk, he said. And because there are so many unknowns here, were going to make sure we mitigate, as best as we possibly can, this risk. sigc@express-news.net Meanwhile Kate re-wore an Alexander McQueen white and gold gown for which she first wore in 2012 Prince William presented the Fellowship award at the ceremony and spoke of importance of diversity in film With the awards held at the Royal Albert Hall, she joked 'it's great to be here at the Royal Andrew... palace' Rebel Wilson then referenced shamed Prince Andrew as she jokingly 'forgot' the name of the venue Duke and Duchess of Cambridge could be seen laughing along with rest of the audience at the Megxit joke Actor quipped he would name award 'Harry', because he was 'excited about bringing it back to the States' Royals watched Margot Robbie accept Supporting Actor award on behalf of Brad Pitt and read his speech Prince William, 37, and Kate Middleton, 38, were the guests of honour at Sunday's BAFTA award ceremony Advertisement The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were seen awkwardly laughing during Sunday night's BAFTA ceremony after Margot Robbie joked about Megxit during an acceptance speech. Prince William, 37, and Kate Middleton, 38, were the guests of honour at the 73rd annual EE British Academy Film Awards at the Royal Albert Hall and watched on as Brad Pitt, 56, was named best Supporting Actor for his role in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. With the star absent from the London ceremony, his co-star Margot read out a speech on his behalf, quipping: 'He says he is going to name this Harry because he is really excited about bringing it back to the States with him. His words not mine.' Cracking up: The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were seen awkwardly laughing on Sunday night after Margot Robbie quipped about Megxit during a BAFTA acceptance speech The camera immediately panned to the Duke and Duchess at the ceremony, who were seen laughing alongside the rest of the crowd from their seats. Prince Harry wasn't the only royal to come under fire during the ceremony, with actress Rebel Wilson shocking with a quip about Prince Andrew, who stepped back from royal duties last year amid his connection to Jeffrey Epstein. Presenting the Best Director award, Rebel referenced the controversy as she quipped: 'It is really great to be here at the Royal Andrew... uh, Royal Harry... no, sorry, Royal Phil- at this royal... palace place.' Meanwhile, later in the ceremony Prince William took to the stage as he spoke passionately about the importance of diversity in films before handing out the Fellowship award to Star Wars producer Kathleen Kennedy. Quips: Margot Robbie gave the speech on behalf of absent film-star Brad Pitt, who did not attend the ceremony, where she poked fun at Megxit, whilst Rebel Wilson later took aim at Prince Andrew Dazzling: Kate , 38, wowed in a stunning floor length white and gold gown by Alexander McQueen as she walked the red carpet at the BAFTAs alongside husband Prince William, 37 And the award for funniest awards ceremony gags goes to... Brad Pitt! Hey Britain. Heard you just became single. Welcome to the club! - from the BAFTAs 'I'm going to add this to my Tinder profile!' - from the SAGS 'I want to thank my costars: Leo, Margot Robbie, Margot Robbie's feet, Margaret Qualley's feet, Dakota Fanning's feet. Seriously, Quentin has separated more women from their shoes than the TSA' - from the SAGS 'Lets be honest; [Cliff Booth] was a difficult part: a guy who gets high, takes his shirt off and doesnt get on with his wife. It was a big stretch' - from the SAGS 'I'll gladly hand a stunt over to a stunt man. I no longer remember the first rule of Fight Club' - from the Santa Barbara International Film Festival 'Wow, it's things like this ... nights like these that tell me I'm old' - from the Santa Barbara International Film Festival 'I have to thank my brother in crime, LDC...but still, I wouldve shared the raft' - from the Golden Globes I wanted to bring my mom, but I couldn't because anyone I stand next to, they say I'm dating. And that would just be awkward - from the Golden Globes Advertisement During the ceremony - which was televised on BBC One, Kate and William could be seen laughing after Brad Pitt sent a tongue-in-cheek acceptance speech which nodded to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's recent departure from royal life. Last month, Harry relocated to Canada to join his wife and son Archie, weeks after the couple's shock announcement that they'd be quitting the Royal Family. Ahead of leaving the UK, Harry spoke of his 'great sadness' at leaving the Royal Family, but said he and Meghan had 'no other option' than to quit senior royal duties. By quitting their senior royal roles, they will sacrifice their HRH title. Brad's speech was read out by Margot, who lost out on her Supporting Actress nomination for her Sharon Tate role in the Quentin Tarantino movie. The words had the A-list crowd at London's Royal Albert Hall in hysterics as he joked about his famously single status while discussing Britain leaving the Europen . 'Hey Britain, heard you just became single, welcome to the club,' read the speech while he went on to poke fun at Megxit. Reading Pitt's words from a sheet of paper, Margot closed the acceptance speech by saying: 'Oh, and he says that he is going to name this Harry because he is really excited about bringing it back to the States with him.' As the audience reacted, she added: 'His words, not mine.' When contacted by MailOnline, a representative for Brad declined to comment regarding the star's absence from the show, however, a source close to the actor revealed to MailOnline that the star was unable to attend the event due to 'family obligations'. The royals were the subject of another joke later in the evening as Rebel Wilson took to the stage to present the Best Director award to filmmaker Sam Mendes, and took a swipe at the controversy surrounding Prince Andrew. NME Awards 2020: The Winners BEST ALBUM IN THE WORLD Billie Eilish 'When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?' FKA twigs 'Magdalene' Foals 'Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost, Pt. 1' Lana Del Rey 'Norman Fucking Rockwell' (WINNER) Little Simz 'GREY Area' Michael Kiwanuka 'Kiwanuka' Slipknot 'We Are Not Your Kind' Slowthai 'Nothing Great About Britain' Stella Donnelly Beware Of The Dogs Tyler, the Creator 'IGOR' BEST BRITISH ALBUM FKA twigs 'Magdalene' Foals 'Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost, Pt. 1' Little Simz 'GREY Area' (WINNER) Michael Kiwanuka 'Kiwanuka' Slowthai 'Nothing Great About Britain' BEST BRITISH SOLO ACT AJ Tracey Charli XCX FKA twigs (WINNER) Slowthai Yungblud BEST BRITISH SONG AJ Tracey 'Ladbroke Grove' Dua Lipa 'Don't Start Now' Georgia 'About Work The Dancefloor' Mura Masa ft Slowthai 'Deal Wiv It' The 1975 'People' BEST SONG IN THE WORLD AJ Tracey 'Ladbroke Grove' Billie Eilish 'Bad Guy' (WINNER) Honoured: Billie Eilish is nominated for Best Album in the World Clairo 'Bags' Dua Lipa 'Don't Start Now' Georgia 'About Work The Dancefloor' Lil Nas X 'Old Town Road (remix)' Lizzo 'Juice' Mura Masa ft Slowthai 'Deal Wiv It' Post Malone 'Circles' The 1975 'People' BEST SOLO ACT IN THE WORLD AJ Tracey Beck Billie Eilish Charli XCX FKA twigs Lana Del Rey Lizzo Slowthai Taylor Swift (WINNER) Yungblud BEST BAND IN THE WORLD Bring Me The Horizon Brockhampton BTS HAIM IDLES Krept & Konan Slipknot (WINNER) Tame Impala The 1975 The Big Moon BEST BRITISH BAND Award: The 1975 took home the award for Best British Band Bring Me The Horizon IDLES Krept & Konan The 1975 (WINNER) The Big Moon BEST NEW ACT IN THE WORLD Celeste Clairo (WINNER) D-Block Europe DaBaby Dominic Fike Easy Life Fontaines DC Girl In Red Jade Bird Sam Fender BEST NEW BRITISH ACT Celeste D-Block Europe Easy Life (WINNER) Jade Bird Sam Fender BEST LIVE ACT Amyl & The Sniffers Foals (WINNER) Iggy Pop Lizzo Slowthai BEST COLLABORATION BTS + Halsey Charli XCX + Christine & The Queens Megan Thee Stallion + DaBaby Slowthai + Mura Masa (WINNER) Yungblud + Dan Reynolds BEST MUSIC VIDEO Brockhampton 'I've Been Born Again' Easy Life 'Nice Guys' Normani 'Motivation' Stormzy 'Vossi Bop' Yungblud 'Original Me (WINNER) BEST FILM Blue Story (WINNER) Hustlers Joker Midsommar Once Upon A Time In Hollywood BEST FILM ACTOR Florence Pugh Joaquin Phoenix Lupita Nyong'o Micheal Ward Taron Egerton BEST TV SERIES End Of The Fucking World Fleabag Peaky Blinders (WINNER) Stranger Things Top Boy BEST TV ACTOR Success: Jodie Comer is nominated for Best TV Actor Asa Butterfield Jessica Barden Jodie Comer Kano Zendaya BEST MUSIC FILM Beyonce: Homecoming BTS: Bring The Soul Liam Gallagher: As It Was (WINNER) Michael Hutchence: Mystify Rocketman BEST MUSIC BOOK Brett Anderson 'Afternoons With The Blinds Drawn' Debbie Harry 'Face It: A Memoir' Elton John 'Me' Prince 'The Beautiful Ones' Tegan & Sara 'High School BEST REISSUE Aretha Franklin 'Amazing Grace' Muse 'Origins Of Muse' Prince '1999' R.E.M. 'Monster 25' The Beatles 'Abbey Road' BEST PODCAST Have You Heard George's Podcast? (WINNER) My Dad Wrote A Porno Sex Power Money Stay Free: The Story Of The Clash The Missing Cryptoqueen BEST GAME Death Stranding Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order Super Smash Bros. Ultimate The Outer Worlds BEST BRITISH FESTIVAL All Points East Glastonbury Parklife Reading & Leeds Wireless BEST SMALL FESTIVAL Bluedot End Of The Road Iceland Airwaves Kendal Calling ya BEST FESTIVAL HEADLINER Cardi B Lana Del Rey Stormzy The 1975 The Cure (WINNER) BEST FESTIVAL IN THE WORLD Popular: Glastonbury is up for Best British Festival All Points East Coachella Fuji Rock Glastonbury (Winner) Mad Cool Parklife Reading & Leeds Rock In Rio Sziget Wireless ICON AWARD Courtney Love GODLIKE GENIUS Emily Eavis SONGWRITER OF THE DECADE Robyn Advertisement And later, Prince William spoke passionately about the importance of diversity in film before presenting the Fellowship award to Star Wars producer Kathleen Kennedy Hilarious: Brad pictured right last month at Santa Barbara International Film Festival) had his speech read out by Margot, after he pulled out of attending the BAFTAs last minute. A source told MailOnline that the actor had 'family obligations' Moved: Brad's speech poked fun at Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex who are currently in Canada, after announcing they'd be stepping away from the Royal Family and moving to North America (pictured last month) The Duke Of York stepped down from royal duties in November following a disastrous Newsnight interview about his friendship with billionaire paedophile Epstein. Following the interview, he was accused of failing to show regret over his friendship with the disgraced financier, and empathy with his victims. Addressing the star-studded audience at London's Royal Albert Hall, Rebel joked: 'It is really great to be here, at the Royal Andrew... Royal Harry... this royal place.' Cheeky: The royals were hit with another joke as Rebel joked about the Royal Albert Hall venue by quipping, 'It is really great to be here, at the Royal Andrew... Royal Harry... this royal place' Under fire: Rebel took aim at Prince Andrew. The Duke Of York stepped down from royal duties in November following a disastrous Newsnight interview about his friendship with billionaire paedophile Epstein Mixed response: While Rebel's appearance went down well with the star-studded audience, viewers were divided over here decision to make a joke at the Royal family's expense The awkward gag prompted a ripple of laughter from those in attendance before the actress reflected on the decision to offer guests environmentally friendly goodie bags. She added: 'Sorry I was just told backstage that no one's getting a gift bag tonight. Instead, you're all getting a gifting wallet, which is funny because that's also nickname of my vagina.' FROM MEGXIT TO PRINCE ANDREW: HOW THE STARS TOOK AIM AT THE ROYALS Brad Pitt cracked a joke about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's decision to relocate at Canada in his speech Margot Robbie read out the speech, which joked: 'He says he is going to name this Harry because he is really excited about bringing it back to the States with him. His words not mine.' Rebel Wilson took aim at the controversy surrounding Prince Andrew's friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. The Australian actress jokingly 'forgot' that the BAFTAs were being held at The Royal Albert Hall. She joked: 'It is really great to be here, at the Royal Andrew... Royal Harry... this royal place'. Advertisement Later in the ceremony, Prince William, who is celebrating his tenth year as the president of BAFTA, took to the stage himself as he presented the ceremony's highest accolade, the Fellowship, to Star Wars producer Kathleen Kennedy. The American film producer started her career working on E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and most recently has worked on the Star Wars series. The Duke of Cambridge addressed issues around diversity before presenting Kathleen with the BAFTA award. He praised the 'exceptional film-making' that had been highlighted during the ceremony, and reflected on his decade as president, joking that he did not know if he should be 'proud or slightly alarmed' at how many of the winners over the past decade 'have portrayed members of my own family'. William said: 'Both here in the UK and in many other countries across the world we are lucky to have incredible film-makers, actors, producers, directors and technicians - men and women from all backgrounds and ethnicities enriching our lives through film. 'Yet in 2020, and not for the first time in the last few years, we find ourselves talking again about the need to do more to ensure diversity in the sector and in the awards process - that simply cannot be right in this day and age.' He continued: 'I know that both Pippa (Harris), chair of Bafta and Amanda (Berry), Bafta CEO, share that frustration and continue to work tirelessly to ensure that creative talent is discovered and supported. 'Bafta take this issue seriously, and following this year's nominations, have launched a full and thorough review of the entire awards process to build on their existing work and ensure that opportunities are available to everyone.' He went on to present the Fellowship award to Kathleen, praising her for her 'remarkable career'. While her husband spoke on stage, Kate could be seen watching Prince William avidly from her seat in the audience. Best Actress winner: Kate was seen sharing a laugh with Judy's Renee Zellweger after the ceremony at the Royal Albert Hall this evening Best Actor winner: Meanwhile Prince William took time to speak with Joaquin Phoenix after the ceremony at the Royal Albert Hall earlier this evening Rubbing shoulders with royalty: The Duke of Cambridge appeared in high spirits as he laughed and joked with Renee, who won Best Actress tonight at the awards Three's company: Later in the night, Kate was seen chatting away with Hildur Gudnadottir and Laura Dern All-smiles: Kate seemed in high spirits as she mingled with the stars and the crew of award winning movies Earlier in the evening, the Duchess of Cambridge stole the show in white as she walked the red carpet alongside a host of A-listers at the Baftas for the fourth year running. Looking every inch the film star, Kate dazzled in a stunning white and gold gown by Alexander McQueen for the star-studded event, recycling a dress she first wore in 2012. Ahead of this year's ceremony, BAFTA bosses had urged attendees to 'dress sustainable' and encouraged to re-wear outfits, hire gowns or don vintage ensembles for the occasion. The mother-of-three added a touch of glamour to the outfit by pairing it with new accessories, including a new pair of shimmering 525 Jimmy Choo glitter heels and an Anya Hindmarch clutch bag, as well as a new jewellery set, for 73rd annual EE British Academy Film Awards at the Royal Albert Hall this evening. Star Wars actors Daisy Ridley and John Boyega could be seen cheering for Kathleen Kennedy as Prince William prepared to presented her with the Fellowship award Prince William spoke about the need for diversity in film while presenting the Fellowship award to Kathleen Kennedy this evening The couple, who have made it their tradition to attend the biggest night in UK cinema each year, beamed at one another as they took a seat alongside a host of other celebrities at the awards ceremony. The Duchess donned the stunning Alexander McQueen gown, having first worn the stunning gold and white dress during a tour of Malaysia in 2012. The designer is a favourite for Kate, who has often stepped out in the British brand over the years. The white gown was a bespoke piece made for the Malaysia visit in 2012, and is covered in gold Malaysian hibiscus flowers and layered over white flowing fabric. The Duke of Cambridge made the speech while presenting the Fellowship award to Kathleen Kennedy at the awards ceremony this evening Naming ceremony: Quoting Brad, Margot said, 'He says he is going to name this Harry because he is really excited about bringing it back to the States with him. His words not mine' The royal couple could be seen giggling as they sat alongside other attendees at the event in the Royal Albert Hall this evening The dress had been slightly amended for the BAFTA event, with the original sheer cap sleeves replaced with a more structured shoulder. Meanwhile the Duchess also showed off some new jewellery on the red carpet, sweeping her locks back into an intricate bun to reveal a set of Van Cleef and Arpels dangling earrings and a drop necklace, which came with a pricetag of 7,603. She sported glamorous makeup with a pink lipstick and a dark smokey eye, and swept her hair into an intricate up-do. While Kate dazzled in the stunning white and gold gown, Prince William also looked dapper in a bow-tie and black dinner suit which he had also worn before, with a pair of smart black loafer shoes. Prince William and Kate could be seen beaming as they arrived at the event earlier this evening, with the crowd rising out of their seats to welcome the royals The royal couple, who both donned recycled outfits for the occasion, beamed as they were shown to their seats at the ceremony this evening Attendees including Joaquin Phoenix and Renee Zellweger rose to their feet as the couple arrived at the ceremony at the Royal Albert Hall Hall, where they took their seats The Duke and Duchess, who have attended the ceremony four years in a row, took their seats alongside some of Hollywood's finest at the Royal Albert Hall The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge appeared overjoyed to be attending the event as they rubbed shoulders with Hollywood royalty After taking their seats next to one another at the Royal Albert Hall, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge appeared to share a smile Ahead of the event, all attendees were provided with a guide by London College of Fashion for Sustainability, and it was widely speculated that Kate would rewear or recycle one of her many stunning gowns. Holding her dress up slightly as she negotiated the steps, Kate appeared to thank a well-wisher who told her 'You look beautiful', while another added 'You too Will.' The couple appeared overjoyed to be attending the event for the fourth year in a row, beaming as they walked the red carpet at the star-studded occasion. The royal couple have made the event an annual date in the diary, with the Duchess also opting for a white Alexander McQueen gown last year. In 2018, the couple attended while Catherine was pregnant with baby Louis, and were also guests of honour in 2017. Kate stunned in an embroidered white Alexander McQueen dress with gold detail, which she last wore on the couple's Malaysia tour in 2012 (pictured in 2012) The Duchess recycled an Alexander McQueen gown for the occasion, having first worn the stunning white and gold dress for a state dinner in Malaysia in 2012 (pictured left, in 2012, and right on the red carpet this evening) The Duchess could be seen beaming as she brushed shoulders with fellow attendees at the star-studded event in Royal Albert Hall The royal couple beamed as they walked the red carpet at the Royal Albert Hall ahead of the awards ceremony in London this evening Celebrities and stars including Best Actor nominee Joaquin Phoenix rose to their feet as the royal couple made their entrance into the Royal Albert Hall. They could be seen sharing a smile with one another as they took a seat at the event ahead of the awards ceremony. Later they rose to their feet to offer actor Andy Serkis a standing ovation as he won a contribution to cinema award. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge wowed as they brushed shoulders with the stars on the red carpet at the BAFTAs this evening The Duchess looked stunning as she walked the red carpet, pairing her stunning gown with a gold glittering clutch bag and a silver necklace Kate Middleton wowed in a stunning floor length white and gold gown as she walked the red carpet at the BAFTAs alongside husband Prince William, who donned a recycled suit for the event Kate appeared in high spirits at the event, beaming as she walked the red carpet alongside her husband Prince William The Duke and Duchess have made the annual award's ceremony a date in their diary over the past four years, and could be seen sharing a smile as they arrived for this year's event After they arrived at the event, the Duke could be seen beckoning the Duchess as they walked the red carpet together (left). This year marks the fourth year in a row the couple have attended the awards together (pictured, right) A royal date night! The couple appeared overjoyed to be attending the event for the fourth year in a row, having made the red carpet occasion an annual date in their diary The Duchess showed off a new jewellery set at the event this evening, donning a stunning pair of drop earrings and dangling necklace from Van Cleef and Arpels worth thousands The BAFTAs were a typically star-studded affair this year, with stars including Scarlett Johansson pulling out all the stops for the event as she led the glamour alongside Little Women stars Florence Pugh and Saoirse Ronan, and Renee Zellweger. Leading Actress nominee Scarlett, 35, borrowed fashion tips from the 1920s in a busty feathered gown as she graced the red carpet with her A-list competitors, Judy star Renee, 50, and Little Women's Saoirse, 25, and Florence, 24. Turning up the heat, the Wedding Actress star brought a touch of sex appeal to the extravagant bash in a dazzling pink gown, which featured a perilously low-cut neckline, a beaded bodice and a tasseled hemline. Kate swept her long brunette locks into an intricate up-do for the event at the Royal Albert Hall this evening The royal couple appeared at ease as they walked the red carpet side-by-side tonight at the Royal Albert Hall The royal's gown, which is by one of her favourite designers Alexander McQueen, is embroidered with gold sequin flowers and glittering hem detailing The Duchess appeared overjoyed to be at the red carpet event alongside Prince William and could be seen beaming as she shook hands with attendees The Duchess could be seen beaming as she brushed shoulders with fellow attendees at the star-studded event in Royal Albert Hall The couple have made the red carpet event an annual event, having attended the occasion four times in a row The Duke and Duchess appeared relaxed as they walked the red carpet side-by-side tonight at the British Academy Film Awards Congratulations: The Duchess of Cambridge was seen chatting away to Andy Serkis (left) and Sam Mendes Leading men: Prince William caught up with Hollywood heavyweight Joaquin Phoenix Loving life: The Duke seemed to be tickled by something Renee Zellweger said at the event Radiant: Kate looked incredible as she mingled with stars at the glamorous event Despite sporting a floor-length piece, Scarlett, who was also up for Supporting Actress for her role in Jojo Rabbit, managed to flash a hint of her metallic heels through her garment's bold thigh-high slit. The blonde beauty looked typically stunning as she upped the ante with chandelier-inspired earrings which complemented her head-turning appearance. With her tresses dressed into a chic updo, the Girl with a Pearl Earring actress finished off her appearance with glittery pink make-up look. Here come the girls! Scarlett Johansson (L) Saoirse Ronan (CL), Renee Zellweger (CR) and Florence Pugh (R) lead the red carpet glamour at the prestigious industry event Irish beauty Saoirse looked every inch the leading lady in a stunning chic black satin gown with thin staps and a floor-length skirt. The Little Women star, who was nominated for Leading Actress, added a pop of colour to the ensemble with multicoloured beaded earrings and a slick of coral red lipstick. Lady Bird actress Saoirse styled her blonde locks into a sweptback hairdo, she added a touch of pink eye shadow and black winged eyeliner. Leading lady: Leading Actress nominee Scarlett, 35, borrowed fashion tips from the 1920s in a busty feathered gown, which featured a perilously low-cut neckline, a beaded bodice and a tasseled hemline Meanwhile Renee, who was honoured with the Leading Actress award for Judy graced the event in an elegant satin dress. Including a sweetheart neckline and off-shoulder detailing, the Bridget Jones actress wowed in her pink gown, which hugged her youthful-looking physique. Supporting Actress nominee Florence hit the red carpet with a bang as she dared to be bold in a fuchsia puffball gown, complete with a thigh-skimming front piece and an elaborate dress train. Game Of Thrones actress Emilia, 33, ditched her typically girly fashion sense in favour of a vampy appearance, while Big Little Lies' Zoe, 31, exuded sophistication in a metallic gold floor-length dress. Incredible: Little Women's Saoirse, 25, looked every inch the leading lady in a stunning chic black satin gown with thin staps and a floor-length skirt Centre stage: Judy star Renee, 50, ensured she honoured her Leading Actress nomination as she graced the event in an elegant satin dress Highlighting her sensational figure, Emilia caught the eye in a low-scoop gown, complete with a pair of towering ankle-strap heels for height. The media personality maintained her dark-themed look with a smouldering brown make-up look, featuring smokey eyeshadow, matte foundation and nude lipgloss to add a pop of colour. With her tresses swept into a sleek bun, the brunette ensured focus remained on her outfit as she opted for minimal accessories by just sporting blue crystal dangle earrings. The Los Angeles native slicked down her pixie cut while bringing out her out-of-this-world beauty with a dewy base and fierce red lipstick. Coordinating with her make-up look in the accessory department, the TV and film star rounded off her outfit with drop earrings and a fresh patent manicure. Nice to see you! Florence appeared delighted as she warmly greeted Little Women's director Greta Gerwig, who wowed in a velvet dress And Taron Egerton, who was nominated for the Leading Actor gong for his role as Elton John in biopic Rocketman, looked every inch the leading man at the event. The Kingsman star, 30, was joined by his stunning girlfriend Emily Thomas, where he looked dapper in a crushed velvet purple tuxedo which he teamed with a crisp white shirt, black bow tie and patent leather dress shoes. Emily looked effortlessly chic in an asymmetrical black floor-length gown which showcased her svelte figure. The assistant director styled her brunette locks into a glossy curly blow-dried hairdo, she added a slick of glamorous make-up. Sam Mendes' 1917 led the winners as the World War I masterpiece took home seven gongs, which included the Best Film, Director, Outstanding British Film, Special Visual Effects, Cinematography, Production Design and Sound at the star-studded ceremony. Marking her territory: Supporting Actress nominee Florence, 24, hit the red carpet with a bang as she dared to be bold in a fuchsia puffball gown, complete with a thigh-skimming front piece and an elaborate dress train Dazzling: Olivia Colman tapped into her character as The Queen in The Crown as she opted for regal chic in a turtleneck dress, featuring a floral-embroidered bodice, sheer sleeves and a flowy skirt While Renee won the Leading Actress gong for her role as Judy Garland in the namesake biopic Judy, Joaquin Phoenix, 45, took home the Leading Actor award for his skilled portrayal as Joker. Despite receiving 11 nominations, Joker only took home three awards - Casting, Original Score and Joaquin's Leading Actor gong. Other A-lister wins included Laura Dern, 52, who won the Supporting Actress gong for her role as cutthroat lawyer Nora Fanshaw in Marriage Story. While an absent Brad Pitt won the Supporting Actor gong for his role as Cliff Booth in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which was collected by his co-star Margot Robbie who lost out on her own Supporting Actress nomination for her Sharon Tate role in the Quentin Tarantino movie. Turning heads: Game Of Thrones actress Emilia Clarke, 33, ditched her typically girly fashion sense in favour of a vampy appearance Looking good: The Los Angeles native slicked down her pixie cut while bringing out her out-of-this-world beauty with a dewy base and fierce red lipstick Andy Serkis was honoured with the Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema award by his Lord Of The Rings co-star Sir Ian McKellen while E.T producer Kathleen Kennedy received the highest honour with The Fellowship award. Bong Joon-ho's Parasite received two wins on Sunday evening, taking home the Film Not in the English Language and Original Screenplay gongs. Top Boy and Blue Story actor Michael Ward won the EE Rising Star Award, which was voted for by the public. For Sama won Documentary, Jojo Rabbit won Adapted Screenplay, Le Mans '66 won Editing and Klaus took home the Animated Film award. Despite not winning an award for her role, Margot Robbie's Bombshell won the Make Up & Hair BAFTA with Little Women winning Costume Design. Here come the girls! Bad Education star Gillian Anderson (L) nailed prom chic in a strapless flared midi dress, while Bond Girl Naomie Harris (C) stood out in a slinky silver number and Kellie Shirley (R) put on a leggy display in a feathered LBD Chic: Gillian, 51, looked glamorous in her velvet dress, which skimmed her ankles to allow her classic red pedicure to be on display She's got it! Moonlight star Naomie, 43, flashed a hint of her lean legs in a chain-inspired dress, which featured a daringly-high slit Incredible: Vanessa Kirby took inspiration from the Roaring Twenties in a tasseled dress, which featured a silver bedazzled bodice and a mulberry feathered skirt Writer/director Mark Jenkin and producers Kate Byers and Linn Waite won the Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer for Bait. While Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You're a Girl) took home the British Short Film award and Grandad Was a Romantic won the British Short Animation gong. BAFTA winners and nominees are voted for by 6,500 BAFTA members, comprised of industry professionals and creatives around the world. Members vote to decide the nominations from hundreds of films in round one, then vote for the winner from the shortlist in round two. Even before he was elected as leader of Fine Gael, Leo Varadkar felt this election would come down to personality. His parliamentary party did too, which is why they picked him against the wishes of the membership who sided with Simon Coveney. During the hustings back in 2017, the theory went that Coveney was long-winded and dull while Varadkar was sharp-witted and spoke his mind. He was supposed to ''take down'' the elder statesman, Micheal Martin, in a way that Enda Kenny never could. Senior people in Fine Gael have literally been looking forward to the election TV debates for two-and-a-half years now. But over that time Varadkar's roguish ''tell it as it is'' trait has been redefined as a ''lack of empathy'' and bluntness - even by some in his own party. The claim by Catherine Noone on a random doorstep in Dublin Bay North this week that her boss is "autistic" was the clumsy culmination of much whispering about his performance within Fine Gael. There is no doubt that Varadkar doesn't do the faux ''great to see you Mary'' routine very well but that shortcoming was well documented before he became Taoiseach. What people liked about him was his ability to call out bulls**t. When you become Taoiseach, though, it's not as easy to undermine a colleague or a Garda Commissioner (like when he went against the grain after Martin Callinan described whistleblowers Maurice McCabe and John Wilson as "disgusting"). As leader of the Government, his ability to shoot from the hip has been removed. Likewise, he can't sling mud like the time he said: "The gutter is Bertie Ahern's natural habitat." On occasion he has forgotten himself, such as last July when he compared Micheal Martin to a sinning Catholic priest. The throwaway remark came with consequences. As a minister he would probably have disappeared for a few days and waited for the controversy to die down. But, as Taoiseach, he was forced into an embarrassing Dail apology that would lead the evening news. "I offended people who I never intended to offend. I want to apologise for that and withdraw it. "I have tremendous respect for priests, for the sacrifice that they give in the lives that they lead," he said. It is simply not possible for Varadkar to be the same attack dog that his party chose to replace the gaffe-prone Enda Kenny. His migration towards a more scripted politician was inevitable and if party members didn't realise that then they don't understand politics. But there is another issue where he could be taking a stand instead of adopting the same passive demeanour. Since the election campaign began, Leo Varadkar has been abused for his Indian heritage, not being a ''family man'', lacking empathy and now allegedly he's ''on the spectrum''. When he was elected as Fine Gael leader, the Dubliner made a memorable speech in the Mansion House where he declared: "Prejudice has no hold in this Republic." "Around the world people look to Ireland as a country where it doesn't matter where you come from but where you want to go," he said. The footage travelled around the world and people of many different political persuasions admitted to basking in the momentary glow of how progressive we were. However, a string of recent events suggest Irish society may not be as open-minded as Varadkar's speech suggested. When you pursue personality politics, there is always a risk that your opponents will turn you into a figure of disdain. To a large extent, Fianna Fail has succeeded in characterising Varadkar's polished media performances as ''spin''. And then there is the wider question of empathy in relation to his commentary on the housing and health crises. That's politics. But there is a wider issue which is being overlooked by Varadkar himself and many ''woke'' voters who are normally up in arms any time somebody makes a gendered comment or questions their liberal agenda. They have been relatively quiet as the Taoiseach felt compelled to repeatedly laugh off derogatory comments, bat away insults and forgive ignorance while on the campaign trail. A couple of weeks ago, Sinn Fein councillor Paddy 'The Hooligan' Holohan said he wanted "a family man" and someone that "knows what it's like to have kids" to be in charge of the country. "I know what it's like to collect my young fella from school so I know what school time traffic is like, so when I'm making a decision I have experience and bring it to the equation," the mixed martial artist said as if outlining his credentials for public office. Holohan went on to say Varadkar's "blood obviously runs to India". He said Varadkar's "great grandfather is not part of the history of this country, you know what I mean? "Now, Leo obviously is, he's an Irish citizen but his passion doesn't go back to the times when our passion goes back to." Most people could read between the lines alright, although the councillor later claimed he was misinterpreted. None the less, the Taoiseach accepted his apology as did Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald. Ultimately she couldn't wave away further statements he made about young girls and did suspend him from the party. Varadkar, similarly, accepted an apology from Catherine Noone. In the hope of winning votes, she told people: "He's autistic like, he's on the spectrum, there's no doubt about it. "He's uncomfortable socially and he doesn't always get the in-between bits." No disciplinary action was taken, even though Fine Gael candidates had to sign a declaration before the election saying they would uphold the party's values. It's doesn't stop there. Independent candidate Peter Casey currently has billboards around Dublin with 10 reasons why voters should dump the Taoiseach. One reads: "Gay Rights: isn't it peculiar how Leo, as a gay man himself and fantastic champion of gay rights, was once against the idea of same-sex marriage and allowing gay couples to adopt!" Of course Varadkar is used to turning a blind eye to abuse. He declined to make a big deal out of former Ulster Unionist Party deputy leader Lord Kilclooney's description of him a "typical Indian" or when The Sun reacted to his defence of the Irish position on Brexit with the line "shut your gob and grow up". In recent weeks the Taoiseach has carefully avoided accusations of going after the sympathy vote. He has adopted Michelle Obama's "when they go low, we go high". But in his attempt to be humble, he has failed to call out everyday prejudice that exists in Irish politics and therefore must exist in Irish society. Most right-minded people would understand if he condemned Paddy Holohan from a height and pulled Fine Gael's support for Catherine Noone. In fact, many voters would have respected such decisive rejection of their personal cruelty. Varadkar once said: "I'm not a half-Indian politician, or a doctor politician or a gay politician for that matter. It's just part of who I am, it doesn't define me, it is part of my character I suppose." But he is somebody in a position to speak out for the minorities he happens to be part of. By diminishing the impact of the attacks, he has missed an opportunity to stand up for immigrants, the LGBT community and people with disabilities. He could have truly sparked a conversation about how we view and treat these sections of society. It's admirable that he didn't want to make it all about him but when we ignore bad behaviour, we can unintentionally encourage it. As many as 46 lawmakers of the ruling Nepal Communist Party have registered a motion in Parliament urging the government to legalise the cultivation of marijuana and ban the import of alcohol. The farming, production and trade of marijuana and cannabis are banned in Nepal since 1973. The lawmakers claim that over 65 countries, including the US, Canada, and Germany who had led the movements for banning marijuana in the 1970s, have already legalised it. Lawmaker Birodh Khatiwada, from Makawanpur district, proposed the motion, which got support from 45 others lawmakers of the party in the House of Representatives. Makawanpur is one of the districts that produces the highest amount of marijuana illegally. The lawmakers have argued that the legalisation can be economically beneficial for the country and would help improve people's standard of living. "Marijuana has multiple uses. It also helps earn foreign currencies and produce medicines," Khatiwada said. The government spokesperson and Minister for Information and Communications Technology Gokul Baskota said the government was yet to take any steps towards legalising it. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) 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. City grandee Michael Spencer could collect a multi-million payout after the owner of spreadbetting firm City Index received an approach from a US rival. Sources in the City said INTL FCStone, a New York-headquartered commodities trading house, has been talking to Gain Capital, the owner of City Index. Spencer, founder of inter-dealer broker Icap and a former Conservative party treasurer, remains a shareholder in Gain Capital after selling City Index to the US-listed business for 74 million in 2014. In the money: Michael Spencer is founder of inter-dealer broker Icap and a former Conservative party treasurer He owns 2.5 per cent of Gain Capital via his investment firm IPGL, according to data firm Bloomberg. Spencer is said to be in line for a peerage. City Index gives punters the opportunity to make high-risk bets on rises and falls in the price of shares, commodities and currencies. London-listed 'contract for difference' broker Plus500 approached Gain Capital last summer, but talks later broke down. Gain Capital and INTL FCStone declined to comment. Saudi Arabia barred Iran from attending a meeting of Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) where US President Donald Trump's peace plan for the Israeli-Palestinian settlement will be discussed. In a statement, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Seyyed Abbas Mousavi on Sunday said that Saudi Arabia has denied visas to the Iranian delegation led by Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Hossein Jaberi. The fifty-seven member OIC, a forum comprising Muslim-majority countries, will convene the meeting on Monday over the peace plan unveiled by Trump last week. Saudi Arabia and Iran are engaged in a proxy war for many years. "The Saudi government... violated the definite commitments as the government hosting this international organisation as well as the plain principles stipulated in the modus operandi of such organisations, such as the necessity of ensuring the free and unrestricted participation of the member states in all activities of the organisation, and denied the Islamic Republic of Iran's delegation led by Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Hossein Jaberi Ansari visa until the final hours before the meeting," Mousavi said in a statement. The Middle East plan, which was three years in making, establishes Jerusalem as Israel's "undivided" capital and offers a path towards a two-state solution to one of the longest conflicts in history. Iran has condemned the deal calling it "most despicable plan". "Enough of these foolish attempts. The Most Despicable Plan of the Century," Iranian President Hassan Rouhani tweeted on late Wednesday. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Police officers at the scene after a man was shot and killed by armed police on February 2, 2020 in London, England. A male suspect wearing a hoax explosive device was shot dead Sunday in south London by police officers after he stabbed two people in an Islamist-related terrorist incident, London's Metropolitan Police said. The police said three people were injured during the attack which took place in London's Streatham neighborhood. Two victims were stabbed and a third sustained minor injuries caused by glass after the police discharged a firearm. All three were transported to the hospital. One victim, a man, is being treated for life-threatening injuries. The other victim, a woman, has non-life threatening injuries. The third victim, also a woman, was treated for minor injuries. According to the BBC, the assailant was under police surveillance and had been released one week ago from prison, where he was serving a 3-year sentence for terror-related activities A device later determined to be a hoax was found strapped to the body of the suspect, the police said in a statement. Officers from the counter terrorism command are leading an investigation into the incident, which is believed to be "Islamist-related," said Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service Lucy D'Orsi. Following the attack U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson thanked the emergency personnel while saying his thoughts were with those affected. He also said stricter measures could be put in place for how the country responds to terror-related incidents going forward. "Tomorrow, we will announce further plans for fundamental changes to the system for dealing with those convicted of terrorism offences," Johnson said in a statement from Downing Street. He said that following November's terrorist attack near London Bridge which left two dead and three injured, the government has "moved quickly to introduce a package of measures to strengthen every element of our response to terrorism including longer prison sentences and more money for the police." President Muhammadu Buhari has extended his sympathy to China over the outbreak of coronavirus in the country. Over 300 persons have been killed by the novel virus which broke out in Wuhan, capital of Hubei province in China. In a statement, Garba Shehu, presidential spokesman, Buhari was quoted as saying that it was only a matter of time before this nightmare passes. The statement read, President Muhammadu Buhari extends his good wishes to President Xi Jinping and citizens of the Peoples Republic of China during this trying time. Chinas efforts to contain the spread of the coronavirus have been exemplary, as well as the countrys collaboration with international agencies and other countries on the matter. Read Also: 5 Abuja Residents Arrested Over Claims Of Contracting Coronavirus President Buhari notes that China has been exceptionally supportive of Nigeria and Africa, and even more so in recent years; therefore, it is important to let China know that Nigeria and her citizens are also standing by them during this outbreak. With all the efforts being put in, we know that it is only a matter of time before this nightmare passes. He prays that God will comfort the Chinese and others who have already lost family members and loved ones to the disease. On Dec. 9, a fatal hydrothermal explosion (also called a phreatic eruption) occurred at White Island (Whakaari), a volcanic island 30 miles from the north-northeast coast of New Zealands North Island. The explosion spewed rocks and toxic gases and launched an ash plume that surged outwards and rose to about 12,000 feet into the air. There were 47 people on the island at the time of the explosion, and 20 of them were killed, with the rest suffering severe injuries. This was unfortunately not the first tragic event on White Island. Sulfur mining took place in the crater between the 1880s and the 1930s, and 11 miners were killed by a debris avalanche in 1914, when part of the volcanos crater rim collapsed unrelated to any eruption. Whakaari/White Island is the tip of a submarine stratovolcano at the northern end of the Taupo Volcanic Zone and has been active for at least 150,000 years. For the past 40 years it has been New Zealands most active volcano. White Island is monitored by GeoNet the agency that operates New Zealands geological hazard monitoring systems. Like the USGS volcano observatories, GeoNet provides eruption updates, volcanic alert level summaries and monitoring information. Volcano monitoring agencies relay scientific information to government agencies and land managers so they can make informed decisions regarding closures at active volcanoes. White Island has erupted many times in recent history, with very frequent eruptions from 1976-2000. A major eruption formed a new crater in 2000, and small eruptions occurred in 2012, 2013 and 2016. The volcano had been showing signs of unrest for several weeks before the Dec. 9 explosion. In October, seismic tremors and sulfur dioxide (SO2) gas emission rates were at their highest levels since 2016, indicating an increased likelihood of an eruption. On Nov. 18, GeoNet raised the Volcanic Alert Level to 2, indicating moderate to heightened volcanic unrest. White Island is privately owned, and private tour operators set policies on whether to visit the island. Although the elevated GeoNet alert level indicated there was a heightened potential for eruption hazards, the island remained open for visitation. This is sadly not the only example of a recent fatal hydrothermal blast. In 2014, over 60 hikers were killed when Japans Mount Ontake experienced a small hydrothermal explosion. These hazardous events are challenging to forecast because they occur due to subtle changes in a volcanos hydrothermal system. The processes preceding the explosions are typically localized in areas that are much smaller than the spacing between monitoring instruments. What do these hydrothermal explosions have to do with Yellowstone? Hydrothermal explosions are the most likely of Yellowstones various volcanic hazards, and the potential for additional future explosions is not insignificant. Hydrothermal explosions in Yellowstone that form craters greater than 328 feet wide occur on average every 700 years. The largest hydrothermal explosions in Yellowstone occurred after an icecap more than a half-mile thick receded from the Yellowstone Plateau about 13,000 years ago. Smaller explosions in Yellowstone, forming craters one to a few meters across, occur on average every two years. Some recent examples include the explosions of Excelsior Geyser in Midway Geyser Basin in the 1880s, the 1989 explosion of Porkchop geyser in Norris Geyser Basin, the 2009 explosion of Wall Pool at Biscuit Basin and the small explosion at Ear Spring in the Upper Geyser Basin in 2018. None of these explosions harmed people; the Biscuit Basin explosion was actually witnessed by a group of geologists. Monitoring data and observations generally show when an area has a higher potential for hydrothermal explosions. Sometimes the signs can last for weeks, as at White Island, but sometimes they happen too close in time to the explosion to be taken for warnings. At Ontake, signals preceding the 2014 explosion lasted only minutes and were only recognized in retrospect. The land manager in Yellowstone is the National Park Service, which is one of the consortium members of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. NPS is responsible for enforcing rules to ensure visitor safety. They use monitoring data and interpretations by USGS and other Yellowstone Volcano Observatory scientists to identify changes in hydrothermal activity that could pose hazards to anyone nearby. This information prompted the NPS to close parts of Norris Geyser Basin in July 2003 and parts of the Upper Geyser Basin in September 2018 in response to changes in hydrothermal activity. The lethal hydrothermal explosions at White Island and Mount Ontake emphasize the importance of scientific research into the processes that precede the explosions and the signals they might generate, as well as for better monitoring of hydrothermal systems in general. These explosive events also highlight the need for good lines of communication between scientists, policy makers and land managers, and for more public awareness of these unique hazards. Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 1 Sad 0 Angry 1 As the coronavirus crisis has infected more than 14,000 people globally, the use of face masks has become part of daily life in Australian cities and other parts of the world. Its effectiveness in preventing the spread of the virus, however, has been questioned by health experts. Officials in China have required that people wear face masks when they go out in public places to prevent the spread of infection. But a report by Work Safety claims the best preventive measures out of the outbreak epicentre are washing hands and covering coughs. People wearing protective face masks to protect themselves from Coronavirus are seen at Brisbane International Airport on January 31 Passengers' body temperatures are checked at the exit of Beijing West Railway Station in Beijing Coronavirus outbreak, China on February 2 Just as it happened with the use of face masks to prevent air pollution from the bushfires, surgical masks are not fitted to stop inhaling smaller airborne particles that might carry the virus. For that reason, the report claims, respirators offer more protection although they can make it more difficult for a person to breathe. People with symptoms are encouraged to stay in isolation and wear a face mask when in the same room as another person to reduce the risk of virus transmission. NSW Health said people with respiratory infections should keep away from other people, wash hands with soap and running water for 20 seconds and avoid contact with others. WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SURGICAL MASKS AND RESPIRATORS? Surgical Masks Are the kind worn by surgeons during operations. Protect the wearer against large droplets or splashes of bodily and infected fluids from others. Do not prevent a person from inhaling smaller airborne particles. Are loose-fitting and when the wearer inhales, there is potential for particles to leak in or out of the sides. Are not considered 'respiratory protection'. Respirators Are designed to prevent most small particles from entering the nose and mouth area. Recommended for healthcare professionals treating patients infected by coronavirus. Can make it more difficult for a person to breathe. Only work if they fit properly and aren't suitable for children or people with facial hair. Advertisement The report comes days after pharmacies around Australia sold out of face masks and hand sanitisers. Chemist Warehouse stores contacted by Daily Mail Australia in Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane all confirmed having no face masks or hand sanitiser in stock on January 30. Pharmaceutical Society of Australia Queensland president Chris Campbell previously said the best way to stop disease spread is hygiene. 'It's (face masks) not necessarily the mask that's going to be the solution for them there's other things that they can do,' he told the ABC. 'Keep up that hand hygiene, and by that it's just making sure we're always washing our hands if we've been in areas with contact with other people.' A medical worker treats a patient at an isolation ward at a hospital in southwest China's Chongqing on February 1 People wearing protective face masks to protect themselves from Coronavirus are seen at Brisbane International Airport on January 31 The national total of people confirmed with coronavirus reached 12 on Saturday as South Australia confirms two new coronavirus cases. Two Australians have been confirmed as having the virus in Wuhan itself. There are four confirmed cases of the virus in Victoria and New South Wales each, as well as two in Queensland. The death toll has passed 200 in China. It's one of the great movements of nature. The arrival in Ireland of hundreds of thousands of birds from colder northern climes for the winter. However, its not like it used to be. People out and about in coastal areas these days have been seeing at first hand a steep drop in the number of wetland birds, ducks, geese and waders, which winter here. Lorcan Farrelly, from north Co Dublin, who lives a stones throw from the Swords estuary, tells us he has noticed a great decline in these birds in the last two decades. When he arrived there in 1982, the place was awash with birds such as pochard, great crested grebe, golden eye and cormorants. Sadly, just a handful arrive these days, he emails. Lorcans observations are borne out by the Irish Wetland Bird Survey, which has found numbers of wintering water birds in Ireland have fallen by 15%, and much more for certain species, in recent years. The Shannon Estuary had around 50,000 birds in 2000 and the falloff there is in line with national trends. Irelands location in the east Atlantic and closeness to major water bird breeding areas in the Arctic, boosted by our mild climate, make it an important area for these birds. Traditionally, they have wintered here in huge numbers, with more than 850,000 estimated to have been here in 2013. In five years, however, we lost 140,000 water birds, including 100,000 waders. We have gone from having 15 sites of international importance (population of more than 20,000 birds) to five sites. In 22 years, theres been a loss of 500,000 water birds, a 40% decline since 1994/95. Hunting, illegal killing, agriculture and forestry, fisheries by-catch, urbanisation, and poor water quality are all taking a toll. Because of climate change, birds from the cold north-east no longer need to travel south as far as Ireland to find suitable wintering grounds, the survey notes. Furthermore, it states that while existing onshore windfarms have been considered a low-level pressure to Irish water birds to date, the expected largescale introduction of new renewable energy projects must be located sensitively so as to avoid any further damage. Populations of diving ducks such as goldeneye are down over 50% in the last two decades. Each winter, Ireland hosts over 50% of the population of Greenland white-fronted geese, but our wintering population has declined by almost 21% between 1993 and 2018. Sometimes known as the goose of Ireland, this bird can be found in bogs, wet lowlands, and farms. On a positive note, whooper swans, which migrate from breeding grounds in Iceland, have increased by 39% from 1991 to 2015, with black-tailed godwits up by 77%. Sen. Lamar Alexander said he plans to vote to acquit President Donald Trump in the Senate impeachment trial, citing concerns over establishing a perpetual impeachment in the House and immobilizing the presidency. I'm going to vote to acquit. I'm very concerned about any action that we could take that would establish a perpetual impeachment in the House of Representatives whenever the House was a different party than the president. That would immobilize the Senate, the 79-year-old Tennessee Republican said in an interview set to air Sunday on NBCs Meet the Press. The retiring senator invoked the framers of the Constitution to express disdain over a situation where a partisan majority in the House of either party can stop the government. A swing vote ahead of a key vote Friday on whether to bring new witnesses in the trial, Alexander voted against the move, in part because he contended it was too close to the November election in which voters can decide the presidents fate. Asked if it would be helpful for people to decide if they had more information, Alexander replied, If you have eight witnesses who say someone left the scene of an accident, why do you need nine? Democrats had argued witnesses could have brought to light new details about the presidents decision to delay military aid to Ukraine. The final vote on the two articles of impeachment is set for 4 p.m. on Wednesday and is expected to lead to Trump's acquittal. By Express News Service KOCHI: Kochi Metro Rail Limited (KMRL) on Saturday signed an agreement with Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) for plying electric buses as part of its feeder service to Cochin Airport. The agreement was signed at Thiruvananthapuram in the presence of KMRL MD Alkesh Kumar Sharma and Transport Secretary KR Jyothilal. The plan is to operate two electric buses as part of the airport feeder services. Electric buses having a seating capacity of 32 will ply between Aluva metro station and the Cochin International Airport route and other feasible routes. The feeder service to the airport is part of KMRLs plans to provide last mile connectivity to commuters. Airport access is key for the people of Kochi. Through this, people living in the city can travel in the metro and board the feeder bus to reach the airport and vice-versa, said Alkesh Kumar Sharma. The air-conditioned buses will be GPS enabled and will have all the modern facilities. The viability gap funding window will be provided to hospitals which are setting up centres in tier II and III cities. The private healthcare sector and medical equipment manufacturers have something to cheer about this year's budget. Chennai: The private healthcare sector and medical equipment manufacturers have something to cheer about this year's budget. The Budget has announced viability gap funding for hospitals in PPP mode and smaller cities and levied cess on imported medical equipments to promote domestic manufacturing. The viability gap funding window will be provided to hospitals which are setting up centres in tier II and III cities. The first phase will cover the 112 aspirational districts. Presently, under PM Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY) there are more than 20,000 empanelled hospitals. We need more in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities for poorer people under this scheme. It is proposed to set up Viability Gap funding window for setting up hospitals in the PPP mode. In the first phase, those Aspirational Districts will be covered, where presently there are no Ayushman empanelled hospitals,' said Minister of Finance, Nirmala Sitharaman. "Setting up of more hospital infrastructure in Tier-II and III cities under PPP model via viability gap funding, will further be a boost for the healthcare ecosystem and benefit the underprivileged families which were devoid of basic medical facilities. India has recorded highest out of pocket expenditure on healthcare, as compared to other developing countries. The measures proposed in the budget will support to regulate the gap and play an important role in making health a priority for one and all and creating further awareness for health insurance, Ashish Mehrotra, MD & CEO, Max Bupa Health Insurance. In order to fund this, the government will impose a nominal health cess, by way of a duty of customs, on the imports of medical equipment and use the proceeds for creating infrastructure for health services in the aspirational districts. This will also promote the domestic manufacturing of medical equipments. Medical equipments will also be part of "Network Products" which are being promoted for exports. Aiming at addressing the shortage of qualified medical doctors, the Budget proposed to attach a medical college to an existing district hospital in PPP mode. Those states that fully allow the facilities of the hospital to the medical college and wish to provide land at a concession, would be able to receive Viability Gap Funding. The government will encourage large hospitals with sufficient capacity to offer resident doctors fellow of National Board (DNB/FNB) courses under the National Board of Examinations, Jan Aushadhi Kendra Scheme to all districts offering 2000 medicines and 300 surgicals by 2024. The Budget has allocated Rs 69,000 crore for health care and this includes Rs 6400 crores for Prime Minister Jan Arogya Yojana. Copyright 2020 Albuquerque Journal Theres an old saying that lightning doesnt strike in the same place twice. Well, it did again this year when a bill intended to address the unintended consequences of a nearly 20-year-old tax lightning law again failed to make it out of committee during this years legislative session. Its dead, declared state Rep. Matthew McQueen, D-Galisteo, who has sponsored a bill to limit property tax valuation increases each of the past two years. But I have every intention to bring it back. It makes perfect sense and addresses fairness in the tax code. Technically, House Bill 91 is not dead. But last week, it was tabled in the House Local Government, Land Grants and Cultural Affairs Committee. And tabling an item in its first committee during a 30-day session like this year is tantamount to a kiss of death. A bill McQueen introduced last year addressing the same issue met a similar fate, dying in committee. At least that time it had earned a do pass recommendation, with amendments, from that same committee. The House Tax and Revenue Committee gave it a do not pass recommendation, but offered in its place a substitute bill. Thats as far as it went. To me, its a fairness bill. We passed a 3% cap (on increases to annual property valuations) as a way to protect homeowners from getting priced out of their homes, McQueen said of legislation approved 20 years ago. What my bill does is preserve that intent. McQueen said he was frustrated by the bills failure and blamed himself for not doing a better job of rallying supporters to testify before the committee. Instead, groups representing Realtors, homebuilders and apartment complexes prevailed. Alan LaSeck, executive director of the Apartment Association of New Mexico, declined an interview for this story. The New Mexico Home Builders Association did not respond to phone and email messages seeking comment. Unintended consequences McQueens bill intended to correct unintended consequences of a tax lightning law passed during the 2000 legislative session. Tax lightning is a term used to refer to a sharp increase in a homeowners assessed property value upon the sale of a home, bringing it up to the current market rate. Former House Speaker Ben Lujan pushed for a new law that was meant to deter gentrification. The law, which went into effect in 2001 and was largely inspired by the influx of out-of-towners buying second homes on Santa Fes east side, states that the market value of a residential property cannot be increased by more than 3% per year, as long as the property is not sold to someone outside the immediate family. The idea was to keep property taxes affordable for longtime homeowners while houses around them were being bought by people with wealth who would make improvements or additions to the homes, thus increasing not only its value, but also the value of other homes in the neighborhood. Under the law, properties that are sold are then assessed at their full market rate for tax purposes. While well intended and effective in keeping property taxes lower for longtime homeowners the law has had unintended consequences that have worked to the benefit of wealthy second-home buyers and large-scale apartment complex owners, many of them based out of state. Under McQueens proposed bill, the 3% limit on increases in annual net taxable value would continue to apply. But the value would increase to 10% for properties whose owners were not primary residents. The adjusted tax payments would not have taken effect until November 2023. Still no fix Had it made it to Gov. Michelle Lujan Grishams desk and received her signature, the bill would have had far-reaching effects across the state. According to a Taxation and Revenue Department (TRD) analysis of the bill, U.S. Census Bureau data indicates that, as of July 1, 2018, there were 942,208 housing units in New Mexico. About 67% of them, 637,609, were owner-occupied homes. Hence, the tax increase would affect 33% of the value of New Mexicos residential properties, which comprise approximately 60% of the states taxable value for property tax purposes, the report states. The report says that the fiscal effects of the bill would vary, sometimes dramatically, depending on the county. But, overall, TRD expects the effects to be very moderate on revenues received by beneficiaries. There have been other efforts to find a fix for the law in 2012 and 2013, but neither time did the legislation make it out of committee against opposition from apartment and homebuilder associations. McQueen took up the mantle by introducing a bill last year. He tweaked the bill this year to adopt some of the recommendations he heard during last years effort. According to the fiscal impact report, removing the 3% cap from non-primary residential properties had the support of New Mexico county assessors. Removing the 3 percent cap is a step in the right direction and will help with some of the unintended consequences created by tax lightning and is an opportunity to move assessments to fair & equitable and current & correct, the report says, attributing the quote to the county assessors chair. Maybe next year Mike Loftin, executive director of Homewise, which assists low-income homebuyers with low-interest loans, downpayment assistance and finding affordable residences, said a change in the law is long overdue. Its a no-brainer, he said. When they capped the property tax evaluation before, I thought the whole argument was to help property owners. It was never intended to help commercial enterprises. Loftin said the owners of apartment complexes have found a way around the law. When they sell a large property, they dont transfer the deed, but instead sell the beneficial rights to the property, so they figured out a way to circumvent it, he said. The argument made by opponents of the bill is that elimination of the cap from multifamily residential properties could lead apartment complex owners to experience a sharp spike in their tax bills. That would give them a claim to make up the difference by raising rents. The financially disadvantaged, low-income working and nonworking families and elderly would be hardest hit. But the New Mexico Counties Affiliate disagrees. The argument that rents will go up is unwarranted because it is the market that determines rates, not an apartment owners expenses the owner will simply make a little less profit, the report states. The report also includes the Tax and Revenue Departments analysis of the bill. It says that the bill could easily be administrated by New Mexico state and county governments. But it also says that it could be difficult to differentiate between primary residences and second homes, a problem that could be mitigated by an affidavit or declaration from the property owner each year. The departments analysis says that the bill could probably benefit from a definition of principal place of residence. Santa Fe County Assessor Gus Martinez says changing the definition of residential properties to exclude apartments might be a way to go. Hes also not sure it will be so easy to administer. Whos going to police it? he said. That will be a big deal. There are 33 counties in New Mexico and some of them may not have the technology to administrate it. Santa Fe County would be among the most affected if the bill were to pass because its a destination location attractive to second-home buyers, he said. Based on population and the number of homes, Bernalillo, Dona Ana, Sandoval and Taos counties would also be among the most affected, he said. These are considerations and questions McQueen can ponder over the next year and, should he be reelected in November, bring back in the form of a bill next year. But, at least until then, the unintended consequences remain in effect. (Natural News) After listening to Democratic House impeachment managers lie for three solid days about how President Donald Trump is so guilty of obstructing Congress and abuse of power, his own legal team got their turn on Saturday and immediately tore into their opponents. In particular, the presidents team made lead House impeachment manager Adam Schiffs credibility an issue, knocking him for one false statement on top of another. For weeks during the Democrat-controlled Houses rigged impeachment inquiry, Republicans attempted to call their own witnesses but were denied. They especially wanted to hear from the person who essentially got the impeachment ball rolling: A CIA operative whistleblower who originally claimed President Trump sought an illegal, improper quid pro quo from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. In particular, Patrick Philbin, deputy legal counsel to the president, made reference to a transcript thats being withheld by the House Intelligence Committee, which Schiff, California Democrat, heads. Philbin hinted the transcript is likely helpful to Trumps defense, pointing to the inspector general for the intelligence community, who raised the issue of the whistleblowers political bias, the Washington Times reported. We dont know what exactly the political bias was because the inspector general testified in the House committees in an executive session and that transcript is still secret. It wasnt transmitted to the House Judiciary Committee, Philbin said at one point. The Times reported the existence of the closely-held transcript, adding that the classified material was significant. You would think before going forward with an impeachment proceeding against the President of the United States, you would want to find something out about the complainant that started all of it, Philbin said. (Related: House Republicans bust up secret impeachment hearings to demand Democrats release witness transcripts they know will exonerate Trump.) White House counsel Pat Cipillone opened the defenses case by accusing Democrats of simply wanting to overturn the results of the 2016 election. They are asking you to tear up all the ballots across this county, he said of Democrats. I dont think they spend one minute talking about the consequences of that for our country. In fact, Cipillone accused Democrats of doing what they have blamed on Trump: They are here to perpetrate the most massive interference in an election in U.S. history. Impeaching over disagreement about foreign policy is NOT legitimate Meanwhile, Jay Sekulow, another of the presidents attorneys, noted that the president has placed holds on foreign aid a number of times to ensure that funds go towards activities that further U.S. foreign policy and also further our national security interests. Trump attorney Jay Sekulow says President Trump "has placed holds" on foreign aid "a number of times" and did so to "ensure that funds go towards activities that further U.S. foreign policy and also further our national security interests." https://t.co/AEw0I0JGrL pic.twitter.com/LARamahrz4 ABC News (@ABC) January 25, 2020 In addition, Sekulow knocked Democrats in the House for impeaching Trump for simply disagreeing with his foreign policy agenda, though that is not an impeachable offense. And he also noted that Democrats talked for nearly 24 hours to present their case but did not put forth any actual evidence that he committed a high crime or misdemeanor, which is the Constitutions impeachment standard. I am not going to continue to go over and over and over again the evidence that they did not put before you, Trumps Counsel Jay Sekulow says in conclusion. Because we would be here for a lot longer than 24 hours https://t.co/BrD8NvM2d0 pic.twitter.com/B546wCP1YZ CBS News (@CBSNews) January 25, 2020 Mike Purpura, another deputy White House counsel, argued that the transcript of President Trumps July 25 phone call with Zelensky the one referenced by the whistleblower shows no quid pro quo at all. He also noted that Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials have said no quid pro quo was ever mentioned, or that the Ukrainian government was even aware President Trump had placed a hold on their military aid. Also, he noted that not a single witness the House brought in to testify during the impeachment inquiry was an actual witness who saw Trump demand a quid pro quo. Purpura also played a video clip featuring an opening statement by Schiff during the impeachment inquiry last fall that was completely fake, in which the California Democrat was pretending to read from the phone call transcript. Deputy Counsel to the President Mike Purpura following video clip of @RepAdamSchiff: "That's fake. That's not the real call. That's not the evidence here." Full video: https://t.co/OZkWUFBtfB pic.twitter.com/O7M52Y2JOF CSPAN (@cspan) January 25, 2020 All in all, the presidents defense team gave a good accounting of him while exposing the sham impeachment that the Democrats have engaged in. Sources include: Breitbart.com WashingtonTimes.com NewsTarget.com As the dust settles on tens of Brexit parties, the outside world watches and wonders: what happens now? Editors note: This is a satirical report on the United Kingdom leaving the European Union. So to London, capital of what until Friday was the European colony of Great Britain. At 11pm local time, this former coal and pop-music producer declared independence and shook off the manacles of frictionless free trade with its close neighbours. Many observers were concerned lest triumphalist Brexiteers should attempt to perform the ritual bonging of the totemic local clock Big Ben, and thereby infuriate the vanquished subsidy-bloated Europhiles. But forecasts of violence were unfounded. To the untrained eye, the nationalistic fervour that has gripped Britain was a reaction to decades of London-centrism, nostalgia for Imperial weights and measures, and concern about Polish men in Everlast tracksuits poaching carp from their silted-up waterways: a tinderbox that went up in smoke when revolutionaries Nigel Spartacus Farage and TVs Dr David Bull executed a plan so masterful that not even they have ever been at liberty to fully explain what it was. Up and down this former fishery, the dust is settling on the tens of Brexit parties that were held across the newly-liberated nation on Friday night. After a night on the sparkling English pear wine, the insurgents appear to have gone back to ground while the outside world watches and wonders: what happens next? The dissidents chief demand was to take back control. While non-Brexiteers (or Remainers as they became sympathetically known) were too preoccupied with superfoods, Pilates timetables, and getting their kids into the right primary school to notice any lack of control, outsiders looked on awestruck as the Brexiteers managed to negotiate its return without one shot fired. Linked to control has been sovereignty a local shamanic tradition which rarely makes sense to outsiders unless they have fully experienced the altered state of consciousness that full exposure to common sense can bring. Restored sovereignty will now be redistributed in the form of cashback (after original Eurosceptic, Bill Cash). The European Super-state looks on with interest to see how the local yeomanry will respond; anecdotal reports suggest that some Leavers are living up to their name and taking theirs to Benidorm, but it seems likely that most will keep it where it is safest: in a Slazenger hold-all under the bed. Boris Johnson has stepped into the power vacuum left by the 2016 insurrection. He has been flexing his diplomatic muscles by negotiating unrivalled post-Brexit trade deals. Emboldened, he has placed a defiant Union Jack in the centre of the trade negotiation roundabout with the neighbouring rogue state, the United States, and invited Huawei to build the UKs new 5G network. The Huawei decision is seen locally as a masterful triple bluff that has thwarted Chinese ability to spy on Britons by letting them know that they know they are doing it. On the eve of crucial trade talks, the revolutionaries hope that this swagger will let US tribune Mike Pompeo know that they are not just war-weary soldiers, but a proud nation that has risen Phoenix-like from the bonfire of EU red tape. As of now, Britain can strike trade deals at will, subject to Chinese approval. One of the biggest tests of the insurgency was the Irish border. Depending on who and where you are, this is also known as the English border in Ireland. The depleted but triumphant British trawlermen who must now sail around it have made sure that the calamitous worldwide decline in fish stocks has been subordinated to their right to do the overfishing, and must now scan the horizon for reprisals from rogue European super trawlers. Do not doubt that if Brexit is to mean Brexit, the patriotic mariners will cry haddock! and let slip the dogs of war. In coming months, as the despised colonialists are bussed out of the country past the M20 Lorry Park, the revolutionaries, from the ERG to UKIP, must come together and begin training the hundreds of thousands of care and medical workers who will soon be needed to fill the shortage in skills gap. They might also come up with a plan for the sheep farmers whose EU subsidies were the only thing between them and work as a barista; or indeed the Honda and Jaguar-Land Rover employees on shortened hours whose skills may just mean they now have to work behind enemy lines in the EU, to send us back the cars we need to keep our motorways jammed. For the moment, calm prevails. While Britain continues to follow EU rules and will contribute to its budget for another year, the revolutionaries now feel free. Hence, while uncertainty still hangs in the air, the valour of the self-styled Spartans who engineered this David and Goliath victory can only be saluted. While the patrinots were subsidising the poached-egg-and-avocado boom years, these soldiers of fortune inspired the nations patriotic heart with references to Magna Carta, straight bananas and daily Bomber Command flypasts over primary schools. As these Arthurian knights wake from their sleep of victory and check their smartphones to see if they are still in control, all they are going to need now is a Huawei charger. The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance. Our directory features more than 18 million business listings from across the entire US. However, if we're missing your business, add your business by clicking on Add Your Business. A Chinese woman puts a protective mask on a young girl as they tour the grounds of the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, China, which remained open during the Chinese New Year and Spring Festival holiday on Jan. 27, 2020. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images) Flu, HIV Drugs Appear to Help Fight Coronavirus: Thai Doctors Several Thai doctors said on Sunday they have seen success in treating severe coronavirus cases with a series of flu and HIV medications, with positive results coming in within 48 hours of treatment. Doctors from Rajavithi Hospital in Bangkok told Reuters a new approach in coronavirus treatment improved the conditions of several coronavirus patients, including a 70-year-old woman from Chinas Wuhan, which is considered the epicenter of the viral outbreak. This is not the cure, but the patients condition has vastly improved. From testing positive for 10 days under our care, after applying this combination of medicine the test result became negative within 48 hours, Dr. Kriangska Atipornwanich, a lung specialist, told reporters. The outlook is good but we still have to do more study to determine that this can be a standard treatment. He added to AFP: From being exhausted before, she could sit up in bed 12 hours later. One doctor said a similar approach was used for two other patients. One suffered an allergic reaction and the other showed signs of improvement. We have been following international practices, but the doctor increased the dosage of one of the drugs, said Somsak Akkslim, director-general of the Medical Services Department, according to the report. He was referring to influenza medicine Oseltamivir. Initially we will apply this approach only to severe cases, he said. So far, Thailand has reported 19 cases of coronavirus. Eleven of those patients are still being treated at hospitals while eight have recovered. Chinese officials placed Wuhan, a city of about 10 million people, and other parts of Hubei province on lockdown to enact a quarantine over the virus, while some locals in Wuhan have told The Epoch Times that the situation in the city is far direr than what the Chinese regime is letting on. Wenzhou, a port city located in Chinas coastal Zhejiang Province, announced on Sunday that only one member from each family in the city can be out buying goods every two days. Outside of China, Japan and Thailand have reported the most cases of the virus, with Japan recording 20. On Sunday, White House national security adviser Robert OBrien told CBS News that the United States has reached out to Beijing about potentially sending health care professionals to contain the outbreak. But China, he said, hasnt responded. We continue to offer assistance to the Chinese. Weve offered to send over CDC and other U.S. medical and public health professionals. And we have not heard back yet from the Chinese on those offers, but were prepared to continue to cooperate with them, OBrien said on Sunday. A patient suspected of nCoV infection quarantined at the Hanoi's National Hospital of Tropical Diseases. Photo by VnExpress/Giang Huy. Vietnam has quarantined eight more people in Saigon, Hanoi and Binh Thuan Province suspected of contracting the new coronavirus. In Saigon, three members of a French family arriving on Saturday from Wuhan, the epicenter of the nCoV, are in quarantine at the City Childrens Hospital in Binh Chanh District, according to the Department of Health. In Hanoi, two Vietnamese and a foreigner whose nationality has not been revealed were quarantined on Saturday, according to the Hanoi Center for Disease Control. They were returning from China with symptoms of the novel coronavirus infection. In the south central Binh Thuan Province, a Chinese and a Vietnamese were quarantined as of Saturday, according to the province health department. Ow Zin Aw, the Chinese national, works in Vietnam, flew to China on January 15 and flew back to Saigon on January 29. He left for Ham Thuan Nam District in Binh Thuan by car the same day. On January 30 he showed symptoms like fever and sore throat, went to the Binh Thuan General Hospital and has been quarantined there since. The Vietnamese is a 21-year-old studying in Taiwan who flew to Saigon on January 22 and took a bus to Duc Trong District in the Central Highlands Province of Lam Dong. On January 31 she and her mother went by bus to a commune in Bac Binh District in Binh Thuan Province to visit her grandparents. The same evening she had a fever and sore throat and was vomiting, and was taken to the Regional General Hospital of Binh Thuan. She has been quarantined there since. As of Saturday there were 1,147 Chinese in Binh Thuan, 144 of them local residents and the rest tourists. On January 30 the province, home to popular beach town Mui Ne, ordered travel companies not to bring in Chinese tourists. Vietnam had reported 92 suspected cases with symptoms like high fever and coughing including some who visited infected areas in China, as of Sunday. Of them, 27 are in quarantine pending test results. There are seven confirmed cases, a Vietnamese American who transited in Wuhan, three Vietnamese arriving from Wuhan, two Chinese nationals, and a hotel receptionist who caught the coronavirus infection from the two Chinese, who are presently quarantined in Saigon. Vietnam's government declared the novel coronavirus an epidemic on Saturday. The death toll in China had reached 304 as of Saturday, according to the countrys National Health Commission. KYODO NEWS - Feb 1, 2020 - 19:05 | World, All, Coronavirus (Kim Song Nam pictured at Beijing's international airport on Feb. 1, 2020.) BEIJING - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has sent a letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping expressing his conviction that China will "emerge victorious" in its efforts to combat the outbreak of a deadly new coronavirus, state media reported Saturday. The Korean Central News Agency report came just hours after a senior official of North Korea's ruling party in charge of China ties and the country's ambassador to China arrived in Beijing from Pyongyang by air. Expressing "deep consolation" to the families of those who have died after being infected with the pneumonia-causing virus, Kim "conveyed his sincere feelings of wanting to share the suffering and trial of the fraternal Chinese people and to render help even a bit," the report said. The Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, North Korea's ruling party, sent an "aid fund" to the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party on Friday, according to the report. Kim Song Nam, first vice director of the Workers' Party of Korea, was sighted at Beijing airport by a Kyodo News reporter after his arrival. The purpose of his visit is unknown, but it has been speculated that he would hold talks with Chinese officials during his stay. North Korea recently handed the foreign minister's job to Ri Son Gwon, a former military officer and head of the government's Committee for Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland. Many observers say that with Ri as foreign minister, North Korea may take a more hard-line stance toward the United States during nuclear talks. North Korean Ambassador to China Ji Jae Ryong returned from Pyongyang on the same flight as Kim's. Ji had temporarily been back in North Korea. Air Koryo, North Korea's state-run carrier, has said it will stop operating flights between Beijing and Pyongyang after Saturday's flights, apparently in response to the outbreak of the coronavirus in China. The Santa Clara County Health Department said Friday that a resident of the county tested positive for the new coronavirus, marking the first case in the Bay Area. This is the third case in California, with two others reported in Southern California. While health officials said the risk to Bay Area residents remains extremely low, the recent news may have some residents asking questions. What is coronavirus? The viral respiratory illness spreading rapidly in China is a new kind of coronavirus that scientists have never observed in humans before. Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses, some of which cause the common cold. Others have evolved into more severe illnesses, such as SARS and MERS, although so far the new virus does not appear to be nearly as deadly or contagious. How many people are impacted? The number of confirmed cases worldwide has risen to 9,800, with the majority of those cases in China, according to the World Health Organization. More than 200 people have died. The World Health Organization has declared novel coronavirus a global health emergency, and the U.S. Department of Health and Humans Services has declared a public health emergency in the United States. But the center of the outbreak is in Wuhan, a port city of 11 million in the Hubei province of China. The Chinese government has quarantined the city, and restricted travel to and from several other cities, including the capital, Beijing. About 200 cases have been confirmed across two dozen countries outside China, including Australia, Cambodia, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Nepal, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Sweden, the Republic of Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and Vietnam. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is updating this list daily. There are seven cases in the United States: three of them in Southern California, two in Illinois, one in Washington state and another in Arizona. For comparison, between November 2002 and July 2003, the outbreak of SARS in southern China infected 8,098 people, resulting in 774 deaths reported in 17 countries. The majority of cases were in in mainland China and Hong Kong. What's the mortality rate? "Theres a lot we dont know about coronavirus, and one is the case fatality rate -- what percentage of patients will die of the illness," said Dr. Chiu of UCSF. "It does appear based on the data available so far that this appears to be less deadly than SARS at 2 to 3 percent, and for SARS, it was about 10 percent. This is still a more severe disease than the flu. It has a mortality rate of .o1 percent." Chiu added that at this early stage in virus and with most cases in China, it's difficult for researches to pin down the mortality rate. He said in China, officials have been focused on the public health response and they're only now able to start analyzing data. Who is the person who tested positive in Santa Clara County? The first Bay Area case involves an unnamed adult male who is a resident of the county and who traveled to Wuhan, China. He showed symptoms after returning home, and has been self-isolating at home. The patient is stable and hasn't been sick enough to be hospitalized. He was seen at a local clinic. For privacy reasons, other details on the patient aren't being released. The CDC and county health officials are monitoring anyone this person has come into contact with, but the number is thought to be low, because he has stayed at home. Now that someone in the Bay Area has coronavirus, am I at a higher risk? "Although we do understand this confirmed case may raise concern, this one case, in fact, doesn't change the risk for the general public," said Dr. Sara Cody, a health officer with Santa Clara County. "Our assessment is that the public at large is still at low risk, because this case was careful to self-isolate at home since the time he returned from China." The San Francisco Public Health Department echoed Cody's message, saying the risk in the city remains low. "San Francisco has zero cases of novel coronavirus at this time," the public health department said in a statement. "If a case is confirmed in San Francisco, the Department of Public Health will announce it, in cooperation with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the California Department of Public Health." What's more, Dr. Charles Chiu, a professor of laboratory medicine and infectious disease at UC San Francisco, said "I think the risk in the U.S. is still close to zero. We havent seen any evidence of sustained transmission currently, but I emphasize currently because that may change. Although we have confirmed cases, they have been coming from returning travelers from Wuhan, or a household member of a returning traveler." MORE: World stocks skid as virus fears spook markets, hit tourism What are the symptoms? The virus can cause fever, coughing, wheezing and pneumonia. The incubation period is thought to be two weeks. But it's also a heavy flu season, and some of the symptoms are similar. "If you have traveled to Wuhan and are experiencing a fever or lower respiratory illness, such as a cough or trouble breathing, contact your medical provider by phone," advised Balram. "Let them know your symptoms and travel history before going to the ER. You want to make contact first." What's the origin of coronavirus? The exact origin is currently unknown, but Dr. Chiu said it likely originated from bats. "We know this because most coronaviruses are thought to originate from bats," he said. "SARS originated from bats and coronavirus about 80 percent identical to SARS. It's about 90 percent identical to a bat virus." The transmission of a disease from a bat directly to a human is very rare and Chiu said it's more likely another animal is the intermediary but researchers aren't certain which one yet. There was one paper pointing to snakes, but Dr. Chiu said the research is still fuzzy. "I think right now its up in the air," he said. "Theres likely an intermediary reservoir thats likely to be an animal, but we don't know yet." How can I stay safe? "There are things people can do to make themselves safer, and by far the most effective way to do this is really good hand-washing," said Dr. Susan Philip, San Francisco's deputy health officer and director of communicable disease prevention. "We dont do that as much as we should, especially when riding public transit. We dont realize how much we touch surfaces and then our faces." Should I start wearing a mask to protect myself? There's currently no need for residents to wear masks when they leave their homes, according to Dr. Philip. But if a mask puts you at ease, there's likely no harm in using one. You should consider wearing a mask if you're coughing or have a fever to stop the spread of viruses. While there continues to be a low risk of coronavirus transmission, flu and cold viruses are rampant at this time of year. "Masks do have a role," Dr. Philip said. "If people are sick, we prefer they stay home. But if they do have to go out, then wearing a mask is a great idea to prevent the spread of germs to people around you." Should I start stocking up on food in case of an outbreak in the Bay Area? "We dont think theres any reason to stock up on food," said Dr. Philip. "We dont advise people to panic. If people are really worried, the best thing is to stay informed by checking the CDC website where you find updated information. You can also check in with your county health department." What's the United States doing to prevent spread into the country? The CDC is screening passengers on direct and connecting flights from Wuhan at multiple airports including Atlanta, Chicago, New York City, San Francisco and Los Angeles. The United States is imposing a travel ban on foreign nationals who have been in China in the past 14 days. What's the Bay Area doing to prepare for potential local cases? San Francisco Mayor London Breed said Monday that the city has activated the Emergency Operations Center and is working with local, state and federal agencies to be ready to respond, if necessary. Other Bay Area counties are doing the same. ALSO: Are you in danger of catching the coronavirus? 5 questions answered Amy Graff is a digital editor with SFGATE. Email her: agraff@sfgate.com. In Vietnam, demand for medical face masks and hand sanitizers has increased sharply on fears of potential outbreak of the new coronavirus (nCoV). Due to a surge in demand for medical face masks, China is seeking to import the product from Vietnam, according to Le Thanh Cong, deputy head of the Department of Planning and Finance under the Ministry of Health. Illustrative photo. In Vietnam, demand for medical face masks and hand sanitizers also increased sharply on fears of potential outbreak of the new coronavirus (nCoV), said Cong in a government meeting on January 31. Cong attributed a temporary shortage of face masks supply to the fact that Vietnam is dependent on China for input materials, while the production plan was disrupted by the Lunar New Year festival. As of present, local producers are looking for new sources of materials from Europe and other countries. Cong said as hand sanitizers are mainly used in medical facilities and acquired through procurement of goods, the supply for individual use would be limited. Moreover, Cong refuted rumors that hospitals are selling medical face masks and hand sanitizers in the market, arguing that they themselves do not have enough. Nguyen Anh Tuan, director of the Price Management Department under the Ministry of Finance, informed that under Decree No.109 on penalties for administrative violations against the law on pricing, fee management, invoicing and price quote are compulsory for medical face masks. Even those who sell the facial masks at prices higher than the ones quoted would be subject to fines from VND10 15 million (US$433 649) and refund buyers, Tuan stressed. Vice Minister of Industry and Trade Do Thang Hai said the Law on Prices prohibited any act of taking advantage of economic crisis, natural disasters, enemy sabotage, fires, epidemics and/or other abnormal circumstances from setting buying and selling prices of goods or services unreasonably. Hai said the market surveillance authority would step up efforts to monitor the prices of medical masks in the market and deal with violations. In the past few days, prices of medical face masks and hand sanitizers in Hanoi have skyrocketed as locals are rushing to stockpile these products. Some store owners even declined customers request for purchase of facial masks in large quantity. Hanoitimes Ngoc Thuy Rising fear of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) that infected at least 12,000 people and killed around 305 within a month has led China to lock down entire provinces and the US and Australia to temporarily ban the entry of foreigners who have recently travelled to China. Even asymptomatic people can carry the infection to other regions and countries, which makes it necessary to quarantine Indian students evacuated from China for at least two weeks till they are free of the infection. Coronaviruses, however, do not survive for long on objects such as packages and letters, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), which makes it safe to remote-control businesses from the safety of your home or office outside China. The numbers are much higher than officially recorded, suggests a new modelling study published in The Lancet on Friday, which estimates that coronavirus (2019-nCoV) may have affected up to 75,800 people in Wuhan by January 25. And with dozens of infected persons leaving the city before the shutdown, local outbreaks are waiting to happen in Guangzhou, Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, which together account for over half of all outbound international air travel from China, found the study, which used mathematical modelling based on officially reported cases, domestic and international travel (train, air, road), and the assumption that the 2019-nCoV serial interval estimate (time taken to infect other people) is the same as severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars-CoV), which is also a type of coronavirus. If the transmissibility of 2019-nCoV is similar nationally and over time, it is possible epidemics could be already growing in multiple major Chinese cities, with a time lag of one to two weeks behind the Wuhan outbreak. Large cities overseas with close transport links to China could potentially become outbreak epicentres because of substantial spread of pre-symptomatic cases, said lead author Professor Joseph Wu from the University of Hong Kong. Historically, the other two novel coronaviruses that have emerged as global health threats since 2002 have not affected India despite causing outbreaks in neighbouring countries. The Sars-CoVspread to 37 countries and caused more than 8,000 infections and 800 deaths, mostly in south-east Asia in 2002, while Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (Mers-CoV; in 2012) spread to 27 countries and infected 2,494 people and caused 858 deaths. India remained unscathed. Like 2019-nCoV, both viruses cause fever and moderate-to-severe respiratory symptoms that may lead to pneumonia. Both Sars-CoV and Mers-CoV have low potential for sustained community transmission, so outbreaks tend to die out if managed well. But coronaviruses also have superspreading ability to cause large clusters of infection from a single case, which makes quarantining infected people for two weeks till they are infection free non-negotiable, said a health ministry official, who did not want to be named. Coronavirus (2019-nCoV): What to expect once symptoms begin Common symptoms: Fever (98% of patients), cough (75%), myalgia or fatigue (44%), and others Day 0: onset of symptoms Day 7: hospitalisation Day 8: shortness of breath, Day 9: acute respiratory distress syndrome Day 10-11: ICU admission SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON MANSFIELD A 34-year-old woman was killed after she crashed her car into a rest area guardrail early Sunday morning. The victim was a Norton resident. Her name will not be released until family can be notified, Massachusetts State Police said. The woman was driving a 2012 Honda Accord when she crashed into a guardrail at about 4:45 a.m. on Route 95 at the Mansfield rest area. She was taken to Sturdy Memorial Hospital in Attleboro by ambulance and died from her injuries, police said. The woman, who also struck a utility pole and a sign, was alone in the car and no other vehicles were involved in the crash. Troopers closed off the rest area for more than two hours while they investigated, police said. The crash is being investigated by Troop H of the state police with the assistance of the departments Collision Analysis Reconstruction Section, Crime Scene Services Section, and its Bristol County Detective Unit. The Mansfield and Attleboro Fire departments assisted at the crash. Massachusetts Department of Transportation will respond later to repair damage to the guardrail, pole and sign, police said. Presiden Akufo-Addo, will from Monday, 3rd February to Tuesday, 4th February 2020, embark on a two-day working visit of the Savannah and Upper West Regions. Beginning from the Savannah Region, President Akufo-Addo will pay a courtesy call on the Kpembewura, Banbange Ndafoso IV, and inspect rehabilitated works at the Salaga Water System at Salaga, in the Salaga North Constituency. The President will also inspect work on the Tamale-Salaga-Mankango road, and the Bunjai-Fulfulso road. He will then attend a durbar of Chiefs and people of Salaga North, at Kpalibe, to signal the end the first day of his tour. The President will begin day two of his tour in the Upper West Region with a courtesy call on the Wa Na, followed by a visit to the family of the late Alhaji Sahanoon Mogtar, who served as a Member of the Council of State until his passing. President Akufo-Addo will inspect ongoing work on the construction of a multi-purpose youth centre in Wa, before departing to Kaleo to cut the sod for the commencement of a 17-megawatt peak solar plant to be located in Kaleo and Lawra. The President will then proceed to inspect works on the Nandom-Hamile road, to climax his visit to the two regions. citinewsroom Some voters think she is a bot when their phones light up with her appeal on behalf of Senator Bernie Sanders. But she is not a bot. She is Amiebrooke Miller, 40, a boutique manager in Iowas capital, sending texts for the Vermont independent who has been surging in recent polls, thanks in part to the army of plugged-in supporters who plaster his campaigns message across email inboxes, Facebook feeds and, increasingly, text messages. They are the digital foot soldiers in this years battle for the White House, opting to punch keys on a smartphone instead of trundling through the snow to knock on doors. And they are legion. The Sanders campaigns text team boasts more than 12,000 volunteers nationally. In the lead-up to the first-in-the-nation caucuses, the campaign estimates that it has reached nearly a million Iowans via text almost a third of the state. New software gives each volunteer the power to reach hundreds of Iowans a day, though the response rate varies widely. When voters learn that theres a human being behind the bubble of text, said Ms Miller, 40, they completely change how they talk with us. She conducts intimate conversations about medical hardship from her home office, a candle lit beside her. Or, she steals 10 minutes from her lunch break to text with voters about college debt. The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Show all 25 1 /25 The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Bernie Sanders The Vermont senator has launched a second bid for president after losing out to Hilary Clinton in the 2016 Democratic primaries. He is running on a similar platform of democratic socialist reform Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Joe Biden The former vice president recently faced scrutiny for inappropriate touching of women, but was thought to deal with the criticism well and has since maintained a front runner status in national polling EPA The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Elizabeth Warren The Massachusetts senator is a progressive Democrat, and a major supporter of regulating Wall Street Reuters The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Amy Klobuchar Klobuchar is a Minnesota senator who earned praise for her contribution to the Brett Kavanaugh hearings Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Michael Bloomberg Michael Bloomberg, a late addition to the 2020 race, announced his candidacy after months of speculation in November. He has launched a massive ad-buying campaign and issued an apology for the controversial "stop and frisk" programme that adversely impacted minority communities in New York City when he was mayor Getty Images The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Tulsi Gabbard The Hawaii congresswoman announced her candidacy in January, but has faced tough questions on her past comments on LGBT+ rights and her stance on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Pete Buttigieg The centrist Indiana mayor and war veteran would be the first openly LGBT+ president in American history Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Deval Patrick The former Massachusetts governor launched a late 2020 candidacy and received very little reception. With just a few short months until the first voters flock to the polls, the former governor is running as a centrist and believes he can unite the party's various voting blocs AFP/Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Beto O'Rourke The former Texas congressman formally launched his bid for the presidency in March. He ran on a progressive platform, stating that the US is driven by "gross differences in opportunity and outcome" AP The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Kamala Harris The former California attorney general was introduced to the national stage during Jeff Sessions testimony. She has endorsed Medicare-for-all and proposed a major tax-credit for the middle class AFP/Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Bill De Blasio The New York mayor announced his bid on 16 May 2019. He emerged in 2013 as a leading voice in the left wing of his party but struggled to build a national profile and has suffered a number of political setbacks in his time as mayor AFP/Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Steve Bullock The Montana governor announced his bid on 14 May. He stated "We need to defeat Donald Trump in 2020 and defeat the corrupt system that lets campaign money drown out the people's voice, so we can finally make good on the promise of a fair shot for everyone." He also highlighted the fact that he won the governor's seat in a red [Republican] state Reuters The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Cory Booker The New Jersey Senator has focused on restoring kindness and civility in American politics throughout his campaign, though he has failed to secure the same level of support and fundraising as several other senators running for the White House in 2020 Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Wayne Messam Mayor of the city of Miramar in the Miami metropolitan area, Wayne Messam said he intended to run on a progressive platform against the "broken" federal government. He favours gun regulations and was a signatory to a letter from some 400 mayors condemning President Trump's withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord Vice News The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Kirsten Gillibrand The New York Senator formally announced her presidential bid in January, saying that healthcare should be a right, not a privilege Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: John Delaney The Maryland congressman was the first to launch his bid for presidency, making the announcement in 2017 AP The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Andrew Yang The entrepreneur announced his presidential candidacy by pledging that he would introduce a universal basic income of $1,000 a month to every American over the age of 18 Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Julian Castro The former San Antonio mayor announced his candidacy in January and said that his running has a special meaning for the Latino community in the US Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Marianne Williamson The author and spiritual adviser has announced her intention to run for president. She had previously run for congress as an independent in 2014 but was unsuccessful Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Eric Swalwell One of the younger candidates, Swalwell has served on multiple committees in the House of Representatives. He intended to make gun control central to his campaign but dropped out after his team said it was clear there was no path to victory Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Seth Moulton A Massachusetts congressman, Moulton is a former US soldier who is best known for trying to stop Nancy Pelosi from becoming speaker of the house. He dropped out of the race after not polling well in key states Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Jay Inslee Inslee has been governor of Washington since 2013. His bid was centred around climate change AFP/Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: John Hickenlooper The former governor of Colorado aimed to sell himself as an effective leader who was open to compromise, but failed to make a splash on the national stage Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Tim Ryan Ohio representative Tim Ryan ran on a campaign that hinged on his working class roots, though his messaging did not appear to resonate with voters Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Tom Steyer Democratic presidential hopeful billionaire and philanthropist Tom Steyer is a longtime Democratic donor AFP/Getty As phone calls go to voicemail and email solicitations go unanswered, strategists and technology experts expect a turn to text messaging as a mainstay in 2020. That is especially true for campaigns powered by young people, who are more likely to be scrolling on a mobile phone than sitting in front of a television. Text messages are also better for reaching low-income voters who may lack a smartphone, experts say. Every other form of voter contact has declined in effectiveness over the last few cycles, said Betsy Hoover, a Democratic strategist and co-founder of Higher Ground Labs, an incubator for campaign-tech start-ups. Home addresses are harder and harder to find. People arent answering their phones. But, Ms Hoover said, everyone reads their text messages. The Democratic National Commissions announcement this week that it was investing six figures in acquiring tens of millions of cellphone numbers was an acknowledgement of that fact. The party said it would have high-quality cellphone numbers for voters in all 50 states. Nationally, the Sanders campaign has sent more than 100 million texts, according to a spokesman, Joe Calvello. It has done so using peer-to-peer texting, which allows decentralized agents of a campaign or cause to circulate a common script to scores of people without running afoul of consumer protection rules. I work an eight-hour day and then Bernie at night, said Ms Miller, a mother of two, adopting the verb form coined by her family to describe her volunteer labour for Sanders. And Bernie on my days off. Volunteers send texts seven days a week, from 9am Eastern to 9pm Pacific time. A texter begins by requesting a set of messages the average size ranging from 500 to 750 messages and pressing send on each missive. Then they wait for replies. The senders name is preloaded, as is the name of the recipient, though the phone numbers of both are obscured. The request, determined by a preset script, can be anything from a donation to attendance at an event. Members of an advance team work on identifying and persuading undecided voters, and the information they glean is fed back into the campaigns database. Bernie is committed to creating a government and an economy that work for all of us, not just wealthy campaign contributors, reads the opening appeal to voters whose leanings are unknown. Are you in for Bernie? Amiebrooke Miller texts for Senator Sanders at a Des Moines, Iowa, coffee shop on Wednesday 22 Jan 2020 (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post) The team congregates on Slack, an online messaging app, to coordinate work, as well as to offer support and ensure self-care, as Ms Miller put it. A mobile app, BERN, will play a more prominent role in larger states that come later in the calendar, as supporters in states such as California and Texas log information about their friends, including level of support and union membership. In Iowa, the campaign has rich enough data to reach likely caucus-goers more directly. Texting is hardly cutting-edge. The first SMS message was sent almost 30 years ago. And more than a decade ago, Barack Obamas campaign texted supporters to announce his choice of Joe Biden as his running mate. What is new, however, is the development of technologies allowing mass distribution by individual volunteers, who are then able to conduct one-on-one conversations with voters who choose to reply. Especially novel is the integration of these technologies into campaign organising infrastructure. Senator Sanders, whose 2016 campaign was the first to put peer-to-peer texting to use at scale, now employs a text team director, two English-language texting organisers and a Spanish-language texting organiser. The platform his team used in 2016, called Hustle, saw its campaign clientele multiply in two years, and it gave rise to competitors, including Relay. The software, developed by alumni of the Sanders campaign, was used by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat for New York, to deliver 170,000 texts to voters in her successful bid to oust incumbent Joseph Crowley in New York in 2018, according to her campaigns spokesman, Corbin Trent. Now, all the top-tier presidential candidates are texting. And Iowa is on their minds. Its clear that our post-debate surge has worn off, a message from Joe Bidens online fundraising director warned this month. But, with just 18 days until the Iowa Caucus, we cant afford to lose any steam! On Thursday evening, Bonnie Whitaker, an undecided voter in a suburb of Des Moines, attended a town hall with Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana. An hour later after she returned home, a text arrived. Hi Bonnie! How was your experience at Meet Pete in Ankeny!? it read. Reply GOOD if it was good, BAD if it was not, or MISSED if you didnt make it. Jason Noble, communications director for Elizabeth Warrens Iowa campaign, touted the streamlined opportunities for caucus goers to signal their support for the campaign in the final days before the caucuses. Texting IOWA to a short code of five numbers, for example, prompts a voter to commit to caucus for the candidate. For New Hampshire residents craving something a bit different, texting LLAMA to the same set of numbers signs a voter up to the campaigns Granite State operation, as well as to a dose of four-legged content. Campaigns are always trying to get on top of the latest technology, said Sheena Pakanati, who partnered in 2016 with Saikat Chakrabarti, later chief of staff to Representative Ocasio-Cortez, to develop the platform Spoke, which the Sanders campaign is using this cycle. The co-founders made the tool open source and handed over ownership in 2017 to MoveOn. The progressive advocacy group touts the platform using the catchphrase The resistance is mobile. Peer-to-peer, which was already being used for marketing, started to be seen as a viable way of reaching voters as well, Ms Pakanati said. And not just by the left. Gary Coby, the digital director for President Donald Trumps reelection campaign, is also the chief executive of Opn Sesame, a peer-to-peer platform whose advertising materials declare, Text is going to kill email. According to Opn Sesame, 90 per cent of text messages are read within five minutes. In another sign of buy-in from top GOP operatives, the company also counts Gerrit Lansing, president of the online fundraising platform WinRed and former digital director for the Republican National Committee, as a co-founder, though hes no longer involved in day-to-day operations. The Republican National Committee (RNC) paid Opn Sesame more than $1.5m (1.1m) last year, according to FEC records. Each message transmitted using the Opn Sesame platform must be individually, manually sent from a single sender to a single recipient, Mr Lansing wrote in a filing last year in federal court in West Virginia, where a complaint arose from a voter who had received a text from a political action committee using Opn Sesames software. The role of the human operator is crucial. It is the basis for a petition before the Federal Communications Committee (FCC) filed in 2018 by a collection of peer-to-peer companies calling themselves the P2P Alliance asking for clarification that text messages are not subject to restrictions on calls to mobile phone numbers spelled out by the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991. The group pointed to a 2016 advisory from the FCC affirming that, only manually placed text messages are permissible without prior express consent. The RNC weighed in, urging the agency to tread lightly when it comes to regulating political speech. The petition is still pending. The dispute is of considerable significance to campaigns, which have faced class-action complaints alleging that the new tools allow the text equivalent of illegal robocalls. Amiebrooke Miller works on her laptop at a Des Moines, Iowa, coffee shop on Wednesday Jan. 22 2020 (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post) Last cycle, the Trump campaign faced a lawsuit from a voter in Illinois, who found this unsolicited message irksome enough to bring suit: Reply YES to subscribe to Donald J Trump for President. Your subscription will help Make American Great Again! Msg&data rates may apply. The claim was ultimately withdrawn, but the plaintiffs attorney, Joseph Siprut, warned that penalties can be steep for campaigns that misuse mass-texting software. Some advocates say mass-texting technologies should not be allowed, even those operated by a human volunteer like Ms Miller, rather than a bot. Involving a human at some step is not sufficient, said John Bergmayer, legal director for the Washington-based nonprofit Public Knowledge. You dont get to engineer your way out of robo-texting rules. The Washington Post It is a tribute to Indias democracy, however flawed, that the very same MPs who had harangued her intermittently from Opposition benches now surged towards her, anxiety writ large on their faces. One offered her some homoeopathic tablets, another advised her to stay seated, another grasped her hand wishing her good health... the crowd parted as Prime Minister Narendra Modi strode up to congratulate her. But it was mostly well-wishers from the Opposition and the NDA that kept the finance minister cocooned with good wishes until it was time to leave, reports Aditi Phadnis. It started brilliantly. No fumble and a quick namaskar to her uncle in the gallery to seek his blessings as Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, her voice ringing out strong and true, announced she was tabling the Finance Bill 2020, aka the 2020-21 Budget. Nary a tremble to be seen. Everyone, and four other members of her family in the visitors gallery, including her daughter Vangamayee, hunkered down into their seats and held their breath for the second-most-awaited speech of the year (the first being the PMs Independence Day address from Red Fort). It was around 11.03 am. By 12.39 pm, Hema Malini, Lok Sabha MP from Agra, had abandoned all pretence at acting. Her eyes were shut -- no doubt, in deep thought -- as the finance minister began explaining tax proposals and gulping draughts of water. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh urged her to continue her speech sitting down. It was clear she was feeling poorly. In the gallery, Vangamayee bit her lip. Never one to give up, Sitharaman soldiered on, re-reading the lines she thought were important for emphasis, though Opposition Trinamool Congress MPs implored her not to: "We can hear you. Theres no need to repeat," called out MP for Krishnanagar, Mohua Moitra. A few minutes later, Sitharaman had thrown in the towel: She sat down, whispering that the rest of the Budget may please be taken as read. The harsh white fluorescent lights in the Lok Sabha bounced off her face, highlighting a faint sheen of sweat. It is a tribute to Indias democracy, however flawed, that the very same MPs who had harangued her intermittently from Opposition benches now surged towards her, anxiety writ large on their faces. One offered her some homoeopathic tablets, another advised her to stay seated, another grasped her hand wishing her good health... the crowd parted as Prime Minister Narendra Modi strode up to congratulate her. But it was mostly well-wishers from the Opposition and the NDA that kept the finance minister cocooned with good wishes until it was time to leave. Sitharaman had recovered by then, and she waved to the gallery to reassure her family but it was empty: Her daughter was already outside waiting to be escorted to the ministers room. "Were worried about your mum," called out a reporter. Vangamayee smiled: Im sure shell be all right, she answered. Sitharaman neednt have worried: The front benches in the Opposition were empty. There was no Sonia Gandhi, no Sharad Pawar; Trinamool Congress was holding the fort. "Sab toh jail mein hain (theyre all in jail)," said Saugata Roy when Sitharaman read out a couplet by Kashmiri poet Dinanath Kaul, omitting his Urdu nom de plume Nadim (Kaul wrote a poem in praise of Sheikh Abdullah when he was released from jail, which is recalled in Kashmir even today). When the FM mentioned that an online degree programme will be offered by the countrys top 100 educational institutions to disadvantaged students, Vangamayee surreptitiously joined MPs in thumping the table. She would smile when her mother used the ultra-cool phrase "gaming the system" to describe GST frauds. Wearing his railway minister hat, Goyal quickly shook his head when Sitharaman referred to "500 wifi-enabled railway stations". Obviously, the number is much more. But the outrage of the Opposition was expressed loudly when Sitharaman in one swift sentence announced that government would sell part of its holding in Life Insurance Corporation. The award for sartorial elegance must go to Trinamool MP Nusrat Jahan: She wore acid-washed jeans, a blue jacket, high-heeled white sneakers with a peach-coloured bag slung from one shoulder by a gold chain... tres mode! The most recent shooting was at 2:56 a.m., near the border of the Little Village and Brighton Park neighborhoods. A woman, 20, and a man, 23, suffered gunshot wounds when someone in a dark-colored SUV fired several shots into their vehicle, striking both occupants, authorities said. The victims were in a vehicle headed south in the 3100 block of South California Avenue when the SUV pulled up alongside their vehicle at a red light and shots rang out, police said. HANOI, Feb 1 (Reuters) - Vietnam Airlines will suspend its flights to China, Hong Kong and Taiwan with effect from Saturday, over the outbreak of a new coronavirus, the company said. The carrier had said late on Friday it would suspend flights to China from Thursday next week and cut flights between Ho Chi Minh City and Hong Kong to seven from 10 per week. "Considering how widespread the virus is and following the government's order, all flights to China will be suspended from today," the company said in its latest statement. Budget carrier Vietjet said on Friday it will suspend all flights to and from China from Feb. 1. On Thursday, Vietnam said it would stop issuing visas for Chinese tourists. Several other airlines globally have suspended flights to China following the outbreak of a coronavirus in a central province that has killed more than 250 people. (Reporting by Phuong Nguyen; Editing by Neil Fullick) The Election Commission on Sunday shunted out Delhi's southeast DCP Chinmoy Biswal citing the "ongoing situation" in the area that saw two incidents of firing at anti-CAA protest sites in Jamia Nagar and Shaheen Bagh this week. The poll body directed Additional DCP (southeast) Kumar Gyanesh to take charge. "As decided by the Election Commission, this is to convey that Chinmoy Biswal IPS (2008), DCP (southeast), stands relieved from his present post with immediate effect and shall report to the MHA," an Election Commission spokesperson said. "In view of the ongoing situation, Commission directs that Kumar Gyanesh, DANIPS (1997), senior most additional DCP (southeast), shall take charge of DCP (southeast) immediately from Chinmoy Biswal IPS," the spokesperson said. The commission has directed the Home Ministry and the Delhi Police chief to "immediately" send a panel of three names to it for posting a "suitable officer" as regular deputy commissioner of police (DCP). "A compliance report with the charge taken over details may be immediately sent to Election Commission by the Chief Secretary," the EC order said. Delhi's Chief Electoral Officer Ranbir Singh had visited the Shaheen Bagh area this morning for an assessment. Biswal's transfer comes after a teenager, on January 30, fired at a group protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) outside the Jamia Millia Islamia University, injuring a student. The attacker was later detained by the police. Two days later, a gunman opened fire at Shaheen Bagh, which has emerged as the epicentre of anti-CAA protests and where hundreds have been staging a sit-in for almost two months now. No one was injured in the firing and the gunman was immediately taken into custody. If you watched the presidential impeachment trial last week, it may have seemed as if youd tuned in to a virtual Tower of Babel with multiple dialects of political-ese. Frankly, I dont understand polispeak, but when the news cycle was abruptly interrupted with the crash of Kobe Bryants helicopter, everyone was suddenly speaking a language commonly understood, that of grief and tears. When it comes to understanding grief, I can tell you from my years as a hospital chaplain, that there are no political, ethnic or cultural barriers. Everyone understands loss. Most profoundly, I remember this lesson from an encounter several years ago in our emergency room lobby. An ER nurse asked me to be on the lookout for a family of Indian descent. Our patient was currently under CPR and not expected to live. As I stood in the ER lobby searching for dark-skinned people, I felt like I was participating in racial profiling for the most tragic reason. Nevertheless, within a few minutes, two young men fitting that description entered, but it wasnt their skin color or clothing or hair that made them obvious to me. I recognized something I often see in the eyes of families in the ER, no matter what their culture. As quickly as I told them I was the chaplain, they asked, Do you have our mother? I nodded. Can we see her? they pressed. I ushered them into a small family room where the doctor joined us. The sons peppered her with questions, but they didnt have to wait for answers. They could read them in her eyes. Tears welled. Their noses reddened. The doctor confirmed their worst fears with a nod and a conclusive sentence: Their mother was dead. Sign up for our new opinion newsletter Get a weekly recap of South Carolina opinion and analysis from The Post and Courier in your inbox on Monday evenings. Email Sign Up! The sons asked if they could see her, so I took them into the trauma room where she laid under a sheet. A nurse gently pulled the sheet back to reveal the mothers face. I glanced at the battle-hardened ER nurse and saw glistening eyes betraying her emotional involvement. The sons focused on their mom. They could no longer enjoy her protective watch. It had been replaced by a vacant stare. Disbelief erupted from their hearts and vocal cords. Just then, a security guard appeared at the door with an expression intended to query my need for help. I nodded negatively. These days, emotional gatherings can be subject to suspicion. The guard left, but quickly returned escorting the patients sisters and daughters. They exchanged knowing stares with their brothers and soon the women began caressing every part of their mothers body. They adjusted her mouth as if to hush its pain, brushed her hair as if adjusting her crown, but most frequently, they stroked her eyelids to redirect her glance to another world. The family was inconsolable, filling the room with a cacophony of dialect tangled with heartache. As foreign as it was to me, I was astonished to feel like I understood every word. Soon, like an outgoing tide, the tears receded. As acceptance gained a brief toehold, talk shifted to finding the best funeral homes. I left the ER that day with a new appreciation for grief as the great equalizer between language, culture and religion. Update The group Im taking to establish libraries in Honduras next month is full. However, we have added another trip, March 29-April 5. For details see, bit.ly/ChispaTrip. And while it may be difficult to understand the political speech of our current environment, the loss of Kobe Bryant and his fellow passengers reminds us that we all share the common frailty of life and the language of grief that follows its loss. If we will see the eyes of those who grieve, I think we come closer to uniting our world under the watchful, anguished and often grieving eyes of God. While the proposed new tax regime is optional for taxpayers, the finance minister has said the government eventually wants to do away with all exemptions with a lower tax-rate simplified structure. The new proposed tax code, which offers lower rates to taxpayers but denies exemptions and deductions, has created uncertainty for insurers and mutual funds, which attract sizeable investor flows into tax-saving products. Thirty-forty per cent of the flows into insurance come in for tax-saving. "So, we need to rework on how to regain business, which could be threatened if potential investors opt for the new tax regime, said the chief executive officer of a leading domestic insurance company. On Saturday, insurance stocks had come under heavy selling pressure. SBI Life Insurance closed 10 per cent lower. ICICI Prudential Life Insurance (10 per cent) and HDFC Life Insurance (6 per cent) were the other major losers on Saturday. Growth could be challenged in the next financial year. This hurts predictability in our business model in the near-term. "Insurers will now have to worry about the possibility of the new tax regime being made mandatory, the executive added. While the proposed new tax regime is optional for taxpayers, the finance minister has said the government eventually wants to do away with all exemptions with a lower tax-rate simplified structure. If more taxpayers shift towards the new tax-code, the 80C category and the associated industries will be at a disadvantage. "Apart from ELSS (equity-linked savings schemes) products offered by mutual funds, which were notified under 80C, insurance products will also be at a disadvantage, said Jimmy Patel, chief executive officer of Quantum Mutual Fund. Assets managed by the ELSS category stand at Rs 1 trillion at present. While the flows coming into ELSS category are not large, they are sticky in nature because of the three-year lock-in. These flows help mutual funds in the closing months of the financial year, when investors are looking for tax-saving options, said a fund manager. Experts say more than mutual funds, insurance companies are likely to feel the impact of the new measure. The new regime could hold back flows to unit-linked insurance plans (ULIPs). "The pure-play insurance products - including life and health - may still be able attract investors because they are meant to give cover for contingencies, says Amol Joshi, founder of Planrupee Investment Services. Risk management through insurance has been essential. In India, the construct has always nudged future savings and risk management through encouraging investment aided by tax relief. "We have not seen announcements that will encourage risk management practices, says R M Vishakha, managing director and chief executive officer, IndiaFirst Life Insurance. Tokyo (Reuters) - Japan on Saturday moved to contain the economic impact of a coronavirus outbreak originating in China as strict new measures aimed at limiting the spread of the virus, including targeting foreign visitors, came into effect. Japan had 17 confirmed cases as of Friday, including some without symptoms. One of the most recent was a bus guide who worked on a bus tour for tourists from China - the same tour as a bus driver who also came down with the virus. Tokyo (Reuters) - Japan on Saturday moved to contain the economic impact of a coronavirus outbreak originating in China as strict new measures aimed at limiting the spread of the virus, including targeting foreign visitors, came into effect. Japan had 17 confirmed cases as of Friday, including some without symptoms. One of the most recent was a bus guide who worked on a bus tour for tourists from China - the same tour as a bus driver who also came down with the virus. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told a Saturday meeting of a government task force coordinating Japan's response to the virus to come up with steps aimed at easing the impact of the outbreak on Japan's economy. Abe has made tourism a key part of his economic policy, with a large proportion of foreign visitors from China, and major Japanese companies have a number of factories in China. "I ask ministers to compile measures to use reserves (in the state budget) and implement them as soon as possible," Abe was quoted by Kyodo news agency as saying. "The new coronavirus is having a major impact on tourism, the economy and our society as a whole. The government will do its utmost to address the impact." No further details were given, though Abe stressed ensuring that Japanese residents have access to medical checkups and masks, which have been selling out around the nation. New measures to fight the disease took effect on Saturday, including banning the entry of Chinese holding passports issued by Hubei, where the disease is thought to have originated, as well as all foreigners who had visited the province within two weeks, whether they show symptoms or not. The government also brought forward implementing measures including compulsory hospitalisation and the use of public funds for treatment by six days to Saturday. Of the 2.6 million tourists who came to Japan in December 2019, nearly 600,000 were Chinese, outnumbered only by South Koreans, government data shows. Japan aims to have 40 million tourists visit the country in 2020, up from 31.8 million in 2019. On Friday, the president of Japanese airline ANA Holdings said it was considering suspending flights to China after February reservations plunged, Jiji news agency reported. JTB Corporation, Japan's largest travel agency, said it was suspending tours to China throughout February, Kyodo news agency reported. (Reporting by Elaine Lies; Editing by Lincoln Feast.) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun announces a set of measures to curb the spread of coronavirus in South Korea, at the government complex in Seoul, Sunday. Yonhap - S. Korea will ban entry of foreign nationals who visited China's Hubei Province in the past two weeks. - The ban will be effective from Tuesday. - Visa-free entry to Jeju Island has been suspended. - Voluntary quarantine urged to Koreans who visited China's Hubei Province in the past two weeks South Korea said Sunday it will bar foreigners who've been in China's Hubei Province in the past two weeks from entering the country, in a drastic measure to stem further spread of the new coronavirus here. Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said the ban will take effect on Tuesday. The measure was reached to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus, which broke out in Wuhan, Hubei Province, in December and has since reached South Korea and other nations around the globe. The United States and Japan are among other countries to have issued a similar entry ban. So far, South Korea has reported 15 virus cases, with some believed to be human transmission. Cookie Preferences Cookie List Cookie List A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website when visited by a user asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting for our advertising and marketing efforts. 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Photo: Critter Aid A young bear cub nicknamed Roxxy is doing well at a wildlife rehab centre in Langley. Conservation officers and animal welfare advocates are urging the public to be careful about their garbage after an orphaned bear cub was captured in a residential area of North Vancouver and taken to a wildlife rehabilitation centre recently. Conservation officers and North Shore Black Bear Society volunteers responded to multiple reports of a small bear cub roaming neighbourhoods in the Park & Tilford area at the end of December. One panicked driver called to report the tiny cub had been seen weaving through traffic near Highway 1, said Christine Miller of the black bear society. It was a very young bear, in poor condition, said Sgt. Simon Gravel of the Conservation Officer Service. Fortunately, conservation officers were able to trap the young bear and take it to Critter Care wildlife rehabilitation centre in Langley, where the cub nicknamed Roxxy has about doubled her weight. Roxxy was the second bear cub to end up at Critter Care from the North Shore in the past year. A cub from West Vancouver was also taken there in 2019. Another black bear reported in the Montroyal neighbourhood seeking food in household garbage at the end of December wasnt so lucky. In that case, the bear was injured most likely after having been hit by a car, said Gravel. It was destroyed by conservation officers after consultation with a veterinarian. While many people assume black bears are hibernating in winter, Gravel said its not that uncommon for bears to come out of their dens especially if they smell food nearby. Its very common actually to see black bears getting out of bed in the middle of the winter to seek food, unfortunately, he said. Because of the proximity of natural forested areas, many bears den in areas not far from residential areas, he added. We have some urban bears on the North Shore that are denning almost in peoples backyards. Bears arent the only wildlife out and about. Early this month, conservation officers also received reports of cougar sightings around Mosquito Creek, said Gravel. Its really not unusual, he said. Cougars are active in the winter. Those animals are seeking food. Gravel added there were no reports of concerning behaviour. In the case of bears, however, the less garbage and human-produced food the animals have access to, the greater chance the bears will stay asleep in their dens until spring when natural food sources are more abundant. If the effort needed to seek food is greater than the effort to rest, then theyll choose to rest, said Gravel. Conservation officers stepped up enforcement last fall in an effort to drive that message home. Between September and November, local conservation officers handed out 12 warnings and eight $230 violation tickets under the Wildlife Act to homeowners in neighbourhoods ranging from the British Properties, Montroyal, and the Sentinel Hill area. Officers also handed out 11 dangerous wildlife protection orders telling homeowners or businesses to take specific actions like securing their garbage or keeping pet food indoors. Failure to comply with those orders nets a $575 fine. Gravel said in general people are aware of what they should be doing, but that doesnt always translate into proper action. They didnt take the next step, he said. They maybe dont have a bear in their backyard right now. They maybe dont think it applies to them. And all of a sudden you do have a bear in your backyard and then its a problem this time. A total of 12 bears were destroyed by conservation officers on the North Shore in 2019 10 because they had become habituated to garbage or other human attractants and two because they were injured. Most North Shore bears come out of their winter dens and start to get active again around April. CEDAR FALLS In a new exhibition at the Hearst Center for the Arts, two internationally-recognized printmakers work being featured is visually very different, said Heather Skeens, cultural programs supervisor. William Kentridge draws compelling images in ink on white paper. Philip Chen etches the ink itself, creating elegant, cream-colored lines that show through the black. Its actually the paper showing through the ink, Skeens explained. Although their works stand in striking contrast, similarities can be found in Proposition; Pressure; Proof: The Prints of William Kentridge and Philip Chen. Both artists use print to test ideas, to think and to act through the creation of images and to convey intensely personal memories and reckonings. Kentridge, a contemporary South African artist also known for animations, grew up in Johannesburg and was sensitized at a young age to the regions violet history of colonial power. Chen, who was born to Chinese parents in Chicago, grew up in a household challenged by anti-Chinese legislation of the late 19th and early 20th century that denied citizenship. Skeens has been working on the show for two years. Having William Kentridge a major international artist here is really special, an opportunity to see his work without traveling to a big-city gallery. Philip Chen, who lives in Des Moines, is a major print artist at the top of his game. His work is collected in many museums and galleries, and he recently received a Guggenheim fellowship. This is the only time these two artists have been shown together, and its a really special experience for our audience, she said. Both artists unflinchingly explore cultural and political histories and the effects on their personal lives. Its as if Kentridge is working through his thoughts on paper, almost stream-of-consciousness drawing, while Chens work is much more schematic and detailed. Lydia Mullin, curatorial assistant at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, has written the essay for the exhibits catalog. Her essay, Powers of Recall, Skeens said, helps put both artists work in context. Mullin writes that Chen and Kentridge investigate the ways in which narratives from brief moments to trans-generational sagas can be conveyed through objects and images. Each is informed by a specific background, which acts both as a catalyst for work about that history and also as inspiration for the ways in which other, seemingly unrelated issues can be addressed. Master printer Randy Hemminghaus will join Chen for a gallery talk on March 5. Hemminghaus, master printer at the former Brodsky Center for Innovative Editions at Rutgers University, began collaborating with Kentridge in 2000. He printed all of Kentridges works in the Hearst exhibition. Ludicrous Landscapes exhibit at Wartburg College Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Police here recovered nine pistols and over 100 cartridges from the possession of a man, followed by an encounter near the Majnu ka Tila area on February 1. The accused was identified as Wasim, a member of the Shariq Chaudhary gang. Confirming the incident, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) North, Monika Bhardwaj said, "Wasim, a member of the Shariq Chaudhary gang, has been arrested after an encounter between criminals and police near Majnu ka Tila on Sunday. Nine pistols and over 100 cartridges were recovered from his possession." Interrogation with the nabbed accused is underway. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) An American Airlines jet takes off from an airport in a file photograph from Aug. 9, 2017. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters) Man Wearing Gas Mask Panics Passengers on Houston-Bound Flight American Airlines confirmed it removed a man wearing a gas mask on a Houston-bound flight over the weekend, and one witnesses said it was because passengers became panicked. The airliner told KTRK over the weekend that the passenger was rebooked on the next flight to Houston, and flew without the mask on yesterday evening. The man had flown into the Dallas Airport from Los Angeles before heading to Houston, American Airlines said. Thanks for your tweet. Our team is aware of this and worked with local officials. Let us know if you need any assistance with your trip. American Airlines (@AmericanAir) January 31, 2020 A passenger on the flight, Joseph Say, told the station that passengers on the flight became worried after seeing the gas mask and a black beanie. He said that it triggered fears amid the coronavirus outbreak in China. My gut reaction was that he was probably worried about the coronavirus and had put on the gas mask as overkill kind of protection, Say said, reported ABC News. But then I noticed it didnt have the filter, so that didnt really make sense. I had a seat in the back. I was sitting there. I was talking to the lady next to me. We heard a little bit of commotion, Say recalled to KTRK. I looked up and saw a guy coming onto the plane wearing a full gas mask, which was kind of odd. He didnt have a filter, which I thought was more strange. He added, Immediately, people start talking in the back of the plane. They were worried. Most people wanted him off the plane. Say said that the unnamed man was asked to remove his gas mask by a flight attendant, but he refused. What we heard from the lady sitting next to him was he said he wanted to make a statement. I dont know what the statement was. Im not sure what his goals were. To me, it seemed inconsistent, Say said. You couldnt see his face. You couldnt identify any features on him. People were worried he had sneaked something on-board and that he had the mask for his own safety. Say also posted a photo of the man on Twitter. Thanks for your tweet. Our team is aware of this and worked with local officials. Let us know if you need any assistance with your trip, American Airlines initially responded. Reports said the flight was delayed. American Airlines, Delta Airlines, and United Airlines said they would suspend flights to mainland China amid the coronavirus outbreak. Mumbai, Feb 3 : Actor Vidya Balan, who has won many accolades in her successful film career, contradicts the popular notion that award ceremonies in India are rigged. At an event to promote the 2020 edition of a popular Bollywood awards function, she said that everything seems fair when an artiste wins an award. "People often say many things about award ceremonies but I feel when you get that (award) in your hand then everything is fair," said Vidya, at a promotional event for the upcoming 65th edition of Amazon Filmfare Awards 2020. She further said: "It's a special feeling (to be an award-winner). Firstly, the statue of Filmfare Award in itself is so beautiful. It is a symbol of love and appreciation from the audience and the industry, so it is very special for me." "I feel it's every Indian actor or actress' dream to win a Filmfare Award. It was my dream as well but I never prepared my acceptance speech, because the more you want to win an award, the more you feel anxious after winning it. It actually happened with me four years in a row. I won Best Actor (Female) award for three year and one year in between I won the Best Actor (Female) Critics' award," she added. "For four consecutive years, I went on stage to receive an award and I asked myself, 'how can this get any better'. When I got Best Actress for the first time, I thought that I would become mad but when I went on to win it for four consecutive years, I didn't believe it," the actress said. Vidya Balan has won Filmfare Awards for her performance in "Paa" (2010), "Ishqiya" (2011), "The Dirty Picture" (2012) and "Kahaani" (2013). "I also feel happy when I am nominated for a Filmfare Award because they honour the best of the year, so just to be there is a good feeling. If you win, then it's icing on the cake, but if you don't win, and if you are at least nominated, then you feel good about it by thinking that at least you are amongst the best in that particular year," she said. In 2012, when Vidya won for "Kahaani", Priyanka Chopra was reportedly miffed for losing out for her performance in "Barfi". Asked for her reaction on that controversy, Vidya said: "I was glad I won it that year," she laughed, and asserted: "I am not that kind to think that she (Priyanka) should have got the award. I got it and I felt really good about it. As long as enough people felt that my work was worthy a Filmfare Award that year, I am happy. I think this has happened many times in the history of Filmfare Awards where two performances run neck-and-neck and then one person gets it." In 2019, Vidya garnered praise for her performance in "Mission Mangal". Asked which actresses' performances she liked the most in the year gone by, Vidya said: "Unfortunately, I have seen very few performances, but I think Alia (Bhatt) was lovely in 'Gully Boy'. I believe Taapsee (Pannu) and Bhumi (Pednekar) are lovely in 'Saand Ki Aankh' and that's something I want to watch. Again, I believe Yami (Gautam) was lovely in 'Bala'. The 65th Amazon Filmfare Awards 2020 will be held on February 15. Breaking away from a 64-year-old tradition, this year the awards will take place in Assam. Also Watch: Vidya Balan rocks her desi swag and makes us love the ensemble even more -- Syndicated from IANS For some, the Delhi Education Revolution is too good to believe. Therefore, doubts are raised time and again on how Delhi government schools achieved remarkable results in the Class 12 board examinations. An article published in Firstpost on 31 January, 2020, with a title that read, 'Delhi election: Despite AAP's lofty claims to lifting quality of education, over a lakh students 'misled', left behind'. I have two serious reservations with his story. For some, the Delhi Education Revolution is too good to believe. Therefore, doubts are raised time and again on how Delhi government schools achieved remarkable results in the Class 12 board examinations. An article published in Firstpost on 31 January, 2020, with a title that read, "Delhi election: Despite AAP's lofty claims to lifting quality of education, over a lakh students 'misled', left behind". I have two serious reservations with his story. First, the reporter has selectively picked up data of one year to cast aspersions on the incumbent government without looking at the trend of previous years. Second, projecting the angst of the likes of Nishu and Sheetal as though Delhi government deliberately pushed them out of their schools is an unfair allegation. Let us look at the issue of selective use of data first. It is true that 1,55,436 students of grades 9 to 12 failed to clear their examination in 2017-18. But contrary to the claim of only 52,582 students being readmitted, the actual number was 93,115. It is worth noting that of the total students of classes 9 to 12 who appeared in the exam of 2017-18, the ones who failed constituted 22 percent. Of those who failed, 60 percent took readmission. Now, let us look at the figures for the cohort of 2014-16. In 2014-15, which is the year before the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government came to power the actual number of students who failed in these four classes were 1,91,450. This constituted about 27 percent of the total number of students who appeared in the exam from these classes. Of those who failed, only 50 percent took readmission. Two conclusive points can be drawn from this data. First, with the pass percentage having improved by 5 percentage points in these classes, the argument that children were made to fail to get better results in Class 12 does not hold ground. Second, in comparison to the situation until 2016, remarkably AAP government retained 10 percentage points more children in the school system and that too within the first three years of its governance. Every Nishu and every Sheetal is important for us. The investment in education by the AAP government is not done to keep any child out but on the contrary, to ensure that many more children get an opportunity to receive good quality education. Unfortunately, Nishu and Sheetal and nearly 50 percent children of Class 9 have been victims of the well-intentioned but poorly implemented provision of "No Detention" under the Right to Education Act 2009. Thus, from 2010 onwards, students were promoted automatically every year till they reached Class 9. The adverse impact of such a provision was first noticed in 2012-13 when 31.3 percent students of Class 9 in Delhi government schools failed. The slide accelerated over time and in 2014-15, it was 48.3 percent. The story of Nishu and Sheetal is truly heart breaking. Until they reached Class 9, nobody told them how they were doing and nobody took the effort to find out whether they could even read a paragraph of their textbook or do basic math operations and if not, to support them in learning that. In fact, by receiving report cards with pass written on it year after year, they innocently believed that they deserved to keep moving to the next grade and when the no detention policy ceased to operate in Class 9, these children were in for a rude shock. After failing consequently in Class 9 most students like Nishu and Sheetal would drop out as noted in 2014-15, where the number of students who failed more than twice in Class 9 and stayed back was just 128 and in 2015-16, it was just 321 which was less than 0.5 percent of the total students in this class. To address this situation, the AAP government introduced a two-pronged strategy in 2016. The first, immediate step was to provide a pathway to those having failed twice or more in Class 9 to take the modified Patrachar exam of CBSE's Class 10 and second, strengthen the foundational learning skills of students from Class 6 onwards so that they do not fail in Class 9. That the modified Patrachar option did not work out in the case of Nishu and Sheetal is regrettable but it at least provided them with one more chance to clear their Class 10 exams instead of being stuck in Class 9 or drop out. In 2017, to make the process even simpler for students like Nishu and Sheetal, the Delhi government partnered with the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) to provide one more option to those who failed twice or more times in Class 9. The option was to appear for the Class 10 examinations. NIOS offers a wider choice of subjects, flexible credit transfer scheme and an on demand examination system. Delhi government conducts regular classes for appearing for the NIOS exam and covers the entire cost of it including exam fees. School teachers were asked to share this option with students to prevent them from dropping out. Thus, 18,345 children took the exam through NIOS in 2018-19 and 64 percent of them passed, thus enabling them to join Class 11 in their own schools. Let me also share that in Class 12 this year, the result was 94.2 percent originally and that of Class 10 it was 71.6 percent. The number of students appearing in the board exams of these two classes was 15 percent and 22 percent respectively more than the previous year. Additionally, by organising special classes for students who were placed for compartment exams, the final result of these classes rose to 96.5 percent and 81.4 percent respectively. It was the commitment of Delhi government towards every child that 19,376 children who might have been left behind were enabled to pass the exam and move to the next grade. Thus, to say that any child was failed deliberately to show better result is unfair. Over and above this discussion on numbers is a larger issue at hand that needs to be recognised. It is the limitation of the CBSE board examination system that still operates on a pass-fail binary. Thus, if a child fails in say Math and/or science in Class 10, s/he cannot move to the next grade even if s/he has no interest in those subjects or does not wish to study them in senior secondary grades. This is not how the 21st century evaluation system should be conceptualised. While NIOS was an attempt of the Delhi government to create one more chance for children from the existing and available options, a more permanent solution is required. That is why AAP government has proposed the setting up of a Delhi State Education Board that would engage with a contemporary and relevant system of learning assessment that would measure the understanding and ability of the child to apply her/his knowledge and guide them to pursue excellence as per their aptitude and interest. To conclude, I would like to say that it seems some eternal skeptics have given up on government school systems to deliver good quality education and produce good results. Hence, at times the success of Delhi government schools and its children is seen by some with suspicion. The question we have to ask ourselves is, why does a pass percentage of more than 96 percent in Class 12 and more than 1000 students securing more than 90 percent marks look unbelievable or unrealistic? The quality of teachers has always been good in Delhi government schools, the missing link was motivation, training and support. With this government providing all the three, these results were to be expected. This is no rocket science. It just proves that where there is a will there is a way. The author is the principal advisor to Director Education in the Government of Delhi Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Ho Chi Minh City The patient is a man with US nationality. Born in 1947, the man is now being treated at Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Ho Chi Minh City. The patient is said to have flown from the US to Vietnam on January 14 on Flight 660 of China Southern Airlines. On January 15, he transited at an airport in Wuhan, China for about two hours. On January 16, he arrived in Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City and then stayed at Trieu Han Hotel in Ho Chi Minh City. According to the latest update from the MoH, as of 10:30 am February 2, the epidemic was detected in 27 countries with the total number of cases of infection reaching 14,555, including over 14,380 in China. The deadly virus killed 305 people, 304 of whom were in China. The other death was reported in the Philippines. The coronavirus was detected in 175 patients outside of China: Thailand (19 cases), Australia (12 cases), Singapore (18 cases), the US (8 cases), Japan (20 cases), Malaysia (8 cases), South Korea (15 cases), France (6 cases), Vietnam (7 cases), Cambodia (1 case), Canada (4 cases), Germany (8 cases), Nepal (1 case), Sri Lanka (1 case), the UAE (5 cases), Finland (1 case), Hong Kong (13 cases), Macau (7 cases), Taiwan (10 cases), India (1 case), Sweden (1 case), Spain (1 case), Italy (2 cases), the UK (2 cases), Russia (2 cases), and the Philippines (2 case). Vietnam on February 1 declared the coronavirus outbreak an infectious epidemic in the country. The epidemic has so far reached the central province of Khanh Hoa, the northern central province of Thanh Hoa, and the northern province of Vinh Phuc. Vietnam announces national emergency over coronavirus With the coronavirus outbreak reaching global levels, Vietnam one of the nations suffering the hit has officially announced national emergency. Price of masks and hand-wash going up due to Coronavirus As red flags are being raised everywhere over the coronavirus, the price of masks and hand-wash is going up as pharmacies are running out of ... Dozens protested near the US embassy in Lebanon Sunday against US President Donald Trump's Middle East plan. The demonstrators, both Palestinian refugees and Lebanese, chanted slogans and flew flags as security forces blocked off a road to the diplomatic compound. Some protesters tried to dismantle a razor-wire barrier but no major clashes took place, an AFP reporter said. "The 'deal of the century' shall not pass," read a huge banner in the colours of the Palestinian flag, referring to the plan unveiled by Trump last Tuesday. A call to protest circulating on social media dubbed the plan "the deal of shame". "I came here to defend my rights and those of my children as Palestinians," said Etab, a Palestinian refugee living in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley. "We will not accept handing over our land," she told AFP. Palestinians began taking refuge in Lebanon with the creation of Israel in 1948, setting up camps that have since transformed into bustling urban districts. Abdullah Mahmud, an 18-year-old Palestinian, criticised the "failed" plan. "It won't pass as long as the Palestinian people are still standing," he said. Around 174,000 Palestinian refugees live in 12 camps across Lebanon, a one-off government census said in 2017. They face tough living conditions and are barred from certain jobs. "The right to return is an individual and collective right," another protest sign read. Trump's vision would end any hope of returning for Palestinians who fled their land in 1948 or their descendants. But it would allegedly integrate some Palestinian refugees -- the number to be approved by Israel -- into a future Palestinian state. Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas severed ties with the Trump administration in December 2017 after the United States recognised the disputed city of Jerusalem as Israel's capital. He announced Saturday a cut of all ties with Israel and the United States, including security cooperation, in response to the peace plan. Israel has welcomed the proposal, which grants the Jewish state full control of Jerusalem and allows it to annex the Jordan Valley and settlements dotting Palestinian territory. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Riding the tram to Heavenlys ski slopes, a stoic-looking golden retriever named Peak stands still as a statue. When the tram doors open, Peak sees his friend Wheeler in the distance, sprints down a steep hill toward the eight-month-old Australian Shepherd and then the pair tumble together through the fresh powder like the happiest dogs in the world. The only time I see them happier is when Wheeler digs his trainer, Jon Wilson, out from under two feet of snow (scroll through the slideshow to see him in action). Peak and Wheeler are two of Heavenlys six snow rescue dogs, trained to assist search parties during avalanches. Its such a harrowing and very serious job that their trainers wont confirm or deny whether Peak or Wheeler have mission experience, although Peak does come from a lineage of dogs whose heroics have been memorialized at the base of the mountain with a regal statue. Some dogs have been reported to occasionally show signs of PTSD from their work, but for most of the animals, the rescues feel more like hide and seek. For the dog, its not life or death; its just a game, says Colton Terry. RELATED: The story behind how a 21-year-old bought North Lake Tahoe's most beloved burger joint Some resorts own their dogs, but at Heavenly, the animals belong to their patrollers. They dont earn a salary, but do have excellent health benefits (the most common injury is cuts on paws), food sponsorships, retirement at age 8 or 9, and the biggest perk they rarely leave their owners side. When the patrollers ride in a tram, snowmobile, or even a helicopter, the dogs go with them. Should they change employers, the dogs go with them. At the end of the night when they head home, the dogs go with them (and immediately pass out from exhaustion). The bond between pet and owner is undeniably adorable. Wilson and Terry look like any other bearded ski bums jostling their outdoorsy pets, but its even more powerful to watch once you realize that their unconditional affection is actually one of the reasons these dogs may someday save a life. Wilson gives a demo of how that unconditional love ties into their training. While another trainer holds Wheeler on a leash, Wilson walks 40 yards away and steps into a cave dug into the snow. Once hes inside the miniature underground igloo, the hole is closed off with snow to trap him inside. Up until this point, Wheelers acted like any other playful puppy. The patrollers encourage guests to pet the dog the happier it is, the better. But as soon as Wilson disappears in the snow, Wheeler turns into a different beast. When you put a leash on them, youll notice a change right off the bat, says Terry. Wilson echoes the sentiment on the tram ride up. Once I put a leash on him, he knows its time to go into work. With his master trapped underground, the previously happy-go-lucky Wheeler yanks his leash taut, screeching in a high pitched howl that sounds like a hyena crossed with the Demogorgon monster from Stranger Things. Its one of the quirks of the breed, which almost never serve as patrol dogs. Wheeler flies off the leash at the command word (search!) and covers the 40 yards to his owner at Olympic-dash speed, paws furiously tunneling through the snow until hes reunited with his trainer/bestie, whom he drags out of the hole by pulling on a rope toy held in Wilsons hand. Suddenly, Wheelers once again bounding with joy, his tongue wagging out of a mouth curled into a canine smile. Although Wheelers practice rescue is impressive, hes not yet a fully certified rescue dog. The exercise they just performed is only the second stage of a training regiment called the Swiss 4 Phase Progression. Next, theyll add a second person in the hole. And in the final stage, the handler wont be in the hole at all, to reinforce that idea that the dog is searching for humans in general, not just their best friend. Now that Wheeler has dug out his master, its time for Peak to show off what a fully certified rescue dog can do. Somewhere out here in this area, theres a wool piece of clothing about the size of a torso, explains Terry. The clothing has been scented for four days at the foot of a bed, so Peak will be able to recognize the human smell. Its been buried under two feet of snow to simulate a deep burial. In a real rescue situation, a human would give off an exponentially stronger smell, so this test proves just how powerful a canine nose can be. I have no idea where it is, but hell tell me where its at, says Terry. All of the sudden his head will pop, his butt will turn, and hell go right towards it. RELATED: Blindness, amputations and paralysis can't stop these veterans from skiing Tahoe Terry yells out the command (search!) and the dog methodically paces back and forth in an expanding grid. After about a minute traversing the area, his tail shoots up and paws go down, snow flying behind him. He pulls out the backpack and bounds back to Wilson, once again looking like the happiest animal in the world (partly thanks to treating himself to a little fresh snow as a snack). The staff at Heavenly wouldnt share any details on their own rescue efforts, but statistics show that over the last decade, an average of 28 people died from avalanches in the US every year. The dogs are just one of many tools patrollers use, but the animals sense of urgency is one of their greatest strengths. If a victim is found within the first 18 minutes of burial, theres a 91% chance of survival. After that the rate falls sharply to 34% between 19 and 35 minutes. Most avalanches dont happen at resorts, but rather in back country scenarios, so dogs like Peak and Wheeler serve as shared resources for local police rescue teams. In a real rescue scenario, they wouldnt actually be tunneling out people, but rather signaling locations of buried individuals for retrieval by barking and starting to dig. The dogs and trainers run through drills a few times a week, but whats harder than developing the prey drive for finding things under the snow is just general obedience. In real rescue scenarios, a dog will need to ride calmly in a noisy snowcat or helicopter and not become distracted by huge teams of patrollers and other animals. The bonds between rescue dog and their trainers are truly unique, but for Terry, his favorite part of working with Peak isnt actually much different from most other pet owners. Its seeing the excitement on his face when were going out to do a search or a sweep, Terry says. And honestly, sometimes its just grabbing my backpack and then grabbing his stuff and jumping in the truck. Him sitting in the front seat with his arm on the window, like, here we go. Dan Gentile is a digital editor at SFGATE. Email: Dan.Gentile@sfgate.com | Twitter: @Dannosphere Islamabad New U.S. Air Force statistics show the U.S. dropped more bombs on Afghanistan last year than any year since 2013, even as Washington's peace envoy sought to boost regional support for a reduction in violence ahead of a final deal to end America's longest war. U.S. peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad arrived in Kabul from Pakistan on Saturday, where he told Afghan President Ashraf Ghani there has been "no notable progress" in talks with the Taliban. However, he said he was hopeful of reaching an understanding with them on a reduction of hostilities without offering any time frame, according to a statement issued late Saturday from the presidential palace. Earlier on Saturday, the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad said Khalilzad was in Pakistan the previous day to rally support for getting an agreement with the Taliban to reduce their attacks, as a first step toward a peace agreement to end 18 years of war in Afghanistan. Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said it supported a quick peace deal with the Taliban and repeated Washington's call for a reduction in violence. But the violence on the side of Afghan government forces and its U.S. allies has also raised concerns. Stepped up bombings by the United States and operations by CIA-trained Afghan special forces have been sharply criticized by human rights groups, some Afghan officials and even resulted in the sacking of Afghanistan's intelligence chief. Increasing U.S. air attacks began in 2018. In 2019, the U.S. Air Force dropped 7,423 bombs on Afghanistan, up slightly from 2018 when it dropped 7,362 bombs on the country, according to statistics from the U.S. Central Command Combined Air Operations Center. This compares to a far lower 4,361 bombs dropped in 2017 and 1,337 in 2016, according to their statistics. The U.S. military said its air force carried out a total of 2,434 sorties last year, in which at least one bomb or strike was carried out on Afghanistan. The United Nations has blamed the increased U.S. bombing, in part, for a rise in civilian casualties in Afghanistan. For the first time since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, the U.N. said that Afghan government forces and its U.S. allies killed more civilians in the first three months of last year than insurgents. The U.N. also points out that insurgent bombings and attacks wounded more civilians during the same period, and almost daily the Taliban targeted military and government officials. The militants now control or hold sway over nearly half of Afghanistan. The U.N. has called for all sides in the protracted conflict to take better care to avoid civilian casualties. Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. The most recent airstrike to raise hackles in Afghanistan occurred overnight on Friday when a family of six, including a child, were killed. The U.S. military initially said the airstrike in Kunduz killed three Taliban and destroyed a cache of weapons. U.S. officials have since said the strike is under investigation. "We are aware of the reports of civilian casualties reported to have occurred in Dasht-e-Archi district or Imam Sahib district, Kunduz Province, on Jan. 30," a U.S. military statement said. "We are looking into these reports and will provide more information when it becomes available." Family members and local officials said the dead were all civilians, including an infant child. T he Duke and Duchess of Cambridge arrived at the Baftas tonight, where William is expected to raise the lack of diversity in his speech. The royal couple joined Hollywood stars Renee Zellweger, Al Pacino and Charlize Theron at the Royal Albert Hall for the ceremony which, has been surrounded by controversy since the nominations were announced last month. William, the president of Bafta since 2010, will present the Fellowship to film producer Kathleen Kennedy. Kennedy is behind Star Wars, Jurassic Park and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. It is understood he will use his speech to criticise the lack of black, Asian and ethnic minority actors in the leading four acting categories. No women were shortlisted for the best director award. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge at the BAFTAs 2020 - In pictures 1 /24 The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge at the BAFTAs 2020 - In pictures The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge attending the 73rd British Academy Film Awards held at the Royal Albert Hall Reuters PA The Duchess of Cambridge talks to Renee Zellweger PA AP POOL/AFP via Getty Images The Duchess of Cambridge talks with Andy Serkis and Sam Mendes PA The Duke of Cambridge talks to Renee Zellweger PA The Duke of Cambridge talks to Joaquin Phoenix PA Getty Images REUTERS PA REUTERS PA PA PA PA The Duke of Cambridge talks to Renee Zellweger PA The Duke of Cambridge talks to Renee Zellweger PA The Duke is also understood to have privately expressed his concerns to Baftas chief executive, Amanda Berry, who admitted she was very disappointed when the nominations were announced last month. The awards have been repeatedly condemned for failing to make progress over the years. After the awards, the Duke and Duchess will attend a short reception with tonight's winners in the Albert Hall's royal retiring room. In his acceptance speech for best supporting actor, read by Margot Robbie as Brad Pitt was unable to attend the awards, he said he was "going to name his award 'Harry' beause he's excited about bringing it back to the States." Kate wore a dress by Alexander McQueen, last worn on the couples 2012 Diamond Jubilee tour of Singapore, Malaysia and The Solomon Islands, in a nod to Baftas request that guests at tonights ceremony dress sustainably in an outfit they have used before or designed by a label with sustainable credentials. The Duke is also wearing a previously worn black tie suit. The British actress, Cynthia Erivo, 33, was not nominated for her role as the American abolitionist Harriet Tubman in the film Harriet, despite being up for two Oscars this month. BAFTA has also been criticised year for its all-male line up in the best director category. In protest at the lack of diversity, Erivo turned down an invitation to sing at tonights ceremony at the Royal Albert Hall in London. The actress said: I felt like [the invitation] didnt represent people of colour in the right light. It felt like it was calling on me as an entertainer, as opposed to a person who was a part of the world of film, and I think that its important to make it known that its not something that you just throw in as a party trick. I work hard and every single person of colour who is working in these films this year has worked really hard, and there are many of them who deserve to be celebrated. And no women directors? It was just like, Come on. Micheal Ward [corr sp], 21, from Romford, east London, who stars in the critically acclaimed Blue Story, is shortlisted in the rising star award, the only one with any minority ethnic nominations and the only one voted for by members of the public. The film, about gang violence in south London, was overlooked by Bafta, leading its director, Rapman, to tweet: @BAFTAs done Blue Story dirty!! Numbers, Impact, Critic reviews we ticked all boxes but we were still snubbed from all nominations. Minus the rising star list. The lack of black faces is ridiculous. BAFTAs 2020: Red Carpet - In pictures 1 /66 BAFTAs 2020: Red Carpet - In pictures Renee Zellweger PA The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge Reuters Charlize Theron PA Emilia Clarke Reuters John Boyega and Rebel Wilson PA Daniel Kaluuya arriving at the BAFTAs in an Audi Ella Balinska arriving at the BAFTAs in an Audi Joaquin Phoenix Reuters Laura Dern Invision/AP Margot Robbie Dave Benett/Getty Images Scarlett Johansson PA Daisy Ridley AFP via Getty Images The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge PA Charlize Theron PA Olivia Colman Dave Benett Naomie Harris PA Renee Zellweger PA Saoirse Ronan PA Joe Alwyn Zoe Kravitz PA Greta Gerwig Dave Benett Ella Balinska PA Emilia Clarke PA Rebel Wilson PA Lily-Rose Depp PA Emily Thomas and Taron Egerton PA Joaquin Phoenix PA Kaitlyn Dever PA Rooney Mara PA Vanessa Kirby Dave Benett Jessie Buckley PA Hofit Golan PA Sam Mendes and Alison Balsom PA Asa Butterfield PA Zoe Kravitz PA Anna Elisabet Eberstein and Hugh Grant PA Vick Hope Dave Benett Rhoda Ofori-Attah AFP via Getty Images Lady Victoria Hervey and Victoria Silvstedt Dave Benett Al Pacino PA Graham Norton Dave Benett Joe Alwyn Dave Benett Oliver Cheshire and Pixie Lott Dave Benett Micheal Ward Dave Benett Roman Griffin Davis Dave Benett David Furnish Dave Benett Quentin Tarantino AFP via Getty Images Wallis Day PA Rafferty Law Dave Benett William has spoken out on issues of race, and recently condemned the outrageous racism in football, saying that as president of the FA, he was determined to do something to tackle the issue. Last month, William and Kate visited Bradford, where they carried out a series of engagements celebrating ethnic diversity in communities. Joker leads the nominations tonight, with the movie, starring Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur Fleck, is in the running for best film, best actor, best adapted screenplay and best director. It is closely followed by Martin Scorseses gangster epic The Irishman and Quentin Tarantinos ninth film, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, which both scored 10 nominations and will also compete in the best film category, alongside Sir Sam Mendes war film 1917 and Korean film Parasite. The star-studded ceremony, which is one of the last stops on the awards circuit before the Oscars on February 9, will see guests walk on a recycled red carpet before tucking into a dinner made of sustainably sourced food, including a vegan starter and pudding, as it endeavours to be carbon neutral for the first time. Republicans prepared to defend their expected acquittal of President Donald Trump, on Sunday's TV talk shows, after their Senate votes to reject witness testimony at his impeachment trial sparked criticism they were aiding a cover-up and abdicating their duties. Criticism only intensified late Saturday after US media reported that US officials cited presidential privilege in redacting 24 emails related to Trump's hold on military assistance to Ukraine, an issue at the heart of his impeachment trial for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Trump on Saturday claimed his polling numbers were up after the Senate paved the way for his acquittal next Wednesday. However, according to the RealClearPolitics website, Trump currently has a 44.6 percent approval rating in collated polls, almost exactly the same as when he came to office in January 2017. His assertion, made on Twitter, came with Washington also awaiting the results of Monday's all-important Iowa caucuses. The first vote in the US primary process will be closely watched as a sign as to which of 11 Democratic candidates are gaining early momentum to challenge Trump in November's election. As Democratic contenders raced across the Midwest state, the US Senate on Friday rebuffed Democratic calls for witnesses at only the third impeachment trial of a US president. Trump is all but assured of being acquitted by the Senate, where Republicans hold 53 seats to 47 for the Democrats. A two-thirds majority, or 67 senators, is needed to remove a president from office. "Trump poll numbers are the highest since election, despite constant phony Witch Hunts!" the president tweeted on Saturday from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. He was impeached for abuse of power over pressure on Ukraine to open investigations including into a leading Democratic challenger, Joe Biden. On Friday, just two Republican senators -- Mitt Romney of Utah and Susan Collins of Maine -- joined Democrats in voting to introduce witnesses into the impeachment trial. Democrats argued that every other impeachment trial of US officials has called witnesses. But they failed to muster the four Republican votes needed to allow testimony from Trump's former national security advisor John Bolton, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and others. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer called it a "grand tragedy." "America will remember this day -- a day when the United States Senate did not live up to its responsibilities, turned away from truth and instead went along with a sham trial," Schumer said. Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the House of Representatives, which impeached Trump on December 18, accused Republicans of being "accomplices to the president's cover-up." Democrats had been eager to hear from Bolton following reports that, in a forthcoming book, he says Trump told him military aid to Ukraine was tied to Kiev's investigating former vice president Biden. That is the crux of the case against Trump. Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Trump ally, said House prosecutors -- known as "managers" -- had already presented enough evidence to make their case and there was no need for further witnesses. Among the material was more than 28,000 pages of documents gathered during the House impeachment inquiry. Just hours after the vote to reject any witness testimony, reports pointed to new potential evidence. The administration's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) said in a court filing that it "has redacted portions of 24 documents pursuant to the Presidential Communications Privilege," according to US media. These emails "reflect communications by either the President, the Vice President, or the President's immediate advisors regarding Presidential decision-making about the scope, duration, and purpose of the hold on military assistance to Ukraine," OMB's deputy general counsel Heather Walsh said in the court document cited by media. McConnell said the Senate would resume as a court of impeachment on Monday to hear final arguments, before voting on Wednesday on the two articles of impeachment passed last month in the House. Republican Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, who had been considered a possible swing vote on witnesses, said there was no need for more evidence. "If you have eight witnesses who say someone left the scene of an accident, why do you need nine?," he told NBC in an interview to air Sunday. But, he added, "I think he shouldn't have done it. I think it was wrong. Inappropriate was the way I'd say -- improper, crossing the line." Four contenders for the Democratic nomination -- Senators Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar and Michael Bennet -- were required to be present at the impeachment trial. Monday's vote is headed to a photo finish, with leftist Sanders holding a narrow polling lead over Biden. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Horrific video shows police officers arresting a 16-year-old autistic boy who just moments earlier suffered an epileptic seizure while dining at a fast food restaurant in Fresno, California, on Thursday. Lourdes Ponce of Delano, California, was furious over the incident as footage shows her screaming at officers who are seen placing her son in handcuffs instead of rushing him to the hospital. 'He has autism, he has epilepsy, stop it!' she is heard telling officers in the video provided to KFSN-TV. Fresno police tried to arrest the boy inside an El Pollo Loco location in the center of town. Lourdes Ponce of Delano, California, shot footage of police officers arresting her 16-year-old son who had just suffered an epileptic seizure at a fast food restaurant in Fresno, California, on Thursday evening In the video, Ponce is heard screaming at the officers that her son is autistic and had just suffered a seizure The boy was vomiting during his attempted arrest as Ponce insisted to police that he was not a danger to anyone and that he needed medical attention Ponce, her son, and her daughter went to the restaurant to get a bite to eat after a visit to the doctor, who treated the boy for epileptic seizures. Ponce said that while her son was in the bathroom at the El Pollo Loco, the seizures returned. 'I stood outside the door, I heard him hit the floor, I tried to open the door but it was locked, that's when I asked for help,' she said. When employees unlocked the bathroom door, they saw her son lying on the ground. Ponce says she then told her daughter to call 911. Instead of paramedics, however, the police arrived. 'We called paramedics for help, we did not call police. He was not hurting anybody, he was having a seizure,' she said. Moments earlier, the 16-year-old boy was handcuffed by officers after suffering an epileptic seizure in the bathroom of the El Pollo Loco in Fresno, according to his mother Ponce said that she dialed 911 and asked for paramedics to take the boy to the hospital, but instead the police showed up The boy, his sister, and his mother came to eat at the fast food restaurant after paying a visit to the doctor because of an earlier epileptic seizure he had suffered that same day A police officer wearing sunglasses is seen handcuffing and detaining the boy in the bathroom of the El Pollo Loco as his sister (wearing the red shirt) looks on The sister appears to try to reassure her brother as he is handcuffed by officers The photo above shows the El Pollo Loco location in Fresno where the incident took place Officers attempted to place the boy in handcuffs. Video footage taken by Ponce shows them trying to put him in the back of their patrol car. Ponce said her son at this point began to panic and started vomiting. 'He saw that my son was throwing up and instead of helping him so that he wouldn't choke on his vomit, they had him on the ground in handcuffs,' she said. Ponce said she then ran to her car to get paperwork proving that her son has a history of epileptic seizures. 'After I showed the paperwork, EMS was able to treat him and take him to the hospital,' she said. Ponce (seen above) was outraged over the arrest. Police let her son go after she showed them paperwork proving that he suffered from epilepsy Fresno police officers visited the boy in the hospital and handed his mother a 'certificate of release' form The document indicates that police have no intention of arresting the boy in the future. He is seen above in his hospital bed at Valley Children's Hospital in Fresno The boy is recovering from seizures at Valley Children's Hospital in Fresno. Ponce said her son was so traumatized by what took place on Thursday that he is having difficulty accepting treatment from hospital staff. She said that police stopped by the hospital on Friday to hand him a 'certificate of release' form - meaning that he will not be arrested. Fresno Police issued a statement to KFSN-TV saying: 'This case is currently under Administrative Review. 'The review will include the examination of all the information pertaining to the officer's contact including Body Worn Cameras.' Ponce's son is expected to recover. There is no word on when he will be released from the hospital. Peter Conrad in The Guardian: At one point in A Very Stable Genius, the conservative lawyer George Conway the husband of Trumps acid-tongued apologist Kellyanne Conway doubles over in incredulous mirth at the mans idiocy. Then the joke palls, as Conway realises with a shudder that the object of his ridicule was the president of the United States. Were lucky that its only Trumps hissy fits that are thermonuclear; instead of launching missiles, he childishly makes war by weaponising sweets. At a summit he tosses two Starburst candies at Angela Merkel and grunts: Dont say I never give you anything. I wonder what flavour he chose for this undiplomatic exchange: sour or summer blast? Although the title of A Very Stable Genius ironically adopts Trumps preening self-description, Rucker and Leonnig present him as a lord of misrule who delights in instability, running a government that resembles a virtual tilt-a-whirl at a carnival. Despite his claim to be a genius, under his combed-over crown he has an entirely vacuous head: he tells Indias prime minister, Narendra Modi, that its a good thing the country doesnt have a border with China, and at a ceremony in Pearl Harbor he asks what exactly happened there to justify the commemoration. Forget about CIA briefings: as Steve Bannon puts it, Trump doesnt even know what intelligence is. As proof, Rucker and Leonnig have a scoop about one of his crazier wheezes. Denied funds for his wall along the Mexican border, he proposes a human chain of hefty enforcers, hundreds of thousands of them, who would join hands in a barricade extending across 1,200 miles. A stable genius or a rampaging dimwit? More here. Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook will stand up for principles like free expression and encryption, even if it means facing a backlash. "This is the new approach, and I think it's going to piss off a lot of people. But frankly, the old approach was pissing off a lot of people too, so let's try something different," Zuckerberg said at the Silicon Slopes Tech Summit in Utah on Friday. The Facebook co-founder and CEO said his company's aim for a long time was to not do anything that would be deemed as "too offensive," but he is now changing that approach in the face of what he deems as excessive censorship. "Increasingly, we're getting called to censor a lot of different kinds of content that makes me really uncomfortable," Zuckerberg said, while acknowledging Facebook's responsibility to purge its platforms of content related to terrorism, child exploitation and incitement to violence. "We're going to take down the content that's really harmful, but the line needs to be held at some point," he added. Zuckerberg also said Facebook would continue to fight for encryption, another stance that has sparked controversy in recent months. The company has come under fire for allowing politicians to lie in ads at a time when Twitter has decided to ban political advertising altogether. Zuckerberg has been increasingly vocal about Facebook's determination to stick to its positions even when they prove unpopular. His comments in Utah came days after he said on the company's latest earnings call that his goal for the next decade "isn't to be liked, but to be understood." The 35-year-old tech billionaire reiterated that sentiment Friday. "If you're not out there standing for things that people care about, then it's not possible for people to feel that strongly about what you're doing," he said. Russia on Saturday suspended visa-free group travel with China as well as the issuance of work visas for Chinese citizens amid coronavirus concerns. "We temporarily suspend visa-free travel for tourists that are envisaged by the agreement between the government of the Russian Federation and the government of the People's Republic of China on visa-free group travel of 29 February 2000," Sputnik quoted a Russian government order. The virus originated in China's Wuhan city in December and has since then spread to various cities around the As many as 11,791 confirmed cases of coronavirus have been registered in China and the death toll reached 259 on Saturday. China has imposed quarantine and travel restrictions, affecting the movement of 56 million people in more than a dozen cities, amid fears that the transmission rate will accelerate as hundreds of millions of Chinese travel for the Lunar New Year. Health authorities around the are taking action to prevent a global pandemic as the virus continues to spread, with cases reported in Australia, France, the United States and seven Asian countries besides China. Several countries have sped up the evacuation process after the Health Organisation (WHO) declared the coronavirus outbreak as a global health crisis. Russia's aerospace defence forces, part of the armed forces, will start evacuating citizens from China. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) By John Davison and Aziz El Yaakoubi Iraqi President Barham Salih appointed Mohammed Tawfiq Allawi as prime minister on Saturday, state television reported, after squabbling parties failed to name a candidate in the two months since Adel Abdul-Mahdi was ousted by mass protests. Allawi, who will run Iraq until early elections can be held, must form a new government within a month and will likely get stuck between powerful parties vying for cabinet posts, prolonging the political deadlock. Allawi said he would resign if political blocs attempted to impose candidates for cabinet jobs, and called on protesters to continue demonstrating until their demands are met By John Davison and Aziz El Yaakoubi Iraqi President Barham Salih appointed Mohammed Tawfiq Allawi as prime minister on Saturday, state television reported, after squabbling parties failed to name a candidate in the two months since Adel Abdul-Mahdi was ousted by mass protests. Allawi, who will run Iraq until early elections can be held, must form a new government within a month and will likely get stuck between powerful parties vying for cabinet posts, prolonging the political deadlock. Allawi said he would resign if political blocs attempted to impose candidates for cabinet jobs, and called on protesters to continue demonstrating until their demands are met. "I'm an employee (at your service) carrying your trust, so do not go back until you get what you want, whether from me or someone else," he said in a video message posted to his Twitter feed and broadcast by state television. "If the political blocs try to impose their candidates (for ministers) on me, then I will resign." Abdul-Mahdi quit in November during mass anti-government unrest in which hundreds of thousands of Iraqis took to the streets to demand the removal of Iraq's political elite. Nearly 500 protesters have been killed since October in a deadly crackdown by security forces. Soon after the president's announcement, protesters gathered in Baghdad and southern cities expressed opposition to Allawi's appointment in videos posted on social media. "Allawi is rejected," they chanted in one video that was filmed at Baghdad's Tahrir Square, the centre of the uprising in the Iraqi capital. For the demonstrators, Allawi, the former communications minister under ex-premier Nuri al-Maliki -- who presided over the fall of multiple Iraqi cities to Islamic State in 2014 and is accused of pro-Shi'ite sectarian policies -- is part of the ruling elite and therefore unacceptable. LACK OF SUPPORT Hours before Allawi's appointment, supporters of populist cleric Moqtada al-Sadr attacked protesters in Tahrir square. Sadr called on Friday for a mass protest in Baghdad and for sit-ins near the fortified Green Zone to protest the delayed formation of a government, without specifying when the gatherings should take place. Sadr later supported Allawi's appointment, saying he had been "chosen by the people" and that this was a "good step" for Iraq. Sadr, a political opportunist, has both backed protests and sided with the Iran-backed political groups they reject. The Dawa party, meanwhile, rejected Allawi's premiership, saying in a statement that any candidate being decided at this stage was unlikely to have unanimous support. With a rejection from at least one party and by protesters, Allawi faces an uphill struggle in forming a fully independent cabinet. The two most powerful blocs in parliament, led by populist Sadr and a group of Iran-backed and paramilitary-linked parties, respectively, will insist on securing key ministerial posts for their own candidates, likely causing many more months of political deadlock. Iraq is facing its biggest crisis since the military defeat of Islamic State in 2017. A mostly Shi'ite popular uprising in Baghdad and the south challenges the country's mainly Iran-backed Shi'ite Muslim ruling elite. The country has been thrown into further disarray since the killing of Iranian military mastermind Qassem Soleimani in a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad on Jan. 3. Iran responded with missile attacks on bases hosting U.S. forces, pushing the region to the brink of an all-out conflict. Pro-Iran politicians have tried to use those events to shift the focus away from popular discontent with their grip on power and towards anti-American rallies and demands for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. (Additional reporting by Nadine Awadalla; Editing by Helen Popper) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. Two security force personnel and four civilians were injured when terrorists lobbed a grenade on a patrolling party of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) in Srinagars busy Lal Chowk area on Sunday, police said. Terrorists hurled the grenade on the CRPF personnel near Pratap Park area of the city, a police official said. A CRPF spokesperson, Pankaj Singh, confirmed to HT that two troopers of Charlie 121 company have received minor injuries. Those injured in the explosion have been shifted to the Shri Maharaja Hari Singh or SMHS Hospital and are stable, a police official said. The loud explosion caused panic among the people, especially those who had come to the weekly flea market, also known as the Sunday market, the official said. Security forces have cordoned off the area, he added. AGERPRES special correspondent to London, the UK, Oana Ghita, reports: There are Romanians who have come to the United Kingdom because they found the prospects for a decent life there. Others have chosen British citizenship for cultural reasons - the love of Shakespeare. Some admit that if things do not go according to plan, they can always return home to Romania, and others know very clearly that the United Kingdom is their home for now. Beyond Brexit, the relationship of the Romanian community with the United Kingdom seems to have remained the same, at least during the transitional period, when no radical change was announced. On February 1, the first day that the UK was officially no longer a member of the EU, four young Romanians were walking through the park before of the British Parliament, which had hosted the farewell party last night. Valentin Lixeanu, 27, came to the UK in September 2018, called by a friend to work in construction. Six months after, his wife, Florentina Lixeanu, 24, followed suit. The woman says that the day described as "historic" to them is simply "very beautiful", because, for the sake of friends who visit them, they came to London for the first time from their residence in Cambridge. The young man admits that he came to the UK for "opportunities and a better life," and his wife confesses that it seems that the British are much more open, and in this country, if you are a hard worker, you reap all the benefits. No changes that could occur after Brexit scare them. "If there is a problem, we solve it and come home," says the young woman with confidence. The two have not yet applied for pre-resident status, but they say they will. To other Romanians, the relationship with the United Kingdom began before Romania became a member country of the EU. Actress Elena Popovici Harding went to the UK initially for a master's degree in arts history, at Sotheby's Institute. At that time, the tuition fee was "three to four times" higher for her than for a British citizen. She confesses that she has chosen to be a British citizen for "purely cultural" reasons, out of love for Shakespeare's texts she stages. "Shakespeare made me become a British citizen," she laughs. He was awarded citizenship in March 2015 and says that after Brexit, she is worried "as a Romanian." "My parents are in Romania. So far I have had a feeling that we are in the same country. (...) I think their relocation to London will no longer be as easy," says the artist. To Andreea Helen David, the United Kingdom is the place where she learned acting. "Sometimes it's good to move away from the source, to see what's going on around you. From the point of view of my artistic career, I felt like I found my place here," she admits. The Brexit gave her a boost to file for resident, a status she received, but that is not tangible. "It's in the ether, somewhere online," she adds, smiling. Even outside the EU, the UK is still attractive to young EU students quality education. Sebastian Serban is a student at the London School of Economics (LSE) and president of the LSRS branch in the UK, and the vote of citizens of the kingdom to leave the European Union came before his enrollment with the LSE. "I was very shocked by the vote. I was somewhat disappointed at first, but my plans were to return to the country from the beginning and then I took this visit here more as a learning trip than as a definitive move," says Serban. He points out that the thing he needed time to adapt to was British humor. " To understand it, you have to come and live here for a while. I'm still not sure if I fully understand it. British society is very different from the Romanian society. When you come on vacation it may seem nice but coming here for living is something else entirely." Young people integrate well with the British society, he argues, and sometimes, upon return, they sometimes fell strange in Romania. "There is the feeling of living between two worlds," the young man points out. On average, university studies in the UK cost around 9,250 British pounds per year - tuition fees and housing. Loans for EU students who have enrolled at UK universities for this fall are guaranteed. However, those who are going to apply next fall "have no guarantee of financing," points out Serban. Even LSE is planning on reviewing all funding opportunities. "I have already been informed personally that many of the scholarships that are given here will disappear," says the young man. In the absence of European funding, universities will probably increase tuition fees. "They will probably be forced to hike fees and reduce the number of scholarships they give. There is nothing they can do, because they have to somehow compensate for the funds they no longer receive from Brussels," says Serban. He is one of about 10,000 Romanian students studying in the UK, a number that he estimates will decrease in the future. There are also Romanians with dual citizenship who worry about Brexit, from a British perspective. Liliana Onica, 44, left for the United Kingdom in 1999 because she did not have a job in Iasi. After her, other family members came "I left first, then came my mother, sister, brother-in-law. We have pulled up each other. For six months, I worked, I paid the visa, and I left," the woman tells us. She says her life in the UK is where she has two children; she is working as a medical dispenser in a London pharmacy. No employee in the pharmacy is native British, and foreign customers are dealt with by the employee who speaks the language closest to them. Thus, the Polish employee has clients who speak Slavic languages, and she takes care of Romance-language speakers. Onica confesses that in the United Kingdom she started up from scratch and succeeded also because of her two children. She does not worry about how Brexit could affect the entry of foreigners into the local labour market. "Good people will always have a job," she says. But, from the perspective of her profession, she says the consequences of Brexit have already been felt. "It affects us all. I do not know what is going to happen from a pharmaceutical point of view. It is already a problem. We have many patients who cannot get medicines because they we have ran out of them and not restocked. They are manufactured in Italy or Spain," she says. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has said any suggestion the UK will have to follow European Union rules and laws after 2021 just aint happening. The Cabinet minister re-iterated Boris Johnsons tough stance on the upcoming trade talks with Brussels, after Government sources confirmed the Prime Minister would use a speech in London on Monday to warn that the UK will accept no alignment and no jurisdiction from the European courts. Mr Raab used broadcast interviews on Sunday morning to drive the point home to European leaders that Britain would no longer be a rule-taker now Brexit had been delivered. Were not going to be aligning with EU rules, thats not on the negotiating table, its not even an issue of red lines it is not even in the negotiating room, he told the BBCs Andrew Marr programme. The legislative alignment, it just ain't happeningDominic Raab We are entering into these negotiations with a spirit of goodwill. But we are just not doing that other stuff. The legislative alignment, it just aint happening. The former Brexit secretary said the Canada-style free trade deal the UK was seeking doesnt involve adhering to Brussels standards once the transition period is over in 2021. He accused Brussels of attempting to shift the goalposts since the Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration was signed-off last year, after reports emerged suggesting the EU was demanding that the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has a role in overseeing disputes in any trade deal with the UK. The PMs hardline approach secured backing from Nigel Farage, the politician many see as making Brexit possible. Expand Close Nigel Farage, appearing on The Andrew Marr Show (Jeff Overs/BBC/PA) PA Media / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Nigel Farage, appearing on The Andrew Marr Show (Jeff Overs/BBC/PA) The Brexit Party leader told the BBC that alignment would not be Brexit, adding: I think (the PM) is saying all the right things. I think he is being consistent with the manifesto on which he was elected. And the Conservative Party leader was likely to have been buoyed by the assessment of Donald Tusk, the former European Council president, that 11 months was sufficient for striking a trade deal with the EU. Mr Johnson has consistently vetoed the idea of asking for an extension beyond the December 31 deadline for the discussions, despite reservations from European leaders about the lack of time available for a full-scale agreement. Polish politician Mr Tusk told the Marr programme: One year is enough to finalise our negotiations. But the Governments rally against EU rules after Brexit saw Northern Ireland First Minister Arlene Foster express concern that such a situation could cause a border down the Irish Sea. As part of the Withdrawal Agreement, Mr Johnson agreed that the six counties would continue to follow single market rules to avoid border checks along the border with Ireland. It means, if Britain has rules that differ from Brussels post-2021, then cargo travelling into Northern Ireland from Great Britain could face inspections. In comments made to Sky Newss Sophy Ridge On Sunday programme, DUP leader Ms Foster said it was difficult to see how checks could be avoided since ministers intended to diverge away from single market regulations, whilst Northern Ireland remains within the single market. Expand Close First Minister Arlene Foster, leader of the DUP (Michael Cooper/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp First Minister Arlene Foster, leader of the DUP (Michael Cooper/PA) Mr Raab looking to allay Northern Ireland customs fears said EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier was wrong to threaten checks, arguing it was directly in conflict the withdrawal terms. Irish premier Leo Varadkar had his own message for Mr Johnsons administration, calling on Britain to dial down the rhetoric and avoid putting down rigid red lines early on in the talks, which are due to start in March. As is always the case when it comes to negotiations, setting out so boldly such firm red lines actually makes coming to an agreement more difficult because the other party you are negotiating with doesnt feel they got a fair deal unless those red lines get turned pink or bent in some way, he told the BBC. Shadow chancellor John McDonnell, in an interview with the BBC, called for an agreed baseline of protection on environmental, employment and consumer rights between the EU and UK. In his speech setting out his post-Brexit vision on Monday, the PM is expected to rule out watering down any such rights in upcoming trade deals, while also confirming the NHS will not be on the table during any negotiations. Mr Raab confirmed he will start a tour of Asia and Australia next week, a trip encompassing Japan, Singapore and Malaysia, as he looks to lay the ground for global trade deals, which will be conducted simultaneously to the battering with the EU. The Sunday Telegraph reported that a trade deal is earmarked to be agreed with Japan by Christmas, followed by more agreements with Australia and New Zealand in mid-2021. (Newser) Victoria's Secret has "Angels," but there was a devil tooand his name was Ed Razek. That's according to a New York Times article based on interviews with over 50 company insiders, who describe an established culture of harassment, bullying, and misogyny at the lingerie company. Razek, a former top exec at L Brands, the parent company of Victoria's Secret, is accused of kissing models, touching them intimately, asking them to perch on his lap, and berating a PR worker about her weight until she ran to the bathroom and cried, among other things. "This abuse was just laughed off and accepted as normal. It was almost like brainwashing," says the PR worker, Casey Crowe Taylor. "And anyone who tried to do anything about it wasn't just ignored. They were punished." story continues below The Times also looks at L Brands CEO Leslie Wexner and his close relationship with sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein, who killed himself in prison last August. Epstein reportedly lied to women that he worked for Victoria's Secret and lured them to auditions, only to assault them. "It seemed like a casting call for prostitution," says an accuser. "I felt like I was in hell." Others talk of a Victoria's Secret photographer who persuaded models to pose nude, unpaid, for a book he now sells for up to $3,600 (his lawyer says the models and their agents requested this). Meanwhile Victoria's Secret is losing cultural cache, canceled its annual show, and might be up for sale. An L Brands repwho denies nothing in the Times storysays the company is "intensely focused" on change and has "made significant strides." Read the article here. (Read more Victoria's Secret stories.) Mumbai Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray has said that he will not allow the National Register of Citizens (NRC) to be implemented in the state but also defended the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) saying it is not about taking away citizenship rights from anyone. Thackerays backing of the Citizenship Act may create issues in the coalition government in Maharashtra. The Congress and NCP Senas new alliance partners have already opposed the amendment. In a short video clip of an interview with Shiv Sena mouthpiece Saamana, Thackeray said the amendment in the Citizenship Act is not about taking away citizenship. CAA is not a law to remove anybody from the country, Thackeray is seen responding to Sena leader and Saamana editor, Sanjay Raut in the promotional video clip of the interview uploaded on micro-blogging website Twitter. However, talking about the NRC ,the chief minister said, Proving citizenship will be difficult for both Hindus and Muslims. I will not let that happen. The first part of the three-part interview will appear on Monday in Saamana. The Shiv Sena had backed the Citizenship Amendment Bill when it was tabled in the Lok Sabha in December 2019. However, after the Congress leadership expressed unhappiness over Senas stance, the party did not back the Bill in Rajya Sabha. Sena MPs, including Raut, walked out ahead of the voting on the Bill in the Upper House. Subsequently, the Sena mouthpiece had slammed the Narendra Modi-government on the CAA and NRC stating that it had led to countywide protests. Meanwhile, Maharashtra Congress spokesperson Sachin Sawant said he does not consider Thackerays views on the CAA as that of the state government. It may be his personal opinion. Besides, we should wait for the Supreme Court order on the petition to challenge the law.., he said. In the past, we have seen that the Sena has changed their position owing to pressure from the Congress. Let us see if the CM remains firm on backing the CAA. With regard to the NRC, there is no draft of NRC yet, said Keshav Upadhye, Maharashtra BJP spokesperson. Political observers pointed out that Thackeray continues to play the Senas Hindutva card while managing to keep the secular allies happy in Maharashtra. Surendra Jondhale, a political analyst, said that Thackerays statement had contradiction. He said, Most Congress-ruled states have passed a resolution against the CAA. Legally and Constitutionally speaking, these resolutions will not stand; it is a political approach... He should explicitly say why he supports the CAA. Is it because his opposition will not hold constitutionally? He should take a political position and not a contradictory one. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, SAN has departed Nigeria to the United States-Nigeria Bi-national Commission in Washington DC. Umar Gwandu, the Special Assistant on Media and Public Relations in the Office of the Minister made this known in a statement on Sunday. The Minister is expected to, on behalf of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, sign a tripartite agreement with Nigeria, the Island of New Jersey and the United States of America at the 3-day meeting to repatriate 321m US dollars looted assets. This is as part of the Federal Governments efforts to recover more stolen funds stashed abroad. Read Also: Abacha Loot: FG Disburses N24m To Abuja Community He said, The meeting is not an ad hoc event for addressing impromptu concerns, but a friendly binational meeting that holds annually devoid of intervening concerns or relating to the internal affairs of the participating states. Some other Nigerian government delegates expected to be part of the meeting include: the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment Otunba Adeniyi Adebayo, Minister of Defence, Maj.-Gen. Bashir Magashi (rtd), and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama. Others are National Security Adviser, Maj.-Gen. Babagana Monguno (rtd) as well as Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development; Sadiya Umar Faruk. Femi Orebe SINCE the federal government loves to exert a stranglehold on virtually everything in the country, it must be told that, with regards to security, Nigerians are in dire straits and everything must be done to restore sanity. Not only are people no longer able to travel freely, farmers have been run out of their farms indicating that hunger may not be far off. Government must realise, and own up, to the fact that we are fighting, not only against Fulani herdsmen, some of who hug AK47, perpetrating heinous crimes which include violent rapes, killing or kidnapping of poor, defenseless Nigerians, but also against an obviously re- energised Boko Haram/ ISWA elements, many of who are aliens and, therefore, have no qualms about slitting throats or disemboweling pregnant women. We must do everything to exterminate these lunatics from our midst. Government is already far behind in ensuring the security of life and property but it may not be all lost yet, as a stitch in time could still save nine Femi Orebe in THE IMPERATIVES OF A LOCALISED, EMBEDDED SECURITY ARCHITECTURE, The Nation, 04.08. 19 I had decided to, once again, touch on the issue of insecurity long before the National Assembly roused itself from its somnambulism on security matters this past week yes, true it held a summit on security late last year but since then thousands of Nigerians have been needlessly killed without us hearing a whimper from them any longer. Incidentally, those of them sponsoring anti people bills appear to come from areas with very serious security issues which should, rightly, have been of far greater urgency and importance to them. I was going to suggest to the president that a moratorium should now be placed on all other concerns of government, even if for as little as six months so that maximum concentration, and effort, can be devoted to this life and death matter. Our present state of insecurity does not deserve less. Education or railways development, as important as they are, mean nothing to a dead man. Therefore, given our present circumstances, finding solutions to insecurity must trump everything else, at least for now. We have the men and women of our armed forces to thank for the great job they have done securing our country this far, albeit at great personal and corporate cost. Our condolences go to the families of the many who have paid the ultimate sacrifice as we pray that the souls of the departed will rest in peace. It will be most ungodly if we allow these supreme sacrifices go to nothing or be in vain. For this not to happen, President Muhammadu Buhari must do much more than he has done since he assumed responsibility for the security of life and property in this country. Yes, a period was, in the early days of his government that Nigerians believed he was fulfilling his campaign promise to them in this regard. But to make that claim now, close on five years down the line, will be to provoke huge guffaws. And this is largely because you cannot be doing the same thing all over and expect to have a different result. Without a doubt, the president should have thanked his chiefs of staff for their service to the country and promptly ease them out at the end of his first term. These patriotic citizens, who faced that initial fire, gave their all, and significantly degraded Boko Haram, ought not to have been left to the National Assembly to harangue, and harass, as was the case this past week. In the article Lest Nigeria Strays into a War Sunday, 28 July 2019, I wrote as follows:Conjunctively, President Buhari should rejig the countrys security apparatti and do everything within his power to rein in the murderous activities of kidnappers, bandits and criminals of whatever hue. In particular, he must show that ethnic considerations do not influence his actions on Fulani herdsmen who, truth be told, and going by the testimonies of almost all kidnapped persons who were lucky to tell their own story, are responsible for most of the kidnapping in the country. The president should have by now been briefed that literally all Nigerian ethnic groups are now discussing how to be free of this Fulani herdsmens menace. This past week in Edo State, for instance, some of them were reported to have killed a police man who did nothing more than trying to help recover the corpses of people these evil men have killed earlier on their farms. I cannot pretend to be teaching the president anything about security but for emphasis, I think Nigerians must keep reminding him of where we are, and how life in Nigeria has become short and brutish. I wrote at length on this terrible security situation as captured by Mike Kebonkwu in my article Still On Amotekun of 26 January, 2020, but all that pales into nothing compared with Jide Oluwajuyitan in: State/Community Policing As Answer To Insecurity, January 30, 2020 , and you will come to realise what humongous task confronts President Buhari if Nigeria is to ever know peace,, ever again. He wrote inter alia: Let us start with the presidents own Katsina State where eight local government areas including Kankara; Faskari; Dan-Musa; Safana; Sabuwa; Dandume; Jibia and Batsari have according to a report in Thisday, lost about 2,000 people, with 500 communities destroyed and over 33,000 people displaced as a result of incessant attacks. President Buharis establishment of Air Force bases at Daura and Katsina, and a Brigade Command of the Nigerian Army has, according to Dr. Bashir Ruwangodiya, Masaris special adviser on higher education, failed to put an end to banditry, kidnapping, armed robbery and murder, as well as other crimes in Katsina State. In Plateau State, separate attacks by some unidentified gunmen, reportedly led to the death of 32 people in Riyom Local Government Area, 19 in Rajat, and 11 in Atakar with about 60 houses burnt. In Kaduna State, the paper also claimed that gunmen suspected to be Fulani, killed no fewer than 30 people and razed hundreds of houses in the three communities. Similar killings were reported in other areas of the state notably Sankwai, Tekum and Unguwan Gata villages were invaded by those the villagers said looked like cross-border Fulani gunmen. Last Monday, January 27, police in Plateau admitted that the death toll in last Sunday night attack on Kwatas village had risen to 15. Twelve persons were reportedly killed in Kulben village in Kombun District of Mangu Local Government Area. President Buharis response to last week attack on Dogon Gona forest in Niger State communities by bandits, kidnappers and cattle rustlers was predictable. Garba Shehu, the presidents Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, has since informed Nigerians that the president had authorised the deployment of air power to support troops and policemen deployed to the difficult terrain, to counter the menace of the attackers operating in the forest area bordering Kaduna, Niger and Zafar states. Of course, always after the mayhem. Now what manner of beasts in human clothing is doing all these with a government in place? These killings call for a paradigm shift in the way Nigeria is structured but the Federal Government curiously remains unwilling to let go of anything, even when it is obvious that the status quo has failed dismally. Or where do we go from here Mr President if some people remain eternally afraid of restructuring; and rather than reconfigure the country so that a thousand flowers can bloom; each according to its ability, we remain rooted to the same old, unproductive ways? One needs not be told that a new leadership corps, that will reflect the countrys diversity, is sorely and urgently needed in our security architecture to turn things around. Without a doubt, the near mono cultural thought process that dominates that critical section in our country has obviously reached its sell by date as it constricts the variegated viewpoints that would have enriched decision making in crucial circumstances. The president must now let matters appertaining to our rather inscrutable security problems completely concentrate his attention. He must give his efforts in this regard a new lease of life by rejigging the security high command, as suggested above, provide required munitions, make our men and women in uniform happy and ensure that relevant authorities promptly pay the allowances of those redoubtable men and women who daily confront these vermins who, it is alleged, are armed with arms far superior to ours. One thing is obvious though, if we must restore peace: the federal government must let go its stranglehold, and allow communities, local governments areas and state governments take ownership of their own security. They know their terrain, the people know one another and are better placed to gather intelligence and spot threat issues which will tremendously assist the police in effectively performing their own responsibilities. This monstrous Abuja stranglehold over everything has not helped and will never help in restoring all- round peace to our beleaguered country. 02.02.2020 LISTEN In one of my articles on the definitiveness of the impending end of the Nigerian State titled The Tragedy of Nigeria and Lord Dennings Analogy, I had posited that the challenges of Nigeria could not be looked at ordinarily. There has to be the need to look at Project Nigeria from several perspectives in the effort to find a lasting solution to its redemption and revitalization if there were a possibility or feasibility for such anyway. As a country that I used to love and in which I had invested much hope, I have spent approximately 30 of the last 35 years seeking for ways that reasonable minds could and would accept as the means out for Nigeria to be extricated from self-bondage and the forces that hold it captive. In that article, I had written inter alia: When you reach into History, anthropology, political science, social science (or sociology), religious studies, elements of psychiatry laced with a modicum of psychoanalysis, or as Professor Tam David West once did brilliantly, using the basics of chemistry to explain the Nigerian corrugated existence and its inevitable end, people are surprisingly unable to grasp what is being talked about. In fact and indeed, when you even dive into spirituality to explain that Nigeria will eventually meet its destiny by breaking up, many are still in intellectual limbo and manifest scary lack of discernment. But in this piece, the focus is on the spiritual explorations for solutions to the evil that Nigeria has become. This piece is an explanation of my conclusion that Nigeria is an impossibility. Or an explanation of the spiritual evidence that God is opposed to the existence of Nigeria as a single entity. The reason why this perspective has to be explained is that almost all of our peoples are of faith of whatever genre. The issue of faith is more encapsulating than any other and it is the reason why I feel that it deserves to be separately discussed. Nigerians are prayer warriors. They believe in Gods omnipotence and omnipresence. They believe in the impartiality of God regardless of the type of faith they practice. They believe in Him as the supreme judge of all human actions. In brief, for all things to be manifestly successful, it must have the stamp of approval of God. And when God says no, no one can say yes. Everyone of deep faith shares this fundamental concept on the power of God. Since October 1, 1960, Nigerians have been praying for this country. The more they pray, the worse things get. Again, I repeat, the more Nigerians prayed and the more they are praying, the worse things get. The question now is why? Is God not there on His throne? Or is He deaf? Why is God unable to help Nigeria after over 60 years of fervent prayers and devout fasting? Have the prayers of the righteous not avail for the rest of us sinners? What exactly is the problem? Despite being such prayer warriors, why has God ignored the supplications of Nigerians for Nigeria in the last 56 years? Why has Nigeria gone from prosperity to being permeated with penury? Why have things gone from fair to bad and from bad to worse and still progressively degenerating in geometrical rather than arithmetical manner? Why is God seemingly unconcerned no more about Nigeria? Why has He turned His back to all the prayers of 56 years and still on going? Why? What is clear going through the trajectory of Nigeria as a country since 1960 is that at a point, God has decided to turn His back at Nigeria. It is difficult for me to pinpoint exactly when this happened. But those gifted with the spirit know that God does not reside in an environment riddled with sin. This is especially so, when the sinners are contemptuous of God, remorseless and are certified as congenital offenders. With their behaviors, they tell God to His face, repeatedly, time after time and without any second thought, to go to hell! Such a patient God, how much grace would He give to Nigerians? How many numerous chances would God give to a country founded against His will ab initio and its purveyors who unconscionably and incorrigibly revel in sin endlessly? Yes, we all know that God is merciful. He covers us with His grace numerous times. He is a patient God that gives many chances. This is because in the Book of Ezekiel Chapter 18, Verse 23, God makes it clear that he does not take pleasure in the death of the wicked but for him to repent his ways. This is also repeated in Verse 32 of the same book. But the repeated commission of sins by the Nigerian State and its purveyors is tantamount to testing God which the Bible spoke against in the books of Luke Chapter4, Verse 12; Matthew Chapter 4, Verse 7 as well as Deutoronomy Chapter 6, verse 16. With the repetitive commission of sins, God has no choice but to turn His back to Nigeria. We all have to remember the message in Psalm 127, verses 1 and 2 where it is written as follows: 1. Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. 2. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil... This message is very clear and unambiguous. It is not cloudy nor is it confusing. It is not convoluted or complicated. It is simple and straight forward for any man of average intelligence to comprehend. Since God has turned His back at Nigeria, things have never been at ease. God has been rejecting the worship of Nigerians, their offerings and supplications on behalf of Nigeria and everyone knows that when God is removed from any situation, that is the end of such a venture. All those who have been laboring to build Nigeria are doing so in vain and would continue to do so in vain because God is no longer interested in having Nigeria remain as one country. The Nations held captive within Nigeria shall be set free. That is the promise of God. It is the destiny of Nigeria. And The Bible is very crystal clear about the ability of God's promise being fulfilled. Nigeria will break up. It shall come to pass. It is beyond argument that it is not difficult for God to rescue when He desires to do so after such a person or a community or a Nation or a country has met the conditions set by God, at least minimally, for He is a gracious and merciful God. In the book of Isaiah, Chapter 59: Verses 1-4, God says the following: 1 Behold, the LORD'S hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: 2 But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear. 3 For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness. 4 None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity. A dissection of the above four verses underscores the fact that Nigerians chased away God from Nigeria with their evil handiwork. God was willing to help out Nigeria. He was willing to show mercy and grace. But Nigeria rejected what He has got to offer. Our iniquities have separated us from God Almighty and our sins have hid his face from us that He is no longer willing to listen to our prayers. The hands of Nigerias elites in all sections - from politics to business - are defiled with blood and their fingers with iniquity. The lips of the purveyors of the Nigerian State have spoken lies and their tongues hath muttered perverseness. The Nigerian state has outlived its usefulness in the eyes of God and in the hearts of its peoples. The various Nations shackled within the Evil Nigerian State are seeking ways to escape the wicked machinations of its wicked political class and its extensions in business, in judiciary, in journalism, in Armed Forces and the Police among many others. The purveyors and advocates of ONE NIGERIA are sadists who take joy in holding others in bondage. They are slave masters who should be resisted by all and every means. They are wicked, cruel, mean and do not deserve any benefit of the doubt. Readers should look around themselves and judge the extent of the wickedness of the political class and its sentries. All these champions of ONE NIGERIA or UNITY OF NIGERIA are mean-spirited human beings, heartless slave masters, beneficiaries of fraud and corruption, who want to hold the Nations in Nigeria in perpetual chain. The fourth verse of the above quote pinpoints that despite the killing of children, women and thousands of innocent souls across the land, the purveyors of the evil Nigerian State could not stand up for the people. From amongst them None calleth for justice for the Yoruba people burnt alive in Ketu, Lagos; or the Ekiti farmers slaughtered on their land; or the Oyo farmers killed in their homes; or the massacred Agatu people; or the Birom; or the Southern Kaduna people or the IPOB and other Biafran agitators. That fourth verse also insists that neither has any pleadeth for truth among the purveyors of the EVIL NIGERIAN STATE. How many of them have you heard solidarising with Omoyele Sowore, or Dapo Olorunyomi? How many of them have you heard saying anything about the killing of Christians and other innocent souls across the North, the East, the West and the South? It does not matter that among the purveyors of the evil Nigerian State, there are Christians, General Overseers, Bishops, Reverends, Pastors all of whom are beneficiaries of evil and wickedness; beneficiaries from the miseries and the agonies of the people. They all preach peace while their followers are being slaughtered in manners and forms that even goats could not and should not be slaughtered. Their hearts are wicked as they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity. It does follow that sins of the evil Nigerian State and its wicked and cruel champions yelling ONE NIGERIA would not allow the blessing of God manifest in the life of the country. As the Book of Romans in Chapter 6 Verses 1 and 2 reiterated in the following words: 1. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? 2 God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? The meaning of the above lines is simple. Nigeria cannot be in sin and continue to expect the blessings of God. It does not work like that. Nigeria and its purveyors either renounce sins (which seems too late at this point), show remorse so that God and His blessing could abide. But there is no doubt that the evil Nigerian State and its beneficiaries championing fake unity would continue its journey towards the path of perdition and its eventual dismantlement into different Nations beloved by God Almighty. Apart from chasing away God from evil Nigeria with the sins of its purveyors, the act of putting all these Nations in one country is against the rule of God. Unknown to many, God is Nature and Nature is God. When you cheat Nature, you cheat God. But we all have come to the realization that you cannot cheat Nature and by extension, God. The laws of Nature are the laws of God and the laws of God are the laws of Nature. God has a reason for creating all animals in their various habitats including human beings. The attempt of man to turn this upside down has resulted in wars, famine, deaths and unspeakable calamities. The Yoruba, Tiv, Kanuri, Birom, Igbo, Edo, Ibiobio, Mumuye, Kataf, Ogoni, Hausa Fulani and several other peoples of several Nations shackled to the misery of Nigeria, other than being human beings and omnivorous creatures have nothing in common. They have different cultures, traditions, philosophical world views, languages and aspirations. They evolved different political systems borne out of their uniquely different experiences. It is why they would never understand each other. It is why Nigeria would never work. It is against the order of Nature and the commands of God. It is why Nigeria will break up. God set different peoples within their borders. There is a reason why God did this. In the Act of Apostles, Chapter 17: verse 26, it is written as follows: And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and THE BOUNDS OF THEIR HABITATION. (emphasis mine). Yes, the bounds of their habitation. Every ethnic nation is in the comfort of its homeland. It is important to understand that because the dove, the hen and the hawk all have feathers does not mean they are the same. They are all birds. But they are translucently different from each other. The same applies to all the Nations subjugated to the evil Nigerian state. We all belong to different Nations and do not belong to the same country. And it is very evident that we do not want to belong to the same country in accordance to the rule and wish of God Almighty. This is because God said through the Psalmist in Chapter 74: Verse17 that He hast set all the borders of the earth.. In the Book of Romans, Chapter 10, Verse 11, God commanded prophesies before peoples of many Nations and not Countries. He spoke of people of different tongues and kings. In Nigeria, it is estimated that there are more than 350 ethnic nationalities with distinct languages and cultures. Why must they all be lumped together except in slavery and subjugation. If they have to be together, then it has to be their decision. Let there be plebiscites locally organized in each Nation to see if they want to surrender their independence to an evil State like Nigeria or not. In Romans Chapter 15, verse 4, this position of the Lord, God Almighty was confirmed when it is posited that ..all nations shall come and worship before thee; for thy judgments are made manifest. The Bible did not speak of countries but Nations such as the Edo Nation, the Kanuri Nation, the Ogoni Nation, the Agatu Nation, the Igbo Nation, the Mumuye Nation, the Oodua Nation, the Kataf Nation, the Birom Nation and several other nations tied to the aprons of misery and woes as represented by Nigeria and daily advocated by its sadistic purveyors. In Revelation Chapter 7, verse 9, it is also written as follows: After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands We should all henceforth seek not to contradict the commands of God. We should immediately stop seeking to rob and cheat Nature. Nigeria would not remain a single unit. It does not matter how much the thieves, the slave masters, the pen robbers, the beneficiaries of corruption and the unjust system represented by Nigeria shout ONE NIGERIA and sing the mantra of UNITY, Nigeria will meet its God-appointed destiny of Balkanisation, My people will be free. Oodua shall be free. Biafra shall be free. The Niger Delta shall be free. The Tiv shall be free. The much-maligned Kataf of Southern Kaduna shall be free. The oppressed Agatu shall be free. All those who desire freedom from the miasma and injustice of Nigeria shall be free. It is Gods promise. And no single word of God shall go unfulfilled as stated in Matthew 24 verse 35; Luke 21 verse 23 and Isaiah 55, verse11. In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility I welcome it. - John F. Kennedy, in his Inaugural Address January 20, 1961 Remi Oyeyemi. VICTORIA, British Columbia If Prince Harry ever gets lonesome for royal life while in Canada, he can always visit his great-great-great-great-grandmother, perched at a dining room table over a glass of sherry, her hair lovingly shampooed and fluffed by one of her most devoted subjects. Until last week, Ken Lane, who once ran the Royal London Wax Museum in Victoria, British Columbia, kept Queen Victorias wax head in a box in his basement, stored with the heads of Elvis, Grumpy Smurf and other items from the museum, which shut down in 2010. But after the recent arrival of Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, in Victoria, Mr. Lane decided to move the figure of Queen Victoria upstairs. He spent three days getting her ready for display, coifing and styling her real human hair imported from Italy. Wearing a crown, she now presides at his dining room table, as if in mid-conversation, with the figures of Queen Elizabeth II; Diana, Princess of Wales; and Winston Churchill. Union Jack napkins are at the ready, and multicolor Skittles are available for snacking. Iraqi protesters dig in heels despite new PM-designate Baghdad, Feb 2 (AFP) Feb 02, 2020 Furious anti-government youth dug in their heels in Iraq's capital and south on Sunday, rejecting the previous evening's nomination of Mohammad Allawi as premier after months of demonstrations and political paralysis. Allawi was named prime minister-designate after a hard-won consensus among Iraq's rival parties, who had struggled to agree on a candidate since outgoing premier Adel Abdel Mahdi resigned under growing street pressure two months ago. Mass rallies have rocked Baghdad and the mainly-Shiite south since October, with protesters demanding snap elections and an independent prime minister as well as accountability for corruption and recent bloodshed. Young demonstrators have expressed contempt for the ruling elite and on Sunday, they slammed Allawi -- a former lawmaker and minister -- as part and parcel of the system they want to overhaul. "Mohammad Allawi is rejected, by order of the people!" read a new sign hung in the holy city of Najaf on Sunday. Young men with their faces wrapped in checkered scarves had spent the night torching car tyres in anger at Allawi's nomination and smouldering remains still blocked the main roads on Sunday, an AFP reporter there said. In Diwaniyah, further south, protesters marched into government buildings to demand they close for the day while students began sit-ins at schools and universities. Protesters in Hillah blocked off all roads leading into the city and chanted, "Allawi is not the people's choice!" - Students revolt in Baghdad - In Baghdad, hundreds of students flooded the streets around the main protest camp of Tahrir Square, carrying Allawi's photograph with an "X" over his face. "We are here to reject the new prime minister because he has a well-known history within the political class," said 22-year-old university student Tiba. Allawi, 65, served as a parliamentarian immediately after the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled ex-dictator Saddam Hussein, then was twice appointed communications minister under former prime minister Nuri al-Maliki. But he resigned both times, accusing Maliki of turning a blind eye to graft in a country considered among the top 20 most corrupt in the world by Transparency International. His appointment came after days of crisis talks prompted by President Barham Saleh, who said he would select his own candidate if the political blocs of Iraq's parliament did not nominate someone by Saturday. Allawi had been among the top contenders for the post, but the stalemate continued into the late afternoon, Iraqi government sources told AFP on condition of anonymity. The talks were very secretive and it remains unclear what finally unlocked a deal, but on Saturday evening, Allawi announced his own nomination in a video posted to Twitter. There was no official statement from Saleh, but Abdel Mahdi congratulated his successor and the pair pledged to meet soon to ensure a smooth transition. - Sadr seeks to curb rallies - In his first formal address, Allawi vowed to form a representative government, hold early parliamentary elections and ensure justice for protest-related violence. More than 480 people have died and nearly 30,000 have been wounded since the rallies began on October 1, but few have been held accountable for the bloodshed. Allawi has one month to form his government, but ensuring its independence may prove a challenge, said Sajad Jiyad of the Iraq-based think tank the Bayan Center. "If we've learned anything from the previous PM, it's that this is the most difficult part: pushing back against the political blocs' demands," Jiyad told AFP. In Iraq, cabinets are typically formed after complex horsetrading whereby parties demand lucrative and influential ministerial posts based on their share of parliament. If Allawi fails to resist ministerial candidates proposed by parties, "it will back up what protesters are saying" about his allegiance to the factions, Jiyad added. Among the most powerful of Iraq's political players is populist cleric Moqtada Sadr, who welcomed Allawi's nomination on Saturday as a "good step". Sadr backed the protests in October and his die-hard followers are widely recognised as the most organised and well-equipped among anti-government demonstrators. But on Sunday, Sadr ordered members of his movement to organise with security forces to reopen roads and schools, contrary to what other protesters across Iraq were doing. "The revolution must go back to being restrained and peaceful," Sadr wrote on Twitter. That tweet and his endorsement of Allawi were seen as a betrayal by other protesters in Baghdad, who chanted "Don't tweet however you please," hinting at Sadr, and "We are a young, leaderless revolution!" Nicolas Williams was charged in at least three rapes over the past five years. Detectives suspect the 27-year-old had committed others. But it only took one to set him up for a possible sentence of more than 50 years in prison. On Friday a jury found Williams guilty of kidnapping and four counts of criminal sexual penetration while armed with a deadly weapon for the 2015 rape of a woman at gunpoint. After a five day trial, the jury deliberated for about an hour before reaching its verdict, Michael Patrick, a 2nd Judicial District Attorney spokesman, said. The case stems from March 2015 when a woman told police she was working as a prostitute near Central and Wyoming when a man later identified as Williams picked her up. The woman said he drove her up the street and raped her repeatedly while holding a gun to her head. The DNA evidence from the case sat in a rape kit for four years before being tested and coming back as a match for Williams. Detectives tracked down the woman and she picked Williams out of a lineup. By that time, Williams was already accused in two similar rapes in 2018 one at a park in the southeast Albuquerque and one that was dismissed by prosecutors when they werent able to reach the victim. MPs have been warned of the catastrophic cost of allowing Chinese tech firm Huawei to build our 5G networks in an unprecedented letter from 42 US congressmen. The letter, sent to the Commons Defence Select Committee, warns: The Government and private industry in China work together to expand the influence of the ruling Communist Party. Huawei is no exception to this strategy. Any short-term financial savings stemming from Huawei involvement in the UKs 5G network may evaporate due to long-term costs of monitoring. US congressmen urged the UK to 'exhaust all opportunities to reject or amend the legislation' working with Chinese firm Huawei (pictured). In a letter to the Commons Defence Select Committee, they warned: 'The UKs willingness to unlock and open the door to the Chinese government will certainly frustrate intelligence sharing activities between our countries' And in a stark warning, they added: The UKs willingness to unlock and open the door to the Chinese government will certainly frustrate intelligence sharing activities between our countries. We strongly urge you to exhaust all opportunities to reject or amend the legislation. The US House of Representatives, of which the politicians are members, will have a key say in any trade deal signed with Britain, risking the Huawei row overshadowing talks. Boris Johnson is facing his first major Tory backlash after giving the firm the green light for a limited role in British networks. Boris Johnson (pictured with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo where they discussed the role of Huawei on January 30) is insisting that the firm supply no more than 35 per cent of non-core equipment like antennae, but furious backbenchers want that cap lowered The Prime Minister is insisting that the firm supply no more than 35 per cent of non-core equipment like antennae, but furious backbenchers want that cap lowered and former Cabinet Minister David Davis has called for a ban on Huawei involvement. Meanwhile, outgoing Defence Committee chairman Julian Lewis has sought assurances over the safeguards required after warning the telecoms company is intimately linked with the Chinese Communist state and its deeply hostile intelligence agencies. Western firms have been unable to compete with Huawei on 5G in either cost of technical advancement, leaving Mr Johnson to argue his pledges for super-fast broadband for all can only be met by the firm. Huawei denies all espionage allegations. By David Veasey The Stanley Congregational Church of Chatham, closed its doors forever on Jan. 12th, after 152 years of Sunday services and more. When I attended church there as a child and teenager in the 1950s the church was so popular it held two Sunday morning services to accommodate worshippers at 9:30 and 11. Probably close to 500 people attended. In its final year, according to a friend who stayed active in the church, attendance averaged 10 people at the 10clock and only service. Stanley Church ended just months before the official 400th birthday of the Congregational Church; the American church created by the original Puritans at Plymouth in December 1620. As I sat in the back row of pews on that last Sunday, I remembered Sunday school classes being marched into church for part of the service or the youth fellowship talks on sex and other topics thought to be relevant to teenagers. A field trip to Fisk College in Nashville exposed lily-white teenagers from small-town Chatham to a Black College. Other memories danced across my conciseness, my first communion in eighth grade, my fathers funeral in December 1980, friends weddings, and a controversial sermon that was talked about for years delivered by a family friend who was a minister and one of the deans at Drew University, criticizing American mothers on Mothers Day. But like a growing number of Americans I stopped going to church decades ago. Over the last decade, the number of Protestants has dropped from 51% of the adult population to just 43%, according to the latest Pew Research. The percentage of Americans who attended religious services at least once or twice a month dropped by 7 percentage points. During the same period, the number of Congregation churches United Church of Christ --has dropped by approximately 7.5%. The Congregational Churchs national office in Cleveland even has a minister for church closures. The theme of that final service, Rising to New Life, tried to put a brave face on the final day of what had to be a difficult occasion for the older members. The advanced age of most the parishioners and guests was reflected in a footnote to the hymns in the church program that said: If you are able to do so comfortably, you are invited to stand. For the first time, it was announced, there would not be an offering. Instead, they passed out slips of paper on offering plates and asked all in attendance to write one word about what the church means or meant to you. Then, they asked us to put that piece of paper in our pocket and to take it out sometime in the future to remind ourselves of that thought. I wrote learning. The service lasted a couple of hours with about 45 minutes devoted to the numerous groups that either met at the church or had other ties to the building: the Boy Scouts, Bridges Outreach, Green Faith, the mayor and assorted other groups. After the service, dozens of congregants mingled, standing by their pews, others in the vestibule, seemingly not wanting to leave. David Veasey is an author, a journalist and has worked as a financial writer for Moodys Investors Service. Hes the author of several books about New Jersey. The Star-Ledger/NJ.com encourages submissions of opinion. Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow us on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and on Facebook at NJ.com Opinion. Get the latest news updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. Here she reflects on the highs, lows and I cant believe she said that! moments of being Britains most groundbreaking confessional columnist for 20 years 'The act of writing things down makes them less real or hurtful. It saves me. Liz wears suit, joseph-fashion.com The first Monday back at work after the new millennium, 20 years ago, I met my former boss for a drink. I regaled him with the story that, on the most important date night of the century, I had been stood up. He actually snorted vodka out of his nose. No! Yes! I was the only human on earth who spent Millennium Eve alone. Despite the fact I had a fancy new job as editor of Marie Claire, a wardrobe to match, a gorgeous house, a company car and free beauty products and spa treatments on tap, the man I had been on a couple of dates with and was madly in love with failed to materialise. Rather than see me, he preferred to go down to stand in the cold by the Thames to watch the fireworks with his mates. My former boss thought this so hilarious, he hired me on the spot to write a weekly column. At first, he wanted to call it Only Me!, but then plumped for Single File. Bridget Jones was very much in the air as the first movie was soon to be released, and I was deemed good enough to replace her in the national psyche, mainly as my second name is Jones. I had been editing columnists for years Bridget creator Helen Fielding herself, Zoe Heller and then ghostwriting for celebrities including Tara Palmer-Tomkinson and Meg Mathews (then wife of Noel Gallagher; whenever he read what Id written, hed call up and shout down the phone. I responded with a rather lame, But its OK to write a song about your wife? A columns not that different). I knew what was required: a column had to be compelling, so no boring paragraphs. End with a cliffhanger to keep readers hooked. Above all, it had to be funny, authentic and it must have a voice: ie, you pick it up and you instantly know whos written it. Do you have to have a huge ego to be self-obsessed enough to write about yourself week in, week out? I never did. I dont really care that much about myself at all. And so it began. Of course, inevitably, four months later Id met a man I described only as the 26-year-old. I warned my editors they might have to change the title of the column. Dont worry, they said. It wont last. Anything over a ten-year age gap wont work. The moment I realised my column was a hit was during London Fashion Week, September 2000. I was approaching the Alexander McQueen show, and some students in the queue started yelling, Liz! Whats in the box? Whats in the box!? Id written that the 26-year-old (I was 41) had given me a small jewellery box. False alarm! I told them. Earrings. Paste. Everyone groaned. (My column has been spoofed endlessly since; one newspaper published a parody of the divorce period. Him: I need to be a dad. Me: You want a baby? Does Prada do them? Lets just buy one! The 26-year-old was swiftly unmasked by Fleet Street and by the fact he kept visiting me in the office and accompanying me down red carpets as Nirpal Dhaliwal, an aspiring writer. At first he didnt mind being in the column (he called it his high-profile naughtiness) as it was all about things like him turning up to meet me at the airport for a holiday in Thailand (we took lots of holidays), disappearing to Boots, finding me at the gate and asking anxiously, Dyou think 400 condoms will be enough? But as I became more confident in my writing, his career stalled. Then, after we got married (the column became The Wedding Planner and then Married Life) and I discovered his infidelities, he understandably resented the column more and more. He asked me to stop writing to save our marriage. I promised him I would, and then discovered he had cheated again so of course I secretly kept on filing. I was on Eurostar on my way back from the Paris fashion shows, it was a Sunday, and he was screaming down the phone about what Id written (theres a four-week gap between what I write and publication). You f***ing hag! His temper was exacerbated as only the day before a national newspaper, in an interview with him about his first novel, had put my name in the headline and all the questions had been about me. He was so awful living off me, cheating on me that my columns (renamed Liz Joness Diary), instead of being a weekly bit of light relief, became a rubber ring I clung to, its contents like those of a black box after a plane crash. I would sift through them, trying to see where I went wrong, looking for signs he had gone off me. The pressures? Its not like working down a mine, but do bear in mind I never, ever get a week off. So for 20 years (approximately 800,000 words; there are 587,000 in War and Peace, and 783,000 in the King James Bible), whatever Im doing (in hospital having my fibroids removed/in Jamaica falling in love with my future husband/up a mountain in Pakistan after an earthquake) you will find me scrabbling around at 3am trying to find a phone socket/signal. I try to file my copy before the man in my life wakes up and asks what Im doing. I even kept filing during an earthquake in Los Angeles, when my chair actually moved across the hotel room. Liz with her famous dogs Gracie (standing) and Mini. Liz wears suit, Michael Michael Kors The column also makes me strangely detached. Its as though I have an invisible shield. On an African island with my husband, learning of yet another woman hed slept with, a huge part of me was thinking, Great. This will make a two-parter! The act of writing things down makes them less real. Less hurtful. Its as though my life is not really happening to me. The same detachment happened the day my mum died. I got to her house, kissed her cold alabaster forehead, and my immediate response was to prise open my laptop. My eldest sister was aghast. How can you write your stupid column at a time like this? But I can. Its years of training. Its cathartic. It saves me. I know, sometimes, it saves you, too. The other day, having lunch with my dogs, a woman came and perched next to me. Liz, your writing has got me through the hardest times of my life, she whispered, squeezed my hand and disappeared. In a deli the other week, an ancient farmers widow, who it turns out lives alone in the middle of nowhere, came up, grasped my elbow and said, Hows David? You can come to me if he goes off on one this Christmas! My column lost me not just lovers the millennial no-show, whom I only referred to as the Osama Bin Laden Lookalike (he recently blanked me in Ronnie Scotts jazz club); and a mystery man in Australia who balked at being exposed but numerous friends as well, often for the most innocuous of reasons. But it has gifted me (or dug up, depending on your point of view) David, who would otherwise have been lost to the mists of time. Because over the years he had read about how much I was in love with him back in 1983, he had the courage to eventually get in touch (its also how I met the Rock Star; he emailed me after reading a column about past celebrity crushes, I hear youve gone off me). Well, thats not strictly true about David getting in touch: hes far too indolent. His mother read my column, saw her sons name and called me, asking me to get in touch with him as he had fallen on hard times and was living in a hostel. Which I did. The thought process being? Yes, you guessed it. I thought meeting him for lunch would make a good column (Ive been known to sit and type during arguments). Ive written that he cant ejaculate, has few teeth, an ex-girlfriend who uses cheap hair products (she left them behind in his flat) and has the conversational skills of a potato. I keep betraying him, saying what I do is just a job, but he knows its more than that. He knows if its a choice between him and the column, the column will win. But, unlike most relationships, there are no secrets in ours. He knows what Im thinking. He knows what infuriates me. The column can sometimes be a love letter. It can sometimes spit with rage and disappointment. Its often a great way of wreaking revenge. The kindness of my readers, the only people Im loyal to, has been the biggest revelation of the past two decades. When I wrote about being made bankrupt and losing my house, women would turn up, unload boxes of dog food and place them wordlessly on my doorstep. I received thousands of cards when a cat or dog or horse died, as well as poems, paintings (often of me) and prayers. One woman in Sheffield even recognised all my stuff on Ebay, and bought it to help with Gracies vet bill (collecting a lamp, she got to meet Gracie, an encounter that made all of us cry). Humbling, truly: three close friends are all readers who bothered to get in touch. In return, I try not to short-change my readers. When I sit down to start each column, I always picture you in the bath on a Sunday night, desperate to find out how I am, and know I cannot let you down with a lazy list (actually, I think I have done a couple of lists), or a missive about how to load the dishwasher. I suppose this is why the column has lasted this long (five house moves, two lost London flats, two dead siblings, numerous departed beloved pets, one divorce, one face-lift and three proposals; not that many men, to be honest: we could have done with a few more). The only constant has been me or Only Me! I dont pretend everything is great. I write about going through betrayal, poverty, adult acne, incontinence, my new beard, severe depression and the menopause so that my readers know they are not alone in their own complicated, messy lives. Often, Im so ashamed to tell you what Ive done (had Botox, lied about my age, dated two different men in one weekend, gone to a cashpoint to discover I only had 3 in the bank), but I know you will understand, as so many of you have been there too. So, Happy Birthday, me! Happy Birthday also to anyone whos been with me for the ride. Sorry its been so bumpy. The questions I am asked the most Do I ever make anything up? Never. I think readers can tell if youre not 100 per cent authentic. I wish all of it had been fiction. Who is the Rock Star? I could say I wanted to keep one area of my life private, but the truth is he set his lawyers on me, especially after the bit where I wrote his penis would need a book, not a mere column. If it hadnt been for my Diary, I would have had a rich and famous husband. No question. Do I regret writing anything? Of course. I tend to file my column, then hope by the time its published I will be dead/he will be dead/the internet will be down. I wrote that on my wedding day the best man took me aside and said, If it all goes tits up, call me. Which almost lost my husband his best friend. Worst moment? When I returned home to Somerset to discover my postbox riddled with bullet holes, it made national news. This led to me hiring a security firm and putting my farm on the market at a grossly deflated price. The police told me much later the shots were fired by boys who wanted to see if they could get a mention in your column. Has it shaped my life decisions? When I got divorced, I was living in a gorgeous Georgian townhouse in an Islington square. But life was boring after my husband moved out and I thought, what next? So I rescued a horse and moved to the country. Huge mistake. How does David stand it? He knew I was a columnist when he asked me out. His feeling was that writing about him was fine as long as I didnt hurt him, which of course I did. After a row over me writing Id emailed a man in Australia, he swore never to read the column again. But it wont last. Hes obsessed. How on earth did I become bankrupt? Ive always been overgenerous in a bid to be liked. I bought my sister a cottage, which felled me. My chance at getting back on track was to do Celebrity Big Brother; unfortunately, this meant I was sacked from one of my positions, halving my income overnight. HM Revenue and Customs said I could keep the cottage and live in it but lose my lovely house in the Dales. I said I couldnt do that to her. I lost everything. What will I write about for the next 20 years? I always write every column as if it were my last. My friends dont call me Eeyore for nothing. CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Ahead of the March 17 presidential primary, the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections wants to shut down myths and rumors about elections and voting, with the help of the Cuyahoga County Public Library. The board will break down misunderstandings about casting ballots during several February sessions at library branches. You hear all these things that are just misstatements about the election process, Cuyahoga County Board of Elections Director Anthony Perlatti said. The board of elections hopes by laying out the facts, more voters will feel confidence in the election process. One common myth: absentee, or vote-by-mail ballots only count if the race is close. Thats not true, Perlatti said. Absentee, or vote-by-mail ballots are always counted, and actually get counted first. That ballot counts just as much as a ballot counts cast on Election Day at the polls, Perlatti said. Another common myth: felons who have finished their prison sentence cant vote in Ohio. While laws vary from state to state, in Ohio, people with felony convictions can re-register to vote upon leaving prison. Another common misconception surrounds voter security. Theres an assumption that your vote is automatically transmitted to the board of elections through the internet or the cloud. Voting scanners are not connected to the internet. Votes are recorded on a memory stick, and the board of elections also keeps the hard paper copy of ballots in case theres an issue. The memory sticks are transferred to computers disconnected from the internet, in order to be counted. Every 15 minutes the Board of Election uses a fresh American-made USB stick to transfer those results directly to a computer connected to the Ohio Secretary of States website, and also upload those results to their website. A brand new USB stick is used every time results are uploaded, so raw election data never touches the internet. Learn more facts about elections at these presentations at these Cuyahoga County Public Library branches: Fairview Park branch, Feb. 6, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Maple Heights branch, Feb. 11, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Strongsville branch, Feb. 12, 6 to 7:30 p.m. Parma branch, Feb. 19, 6:30 to 8 p.m. You can register to vote for the March primary until Feb. 18 at 9 p.m. Read more on this subject here: After the polls close on Election Day, heres how the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections counts your vote STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- If weather forecasters and a fluffy groundhog are right, you might be able to trade your boots for flip flops, and don your spring wardrobe early this year. In addition to Staten Islands resident groundhog Chuck predicting an early spring, meteorologists and the Farmers Almanac say winter 2020 will be a mild one. The way groundhog predictions go is when the animal sees his shadow, were stuck with six more weeks of winter. If there is no shadow sighting, then spring is right around the corner. Chuck, who has a 80% accuracy rate, apparently got it right yet again this year. Last year, Chuck predicted an early spring -- and was right, while weather forecasters and the Farmers Almanac begged to differ. This year, it seems everyone is pointing toward an early spring. Winter temperatures will be much above normal, on average, with the coldest periods in mid- and late January and early and late February. Precipitation will be above normal, with below-normal snowfall. The snowiest periods will occur in mid- and late January and early February, says the Farmers Almanac. April and May will be warmer than normal, with precipitation near normal in the north and above normal in the south. NYC Winter Weather said the coldest temperatures came in January and may linger through early February. Our current expectation is for temperatures to average near or slightly above average in NYC, said NYC Winter Weather. And this weeks Accuweather forecast, predicts temperatures above normal for this time of year, rising to 56 degrees on Monday, and 55 degrees on Tuesday. While theres not much snow predicted for New York City this year, forecasters say it has been and will continue to be wetter than normal with many rainy days. CHUCKS ACCURACY The magic number in determining the accuracy of Chucks prediction is 40 degrees. In the two months following Groundhog Day, local school children will keep track and record the temperature to determine how many days are above or below 40 degrees. If more days are above 40 degrees -- Chucks prediction of an early spring will be deemed to be accurate. See Chuck make his prediction on this Facebook livestream: After a man fired aerial shots at Shaheen Bagh on Saturday, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, while citing statements of few BJP leaders, questioned what will be the reaction from people if those holding posts use such language. "West Bengal BJP president said that 'hum kutte ki tarah marenge'. A BJP minister from Uttar Pradesh said 'hum goli se bhun denge'. What will be the reaction from people if those holding posts use such language?" Baghel said. The police have detained the man, identified as Kapil Gujjar, a resident of Dallupura village near Delhi-Noida border, said Chinmoy Biswal, DCP, South-East. "The police personnel overpowered and detained him on the spot while he was firing in the air. He is being interrogated. He said his name is Kapil. An FIR is being registered and further investigation is underway," he said. According to Delhi Police sources, Kapil has told the police that the anti-CAA protest at Shaheen Bagh caused traffic jams in the area. His cousin sister's wedding was coming up and he used to get stuck in traffic for hours while going to Lajpat Nagar to make arrangements. Hence, he took this step. The weapon used by him has been seized. No injuries were reported in the incident. Protests against the CAA have been going on at Shaheen Bagh for over a month now. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Source: Xinhua| 2020-02-02 14:32:22|Editor: Xiang Bo Video Player Close CHICAGO, Feb. 1 (Xinhua) -- About 100 people gathered in the Claudia Cassidy Theater of the Cultural Center in downtown Chicago on Saturday to watch four short documentary films about Chinese culture and photography. Asian Pop-Up Cinema, a semi-annual Asian film festival, presented the program, which was part of the citywide Chinese New Year celebration in the third largest city of the United States. "This is our fifth year to participate in the citywide Chinese New Year celebration," said Sophia Wong Boccio, founder of the film festival. The four documentaries showcased were selected from the "Wonder of China" documentary series. "They were produced by the China Broad View Cultural Communication Center in Beijing," Boccio told Xinhua. Each 30 minutes, the four documentary films present different cultures and landscapes in China. "Wudang Tai Chi" is about Taoism-derived Chinese martial art that emphasizes not only Kung Fu movements, but also the harmony between humanity and nature, whereas "The Legend of Shadow Puppetry" is about the shadow puppetry art that has been passed on for generations. "Amazing Music from Nature" showcases Khoomei, a traditional Mongolian art of singing. In the film, multi-ethnic young musicians combined modern folk elements with Khoomei technique, forming a new musical style. Their music powerfully illustrates Mongolian nature and the nomadic lifestyle. "Yarlung Zanpo Grand Canyon" presents a group of Chinese wildlife photographers who went to the most inaccessible canyon and photographed more than 800 wild species and the beautiful landforms in Tibet. "I attend many Chinese New Year celebration activities," said 71-year-old Kam Liu, a veteran in the Chicago Chinese community. "This is so different and beautiful." "I love the shadow puppetry," said Adam Para of Chicago. Para said that he had been to China many times, but this was the first time he was exposed to the art of shadow puppetry. Para showed a texted message on his cell phone from his 20-year-old granddaughter who said she had attended a Chinese New Year celebration in London. "We love celebrating Chinese New Year," he said, laughing. "I'm stunned by the beauty of the photographs," said 49-year-old Guillermo Morales who came from Chili and lives in Chicago now. "The wildlife and sceneries the photographers were able to capture are amazing." "I find the Mongolian musicians most amazing," said Martin Montoya, a friend of Morales. "The singing is so dynamic and powerful." The Chinese Consulate General in Chicago provided stuffed animals, books and other items as raffle awards for the attendees of the event. Jessica Peterson, 43, who was visiting Chicago from Minneapolis, was among 10 lucky winners of the raffle awards. "This is a happy rat," she said, raising two identical stuffed red rats in her hands. "My 10-year-old son would love them." The citywide Chinese New Year celebration in Chicago started on Jan. 25 and will last till Feb. 9. Programs include a variety of performances, parades, special events and hands-on art-making activities. Education, Minister, Matthew Opoku Prempeh says subjects that go contrary to the cultural values, norms and religious sensitivities of the country will not be accepted in the new school curriculum. The government in 2019 announced the introduction of a new curriculum for basic schools in the country. There were fears that the new curriculum put together by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NaCCA) was to introduce school children to Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE). The government received a lot of backlash from Religious groups, Civil Society Organizations, traditional leaders, politicians, as well as the public over the CSE subject. At a stakeholder engagement by the Ministry of Education on the in-school reproductive health education, Mr Opoku Prempeh said the government's position on the matter had not changed. Those views will be collected, collated, sensitized and wherever sections of the guidelines do not sit with our cultural values and norms and religious sensitivities will be expunged. If they are indeed in line with the norms of this country, then the nod will be given. We must make sure that the right things are done for the citizenry, the Minister said. Background The government and United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) launched the Comprehensive Sexuality Education programme in February 2019 but concerns were raised about the potential for pupils to be given awareness of sexuality and LGBTQ issues at too early a stage. Groups such as the Minority in Parliament, civil society organizations and religious bodies called on the government to withdraw the CSE from the new syllabus. However, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo reiterated that he will not destroy the values and culture of Ghanaians through the introduction of the Comprehensive Sexuality Education into Ghana's Educational System stating that he understands the values of the Ghanaian society and would not attempt to destroy it for anything. citinewsroom "We have had periods of outages because the technology is getting old," Police Chief Jeff Bliemeister said. "It's critical (computer-aided dispatch) be active and in service." Currently, when someone calls 911, the call taker types information being relayed to them and the computer system transmits that information to the dispatcher, who assigns the call to the available fire or police personnel. The computer-aided dispatch system also transmits the information to the computers police have in their cruisers. A mapping function available through computer-aided dispatch technology but not being used currently because of the city's antiquated system could show officers or fire crews the fastest way to get to a call, Bliemeister said. And an upgrade would allow the city to utilize software that alerts the dispatcher to the closest available unit to a call, the police chief said. In August, city officials projected the overall cost of upgrading the computer-aided dispatch system at $1.7 million. On Sunday evening, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge joined a slew of A-listers on the red carpet at the annual EE British Academy Film Awards (BAFTAs). The 2020 awards marked Prince Williams 10th anniversary as BAFTA president, as well as the ceremonys first sustainably-focused red carpet. Single use plastic was banned from the event and celebrity guests were encouraged to re-wear something they already owned, or rent or borrow an outfits. The Duchess obeyed the rules and arrived at the event wearing a dazzling floor-length gown with gold embroidery by Alexander McQueen, which she first wore in 2012. The Duchess of Cambridge re-wore an Alexander McQueen number from 2012 at the 2020 BAFTAs. [Photo: Getty/PA] The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge attending the 73rd British Academy Film Awards. [Photo: PA] The Duchess of Cambridge wearing the Alexander McQueen number in Kuala Lumpur on September 13, 2012. [Photo: Getty] The 38-year-old debuted the evening dress during the Duke and Duchess Diamond Jubilee Tour to Malaysia. Kate refreshed the look with glitzy gold accessories, including a pair of sparkly Jimmy Choo Romy pumps and a matching clutch bag. The mum-of-three also didnt shy away when it came to jewellery, opting for some major bling in the form of a statement clover leaf necklace and matching drop earrings by Van Cleef & Arpels. Many on Twitter praised Kate for re-wearing a dress from her wardrobe. How beautiful does Kate look in that dress !!!! jojo3970 (@joanneskowronek) February 2, 2020 I am glad Kate decided to re-wear a dress to BAFTAs. & I like that she choose a dress we haven't seen in awhile. It is great the BAFTA is showing that Sustainable fashion is still fashion & you have choices. You don't have to wear same old dress all the time. Gert's Royals (@Gertsroyals) February 2, 2020 Kate sticking to this years sustainable theme and rewearing a dress she last wore 8 YEARS AGO! I love her#BAFTAs pic.twitter.com/AzCaI4pyDU Kate (@R0gerMTayl0r) February 2, 2020 One fan commented: Kate sticking to this years sustainable theme and rewearing a dress she last wore 8 YEARS AGO! I love her. While another said: How beautiful does Kate look in that dress!! WASHINGTON New Jerseys rookie members of Congress are trying to do something they havent done before: Win re-election with President Donald Trump on the ballot. The three Democratic first-termers all have banked more than $2 million apiece while Republicans seek to use their votes for impeachment against them, according to new Federal Election Commission reports covering the period through Dec. 31, 2019. A fourth Jersey rookie, Rep. Jeff Van Drew, switched to the Republican Party after opposing Trumps impeachment. He had more than $1 million to spend at the beginning of 2020. Heres a look at the most recent reports. President Donald Trump speaks at the Wildwoods Convention Center. on Jan. 28, 2020.Aristide Economopoulos | NJ Advance Media Impeachment looms over 2020 Trump was only the third president ever to be impeached. We talk about impeachment, were basically talking about abuse of power, said Rep. Frank Pallone Jr., D-6th Dist. Its the same thing we saw in Atlantic City, abuse of power at a different level." I continue to hear from people who were stiffed when he built those casinos, he said. Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh said the Democrats saw impeachment as a way to win in 2020. They see the success of the presidents policies and they see him on an unstoppable march to re-election, Murtaugh said. And it scares them. They see the progress and they see the success and they see his reelection on the horizon and they dont know what to do. U.S. voters were evenly divided over whether Trump should be removed from office, with 47 percent saying yes and 48 percent saying no in a recent Quinnipiac University poll. Democrats ask Van Drew for their money back After Van Drew switched sides, Pallone quickly asked for his contributions back. So did Rep. Cheri Bustos, D-Ill., chairwoman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. And House Appropriations Chairwoman Nita Lowey, D-N.Y. In all, Van Drew refunded $45,750 to Democratic state and federal lawmakers who had contributed to his re-election campaign when he was a member of their party. Not that he will miss the money. Van Drew entered 2020 having raised $1.7 million and banking $1.1 million. That gave him a huge head start over the Democrats now hoping to unseat him. Montclair State University professor Brigid Callahan Harrison raised $45,594 and didnt spend a dime of it. None of the other Democrats reported raising any money. Van Drews last remaining Republican primary opponent, Bob Patterson, raised $160,750 and had $95,235 cash on hand. He used some of his funds to pay down a personal loan from his unsuccessful 2016 congressional campaign. Reps. Andy Kim, left, and Tom Malinowski at a Capitol Hill press conference on March 7, 2019, before the House voted on legislation overhauling campaign finance laws. No PACs, no problem The two New Jersey Democrats who defeated Republican incumbents, Reps. Andy Kim, R-3rd Dist., and Tom Malinowski, D-7th Dist., pledged not to accept contributions from corporate political action committees. As challengers, they werent going to see much corporate PAC money anyway. But as incumbents, they gave up a significant source of campaign cash. Not that they had to worry. Kim entered 2020 with $2.2 million in the bank and Malinowski had $2 million. Kim drew union official Kate Gibbs as an opponent. The International Union of Operating Engineers gave her $10,000 and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers $5,000. She had $138,403 in the bank. Both unions traditionally support Democrats: only 16 percent of engineers PAC contributions and 4 percent of electrical workers PAC donations went to Republicans last year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Then businessman David Richter shifted from challenging Van Drew to taking on Gibbs after lending his campaign $500,000. He had $515,226 to spend. In the 7th District, state Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean Jr., R-Union, raised $1.2 million and had $792,501 cash on hand. He has picked up PAC money from the anesthesiologists, dentists and home builders. Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-11th Dist., who is accepting corporate PAC donations, had $2.2 million in the bank entering 2020. GOP challenger lawyer Rosemary Becchi switched to the 11th District from the 7th District. She lent her campaign $150,000 and spent $39,583 of her own money. Becchi had $267,946 to spend. Outside groups already have gotten into the act Both sides already are benefitting from millions of dollars in outside spending. The DCCC spent more than $1 million on ads, including in New York City and Philadelphia stations, blasting Republicans for opposing House-passed legislation to reduce prescription drug prices. Theyve gotten the stories to tell: Were getting the job done, Bustos said. Its like success story after success story after success story. The American Action Network, a nonprofit with ties to House Republican leaders, is spending millions of dollars targeting endangered Democrats over impeachment, including a recent $100,000 ad buy against Kim. Rather than getting to work on the issues that make a real difference in the lives of New Jersey families, Andy Kim let this partisan obsession with impeachment totally take over Washington, spokesman Calvin Moore said. New Jerseys champion fundraiser After bringing in close to $1 million in the last three months, Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-5th Dist., built his campaign bank account balance to $7.1 million. The Democrat who most often voted with Trump in 2018, Gottheimer drew a primary from Glen Rock Councilwoman Arati Kreibich. She raised $170,025, including $5,256 from her own pocket and $63,662 in donations of $200 or less. She had $105,977 in the bank. The Republican candidates all are relying on their own money. Montvale Mayor Mike Ghassali lent his campaign $600,000, former investment banker Frank Pallotta borrowed $290,000 from himself, and John McCann, who lost to Gottheimer in 2018, took out a $55,000 personal loan. Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant or on Facebook. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips. Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. Chinese Canadians say they are already facing a repeat of the racism they experienced during the SARS outbreak. Montreal, Canada Frank Ye still remembers being rejected on the playground when he was six years old. The now 23-year-old had moved to Canada a year earlier from China, and he was starting school in the Toronto area at the height of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak of 2003. His classmates did not want to play with him. The memories I have of that time was really on an individual level about what I faced being a Chinese child at school, and that was children telling me to go away. You cant play with us because all Chinese people have SARS,' he told Al Jazeera. Now, with the novel coronavirus spreading around the world from the outbreaks epicentre in China, Ye and other Chinese Canadians say they fear the xenophobia and racism that they experienced at the height of the SARS outbreak is increasing again. Ye, a graduate student at the University of Toronto, said blaming Chinese Canadians for a virus that is not their fault is dehumanising and belittling and can be especially damaging for children. We risk really ostracising the community, we risk hurting businesses, we risk hurting people because were letting paranoia rather than facts drive how we react to this, he said. Social media driving xenophobia The coronavirus, which originated in the city of Wuhan in Chinas Hubei province, has killed at least 259 people inside the country to date. It has also spread to several countries worldwide, prompting the World Health Organization on Thursday to declare the outbreak a global emergency. Members of the Chinese-Canadian community say fears about the spread of the disease around which misinformation is rife have also led to what they feel is an uptick in xenophobia in Canada, where three confirmed cases of the coronavirus have been confirmed so far. A traveller wears a mask at Pearson airport arrivals, shortly after Toronto Public Health received notification of Canadas first presumptive confirmed case of novel coronavirus, in Toronto, Ontario [Carlos Osorio/Reuters] A similar situation developed during the SARS outbreak in 2003. There were more than 8,000 reported SARS cases at that time, and the epidemic spread to 26 countries, including Canada, where 44 people died from the disease. During the SARS outbreak, Amy Go worked at a long-term geriatric care facility in Toronto that primarily served Chinese Canadians, and she said people regularly accused them of harbouring the disease there. Go, now the interim executive director of the Chinese Canadian National Council for Social Justice, a human rights group, said social media has become the place where vile, racist comments are festering around the current coronavirus outbreak. There Amy cases in Canada. Three. Common flu kills 3,500 Canadians every year. Lets put this in perspective.] She said she has seen comments online such as, Quarantine all Chinese until Chinese virus is gone and Stop immigration from China because they carry this disease. The brazen racism people displayed online is something she said she did not see during the SARS outbreak. There are still only ultimately three [coronavirus] cases in Canada. Three. Common flu kills 3,500 Canadians every year. Lets put this in perspective, she told Al Jazeera. Go likened those attitudes to the Yellow Peril, a period of fearmongering around Chinese immigration to Canada at the turn of the 20th century. This kind of violation of human rights, this further stigmatisation, this entrenchment of Yellow Peril perception ultimately, collectively we bear the consequences, she said. When coronavirus is controlled, guess whats left still? [The idea that] Chinese are the carriers of diseases. Stigmatising the other Harris Ali, a sociology professor at Torontos York University who has researched the 2003 SARS outbreak response, said many of the racist incidents at that time were individualised. They ranged from people harassing other commuters on the bus or subway, crossing the street when someone of a particular ethnic group was walking by, or leaving hateful messages at places serving the Chinese community. In the case of the coronavirus, Ali also said social media has emerged as the main place where people are spreading xenophobia. He pointed to a recent petition set up by parents at a Toronto-area school board. Signed by nearly 10,000 people, the petition calls on the York District School Board (YDSB) to order its schools to track and name any students who recently travelled to China and ask those students to stay at home and keep isolated. York region has a large Chinese-Canadian population. There were a lot of people travelling to China before or during the Chinese New Year. We cannot be overly cautious in protecting our children, the petition read. A directions sign is seen at Sunnybrook Hospital, where a patient is being treated in isolation for what Canadian health officials said was the first presumptive confirmed case of novel coronavirus, in Toronto, Ontario [Carlos Osorio/Reuters] Ali said this Othering is harmful because it creates a situation in which people can easily find and target scapegoats. Under extreme situations, people let their guard down and [they] just lash out at the most visible, simple and apparent thing, he told Al Jazeera. The YDSB responded to the petition on January 27, saying it was important that the coronavirus not be seen as a Chinese virus or that assumptions be made about the risks of others. Situations such as these can regrettably give rise to discrimination based on perceptions, stereotypes and hate, the school board said in an open letter. Its important that we not make assumptions about students or staff based on their race or travel history. According to Ali, xenophobia can also have a harmful effect on the ability to fight the spread of a disease. If someone fears being shunned for being associated with a virus, he or she may not come forward to see a doctor, and then the virus will be more difficult to contain and treat. Stigmatisation is important. It does play into the physical aspects of the disease spread; theyre not separable, Ali said. Public health Justin Kong, executive director of the Chinese Canadian National Council Toronto chapter, a local advocacy group not directly affiliated with Amy Gos organisation, said a general climate of fear has developed around the virus among all residents of the city. Within the Chinese-Canadian community, he said that fear is two-fold: People are afraid of the disease itself, as well as any possible social ramifications they could face as a group. We saw that [with] SARS: both the economic and the social damage done by it the stigmatisation of Chinese areas, of Chinese-Canadian people, Kong told Al Jazeera. He said he has already seen people from outside of the Chinese-Canadian community avoiding a lot of places that are associated with Chinese-ness or Chinese Canadians. When we peddle racist ideas, when we peddle xenophobia, that isn't going to protect you from the virus ... Proper public health procedures and precautions will protect you from the virus. Racism won't. Frank Ye Education and open communication with all community members are critical to combat disinformation around the coronavirus this time around, he said, and health experts and community groups are more readily prepared to combat racism and discrimination than they were during the SARS outbreak. We shouldnt have a blanket fear of anyone that looks Chinese or is Chinese, Kong said. Obviously, public health is doing the best that they can to make sure everyone is safe, and we trust that they will do that. That was echoed by Ye, the University of Toronto student, who also urged people to be careful about what they share online to avoid spreading misinformation. When we peddle racist ideas, when we peddle xenophobia, that isnt going to protect you from the virus, he said. Proper public health procedures and precautions will protect you from the virus. Racism wont. Donald Tusk and Boris Johnson pictured in September last year (DON EMMERT/AFP via Getty Images) Former European Council president Donald Tusk has admitted he was a little bit disappointed when Boris Johnson won a huge majority in Decembers general election. Mr Johnsons 80-seat Commons majority allowed his Brexit deal to sail through Parliament and become law ahead of Fridays departure from the EU. Mr Tusk, an outspoken critic of Brexit, told the BBCs Andrew Marr Show on Sunday: I was a little bit disappointed [at the result] because the statistics are quite clear, its 50/50 when it comes to Remainers and Brexiteers in the UK, more or less. The Remainers [had] no clear leadership, they were not organised enough. Donald Tusk on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show on Sunday (BBC) Mr Tusk also hinted Scotland would be welcome to join the bloc if it ever becomes an independent country. Its ruling SNP is aggressively campaigning for a second independence referendum, something which Mr Johnson has so far refused to consider. Mr Tusk said: I want to stop myself from saying something too blunt. Sometimes I feel I am Scottish [in my heart]. I am very Scottish now, especially after Brexit. At the same time I have to respect sovereignty, integrity of the debate in the United Kingdom. Its not my role to intervene, despite my sympathy. If something like the independence of Scotland happens then its not automatic that [Scotland joins the EU]. But he said the EUs emotional response to the prospect would be only empathy. In the same interview, Mr Tusk complained about the hostile narrative against the EU during the divisive Brexit debate. He said: The only two roles the EU played in the British narrative was bogeyman or whipping boy [as if] we were responsible for every failure. This is the main problem. Mr Tusk, who last year said there was a special place in hell for Brexiteers who proposed leaving the bloc without a plan on how to make it work, also praised the institution as a miracle. Donald Tusk says the EU was the "bogeyman or a whipping boy" in the British narrative, portrayed as being "responsible for every failure"https://t.co/QlAsa0Cphi #Marr pic.twitter.com/lPZw1IAGQz BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) February 2, 2020 After Brexit day on Friday, the nation has entered a transition period in which the UK government has until December 31 to thrash out its future relationship with the EU. Story continues Read more from Yahoo News UK John Bercow says Meghan Markle was victim of 'explicit and obnoxious racism' The night Nigel Farage and his devotees lived their Brexit dream How will the UK's relationship with the EU change during the Brexit transition period? Critics have insisted this doesnt leave enough time to negotiate important points such as a trade deal, but Mr Tusk insisted one year is enough. He added we have to demonstrate goodwill on both sides and that we are good friends with Boris Johnson. How four years of utter Brexit chaos unfolded Impoverished and ignored, Tripoli rises to become the heart of Lebanons anti-government protest movement. Protesters in Lebanon have converged on its poorest city to show the government they are united in their calls for political change. There is still widespread anger over corruption and mismanagement. The latest march comes before next weeks confidence vote to approve a new cabinet. Al Jazeeras Sara Khairat reports from Tripoli in Lebanon. Source: Xinhua| 2020-02-02 10:48:05|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close QINGDAO, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- Ma Yumei, in her fifties, has lived alone in a rental apartment in Qingdao, a coastal city in east China, for more than three years, but she rarely dined in the community canteen until recently. Ma's head and hands were badly burned in a fire accident in her teens. "I was afraid that I would scare people and I didn't want to have people staring at me either," she said. Ma avoided leaving her room, and only went to buy some essentials in the early morning or at night, wearing a hat and a mask. "I rarely talked with people, let alone making friends," Ma said. The situation has begun to improve last year, as the local government launched a program offering psychological relief to those in need among low-income groups. "People with low income are often troubled by diseases and disabilities, which negatively affect their mental health. Besides material relief, psychological support is also needed," said Lyu Yongcui, deputy head of Qingdao's Chengyang District. The local government conducted a psychological health survey last year among the low-income group in the city, defined as those with a monthly income under 660 yuan (about 95 U.S. dollars), and psychologists found Ma in severe depression. "Ma told us that her parents had passed away and she has no children. She had even thought of suicide, as she didn't want to hide in her apartment anymore," said Wang Wenhua, who heads a local organization of social workers. Wang's organization helps the local government in offering psychological support for people like Ma. Last year, more than 1,000 people were identified to receive psychological relief in Chengyang District. Through the initiative, the local government provided online counseling and sent more than 600 psychologists, social workers and volunteers to improve the psychological health of the group. In Ma's case, Wang's team soon helped her get rid of her suicidal thoughts, but overcoming the obstacle of going out in public proved to be more difficult. Wang and her colleagues often go to chat with Ma, help her clean her apartment and bring dumplings and moon cakes to share with her. Gradually, they have grown closer. To make it less awkward for Ma to shop alone, the social workers accompanied her to go out in the daytime without her hat and mask. "After several trips, I found I didn't scare others and no one stared at me," Ma said. "Now I go out at noon to enjoy the sunshine." Before the introduction of the program, 35 percent of the selected low-income people were unwilling to participate in public activities, 65 percent of them felt inferior and anxious, and 67 percent of them had difficulty sleeping, according to the local government survey. Now, the numbers have dropped to 15 percent, 26 percent and 34 percent, respectively. Still, Ma has not overcome her fear of participating in various community activities, like group dancing and singing, but Wang and her colleagues are confident. "We'll take her there soon," Wang said. As the head of a big-city hospitals emergency department, Susan OMara has always focused on providing quick answers to people in crisis: A relative desperate for information. An injured person facing a very long wait. A colleague exhausted from dealing with fed-up patients. But until a special training a few months ago, OMara didnt consider whether there were ways to be more compassionate in her response. The training taught the doctor to pause and listen, and not jump to fix or respond defensively if an angry patient is on the offence. She said it has helped her focus better and find a deeper well of sympathy, even as she deals with trying situations at MedStar Washington Hospital Center in the nations capital. You want to get patients from Point A to Point B with compassion, and also not internalize and feel badly yourself, she said. To approach someone who is sad, scared, angry to approach someone who is angry with compassion is the Holy Grail of emergency medicine. Defined as the ability to notice suffering (in ourselves and others) and then the desire to take action to alleviate it, compassion has become the buzzword for an angry nation. It is increasingly being held up by neuroscientists, corporations, business schools and psychologists as a concrete, powerful health strategy and a successful business model. Universities have opened centres devoted to compassion. Marianne Williamson and Cory Booker talked about it as an urgent American need during their presidential campaigns. Job networker LinkedIn and wealth manager Brighton Jones both recently created a director of compassion position. Experts say this shift is the result of new research showing compassions impact, as well as an urgent desire to address rising rates of depression and anxiety among young people, and a steep climb of rates of suicide among all ages. The idea that its good to be compassionate to yourself or someone else is obviously not new. But these uber-studied, emerging methods are very deliberate, part of a generation of neuroscience and genetic research into how the brain and body interact, and how relations with others have an impact on our health. The research looks at how compassion influences everything from the length of your life to how much you contribute to your employers bottom line. Techniques used to train people to practice compassion range from OMaras deep listening of others to hugging yourself, stroking your skin, and talking to yourself in a calming way. Experts use teachings, including about the interconnectedness of all people; exercises such as deep breathing or having a dialogue with a hurting body part, and practices like volunteering. A group at the University of Helsinki studying compassion at work asks employers to run through a checklist about their employees: Am I showing interest? Understanding? Respect? Fairness? Offering the person a sense of control? The focus on compassion comes more than a decade after the explosion in the U.S. of mindfulness practices focused on attention, awareness and breathing. Health experts say compassion is the next phase, kind of mindfulness 2.0. Stanford University neurosurgery professor James Doty, whose 2016 bestselling memoir about compassion became the subject of a hit Korean pop song, said the compassion centre he runs was the only one of its kind when it opened 12 years ago. Now, he said he has research collaborations worldwide. Millions of dollars are being given to support this research, he said. Compassion is no longer a soft science. No one is saying the country or the world is getting more compassionate. In fact, some widely cited research says young Americans are becoming less empathetic. But a compassion industry is rising in opposition. The movement is fuelled by a belief that the level of suffering and the visibility of suffering has made compassion essential, said Jane Dutton, a professor at the University of Michigan who studies compassion in the workplace. Traditionally nurturing institutions like family and church are disintegrating at the same time social media is exploding, Dutton said, compelling a certain level of urgency and maybe some optimism, that this can be learned and facilitated. At the same time, Silicon Valley is leading a quest for higher productivity, complete with research about group psychology and values and what makes people work well (the best-known example is Project Aristotle, part of Googles multimillion-dollar dive into what makes teams thrive). Elina Lampinen, a bank executive in Helsinki, spent a year taking classes and doing exercises aimed at understanding and improving emotional skills around compassion. Lampinen, 55, now works in risk management, and she said she feels much more compassionate and better able to have difficult conversations with employees. Ive always had a positive understanding of people, but Id say Im more tolerant and understand why people do things the way they do including myself, she said. What I learned is that between stimulus and reaction, there is freedom of choice. And for me, thats a big change. Nearly 100,000 people signed up for a 10-day online compassion challenge launched this month by popular Washington-area meditation and mindfulness author and teacher Tara Brach, who recently changed one of the acronyms she uses in her teaching to include the compassion-related concept of nurturing. Were not survivors of the fittest, were survivors of the nurtured, Brach said in an interview, citing a quote by psychologist Louis Cozolino. The word compassion conjures different images. It can be a broad synonym for, essentially, being nice, being empathetic. And self-compassion can be shorthand for taking care of yourself. The new movement seeks to narrow the word to more specific skills and actions. Doty, Brach and others say the compassion movement is a recognition that mindfulness however healthy is limited, focused on being aware in a non-judgmental way about your thoughts, feelings and narratives. You could be a Type A ruthless person, and mindfulness could make you more self-absorbed, for some people, Doty said. In mindfulness, compassion is implicit. And in my view, it needed to be more explicit. The movement also aims to define the difference between empathy the ability to put ourselves in someone elses shoes, in situations positive or negative and compassion, which includes the motivation to do something to ease suffering. Compassion debates have emerged. Is there such a thing as too much compassion? In workplaces, can compassion undercut other imperatives such as efficiency? Is compassion a feeling or a learned practice? Joan Brown Campbell, a minister and interfaith activist who has been involved with pro-compassion campaigns for decades, said she worries about the term getting trendy and superficial. Compassion is a very hard word. Some see being compassionate as easygoing, not challenging. For many, compassion seems not risky enough. Its not something you wake up and say: I think Ill be compassionate, she said. Compassion is a way of living in a diverse world. For a year now, Scott Shute has been head of mindfulness and compassion at the 16,000-person LinkedIn. As part of its focus on compassion, the firm decided to shift its primary success metric of its job list from how many jobs are on LinkedIn to how many people get jobs on LinkedIn. Its from a self-centred metric to an other-centered metric, Shute said. He teaches a class called From Me to We, which at times is about putting all company stakeholders not just shareholders in equal regard. Other times, its something that sounds like corporate self-help. The me part is having a growth mindset. The we is compassion, he said. No matter whats happening you can do something. Going from pessimistic to optimistic. A 2017 review of Harvard graduates who had been followed for 80 years concluded connection and relationships were the best indicators of longevity. A similar correlation is made about volunteering, a University of Michigan study found. Other compassion-related research is more neurological or genetic. Parneet Pal is chief science officer at Wisdom Labs, which consults workplaces on how to improve resiliency and decrease stress. New MRIs, she said, are being used to show which brain networks or hormone levels are affected when someone is being empathetic, which are affected when someone is being compassionate, and the importance of learning the difference when working with others pain. Doty studies how heart-rate variability is associated with being able to handle caring for those who are suffering without getting physically or psychologically overwhelmed yourself. OMara, of Washington Hospital Center, decided to study compassion in her early 50s. With kids leaving the house and a new big job, she was looking closely at self-care. Aside from exercise and eating, she realized she needed a plan that would help patients and her staff thrive while keeping her from drowning in other peoples difficulties. When she first heard of an intensive training through Georgetown Universitys School of Medicine, I asked: Is there crying? My friend said: Theres 100 per cent crying. I thought: vulnerability is not my thing. She aims now for some daily yoga or meditation, and feels the compassion training has changed her interactions with patients and colleagues. I had felt my mind and body were not connected, and I want to move into the second half of my life aware, she said. I see that as the next frontier. Pharmacies in Beijing that AFP visited were sold out of "Shuanghuanglian", a traditional remedy Chinese scientists claimed could "inhibit" the coronavirus A claim by Chinese scientists that a liquid made with honeysuckle and flowering plants could help fight the deadly coronavirus has sparked frenzied buying of the traditional medicine, but doubts quickly emerged. As the death toll from the SARS-like pathogen sweeping the country continues to rise, shoppers have swamped pharmacies in search of "Shuanghuanglian". The rush came after influential state media outlet Xinhua reported Friday that the esteemed Chinese Academy of Sciences had found the concoction "can inhibit" the virus. Videos shared online showed long lines of people in surgical masks lining up at night outside drug stores, purportedly in hope of snapping up the product, despite official advice that people avoid public gatherings to prevent infection. It quickly sold out both online and at brick-and-mortar stores, but responses to the remedy's supposed efficacy have ranged from enthusiasm to scepticism on Weibo, China's Twitter-like social media platform. And state media sounded a more cautionary note on Saturday, with broadcaster CCTV publishing an interview with Zhang Boli, one of the researchers leading outbreak containment efforts, who warned of potential side effects from the medicine. The People's Daily newspaper, a government mouthpiece, said experts advised against taking traditional remedies without professional guidance. Several countries have barred Chinese travellers due to fears about the coronavirus But the claim comes as Beijing looks to incorporate traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) into its nationwide fight against the virus, which has killed more than 300 people and infected over 14,000 in the country. On Sunday the Philippines reported the first death outside of China. Researchers at the state-run academy, a top government think tank, are also studying the potential use of a plant commonly known as Japanese knotweed to alleviate symptoms. The National Health Commission on Tuesday said TCM practitioners were among nearly 6,000 reinforcement medical personnel being sent to Wuhan in Hubei province, ground zero of the outbreak. 'No difference' The strategy has reignited fierce and long-running debate about the efficacy of TCM, which has a history going back 2,400 years and remains popular in modern-day China. Marc Freard, a member of the Chinese Medicine Academic Council of France, told AFP he believed traditional formulations could be used to treat people with symptoms ranging from fever to thick phlegm. But he warned that many remedies on the market were of questionable quality and admitted that TCM "lacks scientific standards of efficacy" because it relied on "individualised treatment". Countries or territories with confirmed cases of the new coronavirus Traditional medicines were widely used in China in conjunction with Western methods during the 2003 epidemic of SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which killed 774 people worldwide. But a 2012 study in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews found combining Chinese and Western medicines "made no difference" in battling the disease. Nationalism The Chinese government has increasingly promoted traditional medicine abroad in recent years, often with nationalistic undertones. Beijing issued its first white paper on TCM in 2016, laying out plans to build medicine centres and dispatch practitioners to developing countries in Africa and Southeast Asia. President Xi Jinping has called TCM a "treasure of Chinese civilisation" and said at a meeting in October that it should be given as much weight as other treatments. China is "working hard to spread the message internationally about its traditional culture", and medicine is a part of this, Freard said. Surgical masks are being worn across China as a preventative measure against the coronavirus In 2019 the World Health Organization (WHO) even added Chinese medicine to its "International Classification of Diseases"a reference document for medical trends and global health statisticsafter years of campaigning by Beijing. But the move was slammed by members of the scientific community, with the European Academies' Science Advisory Council calling the decision "a major problem" due to the lack of evidence-based practice. The WHO did not immediately respond to AFP's request for comment. Fang Shimin, a prominent writer in China known for his campaigns against academic fraud, told AFP he believes the government's promotion of traditional medicine "panders to nationalism and has nothing to do with science". It is an enormous industry in China worth more than $130 billion in 2016a third of the country's entire medical industryaccording to state news agency Xinhua. 2020 AFP (Natural News) Amid reports that China may be understating the severity of the current coronavirus outbreak, a New Zealand newspaper reported an allegation that would indicate the death toll is much higher than official numbers. According to the New Zealand Herald, Chinese officials have been accused of cremating victims of the virus, suggesting that many more have perished than Beijing has admitted: World health officials, back from a visit to Beijing, expressed great concern that a dangerous new virus was spreading between people outside of China, even as the number of illnesses continue to grow dramatically inside that Asian nation. The new virus has now infected more people in China than were sickened during the 2002-2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak. On Wednesday, the number of cases jumped to 5974, surpassing the 5327 people diagnosed with SARS. Officially as of Friday, the death toll in China stood at 132, less than half the 348 people who reportedly died from the SARS virus. But doubts have been raised about the official death toll, the paper noted, with claims that Chinese authorities have been cremating bodies in secret. One Chinese language news outlet, Initium, claimed to have interviewed workers at a local cremation center in Wuhan, a city of 11 million in central China where the coronavirus outbreak originated. Officials reportedly told the outlet that bodies are being sent to the crematorium directly from hospitals without proper identification and without being added to the official death toll. Also, one thing that #China is hiding is the number of death caused by the virus. Credible Chinese media outlet @initiumnews interviewed people working at local cremation centers, confirming that many dead bodies were sent directly from the hospitals to the cremation centers William Yang (@WilliamYang120) January 29, 2020 So there are reasons to remain skeptical about what China has been sharing with the world because while they have been more transparent about certain things related to the virus, they continue to be sketchy and unreliable in other aspects, noted DW News East Asia correspondent William Yang. Global health officials are clearly concerned about the spread of the virus The possibility that the Chinese government is underestimating the virus death toll is very real, considering how tightly controlled all information is coming into and out of the country. The government literally controls all health agencies, of course, as well as all media that is broadcast and social media that is posted. So it wouldnt be difficult to craft a narrative that the disease is under control and the official death toll thus far is low. But health experts around the globe are already increasingly concerned simply because of the rapid spread of the virus and the rising death toll in other countries. Plus, WHO officials noted Thursday that they werent so concerned with Chinas handling of the outbreak but rather its spread to other countries with fewer resources. Our greatest concern is the potential for the virus to spread to countries with weaker health systems and which are ill prepared to deal with it, said WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. The vast majority of cases outside of China have a travel history to Wuhan or contact with someone with a travel history to Wuhan. We dont know what sort of damage this virus could do if it were to spread to a country with a weaker health system. The organization declared a global emergency due to the coronavirus earlier this week. Days ago, China began to quarantine millions of people as the virus began to quickly spread. On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the U.S. also quarantined 195 American evacuees who lived in Wuhan. Natural News founder Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, reported that the CDC is not wrong to do this. In fact, they would have been dangerously wrong if they failed to do this. He also noted that the federal government has not done nearly enough to block potentially infected people from illegally crossing the U.S. border, though to President Trumps credit, hes managed more than his predecessors. Sources include: NaturalNews.com TheNationalSentinel.com TheHerald.co.nz Montreal (AFP) - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau heads to Africa next Thursday, aiming to tighten relations as the country campaigns for a United Nations Security Council seat, his office said on Saturday. Trudeau is to visit Ethiopia and Senegal, as well as Germany, before his trip ends on February 14. In Addis Ababa he is to meet Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize winner appointed after several years of anti-government protests, and Sahle-Work Zewde, the country's first female president. He will additionally meet leaders attending the African Union summit. On the other side of the continent, in Senegal, he will meet President Macky Sall and "participate in a series of events to further our two countries' already strong ties through La Francophonie," his office said. The final leg of the tour will take Trudeau to Germany for the Munich Security Conference. "As we pursue our candidacy for election to the United Nations Security Council, we will continue to advance shared global interests, and unlock new opportunities for people and businesses in Canada and around the world," the prime minister's office said in a statement. It added the visits "will focus on economic opportunity and prosperity, climate change, democracy, and gender equality". Canada is seeking a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council, a position it has not held since the year 2000. "In a rapidly changing world, Canada needs to be a leader on the international stage," Trudeau said in the statement. The KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul / Yonhap By Park Jae-hyuk KEB Hana Bank is facing a severe backlash from its labor union for its recent decision to remove "KEB" from its brand name, according to industry officials, Sunday. The unionists allege this is in violation of the agreement signed with the former Korea Exchange Bank union in 2015, when the two banks merged. The management said the brand name "Hana Bank" will be used starting Monday. The banking unit of Hana Financial Group cited possible confusion with KB Kookmin Bank as a reason for the decision. "Because of the 'KEB' in our brand name, most of our customers have been aware of our merger with the Korea Exchange Bank, but we took the difficulty with pronouncing KEB and possible confusion with another bank using English initials into account," the bank said. The labor union, however, is protesting the decision. "The name, KEB Hana Bank, is intended to respect the Korea Exchange Bank's brand equity," the union said. "The unilateral decision without agreement is a violation of the agreement between labor and management." The union also warned of legal action against management. In 2015, Hana Financial Group Chairman Kim Jung-tai agreed with the former Korea Exchange Bank union that the united bank would include "Exchange" or "KEB" in its name. This has helped KEB Hana Bank expand overseas, because the Korea Exchange Bank that had wider global networks was popular with customers in other countries. Against this backdrop, KEB Hana Bank said its official corporate name will be unchanged. "We will continue to use the name of KEB Hana Bank when signing deals with other companies," its spokesman said. "The changing of the brand name means that KEB will be removed from signboards on our branches here and overseas." Since the merger with the Korea Exchange Bank, Hana Financial Group has removed all vestiges of the former KEB. In 2017, all KEB Hana Bank employees began wearing badges decorated with the logo of Hana Financial Group. Hana also sold the Korea Exchange Bank headquarters building in Euljiro, downtown Seoul, to Booyoung Group that year. Nigerians should hold the Buhari regime and the All Progressives Congress (APC) responsible for the negative impacts of the proposed travel sanctions imposed on the country by the United States, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) says. The PDP in a statement described the sanction as yet another huge misfortune allegedly brought by the Buhari regime and the APC which it claimed have continued to wreck the nation with its compromised handling of security issues, in addition to escalated bloodletting and human rights violation. The party lamented that the travel ban would have grave consequences on economic, educational and healthcare opportunities; hurt family and social ties as well as further put pressure on the nations overall national economy. The PDP said the APC administration has failed to rejig its security high command despite the calls by Nigerians, in the face of worsening security challenges and mass killings in the country. The party however called on the United States to ensure that the ban does not hurt innocent Nigerians who are also bearing the brunt of the alleged poor handling of security in the country under the APC administration. More depressing is that the APC and the Buhari Presidency have been reversing diplomatic gains achieved by previous administrations while gradually pitching our nation against other countries of the world with its poor record on security, corruption and human right issues. Our party is worried that our nation that, have become a global destination and investment hub under the PDP, is now being pushed back to a pariah status under the incompetent and divisive APC, as reports from other members of the international community, including credible international organizations, have continued to raise concerns on security and human right issues under the Buhari administration. It is also worrisome that the APC-led administration had failed to take a decisive step to apprehend and prosecute perpetrators of acts of terrorism including the mass killings in Benue, Nasarawa, Bauchi, Taraba, Kogi, Adamawa, Borno, Yobe, Zamfara, Kaduna, Ekiti, Kogi and other parts of the country under the current administration. The PDP restates that such failures by the APC had continued to bolster insurgents, bandits and kidnappers to continue to launch deadly attacks on Nigerians. Moreover, the APC have failed to account for hoodlums and political mercenaries it imported from neighboring countries to assist in unleashing violence on Nigerians during the heavily rigged 2019 general elections, the party said. Delhi Assembly Election 2020: BJP to launch mega mass contact programme today India oi-Madhuri Adnal New Delhi, Feb 01: One lakh workers of the BJP will launch a mega mass contact programme at all the 13,570 polling booths across 70 Assembly constituencies in Delhi ahead of the February 8 polls, the party's Delhi unit president Manoj Tiwari said on Saturday. The campaign will be simultaneously launched by Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Delhi Cantt, BJP president J P Nadda in Greater Kailash and the party's election in-charge and Union IB Minister Prakash Javadekar in Adarsh Nagar constituencies on Sunday, party's Delhi unit president Manoj Tiwari said. Senior party leaders, Union ministers, and party MP's will lead the campaign in other constituencies, he said. Their ancestors divided India: Yogi Adityanath slams anti-CAA protesters at Delhi rally "Under this campaign, one lakh workers of the Bharatiya Janata Party will go from door to door in 13,570 booths of Delhi," Tiwari said. He said the BJP was contesting the elections in Delhi on the issue of development. BJP workers will go door to door to make people aware of the achievements and the schemes of the central government, he added. "Awareness will be created about the party's Sankalp Patra for the Assembly polls and voters will also be informed about the last five years of lies, fraud, advertising and corruption of the Aam Aadmi Party and its support to the 'Tukde-Tukde' gang," Tiwari said. The top three crorepatis in the Delhi elections are AAP candidates Votes for elections to the 70 Assembly seats in Delhi will be cast on February 8. Results will be announced on February 11. The BJP, which has been out of power in Delhi for over two decades, was routed by the AAP in the 2015 Assembly elections. The saffron party managing to win just three seats. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Sunday, February 2, 2020, 9:20 [IST] - Ghana named in bribery and corruption ruling in Airbus case in UK - A British court has fined aviation company Airbus 3 billion pounds for indulging in bribery and corruption - The judgment stated that between 2009 and 2015 Airbus officials engaged top Ghanaian officials in a corrupt deal under the Mills-Mahama administration - Our Manifesto: This is what YEN.com.gh believes in A British court documents has revealed that Europes largest aerospace multinational company, Airbus paid bribes to some top Ghanaian officials during the Mills-Mahama era between 2009-2015. According to the document sighted by YEN.com.gh, Ghana is amongst five countries Airbus paid millions of dollars in bribes to in exchange for contracts. The conduct and act of the European aviation company, Airbus has led to a British court slapping a fine of 3 billion pounds (3bn) as penalties on the company. READ ALSO: Coronavirus: Ghana named among 13 top-risk African countries Airbus admitted wrongdoing after agreeing to five counts of failing to prevent bribery, using a network of secret agents to pay large-scale backhanders to officials in foreign countries, including Ghana, to land high-value contracts. According to reports in the British media, this is one of the biggest corporate fines for bribery offense in the world. The judges who heard the case described the corruption as grave, pervasive and pernicious. The planemaker agreed to pay the penalties on Friday, January 31, 2020 after reaching settlements with investigators in the UK, France and the US to end inquiries that started four years ago, the report stated. The court document stated that between July 1, 2011, and June 1, 2015, Airbus failed to stop or prevent its officials from bribing Government of Ghana officials in the purchase of a military transport aircraft. The court noted that bribery was intended to obtain or retain business or advantage in the conduct of business for Airbus SE. ATTENTION: Read the best news on Ghana #1 news app. Install our latest app for Android and read the best news about Ghana Ghana under late President John Atta-Mills in 2011 and former President John Mahama in 2015, acquired three Airbus C295 planes from the company as part of an effort to augment and modernize the fleet of the Ghana Armed Forces. It emerged that the first order of the military aeroplane arrived in the country on November 17, 2011, followed by a second on March 19, 2012. The last order arrived in the country on December 4, 2015. READ ALSO: Opportunity knocks once; Mahama has missed his chance - Nunoo Mensah President John Dramani Mahama, in November 2014, announced that Ghana was to acquire an additional C295, in addition to other aircraft, including five Super Tucanos, Mi-17s and four Z-9s. A total of about $150 million was spent in acquiring all the three aircraft, one of which overshot the runway recently. Ghana's Ministry of Defence stated that the accident happened because the aircraft had not gone for its scheduled maintenance. YEN.com.gh earlier reported that the Energy Ministry has began the installation of solar panels at the seat of government, the Jubilee House. The project which has started is expected to provide 912 kilowatts of energy to power 60% of the Jubilee House. According to Minister of Energy, John Peter Amewu the project will be completed by June 2020. Faces of Ghana: Art is Lucrative But Not Appreciated-Ghanas Incredible 3DMotion Designer| #Yencomgh READ ALSO: Brexit: UK officially leaves European Union Get interactive via our Facebook page. Source: YEN.com.gh The World-Herald creates lots of important journalism stories, photos, video that is both timely and compelling. But we also know our readers are busy. Here is a convenient roundup of some of our best work from the last several days that's worth checking out. * * * Tim Reeder has never seen such a social media flurry about a house for sale. Now multiply that by two. * * * After Iowans cast the first presidential votes of 2020 Monday night, the battle for the Democratic nomination shifts into warp speed. * * * Closures of many large stores such as Sears and Younkers, the rise of online shopping, the power of customer perception and the failure to modernize are factors in the decline of some malls and large shopping centers. As some Omaha shopping centers still find success, struggles of others have been a 'slow burn' Observers of the American retail industry say multiple reasons go into the success of one large mall or shopping center and the wilting of others. The United States has far more retail stores per capita than many other countries, so the industry is competitive. * * * Travelers from Wuhan, China, may be monitored for coronavirus in Nebraska The Americans in question would have tested negative for coronavirus but still would need to be observed for 14 days. An official said it's extremely unlikely that the people would have the virus. * * * Momentum 2020 is a special section highlighting where we are and where we're going. Momentum 2020: A look at Omaha's driving forces It's full speed ahead for Greater Omaha and Nebraska as a promising new decade takes flight. Here's a look at what's fueling the momentum. * * * Decades ago, thousands of well- paying jobs were available for those without an education at textile mills such as the Dan River Mills in Danville and Klopman Mills in Hurt. Farming also employed a large portion of Pittsylvania County residents. But then the mills closed. And a tough agriculture market has choked out all but the largest producers. This has severely diminished the employment prospects for those without at least a high school diploma in the Dan River Region and in similar, rural communities across the country. Rural places like Danville, and rural places across the country are playing catch up, said Clark Casteel, president and CEO of the Danville Regional Foundation, a nonprofit group that provides grants to boost community projects. Thats why local groups are attempting to improve literacy rates among adults and much of regional economic development efforts have centered around educational programs to prepare the workforce for new, 21st century jobs. Illiteracy Generally, both rates of illiteracy meaning reading at or below a third grade level and educational attainment in Danville and Pittsylvania County lags behind Virginia averages. Data from the 2011-15 American Community Survey shows in Pittsylvania County 19% of residents over the age of 18 have less than a high school diploma. In Danville, that number is 20%, compared to only 11% statewide. When broken up by age range, the older generations of both the county and the city are less likely to have a high school diploma. In both localities, more than a third of residents over the age of 65 have less than a high school diploma, according to Community Profiles from the Virginia Employment Commission. Local statistics concerning adult illiteracy are difficult to obtain, but Project Literacy in Danville estimates nearly 1 in 5 adults in the city are illiterate and the rate is even higher in the county. To help provide the adults with basic reading skills, several area pro-literacy groups formed the Literacy Coalition of South Central Virginia. Made up of the Pittsylvania County Literacy Program from Chatham, Project Literacy in Danville and Literacy Volunteers in Campbell County, the group formed to increase their numbers to improve chances of receiving grants. Each provides free, confidential tutoring for adults who want to learn to read. While many of the older generation did drop out of school to work, there is no one particular reason for an adult to not have strong reading skills, said Phyllis Roach, director of the Pittsylvania County Literacy Program. Regardless of the reason, the effects of low reading levels are pervasive and the root of a lot of social problems, said Lynne Wheeler, program manager with Literacy Volunteers. [Low literacy levels] contribute to poverty, it contributes to an inability to find suitable employment so that you can raise yourself up out of poverty, it contributes to health problems, she said. And the problem of illiteracy compounds upon itself as children who grow up with parents who do not have strong reading skills are much more likely to be illiterate themselves. And, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, 43% of adults with the lowest literacy levels in the United States are living in poverty, which translates to their children being more likely to remain in poverty. Poverty can go hand in hand with not wanting to finish school, Roach said. In addition to area residents who simply dropped out of school, the literacy groups also work with many English language learners who have come to the United States to work. Anecdotally, the program heads can say that less of the younger generations are having reading problems something they accredit to the schools systems and they encounter less people who read at or below a third grade level. But, with the complexity of most jobs gradually rising, they still must help people improve their skills and teach informational literacy and basic skills, including how to work with technology. At the end of the day we dont want to leave a certain population behind as everybody else continues to move forward, Pittsylvania County Economic Development Director Matt Rowe said. Workforce development Many of the largest employers in the region have shuttered in recent decades. The many Danville textile mills employed thousands of residents in their prime. The Klopman textile mill in Hurt, which employed more than 1,300 at one point and employed many in the area, closed in 2006. The loss of these mills, along with the continued decline of small, family farms, left the region vulnerable and searching for a new identity. In the wake of these losses, the area has begun its rebound in recent years. Rowe explained the economic development department is looking to create a diverse range of jobs in different industries to support the community. I dont think any of us want to go back to being a one-factory or one- industry town, he said. At the same time, Pittsylvania County and Danville usually working jointly through the Regional Industrial Facility Authority have made it a point to seek advanced manufacturing that incorporates 21st technology, Rowe said. To attract these types of employers, educational programs ranging from advanced manufacturing at Danville Community College to career connection labs in middle schools have been implemented to create a pipeline of talent that fits those employers. The Pittsylvania County Career and Technical Center provides courses that prepare students for careers in areas ranging from nursing to precision machining to computer systems technology. Through the career connections labs at Westwood Middle School and Chatham Middle School, students are exposed to welding, robotics and automation, health sciences, mechanical engineering, manufacturing engineering and electrical engineering. All of these things were doing on the educational side creates this ecosystem that addresses every level of the business, Rowe said. Even though the majority of these companies are involved in advanced manufacturing, they require a diverse group of employees, ranging from managers to supervisors, and from the highly educated to those with practical skills. What companies are looking for now is really skills and what you can do with what you know, Casteel said. Prospective employers considering the region are looking for a mixture of hard skills such as knowing how to work heavy machinery and soft skills, such as critical thinking, leadership and communication, which is where the literacy scores come in, said Corrie Teague Bobe, interim director of economic development for the city of Danville. It is incredibly important to strengthen these [educational] programs and improve the literacy scores throughout the region, she said. Ayers reports for the Register & Bee. Reach him at (434) 791-7981. Ayers reports for the Register & Bee. Reach him at (434) 791-7981. Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Two of the seven portraits hanging in the Charleston Library Societys brand-new Shakespeare room are of people who eventually lost their heads. Robert Devreux, second Earl of Essex, was charged with treason and beheaded in 1601 after leading an unsuccessful coup d'etat. Walter Raleigh was beheaded in 1618 to appease the Spanish after his second excursion in search of El Dorado during which his men attacked an outpost, violating a peace treaty. One is of Edward VI, son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, who was crowned king at age 9 and died in 1553 of a lung ailment at age 15. The central portrait is of Lady Katherine Stanhope, Countess of Chesterfield, governess and confidante of Mary, Princess of Orange. She would replace her husband in 1664 as postmaster general of England, the first woman to hold that position. Ah, those were the days. These portraits, and a few other objects in the Shakespeare room, provided helpful context, reminding visitors that the Bard of Avon was but a mortal man, albeit an especially talented one. The room is a consequence of Charleston native Skipper Igoes support of the Library Society and his obsession with all things Elizabethan. The entire collection of books, manuscripts, research materials, etc., from the Igoe Library Foundation are now a part of the Library Societys collection, thanks to the gift that was finalized in May 2019, wrote Library Society Director Anne Cleveland in an email. The gift of over 100 items has enhanced our holdings in a significant way. And it has spurred the creation of this dedicated space. Library staff are now working out a plan that simultaneously protects the collection and makes it accessible to the public. The room is a haven for the expanded number of Shakespearean items in the librarys collection, including a pristine 1632 Second Folio of the complete works, an early publication of the great tragedy Hamlet, and two two-volume sets of Raphael Holinsheds 16th-century The Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande. Few refer to that big book these days, but the Holinshed's Chronicles was the first published narrative history of England and a primary source of information for Shakespeare and other writers of the age, such as Edmund Spenser and Christopher Marlowe. All of Shakespeares history plays came from Holinshed, noted best-selling author and Shakespeare enthusiast Bernard Cornwell. The Library Society will celebrate Igoes patronage and the opening of the Igoe Shakespeare Library with two events, one public and one private, set for 6 p.m. Friday, Feb. 7, and 6 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 8. The first is a panel discussion featuring Cornwell, theater director Dominic Dromgoole, and casting director Kate Murray. All hold Shakespeares work close to their hearts. Cornwell, a part-time Charleston resident, is the author of novels based on English history and of an actual history of the Waterloo Campaign. His novel Fools and Mortals is about Shakespeares younger brother. Cornwell is familiar with the stage, too: He has performed Shakespeare at the Monomoy Theatre in Chatham, Mass. Dromgoole was artistic director of Shakespeares Globe in London from 2005 until 2016. He has directed many, perhaps most, of the Bards plays. He is the author of Will and Me: How Shakespeare Took Over My Life (2006) and Hamlet Globe to Globe (2017). Murray is in charge of casting for The Public Theaters Free Shakespeare in the Park in New York City, among other theatrical things. So expect the conversation to be informed. Universal and relevant Conversation at the Library Society on Wednesday morning veered from the texts of the Elizabethan Age to the dearth of Shakespeare productions in Charleston to the power of theater. Heres an interesting tidbit: Did you know that Queen Elizabeth, irritated by anything Scottish due to her intense rivalry with Mary, Queen of Scots, had the Scottish history in Holinsheds grand Chronicles excised? Later, publishers produced Castrations to Hollingshed, containing all the Scottish stuff and employing an alternative spelling of the authors name. Heres another tidbit: Did you know that some of the texts to Shakespeares plays were pirated, copied with degrees of inaccuracy by actors and other witnesses and sold like contraband? In the theater world, there are people who like to perform the bad Hamlet for kicks. And legitimate publishers would add An Honest Copy to the books with authorized texts. Cleveland said she hopes the Library Society can become a destination for Shakespeare enthusiasts and scholars. The librarys collection includes various works that surely informed the Bards creative efforts: Essays by Montaigne, for example, and Ovids Metamorphosis. Cromwell noted that letters from a shipwreck survivor who landed at Bermuda provided Shakespeare with ideas for The Tempest. Though these letters are not among the items in the librarys collection, they are part of a large array of texts that provided a basis for some of the greatest works of the theater ever produced. Charleston residents dont often get a chance to experience Shakespeare on stage, except occasionally when Spoleto Festival brings a production to town. People feel very intimidated by Shakespeare, often because when they were young, they didnt get it, Murray said. But the themes of his plays are universal and remain relevant today, she added. Schools have done a lot to harm him, Cromwell remarked, referring to the way Shakespeare is taught and presented in student productions. But he is still one of the most performed playwrights in the Western world. And a good production will make evident the human connections between characters and audience members, Murray said. The challenge is to remove the barriers to entry. Attending a theater performance typically costs more than streaming a movie at home. Thats why Shakespeare in the Park is free, she said. It's important to expose children to art when they are young, added Laura Mina, head librarian. If a child is not exposed at home, it influences what they feel comfortable doing as adults, she said. 'In love with words' Hopefully, the Igoe Foundations gift will make it possible for people living in the region to encounter Shakespeare and his milieu without making trips to New York City or to Washington, D.C., where the Folger Shakespeare Library is located, said Ann Igoe, who bequeathed her husbands collection to the Library Society. He fell in love with words early on, she said. He was a poet himself. He spent his grownup life collecting incunabula, books about Shakespeare, and paintings and things from that age. He developed Alzheimers before he was able to place his collection, she said. The two logical options were the Library Society and the Folger Library. It was up to me to decide, Igoe said. I was determined to keep it in South Carolina, and why not Charleston? I grew up in a small town (Darlington), and had I been able to grow up seeing real paintings and whatnot, it would have made a big difference. Sam Igoe, Skipper and Anns son, helped his father keep the collection in order over the years. I didnt really do that much, Sam Igoe said. Dad was pretty much a force in his own right. Skipper Igoe would bring a couple of books to the Library Society every now and then and learned to trust the organization, which has a vault, climate-controlled display cases, a book-binding operation and professional staff. So it makes sense, for many reasons, for the Igoe collection to be housed there, Sam Igoe said. He was really proud of his Charleston lineage. The Trump administration has declared the outbreak a public health emergency. Eight cases had been confirmed in the United States as of Saturday afternoon, none of them in the District, Maryland or Virginia. Health officials say Americans should be more worried about catching the common flu than coronavirus. Still, news of the outbreak has prompted some anxiety within the Chinese American community in the Washington region. After a terrifying flight home from Moscow, Ballymahon doctor Laura Noonan has posted an update on her Facebook page, Laura's Russian Lifeline, explaining to her followers and supporters that she and her husband Archie finally got off the plane and are in self-enforced isolation at their home. "We finally got off the plane last night. Exhausted, weary and traumatised doesn't adequately explain how we both felt. That compounded by the fact that the only reason we were on that plane was because I was too unwell to stay any longer," she explained. "We felt I needed to urgently seek medical care back home this time. Instead, we made our way home almost silently, both lost in our own thoughts. Sleep didn't come easy and was interrupted every hour by me waking, feeling so unwell. Archie had a long night reassuring me and at one point suggested taking me to the hospital, as planned when we boarded that flight home. "But we couldn't. We are observing the self-enforced isolation in our home. We won't be seeing anyone or going anywhere until this case of suspected coronavirus is either confirmed or excluded. I must say I have a bad feeling, but maybe that's just all the bad luck I have had lately resonating in my brain." Laura and her husband were on a flight home from Moscow yesterday - a day earlier than planned - due to complications in her treatment in Russia. When they landed in Dublin, a man was taken off the plane to an ambulance, with symptoms of the suspected coronavirus. Passengers were held on the plane for some time and given a leaflet of information before being sent home and warned to stay away from other people. "Each minute feels like an hour," said Laura. "I need to see my family. I need one of Freya's fix all hugs and epic smiles in real life after making do with FaceTime for the last little while. I also need to know... I need my thoughts to stop going at a million miles in an hour... the what-ifs? I hope the other (passengers) are following their directions with the same diligence as we are but I wonder. And finally, I await the call - the one from the doctor that will either allow us back to our already complex lives or the one that will complicate it beyond all comprehension." More on this story: Ballymahon's Laura Noonan in Coronavirus scare at Dublin Airport Mowi, a Norwegian seafood company, has threatened the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine with future legal action regarding a "significant delay" to a fishing licence application. The company's Irish subsidiary first applied for a revised fishing licence for its Lough Swilly site in Co Donegal in 2006 and then again in 2014, but the application has yet to be progressed. In a legal letter seen by the Sunday Independent, sent on January 20, it is claimed that Mowi's ability to operate the site has been prejudiced by the delay. The letter, which was sent by law firm Matheson on behalf of Mowi, asks that the department confirm it has proceeded the 2014 application to public and statutory confirmation within eight weeks. It also asks that the department outline the reasons for the two-year delay to Mowi. Matheson has also claimed that Mowi "reserves all of its rights" with regards to any loss it has suffered as a result of the delay. The letter outlines that Mowi initially applied to review and renew the licence for Lough Swilly in 2006, seeking to amend the conditions of the licence due to it being more than 15 years old. The application sought to ensure "best scientific and fish health practices" at the site. The law firm said there was a "significant delay" in progressing the 2006 application. According to the letter, Mowi, which was formerly known as Marine Harvest, was advised this was a result of the State's "failure to set conservation objectives" in a timely manner. It was as a result of this delay that Mowi was asked to submit another application in 2014. As part of the latest 2014 application for Lough Swilly, Mowi again requested to change the terms and conditions of the licence. The letter references introducing the metric standing stock biomass, which is the amount of live fish at a site, in place of harvest tonnage limits. The department made queries with Mowi on the new application. Matheson stated that Mowi had addressed these queries two years ago. It claimed the department had not identified any other matters to be addressed since. The letter claims the department has still not progressed the applications. It said the lack of progress meant Mowi's ability to run its business in Lough Swilly was being "prejudiced", due to the "outdated conditions" of its current licence. It said this had been caused by the two-year delay, since January 2018, to progress the application further. Mowi has 13 operations across five coastal counties in Ireland, employing nearly 300 people here, with annual sales of 66.1m. Last year, Mowi said it could move a 22m capital investment programme here to other countries due to the slow pace of seafood licensing reform. Manorhamilton is getting ready to rock and the students and staff of St Clare's Comprehensive School are taking full responsibility - there is a foot-tappin time ahead and they can't wait to get started. The musical Footloose is ready to hit the stage at the Bee Park Community Centre and things are certainly hotting up! Opening night is next Thursday, February 6 at 7.30pm. Under the musical direction of Ms Sarah Keaney, this is one stage show thats guaranteed to get the audience bopping along, featuring songs such as the familiar, and all-time favourites: Footloose, Holding Out for a Hero and Lets Hear it for the Boy. The storyline is a classic tale of teenage repression, and subsequent rebellion, told through feel-good music and song, accompanied by clever choreography and strong characterisation. When teenager, Ren Mc Cormack, (Patrick Montgomery) moves with his mother, from the city of Chicago to the small town of Bomont, he receives something of a culture shock. Bomont is a town where rock music and dancing have been banned; they are now illegal. Ren tries hard to fit in but struggles with the repressive nature of his new hometown. Rev Shaw Moore (Tarach OSnodaigh) is determined to keep the town, music and dance free. Given that the senior prom is on the horizon, Ren and his classmates want to have the ban lifted. With the help of Ariel Moore (Laoise Doherty) and Willard (Evan Gerry), his courage wins out and Bomont steps back into the light of music, song and dance as the collective spirit of the town becomes once more, footloose. Other commanding performances come from Shauna Clinton (Vi Moore), Aoibhe McGrath (Rusty), Shona Sheridan (Ethel Mc Cormack), Darragh Maguire (Chuck Cranston), Hannah Johnston (Urleen), Hannah McManus (Wendy Jo), Eilish Victorino (Brooke) and Kate Venusa ( Julianne). Production is by Ms Treasa Nealon, with choreography by Ms Breda McNulty. Wardrobe and costume design is by Ms Stephanie Brennan and set construction by Mr John Donohue. The artistic director of the production is Ms Hillary OGara. Tickets from Post Office, Manorhamilton or on: (087) 4633586. Also read: Leitrim jobs roundup - who is hiring this week? Huoshenshan Hospital takes shape in Wuhan, Hubei province, on Jan 30, 2020. [Photo/for China Daily] Approved by President Xi Jinping, China's military will dispatch 1,400 medical workers to the newly-built Huoshenshan hospital specialized in treating novel coronavirus patients in Wuhan. Huoshenshan has been formally delivered to military medics after eight days of speedy construction. A staff member tests the remote diagnosis system, the first such system at the Huoshenshan hospital, in Wuhan, capital of Central China's Hubei province, Jan 31, 2020. [Photo/Provided to chinadaily.com.cn] Who is Mary Somerville? Google honours Scottish scientist who paved the way for women in science India oi-Madhuri Adnal New Delhi, Feb 02: The search engine giant is honouring Scottish scientist and science writer Mary Somerville with a doodle. The doodle shows Mary Somerville at her writing table surrounded by thought bubbles and books. Born on 26 December 1780, Mary Somerville was a Scottish science writer and polymath. She studied mathematics and astronomy, and was nominated to be jointly the first female member of the Royal Astronomical Society at the same time as Caroline Herschel. Her father, Sir William Fairfax, was a vice-admiral in the British navy. Her mother, Margaret Charters, was the daughter of Samuel Charters, the solicitor of customs in Scotland. Google marks India's 71st Republic Day with doodle by Singapore-based illustrator According to Google's doodle, it was on this day in 1826, that one of her experimental physics papers was read by the Royal Society of London. It also became the first paper by a female author to be published in the Philosophical Transactions. When she died in 1872, The Morning Post (daily newspaper published in London) declared in her obituary that "Whatever difficulty we might experience in the middle of the nineteenth century in choosing a king of science, there could be no question whatever as to the queen of science". She is featured on the obverse of the Royal Bank of Scotland polymer 10 note launched in 2017, alongside a quote from her work The Connection of the Physical Sciences. Mary Somerville's most notable achievements: The Connection of the Physical Sciences (1834), which became among the best selling science books of the 19th century The Mechanism of the Heavens (1831), an essay that revolutionized the existing understanding of the solar system. She is credited with discovering Neptune due to her suggestions that there is a planet near Uranus. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Sunday, February 2, 2020, 9:01 [IST] New Delhi, Feb 3 : The United States and India on Sunday celebrated the 70th anniversary of the prestigious Fulbright exchange program which has awarded scholarships to over 11,000 Indians and Americans so far. US Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs Marie Royce who had flown in from Washington to attend the gala event in New Delhi, said, the Fulbright program, created by Senator J. William Fulbright in 1946, was designed to increase mutual understanding among the people of the United States and the people of other countries. It has now grown into the premier US international educational exchange program in the world. "When Senator J. William Fulbright introduced the legislation establishing this program, he said it was about leadership, learning, and empathy between countries," Royce said. "Tonight's celebration is a testament to the importance and longevity of Senator Fulbright's vision." The binational United States-India Educational Foundation (USIEF) was among the earliest of the Fulbright Commissions or foundations. On February 2, 1950, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and US Ambassador to India Loy Henderson signed a bilateral agreement to implement and administer a country Fulbright Program on behalf of the partner governments. Since its inception, USIEF has awarded approximately 11,128 Fulbright Fellowships to Indians and Americans. On July 4, 2008, the United States and India signed a historic new Fulbright agreement that made India a full partner in the governance and funding of the Fulbright Program. Following the new agreement, the Fulbright-Nehru Program has tripled in size. India now has the largest US Fulbright scholar program, which provides approximately 75 grants to US scholars to research and teach in India each academic year. For more than 70 years, Fulbright has provided opportunities to some 390,000 American and international scholars and students. At the celebrations organised by the USIEF, the American envoy to India, Kenneth I. Juster said, "The US-India relationship is growing rapidly. As I have said many times, I believe that the foundation of our partnership is our people-to-people ties. The Fulbright-Nehru program is a perfect example of the impact that our peoples have when they learn from each other and work together." Foreign Secretary Harsh Shringla who also attended the event. While commending the program for facilitating mutual understanding, he spoke of historic bilateral ties and shared values of the US and India. FENTON, MI -- The Michigan Law Enforcement Polar Plunge raised more than $84,000 for Special Olympics Michigan. In its 10th anniversary, the fundraiser attracted 285 people to jump into the icy cold water of Lake Fenton on Saturday, Feb. 1 outside of the Fenton Moose Lodge. Pat Peters, Area 13 director for Special Olympics Michigan, said all of the money raised will go directly toward helping the programs athletes, including training, purchasing uniforms, tournament fees and transportation. That way it costs nothing for the athletes to participate throughout the year, Peters said. This is an amazing community, and they are right behind us all the way. We have great sponsorships with UAW Local 598, Grand Blanc Community Schools and so many other businesses and individuals. Chad Fabbro, financial secretary of UAW Local 598, said members raised nearly $24,000 to donate to the cause this year. It means a lot to us. We get out and interact with the athletes throughout the year. It touches a lot of us, and a number of us leave without dry eyes every time," he said. Our members always answer the call when it comes to community. I cant say enough about our people, their heart and how much they give." The first person to jump into the water was actually UAW Local 598 president Ryan Buchalski, who raised $10,000, alongside his son. He was followed by a number of members, many dressed to impress with interesting outfits. Take a look through our gallery above and find people dressed as Ariel from The Little Mermaid," Jack Blacks character Nacho Libre, Hulk Hogan, Cupid and more. Click here if interested in purchasing any of the pictures. Actor Eva Mendes has hit back at a troll who said she was "getting old". In response to the age-shaming on one of her videos, the actor, who shares Esmeralda, five, and Amada, three, with longtime partner Ryan Gosling, said she is proud of growing old and doesn't feel bad about it. "Yes you're right. Thank God I'm getting old. That means I'm still here. I'm gonna be 46 soon and grateful everyday that I'm ageing. Was your comment suppose to make me feel bad? It didn't. It makes me feel grateful. So thank you for the reminder that I'm still here. (sic)'' she wrote on Instagram on Saturday. Following Mendes' response, many of her followers on the social media platform came to her defense, with the actor thanking many for support. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) January 31, 2020 Transcript Department of Defense Press Briefing by Secretary Esper and General Milley in the Pentagon Briefing Room Secretary Of Defense Mark T. Esper; Joint Chiefs Of Staff Chairman General Mark Milley SECRETARY OF DEFENSE DR. MARK T. ESPER: Okay. Good morning, everyone. I'd like to begin by offering my deepest condolences to the families of the three American service members who recently lost their lives in the line of duty. Air Force Lt. Col. Paul Voss and Capt. Ryan Phaneuf were killed on January 27th in an aircraft accident in Ghazni Province, Afghanistan. We have conducted recovery operations and are investigating the cause of the crash. And we thank our Afghan partners for their assistance. On January 24th, Army Spc. Antonio Moore died in Deir ez Zor Province, Syria, during a rollover accident while conducting route-clearing operations. We honor the service and sacrifice of these three men. And our thoughts are with their family and their friends. I'd also like to provide an update on several other fronts, beginning with the coronavirus. The department is providing housing support at March Air Reserve Base in California to assist Health and Human Services in caring for the nearly 200 State Department employees, dependents and U.S. citizens evacuated from Wuhan, China. I want to thank our men and women for their rapid response and assistance in this important effort. DOD personnel are not in direct contact with the evacuees, nor will the evacuees have access to any other locations on base outside of their assigned housing. The Department of Defense continues to work closely with our interagency partners as we monitor the situation and protect our service members and their families, which is my highest priority. With regard to another personnel issue, the department will be providing an update on TBI [traumatic brain injury] numbers later today. But I'd like to stress that we take this issue very seriously. DOD is a leading contributor in the treatment and research of brain-related trauma. We do everything we can to identify, treat and help our service members recover and return to duty. Turning to news reports about possible troop reductions, I want to reiterate that our combatant command reviews are ongoing and no decisions have been made at this time. As I've said before, we will ensure that any rebalancing of troops and resources is in line with our priorities under the National Defense Strategy. Meanwhile, we remain in close consultation with our allies and partners on this and other matters of shared interest. I would add that the chairman and I had the chance also to do -- to update the chairman and ranking members of the defense committees this week on this issue and several others. Today in Bahrain, the International Maritime Security Construct conducted a change of command between U.S. Rear Adm. Alvin Holsey and U.K. Commodore James Parkin. The IMC -- SC is committed to ensuring the freedom of navigation in the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, through which over 17,000 ships and one-sixth of global oil production pass each year. We welcome Commodore Parkin to this vital endeavor, which represents an international solution to an international problem. Earlier this week, I hosted the French minister of Armed Forces here at the Pentagon, as you all know, for a productive discussion about bolstering our long-standing defense relationship and encouraging other European allies to do more in Africa and the Middle East. Tomorrow, I will welcome the Italian minister of defense to talk about burden-sharing and strengthening our cooperation through the Defeat-ISIS Coalition. And next month, I will attend the NATO Defense Ministerial in Brussels to further engage with my European counterparts on the future of our readiness and collective security. I look forward to discussion NATO's expanded role in the Middle East and the importance of alliance unity as we adapt our force to an era of great power competition. With that, I'll turn it over to Chairman Milley. GENERAL MARK MILLEY: Thanks, Secretary. I don't have an opening statement, but before we get to questions, I want to echo what the secretary said about Col. Voss and -- for his family -- his family, and -- and also for Capt. Phaneuf and -- and for Spc. Moore. There's no greater loss for any family than the loss of a loved one, and our thoughts and prayers from all of us in uniform are extended to -- to their families. The -- the remains will be brought back, as you know, to Dover tonight for a dignified transfer ceremony, and the secretary and others will -- will be up there for the event. So our thoughts and prayers are with the family. And with that, we'll take the questions. STAFF: Bob Burns. Q: Thank you. Question for each of -- of you, if I may. Mr. Secretary, on coronavirus, are there precautions that you're making or preparing to make with regard to U.S. personnel in, for example, Vietnam or other areas of the -- areas in Asia or Europe, to get ahead of this? And... SEC. ESPER: Yes, I approved a -- a directive that will go out today from OSD [Office of the Secretary of Defense] apprising our forces about precautions they should take, how to recognize the signs and symptoms of the virus, et cetera. That will be first of probably a few -- again, force protection for our service members, our civilians and their families is a priority, so we want to make sure we stay front of it in -- with regard to information, and then other precautions that will be taken. I know the INDOPACOM [Indo-Pacific] command will also be taking measures, given that -- that this virus is emanating from the theater, so they will be providing additive information, as well. Q: Gen. Milley, if I may ask you a question on Iraq and the -- the TBI issue that the secretary raised. Are there additional or different precautionary measures that can be taken -- should be taken to -- to mitigate blast exposure for troops in -- in this kind of instance or others? And also, on TBI, as a person who's had extensive experience in the field in -- in war zones, you've seen a lot of things. Have you seen the manifestation of -- of these kind of concussive injuries that -- that show themselves in behavioral problems, to the extent that people have to be removed from the -- from the field? GEN. MILLEY: Yeah, thanks for the question, Bob. The short answer is yes and yes. There are a wide variety of extensive experiments in designs and things like helmet design, et cetera. There's a lot of treatment therapies that were due. As you know, we -- we put in the MACE test quite a few years ago. We really started manifesting, I'd say, probably about 10 ago, where we began a -- a series of -- of mitigation actions within the force. The MACE test is one of them, where they -- we immediately test within the first 24 to 48 hours -- start testing people on neurological symptoms, asking them questions, putting them through some physical exams, et cetera, et cetera. In this case, as you know, there were thousands of people at the Al Asad Air Base. Those that were within the distance of the -- of the blast -- these were, you know, 1,000, 2,000 bomb munitions that were coming in with heavy over-pressure, et cetera. All of those people were screened, and we've got a certain number, and the number's growing. In this particular case, TBI, that manifests -- it takes some time to manifest itself. It's not an immediate thing, necessarily. Some cases, it is, some cases it's not. So we continue to screen. Some of them have been evacuated to Europe. Some of them have been evacuated back to the United States. So there's a -- there's a layered approach to this; we'll continue to do that with our medical professionals. In terms of mitigations, in -- you know, the first thing is to mitigate from the actual shrapnel and the blast to prevent physical injury in the sense of, you know, wounds resulting in loss of limbs, et cetera, and that requires early warning, which happened; getting under cover, which happened; dispersal, getting into safe areas, and so on. All of that is what prevented killed in action, and very seriously-injured, such as amputations, et cetera. But the TBI piece is different. Your brain is a very fragile part of your body, even though it's encased inside your -- your skull. But the over-pressures and -- and the injuries to the brain, the unseen wounds of war, for example, those can be -- be -- be serious, or they can be not so serious. It depends on the individual. It depends on the proximity to the blast. And sometimes they are lifelong, sometimes they resolve themselves within weeks or months. So it's constant monitoring, and we take a lot of measures within the military to make sure that we screen those out. In terms of mitigation in the future, as we do that, we're -- we're -- we partner with various organizations and health organizations to try to develop not only therapies, but also preventive measures, things like -- like helmets, for example. Q: Okay, thank you. SEC. ESPER: And one thing I would add is, you know, as Army Secretary, I'm sure the chairman would recall when he was chief, we were working, spending quite a bit of time and resources to understand how we can either change the composition of our helmets or the design, so it could either divert a concussion or absorb it to deflect it. And as I had travelled throughout the Army, meeting at least with our research labs to understand that. I think the Army is -- the service, the military is a leader on this issue. We've partnered, the Army did, at least, with the NFL, to understand this, and it's something we have to continue to working on -- work on. It's very important, and we have to make sure that our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines have all the protections they need to, you know, to fight and survive and -- and win and recover quickly in -- in military operations. GEN. MILLEY: And, Bob, you asked -- the second part of your question was, does it manifest some in behavioral health? Well, in -- in some cases, absolutely, yes. It can trans -- it can become post-traumatic stress. It can become a wide variety of behavioral/health issues when you do damage to the brain. Q: Are you seeing it in this case? GEN. MILLEY: It's -- right now, it's too early to tell. The diagnosis we have so far for all the -- all of the folks that have been diagnosed to date is mild traumatic brain injury. That's the diagnosis that has been reported to us so far. SEC. ESPER: And I -- I -- I -- I'm sorry. This is just a -- it's a good topic. We are still learning. There's a lot more to be learned about these injuries. We're putting a lot of money into research. It effects us not just on the battlefield, but look, our - our service members get hurt during training, as well. They get hurt during, you know, all types of activities. So we need understand how the brain is affected by -- by injuries to it, whether it's from a concussive blast or other things. So it's an important field of research we need to continue to work on. Q: Thank you. STAFF: Idrees. Q: If I could stick with TBI, actually. When -- when you saw the payload of the missiles and how close they came to some of the shelters, at that point, did you expect that there would be TBI, or is that something that surprised both of you? GEN. MILLEY: For me, it's not a surprise. This is -- is -- concussive injuries is a result of any explosive device that goes off. You can get concussive injuries from hitting your head, from falling, from parachute jumps, et cetera. So, no, it's not necessarily a surprise. What we do when -- when we're in contact with the enemy -- we're in a firefight, incoming mortars, rockets, theater ballistic missiles or anything, the very first thing you're focusing on is life and limb. So when we say "reported casualties," we're really talking about killed in action and -- and serious injuries like loss of limbs. The TBI manifests itself over time. It's not necessarily instantaneous. So not a surprise, necessarily, but the focus immediately is loss of life and limb. Q: Just to go on, in retrospect, do you think it would have been better or more forthcoming if you had not initially said there were no injuries? And -- and do you think the president saying, "They're just headaches," minimizes, sort of, the injuries and TBI? SEC. ESPER: The chairman and I spent most the night going over casualties and understanding what happened on the ground with Gen. McKenzie and others. I think the reporting was accurate. At that time, as reported, there were no casualties, as -- as -- as the chairman just defined it. I think, again, over time you learn things and you -- you -- you get reports. And as we predicted, when the first reports came in several days later, that there would likely be more and more, because I think these things, the TBI manifests itself over time. So I think we did our best to report no casualties, and I still believe that there were -- that morning, there were no casualties reported. STAFF: (inaudible) Q: Secretary Esper, why have you not moved the Patriot missile batteries into Iraq? What's the holdup? And, Gen. Milley, do you need Patriots to protect those bases? Would they have been able to intercept those ballistic missiles? SEC. ESPER: I'll let the chairman speak to the particulars of how the commander positions his forces, et cetera. But one of the things we need to do is make sure we have permission from the host government, and that's one of the matters we have to work on and work through. Q: So they're being held up right now by the Iraqis? SEC. ESPER: We need the permission of the Iraqis, that's one issue. There may be others with regard to placement and things like that, at a more tactical, more operational. So, it's a combination of things. GEN. MILLEY: We're working with the Iraqi government in order to do exactly what you just suggested. There's mechanical pieces, the science of war, so to speak, of actually moving and bringing in -- Patriot batteries -- a Patriot battalion is not a small organization, it's relatively large. So the mechanics of it all have to be worked out and that is, in fact, ongoing. In terms of would-have, should-have, could-have, in terms of if there was a Patriot battalion at Al Asad or Irbil or whatever, could they have shot down these TBMs? That's what they're designed to do, can't say for certain, obviously, whether in that case, at those altitudes and those ranges, et cetera, if that would have happened. But that is exactly what they're designed to do, is to shoot down incoming theater ballistic missiles. Q: But you do feel you need them? GEN. MILLEY: Yes. SEC. ESPER: The commander feels he needs them, and our intent is to assess the commander's requests and determine whether we fill them or not. In this case, we support the commander STAFF: Luis. SEC: ESPER: given what happened. Q: Going back to the question on TBI, the president did say that these wounds were not serious, and he characterized them as headaches. Could I ask both of you, what do you make of those comments? And given that in your opening statement, you said that the department takes it very seriously, how is that at odds with the department's views? SEC. ESPER: I've had the chance to speak with the president. He is very concerned about the health and welfore -- welfare of all of our service members, particularly those who were involved in the operations in Iraq, and he understands the nature of these injuries. GEN. MILLEY: And I would say, there's three categories of wounded in action that we've had for years. One is VSI, very serious -- and you're probably all familiar with this -- very serious injured; one is S.I., serious injured; and one is NSI, not serious injured. And, in this case, the reporting to date indicates mild TBI, which would be in the category of not serious injured. That doesn't mean they're not injured, and it doesn't mean to the individual. But in the categories that we categorize wounded in action, these individuals are in the NSI category at this time. That's not to minimize or dismiss or anything, that's just to say that that's how we categorize casualties. Q: So would you say that the president is now better informed than he was when he made those comments? SEC. ESPER: I'm not going to comment on that. I think for many people, this is a learning process and we are -- we are sending teams, briefers to the Hill, if you will. We're going to have a conversation with many Hill staff today. I think we need to update Hill staff, members of Congress to understand what TBI injuries are. They are -- again, this is something we've come to learn about -- the chairman can speak more fluently on it -- over the past 10, 15 years, as we've seen IED attacks on our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. So, again, this is an injury we need to keep educating everybody about: the Hill, you, all of you, the American people. And even myself. It's a learning process for many of us. GEN. MILLEY: Yes. Some of these -- some of these injuries that, right now, are called "mild TBI," and they're in the NSI category, that might change. These things are cumulative, too. So if you get multiple concussions, that can manifest itself down the road. It could be a year, two years. So it could what what Bob was talking about in terms of behavioral health. So this -- we're early in the stage of diagnosis, we're early in the stage of therapy for these troops. We'll continue to monitor them the rest of their lives, actually, and -- and continue to provide whatever treatment is necessary. And we take great pride in the fact that these are our own and we're going to take care of them. SEC. ESPER: The key is to take care of our service members, treat them, not just the immediate, the acute, but also through the -- through their lifetime of service and beyond, and make sure we're doing everything we can to prevent injuries in the future through new helmet designs, other ways by which we can protect them. And that's -- that's what we're committed to doing. STAFF: (inaudible) Q: Hi, sir. I just have a quick clarification and then a separate question. Just on the International Maritime Security Construct that you mentioned, that you're changing command and the commander's going to be a U.K. commodore. Can you just clarify, my I understanding was that this was a U.S.-led effort, is it now a U.K.-led effort, or is there something that I'm missing? And then my -- my separate question is, the commanders of AFRICOM [Africa Command] and SOUTHCOM [Southern Command] are on the Hill this morning, and lawmakers have raised some concerns about the possible drawdown on those continents, and worries that this will allow the Chinese influence to grow there. So can you just explain how reducing our footprint in Africa will help better posture the U.S. to counter China? SEC. ESPER: On the first thing, it's -- we've described it as a U.S.-led effort, the IMSC, but clearly, we have many partners. And I think the fact that we have the U.K. willing to step up and take leadership of the IMSC in particular shows that it's an international effort and we're all committed to it. This is part and parcel what we do in other theaters, if you will. On the second point -- and I said this -- some of you travel with me to SOUTHCOM -- I know the -- I know the inclination is whenever somebody says, "review," the word that automatically pops up in our head is "reduction," right? There will -- when we do reviews, I like to say it's -- it is a rebalancing, if you will, a right-sizing. In some cases, we will increase; in some cases, we won't change; in some cases, we will decrease. I think in the context of great power competition, as I mentioned to the leaders of the Defense Committee this week, I'm placing, at the top of the list, the commands need to be able to conduct their war plans and contingency plans. Next, below that, is great power competition. Those -- and when it comes to great power competition, those are areas in both AFRICOM and SOUTHCOM that I'm looking at increasing our posture, not necessarily reducing our posture. So I want to make sure that we compete, first and foremost -- when it comes to the NDS [National Defense Strategy] -- in the respective theaters, but it's also a global competition with Russia and China, and we need to make sure that we're well-postured to deal with them, as appropriate, wherever we may find that presence. Q: Just to clarify, though, so you said you're looking at potentially increasing force presence in Africa, not decreasing? SEC. ESPER: Well, adjusting the presence, right? Adjusting numbers and how we allocate the personnel more toward global great power competition. And maybe less towards CT [counterterrorism]. Q: So -- oh, okay, okay. Can you -- can you say for a fact that you're not going to totally withdraw U.S. forces from Africa? SEC. ESPER: We're not going to totally withdraw forces from Africa. Economy of force doesn't mean complete withdrawal from any -- any continent. And we do economy of force in various locations, and it's an important distinction to make, and I've never said it. Again, I know that's the concern of many folks. But, again, I'd say no decisions have been made yet. This is a process. I had AFRICOM in last week. What they presented with me raised many other questions that have been tasked out, and I think this is going to be an iterative process with them. I began the process last week as well with SOUTHCOM, and that will be -- that will go on. These things take time. But at the end of the day, I want to make sure that our commands are aligned to the National Defense Strategy. And, again, that first begins with ability to execute their war plans, contingency plans. Second is great power competition. And then third, depending on the theater, different tasks, right? In AFRICOM, it's -- CT is important. In SOUTHCOM, counter-drug's important. So we've got to make sure that we're appropriately prioritizing, and allocating and positioning forces appropriate to the mission, and appropriate to everything else we have to do as the Department of Defense in the world, okay? STAFF: Kevin Barron. Q: There's been a report this morning on CNN, that there's going to be a policy change on personnel landmines. Can you confirm the report and give us a reason of why the change now, and does this mean that there will be anti-personnel landmines specifically outside of Korea? SEC. ESPER: There will be a change coming out. I'm not going to comment on it until it is. STAFF: Barbara? Q: Gen. Milley, I wanted to take you back to the question on mitigation measures for TBI, and especially in Iraq. So, yes, Patriots, but you can't put Patriots everywhere. Improvement in the helmet. But Iran has, you know, managed to injure 50 to 60 American forces through the use of ballistic missiles. So now that you look back, lessons learned from this event? It seems to be an extraordinary not-happened-before kind of thing. Do you need to -- you knew -- and the Pentagon knew that ballistic missiles were a threat. Should there be -- should there have been stronger bunkers, stronger facilities designed for that intense blast wave, rather than facilities designed just for rockets and mortars? Is - is -- is -- should somebody have thought - have thought about having stronger defenses since you didn't have Patriot missiles? And can I ask you, you've both mentioned helmets. Would helmets be -- stronger helmets have made a difference against a ballistic missile blast wave? GEN. MILLEY: On the helmets, this is a general comment about mitigating TBI writ large, okay? Not -- look, a theater ballistic missile that were fired, these were 1,000 to 2,000-pound munitions. These things have bursting radiuses of 50 to 100 feet, and that's just the shrapnel in the actual blast. These are very, very significant, serious weapons. And -- and in -- you know, if you're within a certain range of that thing, there's no helmet or anything else that's going to -- that's going to save you. But I would argue that the defenses did work, in that no one was killed, and there were no loss of life or limb. That's significant. So -- and there were people within range of these things. You saw the impact -- I think you saw the impact -- points of impact of these missiles. They were in areas -- and that's still my contention, even today -- that the intent was not only to destroy facilities and equipment, but also to kill people. And the fact that no one was killed or no one lost limbs, I think that is significant and it speaks, I think, volumes to early warning systems, also to SOPs [standing operating procedures] and scatter plans, and also to the defensive preparations that were done. Could there be improvements? Absolutely, yes, and we're taking a hard look at all of that, to include bringing in ballistic missile defense that Jennifer was talking about. Q: Can you point -- if you're able to -- besides Patriots, can you talk about any of the other things that look promising to you for additional defenses -- mitigation against ballistic missiles? GEN. MILLEY: I'd actually prefer not to talk about that, to talk about what we plan to do in the future in terms of defense or offense, for that matter, in order to defend against any countries' capabilities. So we'll leave the future to the future. STAFF: We've got time for one more question. Courtney? Q: One follow-up on that. Are you -- are you looking at any other missile defense or any other kinds of defenses to go into Iraq besides the Patriots? So not just in -- against missile threats, but there have been problems with drones, other issues... GEN. MILLEY: There's a wide variety of tactical capabilities that we have that we will employ, that we'll introduce in various theaters based on the commander's requests and the enemy situation. To go into any specific capability that we're going to put into Iraq or any other country, I'd prefer to leave that unanswered. (CROSSTALK) Q: But you are saying that you've requested of the Iraqi government to bring the Patriots in? Can I ask just one more on Iraq, too? (CROSSTALK) SEC. ESPER: We need to go, thank you. Q: It's a quick one on troop numbers. SEC. ESPER: You -- you asked your question, so thanks, Courtney. STAFF: We'll get you an answer, Courtney. Thank you. https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/2070528/ NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address It's been more than a half decade since we first told you about the XS-1 -- a project of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which aims to build an experimental spaceplane to cut the cost of satellite launch by approximately 10 times. Ferrying medium-sized satellites to the very edge of space, XS-1 would then deploy rockets to blast the satellites the rest of the way into orbit. At a projected cost of $5 million per launch, XS-1 was supposed to offer access to orbit even cheaper than what SpaceX offers today...but now it never will. Boeing wins... Three partnered teams initially bid to perform the XS-1 work for DARPA: Boeing (NYSE:BA) and Blue Origin, Northrop Grumman alongside Virgin Galactic, and Masten Space paired with XCOR Aerospace. After examining phase 1 submissions from all three teams, though, DARPA was so impressed with Boeing's offering -- a spaceplane dubbed "Phantom Express" -- that it dumped Northrop's and Masten's teams from the competition. Going forward, contracts for both of the next two stages of development -- phases 2 and 3 -- would go to Boeing's team exclusively. (With one modification: Instead of partnering with Blue Origin, Boeing would equip its spaceplane with AR-22 engines developed by Aerojet Rocketdyne.) DARPA ballyhooed the project, predicting Boeing's Phantom Express would become the "first of an entirely new class of hypersonic aircraft that would bolster national security by providing short-notice, low-cost access to space." Phase 2 work on the project was to wrap up by the end of 2019, and by now, we were supposed to be well into phase 3 -- flight testing of Phantom Express. Except that it didn't, we aren't -- and now we never will. ...and then Boeing bows out Last week, Boeing announced that it "is ending our role in the Experimental Spaceplane (XSP) program immediately." It's unclear how much progress Boeing ultimately made on phase 2 of the XS-1 program (although its partner, Aerojet, apparently succeeded in demonstrating its AR-22 engine's suitability for reusable spaceflights). It's also unknown how much of the $146 million Boeing was to be paid for its work was actually earned. What is clear is that Boeing's exit from XS-1 has doomed the project. As DARPA explained in a statement, Boeing's decision to cease work on the Phantom Express "effectively ends the XSP program." Space race, part 2 So...end of story? Not quite. For one thing, while Boeing will no longer be moving forward in cooperation with DARPA on Phantom Express, the company said it still intends "to harvest the significant learnings from this effort and apply them as Boeing continues to seek ways to provide future responsive, reusable access to space." So even though abandoned, the XS-1 effort wasn't a total waste of time. Nor is Boeing necessarily DARPA's only route to space, or its only means of driving down the cost of getting satellites into orbit. Indeed, it almost looks like events elsewhere have overtaken the XS-1 project. As research into XS-1 was ongoing in the U.S., for example, over on the other side of the planet, New Zealand-based small-launch start-up Rocket Lab has been successfully firing off a series of small Electron rockets for more than a year. They carry small payloads to space for not much more than Phantom Express was supposed to cost -- about $6.5 million per mission. (In fact, Rocket Lab's 11th straight successful launch took place just Thursday.) Over in the U.K., Sir Richard Branson, too, has been ramping up efforts to develop a reusable spaceplane, his "SpaceShipTwo," which will be used to fly tourists to space. He's also modified a Boeing (yes, there's some irony here) 747-400 dubbed "Cosmic Girl," which will be used to shoot satellites into space aboard LauncherOne rockets -- much like XS-1 was supposed to do. Granted, LauncherOne will have a payload of only 500 kilograms, versus XS-1's targeted 1,360 kilogram payload, and its launch cost will probably be $10 million or so, not $5 million. Then again, LauncherOne looks like it will actually be built and operated, whereas Phantom Express...won't. For that matter, even back here at home, Sierra Nevada is planning to begin running supply missions to the International Space Station sometime next year, utilizing its own Dream Chaser reusable spaceplane. Long story short, the demise of DARPA's XS-1 project may seem like a disappointment today. But given all the other new options under development -- or even already in use -- within a few years, I suspect the now-abandoned Phantom Express will not be missed. North Chinas Tianjin and the city of Anyang in Central Chinas Henan province both reported two new cases of the highly transmissible omicron variant over the weekend. Both cities have launched new rounds of mass testing and designated more Covid-19 risk areas to control the spread of the virus Jan 10, 2022 06:18 PM Japan is one of many countries that's implementing tighter border controls in a bid to keep infected travelers out. Authorities are now denying entry to all foreign nationals who have recently visited Hubei Province. They've listed the coronavirus as a "designated infectious disease"...which means they can forcibly hospitalize people with infections. Officials also have the power to compel people to stay away from their workplace for a specified period. The health ministry has drawn up a questionnaire for all arrivals from China. People will be required to complete it regardless of whether they are showing symptoms. 565 people have returned to Japan on three chartered flights from the city of Wuhan in Hubei Province, the epicenter of the outbreak. So far, Japan has confirmed 20 cases...including 8 among people who were evacuated from Wuhan. Some of the patients are not showing any symptoms. The Defense Ministry has sent a private ferry to Tokyo Bay. The ship will be used as a destination for people who return by government-chartered plane. The ferry has space for about 100 people. Researchers at a Japanese institute have successfully isolated the coronavirus from a patient and have been able to culture it. They say that will help them develop a vaccine, drug or a new testing method. Research institutes in China and Australia have also succeeded in isolating the virus. The body of a tour guide who worked at a famous butterfly reserve in Mexico has been discovered two days after a prominent monarch butterfly activist was found dead. Mexican authorities said they are investigating the possible murder of Raul Hernandez, whose body was found beaten and with a head injury possibly caused by a sharp object. Local media reported Hernandez was found in the early hours of Saturday, in the Ocampo municipality, about 8km from the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve. Hernandez was reported missing by his family on 27 January after he left his home in the town of San Pedro Libertad, said the state prosecutor in a statement. Earlier this week, activist Homero Gomez Gonzalez was found floating in a well in the state of Michoacan, where the reserve is located, two weeks after he vanished. Environment news in pictures Show all 8 1 /8 Environment news in pictures Environment news in pictures Davos 2019: David Attenborough issues stark warning about future of civilisation as he demands practical solutions to combat climate change Sir David Attenborough has issued a stark warning about climate change to business figures gathered in Davos, telling them that "what we do now...will profoundly affect the next few thousand years". On the eve of this year's World Economic Forum, the renowned naturalist told the audience that the worlds of business and politics should "get on with the practical solutions" needed to prevent environmental damage. "As a species we are expert problem solvers. But we've not yet applied ourselves to this problem with the focus it requires. "We can create a world with clean air and water, unlimited energy, and fish stocks that will sustain us well into the future. But to do that, we need a plan," he said. The broadcaster made his speech after receiving a Crystal Award, which is awarded by the forum to "exceptional cultural leaders". AFP/Getty Environment news in pictures At least 60% of wild coffee species face extinction triggered by climate change and disease Two decades of research have revealed that 60 per cent of the worlds coffee species face extinction due to the combined threats of deforestation, disease and climate change. The wild strain of arabica, the most widely consumed coffee on the planet, is among those now recognised as endangered, raising concerns about its long-term survival. These results are worrying for the millions of farmers around the world who depend on the continued survival of coffee for their livelihoods. As conditions for coffee farming become tougher, scientists predict the industry will need to rely on wild varieties to develop more resilient strains Alan Schaller Environment news in pictures Warming Antarctic waters are speeding the rate at which glaciers are melting The Antarctic ice sheet is losing six times as much ice each year as it was in the 1980s and the pace is accelerating, one of the most comprehensive studies of climate change effects on the continent has shown. More than half an inch has been added to global sea levels since 1979, but if current trends continue it will be responsible for metres more in future, the Nasa-funded study found. The international effort used aerial photos, satellite data and climate models dating back to the 1970s across18 Antarctic regions to get the most complete picture to date on the impacts of the changing climate. It found that between 1979 and 1990 Antarctica lost an average of 40 gigatonnes (40 billion tonnes) of its mass each year. Between 2009 and 2017 it lost an average 252 gigatonnes a year. This has added 3.6mm per decade to sea levels, or around 14mm since 1979, the study shows Nasa/Getty Environment news in pictures Greater Manchester to ban fracking, paving way for confrontation with government over controversial industry Greater Manchester is to effectively ban fracking, raising the prospect of fresh confrontation with the government over the controversial industry. All of the regions 10 councils are to implement planning policies which create a presumption against drilling for shale gas in their areas, Manchester mayor Andy Burnham has announced. Campaigners said the move was the latest sign that the tide was turning against fracking, which has been the subject of multiple legal battles across the country. Critics of fracking say it poses environmental and health risks. Drilling at the UKs only operational fracking site, run by Cuadrilla in Lancashire, has repeatedly been halted due to earth tremors. But ministers support the industry and last year unveiled plans to accelerate the development of new drilling sites Ross Wills Environment news in pictures Japan confirms plan to resume commercial whaling in its waters from next year Japan will resume commercial whaling next year for the first time in more than three decades, in a move that has provoked strong criticism from campaigners and the international community. Chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga said his nation would leave the International Whaling Commission (IWC) to resume hunting the marine mammals in Japanese waters. However, he stated the activity would be limited to Japans territory and the 200 mile exclusive economic zone along its coasts. This means controversial scientific trips to Antarctica in which Japanese vessels killed hundreds of whales, as well as activity in the northwest Pacific, will stop in 2019 AP Environment news in pictures COP24: Environmental groups criticise morally unacceptable climate deal reached after major Poland summit Diplomats from around the world have agreed a major climate deal after two weeks of United Nations talks in Poland. But climate campaigners warned the deal effectively a set of rules for how to govern the 2015 Paris climate accord agreed between almost 200 countries lacked ambition or a clear promise of enhanced climate action. Activists cautiously welcomed elements of the plan, saying important progress had been made on ensuring that efforts to tackle climate change by individual nations can be measured and compared. But environmental groups were also highly critical of the agreement, warning it lacked ambition and clarity on key issues, including financing for climate projects for developing countries. The COP24 deal, which is aimed at providing firm guidelines for countries on how to transparently report their greenhouse gas emissions and their efforts to reduce them, was confirmed on 15 December, after talks overran Reuters Environment news in pictures Unprecedented changes needed to stop global warming as UN report reveals islands starting to vanish and coral reefs dying Greenhouse gas emissions must be cut almost in half by 2030 to avert global environmental catastrophe, including the total loss of every coral reef, the disappearance of Arctic ice and the destruction of island communities, a landmark UN report has concluded. Drawing on more than 6,000 scientific studies and compiled over two years, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) findings, released this morning, warn enormous and rapid changes to the way everyone on Earth eats, travels and produces energy need to be brought in immediately. Though the scientists behind the report said there is cause for optimism, they recognised the grim reality that nations are currently nowhere near on track to avert disaster AFP/Getty Environment news in pictures Africas three biggest elephant poaching cartels exposed using DNA from illegal ivory shipments DNA taken from massive shipments of ivory has been used to identify the three largest wildlife trafficking gangs operating at the height of Africas elephant poaching epidemic. Ivory tends to be shipped around the world from African ports in bulk, and scientists have used genetic evidence gleaned from intercepted batches to reveal their origins. Led by Dr Samuel Wasser from the University of Washington, they traced a number of these shipments to three cartels operating out of Kenya, Uganda and Togo. Evidence collected by Dr Wasser has already helped convict ivory kingpin Feisal Mohamed Ali, and as his team joins the dots between shipments they plan to shore up the cases against more of the continents most prolific smugglers Art Wolfe His disappearance and ensuing death sparked an outcry in Mexico, where environmental and human rights activists are routinely threatened or even killed as a result of their work. Gonzalez, who fought to defend the monarch butterflys wintering grounds from illegal logging, managed the El Rosario butterfly sanctuary located inside the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve. Millions of monarch butterflies make a mammoth 2,000-mile journey every year from Canada to central Mexico to escape winter. Recommended Climate change threatens the beautiful and beloved monarch butterfly However, their survival is endangered by threats to their habitat, caused by climate change and illegal logging. The Michoacan Human Rights Commission urged authorities to investigate if Gonzalezs disappearance was connected to illegal loggers, reported Mexico News Daily. He is probably hurting the [business] interests of people illegally logging in the area, said Mayta Cardona, an official at the commission. But an official with the National Commission of Natural Protected Areas told the Washington Post they did not believe Gonzalezs disappearance was related to his conservation work. Michoacan state houses the largest monarch butterfly reserve in Mexico, which is now a Unesco World Heritage site. It is also home to rival drug gangs who fight to control smuggling routes through the Mexican interior, often leading to violent deaths. In early January the U.S. Navy again told the FAA (Federal Aviation Authority) that the navy would once more be conducting a carrier task force training exercise off the southeast American coast that would involve GPS jamming. These exercises ran from the 17th to the 24th and the jamming was scheduled to last several hours a day. The FAA then sent an advisory out to commercial and private aviation, as well as ships informing of the days and times of the jamming with information on how to cope and a request to report GPS disruption encountered, including times and the impact. After the 2019 exercise, 1,230 reports were sent in, via an electronic form and 64 percent of then noted serious problems with their navigation equipment. In some cases, the equipment did not return to normal until after the aircraft landed. Similar exercises have been conducted, and FAA advisories issued, for exercises at some land-based weapons testing areas as well as army and air force bases. These exercises have been going on for several decades but usually involve less powerful, and shorter-range jammers. The January exercises south of Norfolk involved wide-area jamming similar to what warships would encounter on the high seas. The worst impact is in a relatively small area but the navy warns that some jamming could have a lesser impact up to 700 kilometers away from the jammer. These wide-area navy jamming exercises have been going on for several years now and are considered a necessary part of training as well as a way to test existing procedures and equipment designed to deal with such jamming. The navy can refer to these complaint reports to determine the impact of jamming on civilians. Firms that manufacture navigation equipment find these exercises a useful way to determine the wartime impact of such jamming It is more common for nations using GPS jamming gear to keep quiet about it, especially those nations that use the jammers unexpectedly in peacetime. Over the last few years, there has been growing evidence that Russia has been frequently jamming or spoofing (deceiving) GPS signals, mainly to hide the exact location of key people or military units. Developing equipment like this is easily within Russian capabilities. In early 2019 a civilian think-tank (C4ADS) released a report in which they described how they had found nearly 10,000 instances that someone, apparently Russia, had been jamming or spoofing satellite navigation signals. Not just the American GPS, but also signals from non-American satellite navigation systems (Chinese Beidou, EUs Galileo, Japans QZAA and even the Russian GLONASS). Much of this activity was not outright jamming but spoofing. This was apparently done to conceal the true location of key Russian officials (like president Putin) and Russian military units. The spoofing was particularly common for Russian military forces in Ukraine and Syria. The spoofing replaced the actual satellite signal with a false one that rendered smart bombs or planned attacks on targets inaccurate. Spoofing has become more popular and practical because it does not require expensive or high-tech equipment. While American weapons and military navigation systems have a backup in the form of unjammable INS (Internal Navigation System) systems, these are useless if the spoofing is not detected so the INS can take over. American systems are supposed to detect spoofing and revert to INS but the Americans do not disclose details of how these systems work in order to make it difficult for spoofing systems to be modified to be less detectable. That is one reason why the U.S. has not released information on spoofing incidents. To further complicate matters there have also been instances where ship AIS (Automatic Identification System) transponders were spoofed. By international law, all large seagoing ships were required to carry and use AIS equipment, which constantly broadcast the GPS position of the ship. But there were cases where ships suddenly saw the AIS positions of ships near them change because, it turned out, someone was spoofing GPS signals in the area using a short-range jammer. AIS equipment is designed to report when it was getting no GPS signal at all. Large ships usually carry two AIS units, in case one malfunctions. Jammers attempt to disrupt AIS by just introducing a more powerful but inaccurate GPS signal. But in these cases, the spoofing does not work as intended and some ships would receive no signal at all, which causes an alarm to go off. Other nations are not as secretive in complaining and often the culprit is Russia. In late 2018 Finland and Norway went public with their accusations that Russia deliberately jammed GPS signals in northern Finland and Norway from a location near the Russian military bases in the Kola Peninsula on the Barents Sea. The jamming took place as NATO held its largest training exercise since the Cold War ended in 1991. Russia denied any responsibility even though they are known to possess long-range jammers for GPS and other signals. Norway said they had tracked the jammer to a specific location but when Russia refused to admit any involvement Norway refused to explain how they tracked the signal because that would provide Russia with information on Norwegian EW (Electronic Warfare) equipment that might be useful to them. What was curious about this incident was that it had no impact on the NATO military exercises and even commercial airliners operating in the area had backup (INS) systems in case GPS signals were not working properly. The potential victims were civilians with smaller aircraft or on the ground who depend on commercial navigation gear using GPS. Then again, that may have been the point because Russian firms have long been producing a wide variety of GPS jammers that are generally ineffective against military GPS users but would be useful for criminals, terrorists or anyone involved in irregular warfare, as Russia has been in Ukraine since 2014. As for the damage to diplomatic relations with Norway and Finland, these two nations need no reminders of what a bad neighbor Russia is and historically has been. C4ADS analysts concluded that the Russian spoofing incidents were possibly common practice whenever president Putin traveled, probably as a security measure to render assassination attempts using UAVs armed with explosives. This has become a common tactic with Islamic terrorists, who consider Putin a prime target for UAV attacks. This new Russian jammer was not a surprise. Russia was a major developer of such gear during the Cold War and kept at it after the Cold War ended in 1991. By 2010 the U.S. Department of Defense was spending a lot of money on developing a jam-resistant replacement, or backup (depending on who you talk to), for GPS. The best candidate was an improved INS, which has existed for nearly a century but since the 1960s had gotten smaller, cheaper, and more reliable as electronic components did the same. Basically, INS uses three gyroscopes and three accelerometers to constantly measure changes in direction and changes in velocity. With that, the INS will always know where it is in relation to its initial starting point (which can be obtained initially via unjammed GPS or older means). Miniature INS devices have long served as a backup for GPS guided weapons. But while GPS guidance can land a bomb or missile within 10 meters (32 feet) of a target, INS can only achieve 30 meter accuracy. GPS also has the advantage of not needing to have its exact position entered after the INS is turned on. On the upside, that means INS cannot be jammed or spoofed. These micro- gyroscopes and accelerometers have become standard in many smartphones to not only detect orientation but also movement. The use of this tech by smartphone makers resulted in even cheaper and more reliable designs that proved very useful for military INS backups for GPS. After 2010 American researchers created new concepts and technology that could greatly improve current INS accuracy and cost. By 2013 prototypes proved they could be nearly as accurate as GPS and almost as small. The cost was still a factor, with the new INS still costing more than 10 times what GPS does. But this is all a big improvement over what has been available before. The new INS can now be used to monitor GPS and alert the operator that their GPS has either developed a problem or is being jammed. The new INS is also useful for some fast missiles that often lose their GPS signal as they maneuver. Another urgent chore for INS is to alert users that their GPS is being spoofed (sent a false signal that is luring the user away). Thus, even with the ability of anti-jamming tech to keep up with jammer technology, there is still a demand for a new INS. That has led to smaller, cheaper and more accurate INS systems. Aside from airlines and commercial shipping, there is not much of a mass market for these new INS systems because for most consumers GPS is reliable enough to keep the INS gear out of the consumer market. But the demand from the airlines, shipping companies and the military is huge. However the tech remains popular for smartphones and other consumer items, but not as INS. That is changing as some smartphone (and smartwatch) manufacturers seek to use INS to automatically fill in if the user temporarily loses the GPS signal. Many Department of Defense navigation and electronics experts believe current anti-jamming efforts are sufficient to keep military GPS use viable, but the new INS technology has attracted a lot of attention in the military as backups are always appreciated because when equipment fails in combat its literally a matter of life or death. Meanwhile, the U.S. is building and testing more compact GPS anti-jamming systems for smaller (as small as 200 kg/440 pounds) UAVs. This is part of a program to equip all American UAVs, even the smallest ones, with more secure GPS. While all UAVs can be flown by the operator, the GPS makes it a lot easier for the operator to keep track of exactly where his UAV is at all times and sometimes the UAV is programmed to simply patrol between a series of GPS coordinates. If the GPS jams or fails the operator can usually use the video feed to find landmarks on the ground and bring the UAV back to where it can be seen and landed. While American troops have not yet encountered much (if any) battlefield GPS jamming, the threat exists. Currently, American troops can experience this sort of thing in Ukraine (where NATO nations have military advisors and observers) and Syria. This jamming tech is also showing up in Iraq and Afghanistan. Before that, the most tangible evidence of this came from North Korea, which has long made, sold, and itself used GPS jammers. In 2012 North Korea attacked South Korea with a massive GPS jamming campaign. The jamming began in late April and continued for over two weeks. It took less than a day to confirm that the signal was coming from North Korea and was mainly aimed at the South Korean capital (Seoul). The jamming had little impact inside the city itself (the ground-based jamming signal was blocked by buildings and hills) and was only noted by several hundred aircraft landing or taking off from local airports and over a hundred ships operating off the coast. In all these cases the ships and aircraft had backup navigation systems, which were switched on when GPS became unreliable. This is how navigation systems, especially those that rely on an external (satellite) signal, are designed. The 2012 incident was the third time North Korea has used GPS jamming against South Korea. For most of March 2011, North Korea directed a GPS jamming signal across the border towards Seoul. A separate jammer has been directed at cell phone traffic. The GPS jamming signal could be detected up to a hundred kilometers south of the DMZ. The usual response to GPS jamming is to bomb the jammers, which are easy to find (jamming is nothing more than broadcasting a more powerful version of the frequency you want to interfere with). But such a response could lead to more fighting in Korea, so the south protested and refrained from responding with force. The jamming was a nuisance more than a threat and most military equipment is equipped with electronics and other enhancements to defeat it. The North Korean jamming confirmed what was already suspected. So now South Korean and American electronic warfare experts have an opportunity to study the effects of jamming on a large metropolitan area. It caused intermittent problems for users of GPS devices and many more cell phone connectivity problems. There were briefer and less powerful jamming incidents in August and December of 2010. China and Russia are both selling GPS jammers. In 2007, China brought to market a powerful truck-mounted GPS jamming system. These "GPS jamming vans" are meant to create a protective "bubble" over an area the van is in the middle of. A year before the 2003 invasion of Iraq it was believed that Saddam had bought many GPS jammers to deal with U.S. JDAM GPS smart bombs. The JDAM has a backup INS, which was no secret, and the Iraqi GPS jamming efforts had no significant effect on the 2003 campaign. There are several approaches to defeating GPS jamming, and knowing which one each American GPS guided weapon uses makes it easy to develop a way to jam the "jam-proof" GPS. The U.S. Air Force is understandably reluctant to discuss what they are doing. Given the cost of jam proofing all existing GPS weapons, it's more likely that jam-proof GPS weapons will only be used against targets where the GPS accuracy is vital. Against most targets, the accuracy provided by the inertial guidance system will do. Also, note that you can bomb GPS jammers with a bomb equipped with a guidance system that homes in on a GPS jamming signal. For that reason, it's thought that any use of GPS jammers will involve dozens of jammers in each area so protected. The GPS jamming has no effect on the even more accurate laser-guided bombs, and some countries buy smart bombs with both laser and GPS/INS systems. Most countries are working on anti-jamming tech in anticipation of encountering more jamming if war comes. Chandigarh, Feb 2 : Ridiculing Sukhbir Badal's remarks welcoming the Union Budget as pro-farmer and pro-poor, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Sunday termed it a case of brazen sycophancy with nothing to substantiate the tall claims of the Akali chief. The Chief Minister wondered what Sukhbir had found to be positive for the farmers in the budget, which even agriculture experts and farmer bodies had rejected as totally bereft of any initiative to save the agrarian sector. While the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was blinded by power and could not see the problems faced by the farmers, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) President was apparently so blinded by his sycophant love for the ruling party that he could see nothing wrong in their actions, said Amarinder Singh in a statement. Despite having three ministers in the Union Cabinet from the state, the BJP-Akali combine have failed to secure a debt relief scheme for the farmers, who continue to reel under massive debt burdens, not just in Punjab but across the country, the Chief Minister said. Questioning Sukhbir's reaction hailing the Rs 15 lakh crore budgetary allocation for the agriculture sector, Amarinder Singh asked how the Akali leader thought the mere 10 per cent increase over last year for agriculture and allied sectors to be sufficient to tackle the grave crisis faced by the debt-ridden farmers. With this measly allocation, which comes nowhere near meeting the needs of the farmers, how does Sukhbir hopes to see the farmers' income getting doubled in the next two years, he asked. And without farmer uplift, there was no possibility of rural consumption going up, which would naturally scuttle economic growth even further, said the Chief Minister. Sukhbir's refusal to acknowledge and admit that there is a serious crisis prevailing in the agriculture sector is symptomatic of the Akalis' totally non-alienation from the grassroots, which was the root cause of their political demise in Punjab, the Chief Minister said. "How else can one explain Sukhbir's complete failure to accept that his own state's farmers are crying for help, which only the central government can provide?" he asked. Amarinder Singh said that while his government was doing its best in Punjab, a holistic national policy, encompassing debt waiver, minimum support price (MSP) for all crops and diversification, etc. was the only long-term solution to the problem. Nothing has, unfortunately, been proposed in the budget to encourage crop diversification, despite the fact that buffer stocks of food grains are already putting the states and farmers under extreme stress, he said. Further, said the Chief Minister, there was nothing in the budget to ensure the procurement of alternative MSP crops, which was critical to promoting diversification and breaking the vicious wheat-paddy cycle that alone could alleviate the farmers' woes and boost their income. Pointing to the exclusion of the water-stressed areas identified by the central government for its water conservation schemes, Amarinder Singh said it was time for Sukhbir and his colleagues to open their eyes to these problems, and to stop sacrificing Punjab and its people to their own political interests. Burnley vs Arsenal Turf Moor, Burnley Sunday, 02-02-2020 @5pm Ref: Chris Kavanagh Arsenal have won their last 10 league games against Burnley and 11 in all competitions, a run stretching back to March 2010. Burnley have not led for a single minute in the last 11 Premier League meetings. The Clarets are winless in 14 top-flight fixtures against Arsenal since a 1-0 victory at Highbury in September 1974 (D3, L11). Arsenal are unbeaten in six away league games, drawing each of the last four. They have not drawn five consecutive away league matches since August 1948. The Gunners have won just two of their 12 away league games (D7, L3). Arsenal have 12 points from their last 11 league fixtures, the same tally as Unai Emery managed over his final 11 matches in charge. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has scored seven goals in four league appearances against Burnley, averaging a goal every 51 minutes. Aubameyang has scored nine of Arsenals 14 away league goals this season. Burnley are unlikely to start new midfield signing Josh Brownhill but he is included in their squad. Ashley Barnes and Johann Berg Gudmundsson remain injured but Phil Bardsley returns after a back problem. Arsenal captain Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and David Luiz are both available following suspension. The Gunners are assessing the fitness of Sead Kolasinac, Shkodran Mustafi and Reiss Nelson, as well as new defensive signings Pablo Mari and Cedric. Tottenham vs Chelsea Tottenham Hotspur stadium, London Sunday, 02-02-2020 @7:30pm Ref: Mike Dean Steven Bergwijn will be involved for Tottenham following the wingers 26.7m move from PSV Eindhoven. Injured trio Harry Kane, Moussa Sissoko and Ben Davies remain out. Manchester City will monitor Fernandinho, who has missed the last two matches through injury. Centre-back Aymeric Laporte, who recently returned from a lengthy lay-off, missed the midweek derby against Manchester United because of fatigue and will also be assessed. Leroy Sane is not yet ready to feature, while Benjamin Mendy is again set to miss out. Tottenham are winless in six Premier League games against Manchester City (D2, L4), with their last victory coming at White Hart Lane in October 2016. City have lost three of their last five league and cup away games against Spurs, but have won their last five Premier League away games in north London (versus Arsenal and Tottenham) as many as they had in their first 40 such games in the competition (D10, L25). Spurs have claimed 23 Premier League victories versus City the only team they have a better record against is Everton (26 wins). Spurs have claimed just one point from a possible 18 this season against teams above them in the table prior to the weekends matches. Defeat would ensure Tottenham become the sixth club to lose 400 top-flight home matches. They have lost two of their six home league matches under Jose Mourinho, as many defeats as in their final 15 home games under Mauricio Pochettino. Spurs have kept just two clean sheet in 17 league and cup games under Mourinho. This will be the 23rd meeting between Mourinho and Pep Guardiola in all competitions. Mourinho has lost 10 of those encounters (excluding one defeat in a penalty shoot-out four more than he has against any other manager. Dele Alli has had a hand in nine goals in 16 games under Mourinho in all competitions (scoring six and assisting three), which is three times as many as he recorded in 10 appearances under Pochettino this season. Manchester City have won 11 of their last 12 Premier League matches in London, with the exception a 2-0 defeat by Chelsea in December 2018. City have scored in each of their last 23 Premier League away games, the third longest such run in the competitions history. Aymeric Laporte has ended on the winning side in 42 of his 49 league appearances for City; he can become the first player to win 43 matches in his first 50 Premier League games. Kevin de Bruyne averages an assist every 180 minutes in the Premier League the best such ratio in the competitions history (minimum 20 assists). Related A yahoo boy based in Ghana has put up his client for sale. The young man known as AMG Dollar Bill on Facebook put up the picture of the man declaring he is for sale. The high school student disclosed that, though the man pays well, he no longer needs him because the money he has gotten from him, will see him through school. He then asked anyone who is interested to buzz him. Follow Us on Facebook @LadunLiadi; Instagram @LadunLiadi; Twitter @LadunLiadi; Youtube @LadunLiadiTV for updates By PTI AURANGABAD: BJP leader and former Maharashtra minister Babanrao Lonikar has landed in a spot after an audio clip surfaced on social media in which he purportedly called a woman tehsildar a "heroine" during his speech, although he did not take anybody's name. He was speaking at a function in Karhala village of Partur tehsil in Maharashtra's Jalna district on Saturday. In the speech, Lonikar said, "If farmers want aid of Rs 25,000 from government, then we can plan the biggest rally in Marathwada here in Partur. We can involve 25,000 to 50,000 people in it. If Zilla Parisad and Panchayat Samiti members decide then we can have the biggest march in the state in Partur." "We can call (former chief minister) Devendra Fadnavis, (former ministers) Chandrakant Patil and Sudhir Mungantiwar. You tell who should be called. We can call a heroine for it. If not, then we have our tehsildar madam as heroine," he said. When contacted, Lonikar on Sunday defended the use of the word saying that by heroine, he meant to say a "leader who does good work". "I have not insulted our tehsildar through my statement. The word heroine or hero is used for a leader who does good work. You can check the dictionary. This is not an abusive word and it does not have a negative meaning," he said. "We planned to take out a rally over the issue of aid to farmers," he added. BJP spokesperson Shirish Boralkar said that Lonikar was speaking about development of farmers. "His statement was presented in a twisted manner by the media," he added. There are some combinations of dates that make few days of a century special - today is one such day. 02-02-2020 is a rare palindrome date which is taking place after almost 900 years. Oxford Dictionary defines palindrome as a word, phrase, or sequence that reads the same backward as forward. Palindrome dates are not really uncommon, but todays date is special as it reads the same in many date systems. Twitter Many countries use date-month-year format, then there are those that follow month-date-year system. Todays date, 02/02/2020, reads the same in both the systems. Today is also the 33rd day of the year and there are 333 days left in 2020. A day like this is bound to get reactions online: 2 February 2020 is going to be a special day: It's a palindrome for both Europe and America: 02022020; It's the 33rd day of the year, and 333 days will remain in 2020; The Moon will be: bonified by enclosure between benefic rays; and exalted in Taurus with Venus in Pisces. S.J. Anderson (@sjanderson144) February 1, 2020 A lot of tweets about #PalindromeDay miss that 02 February 2020 is a palindrome in USA, UK and ISO formats; it is a palindrome day of the year (33) and there are a palindrome of days left in the year (333). This will never happen again. More details here: https://t.co/OUObHdBoz6 pic.twitter.com/GD7zh50DPH Matt Parker (@standupmaths) February 2, 2020 Today is a Palindrome Day! Todays date (02/02/2020) can be read the same way backward and forward if you follow the DD-MM-YYYY or MM-DD-YYYY Format. pic.twitter.com/4vQe9x9Qhk EarthShakerPH (@earthshakerph) February 2, 2020 Today's date is 2020-02-02 or 02-02-2020 which is a phenomenon called palindrome. It only happens once in a millennium and the next is on 3030-03-03. Omg Peach (@MsPeachPh) February 2, 2020 We are so lucky to have such a special palindrome date occurring in our lifetime because its so rare, USA Today quoted University of Portland professor, Aziz Inan, as saying. Talking about it further, Inan said that such dates are known as ubiquitous palindromes. According to his calculations the last date that showcased this rare day, occurred on 11/11/1111 - more than 900 years ago. And the next time it will happen is on 03-03-3030, 101 years later. Well it is something, isnt it? To be alive on a day that has occurred in 900 years and won't come again for over a decade. A 44-year-old Chinese man hospitalized in the Philippines became the first known fatality outside China from the new virus that has killed more than 300 people and prompted a global health emergency, authorities said Sunday. Also Sunday, China's ambassador to Israel apologized for comparing the decision by several nations to close their borders to Chinese citizens to turning away Jewish refugees during the Holocaust. There was no intention whatsoever to compare the dark days of the Holocaust with the current situation and the efforts taken by the Israeli government to protect its citizens," the embassy said in a statement. "We would like to apologize if someone understood our message the wrong way." In Manila, the Philippine Health Department said a patient died Saturday after developing severe pneumonia due to viral and bacterial infections. "In his last few days, the patient was stable and showed signs of improvement," Health Secretary Francisco Duque said. "However, the condition of the patient deteriorated within his last 24 hours." China has reported 361 deaths and more than 17,000 cases of the latest coronavirus, all of which draw their name from the virus's elliptical, spiky shape. More than 180 cases have been reported in more than two dozen other countries, including 11 cases in the U.S. Duque said the man and his companion, a 38-year-old Chinese woman, arrived in Manila on Jan. 21 via Hong Kong from Wuhan, the central China city that is the center of the outbreak. Four days later both were hospitalized and placed in isolation with a cough, fever and other symptoms. The woman remained in isolation Sunday. I would like to emphasize that this is an imported case with no evidence of local transmission," Duque said. He said his agency was working with the Chinese Embassy to ensure the "dignified management of the remains" while also ensuring containment of the disease. Coronavirus: Outbreak offers reasons for concern but not for panic Story continues The World Health Organization declared a global health emergency Thursday, recommending an urgent effort to develop vaccines and diagnostics as well as a review of every nation's preparedness plans. WHO Secretary-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in Geneva that despite the emergency declaration, there is no reason for measures that unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade. On Friday, the Trump administration declared the coronavirus outbreak to be a public health emergency in the United States. U.S. citizens who have been in China's Hubei province and are returning to the U.S. will undergo health screenings and be monitored during mandatory quarantines of up to 14 days, officials said. The U.S. also announced a suspension of entry into the United States of foreign nationals who pose a risk for the transmission of the virus. The U.S. and the Philippines government are among several nations issuing temporary bans on many travelers coming from China, Macao and Hong Kong drawing the ire of Beijing. Just as the WHO recommended against travel restrictions, the U.S. rushed to go in the opposite way," foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said. "Certainly not a gesture of goodwill. Coronavirus explained: What are the coronavirus symptoms? How dangerous is it? WHO also said that asymptomatic cases is likely not a "major driver" of the outbreak. People are far more likely to spread the virus through coughing and sneezing, WHO said in a statement. New Zealand announced Sunday it is temporarily banning travelers from China to protect the South Pacific region from the virus. The 14-day ban applies to foreigners leaving China but not to New Zealand residents. New Zealand also raised its travel advice for China to Do not travel, the highest level. Last week, the U.S. flew about 200 Americans out of Wuhan on a chartered plane and indicated that more flights could follow. The European Union sponsored a similar flight last week. This weekend, South Korea and India flew hundreds of their citizens out of Wuhan. Indonesia flew back 241 nationals from Wuhan on Sunday and quarantined them on the remote Natuna Islands for two weeks. A Turkish military transport plane carrying 42 people arrived in Ankara from Wutan on Saturday night. The 32 Turkish, six Azerbaijani, three Georgian nationals and an Albanian will remain under observation for 14 days, together with 20 personnel who participated in the evacuation, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said. Meanwhile, six officials in the city of Huanggang, neighboring the epicenter of Wuhan in Hubei province, have been fired over poor performance in handling the outbreak, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. It cited the mayor as saying the citys capabilities to treat the patients remained inadequate and there is a severe shortage in medical supplies such as protective suits and medical masks. Contributing: The Associated Press This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Coronavirus outbreak: Philippines reports first death outside of China New Delhi, Feb 2 : The Congress on Sunday released its manifesto for Delhi polls, promising to pass a resolution against the Citizenship Amendment Act if elected to power. In the last column of its manifesto, the party said that it will pass the resolution in the first session of the Delhi Assembly after the elections and will ask the Centre to withdraw the Act. The manifesto stated: "The CAA brought by the BJP is against the basic spirit of our constitution. By February 21, 2020, INC government will go to the Apex court and challenge the constitutional validity of the CAA under article 131." The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) facilitates citizenship to the Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, and Christian minorities, who had fled persecution from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan before December 2014. After the passage of the Act in Parliament, violence erupted in various parts of the country in which scores of people were killed. A major anti-CAA protest is also going on at Delhi's Shaheen Bagh area. The Congress has been vocal against the CAA ever since it was passed by Parliament. However, the BJP-led Central government has claimed that the CAA was conceptualised by the Manmohan Singh government, and has been brought only on humanitarian ground fulfilling Mahatma Gandhi's wish. Employees work next to tanks for liquefied natural gas (LNG) at a factory in Xian By Ekaterina Kravtsova LONDON (Reuters) - Asian spot prices for liquefied natural gas (LNG) fell this week as the heavily oversupplied market was pressured by concerns over the impact of the coronavirus outbreak on China's imports. The average LNG price for March delivery into northeast Asia was estimated at around $3.80 per million British thermal units (mmBtu), down $0.20 per mmBtu from the previous week. With demand across Asia subdued this winter due to warmer-than-usual weather, concerns are growing that the coronavirus may further taper off gas consumption. "Any slowdown in Chinese GDP growth as a result of the coronavirus will feed directly into gas consumption and through to LNG imports," Michael Stoppard, chief strategist for global gas at IHS Markit said. "This will hurt a global market already in search of demand support." China Council for The Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) has said it will offer force majeure certificates to companies struggling to cope with the impact of the virus on their business with overseas partners. "We are more concerned about the Wuhan virus than the spot market right now," a source in China said earlier this month. With warm weather keeping storage levels high, a fall in downstream demand would easily lead to a so called tank-top situation at Chinese ports, an LNG analyst said. As the Lunar New Year holidays in China were extended until the end of this week due to the virus outbreak, market activity was quiet across the whole of Asia, LNG market sources said. On the supply side, there was a tender from Indonesia's Donggi-Senoro plant that offered an LNG cargo for loading or delivery in March. In the Atlantic basin, Angola LNG project is selling a cargo for delivery between the end of February and mid-March. Russian producer Novatek has sold a cargo for late March in Europe, while Nigeria LNG awarded its tender for two February loading cargoes, industry sources said. India's demand is growing due to the low prices, a buyer in India said. Story continues Gail India and Torrent Power awarded their tenders this week at below $4 per mmBtu, he added. The increase in spot cargo purchases in India has led to a rare premium of Indian prices to those in northeast Asia, Energy Aspects said this week in a report. Demand also came from Greece where state-owned utility Public Power Corp (PPC) is looking for three cargoes to be delivered between March and May. Falling LNG prices in Asia were impacting curve contracts on European hubs, a gas trader in Europe said. The summer price on the Dutch gas hub fell to $3.28 per mmBtu, while the front-month February contract traded around $3.15 per mmBtu on Friday, the lowest level for this period since at least 2005 when Refinitiv started to publish Dutch price data. (Reporting by Ekaterina Kravtsova, additional reporting by Jessica Jaganathan in SINGAPORE, editing by Louise Heavens) Photo: Andrew D./Yelp After 32 years of business, La Folie and La Folie Lounge (2316 Polk St.) will soon shutter for good. Owners Roland and Jamie Passot announced in a statement that the two restaurants will close on March 14. La Folie first opened in 1988, offering tasting ($175) and prix fixe ($150) menus with luxurious ingredients like butter-poached lobster and A5 Wagyu beef. The more casual La Folie Lounge, which debuted in 2009, offered dishes like truffle mac and cheese and Wagyu sliders. La Folie, in particular, attracted positive notices from critics, including four-star ratings from the San Francisco Chronicle and San Francisco magazine. Roland Passot won a James Beard Award the food equivalent to an Oscar for Rising Star Chef in 1990, and the restaurant earned a Michelin star from 2007 to 2015. Bill Clinton and former French President Francois Hollande are among those who've dined there. The Passots declined to comment to Hoodline on reasons for the closure, but Roland Passot told the Chronicle that advancing age (he's 65), a forthcoming rent hike, and a flood at La Folie Lounge last year (which forced a four-month closure) were all factors. Changing tastes may also be partly to blame. On a 2019 visit to La Folie Lounge, Chronicle critic Soleil Ho praised the quality of the food, but noted that some dishes were "a little bit dated" and that the lounge was "way more fun than the restaurant that inspired it." In a statement, the Passots said they plan to write a memoir, and will continue their partnership with the Vine Dining family of casual French/Mediterranean restaurants: Left Bank, Left Bank Brasserie, LB Steak, and Meso, which have locations around Marin and the South Bay. They also plan to host some pop-up dinners at Left Bank, LB Steak and Meso, and their home in Marin. In the meantime, guests have a little less than two months to drop in for a farewell meal. We have had a wonderful run, the Passots said in a statement. Some of those years have been up and some down, but through it all, we are so proud of what we have built with our amazing team of kitchen and dining room staff." Thank you to all our guests and staff, who will always be in our hearts, and who have given us one of the biggest highlights and pleasures of our lives." Abuja, Nigeria (PANA) Nigerias President Muhammadu Buhari on Sunday sent a message of solidarity and good wishes to President Xi Jinping and citizens of the People's Republic of China during this trying time as the nation battles the outbreak of the Coronavirus An aspiring rapper in Chicago was sentenced to 99 years in prison after he and a hitman he hired to gun down his mother were found guilty of murdering the woman. Qaw'mane Wilson, who raps under the name 'Young QC', was sentenced by Judge Stanley Sacks, in Cooks County, on Friday. Sacks also gave the hitman, Eugene Spencer, a similar punishment, 100 years in prison for the slaying of Wilson's mother, Yolanda Holmes, in 2012. 'The word is 'matricide', meaning murder of one's own mother,' the judge said as he stared down from the bench at Wilson and Spencer, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. Aspiring rapper Qaw'mane Wilson is pictured in a Chicago Police Department mug shot. Now, 30, Wilson on Friday was sentenced to 99 years in prison for hiring a hitman to gun down his mother in 2012 A judge in Chicago on Friday noted what had become obvious during the case, that Wilson, who was 23 at the time Yolanda Holmes (pictured) was shot dead in her North Side apartment, had been doted upon by his mother when he ordered her death Qaw'mane Wilson is pictured with his mother Yolanda Holmes before the now 30-year-old aspiring rapper from Chicago was sentenced on Friday to 99 years in prison for hiring a hitman to gun down his mom Aspiring rapper Qaw'mane Wilson of Chicago is pictured emerging from a Ford Mustang his mother bought him in a video he posted on YouTube. Wilson was sentenced to 99 years in prison after he and a hitman he hired to gun down his mother were found guilty of her murder Sacks noted what had become obvious during the case, was that Wilson, who was 23 at the time Holmes was shot dead in her North Side apartment, was doted on by his mother when he ordered her death. 'Whatever he wanted, his mother gave to him. A car. A job. One could say he was spoiled. She gave Qaw'mane life, and it was his choice to take it way from her,' the judge said during the man's sentencing. Prosecutors said Sencer and Wilson's girlfriend went to Holmes' apartment in Uptown on September 12, 2012, to carry out the murder so that the rapper could empty her bank accounts. Qaw'mane Wilson of Chicago (right) is pictured in a YouTube video that shows the Ford Mustang his mother purchased for him, and which he added gull wings to after hiring a hit man to kill his mom so he could get cash from her accounts to pay for the customization job Records showed the woman's son withdrew nearly $70,000 from her accounts in the months after her death, and spent the money on flashy clothes and adding gull wings to a pricey Ford Mustang muscle car she had given him. In an video that Wilson filmed and posted online, he is seen throwing cash on to his supporters and saying that he knows how to 'give back' to his fans. Wilson, now 30, with long dreadlocks pulled back into a topknot Friday, nodded as the judge delivered the sentence. When asked if he had anything to say before Sacks made his ruling, Wilson was brief, the Times reports. Qaw'mane Wilson of Chicago pictured on Facebook before he was sentenced to 99 years in prison for hiring a hit-man to murder his mother. 'Whatever he wanted, his mother gave to him. A car. A job. One could say he was spoiled,' said Cook County Judge Stanley Sacks Aspiring rapper Qaw'mane Wilson of Chicago (pictured left and right from Facebook) said after, after he was sentenced to 99 years in prison for matricide on Friday, that 'nobody' loved his mother more than he did 'I just want to say, nobody loved my mother more than me,' he said. 'She was all I had. That's it.' Relatives said that Holmes' murder and the charges against her son nearly a year later had 'torn a hole' in the close-knit family. Sondra Jackson, Holmes' aunt, attended each day of the week-long trial last year with a group of family members, and had always sat on the side of the courtroom behind prosecutors, reports the Sun-Times. 'After all this, we still don't understand why he did it,' Jackson said at the time. 'We are just happy to have this over'. Mother arrested after bedridden girl, 7, found dead during welfare check originally appeared on abcnews.go.com A mother has been arrested after a 7-year-old bedridden girl was found dead inside her home when police were performing a welfare check. The incident occurred at about 2:30 p.m. on Friday when Bay City Police Officers in Bay City, Texas, were doing a welfare check at a residence in the area and found a 7-year-old girl who was bedridden due to medical conditions dead inside the home. There was all kinds of, you know, the police tape and police over there and people walking around and everything, a female neighbor told ABC News Houston station KTRK. Two other children -- a 5-year-old and a 3-month-old -- were also on the premises along with the mother, 26-year-old Lauren Kay Dean, who was arrested by authorities after they discovered her dead daughter. It was unclear how long the 7-year-old had been dead. MORE: Boy, 9, allegedly stabs sister, 5, multiple times, charged with attempted first-degree murder PHOTO: Lauren Kay Dean, 26, of Bay City Texas was arrested by the Bay City Police Department on Jan. 31 after police found her 7-year-old daughter deceased inside their home. (Bay City Police Department) MORE: Passenger slashes mother in face with knife after child throws up on bus Detectives and crime scene investigators were called to the scene and gathered evidence after police made the grisly discovery. The two other children were removed from the home. Lauren Kay Dean was arrested and taken into custody at the Matagorda County Jail and charged with three second degree felony charges: abandonment, endangering a child and imminent danger bodily injury. Thats really sad because I have a 7-year-old right there so I wonder how that happened without anybody knowing, and especially if she had other kids too, said Deans neighbor during an interview with KTRK. Police are still investigating the causes of the 7-year-olds death and anybody with any information in the case is encouraged to contact authorities. Vietnam is expected to witness a strong fluctuation in the number of inbound arrivals due to the outbreak of the new coronavirus. The number of Chinese arrivals to Vietnam hit a record high in January, especially during the celebration of the Lunar New Year, with a surge of 72.6% year-on-year. The total number of foreign arrivals to Vietnam hit nearly 2 million this January, the biggest record ever, according to the General Statistics Office. Those traveling by air and sea reached 1.6 million and 80,092, up 38.9% and 231.5% year on year while the number of road travelers slightly fell by 5.8% One of the most flourishing source markets for Vietnam this January was Cambodia with an impressive growth of 320.9% while the increases of other markets including Laos, Thailand, Indonesia, South Korea, the United States, Norway, and Russia ranged from 16.1%-42.5%. Vietnam welcomed in January 1.5 million Asian tourists, accounting for 77.4%, up 39.9% year-on-year. The number of European, American, Australian and African arrivals increased 11.5%, 19%, 7.8%, and 22%, respectively. Vietnam is expected to witness a strong fluctuation in the number of inbound arrivals due to the outbreak of coronavirus. To prevent the possible contraction, Vietnam adopted some safety measures including banning arrivals from epidemic-hit areas, limiting the stay of Chinese tourists to a maximum of 14 days, among others. A series of hotels and restaurants across Vietnams cities serving Chinese tourists including Nha Trang and Da Nang are being hit seriously due to the coronavirus outbreak. hanoitimes Ha An Foreign tourists experience farming life in Trang An Eco-tours that guarantee full immersion in the agricultural lifestyle of rural Vietnam have attracted more visitors to Trang An tourist site in the northern province of Ninh Binh. By PTI NEW DELHI: The Aam Aadmi Party on Sunday demanded the Election Commission to ban Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath from campaigning in the national capital over his alleged provocative speeches. AAP leader Sanjay Singh also demanded an FIR against him for his remarks. Singh told a press conference here that it has been 48 hours since the AAP asked the Election Commission time to meet them but it has not been granted. "If the EC does not give us time, we will stage a sit-in in front of the ECI office on Monday," Singh said. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who is among the partys star campaigners in the capital, launched a scathing attack on Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday, he was drawing support from Pakistan. Hitting out at the Shaheen Bagh protesters at a rally in the city, Yogi said they are propped up by those who stand with the terrorists in Kashmir. SCOTTVILLE Apex Clean Energy, the company orchestrating the Lincoln Land Wind Project in eastern Morgan County, is looking at areas near Modesto, Scottville and Virden in Macoupin County for another wind farm project. Landowners in those areas recently received notice about an open house in February that will introduce plans for a 200 megawatt wind development plan called the Lotus Wind Project. The project calls for up to 80 turbines along the northern Macoupin County line. Max Jabrixio, a representative for the Lotus Wind Project, said the company recently opened an office in Virden and area landowners confirmed Lotus Wind representatives have contacted them about the project over the past few months. Jabrixio provided some initial information on the project and says staff have began meeting with area Chamber of Commerce and county board members. The anticipated date of commercial operation for the 200 megawatts capacity project is 2023. Apex has identified sites in Macoupin County for the Lotus Wing Project that have the key attributes of a verified wind resource, the presence of expansive private land and a close proximity to existing transmission lines. The company promotes that, Lotus Wind will create jobs and generate an entirely new source of long-term revenue for local schools, government services and property owners. The total direct financial impact to the region is believed to be tens of millions of dollars over the life of the project. Specifically, The project will generate roughly $49 million in new property tax revenues in its first 30 years (and) will generate an estimated 272 new direct and indirect short-term jobs during construction and 22 new direct and indirect long-term jobs for the life of the project in Macoupin County. Landowners participating in the project also will receive compensation to include annual royalty payments. Jabrixio said he and Lotus Wind staff are excited to learn about the Macoupin County communities and, We plan to start a Community Grant Program aimed at local nonprofits to support work theyre doing in the area. We have a similar program in Morgan County for our Lincoln Land project that was very well received. When the program officially launches, there will be a website with additional details. According to literature from Lotus Wind, they believe about $31 million of the property tax revenues would go to schools in the project area. Last year, state legislators approved letting counties soley regulate wind projects and related infrastructure. Morgan County officials updated their countys ordinance with a number of regulations, including an approval process for a siting permit, construction requirements and a decommissioning plan. At this time, Macoupin County does not have any ordinances or resolutions regulating wind projects. Macoupin County Board members report Lotus Wind staff are slated to attend the countys next Economic Development Committee meeting on Thursday and the regularly scheduled County Board Meeting. Apex Clean Energy is a U.S.-based renewable energy developer headquartered in Charlottesville, Virginia, with just more than 200 employees across the country. Boris Johnsons warning to EU leaders that there will be no more concessions over any post-Brexit trade deal leads the front pages. The Sunday Telegraph and the Sunday Express lead with Mr Johnsons trade ultimatum for Brussels. The front page of tomorrow's Sunday Telegraph: 'Johnson fury as EU reneges on deal'#TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/yl96iWpPt9 The Telegraph (@Telegraph) February 1, 2020 Meanwhile, The Observer and The Independent say that a lack of a trade deal would see Britain contending with an economic unknown. Staying with Brexit, The Sunday Times says Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has ordered UK diplomats to distance themselves from their former EU allies. In The Sunday Times tomorrow: UK diplomats told to spurn old EU allies. And: what Choupette, the world's richest cat, did next pic.twitter.com/OFbjyZ6gtR The Sunday Times (@thesundaytimes) February 1, 2020 Moving onto the royal family, the Sunday Mirror leads with the Prince of Wales receiving fresh criticism over his use of a private helicopter to travel to Cambridge for a speech on cutting carbon emissions. And the Mail on Sunday says it has obtained messages sent by the Duke of York in 2011 that were directed at one of his alleged victims. Revealed: Prince Andrew described his alleged victim Virginia Roberts as a very sick girl AND he sent a repellent joke about breast cancer. pic.twitter.com/sYKFmocZYe Mark Hookham (@MarkHookham) February 1, 2020 The Sunday People reports a police chief who is heading a probe into the death of a man at the home of entertainer Michael Barrymore is convinced the victim was raped and murdered. And the Daily Star says that Channel 4 is considering reviving Celebrity Big Brother. Nearly four decades after an Oklahoma woman was fatally shot and discovered covered in lime by a river, investigators have used genetic genealogy to identify the woman only known as 'Lime Lady.' The Oklahoma County Sheriff's Office said in a press conference Thursday that the woman is 21-year-old Tamara Lee Tigard. Authorities say new technology presented by the DNA Doe Project, a group that uses genetic genealogy to identify John and Jane Does, was key to unlocking the case. Tamara Lee Tigard, referred to as 'Lime Lady' for nearly four decades, was identified by Oklahoma deputies in 2020 Tigard's body was initially discovered near North Canada River in Eastern Oklahoma County on her birthday, April 18, 1980, after being reported missing one month earlier. She did not have any form of identification on her person at the time, prompting her to be known as 'Lime Lady' after investigators concluded her killer attempted to 'destroy evidence and speed up the decaying process for her body.' Police believed Tigrad, of California, had been shot at a different location before a suspect moved her body to the river bank. Capt. Bob Green worked Tigard's case 'on and off' since he picked up in 2008. Green said: 'I always just wanted to bring dignity to the victim in this case. All of these years she has been gone without a trace, with none of her family or acquaintances knowing what happened to her. I just couldnt give up, and now we know who she is.' Green said investigators theorized Tigard's age ranged from 18 to 25 years old and discovered she had a distinctive tattoo of a heart above her left breast. Capt. Bob Green (center) said he worked with the DNA Doe Project, a group the uses genetic genealogy to identify John and Jane Does, to identify the woman During his renewed search, Green and assisting deputies exhausted all resources to identify the woman. That's when Green decided to take an 'unconventional' approach and contacted DNA Doe Project in September 2018. Green's team collected Tigrad's DNA samples, a blood stain and oral swab, from the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation before forwarding those items to DNA Doe Project. During a nine-month process to create a profile with the DNA samples, it was learned that Tigrad at one point lived in Las Vegas, Nevada, and served in the Army. OCSO Lime Lady News Conference DNA LEADS TO IDENTIFICATION OF OCSO COLD CASE UNSOLVED MURDER VICTIM KNOWN AS THE LIME LADY https://sheriff.oklahomacounty.org/244/Lime-Lady (Oklahoma City) The Oklahoma County Sheriffs Office announced a huge break in a cold case unsolved murder. The identification of one of the agencys most publicized Jane Doe homicides finally has been accomplished with the assistance of the DNA Doe Projects volunteer genealogists and the Oklahoma Medical Examiners Office. This has been an extremely difficult case for our agency, said Oklahoma County Sheriff PD Taylor. One that has been frustrating, but a case we never gave up on, specifically our Investigations Division Captain Bob Green, he has continuously worked the case, and his relentless efforts have paid off. Nearly 40-years ago on April 18, 1980 Oklahoma County Sheriffs Office deputies responded to the scene of a murder in Eastern Oklahoma County along the North Canadian River. The body of a young woman, whom we now know to be 21-year old Tamara Lee Tigard of California, was found covered in lime. She had no identification her body and was found the day of her 21st birthday. The initial investigation determined Tigard was shot at a different location, then her body taken to the river site. Investigators used traditional techniques attempting to identify Tigard, but all efforts failed. Investigators called her the Lime Lady due to the murderers attempt to destroy evidence and speed up the decaying process for her body with lime. The killers lime strategy actually ended up helping to preserve Tigards body. I always just wanted to bring dignity to the victim in this case, said Captain Bob Green. All of these years she has been gone without a trace, with none of her family or acquaintances knowing what happened to her. I just couldnt give up, and now we know who she is due to the hard work of the DNA Doe Project with assistance from the Oklahoma Medical Examiners Office, and I am so thankful for their efforts in helping us in this case. The DNA Doe Project uses sophisticated DNA techniques and was able to create a candidate profile that took nearly 9 months of challenging processing to complete. DDP wishes to acknowledge in addition to OCSO the contributions of those groups and individuals who helped solve this case: the University of North Texas for providing DNA samples; Hudson Alpha Discovery for processing the DNA; Dr. Greg Magoon, Research Engineer, Aerodyne Research Corp., contracting through Full Genomes Corp., for his work in bioinformatics; and GEDmatch for providing their database. The DNA Doe Project Through this process it was discovered Tigard had also lived in Nevada, and had even served in the U.S. Army. The Oklahoma Medical Examiners Office assisted in securing military medical records of Tigard which helped positively identify her. Now she can be properly recognized, said Captain Green, her life has meaning and we can respectfully honor her. Posted by Oklahoma County Sheriff's Office on Thursday, January 30, 2020 Authorities say Tigrad's immediate family - her parents and brother - are deceased, but her closest match was a second cousin, once removed. Local medical examiner's were able to secure military records, like dental records, to help identify Tigrad. Green said: 'Now she can be properly recognized. Her life has meaning, and we can respectfully honor her.' The investigation into finding her killer is ongoing. New Delhi: Congress leaders Ajay Maken, Subhash Chopra and Anand Sharma release the party's manifesto for the February 8 Delhi Assembly elections, in New Delhi on Feb 2, 2020. (Photo: IANS) Image Source: IANS News New Delhi: Congress leaders Ajay Maken, Subhash Chopra and Anand Sharma release the party's manifesto for the February 8 Delhi Assembly elections, in New Delhi on Feb 2, 2020. (Photo: IANS) Image Source: IANS News New Delhi, Feb 2 : The Congress released a separate manifesto on Sunday promising to protect the environment. The manifesto consisted of highlights as well as detailed action plans and strategies for combating environment-related issues in Delhi. The Congress in its environment manifesto said that it will allocate 25 per cent of Delhi's budget every year to fight pollution and protect the environment. "Both immediate mid and long-term solutions would be implemented," said the manifesto. The environment manifesto entailed a 7-step comprehensive strategy-mobility transition and pollution-free transport infrastructure, clean fuel transition and emission management, dust management and zero waste Delhi, waste restoration, enhancing Delhi's ecology, renewable energy and clean electricity and enforcement, implementation and participation. In the manifesto the Congress attacked the ruling AAP and BJP. "In ten years of the UPA government, Metro fares were revised only twice. Unfortunately AAP and BJP together doubled the fare between 2017 and 2018," said the Congress. The Congress claimed it has a solid credible record of delivery. "During the INC'S tenure the Central and state government together ensured that all Delhi Metro work was completed ahead of time," it said, adding "we would ensure that enforcement of the detailed action plan to fight pollution and protect environment happens strictly and in a time-bound manner." Congress has also promised in its manifesto that it will bring 30 per cent of Delhi's area under green cover. It also said that school students aged 12 to 16 will be encouraged to volunteer as Delhi's 'Environment Ambassadors' and will be felicitated by the Chief Minister and Congress government. Two of Scotlands most lauded traditional musicians will this month combine instruments from different eras for a concert at Whangateau Hall as part of an extensive New Zealand tour. Rachel Hair plays the oldest Scottish instrument, the clarsach (Celtic harp), and Ron Jappy joins her on the more modern guitar. The pair embrace the rich musical traditions of Scotland, with a repertoire that includes strathspeys (dance tunes), airs, reels and jigs. The show features material from the duos latest album Sparks, a mix of traditional and modern music some of it composed by Rachel and Ron and some of it by their contemporaries. Rachel is at the forefront of todays Celtic harp revival and is regularly invited to teach and perform at festivals around the world. She says its always been a dream to play in New Zealand. Ive heard it said before that New Zealand is like Scotland on steroids everything the beauty, the mountains, the lakes, is just magnified. We truly believe that our music will fit in just perfectly, she says. Ron began as a fiddle player and has been a finalist in several of the United Kingdoms most prestigious fiddle competitions. He started playing guitar while studying music in Glasgow. The concert takes place on Wednesday, February 19 at 7.30pm. Tickets are $20 and available at the door. Depending on what a candidate wants to say, campaign data can be parsed a lot of ways. Looking at all of Williams' money, about a quarter of it comes from Montana. But cut another way, 60% of the individuals who donated to her campaign are Montanans. Williams said shes proud of the second figure, but not shying away from how she looked to familiar faces from her private sector days to launch her political one. Ive spent my career working with folks in and outside Montana and Im really proud that they both see my executive leadership and they care deeply about keeping Montana Montana, Williams said, adding that she thinks it would benefit a governor to have contacts with "job creators near and far." Theres some novelty in reading through the list of Williams contributors, seeing names like Jennifer Garner, Ben Affleck and JJ Abrams. But there are also people like Allan Golston, president of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and Eric Schmidt, the former CEO and chairman of Google and executive chairman of Alphabet. The police on Saturday booked a businessman for generating bogus e-way bills (GST related challans for transporting consignments) and issuing fake invoices worth lakhs of rupees. In his police complaint, Hanmeet Singh who owns M/s Manmeet Alloys in Jugiana, Sahnewal alleged that in December 2019, the accused Sunil Kumar of Model Town Extension had generated e-way bills and issued invoices worth lakhs of rupees to him. Upon checking online, the victim found out that GST amount does not match with that given in the invoices issued by the accused. Later, when Hanmeet met the transporter who was to deliver the consignment to him revealed that the accused had booked the vehicle, however, no goods were supplied by him on the said date. He then filed a complaint with the police alleging that he has been duped of lakhs of rupees by the accused who had generated bogus e-way bills and issued fake invoices to him. Division Number 6 assistant sub-inspector (ASI) Gurdev Lal, who is investigating the case, said that an FIR under Section 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) has been registered against the accused following an inquiry by the economic offence wing. The accused is on the run and will soon be nabbed, the police said. One of the koalas saved by vets. (Animals Australia) Scores of koalas have been found dead at a timber plantation in Australia after loggers allegedly bulldozed the area. Animal welfare charity Animals Australia said the animals had taken refuge in a bluegum plantation in Portland, Victoria after losing their habitats to the recent bushfires. Pictures circulating on social media over the weekend showed dozens of dead koalas lying on the ground at the site. Animals Australia said it had flown in vets to care for those koalas that survived, as the Daily Mail reported that over a dozen had been killed and more than 60 were injured. The charity said their deaths may have been caused by various breaches of legislation since logging companies are required to ensure there are no endangered animals in the area where they are felling trees. With the support of local authorities and wildlife carers, Vets are seeking to save as many of these precious animals as possible. We appreciate the of concern from so many caring people, but please know there is no need for further volunteers. We will update when we can. pic.twitter.com/ckBCmyOiWq Animals Australia (@AnimalsAus) February 1, 2020 Friends, there is a distressing situation unfolding in Victoria and it has nothing to do with bushfires, Animals Australia posted on Twitter. Heartbreaking photos of injured and dead koalas from a razed Bluegum Plantation in Portland are circulating across social media. On becoming aware of this situation on Friday, we flew in a veterinary team from @Vets_Compassion. READ MORE FROM YAHOO NEWS UK: A second vet team was flown in to assist with the treatment of surviving animals yesterday. Story continues The charity said they had been inundated with offers of support from the public, adding that they would be assisting authorities in their investigation. During this time of devastating habitat loss, it will come as no surprise that koalas are seeking refuge in commercial bluegum plantations. The logging of these forests then destroys precious habitat, the statement added. By law, the companies that own these plantations must provide koala spotters to identify koalas in trees before logging commences, so that animals can be safely removed and relocated. There is also a legal responsibility to ensure the welfare of koalas after logging has ceased. We are still gathering the details as to what has occurred in this case but it would appear that there are various breaches of legislation, including the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, which we will be supporting authorities to pursue. Local MP for the region Andy Meddick said he had been devastated by news of the koalas deaths. As bushfires ravage parts of our state, killing millions of native animals, a bluegum plantation full of koalas is being cleared in my electorate of Western Victoria, he said. According to local sources, hundreds of koalas have been impacted. Some have been killed, many injured. Chinese experts cannot return to work on Hanoi metro amid coronavirus fears The Cat Linh-Ha Dong metro line in Hanoi began a commercial test run for inspection purposes on October 29, 2019. Photo by VnExpress/Giang Huy. More than 100 Chinese experts working on Hanoi's first metro line are unable to return to Vietnam after the New Year holidays. The Chinese government has forbidden its citizens from leaving the country amid the coronavirus epidemic. The experts are from many provinces and cities in China, where 304 people have been killed so far. They had returned home to celebrate Lunar New Year with their families and were expected to return to Vietnam and resume work on the Cat Linh-Ha Dong line on Saturday. At a meeting on Friday Deputy Minister of Transport Nguyen Ngoc Dong instructed ministry agencies and the railway project management board to find a way to bring them back. The general contractor and supervision consultancy have asked that the experts could resume work after February 8. But the Chinese government will only issue its next notice on February 9 on whether citizens can leave the country. Dong said, "If they are allowed to leave by the Chinese authorities, we must do stringent health checks on them to prevent the spread of the infection." Work on the line is complete, and it is now awaiting commercial runs. The route runs 13 kilometers from Cat Linh in downtown Dong Da District to Yen Nghia in Ha Dong District. Another test run for inspection purposes began on October 29 last year. Work on it started in 2011 and was originally scheduled for completion in 2013, but loan disbursement issues with China that were only resolved in December 2017 and other issues stalled it for years. The original cost estimate of $552.86 million has also ballooned to more than $868 million, which includes $670 million in loans from China. Twenty seven countries and territories have reported a total of 14,551 cases. As of Sunday morning the nCoV death toll had risen to 304, all of them in China. Vietnam on Saturday declared a public health epidemic after the country recorded six cases of the infection. The seventh case was confirmed on Sunday. Four passengers were arrested under the Customs Act after officials seized 4.46 kilograms gold worth Rs 1.87 crore was seized from Chennai international airport. According to the Commissioner of Customs of Chennai airport, three passengers -- Raja, Karthikeyan and Thameem Ansari -- had arrived from Colombo in Sri Lanka on Friday night. All three were intercepted at the exit point. During the search, three bundles containing gold paste were found concealed in the rectum of each passenger. On extraction, 1.53 kilogram of gold valued at Rs 64.36 lakhs was recovered and seized under the Customs Act 1962. Following this, Karthikeyan and Ansari were arrested. On the same night, five passengers -- Ibrahim Sha, Sikkender Batcha, Jameel Mohamed, Dhufail Rahman and Mohammed Taha Hayath -- had arrived from Kuala Lumpur and were intercepted at the exit. On personal search, fifteen bundles of gold paste were recovered from the rectum. On extraction, 2.78 kilogram of gold was recovered. Furthermore, three cut bits of gold weighing 150 grams were recovered from their pant pockets. A total of 2.93 kilogram gold valued at Rs. 1.23 crore was recovered and seized. Following this, Sha and Batcha were arrested. Further investigation into the matter is underway. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Trump administration announced Friday that it was curbing legal immigration from six additional countries that officials said did not meet security standards, as part of an election-year push to further restrict immigration. Officials said immigrants from Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Eritrea, Nigeria, Sudan and Tanzania will face new restrictions in obtaining certain visas to come to the United States. But it is not a total travel ban, unlike President Donald Trump's earlier effort that generated outrage around the world for unfairly targeting Muslims. Trump was expected to sign a proclamation on the restrictions as early as Friday; the restrictions would go into effect Feb. 21. The announcement comes as Trump tries to promote his administration's crackdown on immigration, highlighting a signature issue that motivated his supporters in 2016 and hoping it has the same affect this November. The administration recently announced a crackdown on birth tourism and is noting the sharp decline in crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border and citing progress on building the border wall. Immigrant visas were restricted for Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Eritrea and Nigeria. That type of visa is given to people seeking to live in the U.S. permanently. They include visas for people sponsored by family members or employers as well as the diversity visa program that made up to 55,000 visas available in the most recent lottery. In December, for example, 40,666 immigrant visas were granted worldwide. Sudan and Tanzania have diversity visas suspended. The State Department uses a computer drawing to select people from around the world for up to 55,000 diversity visas. Nigeria is already excluded from the lottery along with other countries that had more than 50,000 natives immigrate to the U.S. in the previous five years. Non-immigrant visas were not affected. Those are given to people traveling to the U.S. for a temporary stay. They include visas for tourists, those doing business or people seeking medical treatment. During December, for example, about 650,760 non-immigrant visas were granted worldwide. Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said Homeland Security officials would work with the countries on bolstering their security requirements to help them work to get off the list. "These countries for the most part want to be helpful, they want to do the right thing, they have relationships with the U.S., but for a variety of different reasons failed to meet those minimum requirements," Wolf said. Rumors swirled for weeks about a potential new ban, and initially Belarus was considered. But Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was headed to the Eastern European nation as the restrictions were released and Belarus was not on the list. Wolf said some nations were able to comply with the new standards in time. The current restrictions follow Trump's travel ban, which the Supreme Court upheld as lawful in 2018. They are significantly softer than Trump's initial ban, which had suspended travel from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen for 90 days, blocked refugee admissions for 120 days, and suspended travel from Syria. The government suspended most immigrant and non-immigrant visas to applicants from those countries. Exceptions are available for students and those with "significant contacts" in the U.S. Trump has said a travel ban is necessary to protect Americans. But opponents have argued that he seeks to target Muslim countries, pointing to comments he made as a candidate in 2015 calling for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on." The seven countries with considerably more restrictions include nations with little or no diplomatic relationship to the U.S. They include five majority-Muslim nations: Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen. Sudan and Kyrgyzstan are majority-Muslim countries. Nigeria is about evenly split between Christians and Muslims but has the world's fifth-largest population of Muslims, according to the Pew Research Center. Wolf said immigrant visas were chosen because people with those visa are the most difficult to remove after arriving in the United States. The initial ban was immediately blocked by the courts and led to a months-long process to develop clear standards and federal review processes to try to withstand legal muster. The announcement of new countries banned was expected around the third anniversary of the Jan. 27, 2017, enactment of the first order. Wolf said officials spent about six months working on revised criteria. They examined countries for compliance with minimum standards for identification and information-sharing, and assessed whether countries properly tracked terrorism or public safety risks. Officials looked at whether countries used modern passports, shared information that the U.S. could validate on travelers and identified possible criminal suspects in a way that the U.S. could see before entry. They evaluated responses and ranked nations on where they fell. Government agencies then discussed whether countries had different, but important, contacts with the U.S. and then decided on restrictions. "Really the only way to mitigate the risk is to impose these travel restrictions," Wolf said. An official of the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA), identified as Tope Akinde has committed suicide on Saturday. Akindes lifeless body was found dangling from a tree around Salvation bus stop, along Opebi road. The scene attracted lots of people and caused traffic congestion. Bala Elkana, the state police public relations officer, said the police was informed of the incident by a female LASTMA official. Elkana said the deceaseds elder brother claimed that the LASTMA official had been mentally unstable for a while. Read Also: LASTMA Official, Bus Driver Kill Motorcyclist While Struggling For Steering Wheel On Saturday, February 1, 2020, around 10.57 a.m., a female LASTMA official, Yetunde Olajabu, came to the police station and reported that she received a phone call from an unknown person that one man hanged himself on a mango tree at Opebi and was later identified to be Tope Akinde, a staff of LASTMA, he said. His corpse has been deposited at IDH Hospital, Yaba mortuary by the Lagos State Ambulance Service. Information at our disposal from the deceaseds elder brother reveals that the late Tope Akinde had a mental problem which the family had been managing before his death. Doctors at Guwahati Medical College Hospital monitoring man who returned from Kerala This illustration provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in January 2020 shows the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV). This virus was identified as the cause of an outbreak of respiratory illness first detected in Wuhan, China. (AP) GUWAHATI: Assam health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said here Sunday that no coronavirus case has so far been reported in Assam. His clarification came in the wake of reports that a young man has been placed in an isolation ward at the Guwahati Medical College Hospital after he reported flu-like symptoms. Informing that a youth from Morigaon who works in Kerala landed at the Guwahati airport with symptoms of the coronavirus, sources at the Guwahati Medical College Hospital said he has been quarantined and his blood samples has been collected. The medical team attending on him said they are not sure of his coronavirus status. Sarma said that there was no need for panic. The Centre has issued a protocol for us to follow and we have already started it. Surveillance of air passengers is underway at the Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport, the minister said. Minister of state for health and family welfare Pijush Hazarika admitted that a patient with a suspected infection of coronavirus has been admitted to GMCH as a precautionary measaure. The patient who returned from Kerala was suffering from very high fever. Doctors are monitoring his health. However, he may not be infected by the coronavirus, rather he could be having small pox or dengue, the minister told reporters. He said doctors would be monitoring the health of the patient till Monday, after which his coronavirus status would be known. The sun was shining off the golden capital dome of the Des Moines capitol building over the weekend, the snow melting as temperatures rose. Crowds gathered in the pleasant weather with hopeful presidential candidates throwing one last rally before the 2020 Iowa Caucus. With a cold front moving in through Sunday night and into Monday, the day of the caucus, the same crowds drawn to the rallies may not be as eager to weather the cold to support their candidate. "In Iowa for the caucuses you have to show up at 7 o'clock on a Monday night in the middle of winter," Drake University political science professor and longtime political analyst Dennis Goldford told AccuWeather. "You gotta hope that the baby's not sick, you're not sick, the babysitter shows up, the car starts, you don't have a flat tire and you have to hope there's not a blizzard or freezing rain or something like that because weather events like that can have an impact on caucus turnout." The month of February has started off with springlike conditions across Iowa, with temperatures surging well above normal. Temperatures have lingered in the 40s on Saturday and Sunday while a change in the weather pattern will come just in time for the Iowa Caucus on Monday. Forecast temperatures across Iowa are expected to start off in the 20s across the state in the morning, rising only into the 30s for most by the afternoon. In addition to the chilly conditions, gusty winds of 15-25 mph are expected across the region Monday. AccuWeather RealFeel Temperatures will start off in the teens on Monday morning, only to peak in the middle 20s in the afternoon. Here's what that could mean for the candidates. Iowa by no means has the most electoral votes, coming in at only six compared to Illinois's 20 or California's 55, yet the Iowa Caucus has always been an important launch site for the presidential primary season. "They won't tell you to a great extent who will win the nomination, let alone the presidency," Goldford said. "They have a better chance to tell you who will not win the nomination. In other words, if you don't do well in Iowa in the past at least, your money dries up, it's hard to continue." Story continues The caucus is different from a primary, as not necessarily declaring a winner but "reports results," as Democratic National Committee David Bergstein told the New York Times. FILE - In this Jan. 26, 2020 file photo, people cheer as democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks at a campaign rally in Sioux City, Iowa. (AP Photo/John Locher) "The only way to become the Democratic Party's presidential nominee is by winning a majority of national convention delegates," Bergstein said, emphasizing for any viewers looking for some semblance of a "winner" to pay attention to those results. In the past, weather played a role in shaking up voter turnout in the 2016 Iowa Caucus when a major snowstorm swept across the region, complicating travel conditions. At this caucus, Ted Cruz took the win over Donald Trump by three percentage points, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took the win over Bernie Sanders, also by three percentage points. Goldford told AccuWeather based off of 2016 stats, weather may factor into the age groups of voter turnout. The line is out the door at Simpson College as people wait to get inside an Elizabeth Warren rally in Indianola. Sunshine and mild temps are helping to melt some of the snow on campus. pic.twitter.com/vlw6mgljIY Bill Wadell (@BillWadell) February 2, 2020 "Older folks might be a little more respectful of weather and especially bad weather conditions," Goldford said. "Kids think they're invulnerable. They'll go out at any time for any reason to any destination." Goldford theorizes that since Biden's supporters skew older with little support from younger voters, bad or even dangerous weather conditions could have an impact on people who would otherwise turn out for him. Biden, acknowledging the "neck-and-neck" race between himself and Sanders in an interview with George Stephanopolous during a Friday appearance on Good Morning America. Responding to a question about whether he thinks he'll win the Iowa Caucuses on Monday, Biden said, "I think it's going to be really close, George," before adding, "If there's a big snowstorm in ... certain parts of the state, it could have an effect." On the other hand, Warren, Sanders and even Pete Buttigieg have attracted younger voters, who Goldford theorizes would be more likely to show up regardless of the weather conditions. Voter turnout and election results have been linked to weather conditions in past research conducted by AccuWeather. In a 2016 analysis of overall weather trends and voting data, utilizing L2 as a resource, AccuWeather found that uncomfortable conditions, such as frigid or hot and muggy weather can deter swing voters. Additionally, women were found to be more sensitive to cold conditions than men, and younger voters, aged 18 to 24, have higher turnout rates when the weather is sunny and warm. "Even something like weather, if it's severe or even dangerous weather, that can have an impact on turnout. Just as in real estate where the three most important factors are location, location and location, in electoral politics, the three most important factors turnout, turnout and turnout," Goldford said. "And weather can be a factor in turnout." Additional reporting by Bill Wadell and Courtney Spamer One of the most influential polls in the Democratic presidential primary has been cancelled just one day before the Iowa caucus after a candidates name was left off at least one survey. The Des Moines Register and CNN poll, which is considered to be the gold standard for political polling, was withheld minutes before its scheduled release on Saturday following an objection from candidate Pete Buttigiegs campaign. Although it has not been confirmed which candidate was left off the survey, The New York Times has reported two people familiar with the incident said Mr Buttigiegs name may have been cut off from a list of options for respondents. Today, a respondent raised an issue with the way the survey was administered, which could have compromised the results of the poll, Carol Hunter, executive editor of the Register, said. It appears a candidates name was omitted in at least one interview in which the respondent was asked to name their preferred candidate. The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Show all 25 1 /25 The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Bernie Sanders The Vermont senator has launched a second bid for president after losing out to Hilary Clinton in the 2016 Democratic primaries. He is running on a similar platform of democratic socialist reform Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Joe Biden The former vice president recently faced scrutiny for inappropriate touching of women, but was thought to deal with the criticism well and has since maintained a front runner status in national polling EPA The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Elizabeth Warren The Massachusetts senator is a progressive Democrat, and a major supporter of regulating Wall Street Reuters The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Amy Klobuchar Klobuchar is a Minnesota senator who earned praise for her contribution to the Brett Kavanaugh hearings Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Michael Bloomberg Michael Bloomberg, a late addition to the 2020 race, announced his candidacy after months of speculation in November. He has launched a massive ad-buying campaign and issued an apology for the controversial "stop and frisk" programme that adversely impacted minority communities in New York City when he was mayor Getty Images The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Tulsi Gabbard The Hawaii congresswoman announced her candidacy in January, but has faced tough questions on her past comments on LGBT+ rights and her stance on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Pete Buttigieg The centrist Indiana mayor and war veteran would be the first openly LGBT+ president in American history Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Deval Patrick The former Massachusetts governor launched a late 2020 candidacy and received very little reception. With just a few short months until the first voters flock to the polls, the former governor is running as a centrist and believes he can unite the party's various voting blocs AFP/Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Beto O'Rourke The former Texas congressman formally launched his bid for the presidency in March. He ran on a progressive platform, stating that the US is driven by "gross differences in opportunity and outcome" AP The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Kamala Harris The former California attorney general was introduced to the national stage during Jeff Sessions testimony. She has endorsed Medicare-for-all and proposed a major tax-credit for the middle class AFP/Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Bill De Blasio The New York mayor announced his bid on 16 May 2019. He emerged in 2013 as a leading voice in the left wing of his party but struggled to build a national profile and has suffered a number of political setbacks in his time as mayor AFP/Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Steve Bullock The Montana governor announced his bid on 14 May. He stated "We need to defeat Donald Trump in 2020 and defeat the corrupt system that lets campaign money drown out the people's voice, so we can finally make good on the promise of a fair shot for everyone." He also highlighted the fact that he won the governor's seat in a red [Republican] state Reuters The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Cory Booker The New Jersey Senator has focused on restoring kindness and civility in American politics throughout his campaign, though he has failed to secure the same level of support and fundraising as several other senators running for the White House in 2020 Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Wayne Messam Mayor of the city of Miramar in the Miami metropolitan area, Wayne Messam said he intended to run on a progressive platform against the "broken" federal government. He favours gun regulations and was a signatory to a letter from some 400 mayors condemning President Trump's withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord Vice News The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Kirsten Gillibrand The New York Senator formally announced her presidential bid in January, saying that healthcare should be a right, not a privilege Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: John Delaney The Maryland congressman was the first to launch his bid for presidency, making the announcement in 2017 AP The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Andrew Yang The entrepreneur announced his presidential candidacy by pledging that he would introduce a universal basic income of $1,000 a month to every American over the age of 18 Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Julian Castro The former San Antonio mayor announced his candidacy in January and said that his running has a special meaning for the Latino community in the US Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Marianne Williamson The author and spiritual adviser has announced her intention to run for president. She had previously run for congress as an independent in 2014 but was unsuccessful Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Eric Swalwell One of the younger candidates, Swalwell has served on multiple committees in the House of Representatives. He intended to make gun control central to his campaign but dropped out after his team said it was clear there was no path to victory Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Seth Moulton A Massachusetts congressman, Moulton is a former US soldier who is best known for trying to stop Nancy Pelosi from becoming speaker of the house. He dropped out of the race after not polling well in key states Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Jay Inslee Inslee has been governor of Washington since 2013. His bid was centred around climate change AFP/Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: John Hickenlooper The former governor of Colorado aimed to sell himself as an effective leader who was open to compromise, but failed to make a splash on the national stage Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Tim Ryan Ohio representative Tim Ryan ran on a campaign that hinged on his working class roots, though his messaging did not appear to resonate with voters Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Tom Steyer Democratic presidential hopeful billionaire and philanthropist Tom Steyer is a longtime Democratic donor AFP/Getty Ms Hunter added: While this appears to be isolated to one surveyor, we cannot confirm that with certainty. Therefore, the partners made the difficult decision to not to move forward with releasing the Iowa Poll. David Chalian, CNNs political director, said CNN and the Register had decided to not release the poll out of an abundance of caution. The television network had planned an hour-long special based around the results of the poll. Lis Smith, a senior advisor on communications for Mr Buttigieg, confirmed that the Indiana mayors campaign had raised concerns about the accuracy of the results. Our campaign received a report from a recipient of the Iowa Poll call, raising concerns that not every candidate was named by the interviewer when asked who they support, Ms Smith said. We shared this with the organisations behind the poll, who conducted an internal investigation and determined not to release it. We applaud CNN and the Des Moines Register for their integrity. The Iowa poll is conducted by telephone and sees operators read from a script of candidates names to ask voters who they plan to support. In this case, one operator reportedly enlarged the font size on their computer screen and cut off Mr Buttigiegs name from the list of candidates, according to sources for the Times. This problem may have also affected other candidates because the list of names is randomly reordered after every phone call. Recent polls have shown as many as four candidates in the running to win the influential caucus, which is the first major contest of the US presidential primary season and has long been a strong indicator for who will win the nomination. Senator Bernie Sanders led the most recent Register/CNN poll at the start of January by three per cent. The Vermont senator is currently leading in polls by 3.6 per cent, according to analysis by RealClearPolitics, ahead of former vice president Joe Biden after a late surge in the final weeks of January. Mr Buttigieg and senator Elizabeth Warren are further behind in third and fourth place, polling at about 15 per cent, according to RealClearPolitics. On Saturday, Mr Sanders held a caucus concert with indie-rock band Vampire Weekend in Cedar Rapids, featuring appearances from filmmaker Michael Moore and philosopher Cornel West. A man suspected of stealing a vehicle died Saturday night after a pursuit that ended in Missouri City, Houston police said. Officers who ran the license plate attempted to pull the driver over around 10 p.m. near the intersection of Loop 610 and Stella Link Road. Police pursued the driver in the area and apprehended two passengers who fled the vehicle around Willowbend Boulevard and S. Main Street, said Henry Gaw, assistant chief of the Houston Police Department. The driver continued to evade officers. Police said Sunday morning the suspects gun discharged and fragments hit a patrol vehicle after he threw it out the window. Minutes later, the suspect crashed in the area of Highway 6 and FM 1092 in Missouri City. The vehicle jumped a curb and struck a light pole, dislodging a light that fell onto the pavement and sparking a car fire, Gaw said. First responders pulled the driver out of the wreck and took him to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead. No officers were injured in the pursuit. gwendolyn.wu@chron.com Twitter: @gwendolynawu Former presidential candidate, Omoyele Sowore, ex-lawmaker, Shehu Sani, and others have aired their views on the protest by members of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) on Sunday. Recall that the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) had called on Christians across the country to embark on a prayer walk on Sunday to protest the gruesome killing of the CAN Chairman in Michika Local Government Area of Adamawa State, Lawan Andimi, by Boko Haram terrorists. Although the federal government condemned the beheading of the cleric, CAN said the government has performed below expectations as regards security of citizens. However, it appears that the protest of Sunday witnessed a massive turn-out from RCCG members going by the pictures and videos shared on social media platforms. In fact, the General Overseer of the church, Enoch Adeboye, alongside other members, was seen carrying a placard with the inscription All souls are precious to God. It should be noted that the Vice-President, Yemi Osinbajo, is a pastor in RCCG. Reactions Mr Sowore who led the #RevolutionNow campaign of August 5, applauded the congregation for coming out en masse. I salute the @rccghq on the protest against insecurity staged nationwide today & tagged Prayer Walk I want to urge other churches, mosques, artisans, students, youths to join in the struggle to liberate our dear nation. Resistance is the key to liberation, he tweeted on Sunday. Ex-senator Shehu Sani said the pastorate of the church has disembarked from sitting on the fence on national issues. Pastor Adeboye finally disembarking from the fence of caution, moderation and neutrality and leading a march against insecurity is commendable. Protest gives wings and wheels to Prayers, he wrote on Twitter. Former aviation minister, Fani Kayode, however, queried if the Vice President will join the march against insecurity as a member of the church. Pastor Enoch Adeboye and RCCG are conducting a protest march against the killings in the land.I commend them & hope that they will find the courage to accept that they made a mistake by supporting Buhari in the first place. Will RCCG Pastor Yemi Osinbajo will join in the march? Nonetheless, some rights activists, in their reactions, gave kudos to the congregation. See the number of people that came out to protest with Pastor Adeboye. One day many will realise being remembered for standing against injustice is better than private jets from tithes! Martin Luther King on my mind, Aisha Yesufu posted on social media. Another activist, Ayo Sogunro, noted that he had called the attention of the church to such a revolutionary move some years ago. I remember when, years ago, people like myself asked that Adeboye and other influential pastors do something like this. We were attacked by their congregation, this is not the job of a pastor. And what about now? And all the congregation said, Amen, and praised the Lord. Mr Sogunro tweeted Worsening security situation The deplorable state of Nigerias security was extensively discussed in the Senate last week. The Senate Minority Leader, Enyinnaya Abaribe, called on President Muhammadu Buhari to resign as Nigerias president over the worsening security situation of the country. Mr Abaribe made the call while the Senate discussed a motion on national security challenges and the need to restructure the current security architecture. Also, the United States of America placed a visa restriction on Nigerians last week giving security challenges as one of the reasons for such action. The US said Nigeria did not adequately share public-safety and terrorism-related information necessary for the protection of the national security and public safety of the US. Nigeria also presents a high risk, relative to other countries in the world, of terrorist travel to the United States. Nigeria is an important strategic partner in the global fight against terrorism and the United States continues to engage with Nigeria on these and other issues. The report of the visa restrictions titled, Proclamation on improving enhanced vetting capabilities and process read in part. Advertisements Shanghai (Gasgoo)- Great Wall Motor (GWM) saw its full-year sales in 2019 edge up 0.69% year on year to 1,060,298 units, surpassing 1 million units for the fourth year in a row. Aside from the sales performance, Gasgoo hereby summarizes GWM's significant events that happened in 2019, helping you review what progresses the automaker made during the past year. Great Wall Motor sets 8th domestic vehicle base in Taizhou, Jiangsu province On February 20, Great Wall Holdings Limited inked an agreement with Taizhou government of Jiangsu Province to build a new complete vehicle base at Taizhou Port Economic Development Zone. This is the eighth vehicle base in China for Great Wall Motor following the bases at Yongchuan, Zhangjiagang and Rizhao. Involving an investment of RMB8 billion for early stage, the Taizhou program would contain such manufacturing projects as complete vehicle, exterior & interior as well as chassis. Besides, the automaker and government also planned some supporting businesses like automobile finance, automobile insurance and car-sharing service for the new base to build a complete automotive industry chain there. Great Wall Motor to start new auto program in Pinghu, Zhejiang Province On February 23, Great Wall Holdings Group signed an agreement with Pinghu Municipal Government to build a complete vehicle base, a R&D center and a mobility service operator at National Level Pinghu Economic-technological Development Zone, Zhejiang Province. According to local media outlets, the newly-inked program involves a total investment of RMB11 billion and cover an area of 1,200 mu (800,000 square meters). The complete vehicle base, which is to start operation in 2021, is designed to manufacture new energy vehicles and fuel burning vehicles with a maximum annual capacity of 180,000 units. The R&D center would be Great Wall Motor's R&D base at the Yangtze River Delta and the automaker planned to pour more than RMB 1billion in the construction of such R&D modules as styling, core auto parts, autonomous driving & intelligent connectivity. As to the mobility service project, Great Wall Motor would develop hourly car rental business, ride-hailing and long-/short-term car leasing businesses with Pinghu as the headquarters and starter of the Yangtze River Delta region. Intel, Great Wall Motor team up to pave the way for automobile intelligence development Great Wall Motor struck a strategic cooperation agreement with Intel, a global leading semiconductor maker, during the Auto Shanghai 2019 to co-boost innovation development of automobile intelligence. Both parties were ready to conduct cooperation in such areas as intelligent cockpit and smart traffic and pave the way for autonomous driving development. Powered by Intel's Apollo Lake SoC (system on chip) solution, GWM's premium SUV brand WEY was expected to be the world's first model outfitted with Android 8.0 O-MR1 version-based vehicle-mounted intelligent terminal. Great Wall Motor's Tula factory in Russia starts production Great Wall Motor' Tula factory in Russia, the Chinese automaker's first wholly-owned full-process manufacturing plant outside its home market, was formally put into production on June 5, 2019. The USD 500 million Tula factory was completed following four years of construction with a designated annual capacity of 150,000 units, 65% of which would be produced locally. At the same time, the Chinese automaker's first model being sold worldwide, the Haval F7, rolled off production lines and was available in markets outside of China. This signified that the automaker had entered a new stage with its global strategy but more importantly set Chinese auto brands on a new journey to world markets. Great Wall Motor's 2019 Haval H7 satisfies China 6 Emission Standard In early July, Haval, a major SUV brand of Great Wall Motor, recently sent the 2019 Haval H7 into the market with its four variants all satisfying the China 6 standard. Prices of the new SUV range from RMB142,000 to RMB173,000. Retaining Haval's iconic design language, the new vehicle's front end is capped with a massive hexagonal chrome grille which is flanked by headlights embedded with LED light sources. Driven by a 2.0-litre turbocharged engine code-named 4C20B churning out up to 227hp and 385Nm of peak torque, the new Haval H7 can complete 0-100km/h sprint within 8.8 seconds. Mated to the engine is a 7-speed dual-clutch transmission. Great Wall Motor unveils all-new intelligent connectivity strategy on July 15 Great Wall Motor launched its all-new intelligent connectivity strategy GOT (GreatWall Totally Online) on July 15 to solve the pain points for functional applications on vehicles and restructure its mobility service system. At the launching ceremony, the automaker also announced its partnership with eight companies, including Tencent, Alibaba, Baidu, China Telecom, China Unicom, China Mobile, Huawei and Qualcomm, to jointly build the GTO smart ecosystem and develop 5G&AI-based experience-driven robots that can offer users full-lifecycle mobility services. One of highlights for the brand new strategy was the introduction of cutting-edge 5G and AI technologies. The company said using the cutting-edge technologies was a crucial method to effectively promote the upgrade of mobility service experience. Great Wall Motor WEY launches Collie intelligent safety system WEY, the premium SUV brand of GWM, launched on July 25 the in-vehicle intelligent safety system dubbed Collie at the ceremony celebrating the 2020 VV6's entry to the market. Both the brand name and the iconic collie logo embody the characteristics the automaker designed for the new All-round Intelligent Safety systemsharp-witted, vigorous, reliable and smart. As WEY's first technical brand focusing on intelligent safety technology, the Collie would be dedicated to offering security services on four key areaslife, property, information and environment, said Shi Binyang, WEY's deputy chief engineer of intelligent safety. Great Wall Motor becomes first Chinese carmaker signing SPIC with Russian government Great Wall Motor became the first Chinese automaker that signed a special investment contract (SPIC) with the government of Russian Federation after a special commission composed of several Russian governmental agencies, institution and funds approved on July 31 a resolution to facilitate GWM's operation in the transcontinental country in Eastern Europe and North Asia. The signing of SPIC for Haval Russia Automotive Manufacturing Co., Ltd., (GWM's Russian subsidiary) meant the Chinese carmaker would be allowed to operate businesses in Russia using the same preferential policies as that of the other foreign invested enterprises in this country in a more open and fairer market environment. Great Wall Holdings's Eastern China headquarters to be launched in Jiading Great Wall Holdings Group Limited struck a cooperation deal with Jiading District Government of Shanghai on August 15 for launching its Eastern China (Shanghai) headquarters at Jiading, one of the most important automotive industrial bases for China. As the second biggest R&D center for Great Wall Motors, the new headquarters would play as a multifunctional facility integrating four major businesseshydrogen energy, core auto parts, car-sharing as well as intelligent connectivity. Besides, a project company would be established at Anting Town as part of the cooperation. Great Wall Motor taps used car export domain with first business completed Great Wall Motor had exported its first batch of pre-owned vehicles to several Asian and African countries like Cambodia, Nigeria and Ghana through its wholly-owned automobile import & export subsidiary in Tianjin, according to a local media report. . The Tianjin-based subsidiary, dubbed Changyou Haoche (in Chinese), was given the governmental permission to export used vehicles in July, 2019, becoming one of five companies in Tianjin that own this qualification. China's authorities issued in April the notice on supporting the export of used vehicles in eligible regions. Then, they jointly announced on May 5 the first batch of cities/provinces that are allowed to conduct the pilot program of exporting pre-owned cars. There were 10 cities/provinces involved in the milestone program, and all of them are important coastal areas that boast great export/import advantages or the pivotal cities along the Belt and Road route. Great Wall Motor joins world's first partnership about pure solid-state LiDAR mass production On August 27, Great Wall Motor inked an agreement with LiangDao Intelligence and Ibeo Automotive Systems GmbH (Ibeo Automotive) for a strategic cooperation to promote autonomous driving technologies into mass production. According to LiangDao Intelligence's WeChat account, the latest collaboration was the world's first-of-its-kind cooperative project themed the volume production of pure solid-state LiDAR, and was also honored the unprecedented cooperation focusing on the mass production of automotive-grade pure solid-state LiDAR. According to the agreement, Ibeo Automotive would provide GWM with its new-generation 4D solid-state LiDAR ibeoNEXT, which was to be used as a core part of the automaker's self-driving sensor system. Besides, LiangDao Intelligence would be responsible for the testing and evaluation of the ibeoNEXT and environmental sensing system to be applied in mass production. Great Wall Motor's new P Series Pickup launched On August 18, Great Walls new P Series Pickup was officially launched, opening the era of Chinese passenger pickup and globalization. Great Walls new P Series Pickup was designed to be user-centered, and a pickup for everyone for everything through super product, super service, super experience, as well as the Great Walls new P Series Pickup Alliance program. On August 30, GWMs new P Series passenger pickup rolled off the production line at the plant in Yongchuan, Chongqing, where witnessed the birth of the 100,000th one on December 5. Great Wall Motor, Huawei extend tie-up to ICV, electrification, mobility service On Sept. 24, Great Wall Motor and Huawei, a world's leading ICT device supplier, agreed to cooperate on ICT-related innovative technologies, as both parties wish to seize a head start in electrification and intelligence areas in China's auto industry. Under the partnership, GWM and Huawei would carry out collaboration in such areas as auto connectivity, intelligent driving, smart cockpit, intelligent electrification, cloud service, big data and mobility service. The cooperation between two parties can trace back to March, 2019, where the 5G-based remote driving technology jointly developed by Great Wall Motor, Huawei and China Mobile was successfully tested at Xushui, Hebei Province. In that test, the latency between a vehicle and devices was reduced to several milliseconds, said the automaker. BMW, Great Wall Motor celebrate first spade cut of Spotlight JV project BMW Group and Great Wall Motor officially initiated their 50:50 joint-venture project, Spotlight Automotive, on November 29, marking the first joint venture between foreign and privately-owned automakers in China would be soon established. The groundbreaking ceremony was held only a week after the joint venture was given the governmental green-light to produce internal combustion engine-powered vehicles (ICEVs) and conduct R&D activities for all-electric PVs. However, the approval is not available to BEV production. The joint venture had been granted China's governmental approval for establishment of enterprises with foreign investment, the Baoding-based automaker announced on December 15. About half a month later, Spotlight Auto was received business license by the market regulation administration of Zhangjiagang, Jiangsu province. Great Wall Motor's Pinghu vehicle plant construction kicks off Great Wall Motor hosted a ceremony to mark the start of the construction of its new plant on October 26 in Pinghu, a county-level city in the east of Jiaxing, Zhejiang of China. With a total investment of almost RMB11 billion ($1.56 billion), the facility was supposed to involve a total area of over 1,200mu (80 hectares) with the annual capacity of 100,000 units. It would be used to produce the automakers Haval-branded vehicles and a series of NEVs. A research and development (R&D) center would also be set up there. SVOLT Energy's first intelligent battery plant starts production SVOLT Energy, Great Wall Motor's wholly-owned subsidiary, announced the official opening of the first phase of its automotive-grade intelligent battery plant in Jintan, Changzhou of China on November 27. It is said that the capacity of the projects first phase was supposed to reach 4 GWh. The construction of the second phase was likely to be finished at the end of 2020 to contribute another 8-GWh capacity, while the third one would produce 6-GWh power. With 6 manufacturing bases across the world, the company bids to offer a stable supply to mainstream OEMs through generating 76-GWh capacity at home and 24-GWh abroad in 2025. The Changzhou-headquartered company focuses on the R&D and manufacturing of the next-generation-battery material, cell, module, PACK, BMS (battery management system), ESS (energy storage system) and solar energy technology. It plans to build seven R&D centers, and its Baoding center, Shanghai center, South Korea center and India center have begun operation as well. Democratic candidates bolt Sunday across Iowa, where no handshake or pit stop is too insignificant one day ahead of the state's presidential nominating process, which is the first in the nation. Iowa has traditionally served as a vital launching point -- or burial ground -- for presidential campaigns. However, Monday's crunch vote has created an air of suspense, with no clear frontrunner. Leftist senator Bernie Sanders holds only a narrow lead over former vice president Joe Biden, among the field of several candidates feverishly criss-crossing the rural state. Three of the leading candidates seized on a brief break from their duties as jurors in the Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump in Washington to rush to Iowa for a flurry of last-minute events. The senators -- the self-styled democratic socialist Sanders, progressive Elizabeth Warren and moderate Amy Klobuchar -- each held a handful of events Saturday. The impeachment trial -- only the third in US history -- created an unprecedented situation by limiting the senators' ability to campaign in Iowa in the closing days before the state's presidential caucuses. Sanders, Warren and Klobuchar have to return to Washington on Monday, along with Senator Michael Bennet who trails badly in the polls, for the trial's resumption. Senate leaders have scheduled a vote for Wednesday that appears virtually certain to end in Trump's acquittal on the impeachment charges of abuse of power and contempt of Congress. Eight of the 11 Democrats still in the race were in Iowa on Saturday. A good result can propel a candidate to new victories in the states that follow, starting with tiny New Hampshire eight days later. A poor showing can signal the end. Sanders, at 78 the oldest Democratic candidate, has seen his candidacy buoyed by enthusiastic support among young voters. His staff organized concerts at his weekend rallies with indie groups Bon Iver and Vampire Weekend, who also performed at his events four years ago. "We must defeat the most dangerous president in the modern history of America" the Vermont senator told a crowd of several thousand in Cedar Rapids. "Monday night in Iowa it all begins" he said. Monday evening, at 7:00 pm (01H00 GMT Tuesday), the state's more than 600,000 registered Democrats are invited to take part in caucuses at about 1,700 venues -- schools, theaters, churches -- to publicly express their choice by standing under one candidate's banner. Just as in every presidential year, thousands of volunteers fanned out across the Midwestern farm state of just over three million inhabitants to try to convince neighbors or passers-by to vote for their favorite. At this late date, nearly one Iowa voter in two claimed to still be undecided. In a home in Iowa City that Warren supporters were using as a base, people streamed in and out, looking for more posters to put up on lamp posts or in yards, or for lists of doors that still needed to be knocked on. "We are trying to get around the state as much as we can," Warren told a rally of nearly 1,000 at a high school in Iowa City, adding that the Democratic Party's job is "to come together to beat Donald Trump." If one thing unifies the Democrats, it's that desire to defeat Trump, state Democratic chairman Troy Price told AFP. That is the number one argument being made by Biden, former vice president to Barack Obama. "We need a president who is ready on Day One," the 77-year-old political veteran has been saying throughout his campaign. Biden leads in nationwide surveys but trails Sanders in the latest Iowa polling. Iowans take their seriously. They take their role as first-in-the-nation voters to heart, and often, even in the smallest cities, have the chance to meet candidates in person. Their pick has a recent historical track record of going on to become the Democratic Party nominee. Like Biden, 38-year-old Pete Buttigieg took advantage of the absence of rivals stuck in the Senate to lay on a heavy schedule of campaigning. A former consultant, army reservist and onetime mayor of a small Indiana city, "Mayor Pete" portrays his youth as a reason voters should prefer him over the graying Biden. As for Sanders, his are too divisive, Buttigieg implies. His is not the only new face to emerge during the campaign. Klobuchar, 59, a previously little-known senator, has climbed slowly but steadily in voter polls. She is hoping for a surprise on Monday, boosted in part by the fact that her home state, Minnesota, borders Iowa. Maria Watt, 42, was leaning toward "Pete" until she decided to switch to "Amy." "Either way, we'd be happy to have it be a young person or a female," the Iowa City voter said Saturday. "Anyone but an old white guy. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Border Communities Against Brexit poster before its unveiling at a demonstration in Carrickcarnon on the Irish border (Brian Lawless/PA) Tonight, after 47 years of membership, the North will leave the European Union. This decision is entirely contrary to the democratically expressed wishes of a cross community majority of the electorate in the North, the majority of elected members of the devolved Assembly and the recently elected MPs. Brexit has been foisted upon the people of this island without our consent. This is absolutely unacceptable to our communities, businesses and the agriculture industry. The European Union isn't without flaws; it does have imperfections - Sinn Fein is not naive to this. We believe there needs to be a radical reform of the European Union as it currently stands, however, it is indisputable that the European Union has been a critical partner of peace in Ireland. The European Union has provided political and financial aid which has led to greater economic and social progress across all of the island. Reflecting the critical role of the EU in advancing our society and the role that it can still play in doing so, Sinn Fein developed the case for designated special status for the North. Designated special status took into account and respected the democratically expressed wishes of the majority of citizens in the North to stay in the European Union. Sinn Fein has worked constructively with the Irish government and has led the pro-remain parties in the North in common cause and defence of the interests of citizens since 2016. We have taken Irish interests to the heart of political institutions in Brussels, Washington, Dublin and London. Boris Johnson has committed to concluding the transition period for Brexit before 2021 - this tight timeframe to successfully negotiate a deal poses a significant challenge for the British government and the European Union. On this basis, a no-deal is a real risk. If this happens, it is absolutely vital that the provisions to prevent a hard border come into effect and the Good Friday Agreement is protected in all of its parts. As Deputy First Minister and Joint Head of Government, I will again work with the Irish and British governments, the pro-remain alliance and European Union to ensure that their commitments to protect the Good Friday Agreement and prevent a hard border in Ireland are lived up to. It is my firm objective to avoid slowing down trade for businesses - both on an East/West and North/South basis. While Brexit poses many challenges to this island, there also exists an opportunity to build a new Ireland. I see no contradiction in declaring and delivering on our firm commitment to power sharing with unionism in the Stormont Assembly while also initiating a mature and inclusive debate about new political arrangements which examine Ireland's future beyond Brexit. Irish unity has taken on a new dynamic as a result of Brexit. In April 2017, the European Union made an important and ground-breaking declaration. It declared that in the event of Irish reunification that the North would automatically re-join the EU with the rest of Ireland. Many citizens of a British or unionist identity are now considering the merits of reunification - not to become republicans, but to remain European. Citizens of all traditions are considering which union best serves their interests - the European Union or the United Kingdom. The choice is clear - a new, inclusive and open Ireland or an inward-looking, insular Britain. A referendum on the constitutional future of our island is coming. The basis for this referendum is within the Good Friday Agreement - this agreement cannot be cherry-picked. An incoming Taoiseach cannot continue to bury their head in the sand, as Leo Varadkar has done, they cannot ignore the stark reality. The Irish government must not be a passive or neutral actor on Irish unity, it must be an active advocate for unity. There is an obligation on the Irish government to prepare and to plan for Irish unity. A failure to do so is a derogation of duty by the Irish government to safeguard the interests of the Irish nation - defending the interests of all of this island against Brexit is paramount. This means the Irish government needs to begin to plan for a referendum, promote the discussion and build a vision for a new and united Ireland. The only people not talking about Irish unity is the Irish government. In government, Sinn Fein will not be passive. Without hesitation, we will establish a national citizens' assembly that encompasses all traditions on this island. This assembly will actively encourage discussion and plan for the unity referendum. The simple reality is that Brexit has exposed the failure and undemocratic nature of partition - a political problem, which requires a political solution. The Jamia Millia Islamia student who was injured in a firing outside the university during an anti-CAA protest dubbed the incident "a result of hyper nationalism". In his Facebook post, Shadab Farooq said what happened on Thursday can be termed as "a result of hyper nationalism". "If you want to make it a protest, make it one. Raise black flags, raise red flags," he stated. He further stated that the Delhi Police alone was not to be blamed for the incident. The Jamia administration and the vice chancellor should also be blamed for it, he said. In his post, Farooq, a mass communication student, narrated the incident and stated that the Jamia Coordination Committee had called for a Gandhi March from the university to the Rajghat on January 30. "I was about to join the protest, waiting for the crowd to march forward when I saw a random person holding a pistol in his hands walking towards Holy Family (Hospital). I saw some of my friends standing there, I immediately ran towards him to calm him down," he stated in the post. "People were asking the police to stop him. They were continuously shouting that he's holding a pistol but the police didn't listen. Instead, they kept recording videos. I kept saying put the gun down, I said it twice. He shot me on my left forearm when I said it for the third time," he added. Farooq said what he did wasn't an act of heroism as he did what he felt was right. "I am calling for an action because I am hurt. If the administration still doesn't take action on it and if it fails to reach out to its students, then tomorrow there will be another Shadab standing in front of a bullet while the police keep their hands in their pockets and record videos," he said. "And I'll be back to college real soon. The fight is long, but we will fight. We will win," he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A woman was left heartbroken after her beloved dog choked to death on a small ball at a dog park. Bella Cook, 23, has a rare chromosomal disorder called mosaic ring, which her dog Bowie helped her with. So she was completely devastated when the pooch, a border collie cross bull arab, choked on a small Chuckit! Ultra Ball while on a walk with her father David. David was playing with Bowie at a dog park in Narraweena, northern Sydney, but when another woman threw a ball for the dog to chase things took a dark turn. Bowie ran down the ball but it had gotten lodged in his throat. Mr Cook was alarmed when the dog started choking on the small ball, noticing it had become lodged in his throat, Yahoo News reported. Bella Cook's beloved dog Bowie (pictured together) choked to death after choking on a small ball She said her father almost immediately realised something was wrong but the closest vet was a 30 minute drive from the park. Miss Cook said Bowie was in distress for the entire trip to the vet where he was told the dog would require emergency surgery. The ball had caused irreversible damage to Bowie and Miss Cook's father had no option but to have the dog put to sleep. 'My dad had to make the horrible decision to have him put down. He said watching him die will stay with him for the rest of his life. It was simply horrible,' she said. Sadly Miss Cook was at work at the time of the incident but her family made sure she got a chance to farewell her beloved dog. Bowie (pictured) was rushed to a vet but the ball had caused irreversible damage and the beloved family pet had to be put down 'They bought him up for me with a blanket around him and the candle I got so I could hug and kiss him. He looked at peace,' she said. 'I live with my dad. My dog helped me with losing weight and a break up with my boyfriend. I also have a cat which I love, but it's not the same as a dog.' She has now warned other dog owners to be more careful when it comes to choice of dog ball. Bowie choked to death on a Chuckit! Ultra Ball, size small, which on the front says is 'for small dogs only'. Bowie choked on a Chuckit! Ultra Ball (pictured) small size which is labeled for use with small dogs only Miss Cook doesn't want other dog owners to go through the heartbreak she has and has urged them to make sure they avoid small balls for large dogs. 'We just want to get the message out and hopefully people will think next time they're in the park... dogs will be dogs but unfortunately a normal day turned into tragedy,' she said. Daily Mail Australia has contacted Chuckit! for comment. The government on Sunday issued a clarification on the new definition of NRI mentioned in the Budget presented by Nirmala Sitharaman. New Delhi: The government on Sunday issued a clarification on the new definition of NRI, stating that "in case of an Indian citizen, who becomes deemed resident of India under this proposed provision (Finance Bill 2020) shall not be taxed in the country unless it is derived from an Indian business or profession." The government has also stated that "necessary clarification if required shall be incorporated in the relevant provision of the law." "The new provision is not intended to include in tax net those Indian citizens who are bonafide workers in other countries," said the government. The government further said: "In some sections of the media, the new provision is being interpreted to create an impression that those Indians who are bonafide workers in other countries, including in the Middle East, and who are not liable to tax in these countries will be taxed in India on the income that they have earned there. This interpretation is not correct." The Finance Bill, 2020 has proposed that an Indian citizen shall be deemed to be resident in India if he is not liable to be taxed in any country or jurisdiction. "This is an anti-abuse provision since it is noticed that some Indian citizens shift their stay in low or no tax jurisdiction to avoid payment of tax in India," the government said. Follow full coverage of Union Budget 2020-21 here Srinagar: Four more mainstream Jammu and Kashmir politicians were released on Sunday from detention in the MLA hostel in Srinagar. They had been in detention since August 5, when the Centre abrogated Article 370 and bifurcated Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories. According to sources, the released leaders are from the National Conference and include Abdul Majid Larmi, Ghulam Nabi Bhat, Muhammad Shafi, and Muhammad Yusuf Bhat. With the release of the four leaders, the number of leaders under detention in the Valley stands at 17. These include three chief ministers -- Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti. Farooq Abdullah has been detained in his home at the Gupkar road in Srinagar, which has been designated as the sub-jail. Omar Abdullah is detained at Hari Niwas and Mehbooba Mufti has been kept in a government building on the Maulana Azad Residency Road. On January 16, five mainstream politicians were relased from their detention in the MLA hostel. A total of 35 mainstream politicians were moved from the Centaur hotel on the banks of the Dal lake to the MLA hostel in November last year. A Supreme Court bench headed by Justice N.V. Ramana had ordered the Union Territory administration to review all curbs that have been in place since August 5 in Jammu and Kashmir. Editorials represent the institutional view of the newspaper. They are written and edited by the editorial staff, which operates separately from the news department. Editorial writers are not involved in newsroom operations. He has already proven his resiliency: In 2018, he was elected as a district leader for the Queens Democratic Party, an unpaid, hyperlocal position that gives him access to highly engaged voters. Mr. Monserrate said that his story was one of second chances. He said his experience with the criminal justice system should recommend, rather than disqualify, him for public office, especially as the Legislature continues to debate changes to bail and incarceration laws. Having been one of the few people who has been on both sides of it, I think that I have some moral authority to speak to these issues, he said in an interview. But for some people, the prospect of a victory by Mr. Monserrate highlights the political systems failures. I had said that this challenge was a joke, said Francisco Moya, a Democratic City Council member who defeated Mr. Monserrate in several of his previous comeback attempts. But the reality is that its actually a bad joke, and it really might be on us if this becomes a reality. Even among New Yorks many disgraced politicians, Mr. Monserrate stands out. A month after being elected to the State Senate in 2008, he was accused of slashing his partner at the time, Karla Giraldo, with a broken drinking glass. Surveillance video showed Mr. Monserrate dragging Ms. Giraldo down a hallway and out of the building where they had been fighting. He then drove her to a hospital 30 minutes away, despite there being another one within blocks. There, she received 20 stitches. UNDER pressure Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy today reveals he personally knows the struggles the homeless are going through as hes made a point of going into hostels and has even ended up serving the residents breakfast. The 37-year-old claims the homeless crisis is easing and he is striving to make things better. Ive gone to the hostels late at night that people have said they are scared of going into, to see what conditions are like, he tells the Sunday World. I was serving breakfast in one of the larger hostels a while back and it was difficult to actually serve breakfast because people wanted to talk to me about what they were experiencing, which was really nice. They were talking about the challenges that they were [facing] in terms of trying to find work and some of them had other more complex issues. They were telling me their stories and they were asking me to help. He admits that he finds it distressing to see people sleeping rough but claims the number is a new low of 90 each night. Its still way too high, he reflects .For many people who are sleeping rough, and the tents that they see, thats the human face of the crisis and thats why people are so upset about this. It doesnt have to touch a person personally but because we are a very compassionate country, people do want to make sure we are doing everything we can to help the most vulnerable. He insists he is not out of touch .The first thing that Sinn Fein and Fianna Fail said about me when I became minister was this kind of posh boy jibe, says Murphy. But it doesnt matter if Im from Dublin 4 or Farranfore, it doesnt matter if Ive a south Dublin accent or a Kerry accent, what matters is the policies Im implementing. I do understand the crisis that people are in, not just people who are sleeping rough, or families or kids in hotels, but also young families trying to get out of a small apartment to a house to raise their family, he says. Asked if he has become a bit of a fall guy, he replies: I think there is a lot of people caught up in this crisis. Im the minister for housing, Im the person responsible, Ive got to solve it and thats what Ive got to do. People recognise me and people do want to talk to me. The good thing that we have is we have a close relationship between politicians and the people who elect them and you wouldnt want to see that change. So people do come up and talk to you about housing and other things. The Minister, who is running for re-election in Dublin Bay South, explains he has only been in the job two and a half years and turned down a different Cabinet position to try and solve the housing crisis. A lot of people I know have been burned twice by housing, he discloses. Some people who were lucky enough in the late 2000s to buy a home. Like some of my friends live in ghost estates, or negative equity and have unfortunately lost their jobs and have not been able to afford the mortgage, so they have that experience. A lot of them are trying to move out of small apartments into houses. He maintains that 20,000 new homes were built last year compared to 10,000 in 2016 and that new builds will increase this year. Latest opinion polls show Sinn Fein almost neck and neck with Fianna Fail and Fine Gael.If you look whats happening with Sinn Fein in the polls, the prospect of a Sinn Fein-Fianna Fail coalition is now very real as I look at it, he muses. I dont believe Micheal Martin when he says he wont go into power with Sinn Fein and I think it would be a terrible mistake for the economy. Indian students, who have been evacuated from coronavirus-affected Chinese city of Wuhan, on Sunday celebrated their return by dancing and making selfie videos at Army's quarantine facility in Manesar, according to officials. In a video shared by government officials, a group of six male students, wearing masks, can be seen dancing on Haryanavi tunes at a dormitory-style room in the facility near Delhi. "The students are happy as they have been evacuated. In the video, you can find them dancing and making videos even though they have their face masks on," an official said. In the last two days, 647 Indians have been evacuated through two special Air India flights. While 324 Indians were part of the first batch, 323 Indians and seven Maldivians were evacuated on Sunday. As many as 252 Indians have been kept under quarantine for a period of two weeks at the Army's 300-bed facility in Manesar, according to officials. Wuhan is the epicentre of the outbreak which has killed more than 300 people in China. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said in a tweet on Sunday, "7 Maldivians brought back with 323 Indians from Wuhan on the second @airindiain flight today. #NeighbourhoodFirst at work again." Two Indians, both from Kerala, have been tested positive for the deadly coronavirus infection. Due to the outbreak, IndiGo has suspended all three flights between India and China. Air India has suspended its Delhi-Shanghai flight and curtailed operations on the Delhi-Hong Kong route. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) COLUMBIA Two mattress makers with ties to China are opening in South Carolina and more are likely to come, ushered in by lucrative tax breaks and state grants. Findings from a U.S. International Trade Commission investigation accused dozens of Chinese manufacturers of cheating international trade rules, selling mattresses at prices below production costs, to make inroads into the U.S. market. As a result, the commission slapped companies with a large tariff hike in November. The added taxes make the mattresses produced in China too expensive to ship and sell in the U.S. So one of those firms, MLILY, brought its production to Winnsboro, 30 miles north of Columbia. It's joined by an industry newcomer setting up shop near Gaffney, in the Upstate. Now made in the USA, a banner proclaimed proudly as company and state leaders cut the ribbon on its $50 million plant. By operating in South Carolina, companies can maintain or gain advantage selling to American consumers. We knew the tariffs and duties would make products from our China factory more expensive and less competitive in the U.S., so we were able to move that production out of China to our two other factories rather quickly, James Ni, chief executive of MLILY's parent company Healthcare Co. Ltd., told trade magazine Furniture World in June. The petition that launched the trade commission investigation was filed by U.S. mattress makers in 2018. Healthcare Co., along with the state Commerce Department, announced plans to retrofit a former Mack Truck facility in Winnsboro plant three months later, making it the first to set up shop stateside in anticipation of the anti-dumping fees. With the recently enacted duties on Chinese-made mattresses, MLILYs Palmetto State location will allow it to hold the line on mattress prices. Theyll be able to beat out other low-priced Chinese competitors for the time being as more of these firms are likely to bring their operations stateside. The company shifted production to Serbia and Thailand as it worked to get the plant in Fairfield County operational. The South Carolina factory will make the vast majority of MLILY products sold in the U.S. The companys six-million-square-foot factory in Jiangsu, China, the worlds largest memory foam production plant, will switch to producing for European and Asian markets. Industry struggles The U.S. mattress industry has had a tumultuous several years. Over expansion as it bought up competitors sent retail giant Mattress Firm spiraling into bankruptcy in 2018. And emergence of U.S. bed-in-a-box companies shook up the market. It was that same bed-in-a-box format, easily shipped overseas, that opened the door to the Chinese mattress makers. In 2018, Chinese companies accused of selling mattresses at cut-throat prices shipped about 5 million mattresses to the U.S., according to USITC. The average Chinese mattress imported to the U.S. in the first half of 2019 was priced at $153, compared to an average of $280 for similar mattresses made in the U.S., the USTIC investigation showed. The bi-partisan commission voted unanimously to enact duties as high as 1,700 percent. Companies that cooperated received lesser penalties. Healthcare Co., which felt it was wrongly accused, was assessed the lowest at 38.56 percent, but was still put at a disadvantage CEO James Ni said. Chinese mattress companies went from about 4 percent of the U.S. market to 13 percent in a matter of three years, 2016-2018, said Jerry Epperson, a Virginia-based investment banker specializing in the mattress industry for the firm Mann, Armistead & Epperson. With the anti-dumping tariffs, Epperson said that market share has plummeted to .5 percent. More to come Online retailers like Amazon and Wayfair ushered these companies in and that relationship is likely to keep MLILY growing now that its here, Epperson said. Production of foam mattresses is highly automated, which allows companies to put them out at a rapid clip compared to what Epperson calls the more technologically advanced, conventional made mattresses. While MLILY was among the first to make moves, a couple of its competitors have opened facilities in Vietnam to bypass the duties. "I'm sure we're see some of that as well but I think we're going to see more coming to the U.S.," Epperson said. And states in the Southeast are likely destinations, he said. South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia are known to throw out large subsidies trying to undercut each other and lure in foreign manufacturers. Epperson said companies like MLILY are smart, placing their facilities in towns in need of jobs. At the time MLILY entered Winnsboro it was reeling from mass job losses caused by abandonment of the former SCANA nuclear power project. The company said it would bring 250 new positions to the job-hungry community. Fairfield County rolled out a 30-year tax break, reducing the assessment rate from 10 percent to 6 percent, and the state awarded a $300,000 grant to assist with building renovations. The company has hired 75 people so far and is expected to be at full capacity by the end of the year, producing 60,000 mattresses a month, spokesman Daryl Simmons said. Another company with Chinese ties, though new to the mattress industry, could also could cash in on the new-found advantage. Palmetto Pedic, is a joint venture created in 2018 between Chinese mattress industry veterans and longtime Gaffney fabrics manufacturer, Home Fashions International. The company made an $8.5 million investment is expected to add 60 more jobs to the Gaffney plant. The state approved a $250,000 grant to assist with building renovations. Like MLILY, Palmetto Pedic will make all of its own components for memory foam, hybrid foam and coil mattresses, along with bed pillows and mattress toppers. President Jack Cobb said the line should be running in a couple months but declined to answer any other questions. Township of Unions mayor and police director condemned the people behind a popular residents Facebook group for creating undue chaos about two lockdowns Friday at the towns high school. But the creator of the forum, Jason Krychiw, says the towns condemnation is an attempt at censorship and retaliation for running against local lawmakers in past elections. Union High School was locked down on two separate occasions Friday for different reports of students having weapons. A hammer and knife were seized in the first lockdown and a student was injured while fleeing from the school during the second lockdown, the Union County Prosecutors Office said. Students and residents made hundreds of posts about the incident in the private Union, NJ Residents Forum on Facebook that has about 16,000 members. Krychiw said the posts ranged from photos of a student with a hammer and texts parents were receiving from their kids inside the school. The township on Saturday put out a statement on Facebook saying Krychiw and the three other moderators of his forum turned a low-level non-event into a nightmare scenario involving SWAT teams, police dogs and a multi-agency response. The wanton recklessness displayed by the Administrators and Moderators of the Union, NJ Residents Facebook Forum was the sole reason for turning a routine matter into a full scale law enforcement event, Mayor Michele Delisfort said. This isnt a case of free speech. Free speech doesnt allow you to yell fire in a crowded movie theater! This afternoon, Mayor Michele Delisfort, the entire Township Committee, and Police Director Daniel Zieser strongly... Posted by Township of Union, New Jersey - Government on Saturday, February 1, 2020 Township officials nor police put out any statements to the media or public about what was happening at the high school as the lockdowns were underway. The Union County Prosecutors Office released a statement about the lockdowns around 9 p.m. later that day. Many of the posts in the forum were deleted by Krychiw immediately since they discussed minors or security inside the school, Krychiw said. He said it became difficult at times to keep up with moderating the flow of posts, but blamed officials for leaving residents in the dark about the situation for hours. Theyre using an unfortunate situation to try and get further control of group they have no right dictating, Krychiw said. Yesterday they - both the township and the police - were completely silent about the matter. The townships statement did not address any other social media forums, although Krychiw said people were posting about the lockdown on the townships official page and in other Facebook groups. Union Police Director Daniel Zieser said in a statement the administrators and moderators of Krychiws forum should have done a better job at stopping the flow of falsehoods. It would have been resolved in a matter of minutes, but for the reckless rumors and incendiary falsehoods spread across the Union, NJ Residents Facebook Forum, said Zieser. "Had the Moderators and Administrators acted responsibly by not starting and spreading rumors, this event would not have been a non-event. Their failure to display good judgment caused undue chaos and a potentially life threatening situation. Moving forward, Krychiw said he is fielding residents opinions about whether to make posts go through an approval system when events similar to the ones on Friday happen again. Krychiw has made unsuccessful bids for township committee in the last three local elections. He said he does not plan to run again this year, but he currently holds a seat on the Union County Democratic Committee. Its personal against me individually, to be honest. Thats why they target the forum, he told NJ Advance Media. This is not the first time township lawmakers have publicly rebuked Krychiws forum, where residents post about local political issues, events and businesses. The town in 2018 ran an anti-bullying training certification program for online moderators in exchange for access to township officials who would answer posts from residents. Krychiw at the time was skeptical of the program because it did not specify if residents criticism of township policies would be a violation of the bullying program. In December, township committee members passed a resolution that called the Union, NJ Residents Forum a page that allows and permits residents to participate in cyberbullying, harassment and hatred against other members. The resolution called for the forum to cease displaying the townships seal or pictures of town hall and demanded the forum become viewable to non-members. Krychiw said there is a comment policy pinned to the top of the forum that disallows obscene language, hate speech and personal attacks. Facebook does not allow groups with more than 5,000 members to be set to public, he said. Krychiw also pointed out that a blogger was once taken to court for using the Union County seal on her website, but a judge ruled in her favor. Rebecca Panico may be reached at rpanico@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @BeccaPanico. Earlier this year, a well-known Connecticut defense attorney wrote a short blog post titled Justice Delayed Is Business As Usual in Connecticut. The piece included such observations as When I tell friends in other states how long it takes to get to trial in Connecticut, they are stunned, and once (a case) arrives on the trial list it sits, sometimes for years, until it is assigned a trial judge. The author is Norm Pattis who currently thinks it would be a good idea to continue trying the murder case of Jennifer Dulos, even though his former client Fotis Dulos is dead and the body of Jennifer Dulos has never been found. Sign up to get Colins newsletter delivered to your inbox, for free To be fair, Pattis made his complaints about Connecticuts criminal justice backlog as part of a specific argument against sequestered voir dires, but there is nonetheless something unpleasantly paradoxical about his current desire to tie up a judge and a courtroom for a case with no defendant and no body. His argument is that Fotis Dulos deserves the chance to clear his name and that the five Dulos children deserve the peace that would softly descend upon them after a Pattis-orchestrated acquittal of their father. My counter-argument is that peace will be long in coming to the tragic lives of those children and that a courtoom is an unlikely place for them to find it. Perhaps the judge and the trial apparatus could be freed up to handle some of the cases of defendants who are imprisoned for long periods without trial because of our monstrously unfair bail system. Perhaps Pattis could be freed up to apply his talents to some other needy client, such as professional thing-under-a-rock Alex Jones. Do I sound crabby? I know I do. It has been a long week. And Im keenly aware of my own inner contradiction. About 20 years ago, the Christian ethicist Ian S. Markham told me, Were not allowed to give up on anybody. Hes probably forgotten the conversation, but those words have haunted me ever since. Its impossible to take the gospels seriously and not embrace Markhams statement. We dont have to accept everything, and we dont have to forgive everybody. But were not supposed to take forgiveness, repentance and redemption off the table, even for the worst persons in the world. Maybe I should ring Markham up and ask him if I can wash my hands of Fotis Dulos. It seems like hes somebody elses problem now. But if Im rid of Fotis, that still leaves POTUS. When people email me to accuse me of political bias against Donald Trump, I think, No. I just hate the guy. I hate him for his intolerance and bullying and misogyny. I hate him for the damage he has done to the Earths climate and our civic culture. I hate him for how he has harmed babies and birds. I know thats wrong. Hating accomplishes nothing. Hating Trump merely doubles down on his sins. But its a tough habit to kick. Not unrelated is last weeks debate over the life and legacy of Kobe Bryant. There isnt much doubt in my mind that he raped a woman in Vail, Colo., in 2003. Thats part of his story, and he left behind a victim who will probably struggle all her life to make peace with the damage. But all week long we were told that he worked hard on being a good husband, father and citizen. Stories have emerged about a secret hospital visit to a dying child and a video message to a young person struggling for life after a car accident. So? I dont think anybody really knows what it means when Jacob wrestles with an angel in Genesis, but what it means to me is that we are doomed to wrestle all our days with these questions of sin and virtue and that were usually trailing on the scoreboard and trying not to get pinned. Right on cue, Richard Crafts was moved this week from a halfway house to a homeless shelter for veterans. Crafts was convicted of murdering his wife Helle in 1986 and pushing her frozen remains through a woodchipper. He exhibited good behavior in prison and is expected to be fully released this summer. Were not allowed to give up on anybody. Colin McEnroes column appears every Sunday, his newsletter comes out every Thursday and you can hear his radio show every weekday on WNPR 90.5. Email him at colin@ctpublic.org. Sign up for his newsletter at http://bit.ly/colinmcenroe. "We will consider what sanctions could be lifted. So far we have not reached this point. But such moments as today bring us closer to this goal," the US Secretary of State stated. So he answered the question about sanctions, linked to the situation with respect for human rights in Belarus. Pompeo said this issue was addressed at a meeting with Lukashenko. Belarus has made significant progress on these issues. Further progress is the only way to lift sanctions, the US official said. According to him, the United States sees an opportunity to expand relations with Belarus. "The United States was among the first to recognize the independence of Belarus. We remain in the same position and we hope for deeper relations," Pompeo assured. Pompeo said that the parties need to work to overcome obstacles and more free access of American business to the Belarusian market. Trains make noise, especially when they blow their horns while entering stations and at grade crossings. But for folks who live near the railroad branch lines, which have dozens of such crossings, the noise is too much. Those neighbors crammed a Stamford meeting this week seeking solutions. What they got was an education and maybe some hope. The New Canaan Branch has seven grade crossings in a 2-mile stretch, each requiring (under Federal Railroad Administration safety regulations) 10 seconds of horn blasts at 110 decibels. Thats louder than a jet taking off and almost as loud as a clap of thunder. The horn must be hit 20 seconds before going through the crossing so the faster the train, the sooner it must start and the farther away from the crossing. Do some engineers blow longer than required? Thats now easily tracked using on-train black boxes and TV cameras watching the crew and the track ahead. If engineers hit the horn for too short a time, they risk losing their license. Even on the main line of Metro-North where there are no grade crossings, the horns must be used entering each station to warn distracted riders to stand back. But between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. those blasts are optional. Full disclosure: I live about a half mile from the main line and I can hear the trains, day and night. Im also about 2 miles from the New Canaan branch, and I can hear those horns as well. But I hear planes and traffic on Interstate 95, too. Its part of living in suburbia. For more immediate neighbors on the branch, this noise is a real problem. It wakes up their kids and stresses their lives. They want a solution. Some said the horns on the M8s are louder than before. Theyre not. Theyve been tested. And the older the horn, the lower the volume. Some asked why we even need nighttime trains (at the same time as others complained about a lack of train service). Remember folks: The railroad came first and residential investment followed. You chose to live there and you cant have it both ways enjoying close proximity to the trains and then complaining about the noise. Or can you? One solution may be wayside horns, putting the horns at the crossings instead of on the trains. They still have to blow as long and as loud, but where thats been tried complaints actually went up from nearby neighbors. The better solution may be creating an FRA-designated Quiet Zone. That would require the towns to petition the feds and probably install quad gates stopping all traffic in both directions at a crossing at a cost of $2 million per set. It would be paid for by the towns, not the state DOT or Metro-North. In Quiet Zones there would be no train horns. But would it compromise safety? The one thing not really discussed at the noise-stressed neighbors meeting was why horns are needed at all: Because idiots ignore the gates and cause accidents getting themselves and/or passengers injured or killed. One cynic in the crowd called that natural selection, taking such ignorant and self-centered motorists out of the gene pool. Another lady said she missed the good old days of crossing accidents and being able to ogle the wreckage. Thats just cold and misses the point. There are no easy solutions, and even the difficult ones are really expensive. All direct Air Mauritius flights to and from Hong Kong have been suspended until further notice, with effect 04 February 2020. The last flights to be operated on the route will be MK640/641 scheduled for today and tomorrow respectively. These measures follow a reevaluation of the Coronavirus situation and the travel restrictions currently in force. Eligible passengers travelling from and to Hong Kong will be rerouted through our hubs in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. Air Mauritius also wishes to inform the travelling public that with the travel restrictions now in force in Mauritius, any foreign national having resided in China or with a history of travel to and from China within the last 14 days will not be allowed boarding on Air Mauritius flights as they will not be allowed entry or transit in the Republic of Mauritius. Air Mauritius regrets inconveniences caused by these exceptional circumstances and wishes to reiterate that the health and safety of its passengers and crew remain its topmost priority. Partager et informez vous aussi...... 0 shares Share Tweet LinkedIn Articles similaires Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn start each chapter of their new book, Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope, with quotes from the likes of Woody Guthrie, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Immanuel Kant, James Baldwin and U.S. presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Franklin Roosevelt. Theres even one from a longtime Greenwich resident: Oxycontin is our ticket to the moon. Dr. Raymond Sackler, Purdue Pharma As we discuss the book by phone Wednesday, I point out to Kristof and WuDunn that they will be in Purdue Pharma country when their tour brings them to the Stamford Sheraton Tuesday, Feb. 11, for a 7:30 a.m. breakfast as part of Family Centers Titan Series. Sackler died in Greenwich and Purdue Pharma remains based in Stamford as it negotiates with municipalities and states on an estimated $10 billion settlement to resolve lawsuits alleging they are the epicenter of the nations opioid crisis. So, I point out, its always possible some Purdue folk will be in the audience. Oh my. We dont want to be heckled, WuDunn counters. She has an easy laugh, which surfaces again when I ask if theyve had any invitations to appear on the likes of Fox News (no, but bring it on). I assure her heckling is unlikely in a crowd of Family Centers supporters, as the Greenwich-based agency serves the vulnerable population negotiating the same tightrope that runs through their book, and all the way across the United States. The book invites readers onto the No. 6 school bus Kristof rode from his family farm to school in his rural hometown of Yamhill, Ore., in the 1970s. While Kristof took the bus to two Pulitzer Prizes for his work with The New York Times (one of which he shares with WuDunn, his wife), about a quarter of his school peers have died. Exploring the reasons becomes a checklist of Americas ills in 2020: drug overdoses, crippled public school systems, the fall of the working class, the defanging of the Internal Revenue Service, the collapse of unions. I point out that the epidemic of shootings is about the only thread missing from the grim tapestry. Book tour Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn will discuss their new book, "Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope," at the Stamford Sheraton, 700 East Main St., at a 7:30 a.m. breakfast event Feb. 11 as part of the Family Centers' Titan Series. For more information, see www.familycenters.org/ See More Collapse We wrestled with guns but the book was getting too long and we didnt want to burden the reader, WuDunn says. We tried to stick with things that were inter-related. Homelessness is so closely tied to addiction, for example. Health care is tied to education. They stitch the threads together so deftly that it seems likely sociologists will someday use their words to introduce future chapters: Some species eat their young; it turns out we are one of them. America is a nation guilty of child neglect. An economy of words is evident in their story-telling as well as their observations. A passing mention that a background figure was kidnapped and buried alive as an infant, serves as a seven-word novel. Another worked for a company making dynamite, partying on the side, which could be warbled from a roadhouse stage. I ask Kristof about the benefits of having a writing partner who has a Harvard Business School degree and works in finance after stints as a foreign correspondent and business editor for the Times. In a book that blends storytelling and data, he notes that she kept reminding him of the typical readers thirst for the former. Theres obviously a certain amount of pain in having someone edit you. For example, I love academic studies. Ill find some great academic study and put it in the manuscript and Sheryl will come along and it will end up on the cutting room floor. At first I will squeal in protest, he says. But at same time I recognize that her instincts are right. She believes very strongly that every couple pages there has to be something lively to keep the reader going. I think thats absolutely the right instinct, even though I do squeal in protest. He has the benefit of a second trusted editor as well, as he asked his mother to read early drafts about people who remain part of her Yamhill community. We had one passage and she came out particularly well and she told us to take it out. You have to listen to your mom, shes always the best editor. Its hard to find a spot on the globe Kristof hasnt written about in columns, but this project was different from being in a refugee camp and interviewing people and then leaving. New chapters in the lives of his old bus mates are being written daily. The couple was aware of those who died, but asking deeper questions surfaced the hurt that has been inherited by the next generation, and the one after that. An alternate title of the book could be Empathy, for it dares readers to look at people who typically cause the gaze to be averted. To consider everyone as the child they once were. We happen to be talking on the first anniversary of the death of one of the most compelling figures in the book, Clayton Green. Kristof worried that readers would pigeonhole the obese guy with the big beard as the authors sought to balance their subjects screwups and their deep humanity. He says Green agonized over granting permission to a complete portrait that included him selling meth. Kristof acknowledges that some of the better off people in audiences have challenged them about personal responsibilities. They say Clayton Green shouldnt have cooked meth. He shouldnt have left school. We welcome being challenged on that. Its a good conversation to have. Clayton made mistakes, but so did the country. The book is bleak, but not fatalistic. Tightrope ends with suggestions, challenges and invitations all reassurances of the presence of hope. People want answers, they want solutions, WuDunn says. People, of course, are the solutions. Were all riding the bus together. John Breunig is editorial page editor of the Stamford Advocate and Greenwich Time. Jbreunig@scni.com; 203-964-2281; twitter.com/johnbreunig. A group of Indian scholars and academics from across the country have voiced their concern over the questioning of IIT Guwahati professor Arupjyoti Saikia, by National Investigation Agency (NIA), allegedly for his involvement in the violent anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests that broke out in the State. Professor Saikia is an adornment to the literary and intellectual world of Assam and of India. He is also an individual of high moral character; gentle, soft-spoken, and utterly non-violent. His devotion to his students at IIT Guwahati is exemplary. That a scholar of such standing, and a human being of such decency, has been called for intensive grilling by the National Investigative Agency is deeply distressing. We urge that the NIA treat him with the dignity and respect he deserves, and allow him to continue his professional work unimpeded, read the statement signed by 42 eminent scholars. Professor Saikia is one of the countrys most distinguished and respected historians. The author most recently of a landmark history of the Brahmaputra River, he has also written significant works on forest and agrarian history. For his contributions to scholarship, Professor Saikia is hugely admired, indeed venerated, in his native Assam. He also has a very high reputation nationally and even internationally, with his scholarship recognized by a prestigious fellowship from Yale University, it further said. The federal agency had called SAikia a history professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences - for questioning on Saturday. He was summoned in the same case in which KMSS leader Akhil Gogoi has been arrested. Following widespread anti-CAA protests Assam Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had hinted that a leading academician from the state had orchestrated the violent protests and the burning of Assam secretariat in Dispur. Without naming the person Sarma had said there was electronic evidence of a prominent intellectual from a Central Government institution coordinating with the attackers. Mazen Salha has been appointed as the new director of Finance at Swissotel Al Ghurair and Swissotel Living Al Ghurair. In his new position, he will oversee the finance and purchasing departments of the property. He will be responsible for overall accounting and financial management requirements in addition to supporting Dominic Arel, general manager, in meeting the strategic goals of the property. Salha joins the hotel from his most recent role as assistant director of finance and business support at InterContinental Dubai Marina. He started his career in Dubai in 2007 at the InterContinental Dubai Festival City as accounts receivable supervisor and has held several positions there including cost controller, financial accountant, and assistant finance and business support manager overseeing a cluster of four properties within the IHG brand. In his longstanding career, Mazen has demonstrated the ability to streamline business operations and increase efficiency and profitability at the hotels that he has worked at. He has outstanding knowledge of developing and implementing financial controls along with great leadership and interpersonal skills. The team is very excited to have him onboard, said Arel. Talking about his new position, Salha said: Swissotel Al Ghurair stands out from hotel approaches that are tried and true and is bringing all the buzz-worthy qualities and character to Old Dubai. Im thrilled to join the team that is reimagining the way modern travellers and locals experience vacations. With over 12 years of progressive experience in finance of established brands in the hospitality industry, he is the perfect fit for Swissotel Al Ghurair. Linked to the iconic Al Ghurair shopping centre, Swissotel Al Ghurair is within walking distance to famous landmarks and cultural locations such as Deira Gold Souk, Dubai Creek, Downtown Dubai and other historical districts. Leisure facilities feature a stunning outdoor swimming pool, a relaxing spa and a modern fitness centre that offers state-of-the-art Technogym equipment that hosts dynamic group classes. Hotel guests can also explore the city's sights and sounds thanks to a convenient shuttle bus service to La Mer, Dubai's newest and hippest urban beachfront development packed with restaurants, cafes, shops, a waterpark and much more. - TradeArabia News Service The official has not confirmed authenticity of electronic messages attributed to him. Former press secretary of the Dnipro-1 Police Regiment, Vasilisa Mazurchuk, has published her private correspondence with who she alleges is Interior Ministry spokesman Artem Shevchenko, where he calls journalist Pavel Sheremet, who was assassinated in a car blast in Kyiv several years ago, a "Russian agent". Mazurchuk posted screenshots of their correspondence on Facebook. Later, as a proof, she showed a screenshot with Shevchenkos personal phone number on her phone. In their exchange, the two discuss the investigation into Sheremet's murder. Mazurchuk criticizes the efforts by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. In particular, the police made public her interceped phone communications between the suspects where Mazurchuk was mentioned. Shevchenko, in turn, apologizes, but insists that the charges pressed against the suspects are well-founded. Several statements by Artem Shevchenko from the dumped correspondence are noteworthy. Read alsoReporters Without Borders concerned over "inconsistencies" in Sheremet murder evidence He wrote that some "counterintel operatives" allegedly "dragged the guys into doing a dirty job". Mazurchuk's interlocutor who she claims was Artem Shevchenko is unhappy about the police having to probe the Sheremet case. "Let Yulia and Andriy [the two main suspects] honestly reveal who told them to take down this Russian agent Sheremet," Mazurchuk's interlocutor wrote. In a comment to Hromadske, Mazurchuk confirmed that this was her personal correspondence with Artem Shevchenko. She added she was sure she was communicating with the Interior Ministry spokesperson. Shevchenko has not confirmed to journalists the authenticity of the correspondence. "This is some kind of a slide with some letters on it I don't know what that snap is about," Shevchenko said, adding that a lot of unreliable information is being posted on the internet. Also, he invited reporters to submit an official inquiry. Switch the Market flag Open the menu and switch the Market flag for targeted data from your country of choice. for targeted data from your country of choice. January 31, 2020 Release Readout of Secretary of Defense Mark T. Esper's Meeting With Italy Minister of Armed Forces Lorenzo Guerini Department of Defense Press Secretary Alyssa Farah provided the following readout: Secretary of Defense Mark T. Esper met with Italy's Minister of Defence Lorenzo Guerini today at the Pentagon to discuss issues of mutual interest including ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, instability in Libya, and efforts to counter ISIS around the globe. The leaders underscored the importance of both NATO and coalition operations and Secretary Esper thanked the Italians for their robust contributions to and leadership in coalition operations. Secretary Esper also expressed appreciation for Italy's hosting more than 34,000 U.S. military members, civilians and dependents on Italian bases. and urged Italy to continue progress toward meeting NATO defense spending goals. Both countries recognized the destabilizing influence of Iran in the Middle East and agreed to continue to work together to curb Iran's increasingly disruptive activities. Secretary Esper expressed appreciation for Italy and all it does to maintain security and stability in the region and beyond. Together the ministers affirmed the close U.S.-Italian defense relationship based on mutual respect and shared values. https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Releases/Release/Article/2071315/ NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address A doctor hands out brochures to women. [Thepaper] "I would have given up further medical treatment on breast cancer because of the economic condition of my family. Thanks to your help, I have been granted with both free medical screening and 10,000 yuan in cash," a rural recipient from Central China's Hunan Province said with gratitude to workers of the China Women's Development Foundation (CWDF). The CWDF initiated a charity project to care for women suffering from breast cancer with the support of Shanghai Roche Pharmaceutical Co, Ltd. The Changsha Women's Federation (in Hunan Province), the Changsha Health Commission and the Changsha Women and Children's Development Foundation implemented the project. The project aims at providing major illness relief and medical insurance assistance to patients with HER2-positive breast cancer as a supplement to the free screening of breast and cervical cancers for women of the right age. Over the past year, the project has provided 100,000 women in Changsha with one year's insurance coverage against the breast cancer and it offered assistance to the women diagnosed with breast cancer through screening of the disease. As one of the main implementers of the project, the city's women's federation has issued 88,000 brochures and 200 picture albums on prevention and treatment of breast cancer, and it held 40 training sessions and lectures for local women to raise their awareness of breast health and early intervention in breast cancer. It benefits more than 100,000 women. The "Changsha Model" of aiding the breast cancer patients is guided by the local government, supported by enterprises and organized by social organizations, and the CWDF will promote the model nationwide. (Source: China Women's News/Translated and edited by Women of China) Furious anti-government youth dug in their heels in Iraq's capital and south on Sunday, rejecting the previous evening's nomination of Mohammad Allawi as premier after months of demonstrations and political paralysis. Allawi was named prime minister-designate after a hard-won consensus among Iraq's rival parties, who had struggled to agree on a candidate since outgoing premier Adel Abdel Mahdi resigned under growing street pressure two months ago. Mass rallies have rocked Baghdad and the mainly-Shiite south since October, with protesters demanding snap elections and an independent prime minister as well as accountability for corruption and recent bloodshed. Young demonstrators have expressed contempt for the ruling elite and on Sunday, they slammed Allawi -- a former lawmaker and minister -- as part and parcel of the system they want to overhaul. "Mohammad Allawi is rejected, by order of the people!" read a new sign hung in the holy city of Najaf on Sunday. Young men with their faces wrapped in checkered scarves had spent the night torching car tyres in anger at Allawi's nomination and smouldering remains still blocked the main roads on Sunday, an AFP reporter there said. In Diwaniyah, further south, protesters marched into government buildings to demand they close for the day while students began sit-ins at schools and universities. Protesters in Hillah blocked off all roads leading into the city and chanted, "Allawi is not the people's choice!" In Baghdad, hundreds of students flooded the streets around the main protest camp of Tahrir Square, carrying Allawi's photograph with an "X" over his face. "We are here to reject the new prime minister because he has a well-known history within the political class," said 22-year-old university student Tiba. Allawi, 65, served as a parliamentarian immediately after the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled ex-dictator Saddam Hussein, then was twice appointed communications minister under former prime minister Nuri al-Maliki. But he resigned both times, accusing Maliki of turning a blind eye to graft in a country considered among the top 20 most corrupt in the world by Transparency International. His appointment came after days of crisis talks prompted by President Barham Saleh, who said he would select his own candidate if the political blocs of Iraq's parliament did not nominate someone by Saturday. Allawi had been among the top contenders for the post, but the stalemate continued into the late afternoon, Iraqi government sources told AFP on condition of anonymity. The talks were very secretive and it remains unclear what finally unlocked a deal, but on Saturday evening, Allawi announced his own nomination in a video posted to Twitter. There was no official statement from Saleh, but Abdel Mahdi congratulated his successor and the pair pledged to meet soon to ensure a smooth transition. In his first formal address, Allawi vowed to form a representative government, hold early parliamentary elections and ensure justice for protest-related violence. More than 480 people have died and nearly 30,000 have been wounded since the rallies began on October 1, but few have been held accountable for the bloodshed. Allawi has one month to form his government, but ensuring its independence may prove a challenge, said Sajad Jiyad of the Iraq-based think tank the Bayan Center. "If we've learned anything from the previous PM, it's that this is the most difficult part: pushing back against the political blocs' demands," Jiyad told AFP. In Iraq, cabinets are typically formed after complex horsetrading whereby parties demand lucrative and influential ministerial posts based on their share of parliament. If Allawi fails to resist ministerial candidates proposed by parties, "it will back up what protesters are saying" about his allegiance to the factions, Jiyad added. Among the most powerful of Iraq's political players is populist cleric Moqtada Sadr, who welcomed Allawi's nomination on Saturday as a "good step". Sadr backed the protests in October and his die-hard followers are widely recognised as the most organised and well-equipped among anti-government demonstrators. But on Sunday, Sadr ordered members of his movement to organise with security forces to reopen roads and schools, contrary to what other protesters across Iraq were doing. "The revolution must go back to being restrained and peaceful," Sadr wrote on Twitter. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Americans ought to treat themselves to a viewing of Created Equal, a recently released documentary on the life of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Narrated principally in the booming, commanding voice of the man himself as he responds to an interviewers questions (with a few assists from his wife Ginni), the film captures Justice Thomass story as an inspiring monument to the rightness of American ideals when truly understood and lived. Its rags-to-riches in the highest and best sense: a true start in rags, but a climb to the real riches that can only come from towering greatness of character -- inspired by the quintessential tough love of his grandfather, an illiterate black man of the South who had engraved on his heart the right ideas of hard work and of what it means to embrace no-excuses manhood. Via IMDB Some casual followers of American politics and history will hear the name of Clarence Thomas and vaguely remember associating it with someone named Anita Hill. Millennials and other products of American college campuses in the last couple of decades will know Thomas, if at all, as an oft-ridiculed conservative Supreme Court justice who doesnt ask a lot of questions during oral arguments. Thats at best. At worst, theyd parrot the Uncle Tom caricature that the Left has long sought to tag him with. Justice Thomass life experiences as a black American come alive in this film, and they will jolt most Americans who barely know him. They put the lie to every leftist caricature of him, while also putting the lie to every attempt to equate Americas founding ideals with racism. This is a man who has known real poverty; who has been on the receiving end of many of the ugliest forms of real racism; who once embraced radical leftism and hatred of America precisely because of poverty, racism and related injustice. This is a man who has arrived at a rock-solid level of Christian faith that often comes by way of tortuous recovery from the life experiences that provoke a total loss of faith, and anger at God. This is a black man who has lived out the screen character of Atticus Finch via the famous high-tech lynching of the Joe Biden-chaired United States Senate Judiciary Committeeand overcame it. This is a conservative man who exposed the scorched earth tactics and moral bankruptcy of the Left perhaps more vividly than ever before (until the Kavanaugh hearings): they will brazenly and shamelessly make stuff up to destroy anyone who dares threaten their sacrament of abortion or their brook-no-dissent politics of group identity and victimhood. The documentary is strong and inspiring enough to provoke an American renewal by itself. Which is why it will be feared and panned by leftist and other ruling class critics or, more probably, just ignored in order to make sure it doesnt gain national traction. But it ought to be required viewing for every high school senior in the country, for every black American wondering what Candace Owenss Blexit is all about, for every one of Kanye Wests followers who wonder whats up with Christian faith, for every liberal American curious as to whether there is a black view of America different from Colin Kaepernicks, for every Nike executive who wants to learn what it really means for a black man to stand for something. Better yet, it ought to be required viewing for every American. There is a poetic symmetry in Thomas life. His path as a young man in a seminary ended, and his life then spiraled downward toward racial anger, bitterness, and rabid, burn-everything-down, leftist radicalism when a fellow student anonymously delivered a note in class that wrote on one side I like Martin Luther King, and on the other side, Dead. In seminary school. To a black classmate. In America. But by the end of the film, with Thomas now the most senior Justice on the Supreme Court (in his 29th year), with a body of over 600 opinions applying his deeply grounded and powerfully articulated philosophy of originalism, Thomas has fulfilled the best of Martin Luther King alive: he is a black man whose achievements compel judgment of him based on the content of his character, not on the color of his skin. And that judgment is: Clarence Thomas is an American hero. Dont let the leftist media smother this film. Find out where you can see it, buy tickets, and go view it for yourself. It will make you proud and renew your faith that there is such a thing as the American characterand it lives today. Eric Georgatos is a former corporate lawyer who operated the Brushfires of Freedom blog from 2008-2016 (a book of top postings from the blog is available at America, Can We Talk?). Kerala health minister K K Shailaja on Sunday said that there was no need to panic after a second person tested positive for coronavirus in the state and that the government would overcome the challenges like it did with the nipah virus two years ago. A high alert is needed but there is no need for panic. Isolation is the best medicine now. Both cases are stable, she said at a press conference shortly after the Union health ministry in a statement confirmed the second positive coronovirus case in Kerala. Shailaja said the second patient who returned from Wuhan on January 24, is a medical student. The second patient is in isolation ward of the Alappuzha medical college hospital. Medical authorities have asked people not to roam around in hospitals and interact with any patients for the time being, she said. The first patient, a woman, is in an isolation ward in the Thrissur medical college hospital. She also said the government would strictly enforce quarantine periods to prevent the virus from spreading. People who are on home quarantine have been asked not to come out for 28 days. The government will implement will it strictly, she said. Shailaja said she was not surprised by the two patients who tested positive for coronavirus. Such a situation was expected as thousands of students from the state study in China. Isolation and proper rest are the best way to contain it, she said. The minister cited how Kerala had effectively contained an outbreak of another dangerous virus nipah two years ago and stressed that it would do the same with coronavirus. Nipah was most dangerous and still we contained it effectively. The state will overcome the present situation, she said. She said there was no need of any stigma over coronavirus because it is like any other contagious viral outbreak. She also underlined that the government would not lower its guard. The minister also urged the Union health ministry to ensure that tests for cornonavirus are carried out expeditiously and reports are made available quickly. Shailaja said there will be a medical bulletin later in the evening. Two years ago, Kerala had effectively contained an outbreak of another dangerous virus nipah and initiated many steps for medical emergencies. Seventeen people died in the nipah outbreak in 2018. In 2019, a case was reported but it was contained locally. Maybe it was the eye-popping FEC data about Mike Bloomberg's Q4 spending. Or a rivalry over their Super Bowl ads. Or a change to Democrats' rules that may soon allow Bloomberg to participate in the primary debates. In any case, President Trump raged overnight on Twitter, primarily going after the height of the 5-foot-8 billionaire who's running as a Democrat. And Bloomberg's campaign shot back, hitting Trump for his weight and hue. Driving the news: Trump tweeted that if Bloomberg qualifies for the next Democratic debate, he'd try to "stand on boxes, or a lift." Trump also accused Bloomberg of getting the DNC "to rig the election against Crazy Bernie," and he vented more in a Sean Hannity interview previewed by Fox News. Democrats have done away with a required fundraising threshold, which Bloomberg would not meet because he is self-funding. But the new rules require a 10% polling average that Bloomberg hasn't yet met. The other side: Bloomberg first fired back through his campaign's national press secretary, Julie Wood: "The president is lying. He is a pathological liar who lies about everything: his fake hair, his obesity, and his spray-on tan." Later, Bloomberg responded directly: "I will stand on my accomplishments of what Ive done to bring this country together and get things done. Ive been doing it for a long time. I stand twice as tall as he does on the stage, on the stage that matters." While skipping the first four states to run an unconventional national campaign, Bloomberg will be jetting around California while the rest of his opponents are in Iowa. "Iowa and New Hampshire have 65 delegates," said Bloomberg's national spokesperson Galia Slayen. "California, Michigan and Pennsylvania have 726." I'll be joining Bloomberg on Monday, for stops in Sacramento, Fresno and Compton. On Tuesday, Bloomberg plans to campaign in Michigan and Pennsylvania. Behind the scenes: Three of President Trump's advisers told me that Trump seems to view Bloomberg as a serious problem. Trump takes Bloomberg more seriously than some of his advisers, including the Trump campaign team, sources with direct knowledge told me. A senior administration official, who told the president that Bloomberg has no hope of winning the Democratic nomination, said Trump replied: "You're underestimating him." "He [Trump] thinks that money goes a long way," the official told me. Another Trump adviser said: "He [Trump] takes money seriously. He's a businessman." Trump has been lashing out at Bloombergs constant TV ads, despite some aides advising him to ignore the billionaire who is still polling well below Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden. Trump began his series of tweets about Bloomberg at 12:10 am today. Kellyanne Conway, counselor to President Trump, said of Bloomberg: "His outsized wealth and outsized ego are matched by his overwrought jealousy and spitefulness towards the president. Jealousy is a dangerous motivator for people, leading them to confuse with a sugar high that money can buy with substance that voters demand to hear." Bloomberg adviser Howard Wolfson responded to Conway's quote: "History will call to account every single person within this administration who has enabled and abetted this lawless and dangerous president." responded to Conway's quote: "History will call to account every single person within this administration who has enabled and abetted this lawless and dangerous president." "Mike got into this race with the singular goal of defeating Donald Trump and a strategy of contrasting his record of accomplishment with Trump's lies and broken promises," Wolfson added. "Clearly it's working." Conway responded to Wolfson: Howard and I have already made history together. His work for Hillary and my work against Hillary helped keep her out of the White House. Wolfson, who worked for Clintons losing 2008 presidential campaign but not her losing 2016 campaign, replied, again, to Conway: And in less than a year we will make history again when Kellyanne and Mr. Trump will have to stand and watch Mike take the oath of office. At this point, I ended my role as quote mediator. Go deeper: Mike Bloomberg copies Trump to beat Trump 1. Yes. The downtown area needs a good draw. Some quality taverns would be a plus. 2. Yes. Too many storefronts are vacant. Bars could help to bring in needed revenue. 3. No. Putting a number of bars downtown is just asking for trouble. Dont change things. 4.No. Several churches have located downtown. Putting bars close by would be a bad fit. 5. Unsure. It would depend on how the law is written and what standards are enacted. Vote View Results There is something obsessive about wanting to go to such an island as Potato Island. Why would anyone want to go there? Then why would anyone not want to go there? It is a small lump of an island in Kenmare River which is actually a bay as mentioned here previously and, at a mere 20m by 20m, is by far the smallest island to appear in this series. It lies about 4km from the town of Sneem, Co Kerry, whose river of the same name courses down from the Dunkerron Mountains through fractured limestone before disgorging into the bay at Parknasilla. The mellifluous Parknasilla is derived from the Irish for willow Pairc na sailleach. The main house of the Parknasilla estate was constructed in the mid-18th century by the Bland family before it was bought by the grandfather of the poet Robert Graves in the mid-19th century, and later the Great Southern Railway Company, which developed the site for holidays. Someone decided to name Potato Island thus not Lichen Island, which would have had a certain cachet and been more apposite to its character, as its rocks are festooned in gorgeous orange species of the organism whose filaments feast on the carbon in the rocks. The naming of this inconsequential rock begs the question, why are islands so named and who named them? In Potato Islands case, known locally as the Prata, the name possibly derives from the owners of Parknasilla, the Blands or their successors, and was named frivolously owing to its lumpy appearance. The Blands owned all of the islands in the group and Arthur F Bland is listed in Griffiths Valuation as the former owner. One of the Bland descendants is the effete recently departed UK prime minister David Cameron. The other famous neighbour to Potato Island was the author Peter Somerville Large whose family had a house on the nearby Illaunslea in the 1930s. In his memoirs, Somerville Large describes exploring the micro-paradise of Sherky and the other islands in the harbour with his brother so it is likely they found their way to Potato as well. Placenames derive from a multiplicity of sources and their origins are often lost in historic happenstance. In Ireland they some come from Viking names, or old Irish, Norman and medieval sources and most often relate to topographical features such as rivers, hills or woods but also animals, plants and people. Some names have been lost and others added to the lexicon an ongoing process that can be lamentable: Fhiodh na gCaor (Sheep Wood, Co Wexford) sounds better than Vinegar Hill. Potato Island is one of the more unusually named islands in Ireland but there are a lot stranger ones. Many are named after animals horse, sheep, lamb; many after people Daniel, Owen, Mason; or plants: holly, birch, bilberry, and it is this sub-group to which Potato Island finds a home. The grandfather of the poet Robert Graves was the former owner of Potato Island. Still others are named for whimsy: Schoolboy Island on Lough Ennell, Co Westmeath, or Music Island, Co Fermanagh was ever there a more inviting placename? Nut Island, Lough Ree, Co Longford, and Great Minnies Island in Strangford Lough are two more of the dozens of intriguingly named islands. Potato Island is an alluring name in itself and excites interest by dint of its name alone. Paris sets the pulse racing, but Le Mans doesnt. Tuam does nothing, for this writer at least, but Courtmachsherry does. Potato Island is one of several islands between Sneem Harbour and the Parknasilla resort. It is part of the greater Parknasilla archipelago (to coin a toponym): Inishkeelaghmore (nicknamed Cannonball Island), Inishkeelaghbeg, Sherky; Illaunanadan, Inishkeeragh, Einaun Island, and Garinish Island. All of these islands are unpopulated save for the latter, which has a summer resident. Potato Island is, always has been, and always will be uninhabited. It is nothing special. It is unordinary, overlooked, and probably unloved. And therein lies its appeal. Democratic 2020 U.S. presidential candidate and U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) speaks at a campaign stop in Hooksett, New Hampshire, September 30, 2019. Most voters view capitalism better than socialism as debates over how much to revamp the U.S. economic system help shape the 2020 presidential election, according to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Sunday. Still, it is unclear whether voters' views on the economic and political systems will affect the race or hurt Sen. Bernie Sanders, a leading presidential candidate who identifies as a democratic socialist. More than half of registered voters, or 52%, have a positive view of capitalism, the survey found. Meanwhile, 18% have a negative perception. At the same time, only 19% of voters have a positive view of socialism. A majority, 53%, have a negative perception. The numbers reinforce why President Donald Trump has inaccurately painted all of his potential Democratic opponents in the 2020 election as socialists. It's a message the president and his allies could deploy even more often as Sanders rises in national Democratic primary polls and appears to have a good chance of winning multiple early presidential nominating contests. Sanders' brand of democratic socialism involves a push for a single-payer "Medicare for All" health care system, higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations to expand the social safety net and stronger labor rights to protect workers from the abuses of employers. While his proposals would dramatically boost the federal government, they do not call for the type of public ownership of capital or companies typically associated with socialism. Even so, some of Sanders' rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination have called his plans to overhaul the U.S. economic system too dramatic. Candidates such as former Vice President Joe Biden, former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg and former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg have called for more gradual policy changes. The NBC/WSJ survey does not include any questions about how much voters tie Sanders to socialism. Even so, any association may not hurt him in a hypothetical contest against Trump. Sanders leads Trump by a 49% to 45% margin in a potential general election matchup, the poll found. Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube. Leslie Wexner (left) and Ed Razek (right) allegedly created a culture at Victorias Secret that let sexual harassment thrive. Photo: Astrid Stawiarz/2016 Getty Images The two men at the top of Victorias Secret built a lingerie behemoth on systemic harassment, creating an entrenched culture of misogyny, according to a New York Times investigation published Saturday. Leslie Wexner chief executive of Victorias Secrets parent company, L Brands, who is reportedly in talks to step down allegedly turned a blind eye to repeated transgressions by his former deputy, controversial chief marketing officer Ed Razek. Together, the Times contends, the pair created an environment where models felt pressured into uncomfortable situations, for fear that saying no would harm their careers. Razek who architected the brands (now-cancelled) fashion show and its Angel conceit, and who quit Victorias Secret in August categorically denied the Times allegations. Wexners spokesperson declined to comment, and a spokesperson for L Brands told the paper that the company is intensely focused on corporate governance, without refuting the claims. L Brands did not respond to the Cuts request for comment by time of publication. You can read the full report here, but below, weve pulled out the biggest takeaways. Razek allegedly behaved inappropriately during castings, asking underwear-clad models for their phone numbers and to sit on his lap. In 2018, watching Bella Hadid get fitted for broadcast-appropriate bottoms ahead of the annual fashion show, Razek reportedly wondered aloud whether or not she would be allowed to walk down the runway with those perfect titties. At that same fitting, he allegedly grabbed another models crotch. Model Andi Muise says she was passed over after deflecting Razeks advances. In 2007, Razek reportedly invited 19-year-old Muise, a two-time Angel, out to dinner. On the way there, Muise recalled Razek repeatedly trying to kiss her against her will. For months afterward, he allegedly emailed her, asking her to move in with him in Turks and Caicos or the Dominican Republic. I need someplace sexy to take you! he reportedly explained. But when she declined an invitation to dine alone with him at his home, she says she wasnt picked for the 2008 fashion show for the first time in four years. Complaints against Razek allegedly translated to inaction or retaliation. An employee allegedly submitted a complaint against Razek to HR, outlining over a dozen instances of verbal harassment and inappropriate touching. It appeared to go nowhere. Casey Crowe Taylor, a former public relations employee, also complained to HR to no discernible effect when Razek allegedly screamed at her about her weight at a 2015 shoot. In October, two months after Razek left the company, former public relations executive Monica Mitro went to the board of directors with a harassment complaint against her former colleague. Mitro was placed on administrative leave the next day, and has since reached a financial settlement with the brand. Another woman who worked with Razeks son reportedly complained about his behavior to H.R., and found herself shuffled to another L Brands company, Bath & Body Works. Wexner reportedly ignored alleged abuses by Jeffrey Epstein. Wexners reported ties to the alleged pedophile are not news: Epstein once managed Wexners fortune, and allegedly posed as a sort of company scout in order to recruit aspiring models into his purported sex ring. According to the Times, though, Wexner may have known about that behavior as early as the 1990s, but apparently never acted on the complaints. Stay in touch. Get the Cut newsletter delivered daily Email This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Terms & Privacy Notice By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice and to receive email correspondence from us. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (C) speaks during an emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo, Egypt on Feb. 1, 2020. Mahmoud Abbas said here on Saturday that his authority informed the Israeli and U.S. sides that it will "cut all relations" with them over the recently released U.S. peace plan. (Xinhua/Ahmed Gomaa) CAIRO, Feb. 1 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said here on Saturday that his authority informed the Israeli and U.S. sides that it will "cut all relations" with them over the recently released U.S. peace plan. "We told the Israelis that we will not have any relations with them or with the United States, including security relations," Abbas told an emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers at the Arab League (AL) headquarters in the Egyptian capital of Cairo. Announced in Washington on Jan. 28 by U.S. President Donald Trump, in the presence of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the U.S. peace plan was rejected by the Palestinians. Abbas said his authority sent two letters to both Netanyahu and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to convey the Palestinian rejection of the deal. "The U.S. deal is completely rejected once they announced annexing Jerusalem to Israel," Abbas told the Arab foreign ministers in the meeting attended by AL Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul-Gheit. The Palestinian president said that the United States is a biased mediator, saying that he will head to the United Nations Security Council to protest the deal and find a solution. He added that Washington wants to abolish former UN resolutions and international legitimacy decisions related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and use the new U.S. plan as the only reference. Abbas revealed that he declined the U.S. requests to receive a copy of the proposed deal, known as the "Deal of the Century," or to receive letters or phone calls from Trump after the deal was announced. "We have the right to continue our legitimate struggle through peaceful means to end the (Israeli) occupation and establish our independent state," said Abbas, calling for international and regional support for the legitimate rights of the Palestinians. Abbas urged the formation of an international mechanism to implement the resolutions of international legitimacy and the Arab Peace Initiative endorsed by the AL in Beirut in 2002. "We will not accept the United States to be the sole mediator of the peace process," Abbas added. The United States, Israel's main backer, officially recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital in late 2017 and moved its embassy from Tel Aviv to the holy city later in May 2018. The Palestinians seek to establish an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital in light of the UN-proposed two-state solution based on the pre-1967 borders. The European Union's top diplomat is expected to visit Tehran on February 3, Iran's Foreign Ministry has said. EU foreign-policy chief Josep Borrell will meet Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and other Iranian officials, the ministry said. Borrell's trip is seen as the latest attempt by the EU to save the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers. U.S. President Donald Trump in May 2018 unilaterally withdrew from the deal and reimposed sanctions on Iran. The five remaining parties to the accord -- Britain, France, and Germany, plus China and Russia -- have pledged to keep the accord alive. Tehran has gradually scaled back its commitments under the agreement. After the U.S. killing of top Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani in January, Iran announced that it would no longer respect limits set on how many centrifuges it can use to enrich uranium. Borrell met with Zarif on the sidelines of a conference in India on January 16 to press Tehran to "preserve" the increasingly fragile nuclear agreement, according to a statement released in Brussels. Borrell told Zarif that the deal was "more important than ever," given rising tensions in the Middle East, the statement said. Based on reporting by AP and AFP The Gem of the Orient - Rs 14,24,10,000.00 Looking at this beauty, youd think that this used to belong to a rich monarch or the army general of a flourishing kingdom. But in reality, The Gem of the Orient was made by Buster Warenski an American custom knife-maker. The stunning tool is embedded with over 153 emeralds totalling to 10 karats and nine diamonds that weigh a total of five karats. The piece is complete with intricately designer filigree that sits over the jade handle. So just imagine cutting a slice of bread using this knife. You have used them again and again, day in and day out, almost half your life! But mostly to chop vegetables and fruits! A knife is as common as a spoon or fork in your kitchen. The uber-rich want the best of everything even if that means having diamond-studded knives. No longer are knives meant to be used only to cut. They are a sign of luxury and class. These extravagant pieces of cutlery sure to cost a bomb owing to the kind of raw materials used, the gems and diamonds they are studded with. So if owning such a luxury knife has been one of your lifelong dream, then get ready to shell out a ton of cash! Nesmuk Jahrhundert Messer - Rs 70,41,577.98 If you wish to add this stunner to your collection of knives then get ready to spend the big bucks as this piece of cutlery costs a bomb! Forged by Lars Scheidler, the blade is made from 640 layers of Damascus stells with the edge made from the finest carbon steel. So what is it that makes this knife so expensive? The handle! It is made out of the wood of a 5000-year-old bog oak and it is also set with a platinum corner which is adorned with 25 brilliant-cut diamonds. Nesmuk Diamond Studded Knife - Rs 28,19,856.60 What happens when you let a jewellery designer create a knife? The end product is a blingy and glittery piece of cutlery. Designed by Quintin Nel and Hoffman Pieper, the basic form of the Nesmuk knife existed over 3,500 years ago. But now in order to extend life, the blade is coated either with titanium or Teflon. The blade of the knife is made from carbon steel and the handle which is made of sterling silver which is embedded with over eight diamonds. Monarch Steampunk Dragon Knife - Rs 13,17,274.00 This beauty is a result of a stunning collaboration between William Henry, Mark Hoescht and Mike Norris. Letting their minds run wild, the trio made the handle of the knife that comes carefully hand-engraved with 24 karat gold, silver and copper inlays. Taking the luxury of it a step forward, the knife comes with a leather carrying case and elegant wood presentation box. Spearpoint Lace Knife - Rs 17,80,512.50 Who wouldnt want to have a pocket knife with psychedelic blade? The Spearpoint Lace Knife made by William Henry comes hand-engraved with inlaid 24 karat gold. The intricately decorated blade is hand-forged Boomerang Damascus steel. The lace design took over 100s of hours od microscopic hand engraving. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has moved a proposal in the Union Budget aimed at taxing non-resident Indians (NRIs) who do not pay income tax in other countries, a move that will potentially affect those Indians residing in countries such as United Arab Emirates and Bahrain where no income tax is payable. The Modi government has also sought to tighten the definition of who will be considered an NRI to bring more such individuals under the tax net. The move is likely to generate widespread opposition from the diaspora, which the government has so far aggressively wooed. Also Watch | Should you opt for Modi govts new income tax regime introduced in Budget? An Indian citizen who is not liable to tax in any other country or territory shall be deemed to be resident of India, read the budget documents, effectively making these citizens liable to be taxed in India while reducing the number of days a person can stay in India in a year and still be considered an NRI. It is entirely possible for an individual to arrange his affairs in such a fashion that he is not liable to tax in any country or jurisdiction during a year. This arrangement is typically employed by high net worth individuals (HNWI) to avoid paying taxes to any country/ jurisdiction on income they earn, the memorandum that is part of the budget documents said defending the move. Tax laws should not encourage a situation where a person is not liable to tax in any country. The current rules governing tax residence make it possible for HNWIs and other individuals, who may be Indian citizen to not to be liable for tax anywhere in the world, it added. Global income liable to be taxed The new proposal means that citizens who are not residents in India would be liable to tax in India on their global income, said Amit Maheshwari, managing partner at Ashok Maheshwary and Associates LLP. He added that individuals who leave the country for employment are considered non-resident if their stay in India is less than 183 days. The time limit of 183 is now proposed to be reduced to 120 days. Hence, the non-residents are being cornered from two different sides wherein being stateless would lead to them becoming resident in India. Hence, to qualify as non-resident, they would have to ensure that they remain tax resident of any other country and they should be out of India for at least 246 days, he pointed out, adding that residents who dont pay taxes in other countries will be taxed in India. Defending the governments move, in a post-budget press conference, Revenue Secretary AB Pandey said the government has found instances in which some people are residents of no country in the world and hence escape paying taxes anywhere. So, in case of these Indian citizens, their worldwide income will be taxed in India, he said. This tax proposal has predictably generated opposition from residents in the middle-eastern countries. Soon after the news flashed, there was ambiguity as to what it meant and what the outcome will be. How can the government tax us when we are working in Dubai? This is a very bad move, said Atul Pandey, a resident of Dubai. By special arrangement with ThePrint Rishi Kapoor Addresses Hospitalization Reports: Nothing Dramatic, Pollution Got Me I Guess Military veteran who allegedly faked death to avoid child sex abuse charges found originally appeared on abcnews.go.com A decorated military veteran who allegedly staged his own suicide to avoid charges of raping his 14-year-old stepdaughter was found by United States Marshal less than a day after he was placed on their "15 Most Wanted" list. Jacob Blair Scott was expected in court on July 30, 2018, as Jackson County prosecutors charged him with a 14-count indictment for sexual battery, touching a child for lustful purposes, and exploitation of a child. Scott, 43, was out on bond and failed to show up to court, where he was expected to plead guilty, ABC affiliate Denver 7 previously reported. MORE: Couple allegedly faked pregnancy, birth and baby's death in scam for cash: Documents The judge issued an arrest warrant and investigators went looking for Scott. They found his abandoned dinghy in tow off the coast of Orange Beach, Alabama, with a gun and suicide note. Authorities later found that Scott withdrew $45,000 from a bank account before his disappearance, but the money was not found. Scott's body was also never found. PHOTO: Jacob Scott in an undated photo. (U.S. Marshals) Officials with the U.S. Marshals said Scott's "military background and knowledge of the outdoors may enable him to live off the grid." Scott served in Iraq and received a Purple Heart in 2011, the agency said. Over the last 18 months, Scott was allegedly spotted in the Denver area, Mississippi, Nevada and Louisiana. On Wednesday, Scott was added to the U.S. Marshals' most wanted fugitive list with a $25,000 reward. By Thursday, a tipster in Oklahoma reported seeing a man fitting Scott's description at a mobile home park. MORE: How Russian journalist faked his own death with pig's blood and trip to the morgue to avoid murder plot Scott was taken into custody at Pittsburg County Jail in Oklahoma and is currently awaiting extradition back to Mississippi to face the child sex abuse case. U.S. Marshals Assistant Director for Investigative Operations Jeff Tyler said in a press release that this was the "fastest apprehension of a fugitive in the 37-year history of the 15 Most Wanted program." New Delhi, Feb 2 : "Entirely managed by women staff, INC shall open 100 Indira canteens in Delhi. They will offer fresh and nutritious meals at subsidised rate of Rs 15," stated the Indian National Congress in its manifesto which was released on Sunday. The manifesto talked at length about issues like Lokpal, job creation, protecting the environment, electricity and water supply. Speaking to the media, Delhi Congress chief Subhash Chopra said: "We have launched our 2020 Manifesto. Our manifesto is an inclusive manifesto that reflects the hopes and aspirations of all people of Delhi." Attacking the Aam Aadmi Party government, Chopra said: "AAP completely demolished the DTC fleet. The Congress will immediately procure 15,000 electric buses and build the necessary infrastructure" adding "all existing depots will be converted to 3 level depots." He also said that "We will now make Delhi India's first electric vehicle city via DEVI- the Delhi Electric Vehicles Initiative." The manifesto claims to have a solution to Delhi's long standing problem of pollution due to the burning of stubble in Punjab and Haryana. The congress in its manifesto said that it will collaborate with the government of Punjab, and if possible, with UP, Haryana and central government to create a 'Rice stubble to energy fund.' "This fund will be utilised establish rice stubble crushing power plants," said the manifesto. The manifesto also offered schemes like Paani Bachao Paisa Kamao and Bijli Bachao Paisa Kamao by which a cash back and rebates will be provided to households conserving water and electricity. The manifesto talked about education saying that the Congress will implement "Right to quality education" and subsidised education so that school children in Delhi are imparted quality education at par with global best practices. Speaking about the issues pertaining to women, the manifesto said that the INC will provide free education to girls in the government institutions from nursery to PhD. It also said that 181 helpline will be brought back and will be directly monitored by the chief minister's office. The Congress promised for permanent positions for adhoc safai karamcharis in the manifesto. It also talked about issues like urban renewal and infrastructure, art and culture, sports, minorities and passing the resolution against the Citizenship Amendment Act. Edinburgh, Feb 2 : Pro-Europe protests were held in the Scottish capital of Edinburgh, a day after the UKs exit from the European Union (EU) after 47 years of membership. "Scotland still loves EU" one banner read, as the protesters on Saturday made it clear they did not vote in favour of leaving the bloc, reports Efe news. In the June 2016 referendum, 62 per cent of the people in Scotland voted to remain. In Saturday's protests, participants called for a second independence referendum, something Westminster has strongly opposed. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the issue was settled with a public vote that was held in 2014, when 55 per cent rejected independence. Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has argued that Brexit has brought about a completely different scenario that justifies a fresh vote. Protesters gathered near the regional parliament building, where the sound of bagpipes could be heard along with speeches from the organizers, pro-independence group Stand Up For Scotland. There was also a small group of about 10 people who were celebrating Brexit and Britain's independence. A protester said: "I feel sad but we're going to get back into Europe, Scotland has always been a part of Europe since history began we've always been a European nation." He accused Westminster of being "isolationist" and added he was confident there would be another referendum this year. Fellow campaigners said they felt "disappointed" and that they should "still be in Europe". They said they are also hopeful for another referendum this year so that Scotland can rejoin the EU. The latest survey published by YouGov on Thursday revealed that secession support was in the lead for the first time since 2015 at 51 percent, compared to 49 percent opposing. The reason for the increase is likely to be the number of Scots who support EU membership and would have changed their minds in 2014 if Scottish independence allowed the country to be part of the EU. Edinburgh, where up to 75 per cent of people supported staying in the bloc, held several events to say goodbye to its former European partners. At 11 p.m. on January 31, as the UK officially ended its 47 years of relationship with the bloc, hundreds of people gathered at the gates of the Scottish Parliament in a candlelit vigil. There will now be a transition period last at least until the end of 2020 during which time the UK and Brussels will try to negotiate a trade agreement. New Zealanders are mourning the death of former Labour Prime Minister Mike Moore, ONZ, OA, who passed away overnight. He was 71. Mike served as prime minister with Labour from September to November in 1990, and as director-general of the World Trade Organisation from 1999 -2002. At the age of 41, Mike was installed by caucus just weeks before the 1990 general election, replacing Sir Geoffrey Palmer. At the time he was New Zealand's third prime minister in 13 months, and lasted 59 days until Labour lost the general election. Mike subsequently lost the leadership to Helen Clark, but he stayed in Parliament for nine years in Opposition. In 1999, Moore secured the job of director-general of the World Trade Organisation, a job he kept until 2002. My condolences go to Mikes wife Yvonne and his family, says Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. I feel incredibly lucky to have seen Mike only on Friday. He never lost his interest and passion for politics, because he saw it as such an important vehicle for change. During Mikes long parliamentary career he held the positions of Prime Minister, Deputy Minister of Finance, Minister of External Relations and Trade, Minister of Tourism, Sport and Recreation, and he was Minister of Overseas Trade and Marketing. National Party leader Simon Bridges says Mike was "a great fighter for Kiwis who needed a hand up and a staunch advocate for free trade," while National Party deputy leader Paula Bennett says he was "a damned good bloke" who had shown her great kindness and support despite being a "staunch Labour man". Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters is also lauding the former Prime Minister as one of the great New Zealanders. Mike spent every day of his life trying to make things better for New Zealand and New Zealanders, says Winston. From the time he was elected to Parliament at the age of 23, to his final year on this earth, he was constantly thinking about how to advance New Zealands interests. While Mike made his mark is many ways, one of his enduring legacies to New Zealand is the work he did opening up world trade and gaining access for New Zealand exporters to new markets, says Jacinda. That was a legacy he also left for the world. Through both his lead role in the GATT trade round and in his tenure as Director General of the World Trade Organisation, he dedicated his life to the service of New Zealand. A member of The Order of New Zealand and former Ambassador to the United States, Mike was passionate about our country and ensuring its place in the modern world. The Deputy Prime Minister says that Mike will be sorely missed by everyone who knew him. He was a warm, passionate, funny, mischievous man, and my condolences go out to his wife Yvonne and the rest of his family, says Winston. Mike was the rare politician whose outlook was improved by his life in politics. Mike seriously grew in the job. He took to heart the idea that it was his job to learn more about the issues, and evolve his views over time. He never stopped learning, which is rare in politics. Many New Zealanders will have fond memories of his political career whether his championing of lamb burgers, his witty turn of phrase, his restless energy, or his passion for helping New Zealanders of all walks of life, says Winston. By the time he left Parliament, Mike was a champion of the role that trade can play in lifting people out of poverty and improving living standards. As Foreign Minister, its important to acknowledge Mikes role on the international stage: as the only New Zealander to lead the World Trade Organisation, and then as New Zealands Ambassador to the United States, says Winston. Everywhere he went, people saw the passion Mike had for New Zealand and connecting it to the world. Wellington MPs Peter Dunn, John Terris and Dr Gerard Wall meet with Roger Douglas (Minister of Finance), and Mike Moore (Minister of Tourism) on September 10, 1985. Credit: Evening Post photographer John Nicholson via Alexander Turnbull Library, reference EP/1985/4054/4-F. United States Ambassador to New Zealand Scott Brown said he was "deeply saddened" to learn his friend had passed, and said he would never forget his advice and counsel. "Mike lived a life of service to his country. The US-NZ friendship is deeper and stronger because of him," he tweeted. Former Ambassador of Australia to Italy Mike Rann also tweeted his "immense sadness" over Moore's death. "[He was] a great patriot for his country and a great friend of Australia." Mike was born in Whakatane in 1949, and his earliest work was in the construction and printing industries, at the freezing works, and as a trade union researcher. He left school at 14 and made history in 1972 when he entered Parliament after being elected to represent Mt Eden, in Auckland,and became, then, New Zealand's youngest MP, aged just 23. He later represented seats in Christchurch. During his time in Parliament he held the ministerial portfolios including overseas trade and marketing; tourism sport and recreation; foreign affairs, and finance. In 1990, Mike received the Commemoration Medal, and in 1999 he was given the Order of New Zealand. He authored several books including 'Beyond Today, A Pacific Parliament', and 'Fighting for New Zealand', was a member of the Privy Council, and in 2000 was given an honorary doctorate of commerce by Lincoln University. In 2015, Mike suffered a stroke, and subsequently left his then-post as ambassador to the United States, a role he had had since 2010. Prior to that, in 2014, he had heart valve replacement surgery. In one of his final interviews, in 2018, from his Matauri Bay home in the Bay of Islands, he spoke of his recuperation. "I've recovered as much as I can. I have problems walking, but everything else is pretty good." Winston Peters says that the following quote which Mike loved was typical of his worldview: Well it works in practice, lets see if it works in theory! The world lost a man with a huge intellect, and huge heart today, says Jacinda Ardern. E te rangatira, moe mai, moe mai, moe mai ra. Stuff THE new five-year plan for Adare has been ratified by the Adare Community Trust (ACT), the umbrella group for all the community, voluntary, sporting and business organisations in the village. And there is genuine satisfaction among the member groups that such an important first step has been achieved. The challenge now, says ACT chairman Dan Neville, will be to implement it. The extensive consultation carried out in drawing up the plan has ensured it is owned by the people of Adare, Mr Neville said. We were very, very pleased with the response of the community in influencing the plan. It is a very, very detailed and very extensive plan, he continued. And we are now looking forward to implementing it. We are ready to roll. This is our road map for the next five years. Already, Mr Neville said, , work had begun on some elements of the plan, for example, the branding and promoting Adare as a destination. The first steps have also been taken on the project to restore Popes Quay and develop the area for water activities while progress was also being made on other issues working in conjunction with Limerick City and County Council. One of the key merits of the plan, Mr Neville pointed out, is that it sets out a time-scale for each of the different elements of the plan. It is very challenging, he acknowledged. But he believes there is big buy-in from the very many organisations working in Adare. And Because we have had consultations with Limerick City and County Council and West Limerick Resources, we feel they are now our partners in this, not just grant aiders but partners. Funding will be a big issue, he acknowledged but added: All our members are looking forward to the challenge over the next five years. 'We all have a part to play': N.W.T. justice minister addresses Indigenous incarceration 'crisis' In the wake of a new report showing Indigenous people account for almost a third of prisoners in Canada, the N.W.T.'s justice minister said changes are in order for the territory's justice system. Caroline Wawzonek, the N.W.T.'s justice minister, suggested adjustments to the territory's bail system and a study of meaningful alternatives to prison, especially for those facing very short sentences. A release from Correctional Investigator of Canada Dr. Ivan Zinger last month highlighted new numbers showing people of Indigenous ancestry accounted for more than 30 per cent of inmates a "historic high." Five per cent of Canadians identify as Indigenous. Wawzonek said the territory's Indigenous incarceration rates are actually decreasing slightly, but are still "tremendously high." What are we doing to support individuals not to re-offend? - Caroline Wawzonek, N.W.T. justice minister "One way or another, there is a crisis in the justice system, and we all have a part to play in it," she said. Wawzonek said there is much out of the territory's control. "I can't change the Criminal Code, and completely overhaul mandatory minimum sentences," she said. "I certainly can't overhaul the long history of systemic racism against Indigenous people in Canada." But there are three ways N.W.T. might make a difference, she said. Firstly, the territory could improve access to bail. Many prisoners in the North are actually awaiting trial or sentencing, and an improved bail system could return many of them to their communities, said Wawzonek. But recent changes in the N.W.T. may have made it worse. The territory used to pay for airfare to transport people released on bail to the community they're supposed to be staying in, according to their bail conditions. Now, it only pays for airfare to the place where the alleged crime occurred. Secondly, the justice system could do a better job "diverting" offenders who receive short sentences away from prisons. Story continues "Maybe those offences aren't so serious," said Wawzonek. As a criminal defence lawyer, Wawzonek previously raised concerns that there were not enough meaningful alternatives to prison. Finally, she said the territory could do better to prevent inmates from re-offending. "What are we doing to support individuals not to re-offend?" she asked. Not a surprise Peter Harte, a criminal defence lawyer who works in the N.W.T. and Nunavut, said he was not surprised to see Indigenous incarceration rates rising. "At the root of Indigenous offending, in my experience, are issues like poverty, substance abuse, trauma, housing [and] lack of employment," he said. "In some respects, it calls into question whether or not a defence lawyer's role starts and finishes at the courtroom door." WATCH | Defence lawyer Peter Harte on what the numbers indicate: Harte suggested the territory could do more to put the justice system in the hands of the affected communities. He said it would make the impact of sentences greater. "Then it's not someone coming from outside the community, to whom you may have no loyalty," he said. "If you have to be accountable to a local elder or a family member, that may have a real impact." As a means of avoiding prison sentences, Harte has experimented with "conferencing" putting victims and perpetrators directly in conversation with each other about the impacts of their offence. "There's no reason on the face of it that the two approaches can't be combined," he said. 'It's a social problem': minister Wawzonek acknowledged Zinger's criticism that past efforts to address the issue had focused on tinkering "around the edges of the system." She agreed with Harte that more foundational changes in the way the justice system treats Indigenous offenders may be necessary. "It's a social problem, it's a [Canadian] cultural problem," she said. "So we have to really, I think, be looking at how we look at Indigenous people in Canada." A male baboon stole a lion cub from its pride while foraging for food before taking it into the treetops to groom it. The footage was recorded by Kurt Schultz in the Kruger National Park, South Africa, on Saturday. In the video, the adult baboon can be seen sitting in a marula tree as the sun shines through the leaves. It turns around to reveal that it is holding a lion cub which is crying out feebly in distress. Mr Schultz begins to narrate the scene in front of him and says: 'Kruger National Park with Kurt Safari, [there is] a baboon with a lion cub that it has caught. 'Its lion cub is still very much alive and the baboon is busy grooming it.' The lion cub continues to flail around in an attempt to break free but the primate retains its firm grip. Mr Schultz continues: 'The cub is still alive and the "female" baboon is literally grooming it. 'Its an unusual sighting - first of its kind for me.' The footage was recorded by Kurt Schultz in the Kruger National Park, South Africa, on Saturday. In the video, the adult baboon can be seen sitting in a marula tree with the lion cub firmly in its grasp The baboon then readjusts its hold on the young lion and begins trekking through the trees. It tucks the cub under its arm to leap between branches before sitting down to comb through its fur with its fingers, which is where the video ends. The interaction has reminded some of the famous Circle of Life scene in Lion King where Simba, a lion cub, is lifted above the African planes by Rafiki, the baboon. Mr Schultz spoke about the interaction again a short while later. He said: 'I had a meeting at Skukuza - one of the camps - for Kurt Safari on Saturday so I was in the Kruger for the morning. 'Before the meeting, I decided to enter the park early to do some photography which is a hobby and passion of mine. 'I drove onto the S21, one of the roads near Skukuza, where I came across a troop of baboons being restless. It tucks the cub under its arm to leap between branches before sitting down to comb through its fur with its fingers 'Being early morning this is relatively common but then I noticed a baboon carrying something and the rest of the troop were interested in that baboon. 'The baboon was not visible and I spent some time at the sighting as I was told it was possibly a lion cub... 'The baboons probably moved down [from the trees] during the early morning to start their day foraging for food came across the hidden lion cub. 'I first thought it was a female baboon but it was in actuality a young male baboon. 'The young baboon crossed the road and climbed up a marula tree. The interaction has reminded some of the famous Circle of Life scene in Lion King (1994) where Simba, a lion cub, is lifted above the African planes by Rafiki, the baboon 'I waited for about 30 minutes before it came into view and was moving from tree to tree. 'The rest of the troop then moved away and the baboon was grooming and caring for the lion cub as if this was a young baboon. 'I spent about an hour at the sighting and decided to leave as I had a meeting. 'It is normal for a troop of baboons to kill young leopard and lion cubs but after 20 years of being a guide this is the first time I have seen a baboon nurturing and caring for a young predator.' It is thought that the cub died a short time later. The patient's condition is stable and he is being closely monitored in isolation ward in the hospital Two days after the first case of dreaded novel coronavirus case was confirmed in the state, one more person has tested positive for the killer virus in Kerala. A Wuhan university student who returned from China on January 24 has tested positive, according to Union health ministry. The patient is admitted in the isolation ward at the government medical college, Alappuzha. The patient's condition is stable and is being closely monitored at the isolation ward of the hospital, according to the ministry. Meanwhile, health minister K.K Shylaja said that the test result from National Institute of Virology is yet to be received. A total of 1,793 persons have been quarantined in the state, of whom 70 are in isolation wards of various hospitals, K.K. Shylaja told media persons in Kollam. The minister convened an emergency meeting and instructed officials to step up safety measures and facilities at Alappuzha medical college. Meanwhile, the minister urged those with recent travel history to China and other virus infected countries to seek immediate medical advice. "Though most of the people are voluntarily approaching health authorities, a few others are hesitant. The virus with two to seven per cent of mortality rate can be fatal for pregnant women and persons with other health complications. Hence, everyone with recent travel history to the Asian country should comply with the home quarantine guidelines until the incubation period is over," the minister added. SYDNEY/MELBOURNEWildfires that threatened Australias capital, Canberra, over the weekend have been brought under control as containment lines held and hot and windy conditions eased, prompting authorities to lift a state of emergency. While fire in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), home to the capital city, has spread to more than 55,000 hectares (136,000 acres), close to a quarter of the territorys entire landmass, the heat fueling the danger is subsiding. ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr said the threat was not yet over and that there may be weeks of firefighting ahead. We may need to return to a state of emergency if the situation requires it, he said on Sunday. The ACT declared a state of emergency leading into the weekend, which gave authorities greater powers to order evacuations, close roads and take control of properties as fire threatened suburban areas. It was the first time an emergency was declared in Australias capital since 2003 when fires destroyed almost 500 houses and led to four deaths. But containment lines supported by airdrops of fire retardant helped keep the blaze back over the weekend, even in the face of wild winds and elevated temperatures which only fell in the capital overnight on Saturday, according to Australias Bureau of Meteorology. The dangerous conditions started to ease on Sunday, and there is favorable weatherand even rainforecast for the rest of the week in the nations capital. Australias prolonged bushfire season has killed 33 people and an estimated 1 billion native animals since September. About 2,500 homes have been destroyed and more than 11.7 million hectares of tinder-dry bushland have been razed. The fire in the southern tip of the ACT also crossed into the state of New South Wales (NSW) and destroyed some homes, authorities said on Sunday. Seventy fires were burning across NSW late on Sunday afternoon, with 30 of those not contained. NSW Health issued a statement saying air quality would be poor in parts of the state, including Sydney, due to a combination of bushfire smoke and dust blowing in from drought-hit areas. Affected residents were urged to stay indoors and minimize physical activity, NSW Health said, adding those with chronic respiratory and cardiovascular conditions are particularly at risk. Parts of NSW were struck by thunderstorms late on Sunday which helped douse flames, although authorities said storms could also trigger new fires. Widespread thunderstorms and lightning strikes today may produce new ignitions, the NSW Rural Fire Service said in a tweet. Cooler conditions have seen reduced fire activity across most firegrounds today. By Jonathan Barrett and Will Ziebell A dimly lit room, packs of condom, rolls of tissue paper and a hackneyed student size bed was all she needed for her daily hustle. No matter how unfit the wooden room is, it is one of natural pleasures. It is a room where hundreds of men have entered and left satisfied. Here is another man to add to a tally she will never be able to keep. Pull off, she urged this reporter. Amorous whimpers from the dirty movie played purposely to arouse customers readily unfold as a background motivation. Having worked enough to own a television in her room, Adijat Komolafe is one of the elite in child prostitution. She is only 17. Few minutes before, she had deployed her assets to lure this reporter to patronise her. Tall, busty with heavy waist beads, long eyelashes and piercings all packaged in well-tended facial make up, Adijat is endearing. She really looks young and adventurous. She was dancing to Naira Marleys Tesumole at the bar of Royal Bar and Brothel in Orile, Lagos when this reporter spotted her. The brothel is notable for child prostitution, PREMIUM TIMES learnt. It is December 30, 2019, a festive period in Lagos, one of Africas most populated cities. Despite the noise from blaring music, Adijat was not carried away as she approached this reporter for business, transactionary sex business. Like Adijat, many other young girls were seen waiting for their customers who would either patronise them for a short-time service or till day break affairs. Males seeking sex are often called customers by sisters of the night. Adijat demanded N1,000 for a short time sex before leaving the spot. From her utterances, one could easily tell that she is an underage battling for survival through sex work. Although, Nigeria has no particular law prohibiting child prostitution, its sexual offenses act in section 7 stated that a person who commits an act which causes penetration with a child is guilty of an offence called defilement. It prescribes 18 years as the age of consent and provides that a person who penetrates a child less than 18 is liable upon conviction to imprisonment for life. But here is Adijat who has been in the business since age 15. Pack of condoms and Tissue in Adijats room Adijat held this reporters hand tightly as she led him to her room. The rule at the brothel is sacrosanct; no man is yours unless you indicate by holding his hand. On each side of the walkway are tattooed breast flashing, hoping that this reporter would change his mind. READ ALSO: Not satisfied with the way he was staring at her, one of the ladies taunted this reporter; you no go look person wey dey you dey follow, abi you won carry two. (Cant you concentrate on the person youre going with? Or you want to go with two?) Thats Anita, dont mind her, quipped Adijat. She has been complaining about low patronage recently. Anita is younger than Adijat this reporter learnt. She may look more mature because she started the business before me but I can tell you that Im much older. She got here at the age of 12. You know men these days want fresh blood. Just like you wanted me. Im sure if I look 30 and above, you wont settle for me, she smiled as she touched this reporter cheek in a romantic way. Welcome to Adijats room: Now in the room, Adijat fetched a male condom while hurrying her customer to pull off and get down to business. You need to pull off to allow me to attend to you quickly. I should be out already for other customers, she said with urgency. Adijats back view in her room Can you charge a price high enough to compensate for this we are about to do?, this reporter asked. She responded saying it depends on how rich the customer is. The N1, 000 you gave me is my legit money but you can give me more if we get the job done and you are happy with the way I serve you, she said. With an offer to double her pay for no service, Adijat let this reporter into her lifes journey after request and lobby. From her agitation, one could tell that money is the primary objective for the job. There are days I have sex with as many as 15 men in a day. It depends on the flow. Dont be surprised that the busiest time is not even at night. We are many that work at night but only few work in the morning and afternoon so, when some men have break in their office or during lunch time, they sneak off for a quickie. How sex work became an option: In 2016, after her father died, Adijat left Ibadan for Lagos with her uncle in a bid to strive for a better life. She has two siblings, then 8 and 10 respectively. Before the death of her father, Adijats mother had long been involved in an accident which cost her her spinal cord. Suya spot at Royal Bar and Brothel Her rough journey into prostitution took a significant turn few weeks after relocating to Abule Egba. Her uncle forced himself on her. My uncle threatened that my mother wont believe me even if I report him. He threatened that I will be sent out if I let his wife know what we do. I kept quiet until a night that I saw blood rushing out of my vagina, she narrated bitterly. My uncles wife saw me crying, noticed that Ive been really abused. She insisted on knowing who actually penetrated into me. I confessed that it was her husband and that was the last night I slept in their house. Advertisements The confession led to quarrel between her uncle and the wife. It was at the point of fight that she ran out of the house and never returned. She left with no destination, slept on the street where she was repeatedly raped. Having walked through several streets of Lagos fighting for survival, she eventually located Royal Bar and Brothel. Since then, sex work has been the only option for her. The proceeds go into catering for her dying mother and siblings. Adijat has kept her ordeals and means of survival to herself. She made her mother believe that she has been working as a sales representative since she left her uncles place. Telling my mother now will only cause more damage to her health. I lied to her. At least, I now make money and visit home to make sure shes fine alongside with my siblings. It is not what I want to do for life. I have savings and definitely, I will stop this job one day. May be after I own a provision store and comfortable. I definitely have plans of quitting but that will be after Ive made enough money to be independent. Law, legislature and reality There is no law against prostitution in Nigeria. In fact, in December 2019, a court ruled against the arrest of commercial sex workers in Abuja by law enforcement officials. The Abuja Federal High Court presided by Justice Binta Nyako declared that officials of a security task force acted outside the law when they broke into apartments in Abuja suburbs around 11 p.m., February 2017, to arrest women accused of being prostitutes. It should however, be noted that owning or running a brothel, being a pimp, trafficking persons for prostitution, use of children as sex slaves and other similar acts are criminal in all parts of Nigeria. But in reality, there are many minors carrying out the activities of sex work in Lagos inner city sex trade with N1, 000 or less as payment. Rafiu Olaiya, a counsellor, wants Nigerian government to be a signatory to international laws that frown at sexual exploitation of girls. He also challenged authorities to re-educate the younger generation about the consequences of prostitution in schools, churches, mosques, and other platforms. Another social commentator, Taiwo Osunmuyiwa said there would be a reduction of cases of prostitution if there is adequate policy to eliminate poverty that force many kids to prostitution. Mayors from the state's fire-ravaged areas are pleading for urgent NSW government rate relief as council notices are sent to more than 1000 homes that no longer exist. Councils are required under legislation to send the rate notices this week for the next quarter but Eurobodalla and Snowy Valleys mayors say it feels "heartless" to send the bills to those whose homes were destroyed. A burnt home just outside Moruya in Eurobodalla Shire. Credit:Louise Kennerley The NSW opposition and the councils are calling for the state government to subsidise rates for at least the next two quarters as the South Coast and Snowy region recovers. Eurobodalla mayor Liz Innes said it was heartbreaking that people who "have lost absolutely everything" will start receiving rate notices for properties destroyed by bushfires. A ban on flying Nazi swastika flags and other symbols will be several months away at least, with the state Labor government cool on Sunday to opposition calls for swift action. The government says it will wait for a review of Victorias hate-speech laws already under way in the state Parliament before it considers new bans or crackdowns. The Nazi flag flying over a home in the Victorian town of Beulah. The flag has since been taken down. But the state Liberal opposition, backed by Jewish and anti-racist groups, say that urgent action is needed to combat what it calls a rising tide of hatred in the community. The Liberals plan to bring laws into the Parliament that would give Victoria police the power to tear down Nazi flags and with potential criminal penalties of up to six months in jail for extremists caught flying the hate symbol. Farmers' body FAIFA on Sunday sought roll back of the proposal to levy additional duty on cigarettes, saying the hike in tax will have an adverse impact on the livelihood of already struggling tobacco growers. While presenting the Union Budget for 2020-21, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman proposed to increase the National Calamity Contingency Duty (NCCD) on cigarettes, hookah, chewing tobacco, snuff and tobacco extracts and essence. "The hike in tax is a major set-back to the FCV (Flue Cured Virginia) tobacco farmers who have been fighting torrential and unseasonal rains this year in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. "We did not expect such NCCD hike ..after you (Government) were made aware of our current situation through several representations..," Federation of All India Farmer Associations (FAIFA) said in a statement. It is unfortunate that the finance ministry has not even responded to many of FAIFA's representations which were submitted personally by the farmers, it added. "What more can a legal tax paying FCV tobacco farmer can do? It is a death bed to all the FCV tobacco farmers when trusting and relying on Government is not yielding the required results, whereas unorganised sectors like Bidi industry was free of tax burdens," the association said. Steep increase in taxes on cigarettes has led to increase in illegal trade, including smuggling of such items. "Tax increases since 2012-13 have led to a 36 per cent increase in illegal cigarette trade, increasing from 19.5 billion sticks in 2011 to 26.5 billion sticks in 2018," FAIFA noted. It said that the government has already removed export incentives on tobacco, making Indian produce less competitive in the global market. "This lack of support from the Government is resulting in reduction in crop size and farmers voluntarily exiting the FCV tobacco cultivation. In this backdrop, the present NCCD hike is levied only on tobacco and it is against the fundamental principles of GST, hence we request Hon'ble Finance Minister to reconsider and withdraw the NCCD hike on Tobacco," FAIFA said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The CNN sign outside the news networks headquarters in New York City in a file photo. (Mario Tama/Getty Images) CNN Wont Release Iowa Poll, Says It May Have Been Compromised CNN and the Des Moines Register canceled the release of a poll of likely Iowa voters, citing an issue that may have affected the results. The poll would have likely been the last one released before Iowa Democrats pick their preferred presidential candidate in Feb. 3 caucuses. CNN, the Des Moines Register and Selzer & Company will not be releasing the final installment of the CNN/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll, CNN said in a Feb. 1 statement on Twitter. A respondent raised an issue with the way their interview was conducted, which could have compromised the results of the poll. We were unable to ascertain what happened during this respondents interview, and cannot determine if this was a single isolated incident. CNN, the Des Moines Register, and Selser & Company aim to uphold the highest standards of survey research and therefore the partners decided not to proceed. What Happened? According to Axios, one of the poll respondents contacted the campaign of Pete Buttigieg, a Democratic presidential candidate and former mayor of South Bend, Indiana. The respondent said that the surveyor omitted Buttigiegs name from the list of candidates read to him over the phone. The campaign then contacted the pollsters. Axios reported that an interviewer at the polls call center increased the font size of the questionnaire on their screen so much that the bottom choice (which rotated between calls) wasnt visible, referring to an unidentified CNN source. Iowa Influence Iowa is traditionally the first state in the primary process and, to a degree, the results of the caucuses hint at whether a candidates campaign is viable. CNNs eleventh-hour poll, in turn, could have had some influence on the outcome. CNN was planning an hour of programming focused on its poll, Politico reported on Feb. 1. [The poll] has the power to fuel a candidates 11th-hour momentumor damage a contender who under-performs expectations, the report stated. Still, Iowas specific form of conducting caucuses makes predicting the results difficult. Voters congregate in their precincts and different areas in the venue are set up for each candidate. Voters stand in the candidates area to indicate their vote. Each candidate can also dispatch people to try to convince voters in other areas to switch their picks. After an initial round, candidates that didnt get at least 15 percent support in the precinct are marked non-viable, and their supporters can choose a different candidate. They can either pick one of the viable candidates or team up to push one of the non-viable ones over the 15 percent threshold. In smaller precincts, the viability threshold is higher16.6, 25, or even 50 percent. Other Polls The latest polls are giving an edge to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a self-described democratic socialist whos running on promises of gigantic government programs such as government-run universal health care and a government-led fundamental restructuring of the U.S. economy to eliminate a large portion of the countrys carbon dioxide emissions. The latest CBS poll has Sanders tied at 25 percent with former Vice President Joe Biden, the leader in national polling. The latest Emerson poll had Sanders at 30 percent, leading Biden by 9 points. As the first month of 2020 came to an end, the new strain of coronavirus that broke out in the Chinese city of Wuhan at the end of 2019 had spread throughout China and cases had been recorded as far away as Japan, the United States, France, Germany, and Australia. For the governments and people of Central Asia the virus that is spreading through neighboring China is a source of great concern. There are hundreds of Central Asian students at Chinese universities and thousands of Chinese workers in Central Asia. But as of the end of January 2020, there were no confirmed cases of this new coronavirus in Central Asia. That has not stopped people in Central Asia from worrying, though. RFE/RL's media-relations manager, Muhammad Tahir, moderated a discussion that looked at what the Central Asian governments are doing to prevent the spread of the virus and how the people of Central Asia are reacting to the potential spread of the virus into their homelands. From New York University's School of Medicine, Dr. Purvi Parikh joined the discussion. From RFE/RL's Kazakh Service, known locally as Azattyq, Dana Sanseeva, and from RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service, known locally as Azattyk, Ainura Asankojoeva explained what was going on in their countries. I had a thing or two to say also. Listen to the podcast above or subscribe to the Majlis on iTunes or on Google Podcasts. Forces loyal to Yemen's government on Sunday announced shooting down a drone belonging to the Houthi rebels in the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, Trend reports citing Xinhua. "The air defenses of the third military brigade managed to shoot down a drone of the Iranian-backed Houthi militiamen over the airspace of Durayhmi district in Hodeidah," the joint pro-government forces said in a statement. The statement added that the Houthi drone was hovering over the military sites of the joint pro-government forces in Durayhmi before shooting it down. "The air defenses aborted the Houthi plan aimed at targeting our bases and successfully damaged the drone over the area," it added. The media outlets of the Houthi rebel group made no comments on the report of the government forces about shooting down the drone in Hodeidah. Committed to promoting the building of a community of shared future for mankind, China has been striving to undertake its due international responsibilities and obligations in countering the epidemic, said experts from Shanghai Institutes for International Studies. The Shanghai based think tank pointed out with utmost openness and promptness, the Chinese government is working closely with the World Health Organization (WHO) on every step of the epidemic, exemplified by President Xis meeting with WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesuson on January 28. (Photo/Xinhua) The Chinese government has given full understanding and assistance to other governments actions to prevent the epidemic, such as some countries evacuation missions from Wuhan and their decisions to halt airlines to China. All such requests will continue to be met with utmost efficiency and generosity from the Chinese government. Furthermore, the Chinese government has remained open and grateful to all kinds of assistance from other countries in countering the epidemic. At the same time, China is considering promoting such cooperation in future epidemics of the world. Experts from Shanghai Institutes for International Studies have issued detailed proposals to the international community, in an effort to gather global strength to cope with the epidemic for common human security. According to the experts, the top priority would be optimizing the existing epidemic information disclosure mechanisms. Chinas daily epidemic bulletin broadcast in multiple languages plays the key role, in particular the languages of neighboring countries, such as Russian, Japanese, Korean and English, so that related information and data can be accessible to the public before fake news and rumors begin to spread. Successful actions of the Chinese government in preventing the spread of the epidemic can be introduced in detail in the Bulletin, too. The real-time Bulletin in multiple languages should be put on the websites of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Chinese embassies and consulates abroad. Meanwhile, we strongly hope that international media and thinktanks maintain an objective, comprehensive and humane stance in conducting reports or analyses of the epidemic and avoid hyping unconfirmed information or even rumors. Strengthening international exchange of experience in epidemic control is also a crucial cooperative area.It is important for China to translate the latest Guidelines for Preventing the 2019-nCov into different languages and pass it over to neighboring countries swiftly and in multiple forms (such as by social media). It will not only help those countries counter the epidemic with Chinese experience, but also contribute to Chinas image as a kind neighbor and responsible great power. We call for more support from the United States, EU and other developed countries in medical equipment and supplies, as well as their best practices in epidemic control. Last but not least, opposing discrimination against epidemic-struck regions and people. The epidemic must not become a new fence between countries, but it should be turned into a new bridge across nations. At present, Chinas Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as embassies and consulates abroad are in close contact with the governments and health and epidemic prevention agencies of other countries, updating them with the latest progress in countering the epidemic. Chinese communities abroad also keep a close eye on the health conditions of Chinese living in their neighborhood; and they are ready to help local epidemic prevention agencies, if necessary, to provide certifications for healthy Chinese or those proven healthy through self-quarantine, so as to prevent ugly anti-Chinese events due in large part to incomplete information. We hereby advocate that the public in all countries remain calm about the epidemic and avoid discrimination against Chinese or any infected persons. For we, as human beings, are one family and no ethnic group can stand immune to our common challenge. Rep. Rodney Garcia, a state lawmaker in Montana, told a roomful of Republicans he believes the U.S. Constitution says socialists can be jailed or shot simply for being socialists. Garcia initially made the statement at an election event, then he reiterated it to a Billings Gazette reporter. The Republican Party in Montana swiftly rebuked him. Garcia's inflammatory assertion first came Friday night, after former interior secretary Ryan Zinke gave a speech at the party event in Helena. According to reporting from the Gazette, Garcia said he was concerned there were socialists "everywhere" in Billings, which he represents in House District 52. Billings Gazette reporter Holly Michels later asked Garcia to clarify his remarks, and the lawmaker doubled down. "So actually in the Constitution of the United States, (if you) are found guilty of being a socialist member you either go to prison or are shot," Garcia told Michels. Garcia was not able to say where he finds that in the Constitution, the Billings Gazette reported. Anthony Johnstone, a law professor at the University of Minnesota, told The Washington Post that "nothing in the Constitution of the United States authorizes the government to punish socialists or anyone else on the basis of their political beliefs." In fact, the First Amendment prohibits punishing political speech, and the Montana Constitution "expressly prohibits discrimination on the basis of political beliefs," Johnstone said. All state lawmakers swear an oath to uphold those doctrines. People often misunderstand the treason clause in Article III of the Constitution, interpreting it to justify punishment of political opponents, Johnstone said. The framers, he said, "were careful to define treason narrowly so it could not be used for merely political purposes." In his interview with the Billings Gazette, Garcia said it was fair to shoot or jail socialists in Montana and across the country because they are enemies. "They're enemies of the free state," Garcia told Michels. "What do we do with our enemies in war? In Vietnam, (Afghanistan), all those. What did we do?" Garcia did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Washington Post. Spenser Merwin, the executive director of the Montana Republican Party, released a statement criticizing Garcia's remarks. "Under no circumstance is violence against someone with opposing political views acceptable," Merwin said. "It's disappointing that this isolated incident took away from the weekend's events which showcased the strength of our statewide candidates and the importance of the upcoming election." President Donald Trump and other Republicans across the country have used the term "socialism" to stir fear among their supporters when speaking about Democratic candidates running for the White House as well as other elected officials. Some Democratic Party front-runners in the 2020 presidential race have been campaigning on programs that would give the federal government more control, but only one, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, associates himself with the word socialism. Sanders, who has served as an independent in his own state, has said he is a democratic socialist. Socialism is an economic philosophy that advocates for public, collective ownership of the means of production in a society that would lead to less corporate power and more wealth distribution. Democratic socialists believe socialism should be achieved democratically and slowly replace the free markets of capitalism. Garcia told the Billings Gazette that based on Facebook advertising he has seen, he believese there is an influx of socialism in Montana that is "very dangerous." "They're teaching that to kids," Garcia told the newspaper. "Thank God my grandkids know it's wrong because I teach them. And it's a very dangerous situation." Garcia's 2018 opponent in the race for House District 52 was a trans woman named Amelia Marquez who is also a self-described democratic socialist. She told the Billings Gazette she wishes Garcia "would continue to focus on the issues rather than this constant worry over things that are somewhat ludicrous." He's opted to dye his locks jet black for most of his mid-life years. And after delighting fans when he let natural grey shine through this week, Sylvester Stallone, 73, continued to sport the suave look. The Rocky star looked a silver fox as he joined wife Jennifer, 51, and daughters Sophia, 23, and Sistine, 21, at Italian restaurant Madeo in Beverly Hills on Saturday. Silver fox: Sylvester Stallone showcased his new look while out for dinner with wife Jennifer, 51, (not pictured) and his daughters Sophia, 23, (middle) and Sistine, 21 (right) Well dressed in a navy polo, blue jeans and signature leather jacket the actor looked cheerful as he posed for the camera with two of his model daughters. Sophia went for a Nineties themed look with a tartan mini skirt and black strappy mini-wedges while her sister Sistine opted for a chic all black blazer, mini-skirt and stilettos. Father-of-six Sylvester revealed his new silver look in an Instagram post on Tuesday, taking to the platform to share an inspirational video. In the clip, the Oscar-nominated actor was seen chatting in the back of his car as he pumped his fist and stated: 'Keep punching, my friend. Keep punching.' Looking good: Well dressed in a navy polo, blue jeans and signature leather jacket the actor looked cheerful as he posed for the camera outside the celebrity haunt Alongside the clip, the actor shared a motivational post that read: 'Sometimes I wake up I feel like doing nothing. Just relaxing. Just very true. If anyone says different, theyre lying - its human nature.' 'Then you roll over, get a little mad at yourself, and realize to get anywhere youve got to make a deposit in the GOAL BANK. So, Ill go back to my favorite phrase and do it!! #KeepPunching.' Fans were quick to comment on Sylvester's new look, commenting: 'Arent easy to live this long with the fame and power. Proud of you with the silver hair.'; 'Woah sly you look amazing' 'Stay grey my friend, Stay grey #staygold'; 'You look Greyt champ'; 'Stay true to the gray!! Looks good on ya!'; 'Loving the gray'. Motivational message: Sylvester revealed he is embracing his natural gray, delighting fans with an Instagram post showing off his new locks on Thursday Aging gracefully: It's the first time the Hollywood icon has been seen with his natural hair color. He previously dyed his hair black (pictured right in November 2018) Showing his playful side the loving father later took to Instagram to share a clip of his daughter smearing a cake all over his face. His daughter can be heard joking: 'Who did it better Joaquin Phoenix or Sly (Sylvester's nickname)'. The actor captioned the image: 'One way to stay in shape is to put your dessert on your face instead of in your stomach...' Point Blank actor Franky Grillo was quick to comment: 'Youre rocky ... and rambo. But youre daddy mostly. Love it .' Cake face: Showing his playful side the loving father took to Instagram to share a clip of his daughter smearing a cake all over his face The urban growth management is essential for the UAE capital Abu Dhabi which is moving up several levels in a rapid manner and an urban knowledge economy is at the core of the future vision for the emirate as it shifts away from an oil-based economy, said a senior official of Abu Dhabi Department of Municipalities and Transport (DMT). Plan Abu Dhabi 2030 is just one expression of this as it provides conceptual solutions to shape the growth of Abu Dhabi over the next quarter of a century, addressing the major urban issues of environment, land use, transportation, open space and image of the capital city, remarked Mohamed Al Khadar Al Ahmed, the executive director of strategic affairs at DMT and general co-ordinator of the World Urban Forum 10. "Urban growth management has particular value in a new and developing nation such as the UAE - a shade under 50 years old. Its urban environment and in particular Abu Dhabi, is marked by being fresh and new," explained Al Ahmed. "It is architects and city planners which have helped to guide a nation, advance its culture and stimulate development," stated the senior government official. Next February we are looking forward to the 10th World Urban Forum in Abu Dhabi, with its theme: Cities of Opportunities: Connecting Culture and Innovation and this will be the first time that an Arab country will host the worlds most important conference on cities and human settlements," he said. "At the centre of our discussions will be urban growth management a comprehensive subject that is at the very essence of the work of WUF10 organisers UN-Habitat," noted Al Ahmed. "To put clarity around this, urban growth management has become a common term to outline strategies and tools to regulate urban land use in metropolitan areas. It is particularly used to counteract negative impacts of urban sprawl but also to frame future urban development," he added. According to him, this subject should not be seen as one which is purely a technical exercise, but an approach that runs deep. "Urban growth management goes beyond the architects and city planners and relates to how cities are governed, the way that regional government relates to the individual. It can inspire, fostering a sense of civic responsibility and encouraging a flowering of communities," observed Al Ahmed. "Deeper still, this process is steering sub-national governance for development, for a process which can promote citizen engagement, foster a sense of civic responsibility and stimulate development. Ultimately, this betters society and can all ultimately improve state-society relations and advance peace-building and state-building goals. Therefore, Urban Growth Management is something truly elevated," he added. According to him, Plan Abu Dhabi 2030 provides plans and policies that shape the emirate as the leading global 21st century Arab city and includes factors such as sustainability, infrastructure capacity, community planning and a high quality of life for all. "The government has identified nine key pillars that form the Emirates social, political and economic future: a large empowered private sector; a sustainable knowledge-based economy; an optimal, transparent regulatory environment; a continuation of strong and diverse international relationships; the optimisation of the Emirates resources; premium education, healthcare and infrastructure assets; complete international and domestic security; maintaining Abu Dhabis values, culture and heritage; and a significant and ongoing contribution to the Federation of the UAE," he added.-TradeArabia News Service A child rapist who got his victim pregnant has been spotted back walking the streets of his native west Belfast sparking fear among locals. Conaire Adams-Whyte had been avoiding the area after being convicted three years ago of raping a 12-year-old schoolgirl who ended up having his baby. The 23-year-old was jailed for 10 months for the sickening sex crime and has been keeping a low profile since getting out of prison. But the paedophile has recently been seen on the Falls Road leading to concerns that he is back living in the area. This was after Adams-Whyte was convicted at Belfast Magistrates' Court of unlawfully possessing the anxiety drug diazepam. He is currently on bail awaiting sentencing. One local who saw the child sex predator said: "He had his face partially covered with a hood but it was definitely him. "The last thing people round here want is a paedo walking the Falls Road, we've enough problems without having to deal with Conaire Adams-Whyte moving back here." Adams-Whyte had been living with a relative at a flat complex near Hamill Street, but left the property before Christmas when it had a window smashed by vigilantes. He was also confronted by a group of angry parents who told him in no uncertain terms not to come back. The paedophile's 2017 court case heard how he groomed and then raped his 12-year-old victim while she was being babysat in a west Belfast house by his mother. A prosecution lawyer explained how Adams-Whyte kissed the child and removed her clothes before forcibly having sex with the schoolgirl. When arrested he denied any wrongdoing, but a DNA test on the baby after it was born in April 2016 proved that he was the dad. While on police bail Adams-Whyte fathered a second child with a different female. Sentencing the predator, Judge Smyth said: "You were exposed to inappropriate influences which may explain your sexualisation as a young child yourself. "In my view I find it likely that this contributed to this offending. "If it were not for that fact I would have imposed a sentence of two years." New Delhi, Feb 2 : Aam Aadmi Party's Delhi Convener Gopal Rai launched fresh attack on the BJP over the lack of a chief minister candidate saying the saffron party has neither a face nor the confidence to take on Arvind Kejriwal. Speaking to IANS, Rai said the BJP is contesting the elections in the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who will not become the chief minister of Delhi. "They neither have issues nor a leader in Delhi. They don't have any leadership for the polls. They have no leader who can lead the elections and one of the reasons for not revealing a chief minister candidate is because they don't even have the confidence that they will form a government," Rai told IANS. Also a Cabinet Minister in the Arvind Kejriwal government, Rai said AAP's stand on the issue of Citizenship Amendment Act had been very clear since day one. "The party's stand has been clear from day one. If there is any confusion, it is not from the party's end. This is just a non-essential issue. The issue before the people and the nation is of employment and business. People are struggling for development. Instead of giving solutions, the focus has been diverted by the Central government. They want to keep people distracted and so they keep on discussing things other than main issues," Rai said. The Babarpur MLA said that AAP made its stand clear on the CAA in both the houses of the Parliament. He said for the Delhi assembly polls, the BJP is not finding any issue and so is "purposefully trying to divert the attention. But the people of Delhi will now vote for development." Rai asserted that work will be the driving force of the February 8 assembly elections. "The BJP is making an unsuccessful attempt to divert people's attention." On the ticket distribution by the AAP and dropping of 15 sitting MLAs, Rai said the party took the decision based on three counts -- MLA's work, perception in public and role in campaigning since September. "While they have not been given tickets, the party is still in touch with them. Most of them are staying with the party." He also rejected any possibility of post poll alliance, saying, "we are 110 per cent forming a government on our own. There will be no alliance. We are expecting more than 67 seats this time." Rai said not just the AAP volunteers but the common man of Delhi is also campaigning for the AAP for Delhi polls. "While last time the volunteers were seeking votes, this time it was the common man who is seeking votes for the AAP. You can find them campaigning for the AAP in all lanes of the city, irrespective of the presence of our volunteers." Rai said the party is running a positive campaign and the people are appreciating it. (Nivedita Singh can be contacted at nivedita.singh@ians.in) Indian-Americans on Saturday organised a "sit-in Satyagraha" outside the Indian embassy in Washington. The 'sit-in Satyagraha' was organised by a policy advocacy group 'Young India' where members from the community delivered speeches in memory of Mahatma Gandhi. Community members gathered in front of the Mahatma Gandhi statue near the Indian embassy where they highlighted the need for pluralism in India. Read: TMC Gives Suspension Of Business Notice In RS To Discuss Nationwide Anti-CAA, NRC Protests Sit-in Satyagraha The 'sit-in Satyagraha' was organised two days after the 72nd death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. It came amid ongoing protests in the country over the government's controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) that saw many coming out on streets to register their dissent. The gathering in the United States was to send a message to the people that the achievement of mass participation can only be achieved through non-violence. Read: BIG: Centre Reaches Out To Shaheen Bagh Protesters, Ready To Clear Misgivings About CAA The founder and the current president of Young India, Rohit Tripathi while talking to the press said that they gathered in front of Mahatma Gandhi statue to remember his message of non-violence and the power of Satyagraha (soul force) in demanding dignity. Tripathi further added that the women protesting across India have shown exactly what Gandhi's message of demanding dignity is all about. According to media reports, the event ended with the formation of a human chain moving around Gandhi's statue and the Indian national anthem. Read: Anti-CAA Protests: SC Notice To UP Govt On Plea For Quashing Of Notices For Recovering Damages Tripathi has openly criticised the government of India's move to introduce the Citizenship Amendment Act that would allow religious minorities from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh, who have come before 2014, to acquire Indian citizenship. The controversial act excludes Muslim refugees from acquiring Indian citizenship, which many believe is discriminatory towards one particular community. The government of India, however, claims that the Act is aimed at providing citizenship to only those who are facing religious persecution in the above-mentioned countries and would not hamper with the citizenship status of people currently residing in India. Read: Feel Foreign Forces Behind Creating Misunderstanding Over CAA To Weaken India: Rajnath Singh (with inputs from agencies) The government has prepared an outline of the proposed All India Judicial Services (AIJS) as it plans to engage the judiciary to assuage the latters concern that the new selection mechanism will dilute the institutions authority in selecting judges for state judicial services, officials aware of the matter said. The outline includes the procedure and career progression of those who qualify an entrance exam to join the AIJS. A lawyer with seven-year practice or someone engaged in teaching at a recognised law college or university for the same time would qualify to take the exam, according tothe proposed outline. A candidate is expected to be aged between 28 and 35 to be eligible for the test. The officials cited above said the AIJS is meant to induct district-level judges. A certain percentage of inductions will be reserved for civil judges, who will thereby be provided an opportunity to improve their career prospects, they added. States and respective high courts will be responsible for hiring the remaining civil judges, the officials said. The subordinate judiciary has two tiers and involves civil judges or magistrates and district judges. Even serving civil judges can take the exam to qualify for the AIJS provided they have served for the required number of years. There could be an age limit for such candidates too, said one of the officials. There will also be age limit relaxation for members of Other Backward Classes, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes apart from 25% reservation for them, the officials said. The new proposal [outline] is an improvement over the old one with nuanced modifications as would be appropriate to maintain the independence of the judiciary. It will fast track career progression and provide a possibility for working both at the HC [high court] and federal level. The AIJS will have a foolproof examination process, said the official cited above on condition of anonymity. HT in December reported the Chief Justice of India would nominate a Supreme Court judge to head an oversight committee to provide guidance regarding the pattern of the AIJS entrance examination and syllabus. The panel will have representation from high courts and include eminent legal academicians. A Union Public Service Commission (UPCS) representative will also be one of its members. The AIJS is a selection process. The UPSC the executing agency and HCs [high courts] and the SC [Supreme Court] the appointing authorities, said a second official. The government in June wrote to the states seeking their view on the AIJS. It set the ball rolling for the central exam for the lower judiciary. The government proposes to create the Indian Administrative Service-like judicial service and wants to engage the UPSC to conduct the exam. The Law Commission of India mooted the AIJS in 1958 after which it was added to Article 312 of the Constitution through the 42nd amendment in 1976. A committee of secretaries backed the Common Entrance exam in November 2012. But 13 states and 18 high courts either opposed AIJS or sought changes. Union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has advocated the need for the AIJS particularly to attract talent from universities offering five-year law courses and to fill up the burgeoning vacancies in the lower judiciary, where 5,000 posts remain vacant. The AIJS entrance exam will be held at the zonal levelsNorth, South, East, West, and Centralso that judges are posted closer to the places they belong to. The second official cited above said two-year training for candidates, who clear the entrance exam, would include language training as well. Senior Supreme Court advocate Vijay Hansaria said the AIJS is not feasible at the federal structure especially since states use different languages of the law. A judge holding court needs to know the local language because he or she is required to record evidence in the same, a job that cannot be delegated to someone else... High courts currently hold entrance tests for trial court judges. There is no uniform system for such recruitment. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Coronavirus: India to Send Another Aircraft to Wuhan to Evacuate Its Citizens Sputnik News 07:31 GMT 01.02.2020(updated 14:52 GMT 01.02.2020) New Delhi (Sputnik): On Saturday morning, an Air India Boeing 747 with over 300 Indians evacuated from the Chinese city of Wuhan, hotbed of the novel coronavirus, landed at Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport. In a bid to evacuate Indians from the source of the coronavirus, China, national carrier Air India is prepped for its second trip to the city of Wuhan, Hubei Province. An Air India Boeing earlier brought 324 Indians back to New Delhi from the virus-ridden region. "Another flight will depart to Wuhan from Delhi at 12:50 p.m. (Indian Standard Time) today with a different set of crew, same doctors' team with another aircraft. The rescue team is again headed by Captain Amitabh Singh, Director Operation, Air India", an Air India spokesperson confirmed on Saturday. The news is now being circulated on social networking platforms. As precautions against the spread of the coronavirus, Indira Gandhi International Airport is hosting a designated screening camp to check Indian passengers from China. Out of the 324 Indians who arrived from China on Saturday morning, 95 suspected cases have been put under observation in a New Delhi hospital. The coronavirus is believed to have surfaced at a live wild animal market in Wuhan, the capital city of China's Hubei Province in December 2019. The infection has affected over 11,000 individuals and already killed 259 people. A student from the southern Indian state of Kerala has been identified as having the first confirmed case of coronavirus in India. While the patient has been kept in an isolation ward under observation, the number of suspected cases in Kerala has risen to 1,053. Other countries with confirmed cases include Australia, Cambodia, Russia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Malaysia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Thailand, South Korea, the UAE, the United States, and Vietnam. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on countries to offer asylum to ethnic minorities fleeing China's troubled Xinjiang region during a visit Sunday to oil-rich Kazakhstan -- a country that borders the region. "We ask simply for them to provide safe refuge and asylum for those seeking to flee China," Pompeo said at a press appearance with Kazakh foreign minister Mukhtar Tleuberdi. "Protect human dignity, just do what is right," Pompeo said. Pompeo was meeting top officials in ex-Soviet Kazakhstan as he rounds off a five-nation tour in two countries where Russia and China enjoy privileged interests. His visit to the Kazakh capital Nur-Sultan also saw him meet with Kazakhs who say their family members are detained in Xinjiang, where over a million ethnic Uighurs, Kazakhs and other minorities are believed to have been incarcerated as part of an unprecedented security crackdown in the region. Kazakhstan has allowed several ethnic Kazakhs of Chinese citizenship who fled the region to stay in the country, but has not given any of them asylum -- a reluctance local activists attribute to Chinese pressure. Pompeo also commended Kazakhstan's "quick action" over the novel coronavirus that has killed more than 300 people and infected more than 14,000 in mainland China and beyond, forcing governments around the world to take drastic measures. Kazakhstan has presently hospitalised over 40 people that returned to the country from China with flu-like symptoms, but has yet to confirm any cases of the disease. On Sunday evening Pompeo will fly to Uzbekistan, a country of 33 million that is emerging from nearly three decades of isolation. Pompeo also visited two other ex-Soviet countries -- Belarus and Ukraine -- as part of a trip that began with a stop in Britain. Ahead of the visit, Pompeo stressed that the Central Asian countries on his itinerary "want to be sovereign and independent", and Washington had "an important opportunity to help them achieve that". But he also acknowledged "a lot of activity (in the region) -- Chinese activity, Russian activity". Washington has often struggled to keep a foothold in Central Asian states that were part of the Soviet Union up to its collapse in 1991. At the height of hostilities in Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks, NATO and the United States maintained important logistics centres in the region, but these have now closed. Russia has retained military bases and heads security and trade blocs that have helped to entrench its position there. But Central Asia also increasingly looks east to China's trillion-dollar Belt and Road global trade plan as a panacea to treat battered economies. Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have both seen leadership transitions since John Kerry toured the region in 2015 -- the last US secretary of state to visit. In Kazakhstan, Pompeo was to meet President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev as well as his predecessor Nursultan Nazarbayev, who last year shocked Kazakhs by retiring from the presidency after nearly three decades in office. In Uzbekistan, he was to hold talks with President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who has embarked on ambitious reforms, welcoming tourism and investment in the once-isolated republic while keeping the authoritarian system intact. Mirziyoyev's long-ruling hardline predecessor, Islam Karimov turned his back on the United States in 2005 after a row over the Uzbek government's bloody crackdown on protests. The relationship had healed somewhat by the time of Karimov's death in 2016. Mirziyoyev, who visited Trump at the White House in 2018, has mused on the benefits of joining the Moscow-backed Eurasian Economic Union, a five-country bloc including Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan that is seen as a key vehicle for Russia to wield influence in the region. In addition to holding bilateral meetings, Pompeo on Monday in Tashkent will hold a meeting with foreign ministers from all five ex-Soviet Central Asian countries -- Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. This format was first tried under Kerry to enhance regional, economic, environmental and security cooperation. Israeli warplanes hit the Gaza Strip's Islamist rulers Hamas on Saturday after cross-border mortar fire by Palestinian militants, the Israeli army said. Fighter aircraft hit "Hamas terror targets in the northern Gaza Strip," an army statement said. "Among the targets were weapon storage facilities and an underground infrastructure used by the Hamas terror organisation," the English-language statement said. There were no reports of casualties. The strikes followed successive rounds of cross-border fire from Gaza on Friday and the launch of balloons fitted with incendiary devices into southern Israel. Israel retaliated to Friday's first volley with tank fire on what an army statement called a "Hamas military post" in southern Gaza. The latest uptick of violence came after US President Donald Trump enraged Palestinians with a controversial peace plan which would allow Israel to annex swathes of territory in the occupied West Bank. But it has so far been on nothing like the scale of flare-ups last year. Israel carried out air strikes on Hamas targets in Gaza early Friday after three rockets were fired the previous evening, causing neither casualties nor damage, the army said. Hamas and Israel have fought three wars since 2008, but over the past year, the Islamists have gradually shaped an informal truce with Israel, under which the Jewish state has eased its crippling blockade of Gaza in exchange for calm. Joseph R Vasquez Joseph R Vasquez left this earth and into the arms of our Lord Friday morning, January 24, 2020. Born to Manuel and Manuela Vasquez in their Clay Avenue home in Flagstaff on July 4, 1936, he lived a life of service to Flagstaff, his country, his faith, and his cherished family. Joseph, a lifelong resident of Flagstaff attended St Anthony's Catholic School (now St Mary's) and graduated from Flagstaff High School. He then attended Arizona State College (now Northern Arizona University). Joseph served in the US Army at Fort Hood, TX. He then returned to his beloved Flagstaff where he served until retirement as a US Letter Carrier. His routes took him throughout the downtown area as well as East Flagstaff. It was during this time where he made lifelong friends. Joseph was a devout Catholic his entire life and a servant to our Lord. He volunteered regularly in support of Our Lady of Guadalupe chapel and observed daily mass in his retirement. Most importantly, Joseph served his family. He worked hard and smart to care for his family from his children's birth through college and beyond. His guiding hand helped his children at any time of need. Joseph is survived by his three children: Elizabeth (Lisa), Adam, and David, David's wife Martha, and his wife of 34 years, MaryLou and his stepson and stepdaughter. He is also survived by six grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. Services were held on Tuesday, January 28, 2020 at San Francisco de Asis Catholic Church. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to San Francisco de Asis Catholic Church. Memories can condolences can be shared with family at www.norvelowensmortuary.com (Bloomberg Opinion) -- February can feel like no mans land. The holidays are over and the weather is crummy. The gentlest iPhone chime sounds like a bugle call in the morning and you need two Americanos to have a civil conversation. Over the past week or so, youve been holed up in your cramped apartment and your inbox is overflowing with alerts about the spread of a deadly virus. Like 84% of the population, youre probably stressed, according to a recent study by Cigna Corp. and Asia Care Group. The cost of burnout is no longer just emotional. The global economy loses $1 trillion a year in productivity as a result of depression and anxiety, the World Health Organization found. While the U.S. puts $133.2 billion, or 4% of its annual health expenditure, toward treatment, that proportion reaches 19% in Australia, 18% in Singapore and 17.6% in Hong Kong, Cigna says. The good news is that theres a solution, and its cheap. The bad news is that its difficult. After years of considering mental health to be a personal affliction, focus is turning to the role employers can play. The type of changes needed better communication and support from managers, for example require a shift in attitude more than financial resources. In Asia, however, the very wokefulness thats made mental health a priority for Fortune 500 CEOs and U.S. presidential candidates is uncomfortable territory. My family never, ever talked about this topic. Its a taboo, said Deborah Seah, a 38-year-old Singaporean who lived with bipolar disorder for more than two decades before it was diagnosed. As a girl of eight, she recalls going to the kitchen of her familys high-rise apartment in the middle of the night, looking out the 11-story window and fighting the urge to jump. More than 90% of people in Asia say theyre stressed, and eight out of 10 feel like they operate in an always on culture. These can be early symptoms of burnout, which is marked by chronic exhaustion, cynicism and detachment from your work, as well as feelings of ineffectiveness. Story continues Seah experienced her first burnout episode in 2016, while working at an academic institution. She recalls the rising levels of stress as managers kept pushing work on her plate. She also felt pressure to keep her mental condition under wraps because colleagues gossiped viciously. Managers who knew of Seahs struggles urged her to stay quiet. Seah remembers breaking into sobs in the washroom, hoping no one would see, and coming home to dinner, where she would erupt into screams. Her husband begged her to quit her job, but she couldnt let go: I didnt want to give up my career, she said. Seah eventually admitted herself to Singapores mental-health institute when she began to feel suicidal. Successive burnout episodes were equally dramatic, with daily panic attacks, hot and cold flashes, uncontrollable shivering and the inability to get out of bed. Beyond social stigmas, Asias often inflexible work culture can be a hurdle, too. In a recent survey of Hong Kong employees by Deacons, a law firm, 65% of respondents cited long hours as their primary concern, closely followed by domineering senior management and uncommunicative bosses. The trouble is, even flexible work arrangements have their pitfalls. Ben,(1) 43, started his career in public relations in London, and moved to Singapore in 2013. He struggled with depression and anxiety after his father and half-brother died unexpectedly within less than a year of each other. He was relieved to get a transfer to Hong Kong for a change of pace, and was initially encouraged by the corporatespeak about working from home and unlimited vacation time. Very quickly, Ben found that working anywhere meant working all the time. He was pulling 12-hour days and putting in time on weekends; he compulsively checked his phone for messages. A much-anticipated trip with his wife to the tropical island of Flores, east of Bali, was spent on a deck chair: I saw it over a laptop, he recalls. It also became apparent that making a big transition during a period of emotional strain was a bad idea. When Ben asked for help with his workload, his manager said he should be able to cope. As the demands increased, Bens symptoms became physical: He lost weight, his cheeks hollowed and his skin turned ashen. One day, he simply couldnt get up, and stayed bedridden for a week. Though Ben worked for a U.S.-based company, he felt caught between Asias cultural expectation of being in the office and the 24/7 demands of his industry. When I was working in London, our general rule was if you saw someone working late regularly, you would take them aside and say, Hey whats going on? Whats wrong? whereas in Asia, its celebrated much more. Ben eventually decided to leave his job and took seven months off. Now he does contract work in the marketing-services industry, and tries to stick to a four-day week. In 2018, Gallup Inc., a market-research company, looked at the main causes of burnout, as well as what employers and managers can do. Whats striking is how simple some of the solutions appear to be: Employees whose managers are willing to listen to their work-related problems are 62% less likely to be burned out, and those who have the opportunity to do projects where they excel are 57% less likely to experience frequent episodes, the study found. Does a trillion-dollar problem really come down to intangibles such as making work purposeful, promoting teamwork and giving positive feedback? Seah, the Singaporean, eventually left her job, and now works as an executive assistant at Oracle Corp. In her application, she included her volunteer work as an ambassador at Beyond the Label, a government initiative to raise awareness about mental health. Seah marvels at the California-based companys openness to her condition and the willingness to let her work from home. The approach and attitude of my manager makes a whole world of difference. The workplaces of the future should not only better equip its managers with soft skills, but give employees the time and space to care for themselves. Think about it: With people working well into their 70s, careers can plausibly span half a century; a recent study puts the age of peak unhappiness smack in the middle, at 47.2. The key to heading off burnout, then, may be clearing your calendar. The Wall Street Journal recently chronicled the experience of one insurance executive who took a two-year sabbatical. The break actually accelerated her progress: She returned to work and became a CEO. For those who cant afford to put their paychecks on pause, even mini breaks or meditation can help. One Singaporean-based app, MindFi, has breathing exercises that even allow skeptics like me to keep their eyes open. Managing stress this way should be natural in cities like Hong Kong and Singapore. After all, Asia is the home of meditation, says Bjorn Lee, MindFis founder. What happened? Theres perhaps no better time to put these tools to work. The spread of the coronavirus has produced stress triggers that are both extraordinary (with thousands of confirmed cases) and mundane (its more difficult to get your Starbucks coffee). With millions of people on lockdown, companies from HSBC Holdings Plc to Facebook Inc. have asked staff to work from home. The novelty of wearing your pajamas all day can wear off quickly when youre squinting at a tiny laptop screen and keeping your toddlers sticky fingers off the keyboard. But if youre safe and virus-free, this could be a welcome opportunity for a deep breath. A baby showed up on one of my video conferences last week I cant imagine Im the only one who cracked a smile. (1) Ben asked that we keep out his surname. To contact the author of this story: Rachel Rosenthal at rrosenthal21@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Matthew Brooker at mbrooker1@bloomberg.net This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners. Rachel Rosenthal is an editor with Bloomberg Opinion. Previously, she was a markets reporter and editor at the Wall Street Journal in Hong Kong. For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source. 2020 Bloomberg L.P. Press Release February 2, 2020 Gatchalian to probe NGCP Operations Amid Fears China might threaten PH Security Senator Win Gatchalian wants to look into the operations of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) to verify whether Filipinos are in charge of its day-to-day management amid national security concerns. The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy also wants to scrutinize during the hearing scheduled on Monday, February 3, the compliance of the country's power transmission line on its mandate to safeguard the grid and ensure continuous supply of electricity in the country. There were earlier concerns over China's 40-percent stake in the country's lone transmission line. It can be recalled that energy officials themselves confirmed to senators during last year's budget hearing that it is possible for China to remotely shut down the Philippines' power supply. "We should employ all possible safeguards to ensure that Filipinos are in control of our lone power grid; that Filipino interests are being protected; and national security concerns are covered 100 percent," Gatchalian stressed. "The national grid is the sole backbone for the transmission of electricity throughout the entire country and any event leading to its failure to operate will have wide-ranging effects on the economy, public safety, and national security", added Gatchalian. The lawmaker also pointed out that the Constitution requires the executive and managing officers of public utilities to be Filipinos. The Energy Committee has summoned the National Security Adviser, top officials of the Department of Energy (DOE), top officials from the NGCP and the National Transmission Commission (TransCo), and independent experts on electric power as resource persons for the upcoming Senate hearing. "The power transmission line is one of the vital facilities in our country that is why it is very important that the management in control of the transmission line are Filipinos. We don't want a scenario wherein with just a single switch, no electricity will be transmitted to our homes, businesses, even to our military facilities", Gatchalian ended. January marked another milestone in a project that will save Laois lives with the installation of a new defibrillator in Portlaoise. The publicly accessible device has been installed in a reconditioned P&T telephone box outside St Peter's Church on Market Square. The box was donated to the Laois Defibrillator Project by Mary and Pat O'Regan from Errill. It was in a shed for 20 years. After a big refurbishment at McKeon Stone in Stradbally, the box was placed in position in January. The defibrillator device was installed shortly afterwards and is now available 24/7 to provide life saving help to someone who has suffered a heart attack. The initiative is just the latest part of a project which began with a life and death scenario About 15 months ago a man collapsed in Main Street Portlaoise with a heart attack but nobody knew where to access a defibrillator, said Mr Peter Naughton, a retired surgeon at Portlaoise hospital. The incident led to Mr Naughton teaming up with three other people around Laois to form the Laois Defibrillator Project. Mr Naughton, Sheila Coyle from Mountmellick, Derek Phelan from Emo and Seamus Moran from Rathdowney, set about their work with three aims. The first was to map and draw up a database of public and private defibrillators around Laois. This involved committee members covering the highways and byways recording the location details of the defibrillators. The second was to provide devices in areas and communities which had none. The third aim was to provide training in CPR and the use of defibrillators. They found that three towns had no 24/7 public defibrillator. These were Portlaoise, Stradbally and Rathdowney. The mapping revealed that there are 120 defibrillators in Laois but most are in private locations, unavailable 24/7. There are 30 in Portlaoise but none were available round the clock before the project started. There are now five defibrillators in public locations in the county town. Prior to the project, Mr Naughton said they were of little use to somebody in an emergency because the ambulance service did not know where they were so could not point people to the location. All the data gathered about the location of the public and private boxes is also being provided to the National Ambulance Centre in Dublin. If you ring 999 or 112 and you are looking for a defibrillator in Laois they will now be able to tell you where the nearest defibrillator is, he said. Mr Naughton says the National Ambulance Centre has committed to providing ongoing training to people living in any town in Laois. He said Derek Phelan has also given demonstrations and training free of charge to communities. While all the key goals of the Laois Defibrillator Project have been accomplished, some other work is underway to cement the achievement for the community. Claire McIntyre at Laois County Council is creating an internet map of the defibrillators for the public which can be accessed by smartphone. She is in the final stages of completing this process. Mr Naughton expects said it will soon be available on Laois County Council's website at www.laois.ie So far, nearly 80 have been mapped. Efforts are also being made to set up a first responder network in each Laois town. Nothing would have happened without support from different quarters. Mr Naughton says Portlaoise Lions Club stepped in with funding alongside Laois councillors and Laois Partnership to ensure that Laois Defibrillator Project achieved its goals. He says a total of 11,000 was raised to buy defibrillators and heated boxes. The boxes allowed some devices to be moved into a public area on a 24/7 basis. As a result all the main nine towns in Laois now have a defibrillator 24/7 and some have four in the one town. Laois will be the first county in Ireland to have this mapping and defibrillators in every town and village available 24/7, he said. Mr Naughton said a further six villages have a defribrillator 24/7. The new telephone box defibrillator on Market Square serves more than a practical purpose. Mr Naughton says it is a focus point for the Laois wide project that raises awareness of defibrillators among other communities. Mr Naughton thanked the Regan family in Errill for donating the box, Niall Kavanagh and all at McKeon Stone for its restoration and John Killeen of Killeen Engineering in Portlaoise for their work on the project. He thanked Brian Kelly from Ballymaddock for carpentry work and locksmith Jack Nolan. Deirdre Holland at Laois Pharmacy has supported the CCTV and defibrillator connection. Laois Age Alliance and the Portlaoise Lions Club were also thanked. All of these people worked voluntarily on the project. It is amazing really, said Mr Naughton. If somebody wants to organise training or add their defibrillator's location to the database they contact Claire McIntyre at Laois County Council. By PTI KOLKATA: An elderly woman, who was part of the ongoing demonstration by women against the CAA and the proposed nationwide NRC at the Park Circus Maidan here, died on Sunday after falling ill, police said. The 57-year-old woman fell unconscious at the protest site around 2 am and was taken to a nearby hospital, they said. ALSO READ: 72-year-old anti CAA activist who set self ablaze in Indore, succumbs to burn injuries Samida Khatun, a resident of Entally area, died at the hospital after sometime, police said. Around 60 women have been staging protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC) at Park Circus Maidan, on the lines of the Shaheen Bagh agigation in Delhi. The woman's last rites will be performed later in the day after her son arrives from Iran, a fellow protestor said. Beijing, Feb 2 : China has reported a deadly H5N1 bird flu outbreak among chickens in Hunan province, which lies on the southern border of Hubei, the epicentre of the rapidly spreading coronavirus that has killed 304 people, it was reported on Sunday. "The outbreak occurred in a farm in the Shuangqing district of Shaoyang city. The farm has 7,850 chickens, and 4,500 of the chickens have died from the contagion. Local authorities have culled 17,828 poultry after the outbreak," the South China Morning Post newspaper quoted China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs as saying on Saturday. No human cases of the Hunan H5N1 virus have been reported yet. The bird flu outbreak comes even as the Chinese authorities continue efforts to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus, which has also infected a total of 14,380 persons in the Asian giant. The H5N1 avian flu virus, often called bird flu, causes severe respiratory disease in birds and is contagious to humans. The virus was first detected in 1996 in geese in China and is especially deadly for poultry. It is possible, but difficult, to transmit bird flu from person to person, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). From 2003 to 2019, the WHO reported a total of 861 confirmed human cases of H5N1 worldwide, of whom 455 have died, reports the South China Morning Post. In China, 53 human cases of bird flu infections have been reported in the past 16 years, with 31 fatalities. Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19) The stage has long been set for this years governor race to be a high-dollar production. The seat is open as the incumbent Democrat Gov. Steve Bullock is termed out. Republicans have fervent aspirations of reclaiming the office after 16 years in the hands of the other party. And the candidates running are savvy when it comes to fundraising ability in whatever form best fits their background, be that tapping contributors cultivated over long-established civic careers, networks built along with vibrant private sector work, the infrastructure of political machines or the increasingly prevalent ink of a candidates own checkbook. The amount of money that has been raised at this point in the governors race is striking, said Lee Banville, a professor and political analyst at the University of Montana. We knew it was going to be a competitive race. Its probably the biggest political story and political race in the last decade. Republican U.S. Rep. Greg Gianforte has significantly out-raised everyone else running, accounting for almost 45% of the $3.21 million generated so far among all the candidates. On the Republican side, Attorney General Tim Fox and Kalispell state Sen. Al Olszewski are running in addition to Gianforte. The Democratic candidates are Lt. Gov. Mike Cooney, businesswoman Whitney Williams of Missoula and state Rep. Casey Schreiner of Great Falls. Opponents from both parties are already painting Gianforte as a wealthy candidate who is trying to buy the seat with his own money, though at this point in the election that critique is better lodged against Gianfortes 2016 bid for governor than this go-around. Gianforte started and then sold a high tech firm in Bozeman for $1.8 billion in 2012, so theres no question about his vast personal resources. He self-financed that first gubernatorial run against Bullock to the tune of $5.8 million in what was then the most expensive race in state history. This cycle he jump-started his campaign with a $50,000 loan, on top of spending almost $23,700 of his own money on what's listed in campaign finance documents as media and advertising. But so far a commanding amount of his campaign cash $1.07 million of his $1.43 million total has come from individual contributions in Montana. Gianforte says he cultivated that base from events like meet-and-greets around the state where he talks about things like creating high-paying jobs. Its not complicated. We travel the state all the time. We have not spent a weekend in Washington, D.C., yet, Gianforte said. I share a very positive, hopeful vision of Montana. If they like the vision, I ask them to support the campaign and many of them write checks. When those checks are cut, they tend to be for big amounts: Gianforte's average contribution from Montana is about $360 while Foxs is closer to $200. After two terms in the U.S. House, Gianforte is also leveraging connections hes built with conservative PACS and congressional colleagues, a network Banville said is more typical for a candidate running for federal office. Hes raised about $16,000 from Republican leadership political action committees, or PACs. That includes from Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana; Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida and others. What (Gianforte) has now is, he still has his own money, he still has a sizable number of Montana donors, but he also has this infusion of congressional cash, which gives him a leg up on Sen. Olszewski and Attorney General Fox, who are really running as connected to the statewide money, Banville said. Foxs campaign has raised about $566,000, with a larger percentage of overall money coming from Montana: 83% for Fox to 73% for Gianforte. Even back when Gianfortes entrance into the race was rumor and not yet a reality, Fox was acknowledging hed likely be out-raised. His plan to counter that involves strong ground game, finding the green in grassroots instead of dollar bills. The quality of the candidate and the enthusiasm of their supporters and volunteers and the track record of winning for a candidate will always beat money, Fox said. Montanans dont appreciate self-funders. They always under-perform." Fox points to endorsements like that of the Montana Police Protective Association, something he views as translating to not a lot of money but probable voters for him in the primary. Fox and Olszewski, who has raised almost $230,000 almost entirely from Montana, have been aggressive in their criticism of Gianfortes self-funding, though so far in 2020 it's more about the congressmans ability to do so than an actuality. And Olszewski has put in more of his own cash than Gianforte so far, loaning his campaign $100,000. Over on the Democratic side, candidates have all unified around identifying Gianforte as their likely opponent, and while that might be who they genuinely expect to emerge from the primary its also a scare tactic to rally party contributors. Democrats have definitely made Greg Gianforte the bogeyman of this race, Banville said. I think its worked for their fundraising and volunteer mobilization efforts thus far. In January, the first campaign finance report from Whitney Williams, who is at once a first-time candidate but also by no means a political newcomer, was highly anticipated by the types who highly anticipate those kinds of things. She raised a staggering $439,000 out of the gate, which her campaign says is the most by any Democratic governor primary candidate in a first-quarter report. Williams roots are in Montana shes the daughter of Carol Williams, the first woman to hold the majority leadership position in the state Senate and founder of Carols List, which works to get Democratic women elected. And her father is Pat Williams, the longtime U.S. representative for Montana. Over her career, Williams has worked in the Clinton White House and then at a large social services fundraising organization before going on to found Williamsworks, her consulting business that works with large nonprofits, corporations and philanthropic groups. While Williams moved her life and business to Missoula in 2017, most of her career has been outside Montana. That's reflected in the network she tapped into at the start of her campaign. Depending on what a candidate wants to say, campaign data can be parsed a lot of ways. Looking at all of Williams' money, about a quarter of it comes from Montana. But cut another way, 60% of the individuals who donated to her campaign are Montanans. Williams said shes proud of the second figure, but not shying away from how she looked to familiar faces from her private sector days to launch her political one. Ive spent my career working with folks in and outside Montana and Im really proud that they both see my executive leadership and they care deeply about keeping Montana Montana, Williams said, adding that she thinks it would benefit a governor to have contacts with "job creators near and far." Theres some novelty in reading through the list of Williams contributors, seeing names like Jennifer Garner, Ben Affleck and JJ Abrams. But there are also people like Allan Golston, president of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and Eric Schmidt, the former CEO and chairman of Google and executive chairman of Alphabet. A map of where Williams contributions come from, based on data provided by the campaign, is populated with dots on the western half of the state and in what counts for urban centers in Montana, but dramatically thins out east of Billings. While that part of the state trends toward Republicans, it will be important for any Democrat who wants to win in the general election to drum up as much support as possible there. Williams is aware that could be seen as a weakness and is working to change the map when the next finance reports are filed in March. We launched our 56-county tour last week and were really focused on making sure we meet folks in small towns and rural communities across the state, Williams said. Well see a dramatic difference in our next report because when folks meet this campaign, they invest and were going to be doing a lot more community conversations and house parties and getting out knocking on doors and meeting people. Schreiner has raised $85,000, with 85% of that coming from in Montana. So far Cooney has raised about $450,000, reaching out to a broad network of contributors that have supported his past political bids and always expanding the pool of financial backers. Seventy-three percent of his money comes from Montana, which he points out as a way to contrast himself with Williams. Behind every dollar is typically a vote, so Im very happy were getting that kind of support from Montana, Cooney said, adding he's received contributions from all but a handful of counties in the state. According to data provided by the campaign, Cooneys average amount per contribution is also smaller compared with the other front-runners on both sides of the race, at about $39. I am very pleased that the bulk of my support is coming from Montanans. Theyre the ones that will be making the decision come election day, Cooney said. Theres also a been-there, done-that feel for how Cooney plans to approach a well-financed opponent, especially if he makes it through the primary. As Bullocks running mate in 2016, Cooney has already gone up against Gianforte and won. In that race, total spending by the candidates and other outside groups rose to more than $16 million. Ive been up against big money before and Ive succeeded. I plan on doing it again. We work harder, were making a personal connections to the people of Montana, and you knock on doors, Cooney said. Love 1 Funny 1 Wow 2 Sad 1 Angry 0 Get Government & Politics updates in your inbox! Stay up-to-date on the latest in local and national government and political topics with our newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. BEIRUT - More than 200 Lebanese and Palestinians held a protest Sunday near the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon against a White House plan for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Protesters waving Palestinian flags gathered on a road leading to the embassy northeast of Beirut amid tight security by Lebanese troops and riot police. Death to America! Death to Israel! We will die and Palestine survive, some of the demonstrators chanted. The U.S. plan heavily favoured Israel, granting the Palestinians limited self-rule in parts of the occupied West Bank while allowing Israel to annex all its settlements there and keep nearly all of east Jerusalem, which Palestinians claim as the capital of a future Palestinian state. Around noon, the protesters removed the barbed wire and reached a metal fence set up by security forces. Police used what appeared to be pepper spray to hold back some of the demonstrators who were on the fence, with at least three protesters being carried away. Later in the day, the protesters dispersed from the area without any serious clashes, apart from some stone throwing at security forces. On Saturday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas threatened to cut security ties with both Israel and the U.S. in a speech at an Arab League meeting in response to the U.S. plan. Arab foreign ministers there joined in criticizing the plan and calling it a setback to Mideast peace efforts. Lebanon is home to tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees and their descendants. There have been protests in the countrys 12 refugee camps since President Donald Trump unveiled the proposal in Washington. Hulton Archive/Getty The last of the Auschwitz survivors to revisit the extermination machine in Poland have left. Now very old men and women, they returned to mark the 75th anniversary of the infamous death camps liberation last Monday. Kate Middletons Secret Photos of Holocaust Survivors Unveiled Memory inflicts no greater pain than is theirs. The day they were freed in 1945 was both an end and a beginning: the end of terror and the beginning of remembering. And one of the things to remember is not just the vast horror of the Holocaust but the fact that it was conducted as an industrial enterprise by managers and bureaucrats with a chillingly impersonal attention to detail. Adolf Hitlers demonic program of genocide would have come to nothing without his enablers. On Feb. 6, 1944, SS Obergruppenfuhrer Oswald Pohl, who headed the part of the Nazi terror machine given the bland name Office of Economic Administration, wrote a report with the title Utilization of Textiles: Used Clothes from the Jewish Resettlement. He complained about the condition of material so far obtained from the Jewish resettlement in the camps in the Lublin area, and Auschwitz. Much of it, particularly for men, is much diminished by the fact that many clothes are rags The SS controlled the distribution of the clothes and possessions taken from the Jews as they arrived at the death camps. Every train delivering prisoners left on its return journey loaded with those possessions. Items of value, like jewelry, gold, including gold teeth, and foreign currency mostly ended up in the Reichsbank in Berlin, their worth carefully noted in ledgers. The clothes, if at all serviceable, went to the foreign workers who were part of a gigantic program of forced labor producing weapons and munitions. That program was designed and overseen with clinical efficiency by Albert Speer, the Reichsminister for Armaments and Munitions, Speer made only one visit to a concentration camp. In March 1943 he was given a carefully restricted tour of Mauthausen, near Linz in Austria. This camp was notorious for its stone quarry, where prisoners worked under brutal conditions and were machine-gunned if they became weak. Speers tour lasted only 45 minutes. He was spared the sight of actual prisoners, but he was shocked by the quality of the buildings. They were, he said, too lavish. Story continues Five days later he wrote to Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS, complaining that he needed all the steel, wood and manpower he could get for building arms factories: We must therefore carry out a new planning program for construction within the concentration camps [that] will require a minimum of material and labor. The answer is an immediate switch to primitive construction methods. Pohl, not Himmler, replied with a furious reminder that Speer had himself signed off on all the plans for building the camps and said a switch to primitive materials was unrealistic. He continued: we have 160,000 prisoners and are constantly battling against epidemics and a disproportionately high death rate, both largely due to impossible sanitary conditions. Of all those involved in the Nazi terror machine, Albert Speer was, literally, the most elusiveelusive because he escaped a death sentence at the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals, and elusive because until the end of his life (he died in 1981) he was never able to display any guilt about his role as an accomplice to genocide. Late in 1943, when Speer had brought about a dramatic revival of German arms production, the issue of Hitlers succession was being discussed quietly by his generals and some lower level ministers. Ullstein Bild/Getty At this point they were not talking about a coup, but a planned succession with Hitlers consent. They ruled out the founding Nazi psychopaths, Himmler, Goebbels, Bormann and Goering. One minister told Speer he thought Hitler himself favored Speernobody else had such a close relationship with him. Speer did not disagree, but the moment never came. Speers story reminds us in a timely way that its not only the knowingly depraved who gather around a tyrant. Equally dangerous are those, like Speer, who provide the system with their intellect while in denial about the consequences. Some people do this because the tyrant helps them to advance their own agendas; others do it just because being in the same room delivers the craved-for embrace of power. Speer had first endeared himself to Hitler as an architect. They shared a taste for the Greco-Roman style of triumphal buildings. This culminated in Speers plan to replace Berlin with a new capital city called Germania for the thousand-year Reich. At its centerroughly where Berlins Reichstag now sitsthere was to be a Great Hall with a massive dome nearly 1,000 feet high (the U.S. Capitol dome is 284 feet high). Speer was always resistant to self-doubt. Once he fell within Hitlers spell he enjoyed his proximity to absolute power, no matter how vile its actions. And Hitler clearly enjoyed his frequent communion with Speer. In these moments of spiritual kinship, talking of art and architecture, Hitler was flattered by Speer into thinking that he was an aesthete at the head of an Aryan empire purged of all racial impurities. As the war ended, Speer was captured in northern Germany by American troopsa U.S. intelligence team was keen to get to him before the Russians could, in order to understand how he had been able to double weapons production while under constant Allied air bombardment. Then he was handed over to the United Nations war crimes commission and put on trial at Nuremberg. On the night of Oct. 16-17, 1946, ten of Hitlers closest associates were hanged in the gymnasium of Nuremberg prison, having been found guilty of war crimes. Speer was there and heard their names being called out. But he was spared, given a 20-year sentence to be served in Spandau. (Oswald Pohl was executed in June 1951.) Afterward it emerged that the principal American judge, Francis Biddle, and the Soviet Unions judge, General Iona Nikitchenko, had voted to sentence Speer to death, but another American judge, John Parker, and a British judge, Norman Birkett, argued for clemency, apparently because he seemed to them too refined to be a mass murderer. Also taken into consideration was his cooperation with Allied intelligence. The jail sentence was a compromise reached after a two-day argument among the judges. Speer was released in 1966. He published a self-serving best-selling version of history, Inside the Third Reich, and became wealthy, considered by many as the rare Good Nazi who had done what he could to curb the worst of Hitlers instincts. He had always acknowledged that his industrial plan had depended on slave labor, including many Jews, working under appalling conditions, often dying on the job, but denied any knowledge of the scale of the Holocaust. He claimed that he had not been present at a conference in 1943 when Himmler spoke of wiping Jews from the face of the earth. But 25 years after his death a newly discovered cache of letters revealed that he had, indeed, been present. The master dissembler was finally exposed as the monster he was. Its always questionable to introduce the Nazi regime as a caution when looking at our own present carelessness with the values of our republic. The Holocaust was a crime of such enormity and singularity that we can too easily trivialize it by invoking any historical comparison. Nonetheless the message from Auschwitz was reinforced by its anniversary: Ronald Lauder, head of the World Jewish Congress, said he was worried that the lessons were being forgotten: Auschwitz is a beacon of where anti-Semitism can lead, we cant rewrite history but we can be much more forceful today. A wave of anti-Semitic attacks and hate crimes in the U.S. has followed the massacre of 11 people in a Pittsburgh synagogue in October 2018. Three people were killed last December in a shooting at a kosher grocery in Jersey City and at least 10 anti-Semitic incidents took place in the New York area over Hanukkah. One issue raised by several of the Holocaust survivors at Auschwitz was how such a barbaric crime could happen in a country that, until then, was regarded as both civilized and an intellectual powerhouse. It seemed all too easy for the Nazis to operate with the silent consent of a majority of the German people. Speer addressed this in an interview with the British journalist Gitta Sereny, who spent 10 years studying his life for a riveting book, Albert Speer: His Battle With Truth. He was responding to a charge that he tried to present himself as the prototype of the new technological man while he had conveniently overlooked the connection between technology and a program of mass extermination. He argued that the machinery of murder had nothing to do with technology, it was too primitive. And then he said: Eighty million people were not persuaded to follow Hitler because they knew he was going to murder people in lime ditches and gas chambers; they did not follow him because he seemed evil, but because he seemed extraordinarily good. And what convinced them of this was Goebbels brilliant propaganda, his unprecedented use of modern means of mass communication. Its terrifying to think what Goebbels could have done using todays means of mass communication. But perhaps we already know. Behind The Auschwitz Commemorations, A Raw Putin Power Play Read more at The Daily Beast. Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now! Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more. New Covid curbs in UP: Government and private employees to work at 50 per cent capacity Night curfew in Andhra Pradesh: Know timings, guidelines, rules; What is allowed, what is not allowed Contacts of confirmed cases don't need to get tested unless identified as high risk: Govt Coronavirus: India temporarily suspends e-visa facility for Chinese, foreigners residing in China India pti-PTI New Delhi, Feb 02: India on Sunday temporarily suspended e-visa facility for Chinese travellers and foreigners residing in China in view of the virulent coronavirus that has killed more than 300 people, infected 14,562 others and spread to 25 countries, including India, the US and the UK. Due to certain current developments, travel to India on e-visas stands temporarily suspended with immediate effect," the Indian Embassy announced. This applies to holders of Chinese passports and applicants of other nationalities residing in the Peoples Republic of China. Holders of already issued e-visas may note that these are no longer valid," the announcement said. All those who have a compelling reason to visit India may contact the Embassy of India in Beijing or the Indian consulates in Shanghai or Guangzhou, as well as the Indian Visa Application Centres in these cities," it said. On Sunday, India airlifted a second batch of 323 stranded Indians and seven Maldivian citizens from coronavirus-hit Wuhan city, taking the total number of people evacuated to 654. Air India's jumbo B747 made two flights to Wuhan city - the ground zero of the coronavirus epidemic. In the first flight on early Saturday, 324 Indians were evacuated and on Sunday another 323 Indians and seven Maldivian citizens were flown back. Vietnam is among the worlds top cashew nut exporters, but it still cannot control the material supply sources. Chinese businesses are seeking to import large quantities of cashew nuts as their government has decided to import some kinds of farm produce from the US. China is one of three of Vietnams biggest markets. However, Vietnams cashew nut exporters may fail to meet the opportunity to boost exports to China because of the lack of raw materials for processing plants. Vietnams cashew nut processing industry has been relying on import materials for many years. As a result, Vietnamese enterprises find it difficult to draw up their production and business plans. In Vietnam, distribution is controlled by foreign invested enterprises (FIEs), and Vietnamese producers have to pay 98 percent of contract value in advance when making transactions with foreign partners. The remaining 2 percent will be paid after products are delivered. Vietnams cashew nut processing industry has been relying on import materials for many years. As a result, Vietnamese enterprises find it difficult to draw up their production and business plans. Reviewing 2019 collection activities, Cao Thuc Uy, managing director of Cao Phat Cashew in Ba Ria Vung Tau province, said he wants the selling prices to increase, but he doesnt expect a sharp increase for cashew prices. Cao Phat has set the raw material purchasing price on the basis of the current price in order to avoid risks in the future. To arrange enough input materials, T&T Group had to make shuttle trips to African countries to collect raw cashews. According to Truong Si Ba, president of Tan Long JSC of the T&T Group, it took T&T six months to obtain the contract on buying 176,000 tons of raw materials. Pham Van Cong, chair of the Vietnam Cashew Association (Vinacas), said the import price of $1,360 per ton on average in 2019 was reasonable for processors. However, he fears that the import volume would be lower this year. Despite great efforts, Vietnam still cannot settle the problems in raw material supply. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) reported that Vietnam imported 94,000 tons in November 2019, worth $130 million and 1.51 million tons, worth $1.99 billion in the first 11 months of 2019. The largest cashew supplier for Vietnam in the first 10 months of 2019 was the Ivory Coast (32.7 percent). The raw material price has great influences on the cashew nut export price. According to MARD, the amount of cashew nut exports in the first 11 months of 2019 was 419,000 tons, worth $3.04 billion, increasing by 23.6 percent compared with the same period 2018. Vietnam planned to export 450,000 tons in 2019. T&T Group consumes 15 percent of total cashew imports. It has signed an MoU with a representative of Guinea Bissau on importing 150,000-200,000 tons of cashew a year. Kim Chi More efforts needed to maintain VNs leading position in cashew export Viet Nam stood out as the worlds largest cashew exporter last year but there remains many challenges ahead for the country to retain its leading position in the future. Sweet Hour of Prayer Ministries (SHOP), an organization that helps families in need, got in on Carnival season fun with its seventh annual Houston Creole Mardi Gras parade Saturday morning in Discovery Green. Family-friendly marching bands, trail riders, horse carriages, car clubs and decorated floats drew a crowd along Bell Street from Jackson, along Austin Street and east on McKinney to Crawford at the downtown park. The parade ended with the groups traditional battle of the bands at noon. Here are todays top news, analysis and opinion at 9 AM. Know all about the latest news and other news updates from Hindustan Times. 2nd batch of 323 citizens airlifted from coronavirus-hit Wuhan to reach Delhi A special flight of Air India carrying the second batch of Indians from Chinas Wuhan will land in Delhi on Saturday, a day after hundreds were evacuated from the Chinese city in Hubei province at the centre of the novel coronavirus outbreak. Read more Chinas coronavirus toll rises to 304, over 14000 cases reported Chinas death toll from a new virus has increased to 304 with more than 14,000 cases, amid warnings from the World Health Organization that other countries need to be prepared in the event the disease spreads among their populations. Read more Govt looks to monetise 12 highway bundles of over 6,000km in 5 years, says Nirmala Sitharaman The Centre proposes to monetise at least twelve lots of highways spanning over 6,000 kilometres in a bid to encourage the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to pursue commercialisation of roads to raise funds, Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in the union budget on Saturday. Read more Horoscope Today: Astrological prediction for February 2, whats in store for Leo, Virgo, Scorpio, Sagittarius and other zodiac signs The positions of the sun, moon and planets determine our daily horoscope. Each sign has its own characteristics and traits which tell us a lot about a persons personality. Read more Australian Open: Prajnesh Gunneswaran bills Novak Djokovics final against Dominic Thiem as battle between old vs new The Australian Open 2020 mens final on Sunday at Rod Laver Arena Court in Melbourne Park will see the title-holder Novak Djokovic facing off against World No. 5 Dominic Thiem. Read more Twitter suspends Zero Hedges account for spreading fake news on Coronavirus Twitter has permanently suspended markets blog Zero Hedges Twitter account, @zerohedge, for violating companys policy after it posted a news showing a genuine Chinese researcher as the man who created the strain of coronavirus thats currently spreading around the world. Read more Jawaani Jaaneman box office day 2: Saif Ali Khan, Alaya F film shows sharp increase, earns 7.74 cr Jawaani Jaaneman saw a steep rise in collections on Saturday, making an estimated total of 7.74 crore. After making a slow opening of 3.24 crore on Friday, the film collected an estimated 4.50 crore on Saturday. Directed by Nitin Kakkar, the film features Saif Ali Khan, Alaya F and Tabu in lead roles. Read more Istanbul, Feb 3 : Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with Islamic Hamas movement chief Ismail Haniyeh in Istanbul to discuss the latest developments in the region, local media reported. The meeting took place on Saturday behind closed doors and lasted more than one hour, reported state-run Anadolu agency on Sunday. US President Donald Trump recently revealed the details of his Middle East peace plan, dubbed as the "deal of the century", Xinhua news agency reported. The Turkish Foreign Ministry declared the plan as "stillborn" in a written statement. "This plan is an annexation plan aiming to destroy the two-state solution and seize Palestinian territories," the ministry said in the statement. Erdogan also expressed his supports to his Palestinian counterpart Mahmoud Abbas in a phone conversation on Friday, Turkey's Directorate of Communications said. Good Morning America The Biden administration's plan to send 500 million at-home tests to Americans for free is an historic undertaking, but one that will take weeks or months to fully execute, recently released contracts and interviews with seven test manufacturers suggest. Contracts for the first two batches of tests were announced on Friday, one for 13.3 million kits from a health technology company and another for an undisclosed amount from a distribution company in Virginia that had extras on hand -- all to be distributed in an effort to reduce the massive testing shortage in the U.S. Tests won't be available to be ordered through a government website until later this month, the official said, meaning it's unlikely the average American will get free tests delivered in time for the January peak of omicron cases predicted by most models. Brexit Part One ends and Brexit Part Two begins. Johnson squares up the EU saying that we cannot have the access of Canada but the obligations of Norway The Prime Minister is to demand that the bloc treats the UK as an equal and will tell voters that no achievement lies beyond our reach. With a take-it-or-leave-it offer, he will say that Brussels has a choice between a tariff-free trade deal, similar to the one struck with Canada, or an Australia-type model. In essence, the Australian version would be a continuation of the withdrawal agreement struck last month. The keynote speech comes as an influential group of Tory MPs, led by Sir John Hayes, push for Mr Johnson to be ambitious and start building a Commonwealth-wide trade deal. Sunday Express It insists that the UK must accept alignment with its rules on workers rights, the environment and state aid, as the price for a deal Observer Prime Minister is privately infuriated with EU attempts to move the goalposts Sunday Telegraph EU to back Spain over Gibraltar Observer The ten biggest issues to resolve Sunday Telegraph UK officials told to sit separately from EU ones at international meetings Sunday Times EU demanding another billion Sunday Express Best for Britain vows to fight on Sunday Times Simon Clarke: leaving will be good for the North-East Sunday Express Foreign press: Die Welt compares Brexit to John Cleeses Ministry of Silly Walks sketch Mail on Sunday Brexit Day 1: how it was marked in Brussels Sunday Times Brexit Day 2: it was the best moment of my life, says Farage Sunday Express Brexit Day 3: Netherlands town hall replaces Union Jack with Scottish Flag Scotsman Shanker Singham: As Brexit Part Two begins, Johnson must not allow the EU to control the negotiation Over the next 11 months there is still a danger to the UK. If we dont get this right, our economy could be vulnerable. If we fall into the trap of conceding to dynamic regulatory alignment in return for an easy trading life, we will be doing a disservice to the UKs long-term economic interests, and damaging not only new businesses and consumers, but businesses of the future the very sort the prime minister wants to encourage. We will have taken back control of our trade policy only to allow the EU to set our rules and regulations. This does not mean we will diverge all over the place from the beginning we probably wont. But we must reserve our constitutional right to do so. Sunday Times >Today: ToryDiary A Waltzing Matilda Brexit? > Yesterday: The Prime Minister prepares for the next great constitutional challenge: the future of Scotland The campaign, starting on Valentines Day or soon after, is a signal that the prime minister regards protecting the Union as the top priority after Brexit. As well as a tub-thumping video in cinemas, the plan is for TV, radio and digital ads. Ministers are impressed by Scotland Is Now, an SNP-government-backed campaign to promote the country. The UK government is expected to spend almost 1 for every man, woman and child in Scotland in a year-long effort to win over those in favour of independence. A source said Johnson would put the Union front and centre as he seeks to head off demands for a second independence referendum. Sunday Times And tomorrow, he will pledge more roads, houses, trains and bridges On the domestic front, Johnson will use Mondays speech to signal a blitz of infrastructure spending, paving the way for the approval of the HS2 high-speed rail link and radical planning reforms to build more homes to boost property owning among the under-40s. It is the moment when we have to answer the demand of those who voted for Brexit in 2016, he said on Friday. Sunday Times Cummings 1) His tears as Britain leaves At a party in 10 Downing Street, as the 11pm deadline passed, the assistant to the prime minister and the most feared man in government took to the microphone wearing tracksuit bottoms and black trainers and was lost for words as emotion overcame him. The man once branded a career psychopath by David Cameron, clutched a hand across his face and sought to compose himself. Eventually, he managed to say: Lots of people in this room know what happened. Thank you. Sunday Times When he slammed Defence Ministry corruption Sunday Express Cummings 2) Reign of terror as he cracks down on SpAd lunches with journalists At a meeting at Downing Street on Friday, Mr Cummings told his staff: The peoples government doesnt take any favours. No coffees, no lunches, no drinks. Especially not with journalistsa reshuffle is expected within the next fortnight but there is not due to be a major upheaval of Mr Johnsons most senior Ministers. Mr Javid, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, Home Secretary Priti Patel, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace and Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove are all said to be safe. Mail on Sunday Cummings 3) He fires Perry ONeill from climate change job She took on the job after leaving parlianent at the election but was informed that her services were no longer required in a telephone conversation with Dominic Cummings, Johnsons most senior aide, on Friday. A minister will replace her. Perry ONeill is then understood to have talked to the prime minister and to Sir Edward Lister, another senior figure in No 10, with whom she had been discussing plans for the conferenceShe reported directly to Johnson, who was supposed to chair the cabinet sub-committee. But Perry ONeill revealed on Friday that not one meeting had been held. Sunday Times Johnsons first honours list will be even larger than Mays last Moynihan, who threw a lavish Brexit bash on Friday night, is expected to appear on the prime ministers dissolution honours list alongside the former cabinet ministers Sir David Lidington and Sir Patrick McLoughlin. They will join Nicky Morgan and Zac Goldsmith, who have already been elevated, as part of a bid to bring a better balance to the Lords, which has a bias towards Labour and the Liberal Democrats. The prime minister is understood to want to reward the unsung heroes of the Brexit campaign. According to several sources, the number of Tory peers to be created will be in the late twenties, exceeding the 19 created by Theresa May in her dissolution list. Sunday Times Long-Bailey: Get used to Brexit Ms Long-Bailey said the party could not campaign at the next general election, expected in 2024, with the message of we told you so if the countrys economic fortunes took a dip after leaving the EU. She admitted it was sad to see the UKs divorce from Brussels finalised this week but said the debate is over on BrexitMs Nandy was critical of Labours reaction to the referendum outcome. She accused the leadership under Jeremy Corbyn of looking backwards after the result rather than looking forward to the country we can be. She said: We completely missed the point of that political earthquake, which was a clamour for more power, more control and more agency across this country. Mail on Sunday Starmer pledges to raise taxes on high earners Sunday Times Nandy wants oppressive term Empire removed from honours system Observer Labours hierarchy should be full of shame, but they just sound smug Nick Cohen, Observer The voters wont buy Starmers man of the people pose Sun on Sunday Editorial Peerage withdrawal demand for Watson over false abuse claims 1) Harvey Proctor Sunday Times Peerage withdrawal demand for Watson over false abuse claims 1) Janner family Mail on Sunday Rod Liddle: Watsons unethical pursuit of Proctor should bar him from the Lords The problem is that, on the face of it, Watson is precisely the kind of figure who gets bunged a peerage, and Proctors comprehensive detailing of Watsons behaviour may serve only to convince his lordship that old Tom is an ideal candidate. Hes a political failure who did something very bad yup, roll out the ermine. Indeed, as Proctor also points out, another crucial player in the Operation Midland fiasco, the former Metropolitan police commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe, has a seat in the Lords already. Sunday Times Trump 1) Hes on the verdict of acquital over impeachment The president, impeached by the House for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, stands on the verge of acquittal with the closing arguments and a vote scheduled for this week. We must hear from those who were in the room where it happened, said the House impeachment manager Sylvia Garcia during Fridays debate over witnesses. The line is a reference to a song in Lin-Manuel Mirandas hit show and The Room Where It Happened is the title of John Boltons new book. Sunday Times Trump 2) The Palestinian Authority spurns his peace plan The Palestinian Authority has cut all ties with the US and Israel, including those relating to security, after rejecting a Middle East peace plan presented by Donald Trump, the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, said on Saturday. Abbas was in Cairo to address the Arab League, which backed the Palestinians. The blueprint, endorsed by the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, calls for the creation of a demilitarised Palestinian state that would exclude Jewish settlements built in occupied territory and remain under near-total Israeli security control. Observer WASHINGTON Even as they are set to acquit President Trump in his impeachment trial this week, Senate Republicans appear to be increasingly breaking with his defense that he did nothing wrong. On Sunday, Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, who was a key vote against calling witnesses in the Senate trial, expanded upon his criticism that Mr. Trump was crossing the line in his pressure campaign against Ukraine. And Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa, who has remained a reliable defender of the president during his trial, called his actions not what I would have done. A day before the first contest of the 2020 election, two days before Mr. Trumps State of the Union address and three days before his expected acquittal, they and other Republicans appeared to be coalescing around a more nuanced argument: Mr. Trumps efforts to push Ukraine into investigating a political rival while withholding critical military aid might not have been appropriate. But that did not warrant the presidents removal from office for the first time in American history. I think he shouldnt have done it I think it was wrong, Mr. Alexander said Sunday on Meet the Press on NBC. Inappropriate, was the way Id say it. Improper, crossing the line. And then the only question left is: Who decides what to do about that? The Philippines has become the first country in the world that has confirmed the death from coronavirus outside mainland China, suggest reports. The death toll from the deadly coronavirus has reportedly surged to at least 304 Saturday, confirmed the Chinese officials to the reports. As the country imposed travel restrictions to curb the contagion from the Wuhan 2019-nCoV disease, a 44-year-old man, who reportedly arrived from Wuhan, China succumbed to his worsening condition from the Virus in a hospital in Manila, Philippines. According to the reports, the man was brought for medical assistance after experiencing fever, cough and breathing problems, then later developed pneumonia-like symptoms. Rabindra Abeyasinghe, the World Health Organization representative to the Philippines, told the media that this was the first instance of death reported by a country outside mainland China. However, what needs to be taken into mind is that this was not a locally acquired case, he added. Abeyasinghe emphasized that the patient had come to the Philippines from the Hubei province, the epicentre of the outbreak of the deadly virus. Read UK Coronavirus Patients Being Treated At Newcastle Read German Coronavirus Evacuation Flight Lands In Frankfurt 2 confirmed cases of the virus in Philippines Philippines authorities have so far confirmed two confirmed cases of the virus, the other reportedly a woman that arrived with the patient who lost his life to coronavirus. The woman is a confirmed case of the virus infection as she arrived from Wuhan, and remains in hospital quarantined in Manilla. The countries across the globe have reportedly stepped up the containment efforts and precautionary measures as the World Health Organization declared coronavirus outbreak a global health emergency. As the death toll spiked to a shocking 304, all reported in Central Hubei province by the Chinese officials, countries worldwide have airlifted their citizens from the mainland China and quarantined them in order to curb any further contamination from the disease within the territory. China has confirmed 2,590 new infection cases across the country surging the figures to a new 14,380. Read Amid Coronavirus Outbreak, Sri Lanka & Turkey Evacuate Their Citizens From Wuhan Read Russia Imposes Various Restrictions On Chinese Citizens Over Deadly Coronavirus A useful way to think about statements by public figures is to imagine them as bets being placed. Sometimes they are expressions of sincerely held beliefs, but even then we are talking about some fairly canny people deciding to say a specific thing at a specific time. A public statement is, in essence, a prediction that the winds are blowing in a particular direction, and that there are gains to be made if you turn your sail in the right direction. We should worry, then, that significant figures in this country are making strong bets on the racist far right. Mark Latham is the most obvious, having joined with Pauline Hanson, and making noises about creating a far-right super party. Many readers will laugh at Latham. But Tony Abbott was prime minister just five years ago. Tony Abbott and Viktor Orban. Credit:AAP, Bloomberg Abbott, at 62, is relatively young: more than a decade younger than Donald Trump, who hopes to serve until 2025. He seems determined to stay in public life. So it is significant that he travelled to a conference in Hungary late last year to praise Viktor Orban, that country's President. Saratoga Springs Police Department Unlicensed Operation: Cole Hayes, 29, of Albany was arrested at 12:41 a.m. on Jan. 28 following a traffic stop on South Broadway and Fenlon Street and charged with aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle third degree, a misdemeanor. Drug Possession: Shawn Farrell, 20, of Saratoga Springs was arrested at 1:11 p.m on Jan. 28 on Blue Streak Boulevard and charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance seventh degree, a misdemeanor. Unlicensed Operation: Annette Cammarere, 58, of Ballston Spa was arrested at 9:22 p.m. on Jan. 28 following a traffic stop and charged with aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle third degree, a misdemeanor. Drug Possession: Christine Soucie,, 43, of Bennington, Vermont was arrested at 10:40 p.m. on Jan. 28 following a traffic stop on Jefferson and Worth Streets and charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance seventh degree, a misdemeanor. Welfare Fraud: Debra Morelli, 33, of Saratoga Springs was arrested at 3:08 p.m. on Jan. 29 at 5 Lake Ave. and charged with offering a false instrument to file first degree, a felony and welfare fraud fifth degree, a misdemeanor. Petit Larceny: Cynthia Cooper, 56, of Saratoga Springs was arrested at 5:42 pm. on Jan. 29 at 5 Lake Ave. and charged with petit larceny and criminal contempt second degree, both misdemeanors. DWI: Gregory Wasserbach,, 54, of Gansevoort was arrested at 3:37 a.m. on Jan. 31 following a traffic stop on Broadway and Ellsworth Jones Place and charged with driving while intoxicated, a misdemeanor. DWI: Mark Giosi, 36, of Saratoga Springs was arrested at 4:16 a.m.on Jan. 31 following a traffic stop on Lake Avenue and charged with driving while intoxicated:first offense, and operating a motor vehicle with a blood alcohol content of .08 percent: first offense, both misdemeanors. Criminal Trespass: Christine Lieberman, 62, of Saratoga Springs was arrested at 7:12 a.m. on Regent Street and charged with criminal trespass third degree: property fenced in or enclosed, a misdemeanor. The Jammu and Kashmir administration on Saturday said the killing of three Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists in a gunfight near here prevented a "major terror plot" in the Union Territory. Three Pakistani terrorists, travelling in a truck from Kathua to the Kashmir valley, were killed when security forces intercepted them on the Jammu-Srinagar national highway at a toll plaza in Nagrota here. "Neutralizing these fully-armed terrorists has possibly prevented a 'fidayeen' (suicide) attack and much bigger terror plot," Rajiv Rai Bhatnagar, advisor to Lt Governor G C Murmu, said during an interaction with senior police officers including DGP Dilbag Singh here. He said efforts are being made to revive terrorism in the Jammu region. "Police along other security agencies should fill the gaps to prevent any such attempts," Bhatnagar said, complementing police for successful operation at Nagrota. He said preventive action to thwart terrorists' designs is always better. "Border security and highway grids are to be further tightened and maximum use of technology should be made to prevent such attempts," Bhatnagar said. He also lauded the role of the Jammu and Kashmir Police against the drug peddling menace and said a "good job" has been done on that front but more is needed. "Since the Jammu region has vast border connectivity with the rest of the country, plugging the routes and increasing the checking points would put a check on the NDPS activities," the advisor said. Meanwhile, Inspector General of Police, Jammu zone, Mukesh Singh handed over a commendation certificate Class-I and a cash prize of Rs 25,000 each to its three personnel -- Assistant Sub-inspector Rajinder Singh, Selection grade constable Kartar Singh and Constable Bhoom Raj -- for their exemplary bravery during the Friday encounter. Constable Raj, who was injured during the gunbattle, is undergoing treatment at Government Medical College hospital here. He was handed over the certificate and cash by Singh during a visit to enquire about his health, a police spokesman said. BAGHDAD - Anti-government demonstrators on Sunday rejected Iraqs new prime minister-designate following his nomination by rival government factions, compounding the challenges hell have to surmount in order to resolve months of civil unrest. Meanwhile, new divisions emerged among protesters and supporters of a maverick and often inscrutable Shiite cleric, who initially threw his weight behind the uprising but now is re-positioning himself toward the political establishment, after elites selected a candidate for prime minister that he endorsed. On Sunday, Muqtada al-Sadr told his followers camped out among protesters in the capital and in the countrys south to unblock roads and restore normalcy, angering protesters who felt al-Sadr had betrayed them and the reformist aims of their movement for political gain. Saturdays selection of former Communications Minister Mohammed Allawi, 66, to replace outgoing Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi was the product of months of back-room talks between rival parties, ending a political stalemate. Hundreds of students voiced their rejection of Allawi at rallies in Baghdads central plazas and in southern Iraq. Protesters hung portraits of Allawi marked with an X on bridges and tunnels around Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the four-month protest movement. We dont want Allawi because he is a party member chosen by the parties, said Hadi Safir, a protester in Tahrir. We want an independent nominee. Others were more diplomatic, saying theyll wait and see how Allawi delivers on promises to hold early elections. Iraqi officials said it was likely Allawi would face the same political realities that bedeviled his predecessor, who was often caught between rival political blocs Sairoon, headed by al-Sadr, and Fatah, headed by Hadi al-Ameri. He is not known as being tough or outspoken, so some see him as an even more pacified version of Adil Abdul-Mahdi, and will just serve the will of the parties, said one Iraqi official. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to reporters. But Allawi will have to cope with shifting sands of power in the Iraqi arena, with al-Sadr currently gaining the upper hand after showing his dominance over the Iraqi street. The cleric recently staged an anti-U.S. rally that brought tens of thousands to the street. By asking his followers to return to Tahrir Square, al-Sadr gained an advantage in the negotiations for prime minister. The groups we call pro-Iranian ... are taking a backseat now as al-Sadr emerges as more active in shaping the new government, said Harith Hasan, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center. Following the U.S. airstrike in Baghdad that killed top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, Hasan said the conviction increased that (Iraqs) military apparatus and militias would be unable to put an end to the protest movement and at the same time secure a new deal for the new prime minister without that help of al-Sadr that strengthened his position. Student demonstrations were also held in the southern city of Basra rejecting Allawis candidacy. Other protesters burned tires in the holy city of Najaf. We did not choose this person; we demanded certain qualifications, said Ahmed Ali, a protester in Basra. Mohammed Allawi is rejected by the people. Mass anti-government protests erupted on Oct. 1 in Baghdad and the predominately Shiite south. They have decried rampant government corruption, poor services and lack of employment, and came with lofty goals: overthrow the political establishment, pass electoral reforms and hold snap elections. Security forces have killed at least 500 protesters since. Al-Sadrs followers returned to the demonstration camps on Friday after the cleric reversed his decision to stop supporting the protest movement. Upon returning, al-Sadrs followers consolidated control of strategic areas in Tahrir Square, including key bridges leading to the fortified Green Zone, the seat of government. Significantly, they also moved into a skeletal high-rise building nicknamed the Turkish Restaurant, which offers a strategic lookout over the protests. Militiamen interviewed said they had come to clear the area of trouble-makers and drug-users. We came here to clean this place up, said one militia member, standing guard outside the building. Many protesters said al-Sadrs followers had threatened them to toe the clerics line or leave the square. They will never mix with us, said protester Mariam Nael, 18. We are here for our homeland, they are blindly following the tweet of one cleric. (Natural News) American greed in the age of godless capitalism knows no bounds. Theres almost nothing too sinister or evil that todays Americans wont do for a buck, including manufacturing the cheapest and most overpriced products with built-in obsolescence that they can get away with, which is exactly what John Deere is doing with its newest lines of farming tractors. To be fair, part of the problem is that the government actually mandates that manufacturers of cars, tractors and other vehicles make them as proprietary and complicated as possible to ensure that consumers are forever dependent on corporations in order to live. But John Deere is reportedly going above and beyond these requirements by peddling tractors that can actually brick themselves in the event that farmers attempt to repair them without taking them to John Deere-approved repair facilities. Just like Elon Musk is doing with his garbage Tesla vehicles, John Deere is making it all but impossible for farmers to keep their John Deere tractors running without making continual payments to the company for the latest software upgrades. Writing for The Burning Platform, farmer Eric Peters explains that new John Deere tractors are constantly connected to the mother ship, which means the company can update them on a whim and basically kill their ability to operate if John Deere owners dont abide by the companys newfangled rules. John Deere no longer even considers purchasers of its new tractors as owners. It instead refers to them as authorized users, almost like a software license that continually has to be renewed in order to be valid. This corrupt business model is making it difficult for many farmers to even stay in business, which is driving many of them to purchase older John Deere tractor models that are serviceable by pretty much anyone with a basic know-how of how they work. As it turns out, older is better in almost every technological category. And American society is beginning to see a resurgence back towards the technologies of old, which are cheaper, more reliable and all-around better than anything offered today in the name of technological progress. Thats the beauty of the pre-computer stuff, writes Peters. It never needs an upgrade and you diagnose it by checking for spark, ignition and fuel. There are no codes to read. Just the occasional leak to fix or worn component to replace. Which doesnt require a trip to the dealer because the manufacturer doesnt claim it owns the codes and hasnt got a proprietary lock on the tools and wont allow you to service the thing yourself, even if you had them. Most modern technology is JUNK stick with the old, if you can Peters says he currently uses a 1979 Mitsubishi tractor that contains nothing electronic besides the sealed beam headlights and the 12-volt starter battery. This particular model even has a mechanically injected diesel engine meaning that, even in the event of a wide-scale electromagnetic pulse (EMP), the thing will still be able to run. But all of the newer tractors, which cost upwards of $100,000 a piece, will only continue to run as long as John Deere allows them to run. Should John Deere remotely decide that a farmer isnt paying enough for corporate repairs, the company can simply shut the machine down and render it useless. In many modern computer-controlled vehicles tractors as well as cars key components are specific to that particular vehicle and must be coded to work with it by the dealer, Peters further explains. Believe it or not, you cant even replace the battery or a headlight in some new cars (and probably also Deere tractors) without plugging the vehicle into a dealership computer. Be sure to read his full analysis at this link. For more related news about the sinister designs behind modern technology, check out Deception.news. Sources for this article include: TheBurningPlatform.com NaturalNews.com T he prospect of Britain being a competitor after leaving the EU "terrifies" Brussels, Nigel Farage has claimed. The Brexit Party leader appeared on BBC's Andrew Marr Show to welcome Boris Johnson's tough approach to the forthcoming trade talks with the EU. It was reported on Sunday that Mr Johnson will use a speech on Monday to toughen his post-Brexit stance ahead of negotiations and will say he will accept no alignment with EU rules. Mr Farage has now said that he supports moves by the Government to move away from Brussels rules. If we finish up with alignment, then it means the 88 per cent of our economy that does not sell goods into the EU is still bound by EU rules and that would not be Brexit, said Mr Farage. I think he is saying all the right things. I think he is being consistent with the manifesto on which he was elected. Saying that the prospect of the UK being a competitor "terrifies" Brussels, he added: "I got the sense before leaving the European Parliament, that for the first time since 2016, they are a bit more frightened of us than we are of them. What they fear more than anything and bear in mind Italy is in recession, Germany is very close to being in recession what they fear is a competitor on their doorstep. That terrifies them. What we should be doing, in our national interest, is to make sure we are a competitor on their doorstep. Brexit: UK's final day in EU 1 /44 Brexit: UK's final day in EU Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson arrives to attend a cabinet meeting held at the National Glass Centre at the University of Sunderland AFP via Getty Images A massive banner by the campaign group Another Europe is Possible is hung off Westminster Bridge in London, ahead of the UK leaving the European Union PA People wear Union Jack hats and Brexit Day t shirts in Parliament Square as people prepare for Brexit Getty Images Pro EU supporters let off flares from Westminster Bridge by the London Eye as people prepare for Brexit Getty Images European Parliament President David Sassoli speaks during a media conference at the Parlamentarium in Brussels AP MEP Jonathan Bullock holding the Union Jack waves from a taxi as he leaves the European Parliament AFP via Getty Images Commuters walk along London Bridge toward the City of London with Tower Bridge AFP via Getty Images Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon delivers a speech on Brexit day Reuters AFP via Getty Images European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President Charles Michel and European Parliament President David Sassoli arrive for a meeting near The European Parliament in Brussels AFP via Getty Images Steve Bray in Westminster this morning Jeremy Selwyn People walk past a Brexit countdown clock at the Parlamentarium in Brussels AP Union Flags line the Mall leading to Buckingham Palace AFP via Getty Images British members of the European Parliament from the Brexit Party Jonathan Bullock and Ann Widdecombe wave in front of the train station as they leave in Brussels AFP via Getty Images Pro-EU anti-Brexit protesters hold placards in Parliament Square in London AFP via Getty Images Sunrise over the Houses of Parliament Getty Images Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid arrives at King's Cross St. Pancras Station in London before boarding a train to the North East for a cabinet meeting in Sunderland PA Brexit Party members of the European Parliament, Jack Pugh and David Bull, depart from the Parliament to return to Great Britain on the day the United Kingdom will officially fulfill Brexit and leave the European Union Getty Images Britain's ambassador to the European Union Tim Barrow leaves the British representation to the EU residence in Brussels AFP via Getty Images A man sits as members of the media set up on Parliament Square on Brexit day Reuters European Commission Chief Negociator Michel Barnier arrives for a meeting near the European Parliament in Brussels AFP via Getty Images Red Viking apples with the Union Jack are displayed and given out for free to promote British produce on Parliament Square AP A woman carrying the red box belonging to Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab goes into King's Cross Station in London to board a train to the North East for a cabinet meeting in Sunderland PA A technician makes lighting adjustments prior to a media conference of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President Charles Michel and European Parliament President David Sassoli at the Parlamentarium in Brussels AP Ann Widdecombe member of the European Parliament (MEP) for South West England, reacts with other members of the Brexit party as they leave en masse from the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium PA Euro Balloons stuck in a tree in Westminster Jeremy Selwyn Newspapers and other souvenirs are pictured at a store, near Parliament Square REUTERS Julian Smith, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland arrives at King's Cross Station in London PA A British bulldog toy and other souvenirs are pictured at a souvenir store, near Parliament Square Reuters International Trade Secretary Liz Truss arrives at King's Cross St. Pancras Station in London before boarding a train to the North East for a cabinet meeting in Sunderland PA British MEP's carry a Union flag as they march out of European Parliament with their luggage in Brussels to take the Eurostar train back to Britain AP A Brexiteer in Parliament Square, Londo PA Mr Farage confirmed the Brexit Party will remain active as an insurance against a slip-ups from the Government on the trade talks. It comes after the Brexit Party leader described Britain's departure from the EU as the "greatest moment in the modern history of our great generation". He addressed the crowd from a stage at his Leaves Means Leave party before the 20 second countdown to 11pm on Friday, when the UK officially left the bloc. "This is something that I fought for - for 27 years and something that many thousands of you gave your time and money for, Mr Farage said. "We faced an established that didn't even want to listen to us. An establishment that never wanted that referendum to take place. An establishment that tried for three and a half years to frustrate the will of the greatest democratic mandate ever seen." He added: "The people have beaten the establishment. The real winner tonight is democracy. President Muhammadu Buhari has expressed the solidarity of Nigeria with China over the outbreak of coronavirus disease which has killed over 200 persons in the Asian country. Mr Buhari spoke through a press statement on Sunday by his spokesperson, Garba Shehu. Below is the statement; STATE HOUSE PRESS RELEASE NIGERIA STANDS BY CHINA IN THIS DIFFICULT MOMENT President Muhammadu Buhari extends his good wishes to President Xi Jinping and citizens of the Peoples Republic of China during this trying time. Chinas efforts to contain the spread of the coronavirus have been exemplary, as well as the countrys collaboration with international agencies and other countries on the matter. President Buhari notes that China has been exceptionally supportive of Nigeria and Africa, and even more so in recent years; therefore, it is important to let China know that Nigeria and her citizens are also standing by them during this outbreak. With all the efforts being put in, we know that it is only a matter of time before this nightmare passes. President Buhari uses this opportunity to thank Nigerians for their hospitality towards the Chinese nationals in our midst, and for not letting the coronavirus outbreak create any disturbance or disrupt the peaceful coexistence between us and them. He prays that God will comfort the Chinese and others who have already lost family members and loved ones to the disease. Garba Shehu Senior Special Assistant to the President (Media & Publicity) Twenty minutes of cooling with running water is the best initial treatment for a child's burn, according to a study which may lead to new clinical first aid recommendations for mild to moderate burns. According to the study, published in the journal Annals of Emergency Medicine, cool running water can reduce the odds of needing a skin graft, accelerate healing, and lessen the chance that a young burn victim requires admission to the hospital. The study assessed nearly 2,500 children with a median age of two years undergoing treatment for burns at a hospital in Australia. According to the researchers, including those from the University of Queensland in Australia, the patients were treated mostly for mild to moderate scalds, liquid or steam burns, on or near their arms or legs. "If a child is burned, the first course of treatment should be 20 minutes of cool running water," said Bronwyn R. Griffin, study co-author from the University of Queensland in Australia. "Cool running water is most effective immediately after a burn occurs, but evidence suggests it remains beneficial for up to three hours following an injury," Griffin said. According to the study, children who received adequate first aid involving 20 minutes or more of cooling with running water had the odds of skin grafting reduced by more than 40 per cent. It said treating burns with any amount of cool running water was associated with reduced odds of hospital admission by nearly 36 per cent, and lowered the odds of requiring operation by about 42 percent. The scientists also found that healing among patients who did not require grafting was faster with the administration of any cool running water, which also reduced the risk of tissue scarring. Burns which were cooled with running water fared better than those that received no first aid, or alternatives like aloe gels, compresses, toothpaste, butter, or egg whites, the study noted. "Whether you are a parent or paramedic, administering 20 minutes of cool running water to a child's burn is highly recommended. This is the most effective way to lessen the severity of tissue damage from all thermal burns," Griffin said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Though were not sure why they would, considering the books sales, Slate takes a gander at what publishers are saying about #ownvoices books. Or, well, theyre not; they mostly seem to think the book was simply positioned for the wrong market. You cant be Twitter woke and Walmart ambitious, the assistant editor quipped. Wow, OK. That certainly says something about what publishers are thinking. Slate Pacemaker Press 02-02-2020: Police have launched an investigation into the death of a teenager in Bangor on Saturday night. Emergency services rallied following reports that the 17-year-old was "unresponsive" Market Street. A PSNI spokesperson said: "Police are investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of 17-year-old male in the Market Street area of Bangor at around 11pm on Saturday night. Picture By: Arthur Allison. Pacemaker Press. Pacemaker Press 02-02-2020: Police have launched an investigation into the death of a teenager in Bangor on Saturday night. Emergency services rallied following reports that the 17-year-old was "unresponsive" Market Street. A PSNI spokesperson said: "Police are investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of 17-year-old male in the Market Street area of Bangor at around 11pm on Saturday night. Picture By: Arthur Allison. Pacemaker Press. The scene at Market Street on Sunday. Picture: Arthur Allison. Pacemaker Press Police have launched an investigation after the death of a teenager on a Bangor street on Saturday night. The 17-year-old boy died in the Market Street area at around 11pm. Police and the Ambulance Service attended the scene and the street was cordoned off by police. "At this time the death is not being treated as suspicious however a post mortem examination will be carried out in due course," a PSNI spokesman said. Green Party MLA Rachel Woods described the young man's death as a "terrible incident". "Immediately I think of the young mans family and his friends," the North Down MLA said. A 17-year-old has their whole life in front of them and it is tragic that life can come to end in such a sudden way. Police are working to establish the circumstances surrounding the death of this young man. I would ask that anyone with any information call PSNI on the non-emergency number 101. $1.4 billion needed this year to fund UN's agency for Palestine refugees 31 January 2020 - A minimum of $1.4 billion is needed to fund the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, known as UNRWA, the acting chief said on Friday. Christian Saunders said the funds would provide essential services throughout 2020, including life-saving humanitarian assistance for 5.6 million registered Palestine refugees across the Middle East. He noted that the pledges of support UNRWA received at the General Assembly in December was "an overwhelming validation of the agency and of our mandate" and stressed the importance of donors and partners matching those commitments, to allow the agency to provide refugees with "protection and those critical services considered a basic human right". He said UNRWA would ensure "that every penny of public funding we receive is used wisely, properly and effectively." Impacting Palestine refugees In 2020, Palestine refugees in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria will "continue to face daunting human development and protection challenges" precipitated by the occupation of the West Bank, the conflict in Syria, the political crisis in Lebanon and the growing needs in Jordan, said Mr. Saunders. "We are stretched to our limits under our shrinking budgets and the growing needs of Palestine refugees who are impacted by the same volatility and unpredictability that people face in the Middle East every day", he said. The funds will be used for essential core services, including infrastructure, protection, social services and microfinance as well as to contribute to the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the 2030 Agenda. Moreover, it will help to provide education to over half a million girls and boys in some 700 schools across the region and enable 8.5 million patient visits in its health facilities, similar to laast year 2019. Until there is a just and durable solution, "we are the only agency able to provide the type of essential services that Palestine refugees are entitled to", he maintained, calling on donors to strongly support UNRWA, and saying "your investment is very well-placed, it is an investment in a beleaguered people deserving of your continued support and it is an investment in the region's stability". US proposal to end Israel-Palestine conflict Turning to US President Donald Trump's administration's 'Vision for Peace, Prosperity and a Brighter Future' aimed to resolve the decades-long conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, the top UNRWA official said that "a lot of Palestinians are in a state of shock at this point in time, in a state of disbelief". The United States administration's proposal aims to legalize Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem while allowing Israel to annex around 30 per cent of the West Bank Mr. Saunders said it was "extremely unsettling for the Palestine refugees living under occupation, under blockade, and through conflict after conflict and crisis after crisis, hoping for justice and human rights, and with the constant fear that the international community will one day abandon them". "Today, more than ever there is a need for stability and today the international community must send a clear message to Palestine refugees and to the world at large that the international community stands firmly behind them". He recalled that in 2018, UNRWA's largest donor at that time, the US, stopped its funding, cutting nearly one-third of the agency's budget. "The repercussions on our finances and plans were huge, but the support we received from our member States and partners was phenomenal", he said, calling it "a true testament to the continued international commitment to Palestine refugees." Despite the potential implications of the loss of funding, the "incredible support allowed us to continue to provide vital services and protection to Palestine refugees", he concluded. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address BEIJING/MANILAThe Philippines on Sunday reported the first overseas death from the growing epidemic of a coronavirus that originated in China, where new infections continue to increase daily. Authorities in the Philippines said a 44-year-old man from Wuhan city in central Hubei province had died after developing severe pneumonia. It was the first death reported out of more than 130 cases in around two dozen other countries and regions outside of mainland China. I would like to emphasize that this is an imported case with no evidence of local transmission, Health Secretary Francisco T. Duque III said. China is facing mounting isolation as other countries introduce travel curbs, airlines suspend flights and governments evacuate their citizens, risking worsening a slowdown in the worlds second-largest economy. The World Health Organization on Thursday declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern, but said global trade and travel restrictions are not needed. However, some countries are responding to fears of the virus spreading by ramping up border controls. Singapore and the United States announced measures on Friday to ban foreign nationals who have recently been in China from entering their territories, and Australia followed suit on Saturday. Russia introduced visa restrictions and will start evacuating Russian citizens on Monday and Tuesday, Interfax and TASS news agencies reported. The Philippines also expanded its travel ban to include all foreigners coming from China, widening an earlier restriction that covered only those from Hubei. The Philippine Government has already implemented a temporary travel ban for travelers coming from China, Macao, and Hong Kong. DOH is monitoring every development on the 2019-nCoV very closely and is taking proactive measures to contain the spread of this virus in our country, Duque added. More than 100 Germans and family members landed in Frankfurt on Saturday after being evacuated from Wuhan. Around 250 Indonesians were being evacuated from Hubei. U.S. health officials on Saturday confirmed an eighth case of the coronavirus in the United States, and the Pentagon said it would provide housing for people arriving from overseas who might need to be quarantined. The country has introduced mandatory quarantine for citizens arriving from Hubei. In Mexico, ride-hailing application Uber Technologies Inc said it suspended 240 accounts of users in Mexico who may recently have come in contact with someone possibly infected with the virus. There are no confirmed cases in Mexico yet. By Ryan Woo and Enrico Dela Cruz. With reporting by Epoch Times reporter Frank Fang. The Wuhan coronavirus spreading from China is now likely to become a pandemic that circles the globe, according to many of the worlds leading infectious disease experts. The prospect is daunting. A pandemic an ongoing epidemic on two or more continents may well have global consequences, despite the extraordinary travel restrictions and quarantines now imposed by China and other countries, including the United States. Scientists do not yet know how lethal the new coronavirus is, however, so there is uncertainty about how much damage a pandemic might cause. But there is growing consensus that the pathogen is readily transmitted between humans. The Wuhan coronavirus is spreading more like influenza, which is highly transmissible, than like its slow-moving viral cousins, SARS and MERS, scientists have found. Last week, Ontario Premier Doug Ford issued a statement for Bell Lets Talk Day, the annual campaign to end stigma around mental health issues. Mental health challenges can affect those closest to us family members, friends, colleagues, and even ourselves, he said. Together, we can support everyone on their journey to mental wellness. Over at Childrens Mental Health Ontario, they must have wondered if Ford was living in another dimension. If ever there was an SOS in print, it came just two days earlier with the agencys report Kids Cant Wait, a document that shames a province and its government. An estimated 200,000 kids with serious mental health issues have no contact with mental health services at all, it said. Think of it. Tens of thousands of young people, with serious mental health issues, possibly at the very window of opportunity at early onset when treatment could make the most difference. Unhelped. Unsupported. Getting worse. And odds are, some bound for the streets, institutions or premature death. But thats far from the only alarming news in the report, compiled from a survey of community child and youth mental health centres across Ontario. As many as 28,000 children and youth in Ontario (under age 18) are on waiting lists for mental health treatment, the report said. Thats up 12,000 in just two years. And some of those waiting lists are as long as two and a half years for mental health treatment. Ford occasionally says the right thing in scripted remarks. But perhaps his true attitudes or ignorance are revealed in periodic outbursts when he has described troubled Ontario citizens as crazy people, nutcases, animals, and recommended that society throw away the key. His first budget allocated $1.9 billion over 10 years for mental health and addictions. Thats less than the previous governments promised $2.1 billion but its a significant amount of money, especially when matched by federal government funding. So where is it? If the Ford government has increased funding to reduce wait times for youth who need treatment, as it claims, why have they doubled? As bad as they are, wait times now at an all-time high are likely understated in the latest survey because of the gaps of services, especially in remote, rural and Northern communities. There are no wait times to report, after all, for services that dont exist. There are significant inequities in wait times based on where you live, how old you are, who you are, and what type of treatment you need, the report said. Waiting lists are longest in and around Greater Toronto: York Region 919 days; Durham 827 days; Northumberland 792 days; Peel 737 days, Hamilton 710 days; and Toronto 684 days. Services are particularly inadequate in areas of priority populations, including Black, Indigenous, LGBTQ and francophone communities. Theres been a huge spike in depression and anxiety reported among young people. The wait times in receiving treatment cause extraordinary stress in families, cost parents and caregivers time off work, disrupt classrooms. They also boost costs as desperate young people seek help in emergency departments, adding to the very hallway medicine crisis the premier promised to end. Then, of course, there is the ultimate cost. We are losing young people, the report said, noting that suicide is now the second leading cause of death among those under 18. The premier has presented himself in the last six months as having undergone a change in outlook. Less bluster and pugnacity; greater willingness to seek solutions and agreement. Heres a chance to put some meaning behind his fine words by helping those for whom his government should consider itself most responsible. Young people in urgent need. Ordinary families. Sale of F-35 Aircraft to Poland Press Statement Michael R. Pompeo, Secretary of State January 31, 2020 The United States welcomes the Polish government's decision to purchase 32 F-35A Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter aircraft worth $4.6 billion under the Foreign Military Sales program overseen by the U.S. Department of State. We commend President Duda, Prime Minister Morawiecki, and the Polish government's commitment to continue modernizing Poland's military through the acquisition of the world's most advanced fighter aircraft, which will improve Poland's ability to provide collective and self-defense. We look forward to working with our NATO Ally Poland on this project and continuing to enhance our long-term strategic partnership. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Anyone looking to partake in the revolution just needed to follow the signs. They were spray-painted on poster board, carried by people in bright blue shirts and hard to miss: CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM, CANCEL STUDENT DEBT, IMMIGRANT JUSTICE. Prospective revolutionaries were pointed inside the Alley Theater in downtown Houston, to the elevator, to the fourth floor and around the corner, where they sat and waited to rally for change. I thank you all, rowdy rebels of the Gulf Coast, began Jim Hightower, a former Texas Agriculture commissioner. This is what it takes. Not wearing a button, but organizing. Our Revolution a national organization aimed at electing progressives hosted Saturdays event, featuring U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, local and state representatives from the organization and a high schooler passionate about climate change, among others. On HoustonChronicle.com: Ongoing District B dispute, Texas Constitution put Jerry Davis in unusual spot The two-hour event had plenty of progressive staples (education, criminal justice reform, immigration, going after the Democratic corporate establishment), call-and-response chants and, from Hightower, digs at Pres. Donald Trump (Its a fabulous crowdthe largest crowd in the history of the world!). Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders was still in Iowa, readying for the cause, but he was top of mind. The afternoon kicked off with a Bernie-based rap (2016 all you Bernie haters got lucky), and many attendees had Sanders shirts. Jackson Lee touted her progressive credentials during her speech and, despite calls of Endorse Bernie! Endorse Bernie! as she left, did not endorse Sanders. On HoustonChronicle.com: GLBT Caucus endorses Audia Jones for DA in rebuke of openly lesbian incumbent Kim Ogg Before the 2 p.m. kickoff, attendees caught up (I remember block walking with you) and talked politics (Its all plastics everything). Ira Dember, a man with a white beard, a white jacket and silver sneakers, walked up and down the rows of seats and passed out coupons for what he called the best deal in town a coupon good for a free protest! (Rain or shine, every Tuesday, against Sen. John Cornyn, offering plenty of signs if potential takers didnt want to BYO.) I want to learn how I can help, said Andrew Tran, 32, who attended with his wife. He started noticing politics during the last election cycle. I saw a lot of injustice in the primary, I thought, and I want to get involved now. Sitting in front of him, Kurt Guerdrum, 82, got excited about politics during the Kennedy election. Guerdrum lives in Spring he sometimes feels isolated but keeps up with events on the internet. This is a big deal for me, he said. Im just here to listen and learn. sarah.smith@chron.com Uche Secondus, the National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is under pressure from top members in the Southwest to resign. According to report, these top members have begun consultations and campaigns to convince other stakeholders in the party to remove Secondus as the partys national chairman. Their grievance is hinged on House of Representatives crisis, constitutional breaches and failure of the National Working Committee (NWC) under his watch to get victory for the party in the 2019 presidential election. Read Also: PDP Demands CJN Tankos Resignation, Say Nigerians No Longer Have Faith In Him The PDP chairman is billing to end his 4-year tenure in 2021, after which a national convention would be held for new leadership to emerge. Daily Trust reports however that some PDP stalwarts are plotting his removal before then. Daily Trust quoted a source as saying that some founding fathers of the party, former national officers, former governors, serving and former members of the National Assembly who are part of the plot are putting a committee in place to actualise their dream. He said the aggrieved stalwarts were persuading a former governor of Osun State, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, to return to the PDP and take a shot at the national chairmanship as compensation for the Southwest. However, while speaking on the matter, Kola Ologbondiyan, the PDP National Publicity Secretary, dismissed claims that Secondus was under pressure to vacate office. He said, The national chairman is not under any pressure to leave office, except the fact that we believe that democracy is gradually being killed by this government and we believe that as the main opposition party we have a responsibility to salvage democracy. This year's edition of the flagship Nasscom Technology and Leadership Forum (NTLF) will focus on a number of themes, including the future of entrepreneurship in the new decade, and trust and ethics in data. To be held in Mumbai between February 12-14, the 28th edition of NTLF will have over 150 speakers, more than 600 CXOs and 1,500 delegates attending the event. "It's 2020, the start of a new decade. Over the last 4-5 years, the focus has largely been on digital and how digital is re-shaping the industry. The theme about digital being important is now well accepted. For NTLF 2020, the focus was on how do we look ahead," Nasscom Senior VP and Chief Strategy Officer Sangeeta Gupta said. NTLF will lay emphasis on the theme 'Tech In 20's: Coming of Age' and will highlight how the next decade is likely to play out in catalysing businesses and accelerating innovation at the core level, she added. "This is going to be the age of entrepreneurship. We have done well in our journey but what does the future of entrepreneurship look like as we look ahead in the decade?," she said. Building trust through data and privacy, trade wars, regulations, inclusivity and sustainability will also feature in the discussions, Gupta added. The focus is also on helping understand that technologies will continue to change and organisations need to keep pace with them. "Today it's artificial intelligence and blockchain, tomorrow it maybe quantum. Technologies will continue to shift and evolve but how do business build their organisations to be able to deal with this continuous technology change. It is also important that we build learning organisations to ensure skilling and re-skilling," she noted. The three-day event will have stalwarts from the Indian and global technology industry including names like TCS CEO Rajesh Gopinathan, Infosys CEO Salil Parekh, Wipro Chairman Rishad Premji and Tata Sons Chairman N Chandrasekaran. It will also see participation from Balasubramaniam Ganesh (Chairman, HSBC Technology India), Erica Brescia (Chief Operating Officer, GitHub), Katherine Wetmur (Managing Director International CIO and Head of Quality Assurance, Morgan Stanley), and Praveena Rai (Chief Operating Officer, NPCI). The event will showcase a borderless ecosystem led enterprise through co-creation and collaboration among entrepreneurs by addressing the symbiosis between start-ups and large enterprises, disruptive investments and the ease of doing business. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) New Delhi: So far two cases of coronavirus have been confirmed in India. At the same time, PM Narendra Modi himself is monitoring the situation regarding the threat of the virus. In China, 304 people have died due to this so far. At the same time, India has temporarily suspended the e-visa facility for Chinese and foreign travelers residing in China on Sunday. At the same time, it has been learned that Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan told on Sunday i.e. February 2, 2020, that PM Modi is personally monitoring the situation in view of the threat posed by the corona virus. I am in regular touch with the Health Minister of Kerala. He said that we have ensured the best screening facility for people returning from China, Thailand, and Singapore. This applies to holders of Chinese passports and people from other countries living in China. Along with this, it was also told that e-visas already issued are not valid at present. Embassy of India in China: Due to certain current developments, travel to India on E-visas stands temporarily suspended with immediate effect. This applies to holders of Chinese passports and applicants of other nationalities residing in the Peoples Republic of China. https://t.co/TkkNXMVVBH ANI February 2, 2020 While it is also being said that another case of coronavirus has reappeared in Kerala this morning in India, state Health Minister KK Selja said today that the patient was being monitored in an isolation ward at Alappuzha Medical College. The first case was also reported from Kerala three days ago. On Sunday, India airlifted 323 Indians and seven Maldives citizens from the Wuhan city of Coronavirus in China, taking the total number to 654. It is also being said that the virus was introduced in Wuhan in December and since then it has spread to many cities around the world. More than 14,000 cases of coronavirus have been confirmed in China. The movement of 56 million people in more than a dozen cities of China has been affected. Also Read: The temptation of these drugs being given to voters Modi will inaugurate Defense Expo on this day, program will run for 3 and a half hours Sanjay Raut's question to PM Modi, said- 'How will our soldiers fight against Pakistan by staying hungry' CM Soren's big statement, says 'Trick made with tribal people under the cover of Union Budget' Matia Mahal Assembly seat: Shoaib Iqbal joins AAP after leaving Congress, Kejriwal gave ticket Sriracha - Thailand What it is: A particularly popular condiment, Sriracha is a type of hot sauce or chilli sauce used as a dip in Thailand, particularly for seafood, and used as a topping, filling and condiment in Vietnamese cuisine. Correct pronunciation: See-rotch-ah Percentage of people who got it wrong: 96.7% Poke - Hawaii What it is: Poke is a Hawaiian dish consisting of diced raw fish with edamame beans, radishes and crispy onions. Correct pronunciation: Poh-kay People who got it wrong: 95.2 percent Coming from Hawaii, Pokes are made of dice raw finish and a selection of fresh and crushing vegetable (pictured, stock) Gyros - Greece What it is: Gyros are made from meat cooked on a vertical rotisserie and derives from the doner kebab. It is served in pita bread and comes with other fillings such as onions, peppers and salad, and tzatziki sauce. Correct pronunciation: Yee-ros People who got it wrong: 93 percent Gyros are made from meat cooked on a vertical rotisserie, Greek lamb meat gyros with tzatziki sauce, feta cheese and french fries, stock picture. Viennoiserie - France What it is: Delicious baked goods made from yeast-leavened dough, which include croissants, pain au chocolat or brioche. Correct pronunciation: Vyen-wahz-ree People who got it wrong 92.7 percent Viennoiseries are baked goods from France which include croissants and pain au chocolat (pictured croissants, stock) Pho - Vietnam What it is: Pho is a soup consisting of rice noodles, broth, herbs and meat, mostly beef or chicken, and is a popular as a street food in Vietnam. Correct pronunciation: Fuh People who got it wrong: 85.7 percent A very popular street food in Vietname (pictured, stock), pho is a noodle soup made from broth and meat Paczki - Poland What it is: Doughnuts filled with jam or other sweet fillings found in Polish cuisine. They are usually glazed in sugar. Correct pronunciation: Pownch-key People who got it wrong: 85.7 percent Paczki (pictured, stock) are doughnuts filled with sweet fillings such as jam or chocolate spreads - and are popular in Poland Poutine - Canada What it is: Originating in French Canada, Poutine is a comfort food made of french fries dipped in thick gravy and topped with cheese curds. The dish became popular in the 1950s. Correct pronunciation: Poo-teen People who got it wrong: 85.4 percent Poutine is a French Canadian comfort food made of French fries, cheese curds and brown gravy (stock picture) Raclette - Switzerland / France What it is: Raclette is a traditional Swiss dish also popular in France and usually served during the Winter, consisting of cured meats and potatoes topped with cheese melted on a heating machine. Correct pronunciation: Ra-klet People who got it wrong: 71.9 percent Popular in Switzerland and France, raclette consists of potatoes, cured meat and pickles with melted cheese (stock picture) Edamame - East Asia What it is: Edamame are soy beans served in their pod found in cuisines from East Asia. The pods are boiled or steamed and may be served with salt or other condiment. Correct pronunciation: Ehd-ah-mah-mee People who got it wrong: 69.6 percent Edamames, which are soy beans cooked in their pods, are commonly used in cuisines in East Asia (stock picture) Caipirinha - Brazil What it is: Brazil's national cocktail is made of cachaca (sugar cane hard liquor), sugar and lime. The fruit and sugar are first mixed together before the liquor is added. Correct pronunciation: Kai-puh-ree-nyuh People who got it wrong: 66.7 percent A teacher has revealed how she contracted the coronavirus after visiting her mother who was dying of cancer in China. Muying Shi, 37, flew to her birthplace in Wuhan - the epicentre of the deadly new infection that has now killed more than 360 - in early January to help nurse her ill mother Liping Wang, 63. Ms Shi, who has lived in London for five years, is now under quarantine in the locked-down city's Hospital 8 after CT scans showed the infection in her lungs, and has no idea if she can return to her home in Britain, the Sunday Mirror reported. She said: 'I am really scared... I fear for my life but I can't think about it because I would just break down. I feel like I'm hanging on by a thread.' Ms Shi, a private language tutor in Colindale, north London, is in hospital along with her 67-year-old father Xianging, also being treated for the virus. Muying Shi, pictured, flew to her birthplace in Wuhan - the epicentre of the deadly new infection that has now killed more than 300 - in early January to help nurse her ill mother She revealed how she is sharing a room - which she is not permitted to leave - with two elderly people, one of whom uses an oxygen tank to breathe, while her mother is three miles away in a different hospital in the final stages of rectal cancer. She said: 'It's grim to say the least. Nobody knows anything about the virus so there's no proper treatment. My dad are I are being given painkillers and antibiotics, but there is no cure.' Some of her fellow patients are receiving no medicine at all, and Ms Shi can hear them through the walls shouting at medical staff, she said. 'I'm sitting here knowing I'm going to lose my mum and I just can't stand the thought of this virus taking my father,' Ms Shi said. She added that she speaks with her father on her phone, and he keeps crying because they cannot visit her mother, who is 'just taking painkillers and waiting to die'. Medical staff hugging each other in an isolation ward at a hospital in Zouping in China's Shandong province, January 28 Ms Shi said that doctors and nurses are wearing full protection suits, but patients can tell they are still nervous, and the staff who deliver their food are speculating it may be contaminated. British citizens left stranded in Wuhan after missing the first airlift out of the coronavirus-hit city will touch down in the UK today. This second batch of evacuees will join 83 patients quarantined in Arrowe Park Hospital in Wirral following their rescue from Hubei province. A leaked email seen by the Liverpool Echo shows the medical compound's chief executive Janelle Holmes telling staff: 'I wanted you to be amongst the first to know that tomorrow morning we will be receiving an additional group of citizens from Wuhan. 'We were asked to accommodate a small number of UK citizens who did not make the flight on Thursday from China with the last group. 'The same safe-guarding arrangements and support are being put in place to get them here that were used for the first group of guests.' It is not clear how many patients form this second wave, but the hospital boss does reveal that none of them are displaying any symptoms - yet the infection does have a 14-day incubation period during which time the bug can still spread. Adam Bridgeman is stuck in Wuhan after being given just a few hours to get to the airport after the Foreign Office changed their minds and offered him, his Chinese wife and baby a seat on a flight to Britain - but they and others failed to get there on time The first group of evacuees were flown to RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire before being whisked 170 miles to the North West in a convey of buses driven by drivers who bizarrely did not wear face masks. The identities of the evacuees remain closely guarded by Public Health England, but many who missed out on Thursday's airlift have since been critical of the government that they were denied a spot. Adam Bridgeman spoke of being stranded with his Chinese wife and newborn baby after being given less than two hours' notice that his ride out of the locked-down city was taking off. He pledged to stay after he was told that seats on jumbo jet were only for British citizens - meaning his spouse and child would have to stay behind. British mother Natalie Francis told of the ' terrifying' and 'life-changingly awful' evacuation from Wuhan with her son Jamie. They are part of the group of 83 evacuees from Wuhan who are being quarantined for 14 days inside Arrowe Park Hospital 'behind a locked door'. The quarantine is long enough for any symptoms of the deadly coronavirus to show. There are roughly 100 people suspected to have the virus at Ms Shi's hospital. Almost 60 million people are locked down in Chinese cities. Natalie Francis told of the 'terrifying' and 'life-changingly awful' evacuation from Wuhan with her son Jamie British officials confirmed two cases on Friday. Ms Shi revealed that she flew to Wuhan on January 10 after she was told her mother did not have much time left. She was told there was a 'pneumonia-type disease' around but the Government was claiming it was not serious and it was containable. Her mother's ward had people coming i and out with face masks, and it was just last week when doctors were privately asking families to wear masks that Ms Shi started to worry, she said. Then men in hazmat suits ordered Ms Shi's mother to move to another floor within half an hour with no explanation - but they now know they were making space for coronavirus patients, she said. Ms Shi bought face masks but still fell ill with fever and diarrhoea on Monday - and her father became ill the next day. They attended a 'fever clinic' - set up to test residents for the rapidly-spreading disease - where doctors confirmed Ms Shi had the virus. She and her father were admitted to hospital later that week. Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force aircraft arrive at the Wuhan Tianhe International Airport with medical personnel and supplies to help fight the outbreak of the new coronavirus in Wuhan, Hubei province, February 2 Ms Shi said she will only be added to official statistics after being tested positive through a government issue testing kit - but she claimed nobody was handing the kits out. Doctors say they have run out, but Ms Shi said she does not know if that is really the case, as the local news says there are roughly 17,000 people suspected to have the virus, but hospital staff say it is more like 30,000. It comes as the Philippines recorded the first death from coronavirus outside of mainland China. China updated the death toll from the coronavirus outbreak to 361 on Monday, with an additional 2,829 new cases reported in the last 24 hours, bringing the total to 17,205. Most of the 304 who died in the country were in the Wuhan region, but officials have confirmed multiple deaths elsewhere, including in the capital Beijing. The Philippine Department of Health said a 44-year-old Chinese man from Wuhan was admitted on January 25 after experiencing fever, cough, and sore throat. He developed severe pneumonia, and in his last few days, 'the patient was stable and showed signs of improvement, however, the condition of the patient deteriorated within his last 24 hours resulting in his demise.' The man's 38-year-old female companion, also from Wuhan, first tested positive for the virus and remains in hospital isolation in Manila. A day after the two-member commission probing the 2018 Bhima Koregaon violence threatened to wind up prematurely due to the governments failure to release the necessary funds, the state has released the dues and announced an inquiry into the delay. The panel has also been given an extension of two months to complete its probe. The commission, comprising former Calcutta high court chief justice JN Patel and IAS officer Sumit Mullick, had written to the government saying it was facing a funds crunch. We have released the outstanding amount. I have also directed additional chief secretary Shrikant Singh to conduct an inquiry into the allegations of dereliction of duty by home department officials. Action would be taken against officers responsible for the delay, said home minister Anil Deshmukh who had convened an urgent meeting of the finance and home departments on Saturday. The term of the commission was to end on February 8. According to an official statement, the commission has been given five extensions so far. The commission had written to the state chief secretary on Friday saying that the government had not paid salaries of its staff for the last two months. The circumstances indicate that the government is not serious about the commission. The commission is unable to function for want of money even for day-to-day expenses, it had said, adding that the government should wind up the judicial commission in such a situation. On January 1, 2018, riots broke out in Pune district on the occasion of the 200th commemoration of the Bhima Koregaon battle in which the East India Company defeated the Peshwas with the help of Dalit soldiers. One person was killed in these riots and at least 11 arrested, two of whom are out on bail. On February 9, 2018, the then Bharatiya Janata Party state government had ordered a probe into the case. (With PTI inputs) Donald Trump waves as he boards Air Force One on 31 January: Reuters Donald Trump exhibited his seeming obsession with size again in a pre-Super Bowl interview with Fox News in which he attacked Democratic presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg over his height - and alleges the former New York mayor is getting special treatment while also subbing a leading Democratic presidential candidate "a communist." The Fox host asked Mr Trump if the impeachment saga will become a "campaign issue" or if he will "let it go" after the Senate holds its final votes later this week. "I'd like to [let it go], but it's pretty hard when you think about it because it's been such a witch hunt," he said. "They (Democrats) don't care about fairness or lies. ... They just want to win." The president flatly called Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who has surged to a lead in polls ahead of Monday night's Iowa caucuses, "a communist" after for months criticising him with words like "socialist" and "radical." Previewing a potential general election attack line, Mr Trump brought up Mr Sanders' trip to Moscow as a younger man with his wife. "It's wonderful. I'm not knocking it," the president said, seeming to do just that in an attempt to plant seeds of doubt in voters' minds about Mr Sanders. Mr Trump, as a candidate in 2016, bragged about the size of his hands and on his first day in office he deployed then-White House press secretary Sean Spicer to the James A. Brady Briefing Room to contend his inauguration crowd was the biggest in US history even though pictures showed it clearly was not. Now, he is fixated on the 5'8'' billionaire-turned-politician. "I just think of little. Now he wants a box for the debates to stand on. Okay, it's okay, there's nothing wrong. You could be short, why should he get a box to stand on, OK? He wants a box for the debates," Mr Trump said to Fox News commentator and host Sean Hannity. Story continues "Why should he be entitled to that? Does that mean everyone else gets a box?" Mr Trump said in an interview that was taped Saturday at his Florida Mar-a-Lago resort, where he is spending Super Bowl weekend ahead of his Tuesday night State of the Union address and expected Wednesday acquittal on two impeachment articles by the Senate. Mr Bloomberg holds a 5.2 percentage-point lead over the president in a hypothetical general election race, according to an average of several polls by RealClearPolitics. Ever eager to describe himself and his supporters as victims of conspiracies by the media and Democrats, Mr Trump blamed them for polls that show him trailing or narrowly leading the top Democratic presidential candidates. "I should be up by 25 points," he told Hannity. "What they've really done ... they don't want to report that the economy is good." Mr Trump went so far as to suggest Mr Bloomberg's height is somehow allowing him special treatment in the Democratic primary. "[Democratic senator from New Jersey] Cory Booker and all these people couldn't get any of the things that Bloomberg is getting now," he continued. "I think it's very unfair for the Democrats." As he had for all the leading 2020 Democrats, Mr Trump claimed he would welcome a one-on-one general election race against his fellow-New Yorker. "But I would love to run against Bloomberg. I would love it," Mr Trump added in an interview that will air on the Fox broadcast network during its Super Bowl pre-game show at 3pm EST (8pm GMT.) The pre-big game interview is not the first time in recent days Mr has poked fun at Mr Bloomberg's physical stature. "Mini Mike is now negotiating both to get on the Democratic Primary debate state, and to have the right to stand on boxes, or a lift, during the debates" he tweeted Saturday, using his latest derisive nickname to try and discredit a political foe. "This is sometimes done, but really not fair!" Mr Trump also alleged on Twitter that Bloomberg and the Democratic National Committee are trying to "rig the election" against Sanders, who has surged ahead in polling before Monday night's Iowa caucuses. "I will stand on my accomplishments and what I've done to bring this country together and get things done," Mr Bloomberg said at a campaign stop in Los Angeles. "I've been doing it for a long time. I stand twice as tall as he does on the stage that matters. "This is what happens when someone like me suddenly rises in the polls. All of a sudden, the other candidates get scared, and I think Donald Trump knows that I can beat him," Mr Bloomberg said. "And I think that's why he comes back with those kinds of comments." The president, he added, "lies about everything." Meantime, Mr Trump, defiant as ever, said he has no plans to delay his address to a joint session of Congress until after the Senate votes. "I'm going to have it," he said. "We're going to talk about all the accomplishments we've made." Read more Trump attacks Bloomberg as they release competing Super Bowl ads Two men have appeared in court charged in connection with an aggravated burglary in Cork city during which which a man was assaulted with a machete and a car exhaust pipe before sustaining burns to his face and upper body. Jason and Alan Quilligan of Eagle Valley in Wilton, Cork, appeared before a special sitting of Cork District Court this morning. The men were charged in connection with an aggravated burglary in the early hours of January 20 at Dunard estate in Lotamore, Mayfield on the northside of the city. Detective Garda Edmond O'Dongohue gave evidence of arresting charging and cautioning Mr Jason Quilligan at Gurranabraher Garda Station in Cork city on February 1. He said Mr Quilligan (aged 24) made no reply when the aggravated burglary charge was put to him after caution. Mr Quilligan is also facing a violent disorder charge in relation to a public disorder incident. Det. Garda O'Donoghue said that a number of men had forced their way into the property in Lotamore on January 20. A man inside was attacked with a machete and a car exhaust pipe. He then incurred burn injuries to his face and body. He said that the man was taken to hospital where he was placed in an induced coma. The injured party required hospitalisation for several days. He told Judge Mary Dorgan that Jason Quilligan had been identified by the injured party and another witness to the incident. Det. Garda O'Donoghue asked that the accused, who is an unemployed father of one, be remanded in custody given the seriousness of the charge. Inspector Jason Lynch said it was a crime of "significant violence" and that a "significant injury" had been inflicted on the man. He expressed concern that Jason Quilligan would intimidate persons involved in the case if he was granted his freedom. Emmet Boyle, defending, said that his client was willing to abide by any and all bail conditions set by the court including that he stay out of the northside of Cork city and sign on at his local garda station. Jason Quilligan pictured at a special sitting of Cork District court charged in relation to an aggravated burglary at Dunard, Mayfield on January 20th in Cork city. Judge Dorgan declined to grant bail in the case arising out of the seriousness of the charge. She remanded Jason Quilligan in custody pending his next court appearance on February 6. Meanwhile, Detective Garda Mark Durcan gave evidence of arrest charge and caution in relation to Alan Quilligan. He said that Mr Quilligan (aged 27) made no reply when the aggravated burglary charge was put to him after caution at Mayfield Garda Station in the city yesterday evening. Det. Garda Durcan said that Alan Quilligan, who is a father of one and on Jobseekers Allowance, was known to the injury party. He expressed concern about possible intimidation in the case. Garda forensics at the scne of the incident last month. Pic: Eoin English Det. Garda Durcan said that Qulligan was positively identified by the injured party and a witness in the case. Mr Quilligan took to the stand where he vowed to abide by all bail conditions set down by the court. He said he was "older and wiser" and insisted that gardai could call him on his mobile "anytime they like." He stated that he had no difficulty obeying a curfew and was available to gardai day or night. Emmet Boyle, defending, said that both Jason and Alan had voluntarily presented themselves to gardai in relation to the incident. He said neither men would interfere with witnesses in the case. Judge Dorgan declined to grant bail to Alan Quilligan given the possibility of interference of witnesses. She remanded him in custody until February 6 next. LIMERICKS councillors have agreed to borrow 12m to replace all its public lighting system with LED lights. The move will halve electricity usage, as well as halving the annual electricity bill and will also halve carbon dioxide emissions, councillors were told at a meeting of Limerick City and County Council this Monday. Currently, just 5,400 of the councils 22,900 lamps use LED lighting. The proposed project will see the remaining 17,500 also switch to LED. The project would go a long way towards meeting energy efficiency targets set for the council for 2030, director of services, Brian Kennedy told the councillors. The switch was a no-brainer, according to Cllr Liam Galvin but he questioned the service level agreement the council had with the electricity supplier. Under the terms of the agreement, a blown bulb was supposed to be replaced within 10 working days, he said, but he had reported a blown light 25 days ago which was still not replaced. Other councillors reported similar or even longer delays. Cllr Martin Ryan asked if the figures for the project were robust enough. Will there be over-runs? he asked. And will the figure cover the cost of disposing of redundant hardware? Cllr Michael Donegan raised concerns about improving the span of the light emissions from LED. Some lights, on lower poles, leave dark areas, he said. Cllr Kieran OHanlon, an electrician by trade, welcomed the proposal, pointing out that fewer replacements would be needed in future as LED lights last much, much longer than regular lights. There was some concern too from Cllr John Sheahan that Cork would be the lead authority in the project and that Limerick would not have any influence on details or on the tender. Sinn Feins Cllr Sharon Benson however asked that the decision to borrow 12m be deferred. I think it is all bigger than we realise here today, she said. And she wanted to see more detailed costings. I think it is very irresponsible of us to go ahead without seeing those costs, she said. The proposal to defer was lost by 14 votes to three and it was agreed to proceed with the loan. KYODO NEWS - Feb 2, 2020 - 14:41 | All, Japan A Japanese destroyer left its base near Tokyo for the Middle East on Sunday to join the Maritime Self-Defense Force's first long-term intelligence-gathering mission abroad. The 4,650-ton Takanami is scheduled to join in late February the ongoing mission, which commenced with MSDF P-3C patrol planes on Jan. 20, to ensure the safety of Japan-related commercial shipping passing through the region. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Defense Minister Taro Kono joined the families of the around 200 ship personnel at an event to send off the vessel at the MSDF's base in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture. (Takanami) "The intelligence-gathering mission bears very significant meaning that is directly linked to people's lives," Abe said at the event, referring to the mission's remit to ensure the safe passage of oil tankers which carry about 90 percent of Japan's total imports. Japan plans to rotate MSDF destroyers in three four-month tours over the course of the one-year Middle East mission, which could be extended with Cabinet approval. The government's decision to deploy the MSDF assets, with a total of around 260 personnel, in the Middle East has been criticized by opposition parties amid increased tensions between the United States and Iran. Japan has not joined the U.S.-led Operation Sentinel maritime security initiative near the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway for the transportation of oil, for fear of harming Tokyo's long-standing friendly relations with Tehran. The SDF will instead operate in the Gulf of Oman in the northern part of the Arabian Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait connecting the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Japan has said it will only use military power to protect Japanese commercial shipping during the patrol operations. Related coverage: 2 SDF planes leave for Middle East on intel-gathering mission South Korea to send navy's antipiracy unit to Strait of Hormuz Britain, France, Germany trigger dispute clause in Iran nuclear deal U.S. slaps Iran with fresh sanctions after missile attacks A gunman in a passing car fired five or six shots outside of a Milwaukee supper club, killing a pregnant mother of five who was on board a party bus that was parked in front of the venue, authorities said. The bus rushed Annie Sandifer to to Ascension St. Joseph hospital after the roughly 2:30am shooting on Milwaukee's northwest side, but she didn't survive. Doctors were able to deliver her baby via an emergency cesarean section, police said. The baby was in stable condition, but delivered just 26 weeks into the pregnancy, it was born very premature. Hospital officials contacted by DailyMail.com referred questions about the baby's status to the Milwaukee Police Department. DailyMail.com has reached out to the police for comment. Annie Sandifer, a 35-year-old mother of five, was fatally shot early Saturday morning in Milwaukee Sandifer was struck by a stray bullet fired by someone inside a silver four-door sedan at around 2:30am on Saturday The shooting took place outside of a supper club in Milwaukee, according to police 'At first, I couldn't believe it,' James Office, Sandifer's father, told Fox 6 TV. 'My cousin calls and says, "We've got to go to Milwaukee".' 'I said, "For what?" and he said, "Your daughter is deceased".' Police said Sunday that they hadn't arrested anyone yet, and it wasn't clear if the bus was the intended target of the attack. At a Saturday evening vigil, family described Sandifer, 35, as a loving, giving mother to her five children, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. 'She did everything, like a mother should,' said her cousin, Kisha Ducksworth. 'She went out of her way for her kids.' She was rushed to hospital, where she was pronounced dead. Doctors did manage to save her baby boy through an emergency C-section Mourners released purple balloons to remember Sandifer, whose husband Lorenzo Sandifer brought red Valentine's Day-themed balloons. Relatives said Sandifer's extended family had been largely spared from Milwaukee's gun violence until this shooting. 'We're used to cancer and all that, but we're not used to gunshots,' said cousin Keandra Lasher. Family members pleaded for those responsible for the shooting to turn themselves in to police. Police described the suspect vehicle as a silver four-door sedan. Anyone who might have information regarding this incident was asked to call 414-935-7360 or the Milwaukee Crime Stoppers at 414-224-TIPS. Vice-President of India, M Venkaiah Naidu stated that practising Yoga is also patriotism, as it gives health to people which is needed for a strong nation. Importance of Yoga is spread across the world and Costa Rica has made Yoga mandatory for students, he said. Naidu was addressing participants of Yoga camp that was conducted by Baba Ramdev, in Hubballi, on Sunday morning. "Yoga is the gift given by Indian ancient tradition. It helps to achieve unity between body, mind and soul. It would help youth to have self-control and self-confidence," he said. Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi, Bidar MP Bhagwant Khuba and others were also present. International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE:IBM) stock is about to trade ex-dividend in 4 days time. Ex-dividend means that investors that purchase the stock on or after the 7th of February will not receive this dividend, which will be paid on the 10th of March. International Business Machines's upcoming dividend is US$1.62 a share, following on from the last 12 months, when the company distributed a total of US$6.48 per share to shareholders. Looking at the last 12 months of distributions, International Business Machines has a trailing yield of approximately 4.5% on its current stock price of $143.73. Dividends are an important source of income to many shareholders, but the health of the business is crucial to maintaining those dividends. So we need to check whether the dividend payments are covered, and if earnings are growing. Check out our latest analysis for International Business Machines Dividends are typically paid from company earnings. If a company pays more in dividends than it earned in profit, then the dividend could be unsustainable. International Business Machines is paying out an acceptable 60% of its profit, a common payout level among most companies. Yet cash flows are even more important than profits for assessing a dividend, so we need to see if the company generated enough cash to pay its distribution. It distributed 46% of its free cash flow as dividends, a comfortable payout level for most companies. It's positive to see that International Business Machines's dividend is covered by both profits and cash flow, since this is generally a sign that the dividend is sustainable, and a lower payout ratio usually suggests a greater margin of safety before the dividend gets cut. Click here to see the company's payout ratio, plus analyst estimates of its future dividends. NYSE:IBM Historical Dividend Yield, February 2nd 2020 Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing? Businesses with shrinking earnings are tricky from a dividend perspective. Investors love dividends, so if earnings fall and the dividend is reduced, expect a stock to be sold off heavily at the same time. Readers will understand then, why we're concerned to see International Business Machines's earnings per share have dropped 7.5% a year over the past five years. Ultimately, when earnings per share decline, the size of the pie from which dividends can be paid, shrinks. Story continues The main way most investors will assess a company's dividend prospects is by checking the historical rate of dividend growth. In the last ten years, International Business Machines has lifted its dividend by approximately 11% a year on average. That's interesting, but the combination of a growing dividend despite declining earnings can typically only be achieved by paying out more of the company's profits. This can be valuable for shareholders, but it can't go on forever. Final Takeaway Should investors buy International Business Machines for the upcoming dividend? We're not enthused by the declining earnings per share, although at least the company's payout ratio is within a reasonable range, meaning it may not be at imminent risk of a dividend cut. In summary, while it has some positive characteristics, we're not inclined to race out and buy International Business Machines today. Ever wonder what the future holds for International Business Machines? See what the 19 analysts we track are forecasting, with this visualisation of its historical and future estimated earnings and cash flow If you're in the market for dividend stocks, we recommend checking our list of top dividend stocks with a greater than 2% yield and an upcoming dividend. If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Thank you for reading. By Bahk Eun-ji The admission of a transgender woman to Sookmyung Women's University has sparked controversy among students over whether she is eligible to be a student at the women-only college that was founded to give women opportunities to study when they had fewer opportunities than men. Sookmyung Women's University campus /Korea Times file Who is Asim Riaz dating? This is one question that every Bigg Boss 13 fan has at the moment. He confessed his love for Himanshi Khurana, then proposed her for marriage, and now seemingly they have both fallen in love with each other. But there's a catch. filmibeat.com In the released promo for tonight's episode, Salman Khan will bash Asim. He will yell at him for starting a new relationship with Himanshi Khurana inside the Bigg Boss house without ending things with his alleged girlfriend outside. Who is Salman Khan talking about? If reports are to be believed, he was dating model-actress Shruti Tuli. His pictures with her have also been doing the rounds on social media. However, Shruti Tuli has rubbished all such claims. "Its a lie. Asims not dating anyone outside. Just another trick to defame him. #AsimRiaz #AsimSquad," she wrote in a tweet. Its a lie. Asims not dating anyone outside. Just another trick to defame him. #AsimRiaz #AsimSquad Shruti Tuli (@ShrutiTuli) January 29, 2020 Furthermore, she also retweeted a tweet that read, "Vikas Gupta entered @ColorsTV #BiggBoss in support of Sid & tried to play a dirty trick by dragging an innocent girl Shruti Tulli into controversy that she has some relation with Asim but she gave a slap on the face of Vikas by declaring there is no relation." When Vikas Gupta had entered the Bigg Boss 13 house, he told Shehnaz that "Bahar koi pagal ho raha hai." He was referring to the fact that Asim has a girlfriend outside who is waiting for him. wikifolder.com Meanwhile, Asim's brother has also refuted the claim that he is dating anyone. Dont talk sh*t about my bro @lostboy54. Better be worried about ur love life rather than caring about my brothers. He already scrwed ur case when u were inside the BB house , the so called mastermind of BB. Failed players and their sh*tty made up stories! #AsimRiaz #KingAsim umar riaz (@realumarriaz) January 28, 2020 Asim's father Riaz Ahmed Choudhary has also slammed Vikas Gupta for playing a dirty game to defame Asim. Vikas Gupta entered @ColorsTV #BiggBoss in support of Sid & tried to play a dirty trick by dragging an innocent girl Shruti Tulli into controversy that she has some relation with Asim but she gave a slap on the face of Vikas by declaring there is no relation .#HeroicAsim Riaz Ahmed Choudhary (@Rac57Riaz) February 1, 2020 The finale of Bigg Boss 13 is just two weeks away. Which contestant are you rooting for? Let us know in the comments section below. BEIJING Chinas death toll from a new virus rose to 304 by early Sunday, and a World Health Organization official said other governments need to prepare for domestic outbreak control if the disease spreads in their countries. Also Sunday, the Philippines reported the first death related to the virus outside of China. The Department of Health said a 44-year-old Chinese man from Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, died after being admitted for treatment on Jan. 25. Beijing criticized Washingtons order barring entry to most foreigners who visited China in the past two weeks, even as Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced similar measures Saturday, following Japan and Singapore. South Korea and India flew hundreds of their citizens out of Wuhan, the city at the center of an area where some 50 million people are prevented from leaving in a sweeping anti-virus effort. The evacuees went into a two-week quarantine. Indonesia also sent a plane. At least 24 countries have reported cases since China informed WHO about the new virus in late December. There are eight cases in the U.S. The number of confirmed cases in China, by far the dominant location of infections, rose to 14,380, surpassing the number in the 2002-03 outbreak of SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome. The virus rapid spread in two months prompted the World Health Organization on Thursday to declare it a global emergency. That declaration flipped the switch from a cautious attitude to recommending governments prepare for the possibility the virus might spread, said the WHO representative in Beijing, Gauden Galea. Most cases reported so far have been people who visited China or their family members. The agency acted out of concern for poorer countries that might not be equipped to respond, said Galea. Such a declaration calls for a coordinated international response and can bring more money and resources. Apple temporarily closes stores in China Apple is temporarily closing its 42 stores in mainland China, one of its largest markets, as a new virus spreads rapidly. The iPhone maker said it is closing stores, corporate offices and contact centers in China until Feb. 9 "out of an abundance of caution and based on the latest advice from leading health experts." Apple's online store will remain open. China is the company's third-biggest market in terms of sales behind the United States and Europe and it is also where most iPhones and other devices are made. CEO Tim Cook told analysts Tuesday that uncertainty surrounding the outbreak is keeping the Cupertino company from offering more specific guidance about its financial performance in the coming months. In a Saturday note, Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives predicted the store closures will have a "negligible" impact on Apple, largely because consumers in mainland China will still be able to buy iPhones and other products through online channels. Source: Associated Press See More Collapse WHO said it was especially concerned that some cases abroad involved human-to-human transmission. On Friday, the United States declared a public health emergency and President Trump signed an order barring entry to foreign nationals who visited China within the last 14 days, which scientists say is the virus longest incubation period. The restrictions dont apply to immediate family of American citizens and permanent residents. China criticized the U.S. controls and unfriendly comments that Beijing was failing to cooperate. Just as the WHO recommended against travel restrictions, the U.S. rushed to go in the opposite way. Certainly not a gesture of goodwill, said foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying. U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Saturday approved a request from the Department of Health and Human Services for the possible use of military facilities to accommodate 1,000 people who may have to be quarantined upon arrival from overseas due to the virus. HHS officials requested the use of several facilities capable of housing at least 250 people in individual rooms through Feb. 29. Americans returning from China will be allowed into the country, but will face screening at select ports of entry and be required to undertake 14 days of self-screening to ensure they dont pose a health risk. Those returning from Hubei province, the center of the outbreak, will be subject to up to 14 days of mandatory quarantine. The installations selected by the Defense Department include Travis Air Force Base in Solano County; Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego County; Fort Carson, Colorado; and Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. Nearly 200 Americans already are quarantined at March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County after being evacuated from Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province. The ruling Communist Party postponed the end of the Lunar New Year holiday in Hubei province, where Wuhan is located, for an unspecified appropriate extent and appealed to people there to stay home. Another locked-down city in Hubei, Huanggang, on Saturday banned almost all residents from leaving their homes in the most stringent controls imposed yet. The government said only one person from each household would be allowed out to shop for food once every two days. Chinas anti-disease controls started with the Jan. 23 suspension of plane, bus and train links to Wuhan, an industrial center of 11 million people. The lockdown has spread to surrounding cities. American Airlines, United Airlines, British Airways, Finnair and Hong Kongs Cathay Pacific have canceled or cut back service to mainland China. Vietnam suspended all flights to China. Delta Air Lines said Saturday that it was accelerating plans to suspend its flights between the U.S. and China, with the last flight from China now leaving Sunday. Joe McDonald and Sam McNeil are Associated Press writers. You will abruptly realise that no women feature in any of the advertisements on the billboards. It is the first time you have seen only men in ads for washing powder. Youll see women on the streets, but never their faces. Many of them wear what looks like a black ski mask with slits for their eyes under their hijab. The others wear a burqa that makes you feel naked under your dupatta. The burqas fabric falls from a skullcap fitted to the womans head. A thin funnel rises from this cap. The burqa has no slits for the eyes. The funnel allows air into the burqa so the women do not suffocate. If you have ever been caught in a dust storm, youll understand how these women see the world. When you stare at them, your contact in Dera Ghazi Khan, a journalist, tells you about a place not too far from here where the tribal belt of Balochistan province starts, where he says the women are not given any shoes. When you dont understand, he explains impatiently, If youre not wearing shoes and you walk outside, where will your eyes remain? Youll never look upnever look at any manif youre scared of where your naked foot might fall when you leave your home. Less than an hour away from Dera Ghazi Khan, you speed past fish farms and a smashed tractorfive people dead, and no ambulance for milesthen pass a board that welcomes you to the village of Shah Sadar Din. Qandeel Baloch was born here. In July 2016, the villagers watched as reporters from all overnot just from Pakistan, but from abroad, from the BBC, the Guardian, the New York Timesturned up in Shah Sadar Din to cover the story of Qandeel Baloch. It was a great time to be a local reporter. If you werent covering the story, you were working as a fixer, an interpreter, a driver . . . the possibilities were endless. The local journalists took the visiting reporters to Shah Sadar Din over and over again. Everyone wanted to see where Qandeel came from. The villagers couldnt understand it. My friend, you have come here for nothing, a man said to one of the reporters. Strange people, coming here just like that. What did he mean? the reporter asked. We have a tradition here that every second or fourth day some girl is killed and thrown in the river. You media guys are creating hype for nothing. A girl could be stuffed into a gunny sack or the kind of bag used to carry wheat or sugarcane and the bag could be filled with stones. The bag would sink to the bottom of the river. The girl would stay there, buried under the stones. *** When I meet Qandeels parents, three months have passed since the day she died. Any meeting with them must now be organized through a man named Safdar Shah, who introduces himself over the phone as their lawyer. A few days earlier, Qandeels parents had told a reporter they have been forced to beg for food in Shah Sadar Din, where they returned after they were evicted from their house in Multan. While their daughter was alive, they divided their time between Shah Sadar Din and Multan, and Qandeel paid the 10,000 rupees rent for this house every month. Without her, they could not afford the rent. But Shah says the meeting will take place at the house in Multan, where Qandeel was murdered, and not in Shah Sadar Din. Its no problem at all, he says airily. Just dont come to the village. People here arent happy about all the reporters who have been coming to meet the parents. It takes around twenty-five minutes to travel from Multans city center to Qandeels home. We pass through the cantonment area and drive past the army club with its fat white onion domes and buildings whose walls bear neat lines of portraits of young men. Bagdad Former communications minister Mohammed Allawi was named prime minister-designate by rival Iraqi factions Saturday after weeks of political deadlock. The choice comes as the country weathers troubled times, including ongoing anti-government protests and the constant threat of being ensnared by festering U.S.-Iran tensions. The selection of Allawi, 66, to replace outgoing Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi was the product of many back-room talks over months between rival parties. In Tahrir Square, the epicenter of Iraq's four-month anti-government protest movement, demonstrators rejected Allawi's candidacy. Demonstrators, who have long said they would not accept a candidate chosen by the establishment, erected portraits of the new premier-designate crossed with an "X." Some chanted "Allawi out!" But many feared they would clash with the hundreds of followers of influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who recently reversed a decision to withdraw support from the protest movement. Officials and analysts said that move was to gain leverage on the street as a deadline to select a new premier drew near. "The square doesn't want him, but the problem is since Muqtada has sided with (the elites) the square cannot refuse him," said civil activist Kamal Jaban. "Otherwise, there will be bloodshed." Al-Sadr's followers returned in the hundreds on Friday night, three witnesses said, bringing tents and supplies and re-occupying a strategic high-rise overlooking the square known as the Turkish Restaurant, as well as the Jumhuriya Bridge, which leads to the Green Zone. Al-Sadr issued a statement saying Allawi's selection was "the wish of the people" and asked protesters to carry on with the anti-government demonstrations. "The real rebellious Iraqi youth who want change and reform are alone tonight," said Noor, an activist in Tahrir Square. On Wednesday, President Barham Saleh gave parliamentary blocs until Feb. 1 to select a premier candidate, or said he would exercise his constitutional powers and choose one himself. Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. In a pre-recorded statement posted online, Allawi called on protesters to continue with their uprising against corruption and said he would quit if the blocs insist on imposing names of ministerial appointees. "If it wasn't for your sacrifices and courage, there wouldn't have been any change in the country," he said, addressing anti-government protesters. "I have faith in you and ask you to continue with the protests." Allawi was born in Baghdad and served as communications minister first in 2006 and again between 2010-2012. He resigned from his post after a dispute with former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Abdul-Mahdi called Allawi to congratulate him on the appointment, according to a statement from his office. Parliament is expected to put his candidacy to a vote in the next session once a formal letter declaring Allawi as a nominee is submitted. A man allegedly sexually assaulted a mother before twice trying to suffocate her 10-month old child. The man, 22, allegedly launched his attack at a home in Schofields, western Sydney shortly before 12.30pm on Sunday. Police were called and the 22-year-old was arrested at the scene. The man, 22, allegedly launched his attack at a home in Schofields, western Sydney shortly before 12.30pm on Sunday (stock image) The 25-year-old mother and child were taken to Blacktown Hospital for assessment and have since been released. The man was taken to Riverstone Police Station and charged with three counts of intentionally choke person with recklessness (DV) and two counts of sexual intercourse without consent (DV). Police will allege in court the man attempted to suffocate the child twice in a domestic violence incident. It will be further alleged he choked a 25-year-old woman and raped her twice earlier that day. He was refused bail to appear before Blacktown Local Court on Monday. A bus carrying Koreans evacuated from coronavirus-hit Wuhan, China, is showered with disinfectant at a state-run quarantine shelter in Jincheon, North Chungcheong Province, Sunday. Yonhap South Korea reported three more cases of the novel coronavirus Sunday, bringing the total here to 15, amid concerns over person-to-person transmission. The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) said the 13th case involved a man, 28, who was one of 368 Koreans evacuated from the Chinese city of Wuhan on Friday. Mother Nature caused some literal whiplash across western Montana Saturday, first teasing people with spring-like record-breaking warmth, then whipping the region with winds that flipped a semi-truck and downed power-lines, leading to outages and road closures. A 100 mph gust was recorded at Point 6 above Snowbowl, at an elevation of 7,897 feet on Saturday, while the top of Mount Sentinel saw a 96 mph gust at 1:30 p.m., said Bob Nester of the National Weather Service. Gusts of up to 93 mph, and sustained winds at 60 mph, had all three chair lifts at Snowbowl shut down by noon. Snowbowl owner Brad Morris said all three will be operating tomorrow morning, so long as the weather permits it. In the valleys, Missoula saw peak gusts of 56 mph, while winds of 51 mph were recorded in Bonner, 55 mph in Stevensville, and 47 mph in Kalispell, Nester said. Temperatures likewise climbed Saturday, all the way to 60 degrees in Missoula, setting a record for January and February both, Nester said. "This will be the warmest day we've ever had this early in the year," he said. "We've never hit 60 between Jan. 1 and Feb. 1, and the same goes through the end of February. The last time we hit 60 in February was in 2006, on the last day of the month." But the winds made it tough to enjoy the balmy temperatures. Deputy Jonathan Stineford with the Missoula County Sheriffs Office said crews responded to power outages and downed lines across the city. Along with downed lines, he said traffic lights malfunctioned. "We're seeing outages across pretty much the entire south end of the city," he said Saturday afternoon. NorthWestern Energy posted a warning about downed power lines on its Facebook page and urged caution Saturday afternoon: "Winds are expected to get worse throughout the day, and we anticipate additional outages. If you see a downed line please stay clear and call or report online immediately." Winds gusting up to 60 mph knocked trees into power lines throughout Flathead County, with the county sheriffs office reporting that nearly the entire area of Libby had no power as of 1 p.m. We have multiple transmission lines down causing large pockets of outages in Whitefish and Glacier. Crews are working on the transmission line from Hungry Horse to West Glacier as well as the one impacting the Whitefish area, said a statement posted to the Flathead Electric Cooperatives website. The Montana Department of Transportation also reported that traffic was down to a single lane on U.S. Highway 93 some 4 miles south of Lakeside due to a downed power line Saturday afternoon. A mile north of Stevensville, a semi-truck flipped over due to high winds at 11 a.m., blocking all four lanes. Montana Highway Patrol Officer Scott Bennett said the truck was carrying a pallet of produce, heading south to Darby. A towing crew responded from Missoula, but was delayed due to power lines strewn across Highway 93 five miles north of the crash. The truck was righted at about 1:30 p.m. The 52-year-old driver was transported to the hospital, authorities said. Even as crews worked to repair downed power lines throughout the western part of the state, high winds pushing tree limbs into power lines continued to knock out power throughout the morning. According to the Ravalli County Electric Coops website, a power outage just south of Lolo left more than 1,300 people without power. It estimated power would return at around 3 p.m. An outage map for Northwestern Energy showed power losses in Stevensville, Missoula and throughout Lincoln County. Missoula Electric Cooperatives website reported that as of 1:45 p.m., more than 1,400 customers had no power. An approaching cold front shoving warm air ahead of it accounted for the winds, said Nester. "Those peak winds should diminish" by Saturday evening, he said. "But they'll likely be followed by snow," he said, "as much as 4 inches to 8 inches on Lolo and Lost Trail passes, and maybe an inch in the Missoula Valley." Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 3 Sad 0 Angry 1 1917 won the Best Picture BAFTA at tonights EE British Academy Film Awards. It won over The Irishman, Joker, Once Upon A Time...In Hollywood, and Parasite. Returning to the stage, having already been up to collect awards for Outstanding British Film and Best Director, Sir Sam Mendes said: "Thank you for giving us a really wonderful night. Thank you to all the people who have gone to see this in the cinemas, it's still on." Star George MacKay added: "We would like to share this with every single member of the crew and the team who gave their time. The whole process in the film itself show the goodness that will come in going for something that is bigger than yourself." Read more: Full list of BAFTAs 2020 winners The film also won trophies for Cinematography, Special Visual Effects, Sound, and Production Design. George MacKay in 1917 (Credit: eOne) Mendes has said that he "couldn't be more thrilled" with the success of his film, adding that he is particularly pleased that large numbers of people have watched it in the cinema. He said that he is also pleased that his family's story was able to be told to so many people. He added: "Obviously there's the personal delight in seeing a story that was very close to me and my family to some degree then be developed and enlarged and become this thing." From left, Callum McDougall, Pippa Harris, Sam Mendes, Krysty Wilson-Cairms and Jayne-Anne Tengren, winners of the Outstanding British Film, pose backstage at the Bafta Film Awards, in central London, Sunday, Feb. 2, 2020. (Photo by Joel C Ryan/Invision/AP) Roger Deakins's win for best cinematography means he has become the most-decorated winner of that category, while Sir Sam won his first directing prize, making him the first British winner in the category since Danny Boyle won for Slumdog Millionaire. Krysty Wilson-Cairns, who co-wrote war film 1917 with director Sir Sam Mendes, said that she was shocked at the critical reception to the film, which won a total of seven awards from nine nominations, including outstanding British film. Speaking to the PA news agency on the red carpet, Wilson-Cairns said: "It's so lovely, it's slightly bewildering, it's all a bit mad, it's my first rodeo, I'm loving it and I'm terrified." On the need for change within the industry, she said: "I think there's still a long way to go, not just for women, but for people of colour, differently abled people, just across the board I think what we really need to push for in the next decade is different people being able to tell their own stories." 1917 is in cinemas now. Landlords with empty homes should have their properties taken off them in a bid to solve the housing crisis, Labours Emily Thornberry has said. In a fiery rant at the latest Labour leadership hustings, the shadow foreign secretary said there needed to be bigger stick with which to punish wealthy landlords who were content to let their properties sit vacant. She told supporters in Bristol it was a matter of inter-generational justice and that the UK was in danger of leaving a whole generation behind, given so many young people could not afford to buy their own home. As for all these empty flats, for these people in China who think, Lets either buy a gold bar or buy a flat in Bristol no, she exclaimed. The answer to the housing crisis is to build more homes! By having a carrot and stick approach we can build more homes and stop land banking. The housing crisis affects everyone and Labour must provide the solutions. #FightingBackTogether #LabourHustings Emily Thornberry (@EmilyThornberry) February 1, 2020 Youre not allowed to buy a flat in Bristol as an investment and keep it empty. If you keep it empty, you lose it. Ms Thornberry also said councils should be allowed to take back land from developers who fail to act on planning permission within five years of gaining approval. The outburst came from Ms Thornberry as she seeks to claw through to the final stage of the race to succeed leader Jeremy Corbyn. She is the only candidate, out of the four still in the contest, not to have guaranteed that her name will be on the ballot paper. With most of the major unions announcing their nominations, the Islington South and Finsbury MP is likely to have to go down the route of securing nominations from 33 constituency Labour Party (CLP) branches to progress. As of Friday, the shadow cabinet member had the backing of nine CLPs, with the deadline for nominations two weeks away. Expand Close Many UK cities currently face a housing shortage (Dominic Lipinski/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Many UK cities currently face a housing shortage (Dominic Lipinski/PA) Giving her view on the housing crisis, Lisa Nandy said the pressure on the UKs housing stock had been caused through a failure to balance the economy. The Wigan MP said some former industrial towns had homes boarded up because they were unaffordable, which she said was a consequence of jobs having departed those areas and the young people with them. The flip side is, where are those young people going? Theyre moving to the cities, said Ms Nandy. So we are overheating one part of our economy and completely under using and under appreciating another. Thats why we have the high house prices and the inability for young people to get on the housing ladder. All four candidates called for more house building during the hustings at Ashton Gate Stadium, with shadow business secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey who was criticised for rating Mr Corbyns performance at the election 10 out of 10 pushing for a dramatic council house building programme like the one we set out in the last manifesto. Early frontrunner Sir Keir Starmer said more houses were required at rents and rates that people can afford. He said overcrowding in London was having a negative impact on childrens learning and labelled the current situation disgraceful. Amid the rising cases of coronavirus infection in China and other parts of the world, India on Sunday (February 2) temporarily suspended e-visa facility for Chinese travellers and foreigners residing in Beijing. The Indian Embassy in Beijing said that travel to India on E-visas stands temporarily suspended with immediate effect due to certain current developments. The Embassy added that the suspension also applies to holders of Chinese passports and applicants of other nationalities residing in China. Due to certain current developments, travel to India on E-visas stands temporarily suspended with immediate effect. This applies to holders of Chinese passports and applicants of other nationalities residing in the Peoples Republic of China, the Indian Embassy in Beijing tweeted. Advisory: Due to certain current developments, travel to India on E-visas stands temporarily suspended with immediate effect. This applies to holders of Chinese passports and applicants of other nationalities residing in the Peoples Republic of China. India in China (@EOIBeijing) February 2, 2020 The Indian Embassy in Beijing also noted that anyone who have a compelling reason to visit India may get in touch with officials at the Embassy of India in Beijing or the Indian consulates in Shanghai or Guangzhou, and the Indian Visa Application Centres in these cities to get their visa. "Holders of already issued E-visas may note that these are no longer valid. All those who have a compelling reason to visit India may contact the Embassy of India in Beijing or the Indian consulates in Shanghai or Guangzhou,and the Indian Visa Application Centres in these cities," the Embassy said in another tweet. Holders of already issued E-visas may note that these are no longer valid. All those who have a compelling reason to visit India may contact the Embassy of India in Beijing or the Indian consulates in Shanghai or Guangzhou,and the Indian Visa Application Centres in these cities. India in China (@EOIBeijing) February 2, 2020 The Centre took this step hours after the second positive case of coronavirus was confirmed in Kerala. We have to isolate people. People coming from China should take precautions. I have assured Kerala health minister of all possible support, Union minister Harsh Vardhan said on Sunday. Live TV It is to be noted that the coronavirus outbreak has killed more than 300 people, infected 14,562 others and spread to over 20 countries , including India, the US and the UK. A man died of the Wuhan coronavirus in the Philippines, marking the first time someone has died from the new virus outside of mainland China, where officials are scrambling to try to contain the epidemic. Authorities in the Philippines said the 44-year-old Chinese man from Wuhan who appeared to have been infected before arriving in the Philippines had been admitted to hospital on Jan. 25. Although he showed signs of improvement over the past few days after developing pneumonia, the condition of the patient deteriorated within his last 24 hours resulting in his demise. His 38-year-old companion is still hospitalized. Advertisement Hours before the death was publicly announced, the Philippines became the latest country to place temporary block on travelers from China, except Filipinos. New Zealand also announced new limits on travelers from China, joining the United States and Australia, among others, who have imposed restrictions in a bid to stem the spread of the new virus. Infections in China soared by 2,590 to 14,380 while the death toll rose by 45 to 304. At least an additional 171 cases have been reported in around 20 other countries, including eight in the United States. Although the number of cases is far higher than during the 2002-03 outbreak of SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, the mortality rate of the new virus is lower, suggesting it is less deadly. SARS killed almost 800 people of the approximately 8,000 who were infected. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Experts are warning that as fast as the virus is spreading the truth could be even starker and the outbreak could be much worse than it appears. Plus, it could start spreading much more quickly over the next week or two. A study published in The Lancet found that it is likely that as many as 75,815 people in Wuhan had been infected by Jan. 25 and that the epidemic was doubling every 6.4 days. The New York Times carried out interviews with Wuhan residents, doctors, and officials to reconstruct how the outbreak became an epidemic and found that in the crucial first weeks since the first symptoms appeared, the government chose secrecy over openness. The Times explains: Advertisement A new wind energy power plant south of Winslow will be built on the border of Coconino County and Navajo County, and is vying to be a part of the state's transition into a clean energy future. The 477-megawatt Chevelon Butte Wind Farm is proposed by sPower, a Utah-based company, and could build turbines that will be some of the largest structures in the state. The wind farm would join three other wind farms in Arizona, two of which are in northern Arizona. Arizona Public Service, which announced last week its plan to transition into 100% carbon-free by 2050 and 45% renewable energy sources by 2030, currently receives 12% of its energy from clean energy sources such as wind and solar. The Utah-based companys proposal was unanimously approved by Navajo County, the Coconino County Planning and Zoning Commission and the Arizona Corporation Commission that oversees APS. The proposal, which faced some small public opposition, will be built on the Chevelon Butte Ranch owned by the third-generation OHaco family 20 miles south of Winslow. The owner plans to use the leasing agreement to help sustain their ranching operation. The county and utility agencies all approved the project unanimously, which was a point of pride for Terrance Unrein, senior permitting manager at sPower. Im obviously biased, were going to have the best project in northern Arizona, Unrein said. Were poised to bring decades of economic benefits with the largest wind farm in Arizona. The public opposition the project faced was based on the visual impacts. However, two experts suggested the project is far from residents by most wind farm standards. sPower is working toward constructing the farm sometime later this year and will create hundreds of temporary construction and some full-time jobs. APS is currently looking for bids to buy electricity from wind power providers to help renewable energy make up 15% of its energy portfolio by 2025. While both sPower and APS would not comment about that bid process, APS officials expect that after signing contracts with an energy provider, the company will have met its 15% goal. The Chevelon Butte Wind Farm plans to become the fourth utility-scale wind farm in Arizona, whether it contracts with APS or not. The Perrin Ranch Wind Farm is operating near Williams, and the Dry Lake Wind Farm is near Snowflake. The Red Horse 2 Wind Farm is located east of Tucson. In total, the three wind farms create 268 megawatts combined while Chevelon is poised to create 477 megawatts alone, Unrein said. Solar and wind power are considered both clean and renewable energy. Renewable energy is energy created utilizing resources that are considered infinite, such as heat and wind. Clean energy is energy that does not emit carbon while generating power. Unrein described sPower as a mid-size wind energy producer, but the company is the largest owner of solar in the country. Height At its tallest height, Chevelon Butte Wind Farm turbines are permitted to have their center hubs standing 489 feet tall and blades that will hit 755 feet. If built to the maximum permitted height, the possible 156 wind turbines could stand hundreds of feet taller than any structure in the state of Arizona. The tallest structure in Arizona is Phoenixs Chase Building that stands at 483-feet tall. Tom Acker, a mechanical engineering professor at NAU, said Arizona has modest wind speeds compared to the flat plains of the Midwest. As to why sPower pushed for such tall structures, Acker said that there is more power in wind speeds at higher elevations. Acker cited a map made by the federal Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy that shows wind speeds around Coconino County are some of the best in the state when hubs are set at 360 feet. When it comes to turning wind into power, Acker said increasing wind speed by 20% can double the power in the wind. There is decent wind there. Especially putting up tall towers, [sPower] can probably make a decent economic case, Acker said. Unrein said the wind farm is permitted to reach those towering heights, but the company submitted three possible turbine models at different heights. He alleged the company isnt certain it will need the maximum permitted height after reviewing the wind data collected over the past year. He said the company will not know how tall the structures will be until it solidifies its building plans. At this time, were not leaning toward using the tallest machine. Im comfortable with stating that, Unrein said. Unrein said he expects the company to begin construction sometime in late summer or early fall. Visual impacts Unrein acknowledges that the turbines along the State Route 99 into the Tonto National Forest will change the feeling of that part of the state. Some people from the Blue Ridge community in southern Coconino on the Mogollon Rim opposed the farm, citing the visual impacts of tall structures. However, the project is eight miles from Blue Ridge in Coconino County, and two miles from the nearest community in Navajo County. Karin Wadsack, a program manager at National Renewable Energy Laboratory, who was asked to reviewed the proposal for the county, said that some counties only require that a turbine cannot be closer than a quarter mile or half mile from someones home. Sound and visual impacts are all mitigated with distance, Wadsack said. This project is more than two miles from the closest home in one of the counties, and eight miles from the closest home in a different county. The farther away the project is from a home impacts peoples negative feeling from the project. Tall wind turbines often need lights installed on them to ensure that low-flying aircraft do not strike them. This can change the night sky landscape for residents, which some community members cited in their opposition. In an attempt to mitigate that impact, Unrein said the company plans to use radar to have lights turn on when large, low-flying aircrafts are sensed in the region. This means the lights will turn off until an aircraft enters the area, so that lights do not need to be flashing throughout the night. Those flashing lights are what people object to. We live in place with very clear, dust-free, dry skies and people can see really far, Wadsack said. The project was passed by the county's planning and zoning commission and an appeal was not filed, so the Coconino County Board of Supervisors was not asked to review and vote on the project. Jobs and transmitting energy The project will need to build all of their turbines, two substations, two primarily underground transmission lines, and a 145-foot tall transmission line to connect the wind farm to the main corridor line extending from Cholla Power Plant. The project is planned to be built over two phases, which will require 400 to 500 construction jobs in total. Unrein expects those construction workers will be spending their money in nearby northern Arizona cities and towns. Wind farms are much less beneficial for long-term job creation than coal power plants, Unrein said, referring to the Navajo Generating Station closure. Unrein said during Chevelons permitted 25-year lifecycle, it will create about 15 salaried, full-time positions. The positions are family wage jobs. Starting wind turbine technicians earn a very healthy salary for your region, Unrein said. Unrein also brought up the property and sales tax benefits from their construction and operation of the wind farm. At this point in the development, Unrein couldn't say how much the county agencies would profit. Golden eagles One of the largest concerns that Coconino County and Arizona Game and Fish Department staff had were the wind farms impact on wildlife. The largest listed red flag was the golden eagle. Wind farms are notorious for killing birds and bats as their blades rotate in the wind, which can leave otherwise economically sound proposals dead in the water if the wind farm impacts any birds, raptors or bats protected by the Endangered Species Act. Acker explained that developers usually consider endangered animals before developing a proposal, because permitting can be expensive. Its a screen, Acker said. If [the project] is in an environmentally sensitive area, theyre not going to put any effort into developing it. There are endangered animals, like the Chiricahua leopard frog, California condor, Mexican spotted owl and Mexican wolf that occasionally use the area, but Game and Fish and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ruled the wind farm did not significantly impacted the species. Golden and occasionally bald eagles are known to nest and drink water in Clear Creek Canyon, which is adjacent to turbines on the site, county data stated. sPower conducted eagle and raptor studies, approved by Game and Fish, in the region to understand the habits of raptors. Unrein expects to finish their observation in November 2020. Game and Fish officials required that sPower move the turbine a mile away from Clear Creek Canyon if their study finds there are higher amounts of raptors than expected in the region. Additionally, the project is prohibited from building turbines near watering holes, and eagle nests. Also the company must design structures to limit perching and nesting to push birds away from the area. Jessica Simmons, a wildlife specialist whose position is funded by both Coconino County and Arizona Game and Fish Department, could not comment in time for publication. APS goals Suzanne Trevino, spokeswoman for APS, said the utility felt moving toward a carbon-free future was the right timing in its 134-year history. APS plans to invest more in solar power, storing energy, nuclear and advances in energy efficiency. In addition to targeting 65% clean energy with 45% renewable energy by 2030, APS plans to end all coal-fired generation by 2031. This date to end all coal energy resources is seven years sooner than previously planned. I think that this is the next step in our history of APS to announce our goal to have clean, carbon free energy to customers by 2050, Trevino said. There are a lot of technological advances that are allowing us to make this move. We also hear from customers that this is something they want. Trevino explained that Proposition 127 from the 2018 midterm election was a part of the feedback that led to this decision. Prop 127 attempted to amend the Constitution of Arizona to require electricity providers to generate at least 50% of their annual sales of electricity through renewable energy. The proposition did not pass in the election. The difference here is that we now have flexibility, Trevino said. We can keep customer affordability at the forefront. If we changed the constitution there would be no off-ramp for customers. This way we can keep clean, reliable and affordable power for our customers. Other states in the Southwest have already made commitments to divest from gas and coal, like California attempting to source 50% of electricity sales from clean sources by 2030. New Mexico is expecting to reach 100% carbon free electricity generation by 2045. Given the push across the Southwest for more carbon-free and renewable energy energy sources, and the level of wind resources in the more rural parts of the state, experts expect to see more wind farms move into northern Arizona in the immediate future. This article has been updated from its original version. Scott Buffon can be reached at sbuffon@azdailysun.com, on Twitter @scottbuffon or by phone at (928) 556-2250. Love 9 Funny 0 Wow 2 Sad 0 Angry 5 Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. UK-Llisted speciality lender Duke Royalty wants to invest up to 25m of capital into the Irish market over the course of the first quarter of this year. The lender, which is headed up by Canadian-born Neil Johnson, acquired an investment portfolio of Irish companies following its purchase of finance company Capital Step last year. Duke Royalty offers royalty-based lending, a form of loan which can see investors paid back an agreed percentage of income, which changes each year, depending on the company's performance. Rael Sarembock, vice-president of Duke Royalty and co-founder of Capital Step, confirmed the company had plans to invest 25m in Ireland, with ambitions to at least double its Irish investments over the course of the year. He said the company hopes to be one of the more significant investors in small and medium-sized businesses in the country. "Roughly half of our portfolio is in Ireland or has an interest in Ireland," Sarembock said. "We are a serious investor in Ireland; we see it as a very attractive opportunity and place for us to do business. We've now got a very strong network of both portfolio companies and relationships in the corporate finance community." Sarembock said Duke Royalty's portfolio of Irish firms, which includes telecommunications company Welltel and recruiter Brightwater, employs around 1,000 people. He said the company also hopes to announce a new Irish investment in the first half of February. Last week, Duke Royalty announced it had made a follow-on 7.7m (8m) investment into the group behind Brightwater, which was used by the firm to acquire life sciences recruiter PE Global. The acquisition, which was reported as being worth 9.1m in the Irish Independent, was also supported by Bank of Ireland. Earlier this month, Duke Royalty also announced that it had completed a 2m follow-on investment into Welltel, which brought its total stake in the company to 8.1m. The entire facility in Welltel, which was acquired from Capital Step, was recently refinanced under Duke Royalty's terms. The proceeds of the refinancing were used by Welltel to acquire Invistech, a long-established and profitable IT managed service and telecommunications business. Ross Murray, chief executive of Welltel, said the move would allow the business to enter the managed IT and security market. The acquisition will offer Welltel the opportunity to cross-sell into Invistech's 450-strong customer base in Ireland. According to Duke Royalty's latest portfolio update, the investor has an additional 31m of liquidity available for new deployments. Police have launched a major operation across the city to identify, locate, and detain the culprit. An unidentified attacker fired several shots at a plastic surgeon, killing the man, 42, and taking his bag before fleeing the scene in central Kyiv Sunday afternoon. Police have launched a major operation across the city to identify, locate, and detain the culprit, Kyiv metro police press service reported, according to Hromadske. "At around 18:00, we were informed that an unidentified male suspect shot several times at a male victim on Saksahanskoho Street before fleeing the scene," the statement said, adding that a CSI team and a K9 unit were working at the site. Read alsoSBU exposes Russian bot farm sending fake bomb threats Hromadske established that the victim was Andriy Sotnyk, a Kyiv resident, 42, who was employed by DMK Ukraine. The company website says he was a Candidate of Medical Sciences and worked as a plastic and aesthetic surgeon. A police official told Hromadske that the victim had been renting an apartment in the building outside of which he was murdered. He had moved to Kyiv from Donetsk in 2014, the year when Russia started waging aggression against Ukraine, including in the eastern Donetsk region. The FDIC's official problem bank list is comprised of banks with a CAMELS rating of 4 or 5, and the list is not made public (just the number of banks and assets every quarter). Note: Bank CAMELS ratings are also not made public. CAMELS is the FDIC rating system, and stands for Capital adequacy, Asset quality, Management, Earnings, Liquidity and Sensitivity to market risk. The scale is from 1 to 5, with 1 being the strongest. As a substitute for the CAMELS ratings, surferdude808 is using publicly announced formal enforcement actions, and also media reports and company announcements that suggest to us an enforcement action is likely, to compile a list of possible problem banks in the public interest. DISCLAIMER: This is an unofficial list, the information is from public sources and while deemed to be reliable is not guaranteed. No warranty or representation, expressed or implied, is made as to the accuracy of the information contained herein and same is subject to errors and omissions. This is not intended as investment advice. Please contact CR with any errors. Here is the unofficial problem bank list for January 2020. Here are the monthly changes and a few comments from surferdude808: Update on the Unofficial Problem Bank List for January 2020. During the month, the list declined by three to 64 banks after four removals and one addition. Aggregate assets were little changed at $51.3 billion. A year ago, the list held 78 institutions with assets of $55.2 billion. Enforcement actions were terminated against First Community National Bank, Cuba, MO ($130 million); SunSouth Bank, Dothan, AL ($107 million); Lafayette State Bank, Mayo, FL ($106 million); and Sunrise Bank Dakota, Onida, SD ($52 million). Added this month was Texas Citizens Bank, National Association, Pasadena, TX ($521 million). The first unofficial problem bank list was published in August 2009 with 389 institutions. The number of unofficial problem banks grew quickly and peaked at 1,003 institutions in July, 2011 - and has steadily declined since then to below 100 institutions. Delhi Police have registered a case after two unidentified persons allegedly opened fire outside Jamia Millia Islamia on Sunday night, police said. No one was injured in the attack. In a statement issued by the Jamia Coordination Committee (JCC), a group comprising students and alumni of the university formed to protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act, said the attackers were on a red motorcycle. One of the miscreants was wearing a red jacket, the statement said. A senior police official said a case of attempt to murder under relevant sections of the IPC and the Arms Act was registered in connection with the incident and an investigation is underway. This is the third firing incident in the Jamia Nagar area in a week. On Thursday, a minor fired at anti-CAA protesters preparing to march from Jamia towards the Rajghat, injuring a student. Two days later, a 25-year-old fired two rounds in air at Shaheen Bagh, where a protest against the new citizenship law has been going on. No one was hurt in the incident."Firing has taken place at Gate No. 5 of Jamia Millia Islamia...by two unidentified persons. As per report, one of them was wearing a red jacket and driving a red scooty having vehicle no. 1532 or 1534," the statement said. Asim Mohammed Khan, a former Congress MLA from Okhla, said the incident occurred around 11.30 pm. "We heard the gunshot. That is when we stepped out to see and the two men left on a scooty," a student said. "We have taken down the vehicle number and called police," he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) New Delhi, Feb 2 : A total of 303 of 330 people who arrived in Air India special flight from Wuhan in China at Delhi Airport on Sunday morning, have been taken from the airport to Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) camp here for medical observation. They have been shifted to the paramilitary force's Chhawla camp in west Delhi. The ITBP had already made arrangements of 600 beds at the camp for families and kids coming from China as quarantine facility. The remaining passengers have been shifted to Army camp in Manesar in Gurugram. Among the 303 people, 201 are men, 99 women and three children. The seven Maldivians, who were also evacuated on the same plane along with Indians, have also been shifted to the ITBP camp where they will be housed for a period of quarantine. Both ITBP and Army have created n-coronavirus quarantine facilities for the passengers coming from Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak that has killed more than 300 people and infected over 9,000 in China while two people from Kerala have tested positive for the virus in India. "ITBP doctors screened the passengers who reached from Wuhan at around 9.45 a.m. at the bay of the Airport. About 303 of today's arrivals will be hosted by the ITBP at quarantine facility including women and children. All are found negative in the screening at the Airport," ITBP Spokesperson Vivek Pandey told IANS. With the new batch, a total of 404 persons are kept under close observation at the ITBP camp in Chhawla. The report of 104 out of the 324 people, who arrived in the first batch from Wuhan on Saturday, has been said to be negative. Around 250 people are currently kept in the Army camp in Manesar -- 220 of the first batch and 30 of the second. The second Air India flight carrying 323 Indian citizens had taken off in the intervening night of February 1 and 2 in the wake of the novel Coronavirus outbreak which has killed over 300 people in China as per the latest reports with the number of people infected crossing 14,000 across the country. Besides Indian citizens, the second evacuation flight accommodated seven Maldivian citizens as well. Taking to Twitter, Indian ambassador to China, Vikram Misri thanked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for their assistance. READ | Russia Imposes Various Restrictions On Chinese Citizens Over Deadly Coronavirus The 2nd #AirIndia flight from #Wuhan has just taken off for #Delhi with 323 Indian citizens on board. 7 Maldives citizens are also being evacuated. Grateful once again to @MFA_China and local authorities all across #Hubei for their assistance. @MEAIndia @DrSJaishankar @EOIBeijing Vikram Misri (@VikramMisri) February 1, 2020 READ | Amid Coronavirus Outbreak, Sri Lanka & Turkey Evacuate Their Citizens From Wuhan Indian Government started evacuating the Indian citizens from China with its first Air Inda flight bringing back 324 citizens on Saturday. Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Turkey, Germany also evacuated its citizens on Saturday. Multiple countries across the world have not only started evacuating it's citizens from the country but have also started imposing travel restrictions for Chinese nationals and those coming from the country. Countries such as Russia, Australia and the US have imposed a travel ban and have also closed borders for those coming from China. READ | Health Minister Harsh Vardhan Reviews Measures To Tackle Novel Coronavirus WHO stands by China The World Health Organisation (WHO) had initially played down on the severity of the pandemic citing fewer cases outside China, however, later called it a global health emergency on Thursday. WHO, however, has repeatedly stated that it stands by China for its efforts to tackle the crisis. Director-General of WHO, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus recently stated, "Let me be clear: this declaration is not a vote of no confidence in China. On the contrary, WHO continues to have confidence in Chinas capacity to control the outbreak..To the people of China & to all of those around the world who have been affected by this outbreak, we want you to know that the stands with you." READ | German Coronavirus Evacuation Flight Lands In Frankfurt Listing of insurance behemoth Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) may be done in the second half of the next financial year, Finance Secretary Rajiv Kumar said on February 2. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman while presenting the Budget 2020-21 on February 1 announced stake sale in LIC through an initial public offer in the next fiscal. There are a number of processes which have to be followed for the listing and some legislative changes would also be required for the listing of LIC, Kumar said. "We will follow the extant procedure for listing and for other things including the legislative changes it requires in consultation with the Ministry of Law and that process we already started ... listing in the second half of FY21 seems logical," he said. Listing of LIC will bring in greater transparency, public participation and also deepen the equity market, he told PTI in an interaction. Asked about the quantum of dilution, Kumar said, it could be 10 per cent but no decision has been taken so far. The government aims to garner Rs 90,000 crore from the listing of LIC and stake dilution in IDBI Bank in the next fiscal out of total disinvestment target of Rs 2.10 lakh crore. The government currently owns 100 per cent in LIC, while it holds around a 46.5 per cent stake in IDBI Bank. "Listing of companies on stock exchanges discipline a company and provides access to financial markets and unlocks its value. It also gives opportunity for retail investors to participate in the wealth so created. The government now proposes to sell a part of its holding in LIC by way of Initial Public Offer (IPO)," the Finance Minister had said in her Budget speech. Market participants are quite bullish about LIC and said it could be "IPO of the decade" akin to the Saudi Aramco listing. The 60-year-old state-owned firm, LIC, is the country's largest insurer, controlling more than 70 percent of the market share. The insurer has a market share of 76.28 percent in number of policies and 71 percent in first-year premiums. LIC has many subsidiaries including IDBI Bank. It acquired controlling stake in IDBI Bank last year. Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill called for prayer for the mention of God in the Constitution. TASS reports, referring to the chairman of the Synodal Department for the relationship of the church with society and the media of the Moscow Patriarchate Vladimir Legoyda. Lets pray, work, that God is mentioned in our basic law. If the anthem can contain Gods native land, why this cannot be stated in our Constitution? Its not yet, but I think by common efforts and by prayers we will help to ensure that such an exalted idea, which is faith in God, which forms morality, both personal and social, and political, so that it is present in our Constitution as well, I think that today we could start a discussion about it," quoted l Patriarch Legoyda. According to the patriarch, who is cited by the chairman of the Synodal Department, this will correspond to the convictions of most Russians. Most Russian citizens believe in God. Im not talking only about the Orthodox - Im also talking about Muslims and many, many others, he quotes the head of the Russian Orthodox Church. As we reported, Pope Francis I wished Ukraine God's help in achieving peace in Donbas in his Christmas message Urbi et Orbi (to the city and to the world). American producers may soon be looking to their own farms for a viable market for hemp. As research continues on the potential uses for the newly approved crop, producers are discovering two primary benefits for their livestock CBD oil and hemp seed. Farmers and ranchers are using both products on animals with positive results, the oil for physical maladies and the seed for its nutritional advantages. Theres great promise here, said Geoff Whaling, National Hemp Association chairman. Now that (hemp) is approved, universities like Cornell and Colorado are really studying it. Major veterinarian centers are looking at this too, like (Penn State), not only from an agronomy standpoint, but also a human and animal safety perspective. The science of CBD Spearheading the movement to legalize hemp across America, Whaling said clinical research has already confirmed that CBD oil is beneficial for people who suffer from epilepsy, particularly Dravet syndrome. The rare and devastating form of epilepsy begins during infancy and because of the nature of the frequent and severe seizures requires around-the-clock patient care. Jyotsna Singh By The global health crisis triggered by the novel coronavirus that originated in China has created a scare among Indians. On January 28, the capital woke up with the news of possibility of coronavirus having reached Indian shores. Three patients presented themselves with symptoms of cough and fever, and were referred to Delhis Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital. All three had returned from China recently and were suspected with coronavirus infection. Their samples were sent to National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune, for testing. While one sample was found to be positive for H1N1 influenza virus, results for the other two are still awaited, says the spokesperson from Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. If the coronavirus snowballs into an epidemic, is India equipped to handle it, given the countrys overburdened health infrastructure? According to the Global Health Security Index published in October 2019, most countries are not prepared for the outbreak of serious infectious diseases, and Asian countries, including India, are at significant risk. According to the report, India ranked 57th among 100 countries and the country has several other characteristics that make it vulnerable to the spread of the disease. First, it is among the most densely populated countries in the world. Literacy rates are low, so is general hygiene awareness, and access to clean water, gloves, and masks is limited. Private hospitals are small in number and expensive, while government-run ones are mostly understaffed and unprepared for major crises. The mobility between India and China is high six flights a week from Air India and a daily flight from Indigo, among others. Shanghai and Beijing are also transit airports for Indians travelling to other countries such as South Korea and the US. Thus, there is a high possibility of transmission of the virus through people coming in from China. Kerala, Maharashtra, Bihar and Rajasthan have also raised a red flag. As a precautionary measure, the Kerala government put 663 persons under observation. The epicentre of the epidemic in Wuhan, China, houses many universities where nearly 200 Indian students study. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to provide assistance to the students and evacuate them. While the Ministry of Civil Aviation is making the necessary arrangements for the same, the individuals who return, will be kept in quarantine for 14 days at various locations in and near Delhi. The Ministry of Shipping has also pitched in and has initiated screening at all major ports. Despite these efforts, the question remains whether India is prepared to face the music in event of an outbreak. While the Indian government is putting efforts, the country is hardly prepared for this infection. NIV, Pune, is the only laboratory which is advanced enough to test coronavirus samples. Even if some more are equipped, it is grossly low compared to our needs. We need at least one laboratory per state, says Dr SP Byotra, Chairperson, Department of Medicine, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, Delhi. Thus, while so far only five laboratories have been identified for testing, the requirement is of 29. He adds that having isolation facilities only in Delhi is not enough. So far that is the only isolation centre set up in the county. As the number of airports for screening of passengers is 21, that is the number of isolation facilities that the experts are looking at. While so far only five laboratories have been identified for testing, the requirement is much more given the scale of population. Passengers from China are landing in all parts of India from Jaipur to Bengaluru. We need isolation facilities near all the airports wherever screening is happening to ensure that infection does not spread further, Byotra adds. A Japanese warship departed Sunday for the Middle East to ensure the safety of the country's oil tankers in waters where tensions between the U.S. and Iran are high. The destroyer Takanami with some 200 sailors left Japan's main naval base in Yokosuka, near Tokyo. Its main task is primarily to gather intelligence in the Gulf of Oman and nearby waters. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called the waters a lifeline that supports the lives of the Japanese people." Thousands of Japanese ships ply the route every year, transporting 90% of the country's oil supply, he said. Your mission of information gathering is an extremely significant one that directly affects people's lives," Abe told the troops in a televised sendoff ceremony at Yokosuka. Sending warships to areas of military tension is a highly sensitive issue in Japan because its pacifist post-World War II constitution limits the use of force by the military strictly to self-defense. Abe has gradually expanded Japan's military role since he took office in late 2012. Under the plan, the destroyer and some 200 Maritime Self-Defense Force troops will join a pair of P-3C reconnaissance aircraft that were operating in the same area from a base in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa. The Abe government is expected to authorize troops to protect Japanese commercial ships in case of danger, a plan that has faced opposition from pacifist groups. Despite being a U.S. ally, Japanese troops are not part of a U.S.-led coalition protecting Middle East waterways, because Tokyo wants to maintain neutrality in a show of consideration to Iran. Japan, which has friendly ties with Iran, seeks to serve as a mediator between the Washington and Tehran and play a greater role in restoring regional stability. In June, a Japanese-operated tanker was attacked in the Gulf of Oman. Washington said Iran was responsible and urged Japan to join the U.S.-led military initiative. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Despite a ban on female-genital mutilation (FGM) in Egypt, a 12-year-old girl has died following complications from the procedure, prompting officials to arrest her parents and the physician. Nada Hassan Abdel Maqsoud was taken to a clinic in Manflout, in the Upper Egyptian governorate of Assyut, by her parents and other family members. She died soon after the procedure from complications. According to an investigation reported by local media, the procedure was performed without anaesthesia and the 70-year-old doctor who carried out the operation was not a qualified surgeon. What is FGM The World Health Organisation defines FGM as: "All procedures that involve partial or total removal of the female external genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons." It is considered a human rights violation, torture and extreme form of violence and discrimination against girls and women. Egypt has the highest rate of FGM across the Middle East and the fourth highest across Africa. Criminal offense In 2008, FGM was made into a misdemeanor for the first time following the death of a 12-year-old girl called 'Badour Shakour' in Minya governorate. The practice was officially banned by parliament despite strong opposition from many traditional law-makers. Changes were made to legislation in 2016 making it a felony following the death of 17-year-old Maya Mohammed Moussa in May 2016. If a family member is found guilty, he or she will go to jail for a year or two years. If it is a physician, it is up to seven years, said Reda Eldanbouki, a human rights lawyer and executive director of the Women's Centre for Guidance and Legal Awareness in Mansoura, Egypt. Laws and impunity To get around that ban, many private practices have opened up outside the national health services. People take their daughters to these clinics often to seek the advice of these doctors that are likely to say anything to get paid, calling it "medically required circumcision" added Eldanbouki. They often charge 1,400 Egyptian pounds, about 80 euros for the procedure, one mother told RFI who had her daughter circumcised in a clinic. Despite laws against FGM, doctors are rarely prosecuted. In one case in Ismailia the judge sentenced a physician to a year in prison but never imposed it. Efforts to stop FGM NGOs such as the one run by Eldanbouki try to spread information to those who still follow the deep-rooted tradition of FGM. He says that Maqsoud's death highlights the fact that more needs to be done to entrench the law. We hold workshops to make people aware," Eldanbouki added. "And each workshop has around 25 women. So more and more, I am optimistic that eventually the world will also be on board to end FGM." Videos Sorry, there are no recent results for popular videos. New Delhi, Feb 2 : The Central government on Sunday termed the indefinite stay imposed on the execution of the four convicts in the Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case a "deliberate, well-calculated and well-thought out attempt to frustrate the process of law" and demanded that there should be "no delay" in their hanging. "In the Interest of the society and victim, there should be no delay. Even in the case of the convicts, the Supreme Court says that there should be no delay as it would have dehumanising effect on the convict," Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, told Justice Suresh Kumar Kait during a special court proceeding on the weekend. The Solicitor General also presented a chart before the court explaining the legal remedies availed by the four death row convicts till now. The court was hearing a petition filed by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) challenging the stay imposed by the sessions court on the hanging of Vinay, Akshay, Mukesh and Pawan -- convicted for raping a medical student in December 2012. "There is a deliberate, well-calculated and well-thought design to frustrate the process of law. Mukesh took an ingenious plea which the trial court mistakenly accepted. Mercy jurisdiction is individual," Mehta said. Their hanging, originally scheduled for 7 a.m. January 22, was postponed to February 1 at 6 a.m. but deferred again on January 31 after Mukesh filed an application before a Delhi court contending that other convicts are yet to avail the legal remedies and cannot be hanged separately. Mukesh and Vinay have exhausted their legal remedies. However, a decision on Akshay's mercy plea is pending before the President. Pawan has yet not availed the remedy of mercy petition, which is the last constitutional resort. Continuing his tirade against the four convicts facing the gallows, Mehta asserted said that a co-convict, by his mere "calculative inaction", can frustrate the order of the court. The Solicitor General said that the trial court mistook the appeal filed by the convict to be a "mercy" plea. The 23-year-old victim, later named Nirbhaya, was brutally gang-raped and tortured and succumbed to her injuries a few days later. The deed was committed by six men who were all arrested and charged with sexual assault and murder. One of the accused was a minor and appeared before a juvenile justice court, while another accused committed suicide in Tihar Jail. Four other convicts -- Akshay, Pawan, Mukesh and Vinay -- were sentenced to death by a trial court in September 2013, and the verdict was confirmed by the Delhi High Court in March 2014 and upheld by the Supreme Court in May 2017 which also dismissed their review petition in July 2018. An audit of 650 California dams considered hazardous found that only a small fraction have completed emergency plans required after the Oroville Dam spillway collapsed three years ago and forced the evacuation of nearly 200,000 people. State Auditor Elaine Howles recent report says only 22 of the at-risk dams have finalized their plans, which are supposed to include inundation maps and specify what they would do to minimize loss of life and property. Some 250 dam operators havent even bothered to submit plans, and there is a major backlog of plans awaiting approval, the report, Assessment of High-Risk Issues, concluded. The deadline for owners of extremely high hazard dams to submit emergency plans was Jan. 1, 2018. Owners of high hazard dams had until Jan. 1, 2019. The state regulates more than 1,200 dams and assigns each a hazard rating based on how much harm and damage might result if they failed. A little more than half 650 were rated high or extremely high hazard. The state Office of Emergency Services has approved only 5% of the 400 emergency plans it has received, even though the inundation maps were approved by water resources officials. Most were sent back for revisions, the report said. The audit was also critical of the condition of many of the dams that do not yet have emergency plans. Of the 102 dams that are in less-than-satisfactory condition, 84 have been designated a significant hazard, meaning life or property would be at risk if they failed. Inadequately maintained dams or those not meeting standards, especially those whose failure could affect large populations, pose significant risks to California residents, the report stated, using the Oroville Dam spillway collapse as an example. Department of Water Resources data indicate that a majority of dams within the state with less-than-satisfactory condition ratings are in areas where they pose downstream hazard potential to life or property. Cal OES officials said they are committed to holding individual dam owners accountable and have done nothing wrong. The report operates on the incorrect premise that Cal OES has a backlog of emergency action plans, said Brian Ferguson, the spokesman for the Office of Emergency Services. Under statute, Cal OES has 60 days to review a completed EAP with approved inundation maps, and return it for revisions or approve. There are currently no EAPs under review at Cal OES that have failed to meet that 60-day deadline. Erin Mellon, the spokeswoman for the California Department of Water Resources, said significant progress has been made in dam safety since the Oroville incident. The Division of Safety of Dams is moving aggressively to reduce risks by inspecting dams and working with dam owners to meet the most rigorous standards in the nation and correct any deficiencies identified on an ongoing basis, Mellon said in a statement. In addition, DSOD is updating its inspection protocols to identify previously unknown dam safety risks and work with owners to mitigate those risks. Part of the problem, according to experts, is that many small dam owners dont have the money to do expensive reports, let alone pay tens of thousands of dollars to make repairs. The auditor noted that there are no state-level programs that provide financial assistance to dam owners for repairing their dams and resolving deficiencies. Fixing the problems will take time and require patience, resources officials said. The state spent $1.1 billion rebuilding Oroville Dams two faulty spillways after heavy rains in February 2017 broke up the main spillway, forcing operators to use an emergency spillway, which poured water over a mostly barren hillside that quickly eroded. A team of independent engineers blamed the failure on weakened concrete, poor drainage and a history of shoddy maintenance, including a failure to adequately review for problems. The Oroville failure raised concerns about the rest of Californias aging water infrastructure, prompting legislators to require dam operators to prepare the emergency plans. Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts. Since the rebuild, Oroville Dam has moved from unsatisfactory, the worst ranking on the rating scale, to fair, which is the second highest behind satisfactory. It is still considered a high hazard dam, and its emergency plan is one of the 22 that have been approved. Robert Bea, a professor emeritus of engineering and project management systems at UC Berkeley, said there have been major improvements Oroville is one example but the auditors report just confirms that infrastructure is still a problem I am very discouraged at this point, Bea said. Unfortunately, the failure to have learned constructively from the previous failures continues at this point. Weve developed this sickening reactive approach to these failures once it fails, fix it fast and return to business as usual. Its not a new problem, as Bea points out. There are a total of 1,585 dams in the state, including private dams, and many of them are aging. A 2017 Chronicle review of federal data found several dam-safety deficiencies in California. At that time, about a dozen state-monitored dams had gone more than two years between inspections, a year longer than it is normal. And there have been other near failures. The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission spent almost $22 million in 2018 and 2019 repairing and reinforcing Moccasin Dam in Tuolumne County after a storm sent a torrent of water and debris into the reservoir, raising fears the 60-foot-tall earthen barrier would collapse. Peter Fimrite is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: pfimrite@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @pfimrite Antarrashtriya Hindu Mahasabha president Ranjeet Bachchan shot dead India oi-Madhuri Adnal Lucknow, Feb 02: The Uttar Pradesh unit head of Antarrashtriya Hindu Mahasabha was shot dead in Lucknow by unknown assailants on Sunday when he was out on a morning walk, police said. A police official said Ranjeet Bachchan (40) was killed in an area which falls under the jurisdiction of the Hazratganj police station. He said the killing prima facie appears to be a fallout of some family dispute, but the police are investigating all possible angles. Sources said PTI that Bachchan was earlier associated with the Samajwadi Party. Joint Commissioner of Police Naveen Arora said Bachchan's cousin, Aditya Srivastava, was also injured in the incident and their mobile phones were snatched by the attackers, one of whom fired on them. The officer said while the 40-year-old Bachchan died on the spot after being hit by a bullet, Srivastava has received bullet injuries on his left hand. "On Sunday morning, Aditya Srivastava informed the police that he along with his cousin had gone on a morning walk. They were coming from OCR building (Burlington Crossing) and were going towards the Parivartan Chowk in the city when a person, who had a shawl wrapped over himself, stopped them, snatched their mobile phones, and fired," Arora said. He said as per initial information, Bachchan and his wife Kalindi Sharma were not in a cordial relationship and a case in this regard was registered in Gorakhpur. "This angle is also being looked into," he said. He said the deceased was also associated with the Samajwadi Party previously and took part in cycle rallies of the party between 2002-09. "As per his wife, the deceased later founded an organisation called Vishwa Hindu Mahasabha and became its national president," Arora said. Arora said the police are also examining CCTV footage from the area and checking the background of the people whom Bachchan had any dispute with. "As many as eight teams of the crime branch are working to solve the case," he said. On income inequality rankings, Iowa comes in third best, with narrower gaps between rich and poor than any state except Alaska and Utah. But when it comes to choosing presidential candidates, Iowas process is exceptionally unequal. On Feb. 3, when Iowa holds the much-anticipated first in the nation caucus, low-income residents will face multiple barriers to participation. First, you have to be able to show up in person by 7 p.m. and stay for an unspecified number of hours. That knocks out people who work in the evening and cant take time off. Think about the second-shift workers at the poultry and pork processing plants that dot the state. Think about the students who bartend to cover their tuition and other people who have to work multiple jobs to make ends meet. Think about the parents who cant afford nighttime child care. Theyre all excluded. Iowas Latinx residents, with a poverty rate nearly double the state average, are particularly likely to face economic barriers to participation on top of language barriers. The Iowa Democratic Party is supposed to provide translation support on request, but you wouldnt know that from looking at its website. Iowas strict voter ID law is another potential hurdle. The League of United Latin American Citizens sued to overturn this requirement, arguing that Latinx residents (as well as students) are less likely to have a drivers license or state-issued ID card. While a District Court judge recently overturned other parts of the states 2017 voter suppression law, he allowed the voter ID requirement to stand. LULAC has responded by redoubling its efforts to ensure Latinx residents can exercise their constitutional rights at the polls. Nick Salazar, LULACs Iowa state director, said they are on track to register 10,000 new Latinx voters. Theyve also been holding caucus trainings to help newbies feel more comfortable in what can be a very intimidating setting. Unlike primary participants who fill out ballots in the privacy of a voting booth, Iowa caucus-goers must declare their choice of candidate in front of their neighbors. Imagine how unnerving it might be to wind up in the same caucus room as your boss or your landlord. What if you back different candidates? LULAC is also taking advantage of a new Iowa Democratic Party initiative allowing a limited number of satellite caucuses for communities with special needs, including nonnative English speakers. Spanish-English bilingual caucuses will take place for the first time this year in Muscatine and Des Moines. While Iowas Latinx community faces high barriers to caucus participation, the hurdles are even higher for the states formerly incarcerated population. Iowa is the only state in the nation that still permanently bans all people with felony convictions from voting, unless they apply for and receive a waiver from the governor. The Restore Your Vote campaign estimates that this draconian law disenfranchises 10% of Iowas black voting-age population and 2% of the states total voting-age population. Research also shows that incarcerated people have much higher than average poverty and jobless rates both before and after they serve their time. The overwhelming whiteness of Iowas population (90%) has long made it a controversial site for the nations first presidential candidate contest. The barriers to caucus participation for disadvantaged groups make the states privileged political status even more problematic. To have a true democracy, we need voting to be accessible for all citizens, no matter how much money they make, how well they speak English, the color of their skin or whether they have served time in prison and paid their debt to society. Our votes will only really count if we can all vote. Sarah Anderson directs the Global Economy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies and co-edits the IPS publication inequality.org. She wrote this for InsideSources.com. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 BEIJING, Feb. 1 (Xinhua) -- In recent days, more foreign leaders have spoken positively of and supported China's efforts to battle the novel coronavirus outbreak through various means. In his call to Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered sympathies over the pain and loss inflicted on Chinese families and wished each patient a speedy recovery. He expressed belief that under Xi's leadership, China's resolute measures will contain the epidemic and minimize losses. The Russian people are willing to offer necessary aid to the friendly Chinese people, Putin said, adding that relevant Russian departments will work with counterparts in China through closest coordination to eliminate this common threat. Calling Chinese leaders' efficient response and the heroism of the Chinese people admirable, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that Belarus, always China's reliable and loyal friend, will offer medical supplies to help the Chinese people battle the epidemic. Thai King Maha Vajiralongkorn said that the international community is greatly impressed by the efforts and determination of the Chinese government to fight the epidemic and the extensive epidemic prevention measures it has taken. The Thai people and himself will pull together with the Chinese people in times of trouble, the king said, extending wishes that China will secure an early victory against the epidemic. Nepali President Bidhya Devi Bhandari said that at this difficult time, Nepal will firmly unite with the Chinese government and the friendly Chinese people. Bhandari expressed appreciation of and support for the Chinese leaders' extraordinary efforts to contain the epidemic, and thanked China for taking care of Nepali citizens in China. Tunisian President Kais Saied spoke highly of the Chinese government's efforts in combating the epidemic, expressing belief that under the strong and wise leadership of Xi, China's efforts to contain the outbreak will soon pay off. Cameroonian President Paul Biya said that on behalf of the Cameroonian people, he offered sympathies and support to the Chinese people at a time when the Chinese government and people are fighting a heroic battle against the epidemic. Cote d'Ivoire's President Alassane Ouattara said the government and people of Cote d'Ivoire firmly support the efforts made by the Chinese government and people in fighting the epidemic. Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan said the Pakistani side highly appreciates and firmly supports China's efforts to combat the epidemic and thanks China for providing help to Pakistani citizens in China. The Pakistani side firmly believes that China can give full play to its unique institutional advantages to overcome the epidemic, Khan said, adding that Pakistan is willing to mobilize all the country's medical supplies reserves to assist China, and will firmly stand alongside the brotherly Chinese people. Mongolian Prime Minister Ukhnaa Khurelsukh said the people of Mongolia understand the feelings of the Chinese government and people, who are facing the challenges posed by the epidemic. The Mongolian people believe that under the strong leadership of the Chinese government and with the concerted efforts of the Chinese people, China will soon rein in the epidemic. Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said Singapore will closely cooperate with China to jointly combat the epidemic. China is making efforts to control the illness and Singapore has been prepared. There is no need to panic. Prime Minister of Sao Tome and Principe Jorge Bom Jesus offered his sympathy and support to the Chinese government and believed that China will defeat the epidemic. Coordinator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, Prof. Charles Dokubo, at the weekend, lauded President Muhammadu Buhari, for his unwavering determination towards deepening peace and development of the Niger Delta region. Dokubo said President Buhari has done well for the people of the oil-rich region, especially with the Amnesty Programme which has trained over 3000 beneficiaries in less than two years under his watch from March 2018. R-L- Prof Charles Dokubo, Coordinator Presidential Amnesty Programme, being presented award by Chief Bibopere Ajube, Chairman/CEO Bradama at the Bradama International Skill Works Awards/Gala night, held in Lagos on Saturday 1st, February 2020 Speaking in Lagos on the sidelines at a ceremony organized by Bradama International Skill Works Limited, a leading construction firm in the oil and gas sector, the Amnesty boss noted that the Programme has achieved huge success in transforming the lives of its beneficiaries. We have had more than 3000 beneficiaries who have been trained since I took over office. And then we have a job placement unit that also looks for jobs for them and places them there. The issue is that government cannot provide everything; what government does is to create an enabling environment from which people can cue into to get something. We believe that with time, those who have been trained, their training will not be wasted. They will go back into the society and attain great heights. L-R- Prof Charles Dokubo, Coordinator Presidential Amnesty Programme, presenting Best Operator award to Mr Timi Akinbo at the Bradama International Skill Works Awards/Gala night, held in Lagos on Saturday 1st, February 2020 I believe the Amnesty Programme has done a very good work with the support of the Federal Government. The Buhari administration has been very particular about the Niger Delta and I believe that if we can use what is available to us well, Niger Delta region will be in a different place from what it is now. While identifying job placement for already trained beneficiaries as a major challenge, Dokubo however assured that the job placement unit of the Amnesty office will intensify the hunt for job opportunities, even as payment of monthly stipends and allowances, training and empowerment of beneficiaries will be priorities. L-R- Prof Charles Dokubo, Coordinator Presidential Amnesty Programme, and Chief Bibopere Ajube, Chairman/CEO Bradama at the Bradama International Skill Works Awards/Gala night, held in Lagos on Saturday 1st, February 2020 The Federal Government is doing all it takes to ensure that we dont have hitches in running the programme; the Amnesty Programme is priority in terms of funding. The fact is that the Amnesty Programme has run for about 10 years and the Federal Government is still supporting the programme. We are in the last stage of the programme, that is, reintegration. We have to train our people and bring them back to health so they will have jobs and earn salaries, which they will pay taxes from. What we are doing now is to assist those who are being reintegrated into the society so that they can also aid development in the places they come from. Prof Charles Dokubo, Coordinator Presidential Amnesty Programme, at the Bradama International Skill Works Awards/Gala night, held in Lagos on Saturday 1st, February 2020 Earlier in his remarks, Chief Executive Officer of Bradama International Skill Works Limited, Chief Bibopere Ajube, listed the gains of the Amnesty Programme since its inception. He said it has stabilized the hitherto restive Niger Delta region and increased crude oil production. Since the creation of Amnesty Programme, nobody will say Amnesty is not working; it is trying in every way. Let me put it like that because without peace in Niger Delta, Nigeria cannot survive; there will be no oil production. Without peace, there is no way government can run Nigeria. So the peace in Niger Delta is why Nigeria has money to run. Prof Charles Dokubo, Coordinator Presidential Amnesty Programme, (standing in handshake) and His Royal Majesty, Pere Frank Okipe, the Agadagba of GbaraunKingdom- Bayelsa State at the Bradama International Skill Works Awards/Gala night, held in Lagos on Saturday 1st, February 2020 Ajube, who is a key leader of ex-agitators in the Niger Delta, commended Dokubo for his commitment towards the development of the region, just as he noted that Bradama International Skills Limited which he founded nine year ago, has transformed to a leading service provider in the oil and gas sector with over 2000 employees. L-R- His Royal Majesty, Pere Frank Okipe, the Agadagba of GbaraunKingdom- Bayelsa State, His Royal Highness Pere Gbebokedi Okirimini 1- the Pere of Tubutoru Kingdom- Ondo State and His Imperial Majesty Pere Zacheous Egbemu, the Agadagba of Arogbo Ijaw kingdom, at the Bradama International Skill Works Awards/Gala night, held in Lagos on Saturday 1st, February 2020 At the ceremony which attracted industrialists, traditional rulers, top politicians, stakeholders in the Niger Delta and community leaders, Dokubo was conferred with a Special Recognition Award, the third time he has emerged recipient of coveted awards in two months within and outside the shores of Nigeria. In 2018-19, gross tax revenue was estimated at Rs 22.7 lakh crore; the actual collections were Rs 20.8 lakh crore 9 percent less. That the government would not be able to meet its fiscal deficit target for the current financial year was fairly evident from around November last year. The only issue was how much the slippage would be and what steps would it take to put its finances back on track in the coming financial year. In the event, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman invoked the escape clause in the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act, which allowed a 0.5 percent deviation from the fiscal glide path in the event of slowdown caused by fundamental structural reforms. So the fiscal deficit is 3.8 percent for the current fiscal (instead of 3.3 percent) and 3.5 percent for 2020-21 (when it ought to be 3 percent). Of course, if the extra budgetary and other resources and financing through loans from the National Small Savings Fund (totalling Rs 1.86 lakh crore) are added, the fiscal deficit touches 4.3 percent for 2020-21 instead of 3.5 percent. These may not be part of the market borrowings of the government currently, but at some point in time, these will come back to bite, since servicing of interest and repayment of these off-Budget borrowings are done through the Consolidated Fund. Also, it will push up overall government debt. One positive aspect is that at least these are stated upfront and not just hidden among Budget numbers. But even if we go along with the 3.5 percent number, can this be achieved? As of now, that is not very clear. The fiscal deficit is basically the excess of expenditure over receipts and the deficit number indicates how much the government is going to borrow to fund the former. It can be contained if revenues are extremely buoyant or expenditure is contained. What do the revenue projections show? The Centres gross tax revenue in 2020-21 is projected to grow 11.9 percent over the revised estimates of the current fiscal. Direct taxes account for over 54 percent of these revenues. Nominal growth of the economy is estimated at 10 percent. Is a nearly 12 percent growth in taxes realistic? Similarly, collections under the goods and services tax (GST) are set to grow 12.7 percent. Even if we accept that the economy has bottomed out, can such a projection be realistic? Why we need to take these projections with a hefty pinch of salt is the gap between projections and actual performance. In 2018-19, gross tax revenue was estimated at Rs 22.7 lakh crore; the actual collections were Rs 20.8 lakh crore 9 percent less. The shortfall increased to 13.8 percent in 2019-20 - the Budget estimated gross tax revenue at Rs 24.6 lakh crore; the revised estimates put it at Rs 21.6 lakh crore. A big chunk of this could be due to the corporate tax rate reductions of September corporate tax collections were 20 percent lower than Budget estimates. But collections under personal income tax, customs and GST also fell short of Budget estimates. We will have to wait till next years Budget to see what the actual collections were. The estimates on non tax and capital receipts may also be a tad optimistic. Non tax revenues are estimated to grow 11 percent. A big chunk is receipts from telecomset to grow 2.25 times from Rs 58,989 crore in 2019-20 to Rs 1.33 lakh crore in 2020-21. Some of this could be from the statutory dues that telecom companies have to pay, having lost the case in the Supreme Court and some from the sale of 5G spectrum. The first is going to put the already ailing telecom industry in deep crisis and this could affect corporate tax collections. But if the government comes out with some relief, then non tax collections could take a hit. Also, given the state of the industry, it is not clear if 5G auctions will be successful at allremember these auctions were supposed to be done in the second half of 2019. What the government will probably resort to is lean on public sector companies and financial institutions to pay it higher dividends. But that will happen only if they have surpluses. Even if they do, giving up a large share to the government will mean they will have that much less for their own capital expenditure (some of which could pep up the economy). Theres a big question mark over the disinvestment receipts, set to almost double from Rs 65,000 crore to Rs 1.2 lakh crore. Three-fourths of this is to come from the sale of government stake in the Life Insurance Corporation and IDBI through IPOs. But it is only the listing that will decide the valuation. Can IDBI get the kind of valuation the government is expecting? Will the stock market have the appetite for this? Theres not much clarity on where the rest of the Rs 30,000 crore is going to come from, but a number of public sector companies have been identified for strategic sale. It is not clear if they will happen or how much they will fetch. Barring 2017-18 and 2018-19, disinvestment receipts have always been less than projected. It can be argued that a higher fiscal deficit can be tolerated if the quality of spending is good. That is, if money is spent more on creating assets than on running expenses. The Budget estimates show a marginal increase in the share of capital expenditure in total expenditure in 2020-2113.5 percent against 12.9 percent in the revised estimates of 2019-20. The budgeted growth in capital expenditure (18 percent) is also higher than the 11 percent growth in revenue expenditure. But that should not divert attention from a worrying indicatorthe revenue deficit is estimated at 76.5 percent of the fiscal deficit. This clearly shows that much of the borrowing is going to finance non-productive spending. Interest payment and subsidies are together gobbling up 57 percent of the tax revenues that come in. The outgo on subsidies could be higher but for the fact that borrowings of the Food Corporation of India and payments to oil companies are not accounted for in the budgeted numbers. This is simply no way to perk up the economy. And it certainly isnt responsible fiscal consolidation. (The writer is a senior journalist and author. She tweets at @soorpanakha) Follow full coverage of Union Budget 2020-21 here Kazakhstan says it has evacuated 83 of its citizens from the Chinese city of Wuhan, considered the epicenter of the coronavirus epidemic, as a number of countries worked to extract their citizens. The death toll from the coronavirus outbreak in China has surged past 300 people, with a growing number of countries reporting their first cases and many imposing Chinese travel bans in an effort to slow the spread. In a statement on February 2, the Kazakh government said 80 of the 83 citizens flown out of the country were students. The Kazakh evacuation came as Russian Railways announced that it was halting passenger train service to China until further notice. A French-chartered airliner with 300 evacuees landed in southern France on February, carrying citizens of France, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Czech Republic, and some African countries. Passengers from an earlier French airlift are in quarantine. Italian officials said on February 2 that an air-force plane would be returning 67 Italian nationals from Wuhan. The Kazakh statement said an undisclosed number of Kyrgyz, Belarusian, and Armenian citizens were also transported in the same airplane. It added that those evacuated would be quarantined and tested for 14 days. The Kazakh Health Ministry said on January 31 that 41 people in the country were being tested for the coronavirus. Meanwhile, a death has been confirmed in the Philippines -- the first fatality reported outside of China. The victim, a 44-year-old Chinese man from Wuhan, appears to have been infected before arriving in the island state. Russia, Britain, and Sweden were among the most-recent countries confirming their first infections as the virus has now been reported in more than two dozen countries. The United States and Australia are among countries putting sweeping, albeit temporary, travel restrictions on Chinese nationals or those who have traveled to China within the past two weeks. U.S. Health Secretary Alex Azar said that "foreign nationals, other than immediate family of U.S. citizens and permanent residents...will be denied entry into the United States" if they have recently traveled to China. Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Mark Esper on February 1 approved a request from the Department of Health and Human Services for the potential use of military bases to handle 1,000 people who may have to be quarantined upon arrival from overseas due to the virus. U.S. authorities also took the "unprecedented" action of putting 195 U.S. citizens who recently returned from Wuhan in quarantine for 14 days. The moves came as U.S. health officials on February 1 confirmed an eighth case of the virus in the United States. The United States, Japan, Britain, Germany, and other nations have advised their citizens not to travel to China. China's Foreign Ministry blasted the U.S. decision to restrict entry of Chinese nationals because of the outbreak, which has been declared a global health emergency by the World Health Organization (WHO) and a public health emergency by U.S. authorities. "While the WHO has only just specifically advised against any travel restrictions, the U.S. has decided to act in the opposite way. This has set a bad example. It is certainly not a gesture of goodwill," ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said. Beijing has insisted it can contain the virus and called Washington's advice against travel to China "unkind." China's central bank said it would offer financial support to businesses in the country damaged by the health emergency. Nevertheless, public anger in China has continued to boil over as Wuhan's top official acknowledged that authorities there had acted too slowly. "If strict control measures had been taken earlier, the result would have been better than now," said Ma Guoqiang, the Communist Party chief for Wuhan. Wuhan officials have been criticized online for withholding information about the outbreak until late December despite knowing of it weeks earlier. China has since been quarantining whole cities in Hubei, affecting tens of millions of people. The virus broke out at a seafood market in Wuhan that reportedly sold exotic animals for consumption. It spreads between people in droplets from coughs and sneezes, and the incubation period is between one and 14 days. There are some indications it might be able to spread before any symptoms are apparent. With reporting by AFP, AP, Reuters, and dpa Haiti - News : Zapping... Coronavirus : meeting of Technical Directorates Saturday, February 1, Dr, Marie Greta Roy Clement, the Minister of Public Health, organized an important meeting with all the technical directorates of the Ministry concerned and mobilized to take stock of the epidemiological surveillance of the new Coronavirus (2019-nCoV), coming from China. Jacmel : restoration of the Iron Market On Saturday February 1, the Ministry of Culture, the Institute for the Safeguarding of the National Heritage (ISPAN) and the City of Jacmel laid the foundation stone for the iron market in Jacmel. This market, built at the end of the 19th century by the poet Alcibiade Pomayrac, has been in ruins for years. The Town Hall of Jacmel is undertaking the restoration works thanks to the funding of Spanish cooperation to the tune of 600,000 euros, said Marky Kessa the Mayor of Jacmel. For ISPAN, the technical arm of the Ministry of Culture, the architecture will remain unchanged. This new market will be used to house painting and crafts. Vivy Mitchell : concreting of the 2,000 m3 tank Concrete works carried out at the R236 Reservoir of 2,000 m3 of Vivy Mitchell (Port-au-Prince), which will be used to supply drinking water to the Vivy Mitchell, Siloh, Pernier, Gerald Bataille and surrounding areas. This work is carried out within the framework of the PaP III Project of the National Directorate for Drinking Water and Sanitation (DINEPA) and is financed by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). Pre Carnival 2020 : Order of the parade of musical floats For the 3rd Sunday of pre-carnival activities, the order of the parades of musical floats on the course in Port-au-Prince is : Fanfan, Dj Winner & Aide Laza, Blixx, Valmix, Chawolen, Tonymix, Chatom, CashCash. Sanitation in Cap-Haitien "The cleanliness of our city is a priority for our administration. For some time now, we have been implementing new systems to coordinate our action with the other entities, in charge of waste collection in the city. In fact, in this new strategy, we need the support and civility of the inhabitants who can, through their behavior, preserve and improve the living environment and contribute to making the city more pleasant and more welcoming." Media bosses gathered in Miami Haitis media bosses met in Miami on Saturday as part of the process to digitize the various TV channels in Haiti. HL/ HaitiLibre (Natural News) Panic is rising in the United States due to coronavirus, and emergency supplies are consequently in increasingly short supply. Reports indicate that stores in Brooklyn, New York, are already starting to run out of personal care products, including at least three pharmacies and a local Target that completely sold out of individual-sized hand sanitizer products over the weekend. These same stores and likely others also ran out of disposable surgical face masks, as did Amazon.com, which listed various surgical masks and personal anti-dust masks as being unavailable. Everyone was buying those pocket bottles because of the China flu, stated an employee from Brooklyn to Breitbart News about the sharp rise in panic buying. Such shortages are also occurring in Asia, which is to be expected. Face masks, hand sanitizers, and other products are disappearing from store shelves, and many unscrupulous businesses that still have them are reportedly spiking their prices. Chicago is also reporting shortages of face masks and other emergency supplies, particularly in Chinatown where people have been lining up outside for the chance to purchase what few supplies remain. By early afternoon Friday, the lone Walgreens in Chinatown was sold out of face masks, reported the Chicago Tribune (as republished by Breitbart News). Meanwhile, some events celebrating Lunar New Year were canceled, and restaurant owners in the community complained of waning business. The global drug supply is also at risk of shortages due to coronavirus Emergency supply shortages are also being reported in Toronto and elsewhere as new cases of coronavirus emerge pretty much across the globe at this point, raising fears of a global pandemic. And its not just emergency supplies that are waning: Life-saving drugs are also being bought out, which some worry could create global shortages for pharmaceuticals. This outbreak just underscores what can happen in a worst-case scenario, says Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease physician at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. Any kind of supply shock or instability would render the drug supply vulnerable, he added. With this outbreak, it is concerning whether or not the stability of our supply chain will remain intact. Keep in mind that even though Wuhan isnt Chinas largest hub for manufacturing pharmaceuticals, it is a major center for bio-pharmaceutical research and development. And as of this writing, all travel in and out of the city has been halted, which means no drugs are leaving its boundaries. Since raw ingredients are shipped by China to pharmaceutical production facilities all across the world, including in the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (F.D.A.) requires that any supply disruptions be immediately reported. At this time, however, the agency says it has not received any such reports. At this time, manufacturers have not reported any impact and we will continue to be in communication with manufacturers, the agency said in a statement. On the flip side, theres currently no publicly available information about what percentage of pharmaceutical medicines originate in China, or even where its factories are located. So, China could simply be withholding the truth about supply shortages from American regulators, which could eventually take everyone by surprise. One of the big unknowns is how many products are sole-sourced in which literally only one place in the world makes that raw material, says Erin Fox, a pharmacist and expert on drug shortages from the University of Utah Health. We dont have good information on that at all, she further added. China is currently home to about 15 percent of the worlds facilities that manufacture active pharmaceutical ingredients for some 370 essential drugs. The U.S., on the other hand, claims 21 percent of such facilities. For late-breaking news about coronavirus, visit Outbreak.news. Sources for this article include: Breitbart.com Wired.com NaturalNews.com From addressing rallies and gatherings to holding roadshows, leaders of political parties made the best use of Sunday, the last before the February 8 Delhi assembly polls, to garner support for their candidates. The BJP conducted a mega contact programme, with its top leaders, including party chief J P Nadda, Home Minister Amit Shah and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, visiting all 70 assembly constituencies in the national capital. Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convener Arvind Kejriwal addressed public meetings in Vishwas Nagar, Laxmi Nagar and Rithala, and undertook roadshows in Kirari and Mundka. After campaign hours ended, BJP leaders visited the party's 85 election offices to review preparations for the polls and to boost the morale of BJP workers. Shah and Nadda in their speeches attacked the AAP and the Congress over the Shaheen Bagh anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) protests. Defence Minister Singh in election meetings in the Delhi Cantt and Karol Bagh assembly constituencies asserted that the BJP believed in positive and accused the AAP and the Congress of practising of "appeasement and polarisation". Union minister Smriti Irani campaigned extensively in Rohini, Mehrauli, R K Puram, Kasturba Nagar. She said that it was a "tragedy" that Chief Minister Kejriwal who joined to bring a change was "supporting" anti-national elements. UttarPradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath also targeted his Delhi counterpart Kejriwal over the protests at Shaheen Bagh. The BJP leaders were also joined by their party's allies in campaigning. Bihar Chief Minister and JD(U) supremo Nitish Kumar attacked Kejriwal, saying some people are more interested in publicity than work. Lok Janshakti Party leader Chirag Paswan campaigned in Sangam Vihar. The BJP is contesting the assembly polls in Delhi in alliance with the JD(U) and the Lok Janshakti Party. The Congress released its manifesto for the assembly polls on Sunday. It promised to give unemployment allowance of Rs 5,000-7,500 per month, implement cashback schemes for water and power consumers, and challenge the contentious CAA in the Supreme Court if voted to power in Delhi. RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav also campaigned for his party candidate in Palam seat. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Monash University professor is among the confirmed coronavirus cases in Australia. A Monash spokeswoman said the professor had an honorary affiliation with the university and had not attended campus since late 2019. Days after Monash delayed the start of its semester by a week and instructed students not to come on campus until mid-March, vice-chancellor Margaret Gardner confirmed a male, part-time Monash employee had been diagnosed with the new coronavirus. Students will not attend classes on Monash University's Clayton campus until two weeks after originally planned. "To the best of our knowledge he is fine," Ms Gardner told ABC radio. The requested page is currently unavailable on this server. Back to [RTHK News Homepage] MARION, S.C. The Greater Marion Chamber of Commerce celebrated the year with more than 140 people at its annual meeting and auction at Woodhaven Tuesday night. Donny Gerald was named 2019 Small Business of the Year. The award is given to successful businesses highly respected in the business community and providing a high level customer service. Gerald is an active member of the Marion Chamber of Commerce that has expanded his business ventures over the years. Gerald has operated Donny Gerald Auto Sales for nearly 25 years in Marion and opened a new location in Mullins in 2016. He then opened one of the premier venues in the area in 2007 with Hidden Acres and recently launched The Loft at 109 in the downtown historic district. The Loft at 109 offers accommodations for those wanting to stay in Marion. Gerald is the son of longtime former Marion Mayor the late Bobby Gerald. He was also the recipient of the Dr. Pat Worrell Award for outreach in the community and was helpful organizing a fundraiser to help disaster relief in Nichols following Hurricane Matthew. The effort raised more than 38,000 in donations. Gerald said he missed his father but was happy to celebrate the occasion with his mother. Panaji, Feb 2 : With the entry of Goans banned in casinos from February 1, the coastal state's Ports Minister Michael Lobo has now demanded that 'matka', an illegal daily lottery, should be legalised. According to Lobo, the Goa government was losing revenue due to the illegal, but the popular matka gambling racket and added that legalising it would help shore up the state's Goods and Services Tax (GST) earnings. "Today or tomorrow matka will be legal. There will be no ban. It will be legal. It will come come under the ambit of law," Lobo told reporters late Saturday. Lobo's conviction vis-a-vis legalising matka, coincided with the ban on domiciled Goans from entering offshore and onshore casinos in the state, which came into effect on the same day. Matka is an illegal form of gambling that has gained immense popularity in Mumbai and the Konkan region since the 1960s. It functions six days a week, virtually like a lottery, where lucky numbers are generated thrice every day. Matka's popularity stems from the fact that one can wager a bet of even Re 1. The matka industry in Goa alone is pegged at several thousand crores of rupees and several legislators and Ministers in successive state governments in the past have demanded its legalisation. A study conducted last year by a Goa-based NGO Sangath, which specialises in developmental disabilities and mental health problems, had revealed that matka is one of the most popular forms of gambling in Goa among adult males. According to the study, out of the 724 respondents interviewed by Sangath, 1.1 per cent admitted to have gambled in a casino environment, while 39.5 per cent admitted to having played matka at least once to thrice a week, giving an indication of its popularity. Lobo, says that the government could tap into this very popularity and earn tax revenue from it. "No one pays GST on matka. There is a huge loss to the government. My request is to let it come under the purview of law and GST should be applied on it," the Minister said. The Rural Development Minister said that if a gambler wishes to wager a Rs 100 matka bet, he would have to pay Rs. 112 instead, out of which Rs 12 would be earned by the state in form of GST, if matka is legalised. "Let the government earn Rs 12 rupees. In case someone wins the lottery, winnings can also be (tax) deducted," Lobo said. The Minister also said, that matka commission agents, who currently conduct the illegal gambling racket in hiding, could continue to legally accept commission for money wagered. One man was shot dead by Scotland Yard in the south London borough of Lambeth on Sunday after he stabbed three people one seriously in what the police described as a terror incident, the second since the November 29 attack on London Bridge. The police said in a statement after the attack: Three people are known to have been injured in the #Streatham attack earlier this afternoon. One person is at hospital in a life-threatening condition. We are in the process of informing their family. The scene has been fully containedThe incident has been declared as terrorist-related. The Streatham incident around 2 pm UK time came two months after the November 29 attack, when convicted terrorist Usman Khan killed two people being shot dead. Prime Minister Boris Johnson tweeted on Sunday: Thank you to all emergency services responding to the incident in Streatham, which the police have now declared as terrorism-related. My thoughts are with the injured and all those affected. London mayor Sadiq Khan, who is responsible for police in the capital, added: Terrorist seek to divide us and to destroy our way of life here in London we will never let them succeed. Witnesses spoke of three gunshots being fired and a man lying on the ground. Police helicopters and ambulances were quickly on the scene after the incident unfolded around 2 pm UK time. There were reports that the man may have carried an explosive device. Gulled Bulhan, a 19-year-old student told the PA news agency: I was crossing the road when I saw a man with a machete and silver canisters on his chest being chased by what I assume was an undercover police officer - as they were in civilian clothing. The man was then shot. I think I heard three gun shots but I cant quite remember. After that I ran into the library to get to safety. From the library I saw a load of ambulances and armed police officers arrive on the scene. We were all informed to stay in buildings by armed police, until we were evacuated, he said. Chris Phillips, former head of Britains National Counter Terrorism Security Office, told the BBC that Sundays incident looks very similar to what we saw on London BridgeWe can only hope that police have dealt with it fully now and that its one person acting alone. Bell Ribeiro-Addy, Labour MP for Streatham, said: Obviously, we shouldnt make it an issue to divide us because thats what terrorism is. If we are afraid and if we are divided, then the terrorists ultimately win. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON ABOUT THE AUTHOR Prasun Sonwalkar Prasun Sonwalkar was Editor (UK & Europe), Hindustan Times. During more than three decades, he held senior positions on the Desk, besides reporting from Indias north-east and other states, including a decade covering politics from New Delhi. He has been reporting from UK and Europe since 1999. ...view detail Whether you sympathize with Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and Prince Harrys decision to step back from their royal duties or not, one thing is clear: a big part of why theyre doing it is because of the media. From the beginning of their relationship, the couple has been hounded by paparazzi and had their every move scrutinized. Considering this struggle, its even more shocking to hear what Meghans dad admitted recently. Everyone expects the tabloid press to be unfair at times, but to have a family member take part in it? No wonder Meghans relationship with her dad, Thomas Markle, is so difficult. Meghan Markles issues with her dad go way back Meghan Markle visits Edinburgh Castle on February 13, 2018 in Edinburgh, Scotland | Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images Meghans parents divorced when she was six. It seems that her father was involved during her childhood and into college, but since that time, something happened to sour the relationship. Her half-siblings have accused her of abandoning the family, especially when their father declared bankruptcy in 2016, but other sources say that she has supported him quite a bit through the years and paid a number of his bills. Markle has been very open with the media since the beginning of his daughters relationship with Prince Harry, sometimes in ways that seem cruel. He even gave the press a heartfelt letter she wrote to him, begging him to stop talking to the media and saying untrue things. He decided to defend himself by letting the world read the letter, a move that was deeply hurtful to Meghan. Thomas Markle started exploiting Meghan Markles fame before the wedding Just before the couple got married some pictures of Markle hit the press. They showed him preparing for the wedding, getting fitted for a suit, lifting weights, and reading books about England. They would have just been some cute pictures, but then the truth came out. A British paper got ahold of security footage that showed he was working with the photographer to set up the pictures. Instead of a glimpse at a loving father preparing for his daughters wedding, it now looked like a publicity hound exploiting an opportunity to be seen. Meghans half-sister Samantha Markle admitted shed encouraged him to stage the photos to combat bad press he was getting, but she insisted he wasnt paid for them. Thomas Markle admitted the truth Recently Markle appeared in a documentary, giving his side of his relationship with his daughter. One of the things he addressed was the infamous pictures. Markle admitted staging them, and that they were a valuable commodity. He even confessed that he lied to Prince Harry about the incident, although he said that hes not proud of it. He may not be proud of lying about it, but he seems to think it was worth it. Not only did he get money from selling the pictures originally, but he continues to profit off them each time they are used. The reality is that those images will sell forever, he said. In one tone-deaf comment from the documentary, Markle accused the couple of stepping down from their royal duties for money. He even claimed their decision was embarrassing for him. Apparently he hasnt spent a great deal of time reflecting on what he did for money and how it may have embarrassed them. It seems unlikely that Meghan and her father will ever repair their relationship at this point. Even though shes asked him to stop, he keeps talking to the press about her. He may even testify against her in court. He doesnt think his famous daughter has treated him fairly, but it doesnt seem like he has a very good idea about what is and isnt right. Delhi Chief Minister and AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday asked Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath to look after the schools and hospitals in UP and said Delhi's schools and hospitals are better than UP's. "Uttar Pradesh chief minister is holding rallies in Delhi, he has been saying that hospitals are bad here, is bad, and that Kejriwal has spoiled the schools but people are saying they are at least better than Uttar Pradesh," said Kejriwal. Adityanath has been campaigning for the BJP for the upcoming assembly election in Delhi, which is scheduled to be held on February 8. The counting of votes will take place on February 11. Addressing a rally in Vishwas Nagar area here, Kejriwal said, "He (Adityanath) will tell us that hospitals and schools are bad here, everybody knows the reality of the hospitals in Gorakhpur, and you just look after your hospitals and schools." He further said, "If BJP people come to you tell them, as long as our Kejriwal is (Chief Minister), electricity, water, schools, medical treatment and travel in buses will be free." The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Sunday petitioned the Election Commission to bar the Uttar Pradesh CM from campaigning in Delhi over his incendiary remarks and allegations against Delhi CM Kejriwal. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Editor's Note: This story originally published only to Express-News subscribers. Don't miss out. Get exclusive content and stories first when you become a digital subscriber. A New York-based company plans to open a 217-room, 25-story hotel dubbed Dream San Antonio along the River Walk. Whether its nothing but a pipe dream remains to be seen the company wont reveal whos developing the project or where. In an announcement this week, Dream Hotel Group described the boutique hotel as the centerpiece of a large mixed-use development that includes office space and private residences. The hotel itself is to feature a rooftop pool deck, two street-level restaurants, fitness facilities, meeting space and a bar and lounge. The company declined to disclose an address or name the local developer handling the project. The developer still is raising funds for it and owns the land the hotel will be built on, spokeswoman Katie Fontana said. According to Danny Chavez, former vice president at the San Antonio Economic Development Foundation who now works for the McKinney Economic Development Corp. in North Texas, the hotel is destined for 107 E. Martin St. A building once home to the Korova, a live music venue, sits on that property, which is across from the Wyndham Hotels parking garage. Chavez said he was introduced to the project through architects and real estate officials while working for SAEDF. The hotel developer hasnt yet filed design plans with the Historic and Design Review Commission, Fontana said. Construction is expected to begin next year, with Dream San Antonio opening in 2023. CUBE3 Architects is designing it. San Antonio is one of the most authentic, passionate and diverse cities in America, as seen through its bold culture, rich history and burgeoning art, music and culinary scenes making it an ideal destination for the Dream Hotels flag, said Jay Stein, the companys CEO. The hotels location within a federally designated Opportunity Zone appealed to the partners in the project, the company noted in its announcement. On ExpressNews.com: Omni Hotels sued for more than $1M over falling ketchup bottle that struck boy on San Antonio River Walk The program, established by President Donald Trumps 2017 tax bill, is intended to spur development in low-income communities by providing investors with tax breaks on capital gains if they reinvest the capital within the zones. There are 24 Opportunity Zone tracts in Bexar County, including much of downtown San Antonio, parts of the East and West Sides near downtown, Port San Antonio, chunks of the South Side, Stinson Municipal Airport and the Northeast Corridor. Dream Hotel Group manages hotels in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville, Bangkok and other cities, its website states. madison.iszler@express-news.net Actor Naga Shaurya is a happy man! His film Aswathama has been getting positive feedback. The film grossed nearly Rs 3.6 crore on the first day, a personal best for the actor. He is not only playing the lead in the movie, but has also provided the story. On Friday he celebrated the success of the film with his parents and team. He also thanked Samantha Akkineni who had tweeted about the film. Thanks a lot for all the kind words and support towards #Aswathama @Samanthaprabhu2 Garu! Always such a delight meeting you in person (sic) said Naga Shaurya on his Twitter handle. Earlier, Samantha had tweeted Wishing the sweetest and most hardworking @IamNagashaurya on the super success of his film #Aswathama .. we have a new action hero in town .. you know which film you need to book your tickets for this weekend (sic). Investigation Launched After Dead Koalas Found on Australian Eucalyptus Plantation An investigation has been launched in Australia after dozens of koalas were found dead and injured during the logging of a Eucalyptus plantation in Victorias southwest, the Department of Environment, Land, Water, and Planning (DELWP) said. In a statement, the department said it is extremely concerned about the incident and that about 30 koalas were removed from the site on Jan. 31 while another 50 will be removed on Feb 2. Some koalas were euthanized on the site, a private property near Cape Bridgewater, due to severe injuries or starvation, the department said. We are extremely concerned about an incident involving a significant number of injured, starving and deceased koalas on private land near Cape Bridgewater, the DELWP said in a statement. Victorians can be assured that significant penalties apply for the killing, harassing or disturbing wildlife. Additional penalties exist for animal cruelty, the department added. This is a very distressing incident and DELWP and the Conservation Regulator are taking this matter very seriously. An investigation is underway and the surviving animals will be given appropriate care, the DELWP added. A distressed Portland, Victoria, resident, Helen Oakley, posted a video at the scene on Facebook. The government should have stepped in and fixed this but nobody has done anything. Look at the destruction that theyve done, theyre just lying there dead, she said on Jan. 31. Oakley later elaborated on ABC, saying she first alerted authorities two days prior on Jan. 29, after seeing dead and injured koalas while hiking in the area. She said she has found 10 dead koalas since that day and that dozens more were trapped on two isolated patches of gum trees on the property. Some of them have been fairly decomposed so theyve been there for a while, Oakley, 63, said, adding that she counted 70 to 80 koalas in trees. The koalas were killed and injured after rows of blue gum trees were torn down with the animals still on them, according to local reports. The logging took place last year but ended in November 2019 when the plantation was handed back to its landowner. According to 9 news, the landowner is currently under investigation. Ecologists at the University of Sydney estimate that more than 800 million animals have been killed in the recent bushfires that swept through Australia. We still do not understand how the corona is heated to millions of degrees when the surface of the sun is only 6,000 degrees, Rimmele said. (If that phenomenon sounds counterintuitive, well, it is. Solar experts often describe the effect like this: Imagine pulling your hand away from a hot plate, only for your palm to heat up even more.) The United Kingdom sent its fellow Security Council members an amended draft resolution on Libya Friday, calling for the withdrawal of mercenaries from the country, according to the text, seen by AFP. The draft expresses the Council's "concern over the growing involvement of mercenaries in Libya," despite commitments made on January 19 at an international summit in Berlin, including "ceasing all support for and withdrawing all armed mercenary personnel." The text also urged all member states "not to intervene in the conflict or take measures that exacerbate the conflict." According to diplomats, Russia strongly opposes any mention of mercenaries in the text. No date has yet been set for a vote on the resolution. Libya has been mired in chaos since a 2011 NATO-backed uprising that killed longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi, with two rival administrations vying for power. The conflict deepened last year when military strongman Khalifa Haftar, who controls much of the south and east of Libya, launched an assault in April to seize Tripoli, the base of the UN-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA). Haftar has the backing of Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Russia while the GNA is supported by Qatar and Turkey. The first version of the British draft, dated January 24, contained no mention of armed foreign fighters. On Thursday, UN envoy Ghassan Salame accused "unscrupulous" foreign actors -- without specifying who -- of continuing to meddle in Libya's conflict, in violation of the Berlin commitments. Russia is accused of facilitating the arrival of several thousand Russian mercenaries in Libya, while Turkey allegedly brought Syrian rebel fighters into the north African nation. For the past 10 months, the Security Council has been unable to adopt any resolution on the conflict in Libya. The amended British text "condemns the recent increase in levels of violence and demands the parties commit to a lasting ceasefire." It also asks UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to "submit his views on the necessary conditions for, and proposals on effective ceasefire monitoring." Unlike the first draft, which only mentioned the importance of the role of neighboring countries and unidentified regional organizations in contributing to a solution, the amended version specifically mentions "the African Union, League of Arab States and European Union." Source: Xinhua| 2020-02-02 18:33:45|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close DAR ES SALAAM, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- At least 20 worshippers were killed and 16 others injured in a stampede at a church service Saturday evening at a stadium in northern Tanzania, local police said on Sunday. A group of worshippers packed a stadium in Moshi, a town at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro, and crushed each other as they rushed to get anointed with blessed oil offered by Pastor Boniface Mwamposa. "The stampede occurred between 7:30 p.m. (1630 GMT) and 8 p.m. (1700 GMT) on Saturday as worshippers rushed to doors of the stadium where the anointing oil was placed, causing the mayhem," Salum Hamduni, Kilimanjaro regional police commander, told Xinhua in a telephone interview. Hamduni said that police requested Mwamposa who preached at the religious gathering to surrender himself for questioning. Mwamposa delivered sermons across the country, especially in Dar es Salaam, the commercial capital, attracting huge crowds who believed that his blessed oil could cure diseases and bring prosperity. Police arrested seven people in connection with the stampede, Hamduni added. Air strikes by the Syrian regime and its Russian ally on Sunday killed 14 civilians in the last major opposition bastion of Idlib in the country's northwest, a war monitor said. Moscow-backed government forces have upped their deadly bombardment of the jihadist-dominated region in recent weeks, chipping at its southern edge and causing tens of thousands to flee their homes. Eight of those killed Sunday died in a regime barrel bomb attack in the town of Sarmeen, seven from the same family, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Rescue workers pulled the bodies of a nine-year-old girl and a 13-year-old boy from the debris of a two-storey building, an AFP correspondent in the town said. Their father, Abu Fida, stood by weeping. "It's a terrible disaster," he said. Abu Fida said he and his family had fled bombardment on Sarmeen on Thursday, with just the clothes on their back. They returned on Saturday night to collect their belongings, deciding to spend a last night at home before leaving for good. "I wanted to get my family out this morning but my wife told me to go to work. So I sent them a driver with a car to transport their things," but then aircraft hit the house, he told AFP. His wife was inside the house when it was struck, but he survived with three other children. In the rest of the emballed bastion Sunday, Russian and regime air strikes killed another six civilians, the Observatory said. The Britain-based monitor says it relies on sources inside Syria, and determines who carries out air strikes according to flight patterns, as well as the aircraft and ammunition involved. Nine years into the war, the Damascus regime is back in control of around 70 percent of the country, but the northwestern region of Idlib remains beyond its reach. Syria's former Al-Qaeda affiliate controls the Idlib region, home to some three million people, but pro-Ankara rebel groups are also present. In recent months, pro-Damascus forces have pressed northwards along the M5 highway that connects the capital Damascus to second city Aleppo in the north, crossing Idlib. Last week the government forces retook from rebels the key town of Maaret al-Numan along the highway and are now just several kilometres from the abandoned town of Saraqeb. Clashes are also raging in the bastion's eastern flank in Aleppo province, where state agency SANA said four television journalists were wounded Sunday. The journalists for a pro-Damascus channel and two Arabic-language Iranian outlets were targeted by "terrorists", SANA said, using its blanket term for jihadists and rebels. A Turkish-Russian deal in 2018 saw Turkish troops deploy at observation posts around Idlib, but the agreement has failed to stem repeated regime military offensives. On Sunday morning, an AFP correspondent and the Observatory said a Turkish military convoy of hundreds of vehicles entered northern Syria, deploying in Idlib and neighbouring Aleppo province. Increased violence since early December has forced around 388,000 people to escape their homes in northwestern Syria, the United Nations says. The Observatory says that more than 260 civilians have been killed. Half of the Idlib region's residents have been displaced throughout the war, with many living in precarious shelters in the countryside along the Turkish border. Ankara -- which already hosts more than three million Syrian refugees on its soil -- fears the latest fighting will lead to another mass influx. On Sunday, hundreds of Syrian men, women and children marched towards the frontier demanding to be allowed through in a symbolic protest, an AFP correspondent said. Near the Syrian border town of Harem, women lugged bags and men carried small children towards the razor-wired wall blocking the way to Turkey, he said. "From Idlib to Berlin," read one banner, referring to the German capital many Syrians dream of reaching as they escape the war. Among the demonstrators, Mohammed said he was looking to a better alternative for his family of nine after fleeing his hometown. "Our goal is to go and live in a safe country -- Turkey or Europe," he told AFP. "Here it's no longer safe." Syria's civil war has killed more than 380,000 people since it started in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Three people suffered injuries in a terrorist attack in south London on Sunday, during which Scotland Yard officers shot dead a terror suspect strapped with a "hoax bomb". The Metropolitan Police said the incident in Streatham was part of an active counter-terror operation during which the male suspect was pronounced dead at the scene. A device strapped on his body was later established as fake at the end of the attack, which counter-terror officers believe to be "Islamist-related". According to reports, the deceased suspect had been released from prison recently after serving half of a three-year-and-four-month sentence for the possession and circulation of terrorist material. He was named by the UK media as Sudesh Mamoor Faraz Amman, a London student believed to have family roots in Sri Lanka. He was jailed aged 18 in December 2018. "As part of a proactive counter terrorism operation, armed officers were in immediate attendance and shot a male suspect, who was pronounced dead at the scene," said Met Police Detective Assistant Commissioner Lucy D'Orsi. "A device was found strapped to the body of the suspect and specialist officers attended (to it). Cordons were put in place and it was quickly established that this was a hoax device. "The situation has been contained and officers from the Met's Counter Terrorism Command are now leading an investigation into the incident. The incident was quickly declared as a terrorist incident and we believe it to be Islamist-related," she said. Two of the three victims of the attack on the busy Streatham High Street at around 1400 GMT were stabbed and the third sustained injuries from broken glasses, triggered from the discharge of the police firearm for shooting down the suspect. "Three victims have been taken to south London hospitals. One man is being treated as life-threatening, one woman has non-life threatening injuries and another woman has minor injuries," D'Orsi added. Emergency services, including paramedics and armed police, responded to the incident on Streatham High Road, from where social media images showed plain-clothed policemen pursuing a suspect who was later pronounced dead. Some eyewitnesses reported seeing a machete-wielding man with some silver canisters strapped to his body before he was shot. Police shouted for people to "get back" as they cleared the area of shoppers and bystanders. Pictures circulating on social media show the suspect face down and lying outside a Boots pharmacy shop as a police officer aims a gun. The Met Police have issued a "common sense" plea for restraint in circulating pictures and videos of the incident, including images of the officers involved and of the victim as it appealed to the public to share any footage of the attack with its investigating team. Some reports suggest a man entered a shop and started stabbing people. It appears he then left the shop and stabbed a woman, possibly a cyclist. Witnesses reported hearing three gun shots, as armed police approached. Prime Minister Boris Johnson took to Twitter to thank the emergency services for their response to the attack. Thank you to all emergency services responding to the incident in Streatham, which the police have now declared as terrorism-related. My thoughts are with the injured and all those affected, he said. Later, Johnson released a statement from Downing Street to reiterate plans for tougher sentences for convicted terrorists. He said, "I want to pay tribute to the speed and bravery of the police who responded and confronted the attacker preventing further injuries and violence and all of the emergency services who came to the aid of others. Tomorrow [Monday], we will announce further plans for fundamental changes to the system for dealing with those convicted of terrorism offences. UK Home Secretary Priti Patel said in her Twitter statement that she is being kept updated by the police on the developments and hailed the brave officers who contained the situation. London Mayor Sadiq Khan also thanked emergency services for their "swift and courageous response", adding: "They truly are the best of us. "Terrorists seek to divide us and to destroy our way of life here in London we will never let them succeed." In November last year, two people were killed after convicted terrorist Usman Khan went on a stabbing frenzy in London Bridge area of the UK capital. It later emerged that Khan's family originated from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) and he was out on parole after serving part of his sentence for plotting terrorist attacks on the UK. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A man has died of the new coronavirus in the Philippines in the virus's first confirmed fatality outside China. The patient was a 44-year-old Chinese man from Wuhan, in Hubei province, where the virus was first detected, said a BBC repport. The victim appeared to have been infected before arriving in the Philippines, the World Health Organization said. Chinese health authorities said on Sunday that the overall confirmed cases of novel coronavirus infection on the Chinese mainland had reached 14,380 by the end of Saturday, and a total of 304 people had died of the disease. The US, Australia and an increasing number of other countries have barred the arrival of foreigners from China and are requiring their own citizens to undergo quarantine. US health officials on Saturday confirmed an eighth case of the fast-spreading new coronavirus in the United States and the Pentagon said it would provide housing for people arriving from overseas who might need to be quarantined. The latest US patient, who is in Massachusetts, recently returned from Hubei province in central China, the epicenter of the outbreak, a spokeswoman for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in an emailed statement. The person was not identified and no other details were provided. The number of coronavirus cases worldwide has overtaken that of the similar Sars epidemic, which spread to more than two dozen countries in 2003. But the mortality rate of the new virus is much lower, suggesting it is not as deadly. The man travelled to the Philippines from Wuhan, via Hong Kong, with a 38-year-old Chinese woman who also tested positive for the virus last week, the Philippines Department of Health said. Officials said he was admitted to a hospital in the capital, Manila, and then developed severe pneumonia. Rabindra Abeyasinghe, the WHO representative to the Philippines, urged people to remain calm. "This is the first reported death outside China. However, we need to take into mind that this is not a locally acquired case. This patient came from the epicentre of this outbreak." The main driver of transmission, based on currently available data, is symptomatic cases, said WHO. WHO is aware of possible transmission of 2019-nCoV from infected people before they developed symptoms. Detailed exposure histories are being taken to better understand the pre-clinical phase of infection and how transmission may have occurred in these few instances. Asymptomatic infection may be rare, and transmission from an asymptomatic person is very rare with other coronaviruses, as we have seen with Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus. Thus, transmission from asymptomatic cases is likely not a major driver of transmission, it said. Persons who are symptomatic will spread the virus more readily through coughing and sneezing, it said In China, 60.5% of all cases since the start of the outbreak have been reported from Hubei Province. In France, for the first time outside China, a healthcare worker was diagnosed as being ill with 2019-nCoV acute respiratory disease. The health worker treated two patients who were later identified as probable cases. In the last 24 hours, additional instances of human-to-human transmission outside China were reported: in Japan, a tour guide who is part of the same cluster of Japanese cases who had contact with tourists from Wuhan; in Germany, a case that is part of the cluster in Bavaria; and in Thailand, a taxi driver who had no travel history to China. New Delhi, Feb 2 : A day after Union Budget proposed to tweak the rule to prevent NRIs from evading tax in India, the Finance Ministry has clarified that bona fide workers in other countries including in the Middle East who are not liable to tax in these countries will not be affected by the new provision. A Finance Ministry official said that the proposed provision is not intended to include in tax net those Indian citizens who are bona fide workers in other countries. Earlier, an Indian citizen would become an NRI if he stayed out of the country for over 182 days and enjoyed tax benefits. As per the budget proposal, he now would have to stay for 241 days to get the tax relief. Amending the present provision in the income tax law, the budget proposed that "notwithstanding anything contained in Clause (1), an individual -- being a citizen of India -- shall be deemed to be a resident in India in any previous year, if he is not liable to tax in any other country or territory by reason of his domicile or residence or any other criteria of a similar nature". The Finance Ministry official on Sunday said that in case of an Indian citizen who becomes deemed resident of India under this proposed provision, income earned outside India by him shall not be taxed in India unless it is derived from an Indian business or profession. Tax experts have claimed that the new NRI provision would disincetivise people from spending more time in India and hence make the country less attractive for entrepreneurs. "Reducing the threshold of physical presence to 120 days in a year will make visiting NRIs more conscious of their travel dates. On one hand, the government has been keen to attract talent and onshore the funds and fund managers whereas on the other hand, this move will disincentivise people from spending more time in India," said Shefali Goradia, Parnter, Deloitte India. Sources say she is suffering from stomach ache NEW DELHI: Congress president Sonia Gandhi was on Sunday admitted to the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital here for a checkup after she complained of stomach ache, sources said. Gandhi will undergo some tests at the hospital, they said. She is reportedly suffering from a stomach ache, a source close to Gandhi said. Sources said that her son Rahul Gandhi and daughter Priyanka Gandhi Vadra are with her at the hospital. The Congress chief did not attend the Union Budget presentation in Parliament on Saturday. Six youth were killed when their SUV was hit by an unknown vehicle on Pundri-Dhand Road in Haryana's Kaithal district, police said on Sunday. The youth, aged between 19 to 25, were returning to their villages in Kaithal district from Haridwar late on Saturday night when the accident occurred, a police official of the Pundri police station said over phone. The bodies have been taken for post mortem, they said. A case has been registered against the driver of the unidentified vehicle. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said in televised remarks that Iran offered $80,000 per victim after it shot down a Ukrainian passenger jet on January 8, but that Ukraine did not accept the offer because "it was too little." Zelenskiy added in comments made on Ukrainian 1+1 television that "of course, human life is not measured by money, but we will push for more" compensation for families of the victims. Air-defense forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) shot down Ukrainian Airlines Flight 752 shortly after takeoff in Tehran on January 8, killing all 176 people on board. Iran has said the downing was an accident, and in mid-January said it would send the black-box flight recorders to Kyiv for analysis. However, Zelenskiy said that Ukraine had yet to receive the recorders, and that Tehran had instead suggested that Ukrainian specialists fly to Iran on February 3 to examine the black boxes. "I'm afraid that the Iranians might attract our specialists and then say, 'Let's decipher [the recorders] on the spot,' and then say, 'Why do you need the black boxes now?'" Zelenskiy said. "No, we want to take these boxes [to Ukraine]," he added. Based on reporting by TASS and Reuters By Josh Howard Howard is a public historian and co-owner of Passel Historical Consultants. He is a native of Clifton Forge. The Commonwealth has an opportunity at hand saving Green Pastures, Virginias only historically African American recreation site managed by the USDA Forest Service. Green Pastures in Alleghany County should be recognized as one of the nations most important treasures of Black History, especially in a rural context. Instead, its future awaits a vote in the General Assembly. Included in Gov. Northams historic justice and equity agenda in his proposed budget is a comparatively small allocation to transfer Green Pastures to Virginia State Parks. Now under General Assembly consideration, budget approval means Green Pastures resurrection, or at the very least multiple park rangers leading tours, safeguarding the public, and providing stewardship full-time. The USDA Forest Service managed Green Pastures for more than eighty years, but the district office, hamstrung by repeated budget cuts, just cant provide staffing. Green Pastures is a forested park built in 1938 as a result of Black Virginians demands for outdoor recreational opportunities. In response demands and protests, the four agencies responsible for outdoor recreation in Virginia Virginia State Parks, Virginia Forest Service, the National Park Service, and the USDA Forest Service agreed that the Commonwealth needed an African American facility. With two hundred Civilian Conservation Corps workers at their disposal, the USDA Forest Service took on the project. Acres in eastern Alleghany County were set aside for campgrounds, picnic shelters, and a man-made lake formed from dammed mountain streams. Even though the site didnt formally open until 1940, hundreds traveled from across the state every weekend to enjoy the unfinished site. African American individuals, families, and organizations could finally enjoy Virginias outdoors safely. For a little over a decade, Green Pastures was the only African American outdoor recreation area in the mid-Atlantic region. In 1950, the USDA Forest Service formally desegregated the site as part of an agency-wide policy, though it continued to be used primarily by African American campers, picnickers, and church groups. The Forest Service changed Green Pastures name in 1964 to Longdale Recreation Area. Locals still considered Green Pastures to be the Black park while nearby Douthat State Park was the white park. The name sought to communicate with the public that both of these parks had been integrated. A few years ago, local community members met to discuss saving Green Pastures in a more permanent way. Since the 1980s, maintenance at Green Pastures has slowly deteriorated. Simply put, the district office receives too little Federal funding to maintain the site. Improvements are out of the question. A large portion of maintenance comes from those same local community members. They mow grass, clean litter, and report damages, but plenty of damages, from replacement shingles to a clogged dam, are outside the community groups capabilities. After years of hard work, a tentative agreement is in place Virginia State Parks will take over Green Pastures as part of Douthat State Park. Governor Northam included in his budget funding for staffing costs plus some maintenance funds. Everybody wins if the Commonwealth approves of Green Pastures. Douthat State Park grows. Longdale Furnace experiences a tourism boon. Outdoors loving people from across the Commonwealth would have a rejuvenated recreational destination. Campers would have new options. Residents of Alleghany County, Covington, and Clifton Forge would have restored one of their most treasured public resources. And finally, a highly important African American historical site can be properly preserved. Approval for saving Green Pastures must come. How often does the opportunity to protect one of Virginias top ten most endangered historic places, according to Preservation Virginia, appear so clearly? How often can folks from different backgrounds come together across racial lines to build something great? The volunteer effort around Green Pastures is driven jointly by nostalgia and vision. We remember the park for what it was but so too do we imagine a new future. There is no public forgetting of Green Pastures. The Forest Service gate remains locked most days, but people still park at the gate and walk a half-mile to the lakeshore. Sometimes the goal is to hike, sometimes to camp, and sometimes just to remember. Call your General Assembly representatives and ask they support Green Pastures. Now is the time for decisive, bold action. And when you hang up the phone, go visit the site! Breath in the fresh mountain air and try to imagine what it once was then envision what it will be in just a few short years. It will be worth the investment. You receive a news tip about Peter Greenberg. It notes that the Albany resident, who runs Energy Lighting Inc. out of his home, has done some interesting volunteering on solar projects internationally. So you request an interview. It turns into a two-hour treatise on solar power, wind power, energy efficiency and politics, with reams of information flying back and forth electronically both before and after the interview. Ultimately, however, you must sit down and write the story. Here goes. Biography Greenberg, 64, grew up in New Jersey but came west to study parks administration at Oregon State University. He didnt finish, but he found time to start a whole bunch of things. He worked as a volunteer paramedic and firefighter with the Corvallis Fire Department, studied to become a paramedic at Linn-Benton Community College, joined the Albany Fire Department. And learned a lot. If you are working for a fire department you figure out that you can do pretty much anything, he said. He started dabbling in energy infrastructure, developing and manufacturing a solar water heater and the first LED exit signs. Then he went international, working as a lighting contractor for the United States Department, mainly upgrading light fixtures at American embassies. While in the former Soviet republic of Georgia he convinced authorities to use President Eduard Shevardnadze's private airplane to fly in new fixtures from the U.S. for Georgias National Art Museum. The next day was Sept. 11, 2001, so the plane never left Bolling Air Force Base in the D.C. area with the bulbs. So Greenberg did the best that he could. I spent a few months changing all their lghts, he said. They put me on TV in Georgia, dubbed Georgian into me and gave me a medal that I have somewhere or another. Working overseas, however, had its perks. Tax credits, something Greenberg would learn a lot about in the future. Tax rules were such that if you stayed out of the country for 11 months out of the year you didnt have to pay taxes up to a certain limit, he said. Greenberg used the windfall to start my lighting company, where we manufactured lights for warehouses and tall commercial spaces (school gyms, all types of warehouses) in Eugene. We built about 75,000 fixtures over the years, stopping in 2010. Well, he didnt really stop, he just moved on to other things. Interlude Wait a minute, we forgot about Amory Lovins. Somewhere along the way Greenberg became familiar with Lovins, who he calls the guru of energy efficiency and renewable energy." Greenberg first heard Lovins speak at the University of Oregon in 1978 or 79 and also volunteered to help build Lovins Rocky Mountain Institute in Basalt, Colorado. Everyone should have a hero, said Greenberg, who peppers his papers with sayings from Lovins, including using nuclear power to heat water is like cutting butter with a chainsaw. Greenberg: He exemplified and popularized the idea that its cheaper to save energy than to build new power plants. End of interlude. Solar realm Around 2010 Greenberg moved into solar work. He must have been crazy. Such a volatile industry. Tax credits come. Tax credits go. Panels are too expensive. Hello, recession! Lots of people think renewables are just pipe dreams of wackos. But Greenberg hangs in there. He wears out calculators figuring cost ratios. The prices start to come down. And he learns a couple of key truths: 1) big projects make far more sense than rooftop residential; and 2) working with nonprofits is a win-win for everyone. Its cheaper to build big (solar) stuff than little systems, Greenberg said. Its much more expensive to get a lot of customers and systems are more efficient on the ground on trackers that follow the sun. Ah, trackers. Most people think of solar panels as fixed objects. Not anymore. Now, they move, and as Greenberg put it, follow the sun. Huge gain in bang for your buck. Utility scale systems are using trackers more and more, which is driving down the price, Greenberg said. We were the first customer of one of the largest utility fixed-tilt solar racking companies in the country three years ago. They sold us 2 MW, they are now up to about 3,000 MW and will probably produce 4,000 to 6,000 MW this year. About 65% of large scale solar uses tracking. There is too much torque to do this on roofs, though some companies are starting to put trackers on solar carports. Greenberg owns solar systems on schools in Albany, Turner, Salem, Mt Angel, Silverton, at George Fox University and Newberg. He has worked with the Boys & Girls Clubs in Albany and Corvallis as well as the Habitat Restore. We sell power to the utilities and pay our hosts, who dont pay anything. Memorial Middle School (in Albany) is saving 20% on electricity. The Boys & Girls Club of Albany is almost at net zero, producing about as much energy as they use over the year. With nonprofits thats the way to go, said Greenberg, who also owns large, utility-scale solar trackers in Canby, Boring, Bonanza and Chiloquin, And the solar panels and other infrastructure have gotten ridiculously cheap. Polysilicon, the key panel ingredient went from $450 per kilo to $8 per kilo today, Greenberg said. Efficiencies with the scale of manufacturing produced lower and lower cost solar and they continue to get more efficient. Then China turned on the tap to buy solar to help soak up some of the excess manufacturing as they didn't want to lay off workers. The rest of the industry followed with lower cost racking and inverters. The more solar that gets built, the cheaper it gets to manufacture and the cheaper it gets to manufacture the more that is sold. This is a good circle. Going global I always have liked to travel, said Greenberg, who adds I might as well travel with a purpose. In recent years Greenberg has boldly taken his energy expertise where no one has gone before. To simpler places that skipped all of the earlier phases of the Industrial Revolution. People in remote villages of Peru, Nicaragua and Haiti have never had to wean themselves off of coal or oil. They never had it to begin with. Working with nongovernmental agencies such as Twende Solar and Grid Alternatives, Greenberg and his pals figured out that the key was learning what the villagers wanted. They wanted one light bulb and a way to charge a cell phone. How simple is that? Think about it. The weather doesnt make air conditioning or heating necessary. And the infrastructure would cost too much anyway. But think how much power, information power, a cell phone can give someone in a remote village. They cant afford books or a library but you can give them Kindle. All of the materials had to be hauled up this mountain, Greenberg said of his Peru project What an amazing achievement. We put in a 7.5KW system. Thats like the size of household system here. About 80 people live in the village and every home now has at least one LED light bulb and a way to charge their phone. We take electricity for granted. Its amazing to see how it transformed this village. Developing countries went from no phones to cell phones. They are doing the same with solar from no power at all to solar power. Greenberg also notes the example of Cuba. I went there on a sustainable development tour, he said. Cuba is one of the most sustainable countries in the world. They farm organically because they cant afford fertilizers, Greenerg said. And they sell locally because the transportation network isnt advanced enough to distribute more widely. They have transformed their country. Politics and wind Speaking of island nations such as Cuba and Haiti, Greenberg also thinks wind power could make a difference there as well. Island nations have the most sun and the most wind, he said. Oregon has lots of wind, Greenberg, noting the Shepard Flats facility in Eastern Oregon. Again, this is an area in which the technology is leaping. Some of the newer facilities use blades that are 600 feet long. They are similar to oil platforms: Some are anchored, some are floating. Its not catching on yet in Oregon, Greenberg said. Mainly the northeast and other coastal states (back east). There also is bit of blowback on wind. Some oceanfront/bayfront property owners object to their views changing and President Donald Trump famously said they are ugly, kill tourism, lower property values and cause cancer. Greenberg generally stays away from politics during the interview, although he notes that solar is not just a liberal/environmental thing. Utah is really big on solar. Mormons are far better (than other communities) at long-term planning. Solar is pretty evenly distributed between red and blue states. Solar is one of the few areas where conservatives and enviros agree. He holds strong, negative views on nuclear energy while also praising Corvallis-based NuScale, which is developing small-scale nuclear reactor modules. NuScale has some great ideas, Greenberg said, but people still dont know what to do with nuclear waste. It will still be there in 20 generations. And as a practical matter Greenberg notes that NuScale power is projected to cost 6 cents per kilowatt-hour in 2025. Large solar is 1/3 of that today and getting even cheaper and more efficient, he said. Greenberg drives a Chevy Bolt, which he said averages 240 miles on a charge. That covers 95% of my driving. I have a charger at home, and it costs me 3 cents a mile to drive. Batteries arent cheap, but they are getting cheaper. Greenberg also has a Kia Niro plug-in. It gets 50 miles per gallon and 26 miles on a charge. If anyone out there wants to buy it, it was one of the first in the county. Politics also is affecting solar. The state Land and Conservation Development Commission voted in January 2019 to ban solar farms on Class 1 and Class 2 farmland. That takes out 80% of the Willamette Valley for ground mount systems, Greenberg said. Solar makes more sense where land is less valuable and there is more sun. Such as Eastern Oregon. Greenberg doesnt miss a trick. During the interview he looks through the window of the Democrat-Herald conference room and explains why the new LED lights the body shop across the street installed in the ceiling of its service bay are so much more efficient than the Metal Halide models that the shop left attached to the ceiling. And the exit sign as he leaves the newspaper building reminds him of his early work designing and building such signs. I want to show that there is some hope, he said. The technology is there. Whether someone believes in climate change or not it doesnt matter (well it does somewhat). As a society we should be using energy more efficiently, using as little as we can and not trashing our planet. Or we can keep paying for more and more natural disasters which cost about $45 billion last year from flooding, fires. Doing the right thing is much cheaper and better over the long run. I could retire anytime, but as long as Trump seems to hate renewables and is doing his best at ruining the environment, I better keep doing a little bit more. Contact reporter James Day at jim.day@gazettetimes.com or 541-812-6116. Follow at Twitter.com/jameshday or gazettetimes.com/blogs/jim-day. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. A man shot by police in what has been declared a terrorist-related incident in south London has died, Scotland Yard said. The Metropolitan Police said the shooting occurred at around 2pm on Streatham High Road on Sunday. The force believes there are also two injured victims from the incident and are awaiting updates on their condition. In an earlier tweet, the Met said: At this stage it is believed a number of people have been stabbed. Thank you to all emergency services responding to the incident in Streatham, which the police have now declared as terrorism-related. My thoughts are with the injured and all those affected. Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) February 2, 2020 The circumstances are being assessed; the incident has been declared as terrorist-related. Gulled Bulhan, a 19-year-old student from Streatham, claimed to have witnessed the shooting on Streatham High Road in front of a Boots store. He told the PA news agency: I was crossing the road when I saw a man with a machete and silver canisters on his chest being chased by what I assume was an undercover police officer as they were in civilian clothing. The man was then shot. I think I heard three gun shots but I cant quite remember. The scene on Streatham High Road (@gabzvigo/Twitter/PA) From the library I saw a load of ambulances and armed police officers arrive on the scene. Mr Bulhan said people began running into nearby stores after the incident. We were all informed to stay in buildings by armed police, until we were evacuated, he said. It is understood people including children took shelter in nearby shops during the incident, with police later telling shops to close for the day. Richard Mustonen-Smith, 59, a response pastor for Ascension Trust, has lived in the area all his life. He told PA: Im shocked its happened in Streatham. Ive been here all my life. Were always getting accidents down here but not this. Armed police at the scene in Streatham High Road (Victoria Jones/PA) When its a member of your family so close to you, you dont expect it. Youre always worried about your family being on the streets but this is even worse. I heard two people got stabbed and apparently one man was shouting Allahu Akbar but people thought he was just a crazy man, so he got away. Apparently he had two rucksacks. Commenting on the incident, London Mayor Sadiq Khan said: I am in close contact with the Met Commissioner and local representatives, and want to thank our police, security and emergency services staff for their swift and courageous response. They truly are the best of us. Terrorists seek to divide us and to destroy our way of life here in London we will never let them succeed. Prime Minister Boris Johnson tweeted: Thank you to all emergency services responding to the incident in Streatham, which the police have now declared as terrorism-related. My thoughts are with the injured and all those affected. Home Secretary Priti Patel said on Twitter that she was being kept updated by police. My first thoughts are with the victims, our brave police and emergency services and their families, she wrote. Hyderabad: AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi on Sunday called both persons who opened fire in Delhi`s Jamia area and Shaheen Bagh as 'terrorists'. "A minister in an election meeting said `desh ke gaddaro ko goli maaro saalo ko`.After his statement, Naturam Godse`s illegitimate son fired at a Jamia student who was part of the group carrying our rally. We should call him a terrorist. He was live telecasting on Facebook. A man also commented that Owaisi should also be shot dead," Owaisi said at an event here." Owaisi further said, ''Another man went to Shaheen Bagh and opened firing. He said that this country is for Hindus. I want to tell that terrorist that this country is not for only religion. This country also belongs to those who do not believe in any religion. We have to save the country from Hindutva.'' Earlier, a man opened fire at Delhi`s Shaheen Bagh while in another incident a juvenile brandished a country-made pistol and fired at in which a Jamia University student, Shadab Farooq, who was part of the group that was protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), got injured. The Lok Sabha MP from Hyderabad alleged that someone who speaks against Prime Minister Narendra Modi is charged with sedition. Live TV "A time is going to come when we will decide to launch `jail bharo andolan`. All the jails in the country can lodge only 3 lakh people, if people come out on roads, jails will be insufficient," he said. Continuing his tirade, Owaisi said: "You are fighting with people who believe in RSS ideology of Hindutva. You have to face people like that. We have filed a case against CAA and NRC in the Supreme Court... You have to be ready for a big fight. We stand by protesters across the country." "We cannot forget that students of AMU and Jamia Milia Islamia raised their voices against this... After the violence in Uttar Pradesh, CM said that they will take revenge. UP Police shot 24 Muslims dead... We will not forget their sacrifices. This fight is to save the country and its Constitution," he said. Abul Fotouh was arrested in February 2018 after he returned from London where he had given interviews critical of the government Egypt's top appeals court has removed opposition figure and former Islamist presidential candidate Abdel-Moneim Abul Fotouh and seven others from a terrorism list for alleged ties with the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group. The Court of Cassation said on Saturday it had accepted appeals by Abul Fotouh, his son and six others against a former criminal court order to place them on the list. Abul Fotouh was arrested in February 2018 after he returned from London where he had given interviews critical of the government. He was later placed on a terrorism list with others for alleged ties with the Brotherhood. Egypt has designated the Brotherhood a terrorist organisation in December 2013, months after the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, who hailed from the group. Abul Fotouh remains in custody pending investigations into charges including "publishing false news harming national interests" and "leading an illegal group" that aims to topple the regime and disrupt public order. Under Egypt's terrorism entities law, individuals placed on the terrorism list are banned from travel, added on a watch list and subjected to an asset freeze. Abul Fotouh, who leads the centrist Strong Egypt party, is a former member of the Brotherhood. He defected from the group in 2011 and has for years distanced himself from it. He ran for presidency in 2012. He was among several Egyptian politicians who called for a boycott of the 2018 presidential elections, which President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi won by a landslide against little -known candidate Moussa Mostafa Moussa. Search Keywords: Short link: Over 25,800 medical laboratory industry professionals and 600 exhibitors from 35 countries will meet in Dubai, UAE, tomorrow (February 3) for Medlab Middle East, the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) regions largest medical laboratory exhibition and congress. The event will run until February 6, at the Dubai World Trade Centre. According to research by Wise Guy Research Consultants, the value of the Middle East and Africa (MEA) clinical services market will reach over $14 billion by 2023 with technological advances one of the key drivers pushing market growth. Medlab Middle East has a central show theme of transforming tomorrows diagnostics, underscoring the role of innovative technological advances in the development of laboratory medicine in the region. Last year, Medlab Middle East witnessed a 6 per cent year-on-year (YoY) increase of attendees, with more than $329 million worth of business done following the 2019 edition of the show. With laboratory services in the MEA region expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.8 per cent until 2023, expectations for the 2020 edition of the show are high with both the value of business and the number of attendees anticipated to increase. The four-day show which is organised by Informa Markets, will host the inaugural Transformation Hub, a dedicated zone showcasing advanced clinical laboratory products by the SMEs and new-to-market pioneers that are transforming diagnostics and advancing healthcare. Tom Coleman, group exhibition director, Informa Markets Healthcare, said: This new experience will identify technology trends and products, address key questions and provide solutions to implementing advanced technology in the laboratory setting. Our show theme of transforming tomorrows diagnostics is designed to bring business executives and healthcare professionals together to explore innovative actions in transforming diagnostic services to deliver quality and rapid tests, he added. The zone will also feature the Transformation Talks sessions where manufacturers will introduce new launches and in-demand solutions. Some of the key areas that will be highlighted at the Transformation Hub include automation, healthcare information technology (HIT) and laboratory measurement testing and technology. In addition to the Transformation Hub, Medlab Middle East will also host a series of free-to-attend workshops, hosted by the National Reference Laboratory (NRL) and Bio-Rad, where a hands-on approach to learning and knowledge-sharing on new product offerings, technology and best practice will take place. Workshops include Transfusion and blood typing challenges; Laboratory quality management system, the best of CLSI; and Laboratory accreditation, CAP updates, which take place on February 3, 4 and 5, respectively. The shows inaugural Blood Donation Drive, in partnership with Dubai Healthcare Authority (DHA), will also take place as part of -the shows commitment to the safe and effective blood collection in the region. The mobile blood donation clinic will be situated in front of Zaabeel Halls 4 6 for the duration of the event and accepting donations from all UAE residents. Medlab Middle East also offers an educational agenda for clinical laboratory specialists to advance their skill sets, inspire and to provide advanced medical laboratory techniques for better health is provided. More than 4,500 conference delegates will have the opportunity to hear from 120 speakers from around the world, across 12 Continuing Medical Education (CME) accredited conferences. The 2020 edition of the show will see the introduction of four new conference tracks including Blood Transfusion Medicine, Laboratory Innovation, Digital Pathology and the Roundtable Discussions, which will feature focused scientific group discussions on selected administration and technical topics in the medical laboratory. Rejoy Penacerrada, conference director, Medlab Middle East, said: As the worlds largest CME accredited multi-disciplinary congress on laboratory medicine, we are working closely with Cleveland Clinic and our supporting associations, which include Emirates Nursing Association, Saudi Society for Clinical Chemistry, the International Society for Blood Transfusion, College of American Pathologists and the Saudi Society for Clinical Laboratory Services, to connect directly with the international clinical lab community to provide expert commentary and increasing the levels of care for patients in the region. Medlab Middle East is officially supported by the UAE Ministry of Health and Prevention, Government of Dubai, Dubai Health Authority, Abu Dhabi Department of Health and Dubai Healthcare City Authority, it stated. TradeArabia News Service Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has appealed to President Donald Trump of the United States not to punish Nigerian citizens travel vise restrictions into the US because of the deficiencies of President Muhammadu Buhari. Atiku highlighted the history of diplomatic cooperation between Nigeria and the US over the years on both bilateral and multilateral foreign relations. He also observed some consequences of such hardline diplomatic policy of the Trump administration. He appealed for a review of the placing of Nigerians on US visa ban list. Atiku in a statement declared: I received with sadness the policy of the government of the United States of America to place Nigeria on its travel ban list. While I understand the reasons given by the Trump administration (the failure of the Muhammadu Buhari led administration to share information and to address issues of terrorism), the ban does not take into account the pro-American sentiments of the Nigerian public and the solidarity previous Nigerian administrations have had with the United States. ALSO READ: Africa records first Coronavirus case I urge the government of President Donald Trump to consider the history of US-Nigerian relationships. Nigeria was one of the few African nations that joined the US led coalition during Operation Desert Storm in 1990-1991, when the United States championed the liberation of Kuwait. The Trump administration may also consider the pivotal role Nigeria, in partnership with the US, played in bringing peace to Liberia, an American sphere of influence, that now enjoys democracy because Nigerian blood and money paved the way for peace in that nation. Nigeria has also consistently voted in support of the United States and her allies at the United Nations and other multi-lateral world bodies. This is even as we are perhaps the biggest trading partner that the United States has in Africa, even where we had alternatives. Nigerians love the United States and have been a major force for the positive development of that great nation: 77 per cent of all Black doctors in the United States are Nigerians. Nigerians are also the most educated immigrant community in America BAR NONE. Surely, the US stands to benefit if it allows open borders with a country like Nigeria that is able to provide skilled, hardworking and dedicated personnel in a two-way traffic. The current Nigerian administration may have its deficiencies and deep faults, but the Nigeria people ought not to be punished for their inefficiencies. Once again, I call on President Trump to consider adopting measures that individually target those in government who have failed in their duties, rather than target the entire Nigerian population. PV: 0 By Ben Mikek mikekben@grinnell.edu With two days remaining until the Iowa Causes, students and community members flocked to Saints Rest to see Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders speak one last time. The event, which lasted about an hour, was an opportunity for the campaign to build enthusiasm and to inspire new volunteers to canvass for the Vermont senator. About 80 attendees made it into the coffee shop, while campaign organizers estimated another 150 had to wait outside to avoid creating a fire hazard. As Sanders, who was not originally scheduled to attend the event, spoke to supporters on the street outside, Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar highlighted the main points of his campaign. There is a beautiful, inclusive America that we export to the world. That beautiful America can exist, and we can make it happen with the help of President Sanders, she said. That America is one where there are no homeless people because we are going to invest in ending homelessness. That America is one that says we are going to ensure that you have clean air and clean water. That America is one that says no kids will be separated from their families at the borders. After drawing extended applause, Omar was followed on stage by Washington congresswoman Pramila Jayapal. Jayapal described Sanders history of fighting for progressive causes. I am really proud to be the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. And guess who was the founder one of the founders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus back in 1991: Bernie Sanders, she said. Jayapal also compared Sanders to current President Donald Trump. Let me talk about Bernie Sanders in office, what does that look like, she asked the crowd. It looks like a president who doesnt hold up his finger and see which way the polls are showing in order to fight for what his heart says is right. Jane Sanders introduced her husband with an additional personal story. I met Bernie when he was running for Mayor and I was a community organizer. We organized a debate, and when he spoke, I felt that he embodied everything I believed in, and decide right then and there I wanted to work with him, she said. I can tell you he still embodies everything I believe in. Finally, the candidate himself took the stage for 20 minutes, going straight into an aggressive attack on Donald Trump. What this campaign is about is whether we will continue to keep in office a president who lies all of the time, a president who believes he is above the law, a president who is a racist and a sexist and a homophobe, and a xenophobe and a religious bigot, he said. Sanders spent most of his speech reiterating the main points of his campaign. Raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour, ensuring equal pay, cancelling student debt, and stopping climate change all made prominent appearances. Here is my promise to you. We will run an administration that listens to scientists, he said. [My administration would] take on the fossil fuel industry, would tell that industry that their short-term profits are not more important than the future of this planet. The 78-year-old senator finished with a call to action. If there is a low voter turnout on Monday night, were going to lose. Thats about it. If there is a high voter turnout, were going to win, said Sanders. Today, I am here in Grinnell to ask for your help in not only coming out to caucus for us, but in brining your friends and your family, and your co-workers, and anyone else you can find. The message was well-received in the room, as chants of Bernie, Bernie followed the senator out the door, and several students signed up to knock on doors. This is my first time volunteering [for Sanders], said Mack Trachtenberg 23. Im fairly politically involved, so I volunteered a lot for NextGen last year, which is nominally non-partisan, but mainly democratic. But it was more like to get the vote out generally for the midterms. This is presidential campaign Im volunteering for. While the majority of attendees were students, many community members, and even those from outside Grinnell, came to listen to Sanders, Omar, and Jayapal. Im from California; I came here a couple of days ago to volunteer for Bernie, said Rohan Jain. I came to Iowa four years ago also to volunteer, and I decided to come back here because Iowa is the first primary. Both Jain and Trachtenberg emphasized Sanders honesty as a reason for their support, a sentiment matched by the three introductory speakers. Campaign volunteers, attendees, and Saints Rest staff all described the event as a success. Cassidy Christiansen 20, who supports the Sanders campaign and works at Saints Rest, helped organize the event. Saints Rest has hosted a lot of political and campaigning events, not just this election series, but in the past, so theres a long history of it, said Christiansen. The owner, Sam [Cox], is just a huge proponent of free speech and open dialogue. Sanders may not be the first, or last, candidate to visit the Grinnell coffee shop, but his campaign is counting on these last minute events to clinch a win in the Iowa caucuses, which will occur on Monday, Feb. 3. Sanders has consistently placed among the top 2 candidates in polls conducted during the second half of January, placing second with 21 percent to former Vice President Joe Bidens 23 percent in a Jan. 29 Monmouth University poll, and first with 26 percent in a Jan. 26 Emerson College poll. By PTI NEW DELHI: India on Sunday airlifted a second batch of 323 stranded Indians and seven Maldivian citizens from China's coronavirus-hit Wuhan city, taking the total number of people evacuated to 654, Indian officials said. Air India's jumbo B747 made two flights to Wuhan city - the ground zero of the coronavirus epidemic that has killed more than 300 people, infected 14,380 others and spread to 25 countries, including India, the US and the UK. In the first flight on early Saturday, 324 Indians were evacuated and on Sunday another 323 Indians and seven Maldivian citizens were flown back. Four Indians could not board the second flight after they reported high temperatures, Indian Ambassador to China Vikram Misri said. Earlier, six Indians were stopped from boarding the first special Air India flight from the Coronavirus-hit city due to high fever. The first flight left early Saturday with 324 stranded Indians mostly students from Wuhan. Further, two days after the first case of Coronavirus infection in India was confirmed in Kerala, the state has reported its second positive case. As per a statement from the Union Health Ministry, the second confirmed case has a travel history from China. While the details of the patient are yet to be revealed, the ministry said that the patient is in isolation in the hospital and is stable, however, it is not clear whether the second infected person is related to the previous patient in any way. Earlier, the first confirmed case of nCoV was reported from Thrissur and per the daily bulletin of the department, the health status of the patient remains satisfactory. The Centre had on Saturday said that it had decided to screen all passengers from Thailand and Singapore at airports in addition to travelers coming from China and Hongkong in the wake of rising number of nCov cases. Till February, over 52,000 passengers from 326 flights had been screened at airports in India. So far, nearly 105 samples have been tested for the virus in India and two have tested positive, officials said. (With ENS inputs) Abdur Rehman, a former Special Inspector General of Police (IGP) on Sunday, who was set to address a protest at Aligarh Muslim University against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), was intercepted by the police at Lodha and was sent back to Delhi. The former IPS officer said he was invited at the AMU by their students' union to address them on CAA, NRC and NPR. "I was invited by the AMU students union to speak on CAA and NRC, NPR. I had travelled from Delhi to Aligarh especially for the session. When I reached Khera, I was taken to the police station and they said that if I go there then some problem may arise and is a risk to law and order," said Abdul Rehman. "So, I will follow what I have been asked to do and I understand their sentiments. On their request I am going back to Delhi," he added. "Abdur Rehman was invited at the university and he has resigned. When we received the information, we took him to the police station on his way and asked him to leave. He agreed to us and was sent back, "CO Civil Line Anil Samania told the reporters. Rahman had resigned from his post in December 2019 in protest against the passage of the bill. In an open letter, Rahman had said that Citizenship Amendment Bill 2019 was against the basic features of the Constitution. He had condemned the bill passed by parliament last month. "As (a step of) civil disobedience, I have decided not to continue in the service and thus not to attend office from tomorrow. I am quitting the service finally. I say sorry to those who want me to continue in the service and give justice to the deprived people," Rahman had said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) President Trump often says he's the smartest person in the room on virtually every topic. Now, after taking several risks on what he privately calls "big shit" and avoiding catastrophe, Trump and his entire inner circle convey supreme self-confidence, bordering on a sense of invincibility. The state of play: Three years into Trump's presidency, their view is the naysayers are always wrong. They point to Iran, impeachment, Middle East peace. Every day, Trump grows more confident in his gut and less deterrable. Over the last month, 10 senior administration officials have described this sentiment to me. Most of them share it. Behind the scenes: Trump and his senior aides often cite two decisions as evidence their more experienced colleagues were alarmists. Withdrawal from the Paris Accord: At the time, many on Trump's foreign policy team said the move would damage relations with allies. In Trumps view, it made no difference and thrilled his base. At the time, many on Trump's foreign policy team said the move would damage relations with allies. In Trumps view, it made no difference and thrilled his base. Moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem: Senior members of Trump's team, including then-Secretary of Defense James Mattis, argued against the policy, saying it would further destabilize the Middle East. Trump's aides often reminisce about how wrong Mattis was. Between the lines: Over the past month, Trumpworld's sense of being unbeatable has only grown. This is partly because the president sometimes defines victory in narrow terms, like pleasing the base and juicing the markets. Trump stunned allies and even many in his own government when he greenlighted the killing of Qasem Soleimani, the commander of Iran's Quds Force. Trump has claimed victory and his aides have said the Iranian response missile attacks that have yet to kill any Americans show the warnings of war were baseless. The jury will be out for a while on that, but Team Trump claims vindication. And last week, Jared Kushner released the long-awaited Middle East peace plan, which the Israelis loved and the Palestinians promptly rejected. But the encouraging statements from some key Arab neighbors bolstered the White Houses confidence. Team Trump's confidence snowballed into the weekend as the Senate voted against witnesses in Trump's impeachment trial and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell set up a Wednesday vote that's expected to acquit the president. Throughout the impeachment process, Trump ignored the advice of some moderate Republican senators who wanted him to acknowledge the call was inappropriate but not impeachable. Instead, Trump repeatedly insisted that his call with the Ukrainian president in which he asked Zelensky to investigate the Bidens was "perfect." Trump's attorney Alan Dershowitz channeled his chutzpah when he argued, "If a president did something that he believes will help him get elected, in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment." The big picture: Everything we've heard from Trump's aides over the last month suggests he will give less and less credence to voices urging caution. Per a senior White House official, Trump feels every major gamble hes taken has succeeded despite advisers who were Chicken Littles. The "Whoa, there" types including Mattis, Rex Tillerson, Dan Coats and Gary Cohn are gone. And their replacements tend to trust Trump's gut. The bottom line: This sense of invulnerability is why the White House thought it could get away with hosting a gathering of world leaders at Trump's private club in Doral. Trump's choice of Doral for the G7 was one of the few times in recent memory when Republicans got the president to change his mind. Trump retracted the decision, but an aide told me he was reluctant as he thought his Doral decision was "perfect." "I swear to God, this guy is the luckiest SOB that's ever lived," said a former White House official who stays in close touch with current officials. "That's not to say he hasn't done right things. But the flip side is, he's one of these away from a massive F-up." Go deeper: Poll shows majority believe Trump abused power and obstructed Congress CLEVELAND, Ohio Tommy, the new CBS drama starring Edie Falco, films in New York and has both the east side and west side covered. No, were not talking about the east side and west side of Manhattan. Were talking the Cleveland area. Premiering at 10 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 6, on WOIO Channel 19, Tommy features not one but two actors from Northeast Ohio. The midseason shows regular cast includes Russell G. Jones, who grew up in Shaker Heights, and Michael Chernus, who grew up in Rocky River. As you might imagine, weve been having a lot of fun joking about east side and west side, Shaker Heights and Rocky River, Chernus said during a telephone interview. A lot of good-natured back-and-forth. But its all camaraderie and great mutual respect, Jones said during a separate telephone interview. We didnt know each other in Ohio. I introduced myself to him after seeing him in a play, and he was mesmerizing. I saw that he had Cleveland in his bio, so I had to introduce myself. And weve seen each other in many theater workshops since. And Im Russells biggest fan, Chernus said. Hes one of New Yorks great actors. Both credit their Cleveland-area upbringing and education with providing the solid foundation on which to build New York-based careers as actors. Im a product of James Thorntons great theater program at Shaker Heights High School, Jones said. That was fundamental to me as a human being and an artist. Michael Chernus is the same way. We both got the idea of ensemble in junior high school and high school. That has been a through line for my whole career, and it started in Ohio and it extends all the way to Tommy. Its what enables collaboration. Chernus got interested in acting while a student at Rocky River Middle School. He tried out for a stage version of The Hobbit and was cast as the wizard Gandalf. He soon was taking theater classes at the Beck Center for the Arts in Lakewood. He appeared in plays at Rocky River High School, the Beck Center, the Clague Playhouse and other area theaters. In his senior year of high school, he was accepted at the prestigious Juilliard School in New York. Michael Chernus, who grew up in Rocky River, plays speechwriter Ken Rosey in Tommy, the new CBS drama starring Edie Falco as a former high-ranking NYPD officer becomes the first female chief of police of Los Angeles. Patrick Harbron/CBS I just owe so much to my teachers, both at Rocky River High School and the Beck Center, Chernus said. And the opportunity to see great theater productions like Hal Holbrook in Uncle Vanya at Great Lakes. It was all incredibly formative and foundational. Jones has been in New York since 1991. He lives with his wife and son in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. Chernus lives with his wife in the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn. But even though Tommy films in New York, at the historic Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens, and even though the stars are primarily New York stage actors, the series is set in (ready?) Los Angeles. Falco, who won three Emmys for The Sopranos (HBO, 1999-2007) and one for Nurse Jackie (Showtime, 2009-15), plays Abigail Tommy Thomas, a former high-ranking NYPD officer who becomes the first female chief of police of Los Angeles. She employs unflinching and hardball tactics to keep political, social and national security issues from getting in the way of effective law enforcement. She is surrounded by her predecessors staff, including savvy chief of staff Donn Cooper (Jones) and idealistic speechwriter Ken Rosey (Chernus). We make the entire show in New York, even though its all about Los Angeles, Chernus said. Usually it works in reverse, where shows set in New York are shot on Los Angeles soundstages. This never happens, but Edie didnt want to leave New York and they agreed to accommodate that. So we get to live at home thank you, Edie. Jones had a recurring role on FXs The Americans and has been a guest star on such shows as Bull and Orange Is the New Black, but this is his first job as a full-fledged series regular. Im usually the person just coming in for an episode, so it has been really exciting to be on the home team and to be with something right from the beginning, he said. Now Im the person making people feel welcome and focused when theyre coming in for just a week or a couple of days. And I learned that from Edie, because Edie is wonderfully generous and professional at all times. Chernus played brilliant scientist Louis Fritz Fedowitz on the WGN America drama Manhattan and big-hearted slacker Cal Chapman on Netflixs Orange Is the New Black, but this is his first time as a series regular on a network series. This has been a completely positive experience and a true joy to work on, Chernus said. CBS is kind of known for crime dramas, but this show feels much more like The West Wing with cops than a police drama where were running around the streets with guns in our hands. Its a character-driven, dialogue-driven show about people solving problems. Indeed, series creator Paul Attanasio has cited network dramas Hill Street Blues, St. Elsewhere and The West Wing as inspirations for Tommy. When not on the set of Tommy or in a theater, both have plenty of projects to keep them busy. For Jones, these include the Blind Spot Experience, a campaign that facilitates cross-cultural dialogue and critical thinking by providing programs and tools for perceiving racial inequity. Blind Spot basically gives organizations the tools to actually align their actions with their stated social justice identity, Jones said. Weve worked with a handful of theaters in New York. And once an organization says it wants to embrace diversity, we show them how to do that and what it looks like. Russell G. Jones, from Shaker Heights, plays chief of staff Donn Cooper in Tommy, the new CBS drama starring Edie Falco as a former high-ranking NYPD officer becomes the first female chief of police of Los Angeles. Patrick Harbron/CBS In 2015, Chernus married Emily Simoness, a former actress who runs an artists retreat program on a 130-acre organic farm in Brewster, New York. The farm has been in her family since 1795, and from June to October, it provides residency for artists of all kinds: playwrights, actors, dancers, painters, novelists and screenwriters. It keeps growing by leaps and bounds, and we now host about 150 artists a year, Chernus said. We have a home near the farm and the home in Greenpoint, so we have a farm life and a city life. And both Jones and Chernus were back in Northeast Ohio over the last year because of, yes, those high schools. Jones, whose mother and sister still live in Cleveland, was in town to attend his Shaker Heights High School 30-year class reunion. Chernus, class of 95, was back for a special honor at Rocky River High School. They inducted me into their hall of fame as a distinguished alumnus, he said. It was a very moving experience. The ceremony was in the same auditorium where I used to do plays. You realize that, and it really brings it all home. Recent TV stories by Mark Dawidziak: Terry Jones brought many gifts, including Spam, to the Monty Python lunacy machine Curb Your Enthusiasm writer-producer from Ohio talks about shows 10th season Star Trek: Picard is slow-building, but Patrick Stewart is stellar Netflixs much-debated Dracula is latest in long TV bloodline Midseason still means a January blizzard of new and returning TV shows Former Channel 8 anchor Denise DAscenzo dies at 61 Growing number of devoted fans being drawn to Evil Chinese citizens have faced a racist backlash across the world following the outbreak of the deadly coronavirus. Restaurants in South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong and Vietnam have refused to accept Chinese customers. Indonesians marched near a hotel and called on Chinese guests there to leave. Restaurants in South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong and Vietnam (pictured) have refused to accept Chinese customers French and Australian newspapers face criticism for racist headlines. Chinese and other Asians in Europe, the United States, Asia and the Pacific complained of racism. Two dozen countries outside of China have reported cases of the new coronavirus, which has killed more than 360 people and sickened thousands of others in China. Many countries have sent planes to the Chinese city of Wuhan to evacuate their nationals. The anti-China sentiments come as Beijing bolsters its global influence, and China's rise has caused trade, political and diplomatic disputes with many countries. But with rising fear of the mysterious disease has come a more acute anti-Chinese and, in some cases, anti-Asian backlash. A French teacher started a Twitter conversation under #JeNeSuisPasUnVirus - I am not a virus) - that has drawn numerous accounts of discrimination, from children taunted in the schoolyard to subway passengers moving away from people who appear Asian. France has a significant and growing Asian community, and Chinese visitors are a pillar of the French tourism industry, but old prejudices run deep. French Asians are using a hashtag 'I am not a virus' in an effort to counter racist abuse A regional newspaper in northern France carried a front-page headline warning of a 'Yellow Alert,' and later apologised amid national criticism. 'It's a virus that comes from a region in China. It could have come from North Africa, Europe or anywhere,' said Soc Lam, a legal adviser to Chinese community groups in Paris. 'People should not consider that just because we are Asian, we are more likely to spread the virus.' A Danish paper, Jyllands-Posten, published a cartoon that replaced the yellow stars of the Chinese flag with representations of the virus. The Chinese Embassy in Copenhagen called the cartoon 'an insult to China' and demanded the newspaper apologise. The German Der Spiegel magazine ran a headline that said 'made in China' along with a photo of an individual in protective gear. On Friday, a cafe near Rome's Trevi Fountain, a popular tourist site, posted a notice in its window saying 'all people coming from China are not allowed access in this place,' according to the Italian news agency ANSA. On Friday, a cafe near Rome's Trevi Fountain, a popular tourist site, posted a notice in its window saying 'all people coming from China are not allowed access in this place,' according to the Italian news agency ANSA The post banning Chinese people from the cafe was no longer in the window when reporters went back. Pictured: A tourist wearing a mask by the Trevi Fountain on Friday The post was no longer in the window when reporters went back. After news broke that someone attending Arizona State University has the virus, Ari Deng, who is Chinese American, said she sat down at a study table on the Tempe, Arizona, campus near five other students. Deng, who was the only Asian, said the other students began whispering. 'They got really tense and they quickly gathered their stuff and just left at the same time.' In a recent business class a non-Asian student 'said `Not to be racist, but there's a lot of international students that live in my apartment complex. 'I try my best to keep my distance but I think it's a good precaution for all of us to wash our hands,' Deng said. 'It stings but I don't let it take up room in my mind or weigh on my conscience,' she said. Meanwhile, the University of California, Berkeley's health services centre removed an Instagram post Thursday that said 'fears about interacting with those who might be from Asia and guilt about these feelings' were a normal reaction to the coronavirus outbreak. 'No matter how much time we spend in this country, at times we are almost immediately viewed as a foreigner,' Gregg Orton, the national director of the National Council of Asian Pacific Americans, said. 'It's a pretty frustrating reality for many of us.' South Korean websites have been flooded with comments calling on the government to block or expel Chinese and racist remarks about Chinese eating habits and hygiene. A popular Seoul seafood restaurant frequented by Chinese tourists posted a sign saying 'No entry for Chinese' before taking it down Wednesday after an online backlash. More than 650,000 South Koreans have signed an online petition filed with the presidential Blue House calling for a temporary ban on Chinese visitors. More than 650,000 South Koreans have signed an online petition filed with the presidential Blue House calling for a temporary ban on Chinese visitors. Pictured: A citizen receives directions from a quarantine official at the National Medical Centre in Seoul Some conservative opposition lawmakers publicly back these steps, and about 30 people rallied near the Blue House on Wednesday demanding the government immediately ban Chinese tourists. 'Unconditional xenophobia against the Chinese is intensifying' in South Korea, the mass-circulation JoongAng Ilbo newspaper said in an editorial Thursday. 'Infectious diseases are a matter of science, not an issue that can be resolved through an emotional outpouring.' The virus has deepened anti-Chinese sentiment in Hong Kong, where months of street protests against Beijing's influence have roiled the semi-autonomous Chinese city. Last week, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam suspended ferry and high-speed train services to the mainland and reduced flights between Hong Kong and Chinese cities. Last week, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam suspended ferry and high-speed train services to the mainland and reduced flights between Hong Kong and Chinese cities. Pictured: Masks sold out at one grocery store in Hong Kong Tenno Ramen, a Japanese noodle restaurant in Hong Kong, is refusing to serve mainland customers. 'We want to live longer. We want to safeguard local customers. Please excuse us,' the restaurant said on Facebook. More than 51,000 signatures have appeared on an online petition demanding apologies from Australia's two biggest-circulation newspapers over their headlines. The petition condemned Melbourne's Herald Sun headline Wednesday that read, 'Chinese virus pandamonium,' a misspelling that plays on China's native pandas, and Sydney's The Daily Telegraph headline on the same day that read, 'China kids stay home.' Singaporean Kiwi Dollice Chua told the New Zealand Herald that when she went to an Auckland mall last week to buy a wedding card a woman gave her a dirty look and told her 'You Asians are the ones who brought this virus.' Chua has lived in New Zealand for 21 years. 'It's racist and beyond rude,' she said. Many Japanese have taken to social media to call for a travel ban for the Chinese visitors amid worries they'll come to Japan for virus-related treatments. One tweet said, 'Please ban Chinese tourists immediately,' while another said, 'I'm so worried that my child may catch the virus.' A candy store in Hakone, a hot springs town west of Tokyo, recently made headlines after it posted a note saying, 'Chinese people's entry into the store is prohibited.' A candy store in Hakone, a hot springs town west of Tokyo, recently made headlines after it posted a note saying, 'Chinese people's entry into the store is prohibited' On Wednesday, Menya Hareruya, a popular ramen chain in Sapporo on Japan's northern island of Hokkaido, posted a sign saying 'No entry for Chinese tourists.' Zhang Jiaqi, a Chinese student in Tokyo, said he has not faced any unpleasant response from his Japanese classmates and friends, but, he added, 'I noticed that some people have turned around or watched me with angry looks on their face when I was talking to my friends in Chinese.' Last weekend, several hundred residents in the Indonesian tourist city of Bukittinggi marched to the Novotel Hotel, where some 170 Chinese tourists were staying, to protest their entrance into Indonesia. They blocked roads near the hotel to prevent the Chinese, who'd arrived a day earlier, from getting out of the hotel. Local authorities decided to send the visitors back to China later in the day. More than 400,000 Malaysians have signed an online petition calling for a ban on Chinese travelers and urging the government to 'save our family and our children.' A hotel in Danang, Vietnam, a popular beach destination, has been refusing to accept Chinese tourists. A former police officer and town mayor, Abner Afuang, said he burned a Chinese flag on Friday in front of the National Press Club in Manila to protest the problems China has brought to the Philippines and other Southeast Asian countries, including the virus and Beijing's claim to disputed islands in the South China Sea. The Philippine president's office said in a statement: 'Let us not engage in discriminatory behavior, nor act with any bias towards our fellowmen. The reality is everyone is susceptible to the virus.' The Business Council of Australia has warned that the termination of a wages agreement for McDonald's staff will leave workers and the business worse-off. For decades, McDonald's workers have had their pay and working conditions, including rosters, determined under enterprise bargaining agreements between the company and their union. The Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDA) traded penalty rates for higher base rates. McDonald's will revert to the industry award after its enterprise bargaining agreement was terminated. Credit:Bloomberg A member of rival union Retail and Fast Food Workers Union (RAFFWU) challenged the enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA) in the Fair Work Commission to restore full penalty rates. The commission terminated the agreement in December and staff will transition to the fast-food industry award on Monday. Business Council chief executive Jennifer Westacott said on Sunday the termination of the McDonalds EBA is the latest example of the demise of enterprise bargaining in Australia. The Budget also proposed to reduce the period of stay in India to 120 days from 182 days earlier for PIOs to be categorised as NRIs. This amendment will take effect from April 1, 2021 and will, accordingly, apply in relation to the assessment year 2021-22 and subsequent assessment years. Chennai: The Budget proposed to tax non-resident Indians who are not paying taxes in any foreign country. An Indian citizen who is not liable to tax in any other country or territory shall be deemed to be resident in India, the Budget said. As a result, he will be taxed in India for his global income. This amendment will take effect from April 1, 2021 and will, accordingly, apply in relation to the assessment year 2021-22 and subsequent assessment years. The issue of stateless persons has been bothering the tax world for quite some time. It is entirely possible for an individual to arrange his affairs in such a fashion that he is not liable to tax in any country or jurisdiction during a year. This arrangement is typically employed by high net worth individuals (HNWI) to avoid paying taxes to any country/ jurisdiction. The Budget also proposed to reduce the period of stay in India to 120 days from 182 days earlier for PIOs to be categorised as NRIs. Instances have come to notice where period of 182 days specified in respect of an Indian citizen or person of Indian origin visiting India during the year, is being misused. Individuals, who are actually carrying out substantial economic activities from India, manage their period of stay in India, so as to remain a non-resident in perpetuity and not be required to declare their global income in India, the Budget said. These changes in definition will deter people from coming to India and some can even think of giving up Indian citizenship, said Transaction Square founder Girish Vanvari. Meanwhile, some of the NRIs found that there was nothing much for them in the Budget. It was silent about NRIs and many of the demands to benefit them were not considered, said Azad Moopen, founder of Aster DM Healthcare. The Trinamool Congress (TMC) led by Mamata Banerjee has given notice under Rule 267 in Rajya Sabha to discuss the "raging anti-CAA-NRC-NRP people's movement in India" on Monday, ANI sources said. The Rule 267 of Rajya Sabha rulebook entails suspension of the day's listed business in order to discuss an issue of critical importance. RS Chairman is empowered to accept notice or dismiss it The Rajya Sabha Chairman is empowered to accept the notice under the said rule or dismiss it on his discretion. Protests have been going on across the country against the newly-enacted Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC). The CAA provides Indian citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Jains, Buddhists and Parsis fleeing religious persecution in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, and who arrived in India before January 1, 2015. The NRC exercise requires the people living in India to prove their citizenship by producing relevant documents. The people fear that the CAA and NRC will deprive a large section of the Indian population, particularly Muslims, of their citizenship rights and render them stateless. Mamata Banerjee launches her book West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday launched her book 'Why We Are Saying No CAA, NO NRC, No NPR' at 44th International Kolkata Book Fair. Earlier on Tuesday, West Bengal CM agreed to have talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the amended Citizenship Act (CAA) but has put a condition to do so. The CM has asked the Centre to revoke the contentious Act prior to holding any such talks. READ | TMC to make opposition to CAA, NRC its main poll plank in the WB civic polls READ | Govt removes incentives to 'save' in nation with no social security: TMC on Budget Slamming the Centre for terming the Opposition parties as anti-national, Banerjee said that protesting against the Centre's decisions does not make anyone anti-national. "It is good that the Prime Minister is ready for talks but first take back the CAA. They did not call an all-party meet before taking a decision on Kashmir and CAA. NRC, NPR, and CAA -- these three are bad for the country. We are ready for talks but first withdraw NRC," said the Chief Minister at an event. West Bengal passes anti-CAA resolution The West Bengal Assembly on Monday passed a resolution against the CAA, which was moved by the Trinamool Congress (TMC) government. After Kerala, Punjab and Rajasthan, West Bengal is the fourth state to pass a resolution against the CAA. READ | Oppn protest over CAA during presidential address; TMC MPs raise 'No-CAA' banners READ | TMC's Derek O'Brien campaigns for Raghav Chadha; endorses AAP for Delhi election (With agency inputs) (Pic credit: PTI) A man drove who into a Morris County Acme grocery store Friday afternoon was under the influence, Denville police said. John Cilurso, 37, from Mount Arlington, drove up the curb and into a brick wall that houses grocery carts in front of the grocery store around 4:15 p.m., police said. No one was injured during the crash. Cilurso was driving on a suspended license and did not have registration or liability insurance, police said. Police say Cilurso was under the influence during the crash, but did not specify if he is believed to have been high or drunk. Heroin and drug paraphernalia were found inside his car, police said. Cilurso was charged with possession of drugs and paraphernalia, and driving under the influence. He also faces a number of motor vehicle summonses, including careless and reckless driving and driving across a sidewalk. He was taken to the Morris County Correctional Facility ahead of a first appearance. Katie Kausch may be reached at kkausch@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @KatieKausch. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us: nj.com/tips. Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. A band of herpes-ridden monkeys are roaming across northeastern Florida after escaping from a state park miles away, threatening the locals and the environment. The rhesus macaques were living at the Silver Springs State Park near Ocala, Florida, but the creatures, native to south and southeast Asia, escaped the area and have since been spotted in Jacksonville, St. Johns, St. Augustine, Palatka, Welaka, and Elkton, Florida, according to First Coast News. While the monkeys tend to keep to themselves, over a quarter of the 300 feral creatures counted at Silver Spring State Park carried Herpes B, according to a 2018 survey by National Geographic. While it's extremely rare for herpes B to spread from monkey to human, when it does it can be fatal. The rhesus macaques were first introduced to Silver Springs State Park in the late 1930s when a tour boat operator named Colonel Tooey released 12 of the furry animals onto a man-made island as a tourist attraction. A dozen of herpes-ridden rhesus macaques monkey sightings have been reported in residential areas across northeastern Florida over the past eight months. File image of a rhesus macaques monkey above in Silver Springs, Florida So far a dozen of monkey sightings have been confirmed over the past eight months in Jacksonville, St. Johns, St. Augustine, Palatka, Welaka, and Elkton, Florida The creatures ended up swimming away from that man-made island and proliferated at an alarming rate. By the 1980s there were nearly 400 macaques reported. However, to this day most are confined to the park and forests along the Ocklawaha River, but some are now showing up in residential areas. So far a dozen of monkey sightings have been confirmed over the past eight months, with locals sharing grainy videos and photos of the animals sitting on front lawns and dangling from tree branches. 'That is definitely a concern because I walk the dogs at like 5:30 in the morning and its pitch blackout,' Julington Creek resident Carrie Bennet said. 'If they bit me, if they came after and bit you, you dont know what they have, what theyre carrying.' The monkeys also present a major threat to the local ecosystem, and experts say the creatures could be potentially dangerous. 'The potential ramifications are really dire,' University of Florida primate scientist Dr. Steve Johnson said. 'A big male like the one in that video in Jacksonville -- thats an extremely strong, potentially dangerous animal.' The rhesus macaques were first introduced to Silver Springs State Park in the late 1930s when a tour boat operator named Colonel Tooey released 12 of the furry animals onto a man-made island as a tourist attraction. The creatures ended up swimming away from that man-made island and proliferated at an alarming rate. By the 1980s there were nearly 400 macaques reported. 'I was shocked, totally shocked -- it was a bigger monkey than I thought it would be,' Julington Creek woman Paula Farmer said upon seeing video footage of a dog-sized monkey eating oranges that fell from a tree. 'I love the wildlife. I would like to see one [in person].' Eight-year-old Jason Parks reported seeing one of the monkeys out and about and described it as being about chest high with 'sharp claws and stuff'. 'My sister named him "George,"' he said. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) officials say the monkey reports are credible and it's the result of a likely expansion of the feral monkey population in Central Florida. In 1984 the then-Florida Game and Freshwater fish Commission allowed licensed trappers to cull the monkey population by trapping and hunting them. As a result over a thousand monkeys ended up in zoos or research facilities or were killed. However, it was a unpopular program with the public and since 2012 there has been no active management of the monkey population. While the monkeys tend to keep to themselves, over a quarter of the 300 feral creatures counted at Silver Spring State Park carried Herpes B, according to a 2018 survey by National Geographic. Most of the population remains at the park or in the forest along the Ocklawaha River Two years ago due to a surge in the macaque population and the presence of Herpes B, state wildlife managers released a statement in support of population control. 'Without management action, the presence and continued expansion of non-native rhesus macaques in Florida can result in serious human health and safety risks, including human injury and transmission of disease,' FWC Assistant Executive Director Thomas Eason said in a statement. 'Additionally, macaques can negatively impact Florida native wildlife and pose potential risks to agriculture and recreation. Therefore, the FWC supports active management to remove these threats,' he added. However, as the macaque population grows, there is still not any strategy to slow their growth as wildlife regulators continue to battle with other invasive species like Burmese pythons and feral pigs. Sheila Walsh identifies 'most underused weapon in the Church' in new book Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Bible teacher and best-selling author Sheila Walsh believes prayer is the "single most underused weapon in the Church." Over the last two-and-a-half years, Ive had this burning thing inside of me that every morning I wake up with this word prayer on my heart, Walsh told The Christian Post. Ive been a Christian for many years, but I didnt understand the importance of prayer." "I kept recalling the words of Corrie Ten Boom: Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire? In other words, is it what guides my life, or is it a last resort? I am convinced theres nothing the enemy would love more than for us to stop praying. Walsh knew she wasnt alone in her struggle. She spent two years researching what God says about prayer, looking at how the early Church fathers viewed prayer, and even penned a survey asking women what they thought about prayer. The results, she said, were astonishing. So many women said they got bored, distracted, felt like they were repeating themselves when they prayed, she recalled. Others asked, Why bother to pray when God already knows all? or, I prayed and God didnt answer, so why would I keep praying? That, she added, gave me a fresh passion to provide women a practical, step-by-step handbook as to how to pray through some of the toughest times of life. The Scottish-born evangelist is gearing up for the Feb. 4 release of her latest book, Praying Women: How to Pray When You Dont Know What to Say. In it, she teaches women to experience the power of prayer through conversation with God by inspiring them to develop a lifestyle of prayer. While researching for her book, Walsh said she discovered that for many women herself included the most difficult time to pray is in times of pain and suffering. Yet Walsh stressed the importance of processing your pain in the presence of God. I believe Satan makes us feel like we dont want to pray; its a strategy of the devil, Walsh posited. We do have an enemy who would love to make sure that we dont pray. I think sometimes when were walking through painful situations, we think, God, youre powerful enough to have changed this, but you didnt. We get confused in our pain and the last thing we want to do is pray. On Feb. 15, Walsh will lead the charge in praying for victory over depression for She Loves Out Loud, a historic livestream broadcast encouraging women across the country to gather in prayer. The event seeks to encourage women from coast-to-coast to "come together in homes, college campuses, churches, pregnancy centers and rescue missions to love instead of hate; to heal instead of hurt; to be listened to instead of shout; and to pray together for healing and hope in intimate small groups." Walsh told CP that while on the cross, Jesus Himself exemplified how to process your pain in the presence of God a mantra she continually repeats to herself. Christ modeled that for us in the darkest moment of His life, instead of hiding one single emotion, He poured out the pain of what lay ahead, she explained. When youre able to empty yourself in front of your Father, it makes space for grace. Christ was able to say, Not my will but Yours be done. The son of God didnt hide His pain from His Father; Christ has modeled for us that we get to come as we are and tell the truth. Walsh revealed the one-word prayer she utters time and time again when feeling overwhelmed, simply, Jesus! There are times where you dont have a ton of time to come up with a great lofty prayer, or its painful and you dont know how to pray, she said. Ive discovered thats the most powerful prayer to pray, youre acknowledging, Lord, youre my prayer and hope and shelter. Theres power in the name of the Lord, she continued. There are times when none of us know what to say, but I want Gods daughters to know: When you call out the name of the Lord, youre immediately connected to all of Heavens power. A wife and mother herself, Walsh stressed the importance of praying over ones family to protect them from spiritual attacks. Doing so, she said, is one of the greatest honors God gives to women. Its such an important part of prayer life, she said, adding that throughout her sons life, she has prayed over him, from folding his tiny, newborn clothing to anointing the door of his college dorm with oil. A strong prayer life is also essential to a healthy marriage, Walsh contended. So many women write me and say, I know the man is supposed to be the spiritual leader, but I dont feel he is taking on that role, she shared. But Peter, in his letters, tells women: Dont let your witness be your words, but the way you live your life. We can try to nag our husbands into deeper spirituality, but theres nothing more compelling than a wife who loves Jesus. Have a journal, write down prayer requests for your husband and children, and then go back and see how God has been answering those prayers, she advised. When you look back and see how God has been faithful, it strengthens your desire to pray. Though she has written over 50 books that have sold over 5 million copies collectively, Walsh said none have personally impacted her like Praying Women. While writing the book, the author said she learned to pray the Psalms something she called a life-changing experience. God gave the Psalms to the people of God so the people of God would pray the Psalms back to God, she explained. Its like spiritual gymnastics; Its how we get fit in our faith. The thing I love about the Psalms is, no matter what youre walking through, youll find yourself there. Either the best or worst days of your life. When youre praying the word of God back to God, you know your prayers hold power. For women struggling to develop a consistent prayer life, Walsh recommended starting with Psalm 23, as it focuses on Gods provision. It tells us that Jesus is close to us, she said. He loves it when we take a moment and pause and come to Him. When readers put her book down, Walsh said she prays they are more in love with Jesus than ever before. Thats my biggest prayer, she said. I want women to realize that the Word of God is alive and powerful, but my greatest prayer is theyll have a more intimate relationship with Christ, realizing just how much He loves us. The record proves that the Iranians saw the missile from the moment it was launched and to the very moment it hit the Ukrainian plane. In breaking news from Ukraine, intercepted communications were released by TSN.Tyzhden between Tehran Airport tower and second pilot of Iran's Aseman Airlines flight at the time of the crash of Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752. The Iranian civilian plane's pilot saw both the missile launch and the blast, audio recordings, TSN says were received from intelligence services, prove. "But most importantly, the record shows that Iranian airline services didn't simply conceal the true cause of the UIA plane crash. The record proves that the Iranians saw the missile from the moment of launch and to the very moment it hit the Ukrainian plane," the report says. The Ukraine Airlines flight PS752 took off from Tehran Airport at 6:20 on January 8, 2020. At the same time, the Iranian flight Shiraz-Tehran, EP3768, operated by Aseman Airlines was preparing to land in Tehran. In about three minutes, an Iranian pilot saw a missile being launched. Read alsoReuters: Iran aims to examine downed plane's black boxes, no plan yet to send them abroad The following is a complete transcript of intercepted communications between Tehran tower and flight 3768 (including a bit between tower and PS752). The recording time is 05:12 Tower: - Good morning, Ukraine International Airlines 752 (inaudible), departure identified alt 260, climb to 6000 feet, turn right to Paroch. Tower: - After 6000 feet to Paroch. Pilot EP3768: - We are approaching from the north, 3768. Tower: - Good morning, 3768. Tower: - Aseman 3768 (inaudible), identify 3343 left, level 110. Pilot EP3768: - Flight 3768, come in. Pilot EP3768: - We are approaching from the north, 3768. Pilot EP3768: - No, sir? Pilot EP3768: - Zone 320, active for passage? Tower: - GPS (inaudible). Pilot EP3768: - Flares on route, as if from a missile. Should anything like this be happening there? Tower: - Zone 320? How many miles away? Where? EP3768 Pilot: - Can't say for sure. But I think it is near (air field) Payam, (city) Karaj. Tower: - How many miles? Where? Pilot EP3768: - I now see the light as it flies off of there. Tower: - We were not informed of this. Tower: - How does it look like? What does this light look like? Pilot EP3768: - That surely is the light from a missile. Tower: - It's not flying toward the city (Tehran), is it? Pilot EP3768: - It might be Oh, no it was flying from the direction of the city. Tower: - We were informed nothing, but keep watching. Pilot EP3768: - Okay. I'm getting on the landing course. Tower: - "Ukraine International Airlines" 752, do you read? Tower: - "Ukraine International Airlines" 752, do you read? Tower: - "Ukraine International Airlines" 752, do you read?! (message repeated several times from 02:27 to 04:25, unanswered) Tower: - "Aseman" 3768, 9000 (inaudible), landing course. Tower: - "Aseman" 3768, everything, you see nothing else up there? Pilot EP3768: - Mr engineer, we saw an explosion, a big flare from the explosion, we don't understand what it is. Tower: - We don't know for sure... Pilot EP3768: - Is our course OK? Tower: - Yes, I don't think there will be any problem for you. Pilot EP3768: - God forbid!" As UNIAN reported earlier, on the morning on January 8, a Ukrainian passenger jet operated by Ukraine International Airlines, flight PS752 Tehran-Kyiv crashed shortly after takeoff from the Tehran airport. All 167 passengers and nine crew on board died in the crash. The whole crew and two passengers were Ukrainian citizens. The next day, 45 Ukrainian experts in various fields took off to Tehran to examine the circumstances of the incident. All Ukrainian carriers suspended flights in the Iran and Iraq airspace pending probe. Read alsoNew video shows two Iranian missiles hit Ukrainian plane NYT From the outset, the Iranians said that it was a technical issue that caused the crash. However, on the evening of January 9, several leading U.S. editions and TV channels reported that the Boeing 737-800 operated by Ukraine International Airlines had been mistakenly shot down by Iran shortly after taking off from Tehran Airport. Photos and video footage showing missiles that could have downed the plane, as well as video of the moment of the crash, were shared on social media and made it to global news. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, citing intelligence and allies, said the plane was hit by an Iranian ground-to-air missile. U.S. President Donald Trump called the plane crash suspicious, adding he believed that the plane could crash over certain "mistakes" made in Iran. The next day, Ukrainian experts, who worked at the scene and eventually gained access to the wreckage of the jet's front part, also found evidence of the missile hit. Read alsoIran covered up downing of Ukrainian airliner media On the morning of January 11, Iran officially acknowledged that the Ukrainian passenger jet was downed by a missile. The official statement said that the tragedy had happened as a result of a "human error". The civilian plane was mistaken for a hostile object after it turned toward a military facility operated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called the tragedy "an unforgivable mistake" and said the country would continue to investigate the incident. In his turn, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that "It wasn't a good morning but it brought us truth." Zelensky responded to Iran's statement confirming the UIA was hit by a missile, saying that Ukraine expects Iran to fully acknowledge the guilt for downing the UIA plane, investigate the incident, and repatriate the bodies of victims. FRANKFORT- The fourth annual Joe "D-Con" DeJohn Poker Run raises money for the Utica Rescue Mission Stabilization Center. Joe Dejohn died from a Heroin overdose in November 2016. His father and stepmother tell NEWSChannel 2 he was in the military and he was a cook for many restaurants around Utica. They say he loved snowmobiling, which is why they chose to have a poker run every year. The money raised will go to the Utica Rescue Mission Stabilization Center. Joe's father believes there needs to be more help for people who struggle with addiction. "When people say they see somebody with addiction, they need help." Joe's stepmother, Karina says she loves all the support from the community. "It means everything to us, having everybody support us, the donations and everyone coming out and having a great time." They had over 75 donations from individuals, businesses and organizations. It might sound obvious, but a film getting nominated for an Oscar doesnt automatically make it good. In fact, there have been numerous deserving films over the years that were somehow overlooked by the Academy. Sure, its easy to assume that certain films dont get nominated because theyre not what Oscar voters would usually go for, but there have been some surprises in the past. For example, pretty much every new superhero film earns a nomination thanks to the technical or makeup categories, while random animated films are acknowledged most likely because of the low number on offer in a certain year. This means films like DCs Suicide Squad may have been mauled by the critics, but still get recognised by the Academy (it went on to win), which is ridiculous when you consider classics such as Dont Look Now or The King of Comedy didnt even get recognised. They arent alone below are the 47 most surprising films that didnt receive an Oscar nomination in any category. 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination Show all 47 1 /47 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination American Psycho (2000) Starring future Oscar-winner Christian Bale, Mary Harrons adaptation of the Bret Easton Ellis novel in which the Vice star plays the psychopathic Patrick Bateman - didnt receive a single nomination. Rex Features 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination Before Sunrise (1995) While the final two chapters of Richard Linklaters Before trilogy earned screenplay nominations, the film that introduced the world to future married couple Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) was criminally overlooked. Columbia Pictures 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination The Big Heat (1953) Fritz Lang had a number of films overlooked by the Academy; this noir, starring Glenn Ford, Lee Marvin and and Gloria Grahame, was one of them. Columbia Pictures 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination The Big Lebowski (1998) The Academys generosity to the Coen brothers peaked when No Country for Old Men beat There Will Be Blood in one of the ceremonys closest Best Picture races of all time. It remains surprising that one of their few films to evade any nominations is this endlessly quotable mistaken identity comedy starring Jeff Bridges as The Dude. PolyGram Filmed Entertainment 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination Blow Out (1981) Brian De Palma doesnt exactly make films in the hope of winning award, but his political thriller - based on Michelangelo Antonionis Blow Up would have deserved any Oscar it was nominated for. Filmways Pictures 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination Breathless (1960) Breathless' failure to receive a nomination is proof that the Oscars cant be trusted. Despite being one of the most studied films in the world, Jean Luc-Godards French masterpiece has an Academy Award tally of zero. Films Around The World 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination Bringing Up Baby (1938) The Academy rewarded many notable screwball comedies, though this Howard Hawks-directed standout starring Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn - whod go on to hold the record for most wins - wasn't one of them. Courtesy of BFI 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination Don't Look Now (1973) Nicolas Roeg, who directed this Venice-set chiller, is one of the most unfairly overlooked directors in Oscars history. Rex Features 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination Donnie Darko (2004) Richard Kellys science-fiction mind-bender, which made a star of Jake Gyllenhaal, was a festival favourite upon its debut in 2004. Many expected a screenplay nomination to manifest. Rex Features 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) It wouldnt be until the 1990s that western films found favour with the Academy. It was ironically thanks to Unforgiven, a film directed by Clint Eastwood whose career flourished after starring in this Sergio Leone film that many consider to be the genres peak. 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination La haine (1995) Mathieu Kassovitzs black-and-white drama translated in English as Hate follows three young friends and their struggles living in the suburbs of Paris. 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination Halloween (1978) The Academy may not be frothing at the mouth to nominate horror films, but do have previous (see: The Exorcist and The Silence of the Lamb), which makes the absence of John Carpenters influential Halloween a glaring oversight. Aquarius Releasing 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination Harold and Maude (1971) This offbeat romantic drama was a critical and commercial flop at the time of release, which probably accounts for its lack of Oscar nominations. Today, though, its cult following ensures it remains in good favour with film fans. Paramount Pictures 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination Heat (1995) On paper, the big screen union of Robert De Niro and Al Pacino in Michael Manns cop drama was a shoo-in for awards, but no Oscar nominations manifested. Warner Bros 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination His Girl Friday (1940) Yet another Howard Hawks screwball comedy starring Cary Grant that criminally failed to secure a single Oscar nomination. L/Columbia/Koba/Rex/Shutterstock 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination Insomnia (2002) While falling short of Christopher Nolans best, modest drama Insomnia made years before Batman Begins had enough strong performances (Al Pacino, Robin Wiliams, Hilary Swank) to warrant acting nominations. Alas, it received none. Warner Bros Pictures 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination Local Hero (1983) Bill Forsyths beloved comedy-drama follows the mishaps of an American man sent to buy up a Scottish village where the oil company he works for wants to build a refinery. Forsyth won the Bafta for Best Director, but the film received no such love from the Academy. 20th Century Fox 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination M (1931) Youd be mistaken for thinking the M stands for masterpiece in Fritz Langs German drama that follows the manhunt for a serial killer - not that the Academy agreed. 20th Century Fox 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination A Man Escaped (1956) Robert Bressons adaptation of Andre Devignys memoirs charts the French Resistance members time as prisoner of the Germans during World War II, and is even more enthralling considering Bresson himself was held captive years before. Gaumont Film Company 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination Margaret (2011) Kenneth Lonergan would go on to win an Oscar for Manchester but he Sea, but Margaret - his three-hour plus drama featuring a searing performance from Anna Paquin - failed to secure a single nomination. Fox Searchlight Pictures 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination In the Mood for Love (2000) Wong Kar-wai set the benchmark for romance in film with his acclaimed Hong Kong drama following a man and woman (Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung) who develop feelings for one another after suspecting their respective spouses of having an affair together. defd Deutscher Fernsehdienst 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination The King of Comedy (1982) It may have taken him decades to win an Oscar, but the Academy has rarely balked at nominating Martin Scorsese films especially for films starring Robert De Niro. The King of Comedy was an exception. 20th Century Fox 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination The Long Goodbye (1973) Robert Altmans superior thriller stars Elliott Gould as Raymond Chandlers private investigator Philip Marlowe in one of the directors most entertaining films. The director would go on to be the recipient of the Honorary Award in 2006. 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination The Man With Two Brains (1983) He may have hosted several times, but Steve Martin has never been nominated for an Oscar. One film he deserved recognition for was Carl Reiner's 1983 sci-fi comedy, The Man with Two Brains. Warner Bros. 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination A Matter of Life and Death (1946) The Academy Film Archive may have preserved A Matter of Life and Death in 1999, but voters failed to recognise the Powell & Pressburgers fantasy-romance at the time of its release in 1946. Eagle-Lion Films 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination Mean Streets (1973) It may not be credited as his debut, but Mean Streets is very much the first true Martin Scorsese film. The director would go on to win a belated Oscar for The Departed in 2007, but hed have to wait until 1975 for his first nomination (Alice Doesnt Live Here Anymore). Warner Bros 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination Melancholia (2011) No Lars von Trier film has ever been nominated for Best Picture, though Dancer in the Dark came close (it settled for a Best Original Song nomination). He came close with Melancholia, but ultimately, the drama didn't get Canal+ 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination Miller's Crossing (1990) Despite being revered as a Coen brothers favourite, not to mention its notable performances from Gabriel Byrne and Albert Finney, Millers Crossing is one of few Coen brother films not to receive a single Oscar nomination. 20th Century Fox 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination Once Upon a Time in America (1984) Though it's by no means a masterpiece, its staggering to think that Sergio Leones gangster epic - starring Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci - didnt acquire any Oscar nominations (the film's music was disqualified from consideration after Warner Bros accidentally omitted the composer's name from the opening credits when trimming the films lengthy running time for its American release). Warner Bros 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination Paterson (2016) Critics assumed Jim Jarmuschs Paterson would have been a shoo-in for awards recognition - most notably in the Best Actor category, thanks to a quietly fantastic performance from Adam Driver - but no such luck. Amazon Studios 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination Paths of Glory (1957) Stanley Kubrick never won Best Director despite being nominated four times. One of his films that didnt make the Oscars cut in any category was his black-and-white anti-war film, Paths of Glory. United Artists 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination Play Misty for Me (1971) Clint Eastwood would go onto become something of an Oscar darling thanks to Unforgiven, Million Dollar Baby and Mystic River, but his directorial debut was ignored by the Academy. Univeral Pictures/Courtesy of Getty Images 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination Reservoir Dogs (1992) Reservoir Dogs may not touch Quentin Tarantinos best, but it remains a surprise that the filmmakers debut didnt get recognised in the screenplay category, at least. Miramax Films 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination The Rider (2018) Of all the 2018 films to be snubbed at this years Oscars, Chloe Zhaos drama - which stars a real-life rodeo cowboy and his family - smacks as the most unfair. Sony Pictures Classics 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination The Searchers (1956) The role of Civil War veteran Ethan Edwards might be considered John Waynes best role, but the Academy didnt agree: he would win his sole Oscar for True Grit in 1970. Warner Bros 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination The Shining (1980) Another Kubrick film that was completely ignored by the Academy is the directors Stephen King adaptation, The Shining. Today, its considered one of his finest works as well as being one of the most revered horror films of all time. Warner Bros 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination The Shop Around the Corner (1953) It may have endured as one of the best loved romcoms of all time, but it has zero Oscar nominations to its name. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination Still Walking (2008) Japanese director Hirokazo Kore-eda's portrait of a family over roughly 24 hours as they commemorate the death of the eldest son was a glaring oversight by the Academy. IFC Films 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination Swingers Before he became Disney's go to, Jon Favreau (Iron Man, The Jungle Book and the forthcoming live-action Lion King) wrote this independent film about the lives of single, unemployed actors living in Hollywood, California during the 1990s swing revival. Rex Features 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination This Is England (2006 The 2007 ceremony would have been far better had Shane Meadows' coming-of-drama been in contention for awards. Optimum Releasing 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination Three Kings (1999) The Academy deemed Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle worthy of nominations, but not David O Russells Three Kings, which remains one of his greatest films to this day. Warner Bros Pictures 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination Tokyo Story (1953) Tokyo Story is deemed Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu's masterpiece and was named Sight & Sound's best film of all time in 2012. Rex Features 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination Touch of Evil (1958) Orson Welles' classic noir wasn't as well loved at the time of release as it is today. BFI 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination Tyrannosaur (2011) Olivia Colman may be in contention for Best Actress at this years ceremony, but the fact she failed to earn a nomination (or Bafta, for that matter) for her role in Paddy Considines hard-hitting drama Tyrannosaur is one of the biggest oversights in awards history. StudioCanal UK 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination Walkabout (1971) Another exceptional achievement in filmmaking from Nicolas Roeg that somehow failed to receive any Oscar nominations. 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination You Were Never Really Here (2018) Notch it down to bad timing, but Lynne Ramsays You Were Never Really Here - starring Joaquin Phoenix - is a sensational piece of work worthy of reward. Amazon Studio 47 brilliant films that didn't receive a single Oscar nomination Zodiac (2007) Three years later, David Fincher would go head-to-head with The King Speech's Tom Hooper for The Social Network. In truth, serial killer drama Zodiac is every bit as good as the Facebook drama. Warner Bros Pictures Other galleries you might like: 21 actors who took their roles so seriously it out of hand 37 best film twists of all time 37 actors who almost died on set A Red Bank Police officer was shot and killed by his wife on Saturday night at Kodak, Tn., police in Sevierville said. Melissa Smith, 37, of Soddy Daisy, was charged with first-degree murder in the slaying of James "Chip" Smith, 41. He was previously a police officer in Soddy Daisy. Prior to that he was with the Hamilton County Sheriff's Department and the Chattanooga Police Department. The officer was shot outside the visitor center in Kodak around 7:23 p.m. The location was 3099 Winfield Dunn Parkway. He was taken to UT Medical Center, but he died Saturday night. Police recovered a handgun from the scene. The victim was shot in the abdomen. Ms. Smith was taken to the Sevier County Jail. The couple has a 12-year-old son. Police said when they arrived, they found the officer lying on his back with his wife kneeling by him with her hands on his stomach. She said the couple had argued, and he pulled the vehicle over at the visitor center. The argument continued and Ms. Smith retrieved a gun and shot her husband, it was stated. Police said Ms. Smith had an odor of alcohol. She said they had been at Old Tennessee Distillery Company for two hours prior to getting into the car. The Red Bank Police Department issued this statement: "Our thoughts and prayers go out to Officer Smiths family during this difficult time. Officer Smith has many years of law enforcement service. He honorably and faithfully served this agency and community. He also served several other law enforcement agencies and communities including the Soddy-Daisy Police Department and Chattanooga Police Department. "As a law enforcement officer, he devoted himself to protecting the citizens of these communities. For those that ever met him or know him, they know that he was kind and always willing to do anything to help you. His loss will leave a void at our agency and the law enforcement community." Sheriff Jim Hammond said, "The Hamilton County Sheriffs Office would like to offer our condolences to the Red Bank Police Department as they mourn the loss of one of their own, Officer James Chip Smith. "Officer Smith was also a former Hamilton County Sheriffs Office Deputy. We are saddened by the loss of a fellow officer in such tragic circumstances. Our hearts go out to Chief Seymour and our brothers in blue at the Red Bank Police Department during this very difficult time. Chip has served his community for many years as both a volunteer fireman and law enforcement officer. He will be greatly missed by all who knew him. Sheriff Hammond said he and Chief Deputy Austin Garrett "have offered any resources and personnel necessary from our agency to help our colleagues in the Red Bank Police Department during this difficult time." By Express News Service TIRUPUR: Over 60 persons suffered minor injuries in the Jallikattu festival in Azhagumalai town in Pongalur near Tirupur city on Sunday afternoon. The event was inaugurated by Minister for Animal Husbandry Udumalai K Radhakrishnan in the presence of several important dignitaries in the Tirupur city. Touted as the largest Jallikattu event in Kongu region, this year around 800 bulls participated in Azhagumalai Jallikattu with 650 participants trying to tame the bulls and win prizes. Prizes worth more than Rs 40 lakhs including steel almirah, gift packages, domestic appliances, gold and silver coins were distributed to the winners. With an aim to offer utmost care to the bulls participating in the event, a team of 75 veterinary specialists inspected their health. Besides, another team of medical experts inspected the medical conditions of the participants. A large gallery was arranged to house more than 8,000 visitors and a total of 1000 police personnel were deployed for the event. Kathmandu, February 2 As many as 46 lawmakers of the ruling Nepal Communist Party have filed a proposal in the House of Representatives demanding that the government legalise the cultivation of marijuana and ban the import of alcohol. A proposal of urgent public importance has recently been filed in the Parliament Secretariat. Lawmaker Birodh Khatiwada, who represents a constituency in Makawanpur district in Parliament, has proposed the motion whereas the 45 others of the party have supported it. Interestingly, Makawanpur is one of the districts that produce the highest amount of marijuana, though illegal, currently. The lawmakers have argued that the legalisation can make the country more financially competent and help the public improve the standard of their life. Marijuana has multiple uses. It also helps earn foreign currencies and produce medicines, Khatiwada says. Meanwhile, the government spokesperson and Minister for Information and Communications Technology, Gokul Baskota, says the debate about legalising marijuana is necessary though the government has not taken any initiative towards this end. Germany: Ham radio decline continues German regulator BNetzA reports the number of Radio Amateurs slumped in 2019 falling by 1406 The figures for individual radio amateur licenses are: 2017 total 64,548 (56,918 Klasse A and 7,630 Klasse E) 2018 total 64,476 (56,619 Klasse A and 7,857 Klasse E) 2019 total 63,070 (55,227 Klasse A and 7,843 Klasse E) Klasse A is equivalent to CEPT Class 1 (UK Full) permitting up to 750 watts PEP output and Klasse E is equivalent to CEPT Novice (UK Intermediate) permitting up to 100 watts PEP. You can download the BNetz 2019 statistics at this link BNetz amateur radio statistics archive click here Irish stars may not have featured in the awards at Londons BAFTAS, but they certainly won in the fashion stakes, with Saoirse Ronan and Jessie Buckley appearing in stunning red carpet creations. Both actresses had been nominated for Leading Female Actress but that award went instead to the favourite - Renee Zellweger for playing the lead role in Judy, about actress Judy Garland. Saoirse Ronan, who was nominated for her role in Little Women, appeared at last nights awards bash, which was hosted at Londons Royal Albert Hall by Graham Norton, in a black spaghetti-strap dress. She also wore what looked like long dangle rainbow earrings, although one red carpet observer described them as resembling the contents of a Skittles bag. Saoirse Ronan attending the 73rd British Academy Film Awards held at the Royal Albert Hall, London. PA Photo. Picture date: Sunday February 2, 2020. (Matt Crossick/PA Wire) The Carlow actress played Jo March alongside an all-star cast which includes Emma Watson, Laura Dern and Meryl Streep. An only child, Ronan has previously said she was pleased to be cast as Jo, telling Vanity Fair: "I got to have sisters." Jessie Buckley, who was nominated for her role in Wild Rose, wore a black floor-length gown with a stunning white feather shawl around the neck of her bodice,. The Kerry actress was due to perform at the ceremony, and had said on her way in last night that she planned to just sing my socks off. Jessie Buckley attending the 73rd British Academy Film Awards held at the Royal Albert Hall, London. (Matt Crossick/PA Wire) Another highlight of the night was the tumble The Irishman star Al Pacino took on his way in. He had to be helped to his feet by those beside him. He was later all smiles for the cameras and brushed it off. Al Pacino is helped to his feet after falling over whilst attending the 73rd British Academy Film Awards held at the Royal Albert Hall, London. (Ian West/PA Wire) 1917 won Best Film and Outstanding British Film, Joaquin Phoenix won Leading Male Actor for playing the lead in Joker and Brad Pitt won Best Supporting actor for Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood Other awards included Jojo Rabbitt for Best Adapted screenplay and Granddad Was A Romantic for Best British short animation. The star-studded ceremony, which is one of the last stops on the awards circuit before the Oscars on February 9, saw guests walk on a recycled red carpet before tucking into a dinner made of sustainably sourced food. Single-use plastic was banned at the ceremony. The traditional gift bags were axed in favour of a "gifting wallet" made from recycled plastic by sustainable travel goods company Groundtruth and containing redeemable vouchers. Guests were asked to make sustainable fashion choices for the ceremony and consider the impact of their travel options. Bafta chairwoman Pippa Harris, who is also the producer of nominated film 1917, discussed the lack of female directors being nominated this year. She told the PA news agency: "Although there are no women directors in the main fiction category, there are actually 13 female directors nominated, so for documentary, foreign language film, feature animations, short films, debut directors, and those women, their work should be celebrated, their work is just as important. "They represent the future of the industry, so actually I think it's quite a positive story but it sort of got lost in the fact that there's no-one in the main fiction category." On the issues around the lack of diversity at this year's awards, Ms Harris said: "We've announced a wide-ranging review, we're going to be looking at everything across the board in terms of the awards process. "But also I think it's fair to say this is an industry-wide issue. It takes everyone to look at what they're doing. "Awards are right at the end of a whole process and so we need to look at the types of films being made, the opportunities that people are getting, how the films are being promoted. All of these things play a part." EU top diplomat expected in Tehran Monday Tehran, Feb 2 (AFP) Feb 02, 2020 Top EU diplomat Josep Borrell is expected in Tehran Monday, Iran's foreign ministry announced a day ahead of the visit, amid new tensions over the Iranian nuclear issue. Borrell "will visit Iran tomorrow for the first time since taking office (in early december). He is set to meet the foreign minister (Mohammad Javad Zarif) and other Iranian senior officials for consultations," foreign ministry spokesperson Abbas Moussavi said in a statement. Moussavi gave no details on when Borrell would arrive or how long he would remain in the country. His visit comes amid heightened tensions between Iran and the West over the Islamic republic's nuclear programme. On January 24, Borrell called for a meeting of remaining states party to the 2015 nuclear deal in February in an effort to preserve the agreement, which has been crumbling since the United States unilaterally withdrew in 2018. All parties "have reaffirmed their determination to preserve the accord, which is in everyone's interest", he said at the time. In 2015, Iran agreed to drastically reduce its nuclear programme in exchange for a partial lifting of international sanctions. But the withdrawal of the US from the deal and its reimposition of biting sanctions deprived Iran of expected economic benefits and prompted Tehran to announce a series of steps away from its commitments under the deal. The European parties to the agreement triggered a complaint mechanism in January in an attempt to urge Tehran to return to the full implementation of its commitments. A man has been shot dead by armed police after two people were stabbed during a terror attack in south London. Officers were called to the incident outside an Iceland supermarket in Streatham at around 2.30pm on Sunday. Witnesses reported seeing a man with a "machete and silver canisters on his chest being chased" by someone who appeared to be an undercover police officer. Police said: "A man has been shot by armed officers in Streatham. At this stage it is believed a number of people have been stabbed. "The circumstances are being assessed; the incident has been declared as terrorist-related." In an update at 4pm, a spokesman added: "We can confirm that the man shot by police at around 2pm today in Streatham High Road has been pronounced dead." Streatham terror attack - In pictures 1 /28 Streatham terror attack - In pictures Police are dealing with an incident in Streatham Andy Bullemor Police officers conduct a search of a bail hostel in south London AFP via Getty Images A woman reacts near to the scene where a man was shot and killed by armed police Getty Images Forensic officers at the scene following the terror attack in Streatham High Road PA Police cordon off a property in Streatham PA Forensic officers outside a property on Leigham Court Road, Streatham PA Police activity at the scene following the terror attack in Streatham High Road PA Police officers look under a bus as they work at the scene of Sunday's terror stabbing attack in the Streatham area of south London AP Forensics investigate the scene of the terror attack on Monday morning Jeremy Selwyn Armed police at the scene in Streatham High Road PA Police officers at the scene after a man was shot by armed police Getty Images Forensics investigate the scene of the terror attack on Monday morning Jeremy Selwyn Armed police officer on Streatham High Road PA Forensics investigate the scene of the terror attack on Monday morning Jeremy Selwyn Police officers guard a cordon on Streatham High Road, at the junction of Prentis Road AFP via Getty Images Forensics investigate the scene Nigel Howard Police officers at the scene after a man was shot by armed police Getty Images Armed police at the scene in Streatham High Road PA Items left on the pavement at the scene in Streatham High Road PA Police secure the area in Streatham AP Forensics investigate the scene Nigel Howard The force confirmed that there are two injured victims and they await updates on their conditions. The scene has been fully contained. We will issue more information when possible," he added. Metropolitan Police urged people to stay away from the area, tweeting: Please avoid the area while the emergency services deal with the incident in Streatham. Witnesses on social media said they heard three gun shots fired just after 2pm on Sunday. A 19-year-old student from Streatham, who asked not to be named, claimed to have witnessed the shooting on Streatham High Road in front of a Boots store. He told the PA news agency: I was crossing the road when I saw a man with a machete and silver canisters on his chest being chased by what I assume was an undercover police officer as they were in civilian clothing. The man was then shot. I think I heard three gun shots but I cant quite remember. After that I ran into the library to get to safety." Armed police at the scene in Streatham High Road / PA A London Ambulance Service spokesman said: We were called at 1.58pm today to reports of an incident in Streatham High Road. We are working closely with the other emergency services and are treating a number of patients at the scene. We will provide more details as soon as they are available. Police officers at the scene after a man was shot by armed police / Getty Images Alanah Murphy, 28, was on her way to Tesco when she heard a disturbance and saw a helicopter land in Tooting Bec Common. "I left my house to go to the shops", she told the Standard. "The first thing I noticed was the helicopters. "There was one that landed in front of my house on Tooting Bec Common. The place was crawling with armed police." She said that the police kept telling onlookers to get back. Armed police officer on Streatham High Road / PA Ms Murphy added: "I thought they were crouching down over someone but I don't know." Around a dozen armed police are thought to be at the scene and witnesses said two people were being treated for injuries. Richard Mustonen-Smith, 59, a response pastor for Ascension Trust, has lived in the area all his life. He told PA: Im shocked its happened in Streatham. Ive been here all my life. Were always getting accidents down here but not this. My grandson was in the Odeon and they got told to go out the back because there was a bomb. They got them to go out of the back of the cinema. They were there to watch a film. When its a member of your family so close to you you dont expect it. Youre always worried about your family being on the streets but this is even worse. I heard two people got stabbed and apparently one man was shouting Allahu Akbar but people thought he was just a crazy man, so he got away. Apparently he had two rucksacks. Boris Johnson responded to the terror attack on Twitter, thanking the emergency services for their response. "Thank you to all emergency services responding to the incident in Streatham, which the police have now declared as terrorism-related," he said. "My thoughts are with the injured and all those affected." London Mayor Sadiq Khan added: "I am in close contact with the Met Commissioner and local representatives, and want to thank our police, security and emergency services staff for their swift and courageous response. They truly are the best of us. "Terrorists seek to divide us and to destroy our way of life - here in London we will never let them succeed." Police officers at the scene after a man was shot by armed police / Getty Images Bell Ribeiro-Addy, the MP for Streatham, said: "Very concerned to hear about the incident on Streatham High St. "My thoughts are with those injured, their families and those who witnessed the attack. "The police have declared this as terrorist -related. Please avoid the area whilst emergency services continue to do their work" Newcome Gardens is closed eastbound from A23 Streatham High Road to Pendennis Road. More follow... Listen to today's episode of The Leader: WASHINGTON - The 2020 presidential election is just months away and state legislators, courts and election officials are making final changes to policies governing access to the ballot. States remain divided along partisan lines on expanding and tightening voting laws. In Democratic-controlled states, lawmakers are going even further this year in enfranchising formerly incarcerated felons, expanding early voting and implementing automatic voter registration. But in Republican-controlled states, lawmakers are shuttering polling places on college campuses and imposing new rules on students who want to vote; limiting early voting and vote-by-mail opportunities; and adding new voter ID requirements. Voting rights groups are suing to prevent many of those laws from going into effect before November. Any changes to ballot access, especially in pivotal swing states, could shape the outcomes in November, said Wendy Weiser, director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University's School of Law. "It's going to be a big year that's going to be focused on election systems," she said. "There'll be a lot of changes between now and the election." ADVERTISEMENT Where Democrats have made substantial legislative gains in the past two years, lawmakers have made expanding ballot access a top priority. In New York, for example, where Democrats took control of the state Senate for the first time in a decade in 2018, legislators last year passed a series of measures that made voting more accessible, including the adoption of early voting and voting by mail. But lawmakers want to do more. Earlier this month, the state Senate passed legislation that would bring automatic voter registration to the Empire State, while also expanding early voting locations and days. Senate Democrats wanted to make sure this was their first order of business in 2020, said Elections Committee Chairman Zellnor Myrie, a Democrat who is expecting an "unprecedented" level of turnout in November. "This election is probably the most consequential election of our lifetimes," Myrie told Stateline. "We want to make sure that the process, both to register and to vote, is as easy and accessible as possible." Some GOP lawmakers oppose the legislation, saying it would open the door to the accidental registration of undocumented immigrants, who in New York can apply for driver's licenses. Republican state Assemblyman Colin Schmitt, who led the opposition to similar legislation last year, said he worries about security and the financial burden of expanding registration. "It's not written in a way to truly protect the integrity of elections," Schmitt said. "We really don't know what the safeguards are going to be." If passed by the Democratic-controlled state Assembly and signed by Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the new system, which would register people to vote whenever they interact with the Department of Motor Vehicles or other agencies, would go into effect in two years. ADVERTISEMENT Last year, six states - Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada and Washington - passed or implemented similar automatic voter registration measures. In Virginia, where Democrats gained control of the state legislature in November, Democrats will try to expand the early voting period to 45 days and make Election Day a state holiday. And elsewhere, lawmakers in several states are looking to restore the right to vote for people with felony records. Legislators in Hawaii, Michigan and Oregon made it easier to vote by mail. While the New Hampshire legislature passed a measure that would have allowed no-excuse absentee voting in the state, Republican Gov. Chris Sununu vetoed it in September. Republicans steadfastly oppose similar measures, based on worries that ineligible voters may cast ballots and swing an election. In Republican-led states, GOP lawmakers and officials continue to tighten voting laws in the name of election integrity. In Alabama, lawmakers last year added new voter ID requirements for residents who would vote absentee, while lawmakers in Nebraska this year will attempt to add voter ID requirements. These add to significant Republican efforts over the past decade, during which 30 states expanded voter ID laws and voter registration purges were commonplace. ADVERTISEMENT In states Republican President Donald Trump needs to win to secure a second term, such as North Carolina and Wisconsin, Democrats and voting rights groups have taken their voting policy fights to court, challenging conservative-backed restrictions. Just before the New Year, U.S. District Judge for the Middle District of North Carolina Loretta Biggs struck down a Republican-backed voter ID law in North Carolina, arguing that it was created with "discriminatory intent" toward minority voters. "North Carolina has a sordid history of racial discrimination and voter suppression stretching back to the time of slavery, through the era of Jim Crow, and, crucially, continuing up to the present day," she wrote in her 60-page ruling. The constitutional requirement, which was ratified by North Carolina voters in 2018 and supported by some Democrats in the state legislature, was the state's second attempt in the past decade to get a voter ID law on the books. In 2016, a federal appeals court struck down a 2013 law, ruling that the measure was written to racially discriminate. North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, a Democrat, announced earlier this month that he would appeal the federal court ruling after the state's March presidential primary to "avoid any further voter confusion." Laura Brewer, a spokeswoman for Stein, would not explain his reasoning for appealing the ruling. In a previous filing, Stein said the law was "the will of NC voters." Joseph Kyzer, communications director for Republican Speaker of the House Tim Moore, said he's confident the law will eventually go through. "We certainly feel it's important to fulfill the state constitutional requirement to have a voter ID law like 34 other states have," he told Stateline. But Aylett Colston, the political action chairwoman of the Raleigh-Apex NAACP chapter, called it "a very deliberate, intentional, thought-out plan to make it more difficult for some people to vote." Colston said the law, combined with Republican-backed redistricting and the cutting back of early voting hours and sites, could create voter confusion and longer lines, and ultimately depress voter turnout. "People should pay attention to North Carolina," she said. "We are a swing state and we're growing. Whatever happens here with voting rights is going to impact the rest of the country." In Wisconsin, efforts to keep voter rolls clean by purging people who may have moved to another state have been met with confusion, lawsuits and a fear that officials' methods may tip the scales in the presidential election. Using data from an interstate partnership called the Electronic Registration Information Center (a nonprofit founded with the financial help of The Pew Charitable Trusts, which also funds Stateline) to determine who might have moved, the Wisconsin Election Commission in October sent letters to 232,000 voters asking that they update their registration information. Voters were given six election cycles to indicate they had moved. But some people thought the purge should have been immediate, including the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, a conservative voter integrity law firm, which filed a motion in state court, demanding the election commission remove every voter who received the letter and failed to respond in 30 days. "It seems to me that given the relatively small number of people who could be inconvenienced that this is a rather modest effort to maintain the accuracy of the voter rolls," Rick Esenberg, the group's president, told Stateline. "The accuracy of the voter rolls is not some type of partisan plot. It is something that is mandated by the law." State law does not require the commission to deactivate voters within a certain period, said Reid Magney, a spokesman for the state election commission who fears a purge could hurt voters. But that assertion remains in dispute. A state appeals court earlier this month blocked the state from purging voter rolls. The commission is also taking fire from the opposite end of the political spectrum. The efforts by the commission didn't go far enough to inform people of the consequences of not responding to the mailer, said Michelle Kanter Cohen, a counsel for the Fair Elections Center, which is suing the state to prevent a voter purge. List maintenance is important, she said, but it shouldn't be burdensome for people who vote absentee or have disabilities. Many people may feel that any changes to voter rolls or election policy in the battleground state could potentially affect the outcome of the presidential election, said Barry Burden, director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Elections Research Center. Similar purges in Ohio and Georgia in the past year met fierce opposition. Keeping voter rolls clean through the interstate data partnership has been "highly successful," he said, but not perfect. Any imperfections, Burden said, could cause confusion and controversy. There are legal challenges in several other states. In Florida, voting right groups are suing the state over measures that make it more difficult to vote on college campuses. In Wisconsin, voting rights groups filed a lawsuit late last year challenging the state's new restriction that would bar using student IDs at polling places. Republican lawmakers in Arizona, too, are trying to restrict the use of student IDs. College students in Iowa have had a difficult time trying to meet the standards of the Hawkeye State's new voter ID requirements, with many confused by delays in sending out new voter cards for students with out-of-state IDs. A lawsuit in New Hampshire to block a new Republican-backed voter residency requirement failed in federal court, while a lawsuit that challenges Texas' strict early voting laws is still active in federal court. To counter the continuing threat of foreign meddling, states also are buying new election equipment with a paper trail, training election workers on security protocols and adding new security measures to voter registration databases and other systems. In October, Pennsylvania invested $90 million in new election equipment that creates a paper trail and allows elections to be audited. In 2018, more than 80% of Pennsylvania voters cast their ballots on paperless machines that were old and vulnerable to hacks, according to the Pennsylvania-based nonprofit Verified Voting, which advocates for a verified paper trail in election machines. Local election officials and poll workers still need further training on this new election equipment, preelection testing and post-election audits, said Chris Deluzio, policy director for the University of Pittsburgh Institute for Cyber Law, Policy and Security, who testified before the Pennsylvania Senate on the need for new voting systems. "Most counties have had no experience on paper ballots," he said. "This is a new endeavor. If we're not careful about securing paper ballots, there could be a risk to public trust." Other states, including Georgia, North Dakota and Ohio, are rolling out new voting machines ahead of this year's elections with the help of new federal aid. Local election officials across the country were pleased to see Congress invest an additional $425 million in election security grants in the most recent spending bill. But that was not enough, many say. "One-time lump sum funds every so often is helpful, but we need more than that," said Democratic Vermont Secretary of State Jim Condos this month at an Election Assistance Commission summit in Washington, D.C. "We actually need to have some kind of annual sustainable and dedicated funding." --- (c)2020 Stateline.org Visit Stateline.org at www.stateline.org Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Saturday cautioned the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, to concentrate on his legislative duties and end his meddling into the internal affairs of the PDP. The PDP noted that the caution was predicated on the Speakers reported needless interferences into the choice of leadership of the PDP Caucus in the House of Representatives, leading to intimidation and threats of sanctions against PDP Caucus leaders led by Hon. Kingsley Chinda. The PDP, without equivocation, reminded Hon. Gbajabiamila that as a party, it reserves the right to form a parliamentary caucus as well as choose the leaders of its caucus, as it obtains in parliaments, all over the world and the House of Representatives under Gbajabiamila, as Speaker, cannot be an exception. The leadership of the House is aware that whereas members from minority parties decided on the Minority leadership, a party and its members have the right to form a caucus and select leaders of such caucus accordingly, without interference by the leadership of the House or members of other political parties in the legislature, PDP noted in a statement on Saturday. The PDP reminded the leadership of the House that the party had directed that the affairs of the PDP caucus be organized and managed by Hon. Kingsley Chinda, Hon. Yakubu Barde, Hon. Chukwuma Onyema and Hon. Muraina Ajibola, admonishing that this position has not changed. ALSO READ: Oshiomhole: I want more crises in APC The PDP recognized the caucus roles of its members, adding that they have the instructions of the party to do so. The PDP, therefore, called on the Speaker to respect its choice of leadership for the PDP Caucus in the House of Representatives. Our choice has not in any way contravened any rules or pose any threats to the statutory running of the House of Representatives. Mr. Speaker should, therefore, steer clear and bury the thoughts of punishing the loyal members of our party just because they are obedient to the decisions of the PDP. He should rather focus on giving the House of Representatives the much-needed leadership direction to proffer solutions to the myriads of economic and security challenges confronting our nation today instead of hounding our loyal members and meddling into the internal affairs of our party, PDP declared in a statement by Kola Ologbondiyan, National Publicity Secretary. Wearing a mask and plastic gloves to protect himself from infection, an Uzbek student is among a rush of foreigners trying to fly out of virus-hit China to wait things out overseas. With businesses closed for at least another week, classes suspended and airlines cancelling flights, many foreign students and workers see no reason to stay in the country while it struggles with the viral epidemic. At Beijing's international airport on Sunday, the 19-year-old Uzbek student told AFP he was heading home because his parents were worried about the virus, which has claimed over 300 lives and infected more than 14,000 across China. "Maybe I will give up studying here," said the Yangzhou University student, who asked to be identified only as Max. Calling the situation "dreadful", he expressed concern over the rising death toll and the restrictions other countries have imposed on travellers from China. After the World Health Organization declared a global health emergency, several countries -- including the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Israel -- have barred foreign nationals from visiting if they had recently been in China. The travel bans have left many jittery. - 'No reason to stay' - A 46-year-old American said she was worried her flight home would be cancelled at the eleventh hour. "My only hope is that I can go home. I have been standing here checking the flight schedules for any changes," said the woman, who declined to give her name. "I can't be sure until the last minute." Others, such as 22-year-old Jamie Bosch, are leaving because of work. "We can't do anything, and everything is closed," said the English teacher. "You can't see your friends. There's nothing to do, so I just decided to go home." Bosch, who is from South Africa, said she was worried if she did contract the virus, she would be isolated, with no family support. "(My family) said I need to go home," she said, adding that she would return when school re-opens in March. - Chinese travellers affected - Icaro Medeiros, 22, a student at Beijing's Central University of Finance and Economics, said his family cancelled their planned February visit to China after Beijing closed off tourist attractions such as the Great Wall and Forbidden City. "I decided to leave Beijing because we are not sure when the semester will start again," he said. "All of my friends have returned home, so there wasn't any reason for me to stay in Beijing alone." Chinese citizens too have seen their plans derailed. Wang Yulu, 46, was on her way to the airport with her daughter on Saturday when they learned that Australia had barred non-citizens arriving from China. Her daughter was due to begin a university semester in Australia, but the pair were forced to turn back to Changchun city in northeast China even before they arrived at the airport. "It can't be helped, we won't be going," said Wang. They don't want us Chinese citizens there." Stand-by passengers trying to get out of China make flight enquiries at the airport A woman and her child walk toward the check-in counter at Daxing international airport in Beijing A young girl greets a foreign resident at Jingshan park after snowfall in Beijing Welcome Guest! You Are Here: for sovereign wealth funds and benefits for investment in infrastructure investment trusts (InvITs) are expected to help public sector entities in their asset monetisation drive. Experts see the Budget announcement positive for investments both in InvITs and the toll-operate-transfer mode (TOT). To incentivise investments from sovereign wealth funds in the priority sectors, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in her speech, a 100 per cent to their interest, dividend and capital gains income in respect of investment would be allowed. They are to be made in infrastructure and other 36 notified sectors before March 31, 2024, and with a minimum lock-in period of three years. The incentives to will help the country with its monetisation drive, said Ratnam Raju, associate director (Group head of Infrastructure and Project Finance) at CARE Ratings. The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and Singapores GIC are some of the sovereign wealth funds with investments in India. According to the Finance Bill, these incentives will apply to sovereign wealth funds, wholly owned and controlled, directly or indirectly, by the government of a foreign country. Experts said the definition to allow for direct and indirect control made it a wide ambit for most to qualify. Incentives given to and the tax benefit extended to unlisted InvITs will help the government attract more foreign investment and investor interest in general to InvITs. This should largely help and is in line with plans of InvIT by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and other state-run entities, said Shubham Jain, senior vice- president and group head of corporate ratings for ICRA. ALSO READ: No intention to tax global income of NRIs in India, says FM Sitharaman Others also expect the removal of dividend distribution tax (DDT) will help government authorities like NHAI attract higher interest in roads offered under the TOT model. In the road sector, these incentives will attract more investments from sovereign funds in the toll operate transfer model. These are steps in line with the main theme of asset monetisation, including that of one major port, Raju from CARE Ratings said. The removal of DDT, however, may reduce incentive for Indian promoters and investors to look at InvITs. With abolition of DDT, the advantage available with InvITs of pass-through status will get diluted to some extent. Further, the entire dividend will get taxed in the hands of investors irrespective of the amount. Earlier dividend income of up to Rs 10 lakh was exempted, Jain said. For Indian promoters, Bhairav Dalal, leader of real estate tax for PwC India, said: With the removal of DDT, the tax regime for a listed company is aligned with InvITs. Given this alignment, the promoters can choose between the two monetisation options. Shoaib Iqbal election result 2020 live news and latest updates online - Read about Shoaib Iqbal AAP candidate who is fighting Delhi assembly (Vidhan Sabha) election from Matia Mahal seat and many more at Firstpost.com. Shoaib Iqbal, a veteran of Delhi politics, will be fighting his seventh straight election from his pocket borough of Matia Mahal - a Muslim dominated constituency. He joined the Aam Aadmi Party just a few days before the candidate list was announced. Iqbal was a permanent figure in the Delhi Assembly between 1993, when he first won on a Janata Dal ticket, and 2014. In the 1998 election, he again won comfortably on a Janata Dal ticket. He switched over to the Janata Dal (Secular) in 2003 and maintained his grip over the seat. Between 2003 and 2008, he also served as the Deputy Speaker of the Assembly. In fact, it is to be noted that in the 1993, 1998 and 2003 elections, Iqbal secured over 50 percent of the vote share. However, in the 2008 polls, when he contested on a Lok Janshakti Party ticket, his voteshare for the first time dipped to less than 40 percent. However, he managed to keep his hold on the seat intact. In the anti-Congress wave election of 2013, when the AAP made a spectacular debut winning 28 seats, Iqbal barely managed to retain his seat for the fifth time. He managed to defeat Congress Mirza Javed Ali by less than 3,000 votes. Before the 2015 elections, Iqbal switched allegiance yet again, this time to the Congress party. However, he tasted defeat this time as he lost his seat to Asim Ahmed Khan of the AAP. Interestingly, when Iqbal was in Congress, he had said that Kejriwal should be sent to jail. He had also questioned Kejriwal over his silence on the burning issue of Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Register of Citizens. However, with the veteran leader now in the AAP, it would be interesting to see whether he would be able to take back his pocket borough. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Christian Berthelsen and Hailey Waller (Bloomberg) Sun, February 2, 2020 12:07 708 7f440ff09e92db75a02bbad206215b95 2 People jeff-bezos,lawsuit Free Jeff Bezos was sued for defamation by his girlfriends brother in a lawsuit accusing the Amazon.com Inc. chief executive officer of falsely claiming the brother provided lurid photographs to the National Enquirer. The lawsuit was filed late Friday in Los Angeles County Superior Court by Michael Sanchez, the brother of Lauren Sanchez and subject of media reports that he was a source for the Enquirers splashy report last year revealing the affair between his sister and Bezos. The story has expanded into an international controversy, now involving allegations that Saudi Arabias crown prince participated in a hack of Bezos phone and an investigation by federal prosecutors in New York. The lawsuit also names Gavin de Becker, a security consultant who works for Bezos, as a defendant. It accuses Bezos and de Becker of telling journalists that Michael Sanchez provided graphic nude photographs of the Amazon CEO to the tabloid. In the filing, Michael Sanchez acknowledges he entered a confidential agreement to cooperate strategically with American Media Inc., the National Enquirers parent company, but said he did so to get ahead of the story in an effort to limit the backlash against his sister and Bezos. He says he didnt provide the photographs to the Enquirer and couldnt have been the source for them because he never possessed them. A lawyer for Bezos, William Isaacson, said Bezos would respond to the accusations in court. Read also: Tips on how to succeed in business from Jeff Bezos Unforgivable betrayal Michael is my older brother, Lauren Sanchez said in a statement provided by her lawyer, Terry Bird. He secretly provided my most personal information to the National Enquirer -- a deep and unforgivable betrayal. My family is hurting over this new baseless and untrue lawsuit, and we truly hope my brother finds peace. De Becker did not respond to a message seeking comment. A United Nations report last month accused Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of possible complicity in the hack of Bezos phone, based on an analysis conducted by a consulting firm hired by Bezos. Saudi Arabia has denied the allegation, and the report did not link Saudi Arabias alleged actions to the Enquirer report. Federal case At the time the Bezos story was published, AMI was already operating under a non-prosecution agreement with the Manhattan U.S. attorneys office, after admitting its role in hush-money payments made to women who allegedly had affairs with President Donald Trump. In a blog post shortly after the Enquirers story about the affair, Bezos accused the tabloid of extortion and blackmail in their handling of the story. That prompted prosecutors to reopen their investigation to determine if AMI had violated its non-prosecution agreement. That investigation was still ongoing as of late last year, according to people familiar with it. An Air India special flight carrying the second batch of Indians evacuated from the coronavirus-hit Chinese city of Wuhan, will land in New Delhi on Sunday morning, carrier's spokesperson Dhananjay Kumar said. The flight took off from Wuhan at 3:10 am (IST) and is expected to land in New Delhi at 9:20 am, Kumar said. "Second Air India special flight from Wuhan departed at 0540 hours, i.e. 0310 (IST). The flight time is six hours. It is expected to land in Delhi by 0920 hours Indian time," Kumar said. Meanwhile, Indian Ambassador to China, Vikram Misri tweeted on Sunday that the flight carries 323 Indian citizens on board, while 7 Maldives citizens "are also being evacuated". "The 2nd #AirIndia flight from #Wuhan has just taken off for #Delhi with 323 Indian citizens on board. 7 Maldives citizens are also being evacuated. Grateful once again to @MFA_China and local authorities all across #Hubei for their assistance," Misri tweeted. Earlier, Kumar had said that the team of doctors on the aircraft would be the same as on the first, while the crew has changed, adding that the flight operation would still be led by Air India's Director of Operations Captain Amitabh Singh. The flight carrying the first batch of Indians had landed at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi on Saturday. Of the 324 passengers, three were minors and 211 were students. The virus originated in Wuhan in December and has since then spread to various cities around the world. Several countries including India have sped up the evacuation process after the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the coronavirus outbreak as a global health crisis. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Accompanied by the Cairo Symphony Orchestra, the Austrian trio consists of Nikolay Orininskiy (violin), Ion Storojenco (cello) and Maximilian Flieder (piano) Great German composer Ludwig van Beethoven's 250th birth anniversary will be celebrated at the Cairo Opera House on Saturday 22 February. The event is organised by the Austrian Cultural Forum to celebrate Beethoven's life and work. "We are delighted to invite you to a Beethoven concert at the Main Hall of the Opera House, where an internationally an acclaimed Austrian trio will present Beethoven's Concerto for Violin, Cello, and Piano in C major, Op. 56," the Austrian Cultural Forum stated. Accompanied by the Cairo Symphony Orchestra, the distinguished ensemble consists of Nikolay Orininskiy (violin), Ion Storojenco (cello) and Maximilian Flieder (piano). Programme: Saturday, 22 February at 8pm Cairo Opera House, Main Hall, Zamalek For more arts and culture news and updates, follow Ahram Online Arts and Culture on Twitter at @AhramOnlineArts and on Facebook at Ahram Online: Arts & Culture Search Keywords: Short link: Suspected jihadists killed nearly 20 civilians in an attack overnight on the northern Burkina Faso village of Bani, Seno province, security sources said Sunday. The attackers, heavily armed and on motorbikes, literally executed the local inhabitants, the security source told AFP. The attackers left nearly 20 dead, the source added. A local health official, speaking from the town of Dori in the north, said the chief nurse at the nearby village of Lamdamol was among the victims. There is panic in the village and the surrounding area, the official added, saying local people were fleeing the area towards the centre-north of the country. Another security source said that the attack had come as a reprisal after jihadists had told local people to leave the area a few days earlier. The security forces worked day and night to make the zone safe, but it is difficult to be everywhere at once, said the source. Similar attacks This latest attack comes a week after several similar attacks in the north of the country. On January 25, an attack killed 39 civilians in the village of Silgadji, in the neighbouring province of Soum, northwest of Seno. Burkina Faso borders Mali to the northwest and Niger to the east, both countries that are struggling to contain a wave of lethal jihadist attacks. Burkinas security forces, under-equipped and poorly trained, have not been able to counter the deadly raids in their territory, despite the help of foreign soldiers, notably French troops. According to UN figures, the jihadist attacks in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso killed 4,000 people in 2019 and caused an unprecedented humanitarian crisis, having forced 600,000 to flee their homes. (AFP) (Newser) The Senate vote Friday against permitting more testimony or documents in the impeachment trial did more than put President Trump on the fast track to acquittal, Nancy Pelosi says; it forced John Roberts into a bad place. "It is a sad day for America to see Senator McConnell humiliate the Chief Justice of the United States into presiding over a vote which rejected our nations judicial norms, precedents and institutions which uphold the Constitution and the rule of law," she tweeted on Saturday. The 51 votes against witnesses all came from Republicans, NBC reports, including Mitch McConnell, the majority leader. Had the Senate vote been 50-50, Roberts could have stepped in to break the tie. The chief justice ruled that out Friday, saying, "I think it would be inappropriate." story continues below Two other senators alluded to the awkwardness for Roberts. In announcing Friday that she was voting against witnesses, Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, said she didn't want to "drag the Supreme Court into the fray." The day before, Democrat Elizabeth Warren asked about the effect of the trial on the judiciary, per the Hill, saying that many Americans lack faith in their government. "Does the fact that the chief justice is presiding over an impeachment trial in which Republican senators have thus far refused to allow witnesses or evidence contribute to the loss of legitimacy of the chief justice, the Supreme Court, and the Constitution?" she asked. A final vote is expected on Wednesday. (Read more John Roberts stories.) Iraqi president appoints Mohammed Tawfiq Allawi as new premier Iran Press TV Saturday, 01 February 2020 5:47 PM Iraqi President Barham Salih has appointed Mohammed Tawfiq Allawi as the Arab country's new prime minister after political parties in the parliament failed to name a candidate in two months since former premier Adel Abdul Mahdi stepped down under pressure from anti-government protests. On Saturday, 65-year-old Allawi, an ex-communications minister, said in a Twitter video message that the president had nominated him for the post to form a new government and that he would do so in line with demands sought by protesters during the past three months. "After the president appointed me to form a new government a short while ago, I wanted to talk to you first," Allawi said, addressing the Iraqi nation. "I will ask you to keep up the protests, because if you are not with me, I won't be able to do anything," he added. There was no formal announcement from Salih or other government bodies. The development came after Iraq's divided parliament missed a February-1- deadline set by Salih to nominate someone for the post. The Iraqi president had earlier told the lawmakers that he would appoint his own candidate if they passed the deadline. Since early October last year, Iraq has been the scene of growing protests, pressing the government to bring in reforms that would root out corruption and alleviate the Arab country's economic woes. The rallies, however, soon turned violent amid reports of foreign interference with hundreds of people killed, including members of the security forces. Amid the anti-government demonstrations, Abdul Mahdi stepped down in November and the parliament approved his resignation in early December, but he had retained the position ever since as caretaker prime minister. Under the Iraqi constitution, Allawi now has one month to form his cabinet, which would require a vote of confidence from the parliament. He was quoted by state television on Saturday as warning that he would "leave this nomination" if political blocs sought to impose candidates for different ministries. Back on December 26, President Salih also submitted his resignation to the Iraqi parliament after refusing to designate the nominee for premiership, Assad al-Eidani. He said at the time that since the constitution of the Arab country did not give him the right to reject a nomination, he would rather resign than pick a new PM rejected by demonstrators. Salih also stressed that the protest movement made it imperative that politicians look at the interests of the public over personal or political considerations. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Source: Xinhua| 2020-02-02 15:13:25|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close by Xinhua writers Yin Xiaosheng and Cao Bin HANGZHOU, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- While most Chinese were enjoying the Spring Festival, Wu Gang and his team were still busy working overtime to save lives. "Ding --" a Taobao customer service agent sent an urgent message: "A customer asked for some lethal drugs. We tried to dissuade her but in vain!" As a member of the "Guarding Life" team of Alibaba Security, Wu immediately initiated an emergency intervention procedure. While pacifying the customer, he checked her record, intercepted other orders, and called the police as soon as possible. Finally, the police tracked down the customer and successfully saved her life. This is another success story for the "Guarding Life" team, which has intervened in over 1,000 suicide attempts since it was founded in July 2019. Wu is an engineer with Alibaba Security. His daily work includes training e-store agents to identify suicidal intentions, using AI systems to evaluate customers' risky behaviors, and intercepting dangerous orders with the help of logistics companies and police. Unlike most of the employees at Alibaba, Wu's job is to race against death and that is why he calls himself a "suicide interventionist." "Our intervention consists of several steps. The first is to identify the suicidal intention of customers," the engineer told Xinhua. "If the online customer service staff fail to dissuade them, we will intercept their orders. If they insist on placing orders, we will call the police to intervene. Up to now, we haven't reported any false information." Wu has a master's degree majoring in pharmacy, and has been working in this field since he entered Alibaba. "The idea of suicide intervention came to me after some Taobao customer service agents expressed their concerns about customers buying dangerous products online. I wanted to help those people overcome difficulties." As a result, he started to prepare for the "Guarding life" project in March 2019. During the preparation stage, a case in Hangzhou strengthened Wu's determination to launch the project. In June 2019, a young woman from Hangzhou searched for various kinds of medicine on Taobao, which hinted at possible suicidal tendencies. "We made various interventions. Finally the police and doctors located her and learned that it was mainly a result of conflicts with her mother. But her mother knew nothing about it." In July, Wu, the only "suicide interventionist" at that time, assembled the "Guarding Life" team and cooperated with Taobao sellers and customer service agents. According to a WHO report in 2014, more than 800,000 people worldwide commit suicide every year. There is also a large number of potential suicides, with these individuals often difficult to identify. With the emergence of "suicide interventionists," they are more likely to be noticed and rescued based on their online orders. "I didn't expect the Internet could be so powerful. Thank you for saving me. I will take good care of myself," said a previously suicidal individual in a message to the team. The team now has more than 20 members, including customer service agents, psychological consultants and licensed pharmacists. And there are five "suicide interventionists" like Wu, who are in close contact with more than 1,500 online Taobao stores. "Many individuals contemplating suicide are relatively young, and 60 percent are female," Wu said. "Most suicides are impulsive. If we talk with them and listen to them, most can overcome their difficulties. Our recent statistics show that 80 percent of customers would give up buying products after our intervention." "We don't have weekends. We have to constantly check our phones from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.," added Wu. "But what we do is bring warmth and comfort to customers on the edge of death and save their lives. So I think my work is meaningful." With the ubiquitous reach of the Internet, Wu believes that issues like suicide also call for joint efforts from all sides. "We will continue to work and pool more resources such as professional psychological consultants and government departments to focus on this group. Everyone can contribute and be a suicide interventionist," said Wu. RACINE COUNTY Wisconsin students in the private school voucher program are not the only ones with access to school choice. Through open enrollment, students can apply to attend public school districts other than the ones they reside in. And they do. Students can begin applying for public school open enrollment on Monday. The application window closes at 4 p.m. April 30. School districts in Racine County are impacted by open enrollment in varying degrees, with some gaining 100 or more students and others losing them to other districts. This school year, 1,453 students open enrolled out of Racine Unified while only 31 came into the district. Burlington Area School District was in the negative as well, with 366 enrolling out and 89 coming in. On the opposite end of the spectrum, 341 students enrolled into Union Grove High School, the vast majority coming from Racine Unified. Thats an increase from last year, when the district had around 305 open enrolled students. Around 40 students open enrolled out of Union Grove High this year. Union Grove High has increased its per-class capacity from 260 to 290 since completing referendum-funded projects last year that provided additional space. Its a common misconception, according to District Administrator Al Mollerskov, that UGHS has a waiting list for open enrollment. It does not. Mollerskov said that Union Grove doesnt have any sort of campaign to attract open enrollment students, but that most of them are drawn to the district through word of mouth. We have a lot of great options here for students, he said. The districts agriculture program, currently in its second year, in particular is enticing to students looking to go into fields like veterinary science, he added. Also taking in a significant number of students who live in the Racine Unified School District is Oak Creek-Franklin Joint School District in Milwaukee County. Out of the 608 students open enrolling into that district this year, 245 of them are from Racine Unified. Any Wisconsin resident in 4-year-old kindergarten through high school can apply to a nonresident school district through open enrollment. A child can only open enroll out for early childhood education or 4K if the students resident school district offers the same kind of program and only if the child is eligible for that program. Parents are generally responsible for providing transportation to and from the nonresident school, unless transportation is required in a childs individualized education program or IEP. A nonresident or resident school district can decide to provide transportation to open enrolled students, but the nonresident school district cannot pick up or drop off a student within the boundaries of the pupils resident school district unless the resident school district agrees to it. By the numbers Burlington Area School District: Open enrolled in: 89 From Racine Unified: None Oak Creek-Franklin Joint School District: Open enrolled in: 608 From Racine Unified: 245 Raymond Elementary School: Open enrolled in: 87 From Racine Unified: 79 Union Grove Elementary: Open enrolled in: 226 From Racine Unified: 153 Waterford Union High School: Open enrolled in: 75 From Racine Unified: 10 Waterford Graded School District: Open enrolled in: 171 From Racine Unified: 8 Yorkville Elementary School District Open enrolled in: 133 From Racine Unified: 104 Love 0 Funny 1 Wow 1 Sad 1 Angry 1 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Congress president was on Sunday admitted to the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital here for check up after she complained of stomachache, sources said. Gandhi will undergo some tests at the hospital where she was admitted earlier on Sunday, they said. She is reportedly suffering a stomach ache, a source close to Gandhi said. The Congress chief did not attend the Union budget presentation in Parliament on Saturday. KALAMAZOO, MI Following a recent ruling by a U.S. District Court judge that rejected a sentencing agreement between a former commercial farm owner and the U.S. Attorneys Office, the defendant has officially withdrawn his guilty plea and is now scheduled to stand trial in October. Michael Stamp, former owner of Stamp Farms in Van Buren County, pleaded guilty in April 2019 to conspiracy to commit bank fraud and conspiracy to commit crop insurance fraud. As part of Stamps plea agreement with the U.S. attorneys office, the parties agreed Stamp would serve a maximum of five years in prison for orchestrating what was being called a multi-million-dollar fraud scheme by the U.S. Attorneys Office. The sentencing agreement was rejected Jan. 22 by U.S. District Court Judge Paul L. Maloney on the day Stamp was supposed to be sentenced. Maloney, in his ruling, stated the agreement between the two parties presented an inaccurate interpretation of how sentencing guidelines should be applied. Maloney, based on testimony and admissions of guilt given by Stamp during court proceedings and as part of the agreement, concluded from sentencing guidelines that Stamp should instead be sentenced to between 12.5 and 15 years in prison. Extensive fraud was committed and multiple steps were taken to recruit others into a fraud scheme that resulted in a loss of $20 million to the banks and federal government that were involved, Maloney said at the Jan. 22 hearing. The totality and seriousness of this crime is not accurately reflected in such a penalty and I do not believe would adequately deter Mr. Stamp or others from doing something like this in the future, nor is it reflective of respect for the law. Considering the sentencing guidelines cited by Maloney, both Stamp and his wife, Melissa who was scheduled to be sentenced in a related manner on Jan. 22 were granted the opportunity to consider whether they wished to withdraw their guilty pleas entered in April, accept sentencing under the guidelines laid out by Maloney, or attempt to work out a new agreement with the U.S. Attorneys office, with Maloneys guidelines being taken into consideration. Michael Stamp officially withdrew his guilty plea during a Jan. 31 status conference. Maloney accepted Stamps motion to withdraw, according to court documents, and set a trial date of Oct. 6 for the case to be heard. Melissa Stamp, who pleaded guilty in April to misprision of a felony being aware of her husbands fraud, not reporting it to authorities and helping hide money from creditors, according to federal prosecutors chose a different road in her case. Having already served 20 months in prison for a 2015 bankruptcy fraud case in the matter, Melissa Stamp entered a motion Jan. 30 for the government to still accept her April plea agreement. The Court made no ruling on Melissa Stamps plea agreement, instead adjourning her hearing so that the parties could have time to consider their position," the motion, filed by defense attorney Helen Nieuwenhuis, reads in part. "Ms. Stamp now asks the Court to accept her plea agreement. The motion further states there is no reason for the Court to reject Melissa Stamps plea agreement simply because it rejected Michael Stamps" and that it lacks grounds in doing so. The reasons that the Court articulated for rejecting Michael Stamps plea agreement do not apply to Melissa. Rather, as set forth in her sentencing memorandum, Melissa has already been adequately punished for her wrongdoing through the sentence she has already served for the same underlying conduct," the motion stipulates. Nieuwenhuis writes that her client acknowledges the understanding between all parties that her plea agreement was contingent on both her and her husband pleading guilty, but that contingency had been fulfilled by both parties doing so in April. No ruling has yet been made on Melissa Stamps motion. Also on MLive: Stamp Farms owners may be headed for trial after judge rejects plea agreement Former owners of large Southwest Michigan farm plead in multi-million dollar fraud Stamp Farms co-owner Melissa Stamp sentenced to 20 months in prison for bankruptcy fraud Two rival groups attacked each other in Sahakarnagar, Pune, damaging 41 vehicles parked in the area, police said. The vehicles, according to police, parked by residents on either side of the road, were smashed up with iron rods and batons. Eyewitnesses described the incident as frightening, as youth took over the streets for 45 minutes. They (vandals) came from both sides with their faces covered and created fear in the area by damaging the vehicles, said Arun Kolhare, a local resident. Two cars, three autorickshaws and 37 two-wheelers were damaged in Sakaharnagar, police said. According to assistant commissioner of police, Swargate division, Sarjerao Babar, police have identified the miscreants. A case under sections that cover disturbing public order and damage to public property, has been lodged, Babar said. No arrests have been made yet. Pimpri gangs on the rampage In a separate incident involving the clash of two gangs of youth in Pimpri-Chinchwad, at least 20 youngsters went on the rampage at Thermax chowk in Pimpri around midnight, and damaged six cars and nine bikes belonging to residents of the area. Nigdi police are investigating the case and no arrests have been made so far. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Kelly Shaw, the Republican mayor of Indianola, endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar, a U.S. senator from Minnesota. I have decided to support Sen. Klobuchar because I know she will be able to unite this country and move us forward, Shaw said in a statement provided by the Klobuchar campaign. Her common sense approach to policy, ability to win in rural, urban, and suburban districts, and history of passing bipartisan legislation make her an exceptional choice in this field of candidates. Additionally, she understands the issues important to people in my community like affordable health care, strong public schools, and investment in critical infrastructure and has proposed bold, attainable policies around them. Klobuchar also received the endorsement of Dubuque County recorder John Murphy. NAACP LEADER ENDORSES STEYER: Betty Andrews, president of the Iowa and Nebraska chapter of the NAACP, endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Tom Steyer, a California businessman. Andrews said the endorsement is personal, not reflective of the NAACP, the Steyer campaign said. Tom Steyers investment in the community goes back decades. Hes not afraid to call out the racist actions of Donald Trump and has a plan for a commission on reparations on day one of his presidency, Andrews said in a statement provided by the Steyer campaign. As a justice activist, its important to me that America has a president that can hear the voice of marginalized people and take action in favor of addressing disparities. Im counting on Toms business experience, ethics, and integrity to work for the people. The Steyer campaign also announced the endorsement of state lawmaker Chuck Isenhart from Dubuque. Tom has identified, as a part of his primary campaign, the principal issue he will use to confront the president in the general election, and he will be able to seize the advantage with the strength of his business experience: the economy, Isenhart said in a statement from the Steyer campaign. Its where all the roads meet. We were reminded of that in the last election. LAWMAKER ENDORSES SANDERS: Ako Abdul-Samad, a state legislator from Des Moines, endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont. The candidate that resonated with me and that has come closest to my passion for justice in the world is Sen. Bernie Sanders, Abdul-Samad said in a statement provided by the Sanders campaign. I look forward to working with the senator and the team to continue addressing the issues that are not only dividing us here in America, but in the world. The struggle is real. We can and must win. STATE LAWMAKER, LATINO LEADER ENDORSE BIDEN: State lawmaker Amy Nielsen, of North Liberty, and Rob Barron, co-founder of the Latino Political Network, endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, the former vice president. They are among 15 new endorsements for Biden. I made the decision to support Vice President Biden because he is the candidate I want at the top of the ticket to help Democrats win back the House in Iowa, Nielsen said in a statement provided by the Biden campaign. Joe has the unique ability to bring the country together and keep us united. He also has the experience to come in on day one and hit the ground running. Nielsens is the 15th endorsement of Biden from an Iowa state legislator, his campaign said. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Chrissy Teigen was awestruck as she attended Stormi Webster's second birthday party in Los Angeles on Saturday. The 34-year-old arrived at the bash with her husband John Legend and their daughter Luna, three, but appeared to have left their son Miles, one, at home. 'This is amazing,' said Chrissy in an Insta Stories selfie video taken at the party, which included a carnival Dumbo ride and several giant replicas of Stormi's face. Family time: Chrissy Teigen was awestruck as she attended Stormi Webster's second birthday party in LA on Saturday with her husband John Legend and their daughter Luna, three The birthday girl's mother Kylie Jenner pulled out all the stops for the party, which was called Stormi World just like last year's edition. Also like last year, the entrance to the fete was a towering blow-up replica of Stormi's head, with her mouth as the doorway. Inside were such features as a merch shop, a slide and mechanical claw that lowered into a tub of large blow-up Stormi heads. On the town: The 34-year-old arrived at the bash with her husband and their firstborn but appeared to have left their son Miles, one, at home The party venue was divided into multiple 'Worlds' - one named after Stormi and two that were about the animated children's movies Trolls and Frozen. On her Insta Stories, Chrissy filmed John carrying Luna on his shoulders as they entered the elaborately designed Frozen World. They walked past what appeared to be an ice sculpture of Olaf, a snowman character in the smash hit 2013 Disney feature. Luxury: On her Insta Stories, Chrissy filmed John carrying Luna on his shoulders as they entered the elaborately designed Frozen World Kylie's party venue was so huge this year that there was a booth near the entrance where guests could pick up maps of the place. The 22-year-old cosmetics billionaire shares Stormi with her amicable ex Travis Scott, and the former couple were seen having a friendly chat at the party. Chrissy and John are longtime pals of the Kardashian-Jenner, particularly Kylie's half-sister Kim Kardashian and the latter's third husband Kanye West. LOS ANGELES - Paul Wilson stood at the lectern of the downtown Los Angeles hotel, pulled a speech out of his jeans, and prepared to honor the man who helped spare the life of his wife's murderer. The moment, eight years in the making, began on an October day in 2011 when Scott Dekraai walked into a Seal Beach salon. Once inside, he unleashed the worst mass shooting in Orange County history. Eight dead, including Christy Wilson, slumped in a hairdresser chair with two bullet wounds. The man tasked with representing Dekraai was Scott Sanders. Wilson loathed him. He ripped Sanders in the press, questioning his very morality. The physical differences between the grieving husband and the public defender only magnified his contempt. ADVERTISEMENT Muscular, tattooed and sporting an impressive pompadour, Wilson seemed pulled from the mosh pit of a Social Distortion concert. Sanders wore wire-framed glasses, had tousled hair and a splotchy, graying beard. Wilson oozed Southern California; after a quarter-century here, Sanders still clung to a Chicago accent. "I thought Scott was a scumbag, a weaselly little guy," Wilson said. "You look at this guy, and I don't know anyone in my shoes that wouldn't have hated him as well." And yet, there was Wilson last year at the downtown hotel, heaping hosannas upon Sanders to a riveted audience. "I stand here saying what I once never could have predicted," Wilson told the Society of Professional Journalists Los Angeles chapter. "Scott Sanders isn't just someone I've come to call my friend. I respect his work ethic, his honesty and his tireless commitment to making the criminal justice system work fairly." How that happened is a tale of a notorious crime, the pursuit of justice - for the dead and the accused - and the ways, mostly invisible to the public, that the gears of criminal justice can work. Or not. Sanders and Wilson have filmed segments for an Innocence Project campaign against jailhouse informants. They talk or text daily, and hang out with each other's families. How that happened involves a yearslong imbroglio known as the "snitch scandal." While representing Dekraai, Sanders uncovered a jailhouse informant network that he said Orange County sheriff's deputies ran to mine admissions of guilt out of inmates before they had legal representation. The Orange County district attorney's office used them to win convictions for decades. ADVERTISEMENT In the beginning, Sanders just wanted to save Dekraai from the death penalty - he had no doubt of his guilt. But then Sanders learned that the inmate his client had talked to also figured in another high-profile murder case he was working. The public defender asked his assistants to pull other cases he had litigated, and noticed that the same inmates kept procuring confessions like some prison prelate. Sanders requested that Orange County prosecutors be kicked off Dekraai's case. Then-District Attorney Tony Rackauckas dismissed Sanders' argument on "60 Minutes" as a "conspiracy" and "false narrative." Wilson accused Sanders in court of having "blood on (his) hands" with his tactics, which delayed the trial and, in his eyes, justice for his slain wife. In early 2014, Sanders filed a 500-pages-plus motion supported by 15,000 pages of exhibits that argued Dekraai couldn't receive a fair trial because of the longtime use of illegal jailhouse informants by Orange County prosecutors and the Sheriff's Department. That was the same year Dekraai pleaded guilty to the Seal Beach massacre. Then a slam-dunk case stalled as Orange County Superior Court Judge Thomas Goethals held hearings to let Sanders make his case. Early on, Sanders knew that Wilson would be outspoken. "I realized Paul was going to be a voice from the start," Sanders said. "He's furious, and rightfully so. And his stare was all daggers, all the time." Wilson gladly attacked the public defender in the press, once telling the Orange County Register that Sanders' motions were "killing us in more ways than one." In court, Wilson accused Sanders of "destroying us even more than we've already been destroyed." No moment was too small for Wilson to needle the lawyer. Once, as they waited outside a Santa Ana courtroom, Sanders looked more harried than usual. ADVERTISEMENT "I told him, 'Hey, you might want to tuck in your shirt to look more presentable,'" Wilson said. "And he gave me this look like, 'You gotta stop beating me up.'" But as weeks of delays turned into months, then years, Wilson got suspicious. He noticed that Goethals, whom he praised as a "compassionate, brilliant man," kept asking harder and harsher questions of prosecutors. He listened closely as Sanders questioned sheriff's deputies and prosecutors; the answers sounded to Wilson more like nervous equivocation and blame-shifting than the confident statements of the past. He wondered: Had Sanders been right? Eventually, Wilson pivoted to criticizing Rackauckas and the Sheriff's Department. His relationship with prosecutors, once warm, turned chilly. In 2015, Wilson appeared on Al-Jazeera America and declared that Sanders was "doing his job above and beyond." "I nearly fell over," Sanders said. Goethals removed Rackauckas' entire office from the Dekraai case and sent it to the California attorney general's office. Wilson increased his public praise of Sanders, but the two still wouldn't acknowledge each other in court beyond a silent nod from time to time. "The people who said to hang on to our hate (of Sanders) turned out to be as heartbreakingly inept as you can imagine the criminal justice system to be. Paul eventually saw that," said Bethany Webb, who sued the Orange County sheriff and district attorney's office in 2018 over the scandal. Her sister, Laura Webb Elody, died in the Seal Beach massacre; their mother, Hattie Stretz, survived. It wasn't until 2017 that Dekraai was sentenced for the killings. Goethals gave him eight consecutive life terms. A few days later, Wilson idled in rush-hour traffic. In the years since the shooting, he had met with parents of Sandy Hook Elementary School victims and visited Washington and Sacramento to lobby for gun control. Now, Wilson called the general line for the Orange County public defender's office, expecting to leave a voicemail. The line rang once before he heard a familiar voice. "Hey, Paul, how are you?" Sanders told him. "I kinda had a feeling this talk would happen." The snitch scandal upended Orange County politics. Longtime Sheriff Sandra Hutchens retired instead of facing reelection. Rackauckas, a seemingly indomitable political figure in the county, lost his attempt for a sixth term as district attorney in 2018. Todd Spitzer, Orange County's current top prosecutor, said the controversy was "like an anchor pulling us to the bottom of the ocean." Job applications to the office declined, and the U.S. Justice Department began interviewing prosecutors as part of an investigation. Spitzer launched his own internal probe in April. A state inquiry started by then-Attorney General Kamala Harris and inherited by the current one, Xavier Becerra, went nowhere. Wilson, meanwhile, had become Dr. Watson to Sanders' Sherlock Holmes. During the day, the 54-year-old apparel executive sits in on court cases multiple times a week to take notes that he shares with Sanders. Wilson's notes help Sanders, 51, argue in court motions that wrongdoing continues in Orange County law enforcement. At night, the two make joint appearances before college classes, community groups and legal conferences from Irvine to Utah and beyond. "There is a spate of reform all over the country in which legislators are taking a closer look at jailhouse informants, inspired by the O.C. debacle," said Alexandra Natapoff, author of the 2009 book "Snitching: Criminal Informants and the Erosion of American Justice" and co-director of the University of California, Irvine's Center in Law, Society and Culture. "They are integral to this." Charlotte Samuels, a Fullerton College political science professor, asked Sanders and Wilson to address a packed lecture hall last spring. "I wanted my students to be aware that you can still be in public service and be noble," Samuels said. "They remind me of 'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.' I know it's idealistic, but it's there." Goethals, who is now a California Court of Appeals judge, said the relationship between the two men is unusual. "I have never before seen a circumstance where a surviving spouse in a murder case reached the kind of relationship that Mr. Wilson did with Mr. Sanders," Goethals said. "It really is unique." That's not to say they always agree. Wilson campaigned for Spitzer against Rackauckas despite Sanders' misgivings. After taking office, Spitzer promoted the lead prosecutor in the Dekraai case, who later resigned in the aftermath of the federal investigation. The move, along with others, caused Wilson and Sanders to criticize Spitzer. The prosecutor pushed back against Sanders' critique, saying he was "overreaching" in some of his motions. But Spitzer resisted criticizing Wilson, saying: "As much as I want to be upset and angry with him, I won't allow myself to be." Spitzer called Wilson a "reasonable, honest man who got really screwed by the system." Over taco salads at a restaurant in downtown Santa Ana during a courtroom recess, Sanders and Wilson recounted their saga like old pals chuckling over a camping trip. Their latest dig uncovered a previously unreleased internal audit by the Orange County's Sheriff Department that found deputies regularly failed to book evidence on time. Spitzer's office is looking into the matter. "Paul isn't a law clerk, but he's better in some ways," Sanders said. "He's a regular citizen who's listening on another level, because of what he's been through." "You have to understand," Wilson interrupted. "I'd never been in court before what happened to Christy. So for the first time to be in it, to see the justice system break down the way it did, it's appalling. That's why I'm now here." --- (c)2020 Los Angeles Times Visit the Los Angeles Times at www.latimes.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. By PTI KATHMANDU: As many as 46 lawmakers of the ruling Nepal Communist Party have registered a motion in Parliament urging the government to legalise the cultivation of marijuana and ban the import of alcohol. The farming, production and trade of marijuana and cannabis are banned in Nepal since 1973. The lawmakers claim that over 65 countries, including the US, Canada, and Germany who had led the movements for banning marijuana in the 1970s, have already legalised it. Lawmaker Birodh Khatiwada, from Makawanpur district, proposed the motion, which got support from 45 others lawmakers of the party in the House of Representatives. Makawanpur is one of the districts that produces the highest amount of marijuana illegally. The lawmakers have argued that the legalisation can be economically beneficial for the country and would help improve people's standard of living. "Marijuana has multiple uses.It also helps earn foreign currencies and produce medicines," Khatiwada said. The government spokesperson and Minister for Information and Communications Technology Gokul Baskota said the government was yet to take any steps towards legalising it. (Natural News) One of the major problems facing global healthcare professions in trying to control the rapidly spreading coronavirus is that people who are afflicted with it dont show any symptoms right away. In fact, researchers and pandemic experts have discovered that most patients go days without exhibiting signs and symptoms of the virus, but are likely spreading it even as they remain symptomless. Consider the case of a Chinese woman from Wuhan, the epicenter of the current outbreak. As reported by GMA News Online, late this week the Filipino government confirmed the countrys first case of coronavirus involving a 38-year-old vacationer who flew to the country via Hong Kong January 21. After experiencing a mild cough, the woman was seen by a doctor in Manila and admitted to one of the governments hospitals. According to DOH Secretary Francisco Duque, the woman was otherwise asymptomatic by weeks end, meaning she didnt have a fever or any other symptoms suggestive of the coronavirus. Philippines officials noted that the woman also visited the cities of Cebu and Dumaguete before traveling to Manila, the capital, an urban center of about 12.8 million. I assure the public that the DOH is on top of this evolving situation. We were able to detect the first confirmed case because of our strong surveillance system, close coordination with the World Health Organization and other national agencies, Duque told reporters. We are working closely with the hospital where the patient is admitted and have activated the incident command system of the said hospital for appropriate management specifically on infection control, case management and containment, he continued. We are also implementing measures to protect the health staff providing care to these patients. He added that as of late in the week, 29 persons in the Philippines were being examined for possible coronavirus. They are delusional Natural News founder Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, noted Thursday that the no symptoms phenomenon of coronavirus may have taken global health officials by surprise: All the experts are missing a fatal truth about the coronavirus pandemic: It spreads from people who show no symptoms. Because they show no symptoms, they evade all existing screening efforts such as thermal scanning for fevers and self-reporting of symptoms to health authorities. In other words, many people who are infected with the coronavirus and are spreading it have no idea they are infected. Adams noted further this means that current health screening methods are not likely to contain the spreading pandemic. The only way to do so is to simply block all travel from China, he said, since thats where the virus originated. But thats not even possible, he adds, because world governments have convinced themselves they know how to spot coronavirus carriers as they move through airports. However, they are delusional. He points to the evacuation this week of 206 Japanese nationals who were repatriated from China to their homeland via government-charted flight. Of those, three were found to have been infected with coronavirus and two of those people had yet to show any symptoms. Japan Today noted: The three, who have been hospitalized one in stable condition and two without symptoms were among 206 people brought back Wednesday from the city at the center of the deadly outbreak of the pneumonia-causing virus. Global health officials are obviously becoming more concerned. As Breitbart News reported Thursday, the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a global health emergency after at least 171 people in China have died from the illness. The declaration means that the outbreak is an extraordinary event that will require global coordination to fight. Speaking to reporters in Geneva, Switzerland, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the agencys concern isnt China but the spread of the virus to other countries far less capable of dealing with the outbreak. Our greatest concern is the potential for this virus to spread to countries with weaker health systems which are ill-prepared to deal with it, he said. Sources include: Breitbart.com NaturalNews.com GMANetwork.com New office towers, 2,500 housing units and a multiblock transit center with a rooftop park have transformed the 145-acre Transbay district since 2012. While most of the changes have been west of Beale Street, things now are heating up to the east: Blanchard; John Transbays newest office tower is a 46-story high-rise. But dont miss two small plazas on the same block designed by Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture. They have an ad hoc look blue-striped asphalt dotted with hillocks cloaked in artificial turf and plenty of spirit. PROPOSED TOWER Blanchard; John This pairing of a 47-story residential tower and 16 stories of affordable housing would be the districts biggest residential complex. Now being reviewed by city planners, it could begin construction next year. Blanchard; John NEIGHBORHOOD PARK Blanchard; John From the beginning, area plans have emphasized a quiet town square for local residents and workers. Design work will begin on the 1-acre space this year, though completion likely is several years away. AFFORDABLE HOUSING Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts. Blanchard; John The citys Office of Community Investment and Infrastructure will soon launch a development competition to fill the bottom third of the block that held the temporary Transbay Terminal. The plan is for low-income apartments and a childcare center, with heights kept low to lessen shade on the planned park to the north. MIRA By summer, the first residents should be moving into this unusual Studio Gang tower with 40 stories of angled bays, each level different than the one below. All 392 units will be condominiums, with 40 percent reserved for moderate-income buyers. John King is The San Francisco Chronicles urban design critic. Email: jking@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @johnkingsfchron Advising against evacuating Pakistani students in China's Wuhan province amid the novel coronavirus outbreak, Pakistan's envoy to China Naghmana Hashmi on Sunday stated that Pakistan's medical facilities were not able to treat a patient diagnosed with coronavirus, in an interview with Geo News. Furthermore, Hashmi has hailed the facilities in China saying it was equipped to treat the Pakistanis stuck in Wuhan. She said the government was monitoring the health of the 800 students in Wuhan and Quebec. Pakistan declares national emergency to battle locusts Pak envoy advises against evacuation "There are around 800 registered Pakistani students in China who are healthy till now. We know that there are 4 positive cases till now in Wuhan, which has worried some students. Chinese and Pakistani governments are working together to give good treatment to those affected. But it would be better if the students are not evacuated from here as the facilities in China to detect, treat and prevent the spread of the virus is not available in Pakistan, nor in any other country," she said to Pakistan's Geo News. Second Air India evacuation flight carries 323 Indians & 7 Maldivians from epicenter Wuhan Pakistan refuses to evacuate students Similarly, Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Health Dr Zafar Mirza too took to Twitter and announced that Pakistan will not evacuate students from Wuhan province in the larger interest. But he added that Pakistan has the capability of diagnosing Coronarivus in Pakistan. PM Imran Khan is yet to react to Pakistani students who have been stuck in Wuhan, asking to be rescued. 196b/ We dont want to evacuate just copying few other countries. Around 100 other countries are not evacuating their citizens from Wuhan/China. Good public health practice, larger interest of our people and safety of the world r our key considerations. Zafar Mirza (@zfrmrza) February 2, 2020 AI's 2nd flight lands in Delhi with 323 Indians, 7 Maldivians from coronavirus-hit Wuhan Pakistani students in Wuhan appeal to PM Khan Pakistani students trapped in the viral outbreak's epicentre Wuhan have posted videos on social media "pleading" for help and compared their government's response with that of India, which doesn't seem to ruffle a feather in Islamabad. India, on the other hand, has evacuated around 650 of its citizens from China, along with seven Maldivians. Countries like Japan, Germany, Bangladesh, Australia have all scrambled their airlines to get their citizens out. Pakistani student in Wuhan shows how Indian students are being evacuated by their govt. While Pakistanis are left there to die by the govt of Pakistan: pic.twitter.com/86LthXG593 Naila Inayat (@nailainayat) February 1, 2020 Pakistani student appeals to Imran Khan government to evacuate citizens from Wuhan We often hear rappers spin tales of their rugged upbringings in their songs. Artists spit bars about struggling to get food on the table or having absentee parents causing them to find a makeshift family on the streets with gangs. Qaw'mane "Young QC" Wilson reportedly didn't have that life. The 23-year-old's mother, Yolanda Holmes, doted on her only child, reportedly gifting him with luxury clothing, jewelry, and even a Mustang. https://www.instagram.com/p/B8AzfPelUe5 According to a report made by The Chicago Sun-Times, Wilson wasn't satisfied. A Chicago judge, along with prosecutors, believes that Wilson hired two of his friends to murder his mother because he wanted to collect on her life insurance. It's alleged that Wilson's girlfriend drove with their friend Eugene Spencer over to Yolanda's apartment. It was there that the unsuspecting mother was shot and killed by Spencer while sleeping in her bed. However, things didn't go as easy as they expected, because Yolanda's boyfriend put up a fight. The boyfriend was then knocked unconscious, so Spencer left and called Wilson to update him on what had happened. "Make sure the b*tch is dead," Wilson allegedly told his friend. Then, Spencer returned to the scene and repeatedly stabbed Yolanda. Following her death, Wilson collected the insurance money and customized his Mustang. It's also reported that he took out thousands of dollars from the bank and "made it rain" on his fans in a moment shared on social media. The word is matricide, meaning murder of ones own mother, the judge said during Wilson's sentencing. Whatever he wanted, his mother gave to him. A car. A job," the judge continued. "One could say he was spoiled. She gave Qawmane life, and it was his choice to take it way from her. Wilson was sentenced to 99 years in prison. Spencer was given 100 years. I just want to say, nobody loved my mother more than me, Wilson reportedly said during his sentencing hearing. She was all I had. Thats it. https://www.instagram.com/p/B8AUe0blqEA Possible Israeli annexation of the West Bank: Foreign Secretary statement Unilateral move would be damaging to renewed efforts to re-start peace negotiations, and contrary to international law. 31 January 2020 Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has responded to reports that Israel could begin to immediately apply Israeli laws over the Jordan valley and key strategic areas of the West Bank. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said: "The United Kingdom is concerned by reports of possible moves toward annexation of parts of the West Bank by Israel. Any such unilateral moves would be damaging to renewed efforts to re-start peace negotiations, and contrary to international law. Any changes to the status quo cannot be taken forward without an agreement negotiated by the parties themselves." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Source: Xinhua| 2020-02-02 19:49:51|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close KUWAIT CITY, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- The International Women's Group (IWG) held on Sunday a ceremony to celebrate Kuwait's National Day and Liberation Day in Farwaniya Governorate. The event was attended by wives of foreign ambassadors to Kuwait, members of the IWG and elite women of Kuwait. During her opening speech, Rima Al-Khaldi, vice president of the IWG, congratulated the people of Kuwait on the occasion of national and liberation days. For her part, Sheikha Intisar Salem Al-Ali, the founder and editorial director of Lulua Publishing and the founder of Alnowair positivity initiative, said that Kuwait is a small country but it is the home of more than 100 nationalities living in peace and security on its land. She praised the activities undertaken by the IWG, indicating that Kuwaitis have a great cultural heritage as well as their great love for the country. Kuwait enjoys very good relations with countries of the world and representatives of these countries share the celebrations with the Kuwaiti people, she stressed. The ceremony program included a stereoscopic opening on the old Kuwait market, and then Kuwaiti army's military music band participated in playing the national anthem of Kuwait and some of the Kuwaiti national songs where the audience interacted enthusiastically. The celebration also included an important part of the heritage, which is the "Kuwaiti wedding corner," to show guests the importance of this ceremony as it represents the customs of marriage in Kuwait in the past with its joyful and distinctive rituals. Kuwait National Day and Liberation Day are celebrated on Feb. 25 and Feb. 26 respectively. Close Streatham attack: Man shot dead by police after several stabbed in terror incident in London A convicted terrorist was shot dead by armed police after stabbing two people on a London high street. The Metropolitan Police said they were treating the incident in Streatham at 2pm on Sunday as an Islamist-related attack. Officers named the suspect as Sudesh Amman, 20, who had been released from prison days earlier. A man in his 40s remains in hospital but is no longer in a life-threatening condition. A woman in her 50s was discharged following treatment. Police said a third victim suffered minor injuries, believed to be caused by flying glass during the shooting of the suspect. Please allow a moment for the liveblog to load. Disclaimer: Some readers may find this story upsetting MORE than 2,500 has been raised for the treatment of a young Collie dog found dumped and "emaciated" with serious injuries in County Limerick. In a statement on Facebook, Limerick Animal Welfare (Law) said they were alerted to the injured dog, named Poppy, who was found "shocking condition". More than 170 people have donated more than 2,500 via Law's Facebook page for the care of the dog. The dog's injuries were so horrific, it brought a seasoned animal welfare worker "to tears" after they witnessed Poppy's chronic condition. "Rolled up in a ball on the side of the road on approach the terrified dog took off scrambling under a bush. How she did this is anyone's guess as both eyes where damaged. One eye was shaded over blue the other was hidden under a ooze of pus and squeeze shut by the swelled jaw and face. "The swelling was some sort of infection and by its size it had been there a while. Other less obvious injuries were there but we scooped her up wrapped her in a blanket and rushed to Mid West Vets for treatment." Poppy weighed in at just 9kg, and was cheated for pain relief while vets assessed Poppy's injuries. Both eyes where observers one was ulcerated the other infected. The facial swelling was an untreated abscess her front leg had a circular impression that looked like a rope had been tied around it leaving it's Chinese burn marking. "Covered also in fleas and mites signs of mange coat matted with animal faeces oh what had poor Poppy being through," Law said on Saturday morning. Poppy remains in veterinary care. It was revealed on Thursday that she had split from beau Giovanni Pernice after a year together. And newly-single Ashley Roberts put on a brave face as she stepped out for dinner with pals at Sette restaurant in London on Saturday. The Pussycat Doll, 38, put on a leggy display in a thigh-skimming burgundy patterned gown by Ganni as she made her way into the eatery. Night out: Newly-single Ashley Roberts put on a brave face as she stepped out for dinner with pals at Sette restaurant in London on Saturday amid her split from Giovanni Pernice Ashley flashed a warm smile as she showcased her enviable pins in the stylish frock, which featured a high collar and puff sleeves. The Buttons hitmaker boosted her height with simple black sandals, and finished her look with a white handbag and diamond drop earrings. She swept her blonde tresses into a chic topknot, while her pretty features were enhanced with a palette of shimmering make-up. Ashley's outing comes days after Strictly Come Dancing hunk Giovanni, 29, announced his split from her on Twitter on Thursday, tagging the Pussycat Dolls star in the post. Brave face: The Pussycat Doll, 38, put on a leggy display in a thigh-skimming burgundy patterned gown by Ganni as she made her way into the eatery '@ImAshleyRoberts and I have made the decision to separate as a couple. We remain friends and wish each other well for the future,' he wrote. Despite insisting they have parted on good terms, no pictures of the couple feature on either of the stars' Instagrams any longer. Both Giovanni and Ashley appear to have culled their accounts and wiped any trace of one another. Ashley is yet to make comment. MailOnline has approached their representatives for comment. Style statement: Ashley flashed a warm smile as she showcased her enviable pins in the stylish frock, which featured a high collar and puff sleeves Finishing touches: The Buttons hitmaker boosted her height with simple black sandals, and finished her look with a white handbag and diamond drop earrings While Giovanni tweeted the news - and posted a note to Instagram Stories - Ashley enjoyed a night out in London with her Pussycat Dolls bandmates this week - ahead of their comeback tour this year. The Pussycat Dolls were seen leaving Bagatelle Restaurant in London after a group bonding meal. The band were also seen posing up a storm in androgynous ensembles on Friday as they arrived for a radio interview at Global studios. The split comes just a month after the couple spent Christmas together with Ashley's family in her native America. News: The Strictly Come Dancing professional dancer announced the sad news on Twitter Announcement: While Giovanni commented, Ashley has remained silent on the matter Delete! Despite insisting they have parted on good terms, no pictures of the couple feature on either of the stars' Instagrams any longer Their romance sparked off when they were both on Strictly in 2018, and got to know one another behind-the-scenes. They were then seen on New Year's Eve 2018 kissing in Miami. Giovanni posted an Instagram snap last year of him kissing the pop star, captioning it: 'I never thought anyone would ever make me smile, laugh and steal my heart as fast as you did !! I love you amore.' This is now one of the photos deleted from Giovanni's account. Opposition set to corner govt in Parliament over CAA, NPR and NRC India pti-PTI New Delhi, Feb 02: Opposition parties on Monday are set to corner the government in Parliament on issues related to CAA, NPR and NRC, sources said. The Congress, Trinamool Congress (TMC), Left parties, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and some others have already given adjournment notices in the Rajya Sabha for demanding immediate discussion on the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), National Population Register (NPR) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC), they said. The Congress and some other opposition parties are set to give adjournment notices in the Lok Sabha too, the sources said. Opposition parties are demanding a discussion in both the Houses on the amended citizenship law, NPR and NRC, amid countrywide protests against them, they said. The opposition has termed the CAA passed by Parliament as "unconstitutional" and have challenged the same in the Supreme Court which will hear the matter later this month. The opposition parties have also urged chief ministers of those states which have opposed the CAA to not roll out the NPR exercise. The Budget session of Parliament started on January 31 with the President's address to the joint sitting of both the Houses of Parliament and the presentation on Union Budget on February 1. Both the Houses are set to initiate the discussion on the 'motion of thanks' to the President's address starting Monday. You would not be here in this room, right now, if some sense of hope didnt propel you to this space. Thats why youre here. You only do this if you think it matters who gets their hands on the mechanisms of American government and what values guide them, Buttigieg said. That is what propels me into this space, too. Source: Xinhua| 2020-02-02 23:47:16|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close LONDON, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- The Highways England launched its second public consultation in Britain for the country's longest road tunnel under the River Thames, the government-owned company has said. "The consultation is a chance for people to review and comment on a number of changes made since our last consultation in 2018, and to help shape this once-in-a-generation project," said Chris Taylor, director of Highways England's Complex Infrastructure Programme. The proposed multi-billion U.S. dollar project will connect Kent, Thurrock and Essex with the world's third-widest bored tunnel. The 23 km project will provide a new highway with a 112.6 km per hour speed limit. Changes to the plans have been made after detailed analysis of 29,000 responses received during the first consultation with local populations. The current consultation will close in March. India choked New Zealand yet again to turn it around for a seven-run win in the fifth T20 International, giving them a rare 5-0 series whitewash in the shortest format here on Sunday. The Indian pacers, led by ever-reliable Jasprit Bumrah, shared seven wickets among them for 25 runs in match-changing 7.2 overs to restrict the Kiwis to 156 for nine while defending 163 for three. Bumrah conceded just 12 runs in his four overs and got rid of three batsmen, bowling block-hole deliveries during death overs. India's total was built around stand-in skipper Rohit Sharma' 60-run knock after they elected to bat. Tim Seifert (50) and Ross Taylor (53) kept the Black Caps in hunt for a consolation win but the hosts again fell near the finish line. This is only third time that India have whitewashed opponents in away T20 series and first time in a five-match rubber. India had blanked the West Indies 3-0 in 2019 and beat Australia 3-0 in 2016. New Zealand got off to a poor start and were quickly reduced to 17 for three in the fourth over. Bumrah had Martin Guptill (2) lbw, and Sundar bowled Colin Munro (15). Tom Bruce's run-out didn't help the situation either. Taylor and Seifert came together at that juncture, putting on 99 runs for the fourth wicket, raising vision of an improbable win. Seifert reached his half-century off 29 balls, including five fours and three sixes. while Taylor got to his half-century in 42 balls. He hit five fours and two sixes. They took 34 runs off Shivam Dube in the 10th over, after which KL Rahul, who led in absence of inured Rohit Sharma, had to take corrective measures. He brought back his frontline pacers and they both etched out wickets. Navdeep Saini (2-23) dismissed Seifert and then Bumrah bowled Daryl Mitchell (2) with a searing yorker. New Zealand's chase was all but over when Mitchell Santner (6) holed out of Shardul Thakur (2-38) and Manish Pandey held a fine running catch at long on. Ish Sodhi smacked 16 off 10 balls to provide some fireworks at the end but it was not enough. Earlier, Rohit, batting at number three, was retired hurt after injuring his left calf whilst hitting a six and walked off the field in discomfort. He faced 41 balls and hit three fours as well as three sixes. Virat Kohli was expectedly rested, with Rohit coming in, and it was the only change for India from Wellington. Rishabh Pant was ignored once again. For New Zealand, Kane Williamson didn't recover on time and Tim Southee led the side once again. Despite Rohit's return, Sanju Samson (2) continued to open the innings and it didn't work again. Yet another opportunity went abegging as he hit straight to extra cover and was out for two runs. KL Rahul (45) and Rohit added 88 runs for the second wicket, providing vital momentum to the Indian innings. The in-form duo dominated the Black Caps' attack and put on 50 off just 35 balls. Rahul hit four fours and two sixes in his 33-ball stay. He fell in the 12th over against the run of play and finished with 224 runs in the series, the most for an Indian batsman in any bilateral T20I series. Sharma scored his 25th T20I half-century off 35 balls. He looked to accelerate but then injured himself in the 17th over and retired. The loss of both Rahul and Sharma impacted the Indian innings, and they lost all momentum on a slowing wicket. Shreyas Iyer smacked 33 off 31 balls, including a four and two sixes, but couldn't push the score past the 170-mark. Manish Pandey scored 11 not out off four balls, with a four and a six. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Regular readers will know that we love our dividends at Simply Wall St, which is why it's exciting to see Santander Consumer USA Holdings Inc. (NYSE:SC) is about to trade ex-dividend in the next 4 days. You can purchase shares before the 7th of February in order to receive the dividend, which the company will pay on the 20th of February. Santander Consumer USA Holdings's next dividend payment will be US$0.22 per share, on the back of last year when the company paid a total of US$0.88 to shareholders. Last year's total dividend payments show that Santander Consumer USA Holdings has a trailing yield of 3.3% on the current share price of $26.62. Dividends are a major contributor to investment returns for long term holders, but only if the dividend continues to be paid. We need to see whether the dividend is covered by earnings and if it's growing. View our latest analysis for Santander Consumer USA Holdings Dividends are typically paid from company earnings. If a company pays more in dividends than it earned in profit, then the dividend could be unsustainable. Santander Consumer USA Holdings paid out a comfortable 29% of its profit last year. Santander Consumer USA Holdings paid a dividend despite reporting negative free cash flow last year. That's typically a bad combination and - if this were more than a one-off - not sustainable. Companies that pay out less in dividends than they earn in profits generally have more sustainable dividends. The lower the payout ratio, the more wiggle room the business has before it could be forced to cut the dividend. Click here to see the company's payout ratio, plus analyst estimates of its future dividends. NYSE:SC Historical Dividend Yield, February 2nd 2020 Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing? Stocks in companies that generate sustainable earnings growth often make the best dividend prospects, as it is easier to lift the dividend when earnings are rising. If business enters a downturn and the dividend is cut, the company could see its value fall precipitously. This is why it's a relief to see Santander Consumer USA Holdings earnings per share are up 6.6% per annum over the last five years. Story continues Many investors will assess a company's dividend performance by evaluating how much the dividend payments have changed over time. Santander Consumer USA Holdings has seen its dividend decline 7.7% per annum on average over the past six years, which is not great to see. Santander Consumer USA Holdings is a rare case where dividends have been decreasing at the same time as earnings per share have been improving. It's unusual to see, and could point to unstable conditions in the core business, or more rarely an intensified focus on reinvesting profits. To Sum It Up Has Santander Consumer USA Holdings got what it takes to maintain its dividend payments? It has been growing its earnings per share somewhat in recent years, although it reinvests more than half its earnings in the business, which could suggest there are some growth projects that have not yet reached fruition. We think this is a pretty attractive combination, and would be interested in investigating Santander Consumer USA Holdings more closely. Curious what other investors think of Santander Consumer USA Holdings? See what analysts are forecasting, with this visualisation of its historical and future estimated earnings and cash flow. We wouldn't recommend just buying the first dividend stock you see, though. Here's a list of interesting dividend stocks with a greater than 2% yield and an upcoming dividend. If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Thank you for reading. (Natural News) An investigative journalist is supposed to be someone who digs deep, sometimes working for years to expose the truth about a single crime thats been committed, corruption that has gone undiscovered, fraud that has left people destitute, and so on. Also known as watchdog journalism, the investigative journalist shines a light on what others have gone to great lengths to hide. The goal of this type of journalism? To trigger change, reveal what has been hidden, and get to the truth of what really happened in any given situation. While the mainstream media focuses on simply reporting the news, investigative journalists work hard to get to the truth behind some of those stories or at least thats what theyre supposed to do. In recent years, however, it seems as though investigative journalists like many in the mainstream media have either become incredibly lazy or are actively working to spread misinformation. Either way, the real truth about many of the stories we are fed on the news just never gets exposed anymore. A perfect example of this is the tragic death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, an unarmed African American high school student who was shot to death by neighborhood watch coordinator, George Zimmerman. The media portrayed the incident as a racially motivated killing, never stopping to check the true facts of the case. Everybody took sides, and racial strife on a scale not seen in decades resulted. Yet, had the investigative journalists done their job properly, much of this strife and anguish could have been prevented, because in reality, false witnesses had been brought in by the prosecution to make its case, and what was simply a tragic accident was falsely paraded as an example of callous racism. Martins family were told a pack of lies, and Zimmermans life was destroyed. (Related: Compilation of 12 fake news stories from the mainstream media.) Fortunately, thanks to the work of an old school, dogged investigative reporter, the truth has finally come out and Zimmerman can begin to get his life back. Sadly, the ripple effects of the racial rifts caused by this case continue to be felt. (Related: Fake news is what you get when the mainstream media tells you vaccines are completely safe.) Where were the investigative journalists? As reported by American Thinker, in researching his book, The Trayvon Hoax: Unmasking the Witness Fraud that Divided America, investigative reporter Joel Gilbert did what all investigative journalists should do to find the truth of what lies behind the medias most sensational stories: Joel demonstrated a long-lost art, investigative journalism, and he did it in a fun, entertaining, and easily readable manner. Unlike cable news gabbers who get their talking points from echo chamber left-wing distributions networks, Joel examined phone records, photos, and yearbooks. He pounded the pavement, knocked on doors and actually talked to people. Once upon a time this was called gumshoe journalism, walking around, investigating, putting in actual effort. Modern journalists only use their thumbs, checking Twitter feeds and reporting tweets as verified news. Gilberts hard work paid off big time. He reveals in his book how the mainstream media did all it could to fan the flames of racial hatred instead of doing its job and finding out what really happened: Big media played its part in the Trayvon hoax as in NBC doctoring George Zimmermans 911 call so that Zimmerman appeared to be a racist, providing a racial angle for his self-defense shooting of Trayvon Martin. CNN described Zimmerman as a white Hispanic to keep the race angle front and center in their reporting. Zimmerman was acquitted of second-degree murder, despite the prosecutions use of false witnesses, and is now suing the Martin family, their lawyers and prosecutors for $100 million. But the damage is done: Zimmerman continues to receive death threats and suffers from both depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). If journalists had accepted their responsibility to find out what really happened on the night Trayvon Martin died, a massive amount of anger, grief and bitterness could have been averted. Learn more about the mainstream medias fake news at FactCheck.news. Sources include: AmericanThinker.com TheGuardian.com Source: Xinhua| 2020-02-02 13:15:15|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close WUHAN, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- Zhong Xiaofeng is the head nurse at Wuhan Pulmonary Hospital, one of the first hospitals to treat patients infected with novel coronavirus, and she has not been able to take a day off for weeks. "We have been receiving patients since Jan. 3. There were not many infections in the beginning, and suddenly, there were lots, and our hospital quickly became full," said Zhong, who works in the ICU unit. "It is stifling to work in the ICU room, wearing the protective overalls, but we only have a limited number of the suits, so we decided to drink less water and not come out too often to use the restroom," she said. Nurses often work up to 10 hours with no break in between, and when they emerged from the unit, their clothes were soaked in sweat. "The hospital has sent doctors and nurses to help us with the job, and 80 percent of the staff that come to our aid are members of the Communist Party of China (CPC)," she said. "It is not that we are not afraid. Taking care of these patients entails a great risk of exposure, but we all embrace our responsibilities. CPC members in particular shall be the vanguard in the emergency situation," she said. Amid the outbreak, various levels of the organization departments of the CPC have been urged to play an active role in winning the battle against the novel coronavirus epidemic. A circular issued recently by the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee highlighted a performance assessment of leading officials in the epidemic control. Those who fail to fulfill their responsibilities or behave dishonestly should be held accountable, it said. Party organizations of public hospitals, relevant universities and research institutes should lead medical workers and specialists to fulfill their duties in medical operations, research and virus prevention, it said, adding that Party members should work at the frontline. Wang Shoujun, a community worker near Donghu Lake in Wuhan, is battling the virus in another frontline. "If a resident in my community is quarantined for virus infection, their residence shall be immediately disinfected. That is my job," he said. "We are not professional health workers, but with expert guidance, we are doing the job pretty well," said the 48-year-old. Wang works with nine others, all of whom are CPC members. "I know it is difficult to fight the virus. It is new and it hides well. Everybody is better off staying at home to prevent it from spreading, but some people have to be at the forefront. That is what I'm doing. The CPC membership further urges me to take the role," he said. Zhou Pan is a manager at the construction site of the Huoshenshan (Fire God Mountain) field hospital, which is expected to house 1,000 beds when it is put into use on Monday. "Building a field hospital of this size in such a short time, I've never seen anything like this before," he said. Zhou manages a team of 30 workers, 20 of whom are CPC members. "We are working around the clock. My workers sleep here on the ground against the materials, dozing off for a moment and then going back to work," he said. He established a temporary Party branch at the site, requiring CPC members to take a leading role in completing each and every task on time with no hitches. "Materials, workload, machinery and logistics -- these procedures shall be planned well to make sure everything goes smoothly," he said. "I came here on the eve of the Chinese Lunar New Year, but my family supports me 100 percent. My wife is also a CPC member," he said. Down on the Guatemala-Mexico border, it's like a return to the good old days, or when Mexico was very tough on Central Americans trying to walk up to the U.S. I have spoken with Central Americans over the years, and they will relate horrific stories of crossing Mexico, from rape of young women to indefinite incarceration to just plain nasty "federales." Well, President Lopez-Obrador has turned out to be a great illegal immigration ally. He just plain shut down the caravans. He did it by just stopping the people at the border, as we see in this from the AP: Mexico has made clear that it will no longer allow large caravans to pass through its territory, following intense pressure and threatened trade tariffs from Washington last year. Early caravans beginning in late 2018 were largely permitted passage, at times receiving humanitarian aid and transportation from local communities and governments. But now Mexico has thousands of National Guard troops deployed to support immigration enforcement, and Guatemala, too, returned hundreds from the most recent caravan to Honduras. When negotiations with a de facto spokesman for the caravan broke down along a highway in the southern state of Chiapas last week, Mexican guardsmen banging batons against riot shields advanced and engaged. There was shoving and pepper spray in the chaos. Many sobbed as they allowed themselves to be escorted to the buses, while others fled or resisted and were cornered or subdued. Lopez Obrador on Friday praised the troops, saying, "The National Guard behaved very well. It resisted, it held firm, it did not give in to provocations." The president also said there were no human rights violations. Some human rights groups have expressed concerns about the operation, including the detention of children and other vulnerable people in the caravan. Well, AMLO, as the president is called, drew a line, and he is enforcing it! President Lopez-Obrador's tough actions has many in the Mexico calling him "Trump's enforcer." In fact, he is only enforcing Mexican laws. I've had several conversations with Mexicans, and nobody is complaining about troops on the border. In other words, they don't want the caravans either, especially since they seem to be bringing people from lots of different places. Let's give Mr. AMLO his due here. Or let's remember the line from Field of Dreams about how if you build it, they will come. In this case, if you stop them, they won't come. PS: You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter. Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday hit out at Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, telling him to focus on the schools and hospitals in his state. Speaking at a public rally in Vishwas Nagar ahead of the Delhi Assembly Elections, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday hit out at Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, telling him to focus on the schools and hospitals in his state. " The Uttar Pradesh chief minister has been saying that the schools and hospitals in Delhi are not upto the mark, the quality of education is not good. But the people of Delhi are saying that it is definitely better than that in his state," ANI reported Kejriwal as saying. Taking at dig at Yogi Adityanath over his criticism of the schools in Delhi, Kejriwal said, "First take care of schools and hospitals in your state. We all know the condition. We all know what happened in Gorakhpur." He also alleged that the development of Vishwas Nagar Assembly constituency suffered because the BJP MLA did not let the AAP government work in the area. The constituency in East Delhi was one of the three Assembly seats that the BJP won in the last assembly polls. The sitting BJP MLA OP Sharma has not let the AAP government build mohalla clinics in the area and install CCTV cameras, Kejriwal alleged. He also spoke about the AAP government's scheme under which tenants in Delhi will be able to avail power subsidy. "I have directed Deepak Singla (the AAP candidate for Vishwas Nagar) to help tenants get the benefit of the scheme." "The area has suffered a lot as the BJP MLA did not let the AAP government do work in the Assembly constituency. If the AAP wins, I will personally ensure that the area is developed," the AAP chief said. The Delhi Assembly elections will be held on 8 February. With inputs from agencies Source: Xinhua| 2020-02-02 23:34:14|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close VALLETTA, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- The Armed Forces of Malta rescued 47 migrants from rough seas between Malta and Libya and brought them to land on Sunday. The meteorological situation is worsening as wind speeds pick up due to a low pressure system forming over Italy. The rescue came after another group of 77 migrants was brought to Malta on Thursday. We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Go to form A Nigerian man identified as Olaniyi Oluwasayo Oladele has been sentenced to 12 years imprisonment by Justice J.K Omotosho of the Federal High Court sitting in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. Oluwasayo was sentenced to 12 years in prison with N100,000 option of fine for illegal dealing in petroleum products without appropriate licence. In a statement released by the anti-graft, it stated that the offence is contrary to Section 1 (17) (a) of the Miscellaneous Offences Act Cap M17 of the Revised Edition (Laws of the Federation of Nigeria) Act 2007 and punishable under Section 1 (18) (a) (i) of the same Act. The convict was prosecuted alongside Sule Ezra and MV Idoma River by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission EFCC, Port Harcourt Zonal office on a three-count charge to which he pleaded guilty. He got seven years on count two and five on count three, which run concurrently. The second defendant, Sule Ezra was discharged and acquitted, while the third, M.V Idoma River 101 was ordered to be forfeited to the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The defendants journey to prison started in February 5, 2017 when he was arrested alongside six others by officers of the Nigerian Navy at Akpos Jetty, Aboloma in Port Harcourt with the vessel, MV Idoma River 101, laden with about 140,000 liters of adulterated substance, suspected to be illegally refined automotive gas oil, diverted from its approved destination in a mother vessel, Silver Point. The vessel and crew members were handed over to EFCC for further investigation and possible prosecution. Follow Us on Facebook @LadunLiadi; Instagram @LadunLiadi; Twitter @LadunLiadi; Youtube @LadunLiadiTV for updates China has been more transparent about the coronavirus than it has been in previous crises but Beijing has not yet accepted a U.S. offer of help to contain the epidemic, White House national security adviser Robert O'Brien said on Sunday. "So far the Chinese have been more transparent certainly than in past crises and we appreciate that," O'Brien said in an interview with CBS' "Face the Nation." He noted the United States has offered to send U.S. medical and other health professionals. "We have not heard back yet from the Chinese on those offers but we are prepared to continue to cooperate with them," O'Brien said. Search Keywords: Short link: The long-simmering issue of charter school reform in Pennsylvania was brought to the forefront last week, which was National School Choice Week, by a legion of school superintendents banding together in a call for change in charter school laws. More than 30 superintendents from districts in five counties across the greater Philadelphia region stood together at a press conference in Eagleville, Montgomery County, to announce themselves as a new coalition, the Leaders for Educational Accountability and Reform Network. LEARN is comprised of school leaders who are standing up for public education and fighting for charter school reform, said Frank Gallagher, superintendent of Souderton Area School District. Superintendents from districts, large and small, with diverse demographics took to the podium with statistics and anecdotes about the damaging effect of current charter school law on local public school finances. Jim Scanlon, superintendent of the West Chester Area School District, said the only reforms to charter school law in Pennsylvania in recent years have further undermined the local control and reduced our ability to hold schools accountable. Chris Dormer, superintendent of the Norristown Area School District, said his district spends roughly $9.5 million on charter school tuition payments for 550 students to attend schools that are not located within the district. Gallagher cited differences in teacher certification and evaluations, noting that only 75 percent of charter school teachers need to be properly certified. Superintendents cited inequity in special education costs: A special education program within a school district costs about $7,000 per student for the district to provide, compared to $24,192 per pupil the district pays to a charter school, according to June 2018 records from the Pennsylvania Association of Superintendents. Superintendents also pointed to statistics about graduation rates among charters and public schools. According to 2018 statistics for Southeastern Pennsylvania from Public Citizens for Children and Youth, an average 51 percent of cyber charter school students graduated as compared to the 93 percent average within school districts. The coalitions points were immediately refuted in a statement by Ana Meyers, executive director of the Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools. She criticized LEARN for making their stand at the start of National School Choice Week which is intended to showcase charter schools in a positive light. Its clear to anyone paying attention that their political agenda is to put more money in their coffers, not help students seeking the best educational options available, she said, of the superintendents. A statement on the groups website refuted comments from the LEARN press conference point by point. For their part, the superintendents made it clear they have no problem with school choice for families, as long as that choice is held accountable both in funding equity and in performance standards. The superintendents called on state lawmakers to propose reform and get it done. The one group left out in this perennial back and forth are local taxpayers, who have no say in the drain on public school finances created by current charter school law. If all schools were funded through state coffers, the debate might be different. As long as Pennsylvania funds education through the local property tax, charter reform proponents say legislators have an obligation to free the local districts from mandates and laws that drain their finances. During the past few years, calls for reform have been growing as several common-sense proposals have been floated in Harrisburg. House Bill 526 and Senate Bill 34 neither of which made it to floor votes could save $19.6 million in school taxes each year in Montgomery County alone, according to a March 2019 analysis by the Montgomery County Intermediate Unit. The bills would put the burden of tuition onto parents choosing a cyber charter if their home school district operates a comparable cyber program. The Senate bill was sponsored by Berks Countys State Sen. Judy Schwank, D-11th Dist. Current charter school law creates a critical financial burden for local districts, superintendents say, a fact that drives the passion for reform on display Monday. We applaud this group for showing leadership on behalf of local school boards and taxpayers, and we urge state lawmakers to heed their call. This debate should not be partisan nor should it hinge on attitudes about school choice. Reform is needed to manage the tax burden and to ensure that children, regardless of choice, are in schools that are held accountable to high standards. We urge lawmakers to learn from these school leaders and enact needed reforms. Flash In recent days, more foreign leaders have spoken positively of and supported China's efforts to battle the novel coronavirus outbreak through various means. In his call to Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered sympathies over the pain and loss inflicted on Chinese families and wished each patient a speedy recovery. He expressed belief that under Xi's leadership, China's resolute measures will contain the epidemic and minimize losses. The Russian people are willing to offer necessary aid to the friendly Chinese people, Putin said, adding that relevant Russian departments will work with counterparts in China through closest coordination to eliminate this common threat. Calling Chinese leaders' efficient response and the heroism of the Chinese people admirable, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that Belarus, always China's reliable and loyal friend, will offer medical supplies to help the Chinese people battle the epidemic. Thai King Maha Vajiralongkorn said that the international community is greatly impressed by the efforts and determination of the Chinese government to fight the epidemic and the extensive epidemic prevention measures it has taken. The Thai people and himself will pull together with the Chinese people in times of trouble, the king said, extending wishes that China will secure an early victory against the epidemic. Nepali President Bidhya Devi Bhandari said that at this difficult time, Nepal will firmly unite with the Chinese government and the friendly Chinese people. Bhandari expressed appreciation of and support for the Chinese leaders' extraordinary efforts to contain the epidemic, and thanked China for taking care of Nepali citizens in China. Tunisian President Kais Saied spoke highly of the Chinese government's efforts in combating the epidemic, expressing belief that under the strong and wise leadership of Xi, China's efforts to contain the outbreak will soon pay off. Cameroonian President Paul Biya said that on behalf of the Cameroonian people, he offered sympathies and support to the Chinese people at a time when the Chinese government and people are fighting a heroic battle against the epidemic. Cote d'Ivoire's President Alassane Ouattara said the government and people of Cote d'Ivoire firmly support the efforts made by the Chinese government and people in fighting the epidemic. Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan said the Pakistani side highly appreciates and firmly supports China's efforts to combat the epidemic and thanks China for providing help to Pakistani citizens in China. The Pakistani side firmly believes that China can give full play to its unique institutional advantages to overcome the epidemic, Khan said, adding that Pakistan is willing to mobilize all the country's medical supplies reserves to assist China, and will firmly stand alongside the brotherly Chinese people. Mongolian Prime Minister Ukhnaa Khurelsukh said the people of Mongolia understand the feelings of the Chinese government and people, who are facing the challenges posed by the epidemic. The Mongolian people believe that under the strong leadership of the Chinese government and with the concerted efforts of the Chinese people, China will soon rein in the epidemic. Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said Singapore will closely cooperate with China to jointly combat the epidemic. China is making efforts to control the illness and Singapore has been prepared. There is no need to panic. Prime Minister of Sao Tome and Principe Jorge Bom Jesus offered his sympathy and support to the Chinese government and believed that China will defeat the epidemic. Karen Williams was driving to her Atascocita home from Dallas in 2013 the first time she experienced a double vision from a disease she didnt realize she had. She pulled over and told her husband, Henry, that she couldnt drive anymore. I was driving and the road divided on me, just divided, Karen said. You could see the lights It was like two highways, two sets of lights. At the time, she didnt know what had happened, but several months down the road she found out she had developed Thyroid Eye Disease after having Graves disease. Although TED can happen to anyone, up to 50% of people with Graves disease can get TED, according to a report from Horizon. Karen thought she wouldnt get TED because 80% of those who develop the disorder get diagnosed within 18 months of being diagnosed with Graves disease. Graves disease is caused by hyperthyroidism, which Karen realized she had in 2000, as she was suffering from anxiety and became tired from doing simple tasks. Karen was first misdiagnosed with depression. She was taken to the emergency room for severe symptoms of hyperthyroidism and was told she should go on anti-depressants. After going to her gynecologist, she was correctly diagnosed and treated for hyperthyroidism. Karen enjoyed crafting with needlepoint and reading books outside of working at the Texas Department of Corrections, but she started to give up her hobbies and shut off from the world as she began a two-year fight against her disease. She even thought about quitting her job at times because it became so difficult to deal with. Karen compensated for the double vision by wearing an eye patch while driving and tilting her head. Even without glasses, youre eyes get so tired, Karen said. My eyes were always tired, and even when I had my glasses on my eyeball touched the lens of my glasses so I always had a dot there I always had them so low because I couldnt stand my eyeball touching the lens of my glasses. TED can cause double vision as the eye begins to protrude from the face. In the most severe cases, the eye can even pop out of the socket. Karen, who is now 64 years old, was lucky and grateful, as she puts it, for finding the disease when the trial for TEPEZZA was in phase two at the Eye Wellness Center in Houston, the first and only treatment that is now FDA approved. TEPEZZA was first studied as a cancer drug but was found the have benefits to treat TED. Related: Summerwood pharmacist works to change patient experience, education for healthier outcomes After the treatments in the trial, Karen started to see improvements until one day when she woke up and saw the world with normal vision again for the first time in years. I was driving and the road divided on me, just divided. You could see the lights It was like two highways, two sets of lights. -- Karen Williams said. Now, Karen can enjoy the little things again, like needlepoint, reading books and visiting her Mom in Liberty, TX. I found all these things I had started years ago and theyve been sitting and I got them all out, Im finishing those up, Karen said. Some of those I finished probably 15 years ago and I just started working on those. So thats been kind of like a very joyous thing for me that I can actually sit there and do that. Karen will be in Las Vegas in March to talk with sales representatives for the drug to explain how it gave her the ability to have a normal life again. She only needs glasses for reading now and is enjoying books and needlepoint again now that she is retired after 31 years of work with the Texas Department of Correction. Karen went to Washington D.C. in December to tell her story of how the drug benefited her and watched as others who had the disease went through the surgical and steroid options before TEPEZZA, who told stories of shutting their eyelids closed with tape to sleep, stitches in their eyelid, and the pain they live with every day. I had never met anyone else with Graves disease up until that weekend, and I had never talked to anyone that had Thyroid Eye Disease besides me, Karen said. So that for me was just a revelation because I actually got to talk to someone that had experienced what I had experienced, most of them much worse. There is no way to prevent TED, but research has shown that smoking increases the risk for someone 2 in 8 fold. Karen never smoked, but she was also an unlikely case because she was diagnosed 12.5 years after being treated for hypothyroidism. I can only speak for myself, and thats one thing that I dont know how this drug is going to work for others, Karen said. For more information, visit the Horizon website fact sheet here. savannah.mehrtens@chron.com Arvind Kejriwal has, at every public event and governance speech with the judiciary and public, continued his unwavering and unconditional support to staffing our courts and judicial ecosystem to their sanctioned strength. Editor's Note: This is a three-part series on Aam Aadmi Party's impact on the state of democracy, development and rule of law in Delhi that remains undocumented by the press. An insiders look at National Capital's transforming legislative, executive and judiciary through public participation, co-creation and citizen-centric decision-making. This is the first part of the series. In predictable Indian public discourse where state capacity is low and the rule of law is ineffective, the concept of justice is shaped by the reactions and decisions taken in high-profile cases. The prerequisites to the broader efficiency in the delivery of justice and reduced pendency of cases arent subjects of public speculation. When the Aam Aadmi Party came to power in 2015, one of its core concerns was to make justice accessible to the common man and increase the operational productivity in the justice ecosystem of citizens, lawyers and judges. Heres a look at what transpired slowly and steadily without finding much attention from either the press or the Opposition. On 15 January, 2014, when the 49-day AAP government was in power, in the case of DDA vs Sh. Ram Kumar Gupta, a judgment penned by Justice Ravindra Bhat was pronounced. In this case, the petitioner owned nine bighas of land notified for acquisition. The petitioner applied for allotment of an alternative industrial plot under a scheme which enabled owners (whose land were subject of acquisition) on 21.07.1971. The DDA made an allotment on 19.07.1978 in respect of plot measuring 2,000 square yards in Okhla Industrial Area with a basis in a Master plan brought into force in 1962. However, the DDA, even after twenty-five years of the acquisition, made this the basis for rejection of the petitioner's application, after it had received consideration repeatedly at several levels of decision making. The judgment stated: Likewise, each time the DDA rejected the petitioner's application, it cited a new reason: in 1990, it stated that the lands were needed for railways: a reason soon found to be incorrect, as it turned out that land user had not been verified when such letter was written. The court was of the view that the DDA cannot have a grievance because the single judge entertained the writ petition. Its own conduct precluded it from setting up such a technical plea. Each time it turned down the petitioner's application, different reasons were cited. The reason for citing this case is simple: the DDAs functioning has over the years swayed to the tune of bureaucratic whims which stemmed from an unstable master plan and its complicated effects on Delhis development. And the workings of the DDA were known to those in the judiciary, given the frequency of such cases. In February 2015, swiftly after coming into power, the Government of NCT informed the Delhi High Court that it has asked the departments concerned to inform it about the availability of land for construction of more court complexes in the National Capital. A bench of justices S Ravindra Bhat and RK Gauba was also informed by Deputy Secretary, Department of Law, Justice and Legislative Affairs that, it has also sought information with regard to the availability of vacant buildings which can be temporarily used for accommodating the courts. The government's response was in line with the high courts request to the Delhi government to provide more court space and infrastructure for the judicial officers in the National Capital. This governance action was repeated as a specific poll promise in the 70-point action plan. It had also said that the Chief Secretary shall consult the concerned agencies such as the Land and Development Officer, the DDA, the NDMC, the PWD and the Delhi High Court and suggest such suitable mechanism which shall monitor on uniform basis the identification of land, progress of various clearances such as funding, approvals, sanctions and constructions of the court buildings. This was a landmark move, in an instance freeing up the ideal of justice from the clutches of departmental bungling and administrative notoriety. Also Read AAP reimagines role of legislative within Indian democracy by holding executive to greater public scrutiny, pushing for transparency From involving whistleblowers to experts, brainstorming through Delhi Dialogue helped AAP employ citizen-centric approach encouraging self-governance The construction of new courts that werent on Delhi Development Authority (DDA) land and were thus free of repeatedly establishing their own legal status thus became a priority for the AAP-led government. For instance, the new Rouse Avenue Court Complex has been constructed where all anti-corruption cases, the ideological baseline for AAP and IAC, will now on be tried. Similarly, in 2016, a Delhi cabinet meeting chaired by the Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal sanctioned Rs 116 crore for the construction of a new block at the High Court of Delhi. The Building Maintenance & Construction Committee (BMCC) of the High Court of Delhi had proposed construction of this new building on 2.74-acre land at Bapa Nagar, Zakir Hussain Marg, New Delhi to meet the requirement of additional infrastructure facilities on account of increased workload and increase in sanctioned strength of the judges of the high court. The cabinet has also approved Department of Laws proposal of construction of 144 numbers of temporary courtrooms in the existing court complexes of Tis Hazari, Saket and Karkardooma. The Delhi Government has also improved the justice delivery system around commercial disputes and crimes against women, which has been sped up by setting up 22 new commercial courts and 18 permanent fast-track courts in Delhi with an increase in the logistical, structural and legal resources at each of them. Kejriwal has, at every public event and governance speech with the judiciary and public, continued his unwavering and unconditional support to staffing our courts and judicial ecosystem to their sanctioned strength urging the Government of India and Supreme Court to implement the same. When an officer is directly accountable to the LG (Home Secretary) or the Delhi High Court (Law Secretary), and hasnt been able to or allowed to implement AAP plans like two-shift courts or judge appointments, we have ensured that funds, permissions or clearances from the Delhi Government are ready and available for the respective institutions to close the governance loop. Once the infrastructure was in place, it was necessary to fill it up with skilled professionals and empower them. The Government of NCT of Delhi has not only created new posts and filled vacancies in the law department but also set aside Rs 50 crore under the Chief Minister Advocate Welfare Scheme to support lawyers in the National Capital and also installed Mohalla clinics in the vicinity of courts. The Delhi cabinet has decided to convert commercial electricity connections to domestic ones in chambers of advocates in Delhi. With this decision, like other domestic users, advocates will also receive benefits like any Delhi citizen. Funds have also been sanctioned for the construction of judicial officers' residential complexes at Dwarka and Rohini. The Aam Aadmi Party has also batted for the revision of pay scales of public prosecutors so as to match their counterparts in other states. The exemplary work done by the Delhi government-appointed public prosecutors in Nirbhaya case and Ankit Saxena honour killing case needs no introduction. The AAP-led government has constantly supported all aspects of the judicial ecosystem. By releasing funds timely to Delhi State Legal Services Authority (DSLSA) for compensation claims of victims, free and competent legal service to the weaker sections of the society are being provided and that opportunities for securing justice are not denied to any citizen by reason of economic or other disabilities. The India Justice Report 2019 prepared by the Tata Trusts in collaboration with the Centre for Social Justice, Common Cause, and the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative stated, "On average, no state or UT apart from Delhi spent even 1 percent of its budget on the judiciary. Nationally, India spends 0.08 percent. All states combined (excluding the Central government) spent 0.54 percent of their total expenditure on the judiciary in 20152016. Just one state/UT spent more than 1 percent, which was Delhi, with 1.9 percent. Beyond Delhi, the percentage of budget spent on judiciary ranged from 0.1 percent (Arunachal Pradesh) to 0.96 percent (Punjab). There were eighteen states spending between 0.5 percent and 1 percent on the judiciary, including thirteen from our large and mid-size states." The report further stated that if the courts were to work at full capacity across India, there would be a shortfall of 4,071 court halls. The existing number of court halls is more than enough to accommodate the working strength of the judiciary, as it stood on March 2018. According to National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG), the five states which account for the highest pendency are Uttar Pradesh (61.58 lakh), Maharashtra (33.22 lakh), West Bengal (17.59 lakh), Bihar (16.58 lakh) and Gujarat (16.45 lakh). In this context, the work of the AAP to empower lawyers and the judiciary is commendable. The delivery of justice, however, is not just the eminent domain of lawyers and judges. There are numerous interventions in governance that can assist and implement the delivery of justice. For example, this is a copy of the cabinet decision forming a Group of Ministers on Safety of Women & Children in Delhi of which I was an ex-officio member working closely with Abhishek Tewari and Mrinal Satish, lawyers who worked with the JS Verma Committee. We brought in women lawyers from National Law University, Delhi, and along with expert consultation came up with specific implementable solutions. We realised, through classroom discussions in Delhi government schools, that crimes such as voyeurism and stalking were massively under-reported, the forensic analysis took a long time, and compensation for rape survivors and acid attack victims werent made available till the legal proceedings started. These were things the Delhi government could fix independent of the Delhi Police or Delhi High Court. Internalising the ecosystem within the judiciary has also helped the government identify the consequences of crimes more effectively. The government made claiming compensation much easier for acid attack and rape survivors and shifted the burden of proof from citizens to the State. It stated that various departments will submit a list of pendency of cases with special prosecutors, set up forensic labs to ensure investigations are fair and not tampered with and install CCTV cameras to light up dark spots. All these policy decisions have been followed up on and implemented by the agencies of the Delhi government from 2016 to mid-2018. For the betterment of the turnaround time in DNA investigation, the Delhi government augmented and transformed for the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL). The FSL now has human and scientific resources to ensure its service level assurances and ultra-modern facilities for testing of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances, advanced narco analysis and brain mapping facilities for psychological examination, and advanced crime scene examination and investigation services (24X7). The government took a citizen-centric view towards law and justice where agencies such as MCD or DDA are erring in their constitutional mandates by pivoting to schemes that empower citizens to solve problems themselves. After lighting the dark spots across the city with discoms, PWD and non-profits working on women safety, the Delhi government hit a dead end with unauthorised colonies, slums, colonies under DDA and roads under MCD. Here, we implemented the Mukhyamantri Street Light Yojana, giving 2.1 lakh streetlights (of three types: 10 W, 25 W and 40 W) and paying for the bills of these lights through discoms for 70 constituencies. It also ensured that compensation schemes like the Disaster Relief Fund for agriculturists and the families of victims of 1984 anti-Sikh riots was made independent of Central schemes, increased dramatically and delivered to the citys citizens swiftly by the revenue department. The state took responsibility instead of letting misplaced and misaligned authority delay the process of justice. Aside from this, the Home Department of the Government of NCT of Delhi has focused on the aspect of reform as integral to the judicial system and has granted in-principle approval to Tihar Jail authorities' proposal to unveil a semi-open prison (SOP) to reform convicts, reward their good conduct and prepare them for reintegration into life outside. Again, this is a far cry from conversations around politics of parole, policy of release and incarceration of famous or infamous personalities, whose fates are always controlled by electoral polls and results as well as the Minister of Home Affairs in the Government of India. Interestingly, in order to follow a bottom-up approach and truly service the grassroots, the MLA Local Area Development (LAD) fund has been increased 250 percent: from Rs 4 crore to Rs 10 crore. By allocating more funds into the local problems of their constituencies, the legislators can really decentralise the process so as to truly pursue social justice. This has been used to create secure community demarcations, community spaces like parks and reading centres and neighbourhood watch initiatives as well. Justice, in AAPs view, isnt limited to that handful of judgments that catch public attention and are given political spin, but the resolve to ensure it doesnt remain pending in the court of law. Justice is not a political achievement or something that calls for a collective celebration. Justice is the norm and good governance is about staying committed towards it without repeatedly asserting that commitment. The author has been a volunteer with Aam Aadmi Party and advisor in the Delhi Government since 2014. He holds two graduate degrees in public policy and engineering from Stanford University and was formerly an RA with MIT JPAL. The mayor, Vitaliy Klitschko, a professional boxer turned politician and longtime friend and former client of Mr. Giulianis was on the verge of being fired from his duties overseeing Kyivs $2 billion budget. Firing Mr. Klitschko would have fit with President Volodymyr Zelenskys campaign promise to fight Ukraines entrenched interests and allowed him to replace a political adversary with a loyalist in one of the countrys most important posts. But despite the fact that Mr. Zelenskys cabinet approved Mr. Klitschkos removal, he remains there today, leaving his adversaries in the murky and lucrative world of Ukrainian municipal politics to wonder whether Mr. Trumps personal attorney may have tipped the scales in his favor. It has been a few years since the "Fast & Furious" hit the big screen. Now that they are back to drive their way to cinemas again, they surprised fans even more with a shocking revelation about a supposedly dead character. In the first trailer for "Fast 9" which was released before January ended, it was revealed that Dom, Vin Diesel's character, has a younger brother. It will be played by John Cena in the new movie of the franchise. However, what stunned fans more is the return of Han, Sung Kang's character, who was supposed to die in Tokyo Drift. In the trailer, he was driving an orange Toyota Supra while performing some sideway action. To look back, Han was killed during the final scene of "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift" in 2006 after he got blown up by Deckard Shaw (played by Jason Statham) before calling Dominic Toretto, marked the beginning of "Furious 7." The character Han was in "Fast & Furious" in 2009, "Fast Five" in 2011 and "Fast & Furious 6" in 2013. The three movies, however, all happened before "Tokyo Drift." The comeback news made Han's fans rejoice online, so much so that Han made it to Twitter's trending list on Jan. 31. Under the "HAN IS ALIVE" topic, fans shared their thoughts as soon as they saw the character alive and kicking on the trailer. One fan wrote, "Fast & Furious 9 trailer was like 'wouldn't it be crazy if John Cena was Vin Diesels little brother??? Oh and also Han is alive..." "Everybody asking 'How is Han alive?' as if them collecting all 7 Dragon Balls isn't possible," another Twitter user said. Since the trailer broke some previous theories, fans expect that they will get more answers in the future trailers. Or maybe they have to wait until "Fast 9" hits cinemas on May 22 of this year. Why And How Is Han Back? Prior to the release of the "Fast & Furious 9" trailer, Chris Morgan -- the film writer who has been working on every Fast movie except for the first two films -- has already expressed his intention to revive Han. In 2017 during Morgan's interview with /Film, he revealed that he has been contemplating and putting so much effortinto finding ways to bring Han back into the film. "Now, that's funny because I've actually been thinking about that a lot. So it's interesting that you and I are on the same wavelength there. But I guess we'll just have to wait and find out. I love Sung - he's one of my favorite people on the planet," the writer said as he revealed why he wanted the character back. However, Michelle Rodriguez, who played Letty, voiced out in 2019 her annoyance with how they treated the franchise's female characters in the past. Rodriguez mainly directed her irritation at Morgan through Twitter and said that he has nothing to do with the "Justice for Han" narrative. "I've been around since the beginning way before Chris Morgan came along & he has absolutely nothing to do with where this narrative is or where it's going FYI ? Hobbs and Shaw writer promises that justice for Han is coming," she spoke up. Whatever the next film will reveal soon, the fans remain okay as long as Han is surely going back in the movie. Dakar: President Donald Trump's addition of four African countries to his administration's travel ban could fuel discrimination and stifle business, leaders warned on Saturday as people across the continent reeled at the news. Most citizens of Nigeria - Africa's most populous nation and biggest economy - and Eritrea would be blocked from coming to live and work in the United States under the measure, which takes effect February 22, while Tanzania and Sudan would be barred from the competitive US visa lottery. Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari Credit:AP The White House called the new restrictions "the height of common sense" in a statement, adding that foreign countries must "satisfy basic security conditions" before their citizens could move to the United States. Most citizens from Myanmar and Kyrgyzstan would also be banned under the new measure. Iran recently issued a press release boasting of its new underground missile storage sites. These missile cities are usually dug into mountains, sometimes by expanding existing natural cave systems. Iran revealed that in the last six years it had built three of these underground missile garages. Pictures have been released showing dozens of missiles stored in what appears to be underground settings. The recent construction program was made possible by the growing use of solid-fuel missiles, which do not require the time-consuming fueling process that older liquid-fuel rockets undergo before launch. For solid-fuel missiles, you need a truck capable of carrying, erecting the missile into an upright position and firing it. Each launch usually does some damage to the vehicle, which must undergo repairs or at least close inspection, before reuse. The Iranian missile bunkers are built mainly to prevent missiles from being destroyed by airstrikes. As has been demonstrated in Syria, Iranian missiles stored aboveground are extremely vulnerable. The underground bunkers also have shortcomings. For example, the recent press release was mainly intended for foreign audiences. Reminding Iranians about the expense of building these underground facilities is not wise. Since 2017 Iranians have been increasingly outspoken about the amount of money spent on military projects, especially the $16 billion cost of the Syrian war since 2012,s very unpopular. More and more Iranians attribute their growing poverty and rising unemployment rates to all the money lavished on military efforts and these underground sites are very expensive to build and maintain. Underground facilities also have drawbacks, aside from the high construction cost. The main problem is vulnerability to smart bombs and penetrator bombs designed to burrow deep into the ground, and through concrete, before detonating. Iran is aware of these and its latest press release also pointed out that the new missile bunkers were often built into mountains so that there are hundreds of meters of rock and earth between the missiles and the surface. Not mentioned was the vulnerability of entrances and air vents. The main reason for all this use of underground facilities since the mid-20th century was the realization that air superiority enabled an enemy to freely bomb aboveground storage areas and military facilities in general. These underground bunkers proved useful against that type of attack using unguided bombs. This led to massive underground construction projects after World War II. The older unguided bombs were not accurate enough to do much damage to those underground facilities until the 1990s. The development of smart bombs in the late 20th century provided other ways to deal with these fortifications. These bombs and missiles can be dropped in large quantities outside the range of air defenses and disable most of these underground facilities by destroying their entrances and air vents. The U.S. and South Korean air forces have invested in a lot of smart bombs for just that sort of attack. Many of these bombs are penetrators that burrow through many meters of earth and concrete before exploding. These are used against the largest and most important underground facilities. The Americans and South Koreans have trained to do this on a large scale in the event of a war and the North Koreans are faced with a countermeasure they never anticipated or prepared for. Underground facilities have other vulnerabilities. Many of the underground factories near the Chinese border depend on hydroelectric dams and generators for power. Take these out and the facilities quickly become useless. Backup diesel generators dont last long, especially if there are problems with the air supply. For underground storage facilities, the roads leading from the facilities road networks or nearby launch areas are vulnerable. Another factor is the late 20th century development of persistent surveillance using space satellites and high flying UAVs. This allows repair efforts to be spotted and quickly attacked. In this way, the underground storage areas become inaccessible and useless. At that point, the main function of these underground storage sites is to protect the missiles from destruction by airstrikes but not from being trapped and inaccessible underground. Iran has long relied on underground facilities as protected spaces where they could build weapons and for ballistic missile and nuclear weapons development efforts. Iran and North Korea have cooperated on the design and construction of these facilities and the Iranians dont have any solution for the smart bomb attacks either. Or, if they do, they are not publicizing it. World War II (1939-45) saw extensive use of underground facilities because of the new threats from the air. Even before that, there was a threat from mass use of longer range and more accurate artillery systems developed early in the 20th century. During the 1930s the French built the Maginot Line along their German border. This was largely a series of tunnels and underground bases with aboveground cupolas for various weapons. The Germans built many underground structures during the war, including a large one for building their V-2 ballistic missiles. After the Korean War (1950-53) North Korea began building numerous underground facilities. What got this going was the extensive and effective use of American airpower against the North Koreans and their Chinese allies during the war. Currently, there are believed to be about 10,000 underground facilities worldwide, including recently built ones for construction and/or storage of nuclear weapons. Most of these North Korea underground facilities are for storing weapons. These include tunnels dug under the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) which forms its border with South Korea. Some of the tunnels that extended into South Korea were discovered and destroyed but South Korea believes there are still about twenty of them that extend into the five kilometer wide DMZ. These tunnels can accommodate up to 30,000 troops as well as vehicles and enable the troops to quickly exit near or in the DMZ if there were another war. North Korea has built many smaller naval bases into mountains along the coast for small boats and mini-subs. Most of these tunnels are less than a kilometer long but in wartime would provide shelter for small subs and boats carrying commandos. These were based on the success of such seaside bunkers built and used successfully by the Germans during World War II to protect their submarine bases. These ship facilities can still be attacked and disabled, but damaging the protected facilities is much more difficult than simply bombing berths and dry docks built in the open. Even neutral Sweden built one of these facilities during World War II for small surface ships and recently put it back into use because of the growing Russian threat. Most of the North Korean underground facilities (at least half) are for artillery and rocket launchers and are built close to the DMZ. In wartime, the artillery and rocket launchers emerge from tunnels, fire, and then withdraw back into the tunnels to avoid air attack or, for the rocket launchers, to reload. Many of these artillery tunnels are built on the reverse (facing north) slope of hills and mountains near the DMZ. Some of the heavier guns and rocket launchers are on rails and behind steel doors. The launchers or guns slide out on the rails, fire, then slide back in and the door is shut to avoid damage from air attacks. Many of these artillery tunnels are meant for bombarding South Koreas largest city and capital, Seoul which is 50 kilometers south of the DMZ. Since the 1960s Seoul has expanded enormously and some of the suburbs are a lot closer to the DMZ. There are also about 200 North Korean underground factories and weapons storage/repair sites. Most of these are near the Chinese border. The most recently built facilities, also near the Chinese border, are for the nuclear weapons program and assembling and launching larger ballistic missiles. There are also about ten underground living/working facilities around the North Korean capital Pyongyang. This includes at least 40 kilometers of underground roads and extremely well protected bunkers for the most senior leader. During World War II the Japanese built more and more underground facilities on Pacific islands with the most extensive system built under the island of Iwo Jima. American marines suffered 26,000 casualties, including 6,800 dead, during five weeks of fighting to take Iwo Jima. Most of the 21,000 Japanese troops manning these fortifications fought to the death and only 216 were taken prisoner. The Japanese were observed building similar facilities on their home islands to oppose a planned 1946 invasion. It was estimated that the invading allied forces would suffer over half a million casualties dealing with these fortifications and fanatical resistance as demonstrated on the islands. The initial alternative was to completely blockade and bomb the home islands for another year, which would have left several million Japanese dead and many more starving. The successful alternative was the two atom bombs dropped in mid-1945, which compelled the Japanese to do the (to them) unthinkable and surrender unconditionally and immediately. Use of smart bombs and penetrator weapons are not without their problems. Smart bombs dependent on GPS guidance can be forced, by jamming, to fall back on less accurate but unjammable INS systems. This means more smart bombs have to be used to destroy tunnel entrances and ventilation systems. A more insidious problem is penetrator bombs that work during tests but perform less well under combat conditions. A recent example of this was revealed in 2018 when U.S. Air Force ordered production of the BLU-137/B bomb as a replacement for the older BLU-109/B penetrator Bunker Buster. BLU-109 has been in use since 1985 and is usually mated with a Paveway laser-guidance kit like the GBU-27. Currently, the most frequently use penetrator bomb is this laser-guided 909 kg (2,000 pound) BLU-109/B. This bunker buster can penetrate five meters (16 feet) of concrete and even more of just dirt. This is accomplished using a 25mm thick steel cashing filled with 240 kg (530 pounds) of Tritonal. In the rear of the bomb is a time delay fuze. Details of how the BLU-137/B is different were not revealed but it is known that the air force has been concerned for years with the number of BLU-109/Bs that failed to detonate after penetrating. This is not a new problem. Back in 2011, the U.S. Air Force spent $36 million to develop a new Hard Target Sensing Fuze for its large (BLU-109 and larger) penetrator bombs. The new fuze would also be reprogrammable by the pilot, while in the air. The pilot can specify how deep the bomb should go before detonating, as well as how many voids (levels of an underground bunker) to go through before detonating. A time delay can also be specified. The new fuze was able to survive a penetration force of 15,000 pounds per square inch (one ton per square cm). The new fuze is used with the BLU-109, 113 or 122 bombs. Improvements to the BLU-109 fuze and detonation system were not sufficient. As more BLU-109s were used against underground targets in Iraq and Syria (and Gaza, by Israeli aircraft) BDA (Bomb Damage Assessment) teams eventually got to target areas and confirmed what prisoner interrogation and other intel reports were describing as an unacceptable level of failed detonations. So the air force ordered a major redesign of its 2000 pound penetrator bomb and apparently tested it sufficiently to be satisfied the reliability problems were fixed and now ordered it into mass production. The BLU-137/B will be interchangeable with the BLU-109/B so that equipment on aircraft or guidance kits wont have to be modified. The failure rate of the BLU-109/B was not so high that could not be used. Instead, to ensure destruction of an underground target, multiple BLU-109/Bs would be used on certain targets. Many BLU-109/B targets were based on imperfect intel and were hit just to take the chance that the enemy bunker would be there and it would be destroyed. Many ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) members believed themselves protected by Allah when the penetrating bomb did indeed penetrate but did not detonate. Not exactly the sort of morale impact such weapons are supposed to have. If the BLU-137/B proves as reliable in combat as it did in testing Islamic terrorists will find their divine intervention has diminished when it comes to penetrating bombs. ISIL made extensive use of deep tunnels and bunkers. In Gaza, Hamas has been getting expert advice from Iranian tunnel builders on how to build more effective tunnels and bunkers. Israel had watched (from the air, and via spies on the ground) as Hezbollah used lots of its Iranian money to build underground bunkers in the areas of southern Lebanon that Israel withdrew from in 2000. In 2012 Israel developed its own penetrator bomb design. This MPR-500.was for a 500 pound (227 kg) penetrator bomb. The MPR-500 can smash through more than a meter (39 inches) of concrete or four 200mm (8 inch) concrete barriers (floors or bunker walls) and then detonate. When the MPR-500 explodes it releases 26,000 fragments, which will wound or kill out to 100 meters. Satisfied with the effectiveness of the MPR-500 Israel went on to design 1,000 pound and 2,000 pound versions. It is unclear if the BLU-137/B design owes anything to the MPR line but Israel and the United States have freely exchanged design info and user experiences for decades and many American designs are heavily influenced and improved by Israeli technology. A 20-minute Executive Council meeting follow immediately and approve Cabinet's decision. Former Pentridge inmate Allan John Cane fly to Melbourne from Brisbane late last night in a vain attempt to see the Premier, Sir Henry Bolte, or the Attorney-General, Mr A. G. Rylah. 'HOPELESS' Ronald Ryan the last person to be executed in Australia. He was hanged in January, 1967, at Pentridge Prison, Melbourne. Less than three hours after returning from London yesterday, Mr Philip Opas, Q.C., went before Mr Justice Starke in the Supreme Court to ask for a stay of execution to allow examination of new evidence. However, Mr Justice Starke, the trial Judge, in refusing the application, said it seemed "entirely hopeless and misconceived." On hearing the Council's final decision, Mr Opas said: "There is no hope now ... no other avenue open. "I can't understand it. Here is a man (Cane) coming to Melbourne this very night with what I feel is vital information and no one waits to see what he is going to say. NOT DRUGGED "It is beyond my comprehension that when there is relevant evidence available it can't be considered. "I am emotionally drained, but at the same time I now call for an unhurried, calm appraisal of capital punishment." Ryan's 75-year-old mother, Mrs Cecilia Ryan, spent an hour with him yesterday. He also spoke to two of his sisters and his step-brother. Ryan was due to attend Mass in Pentridge's death cell two hours before his execution. He will be moved to the special cell early, as soon as he wakes. He has not asked for any special meals and will not be given any. He will not be drugged and will be allowed to make a final statement in the condemned cell, a few minutes before his execution, if he wishes. He will be given Extreme Unction, the last rites of the Roman Catholic Church, under the scaffold seconds after he is pronounced dead. His hands, handcuffed behind his back, will be freed so that they can be anointed. 'REALIST' After a post-mortem examination, his body will be buried in quicklime in a grave in the Pentridge grounds about 5 p.m. Late last night the gaol chaplain, Father John Brosnan, said: "Ronald Ryan will be all right. "He will go out on his feet. He is determined to die well." Father Brosnan said after spending two hours with Ryan in his cell: "He is in excellent spirits. He is joking continually with the warders with whom he is spending his last night. "Ryan is too much a realist to let his spirits fall." Patricia Maxwell, 21, of Burnley and Geoff Eames, 21, of Blackburn begin a vigil outside Parliament House in protest against the execution of Ronald Ryan. Credit:Staff photographer 97 people arrested in protests Ninety-seven anti-hanging demonstrators were arrested in wild scenes outside Melbourne's Pentridge Gaol last night and early today. Three thousand angry, booing, chanting people massed outside the gaol to protest at the hanging of Ronald Ryan. In one incident a hysterical pregnant woman tried to drag her husband away from the police as they hustled him from the body of the crowd. As they pulled her away from her husband, the woman screamed; "Leave him alone. He was only protecting me. "If there's one mark on him there will be trouble." POLICE DOGS Struggling against police efforts to return her to the crowd, the woman continued to shout: "Leave him alone." Fearing a repetition of Monday night's anti-hanging demonstration, more than 300 police barricaded every access road to the gaol. This spring, Las Positas College's Adult Education Project will bring seven college courses to women inmates at the Federal Correctional Institute prison in Dublin. While not earning college credits, inmates who complete the seven nine-hour courses over 16 weeks will be eligible to receive to "career certificates" - customer service and small business management - in the fall. "These courses complement and expand their existing educational program, since many of the inmates/students will leave FCI and work in the service industry," said Kristina Whalen, the Livermore college's vice president of academic services. "Through our partnership they will also leave with important skills and a credential that will increase employability." The Adult Education Project was conceived when its manager at Las Positas reached out to Loanne Tran, the federal prison's educational director. Officials from the college and the prison then met several times to discuss how the project could be implemented. They explored the Las Positas class catalog courses that could help the inmates and had faculty interested in teaching, including Las Positas business Professor Drew Patterson, tour the prison. "We strongly believe that if given an opportunity, this segment of our society will be a productive part of the workforce," Patterson said. The initial spring 2020 cohort of LPC's Inmate Education Project will serve as a pilot program that LPC hopes to build upon in the future. Whalen said reputable studies show nearly half of all people released from federal prisons are rearrested within a short time of their release. When those people have jobs, she said, the recidivism rate shrinks significantly. "Our partnership furthers the objective of getting career opportunities to those already facing a serious hurdle to employment," Whalen said. Copyright 2020 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. Participants -- both the 170,000 visitors and the 4,000 exhibitors -- at the interpack packaging exhibition (May 7 to 13, 2020) will soon be able to contribute to the end of packaging as an environmental problem worldwide by expressing their support for the PUMA Manifesto. In doing so, they endorse the PUMA vision on the activity of packaging and promise to share their relevant information and insights in the field of packaging in all fairness and reasonableness. The PUMA Manifesto is open to read directly at the North Entrance of the interpack at booth ENB/03 and there everybody can also express his/her support via the PUMA Register of Support. The PUMA project is an initiative of the NVC Netherlands Packaging Centre (NVC). NVC (founded in 1953) is the association of more than five hundred internationally oriented companies that recognise the importance of the packaging activity. The NVC membership, the innovation projects (including packaging innovation contest De Gouden Noot), information services and education (workshops, courses) stimulate the continuous improvement of packaging. Every second, the world packs 300,000 products per second, resulting in 300,000 emptied packs per second. As a result, packaging as an activity, for example, is eight times larger than Google, which processes around 40,000 searches per second worldwide. The increases in prosperity and growing world population are leading to further growth of packaging worldwide. For a sustainable future of packaging on this scale, it is an absolute requirement that an end is made to packaging as an environmental issue. Building on decades of experience (including the drafting of the ISO world standards in the field of packaging and the environment), NVC launched the PUMA project on March 27, 2017. On the basis of a series of inspiring PUMA meetings with a total of several hundred participants, in Rotterdam (NL), Eindhoven (NL), Nuremberg (DE), Reading (UK), Boston (USA) and Tokyo (JP), the time has now come, as far as NVC is concerned, for the global packaging community to actually put an end to packaging as an environmental issue worldwide. To this end, the PUMA Manifesto offers a holistic, coherent vision of the activity of packaging and the materials used for that purpose in the front-end, back-end and collect and control phases. In addition, the PUMA Manifesto is a shared source of inspiration and cooperation, supported by NVC as a leading, transparent and reliable association of internationally oriented companies that are willing to take their social responsibility when it comes to packaging. -- Tradearabia News Service Beijing, Feb 2 : China on Sunday banned funerals, burials and farewell ceremonies for the victims of the novel coronavirus in an effort to control the outbreak as the death toll rose to 304 in the country. The bodies should be cremated at designated funeral homes near their location, they cannot be transported between regions and cannot be preserved by burial or other means, said the trial guidelines issued by the National Health Commission, the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the Ministry of Public Security. Funeral traditions such as farewell ceremonies are prohibited and bodies must be disinfected and placed by medical workers into a sealed bag, which thereafter cannot be opened, reports Efe news. Funeral homes must also send personnel and special vehicles to deliver the bodies according to the designated route, the guidelines said. Also on Sunday, the Philippines registered the first death outside of China - a 44-year-old Chinese man who had travelled from Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak. Among the China cases confirmed, 444 people are in critical condition while 1,118 are in serious condition, but 85 people were discharged from hospitals, bringing the number of people who have recovered to 328. There remains a total of 19,544 suspected cases in the country. Although more than 99 per cent of the cases are in China, the virus has spread to at least 23 countries and the World Health Organization has declared an international emergency in the face of the rapid spread of the virus. Meanwhile, in the midst of the coronavirus crisis, the Chinese government has also reported a significant outbreak of H5N1 bird flu on a farm in Hunan province, bordering Hubei. In the outbreak on a farm in Shuangqing district of Shaoyang citye, 4,500 chickens have died out of 7,850, according to a statement released on Saturday night by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs. Local authorities have slaughtered 17,828 poultry after the outbreak, which at the moment has not infected people. The H5N1 virus causes severe respiratory disease in birds and is contagious to humans, usually who have had prolonged contact with infected birds. According to the World Health Organization, it is possible, but difficult and unusual, to transmit from person to person. Bird flu has a high mortality rate of 60 per cent, compared to that of SARS (another coronavirus, with 10 per cent) or the new coronavirus (so far, about 2 per cent). Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19) MILWAUKEE, Wis.For musicians, professionals and amateurs alike, seeing New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts is a treat. For some, its a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to glimpse the inner workings of an orchestra that has blended two musical traditions in ways where many others have failed. Ancient Chinese instruments are mixed into an otherwise familiar Western symphony orchestra. Chinese melodies and tones are brought to life with the buoyancy of entire sections of violins and cellos. On Feb. 1, 2020, David Neese and his wife attended Shen Yun, her Christmas gift to him. The orchestra is spectacular, I enjoyed hearing the Chinese instrumentsI play brass myselfand it was just, it was tremendous, said Neese, who plays with the Sheboygan Symphony Orchestra, Wisconsins oldest continually active orchestra which has been performing concerts since 1918. Neese marveled at the orchestration of the music accompanying the dances, and how the New York-based companys artistic director could come up with these original scores every year, much less the entire production of some 20 vignettes. Do you know how hard it is to do that? Its spectacular, Neese said. Im really impressed, well be back again. Neese, like many who see Shen Yun, confessed he knew little about the 5,000 years of ancient China, in particular, how spiritual it was. China was once known as the Divine Land, its culture said to be divinely inspired, and that is the culture Shen Yun aims to share with the world. I love how [Shen Yun] blends the spirituality, the humanity, and the integrity together, he said. Such a rich tradition, of 5,000 years of culture and art like that? Spectacular. Love the stories, loved the way they were acted out, it was just great. Shen Yun Performing Arts curtain call at the Miller High Life Theatre in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Feb. 1, 2020. (Hu Chen/The Epoch Times) Shen Yun often feels much more than the sum of its parts. Neese lauded the way the music, art, dance, singing, stories, and spirituality were meshed together to create something with significant meaning. There is a higher power. This something that creates in us, this artistic gift we give to others, thats what touched me, Neese said. Beautiful Artistic Expression Also in the audience was Kristine Haak, a flutist, with her husband Joe who also plays the bagpipes himself. I really loved it, and our seats were so fantastic, said Kristine, because she was right in front of the flutist during the performance. Its rare to see a performance with live music, much less a live full orchestra for a traveling production, and Kristine was thrilled with the talent and skill of the artists on stage and below. I thought the skill level was way up there, said Kristine, who explained that with the setup she saw, the musicians must have memorized all the music and performed it perfectly in sync to everything that was happening. But her interest in the performing artists did not detract from the experience, nor prevent her from sitting back and just experiencing. I would say it was a musical, visual movement masterpiece. Kristine Haak I just thought it was beautiful, it was wonderful. I think if someone asked me what I thought about it I would say it was a musical, visual movement masterpiece, she said. Thats how I would describe it because its really just, its an artistic expression. You could experience what they were trying to communicate through the music and the dance, which is really amazing, she said. With reporting by Nancy Ma and NTD Television. The Epoch Times considers Shen Yun Performing Arts the significant cultural event of our time and has covered audience reactions since the companys inception in 2006. Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has urged Australians to rethink all overseas travel plans to protect against coronavirus. The warning comes after the Department of Foreign Affairs raised its travel advice for China to the highest level of 'do not travel'. All Chinese travellers have also been denied entry into the country as the number of confirmed cases in Australia rises to 12. Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has urged Australians to rethink all overseas travel plans to protect against coronavirus The warning comes after the Department of Foreign Affairs raised its travel advice for China to the highest level of 'do not travel' (Qantas airline staff pictured) The warning comes after the Department of Foreign Affairs raised its travel advice for China to the highest level of 'do not travel' (pictured: passengers at Sydney airport) Mr Dutton told Sky News on Sunday morning that he believes the outbreak will not be resolved in the foreseeable future. 'We hope China can contain the issue and that we can move on from it as quickly as possible, but it's likely to be more protracted than that,' he told Sky News. 'We need to deal with that. We need Australians frankly, if they're considering a holiday at the moment to reconsider whether an outbound overseas trip is what they want to do.' He urged people to consider travelling to regional Australia rather than booking a trip overseas. Mr Dutton said holidaying in Australia could also help businesses in areas struggling because of the bushfire crisis. He also said Australians who are still in China need to think about leaving the country as soon as possible, with all flights temporarily suspended from February 9. 'If people are leaving Australia to go to China today against the advice then they're putting themselves in a difficult position,' he said. 'The very strong advice from the Federal Government is please, do not travel, let us assess this over the next 14 days.' People are seen leaving the Sydney Airport terminal wearing facemasks over fears of the deadly coronavirus A Qantas jet is being considered to evacuate Australians from Wuhan (pictured: Air China terminal at Wuhan Tianhe International Airport) Border Force Commissioner Michael Outram told reporters on Sunday morning that he ordered airlines to prevent people from boarding flights if they had been to China. Those people do not include Australian citizens and permanent residents. From Sunday travellers coming to Australia from mainland China will have their visas cancelled - with 71 already cancelled overnight. Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced on Saturday that foreign travellers who passed through mainland China will be barred from Australia in a desperate effort to prevent the outbreak from spreading further. Australian citizens, permanent residents and their immediate families will be exempt from the strict measures. It also extends to airline staff who have used personal protective gear. These individuals arriving out of mainland China, not just the Hubei province, are required to self-isolate for a period of 14 days from the time they leave the country. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned that the government needs to prepare as a domestic outbreak is possible. WHO representative in Beijing, Gauden Dalea said there is a possibility the virus could spread in countries other than China. While most cases so far have been people who visited China, he warned it could spread within Australia, ABC reported. 'Countries need to get ready for possible importation in order to identify cases as early as possible and in order to be ready for a domestic outbreak control, if that happens,' Mr Galea said. Mr Dutton said holidaying in Australia could also help businesses in areas struggling because of the bushfire crisis Fully protected ambulance and medical staff walk through a community health station in Wuhan The beefed up measures came on the same day three more coronavirus cases - one in Melbourne and two in South Australia - were confirmed, taking the national tally to 12. Qantas also announced on Saturday that it will suspend its two direct services to mainland China from February 9 until March 28. 'Our first responsibility is to Australians,' Mr Morrison told reporters on Saturday afternoon. As of Saturday, all travellers arriving out of mainland China are being asked to self-isolate for a period of 14 days from the time they depart the country. 'In addition to that, there'll be advanced screening and reception arrangements put into place at the major airports to facilitate identifying and providing this information and ensuring the appropriate precautions are being put in place,' Mr Morrison said. 'There's a half a million masks that will be provided to those airports to support those who are coming off these flights as well as those who are with those coming from those flights. 'There'll also be thermometers which are provided to those airports and we're working with those airport authorities now to ensure we can put those arrangements in place.' Half a million face masks will be provided to major airports under the government measures China builds more SARS treatment-model hospitals to fight epidemic People's Daily Online (Xinhua) 14:03, February 01, 2020 More hospitals designed to replicate the SARS treatment model are popping up across China as the country mobilizes medical resources nationwide to contain the coronavirus outbreak. Beijing has begun to renovate the city's Xiaotangshan Hospital, formerly used to quarantine and treat SARS patients, as a precaution in the face of the novel coronavirus outbreak. Whether the hospital will be put into use will be based on the future development of the outbreak, officials said. In the treatment and control of SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which spread rapidly on the Chinese mainland in 2003, Beijing built Xiaotangshan Hospital, a temporary medical center in the northern suburb of the city, in just a week. The hospital admitted one-seventh of the SARS patients in the country within two months. The hospital requires renovation due to some aging facilities and pipelines. Now, several cities are building their own versions of Xiaotangshan. Wuhan, for instance, is building two hospitals to treat patients infected with the novel coronavirus. The two facilities are expected to be put into use on Feb. 3 and Feb. 5, respectively, at the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in central China. Workers, trucks and excavators are racing against the clock to meet the deadline at the construction sites. At around 6 p.m. Wednesday, construction of power facilities concluded at Leishenshan (Thunder God Mountain) Hospital, one of the two Wuhan sites. In only three days, more than 300 workers toiled around the clock to install and adjust 7-km-long high-voltage cables and 26 supporting facilities. The hospital will accommodate 1,600 beds, 300 more than the previous design, as the number of local patients increases. It will expand to 60,000 square meters and provide working space to over 2,000 medical staff. Meanwhile, more than 4,000 workers have been toiling away at the Huoshenshan (Fire God Mountain) Hospital site day and night. They have finished about 400 prefab rooms so far. Work is largely complete on the main pipeline of the drainage system at the hospital site. More than 900 km away, dozens of bulldozers and cranes are working on a 3,000-square-meter plot of land for a hospital to isolate and treat patients infected with the coronavirus in the suburb of Fuzhou, capital of east China's Fujian Province. The first phase will include an outpatient building and isolation wards with 200 beds. It will be ready for use on Feb. 2, said Liu Yunzhong, president of the construction company in charge of the project. The second phase will cover an area of 5,100 square meters and work will be completed within 20 days, Liu said. "We've mobilized over 100 workers to work in shifts to ensure round-the-clock construction," said Liu. "We are sparing no effort to build the hospital, and I am confident we can get the job done in time." In northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, authorities have planned a similar hospital in the provincial capital Harbin, local authorities said on Thursday. By Thursday, Heilongjiang had reported 59 confirmed cases, with 18 in Harbin. The provincial government decided to transform the Hanan branch of the Second Affiliated Hospital, Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine, into one dedicated to treating patients infected by the novel coronavirus. The hospital is in Pingfang District, Harbin city. It officially went into operation in 2016, with 500 beds and a floor space of 48,900 square meters. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address The Minister for Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah has jabbed former President John Mahama over the latters recent criticism of governments decision to prioritise the procurement and commissioning of the 307 new ambulances. Kojo Oppong Nkrumah said John Mahama must celebrate the government for the action rather than criticize it in a deliberate attempt to score political points. Any investment in healthcare infrastructure or in pre-hospital emergency care is good news for Ghanaians and nobody should be deliberately 'criticizing' it, he said. Oppong-Nkrumah said the former President is being hypocritical especially when he commissioned projects such as the acquisition of borehole drillers and distribution of headpans to head porters during his administration. I chanced on photos this morning of the former president distributing saucepans to some market women. Photos of the former president commissioning taps, borehole drilling machines so what has changed between then and now that the former president turns around 360?. I think we should put the politics aside, he said. John Mahama, in a media interaction on Thursday [January 30, 2020] described the procurement and distribution of the 307 new ambulances as a misplaced priority. He said the government should prioritize building hospitals and operationalizing or upgrading existing health facilities to be able to handle emergency cases rather than to distribute ambulances. All the hospitals that were being built to improve healthcare have been brought to a standstill and instead, they are glorifying in the distribution of ambulances. Where do ambulances take sick people to? Mahama quizzed. But Kojo Oppong Nkrumah said the former president should be more concerned about contributing to the new conversation on for example how to maintain the ambulances, how people are going to pay for the services of the ambulances and how to make sure prank calls are reduced. He said it was surprising that John Mahama was directing criticism at the current administration, arguing that focus should be placed on building new hospitals when his administration procured 130 ambulances with 30 of them deemed not fit for purpose. What has changed between then and now? the minister quizzed. Health service delivery has been a major issue of national interest taking a huge chunk of national budgets over the past decade. Promise of an ambulance for each constituency The Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia in April 2018 at the Annual Health Summit organized by the Ghana Health Service announced the governments plan to supply each of the 275 constituencies with an ambulance. The 275 ambulances, as well as and an additional 32, were commissioned by President Nana Akufo-Addo at the Black Star Square in Accra on Tuesday, 28th February, 2020 300 Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) Drivers and support staff along with 30 dispatchers were also deployed. ---citinewsroom U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has defended the State Department's removal of a National Public Radio (NPR) reporter from his traveling press pool. The decision came after another NPR reporter asked him pointed questions about Ukraine and a former U.S. ambassador's removal. Pompeo spoke in an interview with RFE/RL's Aigerim Toleukhan on February 2 in Kazakhstan's capital, Nur-Sultan. Credit: CC0 Public Domain The Philippines has reported the first death outside China in the virus epidemic that has killed more than 300 people and spread to 24 nations. The 44-year-old Chinese man who died in the Philippines was from Wuhan, the city that has been ground-zero for the epidemic. Here is what we knowand don't knowabout him: Where he visited The man and a 38-year-old Chinese woman also from Wuhan, who authorities called his companion, flew from Hong Kong to the Philippines on January 21. Health department authorities said the pair travelled to the central island of Cebu and then the city of Dumaguete, which is on a neighbouring island. Cebu Pacific airline said it was working with health authorities to track down passengers from the two flights they took. How he died Days after arriving in the Philippines the pair went to see a doctor with symptoms like cough and fever. They were both admitted to hospital from January 25, she with a "mild cough" and him with pneumonia, the national health department said. In recent days the man was stable and even showed signs of improvement, but his condition rapidly declined over his final 24 hours and he died Saturday in Manila. Authorities did not say if he had pre-existing health problems, which has been the case for many of those the virus has killed in China. The woman is recovering in hospital. When infected National health authorities said Thursday the woman had tested positive for the virus, the Philippines' first confirmed case. However, they did not offer any specific information about the man. On Sunday the World Health Organization said the deceased man was not "a locally acquired case" of infection. How authorities are responding Less than an hour before the death was announced, the Philippine government announced it was barring arrivals of foreigners travelling from mainland China as well as Hong Kong and Macau. The deceased man and the woman arrived on January 21, before some nations began to close their borders and tighten restrictions on Chinese arrivals. At that time, Chinese authorities had reported just over 300 cases and six deathsthe toll was on Sunday more than 300 deaths and some 14,500 confirmed infections. Explore further Philippines probing possible case of Chinese virus 2020 AFP Preeti Sudan By The Government of India is bringing Indians from China in the wake of coronavirus spread. How will the ministry ensure that the infection is not spread in the country? We will be putting them in an isolated facility. We have identified some places in and near Delhi. These are facilities of defence and labour ministry. How many people are we looking at to put in isolated facilities? That Ministry of External Affairs will tell. They are still in talks with authorities in China. Well know the exact number of people later. We want to get our students out from Wuhan, that is our priority. There are about 200 of such students. We are also concerned about the staff going on the plane to get Indians back from China. They will need to wear protective gear. In any case, China is not sending those who have infection; they are not allowed to come back. Only asymptomatic people will be sent from China. How efficient is screening at the airports? We had 28 thermal scanners for screening when we began. We have got 100 more and they are being dispatched to different airports. All are purchased from India. Incoming passengers from China are being screened at 21 airports now. China is already facing lack of testing kits. Do we have enough kits in India? There are enough kits in India. When we initiated this, we had about 5,000 of them. So far we have conducted 28 tests and all have been found negative for coronavirus. Eleven samples are under process. Some were found to have rhinovirus, which leads to common cold and cough. We have issued guidelines to the states also. A lot of misinformation circulates through social media such as WhatsApp and Twitter. Is the ministry equipped to deal with that? We are very equipped. We are constantly sending information through our social media channels. Every two minutes, theres a post by our communications person. Ministry of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy has brought out information claiming certain practices and medicines as Preventive Management Steps. How effective are they and what kind of research has gone into it? That question has to be asked to the Ministry of AYUSH. We do not know about it. A total of 15 attacks was reported in the past 24 hours, which is almost twice the number recorded in the previous day. Ukraine Army officials say a military serviceman was killed and another one injured in an enemy shelling in the Donbas warzone as enemy forces violated the ceasefire and engaged Ukrainian defense positions with weapons proscribed by Minsk agreements. The latest report by the Joint Forces Operation HQ marks an escalation of hostilities as a total of 15 attacks was reported in the past 24 hours, which is almost twice the number recorded in the previous day. Also, another military was injured in a blast of an unidentified explosive device. Read also"DPR" terrorists put forward condition for new prisoner swap The enemy fired on Ukrainian positions using 120 mm and 82 mm mortars proscribed by the Minsk agreements, as well as grenade launchers of various types, heavy machine guns, and other small arms. The JFO Staff says Ukrainian units delivered a resolute response to the attacks of Russian invaders, returning fire and engaging the enemy with weapons that are not banned by the relevant agreements. There have been no attacks since day-start on Sunday, the morning update says. As UNIAN reported earlier, a Ukrainian female combat medic, sergeant Klavdia Sytnyk was killed in action near the village of Novotoshkivske in Donbas, eastern Ukraine. The National Investigation Agency on Sunday morning carried out searches at five places, including that of a Sarpanch, in connection with a case in which a senior Jammu and Kashmir police officer was arrested while ferrying terrorists outside the valley, officials said here. Multiple NIA teams, fanned in various parts of south Kashmir's Kulgam and Shopian districts, carried out the searches at the residences of Rafi Ahmed Rather, an arrested militant, at Zainpora. The NIA teams entered into the house of Lashker-e-Taiba terrorist Adil Hussain and Sarpanch Tariq Ahmed Mir besides the houses of Over Ground Workers (OGWs) at Maldera in Shopian and Kulgam, the officials said. Some documents have been seized and these are being analysed, they said. The NIA had taken over the case of Jammu and Kashmir's Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Davinder Singh who was caught in south Kashmir while ferrying two terrorists out of the valley on January 11. The DSP has since been suspended. The searches come days after NIA officers interrogated all the accused arrested in the case. Besides Singh, the others arrested were: Syed Naveed Mushtaq Ahmed alias Naveed Babu, who is a self-styled commander of the Hizbul Mujahideen, Rafi Ahmed Rather and Irfan Shafi Mir, who claims to be an advocate. They were arrested from the Srinagar-Jammu National Highway near Qazigund in South Kashmir. Later, Naveed's brother, Syed Irfan Ahmed, was arrested on January 23 after he was brought from Punjab. He was in constant touch with his brother and had asked him to look for an accommodation in Chandigarh where they could escape the harsh winters months of Kashmir. Mir, who was driving the vehicle when they were caught by police from a national highway in Kulgam district, may become a prize catch for the NIA as it is alleged he was acting on the orders of his masters in Pakistan. He had visited the neighbouring country five times on an Indian passport. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Victory City Church, also known as the Original Tabernacle for Prayer, in Riviera Beach: Google A man and a 15-year-old boy have been shot dead after a funeral at a church in Florida. Police said two other people, a woman and a child, were also injured in the attack outside Victory City Church in Riviera Beach. A total of 13 shots are believed to have been fired just after 2.30pm on Saturday, police said. No arrests have been made. The church's senior pastor, Tywuante Lupoe, said the community was mourning "loss of two young black men to a senseless shooting after a funeral". He added the shooting happened across the street from the church and "did not involve any of our church's members". "Let's pray for the families that lost their loved ones today," the pastor said in a statement posted on Facebook. Riveria Beach Police Department gave details of the victims in a statement. It said: One 15-year-old juvenile male was shot and died at the scene. One adult male was shot and died at the scene. One female victim was shot and transported to St Mary's Medical Center by Riviera Beach Fire Rescue. Another juvenile victim as shot and is being treated at a nearby hospital." Parker-Hannifin Corporation (NYSE:PH) stock is about to trade ex-dividend in 3 days time. This means that investors who purchase shares on or after the 6th of February will not receive the dividend, which will be paid on the 6th of March. Parker-Hannifin's next dividend payment will be US$0.88 per share, on the back of last year when the company paid a total of US$3.52 to shareholders. Looking at the last 12 months of distributions, Parker-Hannifin has a trailing yield of approximately 1.8% on its current stock price of $195.69. We love seeing companies pay a dividend, but it's also important to be sure that laying the golden eggs isn't going to kill our golden goose! As a result, readers should always check whether Parker-Hannifin has been able to grow its dividends, or if the dividend might be cut. See our latest analysis for Parker-Hannifin If a company pays out more in dividends than it earned, then the dividend might become unsustainable - hardly an ideal situation. That's why it's good to see Parker-Hannifin paying out a modest 29% of its earnings. Yet cash flows are even more important than profits for assessing a dividend, so we need to see if the company generated enough cash to pay its distribution. Luckily it paid out just 23% of its free cash flow last year. It's positive to see that Parker-Hannifin's dividend is covered by both profits and cash flow, since this is generally a sign that the dividend is sustainable, and a lower payout ratio usually suggests a greater margin of safety before the dividend gets cut. Click here to see the company's payout ratio, plus analyst estimates of its future dividends. NYSE:PH Historical Dividend Yield, February 2nd 2020 Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing? Stocks in companies that generate sustainable earnings growth often make the best dividend prospects, as it is easier to lift the dividend when earnings are rising. Investors love dividends, so if earnings fall and the dividend is reduced, expect a stock to be sold off heavily at the same time. Fortunately for readers, Parker-Hannifin's earnings per share have been growing at 10% a year for the past five years. Earnings per share have been growing rapidly and the company is retaining a majority of its earnings within the business. Fast-growing businesses that are reinvesting heavily are enticing from a dividend perspective, especially since they can often increase the payout ratio later. Story continues Many investors will assess a company's dividend performance by evaluating how much the dividend payments have changed over time. Parker-Hannifin has delivered an average of 13% per year annual increase in its dividend, based on the past ten years of dividend payments. Both per-share earnings and dividends have both been growing rapidly in recent times, which is great to see. The Bottom Line Is Parker-Hannifin an attractive dividend stock, or better left on the shelf? Parker-Hannifin has been growing earnings at a rapid rate, and has a conservatively low payout ratio, implying that it is reinvesting heavily in its business; a sterling combination. Overall we think this is an attractive combination and worthy of further research. Wondering what the future holds for Parker-Hannifin? See what the 18 analysts we track are forecasting, with this visualisation of its historical and future estimated earnings and cash flow We wouldn't recommend just buying the first dividend stock you see, though. Here's a list of interesting dividend stocks with a greater than 2% yield and an upcoming dividend. If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Thank you for reading. 4 politicians released after 6 months detention in Kashmir India oi-PTI Srinagar, Feb 02: The Jammu and Kashmir administration on Sunday released four politicians from preventive custody in the MLA hostel, which has been temporarily converted into a subsidiary jail, officials said here. The three of the released politicians belong to the National Conference and one is from the PDP, they said. The four have been sent to their homes and asked to remain confined within their residence for the time being, they said. The leaders released are: Abdul Majeed Bhat Larni, Ghulam Nabi Bhat and Dr Mohammed Shafi (all National Conference) and Mohammed Yusuf Bhat of the PDP. They were detained along with several other politicians, leaders, activists and traders after the abrogation of the Article 370 of the constitution on August 5 last year. Among other prominent politicians who have been detained since the Article 370 move are NC leaders Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah, PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti and JK People's Conference leader Sajjad Gani Lone. They have still not been released. While senior Abdullah has been kept at his Gupkar house, his son and NC vice president Omar Abdullah has been detained at Hari Niwas. PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti, who was lodged at Chesmashahi Huts, has been shifted to a government building in the heart of Srinagar. The senior Abdullah was slapped with the stringent Public Safety Act on September 17 which was renewed for a period of three months on December 16. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Sunday, February 2, 2020, 16:46 [IST] Four members of a Mewat-based gang allegedly possessing illegal arms were arrested by the Special Cell of Delhi Police after a brief exchange of fire, officials said on Sunday. Amin (33), Warish (20), Mustkeen (25), all residents of Haryana and Subba (25), a resident of Rajasthan, were held near Sector-7 of Pushp Vihar on the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday, they said. "We received information about the movement of Amin along with his associates in Delhi-NCR in their tempo to commit a robbery at Pushp Vihar. A team was deployed to track their movements," Deputy Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) P S Kushwah said. Sensing police presence, the driver of the tempo increased the speed of his vehicle but it hit the gate of a residential colony in Pushp Vihar following which Amin and his associates came out and fired at the police team, he said. In retaliation, the policemen also opened fire in which Amin sustained bullet injuries on his legs, he said. The accused were overpowered and disarmed by the police personnel, the DCP said, adding that Amin was immediately taken to Safdarjung Hospital. About 14 rounds were fired from both sides. More than seven rounds were fired by the accused, police said. Four pistols and nine live cartridges were seized from their possession. The accused were involved in several cases of robbery and dacoity in Delhi-NCR and adjoining states. They used to rob trucks at gunpoint and used these vehicles to commit robberies, police said. Amin was wanted in a 2019 case lodged at Mehrauli police station and a non-bailable warrant was issued against him, they said. According to the police, Amin was also involved in more than 15 criminal cases in Delhi, Rajasthan, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) When Northampton Police Chief Jody Kasper joined the force as a patrol officer in 1998, the department was still using ink fingerprinting for criminals. It was a messy, smudgy and archaic process. Since then, technology has evolved. Police now use digital fingerprinting, a quicker, less burdensome technology. A similar evolution happened with police photography, as officers went from using polaroid to digital cameras. Another technology, considered far more controversial, is causing some communities to consider its ramifications: facial recognition, a piece of unregulated software that can scan faces captured by cameras and match them with people. Some in law enforcement, as well as public officials, civil liberties advocates and even those working in the business of artificial intelligence, fear the use of the software can lead to misidentifications. Facial recognition software continues to improve, but risks remain. Its a whole new world, said Kasper, who noted that her department has never deployed the software or looked into using it. Weve seen a lot of technology in our field develop over time. Im sure thats what will happen with this too. The use of facial recognition software is being debated in communities across the country, including in Massachusetts, where some local officials have taken regulating the technology upon themselves. San Francisco banned the technology in May 2019, becoming the first city in the country to do so. Somerville followed suit in June, and similar ordinances have been passed in Brookline, Northampton and, most recently, Cambridge. The Springfield City Council is set to vote on a facial recognition moratorium in February. Critics of the software have argued it violates individuals civil liberties. And, they point out, there is a high risk of misidentification, especially in identifying people of color, elderly individuals and women, according to research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and federal studies. Municipal officials passing facial recognition bans also argue local legislation is needed as federal and state legislation is lacking and government agencies are able to use the software with no oversight. Theres literally nothing stopping law enforcement from tracking someone who goes to a protest, who goes to a mosque or a church, said Somerville City Councilor Ben Ewen-Campen, who introduced his citys ban. Its just a black box. A bill being considered by the Massachusetts Senate and backed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts would place a moratorium on the technology and other forms of biometric surveillance, including the analysis of a persons gait and eyes, until officials are able to appropriately regulate the software. One of the main reasons advocates support the moratorium is because federal or state legislation restricting the use of biometric surveillance does not exist, according to Democratic State Sen. Cynthia Creem, who represents Massachusetts First Middlesex and Norfolk and introduced the bill to the state Senate. Right now, theres no legislation, Creem told MassLive. Theres no regulating what pictures are being used, how theyre used. Dozens of people, including officials from the office of Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins, the Boston Teachers Union and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, testified in support of a statewide moratorium on the governments use of the technology at a legislative hearing in October. Among those who spoke at the hearing was Brennan White, CEO of Cortex, a Boston-based company that creates artificial intelligence platforms for social media marketing and that uses facial recognition technology regularly. While the software has the potential to be used positively, according to White, it is also incredibly powerful and can be easily misused. Unbridled use of the technology can potentially set up an infrastructure that could be abused by future dictators, he said. In the wrong hands, this could lead to a dystopian-type society," the CEO said. Debate on biometric surveillance is happening at the federal level as well. U.S. congressional members of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, Democrats and Republican alike, criticized the software in May of last year, The Washington Post reported. Lawmakers brought up similar concerns about how biometric surveillance remains unregulated, how the technology can be faulty and how it potentially violates Americans personal privacy. The era of this use and capability is moving quicker than people have caught onto those issues, Creem said. Theres a lot more talk about it. To make the public more aware of the alleged dangers of facial recognition, the ACLU of Massachusetts kicked off a campaign in June called Press Pause on Face Surveillance. Officials at the organization say state government agencies, including the Registry of Motor Vehicles and Massachusetts State Police, have used the technology in secret for more than 10 years without any oversight, accountability, legislative authorization from any independent actor, according to Kade Crockford, director of the Technology for Liberty Program at the ACLU of Massachusetts. The group sued the Massachusetts Department of Transportation after the agency did not respond to two public records requests in early 2019 regarding the departments use of facial surveillance technology, according to the ACLU. MassDOT has allegedly used its database of state-issued ID photographs for facial recognition since 2006, according to the lawsuit. In response to a request for comment about the departments use of facial recognition and the ACLUs lawsuit, a MassDOT spokesperson said in a statement to MassLive that the RMV captures images as part of the process of issuing driving licenses. The images are then run against other images in the agencys system to prevent identity fraud. The accessing of RMV images by law enforcement is permitted under the Driver's Privacy Protection Act of 1994, the spokesperson added. A Washington Post report also revealed that investigators with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Immigration and Customs Enforcement used states Department of Motor Vehicle databases for facial recognition and scanned through hundreds of millions of peoples photographs without their knowledge or consent. The majority of the images were of state residents, most of whom have never been charged with a crime. Crockford said the unregulated use of biometric surveillance is part of a trend, where the technology is moving much, much faster than the law. We believe that the appropriate response to protect the public and to protect civil rights in Massachusetts is to press pause, she said. The application of the technology by governments, as well as the subsequent bans of the software, is occurring not only in Massachusetts but nationwide, Crockford said. Communities in California, beyond San Francisco, are considering their own bans. State officials in Michigan are also looking to restrict law enforcements use of the technology, as the ACLU of Michigan investigates the statewide scope of facial recognition activities, according to a press release. The New York ACLU branch is trying to prevent face surveillance in public schools as well, Crockford said. We here in Massachusetts are fighting this bi-coastal battle that the technology doesnt get ahead of our rights, Crockford said. Northamptons police chief, as well as others in law enforcement, acknowledged the concerns surrounding facial recognition. Northampton Police Chief Jody Kasper said the odds of the department using facial recognition technology in the next several years are low and that the department has never looked into purchasing or deploying the software. (Jackson Cote/MassLive) Kasper recently visited China, where she noticed several surveillance cameras set up in public locations. According to the ACLU, Chinas government uses the technology to control and oppress religious minorities and political dissidents. The New York Times reported Beijing has invested billions of dollars in the software and in other methods of surveillance. With its thriving technology industry and millions of cameras monitoring the public, the country aims to create a strong national surveillance system, according to the Timess report. That may be the concern there: an authoritarian government," Kasper said. Kasper, along with several advocates for facial recognition bans, still see utility in the technology once it becomes more evolved. There are a number of different applications for the software people have not considered, she said, whether that be putting a name to an unidentified dead body or catching a robber whose face was captured on camera. However, the odds of Kaspers department using the technology in the next several years are low, the chief added. Well kind of see where we are at in three years, she said. Communities efforts to ban the use of facial recognition Springfield City Councilor Orlando Ramos compared restricting the use of facial recognition software to trying to legislate flying cars: Officials cant regulate the technology until they know how it works. The councilor, who introduced his citys temporary ban on facial recognition, said he can see how the software can be used as an effective tool for law enforcement in their investigations only if facial recognition evolves to become more accurate. However, software of that caliber doesnt exist yet, according to him. Its not worth potentially putting people at risk with technology thats not effective, he said. For the towns and cities in Massachusetts that have passed or introduced their own moratoriums and bans on facial recognition technology, the concerns have remained largely the same. Local officials point to the softwares biases and inaccuracies; they think its use by government agencies without the publics permission is an abuse of personal privacies and civil liberties, and municipal legislators believe the softwares application in municipalities opens those communities up to lawsuits from people targeted by the technology. Ramos said introducing Springfields ban boiled down to three reasons, the first being the potential for litigation. We want to protect the taxpayer, the councilor said. The other two motivations included protecting the public from unnecessary government surveillance and preventing the mistreatment of marginalized communities. Its more than an inconvenience, Ramos said. Its a danger for people of color. Springfield City Councilor Orlando Ramos introduced a five-year-moratorium on the municipal use of facial recognition technology. The ordinance will be put to a vote in February. (Jackson Cote/MassLive) The city councilor said widespread public support is another reason banning the technology is worthwhile. The ACLU of Massachusetts polled more than 500 adults in Massachusetts and found nearly eight in 10 support a moratorium on government use of facial recognition technology, according to the June poll. Where public officials differ is on how long they want their bans to last. While Northamptons moratorium on the municipal use of facial recognition will last three years and Springfields proposed ban would remain in effect for five years, Brookline, Cambridge and Somerville have all banned the technology indefinitely. One of the purposes of Ramoss ordinance is to allow police to come back to the table in the future with more accurate facial recognition technology that they want to use as an investigative tool under limited circumstances. The city councilor said he wants to be supportive of police but smart about the technology and its applications. Its not our intention to hinder police in any way, he said. Ben Ewen-Campen, who spearheaded Somervilles legislation, said the decision to do so was straightforward and that his ordinance, a two-page document, passed unanimously. There was a general sense that there was really, really widespread support of this, he said. I think everyone understood in the absence of regulation, in the absence of transparency, this goes way too far. Ewen-Campen does not think there is any situation where facial recognition technologys use at the municipal level would be acceptable, even if the software were to work perfectly without misidentifications, he said. I personally cant imagine a situation where a local police department should have that sort of power, the city councilor said. Lawmakers would be in a different position if government agencies came to the public years ago to ask for permission to use facial recognition under specified circumstances, instead of allegedly using it behind closed doors, according to Ewen-Campen. It shouldnt be a surveil-first, ask-questions-later policy, the city councilor said. I think the burden of proof should be on the people who want to use the really powerful surveillance technology. From catching bad guys to identifying victims; how facial recognition can help Brookline Police Sgt. Casey Hatchett, a member of the towns Town Meeting, spoke against the towns ban of facial recognition technology in late 2019. She argued enacting the legislation was too hasty and wanted limited exemptions for law enforcement, noting, though, that Brookline police had not purchased or deployed the technology and was not looking to do so. There was not enough time before Town Meeting to fully consider the effects of this ban not enough time to fully grasp the potential uses of this technology today and in the future, not enough time to inform ourselves and the public about the differences between facial surveillance and facial recognition, and not enough time to fully consider some of the acceptable uses of this technology, she said at the meeting, according to prepared comments. Those acceptable uses, Hatchett told MassLive, could potentially include identifying a person with Alzheimers who may be lost and not able to remember their own name, locating missing children, preventing terrorist threats and even exonerating an individual wrongfully convicted of a crime. She pointed to a case in November, shortly before she spoke against the ban, in which a man was out running in Brookline, suffered a heart attack, went unconscious and was taken to the hospital, where he remained unidentified for multiple days. He eventually recovered, but there were days where his family and friends were concerned about his whereabouts, according to Hatchett. We had no way to contact their family, Brookline Police Lt. Paul Campbell said. This ban prevents us from running the persons face in a database, contacting their family and identifying the man. Brooklines Town Meeting voted two years ago to form a committee to look at the challenges and benefits of surveillance technology and military-type equipment as they related to the particular realities of Brookline, according to Hatchetts prepared comments. A lot of our work was to review this technology, Hatchett said, adding that a member of the committee circumvented the process of studying the software by introducing the outright ban of the technology. It was premature. A layout of surveillance camera footage at the Brookline Police Department. (Jackson Cote/MassLive) The sergeant said she is aware of the facial recognition softwares inaccuracies, especially with women and minorities, and that is why she was in favor of a temporary moratorium that would enable officials to implement checks and balances on the technology so government agencies could use it in appropriate circumstances. Were police, but were also members of the community. I dont want a false positive. I dont want a wrongful arrest, Campbell added. I dont want something thats going to be inaccurate, and I think most police officers would say the same thing. Hatchet argued before Brooklines Town Meeting in favor of a limited exception" that would allow law enforcement to use facial recognition with oversight from the towns Select Board and require reporting of any use of the software. Law enforcement has applied the software solely to assist in cases, she said, but Brookline police would never use it conduct widespread facial surveillance, as China does. There is an enormous difference between facial surveillance and the use of facial recognition technology one is China, and one is using appropriate tools to conduct case specific investigations and community caretaking activities, the sergeant said, according to her prepared remarks. We are not China. Brookline police have outsourced images of potential criminals in limited cases to attempt to match them to other agencys databases, including the Department of State Polices Commonwealth Fusion Centers, a criminal intelligence center that shares information between federal agencies and state and local governments. There was a series of residential burglaries multiple years ago, and video captured an image of the suspect. Brookline police sent that image to the fusion center. Hatchett said she believes the suspect was caught in the process of another break-in, though. Hatchett said one misconception about the software is that it is used by law enforcement in a vacuum, where a match is made after an image of a face is run in a database and someone is then directly arrested. Investigations arent like that. Theyre multi-layered, Hatchett said. It wouldnt be enough to suffice in court. She and Northamptons police chief both said facial recognition is used solely as a tool that helps in investigations, not as a piece of evidence to provide probable cause for an arrest. Campbell added that facial recognition gives law enforcement a list of possible suspects once an image of a person is run in a database. It also shows by how many percentage points each of those suspects matches the image. It gives you information. It gives you a direction to go on, the lieutenant said. I think a lot of people who are opposed to facial recognition, they think that it just gives you one picture and thats your guy. Others, though, see problems with facial recognition being used in the shadows. Brookline was the second community in Massachusetts to ban facial recognition technology. (Jackson Cote/MassLive) 'Nobodys really minding the store; Facial recognition being used in secret Crockford at the ACLU of Massachusetts said that because facial recognition technology has been used in secret, the only reason the public knows anything about its use is because the ACLU has filed hundreds of public records requests across the state to learn how, if at all, the software is applied at the municipal and state level. The group discovered local police departments were largely not using the technology but that state agencies, like the RMV and state police, had been using it without the publics knowledge for 13 years. Nobodys really minding the store, she said. MassDOT initially used the software to determine whether people were applying for state IDs and drivers licenses under fake names, according to Crockford. But the ACLU also found that the RMV sent a memo to law enforcement in October 2006 alerting state police that the agency had the technology and could run images of criminal suspects for the department to try and find matches. The department confirmed it uses facial recognition through a software that analyzes existing photographs provided to state police. Personnel are trained on how to incorporate facial recognition information into their investigation in accordance with state police policy. The RMV, with the help of Massachusetts State Police, has implemented an amazing Facial Recognition System that allows a digital image such as a license photo to be compared against the 9.5 million images in the RMV database to identify potential matches, the memo said, according to the ACLUs lawsuit. State Police and RMV staff have been using this tool since May 2006 and have successfully identified many individuals who have fraudulently applied for multiple licenses or IDs. State police also use facial recognition technology in criminal investigations to help identify unknown suspects, according to David Procopio, spokesman for the department. Any potential identifications made with the software are then confirmed or rejected through other investigative methods. As with any investigative tool, we only use facial recognition software for legitimate, clearly-defined law enforcement purposes, he said in a statement. The ACLU also found through its public record requests to dozens of police departments in Massachusetts that a Cambridge-based surveillance company had been trying to get the Plymouth Police Department to deploy the companys technologies in the town. Hundreds of pages of emails showed that CEO Jacob Sniff of Suspect Technologies, a start-up backed by billionaire Mark Cuban, had worked to get Plymouth Police Chief Michael Botieri to install the companys software on nearly 20 surveillance cameras in the town and then send recorded videos of people in the community to the company so it could better its technologys algorithms, Crockford said. Sniff also proposed the department give the company images of people wanted by Plymouth police so that any time one of those individuals were to walk by the camera, the department would get an alert, according to Crockford. More or less, the facial application will integrate and use existing cameras to scan everyones face who enters a lobby, and compare to a local list of people that have open warrants (usually 5-10% of any town), Sniff said in one of his emails, according to the ACLU. It will have different categories of warrants and the officers will take different actions, based on the different categories. We will send any visual alerts back to the dispatchers/officers in the lobby to review and decide whether to take action on. Suspect Technologies also acknowledged in its emails that the companys software only works around 30% of the time, according to the ACLU. The police department did not go through with the proposals, the ACLU said. Sniff did not respond to multiple requests for an interview. Crockford said cases like Plymouths are disturbing and underscore the vulnerabilities of municipalities, who do not know much about biometric surveillance and have legitimate fears over serious crimes, to marketing efforts by companies that offer facial recognition technologies. Absent a statewide moratorium, we see a real potential for local government officials being exploited, frankly, Crockford said. The risk of false positives and how the technology works Facial recognition technology is a type of image recognition that falls under the larger category of machine learning, or artificial intelligence, where computers analyze and try to classify large data sets. A computer will be presented with millions of images and ideally be able to identify what is in each picture without the help of a human. Facial recognition is one step more specific: The software aims to look at human faces and assign those faces each an identity, according to Brennan White, head of Cortex, a marketing company that works every day with facial recognition technology. Facial recognition is based on a confidence system, where the software runs an image of a person in a database with a large number of photographs of people and then says by how many percentage points the initial image matches the others. Up until recently, computers could replicate photos, could replicate videos, but they couldnt understand them," White said. The nature of machine learning is not that some human has to teach a computer what a dog is. White, who testified in favor of the statewide moratorium on the software at the October legislative hearing, considers himself bullish about the technology in the long term but wants to press pause on its state and municipal use until the public becomes more educated on the topic, he said. Its great that we want to rush into the next best thing, but we want to make sure were not harming anything, White said. The average person needs to level up their understanding of this before we knee jerk one way or the other. A recent study by the National Institute of Standards and Technology found when using facial recognition technology there are higher rates of false positives for Asian and African Americans than for Caucasians, ranging from factors of 10 to 100. NIST reported higher rates of false positives for black women more specifically. MIT researcher Joy Buolamwini, the founder of the Algorithmic Justice League at the university, found similar results in her work. Buolamwini, who also testified in favor of the moratorium, ran more than 1,200 faces through recognition programs offered by Face++, IBM and Microsoft and found the technologies frequently misidentified women of color. In the worst case, the failure rate on darker female faces is over one in three, for a task with a 50 percent chance of being correct, she said in her study, the Gender Shades project. The ACLU also tested Amazon Rekognition, a facial recognition technology unveiled by the company in 2016, to try and identify 188 New England athletes. The test misidentified 28 of them and matched the players to mugshots in the arrest photo database. Amazon claimed the ACLU misused the technology to make headlines and said the software can have positive applications. As weve said many times in the past, when used with the recommended 99% confidence threshold and as one part of a human-driven decision, facial recognition technology can be used for a long list of beneficial purposes, from assisting in the identification of criminals to helping find missing children to inhibiting human trafficking, an Amazon Web Services said in a statement. "We continue to advocate for federal legislation of facial recognition technology to ensure responsible use, and weve shared our specific suggestions for this both privately with policymakers and on our blog. Problems with misidentifications can sometimes be attributed to a small data set or poor image quality, according to White. Worries over inaccuracies in the facial recognition technology are well-founded, though, he added. The CEO compared the software to DNA analysis. When technology that analyzed DNA first started to develop, officials were initially wowed by it, but they later came to find the software was not always accurate. Turns out people were wrongfully convicted by DNA before, White said. The worry is the same for facial recognition. Cortex has worked with companies as high-profile as Toyota, using facial recognition technology to discover what company-made images and videos audience members prefer the most. Compared to law enforcements use of the software, White said, there are no major drawbacks. The only negative consequence of the technology not working correctly is financial. The stakes are dramatically lower," according to him. If we fail and were wrong, he said, nobody dies, nobody goes to jail, theres no high-intensity gunfight. White said he could still see benefits to government agencies using the technology once its accuracy improves, though. It sounds scary, he said. I think this is one of the things that could easily be polarized. Theres the obvious side, We need to make ourselves more secure here, and then theres the side, We need to protect our privacy. BEIRUT (AP) More than 200 Lebanese and Palestinians held a protest Sunday near the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon against a White House plan for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Protesters waving Palestinian flags gathered on a road leading to the embassy northeast of Beirut amid tight security by Lebanese troops and riot police. Death to America! Death to Israel! We will die and Palestine survive," some of the demonstrators chanted. The U.S. plan heavily favored Israel, granting the Palestinians limited self-rule in parts of the occupied West Bank while allowing Israel to annex all its settlements there and keep nearly all of east Jerusalem, which Palestinians claim as the capital of a future Palestinian state. Around noon, the protesters removed the barbed wire and reached a metal fence set up by security forces. Police used what appeared to be pepper spray to hold back some of the demonstrators who were on the fence, with at least three protesters being carried away. Later in the day, the protesters dispersed from the area without any serious clashes, apart from some stone throwing at security forces. On Saturday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas threatened to cut security ties with both Israel and the U.S. in a speech at an Arab League meeting in response to the U.S. plan. Arab foreign ministers there joined in criticizing the plan and calling it a setback to Mideast peace efforts. Lebanon is home to tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees and their descendants. There have been protests in the country's 12 refugee camps since President Donald Trump unveiled the proposal in Washington. In the fallout from the newly announced US peace plan, Israel has threatened to annex parts of the West Bank while the Palestinians have pledged to cut security ties. Yet analysts say both moves could prove harder to implement in the short term than anticipated. What could be annexed? On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump released his long-delayed Israeli-Palestinian peace plan, which was widely seen as skewed towards Israel. Among a series of proposals that angered the Palestinians was America giving the green light for Israel to annex the Jordan Valley and West Bank settlements. The Jordan Valley constitutes about a third of the West Bank, the largest part of the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since a 1967 war. Palestinians say such annexation would effectively make it impossible for them to form a state. When could annexation happen? After Tuesday's announcement Israeli officials said the government would discuss annexation at the cabinet on Sunday, while the US ambassador to Israel said they could proceed immediately. But Israeli officials have since expressed concerns over security, while Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and chief architect of the peace plan, has called for Israel to wait until at least after Israeli general elections on March 2. The cabinet meeting on Sunday was cancelled without a stated reason. The Jordan Valley borders Jordan and annexation would anger the Hashemite kingdom, one of two Arab states with a formal peace treaty with Israel. Kobi Michael, senior fellow with Israel's Institute for National Security Studies, said there was "concern" among the army and other security forces that it could escalate tensions. The army announced it was sending reinforcements to the Jordan Valley after the peace plan was released. "There was a recommendation by the (military's) general staff to the political echelon not to hurry with annexation," he said. What is the Palestinian response? Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas was infuriated by the peace plan. He had already severed ties with the Trump administration over its pro-Israel stance but on Saturday pledged to go further and cut all security ties with the United States and Israel. Analysts says such coordination is vital in maintaining calm in the West Bank, where Abbas's government has limited autonomy in major cities. "The major challenge for the (army) is a Palestinian uprising which if uncontrolled -- and if you add if security coordination between Israel and the Palestinian Authority stops -- would be a major challenge," Michael said. The second of two previous Palestinian intifadas, or uprisings, ended in the mid-2000s. Will Abbas follow through? Abbas has made similar threats multiple times without ultimately cutting ties. Uzi Rabi, director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, said 84-year-old Abbas risks emboldening rivals Hamas if he follows through with his threat. Palestinian Authority forces work with their Israeli counterparts to break up cells of the Islamist militant group in the West Bank. "For Abbas the security (coordination) prevents Hamas getting into the West Bank," Rabi said. It was not immediately clear Sunday if coordination was expected to or had already stopped. "It is a threatening message and remains a threat because it is not easy," Palestinian political analyst Jihad Harb said. "On the ground we have not seen anything yet." But Ghassan Khatib, a former Palestinian minister, said Abbas's language was more direct than in the past. "Previously they used to talk about forming a committee to study cutting ties or some kind of linguistic trick," he said. "This time he is saying we have already notified the Israelis and the US. There were no disclaimers." Khatib said if security ties were genuinely cut the Israelis would likely respond by freezing coordination in other areas, making Palestinian lives in the West Bank far more difficult. About 2.7 million Palestinians live in the territory, alongside around 400,000 Israeli settlers. Hugh Lovatt, Israel-Palestine analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations, agreed that "past experience would lead to scepticism". "But while Abbas may once again be crying wolf, it is worth remembering that the wolf did show up one day." Search Keywords: Short link: By David Hearst A new wave of struggle has to start now for equal rights in one state on all of the land of historic Palestine February 01, 2020 " Information Clearing House " - An elephant trap has for years now laid in the path of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus messianic plans to establish the state of Israel between the river and the sea. It was the demographic fact that, in that space, there were more Palestinians than Jews. According to 2016 figures from the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) that were provided to the Israeli Knessets foreign affairs and defence committee, there were 6.5 million Muslims and 6.44 million Jews between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea, although those figures are out of date now. The committee referred to Muslims rather than Palestinians, thus excluding Palestinian Christians. This means that Netanyahu's annexation plan on its own cannot work. The huge concrete infrastructure with which Israel has cemented its occupation of the West Bank - settlements, walls, roads and tunnels - and its apartheid state as cruel and as complete as anything manufactured in South Africa, are all palliatives - medicines which reduce the pain to a Jewish majority state but not the cause. Another Nakba You can announce as many times as you like, as US President Donald Trump did yesterday, that Israel will take over the Jordan Valley and thus about 30 per cent of the West Bank, and establish Israeli law over the settlements. But without physically moving greater and greater numbers of Palestinians out of the expanded state of Israel, little changes. Annexation just becomes another form of occupation. Population transfer, mass population transfer, another Nakba or Catastrophe, therefore, lies at the heart of Trumps and Netanyahus "vision" for peace. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter This is a peace of sorts. It's the silence you hear in the Palestinian villages in 1948, in Beit Hanoun in 2014, when Israel bombed a UN school in northern Gaza crowded with hundreds of displaced civilians killing 15 and injuring 200 people, or in East Aleppo or Mosul, after each in turn have been bombed to a pulp. It's the peace created in the total and complete defeat of the Palestinian struggle for a state built on their own land. The hidden plan So, for me, the heart of the apocalyptic vision lay not in the supremacist speeches of Trump or Netanyahu, in which both proclaimed "mission accomplished", and the complete victory of the Zionist movement over the Palestinian people. It lay in a paragraph buried deep inside the 180-page document, the most detailed document Trump bragged that had ever been produced about this conflict. Precisely. It's the paragraph which says that land swaps by Israel could include both "populated and unpopulated areas". The document is precise about the population it is referring to - the 1948 Palestinian population of the so-called northern triangle of Israel - Kafr Qara, Baqa-al-Gharbiyye, Umm al-Fahm, Qalansawe, Tayibe, Kafr Qasim, Tira, Kafr Bara and Jaljulia. The document goes on: "The Vision contemplates the possibility, subject to agreement of the parties, that the borders of Israel will be redrawn such that the Triangle Communities become part of the State of Palestine. In this agreement, the civil rights of the residents of the triangle communities would be subject to the applicable laws and judicial rulings of the relevant authorities. This is the hidden and most dangerous part of this plan. The triangle is home to about 350,000 Palestinians - all of whom are Israeli citizens - perched beside the north western border of the West Bank. Umm al-Fahm, its main city, has been the home of some of the most active defenders of Al Aqsa. Yousef Jabareen, a member of the Israeli Knesset from the Joint List, told me: "Umm al-Fahm is my hometown, Wadi Ara is my lifeblood. The Triangle is home to hundreds of thousands of Arab-Palestinian citizens living in their homeland. Trump and Netanyahus annexation and transfer programme remove us from our homeland and revoke our citizenship; an existential danger to all Arab minority citizens. Now is the time for Jews and Arabs who value democracy and equality, to stand and work together against this dangerous plan." Official 'ethnic cleansing' For years now the "static transfer" of this population out of Israel has been toyed with by Israeli leaders of the centre or the right. The idea of a population and land swap was alluded to by former prime ministers Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon. But it was only Avigdor Lieberman who took the expulsion of Palestinians up consistently as a cause. He advocated stripping a suggested 350,000 Palestinians in the Triangle of their Israeli citizenship and forcing the other 20 per cent of the Israeli population, who are non-Jews, to make a loyalty oath to Israel as a "Jewish Zionist state", or face expulsion to a Palestinian state. Two years ago, Netanyahu proposed to Trump that Israel should rid itself of the Triangle. Today these plans for ethnic cleansing have been sealed in an official White House document. As Palestinian member of the Knesset, Ayman Odeh, tweeted, Trumps announcement was "a green light to revoke the citizenship of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arab citizens who live in northern Israel". Supporting Trump The presence of the Emirati, Bahraini and Omani ambassadors in the audience was the other remarkable feature of the announcement in the White House on Tuesday. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the UAE welcomed the plan without reservation. Qatar did too, although it added that the Palestinian state should be negotiated on 1967 borders and Palestinians should retain their right of return. Trump said he was amazed at the number of calls he received from world leaders in support of his plan. Not least from our very own British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Ditching four decades of British foreign policy on an equitable and just two-state solution, Johnson threw the UKs weight behind the Trump plan. British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab also released a statement to say they welcome the deal. This is clearly a serious proposal, reflecting extensive time and effort, he said. "I cannot believe the amount of support this morning has," Trump bragged. "I have been called by leaders, Boris [Johnson] called; so many called. Theyre all saying, whatever we can do to help. There are some, however, who realise the danger of this plan. Senator Chris Murphy is one of them. He tweeted: "The unilateral annexation of the Jordan River valley and existing settlements, deemed illegal under US and international law, will set back the peace process decades. And it risks real violence and massive destabilization inside places like Jordan." Home alone No-one should underestimate the historic nature of the declaration that has just taken place. The two-state solution or the idea that a viable, contiguous Palestinian state can be created alongside a Jewish majority state is dead. It was dead long before Oslo Accords. Arab peacemakers like King Hussein of Jordan was told in terms by both the Soviets - Yevgeny Primakov - and James Baker, then secretary of state, that an independent Palestinian state would never be achieved. This was even before the Madrid conference which preceded Oslo. The king did not need to attend the funeral of his friend Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated in 1995, to realise this. He knew it already. But it really is dead now. The US has now given its official imprimatur to the eastern borders of the state of Israel. The map Middle East Eye published says it all. The Palestinian state envisioned by the plan looks like an MRI scan of the brain of an Alzheimers victim. The Palestinian state has been entirely eaten away. The message of this map to Palestinians of whatever faction is now crystal clear. Forget your divisions, forget what happened between Fatah and Hamas in Gaza in 2007, cast aside claims of coups, and unite. Unite against an existential threat. The Palestinians are truly alone. All of the staples of their negotiating position have gone. They have no Jerusalem, no right of return, no refugees to return, no Golan Heights and now no Jordan Valley. They have no Arab allies. Syria is wrecked, Iraq divided, Egypt and Saudi Arabia are now Israels playthings. The Palestinians have lost the support of the most populous Arab nation and its richest one. They have nowhere to flee to. Europe is closed for any future mass migration. They have only one option: to stay and fight. United, they can undo Israels supremacist plans for ethnic cleansing. They have done this before and they can do this again. A new struggle Palestinians now have to face this reality. The PLO's recognition of Israel, in 1993, has finally hit the dead end that this road was always going to lead to. The US, international law, UN resolutions were never going to come to their rescue, and in this sense alone, Trumps brutal plan has done Palestinians a favour. It has blown away decades of fantasy. What has to start now is a new wave of struggle for equal rights in one state on all of the land of historic Palestine. This will involve a huge fight. No-one should underestimate what will happen if the Palestinian people rise up again. But no-one should be in any doubt too, of the consequences of acquiescence. This is the first time since 1948 that all Palestinians can join together to do this. They have to seize this opportunity or wither away as a footnote in history. This article was published by "MME" - Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here ==See Also== ONGC, IOC and other oil PSUs will invest over Rs 98,521 crore in the coming fiscal starting April 1 in exploring for oil and gas, refineries, petrochemicals and laying pipelines to meet needs of the world's fastest-growing energy consuming nation. The investment proposed in 2020-21 is almost 4 per cent higher than Rs 94,974 crore spending by the state-owned oil firms in the current fiscal year that ends on March 31, according to Budget 2020-21 documents. Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) leads the pack with a 19 per cent rise in its capital spending at Rs 32,501 crore. The company is investing in finding new reserves of oil and gas and bringing to production discoveries it has already made. It is developing discoveries on both east and west coast of the country. The top oil producer's overseas arm, ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL) will invest almost 10 per cent more at Rs 7,235 crore in oil and gas operations abroad. Indian Oil Corp (IOC), the country's top oil refiner, will see a 17.4 per cent rise in spending to Rs 26,233 crore with the bulk of it in expansion and upgrade of its seven refineries that produce fuel. IOC will also see investment in petrochemical business almost double to Rs 3,387.5 crore while its exploration spends quadruples to Rs 2,150 crore. Privatisation-bound Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) has proposed a 14 per cent higher capital spending at Rs 9,000 crore, two-third of which will be in its core refining business. Gas utility GAIL India Ltd will not see any major increase in its investments at Rs 5,412 crore as most of its pipeline grid expansion projects are nearing completion. Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL), a subsidiary of ONGC, will invest Rs 11,500 crore in FY21, the same as the previous year. Oil India Ltd, the nation's second-largest oil producer, will invest Rs 3,877 crore next year as compared to Rs 3,675 crore in current fiscal. In her second budget, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had on Saturday laid down plans for expansion of national natural gas pipeline network to 27,000 km from the present 16,200 km and pricing reforms as the government looks at boosting the use of environment-friendly fuel. The government has set a target of raising the share of natural gas in primary energy basket to 15 per cent by 2030 from current 6.2 per cent. Connecting gas sources to consumption hubs is key to achieving this. Presently, most of the gas pipelines are concentrated in the western and northern part of the country with a few lines in the east and south. "To deepen gas markets in India, further reforms will be undertaken to facilitate transparent price discovery and ease of transactions," she had said. Presently, the price of natural gas produced domestically is fixed by a formula that averages out rates in gas surplus nations such as Russia and the US. "Further, it is proposed to expand the national gas grid from the present 16,200 km to 27,000 km," she said without giving a timeline. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) told Bloomberg in an interview Sunday that there could immediately be a push to try to impeach Joe Biden over his actions in Ukraine if he's elected president, despite no evidence of wrongdoing by the former vice president. Why it matters: Republicans have argued that attempting to remove President Trump from office in a partisan fashion sets a dangerous precedent of politicizing impeachment. Ernst, who said earlier Sunday that she will vote to acquit Trump, told Bloomberg that "this door of impeachable whatever has been opened" and that "Joe Biden should be very careful what hes asking for." The big picture: Biden, who was tasked by President Obama with fighting corruption in Ukraine, demanded the firing of former prosecutor general Viktor Shokin in 2016. At the time, Biden's son Hunter was serving on the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma, which was owned by an oligarch who had been investigated for corruption. The removal of Shokin was a policy supported by the International Monetary Fund, the European Union and many bipartisan members of Congress. However, Republicans have alleged that Biden had Shokin fired because he was investigating Burisma. There's no evidence to support this claim, and no members of Congress expressed concern about Shokin's ouster until last year, when the allegations were first promoted by Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani. Between the lines: Iowa, Ernst's home state, will host its Democratic caucuses Monday. Polls show a tight race between Biden, former Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. Ernst suggested last week that information about the Bidens surfaced during the impeachment trial could hurt his chances. "Im really interested to see how this discussion today informs and influences the Iowa caucus voters, those Democratic caucus-goers," she said. "Will they be supporting Vice President Biden at this point? Not certain at that." Go deeper ... Fact check: What Joe and Hunter Biden actually did in Ukraine Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect that Ernst said "people" could push to impeach Biden, not Republicans specifically.. Shareholders in the nation's biggest winemaker, Treasury Wine Estates, could have been forgiven for feeling a strange sense of deja vu last week. The maker of Penfolds, Rawson's Retreat and America's Beringer wines shocked the market with an after-hours earnings downgrade and dire first-half result for its US business. It had all the hallmarks of 2013 when the company, currently valued at $9 billion, was caught in a "channel stuffing" scandal in its Americas business that ultimately forced it to destroy thousands of bottles of wine. Treasury Wine Estates boss Mike Clarke got more jeers than cheers on his second last analyst call as the chief executive of the wine giant. Credit: Treasury has been quick to assure the market that its 2020 woes were due to much different reasons this time it was due to the impact of a slew of top executive departures in the US and a glut of cheap wine flooding the market from competitors. The dire result was bad news for outgoing boss Mike Clarke who became the new broom CEO in 2013 amid the crisis. Just months after staring down his critics, his career at Treasury is now bookended with problems in America. A search is under way for a woman who went missing hours after she was discovered in an abandoned Alabama home and told police she was being held as a sex slave. Shannon McKinney, 25, was found in the dilapidated property in Jefferson County on Thursday by police investigating electricity theft there. McKinney allegedly told officers that she had been drugged and forced to have sex with numerous men in exchange for money, drugs and stolen goods for more than a year. She was taken to a women's treatment center and left of her own volition hours later as authorities launched a manhunt for two suspects, Logan Williams and Steven Hollier. The Brookside Police Department initially indicated that they believed McKinney lied about being a victim of prostitution and was not being held against her will after family members claimed Hollier is her boyfriend and was supplying her with heroin. However, Police Chief Mike Jones on Sunday said that investigators are still working to get to the bottom of McKinney's allegations. Shannon McKinney, 25, went missing hours after she was discovered in an abandoned Alabama home and told police that she was a victim of prostitution McKinney was found in a dilapidated property in Jefferson County (pictured) on Thursday by police investigating electricity theft there. She allegedly told officers that she had been drugged and forced to have sex with numerous men for over a year Family members suspect McKinney (left) is on the run with her boyfriend Steven Hollier (right), who is wanted on charges of second-degree theft of services and utility tampering 'Contrary to conflicting social media posts by persons not involved in the case investigation, Brookside investigators have not released any statements referencing "not believing the victim" or claiming the "victim is lying to police,"' Jones said. 'The victim's case is an ongoing investigation and we continue to gather evidence as the case investigation progresses.' The chief continued: 'At this point in the investigation there is enough evidence that substantiates the victims claims of prostitution. 'There is evidence that was presented in reference to her claims that she was forced against her will.' Jones added that the term 'sex slave' could be an exaggeration and said that the case is difficult to investigate because McKinney is a drug addict. 'Whether she has been forced into addiction or her addiction is voluntary is still under investigation,' Jones said. 'At this point in the investigation we are concentrating our efforts on finding the victim, helping her receive proper treatment and continuing to gather the facts and evidence in the case investigation.' Logan Williams (pictured), who was allegedly living in the home with Hollier and McKinney, turned himself in to police on Saturday The curious case began on Thursday when utility investigators for Alabama Power went to the property that they say had been illegally wired with electricity. The investigators called Brookside police for backup after they saw a man flee from the home on foot. Responding officers then found McKinney, who claimed she had been held as a sex slave by two men, Williams and Hollier. Officers returned with a search warrant the following day and forced their way into the home, which was said to be in horrible condition. It was reportedly littered with syringes, drug paraphernalia and stolen credit cards and property. Police began searching for Williams and Hollier - who are suspected of drug trafficking, utility theft, possession of drug paraphernalia and other felonies - as well as all suspects who allegedly sexually assaulted McKinney. The investigation took a turn after McKinney left the treatment center on Friday morning. The 25-year-old has not been seen since and police said it's possible she is with her boyfriend Hollier. Williams turned himself in to Brookside police on Saturday afternoon. The suspect, who had multiple warrants out for his arrest from earlier cases, has been booked on previous charges from the Jefferson County Sheriff's office including failure to appear, burglary, theft and obstruction of justice. Jones said Williams is cooperating with the probe. The case has been turned over to Homeland Security investigators. Anyone with information is asked to contact Detective Bynum at (205) 674-9275. The New Mexico Human Services Department recently released a first-of-its-kind Data Book, a 186-page compendium that provides a summary of social, economic and health statistics of our state and all its counties, in addition to some national comparisons. With more than 40 offices statewide, HSD serves nearly half of the states residents with its multitude of services. We do not believe that New Mexico is a poor state, HSD Secretary David R. Scrase wrote in the Data Books introduction. We believe that our state is built on strong communities, our states great beauty, and the abundance of our natural resources. However, we do acknowledge that New Mexico is at or near the wrong end of the list for average income, food insecurity, and childhood poverty. The Data Book allows users to easily identify hot spots of need in the state, he said. While no one likes to see New Mexico at the wrong end of these national lists, our very low average income results in our state having one of the very highest federal match rates in the country, Scrase said. This provides us with a great opportunity to leverage our financial resources and return between $3.50 and $9 of federal funds for each general fund dollar spent. For fiscal year 2021, HSDs budget request is $7.78 billion, with a 15.7% or $1.22 billion request from the state general fund. Nearly 85% of HSDs budget is funded by federal matching funds from a variety of programs, Scrase said. For every additional dollar of new state general funds, HSD will earn $2.52 in additional federal funds. Over the last several years, HSD has managed its programs with little to no new general fund appropriations. Sources used in the Data Book include the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Census Bureau, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, Living Wage Calculator at MIT, Feeding Americas Map the Meal Gap, Kaiser Family Foundation, New Mexico Office of Vital Records and Statistics, New Mexico Department of Health, New Mexico Human Services Department, New Mexico State Legislature and University of New Mexico Geospatial and Population Studies Program. The accompanying graphic shows some facts found in the Data Book. Some investors rely on dividends for growing their wealth, and if you're one of those dividend sleuths, you might be intrigued to know that China YuHua Education Corporation Limited (HKG:6169) is about to go ex-dividend in just 3 days. If you purchase the stock on or after the 6th of February, you won't be eligible to receive this dividend, when it is paid on the 21st of February. China YuHua Education's next dividend payment will be HK$0.073 per share, and in the last 12 months, the company paid a total of HK$0.12 per share. Calculating the last year's worth of payments shows that China YuHua Education has a trailing yield of 2.4% on the current share price of HK$5.43. Dividends are a major contributor to investment returns for long term holders, but only if the dividend continues to be paid. We need to see whether the dividend is covered by earnings and if it's growing. See our latest analysis for China YuHua Education Dividends are usually paid out of company profits, so if a company pays out more than it earned then its dividend is usually at greater risk of being cut. Its dividend payout ratio is 82% of profit, which means the company is paying out a majority of its earnings. The relatively limited profit reinvestment could slow the rate of future earnings growth It could become a concern if earnings started to decline. That said, even highly profitable companies sometimes might not generate enough cash to pay the dividend, which is why we should always check if the dividend is covered by cash flow. It distributed 34% of its free cash flow as dividends, a comfortable payout level for most companies. It's positive to see that China YuHua Education's dividend is covered by both profits and cash flow, since this is generally a sign that the dividend is sustainable, and a lower payout ratio usually suggests a greater margin of safety before the dividend gets cut. Click here to see the company's payout ratio, plus analyst estimates of its future dividends. Story continues SEHK:6169 Historical Dividend Yield, February 2nd 2020 Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing? Businesses with strong growth prospects usually make the best dividend payers, because it's easier to grow dividends when earnings per share are improving. If earnings fall far enough, the company could be forced to cut its dividend. This is why it's a relief to see China YuHua Education earnings per share are up 2.6% per annum over the last three years. A payout ratio of 82% looks like a tacit signal from management that reinvestment opportunities in the business are low. In line with limited earnings growth in recent years, this is not the most appealing combination. Many investors will assess a company's dividend performance by evaluating how much the dividend payments have changed over time. In the past three years, China YuHua Education has increased its dividend at approximately 22% a year on average. We're glad to see dividends rising alongside earnings over a number of years, which may be a sign the company intends to share the growth with shareholders. The Bottom Line Is China YuHua Education an attractive dividend stock, or better left on the shelf? Earnings per share growth has been modest and China YuHua Education paid out over half of its profits and less than half of its free cash flow, although both payout ratios are within normal limits. In summary, it's hard to get excited about China YuHua Education from a dividend perspective. Curious what other investors think of China YuHua Education? See what analysts are forecasting, with this visualisation of its historical and future estimated earnings and cash flow. If you're in the market for dividend stocks, we recommend checking our list of top dividend stocks with a greater than 2% yield and an upcoming dividend. If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Thank you for reading. Tim M. | Photo: Piece Brewery and Pizzeria/Yelp Got a hankering for pizza? Hoodline crunched the numbers to find the top pizza outlets in Chicago, using both Yelp data and our own secret sauce to produce a ranked list of the best spots to venture next time you're on the hunt. Winter is the top season of the year for consumer spending at restaurants across the Chicago area, according to data on local business transactions from Womply, a software provider that also helps companies build a small business marketing strategy. The average amount spent per customer transaction at Chicago-area restaurants grew to $30 for the metro area in the winter of last year, 2% higher than the average for the rest of the year. Hoodline offers data-driven analysis of local happenings and trends across cities. Links included in this article may earn Hoodline a commission on clicks and transactions. 1. Giordano's Topping the list is a member of the Giordano's chain. Located at 130 E. Randolph (between Stetson Avenue and Beaubien Court) in the Loop, the Italian spot, which offers pizza and salads, is the most popular pizza spot in Chicago, boasting four stars out of 2,675 reviews on Yelp. 2. Pequod's Pizzeria photo: alex d./yelp Sheffield Neighbors's Pequod's Pizzeria, located at 2207 N. Clybourn Ave. (between Webster and Greenview avenues), is another top choice, with Yelpers giving the spot to score pizza and more four stars out of 6,039 reviews. 3. Eataly photo: kunal c./yelp Eataly, a specialty food and Italian spot that offers pizza and more in the Near North, is another high-traffic go-to, with four stars out of 3,705 Yelp reviews. Head over to 43 E. Ohio St. (between Wabash Avenue and Rush Street) to see for yourself. 4. Piece Brewery and Pizzeria Photo: Tim M./Yelp Last but not least, there's Piece Brewery and Pizzeria, a Wicker Park favorite with four stars out of 3,515 reviews. Stop by 1927 W. North Ave. (between Winchester and Elk Grove avenues) to hit up the brewery, which offers pizza and more, next time you're looking to satisfy your cravings. This story was created automatically using local business data, then reviewed and augmented by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback. Saudi Arabia's Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman (2nd R), UAE's Minister of Energy and Industry Suhail al-Mazrouei (L), OPEC's Secretary General Mohammed Sanusi Barkindo (2nd L) and Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak attend as Opec-JMMC meeting in the UAE capital Abu Dhabi on September 12, 2019. OPEC and non-OPEC's Joint Technical Committee (JTC) has scheduled a meeting over Feb. 4-5 in Vienna to assess the impact of China's new coronavirus on oil demand, OPEC+ sources told Reuters. The technical panel is likely to make a recommendation on whether to extend current oil supply curbs beyond March or to implement deeper output cuts, the sources said. OPEC officials are considering their options on how best to deal with the potential impact from the spread of the coronavirus, which has killed more than 300 people and caused oil prices to slide. Tony Hetherington is Financial Mail on Sunday's ace investigator, fighting readers corners, revealing the truth that lies behind closed doors and winning victories for those who have been left out-of-pocket. Find out how to contact him below. K.H. writes: I had hoped that following your intervention with Revolut, we could move on. However, Revolut has messaged my wife, saying that her account has been closed and funds returned 'to source'. Well, I was that source, and nothing has been returned to me, so where has the money gone? Flashback: Our story in December pictured alongside Revolut boss Nikolay Storonsky In December, I reported how Revolut had 'temporarily disabled' your account without notice, trapping 10,000 of your money while it carried out unspecified enquiries for what it said were 'security reasons'. These words and actions invariably mean that you are suspected of being a criminal money launderer, and you are guilty until proven innocent. You and I both found that Revolut does not reply to emails. Its published phone number simply offers useless options, none of which allow you to speak to a human being. It has no branches, and its only office in London does not welcome callers or customers. I finally made contact with this ultra-modern company by sending an old-fashioned signed-for letter by snail mail to Revolut's Russian-born boss Nikolay Storonsky. This won me a vaguely worded statement explaining how Revolut keeps its customers safe from fraud, sometimes by freezing their account if there is anything it regards as 'suspicious activity'. With no explanation of what that activity was, Revolut restored your account and your cash. But in the same breath, it seems to have spotted that your wife has an account, so it first froze it and then closed it. About 2,500 of your wife's money vanished. Revolut unilaterally decided to send her money back to an account you have at Transferwise, so I asked Revolut where the cash had actually gone. And just as importantly, I asked why it should not have been your wife's decision as to where her money went. Suppose, for example, she had struggled to get a refund from a shop, only to have Revolut send the money straight back to the shop's bank. I never did get an answer to this second question, but it appeared the 2,500 had disappeared because Transferwise had changed its IBAN, the international bank account number used in transfers. And when the money bounced back to Revolut, it went into a dumping ground holding account where Revolut said it could not find it unless Transferwise, which had not requested or expected the money in the first place, provided details that would allow Revolut to trace it. This was ridiculous, so I offered to accompany your wife to Revolut's offices and go through its records until we found the missing money. And I asked, would it be OK for me to bring a Mail on Sunday photographer to record the event? Suddenly, Revolut found the funds, updated the IBAN, and made the transfer to Transferwise, depriving me of a day out at its Canary Wharf offices. But it still refused to explain why it closed your wife's account. 'We cannot disclose details on individual accounts,' I was told. Which is fair enough except that your wife had signed a legally binding authority allowing Revolut to do exactly that. Finally, in December, I described Revolut as a bank. It has asked me to say that it is not a bank, but a 'global financial platform'. In which case, it might want to correct any false impression customers might get from its own website, which advertises 'a next generation banking experience,' and proclaims: 'Revolut is building a global bank to suit your lifestyle.' Strange lifestyle, strange banking experience. Why does the Revenue keep trying to pay me? P.K. writes: I need your help in my unusual dispute with Revenue and Customs they wish to pay me refunds and grant me tax allowances to which I know I am not entitled. Money for nothing: Revenue staff have now spring-cleaned your own records and taken steps to make sure the same mistake does not happen again You are 73, a retired engineer and teacher, and your tax affairs are straightforward. Out of the blue, you received a claim form from the Revenue, and when you checked your online tax account, it showed you were due a refund of 1,385. This was apparently tax overpaid on your business income except you have no such income. After lots of phone calls from you, the tax office deleted the refund from your account. But now the same thing has happened again. You have been invited to reclaim 461, and the Revenue has changed the tax it collects from your pension because, it says, 'you now get job expenses worth 2,310'. Again, you have tried to alert the tax office to this, but without success. I asked officials at the Revenue head office to investigate, and they told me: 'We received an online tax return for a different customer which used an incorrect reference number.' In short, a firm of accountants with no connection to you has put your tax reference on their client's file by mistake. Revenue staff have now spring-cleaned your own records and taken steps to make sure the same mistake does not happen again. If you believe you are the victim of financial wrongdoing, write to Tony Hetherington at Financial Mail, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TS or email tony.hetherington@mailonsunday.co.uk. Because of the high volume of enquiries, personal replies cannot be given. Please send only copies of original documents, which we regret cannot be returned. 'Jihadist attack' kills nearly 20 civilians in Burkina Faso Ouagadougou, Feb 2 (AFP) Feb 02, 2020 Suspected jihadists killed nearly 20 civilians in an attack overnight on the northern Burkina Faso village of Bani, Seno province, security sources said Sunday. "The attackers, heavily armed and on motorbikes, literally executed the local inhabitants," the security source told AFP. The attackers left nearly 20 dead, the source added. A local health official, speaking from the town of Dori in the north, said the chief nurse at the nearby village of Lamdamol was among the victims. "There is panic in the village and the surrounding area," the official added, saying local people were fleeing the area towards the centre-north of the country. Another security source said that the attack had come as a reprisal after jihadists had told local people to leave the area a few days earlier. The security forces worked day and night to make the zone safe, "but it is difficult to be everywhere at once", said the source. This latest attack comes a week after several similar attacks in the north of the country. On January 25, an attack killed 39 civilians in the village of Silgadji, in the neighbouring province of Soum, northwest of Seno. Burkina Faso borders Mali to the northwest and Niger to the east, both countries that are struggling to contain a wave of lethal jihadist attacks. Burkina's security forces, under-equipped and poorly trained, have not been able to counter the deadly raids in their territory, despite the help of foreign soldiers, notably French troops. According to UN figures, the jihadist attacks in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso killed 4,000 people in 2019 and caused an unprecedented humanitarian crisis, having forced 600,000 to flee their homes. Before they can get started at their field site -- a giant cave studded with stalactites, stalagmites and human artifacts -- 15 undergraduate students must figure out how to use their virtual hands and tools. They also must learn to teleport. This is ANTH 399, a course designed to bring the archaeological field school experience to undergraduate students who never leave campus. Designed by University of Illinois professors and computer science graduate students, the course satisfies the field school requirement for those pursuing an archaeology degree at Illinois. "Field school is a requirement of most archaeological programs across the country," said Illinois anthropology professor Laura Shackelford, who led development of the class with U. of I. education policy, organization and leadership professor Wenhao David Huang and computer science graduate student Cameron Merrill. "But traveling to a field school site can cost anywhere from $500 to $5,000." This, and the fact that traditional field school expeditions are often scheduled during breaks, makes it difficult or impossible for many students to attend -- cutting them off from the study of archaeology altogether. "This class makes it possible for many more students to get an education or explore a career in archaeology," Shackelford said. The class is also accessible to students with physical limitations who are unable to travel to or navigate a field site. The virtual cave is modeled in part on a real cave that was excavated in the 1930s. It contains both ancient and more recent human artifacts, all of which are accessible to students who dig in the right place. advertisement The students learn the archaeological techniques required in any excavation. They set up a research grid on the cave floor and systematically locate and record any artifacts they find on the surface. They draw a map with all of the surface details and then decide where to excavate. They take photos of special features or finds. They dig. They collect artifacts. They conduct laboratory analyses. They keep track of their progress in a field notebook. All of these tasks are accomplished in the virtual world. Building this virtual archaeological experience is a computational and creative challenge, said computer science graduate student Merrill, the lead programmer on the project. This class is his doctoral thesis. "You can't just import lectures into VR and expect to have good results," Merrill said. "We're not creating a 3D model viewer for looking at artifacts or to tour an existing site. We're trying to build an immersive educational experience." Students need to feel they are actually engaged in excavating a cave, he said. It's also important for them to use realistic tools to accomplish the tasks at hand. advertisement But designing virtual tools for an archaeological dig is tricky, Merrill said. "A lot of the challenge has to do with the trade-off between making something as realistic as possible versus making something more accessible to people," he said. For example, the designers created a virtual tape measure that requires two hands to operate. But reading tiny measurements in the virtual world is problematic, so a pop-up screen shows the user the readout on the tape. Virtual digging was another challenge. "We needed to simulate dirt that the students can modify in real time," Merrill said. "But simulating something like soil is very computationally complex." The team came up with a solution that allows students to extract the dirt in chunks that reflect the light in a realistic manner. The design also incorporates haptic feedback, so that students can "feel" the solidity and texture of the dirt when they make contact. The team uses insights from game design to engage the students, Shackelford said. "We're giving them less instruction and providing multiple scenarios," she said. "And so it's possible different teams of students will experience different things." The students choose where to dig, which influences the information they gather -- or miss, Shackelford said. And there are risks, too. Dig too far into a wall and it might collapse. In the first iteration of the class held last year, students gave the designers immediate feedback about how the tools worked or didn't work, allowing Merrill and his colleagues to tweak them. He and his colleagues have created more than 110 artifacts, many of which are virtual versions of actual relics in the university's collections. "When we want them to learn how to do some ceramic analysis and sorting, we'll bring the real things to class and they'll be going back and forth between the real and virtual worlds," Shackelford said. The students work in pairs, taking turns in the virtual world while their partner guides them, following their progress on a computer monitor and stopping them from bumping into any real-world objects. The excavations lead to laboratory work, which also occurs in the virtual realm, Shackelford said. "There's a lab on faunal analysis, there's a lab on pollen analysis," she said. "They're doing ceramic sorting and identification. They're doing seriation, which is putting things in the correct chronological order." They also learn stratigraphy, the art of reading how layers of soil were deposited over time. "The pattern and the timing of that deposition of soil tells us a lot about how a site was formed, Shackelford said. The team is evaluating the efficacy of the program to determine if the skills the students learn are equivalent to those obtained in a real-world dig. In the earlier version of the class, professors took the students to a real-world "mock excavation" site near campus at the end of the semester. This site allowed the students to excavate in real dirt, testing their VR-acquired skills and understanding. "We found that a lot of things that were frustrating for students in the virtual reality world were just as frustrating in the real world," Shackelford said. "And with a little practice and self-correction, they were able to do everything that we asked them to." Turkey may launch Syria offensive if Idlib attacks continue: Erdogan Iran Press TV Saturday, 01 February 2020 7:52 AM President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says Turkey may launch a military operation in Idlib if the ongoing offensive by Syrian government forces against foreign-sponsored Takfiri militants continues there. Erdogan said Friday Turkey would not allow new threats near its borders, adding it will resort to military power in Idlib as it did in its cross-border incursion in northern Syria unless fighting there is quickly halted. On October 9, Turkish army forces and militants of the so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA), who enjoy Ankara's patronage, launched a cross-border offensive into northeastern Syria in a declared attempt to clear members of Kurdish YPG militants. Ankara regards the US-backed YPG as a terrorist organization tied to the homegrown Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militant group, which has been seeking an autonomous Kurdish region in the Anatolian country since 1984. "We will do what is necessary when someone is threatening our soil. We will have no choice but to resort to the same path again if the situation in Idlib is not returned to normal quickly," Erdogan said Friday. "We will not refrain from doing what is necessary, including using military force," he said. The remarks come as Syrian government forces are advancing against foreign-backed Takfiri militants in Idlib, tightening the noose around the extremists in their last major stronghold. The Syrian army declared the start of an offensive against foreign-sponsored militants in Idlib on August 5 last year. It came after those positioned in the de-escalation zone failed to honor a ceasefire brokered by Russia and Turkey and continued to target civilian neighborhoods. Under the Sochi agreement, all militants in the demilitarized zone that surrounds Idlib, and also parts of the provinces of Aleppo and west-central province of Hama, were supposed to pull out heavy arms by October 17, 2018, with the Takfiri groups having to withdraw two days earlier. Turkey, which claims to be hosting a reported total of 3.6 million Syrian refugees since foreign-backed militancy began in Syria, says it fears a fresh influx of refugees from Idlib. Turkey has 12 military observation posts around Idlib. The posts were established under a September 2018 deal between Russia and Turkey to avert a Syrian government onslaught in Idlib. However, the Kremlin said on Friday Russia was fully compliant with its obligations in Syria's Idlib region, but that it was deeply concerned about aggressive militant attacks on Syrian government forces and Russia's Hmeimim air base. Erdogan on Wednesday accused Russia of violating agreements and that Ankara was losing patience with the military assault in Idlib. Ankara itself, major European powers, and Washington are accused of helping trigger the crisis by either arming militants in Syria or providing safe passage for them into and out of the Arab country. Turkey has invaded Syria twice so far in 2016 and 2018 to drive back Kurdish militants whom it associates with anti-Ankara terrorists. It has been maintaining an unlawful presence in the Syrian territory ever since. Syria says Turkey's military presence in the country is illegal and would ultimately face Syrian government action. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Two people were injured in a stabbing incident on Bevrijdingslaan Street in Ghent, Het Laatste Nieuws reported, adding that the victims were promptly taken to hospital, Trend reports citing Sputnik. According to the Belgian police statement, the woman who committed the attack was shot in the hand and has now been detained, adding that an investigation is currently underway. "The investigation is ongoing, we will comment later", the public prosecutor's office said, as quoted by Het Laatste Nieuws. Alleged photos from the scene of the stabbing incident have appeared on social media platforms. Bevrijdingslaan has been closed off between Tulpstraat and Acaciastraat streets, according to reports. The incident comes just hours after a man with a knife attacked people in London, injuring two. For better and for worse, our lives have been revolutionised by the internet. But a new high-tech innovation known as 5G is set to transform everything once again. The internet plays a pivotal role in our lives thanks to broadband piped through our homes. But 'fifth generation' 5G will take this a giant step forward. It will enable mobile phones to use wireless broadband that matches the best fibre optic speeds. We will be able to rip out old phone lines and internet cables that clutter the house and instead use mobile reception for all our needs. Experts believe 5G will lead to an explosion of new 'smart' gadgets that talk to our mobile phones through more reliable superfast signals offering everything from fridge cameras that order groceries when the contents are running low, to robot chauffeurs that can take us around in a self-driving car. The possibilities of this connection of gadgets known as 'the internet of things' seem almost limitless. The 5G technology will start by making pin-sharp video phone calls the norm so we can ditch our landlines, if we haven't already. And with broadband download speeds of perhaps 200 Megabits per second (Mbps) which is more than four times faster than the current average home broadband speed the technology will also help us economise, clean the home and be more secure. Smartphone apps controlled by 5G will monitor our heating and lights turning gadgets off when not needed while providing 24-hour security with cameras viewed from our phones. They will also run robotic vacuum cleaners and lawn-mowers when we are away on holiday. But 5G is not without its critics. Last week, the Government came under fire when it announced Chinese firm Huawei would be allowed to be a major player in the building of the UK 5G network. Experts fear it could allow Chinese spies to eavesdrop on private conversations and install 'a Trojan horse' holding communication networks to ransom with the threat of a cyber war. Ernest Doku, a technology expert at comparison website uSwitch, says: '5G has the potential to transform the way we live but at this stage it is no silver bullet as we still need to ensure everyone has access to the connection before it can change the world. 'Last year, it started to be rolled out in major cities such as London, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast though connectivity is still small and patchy. And you need an expensive new smartphone such as the 800 Samsung Galaxy S10 to gain access. 'So far Apple devices cannot connect to the 5G network and the revolution cannot begin in earnest until they do which may happen when the latest iPhone models come out in September.' Download speeds are at least ten times faster with 5G than on the previous best 4G technology far better than most people's home broadband and in line with top fibre optic speeds. It means not only lightning fast access to the internet but the ability to download music and movies much quicker. Downloading a feature film on 4G can take a quarter of an hour but with 5G it might take just 90 seconds. BUT WATCH OUT FOR STINGRAYS! New 5G technology offers an exciting opportunity to improve our networks but it also opens a new door for fraudsters. One of the key concerns is the threat of so-called stingrays. This is where a criminal intercepts your mobile signal with a copycat aerial that tricks it into sharing encrypted identifying data about the phone. Using this information, the fraudster knows what handset you are using, can track your exact whereabouts and might even be able to hack into your phone operating systems software. If this is achieved it might be possible to break into your apps that control and monitor 5G smart gadgets. By cracking such codes criminals can eavesdrop on phone conversations and even spy on what you get up to from security cameras you place around the home. Harvesting information that can be seen when you tap into a mobile phone could also enable a fraudster to steal identities, using your personal information to go on an online spending spree or using personal details to empty your bank account. Cyber security expert Colin Tankard, of Digital Pathways, says: The public needs to be aware of the dangers of this new technology and with more gadgets being hooked up to 5G it increases the risk of problems if you should get hacked. Tankard believes those that embrace 5G must ensure they add a layer of security to their smartphones by downloading virtual private network software on to their handsets via an app. Such free software is available from security specialists such as Avira, Symantec and Sophos. Decrypting your phone signals to spy on private conversations is one of the key concerns of the critics of the Chinese 5G manufacturer Huawei. The Government is adamant that it has addressed such security issues by only allowing it to have a maximum 35 per cent stake in any projects with sensitive areas such as military bases and nuclear facilities strictly off limits. But this has not stopped the National Cyber Security Centre the cyber war combat arm of the Governments intelligence service from voicing concern. The NCSC has listed Huawei as a high-risk firm for security. NCSC technical director Dr Ian Levy says: The level of security in our networks needs to improve as our reliance on them increases. The threat for UK operators ranges from hostile states to organised crime and petty fraudsters. There are just a handful of main providers of the technology that supply 5G to customers of mobile networks such as EE, Vodafone and O2. These include Finnish phone giant Nokia, Swedish company Ericsson, South Korean firm Samsung and Chinese part-state run ZTE. But the most controversial is Huawei. Last week, it was licensed to have up to a 35 per cent market share in 5G projects supplying masts, antennae and cables. But it was banned from participating in 5G provision for military bases and nuclear plants. The mobile market leader in 5G is EE. Even though 5G reception at the moment is almost non-existent outside cities (though EE claims it is available in 50 UK locations), signing up to the new technology is not cheap. You pay 54 a month to EE for its best-selling Samsung Galaxy S10 5G deal which includes 10GB of data a month, enough for 500 hours of internet browsing. You then pay a further 30 upfront for the device and must sign up for two years. Vodafone has slightly less 5G nationwide coverage and costs 56 a month with 49 upfront for the same phone and 5GB of data each month if you sign up for two years. Another company that recently joined the fledgling 5G party is O2. It charges 54.64 a month plus an upfront 30 for a Galaxy S10 5G phone and 15GB of data usage a month but only if you are willing to sign up for at least 36 months. If you are using your phone in an area with no 5G reception then the mobile automatically reverts to the previous fastest-speed service 4G or goes on to 3G or 2G if this reception is not available either. THE way the technology works is by using a new radio bandwidth that allows more information to be packed into a broadcast than previously possible. But it also requires older 4G masts to be adapted so they can send and receive data on the new wavelength. The 5G technology will also require small transmitters to be positioned on streets outside people's homes to ensure 'smart' devices in the home can be connected with no interference or loss of signal. Such building work will cost many millions of pounds and because it is still in the early stages, the 'smart' gadgets that can use it are not widespread. Although we might expect 5G to become more popular this year so far it has a geographical coverage of less than 5 per cent it could take a decade before devices other than mobile phones catch up with this super-fast broadband wireless technology. Doku says: 'Although it may be exciting to be among the first people to embrace this new technology, prices for 5G phones and access to the 5G network should fall if you hold on for at least 12 months. 'Also, as a newbie, you may initially be disappointed as national coverage is still poor and the number of gadgets connecting to 5G is limited. 'But the potential for 5G to transform the way we live and manage our homes is really exciting.' Sisi urged maximizing the economic benefits of Egypt's natural resources to serve the country's goal to become a regional trading hub for oil and natural gas. President Abdel Fattah El Sisi urged the government to continue upgrading the petroleum sector by improving Egypt's value-added petrochemical industry to cope with sequential changes in the global market. Sisi made his directives during a meeting on Saturday with Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly, Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Tarek El Molla and presidential aide for national and strategic projects Sherif Ismail. The president called formaximizing the economic benefits of Egypt's natural resources for development purposes and to serve the country's goal to become a regional trading hub for oil and natural gas. The minister briefed the president on main themes of the strategy adopted by the petroleum ministry as well as the sector's recent achievements, Presidential Spokesman Bassam Rady said. El Molla noted that the sector's investments witnessed their all time high over the past fours, adding that its share in the GDP also increased during the FY 2018/2019. He also posted the president on progress of refining and petrochemical projects under-construction nationwide. Moreover, the meeting took up efforts underway to transform Egypt into a regional oil and natural gas hub, especially through the East Mediterranean Gas (EMG) Forum, and cooperate for making use of available infrastructure to fulfill development needs in the region. Egypt aims to become a regional gas hub for the trade of liquefied natural gas through major gas discoveries in recent years, including the Zohr gas field, which holds an estimated 30 trillion cubic feet of gas. It currently exports one billion cubic feet of gas to Europe every month via 10 shipments, El Molla said last month. Search Keywords: Short link: STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The city Police Department is asking for the publics assistance in learning about the whereabouts of a 14-year-old female who was reported missing from Queens. Sabrina Mannino, 14, was last seen at her Queens residence at 9 a.m. on Saturday, according to police. The missing is 5 feet, 7 inches tall, weighs 140 pounds with brown eyes and red hair, said police. She was last seen wearing a green and white jacket and white FILA sneakers. Anyone with information in regard to this incident is asked to call the NYPDs Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website at WWW.NYPDCRIMESTOPPERS.COM, or on Twitter @NYPDTips. All calls are strictly confidential. He shocked fans by announcing he had become a father for the first time last week. And amid his news, Jack Fincham, 28, looked tense as he was seen having a very animated chat on his mobile phone while out and about on Saturday. However, his mood later changed as the doting dad took his newborn baby daughter Blossom out for a walk in her pram for the very first time. Why so serious? Jack Fincham, 28, looked tense as he was seen having a very animated chat on his mobile phone while out and about on Saturday Ahead of the stroll, Jack appeared dismayed as he paced up and down while talking on his phone. Wearing a navy tracksuit top, beige trousers and white trainers, the star looked in his own world as he occupied himself on his device. The Love Island winner later appeared to cool down as he picked up a refreshing drink on his travels. He then joined a friend as they walked along a high street during the weekend outing. Daddy duties: However, his mood later changed as the doting dad took his newborn baby daughter Blossom out for a walk in her pram for the very first time Later that day, the reality star proved he had taken to fatherhood like a duck to water, as he filmed himself during his walk with Blossom. The star revealed it was the first time he had taken his baby girl out for a 'spin' in her pram as he uploaded the clip to his Instagram Story on Saturday. Jack appeared to be pushing the pram through a women's clothing store as he sweetly admitted he was 'loving it', and modestly joked he was a 'great driver'. Tense: Ahead of the stroll, Jack appeared dismayed as he paced up and down while talking on his phone Chat: Wearing a navy tracksuit top, beige trousers and white trainers, the star looked in his own world as he occupied himself on his device Strolling: The reality star was seen pacing up and down as he chatted away on his mobile The pen salesman looked handsome for the outing and was sporting a navy and white fleece teamed with a tweed baker boy style cap. Meanwhile, Blossom was wrapped up warm in her pram with a pale pink blanket and a white stuffed rabbit placed next to her. Earlier this week Jack revealed that he kept his baby news a secret so that his little girl Blossom's mother Casey Ranger could have a 'peaceful pregnancy'. Refreshed: The Love Island winner later appeared to cool down as he picked up a refreshing drink on his travels Low-key: The star looked more relaxed as he sipped on a drink as he walked around the local area Casual: Jack dressed down for his low-key outing on the weekend Chilled: Jack is recently announced he had become a dad Pals: He then joined a friend as they walked along a high street during the weekend outing Jack said that he has known his baby mama since he was 17 and their co-parenting situation 'just works' due to their long-standing friendships Speaking to The Sun, at the National Television Awards on Tuesday, he said: 'I kept the pregnancy a secret so her mum could have a peaceful pregnancy and she did.' Weekend: Jack and his friend were later seen hitting the local high street Keeping it casual: The duo dressed down in sporty ensembles, before the Love Island star later spent quality time with his baby 'Everyone from 'Love Island' has been in touch to wish me well and it made me cry.' Having taken to being a dad like a duck to water, Jack said: 'I'm loving fatherhood. 'But not nappy changing - it stinks. I can't stop staring at her though she's beautiful.' Cute! Jack appears to have taken to fatherhood like a duck to water, judging by his latest clip of himself taking his newborn daughter out Loving it! Jack appeared to be pushing the pram through a women's clothing store as he sweetly admitted he was 'loving it', and modestly joked he was a 'great driver'. Elsewhere at the event, speaking to the Mirror, he said: 'Because we've [himself and Casey] known each other a long time it just works. We've known each other for years, since I was 17.' Jack's outing comes as he was forced to deny he was in a new relationship with Summer Monteys-Fullam. Reports cropped up over the weekend that Jack had been romancing Paul Hollywoods ex but both he and Summer took to social media to refute these claims. Co-parenting: Jack shares daughter Blossom with Casey Ranger who is a longtime pal Cute: Meanwhile, Blossom was wrapped up warm in her pram with a pale pink blanket and a white stuffed rabbit placed next to her. Jack posted: Shutting this one down. COMPLETELY UNTRUE. Meeting someone once at our agents Christmas party surely does not constitute dating. Summer reposted this, adding: Exactly! I put the sing in single! A source close to Summer also told MailOnline: Summer is absolutely single right now and very much enjoying that! Chandigarh, Feb 2 : Rajiv Gandhi is perhaps the only Prime Minister through India's constitutional history who brought a dramatic paradigm change in the India story in the shortest possible time -- the first three years of office, Ashwini Bhatnagar, author of the recently released 'The Lotus Years, Political Life in India in the Time of Rajiv Gandhi', said. "The aspirational India," he said, "that we recognise so well today -- India of the 21st century -- as well as the benefits of our demographic advantage and its economic value are his substantive legacies, besides the telecom revolution, Panchayati raj, economic liberalisation and much else," he told IANS in an exclusive interview. "Rajiv was not an arm chair visionary," Bhatnagar said. "He was a doer. He could quickly identify problems and move swiftly to find viable solutions. Unlike other politicians, specially of the Congress, who believed in politics of platitudes or 'jumlas', Rajiv was extremely committed to the delivery mode. Remember, the day he took over after Indira Gandhi's assassination on October 31, 1984, he found the telephone system in disarray. "He sacked the telecom chief and within three years set up a system which saw India move into its telecom revolution. Sam Pitroda was the architect of that plan and its perfect execution." In reply to a question, Bhatnagar said: "Though Rajiv succeeded spectacularly as Prime Minister, his track record as a politician falls short. This is not because he lacked purpose or will but because he was betrayed as a politician, ironically by the very same Congressmen -- the power brokers he had passionately spoken about at the Congress centenary session in Mumbai -- whom his own mother Indira Gandhi had created. "Rajiv's innocence about how deeply they were entrenched in the party cost him dearly." Bhatnagar, a senior journalist, who was a prime witness to the 1980-90 decade as a political reporter for newspapers like The Pioneer, Lucknow, and The Times of India, says the book is not his personal opinion on Rajiv Gandhi or his politics. "I am only reporting on a part of our contemporary history, retelling a sequence of events with Rajiv at its centre since he was the Prime Minister and then summing it up as any professional journalist would for his readers. So, my book offers a 360-degree view of politics in India during the time of Rajiv Gandhi." Talking about why he titled the book 'The Lotus Years', Bhatnagar said with a playful smile, "Titling it the Rajiv years would have been unimaginative and lazy. Rajiv and lotus are synonyms, his grandfather named him Rajiv after the name of his own wife Kamala. So, I went back to Kamala -- hence the Lotus Years. By the way, Rajiv was named Rahul by his parents when he was born and his name was change later on! Moreover, I thought the title will intrigue the readers because much of the reference to lotus is currently in the context of the BJP! "And," he continued, "if you look at it closely much of the current BJP agenda is directly drawn from the ideas of the Rajiv regime. Rajiv initiated the majoritarianism process after his landslide win in 1984 by opening the locks at the Ram Janmbhoomi in Ayodhya, he brought in computerization (Digital India), tried to clean the Ganga (Namami Gange), launched the sanitation initiative (Swachch Bharat), and clean drinking water mission, lowered the voting age (Demographic Advantage), anti defection law, better roads, drive against corruption, cleaning up the banking system and last, but the not the least , his hectic foreign tours in which he was heartily feted by governments across the world. Compare even the PM Rajiv's sartorial style with the current dispensation and you will quickly realize where the inspiration is coming from! Many, many things are being repackaged now and are being palmed off as original ideas." "Wasn't pandering to majority or minority politics Rajiv's huge mistake?" "Yes, it was," Bhatnagar agreed, "As I said Rajiv not only triggered the Aspirational India but also Delusional India. Arun Nehru, his cousin and political chaperone in 1985-86, convinced him of the power of the Hindu vote and how it could consolidate the Congress rule forever. In fact, if one is to go by the testimony of Arif Mohammad Khan, then a Congress minister and now BJP appointed Governor of Kerala, Rajiv had arrived at a deal with the Muslim clerics -- the Shah Bano judgement would be upturned if they did not oppose the opening of the locks at Ayodhya. It could have never worked -- given the nature of our polity. It was delusional to expect so. It opened the proverbial Pandora's Box -- religion based politics shot off in various directions -- caste, region, language, minority appeasement, etc." In reply to a question whether majoritarianism will work in a context different from that of Rajiv Gandhi, Bhatnagar said: "It will never work in a democracy. It's a fallacy that the democratic principle of election through majority vote is about the vote of the majority community. The majority has to be achieved across the whole spectrum of voters, not by the exclusion or inclusion of one section or the other. It is pity that most of are falling prey to the fallacy and becoming citizens of Delusional India." (Vishal Gulati can be contacted at vishal.g@ians.in) Renowned spiritual guru Sri M on Sunday expressed his willingness to mediate between the Centre and anti-CAA protesters. Sri M, who was this year conferred with the Padma Bhushan for distinguished service of high order in spirituality, said he has conveyed to the central government his offer to mediate in the issue and was waiting for a response. "Dialogue is a way to resolve all sorts of issues. I am ready to mediate," he told reporters here in response to a query on the possible role played by the spiritual gurus to solve the issues over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA). Born as Mumtaz Ali in Thiruvananthapuram, Sri M wrote his memoir "Apprenticed to a Himalayan Master: A Yogi's Autobiography" and its sequel "The Journey Continues. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) That's that done. What next? As far as Europe is concerned there is a trade-off between access to EU markets and freedom to set our own regulations, and the Government seems set to prioritise freedom over access. So how will it use its freedom (and its majority in Parliament) to push through a new set of domestic economic priorities? We can already catch a glimpse of what these might be. The country is too uneven, and there will be the obvious emphasis on investing in infrastructure as a way of narrowing the North/South divide. On a roll: How will Boris Johnson use his majority in Parliament to push through a new set of domestic economic priorities? But, actually, the differences are hugely complex and the need is for thoughtful, cost-effective improvements that can be delivered swiftly rather than grandiose projects that can't. Whatever you think of HS2, and I am mindful of the economic concept of opportunity cost what else can you not do because you are putting so many resources into one project? two things are sure. If it is ever built, it will open years late and will cost even more than the most pessimistic estimates. At least the additional runway at Heathrow and the runway revision at Gatwick can be delivered, and they are both needed. There are a host of other smaller projects that should be speeded up. Oxford and Cambridge need their much-delayed rail link because that opens up a belt of high-tech development across Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire. Plymouth is the largest industrial town on the South Coast, but has poor connections with the rest of the country. We have to do something about the so-called smart motorways. Lots of things to do. But the new direction for the Government is not only about infrastructure. It is also about innovation. One early example is that last week the Government announced that it had more than doubled its funding for mathematical science. Immigration rules for mathematicians are also being relaxed, fast-tracking their path to settling in the UK. Another way of fostering innovation is regulatory freedom. As Mark Carney, the outgoing Governor of the Bank of England, suggested, the City would be better off setting its own financial regulations even if that means less access to European business. Last year, the UK was second only to the US in new investment in financial technology, or 'fintech', with just under $5 billion (3.8billion). Next came India and China Europe barely featured. Industrial strategy has a bad name in Britain. But that was because it used to be propping up failing businesses. The new industrial strategy will be focused on helping businesses in growth sectors. The Government will, for example, no longer need to follow European rules on data protection, which hamper innovation and don't offer true privacy as they are not enforceable. An interventionist government is not necessarily a successful one, and governments can certainly waste a lot of taxpayers' money on grand projects. But we can be sure of this: government economic policy will, for better or worse, be radically different. We have had a political revolution. Now for an economic one. The Bayelsa state police command has arrested Victor Oba, a cousin to former first lady, Dame Patience Jonathan over an attempt to murder his ex-girlfriend, Seigha Atia. Oba was said to have committed the crime by hitting the ex-lover with his car and left her left leg beyond treatment. Read Also: Ex-First Lady, Patience Jonathan Hits The Club For 54th Birthday (Video) According to reports, Victor heads the former first ladys hotel, Aridolf Hotels and Spars in Bayelsa state. Narrating the full story, the ex-girlfriend said: On the day of the incident, we had an argument and he called me and asked me to come outside of our gate to get the rest of my things in his car. The next thing, he drove his car into me with speed. He hit me against our gate, held me there and did not reverse his car despite the fact that I was screaming in pains. He later reversed and I fell to the ground and he zoomed off. My neighbors, who watched what happened screamed for help and came to my rescue. This relationship lasted for four months. But I decided to quit when I discovered that he was a violent person. He had hit me once that was when everything started to take a nosedive. The state Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Asimim Bytswat, confirmed the arrest and said the matter would soon be charged to court. A Chinese man has died in the Philippines from the novel coronavirus, making it the first death from the outbreak recorded outside China. The 44-year-old man was from the central Chinese city of Wuhan, which is at the epicenter of the outbreak, and had travelled to the Philippines.. Chinas death toll from the raging novel coronavirus outbreak has risen to 304, health officials said on Sunday with the total number of persons sickened from the virus crossing the 14300-mark. Both the rate of the deaths and the number of new daily infections are rising, the new numbers show with Saturday recording the highest number of deaths in a single day. Until Saturday midnight, there were 2590 new cases of the infection, bringing the total to 14380, health officials said at their daily morning briefing. At least 183 cases of the virus have been reported from Beijing. Chinese researchers have said the previously unknown strain can be transmitted via vomit and feces. Chinas national health commission (NHC) has said the deceased should be cremated close by and immediately. Burials or transfer of the bodies not allowed. Funerals not allowed to avoid spread of the virus. Huanggang, a city bordering Wuhan, the center of the epidemic, has become the second city to have more than 1,000 people infected with the coronavirus. Earlier this week, the WHO declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern, adding that global trade and travel restrictions were not needed. But countries began imposing drastic measures almost immediately. Singapore and the United States have announced they would ban foreign nationals who have recently been in China from entering their territories. Australia followed on Saturday. India, meanwhile, has evacuated 647 nationals from the central Chinese province of Hubei and its capital, Wuhan, in two flights that took off Saturday and Sunday. At least seven Maldivians were among those evacuated in the special flights operated by Indias national carrier, Air India. At least 10 Indians were not allowed to board the two flights as pre-boarding temperature screening recorded high body temperature. The Russian military was to start evacuating Russian citizens from China on Monday and Tuesday, Interfax and TASS news agencies reported. CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa It is a public display of civic duty unique in American politics: Iowans on Monday night will stand in front of their neighbors and express their preference for a candidate for president. No curtains covering a voting machine. No private paper ballots. Just a declaration of loyalty before fellow Democrats. The Iowa caucuses are at once both quaint and globally significant, with a singular power to elevate, or deflate, candidacies. But for all of their idiosyncrasies, perhaps their most distinctive element is the sheer transparency they provide to the selection process. At a time of such political polarization, underpinned by anxiety among Iowa Democrats that they will elevate a nominee unable to defeat President Trump, the public nature of the caucuses has amplified the stakes. In interviews with scores of Iowans over the last three months, many expressed ambivalence about making a choice, desperately trying to assess what kind of candidate others might want to elect. Many appeared wary of picking sides, and risking fragmentation, at the expense of presenting a united front; they vowed to support the eventual nominee no matter what. Some caucusgoers said, tellingly, that they were eager to knock doors for candidates they supported but preferred to do so in nearby towns or counties lest they alienate their neighbors. There are several treatments for dealing with hair loss. Some can be much simpler than others. Silicon Valley Hair Institute, a team of highly-trained hair loss doctors in the San Francisco Bay Area, is proud to announce a new informative post about micropigmentation. Some hair loss solutions may not involve significant surgical cuts to the scalp. As the new post explains, the insertion of pigment into the upper layer of the skin can create the illusion of more hair. The process, combined with other surgical hair procedures, may result in a better outcome. San Francisco residents can learn more at the new blog post. "There are several treatments for dealing with hair loss. Some can be much simpler than others. If a male patient is concerned about an ugly scar on the scalp, or a few missing patches, micropigmentation could be the answer," explained Miguel Canales, founder of Silicon Valley Hair Institute and a leading San Francisco Bay Area hair loss specialist. "Our post discusses how easy the process is and how it can improve the overall appearance of the scalp." San Francisco residents can review the new informative post about micro-pigmentation from Silicon Valley Hair Institute at https://siliconvalleyhairinstitute.com/if-you-need-a-hair-transplant-you-might-consider-micropigmentation-here-in-the-bay-area/. Bay Area residents can review the updated hair transplant page to learn about more hair restoration options at https://siliconvalleyhairinstitute.com/hair-transplant/. Persons seeking the best opportunities for hair loss treatment could reach out to Dr. Canales for a no obligation consultation. HAIR LOSS EXPERT 'FILLS IN THE BLANKS' ABOUT MICROPIGMENTATION IN SAN FRANCISCO Here is the background to this release. Typical answers to hair loss can involve lengthy, detailed surgical procedures. Men in the Bay Area could search for less invasive solutions to a smaller hair loss problem. San Francisco residents may be ready to find a simple, straightforward procedure for creating better-looking hair. A hair restoration treatment called micropigmentation, or trichopigmentation could be the right choice. For these reasons, Silicon Valley Hair Institute announces a new post about the procedure. The need to remove the tell-tale signs of past hair transplant surgery may be relevant to Bay Area men. Micropigmentation could fill in spaces, hide scarring and leave the impression of fuller, thicker hair. The procedure includes imprinting a short-cropped pattern of 'male stubble' on the affected area. Outcomes can include a scar-free, natural looking hairline. ABOUT SILICON VALLEY HAIR INSTITUTE Silicon Valley Hair Institute (http://siliconvalleyhairinstitute.com/), under the leadership of top-rated California hair transplant surgeon Miguel Canales MD, is one of the best facilities offering San Francisco Bay Area hair transplants. Dr. Canales provides the full range of advanced hair transplant and hair restoration procedures for Bay Area residents, from San Francisco to San Mateo to Palo Alto. If one needs a FUE hair transplant specialist, look no further than this Bay Area hair transplant center. Dr. Canales also performs female hair transplants for women and eyebrow restoration, thus offering the best hair transplant and robotic hair replacement options. Persons interested in the cost of robotic hair transplantation can call today to 650-551-1100 for a no-cost consultation, for more. One is the loneliest number One of the recurring themes during our Caregiver Support Group meetings is the feeling of loneliness and being overwhelmed dealing with a loved one who is no longer the person they once were and the knowledge that they never will be again. For most of our group members, the loved one being cared for is a spouse. Perhaps the loved one is no longer able to carry on a conversation in any detail or is simply not interested anymore in the subjects for which they used to be so passionate. They know or sense something is wrong with their memory or their ability to choose the correct word or phrase. They may hesitate engaging in a conversation or making comments for fear of saying the wrong thing or not knowing what to say at all. This behavior serves to heighten the caregivers feelings of aloneness even though they continue to live with their loved one. They are losing, forever, the person with whom they once shared all their thoughts, dreams, laughs, and even tears. On a more positive note, you may find that you can build a new relationship with your loved one. It may not have the closeness of familiarity, but there are other types of activities to engage in that may be very satisfying to both of you. Perhaps periodically going out to lunch with friends will be a special treat. Even something as simple as a car ride on a sunny day to places your loved one used to enjoy or listening to their favorite music can be a wonderful way to spend time together. You may be pleasantly surprised with the meaningful conversations these activities might generate. Music has been shown to be a tremendous uplifting, mood altering experience for loved ones with Alzheimers. These new activities can be a respite from your sense of sadness, loneliness and loss. If your loved one was the person in the family who was the decision maker that everyone depended on to be their rock, this becomes a major change in the family dynamic. Perhaps you, as the caregiver, were never responsible for handling the finances, outdoor chores, taking care of getting vehicles serviced, or scheduling household maintenance appointments. Now, besides your caregiving activities, you find yourself responsible for all of these additional duties (and more!) and perhaps you are feeling ill-prepared as well as a little unnerved. Now is the time to let others help you. Your children and other family members may hesitate to get involved, not wanting to intrude in your private matters, and perhaps are simply waiting for an OK from you. Friends may ask what they can do when they ask, take them up on their offer and give them the opportunity to help you! Even if you are a very private person, sharing some of the information about what your loved one is going through and how it is affecting you and your family, can be a healthy and beneficial conversation. Your openness in reaching out to friends will serve to relax them and put them more at ease with the situation. As a result, they will feel more comfortable with interacting and helping you and your family. You may discover a new sense of confidence in your ability to handle your new responsibilities. Additionally, you and your family members may become closer as you form a stronger bond traveling together on this caregiver journey. We wont sugarcoat it. We know there will be days when you want to just sit at home and cry and not leave the house and wonder how you will ever get through this. Thats where we come in! Our Support Group is here to help! According to the Alzheimers Association, support groups mean different things for different people. Some may come to gain a better understanding of the disease, because they are in crisis or because they have specific caregiving challenges. They may also be looking for advice on a particular subject or just wish to be with people who are experiencing similar feelings. At times, because people involved in day-to-day caregiving may feel over-whelmed and tired, they find excuses for not joining a Support Group: Im not a group type of person, I cant leave my loved one alone, I cant talk to strangers or I have enough problems of my own without having to listen to someone elses. We want to assure you that we understand your hesitation and want to give you some reasons why joining a Support Group such as ours is an option you should most definitely consider. At our meetings you will meet and be able to listen to and speak with other friendly, compassionate caregivers who are also dealing with this heartbreaking disease first-hand. We can assure you that our caring members will be just as concerned about your particular circumstances as they are of their own situations. If you choose not to speak, but, just listen during a meeting, we certainly will respect your decision. All meetings are treated with the utmost in discretion and privacy. We invite you to join our Alzheimer's Support Group on the third Wednesday of each month from 6 pm to 8 pm at the Kentucky Ridge Assisted Living Facility, 2060 S. Kentucky Ave. in Mason City. Please feel free to bring a family member or a friend. If your concern is about leaving your loved one home while you attend our meeting, Mason City has a free service that allows caregivers to get much needed help for personal time such as appointments, running errands, visiting friends or attending our meetings. Respite Companion Group was formed to provide a short-term, non-medical break, or respite time to caregivers. You are encouraged to contact them by calling 641-812-2613 for additional information. Dont face being an Alzheimers caregiver alone. Come to a meeting and talk about it. Take the first step in supporting and caring for yourself! For other more extensive caregiver travel tips, please visit Alzheimers.net. Michael and Constance Wentworth, of Mason City, are Alzheimers support group facilitators. Their periodic columns will highlight specific real-life questions or concerns addressed at one of their support group meetings. For more information, see their page on Facebook, Alzheimer's Caregivers Support Group Mason City. You can also email them at alzsupgroupmc@outlook.com or call 641-201-1797 and leave a message. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast For the first time in a decade, investment expenditure rather than consumption accounts for more than half of GDP growth; report calls for urgent investment in education and infrastructure for good returns in long-term GDP; Youth unemployment must be given top priority. With 12 million graduates entering the labor market each year and only 3 million of them getting jobs, the mountain of youth unemployment is rising annually. Akinwumi Adesina, President, African Development Bank Africas economic growth remained stable in 2019 at 3.4 percent and is on course to pick up to 3.9 percent in 2020 and 4.1 percent in 2021, the African Development Banks (AfDB.org) 2020 African Economic Outlook (AEO) revealed Thursday. The slower than expected growth is partly due to the moderate expansion of the continents big five Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, and South Africa whose joint growth was an average rate of 3.1 percent, compared with the average of 4.0 percent for the rest of the continent. The Banks flagship publication, published annually since 2003, provides headline numbers on Africas economic performance and outlook. The 2020 edition, launched at the Banks Abidjan headquarters, was attended by former Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, African ministers, diplomats, researchers, and representatives of various international bodies. Johnson Sirleaf commended the Bank for upholding the confidence of the people of the continent because we trust you. As simple as that. Because we trust you to share our vision. We trust you to understand our limitations. Referring to Africas fastest-growing economies, she said, There are stars among usand we want to applaud them. We want to see more, particularly for countries like mine, which have been left behind, so that more can be done to give them the support that they need. In 2019, for the first time in a decade, investment expenditure, rather than consumption, accounted for over 50% of GDP growth. This shift can help sustain and potentially accelerate future growth in Africa, increase the continents current and future productive base, while improving productivity of the workforce. Overall, the forecast described the continents growth fundamentals as improved, driven by a gradual shift toward investments and net exports, and away from private consumption. East Africa maintained its lead as the continents fastest-growing region, with average growth estimated at 5.0 percent in 2019; North Africa was the second fastest, at 4.1 percent, while West Africas growth rose to 3.7 percent in 2019, up from 3.4 percent the year before. Central Africa grew at 3.2 percent in 2019, up from 2.7 percent in 2018, while Southern Africas growth slowed considerably over the same period, from 1.2 percent to 0.7 percent, dragged down by the devastating cyclones Idai and Kenneth. Urgent call to address Africas education, skills mismatch The 2020 AEO, themed Developing Africas workforce for the future, calls for swift action to address human capital development in African countries, where the quantity and quality of human capital is much lower than in other regions of the world. The report also noted the urgent need for capacity building and offers several policy recommendations, which include that states invest more in education and infrastructure to reap the highest returns in long-term GDP growth. Developing a demand-driven productive workforce to meet industry needs, is another essential requirement. Africa needs to build skills in information and communication technology and in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The Fourth Industrial Revolution will place increasing demands on educational systems that are producing graduates versed in these skills, the report noted. To keep the current level of unemployment constant, Africa needs to create 12 million jobs every year, according to the report. With rapid technological change expected to disrupt labour markets further, it is urgent that countries address fundamental bottlenecks to creating human capital, the report said. Youth unemployment must be given top priority. With 12 million graduates entering the labour market each year and only 3 million of them getting jobs, the mountain of youth unemployment is rising annually, said Akinwumi Adesina, African Development Bank President, who unveiled the report. Lets look at the real lives beyond the statistics. Lets hear their voices, lets feel their aspirations. Although many countries experienced strong growth indicators, relatively few posted significant declines in extreme poverty and inequality, which remain higher than in other regions of the world. Essentially, inclusive growth registering faster average consumption for the poor and lower inequality between different population segments occurred in only 18 of 48 African countries with data. As we enter a new decade, the African Development Bank looks to our people. Africa is blessed with resources but its future lies in its peopleeducation is the great equaliser. Only by developing our workforce will we make a dent in poverty, close the income gap between rich and poor, and adopt new technologies to create jobs in knowledge-intensive sectors, said Hanan Morsy, Director of the Macroeconomic Policy, Forecasting and Research Department at the Bank. The African Economic Outlook provides compelling up-to-date evidence and analytics to inform and support African decision-makers. The publication has built a strong profile as a tool for economic intelligence, policy dialogue and operational effectiveness. Related US Senate rejects witnesses in Trump impeachment trial Iran Press TV Saturday, 01 February 2020 1:06 AM The Republican-controlled Senate has blocked witness testimonies and new evidence in the impeachment trial of US President Donald Trump, clearing the way for his acquittal. The senators voted 51 to 49, almost across party lines, against the proposal on Friday. The vote stopped Democrats' drive to hear testimony from witnesses like former national security adviser John Bolton. The senate should now vote to convict or clear Trump of the impeachment charges. After the Friday vote, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said he aims to conclude the trial in the coming days. He postponed the final vote on articles of impeachment until Wednesday in the face of opposition from Senate Republican moderates to his plan to wrap up the trial Friday or Saturday without deliberations. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer criticized the Republicans' move as a great cover-up. "America will remember this day, unfortunately, where the Senate did not live up to its responsibilities, where the Senate turned away from truth and went along with a sham trial," Schumer told reporters. Democrats pressed hard to force the Senate to call more witnesses to testify, but Republicans intently focused on bringing the impeachment trial to a vote of acquittal, possibly in a matter of days. Democrats argued Bolton's explosive allegations in his upcoming book cannot be ignored. Bolton's unpublished book manuscript directly contradicts Trump's account of events. Bolton wrote that the president told him he wanted to freeze $391 million in security aid to Ukraine until Kiev pursued investigations into former US Vice President Joe Biden and his son. Senators have grilled the House Democrats prosecuting the case and the Republican president's defense team. Dozens of questions were asked and answered on Wednesday and Thursday. The Democratic-led House on December 18 impeached Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress arising from his request that Ukraine investigate the Bidens, setting the stage for the Senate trial to determine if he should be removed from office. While the Republican-controlled Senate is highly unlikely to remove Trump from office, it is important for him to try to blunt the Democratic accusations to limit political damage to his bid for a second term. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address By Express News Service NEW DELHI: The Centre on Sunday issued a new travel advisory urging everyone to refrain from travel to China in view of Novel Corona Virus outbreak and also said that travellers on return could be quarantined. In a statement, the Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry also said that anyone with travel history of China since January 15 could be quarantined. ALSO READ: 12 of 17 admitted in hospital for nCoV symptoms discharged after samples tested negative In addition, the Ministry of External Affairs announced that developments travel to India on e-visas stands temporarily suspended with immediate effect. This applies to holders of Chinese passports and applicants of other nationalities residing in the Peoples Republic of China. As of Sunday, 58,658 passengers from 445 flights have been screened. Total of 142 symptomatic travellers picked up by the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme have been referred to the isolation facilities. Of the130 samples tested, of 128 have been found to be negative. The two positive cases found in Kerala are being monitored and are clinically stable. The second batch of 330 passengers (including 7 Maldivan citizens) from Wuhan also arrived in India on Sunday. Of these, 300 (including 7 Maldivan citizens) have been housed at ITBP Chawla Camp in Delhi while 30 are in Manesar. Oregon is facing a dental health epidemic, and a lack of access to care is at the root of the problem for many children, rural residents and low-income families. Legislators will consider improving access to education and services in schools, as well as create licensing for a new type of practitioner who can complete many of the same tasks as a dentist, but at a lower cost. In the House, the Oregon Community Foundation has partnered with state Rep. Cedric Hayden, R-Roseburg, and Rep. Alissa Keny-Guyer, D-Portland, to pass the Healthy Teeth, Bright Futures campaign. The program would direct Oregon school districts to include age-appropriate dental health instruction as part of their health education. It would also create the Community Dental Health Coordinator Pilot Program under the Oregon Health Authority to bolster school dental health services. According to a study published by the Oregon Health and Sciences University, 40% of Medicaid-enrolled children didnt receive any dental services in 2018. Access to service varied between counties, and the study shows 21% difference between Malheur and Columbia counties. They represent the highest and lowest percentages of children with no dental care. The study also showed black children in Oregon have the least access with just 45% of Medicaid-enrolled kids receiving any dental services. According to Melissa Freeman, the community foundations director of strategic projects, Oregon is struggling from an oral disease epidemic with 49% of children having a cavity by age 9. And two in every nine children have untreated cavities. Unfortunately, 17,000 children in Oregon have rampant decay as classified by the Oregon Health Authority, which means seven or more untreated cavities, Freeman said. Those numbers are even more dire among children of color, children in rural areas and of low-income, according to Chris Coughlin, legislative director at nonprofit childrens advocacy group Children First for Oregon. There are still real barriers keeping families from getting the preventative dental care that kids need to be healthy and do well in school, and we know specifically that certain populations are impacted most, Coughlin said. The issue is important in the context of helping Oregons kids remain in school. According to the community foundation, dental pain is a leading cause of absenteeism for school children in Oregon and nationwide. Eating, sleeping, concentrating at school are all difficult with a cavity problem, Freeman said. Several years ago, the foundation starting awarding grants for school-based dental health services. So far, 275 schools across 22 counties have benefitted. The foundation wants the expansion now to implement school-based dental health services in all Oregon schools. The group began working with lawmakers like Hayden in September and have recruited support from more than two-dozen legislators. Hayden worked in the 2019 session in an unsuccessful effort to expand oral health education. Rep. Hayden spent his professional career as a dentist before joining the Legislature and now sits as the vice chair of the House health care committee, so he has always been involved with health care bills and specifically dentistry since his first session in 2015, said Austin Parrett, Haydens chief of staff. There is lots of support and we are not expecting any issues. In the Senate, Sen. Laurie Monnes-Anderson is shepherding her own bill to allow the Oregon Dentistry Board to issue dental therapy licenses and allow dental therapy education programs to be built throughout the state. Dental therapists are mid-level practitioners, similar to a physicians assistant in medicine. They provide a range of critical routine and preventative services such as oral evaluation and assessment, treatment plan formulation, nonsurgical extraction of diseased teeth. The concept of dental therapy has been around for more than a hundred years in foreign countries such as New Zealand, and was first brought to the United States 15 years ago. Two pilot programs in Oregon currently exist. One is administered by the Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board. The other is based at Pacific University in Forest Grove and sponsored by Willamette Dental Group and the Ford Family Foundation. Dr. Miranda Davis is a Washington dentist with the Puyallup Tribal Health Authority who helps oversee the native effort in Portland. She believes the new licensing could give many Oregonians access to lower-cost dental health services, especially in rural areas. According to Davis, dental therapists can meet most dental needs in small communities where residents otherwise have to drive hundreds of miles for care. She pointed to the success of the program started in Minnesota back in 2009. Minnesota has since licensed more than 100 dental therapists. Its an efficient model of care where you have specially trained staff to complete these smaller tasks, Davis said. The urgency is that untreated dental problems can turn into emergency room visits. When a child or adult visits and emergency room for dental pain, treatment is often limited to prescribing opioids or antibiotics. Both legislative proposals are intended to curb such costly visits. Access and cost are extreme barriers to (dental health services), Monnes-Anderson said. These pilot programs are making a difference, and the tribal communities really want this because theyve been very successful in their pilot programs. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 CLEVELAND, Ohio - Iowa may receive an out-sized share of attention because of its first-in-the-nation status on the election calendar, but can Iowa really tells us which presidential candidate would do best in Ohio? A snapshot of recent presidential elections suggests yes, at least in looking ahead to the general election. Both Iowa and Ohio voted for Democrat Barack Obama twice before switching over to help deliver Republican Donald Trump to the White House. But, in other ways, the two Midwest states are very different, far beyond minor differences in nicknames that have slipped up politicians when making plays for voters in the Hawkeye and Buckeye states. Heres a look at Iowa and Ohio by the numbers, from politics and demographics to economics and more. Election history The result of the last three presidential elections has been the same in each state - wins for Obama in 2008 and 2012, and Trump in 2016. Trump won Iowa by a slightly wider margin (9.4 percentage points) than he did Ohio (8.1 points). Yet until 2016, Iowa trended more toward the Democrats in presidential elections, with Democrats winning Iowa in six of the previous seven elections, losing only to George W. Bush in 2004. Ohio, meanwhile, has picked the same winner as the country in each of the last 14 elections, starting with 1964 - eight elections for the GOP and six for the Democrats. Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton, 51.1% to 41.7%.Rich Exner, cleveland.com Barack Obama defeated Mitt Romney in Iowa in 2012, 52% to 46.2%.Rich Exner, cleveland.com Where the Democratic voters live Hillary Clinton won just six of Iowas 99 counties in her loss to Trump in 2016, and in just one place did her vote exceed 52%. That was in Johnson County, where Clinton won 65.2% of the 2016 vote, just slightly below Obamas level of support in the county in 2012. Johnson County is west of Davenport and includes Iowa City, home to the University of Iowa. The highest number of Democratic voters in the last election was in Polk County, where Clinton won 231,555 votes and 51.7% of the total. Polk County, in the center of Iowa, includes the state capital of Des Moines. In Ohio, Clinton did best in Cuyahoga County, both in terms of percent (66%) and total (398,271). Geography Iowa is larger than Ohio in area (55,587 square miles to 40,861), but sparsely populated in comparison. With 3.2 million residents, Iowa has 57 people per square mile. Ohios population of 11.7 million translates to five times that - 286 people per square mile. Iowas largest cities, according to the latest estimates from the Census Bureau, are Des Moines (216,853), Cedar Rapids (133,174) and Davenport (102,085). Ohio has four cities larger than Des Moines - Toledo (274,975), Cincinnati (302,605), Cleveland (383,793) and Columbus (892,533). Ohio has 18 votes in the Electoral College; Iowa 6. How Iowa sizes up to Ohio.Rich Exner, cleveland.com Jobs and unemployment Jobs are up and unemployment rates down in both states in the three years since Trump took office in January 2017, but at slower rates than the improvements over the last three years of Obama. Heres how it breaks down, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Unemployment rate drops Ohio - From 6.6% in January 2014 to 5.2% in January 2017 at the end of Obamas last term, and finally to 4.2% in the last state-by-state reports for December. Iowa - From 4.4% in January 2014, to 3.4% in January 2017, to 2.7% in December. Job gains Ohio - Gained 223,900 jobs during Obamas final three years (an average of 6,219 a month), and 91,100 over the first 35 months under Trump (2,603 a month). Iowa - Gained 32,200 jobs during Obamas final three years (894 a month), and 22,400 over the first 35 months under Trump (640 a month). Jobs trends in Ohio and Iowa during the last three years of Barack Obama and the first three years under President Donald Trump, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.Rich Exner, cleveland.com Manufacturing Perhaps surprisingly, considering Ohios once might in the auto and steel industries, Iowa has a higher percentage of manufacturing jobs, according to estimates from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The 226,500 manufacturing jobs for Iowa represent 14.2% of the states workforce. In Ohio, the 701,500 manufacturing jobs account for 12.5% Demographics Here are some demographic and other details about the people of Iowa and Ohio, according to the U.S. Census Bureau: Minority population: 21.3% in Ohio vs. 14.7% in Iowa. Black population: 13% in Ohio vs. 4% in Iowa. Hispanic population: 3.9% in Ohio vs. 6.2% in Iowa. Median household income: $54,533 in Ohio vs. $58,580 in Iowa. Poverty: 13.9% in Ohio vs. 11.2% in Iowa. Median home value: $140,000 in Ohio vs. $142,300 in Iowa. Education: 27.8% of Ohio adults age 25 and up have a bachelors degree or above vs. 28.2% in Iowa. Rich Exner, data analysis editor for cleveland.com, writes about numbers on a variety of topics. Follow on Twitter @RichExner. See more data-related stories at cleveland.com/datacentral. Read previous stories Even in Democratic stronghold Cuyahoga County, 17 mayors are Republicans Poll: Donald Trump has ground to make up in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin Dow Jones up 49% in first 3 years of Donald Trump; how this ranks vs. Obama, Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Carter 10 takeaways about presidential election votes in Ohio In Westerville, Ohio, Democrats picked a suburban presidential debate site that is trending blue Heisman winner Joe Burrow told nation of severe Southeast Ohio poverty: new census data shows just how bad Sandwich maker Greencore said last week it would look at its remuneration policy after a third of shareholders voted against its executive pay policy. This follows concerns raised by proxy advisers who flagged chief executive Patrick Coveney's pension contribution of 35pc of salary. It is worth 315,000 and was described as "out of step" with the market's direction of travel. "We engaged very proactively with our shareholders. We contacted about 70pc of them and we had dialogue with about 50pc, so it is good to see that the policy was actually approved," chairman Gary Kennedy said after last week's AGM. This is not the first time shareholders have sent a message regarding pay to Greencore, however. Back in 2017, four out of 10 Greencore shareholders voted to reject a new pay deal for Coveney and his executives. In its pre-AGM note last month, proxy adviser ISS said that pay remained an issue. "The overall positioning of fixed pay at Greencore remains an ongoing area of concern," it said. After the vote last week, Kennedy said there was "a very definite message there". Let's see if the message gets though this time. While a sizeable block of shareholders share in the ISS view of directors' pay at Greencore, a majority were happy to back the company. Perhaps the performance of Greencore's share price has kept further dissatisfaction at bay. Last year, the company's shares were up around 50pc to close 2019 at 2.82 (3.35), although they are now down to 2.40. However, some in the investment community are questioning what comes next for Greencore and are unconvinced that a big growth story lies ahead. The company has experienced significant strategic reversals, the most notable one being its withdrawal from the US. To date, management have come through unscathed. Around half of Greencore's sales come from sandwiches, which is a maturing business. What it is now offering up is a broadening of its food-to-go portfolio. This would see the company move into higher-growth areas such as salads, sushi, chilled snacking, breakfasts and hot food. However, higher-value food is a fickle business. And Greencore will need new opportunities of scale. Fads change. Greencore could strike it lucky by investing in food products with a long future ahead. But the risk is that the company would gear up to supply products that go out of fashion. There would also be supply chain challenges. For a basic sandwich, there is a very reliable, well-developed supply chain. Some of the more sophisticated food offerings, such as sushi, have a far more complex and risky supply chain. If this food-to-go story isn't convincing enough, what is left behind? A steady sandwich business with limited growth potential isn't going to get equity investors terribly excited. On the other hand, it could whet the appetite of private equity funds such as Lion Capital and Bain, which specialise in maturing food businesses. A decision by Irish Life and Aviva to mark down their Irish commercial property funds last week was viewed as a potential red flag by some in the investment and financial services industry. Although Irish Life brushed the move aside by saying that "the pricing basis of property funds can change from time to time", it certainly raised eyebrows among seasoned observers. As I reported on Friday, the development was sparked by investors withdrawing from the funds, which means the funds are now operating on a disposal rather than acquisitions basis. Aviva subsequently moved to stop investors from cashing in its property funds for six months. The last time investors were stopped from withdrawing their money from such funds was at the height of the crash. In the UK, some funds last suspended withdrawals in 2016 after the Brexit vote. The Irish funds had been seeing more money go out than come in. It was not just a handful of retail investors cashing in. The increase in withdrawals was of enough scale to spark this action at both Aviva and Irish Life. Many believe that prime Irish commercial property has a bright future ahead of it, given the strength of the Irish economy. But we must be aware that a growing number of investors, brokers and intermediaries believe Irish commercial property has topped out after eight years of strong growth. Given Ireland's experiences with property over the past 15 years, it is imperative we are alert to changes such as this in the market - which many are hoping are just false alarms. Srinagar, Feb 2 : The National Investigation Agency (INA) and Jammu and Kashmir police, on Sunday, carried out fresh raids at Shopian in South Kashmir on locations of DSP Davinder Singh, Hizbul Mujahideen terrorists Naveed Babu and Rafi Ahmad and a law school dropout Irfan Ahmad. On Saturday, a 20-member NIA team arrived in Kashmir to collect more facts about Davinder Singh who was arrested by J&K police while transporting three people including two Hibzul Mujahideen militants, Naveed Babu and Rafi Ahmed, and Irfan Amad to Jammu on January 11. The team led by a DIG rank officer went to Anantnag and held a meeting with the police officials, sources said. NIA officials are currently interrogating Singh in Jammu after the agency got his transit remand. Last week the DG NIA, Y.C. Modi, reviewed investigations into the case that shook the security establishment of J&K and the Centre. After initial investigations by the J&K police the case was handed over to the NIA. According to sources, Babu, Ahmed and Mir had planned a travel to Pakistan after reaching Jammu. After Singh's arrest, J&K police conducted multiple raids at his residences in Srinagar. Singh was posted with the anti-hijacking wing of J&K police in Srinagar, and was part of the security staff that received a group of foreign ambassadors who visited Kashmir last month including the ambassador of the US. When Autumn Murphy is older, she wants to be an engineer. With that goal in mind, the eighth-grader and some of her friends from Sutherland Middle School came to Albemarles Center I on Saturday to learn more about science, technology and engineering careers. Albemarle County Public Schools hosted its second Math, Architecture, Physics and Science Day featuring professionals in a variety of fields and hands-on learning opportunities for about 30 girls. The event focuses on introducing girls at a young age to a new career path and is open to fifth- through eighth-graders. The students went through several classes and panel discussions covering a variety of fields in the daylong camp. Autumn said the classes built on her education. It all kind of relates to what were learning about in school, she said. Kat Ravichandran, a sophomore at Albemarle High School, started the program last year with a few other classmates. She said they made the event free so that money wouldnt be an issue. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the United States will continue building strong ties with Britain after it exited the European Union on January 31 at 11.00 pm (local time). Pompeo took to Twitter to express his pleasure over the agreement between the United Kingdom and the EU on the much-awaited Brexit deal. "I am pleased the UK and EU have agreed on a #Brexit deal that honors the will of the British people," Pompeo tweeted. "We will continue building upon our strong, productive, and prosperous relationship with the UK as they enter this next chapter," he added. Read: Mike Pompeo To Visit London In 'historic Week' Amid Heightening US-UK Tensions Ahead of the formal exit from the EU, leaving it a 27-member bloc, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called the departure a 'moment of real national renewal and change'. Johnson urged the citizens to make the most of opportunities and unleash the potential'. Tonight we have left the EU - an extraordinary turning point in the life of this country. Let us come together now to make the most of all the opportunities Brexit will bring - and lets unleash the potential of the whole UK. Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) January 31, 2020 Read: 'Unleash The Potential': Boris Johnson Roars As UK Leaves EU 'Old friends to new beginning' European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that the bloc wants an exchange of studies and research as closely as possible. She said that further negotiations should be in the spirit of the fair and predictable economy so that old friends build a new beginning. The European Commission chief said that though the new relationship will never be as good as actual bloc membership, they want to have the best possible relations with the UK. In a joint statement, European Council chief Charles Michel and Von der Leyen said that they have to loosen some of the threads, over the next few weeks, carefully stitched together between the EU and the UK over five decades. Whilst the UK will cease to be an EU member, it will remain part of Europe. Our shared geography, history, and ties in so many areas inevitably bind us and make us natural allies, the statement read. Read: Brexit: Britain Leaves European Union, Leaps Into The Unknown Read: Britain's Flag Taken Down At EU Headquarters Hours Before Brexit (With Agency Inputs) BERKELEY (BCN) The Berkeley City Council is considering a proposal to open several parking lots on city-owned land to accommodate 25 RVs during non-business hours. The council was scheduled to discuss and vote on the measure at its meeting on Tuesday but because of a lengthy discussion on a plan to allow cannabis consumption lounges the matter was postponed until the council's Feb. 11 meeting. The measure is being proposed by City Council members Rashi Kesarwani and Kate Harrison and Mayor Jesse Arreguin. Kesarwani, who represents the West Berkeley area where many people live in RVs, said in a phone interview this week that the proposal is "a compromise that doesn't leave anyone fully satisfied." The plan would only cover a fraction of Berkeley RV dwellers, as a survey back in December 2018 found there were 193 RV campers and oversized vehicles parked on public streets in the city, including 100 in West Berkeley. Most observers think that number has increased since then. Kesarwani said she, Arreguin and other city officials have been trying to find a safe parking site for 24-hour parking for a large number of RVs but haven't been able to find a good location. She said, "This overnight parking plan is better than nothing," saying, "the status quo isn't working." Under the plan, Berkeley would give priority to RV dwellers with children, people who work or study in Berkeley and former city residents. Kesarwani said that so far the city has identified 18 RV households that would qualify for the program. Those eligible could park in the six proposed city lots for up to three months but would have to leave during business hours. Residents who live in the lots would receive social services and help finding work or a permanent place to live. RV dwellers would be allowed to stay in the lots overnight but would have to leave during the day. These are the proposed overnight RV parking sites: --A parking lot at the northeast corner of Harrison Street and the Third Street railroad tracks. --The lot at the West Berkeley Senior Center on Sixth Street. --The lot at the South Berkeley Senior Center on Ellis Street. --The lot behind the city offices at Allston Way and Milvia Street. --The corporation yard on Allston Way. --The lot at the Berkeley Animal Shelter on Bolivar Drive. Harrison is also proposing a seventh site off Russell Street near College Avenue in the city's Elmwood district but Kesarwani said that because of public notice issues the earliest that site could be considered by the council is Feb. 25. Copyright 2020 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. Exoskeleton dissolution of larval Dungeness crab (Metacarcinus magister) caused by coastal ocean acidification. Graphic: Bednarsek, et al., 2020 / Science of the Total Environment 23 January 2020 (NOAA) A new NOAA-funded study has documented for the first time that ocean acidification along the US Pacific Northwest coast is impacting the shells and sensory organs of some young Dungeness crab, a prized crustacean that supports the most valuable fishery on the West Coast. Analysis of samples collected during a 2016 NOAA research cruise identified examples of damage to the carapace, or upper shell, of numerous larval Dungeness crabs, as well as the loss of hair-like sensory structures crabs use to orient themselves to their surroundings. The study was published in the journal Science of the Total Environment. Prior to this study, scientists thought that Dungeness crab were not vulnerable to current levels of ocean acidification, although a laboratory study conducted on Dungeness crab larvae by NOAAs Northwest Fisheries Science Center in 2016 found that their development and survival suffered under pH levels expected in the future. External carapace and pereopod exoskeleton of the Dungeness crab megalopae (a) in its undamaged form (b, c) and with dissolution presence ranging from mild (Stage 1; d) to severe (Stage 2; e, f) patterns showing similarity in the structural damages (g) or exposed crystals (h). Indicated is the scale of the measurements (m). The undamaged megalopae originated from the offshore or northwards habitats characterized by low cal,60 vertical gradients, while the most severely affected megalopae came from the nearshore or coastal habitats with steep cal,60 conditions. Photo: Bednarsek, et al., 2020 / Science of The Total Environment This is the first study that demonstrates that larval crabs are already affected by ocean acidification in the natural environment, and builds on previous understanding of ocean acidification impacts on pteropods, said lead author Nina Bednarsek, senior scientist with the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project. If the crabs are affected already, we really need to make sure we start to pay much more attention to various components of the food chain before it is too late. Ocean acidification refers to a reduction in the pH of ocean water, primarily caused by the uptake of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere over long time spans. When CO2 is absorbed by seawater, a series of chemical reactions occur resulting in the increased concentration of hydrogen ions. This increase causes the seawater to increase its acidity and causes carbonate ions to be less abundant. Carbonate ions are an important building block of structures such as sea shells and coral skeletons that rely on using calcium carbonate for structural growth. Decreases in carbonate ions can make building and maintaining shells and other calcium carbonate structures difficult for calcifying organisms such as oysters, clams, sea urchins, crabs, corals, and some kinds of shelled plankton, such as pteropods. Close examination reveals patterns of damage In this study, examination under a high-magnification, scanning electron microscope revealed that the corrosive conditions of coastal waters had affected portions of the fragile, still-developing external shell and legs of the tiny, almost translucent post-larval Dungeness crabs, leaving tell-tale features, such as abnormal ridging structures and scarred surfaces. This could, in turn, impair larval survival by altering swimming behaviors and competence, including the ability to regulate buoyancy, maintain vertical position, and avoid predators. One of the more important findings of this study was that crabs showing signs of carapace dissolution were smaller than other larvae. This was disconcerting, scientists said, because the damage during the crabs larval stages could cause potential developmental delays that could increase energy demands and interfere with maturation. Micrograph showing carapace dissolution in larval Dungeness crabs along the U.S. west coast caused by ocean acidification. Presence of setae on the pereopods (a) and carapace surface (b) of the megalopae on the intact individuals. The exposure to greater cal,60 differences mechanically damages the setae and results in their absence and outrooting (black squares) because of the dissolution around the neuritic canals (d, f) and damage with the collapsed structure (e). Photo: Bednarsek, et al., 2020 / Science of The Total Environment Sensory organ damage seen for the first time In a surprising discovery, the team found that the low pH water in some coastal areas damaged the canals where hair-like bristles called mechanoreceptors stick out from the shell. These receptors transmit important chemical and mechanical sensations to the crab, and may help crabs navigate their environment. Examination showed that carapace dissolution destabilizes the attachment of the mechanoreceptor anchor, resulting in them falling out in some individuals. This is a new aspect of crustacean sensitivity to ocean acidification that has not been previously reported. The team hypothesize that the absence or damage of mechanoreceptors within their neuritic canals may in part explain potential aberrant behavioral patterns, such as slower movement, less tactile recognition, and prolonged searching time, as well as impaired swimming, that have been observed in various crustacean species exposed to low pH conditions in laboratory settings. Interpolated pCO2,60 (a), cal,60 (b) and chlorophyll (c) conditions in the onshore and offshore habitats along the U.S. West Coast in June 2016. pCO 2 reflects the conditions at 60 m depth and cal,60 indicates the difference between the surface and 60 m depth. c) Chlorophyll distribution and concentration (chl-a; g/L) demonstrate an order of magnitude difference between the regional nearshore and offshore region. The numbers indicate the stations at which the crabs were collected. Photo: Bednarsek, et al., 2020 / Science of The Total Environment We found dissolution impacts to the crab larvae that were not expected to occur until much later in this century, said Richard Feely, Senior Scientist with NOAAs Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory and one of the co-authors of the study. Combining observations and modelling work, the research team, which included scientists from JISAO, NOAAs cooperative institute at the University of Washington, from the University of Connecticut, and from Quebec, Britain and Slovenia, demonstrated that the impacts of dissolution were the most severe in the coastal habitats, where crabs grow and mature. Previous research has indicated that Dungeness crab may also be vulnerable to future declines due to lack of availability of prey including bivalves such as clams and other bottom-dwelling invertebrate species. More research needed Bednarsek emphasized that more research will be needed to determine whether the external dissolution seen in crabs at this early life stage could carry over into later life stages, including the reproductively active adult stage, and what the potential consequences may be for the population dynamics. If these larval crab need to divert energy to repair their exoskeletons, and are smaller as a result, the percentage that make it to adulthood will be at best variable, and likely go down in the long-term, she said. Ocean acidification is a major concern for West Coast fishery managers, said Rich Childers, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlifes ocean acidification policy lead. These data and results give state and tribal fishery managers and policy makers information thats vital for harvest and conservation planning. The research was supported by the NOAAs Ocean Acidification Program and NOAAs Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory. Contact Theo Stein at NOAA Communications: theoestein@noaa.gov Dungeness crab larvae already showing effects of coastal acidification Exoskeleton dissolution with mechanoreceptor damage in larval Dungeness crab related to severity of present-day ocean acidification vertical gradients ABSTRACT: Ocean acidification (OA) along the US West Coast is intensifying faster than observed in the global ocean. This is particularly true in nearshore regions (<200 m) that experience a lower buffering capacity while at the same time providing important habitats for ecologically and economically significant species. While the literature on the effects of OA from laboratory experiments is voluminous, there is little understanding of present-day OA in-situ effects on marine life. Dungeness crab (Metacarcinus magister) is perennially one of the most valuable commercial and recreational fisheries. We focused on establishing OA-related vulnerability of larval crustacean based on mineralogical and elemental carapace to external and internal carapace dissolution by using a combination of different methods ranging from scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, elemental mapping and X-ray diffraction. By integrating carapace features with the chemical observations and biogeochemical model hindcast, we identify the occurrence of external carapace dissolution related to the steepest calcite gradients ( cal,60 ) in the water column. Dissolution features are observed across the carapace, pereopods (legs), and around the calcified areas surrounding neuritic canals of mechanoreceptors. The carapace dissolution is the most extensive in the coastal habitats under prolonged (1-month) long exposure, as demonstrated by the use of the model hindcast. Such dissolution has a potential to destabilize mechanoreceptors with important sensory and behavioral functions, a pathway of sensitivity to OA. Carapace dissolution is negatively related to crab larval width, demonstrating a basis for energetic trade-offs. Using a retrospective prediction from a regression models, we estimate an 8.3% increase in external carapace dissolution over the last two decades and identified a set of affected OA-related sublethal pathways to inform future risk assessment studies of Dungeness crabs. Exoskeleton dissolution with mechanoreceptor damage in larval Dungeness crab related to severity of present-day ocean acidification vertical gradients London rolled out the red carpet on Sunday night for the 73rd British Academy Film Awards. The event, which took place at the Royal Albert Hall and was hosted by Graham Norton, marked the last major awards show before the Oscars in Los Angeles. And with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in attendance (William is president of BAFTA), the celebs pulled out all the sartorial stops for the big night. Zoe Kravitz shone in a long-sleeved gold metal mesh column gown from Saint Laurent, while Emilia Clarke looked chic and sophisticated in a scoop-neck black embellished number. Zoe Kravitz at the 2020 BAFTAs / PA Saoirse Ronan went for a similarly demure black scoop neck dress, paired with neon pink lipstick and multicoloured crystal drop earrings. Saorise Ronan at the 2020 BAFTAs / PA Gillian Anderson meanwhile also went for a understated black look in a strapless black cocktail dress paired with a red velvet Anya Hindmarch clutch and coordinating red shoes. Gillian Anderson at the 2020 BAFTAs / PA This year the BAFTA event organisers had asked all attendees to consider re-wearing an outfit they already own or to choose another sustainable option. "Sustainability is very important to BAFTA, and were doing more than ever before," a BAFTA spokesperson told Harpers Bazaar. "The goal is that the EE British Academy Film Awards 2020 will be carbon neutral, working towards having a net positive impact on the environment. From travel and food, to branding and materials, BAFTA is ensuring the awards are as sustainable as possible." Guests at this years event were given dressing guidelines, created by the London College of Fashion, UALs Centre of Sustainability which suggests guests consider renting their red carpet gowns or buying vintage, or evenwearing something they have worn before. The guidelines also offer examples of designers who have sustainable credentials, including Stella McCartney, Phoebe English, Reformation and Rejina Pyo. The spokesperson said, The LCF sustainable fashion guide is provided as one small part of our wider sustainability efforts where we are looking at every part of our awards to do more than ever before. A SHAMED ex-prison nurse who helped her convicted killer husband go on the run from jail is sweating over being caged herself. Former model Kathryn 'Kathy' Johnston will find out on February 13 if she has to spend time on the wrong side of the bars when she is sentenced at Craigavon Crown Court. The 55-year-old fled across the border with glue-sniffing murderer hubby Paul Johnston (37) when he was out on day release from Maghaberry Prison - her old place of work - in April 2017. The odd couple hid out in the Dublin area for 15 days before he was taken into custody by gardai on foot of a European Arrest Warrant. Paul Johnston was extradited back to Northern Ireland and pleaded guilty to being unlawfully at large last month. Wife Kathy confessed to aiding and abetting his escape at a sitting of Craigavon Crown Court last week. She is now back living in Comber, Co Down, after spending a period on bail holed up in a dingy flat in the university area of Belfast. Donaghadee-born Kathy, who sources say is smitten with her toy-boy husband 18 years her junior, has been warned that she could face jail when she is sentenced in two weeks time. The pair met in Maghaberry Prison two decades ago when Paul Johnston was caged for 19 years for the murder of disabled west Belfast man Sean May. High from sniffing glue he and older brother Stephen broke into their 58-year-old victim's home in the Moyard area and stabbed him 45 times before bludgeoning him with a wheel-brace. They then burned down vulnerable Sean's home in a bid to cover their tracks. Paul Johnston was on the run from Hydebank Young Offenders Centre when he carried out the frenzied 1999 killing. Aged just 17 at the time he had already amassed 47 criminal convictions. Expand Close Paul James Johnston / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Paul James Johnston But his disturbing background apparently did not bother Maghaberry Prison love-struck nurse Kathy McClelland, as she was known then, when she tied the knot with Johnston in a behind bars ceremony in 2008. The best man at the unlikely ceremony was his killer older brother Stephen, who was caged for 21 years for the murder of Sean May. By the time of the wedding an infatuated Kathy Johnston had quit her nurse job at Maghaberry and found work as a beautician avoiding any internal Prison Service probe into her "inappropriate relationship". Since then she has remained steadfastly loyal to her husband including going on the run with him in 2017 when he enjoyed a period of temporary release. Their decision to flee across the border baffled jail sources because Paul Johnston only had a few months left to serve before being eligible for parole. One insider said: "He was out on day release and made a spur of the moment decision to abscond. They headed down south, but were eventually caught by the gardai after being on the run for a few weeks. "The whole thing is mad, especially because he was only supposed to have a few months left of his sentence." We figured we had a fighting chance against our opponents but make no mistake: it was because events were taking place outside the United States that might make our struggle successful. by John Stanton Im writing this letter to myself. I need to talk to someone, even it is only my self. I need to believe that what happened was real. All that I know of the past was learned by word-of-mouth histories from those who came before me and those few historians who remain now. Some matters I know directly. We dont talk much anymore to each other because it takes too much physical effort. It has been tiring to write this letter by the dim light available to me either in or outdoors, day or night. But it helps to distract me from the situation everyone is in. I was part of the BMR or the Baltimore Metro Resistance. I was part of the BMR when I was young and I guess I still am a member now. My parents migrated to Baltimore from Virginia. They are gone now, killed in fighting by bullet, blade, bomb, artillery or missile. Thats what I was told. I often wish now that I would have died with them, such are the circumstances these days. There were other resistance groups in the former United States of America that I know of: Los Angeles, Houston, New Orleans, Saint Louis, Chicago, Detroit, Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Charlotte (North Carolina) and Miami. Millions flocked to these locations in hopes of defending themselves from the brutal federal and state militaries; para-military security forces and mercenaries, and local police. When I was very young, I became a courier in the BMR transporting everything from letters, food, ammunition, tools, medicine, water. I eventually became a competent, adaptable fighter with about an average talent for writing. There were so many thousands of us that were BMR fighters but only about 100 of us at any one time had the responsibility to compose three page letters that would serve as a narrative of the day or nights activity. The letters included stories of combat, the details of terrain, retreat or advance, stalemates and casualties, poems, puzzles, trivia, anything that could be read for a few moments of escape. Once composed the many letters written by all of us went into a zip lock plastic bag, and circulated throughout our metro area for reading. War War does funny things, I suppose, like bring people together or tearing them apart or both. In tearing apart the United States, the government, clearly not intending to do so, brought people together, at least in our case. Our BMR was made up of black, white, latino, asian, and mixed race fighters, young and old, LGBTQ, anyone who accepted our cause. History, race, ethnicity or class no longer mattered to any of us. Sure, their were leaders and order necessary for operations, everyone below a leader was trained in how and when to fight and with what. Tactics and strategy did not belong to an elite particularly since no one could afford to be located at a central command post. The only reference points in time I have for a starting point for the emergence of the resistance groups, or I suppose city-states, is 2020 to 2045. Beyond that, I dont know whether it is now late in the 21 St Century or early in 22nd Century. Our oral historians told us that, at least in the then United States, martial law was declared during those years and the US Constitution and Bill of Rights were suspended. Government pensions, medical benefits, food assistance, environmental protections and every form of civilian aid were suspended apparently in about 2025 by presidential order. Elections were also suspended with the president appointing those who he thought should represent the people. Tribunals took the place of courts. A few other presidents came and went, I was told, but the die was cast: the allure of power was too much to for anyone to care about the general populace. These were frantic times in the BMR as everyone knew an attack by government forces was imminent. But with the number of metro areas offering refuge and armed resistance, plus the ongoing wars the government was waging overseas, there would have to be careful planning by the enemy military leaders. Our strategists and tacticians reminded us that high ranking government military commanders were plodding, conventional thinkers bound up in the false promises of technology. I learned that during the initial setup of the BMR, major food and clothing chains, drug stores, camping and fishing outlets, boats docked of any type, fuel from gas stations, water sources, weapons of all types from gun shops and ammunition all took part in emptying their shelves and stocking all the goods at various hardened sites in the BMR. Bank vaults, below ground parking garages and wherever there was a below ground facility were stocked. Prepositioned stocks of weapons, ammo and food were stored outside the Baltimore City limits. Shipping containers loaded with canned goods or plastic water bottles were submerged in the Baltimore harbor. Tunnel construction began in earnest, tiered defenses were setup for BMRs inner, outer and suburban areas. Choke points were set that would funnel attackers into kill zones. Booby traps, crude land-mines and even crossbows were used during the fight. Bicycles and skate boards were put to good use since fuel was severely rationed. Methods of communication had to be devised that would not emit heat because they would be detected by electronic warfare packages on enemy aircraft. We had to devise a low flying drone defense and we had to find a way to hide critical weapons and stores from satellites. Again, we lucked out because a lot of satellite and drone time was allocated by the government forces to their overseas conflicts. Advantages We had the good fortune to have in the BMR Johns Hopkins medical and research personnel on our side along with most of the air and space staff moving in with us from Goddard space flight center not far away. Many from nearby Fort Meade and some from the former National Security Agency joined us. I am not sure of the functions of many of those people but I know that doctors, technologists, space researchers and weapons developers were among them. We were able to develop our own drones that were used for reconnaissance. I have heard that nearly 40 percent of those forces joined the resistance bringing with them weapons, munitions, vehicles and, more importantly, training. I learned too that a some Virginia Class Submarines, three strategic ballistic missile nuke submarines, a handful of AEGIS warships, and even one Carrier Strike Group joined the resistance too. Of those, two Virginia Class attack submarines joined the BMR along with two AEGIS warships. Initially, no one in the BMR was sure what to do with this firepower but it didnt take long for the technologists and military personnel that came ashore to suggest good use of the Navy vessels.The one SSBN that was aligned with the BMR may have served as a deterrent to the government nuking us. But it and one of the two Virginia attack class subs would have to take to the deep ocean to be effective. I did not learn of their fate. We were not nuked, I know that. The other attack submarine that stayed with us had a nuclear power source. I dont understand how they did it (though we did have some pretty smart people in our camp) but they were able to move the nuclear power source to a facility deep within the BMR. I guess the idea was to use it to power a BMR of the future. Im not sure what came of that effort though in the end it didnt matter. The Virginia attack sub arrived to us loaded with cruise missiles and a couple of Navy SEAL units. The SEALS would push back an attack by other Navy SEALS dispatched by submersible from pro-government submarines to infiltrate and terrorize the BMR. They were essential to our defense and raiding/scouting efforts. Cruise missiles were fired from our Virginia attack sub and I think they found their way to artillery and tank emplacements that initially surrounded us. The AEGIS warships managed to fend off some aircraft and missile attacks but ultimately succumbed to anti-ship missiles homing in on their heat signatures. The sub was eventually sunk by torpedo, I think. Lucky We figured we had a fighting chance against our opponents but make no mistake: it was because events were taking place outside the United States that might make our struggle successful. It is one thing to quell an internal rebellion, quite another to succeed against 100 million resistance fighters tucked away in metro areas while trying to win wars in foreign lands, on and below the worlds oceans, and in space. We figured that our opponents would eventually run short of fuel and munitions with so many to fight and we, luckily, were right. Still, like all the other resistance groups around in the former United States and around the world , we lost thousands and thousands during the relentless barrages from air, sea and land. We started out poorly in defending the BMR on the ground but after fits and starts managed to push back our enemies. We learned that the Miami, Florida and Charlotte. North Carolina BMRs were defeated. Both Florida and North Carolina had a heavy government military presence and even with the help of those in the military that came to the aid of the resistance it wasnt enough. We celebrated the cessation of fighting for a short time. We all were skeptical that it was really over but our scouting parties found abandoned tanks, vehicles, artillery pieces and a lot of dead and decaying bodies. The peace was short lived. Then nukes came. And then the planet rebelled. During some short time period, some fateful decisions were made by the former United States, Russia, Pakistan, India and China. Who knows the sequence but the end result was horrifying. I guess the first thing to say was that China decided that US Pacific fleet forces, the three Carrier Strike Groups there, were vulnerable. China decided to take on those forces with their conventional forces and suffered badly. The Chinese surface, subsurface and air forces were largely destroyed. Given that hundreds of millions of their own people were fighting their Peoples Liberation Army within their own borders the vaunted advantage of PLA ground forces vanished. With their naval forces destroyed by the United States and Pacific allies, they decided to launch nuclear weapons at Japan, Okinawa, Guam and Taiwan where the US fleet had a presence. The same weapons were launched at the three carrier groups in the China area of operations with the result being the elimination of US forces. At the same time. Russia decided that the time was ripe for moving further into Ukraine, the Baltic's and Europe, into a barely armed Germany. Meager NATO forces supported by sacrificial US support units were no match for the Russians. Seeing defeat, the US launched scores of tactical nukes to stop the onslaught. At the same times, India and Pakistan decided to settle their scores by launching their stock of nukes at each other. Nuclear warheads flew between those two countries and around the globe. We learned that Newport News, San Diego, sub bases on the East and west coasts of the United States were destroyed by nukes. Washington, DC, Houston and New Orleans were also eliminated. Ground based missiles anywhere in the world, in our case in the Northwest, were cratered by nukes turning those places into radioactive no go zones. The Nukes Time ended. Our skies were psychedelic with colors that defied sense. Orange, gray, blue, yellow, black colors would appear each day. It was getting cold as the sun seemed to fade into the distance. Our Geiger counters registered high but tolerable radiation. But many of us started feeling sick. We learned, thanks to our telecommunications, internet and satellite technicians that the scene was the same all over the planet. Populations of the former United States, Russia, China, India, Pakistan Europe, Brazil, Malaysia, Mexico Indonesia, the African nations, were all now displaced moving by sea or land in hopes of surviving somewhere. After the Nuke Time there was another calm period. Many of us were worried about this. We had all forgotten about Climate Change and planetary disturbances. Earth Revolts I remember one day waking up in the BMR thinking that the Earth had fallen away under me. I learned that the West Coast earthquake had finally come putting Los Angeles and the West Coast of the United States into the Pacific ocean. The volcano that was said to be dormant in the Pacific northwest exploded sending soot and tremors throughout the former United States. It was undeniable that the Earth said Enough! There were earthquakes and subsequent Tsunamis everywhere. Volcanic eruptions around the Earth were so severe that the sky turned black. Snowflakes made of ash fell from the sky. Respiratory distress was the norm. People coughed so hard that they vomited blood. Probably the worst image of the times was picked up by a couple of our drones roaming over Ocean City, Maryland. Marine life started to appear on the beaches dead or dying. Thousands of people mauled each other and the dead, beached creatures for something to eat. The video was awful particularly since we knew that anyone eating the toxic meat from the oceans would have convulsions and vomiting with 24 hours and would die. The worst thing we saw from these video feeds was that people slaughtered each other for what they thought was good food. All the coastal cities in the world are gone, sunk into the oceans. The oceans have turned into some viscous polluted mass. The seas and vicious weather pursue us up into the high ground or wherever we go. I am ending this letter. I will drink a pint of vodka, take many opioids and go into the black. But before that, I will put this letter into the zip lock bag and bury it somewhere. **** Sir. Yes, what is it. Our sentient droids scattered around and above this planet have uploaded our data for analyses into the primary ship. Good. Make sure that all the sentient programming on this planet is upload back into the bio machinery There is much to analyze. Of course, sir. Sir, one of our archeo devices has come across what appears to be a first hand account of the demise of this planet. Good, construct it, translate it and send it to me. Yes. Are you ok ,sir? Yes, this narrative is very sad, moving even. Well, put this in the archives with the other data retrieved from this planet. Again, do not leave any of our sentient programs in this place. Send out warning satellites outside the ring of debris that surrounds this planet. Send out a warning using universal Planck communications that this place is toxic. Let us move out of this solar system. John Stanton can be reached at jstantonarchangel@gmail.com (Bloomberg Opinion) -- German tank crews have of late been practicing with Volkswagen minibuses because as many as three in four of their Puma tanks are in the repair shop or rather, theyre waiting endlessly to be repaired, owing to Kafkaesque bureaucracy. Ordering backpacks, bullet-proof vests, helmets, visors and all sorts of other gear can take years in the German army. About 20,000 job openings cant be filled because so few young people want to enlist. Officers complain that standards are being lowered, and that new recruits are fatter, weaker and dumber. This is all according to Hans-Peter Bartels, an ombudsman appointed by parliament to audit the countrys armed forces. Among his devastating conclusions this week was this simple observation: Germanys army would currently be unable to contribute adequately to the collective defense of NATO, the Western alliance, if any member were attacked. Germanys allies, from Poland in the east to the U.S. in the west, have long known and criticized this reality. President Donald Trump may be uniquely undiplomatic about it, but his predecessors going back at least to George W. Bush also harangued Berlin for the same reason. Germany, theyve been saying, must stop free-riding, scrimping on its army and shirking its responsibilities in joint missions. The government of Chancellor Angela Merkel always politely listened and nodded. In 2014, as Russia was invading Crimea, several senior German officials gave speeches calling for their country to take more international responsibility. Later that year, at a NATO summit in Wales, Merkel joined her fellow leaders in pledging to raise military spending to at least 2% of GDP within a decade. Germany appears to have no intention of honoring that promise. Nobody in Berlin is seriously planning a 2% army, Bartels said. True, after drastic cuts in military spending following the end of the Cold War, Germany has started raising it again from a low base. In absolute terms, it budgeted 43.2 billion euros ($47.6 billion) last year (though it didnt spend all of that, owing to that red tape) and 45.1 billion euros this year. Its hinted at more rises to come. But Bartels reckons that those wont even get the country to its miserly stated goal of 1.5% of GDP by 2024. Story continues The deeper reasons are found in post-war German culture. Ive been on domestic flights in the U.S. when the pilot announced that a soldier was on board and the whole cabin spontaneously applauded. Roughly the opposite atmosphere exists in Germany. For decades after West Germany in 1955 established a new army, soldiers often got spat at while going out in uniform. Traumatized by the guilt of having started two world wars, Germans sought a new identity in being anti-war and anti-military. Over time that understandable reaction to their own past morphed into a more off-putting smugness. Modern Germans dont shoot, they trade, became the implicit mantra. In effect, Germany outsourced its defense, as well as the burdens of policing international order, to the U.S and, to a lesser extent, France and the U.K. Simultaneously, many Germans, especially on the political left, got on a high horse and moralized to their allies about being warmongers. All the while, Germany was exploiting the order thus preserved by becoming a mercantile superpower. Some in Germanys policy elite knew this wasnt sustainable. In 2010, Horst Koehler, the federal president, said Germany should participate in more foreign deployments to protect its own national interests, which include keeping trade routes open. The outraged response was instant, widespread and hysterical. Koehler had to resign. Most politicians concluded that calling for a stronger army is the third rail of German politics. It shouldnt be. The world is a dangerous place, and NATO faces many perils, while a European Union army remains a pipe-dream. The biggest threat to Europe remains Russia. As researchers for the Swedish defense ministry have detailed, Russia has in the past decade made itself militarily much stronger, and could defeat (or blackmail) Europe by combining hybrid warfare, conventional military superiority and the threat of nuclear weapons deployed by new types of missiles. So who should make that case to the German public? One possibility is Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, whos a rather hapless candidate to succeed Merkel as chancellor. Shes even broached the subject, by suggesting a German-led effort in Syria at one point and more cooperation with the French in fighting terrorists in Africa. But each time she raises the topic she seems to sink further in the polls. That leaves only Merkel. Shes already made herself a lame duck by declaring she wont run again next year. But she remains popular and credible, having governed for more than 14 years and steered through many crises, including Russias aggression in Ukraine. Shes now trying to mediate in other conflicts, including the civil war in Libya. And she worries enormously about the U.S. under Trump withdrawing from its role as guarantor of Europes peace. She has less than two years left in office. She should use them to open a historic debate, by urging Germans to think differently about their army. To contact the author of this story: Andreas Kluth at akluth1@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Boxell at jboxell@bloomberg.net This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners. Andreas Kluth is a member of Bloomberg's editorial board. He was previously editor in chief of Handelsblatt Global and a writer for the Economist. For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source. 2020 Bloomberg L.P. The beginning of the school year when you got to show off your new duds, new cars, new looks! Sports! Playing, cheering, watching high school athletics. The arts: Dramatic arts, musical groups and shows, graphic arts groups, debate, etc. The prom! No dancing the night away or punch bowl antics. The daily interactions. Just being with the group, hanging with friends and classmates. Access to college recruiters and advisors its harder to line up higher education. Walking onstage to get a diploma while all the family is watching with everyone elses family. Vote View Results Iraq's Assyrians Flee in the Face of Lawlessness and Sectarianism An Iraqi police officer guards Baghdad's Chaldean Catholic Virgin Mary Church. With armed police outside and CCTV cameras within, St Joseph's Chaldean Catholic Church in Baghdad does its best to protect its worshippers from the dangers of modern-day Iraq. But as the rows of empty pews show, most of its congregation have opted for altogether safer sanctuary abroad. Of the 5,000 families that the church once tended to, only 150 now remain after a mass migration in the last decade to Europe and America. "They feel there is no peace, law or justice here in Baghdad, and that our country has become a land of militias," said Father Nadheer Dako, St Joseph's parish priest, after a Sunday morning service that drew just 25 people to a church built for 1,000. Father Dako has just returned to Baghdad after a six-year posting to the Holy Family Roman Catholic Church in Ealing, west London, where many exiled Iraqi Christians now live. His flock there is now 350 families strong - more than twice what remains in Baghdad. The shrinking parish at St Joseph's - one of only a handful of churches now open in Iraq's capital - is just the latest sign of the mass exodus of Iraq's Christian population. In the lawlessness and sectarianism that has prevailed since the fall of Saddam Hussein, nearly four fifths of the 1.5 million-strong community have left, and in recent years, church leaders have warned that a time might come when none were left at all. They had hoped that the defeat of the Islamic State in Mosul and gradual security improvements in Baghdad would have stemmed the tide. If St Joseph's is anything to go by, however, the mere prospect of a future free of car bombs and kidnap gangs is no longer enough to make people stay. "It is true that people are no longer getting kidnapped as much, and the Islamic State is gone," said Nasib Hana Jabril, 42, a St Joseph's parishioner. "But the infrastructure of the country has been ruined, and people want a better future, not so much for themselves but for their children." Iraqi Christians attend Christmas mass at the Virgin Mary church. ( Wathiq Khuzaie/Getty Images) The exodus is less pronounced in northern Iraq, where some have now returned to historic Christian-majority towns like Qaraqosh, which was over-run by the Islamic State in 2014. But while there is a determination to maintain a foothold there - Qaraqosh was first settled by Christians in the 4th century - there is more nervousness about Baghdad, where Christians are now a tiny minority. Quite aside from the capital's big city crime problems, religiously-mixed Baghdad is still likely to be the first flashpoint for any renewed sectarian violence, which saw several churches attacked a decade ago. Unlike Iraq's Muslims, the country's Christians also lack traditional tribal networks, which act as rallying points for self-defence. "We have no tribe here, so if things go wrong, there is nobody here to help us," added Mr Jabril. Another problem, though, is that for many families, a tipping point has simply been reached where more of their relatives live outside of Iraq than inside. When regaled with tales of how much better life is in the likes of Britain, Sweden or the US, it is hard not to feel tempted. It is not just about fears of persecution, but more mundane concerns like the absence of decent schools, according to Father Dako. "Returning here from London after six years, I've noticed how the quality of education in Baghdad has gone down in nearly all the primary schools," he said. "The new generation just have very little hope of making a life here anymore." Exactly how many Christians still live in Baghdad is not known, although in Father Dako's district of Karrada - one of three main Christian neighbourhoods - there were originally 10,000 families. The fear is they may now end up like the city's Jewish community, which died out altogether after Ba'athist pogroms in 1969. Calls by local bishops to tough it out and preserve the city's Christian heritage have met with accusations of hypocrisy. "A lot of the bishops have sent their own families abroad," said Hana Samoul, 45, whose nephew was kidnapped and murdered by a militia, and who hopes to move to Detroit. "Why should they expect us to stay?" One parishioner who has heeded the bishops' call is Mahran Avedisian, an engineer, who has decided to stay despite having siblings in Canada, the US and Sweden. "I love my country, and if I left, the candle of our religion would be going out," he said, after attending a recent Sunday church service at St Joseph's. He hopes that his four young children - dressed in their Sunday best clothes - will grow up as part of a new generation of Baghdad Christians. But whether that prayer will be answered, even Father Dako does not know. "Will there still be a Christian community here in Baghdad in 2050?" he said. "That is hard to say. Beazer Homes USA, Inc. (NYSE:BZH) defied analyst predictions to release its first-quarter results, which were ahead of market expectations. Beazer Homes USA beat earnings, with revenues hitting US$418m, ahead of expectations, and statutory earnings per share outperforming analyst reckonings by a solid 20%. Following the result, analysts have updated their earnings model, and it would be good to know whether they think there's been a strong change in the company's prospects, or if it's business as usual. With this in mind, we've gathered the latest statutory forecasts to see what analysts are expecting for next year. View our latest analysis for Beazer Homes USA NYSE:BZH Past and Future Earnings, February 2nd 2020 Taking into account the latest results, the current consensus from Beazer Homes USA's twin analysts is for revenues of US$2.16b in 2020, which would reflect a credible 2.9% increase on its sales over the past 12 months. Beazer Homes USA is also expected to turn profitable, with statutory earnings of US$1.67 per share. Before this earnings report, analysts had been forecasting revenues of US$2.18b and earnings per share (EPS) of US$1.86 in 2020. So it looks like there's been a small decline in overall sentiment after the recent results - there's been no major change to revenue estimates, but analysts did make a small dip in their earnings per share forecasts. The average analyst price target fell 5.9% to US$16.00, with reduced earnings forecasts clearly tied to a lower valuation estimate. It can also be useful to step back and take a broader view of how analyst forecasts compare to Beazer Homes USA's performance in recent years. It's pretty clear that analysts expect Beazer Homes USA's revenue growth will slow down substantially, with revenues next year expected to grow 2.9%, compared to a historical growth rate of 7.1% over the past five years. By way of comparison, other companies in this market with analyst coverage, are forecast to grow their revenue at 5.3% per year. Factoring in the forecast slowdown in growth, it seems obvious that analysts still expect Beazer Homes USA to grow slower than the wider market. Story continues The Bottom Line The biggest concern with the new estimates is that analysts have reduced their earnings per share estimates, suggesting business headwinds could lay ahead for Beazer Homes USA. On the plus side, there were no major changes to revenue estimates; although analyst forecasts imply revenues will perform worse than the wider market. Analysts also downgraded their price target, suggesting that the latest news has led analysts to become more pessimistic about the intrinsic value of the business. Even so, the longer term trajectory of the business is much more important for the value creation of shareholders. At least one analyst has provided forecasts out to 2021, which can be seen for free on our platform here. You can also see whether Beazer Homes USA is carrying too much debt, and whether its balance sheet is healthy, for free on our platform here. If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Thank you for reading. New Delhi: Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman addresses a press conference on cabinet decisions in New Delhi on Nov 20, 2019. (Photo: IANS) Image Source: IANS News New Delhi, Feb 2 : The government is patting itself on the back for the Budget presented by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday, but people believe that the Budget is unlikely to boost employment. However, they have given a thumbs up to the big ticket social sector schemes such as clean drinking water, medical colleges and eradication of Tuberculosis (TB) from the country. The findings of the IANS-CVoter post-Budget survey indicate that people are not satisfied with the efforts of the Budget to reduce unemployment, which is at an all-time high. As per the survey, only 10.7 per cent respondents feel that the Budget will boost employment, which is a negative feedback for the government. The Finance Minister said that TB will be eradicated from India by 2025, a claim which has been backed by the respondents with 79.9 per cent saying the disease will be contained. Tuberculosis is responsible for the death of more than 15 lakh people in the country every year. The Pradhan Mantri Jal Jeevan Yojna (PMJJY), a scheme for clean drinking water, has also found many takers with 76.5 per cent respondents hailing the decision to allocate Rs 3.6 lakh crore for the plan. Establishing medical colleges with hospitals in every district is also a big announcement which people favoured, as 75.1 per cent respondents felt that this it was a good decision by the government. The poll compiled people's responses to a series of questions aimed at measuring popular perception to the union budget in the context of issues such as perceptions on the economy and employment. The survey conducted on Saturday, immediately after the budget presentation by Nirmala Sitharaman concluded, queried 1,200 respondents from all demographies. The IANS-CVoter post-Budget poll was conducted right after the live telecast of Budget presentation by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. In the poll, approximately over 1,200 respondents from across all demographics were interviewed. They were randomly selected. The growing climate crisis has been brought up time and again over the last few years. Wildfires, heatwaves, droughts and floods are increasingly disrupting and destroying the lives of many around the world. This in turn has led conscience-minded investors to seek out more sustainable and environmentally aware companies when looking for investing opportunities. According to Global Sustainable Investment Alliance, ESG (environmental social governance) funds now have assets worth over $30 trillion under management across the globe. Were not saying to not to invest in an oil or gas company. But if you are, you want to invest in one that has a historically strong track record in dealing with environmental issues, said Nuveens Managing Director Steve Libertadore. With this in mind, we used TipRanks Stock Screener tool to seek out two companies with an environmentally friendly agenda. In addition to a sustainable approach, both, as it turns out, currently have a Strong Buy consensus rating from the Street. Lets get started. Renewable Energy Group Inc. (REGI) With a name like Renewable Energy Group, it would be hard for this company to express more succinctly what its primary focus is. REGI is the largest biodiesel manufacturer in the US, with 14 biorefineries and a feedstock processing facility. Although the company only exhibited modest gains of 11% in 2019, it has been very successful over the last three years. The company has added over 200% to its share price since 2017, its forward-thinking agenda and profitable operations rewarded handsomely by the market. In what the company regards as a big win for the environment, agriculture and US motorists, Congress passed legislation which included a retroactive reinstatement and extension of the $1 per gallon Biodiesel Tax Credit (BTC) in December. The credit will be retroactively reinstated to January 1, 2018 and extended up until December 31, 2022. This means REGI will receive $500 million this year for production spanning back to the beginning of 2018, with it also standing to earn a further $1 billion in subsidies by the end of 2022. CEO Cynthia Warner has said the company will use the additional funds for its expansion strategy and share repurchases, which should add value to shareholders. Story continues The good news has excited Roth Capital analyst Craig Irwin, who said, "We are adding the benefit from reinstatement of the $1/gal BTC to our forecasts (but we are waiting to adjust retroactive results until these are disclosed), factoring continued headwinds from feedstock commodity competition. We expect around $150m of BTC cash will be used for share buybacks, with $150 million for strategic RHD expansion projects, and the remainder for balance sheet remediation. Irwin, therefore, kept his Buy rating on Renewable Energy Group and bumped up his price target, from $22 to $33. The new target implies upside potential of 26%. (To watch Irwins track record, click here) The Street is siding with the bulls, too. REGIs Strong Buy consensus rating breaks down into solely Buy ratings 4, as it happens. At $35, the average price target suggests possible upside of 33%. (See Renewable Energy Group stock analysis on TipRanks) Sunrun Inc. (RUN) It is always refreshing to find companies whose use of cutting-edge technology is directed towards improving the world around us. For solar panel provider Sunrun, the strategy has rewarded investors handsomely so far. Like REGI, Sunrun has done very well over the last few years, with 2019s 38% gain adding up to a cumulative 200% increase since 2017. The company is now the number 1 residential solar installer in the US. Its 3Q19 earnings report boasted year-over-year customer base growth of 24%, with 271,000 homes now having a Sunrun panel. Following several years of underwhelming results, a US Solar Market Insight Report noted that in 2019s third quarter, the residential solar industry installed a record high 712 megawatts (MW) of electrical generating capacity. A combination of policy changes and affordability are pushing installers into states such as Florida and Texas, where none had operated before. In a recent research note, J.P. Morgans Mark Strouse notes Sunrun is well positioned within the "high-growth" US residential rooftop solar market. The analyst thinks the company is undervalued and will attract investors looking for exposure to the de-carbonization, decentralization and digitization of energy. Furthermore, Strouse says Sunruns leading scale could present adjacent opportunities for growth. Unsurprisingly, then, the 4-star analyst initiated coverage of Sunrun with an Overweight rating. The accompanying $19 price target represents potential upside of 12%. (To watch Strouses track record, click here) With 5 Buy ratings, Sunrun has a unanimous Strong Buy consensus rating from the Street. Gains in the shape of 26% could be lining investors pockets should the average price target of $21.40 be attained over the next year. (See Sunrun stock analysis on TipRanks) To find good ideas for stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks equity insights. Interior Minister: Special measures taken to prevent Coronavirus IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Tehran, Feb 1, IRNA -- Iranian Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli said on Saturday that special measures have been taken to prevent Coronavirus. Speaking to reporters on Saturday, Fazli advised people to receive news from official media. He said that Iranian First Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri, Health Minister Saeed Namaki and Minister Roads and Urban Development Mohammad Eslami held a meeting on Friday evening and the health minister presented a report on the Coronavirus condition in Iran and announced that no affected case has so far been observed in Iran. Elaborating on Iran's decision to put flight between Iran and China on hold, he said that prevention is the most important issue at the moment. Earlier, Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi called for help for the Chinese government and nation to resolve the crisis of coronavirus. "I am confident that the Chinese will go through this difficult phase with strong management, sense of responsibility and perseverance," he said. Meanwhile, Deputy Minister of Health said 70 Iranian residents in Wuhan will return home next week, adding that excursions from China to Iran would be banned and business trips are also limited. The National Health Commission of the People's Republic of China announced that the number of Coronavirus victims has mounted to 132 and some 6,000 more have been affected. Based on the reports, 91 people are affected in Beijing, one of them died and 4 others were cured. The National Health Commission of the People's Republic of China has allocated 60 billion Yuan ($8.7b) for fighting Coronavirus. The coronavirus was first seen in late December 2019 in Wuhan, central China. It has so far killed 41 and affected 729 while there are 1,287 suspected cases. 9376**1416 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Girl Scout cookie season is upon us. Tell us what your favorite cookies to indulge are! The US State Department has criticized an "outrageous" decision by a UN aviation body to block Twitter followers who asked why it refused to work with Taiwan. While the spread of novel coronavirus in central China has sparked alarm throughout Asia, it has also highlighted the self-ruled island's increased isolation from global bodies under pressure from Beijing. Last month the Twitter account of the Montreal-based International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) -- which does not deal with Taipei directly and only recognizes Beijing -- blocked users who suggested it should work with Taiwan. The state department Saturday called the ICAO's decision to block users, including Taiwan-China academics and analysts, "outrageous, unacceptable, and not befitting of a UN organization." "Freedom of expression must always supersede the political insecurities of member states," the statement said, calling on the body to reverse the blocking. Neither the ICAO nor the Geneva-based World Health Organization (WHO) will deal with Taiwan directly and only recognizes Beijing. That is because the People's Republic of China has since 1971 been the only one of the two allowed a seat at the United Nations. Taiwan -- which has ten confirmed cases of the virus and is a significant regional air hub -- was often allowed to attend annual assemblies and sideline meetings of such bodies as an observer. The coronavirus outbreak has prompted calls for international bodies to allow the island of 23 million people to be included. But when academics and analysts made such suggestions on Twitter, many found themselves blocked by the ICAO, which is currently headed by Fang Liu, a former Civil Aviation of China official. The ICAO tweeted that the account had "not blocked anyone for asking anything about anywhere". In a further statement on its website, the body said: "Users who repeatedly base their questions or statements on inaccurate, compromising or offensive material will be deemed irrelevant to constructive discourse and blocked from posting to our accounts. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Representative image The Pakistan Army on Sunday shelled forward posts and villages along the Line of Control in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir, a defence spokesperson said. There was no immediate report of any casualty in the Pakistani firing and shelling in Balakot and Mendhar sectors, he said. "Pakistan initiated unprovoked ceasefire violation by firing with small arms and shelling with mortars along LoC in Balakot and Mendhar sectors around 7 pm, prompting befitting retaliation by the Indian Army," the spokesman said. The cross-border firing between the two sides was on when last reports were received. Official sources said Pakistan also targeted forward posts and villages in Tangdhar sector of north Kashmir's Kupwara district during the day. The firing and shelling from across the border in Tangdhar sector started around 11 am, they said. Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma on Sunday urged all stakeholders and the Union government to reach the final agreement on the Naga political issue at the earliest. If the talks are finalised at the earliest, it will be in the best interest of not only Nagaland but the entire Northeast region, he said. Sangma, who is also the president of National Peoples Party (NPF), said this while interacting with mediapersons here on his way back home after completing a two-day visit to Manipur and Nagaland. He said there was a political vacuum in the Northeast, especially Nagaland, and the NPP being the first national political party recognised from the region was in a strong position to fill that vacuum. We will ensure that we continue to raise issues of the Northeast, he asserted. Sangma said as the president of the NPP, he feels that the Naga political issue was very important for the region. Sangma said the party had resolved to support the ongoing talks between the Naga political groups and the Government of India. He said his tour mainly focused on party organisation and the political situation in the region. Sangma also met Nagaland Governor R N Ravi and Chief Minister Neihpiu Rio before leaving for Shillong. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Australia's main naval training centre in Sydney will undergo a $430 million redevelopment, with construction to begin within weeks. Defence Industry Minister Melissa Price will on Monday announce Lendlease has been awarded the $389 million managing contract for the upgrade of the HMAS Watson facility on Sydney Harbour at South Head. The remainder of the cost relates to planning and contingency provisions. Construction on the HMAS Watson redevelopment will begin later this month. The upgrades will include a new training precinct, live-in accommodation for at least 236 trainees, a medical clinic, ramped-up security, the relocation of the helipad site and new fencing around the entire base. More than 1300 students will train at the centre each year once the upgrades are completed in mid-2026. The project is expected to create hundreds of direct jobs during construction. The same hug, the same people, two different health crises a moving imagery that has tugged at the heartstrings of Chinese social media users. In the both photographs, Song Caiping is on a mission to two hotspots Liberia in 2014 and Wuhan, central China, in 2020. Song Caiping's son sees her off in November 2014. /Tencent News Photo Song is a member of the medical team at the Army Medical University, and has been dispatched to help treat coronavirus patients at the Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital. But that's not the first time she finds herself at the center of a viral outbreak. Five years ago, she was deployed to Liberia to help with the fight against Ebola as part of a medical team from China. Song Caiping stands with her colleagues outside their hospital before traveling to Wuhan on Chinese New Year's Eve. /Tencent News Photo Her son was only 11 years old at the time and saying goodbye to his mother left him in tears. In order to appease her child, Song described Liberia as a wonderland. "In that beautiful place, someone is sick and needs medical staff like me to go check on them," Song said. This year, the scenario repeated itself. Hundreds of military medical staff have been mobilized and sent to the frontline of the battle against the new coronavirus. Wuhan, which has been quarantined since January 23, was running short on medical professionals and equipment. Song Caiping's son hugs her goodbye before she leaves to Wuhan Chinese New Year's eve. /Tencent News Photo On the eve of the Chinese Lunar New Year, an occasion for family reunion, Song was ordered to lead 48 medical staff to Wuhan. She packed her bags and left home before the clock struck midnight. As her husband and son accompanied her to the hospital to see her off, the boy, now 16, was more reserved and less expressive, though he could not help but hold on to his mother while saying goodbye to her. Song receives an injection before traveling to Wuhan. /Tencent News Photo Song has given all her energy to her task in Wuhan, and according to her colleague, she has slept less than seven hours in the first few night after they arrived in the city. She's been busy teaching young nurses different techniques and encouraging them to be confident. Song shares her experience with nurses. /Tencent News Photo "Remember, the place where we are standing is our battlefield. As long as we are bold, careful and intelligent, we can unite to defeat the virus and complete the task," Song said. The Court of the Crown Prince yesterday announced that His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander and First Deputy Prime Minister, will lead a high-level delegation on an official visit to the Italian Republic aimed at strengthening Bahraini-Italian ties and advancing bilateral cooperation across various sectors. During the visit, HRH the Crown Prince will meet a number of senior officials from across the Italian government. (Reuters) - Airlines are suspending flights to China in the wake of the new coronavirus outbreak. Here is the latest on their plans (in alphabetical order): AIR CANADA Air Canada said on Jan. 28 it was cancelling select flights to China. AIR FRANCE Air France said on Jan. 30 it had suspended all scheduled flights to and from mainland China until Feb. 9. AIR INDIA Air India said it was cancelling its Mumbai-Delhi-Shanghai flight from Jan. 31 to Feb. 14. AIR NEW ZEALAND Air New Zealand said on Feb. 1 it would suspend its Auckland-Shanghai service from Feb. 9 to March 29 due to travel restrictions affecting crew and a decline in forward bookings. AIR SEOUL South Korean budget carrier Air Seoul said on Jan. 28 it had suspended all flights to China. AIR TANZANIA Tanzania's state-owned carrier said it would postpone its maiden flights to China. It had planned to begin charter flights to China in February. AMERICAN AIRLINES American Airlines said it would cancel flights to Beijing and Shanghai starting Jan. 31, and run through March 27, though it would continue to fly to Hong Kong. AUSTRIAN Austrian Airlines said it was suspending flights to China until the end of February. BRITISH AIRWAYS BA said on Jan. 30 it had cancelled all flights to mainland China for a month. CATHAY PACIFIC AIRWAYS Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific said it would progressively reduce capacity to and from mainland China by 50% or more from Jan. 30 to the end of March. DELTA AIR LINES Delta Air Lines accelerated earlier announced suspensions: the last China-bound flights were due to leave on Feb. 1, and the last returning flights from China were due to leave China on Feb. 2. EGYPTAIR Egypt's flag carrier said on Jan. 30 it would suspend all flights to and from China starting Feb. 1. EL AL ISRAEL AIRLINES El Al Israel Airlines said on Jan. 30 it was suspending flights to Beijing until March 25. Israel's Health Ministry said it would not allow flights from China to land at its airports. EMIRATES/ETIHAD Story continues The United Arab Emirates, a major international transit hub, on Monday suspended flights to and from China, except for Beijing. The UAE suspension, which state media said was until further notice, effects Dubai's Emirates, one of the world's biggest long-haul airlines, and Abu Dhabi's Etihad Airways. ETHIOPIAN AIRLINES The African carrier on Jan. 30 denied reports it had suspended all flights to China. The airline's statement contradicted its passenger call centre, which told Reuters earlier in the day that flights to China had been suspended. FINNAIR Finland's Finnair said on Jan. 31 it was cancelling all flights to mainland China between Feb. 6 and Feb. 29 and to Guangzhou between Feb. 5 and March 29. HAINAN AIRLINES China's Hainan Airlines has suspended its flights between Budapest, Hungary, and Chongqing from Feb. 7 until March 27, Budapest Airport said on its Faceook page. IBERIA AIRLINES Spanish airline Iberia said on Jan.29 that it was temporarily suspending all flights to Shanghai, its only mainland Chinese destination. KENYA AIRWAYS Kenya Airways said on Jan. 31 it had suspended all flights to China until further notice. LION AIR Indonesia's Lion Air Group said on Jan. 29 it would suspend all flights to China from February. LOT POLISH AIRLINES Polish carrier LOT said it had decided to temporarily suspend its flights to Beijing until Feb. 9. LUFTHANSA Germany's Lufthansa on Feb. 3 extended until Feb. 29 its suspension of flights to Beijing and Shanghai by Lufthansa, Swiss and Austrian Airlines, and said it did not expect to resume flights to other Chinese cities before March 28. The airlines in the group continue to fly to Hong Kong. OMAN AIR National Carrier Oman Air suspended flights to China on Feb. 2. PAKISTAN Pakistan said on Feb. 3 it was resuming flights to and from China, three days after it suspended them. PHILIPPINES AIRLINES Philippine Airlines said it would cut the number of flights between Manila and China by more than 50%. It said it would continue to serve Filipinos and Chinese nationals returning from the Lunar New Year holidays. QANTAS AIRWAYS Australia's Qantas said on Feb. 1 it was suspending direct flights to mainland China. The Australian national carrier's direct flights from Sydney to Beijing and Sydney to Shanghai will be halted from Feb. 9 until March 29. QATAR AIRWAYS Qatar Airways said on Feb. 1 it would suspend flights to mainland China from Feb. 3 until further notice. ROYAL AIR MAROC Moroccan airline Royal Air Maroc (RAM) has temporarily suspended its direct flights to China, the company said on Jan. 30. RAM had on Jan. 16 launched a direct air route with three flights weekly between its Casablanca hub and Beijing. RUSSIA All Russian airlines, with the exception of national airline Aeroflot, will stop flying to China, Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova said on Jan. 31. Moscow Sheremetyevo airport later said small Russian airline Ikar would also continue its flights between Moscow and China. Four Chinese airlines - China Southern Airlines, Hainan Airlines, Air China, China Eastern will keep flying to Moscow. All planes arriving from China will be sent to a separate terminal in the Sheremetyevo airport, it said. RWANDAIR Rwandan carrier RwandAir has halted flights to and from China until further notice, the airline said on Jan. 31. The decision will be reviewed later in February, it said. SAS Nordic airline SAS said on Jan. 30 it had decided to suspend all flights to and from Shanghai and Beijing from Jan. 31 until Feb. 9. It subsequently extended the suspension to Feb. 29. SAS offers 12 regular weekly connections from and to Shanghai and Beijing. SAUDIA The state airline of Saudi Arabia suspended flights to China on Feb. 2. SCOOT Singapore airline Scoot said it was suspending all flights between Singapore and China from Feb. 8, media reported. SHANGHAI AIRLINES Shanghai Airlines said on Jan. 31 it would suspend its Chengdu-Budapest flight between Feb. 4 and March 28 and its Xi'an-Budapest flight between Feb. 6 and March 26 according to a statement on the website of the Budapest Airport operator. The airline's Shanghai-Budapest flight is unaffected. SINGAPORE AIRLINES Singapore Airlines Ltd said on Jan. 31 it would reduce capacity on some of its routes to mainland China in February. The cuts include flights to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Xiamen and Chongqing, some of which are flown by regional arm SilkAir. Its budget carrier Scoot is also cutting back on flights to China. TURKISH AIRLINES Turkey's flag carrier Turkish Airlines suspended all flights to China on Jan. 31. Turkey's Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said all flights from China would be suspended from Wednesday until the end of the month and that passengers on flights from Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Malaysia would be screened with thermal cameras. TURKMENISTAN AIRLINES Turkmenistan Airlines, the Central Asian nation's state carrier, said on Feb. 1 it had suspended flights to and from Beijing. UNITED AIRLINES Chicago-based United announced cancellations, saying its last flights out of mainland China would be Feb. 5, running through March 28. United had previously suspended 24 U.S. flights to Beijing, Hong Kong and Shanghai between Feb. 1 and Feb. 8 because of a significant drop in demand. UNITED PARCEL SERVICE INC UPS has cancelled 22 China flights, as a result of the Wuhan quarantines and normal manufacturing closures due to the Lunar New Year holiday, UPS Chief Executive David Abney said on Jan. 30. He did not specify how many flights cancellations were due to the virus. VIETJET Vietnam's Vietjet will suspend all flights to and from China from Feb. 1, the company said on Jan. 31. VIETNAM AIRLINES Vietnam Airlines will suspend its flights to destinations in China next week over coronavirus concerns, the company said Jan 31. VIRGIN ATLANTIC Virgin Atlantic said on Jan. 30 it would suspend its daily operations to Shanghai for two weeks from Feb. 2. It cited declining demand for flights and the safety of its customers and staff. (Compiled by Jagoda Darlak and Tommy Lund in Gdansk; editing by Diane Craft, Mark Potter and Barbara Lewis) (CNN) Facebook says it will start taking down bogus claims about purported "cures" and other unproven theories surrounding the coronavirus, as the deadly outbreak continues to spread globally, sparking a surge in online chatter and misinformation. The company will "remove content with false claims or conspiracy theories that have been flagged by leading global health organizations and local health authorities that could cause harm to people who believe them," according to a blog post published Thursday by Kang-Xing Jin, Facebook's head of health. Jin said that includes claims "related to false cures or prevention methods" or "that create confusion about health resources that are available." The company also plans to increase its fact-checking and monitoring efforts on Instagram, which it also owns. Jin said users who click on a hashtag related to the coronavirus will now be served with a "pop-up with credible information." The social network wants to prioritize legitimate sources of information, Jin said, by letting select organizations run free ads that help educate people about the virus and also boosting posts that fall in line with health experts' guidance to the top of users' Facebook feeds. It did not specify which organizations would be included. Jin noted in the Thursday blog post that not all the new measures were "fully in place" yet. "It will take some time to roll them out across our platforms and step up our enforcement methods," he wrote. "We're focusing on claims that are designed to discourage treatment or taking appropriate precautions." The move is Silicon Valley's latest attempt to combat misinformation about the outbreak, which has infected more than 9,800 people around the world and killed more than 200 in mainland China. The World Health Organization (WHO) on Thursday declared the outbreak "a public health emergency of international concern." Twitter and Google have also stepped up efforts this week to guide their users to verified sources on the subject. Google announced Thursday that when people search for information about the coronavirus, it will pull up a special notice with updates from the WHO. YouTube, which is owned by Google, said it will promote videos from credible sources when people search for clips about the virus. The company said it specifically points to content from trusted users, such as public health experts or news outlets, in search results or panels that suggest which videos to watch next. Twitter said Wednesday that it would begin prompting users who search for the coronavirus to first visit official channels of information about the illness. In the United States, for example, Twitter directs users to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, beneath a bold headline that reads: "Know the facts." The campaign is running in 15 locations, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Australia, and "will continue to expand as the need arises," the company said in a blog post. As of Wednesday, Twitter said that it had already seen more than 15 million tweets about the coronavirus in four weeks, "and that trend looks set to continue." A company spokesperson told CNN Business earlier this week that it had not seen a coordinated increase in disinformation related to the virus, but would "remain vigilant" on the issue. The moves this week are notable, particularly since social networks have long been criticized for allowing the spread of misinformation. Facebook, which now claims about 2.5 billion monthly users on its flagship network and a combined 2.9 billion monthly active users across its other apps like WhatsApp and Instagram, has had major problems restricting hoaxes about vaccines, for example. Instagram last year vowed to block more hashtags that surfaced vaccine misinformation after a CNN Business report found that content promoted by anti-vaccination accounts were still thriving on the platform. While the company frequently touts its army of fact-checkers and reviewers who are paid to debunk false claims, the effectiveness of its policies remain in question. On Thursday, some people pointed out that a search for "vaccines" on Instagram still brought up several pages linked to dangerous misinformation. Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment when asked about those searches. Donie O'Sullivan contributed to this report. This story was first published on CNN.com. "Facebook, Google and Twitter crack down on fake coronavirus 'cures' and other misinformation." With President Donald Trumps impeachment trial expected to end in acquittal this week, where should Washington go next? Dare we suggest: climate action. It might seem far-fetched, given Trumps backward and closed-minded retreat to fossil fuels that are warming the planet. Yet a Republican senator from Indiana is challenging his fellow conservatives to lead on the pressing issue. U.S. Sen. Mike Brauns call for climate solutions is encouraging and badly needed from the GOP. And it should prompt other Republican senators including Wisconsins Ron Johnson of Oshkosh to help cut greenhouse gas emissions. Braun was peppered last week on national television with questions about the ongoing impeachment trial and Republican resistance to witnesses. With varying levels of candor, Braun politely responded to nine queries from host Chuck Todd on NBCs Meet the Press. Then he did something surprising and unprompted. As the interview wrapped up, the freshman senator stressed the need to address climate change. When you get through this, Braun told Todd, you want to get back on those issues that I came here for: the climate discussion. Were foot draggers on it. Braun is right. America and the world need to put a price on carbon pollution so the shift to clean energy intensifies. Like Wisconsin, Indiana gets most of its electricity from fossil fuels, especially coal. Yet Braun has repeatedly and impressively emphasized the need to deal with the enormous climate challenge. Rising temperatures are making the Midwest warmer and wetter threatening key sectors of the economy, especially agriculture. Braun recently launched the Climate Solutions Caucus in the U.S. Senate with Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del. Braun, a successful businessman, had the courage to buck his political partys dismissive approach to climate concerns because voters and the private sector want action. In fact, more than half of Republicans ages 18 to 38 agree that government is doing too little on climate, according to a Pew Research Center poll late last year. Sen. Johnson, who like Braun has a background in manufacturing, should listen to Brauns economic pitch for cutting carbon emissions. Braun links swift action on climate solutions to securing Americas energy future and protecting American manufacturing jobs. To their credit, U.S. Reps. Mike Gallagher, R-Green Bay, and Ron Kind, D-La Crosse, have joined the House Climate Solutions Caucus. Braun calls scientific evidence of greenhouse gases heating the planet basic chemistry and physics. Hes expressed interest in carbon pricing to accelerate the development and deployment of clean energy technology. He also talks about reforestation and other means of capturing carbon. Addressing man-made climate change will require significant private and public investment, as well as breakthroughs in technology. Most Democrats are solidly on board (though sometimes they focus too much on punishment). Republicans have been slow to react if not hostile to the cause. Braun wants to change that. Good for him. Sen. Johnson, who faces reelection in 2022, should join Braun in pushing for swift bipartisan action. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 New Delhi: While presenting her second Union Budget in the Lok Sabha on Saturday, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that the Centre this year has allocated Rs 9,000 crore for the welfare of senior citizens. Also, the government has allocated Rs 53,700 crore for the uplift of Scheduled Tribes, and Rs 85,000 crore for the welfare of Scheduled castes and Other Backward Classes. The Education Secretary says he will tell his children to consider apprenticeships rather than going to university. Gavin Williamson believes there are too many stereotypes about vocational training. And he insisted he would not necessarily point daughters Annabel, 15, and Grace, 13, towards higher education. The Education Secretary says he will tell his children to consider apprenticeships rather than going to university [File photo] Speaking at the start of National Apprenticeship Week, Mr Williamson said: Outdated views are holding young people back from pursuing their dream career. Every parent wants the best for their children and when they ask you for advice about their futures, its incredibly daunting. But I know I will absolutely encourage them to consider an apprenticeship. His comments came as a Mumsnet poll found many parents do not know there is vocational training in non-traditional fields such as aerospace and film-making. Three in five fear their child will be left making the tea when apprenticed. Figures show apprenticeship uptake tumbled nearly five per cent in the first quarter of the 2019/20 academic year. French President Emmanuel Macron will pay his first visit to Poland on Monday in a bid to mend ties strained over Warsaw's controversial judicial reforms and its position on EU climate goals. Controversial judicial reforms have put Poland's right-wing populist Law and Justice (PiS) government on a collision course with Brussels over rule of law violations. At the same time, an agreement by EU leaders in December to try to make the bloc carbon neutral by 2050 was immediately undermined by Poland's refusal to implement the aim. Macron's office said the trip, his first abroad this year, was aimed at "clarifying the French position on many European issues, opening up new areas of cooperation with a major EU partner and stressing the need to protect European democratic values." Up to now, relations have been cool at best. Macron in 2018 himself accused Poland's PiS government and Hungary's populist Premier Viktor Orban of "lying to their people" about the European Union's powers to interfere in domestic affairs. 'Reset needed' "A reset is necessary because it couldn't be worse," said Eryk Mistewicz, head of the Warsaw-based Institute for New Media think-tank, pointing to "a spiral of misunderstanding and lack of mutual respect" between Paris and Warsaw. Brexit has made good relations with Poland all the more important as the central European heavyweight will now be the EU's fifth-largest member in terms of population and sixth in terms of GDP. "It's time to get real," Polish political scientist Alexander Smolar told AFP, adding that he expected Paris and Warsaw to push forward on economic ties in areas like nuclear and renewable energy as well as military or digital cooperation. Up to now, Poland has sought to buy US military equipment as a way of bolstering its already strong ties with the major NATO ally. In the past, it chose US-made F-16 fighter jets over French Mirage warplanes and now, just days ahead of Macron's arrival, Warsaw sealed a 4.6-billion dollar deal with the US for new F-35 fighters. Story continues It also triggered outrage in Paris in 2016 when it pulled out of a 3.14-billion euro contract for 50 Caracal helicopters at the last minute. Now, however, "there is an awareness on the Polish side about its isolation in the EU, of having wasted the chance that the Weimar Triangle gave (a three-way platform between Paris, Berlin and Warsaw) and of a host of other errors," said Smolar, head of the Warsaw-based Stefan Batory pro-democracy NGO. 'Green Deal' Despite their political differences, economic ties between the two EU partners remain strong and stable. France ranks sixth on Poland's list of trade partners, having exchanged nearly 21 billion euros worth of goods in 2018. French companies take fourth spot on Poland's foreign investor ranking, having poured more than 18 billion euros into the country via some 1,100 companies, according to Polish data. Macron "is likely to try to explore common interests in the Multiannual Financial Framework (future EU budget) negotiations and seek ways to bring Poland into the European Green Deal," according to Pawel Zerka, a policy fellow at the European Council of Foreign Relations. The Green Deal is the EU's new one-trillion-euro ($1.1-trillion) plan to finance its goal of making the bloc carbon neutral by 2050. Macron is set to hold talks with Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki as well as the speakers of both houses of parliament in Warsaw on Monday before meeting with students in the southern city of Krakow on Tuesday. (AFP) WASHINGTON - One of the most important things companies can do when they learn about a crisis that affects their business is to respond quickly and appropriately, according to crisis management expert and author Edward Segal. Depending on the nature of the crisis, Segal said that reacting quickly can: Show that companies are aware of the problems or issues Demonstrate that the organizations are trying to take as much control of the situation as possible Help protect the best interests of stakeholders and target audiences Mitigate the impact of the crisis on companies Provide confidence to others Prevent the crisis from getting worse Help organizations put the crisis behind them as soon as possible Segal said that the recent outbreak and spread of the coronavirus infection is a case in point. "Many corporations, organizations, and governments around the world took action as news and information about the disease became known," he said. "For example, Apple temporarily closed their stores in China. The company told CNN that 'Out of an abundance of caution and based on the latest advice from leading health experts, we're closing all our corporate offices, stores and contact centers in mainland China through February 9. We will continue to closely monitor the situation and we look forward to reopening our stores as soon as possible.'" Segal noted that, according to news reports, the World Health Organization declared a global health emergency, governments were evacuating their citizens from the Chinese city where the outbreak originated, airlines suspended flights to mainland China, and researchers announced they were working on a vaccine. How quickly will other companies and organizations respond when not if a crisis strikes? The answer depends on the steps they take now to prepare for the inevitable, he noted. "Having a crisis management plan in place and testing it on a regular basis will help ensure that organizations will know what to do, when to do it, why to do it, how to do it, where to do it, and who will do it," Segal said. Segal is the author of the forthcoming book on crisis management: Crisis Ready 101 Ways to Prepare for and Bounce Back from Disasters, Scandals, and Other Emergencies (Nicholas Brealey/Hachette Distribution). Learn more about the book and Segal at GetCrisisReady.com. ### Boris Johnson's post-Brexit Britain will be a world of bridges, buses, building projects and, he hopes, a vibrantly independent trading relationship with the rest of the globe. The Prime Minister will tomorrow use his first speech since Britain left the EU to set out his vision for unleashing Britains potential and to demand a Canada-style trade deal with the bloc which allows the UK to diverge from Brussels rules and assume a new place on the world stage. Mr Johnson is expected to declare: No achievement lies beyond our reach. Mr Johnson and his chief Brexit negotiator, David Frost, are said to be infuriated by the European Union demanding continued influence over our regulations He will argue that, finally freed from the draining psychodrama of Brexit, the Government will direct its energies to his domestic priorities health, law and order and the turbo-charging of grand infrastructure projects. Apart from high-profile flagship issues such as HS2 and the expansion of Heathrow, Mr Johnson is also keen to kick-start smaller projects: as London Mayor, he became personally associated with the capitals redesigned Routemaster buses and he hopes to repeat the trick by commissioning fleets of buses in northern parts of the country that are served by slow and inefficient rail lines. More bridges will be built to free up traffic flow although Mr Johnsons coveted plan to build a bridge from Northern Ireland to Scotland is unlikely to reach fruition and up to half a million houses will be built. Under one plan being considered, the countrys 20 largest landowners would be approached to allow ten per cent of their land to be built on. The Prime Minister will tomorrow use his first speech since Britain left the EU to set out his vision for unleashing Britains potential and to demand a Canada-style trade deal with the bloc. Downing Street is pictured above lit up in red, white and blue lights for Brexit A No 10 source said: If there is a river, a bridge will be built on it. Many of the Beeching cuts to rail lines will be reversed. A new fleet of Boris buses will be rolled out in the North. Housebuilding programmes will be accelerated. The source added: All this can be done now that the gridlock in the Commons has been broken. Mr Johnson is also likely to make clear his anger at the EUs insistence on alignment with its rules as the price of a deal. The Prime Minister, who will address an audience of businesspeople and foreign ambassadors, will call on the EU to offer the UK a Canada-style deal which restores this countrys powers of self-governance before the end of the post-Brexit transition period in December. The 2016 Canada deal eliminated 98 per cent of tariffs on goods, ranging from Canadian duties on clothes and medical equipment to European levies on maple syrup and car parts. It also lowered the market barriers on products such as wine and medicine. Mr Johnson and his chief Brexit negotiator, David Frost, are said to be infuriated by the European Union demanding continued influence over our regulations. A Government source said: There will be no alignment, no jurisdiction of the European courts and no concessions. There will be no relaxation of food hygiene, workers rights and environmental protections. UK standards already outstrip those of the EU in significant areas such as maternity leave, where UK mothers get over three times as much maternity leave as the minimum EU requirement. As a result of Brexit, the UK now sits separately from the EU on the World Trade Organisation and Mr Johnson will make clear that he expects Britain to be treated as equals with the EU; a friendly relationship based on free trade as sovereign equals which will not inhibit the UKs ability to strike new deals with countries such as the US, New Zealand, Australia and Japan. And he will highlight how new transatlantic trading opportunities are likely to benefit Northern cities such as Glasgow and Liverpool. A No 10 source said: The UK will now have its own place on the world stage. We will be able to turn our attention to the domestic priorities that were lost in the uncertainty and division caused by Brexit. New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Sunday demanded the Election Commission to ban Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath from campaigning in the national capital over his alleged provocative speeches. AAP leader Sanjay Singh also demanded an FIR against him for his remarks. Singh told a press conference here that it has been 48 hours since the AAP asked the Election Commission time to meet them but it has not been granted. "If the EC does not give us time, we will stage a sit-in in front of the ECI office on Monday," Singh said. On February 1, the AAP had alleged the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Home Minister Amit Shah were hatching a "deep conspiracy" to create "big disturbance" ahead of the vote. AAP's Sanjay Singh said the BJP was fearing defeat and thus wanted to disturb the atmosphere for postponement of elections. AAP has also urged the Election Commission to direct the Delhi Police and other agencies to take appropriate measures to prevent unrest and violence "planned by certain political parties" to sabotage the February 8 Delhi Assembly polls. In a letter to the Chief Election Commissioner, AAP leader Pankaj Gupta said it had come to know that certain "anti-social elements in connivance with certain political parties are planning to create unrest and violence on Sunday to subvert the law and order and impede the conduct of free and fair elections." Votes for elections to the 70 Assembly seats in Delhi will be cast on February 8. Results will be announced on February 11. The BJP, which has been out of power in Delhi for over two decades, was routed by the AAP in the 2015 Assembly elections. The saffron party managing to win just three seats. - According to Kenya Railways, the land where Pastor Ng'ang'a's city church sits was acquired illegally - The controversial preacher has been notified to provide documents of acquisition of the land in question - Neno Evangelism Centre is located along Haile Selassie avenue in Nairobi next to Kenya Railways - The controversial preacher has been notified to provide documents of acquisition of the land Pastor James Maina Ng'ang'a is a man in trouble after he received a notification from the Kenya Railways Corporation on plans to repossess city land where his church sits. The land where Ng'ang'a's Neno Evangelism is seated is said to have been acquired illegally from the corporation. READ ALSO: Rais Uhuru, mwanawe Ngina wajivinjari kwenye klabu Pastor James Maina Nganga is the head of Neno Evangelism Centre. Photo: Pastor James Ng'ang'a Source: Facebook READ ALSO: Uasin Gishu: Ex-police officer who had converted his house into rogue police post arrested On Friday, January 31, the flamboyant city preacher received a notification from KRC informing him the land occupied by Neno church encroaches on land initially reserved for railway use, as reported by the Daily Nation. You are hereby requested to surrender all documents relating to the irregular allocation of the above referenced property to the corporation, said KRC. The corporation told the pastor-who is well known for his prowess in exorcism- that repossession of the parcel was part of its intensified crackdown to reclaim all its land that had been allocated to private entities throughout the country. Th Neno Evangelism Centre which is located along Haile Selassie Avenue in Nairobi. Photo: Daily Nation Source: UGC READ ALSO: New Kiambu governor James Nyoro vows to wage war on leaders frustrating President Uhuru Historical records in our possession indicate that the land bound by Haile Selassie Avenue, Uhuru Highway and Bunyala Road in which various railway infrastructure are contained was reserved for railway use, It has, however, been established that new grants on portions of the land were issued by the Commissioner of Lands in around 1994 without the consent of the corporation, the letter stated. The corporation noted there were no documents to show that the land had been surrendered to anyone else. According to KRC, the Neno Evangelism Centre is seated on a public land. Photo: Daily Nation Source: UGC READ ALSO: Kenyans stand with MP Moses Kuria after being roughed up during Kitui BBI forum The area also has petrol stations, at least two other churches, a motor bazaar, hotels and other enterprises. In front of the Neno Evangelism, there is a parking lot where faithfuls park their vehicles when they attend church. In 2011, faithfuls watched in horror as a bulldozer entered the Neno Evangelism compound and pulled down the church. Members of the church said the city council bulldozer came at around midday and started tearing it down over claims that the structure had no approval plan. Do you have a groundbreaking story you would like us to publish? Please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690. Contact Tuko.co.ke instantly Source: TUKO.co.ke The Federation of Film Societies of India (FFSI) has decided to launch an international campaign to restore the ancestral houses of auteurs Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak and Mrinal Sen in neighbouring Bangladesh, a senior official said. The FFSI - the apex body of film-screening societies in the country - is planning to renovate the properties of the three icons, which are now lying in a dilapidated condition in Bangladesh, as they have great historical significance, its vice-president Premendra Majumder said. READ: Troops Of India And Bangladesh Prepare For Joint Military Exercise Sampriti-IX The matter will be brought to the notice of the Union Ministry of Culture, Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) and UNESCO, as the Bangladesh government had been insisting that the properties be preserved and maintained, he told PTI. Majumder said Ray's ancestral houses at Mashua and Kishoreganj, about 115 km from Dhaka, is in a shambles and film activists from Bangladesh had appealed to the Sheikh Hasina government for its immediate renovation. Ghatak's ancestral house at Rajshahi, 245 km from Dhaka, was leased out in 1987-88 by then Bangladesh government for construction of a homeopathic college by razing down a large part of the old structure, he said. In December last year, the remaining portion of the building was demolished to build a cycle stand, following which the entire film community in Bangladesh and Bengalis in Toronto voiced protests, supported by eminent personalities such as Tanvir Mokammel and Nasiruddin Yusuf Bachhu, he said. The Bangladeshi film fraternity then signed a petition, urging the government to protect the ancestral houses of Ghatak, Ray and Sen. Sen's ancestral house in Faridpur, 130 km from Dhaka, now belongs to a private owner, who has partly demolished the old structure. "Luckily, the original house in Faridpur, where his family lived, still stands and can be renovated and preserved," FFSI General Secretary Amitava Ghosh said. Ray's family has welcomed the move. "We will be happy if the properties are renovated and preserved. It is a welcome step," Sandip Ray, son of the Oscar-winning filmmaker, said. On March 11, the majority of stock markets will celebrate their 11th bull birthday. A bull market is generally referred to periods of time when values go up. And, if you want to get technical, its measured when stocks increase in value by 20%, which followed a previous 20% decline. And when current values drop by 20% from their highest peak point, the bull market will be over, and the next birthday celebrated will be a bear one. With that in mind, whose party will we be at next year? My instinct and the data I receive and interpret, would suggest that markets will continue to increase in 2020. I dont believe we will see the double digit returns we saw in 2019, but I think we can still expect positive, low to mid-single digit returns, nonetheless. My reason for saying this is, because after listening to, and speaking with, market analysts in a number of different companies, I am consistently hearing the same thing. That doesnt mean they are right either, but it does give me comfort, when independently from each other, the message and forecast for the year ahead is similar. Each analyst is telling me that the underlying reasons why equities will continue to be their preferred asset class are down to a number of different factors. Some of these factors are: valuations are attractive on relative terms over government bonds; Central Banks continue to be supportive; Christine Lagarde is now in as president of ECB which is seen as good news for markets as she will push to see economies spend and a partial trade deal between the US and China is possible With all that in mind, where you invest and the sectors you invest in this year are important. We know how digitally connected we all are, and it came as no surprise that tech stocks performed incredibly well last year seeing returns in excess of 20%. Im not sure if well see returns like that again this year, but it appears to me that the tech phenomenon will continue unabated which is why I would certainly have a percentage of them in my portfolio in 2020. And given how climate change has become such a big theme and issue in 2019, we all have become much more aware of the realities and consequences of rising global temperature, which is why I would look at stocks involved in energy transition that are disruptive and sustainable like wind and solar because I believe they will be big winners in the years ahead. The part of the world where your investment or pension fund is invested is also very important. Schroders believe the US economy will remain strong in 2020, and will outperform economies that are close to recession, like Germany, Japan, Australia and the UK, and Goldman Sachs agree with them. They both see the opportunity for growth is strongest in the US with a more gradual, muted pick-up in Europe and Japan. And if both are right, your concentration in where you invest should move, or at least increase, to North America. Whats interesting is that even though the UK has been teetering on the edge of a recession for the last couple of years, the outcome of an orderly Brexit could result in a sizable fiscal expansion, and growth in the UK economy could pick up materially in 2020. So, rather than continuing to avoid investment in the UK market, which people had done because of the shenanigans in Westminster, now might be the time to bring them back into the fold and back into your pension and investment portfolio. And, what about President Trump? Hes taking much of the credit for markets hitting all-time highs since his election, but if he was or wasnt re-elected, what would happen to markets then? Goldman Sachs is saying that the outcome of the election is likely to have the biggest impact on financial markets in 2020. And for markets, the best election outcome would be a Donald Trump win, if the Republicans took control of the House of Representatives and Senate. Average annual returns since 1933, show returns of 13% in this scenario versus 9%, if it was a Democratic sweep. However, if there was a split Congress, markets would much prefer a Democratic president because annual returns are significantly better in this scenario than if a Republican was re-elected (+14% for a Democratic president and +4% for a Republican one) Its always difficult if not impossible to time the market, and youd need a crystal ball to predict when markets will peak next year. Will it come mid-way or year end? Who knows. But my bet would be that President Trump is going to unveil a tremendous trade deal with China a couple of months before election day and markets will respond very favourably to this, and that could be when markets hit their highest point during the year. Whatever happens what we do know is that if you want to build wealth and increase your annual returns and net worth, you have to be invested in equities. Even if you invest at the worst possible time, over time your investment will be greater than had you done nothing and stayed in cash. So, the signs and outlook for the year ahead would suggest it will be a good one. Yes, there will be bumps along the way, but ultimately the bull looks like it will reach its 12th birthday in 2021. After Mrs Maryam Sanda On Monday, January 27, 2020, was sentenced to death by hanging for killing her husband through multiple stab wounds in November of 2017, the Senate President, Ahmed Ibrahim Lawan has revealed the conditions that would have ensured her freedom. A now viral video captures the Nigerian Senate President, revealing the condition that would have spared Maryam Sanda from the tragic occurrence. According to Lawan, Maryam who would be survived by a little girl, (asides her family members), would have been pardoned if the law allows for compassion or humanitarian ground. Watch his speech; Share this: The nominal complainant in the alleged N170.3 million Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) contract fraud, Benjamin Joseph, on Thursday wept in open court as he begged the judge for an opportunity to state his case. Mr Joseph accused the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) lawyer of attempting to close prosecution without him giving evidence. Mr Joseph, who is also the Managing Director of an Ibadan-based IT firm, Citadel Oracle Concept Limited, defied court protocols to appeal to Justice D. Senchi, for an opportunity for the court to hear his side of the case. It was at the Federal Capital Territory High Court in Jabi, Abuja during the opening of the defence by two of the seven persons Mr Joseph accused of hijacking a contract awarded to his company in 2012. The petitioner said the EFCC prosecutor, Jude Obozuwa, has refused to present documents he submitted to the anti-graft agency to the court but has closed the case in an attempt to shut him out from testifying to defend himself. My Lord, I will love this honourable court to give me an opportunity to say my side and defend myself in this case. My Lord, I am being shut out of this case by the prosecutor. I have not been given the chance to say anything to defend myself of all the allegations against me. The prosecutor even slapped me in his office when I went to see him. He said I wrote a petition against his poor handling of this case. My Lord, he has been very mean and very wicked to me. I dont think I will have justice in this case with this man (pointing at Jude Obozuwa, the EFCC lawyer) as my prosecutor. My Lord, he slapped me in front of (CTV) camera in his office. I am the victim in this case. My Lord, money was paid (by FIRS) into the (fake) account they opened using a fake Board resolution of my company. They cleared the account. They shared the money among themselves. The people who opened the account in my companys name, who are the ones that operated the fake account in the name of Citadel Oracle, the prosecutor has brought them here as his witnesses against me. They are the ones who should stand where I am, my Lord. I am the victim. I have said nothing, in this case, my Lord, Mr Joseph said in open court on Thursday. Despite attempts by the judge to calm him down, Mr Joseph refused to be restrained. My Lord, I have written all these to the EFCC. My Lord, there was absolutely nothing like that (claim by one of the suspects that he participated in a meeting where a good faith offer of N10 million was extended to him as settlement). My Lord, I never attended any meeting with Afe Babalola. All are cooked up lies. My Lord, I gave my prosecutor my international passport that showed I was in the U.S. when the so-called meeting with Afe Babalola was held. The prosecutor has refused to present the passport and other documents about the crime in court. Everything they are saying are lies, my Lord. Chief Afe Babalola is still alive My Lord, he continued to shout. Mr Joseph was restrained after Justice Senchi assured him that he would ensure all parties are given equal opportunity to state their cases. As the judge said that, Mr Joseph prostrated full stretch and rolled on the floor in the fore-court to express his appreciation to him. Last November 5, his lawyers sent a protest letter to the EFCC, accusing Mr Obozuwa of withholding very vital facts and documents submitted to him and refusing to diligently investigate the case. In another protest letter from the law chambers of Akin Onigbinde, a senior advocate of Nigeria (SAN), dated December 30, 2019, Mr Joseph asked the EFCC Chairman, Ibrahim Magu, to remove Mr Obozuwa as the prosecutor in the case. During Thursdays sitting, PREMIUM TIMES observed that although it took the first defendant more than three hours to make her statement, it took Mr Obozuwa about five minutes to complete his cross-examination. He did not make any reference to any of the volumes of document the petitioner said he submitted to him and the EFCC about the fraud. Obozuwa denies slapping petitioner In his reaction, Mr Obozuwa denied slapping Mr Joseph, saying he merely pushed him after he accused him of taking bribe to compromise the investigation. Advertisements Everyone knows I will not take money. Find out at EFCC. I dont take a bribe. I prosecuted governors in 13 states. I did not take money. Who is he? We know what we do around people like him who tell us that? Mr Obozuwa said. The prosecutor said he was on vacation when he was summoned to the office by his boss following a call by Femi Falana (a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN). When he got to his office, Mr Obozuwa said Mr Joseph wanted to shake his hands and he refused. When he insisted and followed me to my office, I told him if I knew it was about him that I was summoned, I would not have come. I told him he should not make me to do what I will regret. When he resisted, I pushed him, he said. Kama says case a betrayal of trust, not fraud Earlier, Princess Kama, the first defendant, in her defence, denied allegations of fraud against her, and accused Mr Joseph of betrayal of trust. Ms Kama was formally arraigned by the anti-graft agency in October 24, 2018 along with Onny Igbokwe. Mr Igbokwe is the chief executive of two Port Harcourt-based IT company, Admas Digital Technologies Limited and Pirovics Engineering Services Limited. They were accused of conspiring with some top officials of Zinox Group, including the Company Secretary/Legal Adviser, Zinox Group and TD, Chris Ozims, to hijack the contract awarded to Mr Josephs company. Another director of TD, Folashade Oyebode, and two staff of Access Bank Plc, Obilo Onuoha and Deborah Ijeabu, were also accused of aiding the alleged crime. The petitioner said the trio facilitated the release to them confidential bank documents belonging to his company, which they allegedly used in opening a bank account at Access Bank for the transfer of the proceeds of the crime. Court documents also named the accountant at TD then, Chares Adigwe of filling the account opening forms at Access Bank, while the Managing Director of Zinox Group, who is also Leo Stand Ekehs wife, Chioma, gave directives on the disbursement of the proceeds from the fraud. However, in her defence, Ms Kama told the court how she deployed her personal finances, experience and contacts to help her former friend who she said later betrayed her trust. Apart from helping Mr Joseph to win the FIRS contract in 2012, Ms Kama told the court she also singlehandedly financed its execution by Citadel Oracle. My Lord, I used my money and experience to package the bids. When the award was given to Citadel, we met with the point-person at Utako to agree on the sharing formula of the profit. We agreed that Mr Joseph will take the profit from one of the three Lots. All the agreement was verbal, based on trust, in view of our over 10 years of friendship. The genesis of the whole problem was the decision to transfer the N38 million profit to the guarantor (TDs) account, Kama said. In an attempt to find an amicable solution to the problem, Ms Kama said Mr Joseph was offered N10 million during a reconciliation meeting with Chief Babalola he attended along with all other parties in Ado Ekiti. Documents contradict Kama Court documents submitted by the petitioner to both the police and EFCC and seen by PREMIUM TIMES on Friday appear not to support Ms Kamas presentation. For instance, her claim that Mr Joseph was present at the reconciliation meeting purportedly held with Chief Babalola in Ado Ekiti on September 26, 2013, was found by PREMIUM TIMES to be false. A review of Mr Josephs international passport and other travel document revealed he was already outside Nigeria since August 29, 2013 on a business trip to the U.S. The document shows Mr Joseph did not return to Nigeria until October 2, 2013, contrary to Ms Kamas claim that he attended the meeting with Chief Babalola. The case was adjourned to April 7 for continuation of defence, with the second accused, Onny Igbokwe, scheduled to be docked that day. Biden, amid growing concerns that he is having more difficulty raising money, has bought or reserved only $215,000 in New Hampshire, according to Advertising Analytics, which puts him at a fraction of his rivals. His allies are hoping a strong showing in Iowa could trigger a rush of donations, but even then there is some debate over how heavily he will focus on a state that Sanders carried handily four years ago and that neighbors Warrens home state of Massachusetts. Brad Pitt made cheeky references to Brexit and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, in his acceptance speech at the 2020 BAFTAs. The 56-year-old actor wasnt present to accept the Best Supporting Actor prize for Once Upon A Time In Hollywood in person, but co-star Margot Robbie took to the stage to read out a speech on his behalf. Pitt had originally been due to attend the BAFTAs ceremony at the Royal Albert Hall, but had to pull out due to family obligations. Read more: Full list of winners from the 2020 BAFTAs He made a couple of wry jokes about the current state of Britain that Robbie read to the assembled audience. The actress, who played Sharon Tate in the Quentin Tarantino movie, said: "Hey Britain, heard you just became single, welcome to the club. Wishing you the best with the divorce settlement. She added: "[Pitt] says he is going to name this [award] Harry because he is really excited about bringing it back to the States with him. His words not mine." The cameras then cut to Harrys brother Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge, who both applauded the gag. BRAD PITTS PRINCE HARRY JOKE GOES DOWN WELL WITH WILLS & KATE #EEBAFTAs #BAFTAs pic.twitter.com/EvlX3MYOSh Toby Earle (@TobyonTV) February 2, 2020 Pitt has been sweeping the Best Supporting Actor categories at awards ceremonies this year for his role as stuntman Cliff Booth in Tarantinos tale of 1960s Los Angeles. Read more: Pitt says he turned down The Matrix The star notably won big at the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild Awards for the movie. Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio and Margot Robbie star in Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. (Sony) He is now hotly tipped to continue his run of victories at the Oscars on 9 February, securing his first ever Academy Award for acting. Pitt has previously won an Oscar for Best Picture due to his role as a producer on 12 Years A Slave. Sperm clinics are being forced to import donations from the US because of a shortage of Australian volunteers. A fertility clinic in the Northern Territory, Repromed, has had just four Australian donors in the last three years. But despite the lack of local donors, the clinic is well in supply because American men have been donating sperm since 2017. Sperm clinics are being forced to import donation from the US because of a shortage of Australian volunteers (file picture) Hamish Hamilton, regional manager for Repromed, said patients at the centre had the option of using donors from California Cryobank (CCB). 'To ensure our patients have a wider variety of donors to select from, they now have access to one of the world's largest banks of sperm donors,' Mr Hamilton told the Sunday Territorian. 'Currently there are 48 CCB donors who have been specifically selected for our Australian donor program and comply with all Australian legislative requirements.' Mr Hamilton said that in 2014 there was such a shortage that Repromed had to start recruiting men to donate. One sperm donation can be used for ten families and within Australia there is an estimated one in 25 men who have fertility issues (file image) One sperm donation can be used for ten families. Around one in 25 men are unable to reproduce due to medical or genetic reasons. There are a range of reasons why men across Australia choose not to donate, including the fact that donations are not anonymous. A lot of men aren't aware of how much sperm donors are needed while others are concerned their partner may not agree. Some men are also deterred because there is no payment for donations and others are simply not available. In Australia donors do not get paid but have any out of pocket expenses covered. Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) announces the death of the last of four seminarians kidnapped on January 8th in Nigerias Kaduna State. With immense sorrow we must inform you that the last seminarian, Michael, in the hands of the kidnappers, was murdered. The news came in a Tweet by Aid to the Church in Need, Italy. The seminarian, Michael, had been kidnapped along with three other seminarians from the Good Shepherd Major Seminary in Kakau, Kaduna State. The other three seminarians had been released in the previous days and are now receiving medical care. Aid to the Church in Need reported that the director of the seminary carried out the recognition of the body. Archbishop Augustine Akubeze, of Benin and President of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria, on Friday had made an appeal to ACS regarding the strong insecurity throughout the country", in a situation of unprecedented gravity. Archbishop Aukbeze explained that though all the seminars in Nigeria have protective walls, " they are not sufficient to stop the attacks of Boko Haram", the Islamic extremists whose violence since 2009 has caused, according to recent UN data, more than 35,000 victims. Not all the structures, instead, have security cameras, he said. "If all the seminaries, monasteries and convents that host religious people had cameras, it would be useful, at least, to capture some terrorists". Unfortunately, ACN points out that, the resources of the Church are limited and some parishes are even forced to pay for police protection during Sunday masses. New Delhi: The state president of Akhil Bhartiya Hindu Mahasabha was shot dead by unknown bike-borne assailants near the Chhattar Manzil in Lucknow's Hazratganj area on Sunday (February 1) morning. Ranjit Bachchan, a resident of OCR building in Hazratganj area, was fired upon while he was out on a morning walk at the Global Park along with his brother. Ranjit was fired upon from a close range and received multiple bullet injuries in the head. He was immediately rushed to Lucknow Trauma Centre where he succumbed to his injuries. Ranjit's brother, who was with him at the time of the incident, also received bullet injuries and is currently being treated. Following the incident, the Uttar Pradesh administration suspended four police officials, including two PRV police personnel, a constable and an outpost in-charge. According to the police, Ranjit had been receiving death threats for sometime. A police official told PTI that the killing prima facie appears to be a fallout of some family dispute, but the police are investigating all possible angles. Sources told the news agency that Ranjit was earlier associated with the Samajwadi Party. He lived in the OCR building and belonged to Gorakhpur. This is the second murder of a Hindu leader in the state capital in the past four months. Kamlesh Tiwari, president of the Hindu Samaj Party, was shot dead in his office on October 18 by two assailants who had befriended him by creating a fake Facebook ID. This led to multiple arrests from various states including Gujarat and Maharashtra. Meanwhile, the police said that all exit and entry points in the state capital have been sealed and teams have been set up to identify and arrest the accused. CCTV footage in the area is also being scanned. This is the first major crime in the state capital after the police commissioner system was implemented in Lucknow on January 14. Former European Council president Donald Tusk has said Scotland would be welcomed into Europe enthusiastically if it won independence from the rest of the UK but the process of rejoining would not be automatic. Speaking on the BBCs Andrew Marr Show on Sunday, Mr Tusk said he felt very Scottish following Brexit, adding that Scotland would be treated with empathy if they gain independence and look for a place at the EU table. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has signalled an intention to rejoin the European Union as a member should Scotland leave the UK, however her opponents have said there is no guaranteed access to the bloc. On Friday, German MEP and European Greens co-president Ska Keller told the PA news agency it would be stupid of the 27 EU member states to veto the membership of an independent Scotland. The comments from Mr Tusk come after a YouGov poll which showed 51% support for independence a majority for the first time in five years. However, a majority of Scots surveyed also said they would not like to see another vote on the issue in 2020 or 2021, but most said they would like to see another referendum within the next five years. Mr Tusk was initially reluctant to comment on Scotlands place in Europe, saying he would like to respect the sovereignty of the UK a major issue during the Brexit campaign. He said: I want to stop myself from saying something too blunt. But sometimes I feel like Im a Scot I feel like Im Scottish, especially after Brexit. But at the same time, I know how important the word sovereignty and integrity were in the internal debate in the United Kingdom. I feel like it is not my role to intervene. However, the Polish politician did expand on his feelings towards an independent Scotland and his thoughts on how other member states may react. Story continues Scotland will return to the heart of Europe as an independent country #LeaveALightOnForScotland pic.twitter.com/Pc2fibYnG4 Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) January 31, 2020 Mr Tusk said: Emotionally I have no doubt that everyone will be enthusiastic here in Brussels, and more generally in Europe. If you ask me about our emotions, you will witness I think always empathy. Despite his claims of countries welcoming Scotland in, Mr Tusk said there would still be a process of application for any country to re-enter the EU. He said: If something like, for example, the independence of Scotland happens, then we need a regular process. It would be a new process. Speaking on the same show, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab suggested other EU countries dealing with independence movements could be against the inclusion of Scotland in the EU. He said: Given the secessionist, separatist tendencies in Spain, in France, in Italy, Im not sure European leaders, let alone here in the UK, would actually welcome that kind of language. In the 2016 Brexit referendum, 62% of Scottish voters voted to stay in the EU. Mr Tusks comments come just days after the UK left the European Union and the First Minister announced plans to ramp up the campaign for independence. SNP MP Alyn Smith said Mr Tusks comments reflect what EU officials have said in private for years. He added: Donald Tusks comments underline the reality that Scotland would be welcomed back into the EU with open arms as an independent country. There is now an unstoppable momentum for an independence referendum. People in Scotland must have a choice over our future instead of having it imposed on us by Westminster. Pamela Nash, the chief executive of the anti-independence group Scotland in Union, said the First Minister needs to be honest with voters about the difficulty of re-entering the EU. "Nationalists are grandstanding by demanding a referendum they know isnt going to happen this year in the hope that the public is distracted from their dismal record in government." @pamela_nash #ScotlandDeservesBetter Read more here: https://t.co/ZnvoVmVbh9 pic.twitter.com/U0tichmVXn Scotland in Union (@scotlandinunion) February 1, 2020 She said: Empathy alone is not enough to avoid the rules, and that means no automatic route into the EU for a separate Scotland. We would have to commit to joining the euro, explain what sweeping cutbacks to public services would be made to get our deficit down from 7% to 3%, and accept the EUs trade deal with the UK risking a hard border with England. Nicola Sturgeon needs to start being honest with voters about this, because its clear that whatever you think of Brexit, we are stronger together in the UK. More than six out of 10 insurance professionals believe that the Kansas City Chiefs will beat the San Francisco 49ers in the 2020 Super Bowl LIV on Sunday. According to an Insurance Journal online poll, 62% of insurance industry professionals predict a Chiefs win, while 38% say they expect a victory for the 49ers. More than half of all 315 respondents56% believe the total final score will be under 60 points. The results by industry position show the Chiefs are picked by 67% of underwriters; 66% of sales/marketing pros; 55% of owners/managers; 58% of customer service reps and 75% of actuaries. In terms of industry sector, 56% of agents/brokers and 64% of carriers pick the Chiefs to win. From IJ Archives: What to Know About Super Bowls Effects on Investments and Influenza The good people at Harvard Kennedy Schools Shorenstein Center and the Carnegie-Knight Initiative went scouting for some new research related to the Super Bowl last year. Here are two studies they found. Plus some advice from University of Georgia on Super Bowl ads. Editors Note: Of course, as the world now knows, the insurance pros were right. Kansas City beat San Francisco 31-20, a total score that fell under 60 points. Last year, the industry predicted the New England Patriots would beat the Los Angeles Rams in the game. The Patriots won 13-3. The poll was sponsored by Insurance Journals Research and Trends site and Insurance Journals IJPro membership program. Related: Topics Kansas Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. The Philippines said on Sunday a 44-year-old Chinese man had died of the new coronavirus, the first fatality from the growing outbreak to have died outside of China, where the epidemic started. The Department of Health said there were now two confirmed infections in the Philippines, including the man from Wuhan in Hubei province, the epicentre of the outbreak, who died on Saturday. The man developed severe pneumonia after being admitted to a government hospital in Manila on Jan. 25, the department said. In China, the death toll from the coronavirus outbreak had reached 304 as of the end of Saturday, state broadcaster CCTV said on Sunday, citing the country's National Health Commission, with recorded cases of infections of more than 14,000. The man who died was a companion of a 38-year-old Chinese woman, also from Wuhan, who was the first to test positive for the virus in the Philippines. Both patients arrived in the Philippines via Hong Kong on Jan. 21, the health department said. While the patient who died was "stable and showed signs of improvement" during his last few days in the hospital, his condition deteriorated in the 24 hours before he died, Health Secretary Francisco Duque told reporters. "We are currently working with the Chinese embassy to ensure the dignified management of the remains according to national and international standards to contain the disease," he said. Duque said all measures needed to contain the spread of the virus were being strictly implemented and followed, including by including by health personnel who came in contact with the two patients. Twenty-four patients previously under investigation for infection tested negative for the new coronavirus, while samples from four other patients were still being tested, the health department said. Passengers aboard the flights of the two positive cases were being traced, he said. Cebu Air Inc, which operates Cebu Pacific airline, said it was working closely with health authorities to contact all passengers aboard those two flights on Jan. 21. The two patients had taken Cebu Pacific flights from Hong Kong to Cebu and from Cebu to Dumaguete in central Philippines, the airline said in a statement. The cabin crew and pilots on affected flights have been quarantined, and the aircraft have undergone thorough disinfection, it said. Cebu Air and two other Philippine carriers, Philippine Airlines and the local unit of AirAsia Group Bhd, have cancelled flights to China this month, joining many others around the world that have done the same. The health department's announcement followed a move by the Philippine government to expand its travel ban amid the outbreak to include all foreigners coming from China, Hong Kong and Macau. It earlier had restricted only those from Hubei. Search Keywords: Short link: George Soros speaks to the media at the Swiss resort of Davos on Jan. 25, 2012. (VINCENZO PINTO/AFP via Getty Images) New Soros-Funded University to Combat Climate Change, Nationalism Billionaire currency speculator George Soros says he plans to spend $1 billion to found a global university to combat climate change and burgeoning nationalism in the world, two things he claims in a recent speech are threatening the survival of our civilization. The preeminent funder of the activist left in the United States and a major contributor to the Democratic Party, the 89-year-old, Hungarian-born financier announced his ambitious new plan Jan. 23 at the annual globalist gathering of elite business leaders known as the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Soros is an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump. According to Soross philanthropic organization, Open Society Foundations (OSF), the project, called the Open Society University Network (OSUN), will integrate teaching and research across higher education institutions worldwide, while offering courses and joint degree programs and bringing students and faculty from different countries together by way of in-person and online discussions. Soros is hoping that others will also donate to the endeavor. OSFs president is Patrick Gaspard, who was then-President Barack Obamas White House political director. Before that, he was executive vice president of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1199 in New York. OSUN is to provide an international platform for teaching and research and will be launched by a partnership of the Soros-founded Central European University (CEU) and Bard College of Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. CEU and Bard will, in turn, work with distance learning-focused Arizona State University, and other schools such as American University of Central Asia in Kyrgyzstan and BRAC University in Bangladesh. Leon Botstein, the president of Bard College, will become the chancellor of OSUN. As of press time, OSF spokeswoman Laura Silber hadnt responded to requests by The Epoch Times for comment. Conservative activist and scholar Tina Trent, a former candidate for the Georgia General Assembly, told The Epoch Times that Soross announcement is part of his long-term plan to advance his radical politics. Soross strategy has always been to enlist universities as Trojan horses in his worldwide crusade to undermine the rights of citizens to define and defend their own national interests, Trent said. In Europe, he founded CEU as his base of operations, funding the school, its scholars, faculty, and students in order to blanket the continent with his pet ambitions: one world government, run by unelected bureaucrats drawn from his stables of select academics. Soros said at Davos, Our best hope lies in access to quality education, specifically an education that reinforces the autonomy of the individual by cultivating critical thinking and emphasizing academic freedom. I consider the Open Society University Network to be the most important and enduring project of my life, and I should like to see it implemented while I am still around. According to OSF, Soros has donated more than $32 billion over the past 30 years to education and social justice causes. In his Swiss speech, Soros outlined a litany of concerns that OSUN could be used to address, and offered caustic criticism of Trump. Nationalism, the great enemy of the open society, is ascendant, he said. This has led, among other things, to Brexit, which he described as harmful both to Britain and to the EU, as well as to Hindu nationalism in India, and to the rise of Italian politician Matteo Salvini, whom he called the would-be dictator of Italy. Soros described Trump as a con man and the ultimate narcissist who wants the world to revolve around him. He also attacked the presidents supporters in the United States, accusing them of buying into his alternative reality, which has turned his narcissism into a malignant disease. Soross views on the Peoples Republic of China have been evolving in recent years. In 2010, he said, Today, China has not only a more vigorous economy, but actually a better functioning government than the United States. However, at Davos this year, he expressed concerns about China, saying that its economic policy has lost its flexibility and inventiveness. Soros also warned of the use of artificial intelligence to achieve total control. The full implementation of the social credit system will bring into existence a new type of authoritarian system and a new type of human being who is willing to surrender his personal autonomy in order to stay out of trouble. Once lost, personal autonomy will be difficult to recover, he said. For hundreds of WA students, Monday will not only be their first day of school for the new year but it will be the first day they walk through the doors of the states newest education facilities. The students will become the founding year groups at seven new government schools across WA including three secondary and four primary schools. Education Minister Sue Ellery with the first Year 7 students at Bob Hawke College. Credit:Kaye Waterhouse Each of the new secondary colleges; Bob Hawke, Alkimos and Hammond Park Secondary will ring their morning bells for the first intake of Year 7s on Monday, with each of the schools to grow in numbers year-on-year as succeeding Year 7 classes enroll. The new primary schools; Sheoak Grove in Baldivis, Beenyup in Byford, Caversham Valley in West Swan, and Grandis in Banksia Grove will all cater for kindergarten to Year 6 students. Beijing has conveyed to New Delhi its displeasure over the advisory India issued earlier this week asking its citizens to refrain from travelling to China in view of the novel coronavirus outbreak in the communist country. Talking to External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar over phone, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi noted that the World Health Organization had not recommended restrictions on trading with or travelling to China. At yesterday's briefing on the novel coronavirus outbreak, the WHO does not recommend travel or trade restrictions against China. We believe that India and other countries will respect this important recommendation, Sun Weidong, Beijing's envoy to New Delhi, posted on Twitter on Saturday, quoting Wang telling Jaishankar. With the death toll and number of people infected by the 2019-nCoV growing, New Delhi on Wednesday upgraded its travel advisory on China, asking its citizens to refrain from travelling to the communist country. The United States and several other countries issued similar travel advisories asking their citizens not to travel to China - much to the chagrin of the Chinese Government. The US and Australia also barred entry of foreign nationals who had recently visited China. Jaishankar called up Wang on Friday around the same time in the evening when a Boeing 747 of Air India landed at the airport in Wuhan in central China to airlift 324 Indian stranded at the Ground Zero of the latest novel coronavirus outbreak. He thanked Chinese Foreign Minister, as a reluctant Beijing finally agreed to let Government of India bring back its citizens. The aircraft returned to Delhi with the evacuees early on Saturday. India is also set to airlift the remaining citizens from other areas of Hubei in China soon. The WHO briefing Wang and Sun referred to was the one the apex global health organization had on Thursday. Wang Yi said that to address transnational public health challenges in this era of globalization, we need to stay objective and rational, and step up communication and coordination, Sun stated in a series of posts on Twitter on Saturday. He quoted Wang telling Jaishankar that all should play a constructive role. We don't think it is helpful for certain country to hype up the situation, or even create panic, Wang Yi stressed. New Delhi had on Monday formally requested Beijing to allow it to send special aircraft to evacuate over 700 Indian citizens from Hubei province of China. Beijing, however, had sat on New Delhi's request for two days. China had been trying to dissuade not only India, but also the US, France and other foreign nations from airlifting their citizens from China. It had been worried because such large-scale evacuation of foreign nationals from its territory might portray it in poor light and undermine the credibility of its claim that it was capable of containing the outbreak. The WHO (World Health Organization) does not recommend evacuation of nationals and called on the international community to remain calm and not overreact, Sun, China's envoy to India, had tweeted earlier on January 28, quoting Dr Tedros Adhanom, Director General of the apex global health body, saying in Beijing. New Delhi, however, kept insisting and finally Beijing had on Thursday late at night agreed to help India evacuate its citizens from China. The evacuees have been quarantined soon after their arrival in New Delhi early on Saturday. They will be kept under observation 14 days. Email To : Multiple e-mail addresses must be separated with a comma character(maximum 200 characters) Email To is required. Your Full Name: (optional) Your Email Address: Your Email Address is required. Muyiwa Lucas THE managing director of Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Ms. Hadiza Bala Usman, was on Saturday criticised on the social media for approving a review of rates for staff flight tickets on domestic routes. In a memo trending on social media, a copy of which was received by The Nation, the MD approved various sums for different routes. For instance, a sum of N320,000 was approved for a business class passenger return ticket from Lagos to Yola and N290,000 for economy class on same route. In the memo dated 4th of January 2020, titled Review of Airfare Rates (Local) emanating from and signed by the General Manager Corporate and Strategic Planning, the approval was necessitated as a result of hike in airfare. The memo contained the revised airfare rates across various routes with prices for business and economy classes. The new rates approved are N300,000 for business class on Lagos to Maiduguri and Lagos to Port Harcourt routes which translates to N150,000 per trip. The document also shows N250,000 per trip on the economy class for Lagos to Port Harcourt and Lagos to Maiduguri ,which is also N125,000 per trip. The document showed approval of N270,000 for business class on Lagos to Jos and N250,000 for economy class on same route. Return tickets on routes like Lagos to Abuja, Lagos to Benin, Lagos to Calabar, Lagos to Kaduna, Lagos to Kano and Lagos to Uyo had N250,000 approved for business class and N200,000 for economy class except Uyo with N220,000. On the Sokoto route, N260,000 was approved for business class ticket and economy ticket to cost the Authority N240,000. Business class fares for Owerri and Ilorin were the least of the approved sums of N200,000 and N180,000 respectively with N180,000 and N150,000 approved for economy seats. Respondents online are faulting the approved figures, as, according to them, fares from Lagos to Abuja do not cost more than N70,000 per trip on the business class and N40,000 for economy class. The memo signed by Adam Jatto read: The Division has observed the recent hikes in the prices of local tickets across the country. In view of the above and in order to keep abreast with the reality of our times, it is hereby recommended that the rates for local flights be reviewed upwards accordingly. When contacted for NPAs official reaction, General Manager Corporate and Strategic Communication, Jatto, told The Nation that the issue is about staff matters. He explained that people are only looking at the air fare approved on the surface. For instance, he said VAT has been increased and as such airport tax will go up. He further explained that transportation to and from the airport has also been factored into the fare including other expenses that may be incurred during air travel. I cannot start including all these breakdowns into the memo to the MD. Besides, the airfare will be paid directly into the travellers account. For approval on airfare for travellers on business class, it is just for a few people like the MD, Board members and other very senior management staff of the NPA; these categories of people are not frequent travellers. So that is the truth about it, Jatto said on telephone. Two unidentified persons opened fire outside Gate No. 5 of Jamia Millia Islamia on Sunday night, the Jamia Coordination Committee (JCC) said. A statement issued by the committee, a group comprising students and alumni of the university formed to protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act, said the attackers were on a red scooty. No one was injured in the attack. One of the miscreants was wearing a red jacket, the statement said. "Firing has taken place at Gate No.5 of Jamia Millia Islamia right now by two unidentified persons. As per report, one of them was wearing a red jacket and driving a red scooty having vehicle no. 1532 or 1534," the statement said. Police said they were verifying the JCC's claims. Asim Mohammed Khan, former Congress MLA from Okhla, said the incident occurred around 11.30 pm. "We heard the gunshot. That is when we stepped out to see and the two men left on a scooty," a student said. "We have taken down the vehicle number and called police," he added. This is the third firing incident in the Jamia Nagar area in a week. On Thursday, a minor fired at anti-CAA protesters marching towards the Rajghat, injuring a student. Two days later, a 25-year-old fired two rounds in air in Shaheen Bagh in Jamia Nagar. No one was hurt in the incident. The incident on Sunday night triggered panic in the area. A police vehicle had reached the spot after the incident but was chased away by angry students. Hundreds of students and locals gathered outside the university. Many raised slogans against the Delhi Police.They also staged a dharna outside the Jamia Nagar police station. Shezad Ahmed, a JMI student and resident of Zakir Nagar, said they were not even allowed to protest peacefully. "We are not going to be deterred by such incidents. We will continue with our protest," he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The 73rd British Academy Film Awards kicked off on Sunday with a tongue-in-cheek reference to Laurence Fox's recent controversy. In a sketch featuring People Just Do Nothing star Asim Chaudry and 1917 director Sam Mendes, the comic asked the filmmaker to call his 'agent' Laurence if he 'ever needs a brown actor in one of his war films.' It comes after Laurence was forced to apologise the Sikh community after he sparked a race row by claiming the inclusion of a turban-wearing soldier in 1917 was 'incongruous', but went onto insist he 'stands by everything he said.' Scroll down for video Cheeky: The 2020 BAFTAs featured a hilarious reference to Laurence Fox's 1917 controversy on Sunday, in a sketch featuring People Just Do Nothing star Asim Chaudry At the star of the show, Asim appeared to be 'auditioning' stars to play the so-called Voice Of God in the ceremony with director Sam one of the main contenders. The funnyman seemed unimpressed with Sam's attempt at narration, but suggested: 'If you do need anymore brown guys for your war films contact my agent, it's Laurence Fox.' Laurence had previously sparked outrage when he questioned the inclusion of a turban-wearing soldier in 1917. Outrageous: Laurence had previously sparked outrage when he questioned the inclusion of a turban-wearing soldier in 1917 Funny: During the sketch, Sam Mendes appeared to be auditioning to play the 'voice of God' during the awards ceremony Speaking on podcast, The Delingpod, Laurence said: 'It's very heightened awareness of the colour of someone's skin because of the oddness in the casting. Even in 1917 they've done it with a Sikh soldier. 'Which is great, it's brilliant, but you're suddenly aware there were Sikhs fighting in this war. And you're like 'ok'. You're now diverting me away from what the story is.' After a huge backlash for his comments, Laurence took to Twitter to apologise for his statement, Not me! The funnyman seemed unimpressed with Sam's attempt at narration, but suggested: 'If you do need anymore brown guys for your war films contact my agent, it's Laurence Fox' He said: 'Fellow humans who are #Sikhs. I am as moved by the sacrifices your relatives made as I am by the loss of all those who die in war, whatever creed or colour. 'Please accept my apology for being clumsy in the way I have expressed myself over this matter in recent days.' But in a follow up tweet soon, referencing his previous claims that 'woke' people are 'fundamentally racist,' he said: 'I stand by everything else I said and will continue to do so. Sleep well.' Frontman: The ceremony was hosted by Graham Norton for the first time, and the Irish chat show host didn't hold back in referencing the outrage around the awards' lack of diversity The ceremony was hosted by Graham Norton for the first time, and the Irish chat show host didn't hold back in referencing the recent outrage around the awards' lack of diversity. Opening the show with a monologue, he said: 'I think this will finally be the year that men finally break through! High five! 'But there's been a lot of chat about the white male privilege, and you can kind of see why, 11 nominations for Joker, it's the story about a white man who makes himself even whiter.' Naughty: Graham also referenced the BAFTAs vow to be more sustainable by asking guests to shun a new outfit in favour of something old Graham also referenced the BAFTAs vow to be more sustainable by asking guests to shun a new outfit in favour of something old. He said: 'A huge thank you should be made to my American friends, because it takes ages to sail across the Atlantic, it's the eco-awards! 'This year BAFTA asked us to make sustainable fashion choices. this suit is older than Florence Pugh!' The host even took a moment to poke fun at the panned musical adaptation Cats, saying: 'Now, I should add, don't be too concerned tonight because you are in safe hands 'I'm not going to be mean to anyone, because you might know in my other job I'm a chat show host, which means apparently I have never seen a film I didn't really enjoy. 'It's true. I loved Cats. No, I did. Not even joking. It was brilliant. Cats, but with hands. So clever. I loved it.' NME Awards 2020: The Winners BEST ALBUM IN THE WORLD Billie Eilish 'When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?' FKA twigs 'Magdalene' Foals 'Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost, Pt. 1' Lana Del Rey 'Norman Fucking Rockwell' (WINNER) Little Simz 'GREY Area' Michael Kiwanuka 'Kiwanuka' Slipknot 'We Are Not Your Kind' Slowthai 'Nothing Great About Britain' Stella Donnelly Beware Of The Dogs Tyler, the Creator 'IGOR' BEST BRITISH ALBUM FKA twigs 'Magdalene' Foals 'Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost, Pt. 1' Little Simz 'GREY Area' (WINNER) Michael Kiwanuka 'Kiwanuka' Slowthai 'Nothing Great About Britain' BEST BRITISH SOLO ACT AJ Tracey Charli XCX FKA twigs (WINNER) Slowthai Yungblud BEST BRITISH SONG AJ Tracey 'Ladbroke Grove' Dua Lipa 'Don't Start Now' Georgia 'About Work The Dancefloor' Mura Masa ft Slowthai 'Deal Wiv It' The 1975 'People' BEST SONG IN THE WORLD AJ Tracey 'Ladbroke Grove' Billie Eilish 'Bad Guy' (WINNER) Honoured: Billie Eilish is nominated for Best Album in the World Clairo 'Bags' Dua Lipa 'Don't Start Now' Georgia 'About Work The Dancefloor' Lil Nas X 'Old Town Road (remix)' Lizzo 'Juice' Mura Masa ft Slowthai 'Deal Wiv It' Post Malone 'Circles' The 1975 'People' BEST SOLO ACT IN THE WORLD AJ Tracey Beck Billie Eilish Charli XCX FKA twigs Lana Del Rey Lizzo Slowthai Taylor Swift (WINNER) Yungblud BEST BAND IN THE WORLD Bring Me The Horizon Brockhampton BTS HAIM IDLES Krept & Konan Slipknot (WINNER) Tame Impala The 1975 The Big Moon BEST BRITISH BAND Award: The 1975 took home the award for Best British Band Bring Me The Horizon IDLES Krept & Konan The 1975 (WINNER) The Big Moon BEST NEW ACT IN THE WORLD Celeste Clairo (WINNER) D-Block Europe DaBaby Dominic Fike Easy Life Fontaines DC Girl In Red Jade Bird Sam Fender BEST NEW BRITISH ACT Celeste D-Block Europe Easy Life (WINNER) Jade Bird Sam Fender BEST LIVE ACT Amyl & The Sniffers Foals (WINNER) Iggy Pop Lizzo Slowthai BEST COLLABORATION BTS + Halsey Charli XCX + Christine & The Queens Megan Thee Stallion + DaBaby Slowthai + Mura Masa (WINNER) Yungblud + Dan Reynolds BEST MUSIC VIDEO Brockhampton 'I've Been Born Again' Easy Life 'Nice Guys' Normani 'Motivation' Stormzy 'Vossi Bop' Yungblud 'Original Me (WINNER) BEST FILM Blue Story (WINNER) Hustlers Joker Midsommar Once Upon A Time In Hollywood BEST FILM ACTOR Florence Pugh Joaquin Phoenix Lupita Nyong'o Micheal Ward Taron Egerton BEST TV SERIES End Of The Fucking World Fleabag Peaky Blinders (WINNER) Stranger Things Top Boy BEST TV ACTOR Success: Jodie Comer is nominated for Best TV Actor Asa Butterfield Jessica Barden Jodie Comer Kano Zendaya BEST MUSIC FILM Beyonce: Homecoming BTS: Bring The Soul Liam Gallagher: As It Was (WINNER) Michael Hutchence: Mystify Rocketman BEST MUSIC BOOK Brett Anderson 'Afternoons With The Blinds Drawn' Debbie Harry 'Face It: A Memoir' Elton John 'Me' Prince 'The Beautiful Ones' Tegan & Sara 'High School BEST REISSUE Aretha Franklin 'Amazing Grace' Muse 'Origins Of Muse' Prince '1999' R.E.M. 'Monster 25' The Beatles 'Abbey Road' BEST PODCAST Have You Heard George's Podcast? (WINNER) My Dad Wrote A Porno Sex Power Money Stay Free: The Story Of The Clash The Missing Cryptoqueen BEST GAME Death Stranding Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order Super Smash Bros. Ultimate The Outer Worlds BEST BRITISH FESTIVAL All Points East Glastonbury Parklife Reading & Leeds Wireless BEST SMALL FESTIVAL Bluedot End Of The Road Iceland Airwaves Kendal Calling ya BEST FESTIVAL HEADLINER Cardi B Lana Del Rey Stormzy The 1975 The Cure (WINNER) BEST FESTIVAL IN THE WORLD Popular: Glastonbury is up for Best British Festival All Points East Coachella Fuji Rock Glastonbury (Winner) Mad Cool Parklife Reading & Leeds Rock In Rio Sziget Wireless ICON AWARD Courtney Love GODLIKE GENIUS Emily Eavis SONGWRITER OF THE DECADE Robyn Advertisement MK Stalin-led DMK has roped in poll strategist Prashant Kishors I-PAC or Indian Political Action Committee for Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu scheduled to be held next year. DMK has been out of power in Tamil Nadu for a decade, and is making all-out effort to wrest control of the state from rival AIADMK. Happy to share that many bright and like-minded young professionals of Tamil Nadu are joining us under the banner of I-PAC to work with us on our 2021 election and help shape our plans to restore TN to its former glory! Stalin tweeted on Sunday. Happy to share that many bright & like-minded young professionals of Tamil Nadu are joining us under the banner of @IndianPAC to work with us on our 2021 election and help shape our plans to restore TN to its former glory! M.K.Stalin (@mkstalin) February 2, 2020 Responding to the DMK leader, the I-PAC said that its Tamil Nadu team will help the party to secure an emphatic victory in the Assembly polls next year. Thanks Thiru MK Stalin for the opportunity. The I-PAC Tamil Nadu team is excited to work with DMK to help secure an emphatic victory in 2021 elections and contribute in putting the state back on the path of progress and prosperity under your able leadership, I-PAC tweeted. Thanks Thiru @mkstalin for the opportunity. The @IndianPAC Tamil Nadu team is excited to work with DMK to help secure an emphatic victory in 2021 elections and contribute in putting the state back on the path of progress and prosperity under your able leadership. https://t.co/PXmRLWMrQz I-PAC (@IndianPAC) February 2, 2020 The AIADMK, under the leadership of Chief Minister K Palaniswami (co-coordinator) and Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam (coordinator), is straining every nerve to strengthen the party and post electoral wins following the death of its chief J Jayalalithaa in 2016. Palaniswami is co-coordinator and Panneerselvam coordinator of the AIADMK. In a morale booster, the AIADMK wrested two assembly segments - one each from the DMK and its ally Congress - in last years bypolls and gave a tough fight to the Opposition in the recent rural civic polls, coming a close second. Kishor was recently expelled from the Janata Dal (United) by party boss Nitish Kumar after differences over JD(U) support to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Citizenship (Amendment) Act or the CAA. Kumar and Kishor has teamed up for Bihar elections in 2015 and tasted success. Kishor is also offering services to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for state polls in 2021, and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for February 8 Delhi Assembly elections. El-Oued (Algeria), 1 January 2020 (SPS) - 260 tonnes of humanitarian aid has been sent from El-Oued to the camps of Sahrawi refugees, the Algerian-Western Sahara Friendship Group told APS. The caravan, which left Wednesday evening, carries various aid, including fruit, vegetables, foodstuffs and blankets, on board a dozen heavy-duty trucks, president of the Group, Abdallah Ghourabi, told APS. Decided on by the Algerian-Western Sahara Friendship Group, the initiative is part of a humanitarian support programme aimed at strengthening the bonds of brotherhood and solidarity between Algerian and Sahrawi people, he said. According to Ghourabi, the programming of this first caravan for the current year was decided the day after a recent visit by a delegation of the Foundation to the Saharawi refugee camps, during which they perceived the difficult living conditions endured by the Sahrawi people, who need a multifaceted solidarity assistance to alleviate their suffering. Ghourabi also assured that the Algerian-Western Sahara Friendship Group will soon organize, in coordination with associations, other humanitarian caravans. (SPS) 062/SPS/APS Advertisement Roxanne Pallett looked like she was on cloud nine as she married her boyfriend Jason Carrion in a romantic ceremony at Trinity Lutheran Church in New York City in front of 10 friends and family. The former Emmerdale actress, 37, was every inch the blushing bride as she walked up the aisle with New York fireman Jason, 39, with her nearest and dearest watching on. The former Celebrity Big Brother star looked nothing short of sensational as she donned a white figure-hugging strapless fishtail gown with a sweetheart neckline. Wedding: Roxanne Pallett, 37, looked like she was on cloud nine as she married her boyfriend Jason Carrion, 39, in a romantic ceremony at Trinity Lutheran Church in New York City The garment featured a lace overlay and an intricate heavily beaded bodice that highlighted Roxanne's jaw-dropping physique. Roxanne styled her brunette locks into voluminous curls for her special day while her wedding attire was completed with a classic white sheer veil with a floral headpiece. Roxanne's other half Jason wore his brigade uniform for the wedding, wearing a navy blazer and matching trousers along with a crisp blue shirt and navy tie. The church was decorated for the couple's big day, with Roxanne posing for a snap underneath an extravagant floral display near the altar. Romance: The former Emmerdale actress was every inch the blushing bride as she walked up the aisle with New York fireman Jason After the couple said 'I do', they walked down the aisle with Roxanne jubilantly raising her hand in the air in celebration. The couple's families were also involved in the ceremony with Roxanne's mother reading a poem that was written by Jason's late mother. Speaking to The Mirror about the nuptials, Roxanne said: 'It was the most perfect day saying "I do" to the most perfect man I've spent my life praying for. We are now going to a spa retreat to relax before J returns to full duty at the firehouse.' Special day: The couple were in good spirits after they tied the knot in an intimate ceremony where they were joined by 10 friends and family Radiant: The former Celebrity Big Brother star looked nothing short of sensational as she donned a white figure-hugging strapless fishtail gown with a sweetheart neckline Nuptials: Roxanne and Jason looked every inch the happy couple as they posed for a snap with their wedding party inside the church Roxanne married Jason just two months after getting engaged. The couple first met in Brooklyn six months ago. The loved-up couple had their honeymoon dreams dashed after Jason had to go back to work days after their secret wedding. It comes after Roxanne revealed her husband was one of the reasons she was able to battle thoughts of suicide following her explosive CBB 'punchgate' scandal which saw her sensationally fall from grace in 2018. Roxanne revealed that by practising 'gratitude', her life changed from 'not having showered for days' to meeting the love of her life. Gown: The garment featured a lace overlay and an intricate heavily beaded bodice that highlighted Roxanne's jaw-dropping physique Relationship: Roxanne married Jason just two months after getting engaged. The couple first met in Brooklyn six months ago Dapper: Roxanne's other half Jason wore his brigade uniform for the wedding, wearing a navy blazer and matching trousers along with a crisp blue shirt and navy tie Over Thanksgiving, Roxanne shared a smitten snap of herself kissing Jason on the cheek with the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge in the background. The star utilised the American holiday to reflect on how far she had come over the past year. She began: 'This time last year, I was in my scruffs, sobbing into a bowl of mac n cheese, having not showered for days.' Roxanne went on to explain that her mother ended up giving her some 'tough love' by forcing her to focus on the people who were 'holding her up rather than kicking her down.' It was then Roxanne began to practise gratitude - focusing on how lucky she was to have family and friends who loved her, as well as a roof over her head. She said: 'As I began to realise how lucky I actually was, the tough times that had broken me soon faded into the background. Glamour: Roxanne styled her brunette locks into voluminous curls for her special day while her wedding attire was completed with a classic white sheer veil with a floral headpiece Just married: After the couple said 'I do', they walkeddown the aisle with Roxanne jubilantly raising her hand in the air in celebration Making memories: Roxanne and Jason posed for a series of romantic snaps outside the venue with a breathtaking view behind them Here come the girls: Roxanne was all smiles as she posed for photos with the female members of the wedding party Roxanne said: 'It was the most perfect day saying "I do" to the most perfect man I've spent my life praying for. We are now going to a spa retreat to relax before J returns to full duty at the firehouse' 'I began to see my life change shape for the better. A day at a time. It was almost like the moment I looked for the good, it actually blossomed into a better view from where I was standing,' Roxanne explained. She offered further advice to others: 'To anyone who is in the midst of their darkness right now, I promise you, with the right thought process you can & will come through it, as I have. Just find little blessings in every day & let those overshadow the difficulties.' Lastly she gushed: 'And to my incredible man @bklynbad who saw my fire & ran towards it not away from it, thank you for loving me. #happythanksgiving.' Proving she was completely besotted with Jason, the brunette also went to flashed her sparkly engagement ring on Instagram Stories. Family: The couple's families were also involved in the ceremony with Roxanne's mother Monica (right) reading a poem that was written by Jason's late mother Fun: The couple laughed and joked with their family and friends after the romantic ceremony in the Big Apple Extravagant: The church was decorated for the couple's big day, with Roxanne posing for a snap underneath an extravagant floral display near the altar Honest: Roxanne revealed her husband was one of the reasons she was able to battle thoughts of suicide following her explosive CBB 'punchgate' scandal which saw her sensationally fall from grace in 2018 Sources revealed to The Sun last year that Jason became 'a rock' to Roxanne one year after she was panned for falsely accusing her CBB co-star Ryan Thomas of punching her. Jason previously married Cortney Hendrix when he starred on Married At First Sight in 2014, however the couple split last February. It was revealed in August that Jason and Roxanne were dating and living together in New York, in a union that came seven months after she was dumped by her fiance Lee Walton following CBB punchgate. The actress confirmed her romance with Jason as she shared a loved-up snap at the time - shortly before the engagement news arose. Parents: Roxanne was warmly embraced by her mother Monica, who wore a purple dress with a pink hat, after the ceremony Change: Roxanne revealed that by practising 'gratitude', her life changed from 'not having showered for days' to meeting the love of her life Past: Roxanne told how her mother ended up giving her some 'tough love' by forcing her to focus on the people who were 'holding her up rather than kicking her down' Focused: After the Celebrity Big Brother controversy, Roxanne began to practise gratitude - focusing on how lucky she was to have family and friends who loved her, as well as a roof over her head On the engagement and romance, an insider said: 'Jason met Roxanne's mum for the first time during their recent trip to the UK and she absolutely adored him. Jason has been a rock to Roxanne since they've been together... 'They've had very parallel lives and share an intense connection because of their past struggles. He's fiercely protective over her and has told friends that she's the one he's been searching for all this time... 'They began talking and went for coffee which then turned into an inseparable week. It was love at first sight. Friends say he never clicked with the girl the show matched him with and there was a great deal of pressure to keep up appearances for it'. In October, Roxanne detailed her suicidal thoughts and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) following her scandal in the Celebrity Big Brother house last year. The actress was blasted when she falsely accused housemate Ryan of being a 'woman beater' after a playfight - which she alleged saw the actor 'repeatedly punch' her before she demanded he was removed from the house. Speaking to Jeremy Vine about the scandal, Roxanne said: 'It was a really awful time for a lot of people. It's only now when I watch those back I realised how far I've come. It's like watching somebody else.' When asked about her disappearance from the spotlight she responded: 'I had to. I had to get off the grid. That meant turning down any appearances. 'I'll be honest with you, it's been a long time coming. Things that were wrong were so wrong. And it's only now, since I've been having therapy, I've been doing some reflecting and soul searching - I've thought about why I felt that way.' Roxanne said: 'As I began to realise how lucky I actually was, the tough times that had broken me soon faded into the background' Former flame: Jason previously married Cortney Hendrix when he starred on Married At First Sight in 2014, however the couple split last February Support: Sources revealed to The Sun last year that Jason became 'a rock' to Roxanne one year after she was panned for falsely accusing her CBB co-star Ryan Thomas of punching her When asked if she felt suicidal, Roxanne said yes. After her exit from the Channel 5 show, she returned for a pre-recorded interview with host Emma Willis to apologise for the incident. Roxanne recently claimed she sent a suicide message to her family and friends after she falsely accused Ryan of punching her. Roxanne said she told her family 'she didn't want to be here anymore' after she was accused of over-exaggerating the playful punch from her co-star. For confidential 24/7 support in the UK, call Samaritans on 116 123 or visit a local Samaritans branch, see www.samaritans.org for details. At Auto Expo 2020, Mahindra is not only introducing four silent EVs, but will be showcasing the fast and loud Super XUV300 rally car. Mahindra has a lot planned for the upcoming Auto Expo 2020, including the unveiling of four new EVs alongside the brands full-portfolio of BS6 products. In each instalment, the biennial automotive show not only presents whats coming to the Indian market, but also some exclusive and interesting products that highlight what various brands are capable of; especially in the field of motorsports. In this regard, Mahindra will be showcasing the XUV300 rally car aka the Super XUV300. Team Mahindra Adventures Super XUV300 was introduced earlier last year to compete in INRC 2019. The front-wheel-drive rally car was developed by Arka Motorsports; the same folks behind the all-wheel-drive Super XUV500 which has proven its capabilities on multiple occasions over the years. The stripped-down performance-focused compact-SUV has been developed in two formats for two drivers: R2 (petrol) driven by Gaurav Gill and Turbo Diesel with Amittrajit Ghosh behind the wheel. The petrol variant rides on 195/60 R15 JK Ultima XRG2 tyres while the diesel variant gets a set of MRF ZDM2s in the same size. Compared to their road-going counterparts, the petrol Super XUV300 generates around 45bhp and 40Nm extra while the diesel variant packs roughly 30bhp and 70Nm more than its stock format. Both engines employ a re-engineered version of the original 6-speed manual transmission. Power is sent to the front axle via a limited-slip differential. The regular Mahindra XUV300 comes with either a 1.2-litre turbo petrol engine or a 1.5-litre diesel motor. The petrol engine makes 110bhp and 200Nm while the diesel mill is good for 115bhp and a whopping 300Nm of torque; easily the highest in its class. A 6-speed transmission comes as standard. Diesel-AMT variants are also available. The Super XUV300 has a kerb weight of 1,320kg and 1,380kg for the petrol and diesel formats, respectively. Contact between the wheels and ground (especially in the corners) are ensured by a three-way adjustable Reiger suspension system, custom-developed by the team at Arka Motorsports. As in the case of many rally or racing cars, the brake bias can be adjusted from inside the cabin. To top off, the Mahindra Super XUV300 gets a hydraulic handbrake that promises better entry into the corners with the least turn of the steering wheel and more visual drama for spectators, in the forms of drifts and powerslides. Auto Expo 2020 is mostly concentrated around electric mobility and many mainstream brands have pulled out of the event due to multiple reasons. Owing to this, a good majority of Indian automotive enthusiasts are a bit disappointed, but the showcase of the Mahindra Super XUV300 will be well-received among motorsports fanatics. Meanwhile, Hyundai India will be bringing down the i30 N Fastback. At its January meeting, the Womans Club of Fredericksburg held its Winter Picnic at the Dorothy Hart Community Center. Mary Vail Ware from the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice spoke about education and safety for women. In what has become an annual event, the club presented a variety of books and a monetary donation to Laura Dove and Jacqueline White from the Fredericksburg Regional Head Start. Literacy Chair Betty Drew presented the ladies with the check and thanked them for their dedication to our children. Both Dove and White spoke about the literacy program at Head Start and thanked the ladies for their donation. To support the childrens academic growth, the goal is to provide books for the children to share at home every night, bridging the support for reading between home and school. The Womans Club of Fredericksburg is pleased to be part of the Fredericksburg City Schools Regional Head Start Program and its commitment to educate and support the areas preschool population. BAKU, Azerbaijan, Feb. 2 Trend: First Vice-President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Mehriban Aliyeva has made an Instagram post on the occasion of 2 February- the Day of Azerbaijani Youth. In a post on her official Instagram page, Mehriban Aliyeva said: "Dear young people, I sincerely congratulate each of you on the occasion of the Azerbaijani Youth Day. You are the future of our country. I am confident that with your intelligence, knowledge, abilities, victories and achievements you will always make our people happy and worthily contribute to the development of Azerbaijan. I wish all our young people the best of health, inexhaustible enthusiasm, good mood, happiness and prosperity!" A poster titled "Happy Brexit Day" which was pinned on doors of a tower block and told residents to only speak English is being treated as a racially aggravated public order offence by police. The signs were found stuck on fire doors across each floor of Winchester Tower in Norwich on Friday morning. It told residents of the flats that "we do not tolerate" people speaking any language other than English in the block. Norfolk Police confirmed they were investigating the incident after officers visited the block on Saturday night after all the posters had been taken down. In a statement, the force said: Those posters kept by residents have since been seized for forensic inquiries and we will be working with the council to examine any available CCTV. There is no place in society for hatred and intolerance. Nobody should have to face intimidation because of who they are and it is more important than ever that we stand together in the face of hostility. We remain committed to helping people feel safe and secure as they go about their lives. The matter is being dealt with as a racially aggravated public order incident and anyone with information which could help officers with enquiries should contact Norfolk Police on 101 quoting crime reference 36/7964/20. Brexit Day at Parliament Square - In pictures 1 /22 Brexit Day at Parliament Square - In pictures Anti-Brexit protesters in Parliament Square, London PA Police presence at anti-Brexit protests in Parliament Square, London PA The Winston Churchill statue and Union flags in Parliament Square, London PA Pro Brexit supporters hold placards at Parliament Square as people prepare for Brexit Getty Images A man carries an EU themed wreath at Parliament Square Reuters Anti-Brexit demonstrators in Parliament Square, London, ahead of the UK leaving the European Union PA Pro Brexit supporters hold placards at Parliament Square as people prepare for Brexit Getty Images A man wears a President, Donald Trump mask and holds an American flag at Parliament Square as people prepare for Brexit Getty Images People hold placards in Parliament Square opposite the Houses of Parliament in London AFP via Getty Images A man holds up a President, Donald Trump, American flag at Parliament Square as people prepare for Brexit Getty Images A Red Viking apple with the Union Jack is displayed and given out for free to promote British produce as an Anti-Brexit demonstrator waves the European Union flag in Parliament Square AP Joseph Afrane in Westminster Jeremy Selwyn Pro-EU anti-Brexit protesters hold placards in Parliament Square AFP via Getty Images A man takes a photo of political artist Kaya Mar's paintings in Parliament Square Getty Images A man in an oversized 'Keep America Great' hat and draped with a US flag holds a Union Flag in Parliament Square opposite the Houses of Parliament AFP via Getty Images A woman holds a newspaper at Parliament Square Reuters A woman wears a face mask in Parliament Square PA The posters, images of which were shared on social media, were first spotted on the day the UK officially left the EU and said: We finally have our great country back." It added: We do not tolerate people speaking other languages than English in the flats. We are now our own country again and the the Queens (sic) English is the spoken tongue here. If you do want to speak whatever is the mother tongue of the country you came from then we suggest you return to that place and return your flat to the council. The BBC reported that the poster was left on all 15 floors of the Norwich City Council block of flats. On Twitter, the council said it had reported the incident to police, adding: Norwich has a proud history of being a welcoming city, and we will not tolerate this behaviour. One city councillor, speaking to the Eastern Daily Press, branded the posters abhorrent and a hate crime. Mike Stonard said: Many people voted for Brexit for a range of different reasons, however I am sure not many of them will condone this kind of thing. Senate Republicans on Sunday acknowledged President Donald Trump was wrong to pressure Ukraine for his own political benefit, even as they defended their decision to prohibit new evidence in the impeachment trial while pressing ahead with the president's all-but-certain acquittal. The remarks from key Republicans - including Sens. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Joni Ernst of Iowa - came after the Trump administration revealed the existence of emails that could shed light on the president's reasons for withholding military aid to Ukraine. "I'm going to vote to acquit," Alexander said in an interview on NBC News' "Meet the Press." "I'm very concerned about any action that we could take that would establish a perpetual impeachment in the House of Representatives whenever the House was a different party than the president. That would immobilize the Senate." One Republican senator, a close ally of Trump, suggested a sweeping GOP counterattack following Wednesday's vote to acquit the president. "It's going to happen in the coming weeks," Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said of the counteroffensive in an interview on Fox News Channel's "Sunday Morning Futures." Graham outlined a plan that would include an investigation of former vice president Joe Biden, who is running for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, and a pursuit of the whistleblower whose account triggered the probe into Trump's efforts to pressure Ukraine. It was unclear whether other Senate committee chairs were on board with Graham's proposal, however. The South Carolina Republican used his Sunday television appearance to make a direct appeal to Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "Jim, if you're watching the show, I hope you are let's call these people in. Eventually, we'll get to Hunter Biden," Graham said, referring to the former vice president's son. He added: "We're not going to let it go. Jim Risch, you need to start it." Risch's office and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The crux of the impeachment case against Trump is whether he used $391 million in military aid, and a coveted White House meeting for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, as leverage to force the foreign leader to conduct political investigations, including one focused on Joe Biden. In a July 25 call, Trump asked Zelensky to "do us a favor." Trump and administration officials repeatedly stonewalled House investigators, refusing to allow some witnesses to testify and to provide requested documents. The House voted in December to impeach Trump, and in recent weeks, new evidence against him has emerged, including reports that former national security adviser John Bolton says there was a quid pro quo conditioning the aid on investigations by Ukraine that could help the president politically. In an interview Sunday with Fox News host Sean Hannity, Trump said he has no plans to delay his annual State of the Union address, which is scheduled for Tuesday. "No, I'm going to have it," Trump said in the interview, which aired on Fox before the Super Bowl. "It's going to be done. We're going to talk about the achievements that we've made." He added that the impeachment process and the Russia probe led by former special counsel Robert Mueller were "unfair to my family." "I mean, my family suffered because of all of this, and many other families suffered also," he said. Over the weekend, the administration acknowledged the existence of two dozen emails that could reveal the president's thinking about withholding the aid to Ukraine. Some Democrats had been looking to Alexander last week as a potential crossover vote in favor of subpoenaing key witnesses and documents in the Senate trial. But the Tennessee Republican said Sunday that while Trump's behavior was "inappropriate," it was "a long way from treason, bribery, high crimes and misdemeanors." "I think he shouldn't have done it," Alexander said of Trump's alleged efforts to pressure Ukraine. "I think it was wrong. Inappropriate was the way I'd say - improper, crossing the line. And then the only question left is who decides what to do about that." "Well, who decides what to do about that?" host Chuck Todd asked. "The people," Alexander responded. On CNN's "State of the Union," Ernst said she, too, will vote to acquit the president. Ernst, who is facing a tough re-election race this year, said she would not have handled the Ukraine matter in the way Trump did. But she offered only gentle criticism of the president's actions. "Maybe not the perfect call," Ernst said, referring to Trump's oft-repeated claim that his phone conversation with Zelensky was "perfect." "He did it maybe in the wrong manner." "I think he could have done it through different channels," such as the Department of Justice, she added. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and other leading Democrats have argued that any acquittal without the inclusion of witnesses and documents is meaningless - a point Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., re-emphasized Sunday. "Senate Republicans keep voting for a sham trial without witnesses or documents," Schumer tweeted. "Make no mistake: The full truth will eventually come out, and Senate Republicans will have to answer for their cover-up." Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz, a member of Trump's legal team, pushed back against the notion that the trial was a "sham," saying that Pelosi and others are at fault "for failing to charge an impeachable offense." "If they haven't charged an offense, then maybe he hasn't been acquitted, but he also hasn't been charged," Dershowitz said on "Fox News Sunday." Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., meanwhile, took a victory lap of sorts. In an appearance on CBS News's "Face the Nation," Schiff, the lead impeachment manager, pointed to the recent comments by Republican senators as proof that the House successfully made its case that Trump "did withhold hundreds of millions of dollars from an ally to try to coerce that ally into helping him cheat in the next election." "I think it's enormously important that the country understand exactly what this president did, and we have proved it," Schiff said. Even so, he added, to simply call Trump's actions inappropriate "doesn't begin to do justice to the gravity of this president's misconduct." Schiff also declined to say whether the House will subpoena Bolton, saying only that "whether it's in testimony before the House or it's in his book or it's in one form or another, the truth will continue to come out." - - - The Washington Post's Colby Itkowitz, Joel Achenbach and Peter Whoriskey contributed to this report. Chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on Saturday criticised the Centre for presenting a Budget that deviates from ground reality. Maharashtra, which is currently under a non-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) regime, was not allocated any big-ticket project in the infrastructure or social sectors in the Union Budget, apart from funds for the ongoing Mumbai-Delhi Expressway and Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train projects. Chief minister Uddhav Thackeray, as well as ministers from the three ruling parties in the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance, expressed their disappointment over the Union Budget and slammed the Centre for neglecting Maharashtra. The Budget deviates from ground reality over the current financial situation in the country. Mumbai and Maharashtra have been the growth engines of the country. But no financial assistance has been offered for the infrastructural development of the state. Apart from the bullet train between Ahmedabad and Mumbai, and the Mumbai-Delhi Expressway, both of which are old projects, the Centre has not given a penny for the upcoming Metro corridors and railway projects. While allocating funds for the countrys first International Finance Service Centre in Gujarat, the Modi government has neglected Mumbai, the largest contributor to the countrys financial growth, CM said. His deputy, Ajit Pawar, too, slammed the Central government and questioned if the proposed gold-silver market in Gujarats Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (Gift City) was an attempt to diminish the importance of Mumbai and Maharashtra. Pawar also said that the revised estimates projected the devolution of 36,220 crore from central taxes to Maharashtra against the estimated 44,672 crore in 2019-20 Budget. This is shocking and unfortunate for Maharashtra, he said. State water resources minister Jayant Patil, who had served as Maharashtras finance minister previously, said that the state is not PM Modis favourite anymore and that it has been reflected in the Budget. The state has planned a network of Metro corridors of more than 200km in major cities such as Mumbai and Pune, as well as several new railway lines. The MVA government had also demanded 10 irrigation projects in Marathwada and Vidarbha under Centrally-funded schemes. However, the Union Budget presented by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday saw no mention on the financial assistance to any of these big-ticket projects implemented by the Thackeray-led government. The Centre has also not included any site from Maharashtra in the Iconic Sites scheme, which was announced for the development of archaeological sites in the country. It is also not clear if any city from Maharashtra will find a place among the new five Smart Cities which have been proposed by the Union finance minister in the Budget. The Thackeray-led Shiv Sena had formed the government in the state with Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Congress in November last year, after a face-off between former alliance partner BJP, with whom it had ruled the state for five years. The Congress would also demand that Prime Minister Narendra Modi speak on the anti-CAA protests while replying to the motion of thanks, failing which they would wal-kout, the sources added. New Delhi: With the Union Budget over, the Opposition is now gearing up to corner the government in Parlia-ment over the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) across the country. The Congress and the Trinam-ul have given notices to move adjournment moti-ons in both Houses for a discussion on the issue. Not to be outdone, the BJP is also ready for a confrontation and has fielded West Delhi MP Parvesh Verma, who was recently barred from campaigning by the Election Comm-ission for his communally divisive remarks, to move the motion of thanks to the Presidents address. Sources in the Congress said that former party president Rahul Gandhi has been requested to open the debate on the Presidents address from the Opposition. If he does not, Leader of the Cong-ress in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhary will speak. Congress chief whip K. Suresh and Assam MP Gaurav Gogoi would move adjournment motions in the Lok Sabha to immediately discuss the anti-CAA protests. Sources said that if Speaker Om Birla does not allow the motions to be taken up, then the party would disrupt Question Hour. The Congress would also demand that Prime Minister Narendra Modi speak on the anti-CAA protests while replying to the motion of thanks, failing which they would wal-kout, the sources added. In the Rajya Sabha, the Trinamul Congress has given notice under Rule 267 for suspension of business to discuss the raging anti-CAA-NRC-NRP peoples movement in India. Also, for the first time the since the party was fo-rmed in 1992, the TMC will move amendments on the the motion of thanks for the Presidents address. Union Home Minister on Sunday held a "Jansampark Abhiyan" rally in Delhi Cantonment area to campaign for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Assembly elections. During the rally, Shah along with hundreds of supporters, met locals and distributed party pamphlets. Party workers at the rally sported flags and also raised slogans hailing the and Earlier today, BJP President JP Nadda also took part in the rally in the Greater Kailash area. Voting in all 70 assembly constituencies is scheduled for February 8 and the counting of votes will take place on February 11. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday proposed the setting up of an Indian Institute of Heritage and Conservation with the status of a deemed university under the Ministry of Culture. Presenting the Budget for 2020-21 in the Parliament, Sitharaman also proposed the setting of eight museums across the country.According to Budget documents, Rs 109 crore has been earmarked for setting up the museums and an additional Rs 180 crore for the development of the existing ones. Sitharaman said Rs 3,150 crore has been allocated for the Ministry of Culture and Rs 2,500 crore for the Ministry of Tourism. Acquisition of knowledge in disciplines such as museology and archeology are essential for collecting and analysing scientific evidence of such findings and for dissemination through high quality museums, she said. She also proposed the setting up of a tribal museum in Ranchi, Jharkhand. Five archaeological sites in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu would be developed with on-site museums, the Finance Minister said. Those, to be developed as iconic sites, will be in Rakhigarhi (Haryana), Hastinapur (Uttar Pradesh), Shivsagar (Assam), Dholavira (Gujarat) and Adichanallur (Tamil Nadu). Union Culture and Tourism Minister Prahlad Patel said, The much awaited Indian Institute of Archaeological and Conservation was announced in the Budget. This will enable trained, qualified persons to conserve manuscripts, including monuments, museums. All partner institutions will benefit. The Budget has paved the way for creation of new museums and the preservation of existing ones.For the tourism sector, the government has also allocated Rs 1,200 crore for Swadesh Darshan scheme and a corpus of Rs 208 crore for the Prashad scheme which seeks to build infrastructure for pilgrimage sites around the country.Highlighting improved tourism revenues due to better rank, the Finance Minister said, India had moved up from rank 65 in 2014 to 34 in 2019 in the Travel and Tourism Competitive Index (World Economic Forum).Due to this, she said, Foreign exchange earnings grew 7.4 per cent to Rs 1.88 lakh crores for the period January 2019 from Rs 1.75 lakh crores.The FM also proposed the re-curation of the oldest museum in India as announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in January 2020. A Numismatics and Trade Museum will also be located in the historic Old Mint Building in Kolkata. The FM also announced renovation and re-curation of four more museums across India.While the allocation for the Tourism Ministry was Rs 2,150 crore in the 2018-2019 Budget, it rose to Rs 2,189.22 crore in 2019-2020.The allocation for the Culture Ministry, which was Rs 2,843.32 crore in 2018-2019, increased to Rs 3,042.35 crore for 2019-2020. Roswell oil and gas executive Claire Chase launched a radio ad campaign last Monday to introduce herself to voters in the 2nd Congressional District. The ads are part of what campaign manager Mike Berg calls a substantial ad buy that will later include television advertisements in what could be an expensive race for the U.S. House seat currently held by Democrat Xochitl Torres Small. Berg declined to say how much the campaign was spending on the ads, which he said would air on stations throughout the district. Outside groups have already poured thousands of dollars into the race, which is expected to be one of the most watched campaigns in 2020. American Action Network has spent more than $220,000 in television and digital advertising targeting Torres Small over her impeachment vote, and that number is expected to climb with the launching of its most recent campaign. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had an ad buy in December supporting Torres Small over votes on legislation lowering the cost of prescription drugs. Chases ad campaign bills her as a conservative outsider. President (Donald) Trump needs backup to end the witch hunts, take on the D.C. establishment, and build the wall, Chase said in a release about the ad campaign. Last election showed us that career politicians just arent going to cut it. New Mexico needs an outsider. The ads include some biographical information, promote Chase as a supporter of the president, as well as a protector of the sanctity of life. But Chase has been criticized by both Republican primary opponents Yvette Herrell and Chris Mathys over posts she made on Facebook criticizing Trump during his campaign for president in 2016. And Herrells loyalty is now being questioned by Chases and Mathys campaigns over an email she sent in March 2016 to legislators asking about support for Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a former Trump rival for the Republican nomination. Herrells campaign manager, Dakotah Parshall, said Herrell a former state legislator from Alamogordo has run an aggressive marketing campaign since announcing in 2019, including advertising on digital, radio and through the mail. She said the campaign will continue to communicate Yvettes pro-Trump, pro-Constitution, pro-business message through the primary. Mathys a Las Cruces businessman said he was running a broad-based campaign with a strong emphasis on voter contact along with television advertising to make sure our message is heard throughout the district. As a grassroots campaign we are not beholden to the campaign consulting class, he said. Torres Smalls campaign manager, Helen Smith, said the congresswomans campaign does not have any television or radio ads running. Torres Small does not have opposition in the Democratic primary. HAALAND MEETS WITH CONSTITUENTS: U.S. Rep. Deb Haaland, D-N.M., held her first Coffee with your Congresswoman event of 2020 in Albuquerque on Jan. 25. Haaland gave a legislative update and then opened up the floor to residents for questions. Residents asked about prescriptions drugs costs, missing and murdered indigenous women, public lands and veterans issues. Haaland highlighted The Lower Drug Costs Now Act, H.R. 3, which gives Medicare the power to negotiate directly with drug companies. Her office said the lower prices negotiated by Medicare will be transparent so that private insurance companies can make the same prices available to their consumers. It also creates a new $2,000 out-of-pocket limit on prescription drug costs for Medicare beneficiaries. TORRES SMALL URGES FUNDING FOR HEALTH PROGRAMS: Torres Small called on House Leadership to prioritize consistent federal funding for several health programs in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. In the letter, she discussed the need to re-authorize and provide long-term funding for the Health Center Program, the National Health Service Corps Program and the Teaching Health Center Graduate Medical Education Program, which impact her district. Scott Turner: sturner@abqjournal.com More than a dozen airports across the country are screening incoming passengers for infection with the coronavirus, but Connecticuts sole airport with international flights is not among them. Because we dont receive direct flights from the impacted region there are no additional measures currently implemented at Bradley, said Alisa Sisic, a spokeswoman for the Connecticut Airport Authority, which oversees Bradley International Airport. She said officials at Bradley continue to closely monitor the situation, and will adjust our operation with appropriate measures should the need arise. About 3.4 million people arrived at the Windsor Locks airport last year, according to the Bradleys statistics. Thousands of cases of the pneumonia-like illness have been reported, and as of Sunday afternoon, the disease had killed 304 in China, the associated press reported. The disease also claimed the life of a 44-year-old man in the Philippines, the first death recorded outside of China. The victim was from Wuhan, the city in central China where cases of coronavirus infection first appeared. Concern over the illness led federal authorities to expand screening for coronavirus to 20 airports from five in the United States and Puerto Rico last week. On Saturday, officials in Massachusetts confirmed a man who had recently returned home to Boston from a trip to Wuhan had tested positive for the disease, the eighth case recorded in the United States. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health said the man is in his 20s, and is recovering after he sought medical treatment immediately. The news came a day after Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont released a statement saying that a second suspected case of the disease in Connecticut had come back negative. The patient was a high school student from China who participated in a conference at Yale University in New Haven, the governors office said Friday. Earlier that week, a student at Wesleyan University also tested negative. Both patients had the flu, the governors office said, adding that no cases have been confirmed in Connecticut. New York is also waiting to hear the test results on a patient the New York City health department said Saturday has symptoms related to the disease and who recently traveled from China. The test will take 36 to 48 hours to come back. New York officials said the patient, who is under 40, has been hospitalized and is in stable condition. Symptoms of the illness include a runny nose, headache, cough, sore throat and fever. People who believe they have the coronavirus, or believe they came into contact with someone who does, should seek medical care immediately. Those who suspect they may have been exposed should contact their doctor before going in for medical treatment. They should also avoid contact with others. Much like the flu and common cold, doctors recommend patients cover their mouth with a tissue or sleeve when they cough or sneeze, and to wash their hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, or use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer. OTTAWAThe number of Canadians who want to flee the Chinese province afflicted with the novel coronavirus has climbed to 325. Global Affairs Canada is providing the update as the world has its first case of a person dying from the new coronavirus outside of China a 44-year-old man in the Philippines. "This has been a rapidly evolving situation and the number of Canadians asking for assistance is quickly changing," said a statement from the department. Canada is seeking Chinese approval to send a plane to the locked-down city of Wuhan to collect the rising number of Canadians who have asked for help to leave, but there was no indication Sunday from Global Affairs about the status of that flight. The department was, however, telling people not to go to the airport unannounced because they will not be permitted to board the aircraft. Instead, they were told to contact its Emergency Watch and Response Centre in Ottawa to make arrangements. "Canada is chartering a plane to take Canadians from Wuhan, China back to Canada. We have 325 requests for departure assistance from Hubei Province and we will be reaching out to provide updates and to confirm their needs in order to assist our logistical planning," the department said in a statement. "Spaces will be limited and not guaranteed, and will likely only be confirmed with very little notice." Canada is consulting with the United States and Britain "to ensure co-operation and sharing of best practices in this operation," the statement said. The death toll in China from the virus, declared a global emergency by the World Health Organization, has reached 304, and the number of people infected worldwide has surpassed 14,550. Canada has four known cases three in Ontario and one in British Columbia. On Sunday, a second French-chartered plane carrying 300 evacuees from China landed at the military base of Istres in the southern French region of Bouches-du-Rhone. That followed the first French plane that landed on Friday. The federal government hasn't said whether Canadians who eventually arrive from China will be quarantined. Nearly 200 Americans have already been evacuated from Wuhan, and U.S. health officials ordered that they be quarantined for two weeks. It was the first time a federal quarantine has been ordered in that country since the 1960s, when one was enacted over concern about potential spread of smallpox, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. South Korea, too, quarantined its evacuees, who arrived in Seoul on Friday. They underwent screenings for fever before boarding buses to quarantine facilities established in the central towns of Asan and Jincheon. Residents there have protested plans to place the evacuees in their neighbourhoods, throwing eggs and other objects at visiting government officials. The Australian government was forced to defend its plan, which involved sending evacuees to Christmas Island, which has been used to banish asylum seekers and convicted criminals. Critics warned that some Australians would prefer to stay in China rather than go there. In spite of the widespread fear of the virus, health officials in Canada have said chances of contracting it in this country are exceptionally low. They said people should take normal cold- and flu-season precautions of frequent hand-washing and covering coughs and sneezes. This past week, Health Minister Patty Hajdu was pressed by reporters on Parliament Hill on whether Canadians returning from China would be quarantined. She replied: "We will always work to ensure the health of Canadians, whether they're abroad or whether they're here," she said on Wednesday. "So, yes what we're looking at is a scenario where we have all the measures in place to protect Canadians from exposure to the virus. Having said that, that's about as far as I can go." Read more about: A Satish By Express News Service PALAKKAD: Nanji chechi (sister), an Adivasi woman of Nakkupathy Piruvu ooru (place) in Attappadi who ekes out a living by grazing goats could not believe her eyes when she was invited by filmmaker Sachi and music director Jakes Bejoy to sing two songs for the film, Ayyappanum Koshiyum, which is set to hit the cinemas this week. This is the first film for which I am singing. I had been yearning for it for some time. I had a fascination with movies and used to visit the talkies in my neighbourhood to watch them. I went all the way to Chennai to record the songs, a thrilled Nanji tells TNIE. Of the 65 days shoot of Ayyapunum Koshiyum, 62 days were confined to Attappadi alone. It is a full-length Attappadi film as only this tribal area could form the backdrop of this story. Just as Lakshadweep was the location for my debut directorial flick Anarkali, only Attapadi could do justice to this plot. Therefore, I wanted to include two folk songs by the tribals who appear to be talking Tamil mixed with Malayalam but it is not so. Even Tamilians fail to understand their language. The two songs depicting tribal folklore sung by Nanji chechi alias Nanjamma with the background score by music director Jakes Bejoy released in the social media on Saturday evening has recorded 3 lakh hits within hours, said Sachy, the director. Nanji chechi with Jakes Bejoy (centre) and S Pazhaniswamy (left) Every frame depicts the forests, biodiversity, barren and undulating plains and life of Attappadi. I had read the novels of VKN which often mentions the Attappadi area and the tribals living there. I was in search of organic music which is natural and is set to traditional instruments and Nanjamma who belonged to the Irula tribe fitted the bill, added Sachy. After Bhadrans Vellithira starring Prithviraj, Bharathans Thazhvaram featuring Mohanlal and also his Lorry and also the award-winning Carbon of Venu which was shot for just a few days, it is Ayyappanum Koshiyum which has 98 per cent of its scenes from the tribal heartland of Attappadi, adds Sachy. The hero, Prithviraj, and villain, Biju Menon are both protagonists and antagonists. Prithviraj essays the role of Koshy who serves as a Havaldar for 17 years and Biju Menon is a sub-inspector named Ayyappan Nair who has climbed up the rungs of the ladder from an ordinary policeman and has just two years to retire. Another Adivasi who essays the role of an excise officer, Faizal was S. Pazhaniswamy who is employed as a tribal forest watcher in Attappadi. Pazhaniswamy was coincidentally the chairman of the Samara Samithi who led an agitation of tribal forest watchers including women during the previous Oommen Chandy regime demanding that 93 of them who were working for many years be made permanent. The tribal watchers sat in dharna for 23 days before the secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram and succeeded in being taken into regular service. S.Pazahniswamy, a recipient of the Yuvaprathiba award of the Folklore Academy in 2015 who hailed from Choriyan ooru of Kottathara was part of the Azad Kalasangam in Attappadi earlier which was engaged in performing tribal dances and rendering the traditional songs. Nanji chechi who sings in this troupe for the last seven years had bagged the award of the Folklore Academy in 2009 and has toured various states and performed at the Tribal national festival. My father had abandoned my mother when I was six years old. My mother later married another man. It was my grandmother, Ponni who brought me up. I had grown up in abject poverty and one of my ambitions was to act in films. The forest department gave me permission to act in the film and I am also grateful to them. More than 700 persons of Attappadi feature in this film as junior artists and I am proud of it, said Pazhaniswamy. A shamed ex-prison nurse who helped her convicted killer husband go on the run from jail is sweating over being caged herself. Former model Kathryn Kathy Johnston will find out on February 13 if she has to spend time on the wrong side of the bars when she is sentenced at Craigavon Crown Court. The 55-year-old fled across the border with glue-sniffing murderer hubby Paul Johnston (37) when he was out on day release from Maghaberry Prison her old place of work in April 2017. The odd couple hid out in the Dublin area for 15 days before he was taken into custody by gardai on foot of a European Arrest Warrant. Paul Johnston was extradited back to Northern Ireland and pleaded guilty to being unlawfully at large last month. Wife Kathy confessed to aiding and abetting his escape at a sitting of Craigavon Crown Court last week. She is now back living in Comber, Co Down, after spending a period on bail holed up in a dingy flat in the university area of Belfast. Donaghadee-born Kathy, who sources say is smitten with her toy-boy husband 18 years her junior, has been warned that she could face jail when she is sentenced in two weeks time. The pair met in Maghaberry Prison two decades ago when Paul Johnston was caged for 19 years for the murder of disabled west Belfast man Sean May. High from sniffing glue he and older brother Stephen broke into their 58-year-old victims home in the Moyard area and stabbed him 45 times before bludgeoning him with a wheel-brace. They then burned down vulnerable Seans home in a bid to cover their tracks. Paul Johnston was on the run from Hydebank Young Offenders Centre when he carried out the frenzied 1999 killing. Aged just 17 at the time he had already amassed 47 criminal convictions. Expand Close Paul Johnston / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Paul Johnston But his disturbing background apparently did not bother Maghaberry Prison love-struck nurse Kathy McClelland, as she was known then, when she tied the knot with Johnston in a behind bars ceremony in 2008. The best man at the unlikely ceremony was his killer older brother Stephen, who was caged for 21 years for the murder of Sean May. By the time of the wedding an infatuated Kathy Johnston had quit her nurse job at Maghaberry and found work as a beautician avoiding any internal Prison Service probe into her inappropriate relationship. Since then she has remained steadfastly loyal to her husband including going on the run with him in 2017 when he enjoyed a period of temporary release. Their decision to flee across the border baffled jail sources because Paul Johnston only had a few months left to serve before being eligible for parole. One insider said: He was out on day release and made a spur of the moment decision to abscond. They headed down south, but were eventually caught by the gardai after being on the run for a few weeks. The whole thing is mad, especially because he was only supposed to have a few months left of his sentence. Buried in the Finance Bill -- the document that lists changes in tax laws - this year is a proposal that might hit businesses, especially exporters, hard. Budget 2020 proposes a seller should collect 0.1 per cent as tax collected at source (TCS) from a buyer on sale of goods worth more than Rs 50 lakh in a year, if the sellers own sales exceeds Rs 10 crore during the year. If the buyer does not have a PAN or an Aadhaar, then the rate of TCS would be 1 per cent. Tax experts say this is an extremely harsh and retrograde provision which has been introduced without much thinking. This will impact many MSMEs, but exporters will bear the brunt because most of their sellers are not tax resident of India and hence do not have a PAN or Aadhaar. FULL COVERAGE: Union Budget 2020 This means exporters will either have to pay the 1 per cent TCS from their own pocket or sell goods at a higher margin making them less competitive. The move would also increase compliance burden as well as block working capital of many businesses. "Introduction of this provision does not seem to have been thought through in the zeal of the government to plug tax leakage and improve collections," says Daksha Baxi, head, international taxation, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas. She elaborates: "In case of seller is an exporter, the buyer then invariably is a non- resident. Such non-residents are usually not subject to tax in India unless it falls under various other provisions of the IT Act for being taxed in India. Therefore, the absurdity of this new TCS provision is that it makes Indian exports at least 1 per cent more expensive. Or the exporter would have to bear this cost, reducing their profit margin since no buyer who is not taxable in India would like to bear this cost." But exporters are not the only one to be impacted by this provision. Ved Jain, a Delhi-based chartered accountant, says, the provision will have far reaching implications on all big corporates, PSUs and Exporters. "Just imagine the magnitude of deduction on Indian Oil which has a turnover of more than Rs 5 lakh crore. This will further block working capital of the buyer, which will include MSMEs. This will increase the compliance burden tremendously," says Jain However, Baxi says that there is a provision that the government would specify persons, who would be exempt from this provision. It is hoped that exporters would be exempt and so would large corporations, who either buy from MSMEs or sell to businesses. Also Read: Rs 40,000 cr revenue foregone an 'approximate calculation' as no clarity which taxpayers will opt for new tax regime: FM Sitharaman Also Read: NRI's to be taxed only on Indian income, not foreign, says FM Sitharaman Also Read: LIC IPO may come in 2nd half of FY21: Finance Secretary Rajiv Kumar Colorado Politics is published both in print and online. Our website features subscriber-only news stories daily, designed for public policy arena professionals. Member subscribers also receive the weekly print edition of our award-winning newspaper, containing outstanding features and news stories, in their mailboxes every Saturday. U.S. Department of State Concludes $10 Million Settlement of Alleged Export Violations by Airbus SE Media Note Office of the Spokesperson January 31, 2020 The Department of State reached an administrative agreement with Airbus SE to resolve the alleged civil violations of the Arms Export Control Act (AECA), 22 U.S.C. 2751 et seq., and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), 22 C.F.R. Parts 120-130. The Department of State and Airbus SE reached this settlement following an extensive compliance review by the Office of Defense Trade Controls Compliance in the Department's Bureau of Political-Military Affairs. The Department of State and Airbus SE reached an agreement pursuant to ITAR 128.11 to address providing false statements on authorization requests; the failure to provide accurate and complete reporting on political contributions, commissions, or fees that it paid, or offered or agreed to pay, in connection with sales; the failure to maintain records involving ITAR-controlled transactions; and the unauthorized re-export and retransfer of defense articles. The settlement demonstrates the Department's role in strengthening U.S. industry by protecting U.S.-origin defense articles, including technical data from unauthorized exports. The settlement highlights the importance of obtaining appropriate authorization from the Department for exporting controlled articles and providing timely and accurate reporting of payment of fees related to the sale of defense articles to the armed forces of a foreign country or international organization. Under the terms of the 36-month Consent Agreement, Airbus SE will pay a civil penalty of $10 million. The Department agreed to suspend $5 million of this amount on the condition the funds have or will be used for Department-approved Consent Agreement remedial compliance measures. In addition, an external Special Compliance Official will be engaged by Airbus SE to oversee the Consent Agreement, which will also require the company to conduct two external audits of its compliance program during the Agreement term as well as implement additional compliance measures. Airbus SE voluntarily disclosed to the Department the alleged AECA and ITAR violations, which are resolved under this settlement. Airbus SE also acknowledged the serious nature of the alleged violations, cooperated with the Department's review, and instituted several compliance program improvements during the Department's review. For these reasons, the Department has determined that it is not appropriate to administratively debar Airbus SE at this time. The Consent Agreement and related documents will be available for public inspection in the Public Reading Room of the Department of State and on Penalties and Oversights Agreements section of the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls' website. For additional information, please contact the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs' Office of Congressional and Public Affairs at pm-cpa@state.gov. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address T he convicted terrorist behind the Streatham attack was shot dead within "60 seconds" of launching a violent knife attack. Sudesh Amman, 20, had been released from prison less than a fortnight ago was under active surveillance when the bloodshed happened. As the Metropolitan Police's investigation progresses more details surrounding the counter-terrorism operation have come to light. Armed officers, who were part of a proactive counter-terrorism surveillance operation relating to the attacker, were following him as he left an address in the Streatham area shortly after 1.20pm. Follow our LIVE updates here... San Francisco, Feb 2 : Co-sharing workspace company WeWork has named Indian-American real estate veteran Sandeep Mathrani as the new CEO of the company. The new role for Mathrani, who most recently served as CEO of Brookfield Properties' retail group, will be effective from February 18. He will also be a member of the company's Board of Directors, WeWork said late on Saturday. Mathrani will report to Marcelo Claure, who will remain Executive Chairman, WeWork said, adding that Mathrani's deep real estate experience and skills are complementary with those of Claure. Mathrani's appointment comes at a crucial time when WeWork is trying to stabilise its business following its failed attempt to go public last year and the departure of the its Co-founder and former CEO Adam Neumann. Following the setback which led to dramatic fall in its valuation, Japan-based technology investor SoftBank took 80 per cent ownership of the company and infused into it $5 billion in new financing. "I am honored to be joining WeWork at this pivotal time in its history. The company has redefined how people and companies approach work with an innovative platform, exceptionally talented team and significant potential if we stick to our shared values and maintain our members-first focus," Mathrani said in a statement. "I am grateful for the confidence Marcelo and the Board have placed in me and look forward to partnering with Marcelo and the very talented employees at WeWork." Mathrani succeeds co-CEOs Artie Minson and Sebastian Gunningham. Minson and Gunningham will remain with the Company through a transition period to ensure a smooth onboarding process, WeWork said. "Over the past 100 days since I joined WeWork, we have made tremendous progress strengthening the business. As an important first step, we have recapitalised the business and have a plan that will provide us access to in excess of $2.5 billion in liquidity to execute our growth plans," said Claure who is part of the SoftBank Group. "With a strong liquidity position in place, we have also established a five-year, growth-led transformation plan that we believe will position WeWork to achieve profitability on an adjusted EBITDA basis by 2021 and positive free cash flow in 2022. We continue to make important changes to implement a strong management team that better enables the Company to execute," Claure added. Prior to serving as CEO of Brookfield Properties' retail group, Mathrani held the position of CEO of General Growth Properties (GGP Inc.) for eight years, during which the company was recapitalised in November 2010, experienced eight years of growth, and in August 2018 was sold to Brookfield Property Partners. Prior to joining GGP in 2010, Mathrani was President of Retail for Vornado Realty Trust, where he oversaw the firm's US retail real estate division and operations in India comprised principally of office properties. During his tenure, he was responsible for stabilising and growing the portfolio. Before that, he spent nearly a decade as Executive Vice President at Forest City Ratner, where he was tasked with starting and growing a new platform of retail properties across the five boroughs of New York City. (Newser) Democratic presidential candidates promised voters in Iowa on Saturday they would unify the party to take on President Trump even as they kept up their criticism of each other and navigated the lingering divides from the 2016 campaign, the AP reports. "I'm confident Americans, Republican voters, Democratic voters and independent voters want us to come together," former Vice President Joe Biden said in North Liberty. "I'm going to do whatever it takes to make progress in the areas that matter most." In Cedar Rapids, Mass., Sen. Elizabeth Warren updated her stump speech to include a more explicit call for unity. "We're down to the final strokes here," she said. "But we understand that, we will and we must come together as a party to beat Donald Trump and Ive got a plan for that." story continues below And Bernie Sanders insisted he would back the ultimate Democratic nominee even if it's not him. "Let me say this so theres no misunderstanding," the Vermont senator said in Indianola. "If we do not win, we will support the winner and I know that every other candidate will do the same." On the eve of Monday's Iowa caucuses, the unity pledges marked an earlyand urgenteffort to avoid the divides that some Democrats say helped Trump win the presidency in 2016. After a year of campaigning, most polls show a tight race between Biden, Warren, Sanders, and Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana. Those candidates, along with Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Andrew Yang, crisscrossed Iowa on Saturday seeking a breakout victory in the Democratic race. (Read more Election 2020 stories.) Pacing the stage of a packed high-school gym, Elizabeth Warren is recounting how she deals with naysayers. Naturally, she says, the lobbyists and the billionaires dont like her proposals. But this is democracy! she says. Theres a whole lot more of us than there is of them. From somewhere in the crowd, a man shouts, WOO!, and Warren grins. See? she says. That resonates! For a moment last fall, Warren seemed to be in prime position to win Iowa, whose caucuses will kick off the Democratic primary on Feb. 3. But she seems to have fallen behind since then, as lefty voters gravitate toward a surging Bernie Sanders and moderates rally behind Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg or Amy Klobuchar. In polling averages, Warren has fallen into fourth, behind Buttigieg. Iowa could be make-or-break for Warren, who needs a comeback here to re-establish herself as a top candidate. And shes campaigning like she knows it, rolling out a forceful new pitch that stresses transcending the Democratic Partys divisions and arguing that her populist platform would best attract crossover votes come November. Across the political spectrum, she argues, voters feel frustrated that the economy is rigged against ordinary people. Theyre angry that corporations rake in billions in profits yet pay little or no federal taxes. Its very popularamong Democrats, among independents, among a majority of Republicans, she says of her proposal for a 2% tax on wealth above $50 million. Supporters of Elizabeth Warren listen as she gives a speech at the Get Out the Caucus Rally in Iowa City, Iowa. | Devin Yalkin for TIME New signs have appeared at Warrens events: UNITE THE PARTY, they say. Its an overt attempt to appeal to voters exhausted by the nastiness and squabbling that have erupted in some quarters, and also perhaps a belated acknowledgement that Warren has been damaged by the perception that her liberal agenda is indistinguishable from Sanderss. Her closing ads make the same argument, featuring voters who supported both Sanders and Hillary Clinton four years ago coming together around her candidacy. Story continues Theres plenty of room for an upset: the top four candidates are bunched tightly together in most polls, with no candidate receiving even a third of the vote and many voters still undecided about their final choice. Warren has spent millions over the past year building a massive field organization to turn out her voters. Her ground games the best in the state, says John Norris, a veteran Democratic operative, former state party chairman and former chief of staff to former Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. But that may not be as much of an advantage as usual because people are so frozen in indecision. Elizabeth Warren at the Iowa City Get Out the Caucus Rally in Iowa City, Iowa. | Devin Yalkin for TIME Norris argues that Warren would be a more formidable general-election candidate than Biden because she generates more enthusiasm. Its hard to go to your neighbor in the fall and say, Vote for Joe Biden because hes electable, Norris says. Thats not a reason. Its inane. Warren has also been making an explicit argument about gender. She contends a woman at the top of the ticket would be an asset for Democrats. The world changed when Donald Trump got elected, she told reporters backstage after her speech in Iowa City on Saturday. Women candidates helped us win back the House in 2018 and won a lot of statehouse races in competitive elections. Warren and her allies are trying to beat back the idea that sexism in the electorate would hurt her chances against Trump. Its something Courtney Johnson, a 27-year-old social worker and Warren volunteer, says she commonly hears while knocking on doors in her hometown of Cedar Rapids. I tell them I think America is ready for a woman president, and its time to show that we are, Johnson says. I tell them, dont caucus according to what someone else might thinkvote for the candidate you like. People like her. They just have doubts about whether she can win. Warrens closing pitch has been complicated by Trumps impeachment trial, which trapped her in Washington for crucial weeks in January, along with fellow candidates Sanders, Klobuchar and Michael Bennet. Over the weekend, she rushed to make up for lost time, apologizing that she couldnt stay for her usual lengthy photo sessions with supporters because she had to make it to her next event. Her golden retriever Bailey, a campaign celebrity, stayed to be photographed in her stead. Warren appeared to seal the deal with some waffling voters. I came here trying to finalize my vote, and Im leaving convinced, said Sarah Gardner, a 43-year-old urban planner in Davenport, Iowa. Gardner likes Warrens policies but was worried about whether she would be able to communicate them to ordinary people across the political spectrum; seeing Warrens passion and energy convinced her. The stakes are so high with this election, says Gardner, who supported Sanders four years ago. We have a president who only seems to represent the people who voted for him. Im looking for someone who will be president of the whole country. Dhaka, Feb 2 : Eight of the 312 Bangladeshis evacuated from the Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicentre of the deadly novel coronavirus outbreak, have been hospitalised in Dhaka, the media reported. The Biman Bangladesh Airlines ferrying the evacuees arrived at Shahjalal International Airport sometime on Saturday morning, bdnews24 quoted Tahera Khandaker, a spokeswoman for the flag carrier, as saying. The eight passengers were sent to two hospitals after they developed a fever, Shahriar Sazzad, a health officer at the Dhaka airport, said. The rest of the evacuees were taken to the Ashkona Hajj Camp, where they will be quarantined for 14 days, the incubation period of the new virus. Police and army personnel have been deployed to secure the camp. Initially, 361 Bangladeshis had registered to return from Wuhan, but 316 reported at Tianhe International Airport, while four of them were barred as their body temperature was high, according to Director General of Health Services Abul Kalam Azad. Till Sunday, the coronavirus epidemic has killed 304 people, with 14,380 infected cases only in China. The Philippines confirmed one death, making it the first country outside China to report a fatality. Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19) The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Shaikh Khalid bin Ahmed bin Mohammed Al Khalifa, has called for direct negotiations between the Palestine and Israeli sides to sustain lasting peace in the region. This came during the ministers participation in the Extraordinary Session of the Council of the Arab League at the Ministerial Level held yesterday at the Arab League in Cairo in the presence of President Mahmoud Abbas. In his statement, Shaikh Khalid reaffirmed the Kingdoms unequivocal position on the Palestinian issue and its support for all efforts aimed at reaching a just and comprehensive solution to this issue, leading up to the restoration of all legitimate rights of the brotherly Palestinian people. As for the plan put forward by the President of the United States of America, Shaikh Khalid expressed Bahrains appreciation of this plan and its aspiration to study its positive outcomes and requirements for its completion, and to begin direct negotiations between the Palestinian and Israeli sides to reach an agreement that meets all our aspirations for a comprehensive, just and lasting peace, and that guarantees the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the borders of June 4, 1967 with East Jerusalem as its capital, in accordance with the principle of a two-state solution and based on the Arab Peace Initiative and relevant international legitimacy resolutions. Shaikh Khalid also stressed the importance for the international community to shoulder its responsibilities in protecting the brotherly Palestinian people from any unilateral steps that are inconsistent with the United Nations resolutions and international law. The minister expressed the Kingdom appreciation of the significant efforts exerted by President Mahmoud Abbas and his keenness to unify the Arab position towards developments made in regards to the Palestinian issue, which is considered the main issue. The meeting also issued a statement in which it emphasised the centrality of the question of Palestine to the entire Arab nation, the Arab identity of occupied East Jerusalem, the capital of the State of Palestine, and the right of the State of Palestine to sovereignty over all its occupied land in 1967, including East Jerusalem, its air and sea space, its territorial waters, its natural resources, and its borders with neighbouring countries. The statement also stressed adherence to peace as a strategic option for resolving the conflict and the need for the basis of the peace process to be a two-state solution in accordance with international legitimacy resolutions, the Arab Peace Initiative and the adopted international references. It also noted that the way to achieve this is through serious negotiations within a multilateral international framework in order to achieve a comprehensive peace that embodies the independence and sovereignty of the State of Palestine along the lines of June 4, 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital, to live in security and peace alongside Israel. The statement emphasised working with just and influential peace-loving international powers to take appropriate action on any plan that would prejudice the rights of the Palestinian people and the terms of reference for the peace process, including addressing the Security Council, the United Nations General Assembly and other international organisations. The statement also stressed the full support extended towards the struggle of the Palestinian people and its national leadership, led by President of the State of Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas gives a speech in Ramallah on Sept. 16, 2011. (Thaer Ganaim /PPO via Getty Images) Palestinians Cut Ties With Israel, US After Refusing to View Trump Peace Plan CAIROThe Palestinian Authority has cut all ties with the United States and Israel, including those relating to security, after rejecting a Middle East peace plan presented by U.S. President Donald Trump, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Feb. 1. Abbas was in Cairo to address the Arab League, which backed the Palestinians in their opposition to Trumps plan. The blueprint calls for the creation of a demilitarized Palestinian state. Weve informed the Israeli side that there will be no relations at all with them and the United States, including security ties, Abbas told the one-day emergency meeting, called to discuss Trumps plan. Israeli officials had no immediate comment about his remarks. Israel and the Palestinian Authoritys security forces have long cooperated in policing areas of the occupied West Bank that are under Palestinian control. The PA also has intelligence cooperation agreements with the CIA. Abbas also said he had refused to discuss the plan with Trump by telephone, or to even receive a copy of it. Trump asked that I speak to him by phone, but I said no, and that he wants to send me a letter but I refused it, he said. Abbas said he didnt want Trump to be able to say that he, Abbas, had been consulted. He reiterated his complete rejection of the Trump plan, presented on Jan. 28. I will not have it recorded in my history that I sold Jerusalem, he said. He added that although he was refusing to consider the plan, he was looking to present an alternative proposal to the U.N. Security Council. Were not nihilists, he said. Jerusalem The blueprint also proposes U.S. recognition of Israeli settlements on occupied West Bank land and of Jerusalem as Israels indivisible capital. The capital of the State of Palestine would be Al-Quds, according to the plan released by the White House. Jerusalem will stay united and remain the capital of Israel, while the capital of the State of Palestine will be Al-Quds and include areas of East Jerusalem, the plan states. Al-Quds is the Arabic name for Jerusalem. Israel has agreed to a four-year land freeze to secure the possibility of a two-state solution, the plan states. The Arab League foreign ministers meeting in Cairo said the plan didnt meet the minimum aspirations of Palestinians, and that the organization wouldnt cooperate with the United States in implementing it. The ministers referred to Palestinian rights to create a future state based on the land captured and occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, with East Jerusalem as capital, in the final communique. Foreign ministers from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, three close U.S. allies, as well as Iraq, Lebanon, and others said there could be no peace without recognizing Palestinian rights to establish a state within the pre-1967 territories. After Trump unveiled his plan, some Arab powers had appeared, despite historic support for the Palestinians, to show openness to considering dialogue regarding the plan. Three Gulf Arab statesOman, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emiratesattended the White House gathering where Trump announced his plan alongside Netanyahu. By Omar Fahmy and Ulf Laessing. With additional reporting by Epoch Times staff. 'I want my party back': Pro-life Democrat who confronted Buttigieg on abortion speaks out Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment A pro-life Democrat activist who confronted presidential candidate Mayor Peter Buttigieg at a town hall in Iowa has spoken out about the experience, calling on the party to be more accepting of her side of the abortion debate. Kristen Day, executive director of Democrats For Life of America, asked the South Bend, Indiana, mayor at the Fox News Town Hall on Sunday whether he would support more moderate platform language so that the Democratic Party was more accepting of pro-life Democrats. Well, I respect where you're coming from, and I hope to earn your vote. But I'm not going to try to earn your vote by tricking you. I am pro-choice. And I believe that a woman ought to be able to make that decision, Buttigieg responded. The best I can offer is that if we can't agree on where to draw the line, the next best thing we can do is agree on who should draw the line. And in my view, it's the woman who's faced with that decision in her own life. In an opinion piece published by USA Today on Thursday, Day wrote that she took issue with the response, believing that he failed to properly answer her question about being more accepting of pro-life Democrats. He refused twice to even answer that part of my question and instead focused on his unyielding support for abortion and did not really seem to want the vote from me or people who share my views," Day wrote. The reality today is that the Democratic Party, hounded by abortion extremists, is deep in the pockets of the pro-choice lobby. Day explained that the party platform in 1996 and 2000 included language like stating that Democrats were a party of inclusion and that they respect the individual conscience of each American on this difficult issue. But in 2012, the platform removed the word rare in its discussion of abortion and, in 2016, the party officially called for the repeal of the Hyde Amendment, which prohibit federal health care programs from funding the procedure, Day added. Buttigieg likes to talk about future former Republicans. With his extreme stance on abortion, though, he is doing precisely the opposite: building an army of future former Democrats, disturbed by Trump but forced into a corner. I want my party back, she concluded. In April 2017, Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez announced that the party would no longer support any Democratic candidates who opposed abortion. Every Democrat, like every American, should support a woman's right to make her own choices about her body and her health, he said at the time. That is not negotiable and should not change city by city or state by state. The announcement garnered criticism from both pro-choice and pro-life Democrats, notably California Rep. Nancy Pelosi who felt the position was unwelcoming. That July, U.S. Representative Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said the new litmus test had been reversed. As we look at candidates across the country, you need to make sure you have candidates that fit the district, that can win in these districts across America, he said, as reported by The Hill. Qantas has announced it will suspend its direct flights to mainland China from February 9 until March 29 2020, as a precaution due to the coronavirus. The airline operates two flights into China: Sydney-Beijing and Sydney-Shanghai. Flights between Sydney and Hong Kong are not affected. Visit Business Insider Australias homepage for more stories. As the coronavirus crisis continues to unfold, Qantas has announced it will suspend flights from Australia to mainland China from February 9 to March 29. In a statement, the airline confirmed its two direct services to mainland China Sydney-Beijing and Sydney-Shanghai would be affected. In November, Qantas announced it intended to end the Sydney-Beijing flight in March 2020. The suspension means this flight will end permanently on February 9 instead. The statement from Qantas blames the entry restrictions imposed by countries including Singapore and the United States for the suspension, due to the "significant logistical challenges" imposed on the movement and rostering of the crew who work on these flights. "In selecting a date to suspend services Qantas is working to balance high passenger numbers in both directions including Australian residents wanting to return home from China with the various travel restrictions being applied," the statement reads. "The suspension may be brought forward if demand levels or other factors change." At the time of publication, the Wuhan coronavirus has killed 259 people and infected nearly 11,800. On Thursday, the World Health Organisation declared the coronavirus outbreak a global health emergency. Accident occured when worshippers rushed to be anointed by blessed oil poured on the ground by popular preacher. At least 20 people have been killed in a stampede during a church service in the northern Tanzanian town of Moshi, according to officials. The tragedy happened on Saturday while hundreds of worshippers were attending a prayer ceremony led by Boniface Mwamposa, a popular preacher who heads the Arise and Shine Ministry Tanzania. The stampede occurred when Mwamposa, who calls himself the Apostle, poured what he said was holy oil on the ground and the crowd surged forward to touch, hoping to be cured of sickness, according to witnesses and officials. Twenty people died and 16 others were injured in the incident, Kippi Warioba, Moshi district commissioner, told Reuters news agency by telephone. Five of those killed were children, he said. The stampede occurred when the worshippers were rushing to get anointed with blessed oil, Warioba added. Authorities said they were still assessing the situation amid fears the death toll could rise. The incident took place at night and there were many people, so there is a possibility that more casualties could emerge, Warioba said. Peter Kilewo, a witness, described the scene as horrible. People trampled on mercilessly, jostling each other with elbows, he told AFP news agency. It was like the preacher had thrown bundles of dollars about and there were all these deaths! Tanzania has seen an increase in the number of prosperity gospel pastors in recent years, who promise to lift people out of poverty and perform what they call miracle cures. Thousands of people in the nation of 55 million flock to Pentecostal churches, whose main source of income is the tithe, the 10 percent or so of their income that worshippers are asked to contribute. RTE has opened the door to including Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald in the final televised debate of the general election campaign. The broadcaster originally planned to host a debate on Prime Time this Tuesday featuring only Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin. Sinn Fein has repeatedly said their party leader should also be permitted to take part in the debate. Following an increase in support for Sinn Fein across a number of opinion polls, RTE issued a statement today saying it will listen to suggestions on its coverage from all the political parties. In the statement, the station said: At the outset of the election RTE set out its approach to leaders debates based on empirical data. That has not changed. Throughout the campaign RTE has considered representations made by those contesting the election regarding our coverage and leaders debates. We will continue to give consideration to any representation made, it added. Sinn Fein has put in a formal request to RTE asking that Ms McDonald be included in the final election debate. The party said the criteria for choosing the format of the debate was out of date in light of recent opinion polls. An RTE spokesperson said: A representative of RTE met with Sinn Fein today and the broadcaster will respond to the issues raised in due course. RTE told Sinn Fein that the stations election coverage steering group will review their request when it meets tomorrow morning. Read More The initial RTE statement followed a Business Post/Red C opinion poll which showed Sinn Fein (24pc) and Fianna Fail (24pc) level on support while Fine Gael (21pc) was trailing behind them. At a campaign event today, Ms McDonald said the poll showed the energy and momentum for Sinn Fein and for change. She also listed her priorities for going into government which includes a rent freeze, reducing the State pension age to 65, cutting USC for all earnings up to 30,000 along with major investment in social housing and the health service. The suspension comes in response to the PA decision to boycott Israeli calves last September as part of Palestinian Prime Minister Mohamed Shtayyeh's policy of "gradual economic disengagement" from Israel The Israeli decision to stop receiving agricultural imports from the Palestinian Authority (PA) went into effect on Sunday at 6am following an announcement made on Friday by Israeli Defence Minister Naftali Bennett. "Based on my instructions on Friday to the Coordinator of Government Activities, agricultural imports from the Palestinian territories have been stopped. This is due to the boycott of Israel's calves, which severely harmed hundreds of Israeli farmers. If the boycott stops, we will start receiving imports again," Bennett tweeted on Sunday morning. , 06:00 . , - . , . . Naftali Bennett (@naftalibennett) February 2, 2020 According to a report published by Israeli news publication Haaretz, Israel's top defence official faced pressures from cattle growers to take this decision. In response, the PA said it would study the situation before taking any action. The same report said that Israeli cattle growers have been selling about 140,000 calves a year to the Palestinians, which is worth roughly $290 million. Last September, the PA stopped importing Israeli calves as part of Palestinian Prime Minister Mohamed Shtayyeh's policy of "gradual economic disengagement" from Israel. Moreover, one month later, a PA spokesperson denied reports that the Palestinian decision had been reversed. This came following a report by Israel's Channel 11 about a Palestinian-Israeli agreement to stop the Palestinian boycott. Ibrahim Melhem described the decision as "irreversible." The Israeli channel reported that the deal was concluded after a meeting that involved the director of the Agriculture Ministry, Shlomo Ben Eliyahu; the head of the civilian department in the Office of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), Col. Sharon Biton; the PA deputy minister of agriculture; and a senior representative of Hussein Al-Sheikh, the head of the PAs General Authority for Civilian Affairs. Melhem said that Israeli and Palestinian officials had only met to deal with "phytosanitary and veterinary issues" and discuss prospects of importing vegetables and fruits from the Gaza Strip. "The issue of the calves is a strategic decision," Melhem said, adding that "at its meeting yesterday, the [PA] government affirmed its determination to keep the ban. We will continue this policy of gradual disengagement [from Israel] in several areas such as the economy and industry, the Jerusalem Post quoted him as saying. On Saturday, the PA cut ties with the United States and Israel following the announcement by US President Donald Trump of his controversial peace plan. Weve informed the Israeli side... that there will be no relations at all with them and the United States, including security ties," Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said while addressing an Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo. Abbas said that he refused to talk to Trump on the phone. Among the key points of the plan is the US' recognition to Israel's settlements in the West Bank despite the fact that they are illegal under international law. It also stipulates that Jerusalem "will remain Israel's undivided capital." These are serious issues for the Palestinians, who have consistently demanded a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders. Search Keywords: Short link: Today is World Wetlands Day, which marks the date of the adoption of the Convention on Wetlands on February 2, 1971, in the Iranian city of Ramsar on the shores of the Caspian Sea. The 2020 theme Wetlands and Biodiversity is an opportunity to highlight wetland biodiversity, its status, why it matters and to promote actions to reverse its loss. Dr Ritesh Kumar, director, Wetlands International South Asia, speaks to Hindustan Times, on why wetlands are important and the state of wetlands in India. KumKum Dasgupta: Ten more Indian wetlands have been declared Ramsar sites. What is the importance of such a declaration? Ritesh Kumar: The designation of these 10 wetlands highlights their importance for conserving global biological diversity. As a global mega-diverse country, this is Indias contribution to conserving the global good. By designating wetlands to the Ramsar List, India commits to their wise use through the maintenance of ecological character. KD: Why it is important to save wetlands? What kinds of challenges do they face? RK: India has witnessed a rapid degradation of its wetlands. In the last three decades alone, nearly one-third of natural wetlands have been lost to urbanisation, agriculture expansion and pollution. The loss of wetlands in urban areas has been more rapid. Data from 26 cities and towns show that since 1970s, for every one square kilometre increase in built up area, 25 ha of wetlands has been lost. An ecosystem health assessment of wetlands under the 100 days programme of the Government of India indicated that one in every four wetlands had low to very low ecosystem health and faced high to very high threat. As wetlands degrade, so does their ability to make societies water, food and climate secure, and conserve the diversity of life. Wetlands loss needs to be seen not just as a biodiversity crisis, but as a development crisis, which could lead to more water, food and climate insecurity for society. A transformed response to address rapid wetlands degradation and loss would be to pursue the integration of wetlands, and their wide-ranging values, within developmental programming at various levels. KD: The environment ministry notified new wetland rules in 2017. But draft rules dont mention anything about a national regulator and dont list specific activities prohibited in these ecologically sensitive areas. Your comments? RK: The revision of the Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Rules, 2017, is to bring the role of state wetlands authorities to the fore for wetlands conservation. As the Rules have been framed under the Environment Protection Act, the ultimate responsibility rests with the ministry of environment, forest and climate change. KD: How important is community involvement to save wetlands? RK: Communities engage with wetlands in various ways from seeking livelihoods to spiritual fulfilment. The values community hold for wetlands are expressed in diverse ways. It is important to integrate community linkages in wetlands management planning, and incentivise community stewardship. This is crucial as over 85% of wetlands in India are in the form of village ponds and tanks. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Source: Xinhua| 2020-02-02 20:01:27|Editor: Lu Hui Video Player Close Policeman Wu Shengzao answers a call at lunchtime in Beijing, capital of China, Feb. 1, 2020. Chinese authorities have tightened measures to battle the novel coronavirus epidemic as a growing number of people hit the road and return to work after the Spring Festival holiday. Wu Shengzao, 34, is a policeman working at the Daxing International Airport. During the anti-virus battle, Wu and his colleagues spend days patrolling in the airport, measuring temperature of the passengers and checking their conditions and needs. (Photo by Peng Ziyang/Xinhua) Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday tweeted a suggestion to Prime Minister Narendra Modi about how to help the countrys sagging economy, all with a video, as he continued his attack on the government over the budget. Rahul Gandhi had criticised the budget on Saturday, saying it contained no strategic idea or anything concrete and it showed the hollow approach of the government that was all talk and nothing happening. On Sunday, Congress leaders proposal also included a video of the Prime Minister doing some yoga exercises. Dear PM, Please try your magical exercise routine a few more times. You never know, it might just start the economy, the Congress leader posted on Twitter. Dear PM, Please try your magical exercise routine a few more times. You never know, it might just start the economy. #Modinomics pic.twitter.com/T9zK58ddC0 Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) February 2, 2020 Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced a slew of measures to boost economic growth back up from its lowest in a decade. ALSO WATCH | Longest speech in history but hollow: Rahul Gandhi slams union budget Also read | Who paid Jamia shooter, asks Rahul Gandhi a day after shooting in Delhi But the Congress party said the government was in complete denial that the economy faces a grave macroeconomic challenge and claimed that it had given up on reviving the economy, accelerating growth and creating jobs. Nirmala Sitharamans budget speech came at a time when India is grappling with its worst economic slowdown in a decade. The government estimates economic growth this year is estimated to fall to an 11-year low of 5% in FY20 from 6.1% in FY19. Estimated nominal growth at 7.5% in FY20 is the lowest since 1975-76 (FY76) as per the FY12-based GDP series. The Congress has been attacking the Bharatiya Janata Party-led central government on the economic slowdown and highlighted its failures on the economic front, rising unemployment and agrarian distress. Also read | Repetitive, rambling and hollow: Rahul Gandhi describes Union Budget 2020 Citizens evacuated from China land in Turkey Evacuees will be quarantined for 14 days in single rooms in line with a coronavirus incubation period. With dozens of evacuees aboard, a military cargo plane of the Turkish Armed Forces landed in Turkey's capital Ankara on Saturday upon completing its evacuation operation from China's Wuhan city, the epicenter of the deadly coronavirus outbreak. Having made its appearance in late December 2019, the novel coronavirus has so far claimed 259 lives while whereas there are 12,000 confirmed cases as well as thousands of others held under quarantine. NO CASES OF CORONAVIRUS HAVE BEEN FOUND SO FAR IN TURKEY The Turkish Armed Forces' A400M type cargo plane departed from Wuhan on Saturday airlifting 42 people with 32 Turkish citizens, along with the citizens of Azerbaijan, Albania, and Georgia after health staff confirmed they did not carry any symptoms related to the fatal outbreak. Passengers' health conditions are good and their oxygen levels, as well as body temperature, are normal, the officials told Anadolu Agency reporter on board. All of the patients -- including 32 Turks, six Azerbaijanis, three Georgians and one Albania -- boarded the plane after they were found not to show coronavirus symptoms in initial examinations, Health Ministry said before the evacuation operation. After landing, passengers on board will be transferred to Zekai Tahir Burak Hospital in Ankara, he added. The coronavirus, so named because under the microscope it resembles a crown, has killed at least 259 people in China, with nearly 12,000 infected. More than 118,000 people are under medical observation. Since its outbreak late last year, China has put Wuhan under lockdown in a bid to contain the virus and is building a 1,000-bed hospital to treat those affected. Beyond China, the virus has spread to Japan, South Korea, Thailand, the U.S., Singapore, France, Vietnam, and Canada. Travelers from China are being screened for the virus at airports worldwide. Several airlines have suspended flights to Wuhan. Former Vice President Joe Biden speaks at an event in Marshalltown, Iowa on Jan. 26, 2020 ahead of the Iowa caucuses. Jacob Pramuk | CNBC At least four Democrats have a good chance to leave Monday's first-in-the-nation Iowa presidential caucuses with the most delegates. The 2020 White House hopefuls have deployed vastly different messages as they claw for support at the top of the field in Iowa. Most of their appeals relate in one way or another to their ability to deny President Donald Trump a second term in November. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and former South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg have led the pack in the Hawkeye State for months. Recent polls show a tight race, and the fluid nature of the caucuses suggest any of the leading candidates could enjoy a surprisingly strong showing in the first nominating contest. Read more: Iowa caucus: What it is, how it works and why it's important Democrats have criss-crossed Iowa in recent days in the final rush before the caucuses. Sanders and Warren have promised more substantive change in their bids to beat Trump, while Biden and Buttigieg have largely pushed for a return to normalcy or an end to partisan gridlock. Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who has edged ahead of Buttigieg in national polling averages, has not tried to compete in the first four nominating states, instead turning his attention and vast spending to the larger states that voter later on. The four candidates' closing arguments in Iowa reflect their broader motivations for running and why they think they're best suited to defeat Trump. Bernie Sanders Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) holds a campaign event at La Poste January 26, 2020 in Perry, Iowa. Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images Sanders' case for his ability to defeat Trump has stayed consistent: he promises to rein in what he calls abuses of workers and consumers by corporations and the wealthy, and enact a "Medicare for All" system to provide health insurance for every American. He has added wrinkles to his argument in the final days before Iowa. Expanding the social safety net factors heavily into the Vermont senator's messaging and appeal. However, he has more explicitly framed himself as the best candidate to protect Social Security and Medicare benefits in the Democratic field or the general election. A Sanders ad that started airing in Iowa on Thursday highlights Trump's recent comments to CNBC suggesting he could consider reforming unspecified entitlements "at some point." The term generally refers to social programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. "We are not going to cut the programs that millions of seniors and people with disabilities depend upon. If they vote to cut Social Security, they may well not be returning to Washington," Sanders says in the ad. He has also repeatedly targeted Biden for past comments suggesting he would consider freezing Social Security spending. The former vice president denies he wants to do that. The Sanders campaign also released a digital ad Friday featuring an Iowa man who says his lung function has deteriorated because he could not afford medications for a hereditary condition. "My lungs may be failing, but I'm going to fight for Bernie with every breath I have left," Jim Williams says in the ad. Sanders' message also took on stronger foreign policy tones in January after the U.S. killing of Iran's top general, Qasem Soleimani, increased fears of war with Iran. He repeatedly highlighted his 2002 vote against authorizing military force in Iraq, which he calls "the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in the modern history of this country." Sanders has led most recent polls of Iowa, though the surveys suggest at least four candidates have a chance to end up with the most delegates. Joe Biden Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign town hall event at the Iowa Memorial Union Ballroom at the University of Iowa January 27, 2020 in Iowa City, Iowa. Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images Biden has spent the final stretch in Iowa arguing he is best suited to beat Trump and restore a fundamental decency and stability to the White House. The former vice president has more frequently cast himself as a steady foreign policy hand in recent weeks as the specter of war with Iran rose. His message to Iowa voters, at its core, has revolved around his ability to beat Trump. Biden's campaign has repeatedly pointed to polls showing him beating Trump in hypothetical head-to-head matchups in November. In a Thursday speech designed to contrast his character from Trump's, the former vice president highlighted what he called his role in lifting swing-district Democratic candidates in the 2018 midterms. "I took on Trump all over the country and beat him. In fact, we beat him like a drum and in the process took back the majority in the House. We should remember that this year," Biden said in Waukee, Iowa. Biden issued a refrain during the speech that he has repeated throughout his campaign: "Character is on the ballot." He said two Trump terms in the White House would "fundamentally alter the character of this nation." Biden also took aim at Trump's foreign policy, saying the world will "sleep a little easier" with him in the White House because "they'll no longer have to worry about Donald Trump waking up in the middle of the night and starting a war with a tweet." The former vice president, who frequently touts his middle class roots in Scranton, Pa., has not forgotten to add some economic appeal to his final argument. During a speech in Marshalltown, Iowa, last Sunday, he said that "we need a president that also understands that this country wasn't built by bankers and CEOs." Though he took care to stress as he sometimes does in separating himself from Sanders that "they're not all bad guys." "They didn't build the country. Ordinary people like my mom and dad and my grandmom and grandpop, people in this neighborhood, people in this room, ordinary people given half a chance," he said. Biden has consistently led the 2020 Democratic field in averages of national polls since he entered the race in April, but Sanders has recently cut into his edge. Sanders leapfrogged him in Iowa polling averages, though surveys suggest Biden still has a good chance to leave Iowa with the most delegates. Multiple voters at Biden's Marshalltown event said the increased tensions with Iran made them lean more toward supporting him in the caucuses. Pete Buttigieg Democratic presidential candidate former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg speaks at a meet the candidate event at the Chickasaw Event Center January 29, 2020 in New HMapton, Iowa. Win McNamee | Getty Images Buttigieg has placed high stakes on a strong showing in Iowa, and in the final days before the caucus he has focused on "turning the page" on Trump's presidency and winning over "future former Republicans" into his coalition. The 38-year-old Democrat has placed an emphasis on his roots in the Midwest and the literal and metaphorical distance between South Bend and Washington, D.C. "In the face of unprecedented challenges, we need a president whose vision was shaped by the American Heartland rather than the ineffective Washington politics we've come to know and expect," Buttigieg wrote in a post on Twitter on Wednesday. During an interview with Radio Iowa last the week, he emphasized the point, arguing that "the best way to govern is also the best way to win which is to turn the page, to not get caught up in the political warfare and Washington mentality that led us to this point." The campaign has a lot to prove in Iowa, where it has devoted substantial resources. Buttigieg, who is polling in third in the state, has suggested that a strong showing could help him prove himself to voters who remain skeptical of what was once an extraordinarily longshot bid for the presidency, including many voters of color. "We need to do very well in Iowa," he told NBC News on Saturday. "We're in it to win it." In the final days of the race before Iowa, Buttigieg also stepped up his attacks on Sanders and Biden. During a speech in the state, Buttigieg criticized Sanders for being too far to the left and for "a kind of politics that says you've got to go all the way here and nothing else counts." And he chided Biden for "saying that this is no time to take a risk on someone new." "History has shown us that the biggest risk we could take with a very important election coming up is to look to the same Washington playbook and recycle the same arguments and expect that to work against a president like Donald Trump who is new in kind," Buttigieg said. Elizabeth Warren Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts and 2020 presidential candidate, waves during a campaign event in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, U.S., on Sunday, Jan. 26, 2020. Al Drago | Bloomberg | Getty Images Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Sunday slammed the BJP-led central government on the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and said that the new law only serves the objectives of the Sangh Parivar of turning India into a Hindu Rashtra. He said that in order to achieve their objectives, the "communal elements" are trying to divide India's people through the same strategy as employed by the British colonisers in the past. Lauding people in Mumbai for their protests against CAA, the Register of Citizens (NRC) and the Population Register (NPR), the Kerala chief minister also outlined three reasons for his government's decision to reject the Citizenship Amendment Act. "Over the last several weeks, Mumbai citizens made clear their unyielding opposition to efforts made by Hindutva elements to tear apart the secular fabric of our society. I express solidarity with struggles being made across the city in defence of secularism and the Indian Constitution," Vijayan said at an event here. The chief minister was addressing the 'Mumbai Collective' here on the topic of ' struggle against communalism'. "The government of Kerala is acting as per the Constitution. Like Kerala, other states are also looking at CAA as against the fundamentals of the Constitution. It (CAA) violates basic human rights and is divisive and deeply discriminatory," CM Vijayan said, adding that the new citizenship law only furthers the Sangh Parivar's objective of creating a Hindu Rashtra. He said the CAA needs to be rejected for three basic reasons. "First, it is against the letter and spirit of our Constitution. Secondly, it is highly discriminatory and violative of human rights. Thirdly, it seeks to impose philosophy of Sangh Parivar with its mission of Hindu Rashtra," the chief minister said. Vijayan also participated in the human chain organised by Left Democratic Front (LDF) against CAA and NRC and said that "the law is a threat to the secularism of this country". The newly enacted law is facing stiff opposition across the country with several non-NDA states including Kerala, West Bengal, Rajasthan and Punjab refusing to implement it. Rajasthan, Kerala and Punjab have passed resolutions against the recently amended law in their respective state Assemblies. The CAA grants citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis, Buddhists and Christians fleeing religious persecution from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh and who came to India on or before December 31, 2014. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) With one day to go before the Iowa caucuses, Sen. Amy Klobuchar's crowds indicate what some polls have been showing - it could be a five-way race. On Sunday morning, the 2020 hopeful packed more than 400 supporters into the ballroom at the Best Western Plus Longbranch Hotel & Convention Center in Marion, Iowa, located just a short drive away from downtown Cedar Rapids. 'I have been punching way above my weight,' Klobuchar said. 'There were certain pundits who predicted when I started, with that speech in the middle of the Mississippi in a blizard, that I would never make it to the end of the speech,' she said to laughs. Sen. Amy Klobuchar attracted more than 400 people - according to her campaign - to a venue Sunday morning in Marion, Iowa, a town located outside of Cedar Rapids. Klobuchar seems to be attracting late breaking voters, which could mean the Iowa caucuses could break five ways The senator tweeted a shot of the crowd which packed into the ballroom at the Best Western Plus Longbranch Hotel & Convention Center in Marion, Iowa Sen. Amy Klobuchar addressed a crowd outside of Cedar Rapids Sunday morning with just one day to go before the Iowa caucuses Sen. Amy Klobuchar arrives at a campaign event Sunday morning. She's seen better numbers in Iowa polls over the last week 'Now here I am, one of the top five candidates in this race, and I've done it with a lot less money than a lot of my opponents and a lot less name identification and having not run for president before, like several of them have,' she added, a clear nod to former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders. For months, the top tier of Democratic hopefuls was a foursome - Biden, Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg. But some polls from Iowa this week show Klobuchar leapfrogging some of those candidates. An Emerson poll from this week had Klobuchar in third place with 13 per cent support - after Sanders, with 30 per cent, and Biden with 21 per cent. On Friday, the American Research Group survey of Iowa voters also showed Klobuchar in third place - just one point behind Biden. In that poll, Sanders led, getting 23 per cent support from likely Democratic caucus-goers, followed by Biden with 17 per cent and Klobuchar with 16 per cent. The Minnesota Democrat also performed well in the Monmouth poll - earning double digits at 10 per cent - but in a solid fifth place. But then, Sunday's CBS News survey had Klobuchar in fifth, but only earning the support of 5 per cent of respondents. Klobuchar, of course, pointed to the more optimistic numbers Sunday morning. 'We just ended our biggest fundraising month ever in this campaign because we're gaining steam,' she said. 'Two polls this week said we are up to No. 3 in Iowa - one at 13 per cent. We are gaining steam.' She told the crowd it's an even bigger feat when you look at the money the campaign has had to work with. 'We are frugal. I want that in a president,' she said. 'You're not going to see one of my ads in the Super Bowl tonight,' Klobuchar also noted. 'Maybe if the Vikings were playing,' she added, getting a laugh from her supporters. She also positioned herself as the most electable Democrat. 'I think we shouldput someone at the top of the ticket that actually has the receipts,' she said of her ability to attract rural voters. She also talked of her aim to win back the Midwest. 'We are going to build a beautiful blue wall around these states and we are going to make Donald Trump pay for it,' she said. She also applauded her own debate performance. 'I think we need to put someone in front in charge of this ticket that has shown nimbleness on the debate stage, which you have seen, I hope, at the debate,' Klobuchar said. While Klobuchar has earned praise for her debate performances - she also went viral for having wiggling hair. 'I think we should put someone on the ticket that has a track record of actually passing bills and getting things done and has practical policy solutions that are big bolds plans, but they're not pipe dreams,' she said - seemingly a knock at Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, both advocates for things like Medicare-for-all. 'A plan means you can actually bring people with you. You know how you're going to pay for it,' Klobuchar added. With Sanders gaining steam, Klobuchar also made sure to note how she's worked with him on Senate bills. At the event, she made no mention of a campaign hiccup - that several black activist groups from Minnesota have asked her to drop out over revelations that Myon Burrell, serving a life-sentence in prison since the age of 16 over the murder of 11-year-old Tyesha Edwards, may have been wrongly conviced. Klobuchar prosecuted the case. Asked about it on Fox News Sunday before her appearance in Marion, she first dodged then said, 'I didn't know about this new evidence. No, I didn't know about this new evidence until I saw this report,' she said of an Associated Press investigation of the case. ''I couldn't have. I haven't been in the office for 12 years.' If Klobuchar does well Monday night, it will be thanks to late-breaking voters. Two attendees of her Marion event told DailyMail.com they had decided to support the senator in about the last week. That's a feat too - as she's been out of state. Klobuchar is one of the four Democratic hopefuls who've also had to play the role of juror in President Trump's Senate impeachment trial. 'I was gone the last 10 days, something I never expected to happen,' she told the crowd Sunday. 'What I need to do this though, is I need you,' she implored. Jodie Turner-Smith revealed she almost sent Naomi Ackie flying as the pair presented an award at the Baftas. Queen & Slim star Turner-Smith was presenting the gong for Best Documentary alongside Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker actress Ackie. But afterwards she told her Twitter followers that the pair almost suffered a mishap. i was terrified so naomi so graciously held my hand! and then my gown nearly took her down which would have been very embarrassing for me as people already think i dont care about black lives! but she didnt fall! #BlackLivesMatter #BAFTAs Jodie (@MissJodie) February 2, 2020 She wrote: i was terrified so naomi so graciously held my hand! and then my gown nearly took her down which would have been very embarrassing for me as people already think i dont care about black lives! but she didnt fall! #BlackLivesMatter #BAFTAs She added: also, thank GOD i brought my reading glasses with me because i could not see a f****** thingggg written on the teleprompter without them! #BAFTAs The award was won by For Sama, a documentary by and about Syrian filmmaker Waad al-Kateab. Turner-Smith also sent a number of tweets bringing attention to a lack of diversity among the nominees. In one she wrote: theyre beginning the ceremony by patting themselves on the back for including women and bong joon ho. #bafta Expand Close Jodie Turner-Smith arrived at the Baftas with her husband, actor Joshua Jackson (Matt Crossick/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Jodie Turner-Smith arrived at the Baftas with her husband, actor Joshua Jackson (Matt Crossick/PA) Video of the Day Later she added: im sitting next to half of the black people here and the three of us are laughing at all of @grahnorts jokes And when Laura Dern won the award for Best Supporting Actress, she tweeted: give laura dern all the awards!!! favourite white lady in that category!!! category is: best supporting white lady/ actress Baftas nominations caused considerable controversy when they were announced last month because of their lack of diversity. Only white performers were picked for the four main acting categories, while no women were nominated for Best Director. SANTA FE Cerro de la Olla could become New Mexicos next wilderness area. Last week, U.S. senators Martin Heinrich and Tom Udall of New Mexico introduced legislation that would establish 13,103 acres within the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument in northern New Mexico as a wilderness area. The area offers solitude and stunning views of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to the east and San Juan Mountains to the west and overlooks the Rio Grande Gorge, according to a news release. These mountains serve as an important wildlife corridor and provide security habitat for species such as elk, mule deer, black bears, and mountain lions, Heinrich said in a statement. Im proud to join the community to introduce legislation to designate Cerro de la Olla as wilderness to ensure this outdoor treasure is there for future generations. Udall, ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies, said the Cerro de la Olla caldera carries deep environmental, historical and recreational importance. Protecting this wilderness safeguards a vital wildlife corridor for treasured species like elk, mountain lions, and migratory birds, and boosts the local outdoor recreation economy, he said. Cerro de la Olla loosely translates to Pot Mountain, according to a news release from New Mexico Wild, a nonprofit group that works for the protection, restoration and continued respect of New Mexicos wildlands and wilderness areas. This bill recognizes the importance of saving this special place for tomorrows visitors, human and wildlife alike, that they may have the same opportunities that we are fortunate enough to have today, Mark Allison, New Mexico Wilds executive director said. The area has been used by people in the Taos area for hundreds of years as a hunting ground, place to gather herbs and firewood. As the primary inhabitants of the Taos Valley, the Red Willow People commonly known as the Taos Pueblo, have always recognized the sacredness of Cerro de la Olla, whether spiritual in nature or for the life sustaining resources provided, said Taos Pueblo War Chief Gary J. Lujan. Our people will continually acknowledge this in perpetuity, therefore it is important that, as an entire broader community, we look to protect the sanctity of Cerro de la Olla. Last year, the two new wilderness areas in Taos County the Cerro del Yuta and Rio San Antonio were signed into law under the John D. Dingell Jr. Conservation, Management and Recreation Act, a package of federal public lands legislation. Update: Amid fresh media coverage of the episode, U.S. Banks CEO issued a statement Saturday night acknowledging mistakes. He said I will fix this. Read more here. On Christmas Eve, Abigail Gilbert, a supervisor at a U.S. Bank call center in Portland, made a split-second decision that changed her life. One of her employees, Emily James, came up to her with a request to leave the building. She explained to me theres this guy whos stuck at a gas station, hes really close to us, weve held up the check for two days, Gilbert said. I dont think she even asked me for the $20. I just gave it to her. She told James to go. It was just, 'If I can fix this, lets just fix it,' and that wasnt a good business decision, Gilbert said. It was an emotional decision. But that decision had consequences. James was fired on Dec. 31, for what she was told was an unauthorized interaction with a customer. Gilbert was fired at the end of the week, on Jan. 3. And Gilbert knows why James initially said the money had been hers. She was trying to protect me, Gilbert said. At the time, James wasnt sure of Gilberts fate with the company. James was ready to use her own money, but accepted the gift from Gilbert. Gilbert described the incident as two impassioned people who reacted rather than thought, and tried to do the right thing. James had been working for two days trying to help customer Marc Eugenio get a hold taken off his paycheck from a new job ahead of Christmas. Eugenio followed her instructions and went to his local Clackamas bank branch to have the funds verified from the issuing bank and have his company verify his employment. But because of the holiday, the branch was closing early, and Eugenio was told there was no manager on site able to lift the hold. When Eugenio left the bank, he said workers locked the doors behind him. That afternoon, he again called James at the call center, saying he was stranded at a gas station without money to even fill his tank. Though the call center helps customers from across the country, Eugenio happened to be just miles away in Portland. James asked if she could drive to the gas station and give him money to get home. Gilbert said yes. Ive also come to peace with it, that being who I am, its inevitable that thats the decision that I would have made, Gilbert said. I just know if it was to happen again, I would have done that same thing in that moment in time. But Gilbert thinks ire at U.S. Bank is misplaced. She loved working there and would work there again, she said, if given the chance. Im not angry, Gilbert said. I understand from their viewpoint that they made the right decision. I also understand from my viewpoint that Emily and I made the right decision, so its just a question of viewpoint. Rather than approve James request to run money out to the stranded customer, Gilbert said, she should have called her boss for options. U.S. Bank is not an evil corporation, she said. Theyre a big corporation, and they have to have rules and policies. I understand what they did from their perspective. Gilbert was hired by the bank in June, went though training and started working as a supervisor in August, she said. I had only been on the job for about six months and I did not have a banking background, I had a customer service background, Gilbert said. Shed previously worked in retail and call center management, she said, and she was grateful U.S. Bank took a chance on her. At age 70, the job market can be difficult. They knew what they wanted and they saw it in me, she said. I am not a technological whiz, they knew that. They knew what they were getting, and they hired me, and I have enormous respect for that. I understand in the scope of the stories that are being told, that people would be mad at the bank. I dont think its fair to taint all of U.S. Bank with that anger because they do a lot of things right. She said she was devastated when she heard James had been fired. And she was shocked, though perhaps not altogether surprised, when she was terminated three days later. When originally contacted about the incident, Gilbert didnt return a reporters phone calls. I would not have made it public, Gilbert said. I would have just gone on. Im just trying to move forward. I dont want to play the blame game. But she said she was not surprised by James reaction. Shes passionate. She has a very strong sense of whats right and wrong. Im probably more introspective, Gilbert said. I have bowed out of this, its not who I am. Its not to negate Emilys anger. Its just that my response is different. At her age, I probably would have been Emily. Gilbert said she avoided reading coverage of her firing, and she deleted links to stories when friends sent them. On Saturday, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof opined about the incident, as an example of how some companies have lost their souls. Gilbert is applying for other jobs, and has been upfront that she was fired from her last job. Shes been surprised when those hiring already have heard about her story. It has certainly devastated me financially, emotional, all of that but Im just trying to move forward, she said. -- Samantha Swindler; sswindler@oregonian.com; @editorswindler Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories. New Delhi: While the Indian government is scrambling to evacuate its citizens from Coronavirus-infected China, the number of deaths due to the outbreak has crossed 300. Authorities in Hubei province reported 45 new fatalities on Sunday. The Indian government in a statement informed that as on Saturday (February 1), a total of 326 flights with 52,332 people have been screened. Of these 97 symptomatic travellers were referred to isolation facilities. So far the only positive case has been found is in Kerala and the patient is in stable condition and under observation. As many as 324 Indians returned from Wuhan on Saturday and are being effectively monitored. Of them, 104 are housed at ITBP Chawla Camp and 220 are in Manesar. A second flight from Wuhan with 323 Indians on board has taken off for Delhi. Recently, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the coronavirus outbreak as a global health crisis after which several countries have sped up the evacuation process of its citizens from China. As per a report by The New York Times, till Thursday Thailand has reported 14 cases of infection; Hong Kong 10; the US, Taiwan, Australia and Macau have five each; Singapore, South Korea and Malaysia each have reported four; Japan has 11; France has five; Germany has four; Canada has three; Vietnam has two; and Nepal, Cambodia, and the United Arab Emirates each have one. Live TV In some cases recorded from Taiwan, Germany, Vietnam and Japan, the patients involved have not been to China. Incidentally, there have been no reported deaths outside China. On Saturday, the US reported eight cases of coronavirus, with positive cases having reported from Australia, France, the United States and seven Asian countries. The outbreak has taken a toll on the international sporting calendar too, the Lingshui China Masters badminton tournament which is a part of the qualifying process for the Tokyo Olympics was postponed. The organisers made the call after a number of players withdrew. The tournament was scheduled to take place from February 25 to March 1 in Hainan. It is believed that the virus originated in Wuhan in December and has since then spread to various cities around the world. The confirmed cases of coronavirus in China have now surged past 14,000. Health authorities across the globe are taking action to prevent an epidemic as the virus continues to spread. One of Central New Yorks most notorious murder cases just got the Lifetime movie treatment and, as you might expect, the network took some creative liberties with the story. Poisoned Love: The Stacey Castor Story" stars Oscar-nominated actress Nia Vardalos (My Big Fat Greek Wedding) as Stacey Castor, who was convicted of killing two husbands with antifreeze and trying to frame and murder her daughter. The Ripped from the Headlines TV special aired Saturday night, recreating the murders and the trial that made national news. What really happened? Castor fatally poisoned her second husband, David Castor, with antifreeze via a turkey baster in 2005. His death at their Wetzel Road home in Clay was originally considered a suicide, but authorities were suspicious due to forensic evidence and inconsistencies in her story. In 2007, investigators exhumed the body of Staceys first husband, Michael Wallace, and a medical examiner found that he too died of antifreeze poisoning. Wallaces cause of death in 2000 was initially ruled a heart attack. Stacey Castor then claimed her daughter, Ashley Wallace, poisoned herself with pills and vodka and had a typed suicide note claiming she killed her father and stepfather. Castor was eventually arrested at the hospital where Ashley was recovering, and accused of attempted murder and trying to frame her daughter for the two deaths. Nia Vardalos, left, plays CNY antifreeze killer Stacey Castor, pictured at right in a 2009 ABC News/AP pool video still, in the new Lifetime movie "Poisoned Love." Castors 2009 trial made national headlines as she was nicknamed The Black Widow," after female black widow spiders who sometimes kill and eat males after mating. She sentenced to 51 1/3 years-to-life for killing her husband David Castor, attempting to murder her daughter Ashley, and forging her husbands will. How much of the Lifetime movie was correct? A lot, actually. The scene of David Castors death in the movie was similar to one shown in court during the trial, with his lifeless body found in the bedroom next to a glass filled with antifreeze. Stacey Castor claimed it was a suicide, but detectives soon suspected murder -- and she then tried to poison her own daughter, Ashley, with antifreeze and frame her with a suicide note confessing to the murders of her father and stepfather. Stacey also forged her husbands will after his death. And just like the movie, Stacey Castor did slowly kill her husband by feeding him antifreeze through a turkey baster as he lay in bed. There was still a poisoned drink on the nightstand next to the bed. The turkey baster, with Davids DNA on it, was found in a trash can inside the house. And yes, David Castor and Michael Wallace were really buried next to each other. (David Castors son later had his fathers remains moved.) One thing the Lifetime movie, "Poisoned Love: The Stacey Castor Story," got right is that Castor's two husbands were buried next to each other. Many details were still changed, though. The movie is set in Midland, instead of a Syracuse suburb, and the fictional Castors live in a much bigger house than the real one. The cast is also much more diverse than the real-life figures; Parveen Dosanjh and Chris Shields played the detectives, and Brenda Crichlow played Staceys friend Cindy. Chris Shields, left and Parveen Dosanjh, center, play police investigators in the Lifetime movie "Poisoned Love: The Stacey Castor Story." In real life, Detective Dominick Spinelli, right, was the lead investigator in the case. The film also cut out David Castors son, David Castor Jr., from his first marriage, and emphasized Staceys mom, played by Marilyn Norry, as someone who defends Stacey throughout the case -- clashing with her granddaughters Ashley and Bree. Antifree The biggest twist of the movie seemed unbelievable, but was based on what happened in real life. In Poisoned Love, investigators grew suspicious because Stacey referred to antifreeze as antifree -- and made the same error in the forged, typed suicide note she claimed was written by Ashley. The Lifetime movie, "Poisoned Love: The Stacey Castor Story," featured a forged suicide note where Stacey Castor misspelled antifreeze as "antifree." The note is different from the real one, but her use of the word "antifree" was used in the real case against her. In the 2009 trial, antifree was a big part of Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatricks case. Castor stumbled during a 2007 interrogation -- When I poured the antifree... I mean, cranberry juice -- and also made the same spelling blunder in the forged suicide/confession note in her daughters name. Hyped up moments for Hollywood Poisoned Love showed Stacey Castor as a manipulative woman, taking advantage of David Castor and then encouraging him to drink heavily after the death of his father. The movie depicts Stacey and her daughters, Ashley and Bree, as the three musketeers who stick together after the death of their birth father. When Stacey marries David Castor, tensions flare up as hes depicted as a stepfather who struggles with parenting. Theres also a dramatic moment where the couple goes out of town for the weekend, Ashley throws a party, and then gets busted by the cops when her drunk boyfriend takes Davids car for a joyride. Theres also a particularly hyped-up-Hollywood-moment after Davids death where Stacey gives Ashley alcohol at a party while an eerie cover version of Poison by Bell Biv DeVoe plays. Its the moment where Stacey poisons her daughter with antifreeze; her sister Bree finds her the next morning, unresponsive. Castor really did try to kill her own daughter with pills mixed in a concoction of soda, juice and alcohol. Ashley survived after being rushed to a hospital. Chanelle Peluso, left, played Ashley Wallace in the Lifetime movie "Poisoned Love: The Stacey Castor Story." Genea Charpentier played Ashley's sister Bree Wallace. Much of the trial proceedings were similar in fiction and real life, but the courtroom scenes were actually less dramatic in the movie than in real life. Fitzpatrick, replaced in the movie by fictional D.A. OMalley (played by J. Douglas Stewart), confronted a calm Castor with the coincidences and contradictions in her story, such as how her husbands death was initially ruled a suicide and then later a homicide. Isnt that an amazing coincidence Mrs. Castor, that a guy who was thinking about suicide is being murdered at the same time? Fitzpatrick asked Castor, adding later: Thats like Lou Gehrig dying of Lou Gehrigs disease. I dont know, she replied. J. Douglas Stewart, left, plays D.A. O'Malley, a fictional version of Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick, in the Lifetime movie "Poisoned Love: The Stacey Castor Story." Where are they now? The TV movies epilogue did include the fact that Stacey Castor died in prison at age 48 in 2016. Investigators said she died of natural causes from a heart attack, with no sign of suicide or foul play. A special feature after the broadcast aired showed actual trial footage from syracuse.com | The Post-Standard, plus new interviews with Ashley Wallace, D.A. Fitzpatrick and others. Fitzpatrick said he became a father figure for Wallace, who is now married. Ripped from the Headlines is a Lifetime series of films based on true stories, including the recent Stolen by My Mother: The Kamiyah Mobley Story and Chris Watts: Confessions of a Killer. Poisoned Love: The Stacey Castor Story can be streamed on demand at https://play.mylifetime.com/movies/poisoned-love-the-stacey-castor-story. You can also stream it via Hulu and fuboTV. See and compare more pictures from the Lifetime movie, the cast and the real-life case in the photo gallery above. Thanks for visiting Syracuse.com. Quality local journalism has never been more important, and your subscription matters. Not a subscriber yet? Please consider supporting our work. This illustration provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in January 2020 shows the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV). This virus was identified as the cause of an outbreak of respiratory illness first detected in Wuhan, China. (CDC via AP) It can spread person to person, even if someone is showing no symptoms. The next in line can continue to pass it on. The incubation period is so long that people may not know where or when they picked it up. Details that emerged last week about the new virus from China show how challenging it could be to control this outbreak, health experts say. At first, some were relieved that the virus hasn't proved fatal as often as those that caused SARS, Ebola or some other recent menaces. Now there's worry that it still might cause a lot of deaths if it spreads far more than those other viruses did. "The level of concern has been growing" with the new revelations about viral spread, said Marc Lipsitch of Harvard's School of Public Health. The virus has infected at least 14,000 people since it was first detected in central China in late December. It has killed more than 300 and spread to about two dozen countries although most, like the United States, have few cases. "We still have a low risk to the American public, but we want to keep it at a low risk," the National Institutes of Health's infectious disease chief, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said Friday at a news conference where quarantines and temporary travel bans were announced. Several factors about the virus itself affect how bad the outbreak might become. MULTIPLYING INFECTIONS Based on the first 425 confirmed cases in China, each infection led to 2.2 others on average, Chinese scientists reported last week in the New England Journal of Medicine. That's a bit more than ordinary flu but less than SARS, a genetic cousin of the new virus. "It sounds and looks as if it's going to be a very highly transmissible virus," said Robert Webster, an infectious disease expert at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital who has studied many outbreaks. Whether the new virus will weaken as it spreads or instead become better at it isn't known. A woman wears a face mask as she shops at a grocery store in Beijing, Saturday, Feb. 1, 2020. China's death toll from a new virus rose to 259 on Saturday and a World Health Organization official said other governments need to prepare for"domestic outbreak control" if the disease spreads in their countries. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein) "This virus may still be learning what it can do," Webster said. "We don't know its full potential yet." SPREADING IN STEALTH The biggest worry is sustained transmission, where one person spreads the virus to another and that person continues to pass it on. A related concern is how often people with no symptoms are infecting others. On Thursday, scientists reported that a Chinese woman who was not ill at the time spread the virus to a man in Germany during a business trip there, and that he in turn infected several other coworkers before showing any symptoms. A child of one of the workers also is infected now. This so-called asymptomatic transmission "puts a terrible burden on the screening process," which has heavily relied on symptoms to detect cases and track close contacts to limit spread, Fauci said. If the virus can move extensively from person to person or without causing symptoms, "it will spread further and perhaps for longer than we initially hoped," said Dr. Ashish Jha, a Harvard University global health professor. DEATH RATE The mortality rate looks like 2% to 3% but could be much lower if many mild cases or infections with no symptoms are going undetected, Fauci said. SARS proved fatal in about 10% of cases. The flu's mortality rate is only 0.1%, yet it kills hundreds of thousands around the world each year because it infects millions, Lipsitch noted. So the size of the outbreak can matter as much as the lethality of the virus in terms of how many deaths ultimately occur, he said. INCUBATION PERIOD Chinese scientists estimate the average incubation period to be roughly five days, but said it could last up to two weeks. A clerk wearing a face mask and a plastic bag stands in a pharmacy in Wuhan in central China's Hubei Province, Friday, Jan. 31, 2020. The U.S. advised against all travel to China as the number of cases of a worrying new virus spiked more than tenfold in a week, including the highest death toll in a 24-hour period reported Friday. (AP Photo/Arek Rataj) Such a long potential incubation period can be a problem, Webster said. "People can move away from where they contracted it and not even remember" places where they may have been exposed, he said. TESTING GAPS It's still a struggle to determine who is or is not infected. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a test, but lacks enough confidence in its accuracy to make it widely available. Too little is known about possible methodsthroat or nose swabs versus blood or other samplesand how many false alarms or missed cases each might give at any point in time. "If we had an absolutely accurate test that was very sensitive and very specific, then we could just test people and say, 'OK, we're good to go,'" Fauci said at the news conference. "We don't know the accuracy of this test." That leaves a key gap, Lipsitch said. "Any factor that makes it harder to be sure if someone is a case or not makes control harder," he said. Explore further How contagious is the Wuhan coronavirus and can you spread it before symptoms start? 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. -Governments disinvestment target for FY21 now hinges on listing LIC-Over the years, LIC has been the lifeline for the Governments disinvestment program-LIC will be Indias most valuable firm if listed-Listing LIC will improve Government finances, enhance corporate governanceThe Union Budget 2020 proposes to sell a part of the governments holding in Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) by way of Initial Public Offer (IPO). This was the most positive announcement amongst the measures announced for the financial sector and could go down in the history as real big reform if it paves the way for privatisation of the insurance behemoth. While it wouldnt be an easy task, we assess and try to understand why listing LIC is imperative, how it can help unlock value and most importantly how much it can add to the governments kitty. Over the years, LIC has become the lender of last resort to the Government of India. Thanks to its huge corpus of funds, LIC has been the governments go-to lender for all its funding needs. It has come to the governments rescue in capitalising state-run banks (LIC holds equity stake in many public sector banks), bailing out a weaker company (it bought the troubled IDBI bank) and investing in various Government initiatives (it subscribed to UDAY bonds and invested in National Investment and Infrastructure Fund). Additionally, LIC has been the lifeline for the Governments disinvestment programme for many years now. Successive governments earlier the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and now the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in an unprecedented manner have used LIC to meets its divestment agenda. Back in FY10, LIC accounted for more than half the money raised through disinvestment as it invested more than Rs 10,000 crore in Initial Public Offers and Follow-on Public Offers of state run companies. The reliance on LIC continues till date, whenever the government faces trouble in finding private takers of public companies. For instance, in March 2018, LIC subscribed to 70 percent of shares on offer in the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited IPO. Is the government right in treating LIC as a sovereign wealth fund and using its funds whenever required? Definitely not. The money that LIC manages is not the governments money. All of LICs money comes from the premium paid by policyholders on which it has to offer competitive returns. While LICs investment decisions are supposedly backed by a due diligence process, its pretty clear that it obeys government diktats. The insurance and pension funds of millions of policyholders demands far greater transparency and accountability. Since LIC is entrusted with the hard earned savings of the people of India, creating a culture where shareholders exercise control over the company run by professional managers is a must. And this can only be achieved by listing LIC. That said, we have also seen that many public sector undertakings that are listed and have board-driven mechanisms are not totally independent of the Government. We have to hope, therefore, that LICs listing announcement is not just to raise funds but also to help achieve the real objectives of the governments disinvestment programme, which also includes improving corporate governance of the public entity, as put up on the website of Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM). Listing LIC could also help reduce costs of the exchequer. LIC does not need capital today, but given the rate at which it is used as the governments financier, at some point in time in future a situation may well arise where the government might have to fund its savior. History will render its own verdict on Mr Arun Jaitleys performance as finance minister between 2014 and 2019. However, the shepherd of many legislative accomplishments hinted at something big at the Diamond Jubilee celebrations of the LIC in September 2016 when he said that If LIC is listed, it would be the most valued company in the country with the highest valuation as well as one of the largest across the world. LIC continues to be advantaged by its status under special legislation (it is not a company), with an explicit government guarantee for all sums which it assures. Thanks to this, LIC enjoys market leadership even as India opened up the insurance sector to private players 19 years ago. It is a monolith with an investment book of around Rs 29 trillion as at end March-19, more than the total assets under management of the entire mutual fund industry. Though private insurers are catching up fast, LIC continues to have a giant market share. LIC has continued to lead the market with a 66.24 percent of the market share in total first year premium and 75 percent in new policies in FY19. ICICI Prudential life, which is cheapest of the three listed life players is trading at 40 percent of assets under management. Given LICs strong market position and financials today, it may command a valuation of around Rs 8-10 lakh crore (assuming 30 -40 percent of AUM), making it Indias largest company by market capitalisation. This implies that divesting 5-10 percent stake and eventually bringing down stake to 50-60 percent can help put government finances in a better shape. However, listing LIC wouldnt be an easy task and calls for a political will. LIC is a statutory corporation set up by an act of Parliament passed in 1956. As a first step, the act needs to be repealed and LIC has to be converted into a company. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in April 2018 has asked the Indian government to remove the explicit sovereign guarantee on every LIC policy and convert LIC into a company. Earlier, the Financial Sector Legislative Reforms Commission (FSLRC) had given the same advice to the former UPA government. Given the dire state of the economy and sluggish tax revenues, government finances need a big shot in the arm and listing LIC could be just what the doctor ordered. For more research articles, visit our Moneycontrol Research page The Yakima School District canceled a student exchange trip to China due to growing concern over the novel coronavirus outbreak. A group of 8 students, two teachers and two administrators were due to travel to Macao, China, in mid-February in order to experience the culture and the Hou Kong Schools system. The Yakima teachers were expected to observe and co-teach in high school classrooms there. The trip was canceled Jan. 23 as the novel coronavirus, first reported in Wuhan, China, in late December, continued to spread both locally and overseas, said Yakima School District communications director Kirsten Fitterer. Macao is an autonomous region on the south coast of China near Hong Kong. It is nearly 600 miles south of Wuhan, the epicenter of the virus outbreak. The cancellation was at the suggestion of Hou Kong Schools, which had extended a school break for Chinese New Year in light of the rapidly spreading virus, said Fitterer. Yakima administrators had not yet bought airline tickets for the trip. The exchange was part of a pilot program in which students from Hou Kong Schools visited Yakima schools and stayed with the families of students in December. Students who hosted Chinese students in Yakima were expected to stay with the families of the students they had hosted for a week. The parents of the (Yakima) students were disappointed but understood (the decision) and some expressed that they were thankful that the trip was not going to take place, said Fitterer. At the time the decision was made, there wasnt as much information as there is now, but we were anticipating that it could get much worse, and it has. So were happy about the decision that was made by Hou Kong Schools. Fitterer said she had not received updates from Hou Kong Schools since the trip had been canceled and did not know if they had been further impacted by the virus. She said Yakima schools hope to reschedule the trip later, once it is advisable to travel to Macao again. On Thursday, the World Health Organization declared the respiratory virus a public health emergency of international concern. The status is declared if an event poses a public health threat to other nations through the spread of disease and potentially requires a coordinated international response, according to the Centers for Disease Control. As of Friday, 11,800 cases had been confirmed globally, 106 of which were outside China, according to the WHO. China is one of 20 countries where the virus has now been identified. There have been 259 casualties in China. A Central Washington University student in Ellensburg is in voluntary isolation and is being tested for coronavirus. The student had traveled internationally before returning to campus and becoming ill. On the morning of December 26, Wuhan-based respiratory expert, Zhang Jixian, 54, diagnosed four people including three from the same family with a new kind of flu. They had one thing in common on x-ray, their lungs appeared similarly distressed with pneumonia. Next day, three more patients came to her with the same symptoms. Zhang Jixian was alerted. What particularly worried her was that members of the same family were getting the disease. It meant one thing the disease was infectious. In general, there will only be one patient when a family visits a doctor, and three people will not get the same disease at the same time unless it is an infectious disease, she said. Four among the first seven patients of this new kind of pneumonia had one more thing in common the Huanan seafood and meat market which also traded in wildlife. Unknown to her, Zhang had become the first doctor in the world to diagnose and then track the novel Coronavirus, which in the next five weeks would kill over 300 and affected more than 14,000 globally. A month later, Zhang is now a hero in China. On Sunday, the Wuhan-based Yangtze River Daily became one of the first media to interview her. Since Zhangs interview in Chinese went online on Sunday, it had been read 420 million times and 93000 threads of discussions on it were active on Chinas Twitter-like Weibo platforms. Zhang, described as mild mannered and gentle, is the director of the Respiratory and Critical Care department of the Hubei provincial hospital. This is a disease we have never seen before. There were also four patients from the south China seafood market. This was definitely a problem, Zhang recounted to the local daily about her first encounter with the deadly virus. She said in all seven patients, the symptoms in the lungs were consistent with only difference in severity. Zhang realised that the situation was abnormal, and immediately reported to the hospital, and suggested that the hospital hold a multi-department consultation. It has been verified that those seven cases of pneumonia were the very first cases of the novel Coronavirus. In the next few days, Zhangs hands were full. By New Years Day, these nine isolation beds (in the hospital) were not enough, Zhang said. Soon a team of experts from different hospitals in the city were coordinating their efforts to track the disease. Since the discovery of the first cases, Zhang directed all respiratory medical staff to wear masks. The hospital approved N95 professional protective masks for their department. We only wear N95 when we enter that area. Other areas are still general medical masks, she said. As early as December 31, doctors dealing with the new pneumonia were using protective and isolation clothes when treating the patients. Zhang said that the experience in protection against infectious diseases is rooted in SARS. When fighting SARS in 2003, when she was 37 years old, she was a member of the expert group in a local district. Her daily task was to go to various hospitals to investigate suspects. 02.02.2020 LISTEN Mother Africa should not in any way be happy for UKs exit from the European Union (EU), rather, she must rethink of what she can do to protect herself from the canines (a type of teeth) of the British. Africa must also be the hen with chicks who will cover her young with wings. Protect yourself, dear Africa, from the wild animal left out of the pen, prowling around like a rolling lion looking for some to devour. Have you thought of why the UK will leave the Union? The answer is simple, in the union, there is no nation to dominate. Why will a country who feels threatened looking at the way China is overtaking Africa as they claim will continue to live among equals with no substantial gains?. The UK feels insecure about China doing business with most African countries. Like that gentleman spoke during the UK-Africa Investment Summit 2020 all fingers are not equal, this is to say that although the UK is investing in Africa African countries must bear in mind that they are not as equal to the UK's. The UK exit from the EU must spark Africans thinking.. African countries must begin to strategize ways to deal with UK. Africa is rich with no doubts and this they are aware of. Ghana must be more careful when accepting gifts from the UK, the string attached to those gifts will surely pull you back. There is something the UK is not getting from the EU but knows that Africa has them. She will do everything to have them. Yes! UK will not have governors in Africa anymore but believe you me that they will colonize our minds, and by this they have colonized Africa. Which country among the EU is UK going to control as long as she stays? Is it France, Germany or what? But UK must show to the world that she is powerful, and this she must do first by exiting from the EU and concentrate on Africa, a continent in which she can control and show how powerful UK is to the world. UKs exits from the EU mean a lot and Africa must be ready for them. Africans, No longer savages like before! From the pen of Emmanuel Graham Nyameke. One of the biggest questions among City Hall insiders last week was why Public Works Director Mohammed Nuru would risk up to 20 years in jail, the loss of his reputation and worse his pension on a two-bit bribery scheme aimed at helping a friend open a chicken shack at SFO. The answer may be buried deep in the federal criminal complaint and involves rolling the dice on an even bigger play down the line. Heres the story. Nuru made a career of doing favors, even if it meant bending the rules a bit to get the job done. If Civic Center or some street was a mess and you needed it cleaned up that night for a big opening, you would call Mohammed and it would get done, said Stanlee Gatti, one of the citys leading event planners. Sometimes he would cut corners, and we would ask him, Is this legitimate? But it always appeared to be for the public good, said one Public Works higher-up who asked not to be named because of the investigation. There was never any talk, however, of Nuru, who makes $273,406 a year, asking for cash. Emerald Fund developer Oz Erickson, a major developer in town, backed that up. Never once has anyone told me he was asking for bribes, and Ive built 3,000 units of housing in this city since 1979 and worked with a lot of contractors, Erickson said. And nowhere in the 75-page criminal complaint against Nuru and his alleged partner in crime, restaurateur Nick Bovis, is there mention of Nuru taking money. As Bovis told FBI undercover operatives wearing wires, Nuru knows how to cover his back on all this stuff so its not a conflict or nothing, according to the complaint. Instead, Nuru is accused of accepting favors and gifts. According to federal investigators, Nuru used his City Hall position to help a billionaire Chinese developer and hotel magnate Zhang Li deal with problems at the Department of Building Inspection over defective glass panels he was using at a condominium and mixed-use project at 555 Fulton St. In return, the complaint states, Nuru was treated to first-class vacations in China and South America. He doesnt give money or anything, Nuru said of the developer in an FBI wiretap. He lets us stay in his hotels and stuff. He makes all the arrangements for us, which is good. And nice places, Nuru is quoted as saying in the criminal complaint. The most serious charges revolve around Nuru and his longtime friend Bovis, owner of the now-closed Leftys Ballpark Buffet and Gold Dust Lounge. Theyre accused of conspiracy for allegedly trying to bribe former Airport Commissioner Linda Crayton to help Bovis and two FBI informants win a lease for a chicken restaurant at San Francisco International Airport. Nuru allegedly also gave Bovis inside information to help him bid on Public Works contracts for public toilets and homeless shelters. And, the FBI says, the two cooked up a scheme in which Bovis, whose Fishermans Wharf restaurant was hurting, would supply meal vouchers to Public Works employees working on Thanksgiving. Nuru would later reimburse Bovis for half of the cost of the free tickets out of his department budget, the FBI says. A company that pours concrete for Public Works projects also provided employees to work on Nurus Colusa County vacation home near Mendocino National Forest, the complaint alleges. Pretty much small potatoes, by criminal standards. Maybe it was hubris, or ego. He just saw himself as being the guy who can get things done, the Public Works source said. Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts. Or, maybe there was a grander scheme at work, like building a casino together with the help of Chinese investors. Buried deep in the FBI documents is a snippet of a conversation between Nuru and Bovis, in which they talk about their plans to build a casino on 147 acres at an undisclosed Northern California location. In one phone tap, Nuru and Bovis discuss a photograph of the site. Its huge, Nuru says. Yeah, I can get, I can get the guys to help them with the casino license for sure, Bovis says. The transcript doesnt spell out who the guys are that Bovis is referring to, but later in the conversation Nuru tells Bovis he has a contact whos getting me all the information through those guys, these guys. ... These guys, they own casinos in, uh, China. Doing favors for wealthy China hotel developers who might help swing a casino deal? Now that would have been a real payoff. San Francisco Chronicle columnist Phil Matier appears Sundays and Wednesdays. Matier can be seen on the KGO-TV morning and evening news and can also be heard on KCBS radio Monday through Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 5:50 p.m. Got a tip? Call 415-777-8815, or email pmatier@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @philmatier Of the five patients suspected to have symptoms of coronavirus in Haryana in recent days, one test result has come out as negative, a senior health department official said here on Sunday. Out of these five, one patient has been admitted in the isolation ward at Kalpana Chawla Government Medical College in Karnal. All the five patients had recently travelled to China, Director General, Health Services, Haryana, Dr Suraj Bhan Kamboj told PTI over phone. The samples have been sent to the National Institute of Virology in Pune and the reports of the other four patients is awaited, he said. Besides, there are 24 other people hailing from Haryana who do not have any symptoms, but are under observation of the health authorities in view of their recent travel history to China. Kamboj said health authorities were fully geared up to deal with any situation and isolation wards had already been set up in government and private hospitals and medical colleges. The health officials were also holding regular meetings with deputy commissioners of the districts for taking stock of readiness to deal with any situation and also to generate awareness amongst the public. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Agartala, Feb 2 : The CPI-M would undertake 48-day long door-to-door campaign from February 4 against the NRC and NPR, party's central committee member Gautam Das announced on Sunday. According to Das, Tripura state secretary of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), the 48-day long door-to-door campaign against the NRC (National Register of Citizens) and NPR (National Population Register) would culminate on March 23, when three heroes of India -- Bhagat Singh, Shivaram Rajguru, Sukhdev Thapar -- were hanged to death by the British. "At least 12 times within and outside the Parliament (Home Minister) Amit Shah announced to introduce NRC in the entire country, now the Prime Minister said they never said anything like this. As part of our nation-wide move, we would ask the people not to fall in the mischievous trap of the RSS and Modi-Amit Shah conspiracy to make the genuine Indian a doubtful citizen," the Left leader told the media after a two-day CPI-M Tripura state committee meeting. He claimed that the RSS is keen to drive out Muslims and Christians from the country and they are also ideologically against Dalits, scheduled caste and scheduled tribe communities. "As they follow 'Manusmriti' (Manu's code on social practice), RSS's main motto is to split people on religious and ethnic lines," Das said that after the BJP government came to power in Tripura in March 2018, a total lawlessness prevailed in the state. "Attacks on the CPI-M party offices, homes and business establishments, which had started after the BJP came to power in Tripura, continued unabated. Police remained a silent spectator and averse to register FIR of the crime. To divert people's mind over the complete non-performance of the BJP government, without any proof, evidence and basis police had arrested veteran CPI-M leader and former Minister Badal Choudhury only to harass him and to malign the previous Left government. "The High Court on Saturday granted bail to Choudhury as the police failed to submit any chargesheets against the sitting legislator even after 105-days of his arrest," Das said. Source: Xinhua| 2020-02-02 12:11:11|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close CARACAS, Feb. 1 (Xinhua) -- Supporters of former President Hugo Chavez will hold demonstrations during the first week of February, Dario Vivas, vice president of events and mobilizations for Venezuela's ruling United Socialist Party (PSUV), , announced on Saturday. On Saturday, demonstrations honoring Ezequiel Zamora, hero of the Federal War (1859-1863) and an inspiration to the Chavista movement which was started by Chavez's supporters, took place in the cities of Caracas and Cua. Vivas said that the Chavista movement on Sunday would celebrate the 21st anniversary of Chavez's "control of the government for the first time." Demonstrations commemorating Antonio Jose de Sucre, a prominent figure in Venezuelan and South American independence movements, will be held on Feb. 3, Vivas added. "On February 4, people will celebrate the Day of Dignity," Vivas said, referring to the day marking Chavez-led uprising against former President Carlos Andres Perez in 1992. These demonstrations are taking place at a time when "oligarchy is attacking the Venezuelan people and is trying to do away with peace and tranquility," Vivas said. Two small legal practices have moved into downtown office buildings. The Baton Rouge offices of Irwin Fritchie Urquhart & Moore are now located on the 11th floor of the Chase North Tower, attorney Matt Bailey told the Downtown Development District Board Tuesday. Sprinkle Law Firm has moved into One American Place, said attorney Richard Sprinkle. Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Sunday slammed Twitter and Google for the rise in trolling networks and scams via fake bots on both the platforms. In a series of tweets, Musk said that desperate times call for desperate measures. The crypto scam level on Twitter is reaching new levels. This is not cool, Musk reacted to a followers tweet. Report as soon as you see it. Troll/bot networks on Twitter are a *dire* problem for adversely affecting public discourse and ripping people off, he continued. He also criticised Google for allowing scammers to flourish. Trolls/bots just need to be deemphasized relative to probable real people who arent being paid to push an agenda or scam. Google still shows bs/scam pages, theyre just several clicks away, Musk stressed. He said that though Google applied the citation relevance principle aka PageRank, among many other things, the safest place to hide a dead body is the second page of Google search results! PageRank is an algorithm used by Google Search to rank web pages in their search engine results. PageRank was named after Larry Page, one of the founders of Google. Musks tweets led to a flood of reactions on social media. Some even suggested him to start his own social media platform. Even verified accounts are now being hacked and pushing fake bitcoin scams, that have us included in the fake screenshots, Jesus christ, tweeted Niche Gamer. Ive been reporting hundreds of scammers in 1.5 years but @Twitter has to get rid of them once and for all. Theyre getting more and more clever, though... with these fake screenshots, tweeted another user. Scammers have time and again abused Musks popularity to fleece Twitter users after hacking several popular accounts. The hackers used Musks name and likeness to ask for Bitcoin -- a cryptocurrency -- by promoting an ad on Twitter in 2018. Despite Twitter attempting to ban scammers and impersonators on its platform, one impersonator broke into Musks official account with a fake lookalike verified account, promising his 22.5 million followers free Bitcoin and ethereum cryptocurrencies. Democratic lawmakers have introduced a bill in the Wisconsin Legislature that would require utility regulators to consider the social costs of carbon emissions when evaluating new power plants and transmission lines. The bill would not create a tax on carbon emissions. It would assign a dollar value to the economic harms and other socialized costs of carbon dioxide emissions, the primary cause of climate change. It would set that cost at $50 a ton, subject to revision by the Public Service Commission, which would have to consider those costs when deciding if utility projects are in the best interest of ratepayers. The PSC would be required to submit an annual report on its evaluations of the social costs. The vast majority of scientists agree that the earths climate is warming at an unprecedented pace, primarily as a result of human activity namely, carbon dioxide released from burning fossil fuels. Melting polar ice is expected to raise sea levels by as much as 3.6 feet, while a warmer atmosphere will produce more powerful storms. The bills primary sponsor, Rep. Greta Neubauer, said Wisconsin is already feeling the effects. Neubauer, a second-term Democrat from Racine, pointed to storms that raked the Lake Michigan coastline in January, causing an estimated $30 million in damage to public infrastructure. We need to be making long-term decisions in Wisconsin that include externalities, and I know that these decisions will benefit repairs in the long term, Neubauer said. Communities across the state are still rebuilding from multiple rounds of devastating storms and flooding in recent years, and engineers are re-examining design standards to ensure roads, bridges and sewers can handle heavier rains. There are hard financial costs finding their way into property tax bills, said Scott Blankman, director of energy and air programs for Clean Wisconsin, which supports the bill. Insurance industries are factoring this in. Blankman said it makes sense to consider these costs when deciding whether to add more carbon to the atmosphere. Rather than not even acknowledge there is a cost to carbon, why dont you explicitly incorporate a cost of carbon into decision-making? he said. If youre looking at making long-term decisions as the Public Service Commission is doing why not take that into account? 2008 mandate The idea has been around since the early 1990s, and there are at least 58 initiatives around the world to implement a carbon tax or trading system, including the states of California, Massachusetts, Virginia and Washington, according to the World Bank. The federal government has used the social cost of carbon to evaluate the benefits of regulation since a 2008 court decision required it. This is not a new issue, said Robin Lisowski, director of research and innovation for the Madison consulting firm Slipstream. And yet the World Bank estimates only 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions are covered by carbon pricing, and just 5% of those are priced at levels consistent with meeting the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement, which seeks to limit the extent of climate change. In Wisconsin, carbon pricing has been used in some state-level analyses, such as evaluating the cost-effectiveness of conservation and energy efficiency measures, and Blankman, a former officer with Alliant Energy, said utilities do consider it as part of their internal long-range planning. Neubauers bill would be the first to require it as a factor in the regulatory process. Natural gas Greg Nemet, a professor with UW-Madisons La Follette School of Public Affairs who studies environmental policy, said $50 is in line with the broader climate impacts. While its unlikely that any utility will seek to build another coal plant, Nemet said $50 a ton could make it harder to approve a new natural gas plant. In January, the PSC authorized Dairyland Power Cooperative to build a $700 million natural gas generating station in Superior after rejecting calls to consider the estimated 2.7 million tons of annual carbon emissions on the grounds that it didnt have the authority to do so. Blankman said a social cost consideration would only underscore the economic advantages of solar and wind, which in most cases have the lowest lifetime costs of any source of electricity, but could speed the adoption of utility-scale batteries. The economic arguments are already present, he said. Where I see this coming into play is how businesses, utilities and others look at energy storage. No one number While it makes sense to account for the costs of carbon, that may not be the best method of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, said Paul Kelleher, a professor of philosophy and bioethics at UW-Madison who is writing a book on the subject. Kelleher said theres too much uncertainty over how to account for all the potential impacts. Some economists put the cost as high as $805 per ton, while the Trump administration has lowered the number it uses to a range of just $1 to $6 a ton. There is no one number, he said. A better approach, Kelleher said, would be to set a goal of net-zero emissions and figure out the lowest-cost way to get there. The social cost of carbon has theoretical issues and is contentious, and those debates arent going to be resolved in the time frame we have to address climate change, he said. And we dont need to know what the social cost of carbon is to know that we need to get to net zero. A citizen summons So far Clean Wisconsin is the only organization to register in support of Neubauers bill. The Wisconsin Utilities Association, the trade group representing the states investor-owned utilities has not taken a position on the bill, said executive director Bill Skewes. The PSC has not taken a position on the bill, but spokesman Matt Sweeney said the agency would comply if required by the legislature. But Neubauer said constituents are pushing for action. Weve gotten a lot of public support from around the state so we know that the public pressure is building, Neubauer said. We know that the time will come in Wisconsin for renewable energy. The question is just whether we take advantage of the opportunity right now to create good jobs and get ahead of this issue. Outlook murky With no Republicans among the two dozen sponsors, the bills chances of passing before the legislative session expires next month are not good. Rep. Mike Kuglitsch, who chairs the Assemblys committee on energy and utilities, did not respond to a question about whether the bill would get a hearing. Regardless of whether her bill passes, Neubauer said its time to begin talking about the social costs of climate change. I think its a critical conversation. People are feeling the impacts of climate change around the state, Neubauer said. Were making decisions in state government with the understanding that were feeling increased impacts of extreme weather in Wisconsin and I believe that that should be formalized and discussed. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 China, and some other countries, including the United Kingdom and the United States, are battling the outbreak of coronavirus. The outbreak which is spreading fast to other countries started in a food market in China. Within the short period, over 10,000 cases have been recorded in at least 17 countries with over 200 deaths confirmed. The coronavirus outbreak has been declared a global health emergency by theWorld Health Organization (WHO). Following the reports of the outbreak, the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) issued a travel advisory to Nigerias airports users. The federal agency called on passengers in the country and other airport users to comply with all quarantine procedures. An inter-ministerial dialogue meeting was also been convened by the Federal Ministry of Health to develop a national action plan on the coronavirus also known as 2019-nCoV. The meeting was led by the minister of state for health, Osagie Ehanire, with federal and state stakeholders in attendance. According to the commissioner for health in Lagos, Professor Akin Abayomi, who made the information about the meeting available via his official Twitter handle, several key decisions to tighten and enhance surveillance against the importation of the virus into Nigeria were taken by the health stakeholders. Professor Abayomi added that he is part of the sub-committee tasked to develop the master plan on the virus. However, in the early hours of Saturday, February 1, rumours started flying around that a coronavirus virus case has been confirmed in Lagos, particularly in Lekki. Some of the reports about the alleged coronavirus case claimed that a suspected carrier is being quarantined at a hospital in Lekki. There is no case of Coronavirus virus in Lagos, the special assistant to Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu on health, Oreoluwa Finnih, has confirmed. According to Lagos governors aide, a Nigerian man returned from a business trip to China two days ago. Upon his return, his employers mandated him to go for a thorough checkup at their hospital. The unnamed man was examined found asymptomatic, that is, he did not show any symptoms of coronavirus. He was subsequently cleared after several laboratory tests were conducted. The China returnee was, however, advised to self-quarantine for 14 days. Director James Gunn says he plans to "wrap up" stories he started in "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 1" with the upcoming third installment in the franchise. Gunn has penned and directed both the "Guardians..." movies, and is all set to return for the third part soon after finishing "The Suicide Sqaud" reimagining. "If everything goes to plan it will wrap up the stories I started in Guardians 1," Gunn wrote on Instagram in response to a fan's question about the much-anticipated Marvel Studios project. Disney reinstated Gunn as the director of the "Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol 3" in March 2019, almost a year after he was fired by the Marvel Studios' parent company after his old, offensive tweets resurfaced on social media. "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" has yet to set a release. The franchise features Hollywood stars Chris Pratt as Peter Quill aka Star Lord, Dave Bautista as Drax the Destroyer, Zoe Saldana as Gamora, Bradley Cooper as Rocket Racoon and Vin Diesel as Groot. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Health officials in the Philippines reported the first new coronavirus death outside of China on Sunday as Manila announced an upgraded ban on travelers from the Asian superpower. In a news conference, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said the patient, a 44-year-old Chinese man was admitted to San Lazaro Hospital in Manila on Jan. 25 after experiencing fever, cough and sore throat. He tested positive for the coronavirus and died Saturday. Over the course of the patients admission he developed severe pneumonia. In his last few days, the patient was stable and showed signs of improvement. However, the condition of the patient deteriorated within the last 24 hours, resulting in his demise, Duque told reporters. He said the patient was the companion of the first confirmed case of the coronavirus in the country, a 38-year-old Chinese woman. She has been isolated and remains under observation. This is the first reported death outside China. However, we need to keep in mind that this is not a locally acquired case. This patient came from the epicenter of the outbreak, Wuhan, China, said Dr. Rabi Abeyasinghe, World Health Organization representative in the Philippines. Duque said his office is coordinating with the Chinese Embassy to possibly cremate the mans remains. Health department spokesman Eric Domingo said personnel who came in contact with the couple at the San Lazaro government hospital near the health department practiced stringent infection control measures. Domingo also said the agencys epidemiology bureau is tracing passengers who were on the same flights as the couple who traveled to the Philippines from Wuhan through Hong Kong on Jan. 21. The persons under investigation have not been increasing rapidly, Domingo said. With the ban now ordered by the president, it will be a lot easier for us because we would be looking for fewer people coming into the Philippines. President Rodrigo Duterte on Sunday widened his earlier ban on travelers from China to include all of the mainland along with Hong Kong and Macau. Personnel at Manilas Ninoy Aquino International Airport wear face masks as a precaution against the new coronavirus from China, Jan. 23, 2020. [Jojo Rinoza/BenarNews] Coronavirus spreads More than 14,600 cases, mostly in China, and more than 300 deaths related to the coronavirus have been confirmed as of Sunday, according to a tracking map created by Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Those numbers on Friday were about 9,700 cases and more than 200 deaths. Since last week, the Philippines has placed 36 people under observation for possible infection. While the couple tested positive, 30 were negative and results have not been received for the other four. Elsewhere, other countries have taken similar steps to stem the flow of visitors from China, especially those traveling from Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province. On Sunday, the Indonesian government flew 243 Indonesians from Hubei province and placed them under quarantine at a military base on Natuna Besar island northwest of Borneo, leading to protests from about 200 people who burned tires, Reuters news service reported. Indonesia also barred entry to visitors who have been in China for 14 days, announcing a plan to stop all stop flights temporarily to and from mainland China starting Wednesday, according to the news service. On Thursday, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a global emergency. Authorities said the infections had surpassed the total in the 2002-2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) epidemic, which killed about 800 people. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have officially left the royal family, and though the royals continue to do business as usual, things probably havent been that easy. Certainly, with such a big move, there are many things that take months to iron out. Prince William and Kate Middleton continue to perform their royal duties without the Sussexes, but one fashion expert revealed that royal family members have changed their outfits to reflect the mournful mood of Harry and Meghans exit. Queen Elizabeth, Prince Harry, and Meghan Markle | Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images Harry and Meghan officially left the family in January When Harry and Meghan returned from their six-week break from royal life, it seemed like things would be business as usual. But the royal couple had something else on their mind: a royal departure. After dealing with the crippling media for the last two years, Harry and Meghan had finally decided theyd had enough of the negativity. The couple ultimately chose to remove themselves from the royal family and settle down on Vancouver Island in British Columbia. It was a shock to some, but ultimately, it isnt all that surprising. The royals have continued their duties without the Sussexes Despite Meghan and Harrys departure heard around the world, the royals havent slowed down in their duties. Prince William and Kate Middleton have, if anything, stepped things up. The Cambridges have been posting to their Instagram account more than ever, and it seems like theyve actually taken on more duties since Harry and Meghans departure (though this is unclear). They will definitely have to find a new normal now that such important members of the family have left. One fashion expert suggests the queen has been mourning the Sussex exit Things are set in stone, but it wasnt an easy decision. And since Harry and Meghans departure announcement, the queen has been dressing to reflect the mournful mood, at least, thats what fashion expert and lecturer Anthony McGrath thinks. McGrath suggests that the queen has avoided wearing the bold colors she normally wears to show signs of sadness over the couples departure. Since Harry and Meghans announcement to leave the UK for a life in Canada, the clothing worn by the Queen, in particular, has changed to reflect their slightly mournful mood, McGrath said, per Insider. On the contrary, though, McGrath said that Kate has been beaming; shes worn bolder, brighter fashion choices than usual, possibly to show that shes taking her role even more seriously. The palace reportedly has a plan in case Harry and Meghan come back Though it would be a surprise if Meghan and Harry decided to return to royal life, the palace reportedly does have a plan in place on the off chance that happens. Harry and Meghan will be subject to much more paparazzi now that theyve left the United Kingdom, and it could prove too much for them. For now, though, the two are starting to settle into their new home, and theyll likely be there for at least a while. But if plans change, the queen will know what to do. Seems fishy? Turns out there is nothing there. The prosecutor was not investigating the company and it was official U.S. policy, in line with that of U.S. allies, international organizations and key members of Congress, that the Ukrainian prosecutor general should go. He was not pushed out because he was investigation corruption but because he was failing to do so. Congress was thoroughly briefed at the time about the prosecutor general and the then-vice presidents activities. And there is nothing to indicate Joe Biden did anything on behalf of his son in Ukraine. Groundhog Club co-handler Al Dereume holds Punxsutawney Phil, the weather prognosticating groundhog, during the 134th celebration of Groundhog Day on Gobbler's Knob in Punxsutawney, Pa., on Feb. 2, 2020. (Barry Reeger/AP Photo) Pennsylvania Groundhog Declares Early Spring A Certainty PUNXSUTAWNEY, Pa.Pennsylvanias most famous groundhog on Feb. 2 declared: Spring will be early, its a certainty. At sunrise on Groundhog Day, members of Punxsutawney Phils top hat-wearing inner circle revealed the cuddly oracles predictionhis 134th, according to the Pennsylvania Tourism Office. Awoken by the crowds chants of Phil! the groundhog was hoisted in the air for the assembly to hail before making his decision. He then grasped the glove of a handler as a member of his inner circle announced that spring would come early this year. Groundhog Club co-handler Al Dereume holds Punxsutawney Phil, the weather prognosticating groundhog, during the 134th celebration of Groundhog Day on Gobblers Knob in Punxsutawney, Pa., on Feb. 2, 2020. (Barry Reeger/AP Photo) The annual event has its origin in a German legend that says if a furry rodent casts a shadow on Feb. 2, winter continues. If not, spring comes early. In reality, Phils prediction is decided ahead of time by the group on Gobblers Knob, a tiny hill just outside Punxsutawney. Thats about 65 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. Groundhog Club co-handler Al Dereume holds Punxsutawney Phil, the weather prognosticating groundhog, during the 134th celebration of Groundhog Day on Gobblers Knob in Punxsutawney, Pa., on Feb. 2, 2020. (Barry Reeger/AP Photo) Over the past five yearsfrom 2015 through 2019Phil has predicted six more weeks of winter thrice and an early spring twice. According to records dating back to 1887, the Pennsylvanian prognosticator has predicted more winter more than 100 times, making this years forecast a rare one overall. Phils prediction was mirrored by one of his fellow groundhogs in New York. At the Staten Island Zoo, schoolchildren and elected officials cheered Sunday morning as a curtain was pulled back at a glass enclosure containing Staten Island Chuck. He also didnt see his shadow. One hundred and thirty samples have so far been tested in the countrys apex laboratory - Indian Council of Medical Researchs National Institute of Virology in Pune, of which 128 have returned negative for coronavirus even as the Union health ministry on Sunday confirmed a second positive case of the virus in India. The second case has also been reported from Kerala, and the man has a travel history from the outbreak city of Wuhan in China. Second positive case of Novel Coronavirus patient, has been reported in Kerala. The patient has a travel history from China.The patient has tested positive for Novel Coronavirus and is in isolation in the hospital. The patient is stable and is being closely monitored, the health ministry said in a statement. The Government is maintaining strict surveillance of the suspected cases. Community surveillance is being done currently of 763 passengers, who have a travel history from China, in 26 states, said Preeti Sudan, Union health secretary. Meanwhile, another Air India flight with 323 Indians from China, particularly Wuhan city landed in Delhi Sunday morning. The flight has 323 Indians and 7 Maldives nationals also. Like it was done with the first batch, these will also be screened thoroughly and sent to the two quarantine facilities that have been created by the Army and ITBP. Samples from the first batch that arrived on Saturday have been taken and are under process, said Sudan. Dr R Gangakhedkar, epidemiology and communicable diseases head, ICMR, said research was on to check which vaccine and medicines could work against this new virus that has not been found in humans before. Globally scientists have been working since the time outbreak started. We have just got a case and the first thing that we are trying to do is isolate the virus, which means take out live virus from the sample and keep it alive outside in the laboratory, he said. Theres something called repurposing of a molecule using artificial intelligence to study which drug(s), among the currently available ones, can be effectively used against the new virus. It is too early to say conclusively which one would actually work. He warned that although scientists are working frenetically to develop a vaccine for coronavirus, it could take at least two years. Since the mortality rate is low of this disease, theres no urgent need to develop a medicine. As for vaccine, scientists globally are trying to develop one in next 3-4 months, but even if they act fast like in case of Ebola, it will still be at least 2 years before the vaccine is ready for human use, Dr Gangakhedkar added. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON On a busy day, Judge Ahmed might send several men to their deaths before lunchtime. At the Baghdad court where he works, he has presided over more than a thousand trials of suspected Isis members. Prisoners accused of belonging to one of the worlds most brutal terror organisations shuffle through the hallways wearing bright orange jumpsuits. They wait silently outside his courtroom and listen to those who go before them. The judge, who declined to give his name for security reasons, has seen before him unrepentant radicals and hardened killers, liars and psychopaths. He has also heard from defendants who say they joined the group just to survive. He has seen young men from Europe, who travelled thousands of miles to join the jihadi group at the height of its power and survived long enough to see its fall. And for some time now, he has been readying himself to deal with the small number of British prisoners currently held in Syria, whose fate has been the subject of controversy. There have been talks, he said, between Iraq and the UK government, about what to do with them. I am following their cases in the media, in case they are sent here. That way I know who they are, he added during an interview with The Independent in June. Syria at war: Fleeing the caliphate Show all 14 1 /14 Syria at war: Fleeing the caliphate Syria at war: Fleeing the caliphate Trucks full of women and children arrive from the last Isis-held areas in Deir ez-Zor, Syria Richard Hall/The Independent Syria at war: Fleeing the caliphate Zikia Ibrahim, 28, with her two-year-old son and 8-month-old daughter, after fleeing the Isis caliphate Richard Hall/The Independent Syria at war: Fleeing the caliphate Richard Hall/The Independent Syria at war: Fleeing the caliphate Men who fled the last Isis-held area of Syria line up to be questioned by American and Kurdish intelligence officials Richard Hall/The Independent Syria at war: Fleeing the caliphate Richard Hall/The Independent Syria at war: Fleeing the caliphate A young girl pulls her belongings after arriving Richard Hall/The Independent Syria at war: Fleeing the caliphate An SDF fighter hands out bread to women and children after they arrive Richard Hall/The Independent Syria at war: Fleeing the caliphate Sita Ghazzar, 70, after fleeing from the last Isis-held territory in Syria Richard Hall/The Independent Syria at war: Fleeing the caliphate A family from Russia who recently fled the last Isis-held area of Syria Richard Hall/The Independent Syria at war: Fleeing the caliphate Richard Hall/The Independent Syria at war: Fleeing the caliphate Richard Hall/The Independent Syria at war: Fleeing the caliphate Richard Hall/The Independent Syria at war: Fleeing the caliphate Richard Hall/The Independent Syria at war: Fleeing the caliphate Richard Hall/The Independent The judge listed some of the names from among the roughly 10 British men and 30 women currently being detained in Syria by Kurdish forces. Most of them were captured there in the final days of the caliphate, which fell in March last year. The British government, fearing that the alleged Isis members pose a serious security threat, do not want their citizens to return to the UK. But the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a mostly Kurdish militia that fought alongside the US and UK in the battle against Isis, says it cannot hold them forever. One solution being pursued behind closed doors by the government and other European states is to allow for the prisoners to be sent to face trial in Iraq. In May last year, seven French citizens were sentenced to death in Baghdad after being transferred from Syria. This solution is being pursued despite legal and human rights concerns that arise from sending prisoners to a country where they are likely to face the death penalty or be tortured. A new report released by the United Nations last week found further evidence of major flaws in the trials of suspected Isis members in Iraq. The Iraqi justice system has been overburdened by the sheer number of Isis-linked cases in the past few years. From January 2018 to October 2019 alone, the judiciary processed more than 20,000 terrorism-related cases, with thousands more pending as of today. The UN investigation found evidence of an overreliance on confessions, with frequent allegations of torture that were inadequately addressed. After monitoring nearly 800 trials between 1 May 2018 and 31 October last year, it said that violations of fair trial standards placed defendants at a serious disadvantage compared to the prosecution with ineffective legal representation and limited possibilities to present or challenge evidence. Detainees made allegations of torture in nearly half of the terrorism cases that were monitored. And in some 59 percent of cases, defendants withdrew confessions they had made during questioning. The report further alleged that prosecutions focused on membership of a terrorist organisation, without distinguishing between those who participated in violence, committed international crimes, and those who joined Isis for survival or through coercion. The UK government has, according to some sources, sought to protect itself from the legal problems that might arise should its citizens be sent to these courts, probably in order to avoid a repeat of previous War on Terror-era cases in which it faced legal issues for alleged complicity in the torture of British citizens. In 2010, Britain paid millions of pounds in an out-of-court settlement to former detainees of Guantanamo Bay, the US military prison in Cuba, after being accused of complicity in their torture. In negotiations with Iraqi officials, the UK and European allies have sought assurances from Iraqs president, Barham Salih, that he would not sign the death warrants of its citizens, according to an Iraq analyst with knowledge of the talks, and who asked not to be named. Such an agreement, it is hoped, would mean UK prisoners could be sent to Iraq without the risk of facing the death penalty. Those negotiations have stalled in the wake of mass protests that have paralysed Iraq, and amid a harsh crackdown by security forces, the analyst said. A government spokesperson declined to comment on the meetings, but told The Independent: Our priority is the safety and security of the UK and the people who live here. We continue to work closely with international partners to address issues associated with foreign terrorist fighters, including the pursuit of justice against participants in terrorism overseas. Those who have fought for or supported Daesh [Isis] should wherever possible face justice for their crimes in the most appropriate jurisdiction, which will often be in the region where their offences have been committed. The spokesperson added that UK has been clear that any justice mechanism must respect human rights and the rule of law as well as ensure fair trials and due process. But these talks were ongoing while serious concerns were being raised over how the Iraqi judicial system was handling the Isis trials. A number of trials of Isis members witnessed by The Independent in June lasted for no longer than 10 minutes. In one, a 24-year-old Iraqi named Mustafa Khalaf stood before the judge to proclaim his innocence. The court heard how he was arrested by the SDF in Baghouz, Syria, where Isis made its last stand. The prosecution produced a report from Iraqs intelligence service that said he was from an extremist family, and had been an active member of Isis. His name, they said, was in a central database which noted the salaries of Isis members he was listed as a fighter. The prosecution also presented a confession from the accused, which Khalaf denied giving. He claimed that he was trapped in Isis territory and that he had handed himself into authorities. He was sentenced to death by hanging. Men who fled the last Isis-held area of Syria line up to be questioned by American and Kurdish intelligence officials (Richard Hall) Belkis Wille, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch who authored several major reports on the Isis trials, found the same pattern of problems that the UN discovered. These trials havent been about accountability, they have been about revenge, she says. They simply do not comply with any fair trial standards. If they are sent to these courts, British prisoners could expect much of the same. The trials of the French citizens transferred from Syria offered some clues of how things might proceed. Broadly speaking, the French raised the same concerns that Iraqis were raising. What these proceedings taught us is that just because youre a foreigner, youre not going to get better treatment in Iraqs system. For now, while discussions between the Iraqi and British government have been put on hold, European diplomats are said to be exploring the possibility of allowing the Isis prisoners to fall into the hands of the Syrian government. Another option is the formation of an international tribunal in Syria a solution favoured by the SDF. This faces significant roadblocks, however, due to the Russian governments unwillingness to allow the ceding of any authority from its ally in Damascus. The final option, advocated by rights groups and the UN, is for European countries to bring home their citizens to face justice. This is not something the British government is believed to be considering. At a jail in northeast Syria in December, The Independent interviewed a number of British Isis prisoners who said they had not had any contact with the British authorities. Aseel Muthana, 22, and Ishak Mostefaoui, 27, are currently being held at a jail for Isis suspects in Hasakah. Neither were aware that they had been stripped of their citizenship, and were unaware of what would happen to them. Muthana, who was 17 when he joined Isis, said he believed he should be allowed to face justice in the UK. Honestly, I understand. Looking from their perspective, them not seeing what was happening inside Syria, I can understand why anybody wouldnt want us to come back. Me, for example, being in Syria for six years, coming back, you dont know what Im gonna come back with, what hes been taught, what hes capable of, he said. But then, they should be understanding too. When it comes to rapists or murderers or people who commit major crimes that the UK is more than happy to help them rehabilitate or reconcile their lives, fix things, make things better again, give them a second chance. It is more likely, still, that he will find himself before Judge Ahmed than in a British court. In the current market, it takes about three years of ownership for values to catch up to prices paid, according to Hagertys calculations. Also, as this relatively young market matures, more data becomes available as to the proper valuation of various offerings; it seems fewer people are willing to let emotions, which can run high at public auctions, bid prices much beyond accepted norms. Dear Editor, Open letter to the Laws and Rules Committee of the City of Kingston: We, members of Transition Town Kingston, N.Y., urge you to support and pass RiseUp Kingstons police accountability legislation. Transition Town initiatives include grassroots movements and all efforts made to create resilient, vibrant, sustainable and just communities for the future survival of all citizens. We believe this legislation is urgent for this city as it moves toward increased justice and equitability. It is based on common-sense thinking and relevance to all citizens and is the result of much hard work and commitment to police accountability on behalf of everyone. Jenny Bates Kingston, N.Y. The writer is a member of the Transition Town Kingston. Here are todays top news, analysis and opinion at 1PM. Know all about the latest news and other news updates from Hindustan Times. 128 test negative as Indian scientists hunt for coronavirus medicine One hundred and thirty samples have so far been tested in the countrys apex laboratory - Indian Council of Medical Researchs National Institute of Virology in Pune, of which 128 have returned negative for coronavirus even as the Union health ministry on Sunday confirmed a second positive case of the virus in India. Read More The budget does not address the crisis of demand | Opinion This was the longest budget speech in Indias history of budget speeches. But two hours and 40 minutes later, the only thing we have clarity on is that the government is still not willing to offer a clear diagnosis, forget the much-needed prescription for an economy, which in the words of a former chief economic adviser, is headed for the intensive care unit, writes Yamini Aiyar Read More Ranbir Kapoors nagging forces Ayan Mukerji to confirm Brahmastra release date Alia Bhatt and Ranbir Kapoors film Brahmastra has finally got a new release date. Alia shared a new picture of them together along with Amitabh Bachchan and director Ayan Mukerji as she held a placard with the release date of the film written on it. The much delayed film is set to hit theatres on December 4 this year. Read More Rajasthan Royals explain on why they want to shift base from Jaipur Indian Premier League franchise Rajasthan Royals is not happy with the state of affairs in Jaipur and there are reports that the side might shift their base to a different city. Read More Nokia Captain America specs leaked ahead of launch HMD Global is scheduled to host a special event on the sidelines of MWC 2020 on February 23. At the event, the company is expected to launch the Nokia 5.2, codenamed Nokia Captain America, alongside the Nokia Nokia 8.2 5G and the Nokia 1.3. Read More Kareena Kapoor Khan, Kartik Aaryan set ramp on fire for Manish Malhotra once again Kareena Kapoor Khan and Kartik Aaryan set the ramp on fire as they walked for Bollywoods favourite designer, Manish Malhotra, for a gorgeous and magnificent fashion extravaganza which was part of the Blenders Pride Fashion Tour in Hyderabad on Saturday. Read More Yuzvendra Chahals off field performance TikTok video divides Twitter. Heres why Yuzvendra Chahal, an ace bowler of the Indian cricket team, often dishes out off field performances on social media which never fail to create a stir among his fans. He did it again with a TikTok video which he shared on Twitter. Read More SYDNEY May 9, 2011: From 1941 to the present day, the Jeep brand has been dedicated to off-roading, combining authentic capability with a spirit of adventure and freedom like no other. Here we take a look back over seven decades at the key models of a brand that is a true automotive icon. In July 1940, the U.S. military informed automakers that it was looking for a light reconnaissance vehicle to replace the Army's motorcycle and modified Ford Model-T vehicles. The Army invited 135 manufacturers to bid on production and developed a lengthy specification list for the vehicle, including the following: At first, Willys-Overland and American Bantam Car Manufacturing Company were the only two companies answering the call. Soon, however, Ford Motor Company entered the picture, and competition began among the three over which company would receive the lucrative government contract. Each company produced prototypes for testing in record time. Bantam's chief engineer, along with a team of Bantam executives, worked out a design, and the company built its field car within 49 days. Willys-Overland Vice President of Engineering Delmar G. Roos designed the Willys Quad. Ford developed its Model GP (General Purpose), known as the Pygmy, which was powered by an adapted Ford/Ferguson tractor. Each company delivered its prototype to the Army in the summer of 1940 and received approval to build 70 sample vehicles. The Army took possession of these vehicles in November 1940 at Camp Holabird, Md. Each of the three designs exceeded the Army's specification of 1,300 lbs., but the Army soon realised that limit was far too low and raised it for the next round of vehicles. The Army issued the next round of contracts in March 1941. Bantam was to produce 1,500 Model 40 BRC vehicles, Ford would build 1,500 modified and improved GP Pygmies and Willys would build 1,500 Quads. Further testing and evaluation led to the Army's selection of Willys vehicle as the primary manufacturer. Subsequently, most of the Bantams and Ford GPs produced were sent to Great Britain and Russia as part of the lend-lease program. In Great Britain, the Ford vehicle was popularly known as the Blitz Buggy. Willys MA/MB With modifications and improvements, the Willys Quad became the MA, and later the MB. But the Army, and the world, came to know it as the Jeep. Some claimed that the name came from the slurring of the letters GP, the military abbreviation for General Purpose. Others say the vehicle was named for a popular character named Eugene the Jeep in the Popeye cartoon strip. Whatever its origin, the name entered into the American lexicon and, for a while, served almost as a generic title for off-road vehicles, while the Jeep itself became an icon of the war. The Willys MA featured a gearshift on the steering column, low side body cutouts, two circular instrument clusters on the dashboard and a hand brake on the left side. Willys struggled to reduce the weight to the new Army specification of 2,160 lbs. Items removed in order for the MA to reach that goal were reinstalled on the next-generation MB resulting in a final weight of approximately just 400 lbs. above the specifications. Willys-Overland would build more than 368,000 vehicles, and Ford, under license, some 277,000, for the U.S. Army. The rugged, reliable olive-drab vehicle would forever be known for helping win a world war. Willys trademarked the Jeep name after the war and planned to turn the vehicle into an off-road utility vehicle for the farm the civilian Universal Jeep. One of Willys' slogans at the time was The Sun Never Sets on the Mighty Jeep, and the company set about making sure the world recognised Willys as the creator of the vehicle. Overview Of Key Historical Jeep Civilian Vehicles Jeep CJ-2A: 1945-49 The first civilian Jeep vehicle, the CJ-2A, was produced in 1945. It came with a tailgate, side-mounted spare tyre, larger headlights, an external fuel cap and many more items that its military predecessors did not include. Several CJ-2A features such as a 134-cubic-inch I-4 engine, a T-90A transmission, Spicer 18 transfer case and a full-floating Dana 25 front and Dana 23-2 rear axle were found on numerous Jeep vehicles in future years. The CJ-2A was produced for four years. Jeep Jeepster: 1948-51 The Jeepster was the last phaeton-style open-bodied vehicle made by a U.S. automaker, using side curtains for weather protection instead of roll-down windows. Originally offered with the Go-Devil engine, it was eventually fitted with the 161 cubic-inch six-cylinder Hurricane engine, but never offered in four-wheel drive. Jeep CJ-3A: 1949-53 Introduced in 1948, the CJ-3A was very similar to the previous model, but featured a one-piece windscreen and a more robust rear axle, and retained the original L-head four-cylinder engine. Jeep CJ-3B: 1953-68 The CJ Model was updated in 1953, becoming the CJ-3B. It had a taller front grille and bonnet than its military predecessor in order to accommodate the new Hurricane F-Head four-cylinder engine. The CJ-3B remained in production until 1968 and a total of 155,494 were manufactured in the U.S. In 1953, Willys-Overland was sold to Henry J. Kaiser for $60 million. The Kaiser Company began an extensive research and development program that would broaden the Jeep product range. Jeep CJ-5: 1955-83 In 1955, Kaiser introduced the CJ-5, based on the 1951 Korean War M-38A1, with its rounded front-fender design. It was slightly larger than the CJ-3B, as it featured an increased wheelbase and overall length. Improvements in engines, axles, transmissions and seating comfort made the CJ-5 an ideal vehicle for the public's growing interest in off-road vehicles. The CJ-5 featured softer styling lines, including rounded body contours. With an 81-inch wheelbase, more than 600,000 CJ-5s were produced over 30 years. Jeep CJ-6: 1956-75 A long-wheelbase (20 inches longer than the CJ-5) model was introduced and was known as CJ-6. Apart from a longer wheelbase, the CJ-6 was almost identical to the CJ-5, but with more cargo space. Jeep also introduced a forward-control cab-over-engine variation to the CJ line in 1956. AMC equipped both the CJ-5 and CJ-6 with heavier axles, bigger brakes and a wider track. In 1965, a new Dauntless V6 engine was introduced as an option on both the 81-inch wheelbase CJ-5 and 101-inch wheelbase CJ-6. The 155-horsepower engine almost doubled the horsepower of the standard four-cylinder engine. It was the first time a Jeep CJ could be equipped with a V6. Beginning in 1973, all Jeep CJs came equipped with AMC-built 304- or 360-cubic-inch V8 engines. Jeep Pickup: 1947-65 A 118-inch wheelbase pickup that realised few product changes. It was Willys-Overlands first attempt to diversify the Jeep brand from the CJ. (Jeep) Willys Wagon: 1946-65 A 104.5-inch wheelbase wagon that was long an enthusiast favourite. Four-wheel drive was introduced in 1949. Jeep Wagoneer/Grand Wagoneer/Cherokee (SJ): 1963-91 In 1962, Jeep introduced the first automatic transmission in a four-wheel-drive vehicle with the Wagoneer line (a predecessor to the Jeep Cherokee). The 1963 Jeep Wagoneer was also the first four-wheel-drive vehicle with an independent front suspension option. Quadra-Trac, the first automatic full-time four-wheel-drive system, was introduced in 1973 and available in full-size Jeep trucks and wagons, and later in the CJ-7. Jeep FC 150/170 Pickup: 1957-65 These Forward-Control series Jeep vehicles were essentially work trucks with an 81-inch wheelbase for the FC 150 and 103.5 inches for the FC 170. They received few changes during their lifecycle, though some 1959 and 1960 models featured full-floating front and rear axles, and some 1959 models included dual rear wheels and a four-speed manual transmission. Jeep Gladiator/J-Series Pickup: 1963-87 Resembling the Wagoneer, Gladiator debuted in 1963 in either 120-inch (J-200) or 126-inch (J-300) form, and featuring a Dana 20 transfer case and Dana 44s front and rear. The Gladiator name was dropped in 1972. Jeep Commando: 1967-73 A 101-inch wheelbase vehicle equipped with the Dauntless V6 and full-floating Dana 27 and 44 rear axles. Fewer than 100 versions of the 1971 Commando Hurst Special were produced, making it one of the favourite and rarest vehicles among Jeep collectors. Jeep CJ-7: 1976-86 In 1976, AMC introduced the CJ-7, the first major change in Jeep design in 20 years. The CJ-7 had a slightly longer wheelbase than the CJ-5 in order to allow space for an automatic transmission. For the first time, the CJ-7 offered an optional moulded plastic top and steel doors. Both the 93.5-inch wheelbase CJ-7 and 83.5-inch wheelbase CJ-5 models were built until 1983 when demand for the CJ-7 left AMC no choice but to discontinue the CJ-5, after a 30-year production run. Jeep CJ-8 Scrambler: 1981-85 Introduced in 1981, the Scrambler was a Jeep similar to the CJ-7, but with a longer wheelbase. Known internationally as the CJ-8, it was available in either hard- or soft-top versions. Less than 30,000 Scramblers were built, though they are extremely popular among collectors today. Jeep Cherokee (XJ): 1984-01 Built on a unibody platform, the Cherokee XJ was a smaller, but much more advanced version of the Cherokee SJ. Highlights included the introduction of Jeeps Command-Trac four-wheel-drive system and Quadra-Link coil front suspension. Cherokee Limited debuted in 1988 and a 4.0-liter inline-six was introduced in 1989. Jeep Wrangler (YJ): 1987-96 In 1983, the growing market for compact four-wheel-drive vehicles still sought the utilitarian virtues of the Jeep CJ series, but consumers also were seeking more of the creature comforts found in passenger cars. The response was discontinuing the CJ series and introducing the 1987 Jeep Wrangler (YJ). Although the Wrangler shared the familiar open-body profile of the CJ-7, it contained few common parts with its famous predecessor. Mechanically, the Wrangler had more in common with the Cherokee than the CJ-7. The Wrangler YJ had square headlights, which was a first (and last) for this type of Jeep. The YJ model exceeded 630,000 units. On Aug. 5, 1987, about a year after the introduction of the Wrangler, American Motors Corporation was sold to the Chrysler Corporation and the popular Jeep brand became a part of Chrysler's Jeep/Eagle Division. Jeep Comanche (MJ): 1986-92 Based on the Cherokee platform and similarly equipped, the pickup received a six-foot bed in 1987. Later models offered Selec-Trac or Command-Trac four-wheel drive. Jeep Grand Cherokee (ZJ/WJ): 1993-2004 The Grand Cherokee famously first appeared by crashing through the convention centre glass at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit during its introduction there on Jan. 7, 1992. The first SUV equipped with a drivers side air bag, it set new standards for on-road ride, handling and comfort in an SUV. Jeep Wrangler (TJ): 1997-2006 The 1997 Jeep Wrangler (TJ) looked very similar to the CJ-7. Indeed its 'retro' look was quite deliberate, but very different from a mechanical standpoint. Nearly 80 percent of the vehicle parts were newly designed. The TJ used a four-link coil suspension, similar to the Jeep Grand Cherokee, and featured a new interior, including driver and passenger air bags. The TJ retained several classic Jeep features such as round headlights, a fold-down windshield (first seen in 1940) and removable doors, as well as a choice of a soft top or removable hard top. A factory-fitted sport bar was also standard. Enter the then-best-equipped Jeep ever the 2003 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon. This vehicle earned the right to be called by the legendary trail name, as it was equipped with push-button-actuated locking front and rear Dana 44 axles, a 4:1 low-range transfer case, 32-inch tyres and many more options not available on any production Jeep before it. In 2004, the Jeep Wrangler Unlimited was introduced a longer-wheelbase Wrangler, featuring 13 inches more cargo room and two inches of additional second-row legroom. While maintaining the unmatched open-air fun and 4x4 capability of the original Jeep Wrangler, the Unlimited model offered more refined on-road comfort, as well as even more versatility. Jeep Liberty (Cherokee): 2002-present Called Cherokee in Australia, the mid-size Liberty SUV was the first Jeep vehicle to feature standard independent front suspension. It also introduced the industry-exclusive Sky-Slider open-air roof in 2008. Jeep Grand Cherokee (WH): 2005-10 A complete redesign of the ZJ/WJ, it boasted improved ride and handling capabilities, the 5.7-litre HEMI V8 and upscale amenities to make luxury car buyers envious. Jeep Commander: 2006-10 A seven-passenger three-row Jeep based on the WK platform, but two inches longer, with unique stadium-style seating. Jeep Compass and Patriot: 2007-present The Jeep brands entries into the popular compact-SUV segment, these vehicles offer unsurpassed capability and 4x4 fuel economy in their class. Jeep Wrangler and Wrangler Unlimited (JK): 2007-present Building on the successful, original Jeep formula with an all-new frame, exterior and interior design, engine, and safety and convenience features, the JK delivers more capability, refinement, interior space and comfort, open-air fun, power, fuel efficiency and safety features. Featuring a one-of-a-kind, four-door open-air design, the JK Wrangler expanded the Jeep experience to new dimensions. With room for five adult passengers a Wrangler first and the most cargo space ever offered in a Wrangler, the Unlimited combines class-leading off-road capability with everyday practicality. Todays Wrangler models are lean, rugged and simple, achieving best-in-class off-road capability while delivering a true open-air driving experience. For 2011, all Wranglers boast an all-new interior, and revised CRD turbo diesel engine. Jeep Grand Cherokee (WK): 2011-present All-new for 2011 and more than 4 million sales after the first Grand Cherokee, Jeep improves the formula and delivers the perfect blend of on-road refinement and off-road capability. The multi award-winning WK provides premium on-road performance, legendary Jeep craftsmanship, improved fuel economy, a world-class interior, a sleek new exterior design, true craftsmanship and a host of safety and technology features. 2011 Jeep vehicle lineup Jeep builds on its tradition of providing unique, iconic, versatile and capable vehicles for 2011, with its next-generation, premium flagship vehicle the 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee and with significant changes across the Jeep vehicle lineup. With the greatest range of SUVs under one brand, the Jeep vehicle portfolio in Australia consists of: Australia's stock market closed 1.3 per cent lower today with the S&P/ASX200 at 6923.3 points and the All Ords falling 101 points lower, a decline of 1.4 per cent, at 7019.9 points. The indices dropped as much as 1.7 per cent on the open before firming up in the early afternoon. The energy sector was the worst performer, down 4 per cent, as stocks in oil companies and oil industry services tumbled. Worley fell 8.5 per cent to $13.95, and Oil Search dropped 7.2 per cent to $6.72 after the Papua New Guinea government walked away from talks with Oil Search's joint venture partner Exxon over its liquefied natural gas expansion plans, threatening a broader $20 billion gas export program. Perenti Global dropped 6.2 per cent to $1.44, and NRW Holdings fell 5.7 per cent to $2.95. The materials sector declined 2.2 per cent with BHP falling nearly 3 per cent, Rio Tinto falling 1.9 per cent, and Fortescue Metals closed 3.4 per cent lower at $11 after falling to $10.81 during the opening sell-off. Companies with a broad exposure to Chinese consumers were sold-off amid concerns about the impact of travel bans imposed to reduce the spread of the Coronoa Virus and a slow down in the Chinese economy. International education company IDP Education dropped 6.7 per cent, and Treasury Wines hit a one-year low of $12.30. Utilities out-performed by ending the day 0.1 per cent higher, thanks to a 0.9 per cent gain gas pipeline owner APA Group. Healthcare, real estate, and consumer staples also out-performed. Woolworths managed to hit a new high during trading of $42, but closed at $41.82. The Australian dollar closed higher at US67.02, while China's yuan fell against the greenback and was at 7-yuan-per-dollar on Monday for the first time since Christmas Eve. A military advisor to Irans Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has said Iranians should fast Ramadan style to show the enemy they can resist its sanctions. Hossein Dehqan (Dehghan) speaking February 1 at an event dubbed The idea of resistance in Imams (Khomeini) school of thought, said Iranians should follow the teachings of the founder of the Islamic Republic. He added that If America is sanctioning us and wants to keep us hungry, the people should fast to show their resistance. U.S. sanctions have brought the Iranian economy to a standstill, devaluing its currency fourfold and deepening the impoverishment of working-class people. This has led to consecutive protests, destabilizing the ruling regime. Washington demands a new nuclear agreement that would guarantee Iran will never acquire atomic weapons. Iran, which says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, has refused so far to make any concessions. Other influential leaders in Iran have also called for people to eat less to resisit the sanctions. A hardliner ayatollah, Ahmad Alamolhoda told people in a sermon last year that if they cannot afford chicken, they must eat a cheap omelet instead. Last August, the Minister of Energy Reza Ardakanian said, The Chinese eat once a day and Iranians have a bad habit of eating more. Ordinary workers who must live on a salary of around $100 a month resent this attitude and in nationwide protests last November both the government and the opposition said the fiercest demonstrations were in working-class neighborhoods of the capital. DES MOINES, Iowa - The Democratic presidential candidates returned to Iowa in full force Saturday, using a brief break from impeachment proceedings to rally supporters ahead of Monday's caucuses with renewed pitches to an electorate that remains highly skittish and deeply undecided. Joe Biden used his closing argument to present himself as the safest choice for voters worried most about finding a nominee who can defeat President Donlad Trump. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who like other senators in the race had been stuck in Washington until this weekend for the impeachment trial, made an explicit appeal to women - and pitched herself as the one who can, as signs behind her read, "Unite the Party." Pete Buttigieg's campaign tried to rally the party behind his call for generational change, while Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., using weekend concerts and rallies, sought to mobilize what many strategists here consider to be an army of dedicated supporters. Several of the candidates played to overflow crowds, a contrast to earlier in the week when the absence of the senators damped the energy normally associated with the final days. Virtually every campaign has come to predict privately that Sanders could turn out more people on Monday night than any other candidate. Due to the arcane rules of the Iowa caucus system, his rivals hope they can overcome that advantage when the final delegate counts are tallied. "I think it's going to be a cluster," Biden said in an interview after an event late in the week. "It'll be relatively close, you know, probably three of us that are fairly close." Biden and Sanders have been at the top of most polls in Iowa this month. But Democrats hoping to get more clarity got a unwelcome surprise when the Des Moines Register, CNN and Selzer & Co. pulled back from the much-anticipated release of the results from the final Iowa poll, long considered the most reliable pre-caucus snapshot. The decision, which added to the chaos and uncertainty in the final days, came after the Buttigieg campaign alerted those overseeing the poll that his name was left off of the list of candidates read by one of the interviewers, according to a person familiar with the problem who spoke on the condition of anonymity. With Sanders appearing to surge in recent weeks, all of his rivals were eagerly working to manage expectations. Some close to Warren said privately that the fight was now for a second-place finish. Those in Buttigieg's camp say they believe finishing ahead of Biden would provide the springboard they need for future contests, both to build support and to reload their campaign war chest. "It's so tight that we just got to keep our heads down and maintain a kind of an underdog mentality all the way through," the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, said in an interview. When pressed about what expectations he needed to exceed, he demurred, but did say, "We're in it to win it." The hunger to defeat Trump - and the likelihood the Senate will vote to acquit him this week - has had the effect of leaving many voters immobilized, creating an unusually large undecided pool and injecting more than the usual uncertainty over how the coming days will play out. Among the overriding questions still hovering at the start of what could be a long fight for the nomination is whether the continued indecision will dampen participation Monday. Earlier predictions for record turnouthave been scaled back in the past weeks. The caucuses Monday night will be the culmination of more than a year of campaigning and a steady churn of candidates entering and exiting. Collectively, the campaigns have spent $70 million on TV ads here. When they are done, Iowans will have played their traditional role of stress-testing - and winnowing - what had been a historically large and diverse field. While the party over the past three years has struggled to answer a basic question - How do you beat Trump? - the results here will offer the first moment of clarity. It is a test of whether the party wants to move toward candidates preaching bold and unsettled change that would bring a Democratic revolution to counter Trump's Republican one, or whether the party wants a more traditional, return-to-normalcy nominee who would run on more kitchen-table, uncontroversial issues. In what is the starting gun for a sprint toward contests that will grow more and more costly - and with Mike Bloomberg pouring hundreds of millions of his own money into the race - several campaigns are in dire need of a win that could fuel donations into campaign accounts that have dwindled. The contest has been largely free of the kind of negative campaigning that has marked other years, but that hasn't eliminated sniping. Top advisers to Buttigieg on Saturday morning went after Biden, suggesting that his long career in Washington would be a detriment to the party's ability to defeat Trump if the former vice president is the nominee. "The idea that we are going to take on someone like Donald Trump with the old playbook by saying I understand the ways of Washington, I hung out with Strom Thurmond, you know, 20 years ago - that's not going to happen," Lis Smith, a senior Buttigieg adviser, told reporters during a breakfast hosted by Bloomberg News. Mike Schmuhl, the campaign manager, later jumped in with another data point. "Since World War II, our party has nominated three vice presidents. They've all lost," he said. "Our party goes for youthful, visionary, next-generation leaders." Warren has had a prized organization in the state - along with several late, sought-after endorsements - but has also fallen in recent polls as others have cut into different parts of her base. She is competing with Buttigieg for college-educated voters, with Sanders for liberal voters and with Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., for voters eager to see a woman as the nominee. Ahead of Warren's event Saturday in Iowa City, a group of elected officials tried to lead the crowd in a chant: "It's time! It's time! It's time for a woman in the White House!" Warren has generally avoided questions about how she might do in Iowa. But her campaign manager Roger Lau recently sent out a memo warning of the "breathless media narratives" likely to emerge from the early states and focusing on their 1,000-strong staff fanned out in 31 states. Klobuchar has cast herself as a not-too-hot, not-too-cold candidate who can appeal to a wide swath of the party. But what is unknown is whether the fact that she, along with Warren and Sanders, had to be in Washington during the final week of campaigning had hindered her ability to capitalize on the fresh look many were giving her. Entrepreneur Andrew Yang and businessman Tom Steyer have each averaged around 4% in the polls, which would put them below the 15%viability threshold. But their supporters could play a significant role in determining the night's final outcome if they switched to another candidate on the second tally. With concern bubbling among establishment Democrats over whether Iowa could launch Sanders forward with momentum, the party was caught up Saturday in a replay of 2016 tensions between Sanders and Hillary Clinton. After Clinton again criticized Sanders, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., a top Sanders surrogate, playfully urged a crowd to boo Clinton during a rally on Friday night. But in yet another sign of the skittishness of most campaigns to get into a bitter brawl, Tlaib apologized Saturday and Sanders emphasized that he would support whoever the nominee is. Sanders's campaign advisers say they have identified as many supporters who are coming to caucus Monday, in a crowded field with at least five competitive candidates, as came to caucus for him in 2016, when it was essentially a two-person race. They are banking on a large turnout among young voters, and those who typically don't participate in local politics. "They have not engaged with the party structure," said Kurt Meyer, chairman of the Democratic Party in three rural counties. "Maybe that is a great leap forward. Maybe they know something the rest of us don't and they'll get an additional 10 or 20 or 30% who have never caucused before to magically show up. But I honestly don't know who my Sanders organizer is." Warren grew a bit nostalgic as she returned to Iowa, reminiscing about all of her previous trips. "You've whispered dreams into my ears, you've told me about your lives, about issues, about ideas, about how we could make things better," she said in Cedar Rapids. "In this year you have made me a better candidate, and you will make me a better president. Thank you." Unlike past campaign stops, Warren did not stay around for a photo line, instead leaving her dog Bailey behind to appear in pictures with supporters. The caucuses are the first major test of whether Biden's claims of electability will draw voters to his candidacy. While his events can feel lethargic and with crowds smaller than for other candidates, his campaign advisers have been banking on the goodwill he has built up over nearly five decades in public life. Asked in an interview about the seeming lack of enthusiasm at his events and whether that worries him, Biden said: "I don't get a sense of that at all. . . . We spent a lot of time in a lot of small venues, deliberately going to make sure we cover rural Iowa." Former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack said Biden is a known commodity and that Iowans who support him don't feel the need to come to Biden's rallies but will be there on caucus night. It is a mistake, he said, to assume that "there's a direct parallel between enthusiastic rallies and turnout and results." His campaign organization has also been a frequent topic among Iowa operatives and county chairs, who say it has lacked the kind of vigor needed in a caucus system that rewards passion and organization more than it does widespread but thinner support. The coalition Biden is trying to assemble includes voters over age 50, blue-collar households, veterans, African Americans, Latinos and Catholics. His campaign is running specific programs focusing each group, based on lists developed from voter files, property tax rolls and other sources. Because many people no longer answer their telephones unless they recognize the caller's number, the campaign has put extra emphasis on sending volunteers and paid canvassers to people's homes. The decision to hire paid canvassers - offering $20 per hour for the last two weeks - raised eyebrows among some of Biden's rivals, who took it as a sign of weakness in the organization. But campaign officials say they believe the additional help has allowed them to get into as many neighborhoods as possible and during days of inclement weather. Although Monday night's weather is expected to be brisk with no snow in the forecast, it remains to be seen if turnout will be historically high. While some still predict it could match or exceed the 240,000 who turned out in 2008, others say it is likely to fall between that number and the 171,000 who attended in 2016. Just who would benefit from a low turnout is a matter of some debate. Biden's candidacy tends to attract traditional caucus-goers who might have the added incentive to participate this year because of their desire to defeat Trump in November. But a lower turnout could give the advantage to candidates who have attracted newcomers, such as Sanders, or who are generating real enthusiasm at rallies. The campaigns have been preparing for what could be a confusing night of potentially conflicting results, and multiple candidates seeking to shape a public impression that they scored a symbolic victory if not a numerical one. The state party will report three numbers on caucus night. The first will be the number of people who show up for each candidate. The next two will reflect results after supporters of candidates who do not meet the 15% threshold in a precinct realign to support another candidate. There will be two measures of that realignment, first the raw number of people in support of the remaining viable candidates and then how that translates into delegates - or, as they will be called Monday, state delegate equivalents. Those two numbers should track relatively closely but there could be a notable difference between the entrance percentages and the delegate percentages. For several candidates - particularly Buttigieg, Klobuchar and Warren - a bad finish could be devastating. It could also begin to clarify the question of whether the campaign is headed toward a long, divisive primary or whether it could conclude more swiftly. The candidates will quickly head to New Hampshire, where there will be an eight-day sprint that includes a Friday debate. Biden, amid growing concerns that he is having more difficulty raising money, has bought or reserved only $215,000 in New Hampshire, according to Advertising Analytics, which puts him at a fraction of his rivals. His allies are hoping a strong showing in Iowa could trigger a rush of donations, but even then there is some debate over how heavily he will focus on a state that Sanders carried handily four years ago and that neighbors Warren's home state of Massachusetts. There have been private deliberations among those leading Biden's super PAC over how heavily to concentrate on New Hampshire and whether to instead pour resources into Nevada, the next state on the calendar. But any decision is dependent on what happens in Iowa on Monday night. - - - The Washington Post's Annie Linskey contributed to this report. Have you ever imagined what it would be like if the future generations would not be able to experience nature the same way you did? What if the remaining animal species went extinct, and their habitats destroyed? Would your children, grandchildren have anything left to admire? How would our world look stripped to it's bare-bones, without the forests and animals that make it what it is? The goal of wildlife conservation is making sure that it does not happen. Biggest Threats To Wildlife Habitat destruction is one of the biggest threats wildlife species have to face today. Because of industrial reasons, humans are exploiting nature's resources at the cost of clearing and destroying natural habitats; deforestation, urbanization, and mining progressively lower the number of homes for the wildlife on our planet. Fragmentation of habitat can break up and divide large populations of species, and it is all primarily caused by humans. Humans destroy forests and reduce the resources wildlife needs to survive and preserve itself, making it all more likely for various species to go extinct or be in direct conflict with places where there is human life. An elephant in the National park of Kenya, Africa. Poaching wild animals is also a significant threat to certain species. Some animal species have an economic and commercial value due to their endangerment or exotic elements. Reptiles and birds are often held in captivity, while elephants and tigers experience an even deadlier treatment. Elephant tusk trade is not only a motif for the dramatic reenactments of hunting in Hollywood movies, but it is also a reality that is destroying an already small population of animals. Humans are killing animals all over the planet for their fur, bones, teeth, and skin. Pollution is also one of the most harmful ways we affect wildlife. Burning fossil fuels pollutes the air we breathe, spraying pesticides can kill certain plant species, and the garbage we recklessly throw all around us ends up being consumed by both land and sea animals. What Can We Do To Help Preserve Wildlife? Wildlife conservation goals incorporate all of the mentioned issues and many others before the worst happens and before we reach a point of no return. The goal of wildlife conservation is to make the wildlife rebound towards a more manageable, survivable, and healthier level of biodiversity. With the implementation of land management reforms and more involvement from the governments, conservation aims to salvage the world around us that is progressively disappearing. For example, wildlife conservation in the United States receives its funding from the federal budget, state grants, and different conservation programs. A significant amount of financial help also comes from selling licenses for hunting and fishing, as well as taxes from the purchase of hunting equipment. Wildlife population monitoring is also one vital part of wildlife conservation. Monitoring population of various animals can gather information such as genetic diversity and population density. Managers of such projects can then enquire about the status of endangered species and evaluate the effectiveness of different management strategies employed. Last year was a wild ride for theme park and movie maven Disney (NYSE:DIS). The company released the biggest grossing movie of all time, opened massive new additions to its theme parks, and launched its highly anticipated streaming service -- all while closing on the biggest acquisition in Disney's history. 2020 marks a new chapter for the House of Mouse, and Disney is scheduled to update investors when it reports the results of its fiscal first quarter after the market close on Tuesday, Feb. 4. Three topics in particular will be on the minds of investors, and could play a big part in the company's success or failure now and in the months to come. Rise of the Resistance The latest addition to Disney's Star Wars theme park debuted at Disneyland to much fanfare early last month, and the attraction is being hailed by fans and critics alike. The Rise of the Resistance succeeds at completely immersing guests in the action, and blurs the line between where the line ends and the ride begins. Guests become part of the narrative, and are captured by forces of the First Order -- with Disney cast members playing the role of soldiers from the evil empire. This provides a much needed win for Disney, which saw a rare dip in its domestic theme park attendance in 2019. The successful rollout of the latest addition to the Star Wars land could bring back fans in force and reinvigorate the company's waning guest visits. All eyes on Disney+ After years of speculation and months of anticipation, the long-awaited debut of the company's Disney+ streaming service took place on Nov. 12. The following day, Disney announced that, including those who signed up early, its rolls had swelled to more than 10 million by the end of the first day, driving its stock to a new all-time high. At the time, management announced it wouldn't be updating subscriber numbers again until the company's regular quarterly report. There's been a great deal of guesswork about whether the platform's momentum continued after the initial rush. There's evidence to suggest that Disney+ closed out the year with as many as 25 million subscribers, based on consumer surveys and the tally of app downloads since launch. The company has since launched in a number of international locales, which could provide a big boost to subscriber numbers, which investors will be watching closely. Impact of coronavirus Disney made an unprecedented move this week, closing down both its theme parks in China as the result of the coronavirus outbreak. On Jan. 26, the company announced on the resort's website that it would temporarily close Hong Kong Disneyland Park "out of consideration for the health and safety of our guests and cast members." The company issued a similar communique the following day, saying it would also shutter Shanghai Disneyland Park. The company said it is in "close contact" with health officials in both areas and is monitoring the situation, but as of this writing there's no word yet as to when Disney will reopen these venues. This could have a significant impact on Disney's results, as the outbreak comes amid Lunar New Year, which is a peak travel season for many residents. Shanghai Disneyland welcomed nearly 12 million guests in 2018, and J.P. Morgan analyst Alexia S. Quadrani estimates that the resort adds about $1 billion in revenue and $50 million in operating profits each year to Disney's coffers. A small part of the big picture While each of these components only represents a small part of Disney's overall empire, the success or failure of each will provide compelling insight into what lies ahead for the House of Mouse. After years of stagnation, Disney was a winner among consumer discretionary stocks last year, beating the broader market and setting itself up for the future. We'll see the beginning of the next chapter when the company reports on Tuesday. Investigation is underway, and when it ends and everyone knows what really happened, you will become convinced that this incident cant be linked to former MP Arakel Movsisyan (Shmays) or his son. This is what lawyer of the Chamber of Advocates of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic Ashot Apresyan told Armenian News-NEWS.am, talking about the death of a fixed-term serviceman in Artsakh on January 30 and the possibility of the involvement of Arakel Movsisyans son. Based on the information that we have at this moment, there is no serious reason that could serve as a basis for the servicemans suicide, but there were gunshots fired at fellow servicemenDozens of versions can be presented during the investigation. Lets wait until the investigation ends, he stated. Apresyan claimed that there hadnt been any interpersonal issues between the deceased serviceman and his fellow serviceman and added that he has met with Movsisyans son, but didnt report details. Minister of Defense of Armenia Davit Tonoyan told Armenian News-NEWS.am that there are three servicemen arrested, including the son of former MP Arakel Movsisyan (Shmays). Vahram was enlisted six months ago and was serving in Artsakh. He died on January 30 at around 1:15 p.m. The Investigative Committee of Armenia declared that the soldier had shot his chest with the AKM type of gun attached to him and had been transferred to a military hospital with firearm injuries, and he was pronounced dead at 2 p.m. The first garrison investigative division has instituted a criminal case in relation to the incident, and preliminary investigation is underway. 74 Shares Share One of the most valuable jobs I held following fellowship was working as a full-time deputy editor at UpToDate. My territory was breast, gynecologic, and genitourinary oncology, and I helped launch cancer survivorship and palliative care. I learned to really and critically read the literature, and how I could summarize it quickly so that my audiencewhether colleagues or my own patientscould understand what we learned, and the limitations of those results. Part of what I learned was to use the terms recommend and suggest with care. At UpToDate, only those findings backed by the strongest evidence and results were called recommendations. The upshot being that whatever the action, it should be done as standard of care. So, when I wrote a topic on HER2-positive breast cancer, there was overwhelming evidence that trastuzumab was useful. Therefore, I wrote, For women with newly diagnosed HER2-positive breast cancer, we recommend adjuvant trastuzumab. In the absence of this high-quality data, there might still be evidence to point towards one course of action over another. However, realizing that the results were not conclusive and that different clinicians may come to different conclusions, we still strove to point out a reasonable direction. These would become suggestions, such as, For women with recurrent platinum-resistant ovarian cancer, we suggest liposomal doxorubicin rather than paclitaxel. Even as Ive left UpToDate, Ive adopted this language and the way I think about my own approach to conversations with patients. This lesson from UpToDate to be precise in our language is especially relevant today, when new treatments are emerging, and patients are faced with different options on how to approach their own cancer. As they seek second opinions, its entirely common for them to walk away with a recommendation that differs from the one they got previously. I believe the job of one who delivers a second opinion is to provide it honestly, based on their own review and based on what they believe is the best course of action. However, when one rendering a second opinion does so without acknowledging differences in an approachthat is, suggesting rather than recommending one course over anothera patient may be left with confusion rather than clarity, and perhaps worse, the fear that someone is wrong. Such was the case with a patient I met early on in my life as an attending, as I transitioned from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (where I often rendered second opinions) to Women & Infants Hospital (where I often sent my own patients for second opinions). Mrs. Jones* had seen me after her surgery for new breast cancer. She had been healthy all her life, and this diagnosis at the age of 42 was a shock. We talked about her pathology, and I sought to reassure her that she would be okay. The lymph nodes were not involved, despite the 2.5-cm size of the tumor. It was also hormone receptor-positive and did not express HER2. We had not been using genomics to help guide treatment then (dating myself, I know), so based on her age and the tumor size, I felt it would be reasonable to proceed with adjuvant chemotherapy, and she agreed. I want to do everything I can to never experience this again, she said. With that, we discussed options for treatment. Based on the node negativity of her disease, I suggested docetaxel and cyclophosphamide (TC) rather than the use of an anthracycline-based regimen. There are data that four cycles would be as good, and I could spare you the risk of heart toxicity, I explained. That sounds good to me, she said, but Id like to get a second opinion. Absolutely! I said. I suggested folks in the nearby comprehensive cancer centers flanking Rhode Island, and we made arrangements to meet after her consult. A few weeks later, she called my office. Hi, Dr. Dizon, she began. Ive decided to transfer my care. The doctor I saw in second opinion told me that no one would give me TC, and that the advice was misguided. He explained to me that doxorubicin was absolutely necessary and that if you wouldnt give it to me, that I should go elsewhere. It really scared me, and its my life on the line. I will be getting doxorubicin with him. I am so sorry to hear this, I said, a bit stunned. At the end of the day, you have to feel comfortable with not only the oncologist you see, but the treatment you are getting. I think TC would be a reasonable option, but as we discussed, so is an anthracycline. Thanks for letting me know what you were told, though. If you ever need me in the future, I am here to help. With that, we hung up, but I was so flustered by what she told me that I reached out to the oncologist she had seen to understand what was said. If I was wrong, I needed to understand exactly why. I spoke with him later that week. He explained that he had not told her I was wrong but that the standard of care at his institution was to still utilize an anthracycline. We discussed the evidence on the role of both options and why I had recommended TC. Look, he said, we both know the data, and we both know each is acceptable. I fall into the camp that has not adopted TC as an alternative, thats all. But I can assure you, at no point did I say you were wrong. As we hung up, I had no reason to doubt his sincerity. We had known each other for many years, and we had a mutual respect for each other. It occurred to me then that what we say can be interpreted in different waysthat when suggestions diverge between a primary and secondary opinion, patients can be left trying to understand why, and in this context, what is not said can be more important than what is. By not directly acknowledging clinical equipoise (i.e., that there is no definite right answer), a reasonable patient can make the conclusion that one of their doctors is wrong. Following this experience, I have made it a point to acknowledge the availability of alternative approaches when they are present, and to ensure that patients walk away understanding when my approach is a recommendation based on the best data we have, and when its a suggestion in situations where reasonable clinicians may come to a different conclusion. I think I owe it to patients to be clear, but as important, I owe it to colleagues to acknowledge that their professional opinions are as valid as my own. * Name changed to protect patient privacy. Don S. Dizon is an oncologist who blogs at ASCO Connection. Image credit: Shutterstock.com MIAMI A year ago, when Venezuelas government seemed to be on the brink of collapse, the Venezuelan diaspora in South Florida buzzed with energy, holding rallies and hosting prominent political leaders, including Vice President Mike Pence, who embraced its cause of ousting the nations leftist president, Nicolas Maduro. As the months passed and Mr. Maduro remained in power, anticipation turned to resignation. Venezuelan-Americans saw interest in their countrys future fading, both from the headlines and from inside the White House. So when Juan Guaido, the opposition leader who has declared himself Venezuelas interim president, appeared on Saturday in Miami, his supporters hoped to revive public interest in his efforts and to perhaps once again attract the attention of President Trump. Several thousand Venezuelans gathered for the event in a cavernous hall at the Miami Airport Convention Center. Traditional Venezuelan music played to the boisterous crowd, and many of the people were decked in the yellow, blue and red colors of the countrys flag. Goehring said USDA is listening to state concerns about the interim rule and he believes North Dakota and other states whose plans have been rejected will be able to work things out. BEIJING - The first death outside China from the new coronavirus was recorded Sunday in the Philippines, as countries around the world evacuated hundreds of their citizens from the infection zone and Chinese authorities completed a new, rapidly constructed 1,000-bed hospital for victims of the outbreak. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 1/2/2020 (708 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. In this Saturday, Feb. 1, 2020, photo, government workers in protective suits visit a family under home quarantine in Zouping in eastern China's Shandong Province. The sing on the right reads: "Key household for outbreak, family under quarantine, please do not visit." China's death toll from a new virus has increased to 304 with more than 14,000 cases, amid warnings from the World Health Organization that other countries need to be prepared in the event the disease spreads among their populations. (Chinatopix via AP) BEIJING - The first death outside China from the new coronavirus was recorded Sunday in the Philippines, as countries around the world evacuated hundreds of their citizens from the infection zone and Chinese authorities completed a new, rapidly constructed 1,000-bed hospital for victims of the outbreak. Chinese authorities also delayed the reopening of schools in the hardest-hit province and tightened the quarantine in one city by allowing only one family member to venture out to buy supplies. The Philippine Health Department said a 44-year-old Chinese man from Wuhan, the city at the centre of the crisis, was hospitalized Jan. 25 with a fever, cough and sore throat and died after developing severe pneumonia. The man's 38-year-old female companion, also from Wuhan, tested positive for the virus as well and remained hospitalized in isolation in Manila. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte approved a ban on the entry of all non-citizens from China. The U.S., Japan, Singapore and Australia have imposed similar restrictions despite criticism from China and an assessment from the World Health Organization that such measures were unnecessarily hurting trade and travel. The death toll in China climbed by 45 to 304, and the number of cases worldwide surged past 14,550, according to China's National Health Commission and other nations. The vast majority of those infected are in China; about 150 cases have been reported in two dozen other countries. This Saturday, Feb. 1, 2020, photo released by China's Xinhua News Agency, shows construction workers at the site of the Huoshenshan temporary field hospital being built in Wuhan in central China's Hubei Province. China's death toll from a new virus has increased to 304 with more than 14,000 cases, amid warnings from the World Health Organization that other countries need to be prepared in the event the disease spreads among their populations. (Xiao Yijiu/Xinhua via AP) The U.S. on Sunday reported its ninth case, this one involving a woman in the San Francisco Bay Area's Santa Clara County who arrived in the U.S. to visit family after recently travelling to Wuhan. A hospital specially built to handle coronavirus patients in Wuhan is expected to open on Monday, just 10 days after construction began. A second hospital is set to open soon after. Also, six officials in the city of Huanggang, next to Wuhan in Hubei province, were fired over poor performance" in handling the outbreak, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. It cited the mayor as saying the city's capabilities to treat the patients remained inadequate and there is a severe shortage in medical supplies such as protective suits and medical masks." Indonesian people arrive from Wuhan, China, at Hang Nadim Airport in Batam, Indonesia Sunday, Feb. 2, 2020. Indonesians evacuated from Wuhan, the Chinese city at the center of a deadly virus outbreak, were transported to a quarantine zone on a remote island at the edge of the South China Sea, shortly after landed on Batam, an island near Singapore on Sunday morning. (AP Photo/Luth Panjalu) The trading and manufacturing centre of Wenzhou, with nearly 10 million people in coastal Zhejiang province, confined people to their homes, allowing only one family member to venture out every other day to buy necessary supplies. Huanggang, home to 7 million people, imposed similar measures on Saturday. With no end in sight to the outbreak, authorities in Hubei and elsewhere have extended the Lunar New Year holiday break, due to end this week, well into February to try to keep people at home and reduce the spread of the virus. All Hubei schools are postponing the start of the new semester until further notice. Wenzhou, situated about 500 miles from Wuhan, put off the reopening of government offices until Feb. 9, businesses until Feb. 17 and schools until March 1. The city has reported 241 confirmed cases of the virus, one of the highest levels outside Hubei. A maintenance worker wears a face mask as she sweeps snow during a snowfall in Beijing, Sunday, Feb. 2, 2020. China's death toll from a new virus increased to 304 on Sunday amid warnings from the World Health Organization that other countries need to prepare in the event the disease spreads among their populations as more nations report local infections. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein) Similar measures have been announced in the provinces and cities of Heilongjiang, Shandong, Guizhou, Hebei and Hunan, while the major cities of Shanghai and Beijing have also closed schools and public offices indefinitely. Despite its own drastic travel restrictions, China has chafed at those imposed by foreign governments, criticizing Washingtons order barring entry to most non-citizens who visited China in the past two weeks. Apart from damaging China's international reputation, such steps could worsen a domestic economy already growing at its lowest rate in decades. The crisis is the latest to confront Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who has been beset by months of anti-government protests in Hong Kong, the reelection of Taiwan's pro-independence president and criticism over human rights violations in the traditionally Muslim territory of Xinjiang. An isolation unit is seen at the Huoshenshan temporary field hospital in Wuhan in central China's Hubei Province, Sunday, Feb. 2, 2020. The Philippines on Sunday reported the first death from a new virus outside of China, where authorities delayed the opening of schools in the worst-hit province and tightened quarantine measures in a city that allow only one family member to venture out to buy supplies. (Chinatopix via AP) New Zealand announced Sunday it is temporarily barring travellers from China to protect the South Pacific region from the virus. The 14-day ban applies to foreigners leaving China but not to New Zealand residents. New Zealand also raised its travel advice for China to "Do not travel," the highest level. Qatar Airways joined the growing number of airlines suspending flights to mainland China. Indonesia and Oman also halted flights, as did Saudi Arabias flagship national carrier, Saudia. Saudi Arabias state-run media reported that 10 Saudi students were evacuated from Wuhan on a special flight. It said the students would be screened on arrival and quarantined for 14 days. People wear face masks as they walk in public park on a snowy day in Beijing, Sunday, Feb. 2, 2020. The Philippines on Sunday reported the first death from a new virus outside of China, where authorities delayed the opening of schools in the worst-hit province and tightened quarantine measures in a city that allow only one family member to venture out to buy supplies. (Miriam Saleh via AP) Over the weekend, South Korea and India flew hundreds of their citizens out of Wuhan. A Turkish military transport plane carrying 42 people arrived in Ankara on Saturday night. A French-chartered plane made its way toward France on Sunday with 300 evacuees from a multitude of European and African countries. And Morocco flew home 167 of its people, mostly students. Indonesia flew back 241 citizens from Wuhan on Sunday and quarantined them on the remote Natuna Islands for two weeks. Several hundred residents protested the move. Europe so far has 25 people infected with the virus. The German Red Cross reported two more cases there on Sunday, both German citizens who were airlifted from Wuhan on Saturday on a military transport carrying 128 people. Eight earlier cases in Germany were all linked to an auto parts factory. The Huoshenshan temporary field hospital under construction is seen as it nears completion in Wuhan in central China's Hubei Province, Sunday, Feb. 2, 2020. The Philippines on Sunday reported the first death from a new virus outside of China, where authorities delayed the opening of schools in the worst-hit province and tightened quarantine measures in a city that allow only one family member to venture out to buy supplies. (Chinatopix via AP) France has six cases; Russia, Italy and Britain have two each, and Finland, Sweden and Spain each have one. German Health Minister Spahn said he had spoken to his U.S. counterpart and agreed that the Group of Seven health ministers should hold a teleconference on how to co-ordinate efforts against the coronavirus. "It doesn't help if one country alone takes measures, and certainly not in Europe," Spahn said. The other G-7 members are France, Italy, Japan, Canada and Britain. A Chinese army medic looks at a patient room at the Huoshenshan temporary field hospital in Wuhan in central China's Hubei Province, Sunday, Feb. 2, 2020. The Philippines on Sunday reported the first death from a new virus outside of China, where authorities delayed the opening of schools in the worst-hit province and tightened quarantine measures in a city that allow only one family member to venture out to buy supplies. (Chinatopix via AP) The Trump administration's national security adviser, Robert OBrien, said on CBS Face the Nation that the Chinese so far have been more transparent certainly than in past crises and we appreciate that and we continue to offer assistance to the Chinese. Want to get a head start on your day? Get the days breaking stories, weather forecast, and more sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. Right now, theres no reason for Americans to panic, he added. "This is something that is a low risk we think in the U.S. Vietnam counted its seventh case, a Vietnamese-American man who had a two-hour layover in Wuhan on his way from the U.S. to Ho Chi Minh City. The country ordered schools to close for at least a week in 19 of its 54 provinces and cities, including Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, which together account for over 4 million students. Rubber glove manufacturers in Malaysia, the top producer of such gear, pledged to donate 18 million gloves to Wuhan. While Malaysians are concerned about the spread of the virus to our shores, we are equally sympathetic toward China, Primary Industries Minister Teresa Kok said. The number of confirmed cases will keep growing because thousands of specimens from suspected cases have yet to be tested, said the WHO representative in Beijing, Gauden Galea. ___ Associated Press writers Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines; Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul, South Korea; Niniek Karmini in Jakarta, Indonesia; Hau Dinh in Hanoi, Vietnam; Binaj Gurubacharya in Kathmandu, Nepal; Jon Gambrell and Aya Batrawy in Dubai, United Arab Emirates; and Andrew Wilks in Ankara, Turkey, contributed to this report. 1.9k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard The drama of the impeachment of the nations president, reports indicate, simply has not captured the interest or concern of the American audience. Apparently the melodrama of daytime soap operas attracts their attention more than the antics of a corrupt president and administration actively undermining the nations security for personal gain at the expense of the peoples interests. Arguably, Trumps corrupt behavior and incessant lying should concern the American people. He has misled the people about his support for healthcare policy that ensures coverage for people with pre-existing conditions, his refusal to cut medicare and social security, and hosts of other issues most Americans would tend to understand as kitchen table issues, those issues that directly impact their pocketbooks, livelihoods, and ability to take care of their families. It would seem that the corrupt behavior of a president everyday seeking to make American lives worse in the most basic ways would interest voters. But there is no point arguing. I tried as much when I wrote a piece arguing in a similar vein, titled Why the Mueller Report is the Kitchen Table Issue of all Kitchen Table Issues, back when that report was released. What IS worth highlighting in reporting, though, is the kind of corruption we see in the Trump administration in relation to issues that we actually know Americans care deeply about and which just doesnt receive as much attention. Im talking about issues of public education and the ongoing corrupt behavior of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who continues to work against Americans abilities to attain affordable and quality public education. And she does so, like Trump, to line her own pockets. The magnitude of the impeachment hearings and trial, dominating the attention of the American media, provided cover for DeVos own more mundane corruption. Early last December, DeVos proposed a plan to transfer the governments $1.5 trillion student loan portfolio to a stand-alone government corporation, spinning off the Education Departments Federal Student Aid office into a new and supposedly independent federal agency. That sounds innocent enough, right? Especially when you hear her talk about it. She tweeted at the time, One has to wonder: why isnt Federal Student Aid a stand-alone government corporation, run by a professional, expert, and apolitical Board of Governors? A separate Federal Student Aid would be better positioned to deliver world-class service to students and their families as they finance higher education. Lets fill in some context and assess how innocent this plan is. Writing for Common Dreams, Jake Johnson reported that observers condemned the move as a corrupt ploy to strip the next president of the ability to cancel student loan debt. He quoted the analysis of The Intercepts Ryan Grim, who wrote, This very much appears to be a Betsy DeVos scheme to block the next president from unilaterally forgiving federal student debt, which she is well aware a president could do without Congress. The DeVos family is heavily invested in the student loan industry and this is just flat-out corruption. This is just the latest episode of DeVos ongoing saga of corruption and assault on Americans in quest of an education. At the end of last August, DeVos, reversing policies put in place during the Obama administration to enable students to seek forgiveness for loans they received when for-profit colleges defrauded them, made it more difficult for students to qualify for such loan forgiveness. She complained students were just raising their hands to get free money. Then, late last October, DeVos had her dayor rather her follow-up dayin federal district court on another but related matter dating back to a June 2018 ruling from Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim that ordered DeVos and the Department of Education to cease and desist from collecting on loans students owed from Corinthian Colleges, a for-profit chain of colleges that collapsed in 2014 after being exposed for cheating students with deceptive recruiting practices and falsified job placement data. At one of DeVoss hearings last October, Magistrate Judge Kim held DeVos in contempt of court, levying a $100,000 fine, for violating that 2018 order and continuing to pursue the collection of debt from roughly 16,000 students, in many cases garnering wages and tax refunds, in addition to sending bills to borrowers for debts they did not owe. At this same hearing, Kim also declared, At best it is gross negligence, at worst its an intentional flouting of my order. Im not sure if this is contempt or sanctions. Im not sending anyone to jail yet but its good to know I have that ability. Maybe DeVos should be locked up for, in Kims words, having harmed individual borrowers who were forced to repay loans. And we know, of course, this refusal to forgive student loan debt, even when students are victims of the fraudulent for-profit so-called institutions of higher education, is linked to DeVos own profit motives. Americans care about this corruption and recognize its immediate consequences on their lives. In Michigan, Democrats Darrin Camilleri in 2016 and Padma Kuppa and Matt Koleszar in 2018 flipped Republican-held state representative seats in their respective districts by foregrounding the erosion of public schools in those districts due to a gross underfunding caused in part by DeVos long-standing charter school movement in the state. Also in 2018, Kansas voters elected Democrats Laura Kelly as Governor and Sharice Davids to the House of Representatives who ran on support for public education, after Sam Brownbacks cuts to education were so egregious that they were deemed unconstitutional by the states supreme court. Last November, Democrat Andy Beshear defeated always-Trumper incumbent Governor Matt Bevin largely, by many accounts, because of his support for teachers and public education, while Bevin ran on a platform that refused to increase education budgets while he also outright slandered and insulted teachers. DeVos corruption, in its outright attack on people, is tangible to voters. Democrats need to highlight this corruption, lost in the impeachment cloud. This article by Jared Keller originally appeared on Task & Purpose, a digital news and culture publication dedicated to military and veterans issues. The U.S. military has ordered a mandatory quarantine for any service members based in Korea who have visited China in the last two weeks as Wuhan coronavirus continues to spread across the globe. U.S. Forces Korea announced on Sunday that the command is implementing a 14-day "directed self-quarantine" of any and all U.S. service members who have returned to South Korea from mainland China between Jan. 19 and Feb. 2. According to a command statement, the quarantine is required for all affected service members "regardless if they reside on or off USFK installations" and "highly encouraged" for military families, DoD civilians, contractors, and other related personnel. "We are taking all appropriate precautionary measures to prevent any potential spread of the virus," USFK commander Army Gen. Robert Abrams said in a Sunday tweet. "Key for everyone is to follow standard hygiene protocols, and if not feeling wellget screened ASAP!" News of the quarantine comes as the Defense Department plans on providing shelter at four stateside military bases for 1,000 government officials and family members quarantined due to exposure to the Wuhan coronavirus. They join the 195 Americans who fled Wuhan, China last week and are now quarantined at March Air Reserve Base in Ontario, California. Like those evacuees, self-quarantined U.S. service members in South Korea will remain isolated for 14 days the incubation period of the coronavirus "regardless if they display symptoms or not." "USFK continues to stress that the overall risk to USFK personnel remains low, but the quarantine measures implemented are out of an abundance of caution to mitigate risk to the USFK population," the command said in a statement. The Wuhan coronavirus has killed 305 people and sickened more than 14,500 across Asia, according to the New York Times. There are currently 15 reported cases in South Korea. There are nearly 28,500 U.S. service members stationed in South Korea under USFK. There is no vaccine yet to prevent coronavirus infection. The CDC recommends taking everyday preventive measures to stay healthy, including the following: Wash your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. Use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer that contains at least 60% alcohol if soap and water are not available. Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth with unwashed hands. Avoid close contact with people who are sick. Stay home when you are sick. Cover your cough or sneeze with a tissue, then throw the tissue in the trash. Clean and disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces. If you have been to China in the last 14 days and feel sick with fever, cough or difficulty breathing, CDC recommends the following: Seek medical care right away. Before you go to a doctor's office or emergency room, call ahead and tell them about your recent travel and your symptoms. Avoid contact with others. Not travel while sick. Cover your mouth and nose with a tissue or your sleeve (not your hands) when coughing or sneezing. Wash hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds to avoid spreading the virus to others. Use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer that contains at least 60% alcohol if soap and water are not available. This article originally appeared at Task & Purpose. Follow Task & Purpose on Twitter. More articles from Task & Purpose: Taliban attacks in Afghanistan are at their highest level in a decade The F-35 is an overpriced lemon that doesnt work A federal grand jury is looking into the suspicious deaths of 11 veterans at a single VA clinic Hours after the Senate voted against seeking new evidence in the impeachment case against Donald Trump, the administration acknowledged the existence of two dozen emails that could reveal the US presidents thinking about withholding military aid to Ukraine. In a midnight court filing, the Justice Department explained why it should not have to unredact copies of more than 100 emails written by officials at the Office of Management and Budget and the Defence Department about the hold on funds to Ukraine. Heather Walsh, an Office of Management and Budget (OMB) lawyer, wrote that of the 111 redacted emails in the lawsuit, 24 are protected by presidential privilege. Specifically, the documents in this category are emails that reflect communications by either the president, the vice president, or the presidents immediate advisers regarding presidential decision-making about the scope, duration, and purpose of the hold on military assistance to Ukraine, Mr Walsh wrote. Democrats spent much of the Senate impeachment trial imploring Grand Old Party (GOP) senators to allow new evidence in the case against Mr Trump. All the president's lawyers: The team fighting Trump's impeachment Show all 6 1 /6 All the president's lawyers: The team fighting Trump's impeachment All the president's lawyers: The team fighting Trump's impeachment Alan Dershowitz Dershowitz is a controversial American lawyer best known for the high-profile clients he has successfully defended. Those clients have included OJ Simpson, Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein. One longtime Harvard Law associated told the New Yorker Dershowitz "revels in taking positions that ultimately are not just controversial but pretty close to indefensible." Getty All the president's lawyers: The team fighting Trump's impeachment Ken Starr Starr became a household name in the 1990s as the independent counsel who led the investigation that led to Bill Clinton's impeachment. That investigation began as a look into a real estate scandal known as Whitewater, and eventually led to impeachment after Mr Clinton lied under oath about having an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. AP All the president's lawyers: The team fighting Trump's impeachment Jay Sekulow Sekulow is the president's longtime personal attorney, and, now, personal lawyer in the White House. He has been accused by former Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas of being "in the loop" during the Ukraine scandal. Getty All the president's lawyers: The team fighting Trump's impeachment Pam Bondi Bondi is the former attorney general in Florida, and a longtime backer of the president's. She made a name for herself in Florida for taking hyper partisan stances on issues, and her penchant for publicity. She is likely to be a prominent public-facing figure during the trial. AFP/Getty All the president's lawyers: The team fighting Trump's impeachment Pat Cipollone Cipollone is the White House counsel, and leading the president's defence team. Getty All the president's lawyers: The team fighting Trump's impeachment Rudy Giuliani While not officially named as one of the president's impeachment lawyers, it is hard to ignore Giuliani's outsized role in this process. The former mayor of New York has been making headlines for months as he defends his client, and for his apparent role in the effort to compel Ukraine to launch the investigation into Joe Biden. We'll see how he figures in the actual trial, which he has said he would like to be a part of. Reuters In the weeks since the December House of Representatives vote to impeach the president, new evidence against him has emerged, including reports that former White House national security adviser John Bolton says there was a quid pro quo conditioning the aid on investigations by Ukraine that could help the president politically. Mr Trump and administration officials repeatedly stonewalled the House impeachment probe, refusing to allow some witnesses to testify and to provide requested documents. Ultimately Democrats could persuade only two Republicans that more evidence was needed. On Friday, the Senate voted 51 to 49 to block new witnesses and documents, clearing the way for Mr Trumps acquittal this week. Democrats are likely to seize on the new court filing as proof that the trial was incomplete and thus invalid. Every single Republican Senator voted to endorse the White House cover-up of these potentially important truth-revealing emails, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Democrat for New York, said in a statement Saturday. (In fact, GOP Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Mitt Romney of Utah voted with Democrats on new witnesses and evidence.) Make no mistake, the full truth will eventually come out and Republicans will have to answer for why they were so determined to enable the president to hide it. A spokesman for Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, Republican for Kentucky, declined to comment. Heavily blacked-out versions of the emails in question were released in two batches in December in response to a lawsuit filed by the Centre for Public Integrity after the administration ignored a Freedom of Information Act request for the materials. The governments filing on Friday asked the court to deny the organisations request for unredacted copies. The earliest correspondence labelled as protected presidential privilege is from 24 June, 2019, between Pentagon officials and has the subject line: POTUS [president of the United States] follow up. The crux of the impeachment case against Mr Trump is whether he used the $391m (296m) in military aid, and a coveted White House meeting for Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraines president, as leverage to force the foreign leader to conduct political investigations, including one focused on former vice president Joe Biden. In a 25 July call, Mr Trump had asked Mr Zelensky to do us a favour. Why Mr Trump wanted Congress-approved assistance to Ukraine delayed is the central question of his impeachment and was a major point of tension in the Senate trial. On Wednesday, Mitt Romney asked one of Mr Trumps lawyers, Patrick Philbin, on what specific date Mr Trump first ordered the hold on military aid to Ukraine and what reason he gave. Mr Philbin could not answer. I dont think there is evidence in the record of a specific date, he said. White House deputy counsel Mr Philbin answers questions in the Senate, Jan 29 (Senate Television/AP) Referencing the 24 June email, Mr Philbin said the president had been asking since late June about how much other countries spent supporting Ukraine and had raised concerns about corruption later in the summer the issues the White House has claimed were the impetus for the hold. So the evidence in the record shows that the president raised concerns, at least as of 24 June, that people were aware of the hold as of 3 July, Mr Philbin said. Many of the witnesses who testified in the House, some defying the White Houses orders, said they were never given an official reason for the hold. During his 22 October, deposition, William Taylor, the acting US ambassador to Ukraine, recalled that he first learned of the hold on a 18 July conference call, when an Office of Management and Budget (OMB) aide said the security assistance was being held but could not say why. All that the OMB staff person said was that the directive had come from the president to the chief of staff to OMB, Mr Taylor said. In an instant, I realised that one of the key pillars of our strong support for Ukraine was threatened. Several days after that conference call, on 25 July, Mr Trump spoke to Mr Zelensky. Two hours later, a senior official at OMB, Michael Duffey, sent an email to Pentagon officials directing the hold on military aid and asking them to keep it quiet. House Democratic managers prosecuting the case against Mr Trump argued throughout the Senate trial that there was sufficient evidence to conclude that the president was using the money as leverage to pressure the Ukrainian government to launch a public investigation into Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden. But White House lawyers contended that Democrats could not prove motive and suggested it was possible that Mr Trump had mixed motives in placing a hold on the aid, both personal and in the public interest. The House managers said that was why they wanted the Senate to subpoena additional documents and witnesses with firsthand knowledge of the presidents thinking, such as acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and former national security adviser John Bolton. Representative Adam Schiff, Democrat for California, who led the prosecution, warned on Friday that the contents of such emails will eventually be public. The facts will come out in all of their horror, Mr Schiff said in his closing remarks. The documents the president is hiding will come out. The witnesses the president is concealing will tell their stories. And we will be asked why we didnt want to hear that information when we had the chance. Washington Post Importers from Siliguri have cancelled orders for Chinese goods and also put off visits to that country. As coronavirus casualties mount in China, traders from Siliguri in north Bengal have started cancelling their orders for Chinese goods. Traders from Siliguri import the maximum amount of consumer goods from China and Thailand. The quantity is much more than what their counterparts in metro cities such as Delhi and Mumbai import. But over the past few days, several traders have started cancelling their orders because of the scare of the virus. No trader now wants to travel to China, said Gouri Shankar Goyal, secretary of Siliguri Merchants Association. These traders used to travel to various cities in China including Guangzhou in Guangdong province and Yiwu in Zhejiang province to book the consignments themselves to ensure quality. The consignments used to come via Hong Kong and Singapore before landing at the Kolkata port from where they were taken to Siliguri by road. When the coronavirus is taking its toll and people are dying in China, there is no question of going to China, said Sanjay Bansal, an importer who visits China once or twice every year for trade. Bansal deals with imported umbrellas. Only a token amount of the Indo-China trade takes place through the land border in Sikkim. Siliguri is considered as the gateway to Indias Northeast and is one of the most sought after destinations of Chinese goods. The imported goods then make their way to various parts of the country particularly the north-eastern states. We have already cancelled our orders from China. Though Wuhan city in Hubei - the epicentre of coronavirus infection - do not have manufacturing and industrial units and the traders import their products from other cities in China, we cant take the risk. The virus has already affected thousands of people across the world, said Jyoti Bansal an importer. Shoes, crockery items, garments, umbrellas and bags top the list of items that are imported by the traders. Though no official data is available every month Chinese consumable goods worth more than Rs 50 crore are imported. Siliguri which is close to Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan and China have large markets for Chinese goods. There are around 500 importers of Chinese consumable goods in Siliguri who directly bring the goods from China and send those to different parts including the Northeast, said Prem Agarwal the former president of Siliguri Golden Plaza Cultural Association. He had relocated from Pashupatinagar in Nepal to Siliguri. In the last ten years malls and markets selling foreign goods have mushroomed in Siliguri. One such market for foreign markets is the Golden Plaza housing. It has more than 100 shops. Agarwal said, The Plaza has more than 100 importers and nowhere in the country there are so many importers in a single building. Traders said that even though there is no immediate scarcity of imported goods as old stocks are being cleared, losses could start mounting if the coronavirus scare continues. Importers said that Chinese traders avail almost one months leave in the New Year and the booking of consignments fall drastically during this time. Mukesh Singhal who imports shoes and has a shop at Golden Plaza said, Even if we book a consignment now, it wont come before March. The situation would have been more alarming had the coronavirus outbreak taken place during the summer when Indo-China border trade goes on in full swing. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON NORTH OLMSTED, Ohio--NORTH OLMSTED, OhioThe ground is icy and crusty, but the preschoolers are hot on the trail. I found a scat! I found some dog tracks! Teacher Marty Calabrese points to the distant treeline and says, We had a bald eagle just above the trees. Thats no surprise, really. The Cleveland Metroparks Nature Preschool takes place in Rocky River Reservation, which also hosts an eagle nest. Calabrese asks his charges if they saw the eagle. A couple hands rise toward the sky. The 2-year-old Nature Preschool has had a waitlist both years. Next fall, the Metroparks will open a second branch at North Chagrin Reservations Nature Education Building, now under renovation. Registration for either branch ends at 5 p.m. on Feb. 9, and a lottery will take place Feb. 17. These preschoolers dont frolic on conventional playgrounds with swings, jungle gyms and the like. They explore a huge natural playground with woods, marshes, cliffs, ponds, deer, coyotes and other natural thrills. Theyve even discovered a teeter-totter at Rocky River: a couple of dead branches that happened to have fallen into just the right position for seesawing. Inside Rocky Rivers nature center, the children learn all the usual skills needed for kindergartenletters, numbers and suchbut with a nature theme. They count images of local plants and animals. They hear words and music about nature, including Vivaldis Four Seasons. They make nature art. Heres the animals, says young artist Luke McFarland. Im making a tornado. They have to get past the tornado. Except in tornados and other dangerous weather, the preschoolers also go outside nearly daily year-round in appropriate gear. Depending on conditions, they may spend a good half of their three-hour day in the wilds, examining trees, birds, scat, tracks, lichen, rocks and more. Immersing children in nature is so important, especially with all the screens in todays world, says Valerie Fetzer, who manages the Rocky River Nature Center. Were creating a lifelong relationship with nature. Mary Rouse, the Metroparks director of outdoor experiences, hopes that the second preschool wont be the last. Shed love to add more branches over time, especially closer to Cleveland. Rocky River has two teachers for every 10 children. North Chagrins roomier quarters will have two for every 12. Children currently attend Rocky River mornings or afternoons Monday through Wednesday. Next fall, Rocky River will add a two-day option Thursday and Friday mornings, and North Chagrin will offer all three options. The three-day program will cost $3,069 for the school year. The two-day one will cost $2,046. A ticket for the lottery costs $25. Candidates must turn 3 by Aug. 1 and be potty-trained by the start of the school year. To apply or learn more, see clemetparks.com/parks/education/nature-preschool or call the Rocky River Nature Center at 440-734-6660. For more stories about the Metroparks, see: Cleveland Metroparks link western Emerald Necklace with Towpath, national park Lookout Ridge among new, improved trails to explore in Cleveland Metroparks Enjoy the wilds in winter with some of the seasons best trails Chief Katherine Dolan makes changes at whats now the Cleveland Metroparks Police Department The high point arrived in Song for the Forest Boogaraboo, a hard-charging work reminding listeners that McCraven can ignite a fire when so inclined. Though his drum work had been quietly woven into the ensemble texture through most of the concert, this time he produced an immense solo showing not only his technical acuity but, in retrospect, the degree of control he had exerted until this point. Referring to the Hyderabad encounter, solicitor general Tushar Mehra said that what happened there was shocking but people celebrated it. New Delhi: Citing the 2019 gangrape and murder of a Hyderabad vet, in which four accused were killed by the police in an alleged encounter, the Centre on Sunday told the Delhi high court that the four death row convicts in Nirbhaya case were not entitled to any more time and asserted that the credibility of the judiciary and its own power to execute death sentence were at stake. Referring to the Hyderabad encounter, solicitor general Tushar Mehra said that what happened there was shocking but people celebrated it. The police had claimed that all the four accused in the Hyderabad case were shot dead in retaliatory firing by the cops when two of the accused opened fire at them after snatching their weapons and tried to escape from the site where they had been taken for a reconstruction of events as part of the investigation. Mr Mehta, representing the Centre and Delhi government which have sought setting aside of a trial court order staying the execution of convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case, told the high court that there was a deliberate, calculated, and well thought-of design to frustrate mandate of law by the convicts who were trying the patience of the nation. Justice Suresh Kait reserved the order on the joint plea by the Centre and Delhi government after a three-hour hearing, during which senior lawyer Rebecca John, representing convict Mukesh Kumar, contended that since the four were sentenced to death by a common order, they have to be executed together and cannot be singled out. The four convicts, along with two others, had gang-raped the young woman in a moving bus on the night of December 16, 2012. Tortured with an iron rod and thrown off the vehicle, she died on December 29 at a hospital in Singapore. One of the assailants, just short of 18 when the crime was committed, was released after spending three years in a reform home. The main accused, Ram Singh, was found hanging in jail. Convicts Vinay Sharma, Pawan Gupta, Mukesh Singh, and Akshay Singh were to be executed on Saturday. But the hanging was postponed indefinitely after one of them, Vinay, filed a mercy petition before President Ram Nath Kovind. As his appeal was turned down, another convict, Akshay, filed his mercy plea. The trial court had said that the four convicts will not be hanged until further orders in the case. According to the rules, a convict is given 14 days between the rejection of a mercy plea and his execution. The original date of execution of the four convicts was January 22, which was deferred after Mukeshs mercy petition was rejected. While requesting the high court to order execution of the two convicts who have exhausted all legal options and whose mercy plea have been turned down, Mr Mehta said, The accused are trying the patience of the nation. Such delays will shake the faith of people in the administration of justice. Mukesh filed almost his seventh legal proceeding on January 31. Till that point, he had still not filed his mercy plea. This is to deliberately delay the execution, he said. The Philippines on Sunday reported the first death from a new virus outside of China, where authorities delayed the opening of schools in the worst-hit province and tightened quarantine measures in a city that allow only one family member to venture out to buy supplies. The Philippine Department of Health said a 44-year-old Chinese man from Wuhan was admitted on January 25 after experiencing a fever, cough, and sore throat. He developed severe pneumonia, and in his last few days, "the patient was stable and showed signs of improvement, however, the condition of the patient deteriorated within his last 24 hours resulting in his demise." The man's 38-year-old female companion, also from Wuhan, also tested positive for the virus and remains in hospital isolation in Manila. President Rodrigo Duterte approved a temporary ban on all travellers, except Filipinos, from China and its autonomous regions. The US, Japan, Singapore and Australia have imposed similar restrictions despite criticism from China and an assessment from the World Health Organization that they were unnecessarily hurting trade and travel. The death toll in China climbed by 45 to 304 and the number of cases by 2,590 to 14,380, according to the National Health Commission, well above the number of those infected in in the 2002-03 outbreak of SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, which broke out in southern China and spread worldwide. Meanwhile, six officials in the city of Huanggang, neighboring the epicenter of Wuhan in Hubei province, have been fired over "poor performance" in handling the outbreak, the official Xinhua Agency reported. It cited the mayor as saying the city's "capabilities to treat the patients remained inadequate and there is a severe shortage in medical supplies such as protective suits and medical masks." After Huanggang, the trading center of Wenzhou in coastal Zhejiang province also confined people to homes, allowing only one family member to venture out every other day to buy necessary supplies. With the outbreak showing little sign of abating, authorities in Hubei and elsewhere have extended the Lunar New Year holiday, due to end this week, well into February. The annual travel crunch of millions of people returning from their hometowns to the cities is thought to pose a major threat of secondary infection at a time when authorities are encouraging people to avoid public gatherings. All Hubei schools will postpone the opening of the new semester until further notice and students from elsewhere who visited over the holiday will also be excused from classes. Far away on China's southeast coast, the manufacturing hub of Wenzhou put off the opening of government offices until February 9, private businesses until Feb. 17 and schools until March 1. With nearly 10 million people, Wenzhou has reported 241 confirmed cases of the virus, one of the highest levels outside Hubei. Similar measures have been announced in the provinces and cities of Heilongjiang, Shandong, Guizhou, Hebei and Hunan, while the major cities of Shanghai and Beijing were on indefinite leave pending developments. Despite imposing drastic travel restrictions at home, China has chafed at those imposed by foreign governments, criticising Washington's order barring entry to most non-citizens who visited China in the past two weeks. Apart from dinging China's international reputation, such steps could worsen a domestic economy already growing at its lowest rate in decades. The crisis is the latest to confront Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who has been beset by months of anti-government protests in the semi-autonomous Chinese city of Hong Kong, the reelection of Taiwan's pro-independence president and criticism over human rights violations in the traditionally Muslim northwestern territory of Xinjiang. Economically, Xi faces lagging demand and dramatically slower growth at home while the tariff war with the US remains largely unresolved. New Zealand announced Sunday it is temporarily banning travelers from China to protect the South Pacific region from the virus. The 14-day ban applies to foreigners leaving China but not to New Zealand residents. New Zealand also raised its travel advice for China to "Do not travel," the highest level. Among a growing number of airlines suspending flights to mainland China was Qatar Airways. The Doha-based carrier said on its website that its flights would stop Monday. It blamed "significant operational challenges caused by entry restrictions imposed by a number of countries" for the suspension of flights. Indonesia and Oman also halted flights to China, as did Saudi Arabia's flagship national carrier, Saudia. Saudi Arabia's state-run media reported that 10 Saudi students were evacuated from Wuhan on a special flight. It said the students would be screened upon arrival and quarantined for 14 days. This weekend, South Korea and India flew hundreds of their citizens out of Wuhan. They went into a two-week quarantine. On Sunday, South Korea reported three more cases for a total of 15. They include an evacuee, a Chinese relative of a man who tested positive and a man who returned from Wuhan. India reported a second case, also in southern Kerala state. South Korea also barred foreigners who have stayed or traveled to Hubei province within the last 14 days from entering the country. Indonesia flew back 241 nationals from Wuhan on Sunday and quarantined them on the remote Natuna Islands for two weeks. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Britain began an uncertain future outside the European Union on Saturday, as it gears up for likely gruelling negotiations on future relations with the EU after the historic end to almost half a century of membership. There was joy and sadness on Friday night as the EU's often reluctant member became the first to leave an organisation set up to forge unity among nations after the horrors of World War II. Little has changed yet as the UK is now in an 11-month transition period agreed as part of the divorce. Britons will be able to work in the EU and trade freely -- and vice versa -- until December 31, although the UK will no longer be represented in the bloc's institutions. But legally Britain is out, with attention now turning to what are set to be tough talks with Brussels this year on the future relationship. British newspapers reported late Saturday that the government was readying for a bruising battle. The eurosceptic Sunday Telegraph said Prime Minister Boris Johnson had already become "privately infuriated" at perceived EU attempts "to frustrate a comprehensive free trade deal". A leaked memo from Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab orders UK diplomats to make an immediate break with former European allies, in ways such as not sitting alongside them at international summits, the Sunday Times said. It instructed them to "adopt a stance as a confident independent country," the paper added. - 'Stunning success' - British voters backed Brexit by a narrow margin in a 2016 referendum, sparking several years of domestic political gridlock about how, or even whether, to deliver it. Johnson -- whose decisive December election victory finally paved the way for Britain's long-stalled departure -- marked the occasion by holding a private party in his Downing Street office. A clock projected on the walls outside counted down the minutes to Brexit becoming a reality at 11 pm (2300 GMT) -- midnight in Brussels. In a televised address to the nation, the British premier hailed a "new era of friendly cooperation", acknowledging there could be "bumps in the road ahead" but predicting the country would make it a "stunning success". Thousands of people waving Union Jack flags packed nearby Parliament Square and sang the national anthem to herald the occasion. But Brexit has unleashed deep divisions in British society, with many fearing the consequences of ending 47 years of ties with their nearest neighbours. Some pro-Europeans, including many of the 3.6 million EU citizens who have made their lives in Britain, marked the occasion with candlelit gatherings. There was a sombre atmosphere on one of the last ferries to leave the European mainland pre-Brexit and make the 42-kilometre (26-mile) journey across the Channel. "It's very depressing what's happening today," said Alessio Bortone, an Italian who has lived in Britain for 10 years. - Trade talks loom - Brexit has also provoked soul-searching in the EU about its future after losing a country of 66 million people with global diplomatic clout and the financial centre of the City of London. French President Emmanuel Macron described it as a "historic warning sign" that should force the bloc and its remaining nations of more than 440 million people to stop and reflect. Britain's diplomatic mission in Brussels on Saturday changed the building's nameplate to read "UK Mission to the European Union", signalling its new non-member status. Meanwhile, Joao Vale de Almeida, the newly named EU ambassador to Britain, said on Twitter he looked forward to "laying the foundations for a solid EU/UK relationship". Getting to this point has been a traumatic process and, while the divorce terms have been agreed, finding consensus on future relations with the EU -- its largest trading partner -- could be equally hard. Both London and Brussels will set out their negotiating positions on Monday. But Johnson, a polarising figure accused of glossing over the complexity of leaving the bloc, has given himself just 11 months to seal a deal -- not enough time, according to his critics. London is also now free to strike trade agreements around the world, including with the United States, whose President Donald Trump is an enthusiastic Brexit supporter. One of his top envoys on Friday hailed an "exciting new era". At a special Brexit day ministers' meeting in northeast England, Johnson discussed an aim to get 80 percent of Britain's commerce covered by trade agreements within three years, a spokesman said. - 'Goodbye & good luck' - In Scotland, where a majority voted to remain in the 2016 referendum and Brexit has revived calls for independence, pro-EU campaigners rallied in Edinburgh on Saturday. "It's a sad day for Scotland to be taken -- or dragged out, as I would say -- out of the EU," said protester David Eakins, 74. Meanwhile in Northern Ireland -- soon to be a new EU frontier -- there are fears Brexit could destabilise a hard-won peace after decades of conflict over British rule. "They're going to have problems probably, sorting everything out with the border up the Irish Sea," said Thomas Glover, 77, alluding to possible trade frictions between mainland Britain and the divided island. "I hope we can make the new realities work," Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney tweeted, adding: "Goodbye & good luck." burs-jj/rma A cleaner charged over a 50million raid on Tamara Ecclestones home was wearing 300,000 diamond earrings when she was held at an airport, a court has heard. Maria Mester, 47, was allegedly wearing 18-carat diamond jewels identical to those stolen from the heiress when police swooped as she flew into the UK from Italy. The Romanian and her son Emil-Bogdan Savastru were charged with conspiracy to commit burglary over the heist at Miss Ecclestones 70million mansion on Billionaires Row in Kensington, west London, before Christmas. Cleaner Maria Mester, 47, stole 50million worth of jewellery from Tamara Ecclestone, who is pictured with husband Jay Rutland Mester and Savastru, 29, a bartender in London, appeared together in the dock at Westminster Magistrates Court. JPs heard Savastru was found in possession of a Louis Vuitton bag similar to one taken in the raid. Miss Ecclestone, the daughter of ex-Formula 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone, had left the country with her husband Jay Rutland for a three-week holiday the day their home was burgled on December 13. The heist at Ecclestone's house (above) took place on one of London 's most exclusive streets, nicknamed Billionaire's Row, in Kensington. Mester, 47, was allegedly wearing 18-carat diamond jewels identical to those stolen from the heiress when police swooped as she flew into the UK from Italy, a court heard She was said to have been left shaken by the raid at the 55-room property near Hyde Park, where neighbours include Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich and the Sultan of Brunei. Prosecutor Simon Arloff said: A group of individuals entered the residence of Tamara Ecclestone and her partner. Miss Ecclestone (pictured) is said to have been left shaken by the raid at the 55-room property near Hyde Park, where neighbours include Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich and the Sultan of Brunei They stole property to the estimated value of 50million ... currency, jewellery and watches. Mester was arrested on January 31 at Stansted while Savastru was stopped at Heathrow the day before as he prepared to fly to Japan. Mester, who lives in Italy, and Savastru, of Bethnal Green, east London, spoke only to confirm their names and addresses. They are yet to enter a plea to the charges but are understood to deny them. They were remanded in custody and are due to appear at Isleworth Crown Court later this month. Two men, aged 21 and 31, who were also arrested in London have been released under investigation, police said. The Congress of South African Trade Unions, the nations biggest labor federation, will present its proposal to rescue state power company Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. to senior members of government and the business community on Monday. The union group, an ally of the ruling African National Congress, wants the government-owned pension fund, the Public Investment Corp., and state lenders, the Industrial Development Corp. and the Development Bank of Southern Africa, to take over 254 billion rand ($17 billion) of the companys debt, Matthew Parks, Cosatus parliamentary co-coordinator, said in an interview Friday. We are ready for a fight, Parks said, adding that the federation is aware there will be opposition to the plan. The alternative is that Eskom will collapse, causing economic pain and job losses, he said. The meeting on Monday will be with the so-called Presidents Working Council, which includes government, business and labor leaders. The plan would leave the embattled power company that provides 95% of the countrys electricity with 200 billion rand of debt, an amount it has previously said it could manage. Eskom is failing to cover its running costs and inadequate maintenance is leading to frequent plant breakdowns and rolling power outages. Those are stalling economic growth. Cosatu represents 800,000 government workers, about four times its closest rival, and the PIC mainly manages the pension funds of civil servants. The PIC, which has more than 2 trillion rand under management, also manages unemployment and worker-compensation funds. Under the agreement, the PIC would provide the bulk of the debt relief, due to its size, and the government could also make a contribution depending on its finances, Parks said. The debt relief would include assuming about 104 billion rand of Eskom debt already held by the PIC, he said. The lenders might get Eskom equity in exchange for the debt, he said, but details are still to be worked out. Senior ANC and government officials have received the proposals favorably, Parks said. The alternative, he said, was higher electricity tariffs and taxes. Tariffs have already risen 400% in recent years and there is little room to increase taxes, Parks said. Another option that could be considered in coming years is the use of prescribed assets, or private pensions, to fund state infrastructure, he said. Now read: Eskom could lose its biggest client 7th Pay Commission: When will the new DA hike be effective from 7th Pay Commission: After DA hike, HRA likely to go up 7th Pay Commission: What CG employees got and what they did not get India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, Feb 02: The Union Budget 2020 turned out to be a damp squib where the 7th Pay Commission is concerned. There were reports in various outlets that claimed that there would be a DA hike or a pay hike. However OneIndia had said clearly that CG employees should expect nothing from the Budget. 7th Pay Commission: Why CG employees will get nothing in the Union Budget 2020 Meanwhile there has been some major relief for Income Tax payers in the Union Budget 2020. Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman said that the tax rate of 30 per cent on income above Rs 15 lakh will continue. For income between Rs 7.5 lakh and Rs 10 lakh the tax rate has been reduced to 15 per cent. An individual will be required to pay tax at a reduced rate of 10% between income of Rs 5-7.5 lakh under the new regime. Presently an individual pays 20 per cent of tax on income between Rs 5 and 10 lakh and 30 per cent on income beyond Rs 10 lakh, Sitharaman said earlier. To provide significant relief to individual tax payers, I propose to bring a new simplified personal income tax regime, where the IT rates will be decreased the minister also said. Further the minister also said that the new income tax rates would be optional and all exemptions will be taken away if opted for the FM also said. The FM also said that those earning up to Rs 5 lakh per year will pay no income tax. Rs 40,000 crore per annum will be the revenue forgone from the new IT rates, the finance minister also said. The CG employees have been demanding a hike in their basis minimum pay of Rs 26,000. The 7th Pay Commission had recommended a hike of Rs 18,000. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Sunday, February 2, 2020, 8:54 [IST] Earlier this month, yet another case of suspected child abuse made headlines when two emaciated children were removed from their home in Cedar Crest. The children were found by Bernalillo County Sheriffs deputies standing at attention and wearing diapers. Thanks to the diligent work of BCSO detectives, these children were discovered before it was too late. But the situation leaves New Mexicans wondering why something wasnt done earlier. When I was first elected as a state representative, one of my commitments was to improve child protection for children living in unsafe home environments in New Mexico. I heard from many New Mexicans that our child welfare system was broken and something needed to be done. People working within the system told me that communication between families and New Mexicos Children, Youth and Families Department (CYFD) was challenging. They observed that CYFD caseworkers were overworked and undertrained, leading to burnout and high staff turnover. The agencys policies were not well-documented and unevenly applied, sometimes causing the agency to miss extreme cases of child abuse and neglect. Seven years ago, I partnered with the administration to open New Mexicos first rural advocacy center for child welfare. The center was located in Los Lunas, and it was intended to improve communication and build trust between CYFD and the people who work with it. I soon learned that creating a small regional office was like putting a bandage on a gushing arterial wound. One advocacy office was no match for the years of systemic dysfunction that had been plaguing CYFD. Every administration vows to improve CYFD, yet failure after failure continues to happen. Limited solutions are not enough. A complete cultural change must happen. This year, I am presenting a bill that represents the first step in this culture change. My proposal creates a Child Welfare Ombudsman Office for New Mexico. This office gives anyone involved with CYFD, such as a child, parent, foster parent, court-appointed special advocate or social worker, a forum to report a concern and have that concern investigated. This office has real authority. It is separate from CYFD and protects the confidentiality of those who report concerns. The bill also establishes training requirements and gives the ombudsman the authority to hold the agency accountable to these requirements. Everyone engaged with child welfare services understands the sensitivity of the information handled by CYFD. However, the agency sometimes surrounds its actions with impenetrable walls of secrecy, shielding them from scrutiny and accountability. For example, last year, a task force was convened to review CYFDs practices and recommend improvements. However, this task force has chosen to operate behind closed doors, without public involvement. Stakeholders, such as foster families and child advocates, arent even being provided notice of the meetings. An ombudsman office will help change this situation. This office has the authority to compel access to CYFD records. It can operate as an objective third-party arbiter to resolve issues between the different individuals involved in our child welfare system. Because it is independent of CYFD, people who report concerns can be protected from retaliation. The problems addressed by the bill are not unique to New Mexico. In fact, 22 states have identified the need for this function within their child welfare services, and have created offices to carry out the duties I outline in my bill. Other entities within our state government, such as the Aging and Long Term Services Department, have established a similar office. Shouldnt we offer New Mexicos children the same protection and resources we provide to our states seniors? While an ombudsman office will not solve all the problems within New Mexicos child welfare system, it will help identify breakdowns and improve transparency. The time for excuses is over. We can no longer wait for CYFD to fix itself. I hope my colleagues in the Legislature will support this idea to restore trust and accountability in New Mexicos child protection system. The skills gap is slowing the ability of Singaporean organisations to accelerate business transformation activities, impacting the pace of cloud adoption as a result. According to IDG Research in association with Amazon Web Services the skills gap is hampering the progress of cloud deployments for 45 per cent of businesses in Singapore. With a further 74 per cent of organisations classifying talent development as critical to future growth, a multi-faceted strategy must be deployed to address ongoing talent challenges in the cloud. Skills in Singapore In assessing the local market, David Herrera, senior vice president and leader of Public Cloud at DBS Bank, observed that demand remains high in relation to recruiting cloud expertise. Its very difficult to find experienced resources, he said. The reason could be that the big cloud providers are focusing now on corporations as customers and these companies require a large amount of resources compared with SMEs. Today, most of what we are talking about is focused on artificial intelligence [AI], machine learning and deep personalisation. But we tend to forget that to be able to execute these technologies we need foundation skills, such as security and networking. On occasions, Herrera said the focus centres around developing top notch skills while forgetting the immediate need to cover basic skills. There is no standard recipe to attract and retain staff, but I see that if you are able to provide a very challenging environment with a set of latest technologies you will have better chances to keep the right resources with you, he advised. Taking the conversation further, Sujith Kumar, director of solutions at Getronics, observed that Singapore is currently in stronger shape from a cloud skills perspective than 24 months prior. This is mostly due to increased adoption of cloud and cloud-related technologies by customers, Kumar said. Singapore is not only a leader in Asia Pacific but a leader globally in terms of cloud adoption. Due to this increase in adoption, most companies are trying to up-skill or cross-skill their existing employee base to provide the most optimum support in terms of cloud services and solutions. Traditionally, Kumar said most businesses were focused on enhancing expertise specific to infrastructure-as-a-service, billed as the need of the hour during the earlier days of cloud implementations. Fast forward to 2020 and such prioritises have changed due to the heightened importance of running business critical workloads in the cloud. This requires a different level of skill and approach, Kumar acknowledged. The cloud skills in-demand currently are machine learning, artificial intelligence [AI], data engineering and serverless architecture, which represents a shift in focus from previous years. Companies today are up-skilling or cross-skilling employees either through in-house training or by partnering with larger public and private cloud providers to leverage learning modules. In contrast, Nagaraja Kharvi, vice president of eCommerce at Singapore Post, cautioned that efforts to accelerate skills development remains hampered by an inability to keep technology projects on city-state shores. Skills are not evolving because Singapore is outsourcing all technology efforts to other developing countries such as India, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines, where developmental costs are very low, Kharvi added. But the usage of cloud skills is increasing every day because cloud is the future. Cloud is not the end but the beginning for all future success and its a way to make things faster. While cloud skills are being used in Singapore at a high-level, most of the developmental skills still go to low developmental cost countries. Taking the conversation further, Ben Kellas, regional IT director at Aimia, reported a change in technology approaches from educational institutions in Singapore, amid increased focus toward the evolution of cloud. This isnt limited to just Singapore, we are seeing this happening elsewhere, he added. But the key challenge in Singapore remains attracting and retaining key talent, especially when the market remains extremely competitive. What is even more challenging in a client solution business like ours is finding the right balance between the business and technology priorities because we want to invest in the new, maintain the current, and sunset the legacy all which requires our cloud resources to be spread across the good, the bad and the ugly. Skills challenges Businesses in Singapore, and the wider region, are adopting cloud to improve processes and develop innovative products. Yet as outlined via IDG Research surveying 150 IT professionals across Australia and Singapore challenges remain in finding and retaining the right skills to extract the most value from cloud. According to findings, both technical and non-technical skills are critical in maximising the benefits of cloud deployments, yet skills shortages continue to significantly hamper such efforts. Currently, only 15 per cent of businesses consider IT employees to be completely prepared for cloud adoption from a skills standpoint. Meanwhile, the most difficult skills to find and source internally include big data and analytics (35 per cent), security (31 per cent) and business intelligence (29 per cent). Despite recognising that a relatively mature cloud industry exists within Singapore, Cheng Hwee Tan, director of IT at Covenant Evangelical Free Church (CEFC), said a retooling of skills must be actioned to maximise market potential. Return on investment is not always clear with no tangible business advantage demonstrated, Cheng Hwee added. The perception is to use cloud vendors to solve a business problem but why do we need heavy investments? Do they help overcome our competitors? Unless there is a strategic vision to reinvent the business, the best course is to be strategic through your choice of building the right cloud technologies, both foundational and those needed in targeted new projects. And also, focus on winning mindshare at CXO and board levels. Echoing Cheng Hwees observations, Khalid Nizami, director of IT at ECOLAB, believes the slow pace of cloud skills development can be pinpointed on four key areas, spanning business buy-in; security; a lack of strategy and cost. According to IDG Research, budget constraints (48 per cent) and change management issues (45 per cent) are cited as the leading obstacles in providing training for IT employees. Business buy-in is crucial, especially for senior leaders, Nizami said. But the decision-makers in many cases are still old school and hence selling new technologies remains a challenge. Specific to security, there has been a lot in the news about organisational data being hacked which has put off many businesses from making a decision about cloud. As a result, building out cloud skills has taken a back seat. Most businesses also lack a clear strategy and thought process regarding how they intend to transition people from traditional data centres to managing data in the cloud. And then there is the cost of migration to the cloud, not just from a dollar point of view but also the wider impact to business. Due to the advancement of technology in such a short period of time, Kumar of Getronics said the ability to keep resources focused on specific solutions is also stalling efforts to up-skill the workforce. Business model changes require an agile change in technology which therefore means that, every person and engineer needs to be constantly adapting and trained for the latest trends and technologies in the market, he outlined. One of the biggest challenges today is not just the shortage of talent for cloud applications, software development and operations, but also for technical architecture. According to Kumar, technical architecture represents a core area of expertise in the designing of complex cloud-based services, expertise which clearly lacks in Singapore. The easiest work around is to import talent from other markets, but with visa regulations that approach is becoming more difficult each day, he added. Skills strategies Acquiring the right talent remains an ongoing process for Singaporean business in the fast-paced world of cloud, with demand for new and emerging skills heightening rapidly. According to IDG Research, 85 per cent of organisations are actively addressing the skills gap, embarking on a journey of resource transformation. To combat a slowing down of skills development in Singapore, the onus is also on CIOs to shape new strategies around enablement and up-skilling, as a way of maximising cloud investments. According to Kellas of Aimia, this can be achieved through adopting a multi-layered approach, starting with tempting the team with new technology. This could be via proof of concepts and hackathons which can then be used to support the creation of business cases and whitepapers, he advised. Before we look at new resources, we also want to sanity check ourselves and the internal team to ensure we have looked inside before going outside. When eventually searching for new resources, we dont constrain ourselves to industry verticals or specific project experience like we might have in the past we need to think outside of our box sometimes. Creating the right environment within an organisation is also key, according to Cheng Hwee of CEFC. Culture is crucial which is helped by recruiting the right people to do the right jobs with room for growth, he said. Remember, the best people are volunteers. If they are good, they can easily find another place to work. Kumar of Getronics recognised that different strategies must be applied for retaining and attracting talents at each levels of the ecosystem, from a developer to an engineering leader. A one fix for all solution doesnt usually apply in all the cases, he clarified. Some of the better ways to retain talents is by clearly showing and defining their career path based on their area of interest. Such guidance is endorsed by IDG Research, which advises that no single strategy will eliminate the skills gap, instead advising CIOs to focus on hiring new talent, training, certification and leveraging managed services. To summarise, companies are currently embracing a mix of strategies, with effective training worthwhile for both internal and third-party cloud management. According to findings, 68 per cent of companies are using third-party service providers for cloud deployments, while 78 per cent are managing implementations internally. IDG Research in conjunction with Amazon Web Services was fielded among IDGs audience in Australia and Singapore in 2019, with all qualified respondents working in an IT related function. Adityanath 'acted in gross violation of the MCC by making wholly objectionable statements with the sole intent of spreading religious hatred,' the AAP alleged. New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Sunday urged the Election Commission of India (EC) to ban Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath from campaigning in Delhi for the upcoming Assembly elections over his remarks linking Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal with Pakistan. "We call upon EC to impose a ban on Yogi Adityanath's election campaign till the election is over, and register an FIR against him," AAP wrote in its letter. "As you are aware, Yogi Adityanath, one of the star campaigners of BJP on 1 February acted in gross violation of the MCC by making wholly objectionable statements with the sole intent of spreading religious hatred. Yogi made public utterances in media in connection with the ongoing general election to the Legislative Assembly of the National Capital Territory by associating Arvind Kejriwal with Pakistan's leaders' statements," AAP added. The letter further said BJP has "indiscriminately indulged in repeated violations of MCC" through hate speeches. "We call upon the EC to take action against Yogi Adityanath by banning him from campaigning till the Delhi election gets over. Register an FIR under Section 153 IPC and immediately take steps to suspend or withdraw the recognition afforded to BJP in accordance with Paragraph 16A of the Symbols Order," said AAP in its letter. Earlier on Sunday, AAP Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh hit back at Yogi over the latter's remarks and called him a "manorogi" (mentally ill person). He also challenged the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister to produce the proof of Kejriwal having links with Pakistan or go to jail for making false claims against a chief minister. "This manorogi has come from Uttar Pradesh who people call yogi baba. Since the day this manorogi has come, he has been making rubbish remarks...But there are good psychiatrists here in Delhi and we can provide free of cost treatment to him," Singh said while speaking with ANI. The election to the Delhi Assembly is scheduled to be held on 8 February. Boris Johnson privately signalled he would give the go-ahead to the HS2 rail link seven months ago, it was claimed last night. He made clear to West Midlands Mayor Andy Street that phase one would get the green light if he became Tory leader, said a wellplaced source. It will leave Mr Johnson open to the charge that his public pledge during the leadership contest last summer to review the project was just a sham. Mr Johnson is said to have signalled his approval during a meeting in June with the Conservative mayor, subject to the review he ordered in August as Prime Minister. Boris Johnson (pictured yesterday) privately signalled he would give the go-ahead to the HS2 rail link seven months ago, it was claimed last night. He is thought to have signalled his approval during a meeting in June with the Conservative mayor, subject to the review he ordered in August as Prime Minister The source told The Mail on Sunday: When Boris unveiled the review, hed already basically given Andy Street the nod over phase one from London to Birmingham. He did say it was pending his promised review on costs, but that was his basic message. The review has reportedly concluded that the scheme, linking London with the Midlands and North, should go ahead despite estimated costs soaring to more than 100 billion, three times the original budget. Rail row: Estimated costs for the HS2 rail link have tripled to more than 100billion There is mounting speculation that the Prime Minister is finally about to approve the first phase. His announcement may be coupled with a review of further phases of the 250mph-line to Manchester and Leeds, as well as massive investment in separate rail projects in the North to appease Tory MPs who oppose HS2. However, the allegation that Mr Johnson made a private assurance to Mr Street will spark fury among critics of HS2. The allegation that Mr Johnson made a private assurance to West Midlands Mayor Andy Street will spark fury among critics of HS2. A source close to Mr Street said it is 'categorically untrue' that the Prime Minister has given the green light for HS2 (pictured, artist's impression of the rail network) According to reports, the review by former HS2 chairman Doug Oakervee strongly advises against scrapping the project despite the soaring cost. The hugely controversial project originally due to link London with Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds by 2032/33 has become a litmus test of Mr Johnsons determination to level up the North/ South economies. A source close to Mr Street said: It is categorically untrue that the PM has given the green light for HS2, which is why Andy has been campaigning so vocally to ensure it does get the go-ahead. Downing Street declined to comment last night. JANUARY is a wicked month, even when its dry. Just three days into dry January, I tripped over a mat in the kitchen and fell forward with a glass in my hand. The glass - like every other glass Ive ever come in contact with in my life was half empty. I know exactly what youre thinking, but strangely, it wasnt like that at all. I had been clearing the table after the dinner and found that hubby had left half his glass of milk behind him. It had a funny taste, he insisted. I didnt argue. We were nearly out of milk, and since we dont have a cow outside in the paddock anymore that you could run out to in a hurry and tap for a quick jug of milk, I had given him a glass of my dairy-intolerant grandsons goats milk instead. But, as I might have known, hubbys finely tuned palate decked it immediately. Anyway when I fell, the glass broke in my hand and sliced quite a sizeable chunk off the inside of my right thumb. Even Florence Nightingale herself would have swooned away in a dead faint at the sight of the resultant damage. I just went into shock. My daughter, who fortunately was in the house at the time, rang Shannon Doc, while trying to rouse me from my catatonic state. They suggested that I go immediately to the casualty unit in Nenagh Hospital. Ill die on a trolley, I wailed as she bundled me into the car with four or five towels wrapped around my leaking hand. Did you warn them, I said, that Ill need a blood transfusion and maybe even a thumb transplant. I arrived at the hospital, sticking out like a sore thumb among the badly wounded. But this article, youll be relieved to hear, is not about my ordeal at all. Or at least its not meant to be. Its meant to be a paean to Nenagh Hospitals casualty unit, otherwise known as the Local Injuries Unit. Youd be amazed at the number of people who unintentionally injure themselves, especially in the post -Christmas period and the place has proved a lifeline to all such unfortunates. All I can say is that if the rest of the health service functioned even half as efficiently as Nenaghs local injuries unit, then the HSE could truly take a bow. Its a veritable model of care and proficiency. I was seen immediately by a lovely young nurse and a pleasant young doctor who assured me that my injury looked bad, but definitely wasnt life threatening. He called me a drama queen when I expressed fears that the throbbing digit might have to be amputated. A few stitches and youll be right as rain, he said. But first there was an x-ray to determine if any shards of glass still lurked in the bloodied thumb. Impossible, I said. It bled like Niagara Falls at the height of winter and everything must have been flushed out. The x-ray came back negative and the suturing began. After the first stitch, I experienced an existential crisis and begged for a general anaesthetic or a horse tranquilizer, whichever was handiest. Used to dealing with wimps as well as the brave and the valorous, they gave me a local anaesthetic, but that didnt stop me from pulling my hand away every time the doctor approached the injured thumb with a needle. He persevered, however, warning that he might have to transfer me to University Hospital Limerick if I didnt co-operate and stay quiet. The very thought filled me with panic and the effect of that panic was better than any horse tranquilizer. I gritted my teeth, co-operated fully and didnt move until the five stitches were inserted. I have been back to the local injuries unit several times since and have met nothing but kindness, care and efficiency. Every visit so far has been a pleasure. Nobody is running around in circles and the atmosphere of calm that prevails throughout the unit is comforting and reassuring. What Id love to know is why the rest of health service doesnt operate with the same proficiency. Its only a local injuries unit, admittedly, but it does service a local need without being burdened with the pretentions and cost of a centre of excellence. The trouble now is that word has got out and the injured are coming from as far away as Limerick to have their wounds seen to in Nenagh. Hands off, I say. This is a local facility for the people who live in the area and despite what the experts may say, health as far as I can see, has always been better served locally. (Theres) an odd sense of calm, knowing that we had to get him out of there, Bollinger said. Its like everything pushes out of your mind except getting him out. Aaron, a nurse and bystander who helped Bollinger but only wanted to be identified by his first name, agreed with that sentiment. Its intense, but at the same time you have a job you have to do, he said. You have an obligation to get those individuals out of the vehicle as quickly and safely as possible. Still, it was a scary situation to face, Bollinger said. The scariest part was how fast the fire was spreading in the white truck, he said. I could feel the heat from the fire; things were popping inside the truck. Honestly, I didnt know if at some point whether I may be burned, but we couldnt give up. He was awake, and he was moving, yelling, trying to get out, and as long as there was life in him, we werent going to let him go. Salem and Brendletown fire departments responded along with Burke County EMS, Burke REACT and NCSHP. Chrissy Murphy can be reached at cmurphy@morganton.com or at 828-432-8941. Follow @cmurphy MNH on Twitter. Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Police are investigating a Brexit poster which demands people living in council flats speak English or move out. A photograph of the notice, which was headed Happy Brexit Day, was shared widely on Twitter after it was spotted by a resident of the building in Norwich on Friday morning. A typed A4 sheet of paper was placed on a fire door in Winchester Tower, a block of 95 flats owned by Norwich City Council, on the day the UK left the EU. It said: As we finally have our great country back we feel there is one rule to that needs to be made clear to residents. We do not tolerate people speaking other languages than English in the flats. We are now our own country again and the the Queens English [sic] is the spoken tongue here. A photograph of the notice posted on a door at Winchester Tower in Norwich (Anonymous) If you do want to speak whatever is the mother tongue of the country you came from then we suggest you return to that place and return your flat to the council so they can let British people live here and we can return to what was normality before you infected this once great island. It is a simple choice obey the rule of the majority or leave. You wont have long till our government will implement rules that will put British first. So, best evolve or leave. The poster which is not signed with a name ends with the phrase: God Save the Queen, her government and all true patriots. Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Show all 37 1 /37 Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Pro-Brexit supporters celebrating in Parliament Square, after the UK left the European Union on 31 January. Ending 47 years of membership PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Big Ben, shows the hands at eleven o'clock at night AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Pro Brexit supporters attend the Brexit Day Celebration Party hosted by Leave Means Leave Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage smiles on stage AFP/Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square People celebrate in Parliament Square Reuters Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square A Brexit supporter celebrates during a rally in Parliament square AP Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Police form a line at Parliament Square to prevent a small group of anti-Brexit protestors from going through to the main Brexit rally PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Nigel Farage speaks to pro-Brexit supporters PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square JD Wetherspoon Chairman Tim Martin speaks as people wave flags Reuters Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit supporters wave Union flags as they watch the big screen AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit Party leader, Nigel Farage arrives Reuters Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit supporters gather AP Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Ann Widdecombe speaks to pro-Brexit supporters PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit supporters wave Union flags as they watch the big screen AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square People wave British Union Jack flags as they celebrate Reuters Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Pro-Brexit demonstrators celebrate on Parliament Square on Brexit day Reuters Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square A pro-Brexit supporter jumps on an EU flag PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square AP Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square A man waves Union flags from a small car as he drives past Brexit supporters gathering AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square A pro-Brexit supporter pours beer onto an EU flag PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square An EU flag lies trampled in the mud Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square AFP via Getty In a statement, Norwich City Council said: Norwich has a proud history of being a welcoming city, and we will not tolerate this behaviour. As soon as we became aware of this incident, we reported it to Norfolk Police and they are investigating, the council added. We take this very seriously and encourage residents to contact us or the police if they have any concerns. Recommended The anger of Brexiteers will explode once the Brexit project fails City councillor Mike Stonard told the Eastern Daily Press the poster was abhorrent. He added: Whoever put it there has committed a hate crime, it is as simple as that. Norfolk Police said they were investigating the poster as a racially aggravated public order incident. Those posters kept by residents have since been seized for forensic enquiries and we will be working with the council to examine any available CCTV, a spokeswoman said. There is no place in society for hatred and intolerance. Nobody should have to face intimidation because of who they are and it is more important than ever that we stand together in the face of hostility. We remain committed to helping people feel safe and secure as they go about their lives. The matter is being dealt with as a racially aggravated public order incident and anyone with information which could help officers with enquiries should contact Norfolk Police. Simon Price, who first publicly shared the photo, rejected suggestions from some Twitter users that the poster was fake. The guy who tweeted it has a locked account, and only sent it in reply to someone he was chatting with, he said. A lot of trouble to go to, and hes really not the type. He wasnt looking for shares or retweets, but I happened to spot it. The new coronavirus outbreak has prompted authorities to grant a week off starting Monday to 4 million students in Hanoi and Saigon from kindergarten to high school grades. The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training responded positively late Sunday to a large number of requests from teachers and parents that students are allowed to stay away from classes from Monday to Sunday as part of efforts to keep them safe and limit the spread of the 2019-nCoV. The decision came after officials in the downtown District 3 sought permission for a one-week closure at three schools standing near a hotel which hosted an infected Vietnamese American guest. Hanoi's education department has issued similar notice the same night to keep its two million students from being exposed to the deadly virus. Some school leaders said the well-being of students was now the top priority, and a week off will not largely affect the study schedule. "As a parent myself, I support the decision to let the students off for a week," said the principal of a school in HCMC's District 10. The week off extends the 16-day Tet break that students have enjoyed from January 20 to February 2. Besides the country's two largest cities, 15 cities and provinces across the country have announced plans to extend the Tet break for students by at least two days, including Vinh Phuc, Thanh Hoa and Khanh Hoa, which have confirmed infection cases. Dozens of universities and colleges have also postponed and rescheduled their classes. Vietnam has so far confirmed seven cases of nCoV infection: a 73-year-old Vietnamese American, two Chinese nationals and four Vietnamese citizens. Three of the Vietnamese had returned from Wuhan, and a female hotel receptionist caught the coronavirus infection from the two Chinese nationals presently quarantined in Saigon. As of Sunday, Vietnam has recorded 92 suspected cases with symptoms like high fever and cough, including some who visited infected areas in China. Of these, 27 remain quarantined pending test results. The death toll from the coronavirus outbreak in China had reached 304 by Saturday, according to Chinas National Health Commission. The virus has claimed first life outside mainland China, a 44-year-old man from Wuhan who died in the Philippines on Saturday, of what officials called "severe pneumonia." Have you ever had the feeling of deja vu that you've played out a scene before, like an actor on a stage? Mama has: She descends into the small kitchen of her Mt. Vernon, New York, home to make the same cup of tea with the same three lumps of sugar to the sound of that same yappy neighbor dog. She's in the middle of making the same stew she has made every year on this special day since "the beginning of time." And then there is the same old fear that causes her to jump at the sound of a loud pop coming from the street; maybe it's a punctured tire, or maybe it's something a lot worse. Played with an enticing combination of the savory and the sweet by the fabulously single-named actor Portia, Mama is the matriarch of the Tucker family and one of four women in Zora Howard's Stew, now making its world premiere with Page 73 at Walkerspace. Howard takes the idea of perseverance to an extreme in this 90-minute comedy-drama about three generations of black women. The echoes stealthily reverberating throughout the script take on an air of creeping absurdity, which a lot of working-class black people might also feel about living in America. Toni Lachelle Pollitt, Portia, Kristin Dodson, and Nikkole Salter star in Stew. ( Jeremy Daniel) The story takes place the morning of an annual feast that Mama has planned for at least 50 people (the occasion it commemorates is never explicitly revealed, but audience members will likely leave with ideas). She is joined in the kitchen by her eldest daughter, Lillian (Nikkole Salter); her youngest, Nelly (Toni Lachelle Pollitt); and Lillian's preteen daughter, Lil' Mama (Kristin Dodson). Precocious and full of questions, Lil' Mama wonders why she is expected to help with the cooking while her brother is allowed to go play. Nearly 18 and ready to get out of Mt. Vernon, Nelly would much rather be playing with her boyfriend. Meanwhile, Lillian's husband is a no-show, a fact that sets Mama off on a rolling grumble. "You know, I don't ask for much," she begins at a simmer. "I have one day. One day out of three hundred and sixty five that I ask everyone to show up. One day." Portia masterfully delivers these rants, which bubble and subside like a stew, only to come roaring back to life when some new ingredient is added to the pot. When Nelly complains that she is tired, Mama replies, "You know who else was tired? Jesus." Such lines earn hoots and snaps of recognition from black audience members, but Mama's ire will feel familiar to anyone who has ever toiled under the constant reproach of a tenacious matriarch. She reminded me of my Irish-German grandmother, who had a talent for stretching a grudge out like it was taffy, ensuring that everyone got a piece. Director Colette Robert invites us all into the Tucker home with an intimate production. Lawrence E. Moten III's snug kitchen set depicts the thin line between coziness and claustrophobia. Stacey Derosier helps us feel the sweltering Mt. Vernon summer taking place just outside with natural lighting. Avi Amon's aggressive sound design brings us into the occasionally dizzy headspace of the women as they navigate the minefield of family history. My one disappointment with Robert's production is a lack of olfactory design. For a play so much about cooking and remembrance, Robert misses a grand opportunity to engage the sense most intensely tied to memory: smell. Toni Lachelle Pollitt, Kristin Dodson, Nikkole Salter, and Portia appear in Stew. ( Jeremy Daniel) Still, Robert compensates with her rhythmic and resonant direction of the performances. She has craftily led the other three actors to a believable family resemblance. Like Mama, the younger women sport elaborate hairdos, kept under wraps like works of art before an unveiling (impressive hair and wig by Nikiya Mathis). We notice shared phrases and physical expressions, sometimes arriving simultaneously. We also see Mama's daughters making some of the same choices their mother made when she was their age. Will those decisions pan out better for them? Will Lil' Mama's recognition of that repeated history (especially when it comes to men) make her immune, or does her very name suggest her fate? Howard gives us a lot to chew on when it comes to the cycles of history, and our own complicity in maintaining them. More disturbing are the choices history makes for us, over which we have no control (a theme that arrives with shocking brutality in this play). With humor and warmth, Stew challenges us to consider the life recipes that offer stability and comfort, and the ones that only taste like heartbreak. Former Game of Thrones actress Emilia Clarke has revealed she won't Google herself. Speaking to Body and Soul magazine on Sunday, the 33-year-old said it was how she deals with fame in a healthy way. 'I don't Google myself, I don't look at anything,' she told the publication. Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke, 33, (pictured) has revealed why she WON'T Google herself 'And that, to me, is the recipe for success in dealing with fame and any subsequent failures.' 'I learnt very very early on, after my first year [on Game of Thrones] and especially after my brain hemorrhages, not to read anything,' she continued. Emilia went on to say she won't tie her self-esteem into what others think of her either. 'If you try not to tie your sense of self-worth to what other people perceive as success, then you're not going to tie it to what people may perceive as failure.' Grounded: 'I learnt very very early on, after my first year [on Game of Thrones] and especially after my brain hemorrhages, not to read anything,' said Emilia Emilia has spoken out about her past struggles with intense anxiety and panic attacks. Speaking to podcast Table Manners last month, she explained why she no longer takes selfies with fans. 'I was walking through an airport and I suddenly starting having what I can only believe to be a panic attack brought on by complete exhaustion,' said Emilia. Scary: 'I was on my own. I was on the phone to my mum saying, "I feel like I can't breathe. I don't know what's going on".' 'I was on my own. I was on the phone to my mum saying, "I feel like I can't breathe. I don't know what's going on". 'This guy's like, "Can I get a selfie?" And I was like, "I can't breathe, I'm really sorry. Just having a minute." Despite crying and going through the difficult ordeal, she revealed that the fan was insistent on getting the snap. Terrifying: Despite crying and going through the difficult ordeal, Emilia revealed that the fan was insistent on getting the snap She went on to say that she now asks if she can give fans an autograph instead. 'When you do that, you have to have an interaction with that person, as opposed to someone just going, "Give us a selfie, goodbye".' Emilia suffered from a life-threatening brain haemorrhage, which she suffered at age 24, after filming the first season of Game of Thrones. She told The Observer that she believed it helped gain perspective on her life. 'Having a brain hemorrhage that coincided precisely with the beginning of my career and the beginning of a show that became something quite meaty, it gave me a perspective that I wouldn't have otherwise.' War epic 1917 has swept up at the British Academy film awards but the ceremony faced criticism for lack of diversity among its nominees. Sir Sam Mendess deeply personal film, based on a story told to him by his grandfather, won seven of the nine prizes it was nominated for, including best film, outstanding British film, best director and best cinematography. Joaquin Phoenix was named best actor for Joker and used his speech to address the fact only white performers were nominated this year. He said: I feel very honoured and privileged to be here tonight Bafta has always been very supportive of my career and Im deeply appreciative. But I have to say that I also feel conflicted because so many of my fellow actors that are deserving dont have that same privilege. I think that we send a very clear message to people of colour that youre not welcome here, I think thats the message that were sending to people that have contributed so much to our medium and our industry and in ways that we benefit from. He added: I think that we really have to do the hard work to truly understand systemic racism. I think it is the obligation of the people that have created and perpetuated and benefited from a system of oppression to dismantle it, so thats on us. The Duke Of Cambridge, who is president of Bafta, also referred to the issue in his speech on stage, saying: Both here in the UK and in many other countries across the world we are lucky to have incredible film makers, actors, producers, directors and technicians men and women from all backgrounds and ethnicities enriching our lives through film. Yet in 2020, and not for the first time in the last few years, we find ourselves talking again about the need to do more to ensure diversity in the sector and in the awards process that simply cannot be right in this day and age. Video of the Day I know that both Pippa (Harris), chair of Bafta, and Amanda (Berry), Bafta CEO, share that frustration and continue to work tirelessly to ensure that creative talent is discovered and supported. Bafta take this issue seriously, and following this years nominations, have launched a full and thorough review of the entire awards process to build on their existing work and ensure that opportunities are available to everyone. Renee Zellweger was named best actress for her turn as Judy Garland in Judy at the ceremony and Laura Dern was named best supporting actress for Marriage Story. Brad Pitt, who was named best supporting actor for Once Upon A TimeIn Hollywood, missed the ceremony because of family obligations but asked co-star Margot Robbie to read his speech, saying; Hey Britain, heard you just became single, welcome to the club. Wishing you the best with the divorce settlement. She added: He says he is going to name this Harry because he is really excited about bringing it back to the States with him. His words not mine. Roger Deakinss win for best cinematography for 1917 means he has become the most-decorated winner of that category, while Sir Sam won his first directing prize, making him the first British winner in the category since Danny Boyle won for Slumdog Millionaire. The outstanding British contribution to cinema award was presented to Andy Serkis, while the EE rising star prize was awarded to Micheal Ward. Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy was presented with Baftas highest honour, the Fellowship. Muriel E. Bowser, Mayor of Washington, D.C. Photo: Manuel Balce Ceneta / Associated Press By Peter Jamison 31 January 2020 (The Washington Post) Fatal opioid overdoses are on the rise again in the nations capital, an alarming development for public health officials who had celebrated what previously appeared to be a downward trend in the citys drug deaths. Preliminary data indicates that 220 people died of opioid overdoses in the District in the first 10 months of 2019. If that fatality rate holds for the final two months of the year which are still being analyzed the District will log more than 260 fatal opioid overdoses, a 24 percent increase over 2018. That would also make 2019 the second-deadliest year for drug users since the Districts opioid crisis began five years ago. The increase comes despite efforts by the administration of Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) to step up the citys response to fatal opioid overdoses, launched last year as part of a long-awaited strategic plan to fight the epidemic. It also comes amid an unprecedented cascade of federal dollars into the District, which has been awarded more than $50 million over two years by the Trump administration for anti-opioid initiatives. D.C. Council members said they were surprised and disheartened by the overdose data at a council health committee hearing Friday. Health committee chairman Vincent C. Gray (D-Ward 7) called the statistics deeply disturbing and said they depict a startling increase and trend moving in the wrong direction. He said he was eager to hear how the Bowser administration planned to respond to the upswing in fatal overdoses. I need to hear creative solutions and a tremendous sense of urgency, Gray said. [more] D.C. opioid deaths are surging again, reversing previous years decline Project Brexit has been accomplished; the U.K. is out of the European Union after a membership lasting 47 years. Now, we have to wait and see how the divorce works out. The process was set in motion when a majority of the British people voted in a June 2016 referendum to part ways with their European friends. And it took more than three excruciating years of fractious arguments to finalize the divorce. Initially, Brexit was to take place on March 29 last year, but was delayed as lawmakers thrice rejected a withdrawal deal negotiated by former Prime Minister Theresa May. In the process, she slowly lost grip on power and stepped down in July 2019 after failing to get the deal done. Her successor, Boris Johnson, proved to be quite clear-headed. He first tried to get agreement from the parliament but on failure decided to go to people. After gaining a thumping majority in the December election, he lost no time in implementing his promised vision of a country liberated from EU constraints. Prime Minister Johnson sounded happy to have kept his promise. In a message issued shortly before the midnight on January 31, he described it as a new dawn for the country. And surely it is a new beginning for those who had been supporting the idea. The will of the people who by a narrow 52-48% margin in the referendum has finally been implemented, despite many questions still hanging about the merit of the decision. The Brexiteers view it as the country coming to its senses after 47 years of being a part of the EU and following its "flawed" policies. Amid celebrations, Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage called it "a massive victory of the people against the establishment." Yet, not all are happy, as pro-EU elements decried the fatal day while paying a fond farewell to Brussels. They believe the euphoria will end shortly, and many will be asking: What next? Where is the post-Brexit golden dawn laden with prosperity and abundance? First Minister and Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon expressed helplessness as Brexit happened despite huge opposition in Scotland. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who is stepping down in April after disastrous elections, said his party will hold the government accountable for "every step of the way." The fact is that not much will change immediately. The withdrawal is followed by a transition period until the end of December this year. During this time, most of the laws will remain in place as the two sides discuss details of a new bilateral relationship. Hence, the first test is smoothly graduating through this transition period. The process will be quite hard. The EU may not like to give an inch in concessions because Brexit has hurt the group deeply, reducing its global clout and outreach. Some have called it "the end of the beginning of the EU." One way to discourage any other member following the U.K.'s example is to make the transition period extremely difficult. Even in good times, agreements involving money and trade issues do not come easily. The fear is that this period will be submerged in squabbling over details, like fishing rights etc. To the advantage of the U.K., it is now free to enter into bilateral trade deals with the rest of the world and make up for the losses which it can suffer in the hard bargaining with the EU. It can count on the support of U.S. and will try to formalize a free trade agreement. Internally, the chief headache for London will come from Scotland as voices for independence are expected to be getting louder over the years. The successful handling of post-Brexit issues is vital for survival of the "United Kingdom" of four separate entities. Failure to reap the fruit of post-Brexit freedom of choice will create huge costs for the people and political leaders. Let us remember that the margin of Brexit referendum was very thin, after all. Who knows that after a few wayward years, the pro-EU numbers go up and demand a new referendum? Former EU president, Jean-Claude Junker, told the BBC in an interview that the EU would welcome Britain back if, at any time, it decided to revoke its decision to leave. Sajjad Malik is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit: http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/SajjadMalik.htm Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn. If you would like to contribute, please contact us at opinion@china.org.cn. GLENS FALLS A Post-Star editorial on March 21, 1921 touted the potential of commercial radio. A woman in a small Massachusetts town who had been unable to attend church services for 20 years because of a disability was able to tune in to a church service broadcast on radio station KDKA from Pittsburgh. The woman heard every word as plainly in Massachusetts as she would have heard if she had been present in the church, the editorial mused. It would not be too many years before commercial radio would take to the airwaves in Glens Falls, including a short-lived, fledgling station The Post-Star operated for about three years. Writer and researcher Maury Thompson has volunteered to assist The Folklife Center at Crandall Public Library in compiling a collection about AM radio in the Glens Falls area. The goal, according to a news release, is to compile enough material to display an exhibit during the last half of 2021, to coincide with the 75th anniversary of WWSC going on the air on Dec. 18, 1946. WWSC is the citys longest continuously operating radio station. Local historic radio photos, memorabilia or related items can be loaned, donated or taken to The Folklife Center for scanning. Those wishing to have items scanned and those with large collections should contact The Folklife Center in advance to make an appointment. The history of local radio is broader than just the stations themselves. It encompasses local entertainers who performed on the air and historic theaters from which stations broadcast live programs and concerts. WGLC and WBGF were short-lived radio stations in Glens Falls and Hudson Falls in the 1930s. WWSC went on the air Dec. 18, 1946, and six days later broadcast live from Christmas Eve Mass at St. Marys Roman Catholic Church. The Post-Star established WGLN in 1947 and merged with WWSC in early 1950. WSET went on the air in Glens Falls in 1959, and in 1965 changed its call letters to WBZA. Thompson also is researching and writing a book, AM Adirondacks: The Golden Age of Radio, about early AM radio stations in the region. Love 11 Funny 2 Wow 1 Sad 0 Angry 2 Donald Trump is expanding curbs on legal immigration from six additional countries that officials have said do not meet security standards. The move comes as a part of an election-year push to further restrict immigration. Trump administration officials announced on Friday that immigrants from Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Eritrea, Nigeria, Sudan and Tanzania will face new restrictions in obtaining certain visas to visit the United States. The move is not a total travel ban, unlike an earlier effort from President Trump that caused outrage around the world from people who believed it unfairly targeted Muslims . Immigrant visas have been restricted for Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Eritrea and Nigeria. The visa is given to people seeking to live in the US permanently. They include visas for people sponsored by family members or employers, as well as the diversity visa programme that made up to 55,000 visas available in the most recent lottery. In December, for example, 40,666 immigrant visas were granted worldwide. Sudan and Tanzania have had diversity visas suspended. The US State Department uses a computer to select people from around the world for up to 55,000 diversity visas. Nigeria is already excluded from the lottery along with other countries that had more than 50,000 natives immigrate to the US in the previous five years. Non-immigrant visas were not affected. Those are given to people travelling to the US for a temporary stay. They include visas for tourists, those doing business or people seeking medical treatment. During December, for example, about 650,760 non-immigrant visas were granted worldwide. Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said officials would work with the countries on bolstering their security requirements to help them work to get off the list. He said: "These countries for the most part want to be helpful, they want to do the right thing, they have relationships with the US, but for a variety of different reasons failed to meet those minimum requirements." Story continues The latest restrictions follow Mr Trump's travel ban, which the Supreme Court upheld as lawful in 2018. They are significantly softer than the initial ban, which had suspended travel from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen for 90 days, blocked refugee admissions for 120 days, and suspended travel from Syria. The government suspended most immigrant and non-immigrant visas to applicants from those countries. Exceptions are available for students and those with "significant contacts" in the US. Mr Trump was expected to sign a proclamation on the new restrictions as early as Friday. They come as the US president tries to promote his administration's crackdown on immigration, highlighting a signature issue that motivated his supporters before the election in 2016. The US leader will be hoping it has the same affect during the election in November. Mr Trump's administration recently announced a crackdown on birth tourism and is noting the sharp decline in crossing at the US-Mexico border. It is also citing progress on building the border wall. Quarantine workers in protective suits check identity documents as tourists from the Wuhan area walk off of a chartered plane taking them home from Bangkok at Wuhan Tianhe International Airport in Wuhan in central China's Hubei Province on Jan. 31, 2020. (Chinatopix via AP) Trump Says US Cant Have Thousands Coming In With Coronavirus The 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCov), or the Wuhan coronavirus has spread from China to over 20 countries, including the United States, France, and Japan. This page has updates from Feb. 2. For updates from Feb. 3, click here. Trump: US Cant Have Thousands Coming In With Coronavirus President Donald Trump, in a pre-Super Bowl interview on Sunday, said that the United States cannot allow potentially thousands of people into the country with coronavirus. We cant have thousands of people coming in who have this problem, the coronavirus, Trump said in the interview, referring to U.S. travel restrictions on people who recently traveled to China. President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump walk along the South Lawn to Marine One as they depart from the White House for a weekend trip to Mar-a-Lago in Washington on Jan. 31, 2020. (Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images) Trump also said the United States had made strong efforts to curb the spreading of coronavirus inside the country. Earlier, White House national security adviser Robert OBrien told news outlets that the White House has reached out to Beijing to help curb the spread inside China. DHS: More Restrictions on Inbound China Flights The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued more restrictions on inbound flights with people who have been in China recently. The agency will, starting on Sunday, begin enforcing restrictions for all passenger flights to the United States carrying individuals who have recently traveled from China, according to a news release. The restrictions will begin for flights commencing after 5:00 p.m. EST on Sunday, Feb. 2nd and will direct U.S. citizens who have traveled in China within 14 days of their arrival to one of seven designated airports, where the United States Government has enhanced public health resources in order to implement enhanced screening procedures. The administration is taking these actions to protect the American people, the release stated. U.S. citizens who have been in Hubei Province within the past 14 days will be subjected to 14 days of mandatory quarantine, DHS said. Russia Evacuates Citizens from China Russian President Vladimir Putins government will evacuate Russian nationals from China next week, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. Due to the fact that it has taken certain time to finalize the coordination of flight information by the Chinese side, the evacuation of Russian nationals from China by planes of the Aerospace Force will be carried out on February 3-4, Peskov told the state-run TASS news agency. It came after Putin ordered the evacuation of Russian nationals trapped in the hardest-hit areas in China, the agency reported. Peskov also indicated in state-backed RT that they will start carrying out [evacuation] flights as of today. The move came about a day after Russian health officials confirmed two cases of coronavirus in two Siberian regions. Those new cases involve Chinese nationals, RT reported. Russia also announced last week that it would shut down its 2,500-mile border with China in the Far Eastern District. Plane With 250 Europeans from Wuhan Lands in France A plane repatriating 250 French and European nationals from Wuhan, Chinas coronavirus-hit city, landed at a French military base on Sunday, said, French officials. Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told Reuters that the plane was carrying nationals from 30 countries. Secretary of State for Child Protection Adrien Taquet said the nationals would be quarantined at Carry-Le-Rouet or a firefighters training center near Aix-en-Provence. White House: US Has Offered to Help China in Containing Virus White House national security adviser Robert OBrien said Sunday that the Chinese regime hasnt yet accepted an offer from the United States to help contain the outbreak of coronavirus. We continue to offer assistance to the Chinese. Weve offered to send over CDC and other U.S. medical and public health professionals. And we have not heard back yet from the Chinese on those offers, but were prepared to continue to cooperate with them, OBrien said on CBSs Face the Nation on Sunday. OBrien said the White House had asked Beijing for more transparency after CBS anchor Margaret Brennan noted that regime officials in coronavirus-hit Wuhan may have covered up the extent of the virus. President Trump, from the day he took office, made protecting Americans and keeping them safe, whether its from terrorists or criminal organizations or from viruses like the new novel coronavirus his top priority. So were taking steps to keep Americans safe, and the government is functioning in that direction, OBrien remarked. Chinese officials in protective suits checking on an elderly man wearing a facemask who collapsed and died on a street near a hospital in Wuhan, China, on Jan. 30, 2020. (Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images) New York Investigating Potential Case New York City health officials said Saturday that a possible coronavirus patient is being treated at Manhattans Bellevue Hospital. The patient, who is under 40, recently traveled to China and had a fever and cough or shortness of breath without another common cause, like influenza and other cold viruses, the health department said in a statement. The patient didnt spend extended time with friends or family after heading back to New York City, said Mayor Bill de Blasio, according to local media outlets. He, however, called on New Yorkers to go to the hospital if they believe they are showing symptoms related to coronavirus. New Yorkers should go about our lives, continue doing what we do normally, de Blasio said. People wear medical face masks on the streets of Chinatown in New York City on Jan. 29, 2020. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images) Southern Chinese City of Shenzhen Confirms Cases of Human-to-Human Transmission Kong Dongfeng, deputy director of Shenzhens Center for Disease Control and Prevention, stated that three new patients, two women and one man, recently tested positive for coronavirus, despite the fact that they did not travel to Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak. They have not left Shenzhen in the past 14 days, according to a Feb. 2 article by Chinese news portal Sina. Kong also said the three did not come into contact with people with acute respiratory symptoms. Scientists say the virus has an incubation periodthe period between exposure to the virus and the onset of symptomsof 14 days. Indonesia Suspends China Flights Indonesias Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi announced on Feb. 2 that flights to and from China will be suspended beginning on Feb. 5, according to local newspaper The Jakarta Post. Visitors who have been to China in the past two weeks will also be banned, and visas on arrival will also be halted for those arriving from China, according to Marsudi. 238 Indonesians Return Home from Hubei Province Indonesian airliner flight Batik Air flew from China to Hang Nadim Airport on Batam Island on Feb. 2, carrying 238 Indonesian evacuees from Hubei Province, according to local newspaper Jakarta Globe. Wuhan City, the epicenter of the outbreak in China, is the capital of Hubei. After their arrival, the evacuees then boarded three Indonesia Air Force planes, which took them to Natuna Island, where they will be placed under quarantine for two weeks. Burma Suspends Visas on Arrival for Tourists from China Burmese media, citing a Feb. 1 statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, reported that the country had suspended issuing visas on arrival for tourists from China. The ministry added the suspension was to protect the health of local citizens and prevent the spread of the virus. Currently, Burma has no confirmed cases of coronavirus. South Korea Bans Travelers from China South Koreas Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun announced on Feb. 2 that foreign travelers who have been to Chinas Hubei Province in the past two weeks would be banned from entering the country, according to South Korean broadcaster KBS. The government will decide whether to ban travelers from other parts of China at a later date. The ban will come into effect on Feb. 4. Additionally, Chung announced the suspension of the countrys visa-free entry program to Jeju Island, a popular tourist destination located off the southern coast of the South Korean peninsula. Currently, South Korea has 15 confirmed cases of coronavirus. Taiwan Postpones School Openings On Feb. 2, Taiwans education minister, Pan Wen-chung, postponed the new semesters opening date for local senior high schools, junior high schools, and elementary schools until Feb. 25, according to Taiwans government-run Central News Agency. To make up for the loss in school days, Pan said that the schools summer break this year would be cut short by two weeks; students will now start their break on July 14. UAE Announces One New Case of Coronavirus The United Arab Emirates Ministry of Health and Prevention announced the countrys fifth infection via a Facebook message on Feb. 2. The new patient, currently in stable condition, had visited Wuhan, the central Chinese city where the virus first broke out. Vietnam Cancels China Flights Vietnams Civil Aviation Authority announced on Feb. 1 that it was revoking permits for flights between Vietnam and China, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan, beginning at 1:00 p.m. local time, according to local outlet Vietnam News. The flight cancellation came on the same day that Vietnams Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc declared coronavirus an epidemic in the country. The Vietnamese government had already suspended issuing visas to foreign visitors who had been in China within the last 14 days. India Now Has 2 Cases of Novel Coronavirus On Feb. 2, Indias Ministry of Health announced that another person had been tested positive for 2019-nCov in the country, bringing the national total to two. The new patient had also recently traveled to China. The first case was reported on Jan. 30 involving a student studying at Wuhan University. Both patients are in Kerala, a coastal state in southern India. Residents and hospital visitors wearing facemaks walk outside the Government Medical College in Thrissur where the first confirmed case of the SARS-like virus in India is kept in isolation on Jan. 30, 2020. (AFP via Getty Images) A flight with Indias flag carrier airline Air India landed Delhi after evacuating 324 Indian nationals out of Wuhan, according to local media. The airline has now said it is canceling its Mumbai-Delhi-Shanghai route until Feb. 14. #FlyAI : AI 348/349- BOM- DEL- PVG (Shanghai) flight has been cancelled from 31st January 2020 to 14th February 2020. Air India (@airindiain) January 29, 2020 Macao Reports 8th Case of Novel Coronavirus Macaos health bureau reported an additional virus case on Feb. 2 involving a 64-year-old local resident. The patient was recently in China before returning to Macao. While in Zhuhai, a city in southern Chinas Guangdong Province, she had been hospitalized for shingles from Jan. 10 to Jan. 17. She had also purchased live poultry at a local market in Sanxiang, a town in Guangdong, on Jan. 22, where she spent two days. According to the announcement, the patient said she had not been to Hubei province or come in contact with anyone known to have the novel coronavirus. Vietnamese American Tests Positive for Coronavirus Vietnams Ministry of Health has confirmed its seventh known case of coronavirus involving a 73-year-old Vietnamese American man who was only briefly passing through Wuhan on a layover, according to local newspaper Tuoi Tre. The infected man left the United States on Jan. 14 and arrived in Wuhan the following day for his two-hour layover before he landed at Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City on Jan. 16. He began showing symptoms of coronavirus on Jan. 26 and was admitted to a hospital in Ho Chi Minh City on Jan. 31. The six other confirmed cases in Vietnam involve four Vietnamese and two Chinese nationals. On Feb. 1, Vietnams Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc declared coronavirus an epidemic in the country and announced the establishment of a steering committee to prevent further spread of the disease. An employee (L) puts a protective face mask on a child at a railway station in Hanoi, Vietnam, on Feb, 2, 2020. (NHAC NGUYEN/AFP via Getty Images) New Zealand Bans Travelers from China New Zealand, in a press release on Feb. 2, announced an entry ban to all foreign nationals traveling from or transiting through China. The ban will be effective immediately for 14 days, according to the press release. Meanwhile, New Zealand citizens can still enter the country, but they must self-isolate for 14 days. It is critically important that we both protect New Zealanders from the virus and play our part in the global effort to contain it, said New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, according to the press release. Currently, New Zealand has not reported any confirmed cases of coronavirus. Passengers arriving on flights wear protective masks at the international airport in Auckland, New Zealand, on Jan. 29, 2020. (Dave Rowland/Getty Images) Russia Suspends Visa-Free Travel for Tourists from China Russia will temporarily suspend visa-free travel to and from China beginning on Feb. 2, reported Reuters, citing a Russian government decree. Additionally, Russia will also stop accepting and issuing work visas to Chinese nationals. Russia has also announced that its military will evacuate more than 600 citizens in Wuhan and Hubei Province on Feb. 3 and Feb. 4, according to Reuters. Russia has reported two known cases of coronavirus in the country. Chinese City Wenzhou Restricts Citizens Movement Wenzhou, a port city, located in Chinas coastal Zhejiang Province, announced on Feb. 2 that only one member from each family in the city could be out buying goods every two days. The ban will last until Feb. 8. The announcement added that people could still be out for cases such as seeing a doctor and work in the citys public transportation sector. On Feb. 1, Wenzhou also postponed the opening date for all schools in the city until March 1. Additionally, trans-provincial and trans-municipal bus services are being suspended. Wenzhou had already announced the closure of the citys 14 highway exits on Jan. 30. China Demands Immediate Cremation of Dead Bodies Infected With Coronavirus Chinas National Health Commission, in a notice issued on Feb. 1, announced that people who have died from the virus could not be buried, and their bodies should be cremated immediately. A funeral parlor should be immediately contacted for cremation after death certificates are issued by health authorities and consent given from relatives of the dead. If relatives dont agree to the cremation, health authorities can pass on the dead bodies to funeral parlors for cremation, the notice said. The notice also demanded that people not hold funerals or any other ceremonies. First Death Outside China: Philippines The Filipino Department of Health (DOH) reported that a 44-year-old Chinese man from Wuhan died from the new virus on Feb. 1. The man and his 38-year-old female companion arrived in the Philippines via Hong Kong on Jan. 21. They were placed in isolation at San Lazaro Hospital in Manila on Jan. 25. They are the only two known cases of coronavirus in the country. I would like to emphasize that this is an imported case with no evidence of local transmission, Health Secretary Francisco T. Duque III said. The man was admitted to the hospital after experiencing fever, cough, and a sore throat, according to the press release. The Philippine Government has already implemented a temporary travel ban for travelers coming from China, Macao, and Hong Kong. DOH is monitoring every development on the 2019-nCoV very closely and is taking proactive measures to contain the spread of this virus in our country, Duque added. This is the first reported death outside China, Rabindra Abeyasinghe, the World Health Organizations representative to the Philippines, told reporters, according to AFP. People queue up to buy protective masks at a medical supplies store in Manila, Philippines, on Jan. 31, 2020. (Ted Aljibe/AFP via Getty Images) South Korea Now Has 15 Cases of Novel Coronavirus South Koreas Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) announced on Feb. 2 that the country has three more people testing positive for the coronavirus as of 9 a.m. local time, bringing the total to 15. One of the new patients, a 28-year-old South Korean, was one of the 368 evacuees that returned to South Korea from Wuhan on Jan. 31. The second new patient is a 40-year-old Chinese woman who is a relative of the 12th patient to test positive for the virus. The third new case is a 43-year-old South Korea who returned from China on Jan 20. People leave after buying face masks at a pharmacy at Myeongdong shopping district in Seoul, South Korea on Jan. 31, 2020. (Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images) China Reports New Bird Flu Outbreak Near Epicenter of Coronavirus Chinas Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs in an announcement on Feb. 1 reported a new outbreak involving the H5N1 bird flu virus at a poultry farm in Shuangqing District of Shaoyang, a city in southern Chinas Hunan Province. The outbreak has killed 4,500 of 7,850 chickens at the farmmore than half. Since then, local authorities have culled 17,828 poultry. A stock photo of turkeys. (Jamie McDonald/Getty Images) No human transmission of the Hunan H5N1 virus has been reported. Hunan Province is located directly south of Hubei Province, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak. Jayant Sinha, Chairman, Finance Standing Committee BJP MP and former union finance minister Jayant Sinha on Sunday said disinvestment of the Life Insurance Corporation as proposed in the Union budget would be beneficial for both the central government and the LIC. The capital raised post-divestment could be used in building infrastructure while the move would also bring in "accountability, transparency and efficiency" in the insurance behemoth, he told a press conference. "If the LIC required more capital, it would be able to take it from the market and not from the government. The more than 10 lakh crore capital of the LIC would be helpful for us all. It could help us get funds for constructing infrastructure like medical colleges," Sinha said. The budget presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday has proposed to construct a medical college in every district, besides taking up other infrastructure developmental projects, he said. "There are three benefits from the disinvestment of the LIC - it will be strengthened with the listing with share market, which requires reporting every month. It will also bring in accountability, transparency and efficiency," the MP from Hazaribag said. To a query on the fate of policy-holders, he said all of them will get every benefit assured in their policies as there is no connection between the disinvestment initiative and policies. "Moreover, the central government will sell only 5 to 10 per cent of its holding in LIC," Sinha said. Currently, the government owns the entire 100 per cent stake in the LIC. Sinha praised Sitharaman saying she addressed the economic situation, fiscal deficit and macro-economics very well. Egypt has sent a special jet to bring hundreds of Egyptian nationals back home from the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the coronavirus epidemic began, the aviation ministry said in a statement on Sunday. An Airbus A330-200 aircraft took off from Cairo International Airport on Sunday morning bound for Wuhan with a special health ministry medical team on board. The flight has 297 seats. Cabinet spokesperson Nader Saad said late on Saturday that 306 out of a total 345 Egyptian nationals in Wuhan have requested to return home. The aviation ministry was not immediately available to explain how the remaining Egyptians will return. Earlier on Sunday, Egypt's foreign ministry spokesman Ahmed Hafez told satellite TV channel CBC Extra that the jet is set to take off from Wuhan on Sunday evening, adding that all the returning Egyptians do not show any signs of the coronavirus. Chinese authorities are screening all travellers leaving Wuhan and have banned anyone who has symptoms of the deadly virus from leaving the city, he added. Egypt first announced on Thursday that it had allocated a special jet to evacuate Egyptian expatriates from Wuhan, the epicentre of the growing epidemic, which has killed over 300 people in China. All Egyptian travellers brought from the Chinese city will be screened and suspected cases will be quarantined, officials said. The virus has spread to other countries including the US, France, Germany, Japan, Canada, and others. More than 130 cases have been reported in around two dozen countries. Egypt's national airline EgyptAir announced last week that it was suspending all flights to and from Chinese cities, with Hangzhou flights suspended starting 1 February, and Beijing and Guangzhou flights starting 4 February. The flagship carrier added that it would resume flights to the Chinese cities according to incoming reservations and demand. Search Keywords: Short link: Smartphone users can soon delight in 117 more emoji options to express themselves. The Unicode Consortium released details about the new emojis of 2020 on Wednesday. Many of the new options include more gender-inclusive designs, such as a gender-nonconforming person wearing a wedding veil and a gender-nonconforming person wearing a tuxedo, CNN reported. Other additions include a roller skate, a gravestone and a small zoo's worth of new animals. The new collection of icons continues the Unicode Consortium's push towards greater diversity in its symbols. A transgender flag and a transgender symbol have been added, as well as gender-nonconforming people that are simply described as "person" by the Unicode Consortium "person feeding baby," as an example. There's also a new Santa Claus that doesn't present as specifically male or female"Mx Claus," as it is described by the Unicode Consortium. Related video: How using emojis can make you more productive at work Other options include a pinata, nesting dolls, bubble tea, and a tamale. The Unicode Consortium also trotted out the usual gift of new animal emojis. This time around, there is a beaver, a bison, a woolly mammoth, a polar bear, a dodo, and a black cat described as "unlucky." The new designs will be available with the Emoji 13.0 release sometime this year, and smartphone and device manufacturers will incorporate those through a software update, according to CNN. All the new emojis can be seen here. The Indian National Congress on February 2 released its manifesto for Delhi election, promising to implement unemployment allowance of Rs 5,000-7,500 per month and cashback schemes for water and power consumers, if voted to power. Presenting the manifesto, Delhi Congress chief Subhash Chopra said the party will provide free power up to 300 unit per month. The manifesto also committed to spend 25 percent budget each year on fighting pollution and improving transport facilities. An unemployment allowance of Rs 5,000 for graduates and Rs 7,500 for post graduates per month will be provided under the Yuva Swabhiman Yojna, he said. The Congress will launch flagship cashback schemes for power and water supply to benefit consumers saving these resources. The party, if voted to power, will open 100 Indira Canteens to provide subsidised meals at Rs 15, Chopra said. The Congress will challenge the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in the Supreme Court and demand the Centre to withdraw the law. The party will also not implement the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the existing form of the National Population Register (NPR), if voted to power in Delhi. Delhi will head for polls on February 8. Counting of votes will happen on February 11. It seemed fitting on a perfect Western South Dakota-weather day, that the first performance of Rodeo Rapid Citys PRCA event, an afternoon matinee, featured a double dose of saddle bronc riding, the state's sport. Unfortunately, the seven South Dakota bronc riders out in the two sections werent on their A game on Saturday, and left it to a Wyoming cowboy, Wyatt Hageman (Jay Em), to spur his way to the best ride of the day, a 83-point trip aboard Sutton Rodeos Boogie Nights. Not many people knew too much about her, but I did hear she had some moves on her, and she was really nice today, Hageman said. As soon as she blew up right there in front of the chutes, it just felt good, and I knew it was going to be a good ride. In the evening second performance, a South Dakota cowboy, recalibrated state pride as Rapid Citys Ty Manke, the 2018 Rodeo Rapid City saddle bronc winner, rewarded the hometown crowd while grabbing a share of the lead with an 83-point ride about Sutton Rodeos Wes Texas. I actually had that horse this summer at Mitchell and she bucked me off. So I was a little nervous getting on the her, Manke said. She was at the (NFR) finals this year, and if shes good enough to get there, thats the kind of horse a guy loves to get on. I found a rhythm in the middle of the ride, felt comfortable, and felt it would be a pretty good ride. The bareback event made a first Rodeo Rapid City appearance in the evening performance, and a Badlands Circuit cowboy, Nate McFadden of Elsmere, Neb., rode Suttons Sweet Emotion to a very pleasurable 84-point ride to grab the first-day lead. I had seen that horse in Deadwood (Days of 76) when it won Deadwood, McFadden said. He is electric and kind of did what I thought he would, showed well and let me do my job. I havent done any good so far this year, so it felt good to make a good ride her in Rapid City, which is kind of a hometown rodeo for me in the Badlands Circuit. A couple of multi-appearance National Finals Rodeo qualifiers, Hunter Herrin and Tim Bingham, who are on the comeback trail after a couple of seasons lost to injury, turned in solid efforts in the matinee performance. Herrin, a nine-time NFR qualifier (the last in 2016) stopped the clock in 9.2-seconds in his tie-down roping run, a trip that was timed perfectly out of the box and could have been a second or so better had the young calf been more cooperative. And in bull riding, three-time NFR qualifier Tim Bingham bounced back from a no-score in Fridays Xtreme Bulls with an 84.5-point ride aboard Suttons EvenFlow. He was a little weird timing, Bingham said. Hed do a couple turns and spin and then hed almost go straight up in the air so it made it a little trickier to figure out his timing. Id seen him last night though in the Xtreme Bulls, and I was sure that I would match up with him pretty well. Buffalo barrel racer Jessica Routier, fresh off her second National Finals Rodeo appearance and an eighth place in WPRA standings, moved to the top of the leaderboard with a 12.47-second run in the evening performance. Rodeo Rapid City turns the Barnett Arena over to some of South Dakotas premier high school rodeo athletes displaying their rodeo talents in the annual 20X High School Showcase (1 p.m.). You must be logged in to react. Click any reaction to login. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Source: Xinhua| 2020-02-02 14:42:22|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close HEFEI, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- As soon as her five children return home from school, Zang Liping, 50, serves up meals while her husband Yang Xingwu helps them wash their hands. The giggles of the children fill the air. However, the Notes on Oral Administration on the wall and children who appeared clumsy at eating hinted that there may be more to the family than what meets the eye. Zang's family is among the 13 foster homes in Sunshine Home, an organization that provides family-based care for orphans in the Children's Welfare Institute in Hefei, the capital city of eastern China's Anhui Province. The institution, established in 2001, has employed 30 couples successively over the years to take care of some 300 orphans with disabilities. Unlike widely adopted institutionalized care for orphans, family-based care enables children to form stronger bonds with their foster parents and grow under their care. "We want to create a stable and warm family atmosphere for the orphans and enable them to feel the love from other children and parents," said Wei Zhihui, vice director of Sunshine Home. The institute offers support for foster parents, including a house with three rooms as well as a monthly living allowance of 800 yuan (about 116.6 U.S. dollars) for each child they care for. In the case of Zang's family, the stay-at-home foster mom is responsible for taking care of five children with a salary of about 3,000 yuan while the adoptive father goes to work. Most foster parents in the institution are over 40 years old, and their own children have grown up and started working, giving them more free time to help care for children in the facility. "My husband and I both love children, and when I first met those orphans, they called me 'mom,'" Zang recalled. "I burst out in tears." Later, she decided to give up her family business at a local clothing store and enlist as a foster parent for five children. Orphans living in Sunshine Home all suffered from some form of illness or disability. In Zang's case, the children she cares for have down syndrome, cleft lips and palates and congenital heart disease. Teaching simple skills takes patience, and Zang could hardly manage all the different needs of the children in the beginning. "I spent over two years teaching a child how to put on his shoes correctly," she said. However, they never give up. Over the years, they have taught the children basic life skills and filled their home with toys, books, snacks, plants and family photos. "We raise them like we raised our own children," said Zang. Each night, after the children fell asleep, Zang writes in a journal to keep records of the children's growth and the progress they have made. Their 10-year-old daughter He Feisi was born with severe congenital heart disease. Zang recalled that she was weak and timid when they first met. Under their care for over eight years, the girl has grown by leaps and bounds, becoming more outgoing and cheerful. Today, she likes to perform on stage and help her parents with some of the housework. The couple also feels the love of the children. "They can recognize my footsteps and often open the door to throw themselves into my arms when I return home," said Yang. Over the past eight years, Zang and her husband have raised a total of eight children, among which three were adopted by families in the United States and Spain. In 2010, China issued a guideline to encourage qualified children's welfare institutes to offer family-based care by buying or renting houses in the community or building apartments inside the welfare institutes. In recent years, the family-based care model has been launched in many places, including Beijing, Tianjin and Wuhan. According to Wei, the vice director of Sunshine Home, many children growing up in the institute can find a job in society and live independently in the future. Wei Dongwen, 30, one of the first children to enter Sunshine Home, is now a dance teacher in Shanghai, and she often goes back to visit her foster home. "I can never forget how I was bathed in love from my parents. I had low self-esteem and was insecure when I was a child, yet eager for love," said Wei. "The Sunshine Home satisfies the need to be loved." The 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCov), or the Wuhan coronavirus, has spread from China to over 20 countries, including the United States, France, and Japan. This page has updates from Feb. 2. For updates from Feb. 3, click here. Trump: US Cant Have Thousands Coming In With Coronavirus President Donald Trump, in a pre-Super Bowl interview on Sunday, said that the United States cannot allow potentially thousands of people into the country with coronavirus. We cant have thousands of people coming in who have this problem, the coronavirus, Trump said in the interview, referring to U.S. travel restrictions on people who recently traveled to China. President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump walk along the South Lawn to Marine One as they depart from the White House for a weekend trip to Mar-a-Lago in Washington on Jan. 31, 2020. (Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images) Trump also said that the United States has made strong efforts to curb the spreading of coronavirus inside the country. Earlier, White House national security adviser Robert OBrien told news outlets that the White House has reached out to Beijing to help curb the spread inside China. DHS: More Restrictions on Inbound China Flights The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued more restrictions on inbound flights with people who have been in China recently. The agency will, starting on Sunday, begin enforcing restrictions for all passenger flights to the United States carrying individuals who have recently traveled from China, according to a news release. The restrictions will begin for flights commencing after 5:00 p.m. EST on Sunday, February 2nd, and will direct the arrival of U.S. citizens who have traveled in China within 14 days of their arrival to one of seven designated airports, where the United States Government has enhanced public health resources in order to implement enhanced screening procedures. The administration is taking these actions to protect the American people, the release stated. U.S. citizens who have been in Hubei Province within the past 14 days will be subjected to 14 days of mandatory quarantine, DHS said. Russia Evacuates Citizens from China Russian President Vladimir Putins government will evacuate Russian nationals from China next week, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. Due to the fact that it has taken certain time to finalize the coordination of flight information by the Chinese side, the evacuation of Russian nationals from China by planes of the Aerospace Force will be carried out on February 3-4, Peskov told the state-run TASS news agency. It came after Putin ordered the evacuation of Russian nationals trapped in the hardest-hit areas in China, the agency reported. Peskov also indicated in state-backed RT that they will start carrying out [evacuation] flights as of today. The move came about a day after Russian health officials confirmed two cases of coronavirus in two Siberian regions. Those new cases involve Chinese nationals, RT reported. Russia also announced last week that it would shut down its 2,500-mile border with China in the Far Eastern District. Plane With 250 Europeans from Wuhan Lands in France A plane repatriating 250 French and European nationals from Wuhan, Chinas coronavirus-hit city, landed at a French military base on Sunday, said French officials. Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told Reuters that the plane was carrying nationals from 30 countries. Secretary of State for Child Protection Adrien Taquet said the nationals will be quarantined at Carry-Le-Rouet or a firefighters training center near Aix-en-Provence. White House: US Has Offered to Help China in Containing Virus White House national security adviser Robert OBrien said Sunday that the Chinese regime hasnt yet accepted an offer from the United States to help contain the outbreak of coronavirus. We continue to offer assistance to the Chinese. Weve offered to send over CDC and other U.S. medical and public health professionals. And we have not heard back yet from the Chinese on those offers, but were prepared to continue to cooperate with them, OBrien told CBS Face the Nation on Sunday. OBrien said the White House has asked Beijing for more transparency after CBS anchor Margaret Brennan noted that regime officials in coronavirus-hit Wuhan may have covered up the extent of the virus. President Trump, from the day he took office, made protecting Americans and keeping them safe, whether its from terrorists or criminal organizations or from viruses like the new novel coronavirus his top priority. So were taking steps to keep Americans safe and the government is functioning in that direction, OBrien remarked. New York Investigating Potential Case New York City health officials said Saturday that a possible coronavirus patient is being treated at Manhattans Bellevue Hospital. The patient, who is under 40, recently traveled to China and had a fever and cough or shortness of breath without another common cause, like influenza and other cold viruses, the health department said in a statement. The patient didnt spend extended time with friends or family after heading back to New York City, said Mayor Bill de Blasio, according to local media outlets. He, however, called on New Yorkers to go to the hospital if they believe they are showing symptoms related to coronavirus. New Yorkers should go about our lives, continue doing what we do normally, de Blasio said. Southern Chinese City of Shenzhen Confirms Cases of Human-to-Human Transmission Kong Dongfeng, deputy director of Shenzhens Center for Disease Control and Prevention, stated that three new patients, two women and one man, recently tested positive for coronavirus, despite the fact that they did not travel to Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak. They have not left Shenzhen in the past 14 days, according to a Feb. 2 article by Chinese news portal Sina. Kong also said the three did not come into contact with people with acute respiratory symptoms. Scientists say the virus has an incubation periodthe period between exposure to the virus and the onset of symptomsof 14 days. Indonesia Suspends China Flights Indonesias Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi announced on Feb. 2 that flights to and from China will be suspended beginning on Feb. 5, according to local newspaper The Jakarta Post. Visitors who have been to China in the past two weeks will also be banned and visas on arrival will also be halted for those arriving from China, according to Marsudi. 238 Indonesians Return Home from Hubei Province Indonesian airliner flight Batik Air flew from China and landed at the Hang Nadim Airport on Batam Island on Feb. 2, carrying 238 Indonesian evacuees from Hubei Province, according to local newspaper Jakarta Globe. Wuhan City, the epicenter of the outbreak in China, is the capital of Hubei. After their arrival, the evacuees then boarded three Indonesia Air Force planes, which took them to Natuna Island, where they will be placed under quarantine for two weeks. Burma Suspends Visas on Arrival for Tourists from China Burmese media, citing a Feb. 1 statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, reported that the country has suspended issuing visas on arrival for tourists from China. The Ministry added that the suspension was for protecting the health of local citizens and preventing the spread of the virus. Currently, Burma has no confirmed cases of coronavirus. South Korea Bans Travelers from China South Koreas Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun announced on Feb. 2 that foreign travelers who have been to Chinas Hubei Province in the past two weeks will be banned from entering the country, according to South Korean broadcaster KBS. The government will decide whether to ban travelers from other parts of China at a later date. The ban will be effective beginning on Feb. 4. Additionally, Chung announced the suspension of the countrys visa-free entry program to Jeju Island, a popular tourist destination located off the southern coast of the South Korean peninsula. Currently, South Korea has 15 confirmed cases of coronavirus. Taiwan Postpones School Openings On Feb. 2, Taiwans education minister, Pan Wen-chung, postponed the new semesters opening date for local senior high schools, junior high schools, and elementary schools until Feb. 25, according to Taiwans government-run Central News Agency. To make up for the loss in school days, Pan said that the schools summer break this year will be cut short by two weeks; students will now start their break on July 14. UAE Announces One New Case of Coronavirus The United Arab Emirates Ministry of Health and Prevention announced the countrys fifth infection via a Facebook message on Feb. 2. The new patient, currently in stable condition, had visited Wuhan, the central Chinese city where the virus first broke out. Vietnam Cancels China Flights Vietnams Civil Aviation Authority announced on Feb. 1 that it was revoking permits for flights between Vietnam and China, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan, beginning at 1:00 p.m. local time, according to local outlet Vietnam News. The flight cancellation came on the same day that Vietnams Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc declared coronavirus an epidemic in the country. The Vietnamese government had already suspended issuing visas to foreign visitors who had been in China within the last 14 days. India Now Has 2 Cases of Novel Coronavirus On Feb. 2, Indias Ministry of Health announced that another person has been tested positive for 2019-nCov in the country, bringing the national total to two. The new patient had also recently traveled to China. The first case was reported on Jan. 30 involving a student studying at Wuhan University. Both patients are in Kerala, a coastal state in southern India. A flight with Indias flag carrier airline Air India landed Delhi after evacuating 324 Indian nationals out of Wuhan, according to local media. The airline have now said it is canceling its Mumbai-Delhi-Shanghai route until Feb. 14. #FlyAI : AI 348/349- BOM- DEL- PVG (Shanghai) flight has been cancelled from 31st January 2020 to 14th February 2020. Air India (@airindiain) January 29, 2020 Macao Reports 8th Case of Novel Coronavirus Macaos health bureau reported an additional virus case on Feb. 2 involving a 64-year-old local resident. The patient was recently in China before returning to Macao. While in Zhuhai, a city in southern Chinas Guangdong Province, she had been hospitalized for shingles from Jan. 10 to Jan. 17. She had also purchased live poultry at a local market in Sanxiang, a town in Guangdong, on Jan. 22 where she spent two days. According to the announcement, the patient said she had not been to Hubei province or come in contact with anyone known to have the novel coronavirus. Vietnamese American Tests Positive for Coronavirus Vietnams Minstry of Health has confirmed its seventh known case of coronavirus involving a 73-year-old Vietnamese American man who was only briefly passing through Wuhan on a layover, according to local newspaper Tuoi Tre. The infected man left the United States on Jan. 14 and arrived in Wuhan the following day for his two hour layover before he landed at Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City on Jan. 16. He began showing symptoms of coronavirus on Jan. 26 and was admitted to a hospital in Ho Chi Minh City on Jan. 31. The six other confirmed cases in Vietnam involve four Vietnamese and two Chinese nationals. On Feb. 1, Vietnams Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc declared coronavirus an epidemic in the country, and announced the establishment of a steering committee to prevent further spread of the disease. New Zealand Bans Travelers from China New Zealand, in a press release on Feb. 2, announced an entry ban to all foreign nationals traveling from or transiting through China. The ban will be effective immediately for 14 days, according to the press release. Meanwhile, New Zealand citizens can still enter the country, but they must self-isolate for 14 days. It is critically important that we both protect New Zealanders from the virus and play our part in the global effort to contain it, said New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, according to the press release. Currently, New Zealand has not reported any confirmed cases of coronavirus. Russia Suspends Visa-Free Travel for Tourist from China Russia will temporarily suspend visa-free travel to and from China beginning on Feb. 2, reported Reuters, citing a Russian government decree. Additionally, Russia will also stop accepting and issuing work visas to Chinese nationals. Russia has also announced that its military will evacuate more than 600 citizens in Wuhan and Hubei Province on Feb. 3 and Feb. 4, according to Reuters. Russia has reported two known cases of coronavirus in the country. Chinese City Wenzhou Restricts Citizens Movement Wenzhou, a port city located in Chinas coastal Zhejiang Province, announced on Feb. 2 that only one member from each family in the city can be out buying goods every two days. The ban will last until Jan. 8. The announcement added that people could still be out for cases such as seeing a doctor and work in the citys public transportation sector. On Feb. 1, Wenzhou also postponed the opening date for all schools in the city until March 1. Additionally, trans-provincial and trans-municipal bus services are being suspended. Wenzhou had already announced the closure of the citys 14 highway exits on Jan. 30. China Demands Immediate Cremation of Dead Bodies Infected With Coronavirus Chinas National Health Commission, in a notice issued on Feb. 1, announced that people who have died from the virus cannot be buried and their bodies should be cremated immediately. A funeral parlor should be immediately contacted for cremation after death certificates are issued by health authorities and consent given from relatives of the dead. If relatives dont to agree to the cremation, health authorities can pass on the dead bodies to funeral parlors for cremation, the notice said. The notice also demanded that people not hold funerals or any other ceremonies. First Death Outside China: Philippines The Filipino Department of Health (DOH) reported that a 44-year-old Chinese man from Wuhan died from the new virus on Feb. 1. The man and his 38-year-old female companion arrived in the Philippines via Hong Kong on Jan. 21. They were placed in isolation at San Lazaro Hospital in Manila on Jan. 25, are are the only two known cases of coronavirus in the country. I would like to emphasize that this is an imported case with no evidence of local transmission, Health Secretary Francisco T. Duque III said. The man was admitted to hospital after experiencing fever, cough, and a sore throat, according to the press release. The Philippine Government has already implemented a temporary travel ban for travelers coming from China, Macao, and Hong Kong. DOH is monitoring every development on the 2019-nCoV very closely and is taking proactive measures to contain the spread of this virus in our country, Duque added. This is the first reported death outside China, Rabindra Abeyasinghe, the World Health Organizations representative to the Philippines, told reporters, according to AFP. South Korea Now Has 15 Cases of Novel Coronavirus South Koreas Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) announced on Feb. 2 that the country has three more people testing positive for the coronavirus as of 9 a.m. local time, bringing the total to 15. One of the new patients, a 28-year-old South Korean, was one of the 368 evacuees that returned to South Korea from Wuhan on Jan. 31. The second new patient is a 40-year-old Chinese woman who is a relative of the 12th patient to test positive for the virus. The third new case is a 43-year-old South Korea who returned from China on Jan 20. China Reports New Bird Flu Outbreak Near Epicenter of Coronavirus Chinas Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs in an announcement on Feb. 1 reported a new outbreak involving the H5N1 bird flu virus at a poultry farm in Shuangqing District of Shaoyang, a city in southern Chinas Hunan Province. The outbreak has killed 4,500 of 7,850 chickens at the farmmore than half. Since then, local authorities have culled 17,828 poultry. No human transmission of the Hunan H5N1 virus has been reported. Hunan Province is located directly south of Hubei Province, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak. From The Epoch Times Solicitor General Tushar Mehta on Sunday told the Delhi High Court that there is "deliberate, calculated and well thought of design" by Nirbhaya case convicts to frustrate process of law by getting their hanging deferred. The Solicitor General told justice Suresh kait that convict Pawan Guptas act of not submitting curative and mercy plea is intentional, calculated lack of action. Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case convicts are playing with judicial machinery and trying the patience of the nation, Mehta said. "There is deliberate, calculated and well thought of design to frustrate mandate of law," the Solicitor General told HC. Legal representative A P Singh is proceeding arguments for convicts Akshay Singh (31), Vinay Sharma (26) and Pawan (25) opposing Centre's plea to set aside stay on execution of death sentence. The fourth convict is Mukesh Kumar (32). The Delhi high court is hearing Centre's petition challenging stay on the execution of the four convicts in the case. The proceedings are currently underway. The 23-year-old, referred to as Nirbhaya, was gang raped and murdered on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012 inside a moving bus in south Delhi by six persons, before being thrown out on the road. She died on December 29, 2012 in Singapore's Mount Elizabeth Hospital. Also Read: Delhi court stays execution of Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder convicts till further orders Also Read: Nirbhaya case: One of the convicts attempts suicide in Tihar jail Taking serious note of the incidents of firing at Shaheen Bagh and near Jamia Millia Islamia in the last three days, the Election Commission (EC) on Sunday (February 2) shunted out Delhi's southeast DCP Chinmoy Biswal. It is to be noted that both Shaheen Bagh and Jamia Millia Islamia falls under South East Delhi constituency. The EC ordered Additional DCP (southeast) Kumar Gyanesh to take charge of the area. "As decided by the Election Commission, this is to convey that Chinmoy Biswal IPS (2008), DCP (southeast), stands relieved from his present post with immediate effect and shall report to MHA," the Election Commission spokesperson said. "In view of the ongoing situation, Commission directs that Kumar Gyanesh, DANIPS (1997) senior-most additional DCP (southeast) shall take charge of DCP (southeast) immediately from Chinmoy Biswal IPS," he added. Meanwhile, Delhi Police Commissioner Amulya Patnaik said on Sunday that the cops are continuously requesting anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protesters at Shaheen Bagh to vacate the road and end their protest, keeping in mind the public inconvenience. He added that since the anti-CAA protesters have not paid heed to police's request, Delhi Police had put barricades to prevent any untoward incident. Live TV Commenting on the firing incident at Shaheen Bagh, Delhi CP Patnaik said that the person who came to attack the anti-CAA protesters failed to succeed in his plan because of the alertness of the police officials present near the protest site. "Due to Police deployment, the persons who came there with arms didn't have the courage to do something more. One-two incidents did take place but they are isolated incidents. We have made elaborate arrangements at Shaheen Bagh as well as other protest sites," he noted. "I would like to assure that Delhi Police made detailed arrangement. More than 40,000 staff will be deployed from Delhi Police itself&19,000 home guards have been deployed. Few months back we've handled Lok Sabha polls very professionally," remarked Delhi CP Patnaik. Haiti - Diplomacy : Ambassador Sison recognizes the influence of Haiti on the history of the USA As part of the launch of Black History Month (February), Michele Jeanne Sison, the United States Ambassador to Haiti, at the American Embassy in Haiti in front of Prime Minister ai Michel Lapin, the Governor of the Central Bank, several Ministers of the Government, Embassy officials and distinguished guests, recognized in a speech of circumstance "[...] the powerful influence that the independence of Haiti, the First Black Nation, had on the history of the United States [...]" Excerpt from Ambassador Sison's speech : "[...] I am happy to continue this tradition [of black history month] here in Haiti with my colleagues from the Embassy and with all of you here. [...] Haiti has pushed back borders and survived adversities. Haiti has demonstrated excellence, of course. Haiti has not only led freedom movements, but also a revolution; a revolution that has played a major role not only in the trajectory of the United States, but also in that of the entire world. So the celebration of the "Black History Month" here in Haiti has a special meaning for the Americans present here this evening. Indeed, we recognize the powerful influence that the independence of Haiti, the first black nation, has had on the history of the United States and beyond. Therefore, whenever the opportunity is offered to us, we must continue to celebrate these ties forged between Haiti and the United States. The story of the founding of Haiti, starting from a rebellion of slaves to lead to the creation of a Republic based on democratic principles is a testament to what people can achieve when they are determined to work together for the greater good. And this state of mind which consists in wanting to work together must continue, must continue. There is an expression in Creole squi called "Ayiti two rich pou l pov", that is to say, Haiti is too rich to be poor. Indeed, this country, with the wealth it has in terms of history and culture, must move forward for the well-being of its people. Haiti was founded on the ideals of freedom and democracy. The people and the Government need to re-engage each other in favor of these ideals, for the well-being of the Haitian people, with a frank dialogue, a Government capable of serving the people and free legislative elections and credible in the near future. By adhering to these democratic principles, Haiti will return to its roots and reiterate its commitment to its founders [...]" See also : https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-29906-haiti-diaspora-montreal-black-history-month.html HL/ HaitiLibre Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin A. Muh. Ibnu Aqil (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sun, February 2, 2020 13:09 708 7f440ff09e92db75a02bbad2062197e6 1 National Wuhan-coronavirus-in-Indonesia,Wuhan-coronavirus,Batam,Natuna,quarantine,#coronavirus Free Indonesians evacuated from Wuhan and other cities in China arrived at Hang Nadim Airport in Batam, Riau Islands, on Sunday morning and were immediately directed to passenger planes operated by the Indonesian Air Force to be airlifted to Natuna Island for quarantine. Presidential spokesperson Fadjroel Rachman said the 245 Indonesians previously trapped in the locked-down city of Wuhan and other cities in Hubei province are in good health. All have been declared healthy according to World Health Organization standards, Fadjroel said in a statement on Sunday. The evacuees got off the Batik Air Airbus A-330 airplane at 9.23 a.m. local time, after landing at around 8.45 a.m. They disembarked one by one, with long intervals. Officers wearing hazmat suits checked on the passengers and escorted them out, Antara news agency reported. The passengers underwent medical check-ups inside the Batik Air aircraft before boarding the planes that brought them to Natuna Island. Batam Class I Port Health Office head Achmad Farchanny previously said that several health measures would be taken on route, such as temperature checks. The Indonesian Military (TNI) has three planes to be used to carry the returnees to Natuna, namely a Hercules A-1315, a Boeing AI 7304 and Boeing A 7306. Hang Nadim Airport operational director Maj. Wardoyo said the Hercules airplanes could carry 130 people and each Boeing 100 people. Fadjroel said that upon arriving, the 245 Indonesians would be observed at a military base in Natuna that is equipped with hospital facilities. Previously, the Health Ministrys head of the emerging infectious diseases subdirectorate, Endang Budi Hastuti, said they must be quarantined for at least 14 days, which would allow authorities to observe them throughout the virus' estimated incubation period. AFP reported as of Sunday, the coronavirus has killed 304 in China, and infected nearly 14,500 globally. The Philippines also reported the first death on Sunday outside of China. Indonesia evacuates citizens from China Indonesias Lion Air announced Wednesday it will temporarily suspend all its flights to China as of Feb. 1. Indonesia on Sunday evacuated 238 of its citizens from Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak. According to local media, the Batik Air commercial aircraft, carrying citizens from Wuhan, landed at the Hang Nadim Airport in Indonesias Batam Island on Sunday. "HEALTH CONDITIONS OF ALL EVACUATED CITIZENS ARE GOOD" Four citizens, on their own will, refused to return, while three were not allowed because of their health conditions, said Terawan Agus Putranto, the Indonesian health minister. The evacuees will be taken to Indonesias Riau Islands province temporarily via three military aircrafts after Batam island, Putranto said, adding they will be quarantined for 14 days in a military hospital. The country's Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi also expressed his appreciation for the successful completion of the evacuation process. The coronavirus, so named because under the microscope it resembles a crown, has killed at least 304 people in China and one in the Philippines. A protest erupted in the capital on Sunday against the sit-in protest by women at Shaheen Bagh. Scores of women at Shaheen are protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). The protestors raised slogans 'Jai Shree Ram' and 'Vande Matram' while some were seen carrying Indian flags. "No permission granted to anyone to hold a demonstration in and around Shaheen Bagh area against the ongoing protest here over CAA. But still, some people called on the protest today, so, they were stopped and dispersed by police," said DCP Chinmoy Biswal while talking to ANI. This comes a day after a man fired aerial shots at the site of a protest in Shaheen Bagh on Saturday. The police have detained the man, identified as Kapil Gujjar, a resident of Dallupura village near Delhi-Noida border, said Chinmoy Biswal, DCP, South-East. Gujjar told the police that he was angry with the traffic blockade as his cousin's wedding is approaching and he had to run around a lot to make arrangements, police sources said. Protests have been going on at Shaheen Bagh since December 15 last year against the CAA due to which Kalindi Kunj road has been shut for traffic movement. A petition was filed in the Supreme Court last week seeking appropriate directions to the police to open the Kalindi Kunj-Shaheen Bagh stretch contending that the road closure is causing huge inconvenience to people. The amended citizenship law grants citizenship to Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Parsi, Buddhist, and Christian refugees from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh, who came to India before 2015. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) London: Andrew Laughton knows a bit about beef. From his property in the lush green fields of Lincolnshire, the fourth-generation farmer reels off an extraordinary array of facts and figures at the drop of a hat. The only thing that stumps him is predicting what a post-Brexit free trade deal with Australian means for British agriculture. "It's so difficult for us to get a read of things because it's early days, and who knows what sort of pressure our government will come under once they sit down at the negotiating table," Laughton said. Ballarat beef producer Olivia Lawson says the Australian industry is watching trade negotiations closely. Credit: Having formally left the European Union on January 31, Britain is now free to pursue its own trade deals around the world, with Canberra close to the top of the list. It's not going to be easy and agriculture has often found itself on the wrong side of the winners and losers' ledger at the conclusion of other international trade negotiations. An impending clash boils down to two questions: whether quotas and tariffs should still be used to limit the amount of Australian beef and sheep meat coming into Britain, and whether hormone-produced beef should be allowed in at all. By Joseph Sipalan KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysia's trade minister is open to meeting his Indian counterpart at the World Economic Forum gathering this week, his ministry said on Monday, after New Delhi said no such encounter was possible amid a spat over palm oil supplies. It was the second time in the last four days Malaysia expressed the possibility of such a meeting in Davos, during a standoff between a major supplier and buyer of palm oil caused by Malaysia's criticism of Indian policies. Malaysia's Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) reiterated that India's trade ministry first sent a request on Dec. 24 - before India placed curbs on imports of refined palm oil - for a bilateral meeting between the two ministers in Davos. "In the spirit of economic partnership between our two nations, Malaysia has made every effort to accommodate the official request by India, but due to the busy schedule of both ministers, a mutually agreeable time has not been reached at the time of this statement," MITI said. "In the absence of a formal meeting, it is common for interested parties to meet informally and exchange views on the sidelines." It said MITI minister Darell Leiking "has expressed his openness to such discussion" with his Indian counterpart Piyush Goyal, mainly regarding India's participation in the trade bloc Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. An Indian trade ministry official, speaking on behalf of the ministry, told Reuters on Sunday that Goyal would not meet Leiking in Davos because of his tight schedule. No other meeting was scheduled between them, he said. Hindu-majority India has been agitated by Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad last month speaking out against a new citizenship law which critics say discriminate against Muslims. Mahathir had angered New Delhi last year too when he accused India of invading and occupying Kashmir, a Muslim-majority disputed region also claimed by Pakistan. Story continues Malaysia, a Muslim-majority nation, is the second biggest producer and exporter of palm oil and India's restrictions on the refined variety of the commodity imposed on Jan. 8 have been seen as a retaliation for Mahathir's words. Mahathir, the world's oldest premier at 94, told a small group of reporters including from Reuters on Monday that India's new citizenship law was "grossly unfair". But he said his nation of 32 million people was too small to take retaliatory action against India following its palm curbs. Since the restrictions, thousands of tonnes of refined palm oil have been delayed or got stuck at various Indian ports, multiple sources told Reuters. (Reporting by Joseph Sipalan and Krishna N. Das; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne) Mumbai: Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Sunday said that the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC) would not be implemented in Maharashtra, arguing that it would make proving citizenship complicated for Hindus and Muslims. Mr Thackeray, however, defended the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which his Maha Vikas Aghadi allies, the Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress, have opposed. The Maharashtra Chief Minister said the CAA wont take away anyones citizenship but rath-er grant citizenship to persecuted minorities from neighbouring countries. Mr Thackeray and the Shiv Sena have been vocal supporters of the CAA, which is considered the precursor to the NRC. In an interview to the Shiv Sena mouthpiece Saamana, the Chief Minister said, The NRC will not be allowed in Maharashtra. Proving citizenship will be difficult for both Hindus and Muslims. I will not let that happen, he said. The Sena chief also reiterated that his party would continue to endorse Hindutva. We have not abandoned Hindutva and will never do so, the Maharashtra Chief Minister said. The Sena chief said: Just that we have formed an alliance government in Maharashtra does not mean that we have changed our religion. We have not compromised anything on the ideology of Hindutva, he said. Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut, who is also the editor of Saamana, interviewed the Sena chief. A short clip of the interview was shared on Twitter while the full interview will be released in the coming days. The Shiv Sena had earlier criticised the Narendra Modi government over the new citizenship law and the proposed NRC, both of which have led to protests across the country. The Sena had earlier alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) wanted a Hindu-Muslim riot over the CAA. The CAA was passed by Parliament on December 11. Those opposed to the legislation have argued that it violates the basic tenets of the Constitution. However, the government and ruling BJP have been defending the Act, saying minority groups from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan have no option but to come to India to escape religious persecution. His Royal Highness Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifas Sustainable Development Award Chairman Shaikh Hosam bin Isa Al Khalifa received Professor Jeffrey David Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute and Professor of Sustainable Development at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, who is currently on a visit to the Kingdom. The two sides reviewed ways of strengthening co-operation between both the committee and the Earth Institute so as to support common goals related to the culture of sustainable development as a tool to advance the efforts of countries and societies on the path of development and prosperity. Shaikh Hosam bin Isa Al Khalifa stressed the importance of benefiting from the visit of Professor Jeffrey David Sachs, who is a renowned academic figure and economist in the world. He said that Bahrain attaches great importance to achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals approved by the United Nations, adding the Government, chaired by is Royal Highness Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa has worked to implement these goals by integrating them into the governments work program. He underlined Bahrains success in achieving great strides in attaining these goals and translating them through pioneering programs and initiatives for the development of all sectors. He highlighted HRH the Premiers keenness on promoting sustainable development issues, pointing that the award bearing his name, has contributed over the past years in supporting individual and collective work in the field of sustainable development as an important factor that enhances the efforts of the international community towards peace, security and stability. The two sides stressed the importance of HRH the Premiers initiative which was endorsed by the United Nations, declaring the 5th of April as the International Day of Conscience Professor Jeffrey David Sachs expressed his delight at visiting the Kingdom of Bahrain, hailing its strides in achieving Sustainable Development Goals. He commended His Royal Highness Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifas Sustainable Award, stressing the keenness of the Earth on cooperating with the committee in charge of the prize. He praised the Premiers initiative which was endorsed by the United Nations, declaring the 5th of April as the International Day of Conscience, thus reflecting HRH the Premiers firm belief in the importance of international collective endeavor to achieve peace and stability, being the cornerstone development. EDWARDSVILLE A man accused in a deadly St. Louis carjacking now faces charges in Madison County, accused with one other, in the shooting of a woman in Alton last October. Jalen E. Simms, 25, of St. Louis, is accused of shooting the woman in the chest Oct. 22 on Central Avenue in Alton. Hes charged with armed habitual criminal and aggravated battery with a firearm, both Class X felonies. Bond was set at $250,000. Also accused is 20-year-old Amari Price, of Alton. She was originally charged Nov. 15 with aggravated battery with a firearm and possession of a firearm without a FOID card. Price was indicted by a Grand Jury on Jan. 9. She has since pleaded not guilty, with a jury trial currently set for Feb. 10. A request to have her $150,000 bond reduced was denied last week, according to court records. Court records indicate that Price was wanted on a failure-to-appear warrant on a May 2019 misdemeanor charge of illegal use of a blackjack knife. Alton Deputy Police Chief Marcos Pulido said authorities received new evidence on Friday that led to Simms being the second individual charged in the Central Avenue shooting. According to previous reports, Alton police were called to the 1800 block of Central Avenue around 7:20 p.m. on Oct. 22 for the report of shots fired. Surveillance cameras at the A-Town Spot Convenience Store, 1813 Central Ave., captured part of the incident. The victim left the scene before authorities arrived, and was driven to an Alton hospital for treatment. She survived. The suspects vehicle fled, and was soon recorded travelling from Alton into Missouri by Clark Bridge cameras. Simms had not yet been charged in the fatal St. Louis carjacking when the Alton shooting hes accused of occurred. In the St. Louis case, Simms is eligible for the federal death penalty. He was arrested Jan. 3 on charges of attempted armed carjacking and discharge of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence. Hes been in federal custody since, according to online court records. Authorities say that on June 3, 2019, in the 3100 block of Rauschenbach Avenue, St. Louis, victim 27-year-old Jabari Clark was shot in the head as Simms attempted to take his Dodge Ram pickup truck. Clark later died at a hospital. Gun violence and carjackings remain top priorities of this office, U. S. Attorney Jeff Jensen said after issuing the indictment on Dec. 19. We continue to work with our federal, state, and local law enforcement partners to prevent these senseless acts of violence but, when they occur, we are committed to holding each and every perpetrator accountable to the fullest extent of the law, said following the indictments return. Charging documents do not explicitly state if Simms is accused of pulling the trigger in either the St. Louis or Alton shooting. He has a criminal history dating back to 2012 when, at 17 years old, he and two others were accused of taking a 92-year-old womans TV at gunpoint in St. Louis, the Post-Dispatch reported. In 2013, court records say he was sentenced to seven years in prison after pleading guilty to charges related to burglary, theft, resisting police and illegal use of a firearm. In November of last year, he and two others were arrested after police say they were found burglarizing vehicles in Chesterfield. Telegraph reporter Scott Cousins contributed to this report. Bhopal, Feb 2 : An intruder caused a security scare at the Raja Bhoj Airport, here on Sunday. He damaged a helicopter stationed in a bay of the state government's hanger and tried to enter the apron of airport. The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel nabbed him at the apron. At that time, a private aircraft with 46 passengers had begun taxiing to take off for Udaipur. However, the incident delayed the flight by an hour and it left by 8 p.m. said a CISF officer. For a while, there was also a verbal blame game between the police and the CISF over the security breach. The state hanger was guarded by the Madhya Pradesh police and the CISF caught the man as he ran towards the apron. The CISF personnel showed the presence of mind not to shoot at him, said the official. The intruder has been identified as Yogesh Tripathi, 25, from nearby locality in Bhopal. He has been handed over to the local police, the CISF official said. "The youth appeared mentally unsound and was heard shouting, "I want to serve the nation. I am a commando trying my skill," the official said. 17k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Two of the presidents lawyers made large contributions to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell before the start of Trumps impeachment trial. According to the Center For Responsive Politics: Former independent counsels Ken Starr and Robert Ray, who investigated then-President Bill Clinton around the time of his impeachment, each made large campaign contributions to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) last year before joining Trumps legal team. Starr, who on Monday lambasted what he called the age of impeachment before the Senate, gave $2,800 to McConnell in July 2019. Just after House Democrats launched an impeachment inquiry in September, Ray gave McConnell $5,600, the maximum allowed for the primary and general elections. OpenSecrets couldnt identify any other federal contributions from the two during the 2020 cycle. The contributions were seized on by one of the Democrats running against Mitch McConnell in Kentucky, Amy McGrath: Mitch recently took $8,400 in campaign contributions from two of the impeachment defense attorneys. Now, he's returning the favor by keeping witnesses from testifying in the trial. This is the pay-to-play swamp that Mitch created. #SenatorForSale https://t.co/dkRVjDh8FB Amy McGrath (@AmyMcGrathKY) January 31, 2020 Kentuckys Republican voters who dont like McConnell, but vote for him anyway, wont be swayed by such obvious corruption, but McConnell made it clear that the fix was in long before the impeachment trial began. The trial was always going to be sham for political reasons, but that didnt stop Trumps lawyers from spending some cash to make sure that the dirty deal got done. For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group. Follow Jason Easley on Facebook DUBAI: Iran on Sunday offered its full support for new Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Tawfiq Allawi and reiterated its backing for the government`s demand for US forces to leave the country. Iran has deep ties with many Shi`ite political parties and militias in Iraq as well as Kurdish parties from the north. Iranian officials have tried to use their influence to keep a government sympathetic to their interests in power in Baghdad. "In continuing support for the independence, national sovereignty, territorial integrity and strengthening the foundations of democracy in Iraq along with the legitimate request by the government and people of Iraq for the exit of American forces from the soil of that country, Iran welcomes the selection of Mohammed Tawfiq Allawi as the new prime minister of this country," Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said. Iran is willing to give any assistance necessary to help Iraq overcome problems and to pass through a sensitive time, Mousavi said, according to the official IRNA news agency. Allawi appealed to Iraqis for their support on Saturday hours after his appointment by President Barham Salih, but protesters have already rejected him as a stooge of the political elite. The United States killed Iranian military commander General Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike in Baghdad last month, giving renewed impetus to Iran`s allies in Iraq to call for the withdrawal of US forces. Brandon University says an internal investigation found that second-year nursing students used a pirated test bank to write a seriously compromised exam last semester. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 2/2/2020 (708 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Brandon University says an internal investigation found that second-year nursing students used a pirated test bank to write a "seriously compromised" exam last semester. The university sent out a statement late Friday afternoon. "Brandon University is working to build a collaborative culture of ethical and empathetic behaviour in the wake of a significant recent challenge to academic integrity on campus," the statement reads. "Academic integrity is paramount, and deeply valued at Brandon University. We have a commitment to our community and to our students that everyone who graduates will have earned their degrees both with the knowledge and skills required and also with the ethics and integrity to guide them in their careers and lives." The university said an investigation over the past few weeks confirmed the exam "was seriously compromised." "The exam had been prepared based on a Test Bank provided by a textbook publisher and was believed to be secured for faculty use only. This is common practice," the statement reads. "These professionally written Test Banks include answer rationales, desired learning outcomes and expected sources of knowledge along with links to professional standards and competencies. "These Test Banks have been crafted by testing experts to ensure a full and fair assessment of all of the knowledge covered by the curriculum while freeing up teachers to focus on their students in the classroom. Unfortunately, todays technology means that pirated versions of these exams and Test Banks can be found for sale online. "This compromised exam and its Test Bank was purchased on a website specifically devoted to the sale of such materials, then circulated and made available to students in the class. The investigation discovered that students used the Test Bank questions they had obtained to prepare for their class exam expecting, and then finding, the questions to be the same." Other students declined to make use of the test bank, the university said. "Brandon University was faced with a limited amount of time to deal with a large and complex situation that is unlike anything envisioned by our existing policies," the statement reads. "As an expedient, all students were offered the immediate opportunity to write a new version of the exam, with a penalty applied, so that upon satisfactory completion they would be able to move on to second-term classes and clinical placements without having to lose a year of their studies. All students rewrote the exam, and all students passed. "Penalties may be adjusted as appropriate for individual circumstances as determined in the fullness of the investigation. Students also have the opportunity to appeal their penalties or final grades through the normal university appeal processes." Faculty of health studies dean John Moraros wrote a letter to students saying there is "strong evidence to corroborate the fact that the 71:250 Nursing Foundations II course (Fall term, test II, Final Exam) was compromised by a large number of students," the Brandon Sun reported earlier this month. Moraross letter said all students in the class are being punished for academic dishonesty by being made to rewrite the exam, with a penalty lowering the maximum attainable mark to 70 per cent. The initial exam took place at the end of November. "To be as fair as possible to everyone involved in this recent case, we have carefully limited our public statements while we began our investigation, and as we assessed and worked through the processes outlined in our policies," the universitys statement continues. "This takes time, and we regret that our silence allowed rumours to circulate in the community and online. We must balance the legitimate public interest in this incident against our equally vital need to protect the interests and the privacy of all of our students, both during the past few weeks and in the future." The statement notes the university has already had a series of discussions with both students and faculty since the start of the year, "and we will be considering important changes to our admissions criteria, curriculum delivery and student evaluation processes in Health Studies. The aim is to better support our students personal growth and professional development and to continue to foster a caring and collaborative culture on campus and among our graduates." The changes will also aim to de-centre the longstanding focus on grades as the sole measure of student performance, the statement reads. "New criteria will be used to expand our consideration of the full measure of each student as a whole person, starting with their admission, which may include personal interviews and portfolios. There will be renewed focus on professionalism, ethics, collaboration, team building and empathy. "These are in line with current best practices in health care education and are expected to make BU a leader in this area and improve our already excellent outcomes for nursing graduates." Brandon University Students Union president Olusola Akintola said Friday the union will be issuing a statement on Monday following an emergency meeting of the union executive. Want to get a head start on your day? Get the days breaking stories, weather forecast, and more sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. In the meantime, he said the students accessed a readily available test bank online and paid for it. The site was not hacked, he added. "No student should be unfairly punished," Akintola said, adding even BUs statement shows some students did not even use the test bank. "So why should there be a blanket punishment for all the students?" He added, "Why did the lecturer, the professor... have to lift all his questions from a test bank?" A spokesman for Brandon University could not be reached for further comment late Friday afternoon. The Brandon Sun BAGHDAD Former communications minister Mohammed Allawi was named prime minister-designate by rival Iraqi factions Saturday after weeks of political deadlock, three officials said. The choice comes as the country weathers troubled times including ongoing antigovernment protests and the constant threat of being ensnared by festering U.S.-Iran tensions. The selection of Allawi, 66, to replace outgoing Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi was the product of many back-room talks over months between rival parties. On Wednesday, President Barham Saleh gave parliamentary blocs until Saturday to select a premier candidate, or he said he would exercise his constitutional powers and choose one himself. In a pre-recorded statement posted online, Allawi called on protesters to continue with their uprising against corruption. If it wasnt for your sacrifices and courage there wouldnt have been any change in the country, he told the protesters. But in Tahrir Square, the epicenter of Iraqs protest movement, demonstrators rejected Allawis candidacy. They erected portraits of the new premier-designate crossed with an X. Allawi served as communications minister first in 2006 and again between 2010-2012. He resigned from his post after a dispute with former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Parliament is expected to put his candidacy to a vote in the next session, after which he has 30 days to form a government program and select a cabinet of ministers. According to the constitution, a replacement for Abdul-Mahdi should have been identified 15 days after his resignation in early December. Instead, it has taken rival blocs nearly two months of jockeying to select Allawi as their candidate. Abdul-Mahdis rise to power was the product of a provisional alliance between parliaments two main blocs Sairoon, led by cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, and Fatah, which includes leaders associated with the paramilitary Popular Mobilization Units headed by Hadi al-Amiri. In the May 2018 election, neither coalition won a commanding plurality, which would have enabled it to name the premier. To avoid political crisis, Sairoon and Fatah forged a precarious union with Abdul-Mahdi as their prime minister. Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Samya Kullab are Associated Press writers. ROSE (roz) n. One of the most beautiful of all flowers, a symbol of fragrance and loveliness. Often given as a sign of appreciation. RASPBERRY (razbere) n. A sharp, scornful comment, criticism or rebuke; a derisive, splatting noise, often called the Bronx cheer. We hereby deliver: ROSES to Angelita Sanchez and other members of Timber Unity for making their voices heard. Sanchez is the owner of Angels Rock n Roll Construction Inc., a small Sweet Home business with a fleet of three used dump trucks. Shes also the secretary of Timber Unity, the grassroots organization of farmers, truckers and loggers that sprang up last year in response to House Bill 2020, a measure that aimed to roll back the states greenhouse gas levels by requiring businesses that emit significant amounts of carbon dioxide to purchase carbon allowances. That didnt sit well with Sanchez, who feared the new requirements might force her out of business. Although she says shes never been the least bit political, she got involved in the fledgling Timber Unity movement and has emerged as the organizations most visible spokesperson. We support the goal of lowering greenhouse gas emissions, but in a state where the urban-rural divide seems to grow deeper every year, we call on Gov. Kate Brown and the Legislatures Democratic leadership to pay close attention to the needs of Oregonians who live and work outside the states urban centers. Cap-and-trade will be at the top of the agenda when the Legislature convenes in Salem next week, and convoys of Timber Unity members will be converging on the Capitol. We hope lawmakers will listen to what they have to say. RASPBERRIES to using your cellphone while you drive. Weve all heard this sermon before, but it bears repeating in the wake of last months sentencing hearing for Robert Gene Mayfield. On Jan. 17, Mayfield was sentenced to 13 months in prison after pleading guilty to charges of criminally negligent homicide and fourth-degree assault in the death of Neil Nightingale. On Jan. 21, 2016, Mayfield was driving a utility truck on Highway 20 just outside Sweet Home near the Bauman Mill when he swerved to avoid a truck turning in front of him, caromed off another vehicle and slammed into the log truck that Nightingale was driving. Nightingale, a 39-year-old family man from Sweet Home, died eight days later. Forensic evidence presented in the case showed that Mayfield was using his cellphone when the fatal crash occurred. Mayfield, who also lives in Sweet Home, apologized profusely to Nightingales family at sentencing, and character witnesses described him to the judge as a good man. Nightingales family described the unbearable pain of their loss. Neither family will ever be the same. Almost everyone carries a smartphone these days, and we all know how hard it can be to resist the siren song of our devices when they chirp with an incoming text message. Yet we also know theres only one thing to do when that happens: ignore it. Turn off your phone before you get behind the wheel. The only thing you should be paying attention to when youre driving is the road. ROSES to all the compassionate and goodhearted people working to end homelessness in the mid-valley. Theres little doubt that the number of unsheltered individuals and families in our communities is growing every year. Its a multifaceted problem driven by a wide range of factors, ranging from drug abuse and alcoholism to mental health issues, from job loss and unexpected medical bills to the soaring cost of rent in a tight housing market. All the more reason, then, to celebrate the people who are rolling up their sleeves to make a difference on this issue. In Benton County, the Housing, Opportunity, Planning and Equity Advisory Board HOPE for short is getting up to speed as it takes up the torch from its predecessor, the Housing Opportunities Action Council. HOAC did a lot of good work but ultimately faltered under the weight of public opposition to some of its initiatives and its own unwieldy organizational structure. HOPE, a 21-member stakeholder group, is bringing renewed energy to the task under the leadership of program manager Julie Arena. In Linn County, an organization called Creating Housing Coalition is floating a proposal to build a tiny house village in Albany. The plan calls for building 25 or so simple, compact dwellings and making them available at below-market rents to people experiencing homelessness. The group is partnering with SquareOne, a Eugene nonprofit that has already built two similar communities in Eugene and is working on a third. Turning the tide on this intractable social problem will not be easy, but the optimism of organizations like these is inspiring. I want to end homelessness, HOPE Co-Chair Jim Moorefield bluntly told the group during a meeting last week in Corvallis. I think its a myth that we cant. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Delhi will see a number of campaign rallies on Sunday as Union ministers Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh and Smriti Irani and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) convenor Arvind Kejriwal are scheduled to address people five days before the assembly polls. The Bharatiya Janata Partys (BJP) national president JP Nadda and Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath will also be in the city to woo voters for the February 8 Delhi polls. Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal will hold road shows at Kirari, Mundka, Vishwas Nagar, Laxmi Nagar and Rithala. The political rallies and public gatherings of both the parties will come a day after a man was arrested on Saturday for firing two rounds in air at the protest venue in Shaheen Bagh, which has continued to be at the centre of campaigning for Delhi elections. BJP campaign in Delhi led by home minister Amit Shah has often described Shaheen Bagh protests to be against the national interests and claimed their backers were from Tukde-Tukde gang (a moniker to depict a group advocating Indias disintegration). Hundreds of local residents, including women and children, are protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) at Shaheen Bagh, a southeast Delhi colony, bordering Uttar Pradesh, since December 14, 2019. The fractious debate over Shaheen Bagh has raised the political temperature in the Capital. On Saturday, Adityanath claimed that the protesters at Shaheen Bagh were being fed biryani by the Kejriwal-led government. The BJP star campaigners comments came after the opposition campaign alleging the ruling party at the Centre was behind the youth who fired at a Jamia Millia Islamia University student protesting against the citizenship act on Thursday. Voting in all the 70 assembly constituencies of Delhi is scheduled to take place on February 8. Counting of votes will take place on February 11. India on Sunday reported its second coronavirus case with another student who had returned to Kerala from Wuhan testing positive, while 323 more Indians and seven Maldivians were brought back by air from the Chinese city, epicentre of the outbreak, taking the number of evacuees to 654. The government also announced temporary suspension of e-visa facility for Chinese travellers and foreigners residing in the neighbouring country and issued a fresh advisory saying anyone with travel history to China since January 15 can be quarantined. The developments came as the virus, which emerged in early December and traced to a market in Hubei capital Wuhan that sold wild animals, has killed more than 300 people in China, infected over 14,000 others and spread to 25 countries. Both the cases in India have been reported in Kerala, where nearly 2,000 people are under observation in hospitals and homes. The second patient is also a student from Wuhan in China. The patient had returned to Kerala on January 24, Kerala government said in a statement. Kerala Health Minister K K Shailaja said the condition of the student, currently admitted to the isolation ward at the Alapuzha Medical College Hospital, was "stable". The first case was reported from Thrissur on Thursday with a woman medical student who returned from Wuhan testing positive for the infection. Since the coronavirus outbreak in China, Kerala, which is thickly populated, has been on high alert as a large number of students from the state are studying in the University of Wuhan. A second Air India flight in as many days evacuated 330 passengers, including seven Maldives citizens from Wuhan . Of these, 300, including Maldives citizens, have been housed at ITBP Chawla Camp and 30 are in the Army's Manesar facility. They are being effectively monitored, the health ministry said. On Saturday, 324 Indians were brought back from Wuhan and admitted to the quarantine facilities set up by the Army and the ITBP, though none of them have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, according to officials. A video shared by government officials on Sunday showed a group of six students dancing and taking selfies and videos inside the Manesar facility. "The students are happy as they have been evacuated. You can see them dancing and making videos even though they have their face masks on," said an official. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said in a tweet on Sunday, "7 Maldivians brought back with 323 Indians from Wuhan on the second @airindiain flight today. #NeighbourhoodFirst at work again." Five doctors from the Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) Hospital, who were onboard the first flight, were also present in the second flight, an Air India spokesperson said. Out of the 324 people that were evacuated through first Air India flight, 56, 53 and 42 were from Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, respectively. In its fresh advisory, the Health Ministry asked people to refrain from travelling to China in view of coronavirus outbreak and said anyone with travel history of China since January 15 could be quarantined. The decision of issuing a new travel advisory was taken at a high-level review meeting held by Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba. As on Sunday, 58,658 passengers from 445 flights have been screened for nCoV symptom. A total of 142 symptomatic travellers picked up by the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) have been referred to the isolation facilities. As many as 130 samples have been tested of which 128 have been found to be negative so far, the Health Ministry said. While airlines across the globe have suspended or curtailed operations to China, a number of countries have temporarily stopped issuing of visas to Chinese nationals. Some like the US have even imposed travel ban on visitors from China. The Indian embassy in Beijing announced that travel to India on e-visas stands temporarily suspended with immediate effect "due to certain current developments". "This applies to holders of Chinese passports and applicants of other nationalities residing in the People's Republic of China. Holders of already issued e-visas may note that these are no longer valid," it said. The e-visa facility for Chinese nationals was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to China in 2015 as a confidence building measure as well as an attempt to ease visa restrictions to attract more Chinese tourists. The US has imposed a 14-day travel ban on all visitors from China, regardless of their nationality. Singapore has stopped issuing all types of visas to Chinese travellers, while Vietnam has halted tourist visas. Russia said Saturday it would halt visa-free tourism for Chinese nationals and also stop issuing them work visas. It had already stopped issuing electronic visas to Chinese nationals. Similar visa restrictions have been imposed by the Philippines, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and the African nation of Mozambique. The Philippines on Sunday reported the first death outside China from the deadly virus. Due to the outbreak, IndiGo has suspended all three flights between India and China. Air India has suspended its Delhi-Shanghai flight and curtailed the flight operations on the Delhi-Hong Kong route. Only these two Indian carriers fly to China. Meanwhile, arrangements have been made at ESIC Medical College of Alwar in Rajathan to quarantine people who have returned from China. Ravi Sharma, a state health department official coordinating with the Centre, said 300 beds have been prepared in two hostels and adequate staff has been deployed. Deputy CMHO, Alwar, Dr Chhabil Kumar said the passengers will be quarantined and kept under observation for 28 days. Three persons suspected to have symptoms of coronavirus were admitted to SMS Government Hospital in Jaipur, Dr D S Meena, Superintendent of the hospital, said. He said that the patients have been kept in isolation. Of the five patients suspected to have symptoms of coronavirus in Haryana in recent days, one test result has come out as negative, a senior health department official said here on Sunday. All the five patients had recently travelled to China, Director General, Health Services, Haryana, Dr Suraj Bhan Kamboj told PTI over phone. The samples have been sent to the National Institute of Virology in Pune and the reports of the other four patients are awaited, he said. Besides, there are 24 other people hailing from Haryana who do not have any symptoms, but are under observation of the health authorities in view of their recent travel history to China. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The mission is bigger than any one person. Marina Salandy-Brown has employed that self-sacrificial task-focused approach to successfully create the most influential modern literary movement in the Caribbean: the Bocas Lit Fest. In 11 short years Salandy-Brown, as founder and president of the Bocas Lit Fest, has brought together the best and brightest of Caribbean literature for the annual celebration, the NGC Bocas Lit Fest, sparking a literary renaissance of sorts in the region. Looking back on the past week, it was a fairly predictable stream of Galaxy related tidbits - after all, the S20 family is set for announcement in less than two weeks. We were treated to a new revelation about the 64MP camera of the upcoming flagship family, alongside a hint at low-light photo prowess, plus some GeekBench scores. Meanwhile, the Galaxy Z Flip foldable showed up in official renders and it's seemingly coming to market right this month for the reasonable price of $1400. The other star of the week was the upcoming Poco X2. Some key features were revealed, and as time passes by it becames all the more obvious that it's going to be a rebranded Xiaomi K30 - not that it's a bad thing. Word got out on the street that the iPhone SE 2 that's been some time in the making, and will likely be called iPhone 9, will also have a Home button. In 2020! A Huawei exec made a splash a couple of days ago - he was quoted as saying that Huawei won't be returning to using Google apps and services regardless of a potential lift of the US ban on American companies to supply Chinese companies with US technology. It later turned out that the matter might be more nuanced than that, and we're still hoping for fully functional Mates in the future, because GMS is hard to replace in western markets. You can read up on the details by following the links below, where you'll also find some more highlights of the week. All three Samsung Galaxy S20 phones pass through Geekbench with S865 chips, 12GB of RAM We found both US and Korean models, but the ones bound for Europe - the ones expected to use Exynos - are yet to reach the Geekbench database. Huawei nova 7i is coming on February 14 It's a global version of the nova 6 SE launched in China last month. Huawei P40 phones will be cheaper than the P30 The price cut may have something to do with the lack of Google Mobile Services. Leaked Xiaomi Mi 10 Pro specs suggest 16 GB RAM The phone is also going to have a 512 GB storage option if the image is real. Sony Xperia 1.1 camera detailed It's rumored to be unveiled at MWC next month. Redmi Note 8 Pro's camera rated mediocre by DxOMark The latest Redmi Note member leaves a lot to be desired according to DxOMark. Oppo executive reveals first render of company smartwatch It will have a curved panel and two buttons on the side and it doesnt look like an Apple Watch at all. The European Parliament votes in favor of a common charger despite Apple's protests One way to reduce e-waste is to stop bundling new chargers with new phones, but promote a single standard that works with phones of all brands. Nokia 9.2 might have under-display camera HMD Global is reportedly testing the technology for use in its next flagship. The government has increased significantly the allocation for Fund of Funds to Rs 1,054.97 crore as well as for the Make in India kitty in the Budget 2020-21. The government has set up a Fund of Funds for Startups (FFS) with a corpus of Rs 10,000 crore. Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) is the operating agency for the FFS. The allocation for the fund of funds in the revised estimate in 2019-20 was Rs 431.30 crore. It has marginally reduced the allocation for Startup India programme in the Budget. According to the budget documents, the allocation for Startup India programme has been cut to Rs 50 crore for 2020-21 from the revised estimate of Rs 57.84 crore in 2019-20. Startup India initiative aims at fostering entrepreneurship and promoting innovation by creating an ecosystem that is conducive to growth of budding entrepreneurs. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday announced a host of measures, including relaxing tax incentives and setting up of investment clearance cell for startups and entrepreneurs to promote their growth. Himanshu Patel, Partner, Deloitte India, said that the government has been quite progressive in addressing the tax issues faced in the entire start-up ecosystem. He said that during the last three Budgets, the government has addressed matters relating to angel tax, rationalizing profit linked tax holiday to eligible start-ups, exempting long terms capital gains in certain situations. On the other hand, Make in India programme that received increased budgetary allocation include scheme for investment promotion (Rs 140 crore), and ease of doing business (Rs 20 crore). Overall, the total allocation for Make in India initiative was increased to Rs 1,281.97 crore for 2020-21 as against the revised estimate of Rs 651.58 crore in 2019-20. Make in India campaign, which aims to transform the country into a global manufacturing hub, was launched on September 25, 2014. The cumulative allocation for the department of industrial policy and promotion (DIPP) has been hiked to Rs 6,605.55 crore for 2020-21 as against the revised estimate of Rs 6,490 crore in 2019-20. However, the cumulative allocation for the department of commerce has been reduced to Rs 6,219.32 crore for 2020-21 as against the revised estimate of Rs 7,219.32 crore in 2019-20. The total allocations for export promotion schemes such as Market Access Initiative and Interest Equalisation Scheme, has been reduced to Rs 3,260 crore for 2020-21 as against the revised estimate of Rs 4,313 crore in 2019-20. Global trade information platform Connect2India.com CEO Pawan Gupta observed that the start-up ecosystem in India is growing and with the finance minister highlighting the digital revolution, use of new age technologies, proposed opening up of the data and data centre and increase in digital connectivity, this all augur well for the vibrant start-up community in India. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) LONDON A man armed with a knife and wearing a fake explosive device strapped to his body was shot and killed by the police in South London on Sunday after he was suspected of stabbing people on Sunday. The authorities described the attack as terrorist related. The assault in London came more than three months after another terrorism spree left two people dead near the London Bridge, and added to the litany of attacks Britain has endured in recent years, testing the nerves and fortitude of its residents. According to Lucy DOrsi, the deputy assistant commissioner in specialist operations, the suspect was Sudesh Mamoor Faraz Amman, 20. Local news reports said Mr. Amman had been under surveillance by the police when two pedestrians were stabbed on Sunday in Streatham, about five miles south of Central London. One of them, a man, was hospitalized with life-threatening injuries, according to the police. Prince Charles has been caught in an eco row after flying 125 miles in the Queen's helicopter before riding in a Bentley for a speech on cutting carbon emissions. Clarence House has defended the Prince of Wales after it was revealed that he flew in the private helicopter to make a speech about lowering aircraft emissions. The royal flew 125 miles from Highgrove to Cambridge to speak to scientists from Cambridge University's Whittle Laboratory, who are leading research into the decarbonisation of air travel. It is estimated that his total journey of 368 miles cost at least 12,000 and caused about 2.5 tonnes of carbon emissions. Prince Charles has been caught in an eco row after flying 125 miles in the Queen's helicopter before riding in a Bentley for a speech on cutting carbon emissions Clarence House has defended the Prince of Wales after it was revealed that he flew in the private helicopter to make a speech about lowering aircraft emissions In a statement, Clarence House said the carbon footprint left by the 71-year-old's travel was offset every year. 'The prince is not personally involved in decisions around his transportation arrangements, though he ensures all carbon emissions are offset every year,' a spokesperson said. 'They are made based on what is possible within the constraints of time, distance and security. The royal recently faced criticism for flying 16,000 miles in private jets and helicopters in the days leading up to this year's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He is pictured there with Swedish eco-activist Greta Thunberg 'In order for him to undertake as many engagements as he does across the UK and around the world he sometimes has to fly. As he has often said, as soon as there is a more sustainable way of making these journeys, he'll be the first to use it.' It is estimated that Charles could have cut his emissions down to just 0.2 tonnes if he had travelled by car. During a speech to researchers Charles urged them to 'act quickly to rescue this poor old planet'. Prince Charles addresses the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland Campaign group Republic's chief executive Graham Smith said: 'He wants to play the role, but not walk the walk. 'His view seems to be that it's one rule for him and one rule for the rest of us. 'Driving or using the train would have been pretty easy.' The royal recently faced criticism for flying 16,000 miles in private jets and helicopters in the days leading up to this year's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. That was where he met Swedish eco-activist Greta Thunberg, 17 who made a double crossing of the Atlantic by boat earlier this year after refusing to fly. Rajesh Kumar Thakur By Express News Service PATNA: Former JDU leader and poll strategist Prashant Kishor's I-PAC will be working with DMK in Tamilnadu for their 2021 election campaign. DMK chief MK Stalin shared the news on Twitter that many bright & like-minded young professionals of Tamil Nadu are joining the DMK under the banner of I-PAC to work for the 2021 election. Stalin further said that the team will help in shaping plans to restore TN to its former glory . Confirming the collaboration to TNIE, Prashant Kishor said that the Indian Political Action Committee or I-PAC has decided to assist the DMK for the assembly elections due in 2021. He said that the I-PAC will help the DMK as it has been helping the TMC in West Bengal which will also go to polls in 2021. Kishor's I-PAC is currently working with AAP for the Delhi polls in February. Prashant Kishor and Pavan K Varma were recently expelled from the JD-U on charges of being involved in anti party activities. Kishor was the first person to question the decision of JD-U supporting the CAA in the both houses of the Parliament. A pole marks the new geographical centre of the EU. (AP Photo/Michael Probst) The tiny village of Gadheim is a far cry from the cities of Brussels and Strasbourg but it can now count itself as the centre of the EU. Geographically, a nondescript field in the Bavarian village of 80 people is now is the central point for the 27-member bloc - with the UKs departure last night shifting the centre spot south-east. A red and white pole in a boulder marks the new sport, and the flags of the EU, Germany and the Veitshoechheim municipality fly next to it. On the one hand, of course I am proud and happy that we are becoming the new geographical centre of Europe, said Veitshoechheim Mayor Juergen Goetz. On the other hand, of course its a sad occasion, because with Britain a country is leaving the EU for the first time. The new geographical centre of the EU. (AP Photo/Michael Probst) The EUs centre is calculated by Frances national cartographic institute, IGN. It has calculated the centre to be in Germany since the EU expanded from 15 to 25 members in May 2004 by adding mostly eastern European countries. Gadheim has taken the sport from another place in northern Bavaria, Westerngrund, 35 miles north-west. Mr Goetz said he first heard of his villages new status on the local radio, when is broadcast the IGNs calculations in March 2017. At first, I thought it was an April Fools joke, an early one, he said. But it turned out very quickly that it was really the case. Officials in the area spent years considering what to do about it and debating whether the UK would even leave the EU. Mr Goetz said his solution was to get the new centre point ready and, if Brexit hadnt happened, we would have made a monument for the unity of Europe out of this point. By George F. Will WASHINGTON When the Senate acquits the president, he will launch a vindication tour proclaiming that his prosecution was persecution that validated his coveted victim status: Crybaby conservatisms leader has been tormented by unhinged elites. The entire impeachment episode might boost his reelection chances, but only slightly, because voters who are undecided about him are thin on the ground. Nevertheless, there is more utility than futility in the impeachment trial. Because of it, this years electorate will have pertinent information. And future presidents will have a salutary wariness. Begin with this principle: Information is inherently good. Granted, government secrecy is sometimes necessary, and reticence, in government as elsewhere, can be a lubricant of harmony and accommodation. Still, the general rule regarding information is: The more the merrier. The impeachment process has produced granular details about what the president did regarding Ukraine, and about his manner of doing things, and about the grifters he attracts just as magnets attract iron filings. All this is grist for the electorates mill today, 33 weeks before the general elections voting begins in Minnesota Sept. 18. Furthermore, the 20 Republican senators seeking reelection this November (incumbents from Kansas, Tennessee and Wyoming are retiring) will face voters after explaining why they voted as they did concerning trial witnesses, and for or against acquittal. Intelligent, public-spirited senators can reasonably disagree about the necessity (or, given the ocean of information that is public and undisputed, the redundancy) of witnesses. And they can differ about the applicability of the two impeachment articles. It will, however, be useful, and probably entertaining, to hear Republican senators reasoning. Try this thought experiment: Suppose there were term limits for Congress six House terms, two Senate terms. Suppose that, say, one-third of the 20 Republican senators seeking reelection in 2020 were in their second and final terms. Surely some of them, emancipated from the terror they feel when contemplating Trumpian constituents, would vote at least for witnesses to provide pertinent information (e.g., who besides the president has been lying?). Term limits are a lost cause, but this question illustrates why that is regrettable. Both impeachment articles against the president abuse of power, and obstruction of Congress denote serious potential offenses, and actual offenses by this president. So, consider another thought experiment: Given this eras low threshold for fury, Republicans, anticipating Democrats today, might have constitutionalized their indignation by charging Donald Trumps predecessor with impeachable abuses of power in waging unauthorized war in Libya, and rewriting immigration law under the guise of enforcement discretion. Abuse of power is inevitably somewhat in the eye of the beholder. Todays trial about abuses, and about obstructing Congress investigation of them, is potentially a harbinger of the promiscuous use of impeachment. That is, a precedent for Congress abuse of this power. However, for this reason todays impeachment might, for a while, make future presidents wary when wielding power with dubious justifications. Modern presidents, clad in the armor of imperial grandeur, are most tolerable when nervous. Suppose, plausibly, that a President Bernie Sanders would share Woodrow Wilsons progressive impatience with the separation of powers, which Wilson considered an anachronistic impediment to energetic government. Suppose President Sanders would exercise all the discretion granted to presidents by Congress to enable presidents to run the sprawling administrative state. Suppose President Sanders would be tempted to declare emergencies about this and that, and to issue executive orders repurposing funds appropriated for other uses. Might President Sanders hesitate to do so because of todays impeachment, which is a step toward normalizing a radical escalation of political strife? Progressives would remove todays president to protect the country from his boundless conception of presidential power and his (consequent) disdain for Congress. They are recoiling against what progressivism has wrought, beginning with Theodore Roosevelts theory of presidential stewardship: Presidents may do whatever they are not explicitly forbidden to do. So, because the presidency should be tamed, and contracted to constitutional dimensions, this impeachment can be, on balance, constructive. This is so even if acquittal has the predictable effect of further emboldening this president. Since he entered politics in 2015, he has enjoyed immunity through profusion: His nonstop torrent of lies, distortions, slanders and historical claptrap has prevented prolonged scrutiny of anything. This has helped him weather the impeachment squall. Millions of Americans respond to yet another batch of presidential mendacities about yet another sordid presidential action by thinking: This is not news. They are, in some sense, correct. Will is a columnist for The Washington Post Writers Group. A North Carolina couple have been arrested after their two-year-old son was hospitalized with a skull fracture and doctors determined he was so malnourished that he ate his own feces. Jade Newman, 21, and Delane Bostic, 25, are each facing one count of intentional child abuse causing serious bodily injury. Authorities say the parents brought their son to a hospital in Fayetteville last week and examinations revealed that the toddler was severely malnourished, weighing just 18 pounds. X-rays revealed that he had suffered multiple skull and rib fractures as well as brain injuries. Jade Newman, 21, (left) and Delane Bostic, 25, (right) were arrested in Fayetteville, North Carolina, last week after their two-year-old son was hospitalized with a skull fracture and doctors found he was so malnourished that he ate his own feces Newman and Bostic appeared at a court hearing on Friday, where their bond was set at $250,000. Neighbors spoke to local news station ABC11 and described frequently seeing two children running around unattended outside Bostic's home in northwest Fayetteville. Tay Graham, who lives two doors down from Bostic, said he was shocked to hear the news of the couple's arrest. 'I never looked at them like that. I never thought they would do something to a kid like that. I don't even know what to say about it. I'm glad it wasn't one of my young ones,' Graham said. The abuse is believed to have occurred at Bostic's home in northwest Fayetteville (pictured) A young woman and a three-year-old boy jumped from a first-floor window after a man armed with a bat attacked a house in Co Tyrone. Detectives have charged a 50-year-old man with a total of eight offences including making threats to kill, grievous bodily harm with intent, possession of an offensive weapon, criminal damage and harassment after the incident at a property in Saint Patricks Terrace in Omagh on Saturday night. A man armed with a bat attacked the house, shouted racial slurs and attempted to force his way past a 34-year-old man to get inside the property at about 10.25pm, police said. A PSNI spokesman said: A 22-year-old woman and three-year-old boy who were inside the home were so in fear that they jumped from a first-floor window to try to get away. As a result, the woman has sustained pelvic injuries that will require surgery. The child was not harmed. We are treating this incident as a hate crime and I am appealing for witnesses. Hate crime has no place in society and should be rejected and reviled by everyone. The man is expected to appear at Enniskillen Magistrates Court on Monday. Anyone with information is asked to call 101. People walk past the closed Hankou Railway Station after the city was locked down following the outbreak of a new coronavirus in Wuhan, Hubei province, China on Jan. 23, 2020. (China Daily via Reuters) Only 12 Days from Onset to Death, Pregnant Coronavirus Victim Had White Lungs Weng Qiuqiu (alias), a 31-year-old woman from Huanggang City, Hubei Province, fell ill shortly after she became pregnant, suffering from headaches, coughing, breathing difficulties and dying only 12 days later. It was said that her lungs turned white and she died not knowing what she was suffering from. According to ThePaper.cn, Wengs husband, Chen Yong (alias) said that on Jan. 7, his wife went to a produce market to buy fish heads, chicken, and vegetables. When she got home, she made hot pot and had dinner with her family. She ate a lot of food. On Jan. 8, my wife said she was not feeling well. She was at home with her 5-year-old daughter on Jan. 9. At noon, she messaged me on WeChat, saying that she had a cold. She asked me to take some cold medicine back after work and buy a box of pregnancy test kits. She suspected she was pregnant. That day, I went home giving her cold medicine and pregnancy test kits. At night, she told me she was pregnant, and I was very happy. She ate a big bowl of rice when I cooked dinner in the evening, but she was not in good spirits, Chen said. On Jan. 10, she woke me up at about 3:00 am, saying she felt sick, Chen said. She had a headache, sore throat, and a fever of over 38 degrees (100.4 degrees Fahrenheit). That night, we rode the electric bike and took our daughter to the hospital. We went to the hospital of traditional Chinese medicine in Huanggang City. The doctor said that we needed to wait until daytime for an injection. We took some cold medicine back. On the way home, it suddenly began to rain. When we got home it was well after four oclock in the morning and my wife was coughing and not sleeping. It rained all day that day, and we went to that hospital again at about 7 a.m. in the morning. After taking an X-ray, the doctor said that her throat was infected and inflamed. Since my wife was pregnant and couldnt take medicine or injection, we went to Huanggangs maternal and children health care service center. Chen continued, at that time, it was already noon. We planned to go home first and go to the service center in the afternoon. Back home, I made her millet porridge. She could eat no more after only a few bites. In the afternoon, we went to the maternal and child health care service center. The doctor said pregnant women cannot take medicine or injections. We went back to the hospital of traditional Chinese medicine and went to the respiratory department. By then my wife had difficulty breathing, was too weak to walk, and was noticeably more afraid of the cold than usual. After doing an electrocardiogram (ECG) in the hospital of traditional Chinese medicine, the doctor asked us to transfer to Huanggang Central Hospital. Failing to receive treatment there, we then went to Huanggang Union Hospital. It was 4 to 5 p.m. by then. My wife could no longer speak, and I was very upset Chen continued, It was a long day, and at 11 p.m., my wife was finally transferred to a 3A hospital in Wuhan. When we got to the hospital in Wuhan, the doctor told me that my wife had a bacterial infection that her lungs had turned white. On the evening of Jan. 10, my wife was taken to a hospital in Wuhan. At first, she was admitted to the fever department. By 1 or 2 a.m. on Jan. 11, she was transferred to the emergency room and was soon transferred again to the intensive care unit. There were many patients in the hospital that night, some of whose families did not wear masks. She was quarantined after being admitted to the fever unit, where doctors said she had become infected with pneumonia of unknown cause. On Jan. 11, I was devastated when the doctor told me that my wife was very ill and needed equipment to modify the treatment plan. The cost was high, at 20,000 yuan ($2,880) a day and with less than a 10 percent chance of survival. Id been living in a hostel nearby. I couldnt visit my wife in the hospital, and I spent every day trying to figure out how to raise money. In the first three days after she entered the hospital, it cost 50,000 or 60,000 yuan per day, and thereafter 20,000 yuan per day. I wanted to see my wife, I wanted to talk to her but had been unable to do so, Chen said. Sometimes I called to ask the doctor. Each time I called I was told that she wasnt awake, and her condition was as serious, or more serious than previously. She was already pregnant and her immune system had declined. The doctor told me that my wifes hands were all purple, and then her feet turned purple too, and her condition was deteriorating very quickly. After my wife went into intensive care, I never saw her again until she turned into ashes. At noon on Jan. 21, I really couldnt borrow more money, and my wifes condition did not get any better. I was really frustrated. After spending the borrowed medical expenses which amounted to 200,000 yuan ($28,000), Weng Qiuqius condition did not improve. Chen Yong finally signed the consent to give up treatment. Weng Qiuqiu died an hour later, at 1:46 p.m. That evening, her body was taken to the funeral home for cremation. The death certificate stated infectious shock, respiratory and circulatory failure, and severe pneumonia. The day after his wife died on Jan. 22, Chen went to the Wuchang funeral home to retrieve the urn. There were a dozen people outside just like him waiting for their relatives remains. In January, an outbreak of pneumonia from the new coronavirus was spreading across the country from Wuhan, just about 100 miles from Qichun County in Huanggang City, where Weng Qiuqiu lived. Huanggang is the hardest-hit area right next to Wuhan. Many netizens wrote in response to the post that the pregnant woman and her familys experience was heartbreaking. The hospital deliberately didnt diagnose [the patient] with Wuhan pneumonia [the Chinese term for Novel coronavirus 2019-nCoV] in order to earn money, because theyre supposed to offer free treatment for Wuhan pneumonia. [They] cremated the body quickly so there was no evidence left, one netizen wrote. Doesnt the media keep emphasizing that those dead are all old people? others wondered. The Chinese Communist Party conceals the epidemic. How many Chinese people have been killed by it! May God destroys the Communist Party! Regional building society Newcastle is bucking the trend by opening rather than closing branches in some of the country's most remote rural communities. Its bold move follows in the wake of last week's decision by Lloyds Banking Group to cull a further 56 branches across its Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland brands. The mutual, whose 29-strong branch network is confined to the North East, will officially open the new style 'community' branches later this week in Wooler, Northumberland, and Hawes in Upper Wensleydale, North Yorkshire home of 'Wallace & Gromit' Wensleydale cheese. The bee's cheese: Fromage fan Wallace will see a Newcastle branch in Hawes in Upper Wensleydale Both communities are somewhat isolated Hawes is in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales while Wooler lies on the edge of the Northumberland National Park and is known as the gateway to the Cheviot Hills. The new outlets are in response to both towns losing their last banks. Barclays pulled out of Wooler in 2018 and exited Hawes a year later, leaving them very much dependent on local post offices and free-to-use cash machines for access to banking services and cash. Unlike traditional branches, the new Newcastle outlets will not be standalone, but based in the towns' community centres. But they will allow customers to make savings deposits and withdrawals as well as obtain financial advice on everything from pensions to investments and inheritance tax planning. A similar community branch was opened three years ago by the society in Yarm, North Yorkshire, inside the town's library, and has proved a big success. The new branches have been warmly welcomed. Joe Pilling is chairman of the Hawes Upper Dales Community Partnership that has been instrumental in ensuring the town keeps its vital services including a library, police station and community petrol station. He says: 'The Newcastle branch will meet a real community need.' Parish councillor Sheila Alderson says the society's initiative is 'brilliant'. Tom Johnston, chief executive of Glendale Gateway Trust a charitable organisation set up to ensure Wooler remains a vibrant town says Newcastle's presence will help 'protect rural services'. Meanwhile, Andrew Haigh, chief executive of Newcastle, told the MoS: 'As a business, we believe in the high street and the vitality of the region we serve. We want to connect with the communities on our patch. 'Clearly, we're seeing a transition away from cash in favour of contactless payment. But there is still a big need among many people for ready access to cash not just via a cash machine, but by visiting a branch staffed by people with friendly faces.' He said another community branch could be up and running by the end of the year. Newcastle's support for the high street is a boost to The Mail on Sunday's 'Keep Our Cash Campaign'. We believe all communities should have access to free cash, whether through a bank, building society branch or an ATM. Our campaign has drawn widespread support and has already resulted in cash machine network provider Link promising to install by the end of the year up to 200 free-to-use ATMs in communities that have lost all their bank branches or 24-hour access to cash. So far, seven free-to-use ATMs have been installed in Silsoe, Bedfordshire; Durness and Gartcosh in Scotland; Bedlinog and New Tredegar in Wales; Nuneaton, Warwickshire; and last week, Battle in East Sussex. On Friday, Link said a further nine ATMs were ready, waiting to be installed and it had visited 100 communities to assess the viability of a cash machine being provided. Link said it was happy to receive new requests from communities keen to benefit from a free-to-use ATM. These can be made at link.co.uk. - The 2nd case of coronavirus in the Philippines was recently confirmed earlier this morning, February 2 - With the growing number of people affected by nCoV, various claims about the virus have gone viral on social media - One claim that is circulating about the virus is that patients affected by nCoV behave like a 'zombie' - This prompted the Malaysian government to recently debunk the said claim PAY ATTENTION: Click "See First" under the "Following" tab to see KAMI news on your News Feed As the death toll and the number of people affected by the coronavirus continues to grow, various theories and claims about the said virus have started to circulate on social media as well. Following this news, KAMI learned that a viral claim about the virus has recently been addressed by health ministers under the Malaysian government. Source: Reuters - Photo by Lim Huey Teng Source: Original The said viral claim about the coronavirus that has been stirring buzz online is about the people affected by the virus who are said to be behaving in a 'zombie-like' manner. According to the article made by ABS-CBN News (authored by Agence France-Presse), Malaysian's health ministry debunked the claim in a tweet, "The claim that individuals infected with this virus will behave like zombies is not true. Patients can recover." Furthermore, the police have already arrested six people that recently spread misinformation about nCoV according to the statement of the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia. PAY ATTENTION: Enjoyed reading our story? Download KAMI's news app on Google Play now and stay up-to-date with major Filipino news! As reported earlier by KAMI, the Manila Public Information Office has finally addressed the viral video and photos of a foreigner who collapsed on the street and was thought to have suffered from coronavirus by the online community. According to their statement, the foreigner was identified as a drunk Korean national and not a Chinese national that collapsed along the streets of Remedios in Manila. POPULAR: Read more viral stories here Please like and share our Facebook posts to support KAMI team! Dont hesitate to comment and share your opinion about our stories either. We love reading about your thoughts! Source: KAMI.com.gh An 8-year-old has been denied admittance by several schools because of his hair and now his mother is fighting for a policy change. Bonnie Miller of the U.K. has been on the lookout for schools her son Farouk James could attend in the future, and two won't allow him in because of his long, natural hair. One of those schools was The London Oratory School the same school her older son, who is now 23, attended. "I knew about their bad hair policies," Miller told CBS News. The mother said she went through a similar situation with her older son 10 years ago except that time, her son's hair was too short for the school. Read Full Story .... cbsnews.com >>> : Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video (Newser) A funeral gathering at a south Florida church turned tragic Saturday when gunfire broke out afterward and left two people dead, CNN reports. Police say an adult male and a 15-year-old boy died in the shooting at Riviera Beach, about five miles north of West Palm Beach. The AP adds that a woman and another teenager were hospitalized with injuries. Details are scant, but police say 13 gunshots were overheard, and CBS 12 says it happened around 2:30pm. story continues below The teen had apparently been attending his grandfather's funeral. "We solicit the prayers of the saints today as we mourn the loss of two young black men to a senseless shooting after a funeral held here at the church," writes the church pastor, Tywuante D. Lupoe, on Facebook. He says the victims weren't church members and were killed off church property, across the street. (Read more shooting stories.) It was the saddest of times, it was the happiest of times; it was the time of funerary apparel and commiserations, it was the time of festive attire and congratulations; it was, in Washington D.C.'s grand theater of the absurd, the time for impeachment. The final act of this Faustian tragedy began a week before Christmas in 2019, when, draped in black and nervous as a mortician trying to look sad at a fifty-thousand-dollar funeral, Nancy Pelosi announced that the president had been impeached. In spite of the melancholy atmosphere that covered the proceedings like a shroud, the proclamation elicited a smattering of cheers and applause from among her colleagues but an icy stare and a disapproving wave of the speaker's hand quickly silenced the unwelcome outburst. Some twenty-eight days later, with her time of mourning completed, the speaker traded her black raiment for a hot pink ensemble and replaced her somber affect with a Cheshire Catworthy smile. Then, with great fanfare, she took thirty gold and onyx ceremonial pens in hand and signed the articles of impeachment. Three days later, and still in a jubilant mood, Ms. Pelosi appeared on the Bill Maher show, where she was greeted with thunderous applause, cheers, and a standing ovation. Like any good celebrity, Speaker Pelosi responded to this outpouring of affection by bowing and waving to her adoring fans. Then, after Maher thanked her for delaying the impeachment until his show was back on the air, they memorialized her accomplishment with a fist bump, while she smiled and said, "Way to go." In the euphoria of that moment, every semblance of her simulated sadness evaporated, and she enthusiastically embraced the spectacle of impeachment. Yet, in spite of her two-faced conduct, Nancy Pelosi is not the problem and neither is her unstable and two-faced sidekick, Adam Schiff. Throughout the two-year Rosenstein-Weissmann investigation, Adam Schiff repeatedly claimed that Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin were in cahoots. He could not discuss the details with any specificity, but he assured everyone that he had seen the proof with his own eyes, and the president's treachery would be exposed when the special counsel issued his report. Yet, when that long awaited day arrived, the proof Mr. Schiff promised was nowhere to be found. Instead, "The Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election" contradicted his oft-repeated assertion of Russian collusion, and concluded that "the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities." Much to Mr. Schiff's dismay, the Russian collusion narrative had crumbled, but he simply would not let it go. During his opening remarks at the Senate impeachment trial, Schiff alluded to a Russia-Trump connection some thirty times before turning to the Trump-Zelensky telephone conversation. He then made the astonishing claim that delaying the release of security assistance to Ukraine had increased the probability of a U.S.-Russian war, fought on American soil. "The U.S. aids Ukraine and the people," Schiff declared, "so that we can fight Russia over there, and we don't have to fight Russia here." As usual, Mr. Schiff was long on histrionics and short on facts. Prior to delaying aid to Ukraine, President Trump threatened to, or actually did, withhold aid from Pakistan, Iraq, Lebanon, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. He also threatened Mexico with tariffs unless the Mexicans halted the caravans marching through their country. All these demands were transmitted in the clear, and each contained the dreaded quid pro quo, but not a single Democrat eyebrow was raised. What made the Ukrainian case different? Why did it rise to the level of impeachment where the others did not? To Chairman Schiff, the answer was simple: the president had something to hide. This time he was right: the president was hiding information from Russia. Unlike the demands made to other countries, President Trump did not transmit his intentions concerning Ukraine's security assistance in the clear. In fact, he did not transmit those intentions at all even to Ukraine. He knew that, unless Zelensky was the reformer he claimed to be, news of the delay would surely leak, thereby giving Russia an excuse to foment additional strife in the region. If, however, Zelensky could be trusted, the aid would be released as scheduled without either Zelensky or Putin being the wiser. Although this explanation was well within the realm of possibility, its consideration would disable his drive for impeachment, so Schiff soldiered on and called for the president's immediate removal. "The president's misconduct cannot be decided at the ballot box," he insisted, "for we cannot be assured that the vote will be fairly won." The man who led the charge to defund President Trump's election integrity commission had suddenly seen the light, but his conversion was short-lived and did not bring forth fruits worthy of repentance. Instead of seeking bipartisan legislation to prevent election meddling, Schiff stood in the voting booth door and attempted to block the path of those misguided souls who might have the unmitigated temerity to re-elect Donald Trump. Just nine months earlier, Representative Al Green had warned that "if we don't impeach this president, he will get re-elected." Schiff knew that Green was right, and he was not about to let that happen. In a speech before the California Democrat state convention on Saturday, November 16, 2019, Schiff made his intentions clear. Two years ago, I stood before you and I urged you to resist and you did, but we are more than a resistance now; we are a majority! We are a majority in one house, and we will become a majority in the other, and we will send that charlatan in the White House back to the golden throne he came from. These are not the words of a fair, impartial, and unbiased man. They are the words of a partisan enforcer, whose only mission is to overturn the results of the last election and predetermine the outcome of the next. Adam Schiff is an accomplished, inveterate, and shameless prevaricator, to be sure, yet his loathsome behavior is but a symptom of a much larger problem a problem that John Adams foresaw some two hundred twenty-two years ago. During the Franco-American "Quasi-War" of 1798, the officers of the 1st brigade, 3rd division of the Massachusetts militia informed President Adams that they were ready to answer duty's call at any time and at their own expense. Accordingly, on 11 October 1798, Adams penned his now famous reply in which he complimented the unit's readiness and commitment but assured them that France's military power did not pose an existential threat to the nation. The threat to the country, Adams explained, would come not from a cannon's shot or shell, but from an enemy that was even more powerful and difficult to control the American people themselves. While our country remains untainted with the principles and manners, which are now producing desolation in so many parts of the world; while she continues sincere, and incapable of insidious and impious policy, we shall have the strongest reason to rejoice in the local destination assigned us by Providence. But should the people of America once become capable of that deep simulation towards one another, and towards foreign nations, which assumes the language of justice and moderation while it is practising iniquity and extravagance, and displays in the most captivating manner the charming pictures of candor, frankness, and sincerity, while it is rioting in rapine and insolence, this country will be the most miserable habitation in the world; because we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or galantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. In today's America, blaming politicians for all the country's problems has become a national pastime. Whether viewed individually or as a group, politicians are now objects of ridicule, grist for the comedian's mill. As the humorist, social commentator, and genuine member of the Cherokee Nation Will Rogers once observed, "everything is changing. People are taking their comedians seriously and their politicians as a joke." Both Rogers and Adams were right: the Constitution could not protect the country from its own people. For good or ill, it is the people, not the politicians, who choose the representatives, and it is the people, not the politicians, who can "vote the bums out" at the next election. Who then is to blame for our current crop of politicians and the toxic political atmosphere that threatens to break the strongest cords of our Constitution? In the words of that great swamp-dwelling philosopher, Pogo, "we have met the enemy and he is us." Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr. The Congress party on Sunday released its manifesto for the Delhi assembly elections which are scheduled to take place on February 8. The manifesto was released by Delhi Congress president Subhash Chopra and other party leaders Anand Sharma and Ajay Maken. In its poll manifesto, the Congress has promised free bus rides to senior citizens, free education from nursery to Phd for girl students in govt institutions. The party has also mentioned Nyay Yojna (or Nyuntam Aay Yojana), which was the flagship social welfare programme of the Congress party in its 2019 Lok Sabha Elections, in its manifesto. The grand old party has also promised to get a strong Lokpal in first six months. It also proposes to spend 25 per cent of Delhi Budget on fighting pollution and improving transport; allot Rs 5,000 crore for start-up fund, unemployment allowance of Rs 5,000 per month for graduates and Rs 7,500 for post graduates. The Delhi Congress president has already announced that the party will provide relief to people consuming up to 600 units of electricity in Delhi per month. He has also promised to raise the welfare pension amount to up to Rs 5,000 per month. The Delhi Assembly election 2020 will be held on February 8 and the results will be announced on February 11. It will be a three-cornered contest this time between the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the BJP and the Congress. Present Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP saw a thumping win in 2015 Assembly elections with the party bagging 67 seats, leaving just three (seats) for the BJP. The Congress has suffered a series of electoral defeats in Delhi, starting with the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. It drew a blank in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls as well as in the 2015 Delhi Assembly election. The parliamentary polls held last year offered a silver lining to the party as under the leadership of late Dikshit, Congress candidates pushed the nominees of the ruling AAP on to the third place in five of the seven Lok Sabha seats in the national capital. The Congress managed to improve its vote share, although it failed to win any seat. The party got over 22 per cent votes, which was considerably higher than the over-18 per cent votes polled by the AAP. The BJP, in its 'Sankalp Patra 2020' (manifesto), also said it would focus on women empowerment, traders, infrastructure development and housing for all by 2022. (With agencies input) Also read: Delhi Assembly election 2020: Badminton ace Saina Nehwal makes political debut; joins BJP Also read: Delhi Assembly polls: AAP announces list of all 70 candidates; Arvind Kejriwal to contest from New Delhi The gender budget allocation saw a marginal increase even as Poshan Abhiyaan, the nutritional programme under the Integrated Child Development Services Scheme (ICDS), has been allocated 3,700 crore in the Union budget. This marks an increase of 8.8% from the allocation last year of 3,400 crore. Emphasising on nutrition as a critical component of health, Nirmala Sitharaman proposed to provide 35,600 crore for nutrition-related programmes for the year 2020-21, said a women and child development (WCD) ministry press release about the allocation for nutrition across all ministries. The ministries of WCD, health and family welfare, and human resource development are primarily responsible for nutrition. In her budget speech, Sitharaman announced a new task force, which will recommend in six months policy prescriptions to lower Indias maternal mortality rate. WCD ministry officials said the force will have officials from Niti Aayog, health and WCD ministries, and deliberate the ideal age of marriage of a woman. The WCD ministrys allocation -- 30,007.10 crore -- amounts to an increase of 3.6% from the grant last year of 29,164.90 crore, which is only 0.9% of the total budget this year, a decline from last years 1.04%. Nutrition remains the focus of the WCD ministrys budget allocation, with the ICDS getting 28557.38 crore. It marks a marginal increase of 3.5% from 27584.37 last year. The grant for Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao scheme, which Sitharaman referred to in her speech, has declined by 21% from 280 crore to 220 crore. The allocation for the womens helpline has increased by 68.72% from 17.78 crore last year to 30 crore. The One Stop Crisis Centre, which records complaints received from women affected by violence, has been granted 40% more funds-- 385 crore this year compared to 274 crore. As per the gender budget statement, an overview of all of the Centres schemes that benefit women partly or wholly, the allocation for this fiscal is 1.4 lakh crore, an increase of 4.7% from last years 1.3 lakh crore. The Centre for Budget and Governance Accountabilitys Sakshi Rai said, ...There is a focus on redressal and aftercare than checking the violence. Like last year, the allocation for the transgender community, too, is missing completely... This needs to be corrected. The allocation for Ujjwala scheme for providing LPG connections to poor households has seen a dip of 59%. It has been allocated only 1,118 crore this year. Dr Ruth Manorama of the National Alliance for Women said, ...when we dive deep into the budget, we see that there are limited budgetary provisions for women, particularly women from marginalised communities. Even where allocations register some increase, they are not adequate to bring about transformational change... A passenger who arrived in Dublin Airport on a flight from Moscow on Saturday night is still believed to be under observation at the Mater Hospital while he undergoes screening to assess if he has coronavirus. It could be tomorrow before the man, who is understood to have originally travelled from China, is diagnosed or given the all-clear. The National Public Health Emergency (NPHE) team has said it will not comment on unconfirmed cases of the virus but stressed that as of February 1 there were no confirmed cases in Ireland. It would not confirm if there are any suspected cases or anyone undergoing assessment either. The Dublin Airport Authority divert all queries about the incident to the Department of Health. The Aeroflot flight arrived in Dublin Airport at around 9pm whereupon it was met by medical personnel in hazmat suits who boarded the flight to speak to the man, who told them he had come from China via Moscow, it is reported. Read More It is understood there was no issue raised about the passengers health throughout the flight. Other passengers have reportedly said that their temperatures were checked before they were allowed to disembark, and they had to fill out forms and told they might be contacted in a few days. The passengers were allowed off the plane at 11pm, and it is understood the passenger who was taken away by ambulance was brought to an isolation room in the Mater Hospital which has been set up as part of the Irish response to the Coronavirus outbreak. A Co Longford doctor, Laura Noonan, was on the flight and posted details of the incident on her Facebook page Lauras Russian Lifeline. Dr Noonan had been in Russia to receive treatment for a rare illness she has, and said she had only been on the flight because she was so weak she had to travel home earlier than she had planned. She posted a photograph of the information sheet from the HSE and HPSE (Health Protection Surveillance Centre) which indicated to passengers that they had been on a flight from Moscow with a possible case of novel Coronavirus. It advised avoiding contact with other people as much as possible that night. If you become ill, especially with cough, sore throat, breathlessness or high temperature stay at home or in your hotel room and phone a doctor or 999 for advice, mentioning that you were on this flight. A public health doctor will contact you tomorrow, the advice sheet stated. Read More Dr Noonan also posted photographs of a person in a hazmat suit on the plane, and an ambulance on the ground beside the plane. Today she wrote that she had been feeling very unwell since arriving home and she was tempted to go to hospital as planned when she boarded the flight home with her husband. But we couldnt. We are observing the self enforced isolation in our home. We wont be seeing anyone or going anywhere until this case of suspected coronavirus is either confirmed or excluded, wrote Laura. The statement from the NPHE said Ireland has advanced plans in place as part of its comprehensive preparedness to deal with public health emergencies such as novel Coronavirus. The aim of these plans in Ireland, at this point in the response to novel Coronavirus, is one of containment. This seeks to maximise the chance of a case being detected should one arise here and to prevent it being transmitted to another person, it said. The activation of protocols that achieve this is a core and expected feature of our preparedness and ongoing response. The protocol always ensures that the people involved are fully communicated with and are aware of what is going on, it added. Sao Paulo: A man has died during a raid to fight illegal deforestation in the northern Brazilian state of Roraima, the country's environment agency Ibama said. Ibama and military police agents found illegal logging in a forest area close to the city of Rorainopolis, in Roraima state, the agency said in a statement late on Saturday, local time. Two men involved in the illegal logging hid in the woods and began to shoot at the policemen. In the ensuing exchange of fire, one of the illegal loggers died, the agency said. Deaths are unusual in environmental raids in Brazil. In 2016 a policeman was shot dead by loggers in a raid in the state of Para. Reuters CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa Sen. Elizabeth Warren hopes voters share this sentiment with her: everything is broken. The Massachusetts Democrat and presidential hopeful told a crowd of more than 700 at Kohawk Arena at Coe College as much. Lobbyists are out of control. Corporations are writing the rules. And government corruption has taken the place of governing. We have a government who works great for giant drug companies that want to sell drugs, just not for people who are trying to get a prescription, Warren said. We have a government that works great for people who want maybe a little profit investing in the private detention centers at our border or private prisons, just not for people whose lives are torn apart by this racism. We have a government that works great for giant oil companies that want to drill everywhere, just not the rest of us that see climate change bearing down on us. Warren is making a final push to claim one of the top spots in Mondays caucuses. She may not win, but given that most of the criticism against her from her primary rivals focuses on her electability, a strong showing could be enough to prove them wrong and convince voters across the country to embrace her. While other candidates are making the case that they are the safest choice for the Democrats to topple Republican President Donald Trump, Warren is instead taking an abstract angle on the electability argument. Her proposals universal health care, a wealth tax and free college education to name a few, are often the subject of derision from some of her Democratic foes. They see her goals as too lofty and unattainable and the country unwilling to back such a massive shift in priorities. But Warren wants to talk about things that might not be politically comfortable for other Democrats. Shes actively bringing up what she describes as corruption by Trump hiring lobbyists for interests like coal and private schools to be head of the environmental regulation and education policy. She wants to campaign on GOP-appointed judges even though the courts have been a winning issue for Republicans for decades. To Warren, banking on the electoral equivalent of a safety blanket is no way to win at all. Fighting back is an act of patriotism, Warren said. Think of it this way: We fought back against a king to build this nation. We fought back against the scourge of slavery to preserve this nation. We fought back against the Great Depression to build the economy of this nation. And we fought back against fascism to protect our democracy in this nation. We are at our best when we see a big problem and we fight back with big, structural change. The problem for Warren is her pitch might work in other states, but maybe not Iowa. She led the pack in polling for a good portion of the fall before dropping off in November. Despite frequently being at the front of coverage, shes never really seemed to regain her mojo. The latest polling in Iowa has her looking up at former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg the fresh face with a calm demeanor former Vice President Joe Biden the establishment favorite and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders her onetime ally with a message similar to hers. But she might have something much more valuable that traditional polling cant account for: a rabid fanbase. A caucus is not a primary. Its not just about getting the most people to hear your name and go into a booth and check a box. It takes organizing and persuading delegates to come to your side. Thats how it worked for then-Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois in 2008. He out-organized the field, which included party favorite Hillary Clinton. Sanders almost logged a similar victory in 2016. Warren is betting on 2020 being a change election. In change elections, people often dont want the safe pick. They want something big, bold and different. That was certainly the case with Obama in 2008 and Trump in 2016. Read more politics news: Pete Buttigieg is on the attack in Iowa Joe Biden banks on being the most electable candidate in the Iowa caucuses 281 miles, 14 and a half hours, 3 candidate events in Iowa Donald Trump takes a trade-deal victory lap through Michigan and Iowa: The Flyover Sen. Rob Portman announces hell vote against calling impeachment witnesses Ballot language rejected for proposed expansion of Ohio voter registration laws Charity founded by Trump allies plans follow-up cash giveaway events in Cleveland, elsewhere Senior Irish aviation leasing executive Richard O'Halloran has been barred from leaving China by Shanghai police for almost a year, Independent.ie has learnt. Sources said the Foxrock businessman had been caught up in a complicated situation involving the Chinese owner of the Dublin-based leasing firm that he works for "through absolutely no fault of his own". Independent.ie understands that senior members of the Government and consular officials have been working closely with Mr O'Halloran's family in trying to secure his return to Ireland. Mr O'Halloran, the son of a well-known Dublin architect and a relation of former taoiseach Garret FitzGerald, is not allowed to leave the country but is allowed to leave the Shanghai hotel in which he is staying. Expand Close Simon Coveney: Aware of Richard OHallorans case. Photo: PA Wire / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Simon Coveney: Aware of Richard OHallorans case. Photo: PA Wire A spokesman for Tanaiste and Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney said: "The Tanaiste is aware of the case but we cannot comment on consular matters." Mr O'Halloran, a director of Dublin-registered China International Aviation Leasing Service Ltd (CALS), had travelled to China 11 months ago, about six months after Chinese businessman Min Jiedong, the chairman and owner of CALS, was detained by authorities in Shanghai. Min's detention was reported to have been connected to a number of interrelated financial companies that he operated and part of an ongoing crackdown by Chinese authorities into so-called peer-to-peer lending, whereby money is raised from the public online to fund the purchase of assets with the promise of an investment return. The Chinese embassy in Ireland issued a statement to Independent.ie that named Min Jiedong as the owner of CALS and claimed that he "is suspected to have illegally collected money from Chinese public, and bought an airplane abroad. The airplane is leased to a European aviation company." The statement from the embassy claimed that CALS had "once promised to transfer the assets and leasing revenues" to its parent company in China "but up to now failed to do so." "The Shanghai police restricts Mr O'Halloran's departure from China by law," the embassy said. "The personal freedom of Mr O'Halloran within China is fully guaranteed." At the time of Min Jiedong's detention, CALS had been in the process of buying a Boeing 737 leased to Lion Air by a Dubai company. It had paid a $2m (1.8m) deposit loaned to it by a company connected to the Chinese businessman, financial accounts state. The deal was abandoned after Min was detained by authorities in Shanghai and the latest accounts for the company said "the board are currently in discussion in relation to the refund of the deposit". Companies related to Min had also loaned money to pay the $2m deposit for an earlier deal to buy an Airbus NEO leased to Finnair that CALS intended to buy from a Cayman company, according to CAL's accounts posted in the Companies Registration Office in Dublin. Amid the raging media war between Prime Minister Narendra Modis supporters and critics, recent developments are helping to disprove one charge that India is getting isolated internationally. From frustrating Chinas latest United Nations Security Council (UNSC) move on Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) to forcing Malaysia to start addressing its growing trade surplus with India, including by importing more Indian sugar, Indian diplomacy has rarely been more robust. It was China that was isolated in the UNSC discussion on J&K. United States (US) President Donald Trumps forthcoming visit promises to raise Indias international salience. Building closer cooperation with the US, while shielding Indias longstanding partnership with Russia, has been Modis signature foreign policy initiative. The US and India have never been closer than they are today, despite their differences over the Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran challenges. The showmanship, zeal and penchant that Modis diplomacy displayed in his first years in office have gradually given way to a more down-to-earth approach and greater pragmatism, including seeking to more resourcefully advance the countrys interests. Under Modi, Indian diplomacy has been shedding its conventional methods and shibboleths to help build innovative dynamism. This remains a work in progress. India is now more willing to be proactive. Consider the imperative to reverse eroding regional clout at a time when China is spreading its influence deep into Indias backyard. In Sri Lanka, no sooner had Gotabaya Rajapaksa won the presidential election, Modi sent his foreign minister to personally invite him to New Delhi. And then, to follow up on the discussions during Gotabayas visit, Modis national security adviser was in Colombo recently. Another recent example is Indias pull-out from the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) to forestall an India-China free-trade agreement emerging via the backdoor. The decision not to join RCEP came barely three weeks after Chinese President Xi Jinping, at the Mamallapuram summit, pleaded with Modi for Indias entry and offered to discuss Indian concerns bilaterally. The trade deficit with China has more than doubled on Modis watch and now accounts for 2.2% of Indias GDP, which is higher than its total defence spending. At a time of the slowing of Indias economic growth, Indias RCEP entry would seriously exacerbate the countrys problems by opening the floodgates to the entry of cheap goods from China, which keeps whole sectors of its economy off-limits to Indian businesses. While Trump has got his phase-one deal to reduce the US trade deficit with China, Indias trade deficit with China continues to climb. In these circumstances, Indias RCEP entry would only aid Beijings India policy of containment with engagement, including aggressively advancing commercial interests. In essence, Chinas policy seeks to ensure it wins doubly reap soaring profits on Indian trade while simultaneously working to box India in. Through greater realism, India has progressively evolved a non-doctrinaire foreign policy vision since it went overtly nuclear. It seeks to revitalise its economic and military security without having to overtly choose one power over another as a dominant partner. Given its nuclear-armed status, its founding philosophy centred on non-violence has assumed a largely rhetorical meaning. As one US official, Alice Wells, has acknowledged, Indias broadening strategic horizons have led to a shift away from a passive foreign policy. India, however, remains intrinsically diffident, with a tendency to confound tactics with strategy and unable at times to recognise the difference between being cautious and being meek. Caution helps avert problems, while meekness compounds challenges. Making matters worse, India today is weighed down not just by a troubled neighbourhood but also by its increasingly murky politics. A dynamic diplomacy needs strong bipartisan support, especially for ambitious or risky undertakings. But given Indias fractious politics, such bipartisanship has been hard to come by. Consider the political nitpicking over the Indian Air Forces daring strike inside Pakistan at Balakot. The bitter partisanship at home, by sharpening national divisions, makes it more challenging to meaningfully reinvigorate foreign policy. Indeed, the most pressing threat to Indias standing in the world comes not from Chinas expansionism or the roguish activity of a scofflaw Pakistan but from polarised Indian politics. Given the threat from within, can India effectively deal with complex regional-security challenges, including the growing strategic axis between China and Pakistan a dangerous combination of a powerful Leninist autocracy and an Islamist neighbour? Modi may have become a lightning rod in Indias political churn. But make no mistake: Modi is a symptom of a longer-term trend of rancorous polarisation in Indian politics that predates his arrival on the national scene and is likely to persist after he leaves office. The worlds largest democracy has been in crisis for long. Its systemic problems have an important bearing on national security. Coping with mounting regional-security challenges while managing internal divisions will prove onerous unless India finds ways to control its growing divide. Brahma Chellaney is a geostrategist. The views expressed are personal FIVE Limerick city election candidates have signed an anti-racism document to pledge that their campaigns are free of any form of racism, hate speech and discrimination. This Tuesday, all of Limericks candidates were invited to sign the Anti-Racism Election Protocol 2020, which was produced by the Irish Network Against Racism (INAR, formerly ENAR Ireland), of which Doras is a member. So far, the Protocol has been signed by Labour candidate Jan OSullivan TD, Fine Fails James Collins, Green Party candidate Brian Leddin, Jenny Blake of Social Democrats and Fine Gael Senator Maria Byrne. Jan OSullivan TD said: I think its really important that people running for office would be very clear in relation to anti-racism. There should be no doubts whatsoever, and we should be extremely careful in the language we use, that were inclusive and so that nobody is in any doubt whatsoever as to where we stand. I also think we need to call it out if we meet it, there is now more and more racist speech on the doorsteps, blaming others for problems we have in society. We need to explain why thats just not the case. We have a duty, you cant speak out both sides of your mouth on matters like this, the pledge is to be implemented and not just signed either. James Collins said: There're many people in Limerick who consider it their home, and they may have not been born in Limerick. Last year the Integration Strategy was launched here. Our society is changing, were becoming multicultural. Limerick was a walled city for many years, and I think we need to metaphorically tear down those walls and welcome people into Limerick. We live in such a diverse society, and its important that we embrace that diversity. Nobody should live in a place where their background is an issue that hinders their potential, its as simple as that. Were very happy to support this pledge here today, said Cllr Brian Leddin. Finally, Maria Byrne said: Its vital that all citizens regardless of race, colour, nationality, sexuality, religious belief or ethnic origin are protected from hate and prejudice. Donna Vuma, Doras policy officer: This is so important. Weve seen such a rise in the far-right and such unsettlement in the communities surrounding hate. Its vital to send out that strong message that were human beings, and deserve to be treated as such. Doras manifesto has called for an end to Direct Provision but also to reform the international protection system as a whole. That needs to be more human-centered. Regarding the recent closure of Mount Trenchard, it wasnt just that centre that was problematic - the whole system is problematic as a whole and it needs to be abolished. John Lannon, Doras Director said: "We are not discouraged by the numbers of candidates signing yesterday as, like much to do with this election, notice was short, and candidates are understandably busy canvassing. This event can be seen as the launch of the anti-racism protocol in Limerick - our door is open, and all candidates are encouraged to come in to sign the protocol, committing to a campaign free from racism and hate speech. Many parties as a whole have signed up, and hopefully candidates here can reinforce that by making time to sign, he added. Concepts like Kisan Rail, Kisan Udaan, Dhaanyalakshmi, 1 product 1 district set to lift rural economy. Chennai/Pune: A sagging rural economy has been a pain point for the government. In order to perk up the rural economy, the Budget mooted a 16-point agenda for the agricultural sector which included catchy concepts like Kisan Rail, Kisan Udaan, Dhaanyalakshmi and One Product One district. Overall, the Budget allocated Rs 2.83 lakh crore of which Rs 1.60 lakh crore is meant for agriculture, irrigation and allied activities and Rs 1.23 lakh crore for rural development and Panchayati Raj. Among some of the innovative ideas that can go a long way in logistics of agricultural products, the Indian Railways will set up a Kisan Rail through PPP arrangements. This will be part of a seamless national cold supply chain for perishables, inclusive of milk, meat and fish. Krishi Udaan will be launched by the Ministry of Civil Aviation on international and national routes. This will immensely help improve value realisation especially in North-East and tribal districts. Understanding the high farm-to-fork wastage levels in India, the Budget emphasized on building cold chain and warehousing network. Our government will provide Viability Gap Funding for setting up such efficient warehouses at the block/taluk level. This can be achieved, where States can facilitate with land and are on a PPP mode. Food Corporation of India (FCI) and Central Warehousing Corporation (CWC) shall undertake such warehouse building on their land too, the Finance Minister said. Dhaanyalakshmi is another way to boost storage capabilities at village level. As a backward linkage, a Village Storage scheme is proposed to be run by the Self Help Groups. This will provide farmers a good holding capacity and reduce their logistics cost. Women SHGs shall regain their position as Dhaanya Lakshmi, she said. Financing on Negotiable Warehousing Receipts (e-NWR), which has crossed more than Rs 6000 crore, will be integrated with e-NAM. The government finds that prosperity to farmers can be ensured by making farming competitive. For this, farm markets need to be liberalised. Distortions in farm and livestock markets need to be removed. Purchase of farm produce, logistics and agri-services need copious investments. Hence, the Budget proposed to encourage those State governments who undertake implementation of following model laws already issued by the Central government. These include, Model Agricultural Land Leasing Act, 2016, Model Agricultural Produce and Livestock Marketing (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2017 and Model Agricultural Produce and Livestock Contract Farming and Services (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2018. In order to promote horticulture, one product one district has been mooted wherein one district will focus on one horticulture product. For better marketing and export, we propose supporting states which, adopting a cluster basis, will focus on one product one district, said the minister. The government also shall encourage balanced use of all kinds of fertilizers including the traditional organic and other innovative fertilizers. It is necessary step to change the prevailing incentive regime, which encourages excessive use of chemical fertilizers, the budget said. Budget 2020 is a mixed bag for agriculture sector. Continued support to women farmers SHG through Dhaanya Lakshmi Yojna will be good for rural economy. In our view the most important item was the government's plan to move farmers towards the use of organic and balanced use of chemical, but this needs to be augmented with the development of new seeds and nutrient management, said Ravindra Agrawal, MD & Founder, KisanKraft. In our view, regulatory and financial incentivization of private silos rather than FCI and WCI would be more efficient. Unfortunately, our expectation for reduction in GST on farm machinery, good quality branded seeds weren't met. Similarly, much needed reforms for exports and imports of agriculture produce to bring stability and predictability to the sector wasn't addressed, he said. The government also intends to eliminate Foot and Mouth disease, brucellosis in cattle and also peste des petits ruminants(PPR) in sheep and goat by 2025. Coverage of artificial insemination shall be increased from the present 30 per cent to 70 per cent. MNREGS would be dovetailed to develop fodder farms. Further, the government offered to facilitate doubling of milk processing capacity from 53.5 million MT to 108 million MT by 2025. Promoting marine sector, the Budget proposed raising fish production to 200 lakh tonnes by 2022-23. Growing of algae, sea-weed and cage Culture will also be promoted. The government will involve youth in fishery extension through 3477 SagarMitras and 500 Fish Farmer Producer Organisations. The government hopes to raise fishery exports to Rs 1 lakh crore by 2024-25. FRANKFURT (Reuters) - More than 100 Germans and family members landed in Frankfurt on Saturday after being evacuated from the Chinese city Wuhan for checks for the fast-spreading coronavirus and two weeks' quarantine, prompting the health minister to call for calm. None of the people on the air force aircraft had shown any symptoms of the virus which has killed 259 people in China and triggered a virtual lockdown of Wuhan and surrounding Hubei province, German Health Minister Jens Spahn told reporters. 'All those returning are currently healthy but to protect them, their personal environment and society at large, it is important that we ensure that nobody is infected,' Spahn said FRANKFURT (Reuters) - More than 100 Germans and family members landed in Frankfurt on Saturday after being evacuated from the Chinese city Wuhan for checks for the fast-spreading coronavirus and two weeks' quarantine, prompting the health minister to call for calm. None of the people on the air force aircraft had shown any symptoms of the virus which has killed 259 people in China and triggered a virtual lockdown of Wuhan and surrounding Hubei province, German Health Minister Jens Spahn told reporters. "All those returning are currently healthy but to protect them, their personal environment and society at large, it is important that we ensure that nobody is infected," Spahn said. He warned against hysteria and hostility towards those in quarantine. "I am most concerned about conspiracy theories of all sorts that circulate in the social media, which only have one goal, to spread uncertainty," he said. Germany on Friday confirmed a seventh case of the coronavirus, identifying the victim as a man who works at the auto parts supplier Webasto in Bavaria who contracted the virus after a colleague from China visited the firm. Five other workers there had earlier tested positive while the sixth victim was the child of a Webasto employee. The virus outbreak has already hit business in Germany, with buyout firm Carlyle Group delaying the U.S. initial public offering of its German speciality chemicals group Atotech, sources said overnight. (Reporting by Vera Eckert, editing by Nick Macfie) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. We've lost count of how many times insiders have accumulated shares in a company that goes on to improve markedly. The flip side of that is that there are more than a few examples of insiders dumping stock prior to a period of weak performance. So we'll take a look at whether insiders have been buying or selling shares in 8common Limited (ASX:8CO). Do Insider Transactions Matter? Most investors know that it is quite permissible for company leaders, such as directors of the board, to buy and sell stock in the company. However, rules govern insider transactions, and certain disclosures are required. We don't think shareholders should simply follow insider transactions. But it is perfectly logical to keep tabs on what insiders are doing. For example, a Columbia University study found that 'insiders are more likely to engage in open market purchases of their own companys stock when the firm is about to reveal new agreements with customers and suppliers'. View our latest analysis for 8common 8common Insider Transactions Over The Last Year In the last twelve months, the biggest single purchase by an insider was when insider Kok Fui Lau bought AU$95k worth of shares at a price of AU$0.043 per share. Even though the purchase was made at a significantly lower price than the recent price (AU$0.086), we still think insider buying is a positive. While it does suggest insiders consider the stock undervalued at lower prices, this transaction doesn't tell us much about what they think of current prices. In the last twelve months insiders purchased 4.79m shares for AU$300k. But they sold 232560 for AU$28k. In total, 8common insiders bought more than they sold over the last year. They paid about AU$0.063 on average. We don't deny that it is nice to see insiders buying stock in the company. However, we do note that they were buying at significantly lower prices than today's share price. The chart below shows insider transactions (by individuals) over the last year. By clicking on the graph below, you can see the precise details of each insider transaction! Story continues ASX:8CO Recent Insider Trading, February 1st 2020 8common is not the only stock insiders are buying. So take a peek at this free list of growing companies with insider buying. Insider Ownership of 8common Another way to test the alignment between the leaders of a company and other shareholders is to look at how many shares they own. We usually like to see fairly high levels of insider ownership. 8common insiders own about AU$4.9m worth of shares. That equates to 35% of the company. While this is a strong but not outstanding level of insider ownership, it's enough to indicate some alignment between management and smaller shareholders. What Might The Insider Transactions At 8common Tell Us? The fact that there have been no 8common insider transactions recently certainly doesn't bother us. On a brighter note, the transactions over the last year are encouraging. Insiders own shares in 8common and we see no evidence to suggest they are worried about the future. I like to dive deeper into how a company has performed in the past. You can find historic revenue and earnings in this detailed graph. If you would prefer to check out another company -- one with potentially superior financials -- then do not miss this free list of interesting companies, that have HIGH return on equity and low debt. For the purposes of this article, insiders are those individuals who report their transactions to the relevant regulatory body. We currently account for open market transactions and private dispositions, but not derivative transactions. If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Thank you for reading. Farmington is making a play to become a hot spot in New Mexico film. If 2019 is any indication, the area is on the right path. Last year, not only did it see Jumanji: The Next Level film in the area, but also it played host to Tom Hanks sci-fi film, Bios. This is why the city of Farmington and San Juan County are teaming up to help build the film industry in the area. A year ago, the Legislature gave the county $1 million to further develop our film industry, said Jack Fortner, San Juan County Commission chairman. Weve been working with the New Mexico Film Office and theyve been helping us get streamlined. There is a plan to ask at least for $500,000 in this years Legislative session. The plan for the area is to build a set that replicates a Middle Eastern Village. The film office told us that productions that have war scenes would utilize this because the area is similar to that of Vietnam or the Middle East, he said. This is something thats going to be big for years. There are talks about developing a building in downtown Farmington. The area is currently being redeveloped and the building would be used in case a production wants to have training or auditions. When its not being used, it would be used by local education facilities, Fortner said. We want it to be recognized as a community asset. Farmington is also on the receiving end of the state tax incentive for rural areas, which gives an extra 5% to productions that film at least 60 miles outside the Albuquerque/Santa Fe corridor. We think thats a big deal, Fortner said. It will help attract different productions. In 2019, the Four Corners Film Festival began and gave some attention to the local filmmakers in the area. Fortner said theres been an increase in people moving to Farmington and San Juan County. The industry is going to find that were very film-friendly, he said. We have a consultant whos a local producer, and hes approaching businesses and land owners to get their businesses and their services registered with the film office. The infrastructure is in place in the area and Fortner said theres a plan when dealing with traveling. The city of Farmington reached an agreement that commercial airlines will come to the airport, he said. In the meantime, the Durango airport is only 45 minutes away. We dont think the transportation is an issue. As for moving forward, officials in the area are pulling together to get the word out about what the area has to offer. Fortner is banking on the film industry to thrive in the area. We have the danger of losing the power plant, he says. Maybe there will be another use for it. San Juan County is encouraging economic development through this effort. I first made contact with Stephen James Joyce, who died recently, when I was making a documentary about his grandfather for RTE. Stephen was living with his wife, Solange, on the Ile de Re, a fashionable French island resort close to La Rochelle that is popular with French celebrities. For decades, a succession of requests had been made to Stephen, seeking his permission to use quotes from James Joyce's published or unpublished works. It was Stephen's common practice either to refuse such requests or to demand an exorbitant amount of money in return for his agreement. When I first approached him, he quoted a figure of "one million pounds sterling" for any copyrighted material that I might want to use in our film. That figure was so far from what I could afford to pay, it seemed outside the realm of sanity. Despite that, I kept in touch with Stephen for most of the following year. He was born in Paris soon after the death of Joyce's beloved father, and Joyce connected the two events in his poem Ecce Puer. "With joy and grief," he wrote, "my heart is torn." The marriage of Stephen's parents broke down not long after his birth. Giorgio Joyce, his father, was an alcoholic who effectively abandoned his son, while Stephen's mother, Helen Fleischmann Kastor, suffered from recurring mental illness and spent much of her adult life in institutions. As a result, James Joyce became one of the few stable fixtures in Stephen's childhood. He wrote poems and stories for Stephen and, by all accounts, greatly enjoyed his grandson's company. Their relationship assumed a more serious dimension after the German invasion of France in 1940. Stephen was half-Jewish, and James had grave concerns about his grandson's safety. That led him to seek refuge for his family in Switzerland. Sadly, James died in hospital a few months after they arrived in Zurich. In some respects, I think Stephen never fully recovered from his loss. He was sent to America to board at Andover, an elite private school near Boston. While at Andover, Stephen wrote an essay entitled 'The Man Whom I Loved and Respected Most in This World'; the man in question was, of course, James Joyce. From Andover, Stephen went on to Harvard. At that point, his ambition was to become a writer like his grandfather. But James Joyce was a hard act to follow, and Stephen soon proved a disappointment to some of his grandfather's inner-circle. Maria Jolas, a close friend of Joyce in his final years, dismissed Stephen as "intellectually mediocre", and described him as someone who displayed an "unjustified arrogance". When he graduated from Harvard, Stephen went to work for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. His father died in 1976, and Stephen inherited a large number of shares in the Joyce estate. By 1982, following the deaths of his Aunt Lucia and his step-mother, Stephen had acquired an overall majority of those shares and had become the chief executor of his grandfather's literary estate. In June 1988, a group of distinguished academics and scholars gathered in Vienna to attend a symposium in honour of Joyce. The keynote address was given by Stephen. Those present were horrified when he used the occasion to reveal that he had destroyed all the letters that Joyce's daughter, Lucia, had sent to him and his wife. Stephen also disclosed that he had destroyed letters to Lucia from the Nobel Laureate Samuel Beckett. One of those in the audience who rose to protest was Michael Yeats, the son of the poet. He argued that great writers, like his father and Joyce, belonged to the world and not to just one family. Others noted an obvious irony: James Joyce had played a crucial role in confronting and overcoming official censorship, yet now his grandson had acted as the ultimate censor of some irreplaceable archive. In the decades that followed that symposium, Stephen pursued a relentless campaign against anyone that he thought was undermining the integrity of his grandfather's legacy. He took numerous legal actions and obtained injunctions against a host of academics, playwrights, screenwriters, composers, artists, and even some individual actors. He also seemed to take an unseemly delight in boasting about the ways in which he had managed to frustrate their intentions. In 2000, Stephen's step-brother, Hans Jahnke, sold him the last remaining shares of the Joyce estate. This was a valuable asset, reckoned to bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars in royalties every year. However, I don't believe that Stephen's actions were ever determined by financial considerations. In his efforts to protect what he regarded as his family's honour, he was always prepared, in his own words, to "put my money where my mouth is". Stephen was extremely intolerant of any error, however trivial, that was made in relation to his grandfather's work. He seemed to regard such errors either as a calculated insult or as the product of slipshod scholarship. Once, I casually referred to one of the "chapters" in Ulysses. "There are no f**king chapters in Ulysses!" he roared down the phone at me. "There are only episodes!" I made sure never to make that mistake again. Dealing with Stephen could prove exhausting. Our phone conversations were really monologues on his part. I would listen while he spoke at length about his usual suspects. He was often highly critical of some of his relatives. According to Stephen, those relatives had betrayed his grandfather when he was alive. "Some of them even denied they were related to him," he told me, "But now that they can make some money out of him, they've changed their tune." Stephen's family members weren't the only ones that he accused of exploiting Joyce's work. "Take that fellow, Louis Le Brocquy," he said. "He never even met my grandfather, but that hasn't stopped him making money out of those godawful portraits." Above all, Stephen remained preoccupied with the "sh**ty treatment" he believed his grandparents had received in Ireland - not only when they were alive, but also when they were dead. On this issue, I felt he had a point. When Joyce was alive, he was regularly denounced as a pornographer and a sexual pervert. No Irish representative attended Joyce's funeral in Zurich. When Nora asked the Irish Government if her husband's body could be repatriated to Ireland, her request was refused on the grounds that no Irish undertaker was prepared to handle the remains. Nora also offered to gift many of Joyce's original manuscripts to Ireland, but her offer was turned down. Seven decades later, the Irish Government paid millions for them. Perhaps the main grievance that Stephen expressed to me concerned his aunt, Lucia, who had spent most of her life in nursing homes or mental hospitals. Perhaps because so little is known of her life, Lucia has attracted a good deal of speculation. Novels, plays and critical studies have been devoted to her. Some of these have made unfounded but sensational claims about Lucia that greatly offended Stephen. I asked Stephen if I could film an interview with him. His initial response was unambiguous: "My answer to your request," he wrote, "is NO!" At other times, his opposition did not seem so definite. Twice he invited me to go to his home and discuss a possible interview. Twice, I booked my flights to France, and twice he cancelled without explanation at the last moment. It seemed to me that there was a fundamental contradiction in Stephen's relationship with Ireland. On one hand, he claimed his grandfather was not being sufficiently honoured in his native country. On the other hand, he objected to virtually everything that was done here to mark his extraordinary genius. He described one statue of Joyce as a monstrosity. He told me that the Bloomsday celebrations were a "con job" designed to fleece gullible Americans. Stephen claimed he read the Irish newspapers every day - perhaps, to check if any of them had traduced his grandfather. But the control he was able to exert over the use of Joyce's work came to an abrupt end in 2012 when most of the copyrights he held finally expired. Shortly before he died, Stephen Joyce chose to become an Irish citizen. Given his fractious history with this country, that seemed a surprising decision. But I would like to think that it represented his final release from a bitter antagonism, and a last attempt by Stephen to face and accept one part of his fractured identity. Stephen James Joyce died on January 23. He was 87. Some unkind souls have accused Catherine Zeta Jones of turning her back on her humble Welsh roots. But it seems nothing could be further from the truth. Not only is the Hollywood star proud of her Celtic genes, she loves to show them off to visitors to her 4million mansion. The actress, 50, originally from the seaside town of Mumbles near Swansea, has made sure that her glamorous home in Irvington, New York, contains objects and trinkets inscribed with Welsh words and slogans. Catherine Zeta Jones, 50, originally from the seaside town of Mumbles near Swansea, loves to show off her Celtic genes to visitors at her 4million mansion The actress posted the image to her Instagram page, captioning: 'Morning!!! My daily ritual. Welsh lessons for all today. Can you translate?' My photo, shows that her tea, coffee and sugar jars are all in Welsh, which must confuse American husband Michael Douglas when hes searching for his morning brew. Like they say, you can take the girl out of Wales... Its one of the BBCs most successful period dramas... now get ready for Peaky Blinders the musical! Unlikely as it sounds, I can reveal that the Brummie band of murderous men will soon be prancing about on stage for the English National Opera, which has struck a deal with Caryn Mandabach, creator of the achingly cool gangster drama. Its yet to be formalised, but star Cillian Murphy is said to be keen to get his character Thomas Shelby on to the stage. My source tells me the ENO sees the show as part of its continuing bid to attract younger audiences. Its sure to knock em dead! I hear a nasty pay row is brewing at This Morning, where the shows star presenters Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield, have received a bumper pay rise for working an extra half-an-hour a day... while no one working behind the camera has had a bean. Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield have received a bumper pay rise for working an extra half-an-hour a day, while all staff on the show have been told their pay will stay the same According to my ITV mole, all staff on the show even editor Martin Frizell have been told their pay will stay the same, prompting grumbles that Holly and Phil should sacrifice some of their rise to free up some cash for everyone else. My source says: The rumour is that the amount that Holly and Phil have been given for their extra work totals more than the editors annual salary, believed to be around 130,000. Although theyve been given extra staff resources, it seems its one rule for the talent and another for those who do all the hard graft behind the scenes. An unidentified person in New York City who visited China recently was hospitalized and will be tested for the surging coronavirus that has infected thousands, health officials said. A 40-year-old person who recently traveled to China had coughing and shortness of breath without another common cause, prompting health officials to slate the person for testing for coronavirus, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene announced late Saturday afternoon on their Twitter page. Testing to confirm if the person has coronavirus will take between 36 to 48 hours, the announcement said. As of Saturday, there were eight confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the United States. The first person in NYC has been identified for testing for the novel #coronavirus. This means they had recently traveled from China & presented with fever and cough or shortness of breath without another common cause, like influenza and other cold viruses, identified on testing. nycHealthy (@nycHealthy) February 1, 2020 Nearly 12,000 cases have been confirmed in China. The virus has killed 259 people in China. On Friday, President Donald Trump signed an order to declare a public health emergency and place travel restrictions on foreigners entering the United States, if they are believed to be a risk of transmitting the virus. The outbreak of coronavirus in China and the slowly growing number of confirmed cases in the United States has New Jersey residents concerned and often frightened. Two suspected cases of coronavirus were quickly debunked by state health officials. And this week, at a press conference with state health officials, Gov. Phil Murphy reassured the states residents that health protocols to stop the spread of the virus were in place. "Today, we want to assure residents that our state health authorities are on full alert for any possible cases of coronavirus, and that we have in place strong preparedness protocols, Murphy said on Wednesday. Rodrigo Torrejon may be reached at rtorrejon@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @rodrigotorrejon. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Sunday ordered a magisterial inquiry by the Jalandhar Commissioner into the escape of three undertrial prisoners from Amritsar central jail, and has also directed the Jails Minister to immediately suspend, pending inquiry, all those responsible for prison security. A state-wide hunt has been launched for the prisoners. The Chief Minister has also ordered ADGP Jails to revamp prison security in the wake of the incident, which came to light around 3.20 a.m., less than two hours after the prisoners are said have broken through their barrack before scaling the inner and outer walls of the jail to escape. Taking serious note of the security lapse, the Captain Amarinder Singh said prison security would be reviewed and further strengthened, not just in this jail but in the others across the state too. The prison guards were alerted about the escape by the other inmates, who included the brother of one of the escaped prisoners, according to initial reports. There was no evidence of outside help, according to preliminary investigations, which suggest that the trio, among 61 prisoners in Barrack no. 7, Ahata no. 2, had planned the escape on their own. Punjabs Director General of Police Dinkar Gupta said the men apparently made a hole in the wall of their barrack by removing about 10 bricks. They then appear to have scaled the inner wall (about 16 feet high) by standing one atop the other, while the outer wall (21 feet approx.) was crossed by them using a hook made of a steel bar and the cover of a quilt to make a ladder. They finally escaped the jail complex from a point near Tower no. 10, which was not under CCTV cover. The prisoners were identified as 22-year-old Vishal of Amritsars Majitha Road who had been in jail since April 2019 for sexually abusing a minor. The other two are brothers Gurpreet (34) and Jarnail (25) of Khadoor Sahib, Tarantarn. The two brothers were in jail for snatchings and dacoity. Vishals brother Gaurav, also in the same barrack, chose not to flee with them, said the DGP. A second case of coronavirus was reported from Kerala on Sunday (February 2), the patient had travelled to India from China. The patient has been put in isolation under close observation at the hospital and said to be in stable condition. The first case of the virus was also incidentally from Kerala. As the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the coronavirus outbreak as a global health crisis, several countries have been evacuating their citizens from China. On Saturday, India brought back 324 of its citizens, an Air India flight from Wuhan. They are being effectively monitored at ITBP Chawla Camp and Manesar with each housing 104 and 220 people, respectively, the government said in a statement. A second flight from Wuhan with 323 Indians on board returned to Delhi on Sunday. Among those evacuated, 227 were men while 94 were women. At least 282 were staying in China as students while 36 were employed. At least 3 were minors. With this, the total number of people evacuated from China is 654. Live TV The Indian government in a statement informed that as on Saturday (February 1), a total of 326 flights with 52,332 people have been screened. Of these 97 symptomatic travellers were referred to isolation facilities. In the meantime, the number of deaths in China due to the outbreak has crossed 300. Authorities in Hubei province reported 45 new fatalities on Sunday. Also, the Philippines reported the first death outside China from the virus. The virus has so far infected 14,380 others and spread to 25 countries, including India, the US and the UK. Royal Dutch Shell plc (AMS:RDSA) shares fell 8.3% to 23.75 in the week since its latest annual results. Revenues of US$345b were in line with forecasts, although statutory earnings per share (EPS) came in below expectations at US$1.95, missing estimates by 9.3%. This is an important time for investors, as they can track a company's performance in its report, look at what top analysts are forecasting for next year, and see if there has been any change to expectations for the business. We've gathered the most recent statutory forecasts to see whether analysts have changed their earnings models, following these results. Check out our latest analysis for Royal Dutch Shell ENXTAM:RDSA Past and Future Earnings, February 2nd 2020 Following last week's earnings report, Royal Dutch Shell's 21 analysts are forecasting 2020 revenues to be US$346.0b, approximately in line with the last 12 months. Statutory earnings per share are expected to jump 53% to US$3.01. Before this earnings report, analysts had been forecasting revenues of US$361.5b and earnings per share (EPS) of US$3.01 in 2020. So it looks like analysts have become a bit less optimistic after the latest results announcement, with revenues expected to fall even as the company is expected to maintain EPS. The average price target was steady at US$35.28 even though revenue estimates declined; likely suggesting analysts place a higher value on earnings. The consensus price target just an average of individual analyst targets, so - considering that the price target changed, it would be handy to see how wide the range of underlying estimates is. There are some variant perceptions on Royal Dutch Shell, with the most bullish analyst valuing it at US$42.90 and the most bearish at US$29.70 per share. This shows there is still quite a bit of diversity in estimates, but analysts don't appear to be totally split on the stock as though it might be a success or failure situation. Another way to assess these estimates is by comparing them to past performance, and seeing whether analysts are more or less bullish relative to other companies in the market. It's pretty clear that analysts expect Royal Dutch Shell's revenue growth will slow down substantially, with revenues next year expected to grow 0.3%, compared to a historical growth rate of 3.7% over the past five years. By way of comparison, other companies in this market with analyst coverage, are forecast to grow their revenue at 2.7% per year. Factoring in the forecast slowdown in growth, it seems obvious that analysts still expect Royal Dutch Shell to grow slower than the wider market. Story continues The Bottom Line The most important thing to take away is that there's been no major change in sentiment, with analysts reconfirming that earnings per share are expected to continue performing in line with their prior expectations. Unfortunately, analysts also downgraded their revenue estimates, and our data indicates revenues are expected to perform worse than the wider market. Even so, earnings per share are more important to the intrinsic value of the business. There was no real change to the consensus price target, suggesting that the intrinsic value of the business has not undergone any major changes with the latest estimates. With that in mind, we wouldn't be too quick to come to a conclusion on Royal Dutch Shell. Long-term earnings power is much more important than next year's profits. At Simply Wall St, we have a full range of analyst estimates for Royal Dutch Shell going out to 2022, and you can see them free on our platform here.. It might also be worth considering whether Royal Dutch Shell's debt load is appropriate, using our debt analysis tools on the Simply Wall St platform, here. If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Thank you for reading. An army of counters has just visited all known haunts of migrant swans in Ireland. The surveyors were are participating in the International Swan Census, held every five years. We have three swan species here. The mute, the one everybody knows, is an all-year-round resident. It has a curvaceous Celtic-art-style profile and an orange bill topped by a black nose-like berry. Although it can snort grunt and hiss, this swan is mute compared to its migrant cousin, the whooper, which honks loudly. Few people encounter this winter visitor from Iceland. It has an angular shape, with a long straight neck held vertically upwards, topped by a triangular head. The bill is yellow and black with no berry. Mutes will live close to people, even in cities, availing of hand-outs of bread. Whoopers are shy and keep their distance. This behaviour is somewhat counter-intuitive; birds living in remote northern locations encounter few people, so they tend not to fear humans. Mute swans, on the other hand, run the gauntlet of vandals dogs and disturbance, especially when nesting. Knowing from bitter experience how destructive we can be, you would expect them to be the wary ones. The opposite, however, is the case. The third Irish swan species, the Bewick, arrives from Arctic Russia each autumn and departs in spring. Resembling a smallish whooper, it wasnt recognised as a separate species until 1830, when it was named after Thomas Bewick, author of a celebrated two-volume History of British Birds. Its bill is black and yellow but, whereas yellow predominates on the whoopers, the Bewicks bill is mostly black. The international survey covers only the migrant species. Oddly, these are easier to census than the sedentary mutes; they gather in flocks at fairly traditional locations where its not too difficult to count them. Some mutes visit herd locations but many remain at their breeding haunts for the winter. Finding and counting these dispersed individuals, and their mature cygnets, would be a time-consuming hit-and-miss affair. Swans appear rather set in their ways, so you might expect little change to occur from one census to the next. However, things are far from static in the swan world. The fortunes of Bewicks, in particular, have changed dramatically. We owe to Thompson the discovery that the Bewick is the swan which visits Ireland in the greatest numbers wrote Richard Ussher and Thomas Warren in 1900. This Siberian breeder was our dominant migrant swan back then. Fifty years later, however, the whooper had overtaken it. The late Oscar Merne estimated that about 2,500 Bewicks spent the winter here in the early 1950s. Numbers at their main haunt, the Wexford slobs, reached 700. Then decline set in; by 2005 there were fewer than 300 in the entire country. Does this mean that the Bewick is in trouble? Not necessarily. With global warming, migrants may find suitable wintering locations closer to their breeding areas and avoid the onerous and dangerous journey to Ireland. Will the 2020 census reveal that our Bewick numbers are down to double figures? As climate change proceeds, are more whoopers choosing to stay on in Iceland, not bothering to come here? Is it, too, destined to become a scarce visitor? The census results wont provide all the answers but they may reveal trends. Presenting the manifesto, Delhi Congress chief Subhash Chopra said the party will provide free power up to 300 unit per month. (Photo: ANI) New Delhi: The Congress on Sunday released its manifesto for Delhi polls, promising to implement an unemployment allowance of Rs 5,000-7,500 per month and cashback schemes for water and power consumers if voted to power. Presenting the manifesto, Delhi Congress chief Subhash Chopra said the party will provide free power up to 300 unit per month. The manifesto also committed to spending 25 per cent budget each year on fighting pollution and improving transport facilities. An unemployment allowance of Rs 5,000 for graduates and Rs 7,500 for postgraduates per month will be provided under the Yuva Swabhiman Yojna, he said. Congress will launch flagship cashback schemes for power and water supply to benefit consumers in saving these resources. The party, if voted to power, will open 100 Indira Canteens to provide subsidised meals at Rs 15, Chopra said. Congress will challenge the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in the Supreme Court and demand the Centre to withdraw the law. The party will also not implement the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the existing form of the National Population Register (NPR), if voted to power in Delhi. BJP MP and former union finance minister on Sunday said of the as proposed in the Union budget would be beneficial for both the central government and the The capital raised post- could be used in building infrastructure while the move would also bring in "accountability, transparency and efficiency" in the insurance behemoth, he told a press conference. "If the required more capital, it would be able to take it from the market and not from the government. The more than 10 lakh crore capital of the would be helpful for us all. It could help us get funds for constructing infrastructure like medical colleges," Sinha said. The budget presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday has proposed to construct a medical college in every district, besides taking up other infrastructure developmental projects, he said. "There are three benefits from the of the LIC - it will be strengthened with the listing with share market, which requires reporting every month. It will also bring in accountability, transparency and efficiency," the MP from Hazaribag said. To a query on the fate of policy-holders, he said all of them will get every benefit assured in their policies as there is no connection between the initiative and policies. "Moreover, the central government will sell only 5 to 10 per cent of its holding in LIC," Sinha said. Currently, the government owns the entire 100 per cent stake in the LIC.Sinha praised Sitharaman saying she addressed the economic situation, fiscal deficit and macro-economics very well. A 14-day Indo-Bangladesh joint military training exercise, Sampriti-IX, will be conducted at Umroi in Meghalayas Ri-Bhoi district from February 3 to February 16. A statement released from the Defence Ministry said, "Exercise Sampriti is an important bilateral defence cooperation endeavour between India and Bangladesh and will be the ninth edition of the exercise which is hosted alternately by both countries". #WATCH Troops of India and Bangladesh preparing for the Exercise Sampriti-9 that begins tomorrow at Umroi Cantonment in Shillong, Meghalaya. During the exercise, both sides will practice counter-terrorism drills. pic.twitter.com/9Uh5sqryko ANI (@ANI) February 2, 2020 WATCH | Coast Guards Of India And Japan Participate In A Joint Exercise Exercise under counter-terrorism environment The joint military exercise aims to strengthen military cooperation in counter-terrorism environment simulated under the UN Charter. "During the joint military exercise, a Command Post Exercise (CPX) and a Field Training Exercise (FTX) will be conducted. For both the CPX and FTX, a scenario where both nations are working together in a Counter-Terrorism environment will be simulated under the UN Charter. The FTX curriculum is progressively planned where the participants will initially get familiar with each others organizational structure and tactical drills. Subsequently, joint tactical exercise will be conducted wherein the battle drills of both the armies will be practiced. The training will culminate with a final validation exercise in which troops of both armies will jointly practice a Counter-Terrorist Operation in a controlled and simulated environment", the statement added. READ | 7th Indo-Sri Lanka Joint Exercise 'MITRA SHAKTI-VII' At Pune According to the statement, in addition to understanding each other at a tactical level, greater cultural understanding will be emphasized to strengthen military trust and cooperation between the two nations. Umroi in Meghalaya is known to have been the venue for several such joint military exercises. Earlier in December 2019, India and China had an eight-day bilateral exercise - 'Hand-in-Hand 2019' which was conducted on the same location Umroi in Meghalaya. The two-week-long exercise was held in the pursuit of focussing on joint planning and counter-terrorist operations on semi-urban terrain. WATCH | India-Nepal Military Forces Practice Joint Exercise 'Surya Kiran' In September 2019, India had conducted a joint military exercise with Thailand as well. The Indian Army and Royal Thailand Army had conducted a 14-day Joint Military Exercise Maitree-2019. During the exercise, the contingents of both armies shared their valuable experiences in the conduct of Counter-Terrorism Operations in the form of lectures, drills, demonstrations and skill-at-arm with an aim to refine tactics, techniques and procedures. Exercise Maitree-2019 has been the face of long-standing bilateral ties between India and Thailand since 2006. READ | Shah To Flag Off SCO Joint Exercise On Urban Earthquake Search, Rescue Kyoto Seika University is located in the northern part of the city and is very popular among foreign tourists who visit Japan. Students study various courses of arts, including design, painting, and sculpture. Many graduates contribute to society as creators. Oussouby Sacko, the first African-origin president in a Japanese university, preaches the ideology of "the principles of respect for humanity" and "the spirit of freedom and autonomy" to young generations. "This university policy is based on three points: one is a global education, one is labor at and another one is the expression so you have to have your own voice so even like you if you're connected with your society you have to have your own voice. Therefore, my policy is to have a global open and diverse university so here almost 20 per cent of our students are foreigners," Sacko said. "In addition, that is a big number in Japan actually, but at the same time, I try to treat each one with the differences. Therefore, I do not try to make it kind of like a place where people look like each other in a lot of places. But why don't we collaborate to communicate and live together with all differences? So lets I mean respect our differences and make that a force. So that is my policy," he added. Sacko says that it is also important to have a look at the courses "Have a look at our courses in our philosophy so it's not the history of philosophy. It is the philosophy itself. "How to think?" so as I said before that they graduate I want them to have their own voice "how do you want to change the society", 'how do you want to change,' this global so that is very important for me because of the young people. I mean tomorrow is for them. And what is very important 'How everyone can make its own place in the future society which is globalized and diverse and also accept differences," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In a speech to a session in Beja, Portugal, of the Friends of Cohesion Group, Romania's Prime Minister Ludovic Orban reiterated Romania's support for reaching a political agreement on the future European budget as soon as possible, which will allow the next programmes and projects conducted on European funding to be started in time. The summit was hosted by Prime Minister of Portugal Antonio Costa on Saturday. It was attended by heads of state or government and ministers from the member states of the Group, as well as the European commissioners responsible for budget and cohesion policy. In his speech, Orban underscored the importance of agreeing on an ambitious budget able to provide the union with the resources necessary to achieve the objectives reflected in its strategic agenda, that at the same time is realistic in terms of the need to ensure a balance between growth and convergence objectives and the response to new challenges at European level. At the same time, he reiterated Romania's support for reaching a political agreement on the future European budget as soon as possible, which will allow the next European funded programmes and projects to be started in a timely manner, according to a governmental press statement released on Sunday. Orban mentioned the unquestionable contribution of cohesion policy and the common agricultural policy to the process of bridging development gaps and achieving a level playing field for all the member states, so as to create the premises of a more competitive union, a Union that can achieve its newly-established climate change goals. He referred to the need to preserve cohesion policy as the main instrument for promoting investments at Europewide that should receive adequate funding. In addition to the level of allocations, he pointed out that the future agreement must contain provisions that allow for a higher level of flexibility at the level of the member states in the programming and implementation of projects. Orban also underscored that cohesion policy must be able to provide the most efficient response to the needs of the member states and regions, and an increased level of flexibility in terms of thematic concentration, as well as the establishment of certain more favorable implementation conditions that would allow them to take full advantage of the investment opportunities under the cohesion policy. In his speech, he also referenced the part played by the cohesion policy in supporting the objectives of the transition towards carbon neutrality, highlighting, in context, the need for the resources proposed to support the member states in the transition process under the Just Transition Fund to be complementary to the allocations for the cohesion policy and not affect the achievement of the objectives of bridging the development gaps pursued by this policy, according to the Romanian government. *** The main objective of the meeting in Portugal was to co-ordinate the cohesion friendly member states at the future stages of the negotiations on the Multiannual Financial Framework 2021 - 2027. The approach is all the more relevant ahead of an extraordinary European Council meeting to be held in Brussels on February 20. In their messages, the participating states conveyed the importance and the priority part that cohesion policy must play in the future Multiannual Financial Framework, as a policy designed to support economic and social convergence throughout the union. At the same time, they underlined the importance of the unity of the Friends of Cohesion Group in order to materialise this objective in the final stage of the negotiations on the future Multiannual Financial Framework. The participating states have adopted a political statement that conveys a strong commitment to support an ambitious budget capable of securing the union's long-term priorities and promoting convergence among member states, while maintaining the central role of the cohesion policy. At the same time, the statement emphasises the fundamental role and potential of adjusting the traditional European policies, the cohesion policy and the common agricultural policy, amidst constantly changing challenges, such as climate change, demographic changes, orientation towards innovation, the need to create jobs and jobs and improve employment. In their joint statement, the signatory member states sound the alarm over the proposals to cut funding for the cohesion policy in the future Multiannual Financial Framework. At the same time, the document underlines the importance of flexible and adequate implementation conditions for the specifics of the beneficiaries, which contribute decisively to an increase in the performance of the cohesion policy, especially at the level of the most underdeveloped regions. The signatory states also argue that the financial envelope for the cohesion policy in the future Multiannual Financial Framework should not be affected by the advanced solutions for financing measures aimed at achieving carbon neutrality, such as the Fair Transition Fund. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (Reuters) Hanoi, Vietnam Sun, February 2, 2020 13:03 708 7f440ff09e92db75a02bbad206219214 2 News vietnam-airlines,Vietjet-Air,Taiwan,Hong-Kong,flight,Airlines,travel,coronavirus,Wuhan-coronavirus Free Vietnam Airlines and Vietjet Air will resume flights to Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau from Sunday, the companies said, after the Hanoi government eased restrictions over virus concerns. Vietnam on Saturday declared a public health emergency over the coronavirus epidemic and said it would halt all flights to and from China including Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. Read also: Russia suspends visa-free tourist travel to and from China over virus Late on Saturday, Vietnam's civil aviation authority lifted ban on flights to Taiwan and on Sunday it said carriers could also temporarily operate flights to Hong Kong and Macau. Flights to mainland China were still strictly suspended. "Flights to Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau will be resumed from today. However flights from Hanoi to Hong Kong and Macau will be suspended starting from Feb. 5," national firm Vietnam Airlines said in its Sunday's statement. Budget carrier Vietjet Air said it had suspended all flights to and from mainland China from Feb. 1 but was operating flights to Taiwan and Hong Kong. Vietnam has confirmed seven cases of the virus. The government also advised its citizen to limit large gatherings. The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2018 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement Less than a year after Gov. Ned Lamonts modest plan to merge school districts was withdrawn in the face of suburban outrage, suddenly everyone in Connecticut is talking again about a problem that dates back generations. As it happens, the person most responsible for bringing to light the issue of modern-day school segregation was in the state last week. Nikole Hannah-Jones, a writer for The New York Times Magazine and creator of The 1619 Project, has established herself as the most important journalist in America for her work highlighting the dual problems of segregated schools and housing, which persist decades after many Americans decided theyd rather look the other way. She was at Fairfield University as keynote speaker for the schools annual Martin Luther King Jr. Convocation. Particularly in the Northeast, so much of segregation is not within school districts but between urban and suburban school districts, and housing plays a huge role in that, she said in an interview. Potential remedies, though, tend to focus on schools because theres more policy leverage there, Hannah-Jones said. Most housing is privately owned, but nine out of 10 American children attend public schools, so the government lever on schools is so much bigger than it is on housing, she said. You can integrate schools overnight with policy. You cant do that with housing. Were the governor serious about tackling inequities, this is where he would start. Credit for keeping the issue of a divided state alive goes in large part to a series in the Connecticut Mirror by reporter Jacqueline Rabe Thomas about how the suburbs effectively wall themselves off from affordable housing, leading to vast disparities between city and town demographics and, as a result, school districts. Lamont was pushed last week on a Mirror podcast about what could be done about it. The governor didnt sound all that committed to his potential solutions, such as linking transit dollars to commitments for affordable housing. Given how hes waffled on nearly every one of his supposed priorities (hes now apparently against a public option for health insurance after supporting a version of it last year; we replaced Still Revolutionary with Scared of Cigna), no one will be surprised if his ideas die quickly. But the larger issue isnt going away. Lamont confused people last session when he proposed a school regionalization plan that wouldnt have touched classrooms, and then discussed it as though the real issues were at the classroom level. He was right, but the result was a half-measure vilified for things it didnt do that was ultimately withdrawn. The governor was then reduced to saying the process of solving the states longstanding divisions was up to individual communities, which is where it has always stood and why nothing much ever changes. Many in the state are happy to have moved on. Leaders of a school advocacy group, the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education, in an interview last week on their legislative priorities said they had not supported last years plan and didnt see it as a priority going forward. This is just one organization without a lot of power, but the reasoning it offered is commonly heard, as well as old and tired. Integrating school districts without touching housing wouldnt really solve the problem, CABE leaders said. Unless were erasing all municipal lines, any solution will be wanting. This is true as far as it goes, but its another way of saying any plan that doesnt fix everything isnt worth doing. Its an excuse to do nothing. Regardless of what Lamont decides, one constant will be the reaction of the towns. Last year, suburbanites descended on the Capitol in droves to protest regionalizing schools, and the outcry this time has been swift and similar. Its like watching a 2-year-old throw a tantrum, state Rep. Gail Lavielle, a Wilton Republican, told the Wilton Bulletin in reference to Lamont. Her defensiveness was telling. The people in Wilton certainly are not racist, she said. Theres an awful lot being blamed on small towns. The people of Wilton dont have to be racist to benefit from an inherently racist system, which they unquestionably do. The population of Connecticut is about 10 percent black. The number is Wilton is less than 1 percent. That discrepancy doesnt arrive out of thin air, but comes from decades of government policies that have made Connecticut look the way it does. The question before the state is what, if anything, were willing to do about it. Lamont is well aware of the major challenges facing Connecticut that most of his stated initiatives wouldnt do anything to solve. His interest in taking them on remains the states biggest question going forward. Hugh Bailey is editorial page editor of the New Haven Register and Connecticut Post. He can be reached at hbailey@hearstmediact.com. A woman was shot in the hand by police in the Belgian city of Ghent on Sunday after attacking two pedestrians, local media reported, but authorities said nothing yet indicated the incident was terror related. According to Het Laatste Nieuws, the victims were taken to hospital with knife wounds but their lives were not in danger. A spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office told AFP that Belgian police and the public prosecutor's office of East Flanders were investigating the event. "There is currently no indication that the incident that took place in Ghent was of a terrorist nature," the office said. The street, located in northwest of the Dutch-speaking canal city, was closed on Sunday evening with large numbers of police and rescue services at the scene, media said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The outbreak of the new coronavirus that started in the Chinese city of Wuhan has mobilized medical efforts around the world. The World Health Organization declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on Thursday. By Friday, the disease had killed more than 200 people in China and infected thousands. The fast-spreading virus, which first appeared in central China in December, has been confirmed in more than 20 countries and territories. The list includes Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia. But countries outside of Asia including the United States, Australia, Canada, Germany, Britain and France have reported confirmed cases. Most of those who have been infected in other countries had recently visited Wuhan. China has barred travel from Wuhan and other cities in central Hubei province. The ban places a partial quarantine on more than 50 million people something that has never happened before. Travel advisories Some nations have completely closed their borders to avoid infections, such as Mongolia and North Korea. Russia has closed its land border with China, which extends more than 4,000 kilometers. The U.S. State Department on Thursday released a Do Not Travel advisory for China and has advised Americans in the country to leave. Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said that the warning was not appropriate for the situation. However, foreign visitors are rushing to leave China, with countries including Japan and the U.S. sending special flights to help citizens return. Late Friday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released an order aimed at protecting returning travelers and the public. It said that all 195 U.S. citizens who returned to the United States on a special flight from Wuhan would be quarantined for 14 days. In addition, the Administration of President Donald Trump declared a public health emergency in the U.S. Starting on Sunday, U.S. Citizens who have been to Hubei province will face a 14-day required quarantine. Other actions include a temporary suspension of entry for foreign nationals who have traveled in China in the last 14 days. The suspension does not affect close family of U.S. citizens or permanent residents. Also on Friday, Reuters news agency reported that Wuhans Communist Party chief, Ma Guoqiang, said the effects of the virus on China and the world would have been less had containment efforts started sooner. On the same day, Wuhans mayor, Zhou Xianwang, said the job of containing the virus remains severe and complex. The citys vice mayor said supplies of masks and other medical resources were still not enough. Medical response Officials in Wuhan are hurrying to complete two emergency hospitals. The plan is for one hospital with 1,000 beds to open by February 3. State media report that the city plans to finish a second temporary hospital in two weeks. It will offer 1,300 more beds for treating more patients who may have the virus. On Wednesday, the United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF) said it had sent six tons of supplies to Wuhan. UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore said, This coronavirus is spreading at a breakneck speed and it is important to put all the necessary resources into halting it. The declaration of a health emergency permits the WHO to provide assistance to other low- and middle-income countries. It also urges cooperation in disease control measures. The United States offered to send its health experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to China to help in the efforts to contain the disease. The CDC says the new coronavirus can spread through contact with body fluids or from touching surfaces infected with the virus. The health agency warns that older adults with existing health conditions are at increased risk of severe disease. Signs of the virus include a high body temperature, coughing and difficulty breathing. Severe cases can cause pneumonia, kidney failure and even death. Although the virus has been identified, a vaccine is not likely to be available soon. Masks in high demand Demand for protective masks is up all over Asia because of concerns about the spread of the new virus in China. Now, wearing facial masks is becoming the new normal in the area. Face masks and hand-sanitizing liquids are among the most popular products. Factories are rushing to increase production as the number of infections continues to climb. In some parts of Asia, wearing protective masks has become required. One drugstore in Bangkok, Thailand, reports a huge sales increase. Shortages also have been reported in South Korea. Im Mario Ritter, Jr. And Im Ashley Thompson. Mario Ritter Jr. adapted this story for VOA Learning English from reports from The Associated Press, Reuters and VOA News. Hai Do was the editor. _____________________________________________________________ Words in This Story quarantine n. a situation in which a person or people are kept away from others to prevent the spread of disease appropriate adj. right, correct for the situation (surgical) mask n. a mask used by doctors during operations to prevent infecting patients sanitizing adj. to make something free from dirt or agents of disease disinfectant n. a chemical used to kill harmful germs and bacteria hygiene n. things that people do to keep themselves clean and in good health breakneck - adj. very fast income - n. money that is earned from work, investments, business, etc. pneumonia - n. a serious disease that affects the lungs and makes it difficult to breathe By Andrei Makhovsky MINSK (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo travelled to Belarus on Saturday, seeking to 'normalise' ties at a time when relations between Minsk and its traditional ally Russia are under strain. The United States and the European Union have been frequent critics of authoritarian rule and the human rights record in Belarus, where President Alexander Lukashenko has been in office since 1994. By Andrei Makhovsky MINSK (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo travelled to Belarus on Saturday, seeking to "normalise" ties at a time when relations between Minsk and its traditional ally Russia are under strain. The United States and the European Union have been frequent critics of authoritarian rule and the human rights record in Belarus, where President Alexander Lukashenko has been in office since 1994. But Western powers have lifted most sanctions on Belarus since Lukashenko released political prisoners and showed more tolerance for political opposition. Ties also improved after Russia's 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula that Belarus refused to recognise. Belarus and the United States plan to bring back ambassadors to their respective countries after a 10-year hiatus. Pompeo, the most senior U.S. official to visit in more than two decades, said at a meeting with Lukashenko that Washington supported the independence of Belarus while being aware of Minsk's longstanding ties to Russia. "There's a long history with Russia. It's not about picking us between the two. We want to be here," he said. Washington would appoint a new ambassador to Minsk soon, Pompeo said, adding that the United States would continue to push for human rights reforms while also fostering closer economic ties. OIL CONTRACT Russia sees Belarus as a buffer zone between it and the West, and it has helped prop up Lukashenko with loans and energy subsidies. But it started to scale back that help last year. Relations soured after the two sides failed to agree on an oil supply contract for this year. The row fed into a broader dispute between Moscow and Minsk in which Lukashenko has accused the Kremlin of trying to bully Belarus into a union with Russia. But Washington, in another boost to its ties with Belarus, on Friday omitted it from a list of countries under a travel ban after earlier signalling its possible inclusion. "It is very good that you, after all kinds of misunderstandings in relations between Belarus and the United States, absolutely baseless misunderstandings ... you risked coming to Minsk to look at this country," Lukashenko told Pompeo. In an apparent joking reference to the West's characterisation of him as a dictator, Lukashenko told Pompeo: "Our dictatorship is different, in that everybody is resting on Saturday and Sunday, and the president works." Lukashenko has said he held talks with the United States and other countries to find alternative oil supplies. Moscow suspended supplies to refineries in Belarus from Jan. 1, though it partially restored them on Jan. 4. "The United States wants to help Belarus build its own sovereign country. Our energy producers stand ready to deliver 100% of the oil you need at competitive prices," Pompeo said at a meeting with Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei. "Your nation should not be forced to be dependent on any one partner for your prosperity or for your security." In the run-up to Pompeo's visit, a senior official in President Donald Trump's administration had said: "This is an era of great power competition and an opportunity to compete for influence." (Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed in Washington; Writing by Matthias Williams; Editing by Frances Kerry and Clelia Oziel) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. Prince William holds a lot of titles as a senior member of the royal family and will likely gain even more as he gets closer to the throne. But there is a chance that the Duke of Cambridge will be stripped of his title as the Earl of Strathearn in the near future. Here is why William might lose his title following Brexit. Prince William and Kate Middleton | Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images A look at Prince Williams titles Members of the royal family hold different titles that are connected to regions throughout the UK. In England, for example, William is known as the Duke of Cambridge. But in Scotland, he goes by the title of the Earl of Strathearn. William is actually the first person to be named the Earl of Strathearn since Walter Stewart held the title in the 15th century. Stewart died in 1437, relinquishing the title. His Royal Highness, Prince William of Wales, Duke of Cambridge, Earl of Strathearn and Baron Carrickfergus pic.twitter.com/sp2m4Ri67k TRH Duke & Duchess of Cambridge (@TRHDukeDuchess) January 20, 2019 As the oldest son of Prince William and Kate Middleton, Prince George will likely inherit the title once his father passes away. George is also third in line to the throne following William and Prince Charles. Although the royals typically keep their titles until death, there has been a lot of talk that William will lose his title as the Earl of Strathearn in light of Brexit. Scotland wants to stay in the EU The UKs decision to leave the European Union, also known as Brexit, will take effect at the end of January. Although the departure from the EU pertains to all of the countries in the UK, there are many people in Scotland who want nothing to do with it. According to Express, the people of Scotland have asked for a referendum about leaving the UK, with many of its citizens arguing that they should have a say in their countrys future. Is Brexit a big concern?, Prince William asks these Lake District farmers. One replies: I was very surprised that farmers voted for Brexit, to be honest. It was like turkeys voting for Christmas. William and Kate nod, and listen pic.twitter.com/kbPZufdlha Chris Ship (@chrisshipitv) June 11, 2019 In fact, the First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon recently pointed out that Scotland should have the right to choose its own future. If Sturgeon has her way, Scotland will get a referendum at some point this year. If the referendum passes and Scotland gains its independence, then there is a good chance that the country will remain a part of the EU. That, of course, raises questions about Prince Williams title and whether or not he will retain it following Brexit. Will William lose his title? In the event that Scotland leaves the UK and stays in the EU, there is a chance that Queen Elizabeth will remain the countrys monarch. There are some people in Scotland who would like to see Her Majesty removed, but that would not be an automatic thing if the country won its independence. Instead, it is more likely that Queen Elizabeth would still reign as the Queen of Scotland. Prince William, Earl of Strathearn & The Princess Royal joined The Queen at the Thistle Service #QueeninScotland. pic.twitter.com/92oJI0EypU The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) July 3, 2014 This would be a similar setup as Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, all of which are part of the Commonwealth Nations and acknowledge Queen Elizabeth as their ruling monarch. Because the royals would still be recognized in Scotland, it is possible that William would retain his title as the Earl of Strathearn. That said, there is also a chance that he could lose the title, though a lot of things would have to be set in motion for that to happen. Prince William braces for Brexit With Brexit taking the UK by storm, the royals are doing everything in their power to prepare the monarchy for a future outside of the EU. William, for example, just hired a new Communications Chief to oversee the Royal Foundation. William and Kate Middleton hired a woman named Edwina Iddles, who has experience working with the Tory Party and Brexit. The Royal Foundation was founded by Prince William and his brother, Prince Harry, in 2009. Kate joined the organization when she tied the knot with William in 2011. We have to take that this was said in the context of Northern Ireland, but Prince Williams call for unity is a timeless message ahead of Brexit. Oh, and Kate pulls a pint! In todays #DailyMail via the excellent Mail Plus app. pic.twitter.com/am5ECd22MW Rebecca English (@RE_DailyMail) February 28, 2019 Meghan Markle did the same after her wedding with Harry in 2018. Harry and Meghan, of course, have since left the Royal Foundation to start their own charity, Sussex Royal. They have also stepped down as senior members of the royal family. Prince William, meanwhile, has not commented on the rumors surrounding Brexit and his title as the Earl of Strathearn. In a first, researchers have shown that low and high exercise intensities influence brain function differently, a finding that may pave the way for better clinical applications of physical activity in patients recovering from mental illness or brain injury. The study, published in the journal Brain Plasticity, used resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (Rs-fMRI) -- a noninvasive technique that allows for studies on brain connectivity -- to demonstrate that low-intensity exercise triggers the brian's nerve networks involved in thought control, and attention processing. On the other hand, it said, high-intensity exercise primarily activates networks involved in emotion processing. "We believe that functional neuroimaging will have a major impact for unraveling body-brain interactions," said Angelika Schmitt from the University of Bonn in Germany. "These novel methods allow us to 'look' directly into the brains of a group of athletes, and, maybe even more importantly, understand the dynamic changes in brain structure and function associated with the transition from a sedentary to a healthy lifestyle," Schmitt said. In the study, 25 male athletes underwent individual assessments using an incremental treadmill test. The athletes performed low and high intensity exercise bouts for 30 minutes on alternate days, the researchers said. Using the Rs-fMRI, the scientists examined the the connectivity of different brain regions in the participants before and after exercising. The athletes also completed a questionnaire to measure positive and negative mood before and after the exercise. According to the study, low-intensity exercise led to increased connectivity in brain networks associated with thought processing and attention. High-intensity work-out, the scientists said, led to increased functional networks related to emotional processes, and a decreased connectivity in areas linked to physical movements. The researchers believe that the findings may lead to more studies exploring the type of exercise intensity that best suits certain behavioral modulations. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) By Murtaza Ali Khan ene Hackman is such a gifted actor. I can never get tired of watching him and even when he is not in a leading role, he ends up stealing every scene that he features in. Just think of him in The French Connection, Scarecrow, The Conversation, Night Moves, Superman, Mississippi Burning, Bonnie and Clyde, Crimson Tide, Heist, Runaway Jury, and, of course, Unforgiven , among others. Speaking of Unforgiven, the film depicts a clash of egos, a battle of wits between two supreme a lpha makes, William Munny and Little Bill - brilliantly portrayed by Clint Eastwood and Gene Hackman, respectively. Hackman won his second Oscar for the part. The movies protagonists are deeply convoluted, grey-shaded characters who are not bounded by the tenets of virtue or vice. Little Bill Daggett, the tough, autocratic Sheriff of the town called Big Whisky, is totally committed to keeping peace in the town, even at the cost of freedom and justice. William Munny, once a personification of pillage and slaughter in the Old West, is an aging farmer bereft by the untimely loss of his wife who was the reason behind his reformation. The two scenes that Eastwood and Hackman share in the movie are absolutely magical and serve as the exact antithesis of each other. The first encounter between William Munny (Eastwood) and Little Bill (Hackman) portrays Munny at his most vulnerable, pitted against a brutally dominant and ruthless Bill. The second encounter, which also happens to be the movies finale, is a completely different affair with the merciless Munny calling the shots against a helpless Bill. Now, in both the scenes we see the brilliance of Hackman. In the first scene, Bill beats the hell out of Munny. It's just chilling to see the ruthlessness of Bill against a helpless Munny. How he disarms him. How he beats him. How he makes him crawl out of the joint. And that fact that Munny is none other than Clint Eastwood (aka Man with No Name aka Dirty Harry aka Outlaw Jossy Wales) greatly elevates the scene. Then the second time Bill meets Munny, the tables are turned. This time it's Munny on the top. Again in this scene Hackman shows his brilliance. Even when Munny is about to shoot him, Bill says, "I don't deserve this... to die like this... I was building a house." Munny retorts, "Deserve's nothing to do with it." Realizing that his time has come, Bill sighs, "I'll see you in hell, William Munny." I can go on and on. But, for now, I will just say that Hackman recently turned 90 and so I would like to extend my tribute to the legendary actor. European Digital Economy Commissioner Margrethe Vestager and European Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton communicate on the EU's 5G plan in Brussels, Belgium, on Jan. 29, 2020. (Yves Herman/Reuters) EU Allows Members to Decide on Huaweis 5G Role, Against US Recommendation The European Union (EU) is allowing its members to decide what role Chinas Huawei Technologies can play in their 5G telecommunications networks, amid a push by the United States for an outright ban. The European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, endorsed a joint toolbox of mitigating measures agreed by EU member states to address security risks related to the rollout of 5G, a Commissions statement says. Thierry Breton, EU commissioner for the internal market, said the toolbox will equip EU Member States, telecoms operators, and users with the tools to build and protect a European infrastructure with the highest security standards. Billions of connected objects and systems are concerned, including in critical sectors such as energy, transport, banking, and health, as well as industrial control systems carrying sensitive information and supporting safety systems, the commission statement says. EU Toolbox of Risk-Mitigating Measures The toolbox identifies a set of risk categories and sample scenarios that should be mitigated. Among them are lack of access controls, low quality of products in the supply chain, dependency on a single supplier or lack of diversity in the supply chain, state interference, exploitation of 5G networks by malicious groups or individuals targeting end-users, disruptions or massive failure of networks due to interdependence between 5G networks and other critical systems such as electricity grid, and exploitation of end-user devices such as smartphones. The measures put forth to mitigate the risks include strengthening the role of national authorities, performing audits on mobile operators, restricting or even excluding high-risk suppliers for key assets, ensuring that each network operator uses a diverse range of suppliers, and controlling the use of third-line support by suppliers. On a more detailed level, the measures include secure network design, strict access control, reinforcing physical security, software integrity including updates and patches, security standards for suppliers, using EU certification for 5G network components, and non-5G products and services such as devices or cloud services. The toolbox allows EU countries to either restrict or exclude high-risk 5G vendors such as Huawei from core parts of their telecom networks. Some of its measures can be implemented at a national level, while others may require coordination and joint action at the EU level. 5G signs are displayed at the Intel stand at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona on Feb. 25, 2019. (Josep Lago/AFP/Getty Images) Comments on EU Approach to 5G Security Britain granted Huawei a limited role in its 5G mobile network on Jan. 28, despite warnings from the United States, which has a firm stance against U.S. companies using telecommunications equipment or services that can pose a national security risk. Examples are Chinese telecom companies, which are required by law to serve the interests of the Chinese Communist Party and its intelligence services. The European Union sees 5G as key to boosting economic growth and competing with the United States and China and, in its recommendations, allows individual countries to assess the risks and decide whether to exclude suppliers from their core infrastructure. The approach means non-EU providers are welcome in Europe as long as they comply with the rules, Breton said at a news conference after the guidelines were issued. We are not picking on anybody; we are not ostracizing firms, he said. Before adopting the toolbox, Breton said on Jan. 22 in his post on LinkedIn that Europe has everything it takes to lead the race in 5G. Europe holds half of all the patents in the world when it comes to 5G, Breton wrote, adding that China holds around 30 percent and the United States holds 14 percent. This means that Europe can count on its own suppliers of 5G technologies that are ready to immediately deploy the technology. Huawei, competing with Swedens Ericsson and Finlands Nokia, welcomed the guidelines, describing them as non-biased and fact-based, according to EU Reporter. The EU Commission said it was ready to bolster the blocs 5G cybersecurity by using trade defense tools against dumping or foreign subsidies. While the United States welcomed the toolbox because it acknowledges the high-security risks in a 5G network and recommends restricting risky vendors from critical parts of EU networks, the United States does not assess it is possible to adequately mitigate risk by limiting the role of untrusted vendors to only certain parts of the network, State Secretary Mike Pompeo said in a statement. All parts of future 5G networks should be considered critical infrastructure and each country should have measures in place to protect the safety, security, and privacy of citizens who rely on these networks, Pompeo said. The United States agrees with the EUs assessment that high-risk suppliers from countries that lack democratic checks and balances should face restrictions, says the statement. The United States has excluded vendors such as Huawei and ZTE, which are controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, from its 5G networks. It is misguided to think that the risks associated with equipment from such vendors can be mitigated, Pompeo said. We call on our European allies and partners to implement the EU recommendations by adopting strong, risk-based security measures that exclude high-risk suppliers from all parts of their 5G networks. Noah Barkin, visiting academic fellow at the Mercator Institute for China Studies in Germany, told Carnegie Europe, There is a strong argument for excluding Huawei from European 5G networks based on two factors alone: 1) the absolutely critical nature of this infrastructure for the future functioning of economies; and 2) the risk that Chinese suppliers could be forced by Beijing to cooperate in intelligence gathering, data theft, or sabotage. Lobbying group European Telecommunications Network Operators Association (ETNO), which includes members Deutsche Telekom, Orange, and Telefonica, who all use Huawei equipment, have warned against disproportionate actions that may affect their investments. Europes decision-making on 5G should continue being based on facts, it should be proportionate to threats and build on a solid understanding of technology reality, ETNO said in a statement. EU countries have until April to implement the guidelines and June to report on their progress. Reuters contributed to this report. Indoor Gardening: How to Care for Your Houseplants Through the Winter Just because theres snow covering your garden doesnt mean you have to forgo the quiet company of plants. Whether youve brought some potted plants in from the garden, or have a number of regular house plants, youll want to be sure to treat them right through the winter. Indoor gardening The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has held protests in the capital city and parts of the country to call the governments attention to the rising spate of killings across the nation. The Christian group had earlier called on all Christians across the country to embark on a prayer walk on Sunday to protest the gruesome killing of the CAN Chairman in Michika Local Government Area of Adamawa State, Lawan Andimi, by Boko Haram terrorists. Although the federal government has condemned the beheading of the cleric, the CAN said the government has not done enough to protect Christians. CAN President, Samson Ayokunle, during a briefing with journalists in Abuja on Thursday said the prayer walk was aimed at using prayers to curb the activities of terrorists and criminals who have been orchestrating killings across the country. He also said (in)actions by the federal government had given such criminals the latitude to carry out crimes unchallenged. He also called on President Muhammadu Buhari to overhaul the security apparatus in the country to curb the killings. Government should order the arrest of the leadership of the Miyetti Allah for sponsoring and perpetuating crime of Nigeria and prosecute them for all the killings in Southern Kaduna, Benue, Plateau and Taraba states, among others. Also, government should publish names of all kingpins of the terrorists in detention and those who are being prosecuted, he was quoted by online medium, Sahara Reporters. The General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, (RCCG) Enoch Adeboye, in a televised broadcast to parishes across the country had urged parishioners to take part in the protest as CAN has directed. FLASH: Pastor @PastorEAAdeboye Leads Massive Protest Against Insecurity pic.twitter.com/O34qFkABS4 Sahara Reporters (@SaharaReporters) February 2, 2020 Mr Adeboye also took part in the march in Lagos. General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, (RCCG) Enoch Adeboye, joins the protest as CAN has directed. [PHOTO CREDIT: Sahara Reporters] General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, (RCCG) Enoch Adeboye, joins the protest as CAN has directed. [PHOTO CREDIT: Sahara Reporters] PREMIUM TIMES also understands the marches were held in many states by churches under CANs purview. Abuja protest In Abuja, the protests were held by numerous parishes of the RCCG as directed by Mr Adeboye. PREMIUM TIMES observed the prayer walk organised by the Everlasting Arms Parish, Garki, a zonal parish of the RCCG. The pastor in charge, Evaristus Azodoh, had earlier held intense prayer sessions with the congregation over the insecurity ravaging the country. After the church service, he then led the zone, comprising of many other parishes for a prayer walk along streets of Garki. Members of the RCCG, TEAP Zone, marching through Garki during the prayer protest called for by CAN. Pic credit: Tosin Omoniyi The protest, held under the watchful eyes of security personnel was peaceful as the congregation carried placards decrying the worsening insecurity in the country. They also sang worship songs and prayed as they marched round the streets. Worsening insecurity The House of Representatives, just like its Senate counterpart, recently lamented the security situation in Nigeria. We will look at what pains you and pains us, that is insecurity in the land; it is alarming, a lawmaker had said. PREMIUM TIMES has also extensively reported on the insecurity across the nation carried out by various armed groups and individuals. Members of the RCCG, TEAP Zone, marching through Garki during the prayer protest called for by CAN. Pic credit: Tosin Omoniyi Apart from the resurgent Boko Haram attacks in the North-east, there have been increased cases of killings and kidnappings across the country. In one of the latest incidents, 13 people were killed in a Plateau community. Amidst the insecurity, the presidency has said Nigerians have reasons to be grateful as the security situation is better than it was before President Muhammadu Buhari assumed office. We know what the situation was as at 2015 and we know what it is today. Despite the reversals in security, it is still not as bad as it used to be in this country, Femi Adesina, President Buharis spokesperson, said recently. Advertisements Lifes getting a lot tougher for optimists. Im starting to wonder whether our politics has passed the point of peak economic reform and controversial policy changes are no longer possible. We keep berating our politicians, urging them to show leadership and have the courage to make much-needed reforms, but they never do. Right now, its easy to look at the way Scott Morrison has fumbled the bushfire response, the need to get real about climate change, and even his reluctance to take a stand against blatant rorting of taxpayers money, and decide we have a Morrison problem. A lack of trust in our politicians is stifling economic reform. Credit: But though were discovering the miracle election-winners various shortcomings, its a mistake to think one man is the cause of our reform problem. Its possible to argue things have got steadily worse in the revolving-door period since the departure of John Howard, but the greater truth is that the problems systemic. Its hard to think of any major improvements made by five prime ministers over the past 12 years, with the possible exception of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (which were still busy stuffing up). STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Since driving weekly to Manhattan from Staten Island had become so exhausting with heavy traffic, my husband and I decided to give the MTA Express Bus a try. I purchased a $33 Metro Card, enough to cover our round trip to Mt. Sinais 15th street location for my husbands weekly chemotherapy infusion. Upon boarding the bus, the driver informed me that there was no money on the card! Perplexed and frozen, he thawed out my fear when he told us just to get on board. Still trying to figure out what went wrong, the driver announces that Houston Street was the last stop, we were headed to 14th Street! Oh no, I thought another hurdle, so I headed to the front of the bus to verify if the bus was going to 14th Street. The driver stated that during that particular morning run, Houston was the last stop. I explained that we needed to go to 14th Street, he then said since he was headed up that way he would drop us at 14th. Needless to say we were amazed by this whole situation and explained where and why we wanted to go to 14th, he replied, I like to do something kind for someone every day! This was indeed our lucky day. I later discovered that I had bought the wrong Metro Card, as it was a seven-day unlimited card and could only be used on the subway and local buses. My error allowed us to become recipients of this huge display of kindness from an MTA employee that meant so much on that dreary Monday morning. Thank you and we promise to pay it forward. SHARE YOUR GOOD NEWS If you have a Good News story to share: "You should be mad as hell!" Chris Cuomo barks into a camera, indicting the U.S. Senate for "hiding the facts" from voters by refusing to indulge further the already obviously sham impeachment effort. Cuomo weaves an "argument" that doesn't compel a conclusion, but instead presupposes the conclusion and hysterically casts that conclusion in one hyperbolic statement after another. It is a tautology it is as it is because he says it is. Cuomo's argument is purely emotional. Cuomo probably never understood the satire in the character Howard Beale emotionally yelling, "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!" in the movie Network. His rant is, nonetheless, emblematic of the House effort, and a fine illustration why the nation should thank the Senate for pulling the plug on the impeachment debacle. Cuomo presumes, for example, that each additional piece of "information," "fact," "witness," and document has independent significance and separate meaning. That is obviously untrue. No trial, hearing, or inquiry accepts this illusion. One does not parade one person after another to say the same thing ad nauseam. After the proposition has been asserted and proved adequately, similar witnesses, documents, etc., are viewed as unnecessarily duplicative. Mere judicial or legislative economy would demand a better use of time and resources. But the purpose of the impeachment effort was never factual; it was slanderous. Slander, unlike factual proof, relies upon stating and restating the slander as often as is possible, ad nauseam, until it is believed by the greatest number of people. One can conclude easily that Trump asked for an investigation into the Bidens, for example, but might naturally think that request reasonable. If, however, one is told one million times over and over that the only possible purpose for such a request is to cheat, or is corrupt, one might start to believe it, notwithstanding that there is no way to prove conclusively any single subjective intent. Never mind, too, that our presumption of innocence would naturally forgive any legal act deemed corrupt only because of evil intent if there were other innocent intentions for the act. Mueller cited this as a challenge in charging Trump with obstruction of justice on the charge of Russia collusion. Trump's protestations of and demands for acknowledgment of his innocence, as well as other motives, such as protection of the office of the president, are non-obstructive intentions and could explain the same otherwise non-criminal acts. Mendacious Jerrold Nadler attempted to explain away this obvious fallacy in the House case by saying "good motive" doesn't excuse a crime like bribery. But there was no "crime" underlying the House's case only the allegation of corruption and evil intent. Trump abused his power only because his intention was for his personal benefit, according to House managers who stated the presumption again and again, ad nauseam. The Left ascribes no value whatsoever to objective meaning anyway, so making an argument regarding information to find meaning is utterly hypocritical. To the Left, objective meaning is just another form of force or violence, since it compels people to accept patriarchal and culturally biased values. The Left wants to destroy and dismantle objective meaning until only subjective meaning is deemed valuable. This is why the Left argues over pronouns. In the House managers' world, where every fact, transaction, occurrence, or event means the same thing, what is the utility or value of more? After days of impeachment testimony and argument, the average person is left wondering: if an investigation reveals nothing wrong in Biden's actions and exonerates him from wrongdoing, how is the request "wrong"? More, how did it further the accuser's campaign? If the investigation revealed that Biden is a crook how is the request unlawful? More information, more emotional outbursts, would not likely answer the questions for the average voter. The purpose of the impeachment effort by the House was political. It was, and is, an emotional outburst born of anger, hatred, and a feeling of powerlessness. These are the same emotions that caused a pathetic and helpless, albeit sympathetic, Beale to declare, "I'm as mad as hell." Cuomo would have his viewers behave accordingly. After all, in the movie, hapless, unthinking, frustrated viewers could be galvanized by emotional propaganda and then spurred to action, even if useless and destructive. In the satire, people were mindless sheep. Most Americans understand that Cuomo and many in the media actually see them as only mindless sheep. Americans are not ignorant. They are not so easily manipulated. Cuomo underscores for the vast majority of rational ordinary citizens why it is long past time to turn off the Schiff Show. The Federation of Film Societies of India (FFSI) has decided to launch an international campaign to restore the ancesstral houses of auteurs Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak and Mrinal Sen in neighbouring Bangladesh, a senior official said. The FFSI - the apex body of film-screening societies in the country - is planning to renovate the properties of the three icons, which are now lying in a dilapidated condition in Bangladesh, as they have great historical significance, its vice-president Premendra Majumder said. The matter will be brought to the notice of the Union Ministry of Culture, Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) and UNESCO, as the Bangladesh government had been insisting that the properties be preserved and maintained, he told PTI. Majumder said Ray's ancestral houses at Mashua and Kishoreganj, about 115 km from Dhaka, is in a shambles and film activists from Bangladesh had appealed to the Sheikh Hasina government for its immediate renovation. Ghatak's ancestral house at Rajshahi, 245 km from Dhaka, was leased out in 1987-88 by then Bangladesh government for construction of a homeopathic college by razing down a large part of the old structure, he said. In December last year, the remaining portion of the building was demolished to build a cycle stand, following which the entire film community in Bangladesh and Bengalis in Toronto voiced protests, supported by eminent personalities such as Tanvir Mokammel and Nasiruddin Yusuf Bachhu, he said. The Bangladeshi film fraternity then signed a petition, urging the government to protect the ancestral houses of Ghatak, Ray and Sen. Sen's ancestral house in Faridpur, 130 km from Dhaka, now belongs to a private owner, who has partly demolished the old structure. "Luckily, the original house in Faridpur, where his family lived, still stands and can be renovated and preserved," FFSI General Secretary Amitava Ghosh said. Ray's family has welcomed the move. "We will be happy if the properties are renovated and preserved. It is a welcome step," Sandip Ray, son of the Oscar-winning filmmaker, said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Doctor at a Cape Coast Hospital has given full account of Highlife Musician Kofi B in his last days before the sudden death. According to Kofi Nti, a doctor who witnessed the final minutes of his friend, Kofi B said he was restless and vomited a lot. Upon reaching the hospital in Cape Coast, Kofi B started sweating profusely and later started vomiting, Kofi Nti told Peace FM in an interview. He talked about feeling hot before he started vomiting. The doctor gave him some injections and gave him oxygen. I know the doctor did his best; he died about 3:am, he said. In an interview with the doctor who saw him give up the ghost, he said Kofi B was restless and had a very High Blood Pressure (BP). His BP was around 150/120. He had difficulty in breathing and had profuse vomiting. The doctor added that his body is being sent to the Cape Coast Teaching Hospital. A post-mortem will be conducted to know the real cause. For now we dont have the authority to confirm what killed him. Kofi B, born Kofi Boakye Yiadom, is known for hit songs such as Mmbrowa, Bantama Kofi Boakye among other hit songs. The Koforidua Flowers hitmaker is a household name in Ghana and his demise is breaking lots of hearts. Tributes have started flooding social media. ---GhananNewspage Airbus Agrees to Pay Nearly $4 Billion to Settle Bribery Case By Masood Farivar January 31, 2020 In the largest settlement of its kind, European aircraft maker Airbus SE has agreed to pay nearly $4 billion to resolve foreign bribery and other charges with authorities in the United States, Britain and France, the Justice Department announced Friday. In an agreement with U.S. prosecutors, Paris-based Airbus, the world's second-largest manufacturer of civilian and military aircraft, admitted using intermediaries over several years to bribe government officials and airline executives in order to win lucrative contracts in China and other countries. Airbus entered into a so-called deferred prosecution agreement with the Justice Department three days after federal prosecutors accused the company of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and conspiracy to violate the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) and its implementation regulations. Under the deferred agreement, prosecutors agree to hold off on proceeding with a case against a company in exchange for meeting certain conditions. The foreign bribery charges against Airbus stemmed from its offer and payment of bribes to foreign officials, including Chinese government officials, according to the prosecution agreement. Involved in the China bribery scheme were at least seven unidentified Airbus executives including two Chinese officials and three entities responsible for making aircraft purchasing decisions for the Chinese government. Between 2013 and 2015, Airbus executives made payments to a business partner in China that were intended to be used as bribes to Chinese officials, according to prosecutors. The bribes were paid in order to win contracts for the sale of Airbus aircraft to Chinese government airlines. The AECA charges resulted from Airbus' failure to disclose to U.S. authorities political contributions, fees and commissions made in connection with the sale and export of military goods and services to a foreign military. "Airbus engaged in a multi-year and massive scheme to corruptly enhance its business interests by paying bribes in China and other countries and concealing those bribes," said Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department's Criminal Division. "The Department will continue to work aggressively with our partners across the globe to root out corruption, particularly corruption that harms American interests." As part of the settlement, Airbus will pay nearly $600 million to U.S. authorities, $2.29 billion to authorities in France, and more than $1 billion to Britain's Serious Fraud Office. The settlement with British authorities involves allegations of bribes paid in Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Indonesia and Ghana. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Enacted in 1978, the FCPA bars corporations and their executives from bribing foreign government officials to gain a business advantage. Over the past decade, the Justice Department has stepped up enforcement of the law, using its broad jurisdiction to target foreign executives and companies involved in bribing officials in other countries. Enforcement has remained robust under the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump despite his past criticism of the law as unfair to American companies. Historically, China has made up a disproportionately large number of FCPA cases involving foreign executives bribing Chinese officials. A 2018 Justice Department initiative aimed at countering Chinese national security threats to the U.S. prioritizes FCPA cases involving Chinese companies that compete with American businesses. "International corruption involving sensitive U.S. defense technology presents a particularly dangerous combination," said David Burns, a senior official in the Justice Department's national security division. The Justice Department encourages companies to self-report violations of foreign bribery and export control laws in exchange for leniency. Although Airbus disclosed the FCPA violations to the Justice Department only after they came to light in Britain several years ago, the company received credit for its cooperation with the ensuing investigation. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Addressing the meeting, the top legislator extended her best New Year wishes to all the staff working at the Party Central Committee (PCC)s Economic Commission. The NA Chairwoman emphasised the important role of the PCCs Economic Commission, which has provided consultancy to the PCC to issue many major guidelines and policies as well as assisting the Politburo to make a number of political decisions to solve economic problems. She noted that Vietnam will see a number of major events in 2020 including the role of a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council and ASEAN and AIPA chairmanship. In particular, Party Congress at all levels will be held this year to prepare for the 13th National Party Congress, requiring the active involvement of the PCCs Economic Commission, Ngan added. The NA leader also asked the PCCs Economic Commission to improve the quality of its staff, apply information technology in its operation and closely cooperate with NA agencies to effectively fulfill the tasks assigned by the Party, State and people. Politburo member and Head of the PCCs Economic Commission Nguyen Van Binh said that the Commission has always received due attention from senior leaders of the Party and State. He noted that the Commission will receive instructions from the NA Chairwoman and comments from NA agencies to improve its performance in the future. Even the most ambitious of travelers wouldnt dream of combining a multi-day safari and a week-long island cruise but thanks to a new initiative by Beyond Cruises, travelers can experience both on one vacation. The cruise line has created a land to sea itinerary that starts with a five-day land excursion in Kenya and ends with a seven-night cruise through the Seychelles. The land portion of the trip kicks off with a stay near Lake Nakuru National Park, which is known for its plentiful flamingos and game drives. Travelers then stay in a lodge in the heart of the Maasai Mara National Reserve with the opportunity to see lions, cheetahs, elephants, zebras, and hippos. After a flight to the Seychelles, travelers board the Pegasus to visit some of the worlds most beautiful beaches. Nature reserve excursions and snorkeling in the pristine Seychelles water will include plenty of bird, turtle, and fish sightings. The journey includes calls in Curieuse, Cousin Island, Anse Lazio, Aride Islands, St. Pierre, Baie St. Anne, La Digue, and Moyenne Island. Getty Images The Pegasus was renovated in 2016 and accommodates 44 guests in 21 staterooms. Guests will have access to 2,550 square feet of open deck, an onboard mini spa, library, and ocean-view dining. Travelers looking for the simplest flight route can book the daily nonstop flight from New Yorks John F. Kennedy Airport to Nairobis Jomo Kenyatta International Airport where the trip begins. Over a snowy winter break from college, I earned a job title that was virtually non-existent before the turn of the century: digital math tutor. I was enlisted for this information-age role by a Taos-based company called MidSchoolMath. As I shot these tutorial videos, I became more curious about math education in America and how our students compare to those of other countries. Theres a perception that U.S. students perform poorly on the global stage, but the narrative is actually more nuanced. In fact, our elementary school students are doing quite well compared to their peers in other countries. However, by the time those students reach high school, they show the worlds largest decline in math scores on international tests. Even worse, if the 50 states had their own classroom, New Mexico would be among the students at the very bottom, ranking 49th in math education. I witnessed these trends in action throughout my time as a Taos Municipal Schools student. The math teachers, like most teachers in our public schools, never received the support they needed to focus on properly facilitating student development in the classroom. It felt like teachers came to our schools via a revolving door, staying briefly and then leaving soon after. This teacher turnover was, in part, fueled by the obvious lack of resources, evidenced by incredibly low teacher salaries across the state. All of these factors coalesce into a perfect storm whose aftermath leaves students with math capabilities well behind their peers, not just internationally, but within the U.S., as well. The poor math foundation that many students in New Mexico develop in their studies is a critical problem that must be addressed. As more students from New Mexico pursue higher education than ever before, were beginning to better understand the difficulties that this weak foundation poses. In my own math and economics courses in college, I can see that my fundamental understanding and capabilities in such areas as algebra and statistics are miles behind my peers, posing another challenge in an already difficult environment. The lack of improvement in our state points to our need to enact institutional change. We need bold reforms in the realms of teacher pay and budget allocation to mitigate the root causes of our poor performance. These calls are not anything new, as administrators and educators have been demanding these changes for years. In fact, just last month, Gov. Lujan Grisham held a town hall in Albuquerque to highlight her legislative achievements while fielding input on further education reform in the state. Surely, this will be a difficult endeavor, but its one that is necessary. Working with MidSchoolMath was encouraging in this regard as it showed me that there are people dedicating time and resources to bridging our achievement gap, and providing an alternative solution to the problems that currently mire our state. This dedication will help to define what it is going to mean to be a New Mexico graduate, to use the words of our newly tapped Public Education Secretary Ryan Stewart. However, while it is a much-needed advancement, private sector innovation wont be enough for New Mexico. It is absolutely vital that our state government matches these efforts to ensure effective and long-lasting reforms to boost student achievement in our state. Otherwise, New Mexican students will be resigned to a fate of perpetual underperformance. Khaled Khweis is from Taos and currently studies financial economics at Columbia University. Leo and Colleen Zeek are two of roughly 1,000 volunteers who help out behind the scenes of the Yukon Quest. The couple have been volunteering for the Quest since 2011. Alistair Gardiner/News-Miner A crash Saturday killed a 7-year-old girl and injured two others at U.S. 90 and West Military Highway, San Antonio police said. Witnesses reported to officers that a Honda sedan was traveling east shortly before 6 p.m. and lost control. It jumped the guard rail and went into the westbound lanes of U.S, 90, striking a food truck, police said. Bernie Sanders believes 2020 is going to be his year. And in Iowa, many thousands of people agree with him. On Saturday, up to 3,000 of them, young and old and diverse, packed into this citys largest venue to roar their support as the veteran senator and frontrunner argued this years was the most consequential election in modern history. He said the nation could not let Donald Trump serve another four years. The media at the back of the room is not just from America. Its from around the world, he said. The world is watching if the people of Iowa are prepared to stand up for justice. The world is watching to see if the people of Iowa are prepared to create for an economy that helps all people, not just the one per cent. He added: It all begins in Iowa, two days from now. And Im here to ask you, very humbly, for your support on caucus night. The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Show all 25 1 /25 The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Bernie Sanders The Vermont senator has launched a second bid for president after losing out to Hilary Clinton in the 2016 Democratic primaries. He is running on a similar platform of democratic socialist reform Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Joe Biden The former vice president recently faced scrutiny for inappropriate touching of women, but was thought to deal with the criticism well and has since maintained a front runner status in national polling EPA The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Elizabeth Warren The Massachusetts senator is a progressive Democrat, and a major supporter of regulating Wall Street Reuters The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Amy Klobuchar Klobuchar is a Minnesota senator who earned praise for her contribution to the Brett Kavanaugh hearings Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Michael Bloomberg Michael Bloomberg, a late addition to the 2020 race, announced his candidacy after months of speculation in November. He has launched a massive ad-buying campaign and issued an apology for the controversial "stop and frisk" programme that adversely impacted minority communities in New York City when he was mayor Getty Images The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Tulsi Gabbard The Hawaii congresswoman announced her candidacy in January, but has faced tough questions on her past comments on LGBT+ rights and her stance on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Pete Buttigieg The centrist Indiana mayor and war veteran would be the first openly LGBT+ president in American history Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Deval Patrick The former Massachusetts governor launched a late 2020 candidacy and received very little reception. With just a few short months until the first voters flock to the polls, the former governor is running as a centrist and believes he can unite the party's various voting blocs AFP/Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Beto O'Rourke The former Texas congressman formally launched his bid for the presidency in March. He ran on a progressive platform, stating that the US is driven by "gross differences in opportunity and outcome" AP The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Kamala Harris The former California attorney general was introduced to the national stage during Jeff Sessions testimony. She has endorsed Medicare-for-all and proposed a major tax-credit for the middle class AFP/Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Bill De Blasio The New York mayor announced his bid on 16 May 2019. He emerged in 2013 as a leading voice in the left wing of his party but struggled to build a national profile and has suffered a number of political setbacks in his time as mayor AFP/Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Steve Bullock The Montana governor announced his bid on 14 May. He stated "We need to defeat Donald Trump in 2020 and defeat the corrupt system that lets campaign money drown out the people's voice, so we can finally make good on the promise of a fair shot for everyone." He also highlighted the fact that he won the governor's seat in a red [Republican] state Reuters The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Cory Booker The New Jersey Senator has focused on restoring kindness and civility in American politics throughout his campaign, though he has failed to secure the same level of support and fundraising as several other senators running for the White House in 2020 Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Wayne Messam Mayor of the city of Miramar in the Miami metropolitan area, Wayne Messam said he intended to run on a progressive platform against the "broken" federal government. He favours gun regulations and was a signatory to a letter from some 400 mayors condemning President Trump's withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord Vice News The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Kirsten Gillibrand The New York Senator formally announced her presidential bid in January, saying that healthcare should be a right, not a privilege Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: John Delaney The Maryland congressman was the first to launch his bid for presidency, making the announcement in 2017 AP The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Andrew Yang The entrepreneur announced his presidential candidacy by pledging that he would introduce a universal basic income of $1,000 a month to every American over the age of 18 Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Julian Castro The former San Antonio mayor announced his candidacy in January and said that his running has a special meaning for the Latino community in the US Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Marianne Williamson The author and spiritual adviser has announced her intention to run for president. She had previously run for congress as an independent in 2014 but was unsuccessful Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Eric Swalwell One of the younger candidates, Swalwell has served on multiple committees in the House of Representatives. He intended to make gun control central to his campaign but dropped out after his team said it was clear there was no path to victory Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Seth Moulton A Massachusetts congressman, Moulton is a former US soldier who is best known for trying to stop Nancy Pelosi from becoming speaker of the house. He dropped out of the race after not polling well in key states Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Jay Inslee Inslee has been governor of Washington since 2013. His bid was centred around climate change AFP/Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: John Hickenlooper The former governor of Colorado aimed to sell himself as an effective leader who was open to compromise, but failed to make a splash on the national stage Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Tim Ryan Ohio representative Tim Ryan ran on a campaign that hinged on his working class roots, though his messaging did not appear to resonate with voters Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Tom Steyer Democratic presidential hopeful billionaire and philanthropist Tom Steyer is a longtime Democratic donor AFP/Getty It might well have been the Vermont senators time four years ago. Written off by Hillary Clintons campaign virtually before the contest had started, he ran her to less than half a percentage point in Iowa, and went off to defeat her 60-37 in the second state to vote, New Hampshire. He continued to push her all the way into the summer, refusing to suspend his campaign. Later it would emerge thanks to emails apparently obtained by Russian hackers and published by Wikileaks that some officials in the supposedly neutral Democratic National Committee (DNC) were supporting her, and working against him. The revelation further poisoned the relationship between the two camps, and Sanders relationship with the establishment of the partys whose nomination he was seeking. Four years on, Sanders raft of progressive policies are largely the same he proposes universal healthcare, tuition-free college, the transition to a green, low-carbon economy, criminal justice reform and a federal minimum wage. At the age of 78, his style on the stump pointing, jabbing, his voice sometimes close to a growl has not altered. Yet two significant things have shifted. Firstly, in what already counts as victory for the one-time mayor of Burlington, a lot of his seemingly outlier policies have been adopted by many of the other candidates, as the position of progressives such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar, the latter of whom was on the stage in Cedar Rapids, has become ascendant. The second is that Sanders is no longer an unknown outsider: the most recent poll by The New York Times placed him in joint first place in Iowa with Joe Biden, and second nationally to the former vice president, followed by Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg. Joe Rogan says he'll 'probably vote' for Bernie Sanders Rebecca Hovde said one of the reasons she was there to show her support for the senator was because he had worked to expose the unfairly high costs being charged by a drug company for medicine she needs for a rare disease. One in three million people suffer from Lambert-Eaton myasthenic syndrome (Lems), an autoimmune disorder that causes fatigue and weakness. While the pills, of which she requires four a day, cost just 10 cents to make and which she once received for free, Catalyst Pharmaceuticals, which bought the US rights to the drug, wanted to charge an annual sum of $375,000. He went to them and called them out, said Hovde, who lives in Wellman, 50 miles from Cedar Rapids. Aliah Rowe and Sara Ledesla, both 19, drove nine hours from Arkansas to attend the rally at the US Cellular Centre, which also featured a performance by the New York-based band Vampire Weekend. He is not owned by anyone. He is not doing it for himself, said Rowe. Ledesla claimed Sanders was the only candidate looking to build a diverse coalition that represents different parts of society. Both said they thought he could defeat Trump and that his age was not an issue. Sanders raised more money than any of his Democratic rivals in the last quarter of 2019, and has invested heavily in a ground operation in Iowa, backed up by volunteers from across the nation. He claimed his supporters had knocked on 500,000 doors in Iowa alone. The states population is just 3.1 million. Four years ago, a number of those attending Sanders events in Iowa and elsewhere suggested they would not support Clinton if she became the nominee. A number said their second choice would be Trump, whom they believed was similarly not-bought, and willing to tell the truth. The antipathy towards Clinton remains. On Friday, another of Sanders supporters in the House of Representatives, Rashida Tlaib, led booing of Clinton at a campaign event in Clive, Iowa. Yet few at Saturdays rally, which also features an address by Cornell West, appeared to have any love for Trump. Rather, they said Democrats had unwisely underestimated him and that it was now vital to defeat him. With your help were going to defeat this dangerous president, and the reason were going to beat him is because were build the biggest voter turn out in history, Sanders told them. If there is low voter turn out, we lose. But if we get a big voter turn out, were going to win. Source: Xinhua| 2020-02-02 22:00:04|Editor: zyl Video Player Close Visiting U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Kazakh Foreign Minister Mukhtar Tleuberdi shake hands before holding a press conference in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan, Feb. 2, 2020. Pompeo said on Sunday that Kazakhstan is a reliable partner of the United States in Central Asia and pledged to foster the "Enhanced Strategic Partnership" between the two countries. (Photo by Kalizhan Ospanov/Xinhua) NUR-SULTAN, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- Visiting U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday that Kazakhstan is a reliable partner of the United States in Central Asia and pledged to foster the "Enhanced Strategic Partnership" between the two countries. Speaking at a joint press conference with Kazakh Foreign Minister Mukhtar Tleuberdi in Nur-Sultan, Pompeo said the United States fully supports the reforms rolled out by Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev to boost economic development and increase public confidence in the government. Pompeo appreciated Kazakh work on peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan and repatriating Kazakh citizens from Syria and Iraq, including terrorists and their families. The U.S. official also posited the United States as a strong business partner for Kazakhstan. For his part, Tleuberdi said Kazakhstan considers the United States as a source of investment, new technologies and knowledge, and welcomes high-quality cooperation to diversify its economy. "There is significant potential for cooperation in IT and other knowledge-intensive industries," Tleuberdi said. The two sides will continue to strengthen cooperation in the fight against international terrorism and extremism, and the spread of radical ideology, said Tleuberdi, adding that Kazakhstan actively supports the regional format C5+1 dialogue (Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan plus the United States). Pompeo paid a two-day visit to Kazakhstan on Feb. 1-2 and is scheduled to attend the foreign ministers' meeting of the C5+1 dialogue in the Uzbek capital Tashkent on Monday. Peter Obi, former governor of Anambra state, says living in Nigeria, is more life-threatening than anything else. Obi, who was the vice-presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2019 election, said this during an interview with ThisDay. On whether he has ever had a near-death experience, he said: What is more threatening to someone than living in Nigeria? We live under constant threats here. Narrating his life journey, he said, There was a silver spoon when my father was alive and doing well but the civil war came and took both the silver and the spoon leaving my mother and us toiling to meet our needs. One of the good things the war did not take away was the roof over our heads. My mother a wonderful woman she was struggled to see us through and guided us along the path of growth; a strong influence which I have imparted to my children. Read Also: Oshiomhole Wouldnt Have Been A Governor If PDP Did What APC Is Doing Today: Peter Obi On spending money wrongly, he said; I have always told you, in my life, I have an allergy to money being wrongly spent. I undertook the traditional wedding quietly and later had the Church wedding in London with 35-40 guests at the reception. We agreed that it was mainly about two of us and no amount of Champagne would make us better husband and wife? When I see Nigerians own houses in New York, Abuja, Lagos, Johannesburg, London, France, here and there some of which they rarely occupy I wonder what they hope to do with all of them. What are you going to do with them? I have a house in Onitsha and was urged to have one in the village, I simply responded No, because it is a 10-minute drive from Onitsha to my village. If my presence in the village is required, I will be there on time. He said that however, unlike him, my wife enjoys life a lot. The number of coronavirus cases in Japan rose to 20 on Saturday as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe instructed ministers to come up with additional steps to respond to the outbreak. The health ministry said three more returnees from the virus-hit Chinese city of Wuhan have tested positive, in addition to the 17 cases of infection reported earlier, including some without symptoms. The three were among the Japanese nationals who returned on government-chartered flights last week. Abe on Saturday stressed the need to make sure people across the country have access to necessary medical examinations and supplies, including masks, as infections have been confirmed in various parts of the country. aI ask ministers to compile measures to use reserves (in the state budget) and implement them as soon as possible,a Abe told a meeting held at his office to discuss the governmentas response to the outbreak. aThe new coronavirus is having a major impact on tourism, the economy and our society as a whole,a the prime minister said. aThe government will do its utmost to address the impact.a The government officially classified the virus as a designated infectious disease on Saturday, enabling authorities to enact, among other measures, compulsory hospitalization when necessary. Taxpayersa money will cover the costs of treating patients forced to stay in hospitals. To prevent the deadly virus from spreading further, foreign nationals who have been to Hubei province within two weeks a the virusas estimated incubation period a prior to their arrival to Japan, will be barred. They are now required to declare at airports if they have been to Hubei during that period, Japanese officials said. Holders of Chinese passports issued in the central Chinese province, the capital of which is the virus-hit city of Wuhan, will also be prohibited from entering the country in principle. They are subject to the precautionary measures whether they display symptoms or not. "At least they could have given us a warning or something so we could have changed the [flight] schedule." Later on Sunday he said he had to "buy a ticket for my mum to fly back to China tonight". "[I'm] very disappointed, frustrated and helpless," Mr You said. It was a similar situation for Sydneysider Di Zhao, 43, whose 70-year-old father was due to arrive in Sydney from Shanghai on Sunday morning. "I just keep waiting at the airport," she said. "I'm very helpless. The only person I worry about is my Dad. He can't speak English." NSW chief health officer Dr Kerry Chant confirmed on Sunday there were no new coronavirus cases in the state, with the figure remaining at four. Three of the four cases in NSW had been discharged from hospital, with a 21-year-old female student from UNSW discharged over the weekend and two men aged 53 and 35 discharged on Thursday. A 43-year-old man remained in isolation. A NSW Health Department poster providing advice for travellers on self-isolating to mitigate the risk of spreading the coronavirus. Dr Chant said a further 30 cases were under investigation "from the affected travel regions" as more people were encouraged to come forward for testing. NSW Health had deployed a team of doctors and nurses to Sydney Airport on Sunday morning to meet flights where passengers had left mainland China in recent days. "Those health teams [had] assessed over 1100 people as of 2pm and had referred a small number, seven, for further assessment," Dr Chant said. "In all likelihood, those patients would have other causes for their mild respiratory symptoms. We're taking a very cautionary approach." Dr Chant said NSW Health had also advised travellers who departed mainland China after Saturday to self-isolate in Australia for 14 days. Advice on self-isolation, published online and in posters in English and Chinese, included staying away from work, school, public areas and public transport, including taxis. Those sharing a home were advised to stay in different rooms from others, as far as possible, and wear a surgical mask when in the same room or seeking medical care. "It is critical people who are asked to self-isolate do so [and] follow the advice on NSW Healths website ... available in both English and simplified Chinese," a NSW Health spokesperson said. If people who are in self-isolation become unwell, they should call their GP and tell them, or [contact the] health direct [hotline] ... or 000 in an emergency. Yam Ge, 29, arrived in Melbourne on Sunday afternoon and said he and his partner, both Australian permanent residents from China who visited Shanghai for two weeks for Chinese New Year, would have self-isolated in any case "just to be responsible towards others". "With this virus, some people carry it but don't have any symptoms," he said. "That might happen to us as well so we'd self-isolate anyway, just in case." Permanent resident Li Li, from Chongxin in central China, said he had his temperature checked twice in Shanghai and once upon landing in Melbourne. He also plans to self-isolate and not attend his job at a university for two weeks, meaning he will rely on friends for supplies. "We plan to ask some friends to deliver to our door," he said. "As it's necessary, we will not go out. Not just for us, but for the good of others, right? We have some games at home, so it should be fine." He said everyone on the Shanghai flight was already wearing a mask, but quarantine officials checked on board to ensure they were. Loading For Australian sisters Jasmine, Ebony, Olivia, it had been a long 25 hours in transit when they arrived at Melbourne Airport on Sunday. They were in Shanghai about to fly to Vietnam when airport staff ran to them and said they were not allowed to board their flight because Vietnam, like Australia, had suddenly issued an entry ban on non-citizens. "So they basically took us out of the airport, gave us our bags back, dumped us literally in front of the airport and we had to buy a flight home," Ebony said. They booked the next available flight to Melbourne and landed at 1.40pm. They're three of about 700 people who landed in Melbourne from China on Sunday, down from what would normally have been about 5000, according to DFAT officials. About 100 people were on the plane, Olivia said. New Delhi, Feb 2 : The government on Sunday evacuated seven Maldivians along with 323 Indians from Wuhan, the epicentre of the novel coronavirus epidemic that has left over 300 people dead in China and 14,000 infected. In a tweet, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said that seven Maldivians were brought back along with Indian nationals because India cared for its neighbourhood. He tweeted, "#NeighbourhoodFirst at work again" tagging Maldives President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, former President Mohamed Nasheed and Foreign Minister Abdulla Shahid. One of the tenets of the Modi foreign policy doctrine has been 'Neighbourhood First'. While the US and several other countries are evacuating their own citizens, Pakistan has decided to leave its nationals stranded in Wuhan. India has however decided to help its allies who are unable to evacuate their citizens in the region. On Sunday, the second Air India flight brought back from China, Indian and Maldivian nationals who are required to undergo quarantine. Lockdown-like restrictions to return in Maharashtra? Here's what CM Uddhav Thackeray has to say Uddhav Thackeray backs CAA, opposes NRC India oi-Deepika S Mumbai, Feb 02: Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray reiterated that he is not against the amended citizenship law, but would oppose the two other exercises that revolve around citizenship - the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the National Population Register (NPR). The Citizenship Act is not about taking away citizenship, it is about giving citizenship to persecuted minorities from neighbouring nations, Uddhav Thackeray said in an interview to Saamna. "Proving citizenship will be difficult for both Hindus and Muslims. I will not let that happen," he added. The Maha Vikas Aghadi government of the Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress, which are part of along with the Shiv Sena, are opposed to the CAA and want the state government to adopt a resolution against the law. The Citizenship (Amendment) Act for the first time makes religion the test of citizenship in India. The government says it will help minorities from three Muslim-dominated countries to get citizenship if they fled to India before 2015 because of religious persecution. The country has seen protests across the states against the CAA, NRC and NPR. Critics say it is designed to discriminate against Muslims and violates the secular principles of the constitution. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has rejected the plan. by Anwar A. Khan Trumps au naturel plan is for Israel-America axis only, but it is not for any interest of Palestinians. It is an unpeaceable plan in a flash. This so-called peace plan cant be imposed on Palestines people. As people see a great danger is looking sharp ahead. It is an act of imposing peace by imposing apartheid. The writer of this piece denounces this evil agenda. The Balfour Declaration was a public statement issued by the British government (the United Kingdom's Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Lord Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community) in 1917 during the First World War announcing support for the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine, then an Ottoman region with a small minority Jewish population. The local Christian and Muslim community of Palestine, who constituted almost 90% of the population, strongly opposed the declaration. As described by the Palestinian-American philosopher Edward Said in 1979, it was perceived as being made: "(a) by a European power, (b) about a non-European territory, (c) in a flat disregard of both the presence and the wishes of the native majority resident in that territory, and (d) it took the form of a promise about this same territory to another foreign group." As U.S. Donald Trump revealed his disputative plan for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on 28 January 2020, many countries have come out both in support and in opposition to the so-called "deal of the century." The political analysts have agreed that the Trump plan is a failure, and it only serves Israel's interests. Because it violates international legitimacy and does not give the Palestinian people their rights. Washington's role as an Israeli-Palestinian conflict mediator has been questioned with the Trump administration's pro-Israeli policies in the past three years such as recognising Jerusalem as Israel's capital, moving the U.S. embassy to the city, and slashing hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars in humanitarian aid to the Palestinians. Countries, such as, Egypt and the UAE have praised the announcement, whereas others, such as, Turkey and Iran have denounced it as shameful. While Trump has touted it as "a win-win solution for both sides," some leaders have labelled it a "deal of shame," while others say it "could prove a positive step forward". Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said "a thousand no's" to US President Donald Trump's plan, which he said strongly favours Israel. Palestinian factions in Gaza unite has opposed Trump's plan. He said Palestinians remain committed to ending the Israeli occupation and establishing a state with its capital in Jerusalem. Meanwhile, members of Fatah, Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine marched together through Gaza in protest. On last Monday, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh said the deal was "nothing but a plan to finish off the Palestinian cause." Sami Abu Zhuri, a Hamas official, said Trump's comments were "aggressive and will spark a lot of anger. "Trump's statement about Jerusalem is nonsense and Jerusalem will always be the land of the Palestinians," he said. Egypt gave its full support to the plan while calling on both Israelis and Palestinians to carefully study it. It said in a statement that the plan offers a solution that restores all the legitimate rights of Palestinians by creating an independent and sovereign state on the occupied Palestinian territories. Egypt also said it appreciates the US administration's efforts to try to resolve the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Jordan warned against the dangerous consequences of the plan, and also warned against the annexation of Palestinian lands. Israeli promises to annex Jordan Valley and threatens peace deal with Amman. In Amman, dozens of protesters gathered outside the US embassy in protest, shouting slogans including "No to normalisation" and "We will not recognise Israel." Jordan's foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, called for direct negotiations that solve all final status issues, including the protection of the kingdom's interests. The establishment of an independent Palestinian state based on land captured by Israel in a 1967 war, and with East Jerusalem as its capital, is the only path to comprehensive and lasting peace, Safadi said in a statement. "Jordan supports every genuine effort aimed at achieving just and comprehensive peace that people will accept," he said. The UAE said the plan is an important starting point to reaching a peace between Israel and Palestine. The UAE's embassy to the US said that the country appreciates continued US efforts to reach a Palestine-Israel peace agreement. It is a deal funded by Saudi Arabia and the UAE to cement Israeli occupation has echoed by Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, Yemen's Houthi rebels. The Saudi foreign ministry said in a statement that Riyadh renews its assertion of support for the Palestinian people. "The kingdom values the efforts of the administration of President Trump in developing a comprehensive peace deal between the Israeli and Palestinian sides," the ministry said in a statement. Qatar's official news agency released a statement welcoming Trump's plan. It said it appreciated "the endeavours of the current US administration to find solutions for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The Qatari statement also called for a Palestinian state "within the 1967 borders, including East Jerusalem," as well as the right of return. Lebanon's Hezbollah movement called the plan a "deal of shame", and said it was a dangerous step that would have negative consequences on the region's future, according to Al Manar TV. The political bloc also said the proposal would not have happened without the "complicity and betrayal" of several Arab states. The people of the region have to bear the responsibility of standing up to this danger and facing it with every possible and legitimate means. 'Jerusalem is our red line. We won't allow steps to legitimise Israel's occupation and oppression' said by Turkey's foreign ministry. Turkey has condemned Donald Trump's so-called "deal of the century," calling it "stillborn" and another attempt at stealing Palestinian land. "This is an attempt to kill the two-state solution and a plan that aims to annex Palestinian territory by robbing it," the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement. According to Iran's foreign ministry, Iran dismissed the so-called "peace proposal", calling it "a plan of imposition and sanctions. The shameful peace plan imposed by America on the Palestinians is the treason of the century and doomed to fail. "This is a deal between the Zionist regime (Israel) and America. Interaction with Palestinians is not on its agenda," Hesameddin Ashena, an adviser to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, tweeted. Iran's foreign ministry said in a statement that the proposal was not the "deal of the century" but the "treason of the century" and bound to fail. The UK has viewed the plan favourably, saying it could be a "positive step. Prime Minister Boris Johnson had a phone call with Trump after the revealing of the plan and conveyed his support for it. "The leaders discussed the United States proposal for peace between Israelis and Palestinians, which could prove a positive step forward," the prime minister said. The ANC says any peaceful solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that does not include the participation of both states would have no legitimacy. This follows a "peace plan" for the Middle East announced by US President Donald Trump after discussions with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on last Tuesday, where no Palestinian leaders were present. Trump's plan for peace in the Middle East includes establishing the highly contested city of Jerusalem as Israels undivided capital, with a potential Palestinian capital to the east and north of the city. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has rejected the plan. "The true solution will not be found in any place other than in Palestine and Israel. The ANC will continue its solidarity efforts in supporting a just solution, including the strengthening of a sovereign independent state of Palestine, which will help to bring peace to the region and end conflict between Israelis and Palestinians." The proposals Trump unveiled alongside Netanyahu at the White House on last Tuesday are an important attempt to shift the parameters of politics in Israel, the Arab world, and here in the U.S. Despite the way theyre being advertised, none of them have anything to do with achieving peace between Israelis and Palestinians; in fact, they are more mortal blows to the fading prospects of a two-state solution to the conflict. Trumps plan does not break with those decades-long expectations - no evacuations of settlements, Palestinian presence in Jerusalem limited to the eastern outskirts, Palestinian diaspora not just barred from returning to Israel but limited in its ability to immigrate to Palestine. The territory proposed for Palestine is considerably less than what has been offered in the past. The deal doesnt include a path to statehood but rather talks of a future State of Palestine after, among other things, the Palestinian armed group Hamas which currently controls the Gaza Strip, along with a significant portion of Palestinian territory and population disbands. Israels security is to come not from its full, equal, unstinting inclusion in the community of nations as well as its national power, but from national power alone. There are also the actual right-wing policies. Some of Netanyahus supporters have urged him to act immediately to declare sovereignty over the areas that Trumps map shows as remaining with Israel. This would be another in a series of blows to the set of international legal norms that had, for decades, been the supposed foundation of a solution to the conflict and were meant to be norms that all sides benefited by observing. Netanyahus Cabinet will reportedly vote on annexing all settlements and Jordan Valley areas as early as possible. That move, if it happens, will produce another layer of crisis for U.S. and Israeli Arab partners, for the United Nations, and for Europe and in all likelihood violence and suffering for Israeli and Palestinian civilians. What we dont need to wait to see is that U.S. policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is now irrevocably shaped by the worldview of Trump and his allies, in which it is in the U.S. interest that the strong do what they will and the weak endure what they must. It is a strongly pro-Israeli plan, as it reveals. It is also a purely dictated and one-side plan. It is truly Like South Africas grand apartheid. The plan vital force to uncover the despicable contort grimace of Trump. It means more bloodshed of the Palestinians by another scallywag state - Israel in the coming days. A proverb is appropriate here, You cant make a silk purse out of a sows ear. -The End- The writer is an independent political observer based in Dhaka, Bangladesh who writes on politics, political and human-centered figures, current and international affairs Casper-born artists David Rufenacht and Isaac Whitlatch have created most of their work in the commercial art field for years. Then, they decided to collaborate for a first show of their personal work, Loose Ribs, at Scarlows Gallery in downtown Casper Work and families have left little time for the artists personal projects through the years, but the show spurred them to create many new pieces. The two mingled Friday with family, friends and strangers during the opening reception for their show. Artists are often private and work by themselves in studios, Rufenacht said. Before the show, only a handful of people have seen even pieces he created about year ago. So its kind of nice to get them all out there and get seen. Rufenacht works primarily as a graphic designer at Pedens inc. in Casper. Whitlatch is an illustrator and two-dimensional designer who also works as a resident artist instructor in Helena, Montana. Both discovered their artistic passion while growing up in Casper and met while Whitlatch attended Natrona County High School and Rufenacht was at Kelly Walsh. Although their backgrounds may be similar, its easy to tell their art apart by their distinct styles. Rufenacht described his art, in mainly graphite as well as other mediums, as more detailed and controlled, while Whitlatch creates in a looser, graffiti-like style. What I always say is, I just give my eyes what they want, Whitlatch said. His art often emphasizes tone. When you look at it, you should have a pretty immediate emotional reaction, he explained. His imagery in the show was created mainly in marker and includes a range of subjects, including people, firearms, cars, objects and one that captures the feeling he described of sitting on a horse when its cold and late. One is a portrait of his mother, local elementary art teacher Mary Fair Whitlatch. He grew up with artist parents and studied advertising illustration at The Brooks Institute for Photography in Santa Barbara, California. His brother, Luke Whitlatch, had a show at Scarlows in 2018. But hes a fine artist and this is the first fine art show that Ive done, Wihtlatch said. Because most of the time its like work for hire like contract work so Im kind of if out of my comfort zone. Youre like, this is how I see the planet, and you put it out there, he added. Rufenacht describes his personal work in his artists statement as fantastical and surreal, often resisting the mundane. Some of his work features themes of nature versus humans, the relationship between the two and ways they can co-exist, he said. He doesnt try to conform or limit himself to any style, but experiments and tries various ideas, he said. He values freedom in his art, to bring his daydreams to life and the freedom to follow a thread wherever it may lead, he said in his artists statement. He often finds those threads leading from one idea or project to the next. He expressed the idea in a literal way with his graphite work of an armadillo depicted with a string tied to a grenade pin coming out of the creatures back and winding out of the image frame on both sides. And thats a little more literal, because there actually is a thread in there. But a lot of times its more just symbolically threaded together. Rufenacht included mainly pieces hed already created but also new work, while Whitlatch created new pieces. Both hope to keep their creative momentum going with more personal work and to display their work again. So now were kind of re-engaging with the art community, Rufenacht said. Whitlatch was surprised by the reception turnout that included several long-time friends and even a sister-in-law from Washington D.C. he wasnt expecting. I think its hard to feel like what you made is important to other people. So Im kind of overwhelmed. The experience has inspired him to expand from his typical work as well. Theres more to come. Follow arts & culture reporter Elysia Conner on twitter @erconner Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Three leaders of the National Conference (NC) and one of the Peoples Democratic Party were released on Sunday, almost six months after they were put under detention as the Centre scrapped Jammu and Kashmirs special status and bifurcated it into two Union territories in August last year. The NCs Abdul Majeed Larmi, Ghulam Nabi Bhat and Mohd Shafi were released from the MLA Hostel in Srinagar by the Jammu and Kashmir administration, according to news agency ANI. Another PDP leader Mohd Yusuf Bhat has also been released, Asian News International said. The NCs Nazir Gurezi, former minister Abdul Haq Khan, Peoples Conference leader Mohammad Abbas Wani and former Congress legislator Haji Abdul Rasheed were released last month. Politicians of various mainstream parties still under detention at government-owned MLA hostel on Moulana Azad Road and officials have said that other detained leaders will be released in a phased manner. These leaders were among hundreds of people and dozens of mainstream politicians including former chief ministers Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Muftidetained by the government a day ahead of the revocation of J&Ks special status on August 5. Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti have been under detention at two government bungalows but sources privy to developments had recently said that Omar will be moved to his residence at Srinagars Gupkar area shortly. Farooq Abdullah, NC president and Srinagar MP, continues to be in detention at his Gupkar house which is next door to Omars. Mufti, who was lodged at Hari Niwas, was later shifted to a rest house at Chesma Shahi on the foothills of Zabarwan mountains. She was shifted to an official house at Maulana Azad Road close to MLA hostel in December last year. Opposition leaders have criticised the Centre for their detention and demanded their release at the earliest. Servicemen of the Russian airbase at Syrias Hmeymim replied an attack of drones launched from the territory of the terrorists-controlled Idlib de-escalation zone, Major General Yuri Borenkov, chief of the Russian Center for Reconciliation of the Opposing Parties in Syria, said on Sunday, Trend reports citing TASS. "At about 23:00 Moscow time on February 1, airspace control tools of the Russian airbase at Hmeymim stopped a cluster air target of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) launched from militants-controlled territory of the Idlib de-escalation zone. The bases electronic warfare systems took over control of the UAVs and deactivated their control systems," he said. According to Borenkov, no one was hurt, no damage was done to the base. The Hmeymim base continues to operate in a routine mode. He also said that illegal armed groups continued to violate the ceasefire in the Idlib de-escalation zone. "Thirty-two shelling attacks were reported during the day," he said. Four de-escalation zones were established in Syria under as agreement reached by the three Syrian ceasefire guarantor nations, namely Russia, Iran and Turkey, in May 2017. Three of them are now controlled by Damascus while the fourth one located in the Idlib governorate and partially in the neighboring Latakia, Hama and Aleppo governorates is still outside Damascus control, with a larger part of it being seized by Jabhat al-Nusra (a terrorist organization outlawed in Russia) militants. The Russian reconciliation center continues to fulfill assigned tasks after the completion of the military campaign in Syria. The centers officers regularly travel around the country's liberated areas to assess the humanitarian situation. The main efforts of the Russian military are now focused on assistance to the refugees returning to their homes and evacuation of civilians from de-escalation zones. More than 100 persons are battling with head, stomach aches, fever, diarrhea as strange ailment kills five in Benue state. The strange ailment reportedly broke out in the border settlement of Oye-Obi, an Island bordering Obi and Oju Local Government Areas, LGA, of Benue State. Caretaker Chairman of Oju LGA, Mr Alicia Eru while speaking in Makurdi on Friday said some of the victims had been moved from the Oju General Hospital, GHO, to the Benue State University Teaching Hospital, BSUTH, for further investigation and treatment. She said, It is actually a strange ailment. Four people died after the outbreak and when the issue was brought to my notice I sent people to the community and three of the victims were brought to GHO. Read Also: Lassa Fever: Four New Cases Confirmed In Bauchi When doctors confirmed the condition of the victims we moved to the Island and discovered that over 100 people are down with the strange ailment. And from our interaction, they all had the same symptom of headache, fever, internal heat, diarrhoea, vomiting, stomach ache and body weakness. We learnt that after the initial death of four people another victim died Friday morning. Outside that figure, some are in the rural hospital which does not have many facilities to handle the case. Though through the member of the House of Assembly a nurse and doctor were sent there to assist. They carried out some tests and discovered that about 24 of the victims had Hepatitis B. But we are still waiting for the result of the test carried out at the BSUTH for further intervention. On the possibility of the people drinking contaminated water, Mrs Eru said, the island is surrounded by Rivers Oyono and Obi from where they drink water. You cannot access there with a vehicle let alone drill a borehole, it is only by canoe. Since the outbreak, the people have reframed from leaving their food in the open or drying foodstuffs in the open, shaking hands and talking to each other in a gathering, they are living in fear, we need help, she added. Credit: CC0 Public Domain China's army on Sunday was given control of a nearly-finished field hospital that will treat patients at the epicentre of a deadly virus epidemic that has severely strained medical facilities. Some 1,400 military medics will treat patients at the 1,000-bed hospital, dubbed "Fire God Mountain", which will receive its first patients on Mondayjust 10 days after construction began, according to state media. The official Xinhua news agency said many of the staff were involved in the fight against another coronavirus, SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), which killed some 650 people in mainland China and Hong Kong in 2002-2003. It is one of two makeshift medical facilities that the authorities decided to build in order to relieve hospitals swamped with patients in Wuhan, the central city at the epicentre of the national health emergency. People in the city of 11 million people, which has been under quarantine for more than a week, have complained of waiting hours in line to see a doctor. The new coronavirus, which is believed to have originated at a wild animal market in Wuhan, has killed more than 300 people and infected another 14,000. The second field hospital, "Thunder God Mountain", is set to start admitting patients on Thursday, with 1,600 beds300 more than originally planned. Explore further China races against the clock to build virus hospitals 2020 AFP Subscribing to our services is a three step process. First you have to create an account and then you have to pick if you want to subscribe to digital and or print. Some people only want to be a digital subscriber to get access online and others want to also receive the print edition. If you are already a print subscriber and want online access, it is free, you simply have to create an online account and then attach your print subscription account number to the online account you create. By the time I sat down with Jeff Link in his downtown Des Moines office on Thursday afternoon, I was the sixth reporter hed spoken to that day. Some days, he says, he receives up to a dozen media requests. The reason why I agree to do so many, he explains, [is because] I believe its critically important that we nominate somebody, not only that can beat Trump and win back some of these rural districts, but help the entire ticket. Link, 53, is one of very few experienced Democratic strategists in Iowa this cycle who is unaffiliated with any campaign. That makes him indispensable to political reporters in search of a high-level Democratic perspective on the first-in-the-nation caucuses in Iowa. And that, in turn, means that in the last year and a half, Links name has appeared more than 200 times, by his own estimate, in nearly every major news outlet, from the New York Times and the Associated Press, to the Washington Post, the Philadelphia Inquirer and, yes, TIME. In assuming this unofficial role as Iowas Democratic whisperer, Link has amassed outsized influence on one of the most important early states in the 2020 presidential election cycle. As millions of voters try to keep up with the dizzying race, its Links face and Links nameand Links ideasthey see again and again. Devin Yalkin for TIME One of Links main messages, amplified in national news outlets, is fairly straightforward: he believes that Democrats needlessly lost to President Donald Trump in 2016 by making fun of Trump and alienating his supporters. Trump wanted to run as an anti-elitist, even though he lived in a penthouse apartment, he says, incidentally revealing a pair of red, white, and blue dress socks. Not only did we let him, but we had a condescending attitude towards rural and working class voters that cost us the White House. One way to fix the problem, Link says, is to help Democrats do a better job of wooing rural voters. In 2017, he and former Iowa Lieutenant Governor Patty Judge formed a nonprofit task force, Focus on Rural America, to help campaigns reach beyond the cities. Link estimates theyve consulted with somewhere around fifteen Democratic campaigns this cycle. Story continues Rural Americans dont want to witness a cultural fight between Democrats and Republicans, Link says. They want to access to a doctor. They want an opportunity for a job that pays more than the minimum wage, he adds. They want to provide their kids with an opportunity to get a technical degree or some sort of advanced skill or maybe college. If the rural voting bloc is Links favorite topic, its hardly the only one on which hell opine. Should Iowa, which is known for its lack of diversity, continue to hold such sway in selecting a presidential nominee? Iowas job is to winnow the field, he says, without missing a beat. We started with 24 and and were going to be down to five or six. So I think Iowa did its job. Devin Yalkin for TIME How has impeachment impacted the three top-tier candidates who have been stuck in Washington for the trial? Being away actually benefitted Amy Klobuchar, Link suggests. On Tuesday night, the Minnesota senator traveled 1,146-miles from D.C. to Council Bluffs, Iowa in a surprise trip just hours after the days impeachment duties had wrapped. If she were not in trial, and had a full day of events and ended up in Council Bluffs, everyone would be like yawn, he says with a chuckle. But it was the news of the day because she made this Herculean effort to get there. Links experience in Democratic politics goes back nearly three decades. In 1992, he was Bill Clintons first Pennsylvania campaign staffer, and eight years later, he helped Democrats win Iowa as the state director for the Gore-Lieberman campaign. By 2008, he was managing consulting teams in 25 states as Barack Obamas Deputy Director of Paid Media and Research. But Links newfound role as a freewheeling pundit is somewhat new to him, he tells me. Normally, on a weekend like this, Id be sitting in a windowless office on conference calls all day, he says. And this time Im on the outside looking in. Link looks forward to unwinding with a glass of white winenow that dry January is overand keeping up with his routine of going to the YMCA three times per week at 5:30 a.m. But for now, there are two more days before the Iowa caucus and his schedule is packed. In fact, an evening obligation with a local news network during Mondays caucuses will prevent him from showing up to his own precinct to select a candidate. Hes disappointed to not be counted, he says. But its not as if he hasnt influenced the race. Kapil Mishra election result 2020 live news and latest updates online - Read about Kapil Mishra AAP candidate who is fighting Delhi assembly (Vidhan Sabha) election from Karawal Nagar seat and many more at Firstpost.com. Kapil Mishra, the controversial AAP leader who defected to the BJP in 2019, lost from Model Town constituency to AAP's Akhilesh Pati Tripathi. The former Karawal Nagar MLA has been in the media glare ever since he rebelled against the party in May 2017, accusing chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and health minister Satyendar Jain of corruption. As a result, he was sacked as a minister and suspended from the partys primary membership. Mishra first rose to prominence in 2010 when he protested against the alleged irregularities in the preparations for the Delhi Commonwealth Games. However, his association with public causes dates back to the early 2000s when he founded the Youth for Justice, an action group that led protests across Delhi during the Jessica Lal murder trial. Moreover, as a citizen journalist he also exposed the rampant encroachments along the Yamuna river. After associating himself with the AAP, he contested the 2013 polls but narrowly lost to veteran BJP leader Mohan Singh Bisht. He, however, made a stunning comeback in the next election, defeating Bisht by a margin of over 44,000 votes. He was made a cabinet minister and given the charge of the water resources ministry. However, he was sacked from the position in 2017 after he accused Kejriwal of accepting a Rs 2 crore bribe from Jain. The allegation, however, has never been proven, with the official investigation finding no proof against the chief minister. In a dramatic change of heart, Mishra became an ardent Narendra Modi supporter after his rebellion. Not only did he vocally support the BJP on national and local issues, he also campaign in support of the saffron party during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. In August 2019, he was expelled from the Delhi Assembly under the anti-defection law. Subsequently, he joined the BJP. Recently, he came under fire for his tweet comparing 8 February (the day of voting) to an India versus Pakistan match. The Election Commission later imposed a 48-hour campaign ban on him. Tajikistan's state prosecutor has confirmed that it detained independent journalist Daler Sharifov on extremism charges. The Dushanbe-based journalist, who often writes about domestic politics and is known for his criticism of Tajik authorities, has been in custody since January 28, relatives told RFE/RL. Sharifov's lawyer, Abdurahmon Sharifov, who is no relation, told RFE/RL earlier that a court had ruled on January 30 to place the 32-year-old journalist in pretrial detention for two months, saying he was suspected of "inciting ethnic, racial, and religious discord." The Prosecutor-General's Office said in a press statement that Sharifov was detained over his publication of "more than 200 articles and commentaries containing extremist content" between 2013 and 2019, AFP reported on February 2. The statement issued late on February 1 also said that Sharifov had published 100 copies of an unidentified text allegedly affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood movement, which was banned in Tajikistan in 2006. Sharifov could face five years in prison if found guilty of the charges. Sharifov's wife, Saida Kurbonova, told RFE/RL on January 31 that her husband had been called in by the authorities for questioning several times in the past, but had been released. She said she was not aware of the nature of the conversations. This time, she said, he did not receive a summons and was duped into an interrogation on January 28 at the State Security Committee. On January 27, police searched Sharifov's apartment in Dushanbe and confiscated a computer and several books. Kurbonova said all his Arabic-language books were taken. Some in the Tajik media have suggested that Sharifov's detention is a blow to freedom of speech in the country, where journalists often face pressure from the authorities. Tajikistan, whose government controls all things religious in the mostly Muslim country, is preparing to hold parliamentary elections in March and presidential elections in November. With reporting by AFP French President Emmanuel Macron will pay his first visit to Poland on Monday in a bid to mend ties strained over Warsaw's controversial judicial reforms and its position on EU climate goals. Controversial judicial reforms have put Poland's right-wing populist Law and Justice (PiS) government on a collision course with Brussels over rule of law violations. At the same time, an agreement by EU leaders in December to try to make the bloc carbon neutral by 2050 was immediately undermined by Poland's refusal to implement the aim. Macron's office said the trip, his first abroad this year, was aimed at "clarifying the French position on many European issues, opening up new areas of cooperation with a major EU partner and stressing the need to protect European democratic values." Up to now, relations have been cool at best. Macron in 2018 himself accused Poland's PiS government and Hungary's populist Premier Viktor Orban of "lying to their people" about the European Union's powers to interfere in domestic affairs. - 'Reset needed' - "A reset is necessary because it couldn't be worse," said Eryk Mistewicz, head of the Warsaw-based Institute for New Media think-tank, pointing to "a spiral of misunderstanding and lack of mutual respect" between Paris and Warsaw. Brexit has made good relations with Poland all the more important as the central European heavyweight will now be the EU's fifth-largest member in terms of population and sixth in terms of GDP. "It's time to get real," Polish political scientist Alexander Smolar told AFP, adding that he expected Paris and Warsaw to push forward on economic ties in areas like nuclear and renewable energy as well as military or digital cooperation. Up to now, Poland has sought to buy US military equipment as a way of bolstering its already strong ties with the major NATO ally. In the past, it chose US-made F-16 fighter jets over French Mirage warplanes and now, just days ahead of Macron's arrival, Warsaw sealed a 4.6-billion dollar deal with the US for new F-35 fighters. It also triggered outrage in Paris in 2016 when it pulled out of a 3.14-billion euro contract for 50 Caracal helicopters at the last minute. Now, however, "there is an awareness on the Polish side about its isolation in the EU, of having wasted the chance that the Weimar Triangle gave (a three-way platform between Paris, Berlin and Warsaw) and of a host of other errors," said Smolar, head of the Warsaw-based Stefan Batory pro-democracy NGO. - 'Green Deal' - Despite their political differences, economic ties between the two EU partners remain strong and stable. France ranks sixth on Poland's list of trade partners, having exchanged nearly 21 billion euros worth of goods in 2018. French companies take fourth spot on Poland's foreign investor ranking, having poured more 18 billion euros into the country via some 1,100 companies, according to Polish data. Macron "is likely to try to explore common interests in the Multiannual Financial Framework (future EU budget) negotiations and seek ways to bring Poland into the European Green Deal," according to Pawel Zerka, a policy fellow at the European Council of Foreign Relations. The Green Deal is the EU's new one-trillion-euro ($1.1-trillion) plan to finance its goal of making the bloc carbon neutral by 2050. Macron is set to hold talks with Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki as well as the speakers of both houses of parliament in Warsaw on Monday before meeting with students in the southern city of Krakow on Tuesday. An Indian citizen who is having a permanent home in the UAE and has his employment or business in the UAE and most of the time stay in the UAE would not be hit by a new provision in the Finance Bill 2020 and would remain resident of the UAE, said the government on Sunday. The Finance Bill 2020 has introduced a Sub-section (1A) in Section 6 deeming an Indian citizen to be resident in India if he is not liable to tax anywhere else. "An Indian citizen who is having a permanent home in UAE and have his employment or business in UAE and most of the time stay in UAE would not be hit by this provision and would remain resident of UAE," said the government. To dispel doubts about the new provision, the government says that "there is an Indian citizen who stays in UAE. As per UAE law, if a person stays there for 183 days or more in a calendar year, he becomes resident of UAE. If under Sub-section (1A), he also becomes resident in India. It becomes a case of tie-breaker. The tie-breaker rule is applied in accordance with Article 4 of India UAE DTAA." The first rule is where does this person have a permanent home. If he has a permanent home in UAE only, the tie-breaker test is resolved in favour of him being a resident of UAE. According to the government, if he has a permanent home in both the UAE and India, we go to the second test, which is the centre of vital interest being personal and economic relation. If a person is employed only in UAE or has business establishment only in the UAE or has a source of income only in the UAE, then his economic relation would only lie in the UAE. Under such a scenario, he would become a resident of the UAE. If he has personal and economic relation both in India and in UAE, the next tie-breaker test is where does he habitually abode (reside). Habitually abode criteria is decided based on period of time one stay in a country. If a person actually resides only in the UAE and occasionally visits India, he would be resident of the UAE, says the government further. Thus, the following scenario would illustrate this tie-breaker rule: 1) An Indian citizen has permanent home only in India and he starts staying in the UAE to avoid payment of tax in India. In this case, he would be resident in India and would be liable to tax in India on global income. 2) An Indian citizen has a permanent home in India and personal and economic relation as well only in India and to avoid payment of taxes in India he starts staying in India. He also buys a house in UAE but personal and economic relation remains in India. In this case, he would be resident in India and would be liable to tax in India on global income. 3) On the other hand, if an Indian citizen has permanent home only in UAE he would be resident in UAE and would not be hit by this new provision. 4) Further, if he has a permanent home in both India and the UAE but personal and economic interest only in the UAE. For example, he is having employment or business establishment or source of income only in the UAE. In this case, he will be a resident of the UAE and would not be hit by this new provision. 5) In another situation, if Indian citizen has a permanent home as well as personal and economic interest both in India and the UAE and if he stays in the UAE regularly and occasionally visits India, his place of habitual abode would be in UAE and he would be resident of the UAE and would not be hit by this provision. "Thus, an Indian citizen who is having a permanent home in UAE and have his employment or business in UAE and most of the time stay in UAE would not be hit by this provision and would remain resident of UAE," says the government. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A woman listens as a doctor explains gum disease. /Korea Times file By Bahk Eun-ji Periodontitis, also generally known as gum disease or periodontal disease, usually begins with bacteria growth in the mouth. If it is not properly treated, the mouth can be end up with tooth loss due to destruction of the tissue that surrounds the teeth. Gum disease is classified into gingivitis and periodontitis depending on the degree of progression. In the early stages of gingivitis, bacteria builds up in plaque, and causes the gums to become inflamed and to easily bleed during tooth brushing. At this stage, damage to teeth or tissue do not occur, even if the gum is irritated. Gingivitis can be treated to some extent by just brushing the teeth properly, but in the case of periodontitis in which the inflammation progresses, it is impossible to recover by simple brushing. However, if gingivitis is not treated, it can develop into periodontitis. Periodontitis is an inflammation of the gums and supporting structures of the teeth. The inflammation brings swollen, red and bleeding gums and is the body's defense against certain bacteria that have been allowed to collect on the surface of teeth. If the bacteria are not removed regularly by brushing, the inflammation spreads below the gum line, destroying the supporting structures of the teeth, which is bone and ligaments, possibly leading to tooth loss. One of the most common misconceptions about gum disease is that perhaps it does not affect the young people as it is typically associated with aging. However, the onset of periodontal disease can often begin long before people reach retirement age. In many cases, people in their 20s often don't experience any symptoms, and it leads to delay treatment for gum disease. "The red light on the dental and oral health of young adults and middle-aged people. Proper measures to prevent dental caries of children, periodontal disease of young adults and tooth loss of elderly people are highly needed," said Kim Chul-soo, a chair of the Korean Association of Dentists (KAD). According to a report released by the KDA, dental caries have steadily increased among young children under 10, and periodontal disease has also increased among people in their 20s and 50s for the last nine years from 2010. More than 20 million patients were treated for periodontal disease and dental caries during the same period. In 2018, 5.89 million patients visited hospital for dental caries, accounting for 11.5 percent of the total health insurance coverage. In 2010, there were no significant changes with 5.37 million patients, accounting for 11 percent of the insurance coverage, but those under the age of 10 showed a steady increase. The number of patients under 10 increased by 10 percent to 1.4 million or 32.9 percent in 2018 from 1.09 million or 23.6 percent in 2010. "When establishing oral health policy, it is necessary to give priority to policies to prevent dental caries for children, periodontal disease for young adults, and tooth loss for older people," said Min Kyung-ho, a research director of the KDA who was the lead author of the report. What cause gum disease? When bacteria in plaque produce toxins meets the body's enzymes fighting infections, start to break down the bone and connective tissue holding teeth in place. The pockets deepen and gum tissue is destroyed. As the disease progresses, teeth can no longer stand firmly so that they become loose and tooth loss occurs. "Prevention is better than cure. Gum disease and dental caries often start from poor oral hygiene mainly due to poor teeth brushing," said Kim Mi-sun, a professor and pedodentist at Gangdong Kyung Hee University Dental Hospital. "For oral health, you have to be careful about choosing the right one among many oral hygiene products," Kim said. Patients need to get dental checkup regularly at least once every three months, because doctors apply fluoride to the patients' teeth while the checkup to treat bacterial infections. Using of low concentration of fluoride gargle and brushing teeth with a nutritious cream made from milk can be also effective in preventing tooth decay. Less than seven hours after Byrds arrest, a guard counting inmates just after midnight on Oct. 1 discovered him in his cell, according to a police report. The guard performed CPR on Byrd, and he was taken to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 1:15 a.m. The Congress on Saturday attacked the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government over the union budget, saying it was in complete denial that the economy faces a grave macroeconomic challenge and claimed that it had given up on reviving the economy, accelerating growth and creating jobs. Addressing a news conference at the Congress headquarters in New Delhi, former finance minister P Chidambaram slammed the budget, saying there was nothing in the package that led one to believe that growth will revive in 2020-21. The claim of 6 to 6.5% growth next year is astonishing and even irresponsible, he said. The senior Congress leader said the government does not believe in reforms and certainly not in structural reforms as finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman had outright rejected every reform idea in the economic survey. Did the finance minister read the economic survey? Was the chief economic adviser privy to the content of the budget speech? I think the answer to both questions is in the negative, he added. Chidambaram said the budget speech contained multiple themes, segments and programmes, leaving the listener dazed and confused. It was a laundry list of old [that is, current] programmes. I am pretty certain that even the most loyal BJP MP or supporter cannot latch on to any idea or statement in the budget speech and take it to the people. If the ongoing programmes have failed the people, how will throwing more money into the programmes change anything, he asked. The government has given up on reviving the economy or accelerating the growth rate or promoting private investment or increasing efficiency or creating jobs or winning a greater share of world trade, Chidambaram said. The Indian economy is demand-constrained and investment-starved, and the finance minister has not acknowledged these two challenges, he added. You did not ask for such a budget and you did not deserve such a budget for voting the BJP to power. But you have to live with it until the government is forced to revisit it, as it did in 2019, Chidambaram said. Earlier, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said the budget contained no strategic idea or anything concrete and it showed the hollow approach of the government that was all talk and nothing happening. He told reporters outside Parliament that the budget was repetitive and did not address the main issue of unemployment confronting the countrys young people and the poor state of the economy. The main issues confronting this country today are unemployment and the situation as far as the economy is concerned. I did not see any concrete idea, any strategic idea, that would help our youngsters get jobs. I saw a lot of tactical stuff, redundant things, I did not see any central idea, Gandhi said. The speech was more than 2 hours and 45 minutes [long]. A lot of repetition, a lot of rambling and nothing concrete. So it is the mindset of the government: all talk, all talk, all talk, nothing happening. But the country is, of course, suffering, he said. In Kolkata, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee criticised the government for its proposal to sell a part of its stake in Life Insurance Corporation (LIC), describing it as a plan to ambush the legacy of public institutions. I am shocked and appalled to see how the central government plans to ambush the heritage and legacy of public institutions. Its the end of sense of security. Is it also an end of an era? she tweeted. Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Sitaram Yechury said the budget consisted of just platitudes and did not address the problems faced by the people. Just platitudes & slogans. Nothing substantial to alleviate peoples misery, the growing unemployment, rural wage crash, farmers distress suicides and galloping prices, he tweeted. In Mumbai, Maharashtra chief minister and Shiv Sena supremo Uddhav Thackeray reacted sharply, saying the budget was far away from economic realities and only promised dreams to the young, farmers and commoners. He said the government hoped to achieve a 10% growth rate, but it was barely 5% in the current year and as per the economic survey it is forecast to be 6-6.5% for the next year. This is the lowest growth rate in recent years and not in expectations with the Prime Ministers dream of achieving a $5 trillion economy, Thackeray said. The Opposition is criticising the budget because it is obligatory for them to be critical of anything the government does. If one looks at the budget objectively, it lays out a road map for building critical infrastructure with special focus on backward districts. It is high on its focus on social spending and marginalised sections. Is this what the opposition is upset about, questioned BJP leader Amit Malviya. Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) speaks at a campaign stop at Peace Tree Brewing in Des Moines, Iowa Friday. Read more DES MOINES, Iowa Standing in a crowd waiting for an Elizabeth Warren campaign event to begin, Mary Jackovin-Bates felt filled with dread. I am more scared than Ive ever been before, Jackovin-Bates said Friday as she discussed the difficulty deciding which Democrat to pick to take on President Donald Trump. I dont want to make a mistake. Heading into Mondays Iowa caucuses, the first vote in the Democratic presidential primary season, Democrats around the state described feeling anxious as they face a vast array of choices in what many of them consider an election with existential consequences. I dont know what Ill do in November if I wake up and hes reelected again, said Jackovin-Bates. She liked Warrens ideas, but feared the Massachusetts senator might be too liberal to win. So she was also considering Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind. Her husband backs Joe Biden and her daughter, Grace Wilson, 18, supports Warren. I really am a bundle of nerves, said Linda Sporven, 64, a Buttigieg supporter from Council Bluffs, on the border with Nebraska, adding that shes probably watching too much news. I panic because Im afraid Trump is going to win. The unease has left many Democrats considering, considering some more, and then reconsidering as the vote nears. Its not just that Democrats want to win. They still feel stung by the 2016 election, and fear that the countrys character, values, and international standing are at stake. The candidates hit the theme, too. I dont think the responsibility, no matter how many caucuses youve participated in, has ever been bigger than this one, Biden said in North Liberty on Saturday morning. Not because I am running, but because Donald Trump is president, and we owe it to well beyond the Democratic Party, we owe it to the American people ... that hes referred to in a year from now as a former president. The line drew the most enthusiastic applause of his Saturday morning event. Recent Iowa polls have shown a late surge by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders but still a tight four-way race at the top and potential volatility. A Monmouth University survey released last week found that close to half of likely caucus-goers could still change their minds. The sense of responsibility, and worry, came up over and over in interviews over the last week with roughly two dozen Iowa Democrats from all parts of the state, and at various candidate events. As an Iowan, I think we really feel that weight, said Jake Jansen, 22, a precinct captain for Sanders in Dubuque. Is it our fault if the winner in the caucus goes on to lose the general election? That would suck. READ MORE: How the Iowa caucuses work We got burned Explaining their decision-making, Democrats veered between voting with their hearts, to backing someone they believe can unite the country or favoring a candidate whose liberal agenda might excite voters. Many were left flustered by a still-sprawling field of candidates. Each option had appeal, but also liabilities questions about age (too young or too old), temperament, energy, and viability with swing voters. Democrats have a lot of good candidates, but not a stand-out great candidate," said Tiffany Tamm, 52, of North Liberty. She is supporting Biden, calling him the safest choice. I had lunch with some friends last week and nobody had decided who theyre going to support because theyre so scared theyre going to pick the wrong one, said JoAnn Hardy, Democratic chair in Cerro Gordo County, one of the many in northeast Iowa that swung from Barack Obama to Trump in 2016. We all feel like we got burned, in 2016, said Iowa State Rep. Jennifer Konfrst, "so theres a lot of trepidation. Karen Pratte, the Democratic chair in rural Allamakee County, was one of several caucus veterans who saw an unusual amount of indecision. People seem to be heading into the caucus with their one and two, and sometimes third choice set up. I dont think, of the top four candidates, anyone has really solidified, said Bret Nilles, the Democratic chair in Linn County, Iowas second largest. Everyones looking for the perfect nominee, but none has emerged. I think people would love it if we could combine several candidates into one, Konfrst said. But even as Iowans most often say they want someone who can win, theres no agreement about what makes a candidate electable. In more moderate Obama-Trump voting counties, which in some ways resemble the politics of Northeastern and Western Pennsylvania, party leaders say they are seeking a centrist to swing those areas back. Excitement vs. Outreach Im probably more progressive as an individual. But I know that is not where my county is, that is not where the country is, said Michelle Smith, the Democratic chair in Jasper County, one of 31 in Iowa that supported Obama twice before flipping to Trump. After backing Sanders in 2016, Smith is behind Biden this time, even as she acknowledged that the former vice president doesnt stir much enthusiasm. Where our country is now, its a different place than 2016. We need some healing. Similarly, Lynette Jacoby, 52, of Coralville, said she supports Warrens policies but was leaning toward caucusing for a more moderate option, such as Biden, Buttigieg, or Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar. Konfrst, though, has had a different political experience, and a different calculus. In 2018 she won a Republican-held state House district in suburban Des Moines, part of the same wave that saw Democrats romp in the suburbs of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. After initially endorsing New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, who dropped out, Konfrst now backs Warren citing the value of diversity and of excitement to drive Democratic turnout. We need to make sure that our party is still listening to voices that dont look like almost every other president we ever had, Konfrst said, pointing to the energy behind Warren. Enthusiasms going to be a huge component of what electability looks like. Similarly, University of Iowa student Patrick McMillan acknowledged that Sanders would be attacked by Trump as a socialist but also saw an upside in the senators unflinching, dramatic proposals on health care and free public college. Its a risky situation, McMillan, 19, said at a Vampire Weekend concert hosted by the Sanders campaign in Cedar Rapids. But its a risk worth taking in this political climate where people are so ready for change. Its like a spiders web Teresa Euken, of Red Oak in western Iowa, had never caucused before. But this year shes not only participating, but became a precinct captain for Buttigieg, working to woo other voters to support him. Were probably at the biggest crossroads weve been at in years, said Euken, 56. Some voters had other criteria. If I was thinking about electability, I might be like, OK, we should just go with Joe Biden, said Paul Stewart of suburban West Des Moines. But Stewart, 40, had settled on Warren because he saw her as the leader his son and two daughters could look up to, in contrast to Trump. Jansen, the Sanders volunteer and Loras College senior, said fighting climate change is so important it overrides all other considerations. As much as Iowa Democrats feel a responsibility to help their party win, theres even more responsibility to elect a candidate who can bring a change that could affect the entire globe, he said. Goran Hassan, 38, described himself as the only Kurd in Iowa. Originally from northern Iraq, he likes Warrens domestic plans but favors Biden or Buttigieg on international affairs. He was still undecided. Its like a spiders web for me, man. This week in Christian history: John Wesley arrives in America; Protestant martyr; anti-Nazi pastor tried Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Christianity is a faith with a long and detailed history, with numerous events of lasting significance occurring throughout the ages. Each week brings the anniversaries of great milestones, horrid tragedies, amazing triumphs, telling tribulations, inspirational progress, and everything in between. Here are just a few things that happened this week, Feb. 2-8, in Church history. They include the execution of the first Protestant martyr under Englands Bloody Mary, John Wesley arriving in George colony to evangelize, and the trial of a famous anti-Nazi pastor. 1 2 3 4 Next Air China Ltd. flight attendants wearing disposable face masks walk through the departure hall at San Francisco International Airport in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Friday, Jan. 31, 2020. Bloomberg The coverage on this live blog has ended but for up-to-the-minute coverage on the coronavirus, visit the live blog from CNBC's Asia-Pacific team. All times in U.S. eastern standard time The number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus worldwide is now 14,557, most of which are in China, according to World Health Organization (WHO) data. The death toll has risen to at least 304. A 44-year-old man in the Philippines died of the virus on Saturday, making him the first reported death outside of China. All territories and provinces in China have now been impacted by the virus. 5:00 pm: Santa Clara County reports ninth US case of coronavirus The ninth U.S. case of coronavirus was confirmed in Santa Clara County on Sunday. It's the second case in the San Francisco Bay area. The case is in a woman who was recently in Wuhan, China, and visited the U.S. to see family on Jan 23, according to the County of Santa Clara Public Health Department. 3:00 pm: Russian Railways halts passenger trains to China Russian Railways said on Sunday that it would temporarily suspend passenger trains to China from midnight until further notice, including rail services along the Moscow-Beijing route. 2:00 pm: China finishes building new hospital in 10 days The Chinese city of Wuhan has finished building an emergency hospital to treat patients infected with the virus. Huoshenshan Hospital will have 1,400 medical staff from the armed forces starting on Monday and a capacity of 1,000 beds, China's state news agency Xinhua reported. 11:10 am: OPEC and technical panel will likely meet to discuss coronavirus impact OPEC and non-OPEC's Joint Technical Committee (JTC) will likely hold a meeting on Feb. 4 and 5 to discuss the potential impact from the spread of the coronavirus, which has caused oil prices to slide, a source familiar with OPEC's plans told CNBC's Brian Sullivan. 11:00 am: White House National Security Adviser says US has offered to help China in containing virus Beijing has not yet accepted an offer from the U.S. to help combat and contain the virus outbreak, White House National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien said on Sunday. "So far the Chinese have been more transparent certainly than in past crises and we appreciate that," O'Brien said in an interview with CBS' "Face the Nation." O'Brien said the U.S. has offered to send medical and health professionals to China. 10:30 am: No new countries have reported cases of the virus in past 24 hours The latest situation report from the WHO on Sunday found that no new countries have reported cases of coronavirus in the last 24 hours. The WHO said its risk communication and social media teams have been tracking and responding to false information and rumors about the virus, such as false prevention measures or cures. 8:31 am: Plane evacuating French and Europeans from Wuhan lands in France A plane repatriating 250 French and European nationals from Wuhan, China, landed at a military airbase in Istres, France on Sunday. About 65 French citizens will be quarantined in the South of France, while other non-French citizens will travel back to their home countries. 8:19 am: Medical resources in China are weak, official says The situation in Hubei, the province at the center of the outbreak, remains "severe and complicated," and medical resources are weak, Vice Governor Xiao Juhua told a press conference Sunday. However, the accuracy of virus testing kits has improved, according to Wang Wei, director of Hubei's science and technology department. The time needed to confirm the virus with the kits has been cut in half to roughly two hours. 6:01 am: White House advisers studying potential impact of virus on US economy Hours later, the government announced its 15th case, which appeared to confirm local transmission of the virus. A 72-year-old woman who had largely stayed at home was infected, likely via her son. He returned from a trip to Wuhan on Jan. 23. By Sunday, with infections standing at more than 14,000 worldwide, nations continued to expand travel restrictions and bar visitors from China. New Zealand said on Sunday that it would deny entry to visitors departing from or traveling through mainland China for two weeks starting on Monday. Citizens and residents of New Zealand will be allowed entry from China but will be required to quarantine themselves for 14 days, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said. Ultimately, this is a public health decision, she said, adding that the restrictions were precautionary measures to keep New Zealand virus-free and to contain the worldwide outbreak. In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened a meeting of ministers in Jerusalem on Sunday to make national preparations because we estimate that the virus will arrive, his office said in a statement. Along with preparations to isolate those who have been infected and treat them for two weeks at home, the country had temporarily closed land crossings, seaports and airports to arrivals from China. Israeli citizens who visited China will be allowed to return, the statement said. In addition, about 1,700 Chinese construction workers whose work permits had expired and who were supposed to return to China this weekend would be granted extended stays in Israel. They are being allowed to keep working rather than being replaced by newly recruited laborers who could potentially arrive with the virus, according to Israeli news reports. The United States and Australia have also expanded travel restrictions, temporarily barring noncitizens who recently traveled to China. Owner family should stop fighting, present visions A feud inside Hanjin Group's owner family over managerial rights is deepening after the death of former Chairman Cho Yang-ho in April last year. What makes the situation more complicated is potential conflicts of interest among corporate shareholders of Hanjin KAL, the group's holding company, depending on who will head the group. On Friday, Cho's eldest daughter Cho Hyun-ah, a former vice president of the group's flagship Korean Air who is infamous for the "nut rage" incident in 2014, issued a joint statement along with two major Hanjin KAL shareholders Korea Corporate Governance Improvement (KCGI), an activist fund, and Bando Engineering & Construction to demand the removal of her younger brother Cho Won-tae as group chairman. They denounced the brother for putting the group at risk by "ignoring the late chairman's wishes," saying Hanjin needs a professional manager for a new takeoff. This added a new twist to the Hanjin family feud, which emerged after Cho Hyun-ah claimed that her brother was making managerial decisions "unilaterally" without consulting the family in advance. With a crucial shareholders' meeting scheduled for March, the sibling fight for management, and relevant inheritance problems may escalate further. The 44-year-old brother is seeking re-election as a Hanjin Group board member and to stay on as group chairman. But his bid is now uncertain as KCGI, the biggest shareholder of Hanjin KAL with a 17.29 percent stake, and Bando with 8.28 percent have sided with the heiress, who holds 6.49 percent, to unseat her brother. Cho Won-tae holds a 6.52 percent stake, while younger sister Cho Hyun-min and mother Lee Myung-hee have 6.47 percent and 5.31 percent, respectively. Given Hanjin Group has been suffering from financial difficulties, it is disappointing to see the owner family fighting for management without presenting any detailed plans on how to enhance profitability and corporate value. Source: Xinhua| 2020-02-02 22:01:04|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close ADEN, Yemen, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- Forces loyal to Yemen's government on Sunday announced shooting down a drone belonging to the Houthi rebels in the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah. "The air defenses of the third military brigade managed to shoot down a drone of the Iranian-backed Houthi militiamen over the airspace of Durayhmi district in Hodeidah," the joint pro-government forces said in a statement. The statement added that the Houthi drone was hovering over the military sites of the joint pro-government forces in Durayhmi before shooting it down. "The air defenses aborted the Houthi plan aimed at targeting our bases and successfully damaged the drone over the area," it added. The media outlets of the Houthi rebel group made no comments on the report of the government forces about shooting down the drone in Hodeidah. During the past months, Houthis used to launch attacks by ballistic missiles and explosives-laden drone against several bases of the government forces across the country, causing heavy casualties. As the main Yemeni port city along the coast of the Red Sea, Hodeidah is the key lifeline entry of most Yemen's commercial imports and humanitarian aid. The grinding war of more than five years has pushed over 20 million people to the verge of starvation. The Iran-allied Houthi rebels control much of Hodeidah while the Saudi-backed government troops have advanced to its southeastern districts of the strategic port city. The federal cabinet is considering approving the Teck Frontier oilsands mine, but with a condition that Alberta legislate an emissions cap requiring the province to hit net-zero emissions by 2050 two sources close to the prime minister tell CBC News. The Liberal cabinet must make a decision on the massive new oilsands project by the end of February, while facing pressure from environmentalists on one side and the Alberta government on the other. The sources, who spoke on condition they not be named, told CBC News the Teck decision is more difficult than the government's decision on the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, but cabinet is leaning toward a plan outlined by former natural resources minister Amarjeet Sohi in the Edmonton Journal last week. That plan would see cabinet approve the project with conditions attached. One of those conditions would require that Alberta Premier Jason Kenney's government pass a legislated emissions cap that would cut the province's carbon emissions to net-zero by 2050. That would be in line with the federal Liberals' own net-zero campaign promise. THE CANADIAN PRESS A source in the Kenney government who spoke with CBC News on background said the federal government has not yet floated the idea with Alberta but it's not something the province would reject outright. The Kenney government is eager to find a path to yes for the Teck Frontier project and is frustrated with Ottawa for not offering a more specific proposal. The Teck Resources oilsands mine would be vast: twice the size of the city of Vancouver. It would produce up to 260,000 barrels of bitumen a day. Its potential economic impact is big, too: 7,000 construction jobs, 2,500 operational ones and billions in tax revenue $12 billion for the feds and $55 billion for Alberta over its expected 40-year lifespan. The company has secured Indigenous support 14 First Nations have signed agreements related to the project, but some are still opposed and the joint federal-provincial review panel that put the project through a rigorous regulatory review deemed it to be in the public interest. Story continues But the panel acknowledged in its review that the mine "may make it more difficult" for Canada to meet its Paris emissions reduction goals targets Canada is already on track to miss without further emissions-cutting measures. The project would generate about 4.1 megatonnes of emissions a year over its lifespan, though other estimates put the figure higher. Julie Prejet/CBC Kenney has wasted no time in framing the issue as a test of whether Ottawa cares about Alberta. "If they say no to this project, then they are signalling [Trudeau's] earlier statement that he wants to phase out the oilsands," Kenney said last week, referring to a 2017 statement made by the prime minister at a town hall (a comment he later walked back). Kenney and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland spoke twice last week and are slated to speak again when they head to Washington, D.C. later this week. But even if this emissions cap plan is acceptable to Kenney's government, it's likely to anger many of those who want more action on climate and who were already upset with the government's purchase and promotion of the TMX pipeline expansion project. Read more in the Minority Report newsletter Read more from Vassy Kapelos' on the Teck mine decision in this week's Minority Report newsletter. Also in this week's issue, Eric Grenier looks at the Green Party leadership race and the Power Panel offers advice on what the parties should be doing in the week ahead. Plus, five things you may not have known about Liberal MP Lyne Bessette. To read all of that and more, sign up for the newsletter here and it will be delivered directly to your inbox every Sunday. Filmmaker Lee Isaac Chung's semi-autobiographical feature "Minari" and Iranian director Massoud Bakhshi's "Yalda, a Night for Forgiveness" were awarded with Grand Jury honours at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. "Minari", about a seven-year-old Korean-American boy whose life turns upside down when his father decides to move their family to rural Arkansas and start a farm in the mid-1980s, was adjudged the winner of the US Grand Jury Prize (Dramatic), While "Yalda", about a woman who is sentence to death for accidentally killing her husband, bagged the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize (Dramatic). The jury, headed by Hollywood actor Ethan Hawke, also gave the directing prize to Radha Blank for her movie "The 40-Year-Old Version". In world cinema segment, the award went to French filmmaker Maimouna Doucoure for "Cuties". The jury also announced three special jury awards. They honoured the cast of "Charm City Kings", about the dirt-bike riders who do dangerous stunts on Baltimore city streets, while Eliza Hittman, director of abortion-themed "Never Rarely Sometimes Always", received the award for its Neorealism. Josephine Decker accepted an "auteur award" for "Shirley", the biopic on acclaimed American writer Shirley Jackson. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The four members of progressive metal band Tool, and vocalist Maynard James Keenan in particular, are practitioners of the lost art of rock mystique. They do not overshare, and do not want fans to, either. At the bands directive, security at a full Smoothie King Center on Saturday strictly enforced a ban on taking pictures or video with cellphones; fans who tried risked ejection. A provision in the bands media photo release form discourages many outlets this one included from assigning photographers to cover the concerts. Not that photographers could capture much of Keenan. As is his habit, he spent the entirety of the New Orleans show in shadow, singing atop risers on either side of Danny Careys drum kit at the rear of the stage. He existed mostly as a mohawked silhouette and a clenched, ominous voice. In keeping with the theme, the band spent the shows early going behind a diaphanous curtain comprised of thousands of strands of fabric. The curtain was solid enough to serve as a screen for projections, but transparent enough to allow an opaque view of the musicians. Those musicians dont appear in Tool music videos, and neither did they appear on the towering LED screen that served as the stage backdrop. Dense, intricately structured progressive metal, theyve decided, is more compelling when accompanied by a more haunting presentation. In the 1990s, guitarist Adam Jones, the bands resident visual artist, conjured creepy stop-motion creatures for videos. That hell-spawn Claymation aesthetic also informs the current tour. Close-ups of bizarrely rendered insects, eyes, teeth and tubes augmented alien humanoids engaged in alien actions. It was intended to be unsettling, and succeeded, an abundance of lasers notwithstanding. Keenan spoke little between songs. He offered a single-word greeting Louisiana early on. Ahead of Intolerance, the opening track of the bands 1993 album Undertow, he asked anyone under 30 to raise their hands. When we wrote this next song, he deadpanned, you were not even sperm yet. Babies conceived around the time of Tools 2006 release 10,000 Days would be headed to high school before the band finished its next album. Following a 13-year delay, during which Tool continued to tour intermittently, Fear Inoculum finally arrived in 2019. It is decidedly Tool-like in its approach. Like AC/DC, Tool does what it does, and does it well. The 10-minute Fear Inoculum title track opened Saturdays show and set the tone with Careys potent attack, Jones electric guitar riffs designed to bore into brains, and Justin Chancellors robust, rubbery and muscular bass. Given the plethora of odd accents and juxtapositions of competing time signatures, the three must remain interlocked at all times. And they were. Carey was the centerpiece, both anchoring and driving the songs. The 4/4 beat, rock musics standard pulse, holds few charms for him. Instead, he deploys all manner of odd rhythmic patterns, often in the same song. He plays many, many notes within a given measure, from the 16th notes of his helicopter-chop double-bass drums on up. Yet he made it look not necessarily easy, but effortless. And he never sounded overly busy. Carey ranks among the very few drummers who, in a post-Neil Peart world, has any business taking a solo. Following a 12-minute, pre-encore intermission helpfully timed by a countdown projected onto the curtain he embarked on Chocolate Chip Trip, a drum solo that functions as a sort of a sonic palate cleanser on Fear Inoculum. He started by tapping out a compact series of beats along the edge of a massive gong and its supporting frame before moving on to his full kit, with its array of percussive instruments and electronic triggers. Peart was one of his heroes, but so were jazz heavyweights Buddy Rich whom Peart also idolized and Billy Cobham. That range of influences, as well as his years spent mastering drum corps rudiments, was evident. His fills in Forty Six & 2 were models of precision, power and clarity. Compared to much of what preceded it, Schism, with its I know the pieces fit refrain and relatively straight-forward riff, qualified as a Tool pop song. The cleaner lines of Vicarious followed the intricacies of Jambi and Merkaba. In the encore, the crunch at the conclusion of Invincible evoked a more metal Kashmir. As at other tour stops, Keenan prefaced the final Stinkfist by setting fans free: Security, stand down. You can pull out your cellphones for the rest of the show. Newly liberated phones by the hundreds lit up throughout the arena as Tool plunged into Stinkfist, one of the most accessible songs in the catalog. When it ended, the stage lights went up and Keenan, in red tartan pants, lingered a moment before disappearing. However briefly, he and the rest of Tool had stepped out from the shadows. The Mumbai police have registered a case at Azad Maidan police station against 50 odd people for chanting slogans in support of the radical Islamist, Sharjeel Imam at the Mumbai Pride Solidarity Gathering held on Saturday. Mumbai: FIR registered against activist Urvashi Chudawala&50 others under IPC sec 124A(Sedition), 153B, 505, 34 at Azad Maidan police station in connection with raising of slogans in support of Sharjeel Imam at 'Mumbai Pride Solidarity Gathering' at Azad Maidan on Feb 1. Probe on https://t.co/Ce00AVL0rl ANI (@ANI) February 3, 2020 The police have filed charges under IPC Sections 153 B (Imputations assertions prejudicial to National Integrity), 124 A (Sedition) and 505 (statements conducing public mischief). A complaint was filed by Kirit Somaiya, a former BJP MP, on 2nd February. The FIR comes at the backdrop of a video from the gathering that went viral on social media wherein Sharjeel tere sapno ko manzil tak pahunchayenge, was chanted by a group of people. One of the prime accused in the case has been identified as activist Urvashi Chudawala. The police have, however, made it clear that no case has been filed against the organizers of the event but only against those involved in the anti-national sloganeering. Earlier, an Anti-CAA protestor was booked by the Mumbai police for carrying a placard that read Free Kashmir. It is important to mention that the Mumbai police had initially denied permission to organise LGBTQ pride parade. When the controversial video surfaced, the organizers were quick to disassociate themselves from those trying to undermine the integrity of India. Slogans in support of Sharjeel Imam, Azaadi raised in Queer Mumbai Pride march 2020 February 2, 2020 Sharjeel tere sapno ko manzil tak pahunchayenge, was amongst the many slogans raised at the Mumbai queer pride parade in Mumbai on Saturday, 1st February. "Sharjeel Tere Sapno Ko Manjil Tak Pahuchayenge". I have zero sympathy for these pride flag holder. They are anti-nationals. They are sloganeering to fulfill the breaking-India dreams of radical Sharjeel Imam. Anyone who stands with these intellectual [email protected] is a shame. pic.twitter.com/xAv8WaZhAN Yosha? (@Blackdrug_) February 1, 2020 At around 23 seconds in the video, you could hear the above chant. The Queer Azaadi Mumbai Prides solidarity gathering in Mumbai at Azaad Maidaan was used by anti-CAA propagandists to link the cause of the LGBTQIA community with the Azadi slogans raised against the Citizenship Amendment Act, NRC and NPR. Mumbai LGBT rally chanting- Sharjeel Tere Sapnon ko hum manzil Tak Pahuchayenge, vowed to fulfill dream of Terrorist Sharjeel Imam of cutting off Assam from India & making Bharat an Islamic State. You can see 'Pussy is God' banners. Result of Shav Sena @OfficeofUT Govt. pic.twitter.com/Z2CcinoKxC (@ippatel) February 1, 2020 Following the denial of permission to carry out the Queer Azaadi Mumbai Pride March from its traditional starting point-August Kranti Maidaan, the Queer Azaadi Mumbai(QAM) managed to winkle permission from the Mumbai police to organise a solidarity gathering at Azaad maidaan on Saturday, 1 February, from 3 pm to 6 pm. However, the gathering was put to use by anti-CAA protesters to promote their propaganda. A large number of anti-CAA protesters attended the rally which was essentially meant to be a solidarity congregation for the queer community, for celebrating queer pride and a platform to raise their concerns. The anti-CAA protesters not only raised Azaadi slogans but also carried and wielded placards denouncing the new Citizenship Law that intends to grant citizenship to persecuted minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. As can be heard in the video attached in the above tweet, the Queer Pride March event saw participants chanting slogans of Azaadi against the Citizenship Amendment Act, NRC and NPR. One of the placards also demanded independence of Kashmir, along with criticising CAA and NRC. #mumbaipride solidarity gathering at Azad Maidan. None of us are free till all of us are free pic.twitter.com/Xyfv4R2k2L Agents of Ishq (@AgentsofIshq) February 1, 2020 It is notable to mention that the Mumbai Police had earlier denied permission to organise the Queer Azaadi Mumbai Pride March 2020 will be used by anti-CAA dissenters to stoke anarchy in the city. The Mumbai Police while denying the permission claimed that the anti-CAA protesters might co-opt the Queer Azaadi March to fuel their propaganda which may lead to deteriorating law and order situation in the city. While most of the media channels remain remarkably vocal against the most mundane of issues, they had been deafeningly silent over the denial of permission to carry out the traditional Queer Mumbai Pride March by Mumbai Police. Though, subsequently, QAM was granted the permission of organising a truncated event- solidarity gathering, but it doesnt absolve the media channels of their pusillanimity in bringing to light the denial of permission to an annual march which has been organised in Mumbai for the last 10 years. Source : OpIndia Inside Hook What happens when the Super Bowl falls on Groundhog Day? In an era when commercials serve as de facto sequels to beloved films, you can bet theres a little bit of space for, as they say, brand synergy. All of which is to say that if youve ever hoped for a sequel to Harold Ramiss Groundhog Day, your wish may have come true as long as youre also okay with it being an ad for Jeep. Murray reprises his role as Phil Connors, endlessly reliving the same day again and again; also featured in the ad is the great character actor Stephen Tobolowsky, returning to the role of Ned Ryerson. Presumably, the groundhog featured here is not the same one from the film, unless its a miraculously long-lived one. Senator Shehu Sani, who represented Kaduna Central Senatorial District in the 8th National Assembly, on Sunday commended the International General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Pastor Enoch Adeboye, for leading mass protest of Christians in Nigeria over killings and incessant insecurity in the country. Senator Sani declared that the involvement of the highly rated Pastor in Nigeria signified that Daddy Adeboye, as widely called, ended the era of caution, neutrality and now faces reality. Shehu Sani remarked that Pastor Adeboyes participation in the protest march will propel wings and wheels to prayers in the country. The General Overseer of The Redeemed Christian Church of God, Pastor Enoch Adeboye, had after the monthly Thanksgiving Service at the churchs National Headquarters in Ebute Meta, Lagos State, led a prayer walk to end the rising insecurity and killings in Nigeria. ALSO READ: Fani-Kayode celebrates the warrior in Sen. Abaribe The procession which commenced from Ebute Meta, went through Atan Cemetery, Yaba, then, back to the church. The Christian Association of Nigeria had declared a three-day fasting and prayer beginning January 31st to empower the government and the military forces in the fight against terrorism and the spate of killings in the country. CAN President, Dr Samson Ayokunle had said the spiritual exercise would end on Sunday, February 2 with a prayer walk. Senator Shehu Sani, in a tweet commending Pastor Adeboye wrote: Pastor Adeboye finally disembarking from the fence of caution, moderation, and neutrality and leading a match against insecurity is commendable. Protest gives wings and wheels to prayers. PV: 0 CHICAGO Fast-food titans, embroiled in a chicken-sandwich battle, are trying to beat each other with small weapons. Little chickens, whose quarter-pound breasts fit perfectly inside a bun, are proving essential to the war effort. In the process, theyre getting harder to come by. A shortage of the smaller birds derailed the Popeyes challenge to reigning champion Chick-fil-A last summer, and most petite poultry are sold in grocery stores, not in chain restaurants. Now the supply will be further tested as more competitors jump into the fray. McDonalds Corp., the worlds biggest restaurant chain, is testing new fried-chicken sandwiches in four U.S. cities with the added pop of MSG, a controversial flavor enhancer it says it doesnt use in its national menu. Wendys Co. is going all in, spending $30 million to beef up its chicken supply chain. Consumers dont want tough and tasteless big chickens, said Scott Sechler, owner of poultry producer Bell & Evans. Theres increasing consumer demand for smaller, premium-quality birds. Chickens have been the most popular meat in America for a long time. More chicken is devoured in the U.S. than anywhere else in the world an average of 93.5 pounds per person last year, according to the National Chicken Council. The birds have been getting progressively bigger over the years. Todays broiler varieties, the ones raised for meat, average more than 6 pounds (2.7 kilograms) each. In 1925, they weighed 2.5 pounds. So how did these fast-food chains so quickly find success with their chicken sandwiches? Birds lighter than 4.25 pounds. The summer skirmish focused Big Chickens attention on the smaller and less plentiful variety. Breasts from wee birds recently reached triple the cost of breasts from a jumbo nine-pounder, a historically wide difference, according to Russ Whitman of commodity researcher Urner Barry. When it comes to sandwiches, small is beautiful. Cutting up a bigger portion takes labor, and what does one do with the trim? Restaurants want product that comes ready to go at the right specifications, said David Maloni, executive vice president of analytics at supply-chain consultant ArrowStream. Its getting harder and harder to get that smaller bird, so theyre paying a premium, Maloni said. The fast-food chains wont settle for bigger birds, he said. Chick-fil-A total sales at its 2,470 locations rose 13% last year, boosted by the closely held chains fried-chicken sandwich, according to Technomic data. The companys ascendancy led Mark Kalinowski of Kalinowski Equity Research to say that Chick-fil-A poses the largest competitive threat to McDonalds in the U.S. Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, owned by Restaurant Brands International Inc., said the demand for its new sandwich last summer was so overwhelming that it ran through what it thought would be several months of supply in 14 days. It took until November for the company to bring the sandwich back. In the third-quarter of 2019, same-store U.S. Popeyes sales rose 10% to one of the highest levels in two decades. KFC, operated by Yum! Brands Inc., took a hit, with comparable sales dropping last quarter. In October, the chain said its limited-time Cheetos-chicken sandwich didnt catch on with customers and led to the decline. KFC didnt respond to requests for comment. McDonalds and Wendys, on the other hand, have been gearing up. Late last year, McDonalds began testing new chicken sandwiches in a couple hundred restaurants, mostly in Houston, Seattle, Knoxville, Tennessee, and Augusta, Georgia. Like Chick-fil-A, Popeyes and KFC but not Wendys McDonalds is adding monosodium glutamate to its sandwich. While MSG is generally safe, according to the Food and Drug Administration, its use is controversial because some people complain of side effects such as headache, numbness and heart palpitations. In 2017, Wendys said it was slashing its average chicken size by 20% to improve its tenderness and juiciness. We saw instant feedback from our customers, who told us our sandwiches across the entire chicken lineup were juicier and more tender, said Liliana Esposito, chief communications officer for the chain. Popeyes and Chick-fil-A declined to comment. The biggest U.S. chicken producers were mum about their supplies of little chickens. Perdue Farms Inc., and Koch Foods Inc. declined to comment. Tyson Foods Inc., parent company of McDonalds supplier Keystone Foods, also declined to comment. Jayson Penn, chief executive officer of top producer Pilgrims Pride Corp., told investors last year that the market for small birds was very call-it-tight. The companys share price more than doubled in 2019. The little-chicken shortfall looks like itll persist. Last year through Nov. 16, the poultry industry raised 10% more birds above 7.76 pounds, considered jumbo, than they did in the same period in 2018, Urner Barrys Whitman said. The small ones saw a headcount drop of 2%. Whatever demand growth we might have on smaller breasts, theres no new supply to meet that demand, said Will Sawyer, an animal-protein economist at Colorado-based rural lender CoBank ACB. Everyone wants a bite out of that market. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 WASHINGTON Billionaire Democratic presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg is introducing a tax plan that would target the wealthy increasing rates on capital gains and corporate gains as well as introducing a new 5% surtax on incomes above $5 million. The former New York City mayor has based his plan on its potential to raise enough revenue to finance his proposals for expanding health care, housing, education and infrastructure, among other programs. Im a wealthy guy, I didnt need a tax cut and so were going to have to put a little of that back, Bloomberg said Saturday at a campaign stop in Denver. We need money for infrastructure in this country. Campaign officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the details of the tax plan before it is released, said it would raise roughly $5 trillion over 10 years, though that figure could be adjusted higher or lower based on the funding needs of Bloombergs policy agenda. Animating the plan is the idea that wealthier Americans should pay more for programs that would benefit the middle class and impoverished families. While the plan does not include enough specifics to verify just how much money it would likely raise, the changes would clearly increase taxes for Bloomberg, who founded an eponymous media company that specializes in financial data and whose net worth is estimated at more than $50 billion. One of the campaign officials said the plan is more politically feasible than those proposed by other Democratic candidates because Bloomberg would personally be paying more money in taxes, and that could potentially overcome resistance from wealthy Republican donors and give it bipartisan support. Unlike plans for a tax on wealth from Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the Bloomberg plan is focused on raising tax revenue on the income generated from stock market and other investment holdings. This is a way to tax the top sliver of earners without facing courtroom challenges about the constitutionality of a wealth tax. The plan would restore the top personal income tax bracket to 39.6%. It had been reduced to 37% in the tax overhaul signed into law by President Trump in 2017, which disproportionately favors companies and the wealthy and is financed by an increase in government debt. Josh Boak is an Associated Press writer. The Aam Aadmi Party on Sunday asked the Election Commission to ban Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath from campaigning in the national capital over his alleged provocative speeches and sought his arrest. AAP leader Sanjay Singh Singh said it has been 48 hours since his party sought time from the Election Commission for a meeting but it has not been granted. "He (Adityanath) must be arrested for his communal speeches. We have lodged a complaint with the EC," he said. Adityanath on Saturday had alleged that those who supported terrorists in Kashmir were staging protest in Shaheen Bagh and raising slogans of ''azadi'. The UP chief minister had also attacked his Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal, alleging that he and his party were siding with protesters at Shaheen Bagh and that a Pakistan minister and AAP were speaking on similar terms. Singh said, "From Uttar Pradesh, Yogi manorogi (mentally-ill) came to Delhi. What all abusive and divisive things he is saying? He said Arvind Kejriwal is connected to Pakistan. "We don't know how BJP leaders get all information about Pakistan. If what Yogi speaks is right, it should be proven. Otherwise he should desist from talking such nonsense." Singh said it is "unfortunate" that the BJP has derailed the poll discourse in Delhi. "In order to appraise EC about the situation, we asked for time day before yesterday. Till now, we have received no response. It is very unfortunate that BJP derails the poll discourse in Delhi, but the EC silently watches it and does not take stock of the situation," Singh said. The AAP leader said he has sought time from the EC to apprise them on how BJP is spoiling the atmosphere in Delhi through their "provocative" speeches. "We have written to the EC attaching the CD of Yogi Adityanath's speeches. It contains what all he spoke during the rallies. The EC can't remain indifferent to this grave issue. It is the misuse of democratic and constitutional institutions," Singh added. Singh said it is "very strange" that the EC has not taken action against Adityanath. "He should be banned from campaigning in Delhi and the EC should lodge an FIR against him for his divisive speeches. If the EC doesn't give time to meet the AAP delegates by 12 noon on Monday, we will and stage a sit-in dharna at the EC office", said Singh. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The United States has given reasons for imposing visa restrictions on Nigerians and five other countries nationals. It said Nigeria did not comply with the established identity-management and information-sharing criteria assessed by the performance metrics. The US also said Nigeria did not adequately share public-safety and terrorism-related information necessary for the protection of the national security and public safety of the US. The full report of the visa restrictions titled, Proclamation on improving enhanced vetting capabilities and process posted in www.whitehouse.gov read in part, Nigeria also presents a high risk, relative to other countries in the world, of terrorist travel to the United States. Nigeria is an important strategic partner in the global fight against terrorism, and the United States continues to engage with Nigeria on these and other issues. It further stated, The Department of State has provided significant assistance to Nigeria as it modernises its border management capabilities, and the Government of Nigeria recognises the importance of improving its information sharing with the United States. Nevertheless, these investments have not yet resulted in sufficient improvements in Nigerias information sharing with the United States for border and immigration screening and vetting. Nigeria is the only country in West Africa sanctioned by the US Department of Home Security following a review and update of the methodology (performance metrics). Other countries on the list are Eritrea, Myanmar, Tanzania, Sudan and Kyrgyzstan. The new visa regime announced by the US government on January 31, involves the suspension of the issuance of immigrant visas to Nigerian passport holders. It comes into effect on February 21. Strong reactions have, however, greeted the US visa restrictions with the Presidency announcing the setting up of a committee to address the issue. The committee is chaired by the Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, a State House statement said on Saturday. The committee will work with the US government, INTERPOL and other stakeholders to ensure all updates are properly implemented, the statement by the media aide to the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), Mr Femi Adesina, said. However, the Presidency noted that the restrictions did not affect other categories of visas like official, tourism or business visas. The Presidencys reaction to the development read in part, On January 31, 2020, the United States Department of Homeland Security announced temporary travel restrictions on six countries including Nigeria. For Nigeria, it is the suspension of the issuance of immigrant visas to Nigerian passport holders only. Nigeria remains committed to maintaining productive relations with the United States and its allies, especially on matters of global security. Accordingly, President Muhammadu Buhari has established a committee to be chaired by the Minister of Interior to study and address the updated US requirements. The Senate condemned the inclusion of Nigeria on the list of countries under US visa restrictions and promised to spearhead a diplomatic arrangement in collaboration with the relevant agencies with a view to addressing the issues advanced by the US for the ban. The Chairman, Senate Committee on Diaspora Affairs, Senator Ajibola Basiru, who described the US travel ban on Nigeria as quite unfortunate in an interview in Abuja, however, stressed the need for Nigeria to put in place citizenship integrity mechanism. He said, We need to address the issue of citizenship integrity because, at the moment, we are a nation of anonymous citizens. We dont have records of our citizens and anybody can claim to be a Nigerian. We dont have recognised records to be sure that anybody carrying a Nigerian passport is actually a Nigerian. I am not talking as a politician but as a patriot. We need as a government to address the issue of citizenship integrity. We should have a proper record of birth registration and identification of our citizens. The Senate spokesman described the ban as a wake-up call, noting that it would spur the nation to take seriously the national identity card project. Basiru added, The travel ban is a wake-up call, a rude one at that on the need for us to be alive to our responsibility to our people and ensure that we have citizenship integrity. We have been working on the national identity project for a very long time, and till today, I am not sure that we have 25 per cent of Nigerians on the database. Are we even sure that we conducted a proper integrity test on those that on the database to ensure that they are real Nigerians? Trumps travel ban discriminatory -US Speaker The Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, also condemned the US policy, describing it as discrimination disguised as policy. In a statement on her verified Twitter handle, @SpeakerPelosi, she said, The Trump administrations expansion of its outrageous, un-American travel ban threatens our security, our values and the rule of law. The sweeping rule, barring more than 350 million individuals from predominantly African nations from travelling to the United States, is discrimination disguised as policy. The Speaker, however, said the House of Representatives would, in the coming weeks, bring to the floor of the congress legislation to prohibit religious discrimination in the countrys immigration system and limit the Presidents ability to impose such biased and bigoted restrictions. The statement added, In the congress and in the courts, House Democrats will continue to oppose the administrations dangerous anti-immigrant agenda. We will never allow hatred or bigotry to define our nation or destroy our values. Its a wake-up call to Nigeria, Kingibe, Atiku, Duke, others A former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babagana Kingibe, said nothing had changed as the restriction would help strengthen the countrys national security. He noted that the US-listed six categories of reforms for Nigeria to meet, stressing that only three were met. According to him, Nigeria will assume its previous status if the conditions are met eventually. He said, We have implemented three of the six (reforms) and we are in the process of implementing the remaining three. The presumption is that once these three reforms are implemented, then the policy does not apply to Nigerians who wish to immigrate to the US. So, I think it should not be blown up to something which it is not. It is in our national security interest to implement the reforms required. It is about information sharing, lost passports, and stolen passports, among others. Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar urged Trump to punish those responsible for the immigrant visa ban on Nigerians and reconsider the ban. He said the ban did not take into account the pro-American sentiments of the Nigerian public and the solidarity previous Nigerian administrations have had with the US. He said he understood the reasons given by the US for the ban, which are the alleged failure of the Buhari government to share information and to address issues of terrorism. In his statement titled, US travel ban on Nigeria: Punish those responsible, not the Nigerian people, Atiku said, I urge the Donald Trump government to consider the history of US-Nigerian relationships. Nigeria was one of the few African nations that joined the US-led coalition during the Operation Desert Storm in 1990-1991 when the US championed the liberation of Kuwait. Ex-Cross River State governor Donald Duke said the visa ban was a wake-up call to Nigeria to start putting things in the right perspectives. Duke said, You cannot blame the United States for this decision, because there was a time Nigeria formed one per cent of the immigrant population in the US but committed 10 per cent of the immigrant crimes. We now have an administration in the US that is determined to put the US first. He stated that Nigerians love the United States and had been a major force in the positive development of the US. APC, PDP trade blame over ban But the Buhari Media Organisation blamed the Peoples Democratic Party government for the visa restrictions. In a statement by its Chairman, Niyi Akinsiju, and Secretary, Cassidy Madueke, the group said rather than celebrate the ban, Atiku should be remorseful that his party was responsible for this inconvenience caused Nigerians. The group said, The United States visa restriction is symbolic to show security concerns over two issues. One is the printing of the Nigerian passport, and the other is the storage of data and other vital information on the holders of the passport. Now, these are crucial matters in a world where information sharing is of the utmost essence in the face of security challenges everywhere. The Nigerian passport was being printed by a company in Malaysia before the PDP gave it out to an Irish company. The BMO said the PDP government signed a double-faced contract, which was renewed just two weeks before losing the Presidency to the All Progressives Congress in 2015. The statement said, In one breath, the contract was to last for four years, but in another breath, it was agreed that the said contract would not lapse until the company has printed 10 million copies of the travel document. As we speak, only three million copies of the Nigerian passport has been printed by this company. This and the huge volume of vital information being held by this Irish company has created a huge security nightmare for concerned security agencies. According to the group, the International Criminal Police Organisation reported that Nigeria was not sharing information. It further argued that in an effort to redress the situation, Buhari directed the Central Bank of Nigeria to ensure that the passport was printed by the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Corporation. Unfortunately, this directive could not be executed because of legal issues raised by the Irish company contracted by the PDP government, BMO said. But the PDP said the Presidency and the APC should be held responsible for the US action. The PDP National Publicity Secretary, Mr Kola Ologbondiyan, in a statement, said visa restriction is another huge misfortune brought by the Buhari administration and the APC to Nigeria. He lamented that the travel ban would deny Nigerians many opportunities. Ologbondiyan said, More depressing is that the APC and the Buhari administration have been reversing diplomatic gains achieved by previous administrations while gradually pitting our nation against other countries with its poor record on security, corruption and human right issues. Only recently, our nation was rated as the third country with the highest level of terrorism in 2019 after Iran and Afghanistan in the Global Terrorism Index rating by the Institute for Economics and Peace. He added, This is in addition to damning reports by reputable organisations including Amnesty International, Transparency International, European Union and United States Department of State, which in various independent reports, raised grave issues of escalated corruption, violation of human rights, disregard for the rule of law, abuse of processes, election rigging and poor handling of security issues under the APC. US wont delist Nigeria without compliance Akinterinwa A former Director-General of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, Prof Bola Akinterinwa, said the US would not delist Nigeria from its immigrant travel ban list unless the Federal Government complied with its insistence on sharing security information on intending immigrants. Speaking in an interview with Sunday PUNCH on Saturday, Akinterinwa said the US should not be blamed because it was a target for terrorists, especially after killing the Iranian military chief, Qassem Soleimani. He blamed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Interior and Nigerian Government for not sharing the required information, saying no amount of plea would make the US to delist Nigeria without doing the needful. He said, The US is asking the government of Nigeria to share information, knowledge on terrorists. The Federal Government has raised a committee but why do we need to always wait until we are sanctioned before we do what is right? The Director (Legal and Public Affairs), Christian Association of Nigeria, Kwamkur Samuel, said the sanction would expose Nigerians to a lot of difficulties. They should restrict the ban to those who have failed woefully in protecting the lives and property of Nigerians despite visible failure but failed to improve, he said. US wants access to Nigerias national identity database Security specialist A Strategic Security and Intelligence Specialist, Kabir Adamu, said the US imposed the visa ban on Nigerians because it was unable to access the national identity management database which is crucial to the global fight against terrorism. Although Nigeria and the US have shared intelligence over many years, Adamu noted that America was not satisfied with a lack of unified identity management database in the country where it could get information on any Nigerian of interest. Speaking in an interview with Sunday PUNCH, Adamu, who is the Special Advisor Security and Intelligence to the President of the Senate, said, In Nigeria, we have the problem of identity management. Over time, there have been attempts to have a unified national identity identification database, but that has not been possible. To that extent, the US is correct. Of all the West African countries, Nigeria has the worst identity management data system. Because of the importance of this to the fight against terrorism, any country that does not have that would have a challenge in tackling terrorism. Adamu, who is the Abuja Chairman of ASIS International, Abuja Chapter 273, a professional organisation for security professionals, noted that the national database which is being managed by different organisations including the National Identity Management Commission, Nigeria Immigration Service and financial instructions had to be streamlined. Findings also indicate that part of the database was also being managed by an Indian firm, Continental Transfert Technique. He faulted US claims that Nigeria was not cooperating on information sharing, adding that there was liaison intelligence partnership between the National Intelligence Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Intelligence and Nigerias Department of State Services and the Nigeria Police Force. The Chairman, Transition Monitoring Group, Dr Abiola Akiyode-Afolabi, said, Its an unfortunate development, the ban questions our foreign relations with the US and other countries. It is a reflection of the impression they have about our system, our identity chain, our capacity to protect ourselves, our system and our management of our citizens. Commenting on the visa ban, a former Nigerian ambassador to Brazil, Vienna, and Poland, Sulaiman Dahiru, said Nigeria was not doing the right thing, hence the decision to single it out for visa restrictions in West Africa. A former Nigerian ambassador to Argentina, Amb. Chive Kaave, said it is within Americas diplomatic rights to determine who gets its visa, adding that the Federal Government was free to reciprocate the US action. Nigeria/US Bi-National Commission meets Monday The fifth session of the Nigeria/United States of America Bi-National Commission is scheduled to hold from February 3 to in Washington DC. The visa ban imposed on Nigeria by Trump is also expected to feature prominently on the agenda. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, would lead the Nigerian delegation to the meeting with the theme, Mutual Prosperity through Innovation and Ingenuity. Deliberations at the session will focus on areas of mutual interest, including good governance and anti-corruption; trade and investment; development and food security; and security and counter-terrorism efforts. The MFA spokesman, Ferdinand Nwonye, in a statement on Saturday, said the BNC had continued to serve as a veritable mechanism for sustained bilateral high-level dialogue to promote and coordinate diplomatic, economic, military, technical cultural and social cooperation between Nigeria and the United States. The Nigeria-US Bi-National Commission was established in April 2010 in Washington DC as a platform for closer cooperation between both countries. Share this: Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu said on Sunday that in a democracy, patriotism did not mean supporting the government. One can support the government or oppose it, but that doesn't give anyone the right to resort to violence to oppose others' views, he added. Speaking after inaugurating India's largest skill training centre - Deshpande Foundation's Skill Development Centre on the outskirts of Hubballi - he said violence will affect the development of the country and hinder the opportunities for the youth. Naidu said discussion should happen like in Parliament - the government proposes, Opposition opposes and the House disposes. In a democracy, the ballot is more powerful than a bullet and people should not forget that they have to respect the mandate of the majority of the people. Destroying public property is not acceptable. Be a constructive Opposition, not an obstructive or destructive one, he said. Unity is badly required in India, the Vice President added. Oh, the joys of university share houses: ratty couches picked up from kerb-side collection, instant noodles lining the pantry shelves and empty wine bottles used as vases. Thousands will be searching for their ideal share house among Brisbane's 190 suburbs in the coming weeks before university classes return later this month. University share houses are often filled with furniture collected at curbside pickups. Credit:Sarah Keayes Brisbane Times has analysed the most popular suburbs to rent near the city's major university campuses, based on price, proximity and transport options. Those returning to the rental market after the summer holidays can expect to pay about the same amount for their rooms but may have a harder time finding a place after Brisbane's rental vacancy rate fell from 3.1 per cent to 2.9 per cent. Former lawmaker, Shehu Sani and Femi Fani-Kayode have commended Pastor Enoch Adeboye for embarking on protest alongside members of his church against killings in the country. The protest is coming few weeks after Boko Haram fighters beheaded the chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria(CAN) in Adamawa, after a failed negotiation. Reacting to report of the protest, Sani who had just been released from the custody of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission(EFCC) over alleged extortion hailed Adeboye for finally disembarking from the fence of caution, moderation and neutrality. In a tweet on Sunday, he wrote: Pastor Adeboye finally disembarking from the fence of caution, moderation and neutrality and leading a match against insecurity is commendable. Protest gives wings and wheels to Prayers. Read Also: Find Political Solution To Boko Haram Insurgency: UN To Buhari Pastor Adeboye finally disembarking from the fence of caution,moderation and neutrality and leading a match against insecurity is commendable.Protest gives wings and wheels to Prayers. Senator Shehu Sani (@ShehuSani) February 2, 2020 On his part, Fani-Kayode, also speaking via his Twitter handle, said; Pastor Enoch Adeboye and RCCG are conducting a protest march against the killings in the land. I commend them & hope that they will find the courage to accept that they made a mistake by supporting Buhari in the first place. Will RCCG Pastor Yemi Osinbajo will join in the march? The National Investigation Agency on Sunday morning carried out searches in connection with a case in which a senior Jammu and Kashmir police officer was arrested while ferrying terrorists outside the valley, officials said here. Multiple NIA teams fanned in various parts of south Kashmir and carried out the searches at some private offices and residences, they said. The NIA had taken over the case in which Jammu and Kashmir's Deputy Superintendent of Police Davinder Singh, who has since been suspended, was caught in south Kashmir while ferrying two terrorists out of the valley on January 11. The searches come days after NIA officers interrogated all the accused arrested in the case. Besides Singh, the others arrested were: Syed Naveed Mushtaq Ahmed alias Naveed Babu, who is a self-styled commander of Hizbul Mujahideen, Rafi Ahmed Rather and Irfan Shafi Mir, who claims to be an advocate. They were arrested from the Srinagar-Jammu National Highway near Qazigund in South Kashmir. Later, Naveed's brother, Syed Irfan Ahmed, was also arrested on January 23 after he was brought from Punjab. He was in constant touch with his brother and had asked him to look for an accommodation in Chandigarh where they could escape the harsh winters months of Kashmir. Mir, who was driving the vehicle when they were caught by the police from a national highway in Kulgam district, may become a prize catch for the NIA as it is alleged he was acting on the orders of his masters in Pakistan. He had visited the neighbouring country five times on an Indian passport. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Missouri Supreme Court in May 2017 upheld Beetems ruling, and the parts of the law aimed at St. Louis County appeared to be dead for good. The high court ruled that special laws can survive a court challenge if the state demonstrates substantial justification for special treatment. But the state attorney generals office under Chris Koster didnt try to do that, the judges wrote. But the states high court reversed itself in December, ruling that it had erred in saying a law aimed at a specific issue or location was presumed to be invalid. The new ruling said such a law would be presumed to be constitutional if there is a rational basis for it. Despite saying its logic in the SB5 case should not be followed, the Supreme Court has not issued a new ruling in the case. Schmitt was appointed to attorney general last year by Gov. Mike Parson after the election of Josh Hawley to the U.S. Senate. Last week, he went back to Cole County Circuit Court to reinstate the sections aimed at St. Louis County because there had been a rational basis for them. Air Force ROTC cadets aspire to one day fly for their country. In January, several from LSU traded the wild blue yonder for boots on the ground. Joined by a Marine and National Guard member, five cadets of Air Force ROTC Detachment 310 marched 323 miles from the LSU campus to Eglin Air Force Base near Pensacola, Florida. During the six-day march, Jan. 3-8, they carried 40-pound rucksacks and asked through social media and a GoFundMe campaign for people to donate funds that will go to two military charities: K9s for Warriors and the National League of POW/MIA Families. Their fundraising effort continues even though the march is over. The whole goal was to do something both for the charities and a little bit to test ourselves at something really hard, overcome it and be stronger as a result, said Colin Raby, a freshman ROTC cadet from Baton Rouge. +5 Land mine explosion hasn't stopped Mike McNaughton from helping Baton Rouge's homeless veterans When a land mine took Sgt. Mike McNaughton's right leg in Afghanistan, the explosion was still ringing in his ears as he warned fellow soldier The idea originated with Austin Firman, who did a 165-mile solo march from his Covington hometown to Vicksburg, Mississippi, shortly after graduating from high school last year. He made the trek in four days, hiking 16 hours a day, with his father and stepmother driving behind him most of the way to shield him from traffic. Although it was physically demanding, Firman liked the experience enough to suggest it to his ROTC detachment to do during the semester break. Fellow cadets Raby, Zach Toups, Dylan Cone and Ben Flickinger committed to the project. Firman recruited Cameron Richards, a Marine who began attending LSU this semester, and National Guardsman Jake Engle, a student at LSU-Shreveport, to join them. Strapping on the heavy backpacks, they marched in teams, carrying an American flag and one representing prisoners of war and service members listed as missing in action. A support vehicle hauled other necessary supplies. Because this march was almost twice as long as his earlier trek, Firman created a two-team rotation that enabled them to march around the clock. For eight hours, one team marched and drove the support vehicle while the other rested. The other team took over for the next eight hours. For Raby, the first day was the worst: cold and raining, the wetness weighed down their rucksacks, soaking their shoes and socks. Fortunately, the weather cleared for the rest of the march. Our View: Remember World War II, or forget it at our peril Heres an imposing, continuing 2020 challenge for the National WWII Museum in New Orleans: Many of these 366 days represent landmark anniversa Firman said his low point came on an 8-mile straightaway during a night shift in Mississippi with Cameron by his side. They marched for hours, but it felt as if they hadnt gone anywhere. That was really hard mentally, Firman said. At that same time, we were kind of looking at each other and give a nod knowing why were doing it. It helped us push through. That probably had to be the hardest part. Other than reaching the finish line, the high points came when people they met along the way responded positively to their causes, which was to raise awareness of veterans issues and to raise money. Those encounters helped them complete the march, Raby said. At a certain point about halfway, three-fourths of the way through, I knew what we were doing was a good thing simply because, you look at Field of Dreams build it and they will come, Raby said. Were doing it and people are just showing up giving us supplies. Raby recalled when a man wearing a suit stopped his car on the opposite side of U.S. 190 in Louisiana and crossed on foot to meet them. In his right hand are two bottles of beer, and in his left hand are two bottles of water, and he said, Yall pick. Which do you want? Raby said. We took the water. He said, I dont know what you guys are doing, but I saw you walking outside with the American flag and I just assumed youre doing something good. +2 Multiple krewes make Krewe of Denham Springs parade roll, help area charities DENHAM SPRINGS The peak of the Mardi Gras season for thousands of Livingston Parish and area residents will arrive at 3 p.m., Feb. 15, when The money the group raised about half their $8,000 goal will be divided between K9s For Warriors and the National League of POW/MIA Families. K9s for Warriors is dedicated to providing service canines to service members suffering from PTSD, traumatic brain injury and/or military sexual trauma. The National League of POW/MIA Families works to obtain the release and return of all prisoners from the Vietnam War, a full accounting for the missing and repatriating the remains of those who died. Donations can still be made at LSU Det. 310 Ruck March GoFundMe page. Press Release February 1, 2020 Senate President Vicente C. Sotto III Press statement on temporary ban SENATE President Vicente Sotto today urged Malacanang to order a temporary ban on all foreigners coming from any parts of China in light of reports that all of its regions have been infected by the novel coronavirus. Sotto said the restrictions should not only cover Chinese citizens since other nationalities have also been traveling to and from China. Flights from China do not only have Chinese people aboard. There are other nationalities on these flights and they, too, should be barred from entering our country. The virus does not discriminate whom it will affect. It can affect anyone," Sotto said. The Senate President stressed that "our country cannot take this lightly because anyone can catch the virus without them knowing it, like the case in Germany. A traveler from China who did not know that he had the virus infected a German . The government should take all the necessary precautions to ensure the safety and health of our people." The Air Force set a record for suicides in 2019, a stark reminder that a Pentagon all but invincible on the battlefield has struggled to protect its troops from themselves. There were at least 112 suspected and confirmed suicides among active-duty, reserve and Air National Guard personnel last year. That was a 40 percent jump from the year before and the highest total since the Air Force began tracking suicides in 2003. The previous record was set in 2015, when 94 airmen took their own lives. Read on ExpressNews.com how a new form of therapy is giving hope to active-duty and veterans at high risk for suicide. The pace of suicides in 2019 so alarmed Air Force leaders that the services top commander, Gen. David Goldfein, ordered a tactical pause in operations in July to raise awareness of the problem. He warned that suicides could exceed 150 by the end of the year if nothing was done. Goldfeins action appears to have had an effect. Suicides occurred at a rate of about 13 per month before the pause and dropped to an average of 5.6 a month for the rest of the year. The record 2019 total was shown in an Air Force graphic displayed on a Facebook group of airmen, non-commissioned officers and senior NCOs (called Air Force amn/nco/snco). The graphic was marked for official use only within the Pentagon. A Pentagon official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed its authenticity to the San Antonio Express-News. The graphic included a note that 68 deaths in the 2019 total were suspected suicides, not yet confirmed. Asked for comment, the Air Force released a statement from Lt. Gen. Brian Kelly, deputy chief of staff for manpower, personnel and services. On ExpressNews.com: A third of all Air Force suicide victims were involved in a failing relationship The Department of the Air Force has been and continues to pursue immediate, mid-term, and long-range suicide prevention initiatives for the total force that focus on connections between individuals, units, and Air Force family; protections in environments, services, and policies; detection of risk in individuals and units; and equipping the total force and family members to mitigate risk and increase resilience, the statement said. Suicide is a difficult national problem without easily identifiable solutions that has the full attention of leadership. The Pentagon official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the rise in suicides could not be attributed to an increase in the number of service personnel. That number has generally held steady at about 510,600 airmen on active duty and in the reserve and Air National Guard. Suicides among active duty, guard and reserve personnel in the Air Force: 2019 --- 112 --- 112 2018 --- 80 --- 80 2017 --- 86 --- 86 2016 --- 85 --- 85 2015 --- 94 --- 94 2014 --- 86 --- 86 2013 --- 72 --- 72 2012 --- 75 --- 75 2011 --- 70 --- 70 2010 --- 80 --- 80 2009 --- 66 --- 66 2008 --- 53 --- 53 2007 --- 59 --- 59 2006 --- 60 --- 60 2005 --- 49 --- 49 2004 --- 72 --- 72 2003 --- 58 Source: U.S. Air Force sigc@express-news.net As Californias presidential primaries approach, I ask myself: Will this country really accept a president who makes history, breaks barriers, and challenges our deepest biases about leadership? In other words, are we ready for a president named Joe? Former Vice President Joe Biden is often described in campaign coverage as a safe, traditional choice. Thats wrong. Sure, Biden doesnt have to confront centuries of American patriarchy like Amy Klobuchar must, or overcome the racism that faces Andrew Yang. But Biden does have the entire weight of American political history against him. This country has never had a president named Joe. Nor has any major political party ever dared to nominate a Joe. Why is being Joe such a handicap? Having chafed under the name for 46 years (it could have been worse Mom originally wanted to name me Duncan), I have a theory: Joe is simply too relatable a name to ever command the respect necessary for elevation to the highest office in the land. That may seem like a strange thing to say, since politicians spend considerable time trying to seem like they are one of us. But that is a pretense built on the falsity of American populism. For all our claims that anyone can become president, we Americans consistently vote aspirationally, electing people who seem somehow greater than us as deft with words as former President Bill Clinton, as cool as former President Barack Obama, or as good at getting away with bad behavior as President Trump. We do not elect average Joes, because the name is weighted down by its association with the middle-class, the middle-brow, and the middle-of-the-road. Those categories are all shrinking in a politically polarized country divided between rich and poor. Joes are too easily dismissed as nobodies Joe Blow or Joe Schmo. And were not anybodys idea of health. Joe Sixpack did not get that name because of his abs. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the idea of Joe representing the commoner dates to the 1830s. But the name is more Old Testament than that. In Genesis, Joseph gets sold into slavery in Egypt but interprets dreams for Pharaoh, and ends up as prime minister. Politically, its been downhill for Joes ever since. Joes modern associations with leadership involve ghastly villains like Stalin and Goebbels. In the U.S., the name has fallen out of fashion. Today youll encounter legions of Liams and Logans before youll bump into a Joe. And if youre asking for Joe, youre likely to be served average coffee. We Joes dont even amount to a latte. Still, there are real advantages to being named Joe. Ive always appreciated the low expectations. I never have to be the most brilliant person in the room, and I can show up late or underdressed to any party. But in politics, being a Joe is a pickle. And Vice President Biden is a classic Joe. Hes dependable, relatable and likable. But were also told by the commentariat that hes too small for the presidency not brilliant, tough or progressive enough. The conventional wisdom is that if we picked this Joe as president, we would be settling for average. What can this Joe do to overcome his Joe-ness? W.C. Fields famously advised, It aint what they call you, its what you answer to. So maybe its not too late to change. Biden could pick his middle name Robinette, and start going by Rob. Or maybe he can hope that this country finally tires of exceptionalism, and drama, and instead embraces the boring and the steady. But this Joe wouldnt bet on it. Sad to say, Joe Biden cant even count on solidarity among his fellow Joes. I, for one, think Biden seems behind the times. Im more impressed with Elizabeth Warren. Joe Mathews writes the Connecting California column for Zocalo Public Square. Tokyo, Feb 2 : A Japanese destroyer set out for the Middle East on Sunday as part of an intelligence-gathering mission to ensure maritime safety in the region. In this Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Forces' (SDF) first long-term intelligence mission abroad, it is expected that the 4,650-ton "Takanami" ship will join other troops who were sent to the area last month, reports Efe news. "The intelligence-gathering mission bears very significant meaning that is directly linked to people's lives," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said at an event in Yokosuka while sending off the ship and its around 200 personnel. The mission began with patrol planes sent to the region on January 20 and will continue to December 26, according to the government. It aims to gather information to safeguard shipping routes in the Middle East, from which Japan imports 90 per cent of the oil it consumes. Tokyo plans to rotate defence force destroyers in three four-month tours over the course of the mission, which could be prolonged if approved by Abe's Cabinet. The approval of the Cabinet does not have to be submitted to parliamentary scrutiny. The deployment is being carried out in areas of the Gulf of Oman, in the north of the Arabian Sea and in the vicinity of the strategic Bab al-Mandab Strait, the southern entrance to the Red Sea, to where P-3C patrol planes have already been mobilized by Japan. The government's decision to deploy its assets to the area has been criticized by the opposition at a time of growing tension between the United States and Iran. The Japanese mission is independent of the operations of a multinational force led by Washington whose main objective is to guarantee the safety of the Strait of Hormuz. The deployment of this Japanese force and the areas it will focus on was discussed between Abe and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani at their bilateral meeting in Tokyo last December. Police officers at the scene after a man was shot and killed by armed police in London, England, on Feb. 2, 2020. (Hollie Adams/Getty Images) After Attack in London, UK Police Say Suspect Was Previously Convicted for Terrorism Several people were stabbed in a terror-related incident in South London, prompting police to shoot and kill the suspect, according to the Metropolitan Police in a series of statements on Sunday. In an update, police said that three people were injured in the incident, according to reports. The incident was quickly declared as a terrorist incident and we believe it to be Islamist-related, Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Lucy DOrsi said. DOrsi said there was a bomb that was apparently strapped to the assailants body. But it was quickly determined to be a hoax, reported The Associated Press. Three victims have been taken to south London hospitals. One man is being treated as life-threatening, one woman has non-life threatening injuries and another woman has minor injuries, DOrsi added. The suspect in the case was identified as Sudesh Amman, who was previously convicted of terrorism-related offenses, officials told The Telegraph, the BBC, and the Guardian. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said his government would further plans for fundamental changes to the system for dealing with those convicted of terrorism offenses starting on Monday. In an earlier statement, Metropolitan Police said the suspect died after being shot by police. A man has been shot by armed officers in #Streatham. At this stage it is believed a number of people have been stabbed. The circumstances are being assessed; the incident has been declared as terrorist-related, police wrote in a statement on Sunday. Images posted on social media showed the body of a man lying on the pavement as police had their guns drawn. #INCIDENT A man has been shot by armed officers in #Streatham. At this stage it is believed a number of people have been stabbed. The circumstances are being assessed; the incident has been declared as terrorist-related. Please follow @metpoliceuk for updates Metropolitan Police (@metpoliceuk) February 2, 2020 We can confirm that the man shot by police at around 2pm today in #Streatham High Road has been pronounced dead Metropolitan Police (@metpoliceuk) February 2, 2020 London Mayor Sadiq Khan urged for resolve following another terrorist another attack in the city. Terrorists seek to divide us and to destroy our way of life, he said in a statement. Here in London we will never let them succeed. According to Britains Security Service, the current terrorism-related threat level in the United Kingdom is classified as substantial, meaning that a terrorist attack is likely. In November, a radicalized man was shot and killed by police after he killed two people near London Bridge. Usman Khan, 28, was identified as the suspect in that case. The Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu said in a statement that Khan was convicted in 2012 for terrorism offenses, adding that he was released from jail on license. We continue to make fast time inquiries to ensure that no other people were involved in this attack and that there is no outstanding threat to the public, he said at the time. Thank you for reading! Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading. Nick Cushing got the perfect end to his time in charge of Manchester City Action Images via Reuters/Molly Darlington There was a perfect ending for a popular manager, more pitch issues for one club and plenty of goals in round 14 of the Barclays FA Women's Super League. Geoff Berkeley looked at five of the biggest talking points of the weekend. Cushings fairytale farewell It was the end of an era at Manchester City as Nick Cushing took charge of his final match as manager and it could not have gone any better. During his six-year reign, City won a WSL title, two Womens FA Cup's and three League Cup's. And Cushing, who is set to join New York City as assistant manager, leaves the club on top of the table after securing a 2-1 win over title rivals Arsenal. Pauline Bremer and Lauren Hemp struck either side of half-time to put City in control at the Academy Stadium. Danielle van de Donk got one back for Arsenal, but the hosts held firm as Cushing received a guard of honour from his players as he left the field. G-eight afternoon for title-chasers There appears to be no stopping Chelsea as they smashed eight past West Ham in a sensational showing. Since the turn of the year the Blues have racked up a whopping 29 goals in just seven matches in all competitions. Four of those came in their stunning win over Arsenal in their previous league encounter and they backed that up with another ruthless performance. Story continues Chelsea led 3-0 at half-time thanks to goals from Maren Mjelde, Bethany England and Sophie Ingle before stepping up a gear in the second half. England and Mjelde struck again with Erin Cuthbert, Ramona Bachmann and Emily Murphy also scoring as Blues crushed West Ham to stay a point behind Man City. Pitch problems for Reds The wet weather threatened to put a dampener on the weekend as two matches were postponed. Tottenham Hotspurs clash with Bristol City at The Hive was called off due to a waterlogged pitch while Liverpools game against Birmingham City fell victim with the surface at Prenton Park the home of Tranmere Rovers deemed unplayable. It was the second time this has happened to Liverpool this season as their match against Manchester United on January 12 was also postponed. Chairman Peter Moore said he was in continual discussions with Tranmere chief Mark Palios and added: We need to try to find a solution to provide our LFC Women with the surface they deserve.To that end we will continue to explore all the options open to us. Williams makes amends The pressure was on Fara Williams when she stepped up for a penalty with 10 minutes to go against Manchester United. Not only would it snatch a point for Reading after Lauren James put United in front but it would banish the memories of her miss earlier in the clash. Keeper Mary Earps came to the visitors rescue when she pulled off a superb save to thwart Willliams from the spot. But there was to be no denying Williams the second time around as she riffled the ball into the top left-hand corner. The emphatic finish summed up Williams courageous character as she dashed Uniteds hopes of securing all three points. Whelans back to haunt old club Back in 2017, Aileen Whelan made two appearances for Everton. It was only a brief spell but she reminded the fans of her talents when he smashed home the winner for Brighton and Hove Albion. With 38 minutes on the clock, Kirsty Bartons cross was knocked down by Amanda Nilden for Whelan who thumped the ball past Sandy MacIver from 12 yards out. It also sealed Brightons first league victory in three matches as they moved further clear of the drop zone. French president Emmanuel Macron has taken a thinly veiled swipe at Boris Johnson by claiming the Brexit campaign was based on lies. The Prime Minister was the frontman of the Vote Leave campaign which secured the UKs departure from the European Union in the 2016 referendum. As the UK prepared to leave the bloc, Mr Macron said Brexit was an alarm signal which should be heard across the EU. The French president said: At midnight, for the first time in 70 years, a country will leave the European Union. It is a historic alarm signal that must be heard in each of our countries. President Macron said France had always respected the decision taken by the British people in the 2016 referendum. But he restated his belief that much the referendum campaign was based on lies, exaggerations, simplifications, cheques that were promised and will never be delivered. The French president, who said he would visit the UK soon, has repeatedly called for the EU to reform. He said it should be more sovereign, more democratic, closer to our citizens so that the desire to leave Europe will never again be the response to difficulties today. He also sought to reassure French citizens living in the UK that there rights will be maintained, preserved, defended. Of British people living in France, he said tomorrow things wont change. They are in France, their home. They are today, they will be tomorrow. There will be unfortunately some practical consequences. They wont any more be EU citizens and for those who have not asked for French citizenship, they can no longer, for example, stand for office in municipal elections. But the consequences are minimal. China imposed a lockdown Sunday on a major city far away from the epicentre of a coronavirus epidemic, as its death toll from the disease soared to 304 and the first foreign fatality was reported in the Philippines. The events added to deepening concerns about the potential for the virus to spread, as more governments around the world closed their borders to people from China. Since emerging out of the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year, the coronavirus has infected nearly 14,500 people across China and reached 24 countries. Many of the infections overseas have been of people who had travelled from Wuhan, an industrial hub of 11 million people, or surrounding areas of Hubei province. Countries or territories with confirmed cases of the 2019 Novel Coronavirus as of February 1 at 08:30 GMT.. By John SAEKI (AFP) The person who died in the Philippines was a 44-year-old man from Wuhan, according to the World Health Organization, which has declared the epidemic a global health emergency. China has embarked on unprecedented efforts to contain the virus, which is believed to have jumped to humans from a Wuhan animal market and can be transmitted among people in a similar fashion to the flu. Lockdowns Those efforts have included extraordinary quarantines in Wuhan and surrounding cities, with all transport routes out banned, effectively sealing of more than 50 million people. But 10 days after locking down Wuhan, authorities on Sunday announced similar draconian curbs on people movement in Wenzhou, 800 kilometres (500 miles) away). Wenzhou is a coastal city of nine million people in Zhejiang province, part of the eastern industrial heartland that has powered China's economic rise over recent decades. People around the world are donning face masks in a bid to protect themselves from the virus. By Money SHARMA (AFP) Only one resident per household is allowed to go out every two days to buy necessities, and 46 highway toll stations have been closed, authorities announced. The city had previously closed public places such as cinemas and museums and suspended public transport. Zhejiang has 661 confirmed infections, with 265 of those in Wenzhou, according to the government. This is the highest tally for any province in China after ground-zero Hebei. Closing borders Internationally, governments continued their efforts to erect virtual borders against the disease. The United States, Australia, New Zealand and Israel have banned foreign nationals from visiting if they had been in China recently, and warned their own citizens from travelling there. Mongolia, Russia and Nepal closed their land borders, while Papua New Guinea went as far as to ban anyone arriving from ports or airports across Asia. The news of the man's death in Manila on Sunday was released shortly after the Philippines said it would immediately halt the arrivals of any foreign travellers from China. Authorities are conducting temperature checks on people across China as people return to work following the Lunar New Year holiday. By NOEL CELIS (AFP) The number of countries reporting infections rose to 24 after Britain, Russia and Sweden this weekend confirmed their first cases. More deaths The death toll in China climbed to 304 on Sunday after authorities reporting 45 new deaths from the previous day. The coronavirus has seen airlines stop flights to China, and countries close its borders to travellers from China. By ADAM TANJUNG (AFP) There were 2,590 new confirmed cases in China, bringing the total to nearly 14,500. The number of confirmed infections in China is far higher than the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome outbreak of 2002-03. SARS, which is caused by a pathogen similar to the new coronavirus and also originated in China, killed 774 people worldwide -- most of them in mainland China and Hong Kong. Holiday ending The emergence of the virus came at the worst time for China, coinciding with the Lunar New Year Holiday when hundreds of millions travel across the country in planes, trains and buses for family reunions. The World Health Organization late last week declared the new coronavirus outbreak a global health emergency. By Hector RETAMAL (AFP) China had also cut long-distance bus routes and postponed thousands of trains trips to reduce travel across the country. The holiday was scheduled to end on Friday, then extended by three days to give authorities more time to try and deal with the crisis. With many people due back at work on Monday, people were starting to return on planes and trains over the weekend wearing face masks. Custom authorities had ordered temperature checks at all exit-entry points in Beijing, according to state media. Returning travellers were being checked and registered at residential compounds, while fever checks were in place in subway stations, offices and cafes. One 22-year-old arriving at a Beijing train station from northeastern China said her family had urged her to delay her return. "But I was worried it would affect my job," she said. The emergence of the virus came at the worst time for China, coinciding with the Lunar New Year Holiday when hundreds of millions travel across the country in planes, trains and buses for family reunions. By NICOLAS ASFOURI (AFP) Security guard Du Guiliang, 47, said he would be starting back at work in Beijing on Sunday, after returning from northeast Liaoning province. "Many colleagues (from Hubei) couldn't come back. Now, those who work the day shift at our company have to do the night shift as well," he said. But many businesses were to remain closed for at least another week, while some major cities including Shanghai had also extended the holiday. With the Chinese economy suffering, the central bank announced it would release 1.2 trillion yuan ($173 billion) on Monday to maintain liquidity in the banking system -- the day markets reopen after the holiday. A man was fatally shot by authorities in London Sunday in what police are calling a terrorist-related incident. At this stage it is believed a number of people have been stabbed, Londons Metropolitan Police said on Twitter. The circumstances are being assessed; the incident has been declared as terrorist-related. #INCIDENT A man has been shot by armed officers in #Streatham. At this stage it is believed a number of people have been stabbed. The circumstances are being assessed; the incident has been declared as terrorist-related. Please follow @metpoliceuk for updates Metropolitan Police (@metpoliceuk) February 2, 2020 Police in London said there were at least two injured victims. An update on their conditions was not immediately available. Authorities confirmed that a man shot by police around 2 p.m. London time on Streatham High Road was pronounced dead. We can confirm that the man shot by police at around 2pm today in #Streatham High Road has been pronounced dead Metropolitan Police (@metpoliceuk) February 2, 2020 London Ambulance Service confirmed that a number of resources were sent to the area. Elizabeth Warren (D., Rolling Stone) wants to own the nerd lane. I have a plan for that! is practically her campaign slogan, and her tedious promises to nerd out are calculated to appeal to the intellectual vanity of Democratic primary voters, NPR-listening types who like to think of themselves as the smart people. (Also the empathetic people, angels and ministers of grace defend us.) Never mind, as my National Review colleagues have pointed out, that her plans are silly, shallow, meretricious, unworkable, unlikely, asinine, and taken seriously by almost no one, Senator Warren least of all. The point isnt that the plan will work, or even that it ever will be implemented. The plan is to demonstrate that you are the right sort of person its basically a wordy bumper-sticker. And thats the great thing about being in the Senate, especially as a member of the minority party: You dont have to do squat. Which Senator Warren has not. The nice people, the ones with all the empathy and the NPR swag, like Senator Warren. Maybe not as much as youd think: Joe Biden is in the lead with 27 percent in the polls, followed by Bernie Sanders at 24 percent, with Senator Warren way down at No. 3 with 14 percent. Bernie Sanders is a dopey rage-addled antique socialist who was born when Charles Lindbergh was in the news, who would, if elected, finish his first term older than Ned Beatty is today. Did you know Ned Beatty is still alive? Exactly. Joe Biden is . . . not a confessing socialist. Warren is trailing both of those guys. And it is dusty back there. She has plans. But she never has really had to implement one. The closest she has come to doing anything of the sort was helping to bring the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to life and that thing is such a goat rodeo that the Supreme Court may very well decide its basic structure is unconstitutional. Her other carefully considered plans such as passing herself off as a Cherokee to advance her academic career have not come to much beyond embarrassment. Story continues The obvious point of comparison here is the guy currently in fourth place, behind Senator Warren: former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg has plans, too but, unlike Warren, Sanders, Biden, et al., he has a pretty good record for bringing those plans to fruition. After a wildly successful career in business, he went into politics, which is what you do when your tens of billions of dollars are no longer enough to satisfy your colossal vanity. He served three terms as mayor. And, damn his eyes, he was pretty good at it: Murder rates went down, and high-school graduation rates went up. His government routinely ran surpluses. As Mike Pesca put it in Slate: Its true that Bloomberg is running differently than everyone else in the race and its also true that hes not a politician in the emotive or empathetic mold of recently successful candidates. But in fact, Bloomberg does have a message that could appeal to voters, and its a simple one: Michael Bloomberg has a greater record of accomplishment in office than any candidate in the race. How? Because Bloomberg is the nerd that Senator Warren pretends to be: a creature of data, measurement, and cold-eyed assessment of political, economic, and institutional realities. Whats the Democrats case against Bloomberg? That hes a billionaire interloper who wont wait his turn? It is not very difficult to think of examples of very wealthy men being poor performers in political office, and there is something displeasingly Caesarish about a rich man building a political campaign on his personal fortune. And Bloomberg is the same age as Biden, in keeping with the Democrats recent taste for gerontocracy. (Seriously, the Chinese politburo thinks these folks are really getting up there.) That hes too nanny-statey in Senator Warrens world? Conservatives will mostly detest Bloomberg, of course. His views on abortion and gun rights alone are sufficient for that, and the overwhelming majority of Republicans are more than happy with President Donald Trump. But isnt he exactly the kind of guy progressives and independents always say they want? Pragmatic, non-ideological, results-oriented, and bipartisan enough that hes already been elected as a Republican and an independent? (Hey, Libertarians: You get him next time.) But what people want and what they say they want are not often the same thing. A problem-solving realist with a strong, non-hypothetical record in the real world? No, no, say Democrats, give us the rampaging socialist wackadoodle whos never had a real job. Sure, he might show up to his inauguration wearing Lenins embalmed head as a codpiece, but thatll show the plutocrats! Thats the 2020 Democrats: Too bananas for Marianne (no relation) Williamson. The news from Iowa is a lot like the news from the Senate: Full of evidence that Donald Trump is, if nothing else, lucky in his opponents. More from National Review Secretary Michael R. Pompeo And Belarusian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei Remarks Michael R. Pompeo, Secretary of State At a Press Availability Minsk, Belarus February 1, 2020 MODERATOR: (Via interpreter) Good afternoon, colleagues. Let's start our press conference because we are quite pressed for time. I give the floor to the Foreign Minister of the Republic of Belarus Vladimir Makei. FOREIGN MINISTER MAKEI: (Via interpreter) Distinguished Mr. Secretary of State, members of the delegations, and the representatives of the media, we are it's a pleasure to welcome Michael Pompeo, the Secretary of State of the United States, in the Republic of Belarus. We see this visit as a very important one because for the last last time the state secretary of the United States visited Belarus, 26 years ago. This visit is an obvious proof that Belarus and American relations are become more active, and the visit, as we see it, must give a new impetus to the normalization of the relations between the two states. We've just had the meeting with the head of the state and the discussions with the president of the Republic of Belarus took place in the atmosphere of trust and absolute mutual understanding. We've discussed a broad range of issues of our bilateral relations, and we've come to a conclusion that we have common interests or have resonating interests in many areas. We've highlighted the political will of both parties to develop their bilateral relations, and the returning of the ambassadors after the 12-years' break will contribute to that. Belarus appreciates that the United States support the sovereignty and independence of this country. We've highlighted and discussed the significant but yet untapped economic and investment potential, and we have also discussed the mechanisms and areas where we can work together. We have also highlighted the cooperation between our law enforcement agencies, and both sides are committed to the development of the cooperation in the area of regional and world security. We have exchanged opinions on the situation in the region and the cooperation of the Republic of Belarus with NATO. We've highlighted the intentions and the commitment of Belarus to preserve security and peace in the region and in the entire world. Let me thank my our American partners for very constructive and open dialogue. And now I would like to give the floor to the Secretary of State of the United States, Mr. Michael Pompeo. SECRETARY POMPEO: Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here in Minsk today with President Lukashenka and Foreign Minister Makei, and as you said, Mr. Foreign Minister, two and a half decades that's too long. We are a bit overdue, and I'm glad to be here today. We should all recall the history. We were one of the first countries to recognize Belarus's independence in 1991 and we remain strongly committed to it. I hope today is a solid first step towards improved relationships and closer ties. First, as I told President Lukashenka, the United States welcomes Belarus's increased cooperation and information sharing on the shared security threats that our two nations have. The Government of Belarus has signed agreements with the U.S. Department of Defense, the FBI, our DEA, to bolster teamwork in areas like border security, cybersecurity, and countering narcotics. We hope to see that increase in the coming years. We also spoke at length about economic issues. The United States agrees with President Lukashenka, who said recently, quote, "Belarusians have your own country, that you're sovereign and independent and that you can't be part of some other country and can't betray you or dissolve Belarus," end of quote. The United States wants to help Belarus build its own sovereign country. Our energy producers stand ready to deliver 100 percent of the oil you need at competitive prices. We're the biggest energy producer in the world, and all you have to do is call us. In that spirit, I talked to President Lukashenka about tackling some of the obstacles that present American businesses for more readily and easily accessing this market, and emphasized the need for a level playing field. WTO accession, increased private sector development, and legal and regulatory reforms will all help Belarus unlock its trade potential and secure its own sovereignty. Lastly, President Lukashenka and I spoke about democracy and human rights issues. Belarus has made real progress but there remains work to do. The United States of America prioritizes respect for human rights, a strong civil society, and freedom of the press in every corner of the world. Further progress in those areas and others is the only path towards lifting U.S. sanctions. My counterparts and I also discussed the United States hope that Belarus will adopt stricter international standards to battle human trafficking. I also welcomed Belarus's participation in the Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom in Washington this past July and its steps to allow groups to worship more freely here. We encourage further progress on this front. And at a time when anti-Semitism is rearing its ugly head in new and frightening ways all across Europe, and sadly in the United States too, we welcome Belarus's commitment to acknowledging the horrors of the past and striving never to allow them to repeat themselves. We thank Belarus for partnering with the United States Government to commemorate Holocaust Remembrance Day in May as well as the 75th anniversary of the destruction of the Minsk Ghetto. In closing, I want to emphasize that we fully support Belarus's desire to make its own choices, pursue its own partnerships, and play a constructive role in the region. Your nation should not be forced to be dependent on any one partner for your prosperity or for your security. It's my hope that this year will be the best one yet for our relationship. Thank you for hosting me here in Minsk today. MODERATOR: (Via interpreter) Colleagues QUESTION: (Via interpreter) Good afternoon, my name is Natalia Stelmakh. I am representing the ONT channel. I have a question for both participants of the press conference, but first of all to the Mr. Secretary of State. President Lukashenka more than once stated that without the participation of the United States of America, we can't resolve the crisis in Ukraine. Have you discussed this issue today as in more active participation of the United States of America in resolving this crisis? And which role Belarus can play in this process? Thank you. SECRETARY POMPEO: So we did. The foreign minister and I spoke about this. President Lukashenka and I spoke about this as well. They made clear that they hope that the United States would continue to take a constructive role in preventing the challenges that are in southeast Ukraine today. We continue to take an active role. We will be real participants in trying to deliver good outcomes. I was sitting when we were having this conversation in the very room where the meetings took place in the Normandy Format. This is this is something that all of Europe, all of the West needs to participate in resolving. Ultimately, Ukraine and Russia will have to resolve this conflict, but we're prepared to do all that we can, all the United States can, to do to deliver and help Ukraine achieve its democracy in the way that President Zelenskyy wants to, and the way he and I spoke about it just yesterday. MS ORTAGUS: John Hudson, Washington Post. FOREIGN MINISTER MAKEI: (Via interpreter) As for the Belarusian position on Ukraine, then everyone knows it. We are committed and we are ready to do everything we can in order to resolve the crisis in Ukraine as soon as possible. We are ready to provide the platform for any negotiations and meetings at any level. We support any formats if they are aimed at peaceful resolution, and that includes the participation of the United States in this process. But in order to have that, we must have the sincere interest from both parties of the confrontation. QUESTION: Thanks very much. Mr. Secretary, so a core tenet of President Trump's "America First" doctrine is getting away from an era of American foreign policy where we expend finite resources on countries looking for a counterweight to regional hegemony. With that in mind, how does how do you view this outreach to Belarus and how does it fit into that structure that the President has laid out? You also mentioned that there may be an ambassador to Belarus. Is that something that could be happening very soon or is that sort of a long-term goal? And you said you'd like Belarus to make progress on human rights. Is there specific areas where you'd like to see progress? And just finally, you mentioned the possibility of lifting sanctions. What sorts of what sorts of sanctions could you foresee lifting in the event that you start to see the progress that you'd like to make? And Mr. Foreign Minister, Belarus is is Belarus considering making any reforms on human rights in order to normalize relations with the West? If so, what are those and what role would you like to see the U.S. start to play more actively in Belarus? Thank you very much. SECRETARY POMPEO: I'll go first. I'll try and take your first four questions. Yes. (Laughter.) So with respect to human rights and sanctions, what's important about today is that we've seen improvement here and we think our engagement can continue that, can help Belarus to continue to make improvements along the way. The sanctions regime is statutory. We'll continue to evaluate that. We've been unambiguous about the things that have to happen in order to see that kind of sanctions relief. We're not there yet, but we're very hopeful that moments like we're in right now, days like today, bring us closer to that. With respect to the ambassador, I hope it happens quickly. The Senate will have something to say about that as well. But I think it's something that we could likely see in the not-too-distant future. It's something that we've made a lot of progress on and I think we can, if everything proceeds apace, have an ambassador here before too terribly long. I think it'd be a great thing for us. We've improved our diplomatic capability here already. We've almost doubled the number of diplomats we have here. It's already proven to be beneficial, I think, to the United States as well as, I think, to Belarus as well. And finally, to put this in context, President Trump's "America First" foreign policy clearly contemplates making sure that the American people are safer and more secure, and that those who pose threats around the world to the things we hold dear are places we're going to make investments. You can see what we did in Ukraine, how much we increased our investments to provide security in Ukraine compared to what the previous administration was prepared to do. They simply weren't prepared to take seriously those American obligations to keep the American people safe and secure. We've done that. We'll continue to do that in places where it's appropriate here in Belarus, and we want to be part of that. It comes along with a requirement. We want countries like Belarus to make progress, to do this work themselves. We want European countries to participate as well. But no one should mistake "America First" for any retreat from America protecting the values and the things that keep the American people safe. QUESTION: And any specifics on human rights, where you'd like to see progress? SECRETARY POMPEO: We talked about all areas of this. We talked about about every dimension religious freedom. All the things I mentioned in my remarks are places where we'd like to see continued improvement. FOREIGN MINISTER MAKEI: (Via interpreter) Answering your questions, I would like to say that yes, we would welcome the more active role of the United States here in Belarus, and taking into account the significance and the role the United States are playing on the world arena. We are quite interested in the American business coming here to Belarus and working quite actively. We are interested in more active cooperation between different governmental structures. We have a lot of tasks and we share those tasks and a lot of challenges that we can address together, and in some situations we can win, actually, only if we are working together. And today, during the meeting of the Secretary of State with the president, they discussed many issues, many of these areas countering terrorism, countering human trafficking and drug trafficking and the related issues. Despite some problematic issues and some problems between our two countries, there are some areas where we have common interests and we can cooperate efficiently. As for a very sensitive area for the United States of America, which is democracy and human rights, then these issues have been discussed as well. They were discussed in detail and the Secretary of State mentioned that. Probably Belarus is not an absolutely ideal country in this respect, and we do understand that we must implement some reforms in many areas, including the area of human rights, and we do that. Probably you don't know, but according to the recommendations of the United Nations, we have developed the national plan, national strategy on human rights, and we are implementing it quite successfully together with the nongovernmental organizations, and we are quite actively involved in the dialogue with the United States of America on human rights and this dialogue is being carried out not just for the sake of the dialogue, but we are discussing specific issues, trying to find specific answers to specific questions and measures to improve the situation in this area. So that's why we are not standing in one place. We are developing. We are going forward. And gradually, I hope that gradually all the problematic issues that we still have will be neutralized and that will help us to neutralize the resting problems in our relations. MODERATOR: (Via interpreter) Thank you very much for your work. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address A task force studying New Yorks struggling taxi industry called Friday for mission-driven investors to help bail out the citys drivers who incurred massive debt once the value of the medallion that allows a person to operate a yellow cab plummeted in the age of Uber and Lyft. Firefighters put out a kitchen fire at a house in the Highway 58 area on Saturday afternoon. At 5 p.m., a 911 call was made reporting a house fire at 8350 Front Gate Circle. Highway 58 Volunteer Fire Department responded and arrived on the scene reporting heavy smoke pouring out the front of the house. Firefighters entered the home and reported fire in the kitchen. They quickly extinguished the fire and contained it to the first floor of the home. No injuries were reported, but two dogs died in the fire from smoke inhalation. HCEMS Medic 1 was on the scene for any potential injuries to the firefighters. Highway 58 Volunteer Fire Department requested a Mutual Aid response for additional manpower to the fire scene. Tri-Community VFD responded to the scene. Chattanooga Fire Department staged at Highway 58 station 1 and Bradley County. Fire Rescue staged at Highway 58 station 2. Fire officials reported the fire started in the kitchen and will be ruled accidental. Damages are estimated to be around $100,000. The American Red Cross was requested to assist three adults and one child with their immediate needs. One of the wonders of the island is the salt cave, which is the longest cave in the world, citing information from the Geological Survey of Iran a cave with a length of more than 6 kilometers and an average height of 237 meters. In addition, experts cite the Namakdan salt cave because of the best salt and its medicinal uses, and it is a good place to treat patients with asthma and respiratory distress. Namakdan Cave, along with other natural and historical monuments such as the Naz Islands, the Kharbas, and the Dukuhok Bird Wetlands in Qeshm Island, is some of the areas that are part of the Qeshm Geopark in Hormozgan Province. Definition of Geopark UNESCO says: UNESCO Global Geoparks are single, unified geographical areas where sites and landscapes of international geological significance are managed with a holistic concept of protection, education, and sustainable development. A UNESCO Global Geopark uses its geological heritage, in connection with all other aspects of the areas natural and cultural heritage, to enhance awareness and understanding of key issues facing society, such as using our earths resources sustainably, mitigating the effects of climate change and reducing natural disasters-related risks. By raising awareness of the importance of the areas geological heritage in history and society today, UNESCO Global Geoparks give local people a sense of pride in their region and strengthen their identification with the area. The creation of innovative local enterprises, new jobs, and high-quality training courses is stimulated as new sources of revenue are generated through geotourism, while the geological resources of the area are protected. But the Iranian regime, which does not care about the environment or the national resources of Iran, will bring about their destruction. Local reporters recently reported that more than 200 hectares of land around the salt dome had been cultivated to shrimp, eliminating all the efforts of giving a global audience to this national treasure. According to local media, its shareholders are Abdul Jalil Amini (current chairman of Qeshm city council) with an 80 percent stake and Mohammad Amini with a 20 percent stake. Alireza Amri Kazemi, Director of Qeshm World Geopark and Head of Qeshm Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Management, told the state-run ISNA news agency, citing the news of the transfer, Due to the negligence of the authorities, there has now been major damage on the main part of the site. However, the project not only did not stop, but it also continued with strength. Despite complaints from locals, no action has been taken to stop the demolition. A UNESCO periodic visit to the site will take place early this year. What is worrying is that Qeshm World Geopark may be removed from the UNESCO list. The countdown has started. A local Dayton teen will not face charges after admitting to discovering mercury at an abandoned structure on a residential property in the 700 block of Coleman Street in Dayton. An undetermined amount of mercury contained in an old jar was recovered from the property, which is undergoing remediation following the feared exposure to students near a school bus stop. On Monday, police were notified of mercury near a school bus stop and the possibility that area children might have been exposed while waiting for their bus. Wednesday morning Dayton police discovered the source of the mercury. Fortunately, to date, no adverse health issues have been reported at this time. Approximately 5 ml or one teaspoon of the liquid metal was collected by Haz Mat Special Services LLC and the Liberty County Fire Marshals Office. Interviews with involved parties have confirmed that there were no other locations that might have been contaminated with the mercury and specifically no mercury was brought aboard any school bus or on to school property. We believe that the exposure to any students or other citizens has been limited to individuals already interviewed and examined, said Dayton Police Chief Robert Vine. In addition, it was suggested that these individuals consult with their family medical provider as a precautionary measure. No criminal charges are pending at this time for any involved individuals, nor are any expected based on the facts as we have gathered them, he said. Travis Young said Dayton ISD has fully cooperated with all local and county officials in the mercury investigation. At the conclusion of the investigation, city officials determined the source was not a Dayton ISD student, he confirmed. The city of Dayton Police Department extended their thanks to the Liberty County Fire Marshals Office, Haz Mat Special Services LLC, and the Dayton Independent School District for their assistance in this matter. dtaylor@hcnonline.com Nollywood actor and comedian, Uche Maduagwu has reacted to the travel ban inflicted on Nigeria by the United States of America. According to Maduagwu, the blame is not to be on Donald Trump as he pointed out that the insecurities in Nigeria is worse than the coronavirus. The actor also pointed out the President Buhari is not to be blamed also. READ ALSO Uche Maduagwu Drags Mercy Eke, Regrets Ever Supporting Her Sharing on Instagram, Maduagwu wrote: It would be so unfair to blame President Buhari for all the killings by Boko Haram, this insurgency started long before he was sworn into office as president. See His Post Here: Back to the Future in Palermo Story and photos by Claudia Flisi A writer returns to Palermo, Sicily and finds a lot has changed for the better the second time around. Tomas Anton Escobar The last time I was in Palermo was more than a quarter century ago. The airport where I landed this time literally did not exist back then. The Aeroporto Internazionale Falcone e Borsellino was inaugurated in 1995, a year after my visit to the Sicilian capital. Back then the cityand the island of Sicilywere still reeling from the deaths of Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in 1992. Both men, Palermo-born and friends from childhood, had fought the Mafia as lawyers and magistrates. Falcone died on May 23, 1992, blown up by a bomb on the A 29 motorway leading from the then-Palermo International Airport to the city. Paolo Borsellino was also been killed by a car bomb in the center of Palermo on July 19, 1992, less than two months later. Supposedly the Mafia deliberately killed both men in Palermo to show how powerful they were. My taxi driver on this trip pointed out the exact spot on the A 29 where Falcone's car had been destroyed. For good measure, he pointed out the hill above the highway where a Mafioso had detonated the bomb. That kind of explanation didn't happen last time I was in this city. People had been edgy, nervous, unwilling to talk about such things. The fact that I and some other journalists from the north had been invited to Palermo was tacit acknowledgement that these events had happened, but nobody wanted to admit anything... Who's Denilo ? Dangerous Time and Mummies The streets of the city had seemed grey and claustrophobic. The population then was roughly 850,000, about the same as it is now, but people seemed to skittle about, eyes darting furtively, women hanging onto their handbags (we were advised to do the same). Men with hands punched into their coats (guarding their cash or fingering their gunswe didn't want to speculate). The residents we saw may not have been old, but they felt old. The only things I remember about that trip, other than the gloomy atmosphere, were visits to the Teatro Politeama Garibaldi, the Catacombe dei Cappuccini (Catacombs of the Capuchin Monastery), and the Charleston restaurant, summarizing the city at the time. The theater's interior was glitzy and gold, a shimmering baroque beauty, but it wasn't Palermo's largest. That honor belongs to Teatro Massimo, the largest opera house not only in Palermo but in Italy, and the third largest in Europe. It had been closed for renovation in 1974 and was not to open again till 1997, a 23-year hiatus due to corruption and mismanagement. So we didn't get to see it back then. Gaia Tilotta Instead, we had seen the Catacombs dei Cappucchini, sort of a 16th century dance macabre with mummies on racks instead of frescoes on walls. The monks of this monastery began to mummify the bodies of their deceased brethren in 1599 and continued to do so through succeeding centuries. Gradually the bourgeoisie decided it was more fashionable to be preserved for display than buried in the ground, and paid the monks handsomely to be embalmed this way. We had been told there were a total of 8,000 corpses and 1,252 mummies here. After the first few, I wasn't counting, and I definitely made it a point not to look at one of the last bodies on display, that of a two-year-old girl who died in the 1920s. None of these deaths had anything to do with the territorial wars of organized crime, but somehow they reminded me of Mafia victims, and I had been glad to leave and did not want to come back again. From One Fancy Restaurant to an Explosion of Them The Charleston restaurant opened in 1967, a newcomer by historic standards, but by 1994 it had earned Michelin stars and national and international awards. The restaurant began in the center of town but eventually moved to a seaside location in Mondello, an upscale resort area north of Palermo proper. The subliminal message seemed to be: if you want to do something chic and refined, get out of town. My colleagues and I had no objections: the place was ritzy then, and is even more so today. It is unabashedly elite, but the best things on the menu have humble origins, like eggplant. Sicilians do eggplant like nobody else on earth. Alessio Rinella It's hard to improve on Sicilian food, but oh what a difference 25 years has made in the life of the city! These days Palermo is booming, bustling, and beautiful. I found the streets and byways packed with people, young and old, smiling and stylishly dressed. Floral accents hung from wrought-iron balconies. I passed sparkling new storefront shops and cafes, as modern as any in Stockholm or Stuttgart. Admittedly the sidewalks are not as clean as in those northern cities, but not bad by Italian standards. When I crossed the street, I didn't feel that I was risking my life. When I lifted my camera to take a picture, I didn't fear that it would be summarily removed from my hands. Palermo Gleams Again The Teatro Massimo is open for business, and offers an incredibly rich program of cultural activities. Community involvement seems to be a key component in many of them, judging from the posters and billboards flanking the entrance. We weren't allowed into the theater for a look-see because we hadn't booked a tour in advance. My companion Gioia, a Sicilian journalist colleague who was acting as my informal guide, tried her best to convince the gatekeepers to let us in but to no avail. In spite of my disappointment, I was pleased by the thought that "organization" has made inroads here. Gaia Tilotta To make amends, Gioia squeezed us in for the last tour of the nearby Bellini Theater. This sandstone building is far less imposing than the marbled grandeur of the Massimo, and its capacity of 700 is less than half the size of the latter. Not to mention that the Bellini was hosting an art installation when I visited, rather than being used as a real theater. But its history encapsulates Palermo: opened informally in 1675, the then-Teatro Tavaglino first hosted operas. Finished in wood, it was inaugurated in 1726 and re-christened Teatro Santa Lucia. An earthquake in the 1740s destroyed most of the structure so it was rebuilt again, incorporating in part a bridge between two buildings. When the French arrived in the early 19th century, the interior took on more or less its current architecture and the theater was given the name of the French king's wife, Real Teatro Carolino. Composer Vincenzo Bellini of Sicily died in 1835 and the theater took on his name 13 years later. The public entry isn't grand by any standard, but the stage and seating justified this having been the most important theater in Palermo in the 19th century. A suspicious fire destroyed much of the structure in 1964 and the process of renewal began again. As its fortunesand those of Palermohave waxed and waned over the years, the theater was used as a broadcast center for the fascists and later a headquarters for Americans in World War II, a concert hall, a cinema, a cultural center, and a school. "Ours is a long story of corruption and neglect," explained our erudite guide, but he was optimistic about its future. In fact, the current owners plan to return Bellini to its original function as a proper theater before long. In 2015, seven Arab-Norman churches and structures in the city center were recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage site (along with two churches in nearby areas), and this designation has increased the tourist flow to Palermo. A growing number of mega-cruise ship arrivals have also contributed to the tourism influx. Most spectacular among the UNESCO structures is the Cattedrale della Santa Vergine Maria Assunta, dating back to 1185. Successively expanded and rebuilt over the next six centuries, the cathedral is a melange of Anglo-Norman, Arabesque, gothic, gothic-Catalan, renaissance, baroque, and neoclassic styles. The exterior is as beautiful as it is imposing, set on a large piazza with marble statues and waving palm trees as counterpoint to that ornate sandstone facade. I am no student of architecture, but even I could see half a millennium's worth of architectural styles on display. The interior is lavish, with mosaics, statuary, saintly relics, Roman crypts, gilt frescoes, and more. The prevailing style is supposedly neoclassic but, as our guide quipped, "Even our neoclassic style is ornate because everything in Sicily is a little bit baroque." I hadn't remembered the sundial from my previous visit. A small pinhole in the church's domed ceiling allows the sun to project along the floor precisely at noon and define the hour and the winter and summer solstices. Signs of the zodiac can also be seen on the floor and the sun passes each at the appropriate month. Zodiac signs are very unusual in a Catholic church but not because of their pagan origins; this sundial was actually a scientific instrument useful for astrological research. The Sicilian Priest Who Fought the Mob Another change from my previous visit was a modern-looking tomb with a sheaf of wheat laid over the casket. Next to it was a framed picture of a priest who seemed to be smiling at us. This was Pino Puglisi, born in a tough neighborhood of Palermo in 1937 and killed there by the Mafia in 1993, a year after Falcone and Borsellino. Puglisi had been working with children, encouraging them to stay in school and out of trouble. He had refused Mafia donations to the church. He had encouraged local businesses to refuse paying the pizzo, extortion money. He had been shot down in daylight in front of his own home on his birthday. "I've been expecting you" were supposedly his last words, according to one of his assassins. Gaia Tilotta When Falcone and Borsellino were killed, the Palermitani cried, rocked, and wailed in anguish, our guide told us. When the priest was shot, people finally began to organize. They mobilized for a change in the laws to make pizzo more difficult. Shopkeepers posted signs outside their businesses, "No pizzo here." Students held anti-Mafia rallies. "The Mafia as it once was does not exist in Palermo anymore," our guide insisted, a little teary-eyed. She touched the sheaf of wheat. "This symbolizes growth, resurrection, and hope." Story by Claudia Flisi, images by the photographers indicated. Claudia Flisi is a dual citizen writer based in Milan, Italy. Her stories have appeared in the International New York Times, Newsweek, Fortune, Variety, and many others. She has visited more than 100 countries, fallen off horses on six continents, and trained dogs in three languages. Her book about an Italian dog, Crystal and Jade, was published in 2016. Related Features: Sicily, With Cherries on Top - Susan Van Allen Retracing the Steps of Lila and Elena in Naples - Michael Shapiro Days of Celebration in Small-town Umbria - Debi Goodwin A Hedgehog Hospital in Italian Wine Country - Claudia Flisi See other Europe travel stories from the archives DES MOINES, Iowa It was a fitting coda to a star-crossed campaign the scrapping late Saturday of the most highly-anticipated poll of Iowa caucus season. All last week, the Democratic presidential contest had been fixed in a state of suspended animation. Campaign strategists and reporters encamped at the Des Moines Marriott and around the white tablecloths at 801 Chophouse. Caucus tourists descended on Raygun for T-shirts and local parties prepared for an orderly caucus. Yet with three of the top five candidates Sens. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar trapped in Washington for President Donald Trumps impeachment trial for most of last week, the run-up to the caucuses had already lost much of its punch. The stunning, last-minute cancellation of the Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom poll and its accompanying, hour-long CNN special deprived the political class of the 11th hour marker it was relying on to frame the final days of a campaign that is running unusually close. Absolutely shocking, said Sean Bagniewski, chairman of the Polk County Democrats. And it wasnt just the vanished poll he was talking about. The entire run-up to the caucuses has been almost dumbfoundingly strange. There was the campaigns comically large field, the surprising durability of Joe Biden and Sanders and the dizzying fall of several stars (Beto ORourke was still on Twitter on Saturday, talking about guns: Wake the fuck up America!). The hope surrounding the candidacies of several candidates of color faded into frustration. The late entrance of Michael Bloomberg and his bombardment of Super Tuesday states with television ads threatens to render the verdict of Iowa and the early voting states moot. Meanwhile, the partys 2016 nominee, Hillary Clinton, is on the sidelines, lobbing criticism at Sanders, a 2020 frontrunner. Iowans cheer Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Debate rules changed. Caucus rules changed. Even the one thing everyone believed they could count on John Delaney running and being overlooked went away when the former Maryland congressman on Friday ended the campaign he began in 2017, running for more than two years only to exit three days short of the caucus. It has been unseasonably warm in Des Moines. Story continues Some of this wouldnt be believable if it were in a movie, Bagniewski said. Impeachment taking senators away, debate rules changing, candidates dropping out, the gold standard poll breaking down at the last minute. All on top of the standard conspiracy mongering. He added, Were flying blind and no one really knows what to expect. Whether it is over by Super Tuesday or not until the Democratic National Convention in July, the 2020 primary will be remembered as one of the most disjointed exercises in presidential politics. Its totally weird, said Pete Giangreco, a senior adviser to Klobuchars campaign. The cancellation of the Registers poll, due to an apparent surveying mishap, was particularly cruel because of how acutely concerns about electability have shaped the campaign. The pollster, J. Ann Selzer, is a legend in Iowa. In a normal year, the poll can drive a candidates momentum in the final days of the race. But it was expected to factor especially large this year, when many caucus-goers remain undecided and are still searching for cues about which candidate might perform best in a general election against Trump. I dont know that I am surprised that something got screwed up, Laura Peters, a city planner, said as she left a Klobuchar rally shortly after news the poll would not be released. Im surprised a Selzer poll got screwed up. The result is that the candidates will make their closing arguments about electability without the benefit of Selzers late measurement. Or, because this is Iowa in 2020, the final hours before the caucuses will devolve into something other than the somber warnings about Trump and the messages that the candidates are laboring to deliver. On Saturday, a prankster in North Liberty asked Biden for advice winning back a woman who had left him. The reaction to the bad jokes, to the polls cancellation, to the size of the field and to everything else has been to grumble. And worry. After watching the impeachment trial, said Chris Adcock, chairwoman of Democratic Party in Page County in southwest Iowa, We know what were up against. Its really heavy, really heavy, she said. Oh, my God. It just sucks. Driving home from a gathering of Democrats late Saturday night, Adcock praised Selzer for pulling the poll which was apparently marred by an interviewer error but predicted Republicans would spin it to cast the caucus as illegitimate and untrustworthy. On Sunday, armies of campaign workers prepared to canvas neighborhoods across the state. But this, too, will not occur without external forces interfering. The Super Bowl is playing on the final full day of campaigning before the caucuses, and the Kansas City Chiefs have a substantial following here. Speaking to a large crowd inside a junior high school gymnasium in Des Moines on Saturday night, Klobuchar appealed to her supporters to volunteer in those precious two days we have left and make calls maybe not during the Super Bowl, but make calls. And in the sweltering room, she delivered a line about the stakes of the election that, in some other contexts, could seem entirely out of Democrats control. My profound advice is this, she said. Wed better not screw this up. A 24-year-old sanitation worker died and another suffered from suffocation after they inhaled toxic fumes while cleaning a deep sewer in Shahdara on Sunday, police said. Ravi died in the incident that took place near a BSES office at the CBD ground in Karkardooma, police said. They added that Sanjay (35), who suffered from suffocation, is undergoing treatment at a local hospital. Police said a private contractor had engaged five workers, including Ravi and Sanjay, to clean a 15 feet deep sewer. The work to clean it was given by the Delhi Development Authority (DDA), they said. The workers did not have any safety gear, police said. Deputy Commissioner of Police (Shahdara) Amit Sharma said the matter was reported around 1 pm after which a police team rushed to the spot and found that two men were stuck inside the sewer. The team then pulled them out by using ropes and rushed them to a nearby hospital, he said. Ravi was declared brought dead by doctors and Sanjay, whose condition is critical, is undergoing treatment at the LNJP hospital, he added. A case was registered at Anand Vihar police station on the complaint of a labour against the private contractor, a senior police official said. The contractor is absconding and an investigation has been initiated into the matter, he said. Ravi, was the first worker to enter the sewer. When he didn't come out after sometime, Sanjay went inside, police said. The other workers called the police after they both did not come out after a while, they said. A worker alleged that the contractor told them that they would get paid Rs 350 per day for the job. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Bay of Plenty Have you got your Class 2 manual license and are looking to get your foot in the door of a well renowned company? Read on!he... View or Apply on GoodWork.co.nz A monarch butterfly rests on a plant in the winter nesting grounds of El Rosario Sanctuary, near Ocampo, Michoacan state: AP The body of a tour guide who worked at a famous butterfly reserve in Mexico has been discovered two days after a prominent monarch butterfly activist was found dead. Mexican authorities said they are investigating the possible murder of Raul Hernandez, whose body was found beaten and with a head injury possibly caused by a sharp object. Local media reported Hernandez was found in the early hours of Saturday, in the Ocampo municipality, about 8km from the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve. Hernandez was reported missing by his family on 27 January after he left his home in the town of San Pedro Libertad, said the state prosecutor in a statement. Earlier this week, activist Homero Gomez Gonzalez was found floating in a well in the state of Michoacan, where the reserve is located, two weeks after he vanished. His disappearance and ensuing death sparked an outcry in Mexico, where environmental and human rights activists are routinely threatened or even killed as a result of their work. Gonzalez, who fought to defend the monarch butterflys wintering grounds from illegal logging, managed the El Rosario butterfly sanctuary located inside the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve. Millions of monarch butterflies make a mammoth 2,000-mile journey every year from Canada to central Mexico to escape winter. However, their survival is endangered by threats to their habitat, caused by climate change and illegal logging. The Michoacan Human Rights Commission urged authorities to investigate if Gonzalezs disappearance was connected to illegal loggers, reported Mexico News Daily. He is probably hurting the [business] interests of people illegally logging in the area, said Mayta Cardona, an official at the commission. But an official with the National Commission of Natural Protected Areas told the Washington Post they did not believe Gonzalezs disappearance was related to his conservation work. Michoacan state houses the largest monarch butterfly reserve in Mexico, which is now a Unesco World Heritage site. It is also home to rival drug gangs who fight to control smuggling routes through the Mexican interior, often leading to violent deaths. Read more Climate change threatens the beautiful and beloved monarch butterfly Advertisement More than 200 Lebanese and Palestinians held a protest Sunday near the United States Embassy in Lebanon while demonstrators in the West Bank towns of Ramallah and Hebron faced off against Israeli soldiers as Arab anger mounted over a White House plan for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Protesters waving Palestinian flags gathered on a road leading to the embassy northeast of Beirut amid tight security by Lebanese troops and riot police. 'Death to America! Death to Israel! We will die and Palestine survive,' some of the demonstrators chanted. The US plan heavily favored Israel, granting the Palestinians limited self-rule in parts of the occupied West Bank while allowing Israel to annex all its settlements there and keep nearly all of east Jerusalem, which Palestinians claim as the capital of a future Palestinian state. Lebanese and Palestinian demonstrators wave flags and hold signs, like the one above which reads 'Trump is a b****' during a protest near the American embassy in Beirut on Sunday The demonstrators denounced President Trump's plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict One demonstrator carried a rosary bearing the colors of the Palestinian flag during the protest in Lebanon on Sunday The demonstrators wore traditional Arab headress known as the kaffiyeh during the protests near Beirut on Sunday Around noon, the protesters removed the barbed wire and reached a metal fence set up by security forces. Police used what appeared to be pepper spray to hold back some of the demonstrators who were on the fence, with at least three protesters being carried away. Later in the day, the protesters dispersed from the area without any serious clashes, apart from some stone throwing at security forces. The demonstrators, both Palestinian refugees and Lebanese, chanted slogans and flew flags as security forces blocked off a road to the diplomatic compound. Some protesters tried to dismantle a razor-wire barrier but no major clashes took place, an AFP reporter said. 'The "deal of the century" shall not pass,' read a huge banner in the colors of the Palestinian flag, referring to the plan unveiled by Trump last Tuesday. A call to protest circulating on social media dubbed the plan 'the deal of shame.' One demonstrator carried a cardboard cutout meant to depict a Kalashnikov assault rifle during the protest near Beirut on Sunday Lebanese demonstrators pull on a barbed wire as they take part in an demonstration against the US peace plan proposal Protesters chanted slogans during the demonstration near the American embassy in Lebanon on Sunday Trump's peace plan provoked anger across the Arab world because of its perceived bias toward Israel Demonstrators are seen above pulling on barbed wire during the protests near the American embassy in Lebanon on Sunday Protesters try to remove barbed wires that block a road leading to the US embassy during a protest is held against the proposed peace deal A protester holds up a poster of late Hezbollah military commander Imad Mughniyeh during the protest on Sunday. Mughniyeh was assassinated in a car bomb in Damascus believed to have been planted by Israel in 2008 Protesters hold posters of late Hezbollah military commander Imad Mughniyeh (right) and of late Iranian Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a US drone strike in Baghdad last month A protester covers his face as another waves a Palestinian flag during the protest on Sunday near the American embassy in Lebanon A protester with her face painted with the colors of the Palestinian national flag smiles during the protest on Sunday A protester (right) is seen above throwing a stone during the demonstrations in Lebanon on Sunday Protesters in Aukar, Lebanon, are seen above throwing stones on Sunday during a demonstration denouncing the US peace plan unveiled by President Trump last week 'I came here to defend my rights and those of my children as Palestinians,' said Etab, a Palestinian refugee living in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley. 'We will not accept handing over our land,' she told AFP. Palestinians began taking refuge in Lebanon with the creation of Israel in 1948, setting up camps that have since transformed into bustling urban districts. Abdullah Mahmud, an 18-year-old Palestinian, criticized the 'failed' plan. A wounded Palestinian photojournalist is evacuated during an anti-Israel protest against Trump's Middle East peace plan in Hebron on Sunday The photojournalist was wounded while covering clashes between local Palestinians and Israeli forces in the West Bank city An Israeli soldier aims her weapon towards Palestinian demonstrators during a protest in Hebron on Sunday Palestinian demonstrators are seen on a building during a protest in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Sunday Palestinian demonstrators take cover behind trash receptacles during clashes with Israeli forces in Hebron on Sunday Local Palestinians took to the streets in anger over Trump's proposals to end the Israeli-Arab dispute An Israeli soldier fires a tear gas canister towards Palestinian demonstrators in the West Bank town of Hebron on Sunday An Israeli border police member aims a weapon during a Palestinian protest against Trump's peace plan in Hebron on Sunday Israeli security forces gather during clashes with Palestinian demonstrators at the northern entrance of the West Bank city of Ramallah on Saturday 'It won't pass as long as the Palestinian people are still standing,' he said. Around 174,000 Palestinian refugees live in 12 camps across Lebanon, a one-off government census said in 2017. There have been protests in the country's 12 refugee camps since Trump unveiled the proposal in Washington. The Palestinian refugees there face tough living conditions and are barred from certain jobs. 'The right to return is an individual and collective right,' another protest sign read. Trump's vision would end any hope of returning for Palestinians who fled their land in 1948 or their descendants. But it would allegedly integrate some Palestinian refugees - the number to be approved by Israel - into a future Palestinian state. On Saturday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas threatened to cut security ties with both Israel and the US in a speech at an Arab League meeting in response to the US plan. Arab foreign ministers there joined in criticizing the plan and calling it a setback to Mideast peace efforts. Meanwhile, an Israeli cabinet meeting Sunday during which officials said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would seek approval to annex parts of the occupied West Bank has been scrapped, his office said. After Trump unveiled his controversial peace plan on Tuesday, questions surfaced on whether Israel would immediately seek to annex parts of the West Bank. Later unnamed Israeli officials said Netanyahu would convene a cabinet meeting on Sunday to discuss that issue and seek approval to annex settlements and territory that would become part of Israel under the plan. But on Saturday an official at his office told AFP there would be no Sunday meeting, declining to comment further. On Friday, Britain cautioned Israel against quickly seizing parts of the West Bank. 'Any such unilateral moves would be damaging to renewed efforts to re-start peace negotiations, and contrary to international law,' the UK foreign office said in a statement. 'Any changes to the status quo cannot be taken forward without an agreement negotiated by the parties themselves.' Trump's proposal gives the Jewish state a US green light to annex key parts of the West Bank, including in the strategic Jordan Valley. A Palestinian demonstrator looks on during clashes with Israeli security forces near the northern entrance of the West Bank city of Ramallah on Saturday A Palestinian demonstrator uses a sling shot to hurl rocks at Israeli security forces in Ramallah on Saturday A Palestinian demonstrator throws back a tear gas canister at Israeli security forces during clashes in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Saturday A Palestinian demonstrator throws back a tear gas canister at Israeli security forces on Saturday Palestinian demonstrators gesture toward Israeli security forces during clashes in the West Bank on Saturday Palestinian demonstrators rush for cover from teargas canister fires by Israeli security forces in Ramallah on Saturday Palestinian demonstrators gather during clashes with Israeli security forces in Ramallah on Saturday Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas (left) has cut all ties with Israel and the US following Donald Trump's (right) long-awaited Middle East peace 'vision' Two-state solution? Trump embraced Benjamin Netanyahu, the embattled Israeli prime minister as he unveiled a Middle East peace 'vision' The Arab League on Saturday rejected the Trump plan, saying it did not meet the 'minimum rights' of the Palestinians. The plan, seen as overwhelmingly supportive of Israeli goals, has been firmly rejected by the Palestinians and triggered protests in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including isolated clashes with Israeli forces. The Israeli army said Saturday that Palestinians in Gaza fired an unspecified 'projectile' into Israel at night, the latest in a series of rocket and mortar fire since Wednesday, a day after Trump unveiled his plan. There were no reported injuries. Israeli warplanes hit Gaza's Islamist rulers Hamas on Saturday morning after several rounds of cross-border fire by Palestinian militants Friday. 'Among the targets were weapon storage facilities and an underground infrastructure used by the Hamas terror organization,' an English-language army statement said. After Trump unveiled his long-awaited plan alongside Netanyahu in Washington on Tuesday, his ambassador to Israel David Friedman said the Jewish state 'does not have to wait at all' to begin its implementation. But Jared Kushner - Trump's adviser and son-in-law, who spearheaded the Middle East initiative - said that Washington does not want any moves made before Israel's March 2 election. Following the directives of the Public Authority for Civil Aviation (PACA), Oman Air will suspend all flights to and from Guangzhou, China, effective February 3. Additionally, acceptance of bookings to and from Guangzhou has been suspended, the airline said in a statement. "The safety of our guests and employees remains our highest priority. We apologise for any convenience caused by this action," it said. All guests are advised to monitor the airline's website and official social media channels for further updates. - TradeArabia News Service Click here to read the full article. This years Sundance Film Festival broke a number of records, from diversity in its programming to sales, but none of these statistics address the fundamental question behind all the noise: Were the movies any good? As it turns out, the festival more than delivered: Culled from 15,000 submissions, the 2020 edition offered up a range of timely, boundary-pushing documentary storytelling, promising new voices, and satisfying new heights from established filmmakers. Here are the best of the best. Boys State Co-directors Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaines revealing documentary has the potential to be this years American Factory, in the sense that the filmmakers gained incredible access to capture an intimate story in real time one that provides the perfect metaphor for this moment in our socio-political history. Boys State is a yearly event put on by the American Legion, where 17-year-olds are split into two political parties and put through a week long process of holding elections and forming a government. Through an insane amount of preparation interviewing hundreds of potential characters/candidates prior to last years Texas Boys State Moss and McBaine were able to track the most compelling characters who would rise to become the final candidates. While its only mock government, the stakes are incredibly high for those in the final rounds, many of whom imagine themselves as the next famous politician to emerge from the storied program. To watch these idealistic (and some not-so-idealistic) young men resort to same cynical left/right mud-slinging and race-baiting tactics, we are forced to confront our dysfunctional two-party partisan political divide. CO More from IndieWire Black Bear There is indeed an actual, living, occasionally roaring black bear that appears in Lawrence Michael Levines razor-sharp Black Bear, but thats one of the few hard-and-fast elements of the filmmakers nifty deconstruction of both the wider contemporary culture and the microcosm of indie filmmaking. That the film the first of Levines to premiere at Sundance is programmed in the festivals forward-thinking NEXT section should suggest to audiences that the film is more than the psychosexual drama hinted at in its official description. Well, it is, but its also so much more. For fans of Levines wife Sophia Takals work, this may feel familiar (the film is, after all, dedicated to the Black Christmas filmmaker and the duo have long worked together over the course of their careers), though with a wickedly dark comedic spin. Fans of Takals revelatory Always Shine will vibe to what Levines throwing down, as Levine unravels clever jabs and jibes at current culture few recent features have so smartly picked apart both feminism and caveman culture with such insight and humor and the tenuous bonds of his game cast (Christopher Abbott, Aubrey Plaza, and Sarah Gadon) break down in a bucolic setting. To say much more about the script-flipping that happens halfway through the film would be to rob audiences of a real pleasure, but its a story-expanding trick that allows the film, its big ideas, and its performers to dig even deeper. KE Story continues Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets At first glance, Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets unfolds as a brilliant work of cinema verite. Bill and Turner Ross boozy hangout movie captures the last raucous night at the Roaring Twenties, a grimy bar on the outskirts of the Vegas strip where various inebriated outcasts bury their sorrows in a blur of anger and poetic laments. Its late 2016, and with the presidential election about to change the world, the pub serves as a fascinating microcosm of Americas fractured, browbeaten underbelly on the verge of self-destruction. But heres the thing. The Roaring Twenties is in New Orleans, not Vegas, and the characters populating its interior didnt just wander in. Though nothing in the movie acknowledges as much, the Ross brothers cast people to populate the bar, recording the drunken antics of their chosen performers throughout a debaucherous night. The result is both a grand cinematic deception and a bold filmmaking experiment from two of the most intriguing directors working in non-fiction today. Tapping into a kind of alienation to which much of 21st Century America can relate, Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets may not be the straight-faced documentary it looks like, but its a sober-eyed document of our times nonetheless. EK Dick Johnson Is Dead The title of Dick Johnson Is Dead doesnt lie, but its not exactly truthful, either. Dick Johnson dies many times in his daughter Kirstens poignant and personal documentary, starting with the opening credits. And yet hes very much alive the whole time, playacting in an elaborate form of cinematic therapy with his filmmaker offspring as she wrestles with the anxiety of losing him. That concept could easily devolve into a navel-gazing exercise, but Kirsten Johnson the veteran nonfiction cinematographer who directed 2016s wondrous collage film Cameraperson enacts a touching and funny meditation on embracing life and fearing death at the same time. Oscillating from intimate father-daughter exchanges to surreal meta-fictional tangents, the movie lives within its riveting paradox, reflecting the queasy uncertainty surrounding its subjects fate. Johnson cant save her father for good, but by preserving him in the most powerful medium at her disposal, shes found the next best thing: Nobody lives forever, but the movies are a different story. EK The 40-Year-Old Version Certainly the funniest debut film at Sundance this year, The 40-Year-Old Version presents a fictionalized version of first-time filmmaker Radha Blank, as she tries to make it as a playwright without compromising her vision. Being an artist in New York City is always tough: the day job, the side hustles it means Radha has a lot of juggling to do, among her gig teaching high school theater, a gratifying creative release in rapping, and an attempt at mounting a new play about gentrification on Broadway. The last of these efforts results in some drop-dead funny depictions of cultural appropriation at its worst: one producer (Reed Birney), who had previously offered Radha the chance to write a Harriet Tubman musical, says that her view of gentrification feels like it didnt come from a black person as if this aging white man is the best judge. (Try not cracking up at the bit about another producer whos trying to stage an integrated Fences.) The film is more than just a collection of trenchant observations, though: its a crackling vision, shot in gorgeous black and white, of what it means to live in New York City at this moment, when the gap between rich and poor keeps growing and selling out feels more tempting than ever. Its running time could stand to be shortened, but if Blank doesnt want to kill some of her darlings here thats something her onscreen alter ego would appreciate. CB The Glorias A kind of anti-biopic of Gloria Steinem, as suggested by its unusual title, The Glorias sets out several goals for itself: to present a chronologically fractured accounting of Steinems life; to present Steinem as a real human being and not just a symbol of feminism; simultaneously, to present Steinem as a symbol, just one person who has inspired many others in her wake; and to show that real change never comes down to the actions of just one person. Julie Taymor achieves every one of those goals in this impossibly ambitious film. Four different actors play Steinem, with Alicia Vikander portraying her from the age of 20 to 40 and Julianne Moore taking over at 40. Taymor displays her sense of visual grandeur to the material and includes some of her trademark surreal touches: one scene where Vikanders Steinem is being grilled on TV by an interviewer who calls her a sex object on-air morphs into a flight of fancy (shot by Rodrigo Prieto, coming right off The Irishman) involving Playboy bunnies, a tornado, and the Wicked Witch of the West. But mostly the film works because of its striking performances: personality trumps didacticism throughout. And what great personalities are on display: Bette Midler as Bella Abzug, Janelle Monae as Dorothy Pitman Hughes, and Lorraine Toussaint as Florynce Kennedy. Taymor never loses sight, just as Steinem never has, that the pursuit of equality requires collective effort powered overwhelmingly by people of color. The Glorias is a much needed repudiation of white feminism it doesnt hold back from showing that white women have often been the fiercest opponents of Womens Lib even as it movingly pays tribute to the bona fide American Hero Gloria Steinem remains. CB Into the Deep A true crime doc that also lays bare the lack of empathy at the heart of many true crime stories, Into the Deep is one of the most disturbing examples of the form. Thats almost certainly because it was never intended to be a true crime story at all. Australian filmmaker Emma Sullivan wanted to make an affectionate, quirky documentary about Peter Madsen, a Danish inventor and self-promoter who had become a celebrity in his home country for building his own submarine and planning to send himself into space in a self-made rocket. Instead, a year into Sullivan filming Madsen, he brutally murdered journalist Kim Wall aboard his submarine. Sullivans film because a cinematic record of soul-searching among Madsens friends and former followers: could they have seen this coming? Was there some sign that the man they knew was capable of murder? Into the Deep spends most of its time lingering on the shock experienced by Madsens inner circle, and the result is profoundly empathetic. That Sullivan, a first time feature filmmaker, was able to edit together a film that contains the inherent shock of the story at its heart without veering into shock value and kept the emotions of Madsens witnesses front and center is the balancing act of a mature artist. CB Minari Told with the rugged tenderness of a Flannery OConnor novel but aptly named for a resilient Korean herb that can grow wherever its planted, Lee Isaac Chungs semi-autobiographical Minari is a raw and vividly remembered story of two simultaneous assimilations; its the story of a family assimilating into a country, but also the story of a man assimilating into his family. After nearly a decade of barely scraping by in San Francisco, immigrants Jacob Yi (Steven Yeun) and his wife Monica (Sea Fog star Yeri Han) arrive at the rundown Arkansas farm where Jacob hopes to plant their roots. Monica is skeptical. Meanwhile, their seven-year-old son David (adorable newcomer Alan S. Kim, delivering one of the most crucial and transcendently honest child performances since Jonathan Chang in Yi Yi) is struggling to make sense of his hyphenated identity, a process that grows more complicated and more hilarious when his wonderfully anarchic grandmother (Yuh-Jung Youn) comes to stay with them. What follows is a beautiful film that posits family as the ultimate journey, only to explore how difficult it can be to agree on a destination. Is Jacob trying to prove whats possible for himself, or is he doing his best to build something for the next generation? Is there any way those two goals might be able to overlap before Monica has to pull the ripcord? Chung answers these questions in remarkable fashion, resolving this gentle and note-perfect drama with one of the most heart-stirring finales in recent memory. DE The Mole Agent Theres a certain immersive thrill that comes from documentaries that hide themselves, and The Mole Agent epitomizes that appeal. Chilean director Maite Alberdis delightful character study unfolds as an intricate spy thriller, in which a sweet-natured 83-year-old widower infiltrates a nursing home at the behest of a private detective. The plan goes awry with all kinds of comical and touching results, so well-assembled within a framework of fictional tropes that it begs for an American remake. But as much as such a product might appeal to companies hungry for content, it would be redundant from the outset, because The Mole Agent is already one of the most heartwarming spy movies of all time a rare combination of genres that only works so well because it sneaks up on you. EK Never Rarely Sometimes Always Three films into her career, filmmaker Eliza Hittman continues to prove herself as one of contemporary cinemas most empathetic and skilled chroniclers of American youth. Hittmans trio of features It Felt Like Love, Beach Rats, and Never Rarely Sometimes Always, her first studio effort have all zoomed in on blue-collar teens on the edge of sexual awakening, often of the dangerous variety. Hittmans ability to write and direct such tender films has long been bolstered by her interest in casting them with fresh new talents, all the better to sell the veracity of her stories and introduce moviegoers to emerging actors worthy of big attention. With Never Rarely Sometimes Always, Hittman continues her traditions with her most vivid work yet, one all the more impressive for its studio pedigree. Newbies Sidney Flanigan and Talia Ryder star as a pair of close cousins who are forced to deal with an unexpected pregnancy and a small town not at all interested in offering up any alternatives beyond having the baby. Despite its subject matter, the film isnt just the wrenching drama many might expect. Yes, its a searing examination of the current state of this countrys finicky abortion laws and the medical professionals tasked with enforcing them (from the small-minded to the big-hearted), and if art can have any impact on its consumers, the film will stick with many of its viewers, perhaps even changing long-held beliefs. But its also a singular look at what it means to be a teenage girl today, and with all the joy and pain that comes with it. KE The Painter and the Thief Director Benjamin Ree just happened to be researching art thefts in Norway when two of painter Barbora Kysilkovas new works were stolen from an art gallery. When Kysilkova sees her thief, a drug addicted Karl-Bertil Nordland, in the courthouse and decides she wants to paint him, it sparks an intense, rollercoaster relationship between two lost souls. The movie oscillates between their dueling perspectives as it dives deeper into the nature of their bond and what it says about the way we tell our own stories. Its a relationship being performed for the camera to some degree but the magnetic pull between these two fascinating characters is captured with such raw intimacy, vulnerability, and formal beauty that it transcends the characters own desire to control the narrative. With Ree there from day one, we watch as Barbora and Bertil bond over three years, resulting in a twisty yarn thats deeply engaging throughout. CO Promising Young Woman Emerald Fennells raucous debut, Promising Young Woman, twists its buzzword-laden, spoiler-free synopsis its a #MeToo rape revenge thriller with bite! into something fresh and totally wild. Thank both Fennells wicked mind and star Carey Mulligans somehow even more wicked performance for that: cooked up by Fennell (best known to American audiences for her go-round as the second season showrunner for clever spy hit Killing Eve) and dizzyingly embodied by an incendiary Mulligan, Cassie is an anti-heroine for our times, and a wholly unique one at that. While the film is rarely predictable in its choices, Fennell saves her (and Cassies) biggest surprises for its combustible final 20 minutes, taking risks that are admirable even when they dont seem as if theyre going to pay off. Fennells flair for visual humor is apparent throughout the film the rococo nightmare that is Cassies parents house is ten times funnier than it needs to be, only getting better and weirder with each visit but she saves her best bits for last, when her most ambitious ideas coalesce into a wicked final twist that leaves one hell of a mark. KE Shirley When the news first broke that Madelines Madeline filmmaker Josephine Decker would be making a starry movie about the author Shirley Jackson, it was hard not to be disappointed (or at least caught by surprise) that one of the most feral, elastic, and vividly singular artists of contemporary American cinema was following her first masterpiece with something that might be classified as a biopic. Shudder. Not to worry: For one thing, the sawtoothed and delirious Shirley is no more of a biopic than Bright Star, An Angel at My Table, or Shakespeare in Love. For another, the best elements of this movie its poisoned eros, its secrets in shallow focus, its steadfast determination to distill the thrillingly horrible process of a young womans self-awakening conspire to embarrass the idea that Decker wouldnt be able to explore her truth in someone elses fiction. Adapted from the Susan Scarf Merrell novel of the same name, Deckers film takes place sometime after The Lottery has become the most controversial story ever published in The New Yorker, as a young woman named Rose (Odessa Young) and her academic husband (Logan Lerman) come to stay with Jackson and her menacing husband Stanley (Michael Stuhlbarg) for the semester. Comfortably inhabiting all sorts of haggard makeup that she wears like a layer of cobwebs, Elisabeth Moss embodies the author as an irritable grandma whos been cooped up for long enough to haunt her own house. Shirley hasnt been outside in over two months; Stanley insists that she isnt well enough. He depends on her genius, but treats it like a disorder. Anything not to feel threatened. But Rose unlocks something in the reclusive writer, and vice-versa, and these two lost girls make each other visible in unexpected ways. No simple portrait of empowerment, Shirley is a porous tale of two women who break each other down until theyre nothing but the purest bits of themselves. They crumble until theyre small enough to slip between literature and real life; small enough not to be scared of anything but themselves; small enough to fit through the cracks that Decker finds in the foundation of Jacksons haunted house. Only then can they begin to build themselves into something new. DE Time For those who have followed Garrett Bradleys work over the last few years, this Sundance breakout moment is as deserved as it is inevitable. In telling the story of Fox Richs arc toward activism fighting to get her husband out of jail while raising their six children Bradley has found the perfect partner and canvas for her unique political poetry. A story of a seemingly impossible love, Time is a film stripped down to its cinematic and spiritual essence, allowing the audience an emotional window into the deep pain of our rotting justice system and the resilience it demands to survive it. Weaving Richs treasure trove of DV home movies with her own distinct black and white compositions, Bradley finds a structure that lets Richs story flow like water. CO The Social Dilemma Perhaps the single most lucid, succinct, and profoundly terrifying analysis of social media ever created for mass consumption, Jeff Orlowskis The Social Dilemma does for Facebook what his previous documentaries Chasing Ice and Chasing Coral did for climate change (read: bring compelling new insight to a familiar topic while also scaring the absolute shit out of you). And while the film covers and somehow manages to contain a staggering breadth of topics and ramifications, one little sentence is all it takes to lay out the means and ends of the crisis at hand: Russia didnt hack Facebook, Russia used Facebook. That may not be a mind-blowing idea for anyone whos been raised on the internet, but it would be wrong to think that Orlowskis film is only speaking to the back of the class. While The Social Dilemma is relevant to every person on the planet, and should be legible enough to even the most technologically oblivious types (the Amish, the U.S. Senate, and so forth), its target demographic is very online types who think they understand the information age too well to be taken advantage of zoomers, millennials, and screen junkies of any stripe who wouldnt have the faintest interest in a finger-wagging documentary about how they should spend more time outside. Constructed from interviews with the very concerned people who designed these platforms, and laced with funny scripted segments that illustrate the effects of social media on a more life-sized scale, Orlowskis well-argued doc breaks down how a free-to-use business model has become an existential crisis for all civilization, and why logging off might be the only way to save us from ourselves. DE Best of IndieWire Sign up for Indiewire's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. WASHINGTON, Feb 1 (Reuters) - The Pentagon said on Saturday that it had approved a request from the Department of Health and Human Services for assistance for housing support for 1,000 people who may need to be quarantined after arriving from abroad due to the coronavirus. In a statement, the Pentagon said that HHS had asked the Pentagon to provide several facilities capable of "housing at least 250 people in individual rooms" through Feb. 29. It said that Defense Department personnel would only provide housing support, while HHS would be responsible for all care and transportation. The statement added that four military installations had been selected in case they were required, including two in California, one in Colorado, and one in Texas. (Reporting by Idrees Ali and Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Andrea Ricci) Delhi Police Commissioner Amulya Patnaik on Sunday said that the police have done detailed planning to avoid any untoward incident in view of the coming Delhi Assembly polls. "So far as Delhi assembly elections are concerned, I want to assure you that the Delhi Police have a detailed planning. More than 40,000 staff will be deployed from the Delhi Police itself. We will also deploy 190 companies and 19,000 home guards," Patnaik told ANI in an exclusive interview. "Delhi Police professionally handled the Lok Sabha polls. It was an entirely incident-free election. We are keeping an eye on sensitive areas. All arrangements are well in order. I can assure you that one or two incidents have certainly taken place but we have immediately responded and brought the situation under control," said Patnaik. The Police Commissioner said that they are monitoring provocative speeches. "All our senior officers are on alert. Police are resent in sensitive locations too. Every day, around 300 rallies take place, which is closely monitored by the local police, traffic police and security units," he said. Patnaik, who was set to retire on January 31 last month, has been given a month's extension in services. The capital had witnessed violence last year during the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act. The Delhi Assembly polls are scheduled to take place on February 8. The counting of votes will take place on February 11. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan will embark on a two-day visit to Kuala Lumpur from Monday to placate the Malaysian leadership after he skipped a major summit of Muslim nations reportedly under pressure from Saudi Arabia. The Pakistan Foreign Office on Sunday said "(PM) Khan is visiting Malaysia on February 3-4" on the invitation of Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. Khan will be accompanied by a high-level delegation, including Cabinet members and senior officials. During the visit, the two heads of state would have tete-e-tete followed by delegation-level talks. They will witness the signing of important agreements/MoUs and have joint press meets. Prime Minister Khan will also address a think-tank event organised by the Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS) of Malaysia. "The prime minister's visit is another sign of robust engagement between Pakistan and Malaysia and the shared commitment to further fortify the strategic partnership between the two countries," said FO. In line with a common vision, bilateral ties between the two countries have deepened in recent years in trade, investment, industry, defence, education and in various international forums, the FO said. The FO said the prime minister will share with Mahathir his vision for Pakistan and his government's positive role in bringing regional and international peace. Khan's visit is being called a "damage control" exercise by local media. Khan had confirmed Pakistan's participation in the December 19-21 summit hosted by the Malaysian prime minister but skipped the event at the 11th hour due to pressure exerted by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates - key financial backers of the cash-strapped country. The summit in Kuala Lumpur was seen by the Saudis as an attempt to create a new bloc in the Muslim world that could become an alternative to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) led by the Gulf Kingdom. Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan even visited Islamabad in December last to convey the Saudi leadership's gratitude to Pakistan for not attending the summit. After pulling out from the event, Khan spoke to his Malaysian counterpart over the phone and offered him to visit after the summit. It is believed that Khan will use the visit to explain to Mahathir the reason for Pakistan's pull out from the summit. This is Khan's second visit to Malaysia since assuming office in August 2018. The last visit was in November 2018. Prime Minister Mahathir had visited Pakistan in March last year and was the chief guest at the Pakistan Day Parade. The two prime ministers also met on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly Session in New York in September 2019. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pro-Netanyahu commentators in the Israeli media started on Sunday what looked like an orchestrated campaign against President Trumps senior adviser Jared Kushner, attacking him for stopping the Israeli prime minister from annexing parts of the West Bank after the unveiling of the White House peace plan last Tuesday. Why it matters: The right-wing commentators who were attacking Kushner on various media outlets in Israel on Sunday are Netanyahu supporters and surrogates. When comparing their tweets and remarks on the air, they largely used many of the same talking points. The big picture: Kushner said in several interviews after the Trump peace plan was presented that Israel should not go forward with annexation of parts of the West Bank for now and that it should wait until after the March 2 elections. Netanyahu who promised to annex the Jordan Valley and the settlements as soon as this week, hoping it would help his election campaign was forced to back down. The main talking points from the pro-Netanyahu commentators include: Kushner is the main obstacle who, in opposition to prior understandings, is blocking Netanyahu from annexing parts of the West Bank. Trump could lose support from evangelicals who are angry about his peace plan and want annexation. Netanyahu wants Trump to allow him to annex some parts of the West Bank before the March 2 elections. What they're saying: Yaakov Bardugo, a Netanyahu supporter, said on his show on Army Radio: "With all due respect to Kushner, there are millions of evangelicals in the U.S. and Netanyahu can mobilize them against Trump like he did to Obama. ... If Trump puts obstacles in front of Israeli annexation, the evangelicals will be mad and he wont be re-elected." Hagai Segal, the editor-in-chief of Makor Rishon, the settlers newspaper owned by Sheldon Adelson, tweeted: After the Palestinians made clear what they think about the Trump plan, it is appropriate Trump will make clear what he thinks about them with deeds and not with words and will stop letting his people push him around. Annexation of all settlements in the West Bank must take place now as it has been agreed between the U.S. and Israel before the ceremony at the White House last Tuesday until Kushner got in the way. Eliran Tal, a political reporter on Channel 20 a right-wing, pro-Netanyahu television channel reported: There is great anger among Netanyahus aides about Kushners remarks that annexation can only take place after the Israeli elections. One Netanyahu aide said it is like they [the White House] stabbed us in the back." Netanyahu's office denied the report and said none of Netanyahus aides ever said Kushner "stabbed us in the back." Go deeper: Why Trump's Middle East peace plan already matters Editor's note: This piece has been updated to include a comment from Netanyahu's office. New Delhi, Feb 2 : Solicitor General Tushar Mehta on Sunday told the Delhi High Court that there should be "no delay" in hanging the four convicts in the Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case, keeping in mind the interest of society and the victim. "In the Interest of the society and victim, there should be no delay. Even in the case of the convicts, the Supreme Court says that there should be no delay as it would have dehumanising effect on the convict," Mehta, appearing for the Centre, told Justice Suresh Kumar Kait during a special court proceeding on the weekend. The Solicitor General also presented a chart before the court explaining the legal remedies availed by the four death row convicts till now. The court was hearing a petition filed by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) challenging the stay imposed by a trial court on the execution of four death-row convicts. The 23-year-old victim, later named Nirbhaya, was brutally gang-raped and tortured and succumbed to her injuries a few days later. The deed was committed by six men who were all arrested and charged with sexual assault and murder. One of the accused was a minor and appeared before a juvenile justice court, while another accused committed suicide in Tihar Jail. Four other convicts -- Akshay, Pawan, Mukesh and Vinay -- were sentenced to death by a trial court in September 2013, and the verdict was confirmed by the Delhi High Court in March 2014 and upheld by the Supreme Court in May 2017 which also dismissed their review petition in July 2018. Mukesh and Vinay have exhausted their legal remedies. Besides the duo, two other convicts have yet not availed the remedy of mercy petition, which is the last constitutional resort and filed before the President. The Jaspal Bindra-controlled Centrum Group has roped in Morgan Stanley to invest Rs 190 crore in its retail-affordable housing-focused lending arm Centrum Housing Finance ltd (CHFL). The infusion by a fund run by Morgan Stanley Private Equity Asia will lead to the private equity (PE) giant acquiring a "significant minority stake" in CHFL, which began operations in April 2017, the companies said in a joint statement without disclosing how much the equity dilution will be. CHFL has a loan book of over Rs 500 crore and operates through 36 branches across Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, and Delhi, serving over 3,500 customers. The fund managed by Morgan Stanley will be the first external institutional investor in Centrum Housing, an arm of the publicly traded Centrum Capital, which manages assets of over Rs 2,000 crore. Bindra had told PTI in December that Centrum Group was in talks with PEs to sell 15-25 per cent stake in the NBFC for around Rs 250 crore. The main promoters of the group -- veteran banker and former chief executive of Standard Chartered Bank Asia Pacific Bindra and group founder Chandir Gidwani -- were looking at diluting 15-25 per cent in the credit vertical in a phased manner, Bindra, who had picked up over 25 per cent stake in the group in April 2016, had said. "We are talking to a number of PEs and a deal should be concluded very soon. We can dilute between 15 and 25 per cent step by step for Rs 150-250 crore. Maybe we will begin with SME arm and then microfinance," Bindra had said. Centurm Group has been driving its credit business through acquisitions. It first acquired the Rs 100-crore microfinance portfolio of South African lender First Rand Bank India in 2017, followed by L&T Finance's supply chain finance book of Rs 650 crore in September 2018. Last month, it took over New Delhi-based microfinance player Altura Finance's Rs 100 crore portfolio. Bindra had said he was keen on more acquisitions after the deal with a PE investor gets completed. "At least half the money raised will be used for acquisitions and the rest will be used as growth capital," he had said. Currently, Centrum's loan book is a little over Rs 2,000 crore, of which over Rs 1,000 crore is the SME (small and medium enterprises)book, Rs 600 crore is home finance and the rest is microfinance. Centrum Housing is led by industry veteran Sanjay Shukla, who has 30 years of retail lending experience and had previously headed Tata Capital's housing finance arm. Bindra, executive chairman of the Centrum Group said, "Together with Morgan Stanley, we will work to grow the business nationally as there is a big opportunity in the low to middle income segment in small cities. We will continue to focus and grow in these segments." Arjun Saigal of Morgan Stanley Private Equity Asia said the investment follows the large potential in the affordable housing space which is under-penetrated and offers tremendous opportunity for growth. This will be the fourth investment in retail lending space in India by funds sponsored by Morgan Stanley Private Equity Asia, he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Three people were arrested for their roles in a multi-county burglary spree across Central Jersey, police said. Steve Ehnot, Tommy Dorenvil and an unnamed woman were arrested at a Motel 6 in Lawrenceville Friday night, Carteret police said. Ehnot is accused of burglarizing homes across Middlesex, Monmouth, Mercer, and Union counties, police said, including in Carteret, Woodbridge, and Edison. It was not immediately clear how many burglaries he is accused of committing or during what timeframe the alleged crimes took place. Dorenvil is accused of acting as the getaway driver, police said. Authorities did not divulge what role the unidentified woman played in the scheme. Ehnot is charged with several counts of burglary, and one count of drug possession, a municipal court records search shows. Its not clear what charges Dorenvil faces. More information on the burglaries was not immediately available. Katie Kausch may be reached at kkausch@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @KatieKausch. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us: nj.com/tips. Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. A woman was shot in the hand by police in the Belgian city of Ghent on Sunday after attacking two pedestrians, local media reported, but authorities said nothing yet indicated the incident was terror related. According to Het Laatste Nieuws, the victims were taken to hospital with knife wounds but their lives were not in danger. A spokesman for the prosecutor's office said Belgian police and the public prosecutor's office of East Flanders were investigating the event. 'There is currently no indication that the incident that took place in Ghent was of a terrorist nature,' the office said. The street, located in northwest of the Dutch-speaking canal city, was closed on Sunday evening with large numbers of police and rescue services at the scene, media said. It comes after armed police shot dead a suspected terrorist - feared to be wearing a suicide vest - after at least two people were stabbed in London. Police in Belgium have shot a woman who witnesses said attacked two people with a knife The suspect was reportedly injured by officers in Ghent during the incident on Bevrijdingslaan Pictures show a woman pinned to the ground by police on the busy road as witnesses watch in horror The Metropolitan Police said the London shooting occurred at around 2pm on Streatham High Road on Sunday. The force believes there are also 'two injured victims' from the incident and are awaiting updates on their condition. In an earlier tweet, the Met said: 'At this stage it is believed a number of people have been stabbed. 'The circumstances are being assessed; the incident has been declared as terrorist-related.' Armed police in London have shot a man after a number of people were stabbed during a knife rampage in the middle of a busy high street in broad daylight - three months after two were killed in London Bridge horror Officers raced to the scene outside a supermarket on High Road in Streatham at around 2pm today following reports of gunfire A 19-year-old student from Streatham, claimed to have witnessed the shooting on Streatham High Road in front of a Boots store. He said: 'I was crossing the road when I saw a man with a machete and silver canisters on his chest being chased by what I assume was an undercover police officer - as they were in civilian clothing. 'The man was then shot. I think I heard three gun shots but I can't quite remember. 'After that I ran into the library to get to safety. 'From the library I saw a load of ambulances and armed police officers arrive on the scene.' Photos from the scene show a lifeless body face down on the pavement with what have been described as 'silver canisters' strapped to his chest with a large knife is lying beside him Police were filmed standing behind an unmarked police car and pointing their guns towards a suspect who appeared to be lying on the pavement outside the Boots store on the high street Scotland Yard declared the broad daylight carnage as a terror-related incident around an hour after first reports from the scene In one video, police toting machine guns and masked undercover officers are seen approaching the suspect's body before rapidly moving away from the area The student said people began running into nearby stores after the incident. 'We were all informed to stay in buildings by armed police, until we were evacuated,' he said. It is understood people including children took shelter in nearby shops during the incident, with police later telling shops to close for the day. Richard Mustonen-Smith, 59, a response pastor for Ascension Trust, has lived in the area all his life. He said: 'I'm shocked it's happened in Streatham. I've been here all my life. We're always getting accidents down here but not this. Dozens of emergency vehicles are currently lining the area as well as reports of an air ambulance and police helicopter circling above An armed police officer stands guards in Streatham after the scene has been fully contained by officers 'My grandson was in the Odeon and they got told to go out the back because there was a bomb. They got them to go out of the back of the cinema. They were there to watch a film. 'When it's a member of your family so close to you, you don't expect it. You're always worried about your family being on the streets but this is even worse. 'I heard two people got stabbed and apparently one man was shouting Allahu Akbar but people thought he was just a crazy man, so he got away. Apparently he had two rucksacks.' Commenting on the incident, London Mayor Sadiq Khan said: 'I am in close contact with the Met Commissioner and local representatives, and want to thank our police, security and emergency services staff for their swift and courageous response. They truly are the best of us. 'Terrorists seek to divide us and to destroy our way of life - here in London we will never let them succeed.' Prime Minister Boris Johnson tweeted: 'Thank you to all emergency services responding to the incident in Streatham, which the police have now declared as terrorism-related. 'My thoughts are with the injured and all those affected.' Home Secretary Priti Patel said on Twitter that she was being kept updated by police. 'My first thoughts are with the victims, our brave police and emergency services and their families,' she wrote. Jenn Bildersee Bildersee is an environmental program manager and a board member of Friends of the Library. She lives in Southeast Portland. Each week, my family drops by the Belmont branch of the Multnomah County Library to pick up items we have placed on hold. My two elementary schoolers browse the shelves and chat with librarians to find just right books. My family is one of those frequent users that have helped make the Multnomah County Library one of the most used and best loved library systems in the nation. We know and love the library because storytime with librarian Jane was a regular activity for our family from when my kids were born until they started kindergarten. And were not alone. Last year, over 120,000 children and their grownups read books, sang songs and recited rhymes at library storytimes to foster literacy skills and a love of reading. The only downside to all that enthusiasm for storytime is that our libraries dont have enough room to accommodate it. Multnomah County libraries have the fourth largest circulation in the nation, but they are 102nd in terms of space, according to the Public Library Data Service Survey. Like many others, my family often made the trip to the library for storytime only to be turned away at the door because the small meeting space had quickly filled. Storytime provides a rare opportunity for all families to access free, welcoming literacy learning -- but only if theres room. In addition to reading programs like storytime, the library has offerings for visitors of all ages. Last year residents attended more than 18,000 library programs, like book clubs, homework help, culturally specific programs, job search assistance and technology support for seniors. Yet many branches dont have rooms to provide these programs. Some branches hardly have space for visitors to sit with a book. Share your opinion Submit your essay of 500-700 words on a highly topical issue or a theme of particular relevance to the Pacific Northwest, Oregon and the Portland area to commentary@oregonian.com. Please include your email and phone number for verification. As the population of our county has changed, our library has changed with us. The library now provides e-books, streaming movies, and a broad array of tech support. It offers early literacy programs in five different languages and stocks childrens books in 20. As a board member of Friends of the Library, a nonprofit that fundraises and advocates for the Multnomah County library system, I know the statistics showing how our library facilities have not been able to match the growth of our population. East County the area east of I-205 is home to nearly 40% of the countys population, but less than a quarter of the library space. Some branches deny over three-quarters of requests for public meeting rooms because of a lack of available space. All 19 branches of the Multnomah County library system would fit into Seattles single downtown library building, with room to spare. Minneapolis has four times the space! While I love our scrappy and bustling system, the fact is that without more space, kids lined up for storytime and library users of all ages cant access the resources that should be available to everyone. Last week, Multnomah County Commissioners reviewed a proposal for a $405 million bond to expand and modernize our library buildings. The proposed bond, which has been in development for three years, includes a critical investment in a new flagship library in East County, expands six libraries across the rest of the county, adds a much more efficient materials handling system and Gigabit internet service at all branches. This means more space for childrens reading programs so families arent turned away. More space for resume classes and improved access for people with disabilities. More space to sit, read, study and work together. I am hoping the county commissioners will refer this proposal to the ballot. Our libraries represent what is best about our community. They are places we learn, connect, collaborate, enrich our lives, and grow. To serve everyone, our library needs to grow with us. (Photo/Eastday.com) In response to Chinas decision to lock down Wuhan and other epidemic areas, Shanghai Institute of International Studies issued a report in January, stressing that though such quarantine may bring unforeseen risks and consequences, it is yet the most effective measure to contain a deadly epidemic, especially when there is no specific cure or vaccine against virus-based infection such as 2019-nCov. According to the report, available medical evidence shows that humans, regardless of gender, age, or race, are all susceptible to this deadly new coronavirus; thus, in the absence of specific cure or vaccine, source isolation and transmission chain interruption are by far the only reliable and effective methods. The unprecedented exercise of a full quarantine on Wuhan, the heart of the outbreak, reflects Chinas dedication as a responsible great power. Since the quarantine began, the number of confirmed cases in all regions has grown at a much lower speed than that in the epicenter Hubei province; and Wuhan remains the only city with concentrated infections. Of all the confirmed cases outside Hubei province, the majority of patients have either lived in or traveled to Wuhan or other areas of Hubei recently, and the rest have been in close contact with the above-mentioned patients. So far, there has been no reported incident of local community transmission or any new epicenter of outbreak. Based on these facts, the report concluded that strict control over population outflows from Hubei province is an effective way to contain the spread of the deadly virus. At present, high-level emergency alerts have been activated all across China and vigorous public health measures taken to identify, diagnose, and isolate infections or suspected cases at the earliest possible moment. At the same time, the Lunar New Year holidays have been extended to keep the nation-wide migration of population at the minimum level; and travelers from Wuhan and other epidemic areas are advised to report their travel records and to self-quarantine for two weeks to prevent community transmission. The reported five million people who had left Wuhan before the lockdown announcement are not panicky evacuees, but migrant workers seeking family reunions back in their hometowns or holiday travelers taking their leisure time around China and even abroad. The report also noted that had the Chinese government not taken determined efforts to quarantine the places with concentrated confirmed cases, the deadly virus may have spread all over the world and generated devastating impact on the global economic and public health systems. Based on credible analysis, highly-connected global transport networks may enable contagious pathogens to spread from backwater villages in unknown corners of the world to major cities on six continents in less than 36 hours and trigger outbreaks or cause epidemics. Yet in China, by January 30, 2020, more than a month after the first confirmed case was reported and eight days after the Wuhan lockdown, there had been 18 countries reporting 98 scattered cases of infection altogether, according to the latest WHO report. As WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesuson pointed out at a press conference on January 30, the Chinese government is to be congratulated for the extraordinary measures it has taken to contain the outbreak, despite the severe social and economic impact those measures are having on the Chinese people. Five Abuja residents have been arrested and paraded by the police in the Federal Capital Territory for invading the Wuse General Hospital with false claims of having contracted Coronavirus. Vanguard reports that the alleged pranksters had reportedly gone to the Wuse District Hospital claiming that one of them had been infected with the Coronavirus, an action which led to panic and confusion as well as a disruption of normal health service delivery at the hospital. The Command Public Relations Officer, DSP Anjuguri Manza, who paraded the five suspects before newsmen, gave their names as Peggy Shandi (M), Abayomi Adedoyin (M), David Gold Enemigin (M) Priscilla AJesola (F) and Jacob Oji (M). One of the suspects Peggy Shandi said their action was merely a prank about the coronavirus. The police spokesperson said investigations into the activities of the suspects were ongoing. The FCT Police Command said it was still investigating the case and on the conclusion, the suspects would be charged to court. Share this: Security has been beefed up in Delhi's Shaheen Bagh, the epicentre of anti-CAA protest in the national capital, a day after a man fired two rounds in the air near the venue. Two layers of barricades have been put up at a distance of 100 metres each and have been placed on both sides of the road leading towards the protest venue, a senior police official said. On Saturday, a 25-year-old man fired two rounds in the air at Shaheen Bagh and was later taken into custody. No one was injured in the incident. There are many by-lanes which pass through the residential colonies and market area. People also take these internal roads to reach the protest venue, police said. "Whenever, the police tries to make an announcement or appeal to the people on any issue, there is a sharp reaction from the public, the official said. False messages about police coming to vacate the venue are also being spread through the social media. "To avoid any kind of untoward incident, we have put up two layers of barricades and thorough checking is also being done to verify who is entering the area, the official added. A senior police official said,"We have sealed two major entry points on Road 13 A in the area. Police teams are also keeping track of the situation and checking on entry points from the Kalindi Kunj side. To avoid any clash, we also dispersed other agitators who came to protest against road blockage." The situation is under control and protest is being carried out peacefully at Shaheen Bagh, the official said. Locals said some volunteers, who work in shifts, have also been appointed to manage the checkpoints. "Luggage or bags of each protester or media person is being checked to enure safety and security. If required, identify cards are also being checked, said Ragib, a volunteer. On Sunday, several Assamese and local artists joined the protesters at Shaheen Bagh, where protests have been going on for over a month. The protesters carried posters which read "reject NRC, CAA and NPR and "hum goli nahi chalayenge". Fatima, a protester said "The opposition parties are trying to use this as a means to postpone elections as they fear dejection. The political partial are trying to take advantage and create communal disharmony but we will not allow this to happen. We do not belong to any party. We are just fighting here for our rights,". Noting that they will not move unless the government decides to rollback CAA and National Register of Citizens, the protesters said they don't fear bullets. "I have been protesting here since day 1. We will continue to protest unless the government decides to rollback the CAA," said Ruksar, a resident of Shaheen Bagh. "We don't fear bullets. If they think a firing incident will discourage us from protesting, they are wrong. In fact, now more women have joined since the incident. Our spirits are high. We are ready to face any challenge but we will not move from here unless the newly amended act is taken back," said Zareen, a protester. Another protester said that they are ready to face bullets. "They came, fired and went back. But we are still sitting here holding our protest peacefully," she said. Another agitator said,"Why is the government not ready to send their representatives here when we are ready to hold dialogues over the newly amended act. When asked about the protest staged by the locals against the blockade of road, the protestors claimed that ambulances and school vans are being allowed to pass through. "We are allowing ambulance and school vans to pass. They are trying to defame us and spread lies," one of the protester who did not wished to be identified said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The police in Rwanda has arrested a man who sealed his wifes private part with super glue upon rumors of her cheating on him. The man identified as Denis Mumo had returned from a journey to hear that his wife was seeing other men. Read Also: What I Did To My Cheating Ex-Husband: Toke Makinwa Police arrested the 36-year-old man was on Friday after his wife was rushed to the emergency room and suffered medical complications and excruciating pain. Mumo, confessed to the crime saying he did it because he believed she had adulterous ideas after he found out she had plans with 4 men after reading some messages on her phone. According to police, Mr Mumo will face charges of domestic violence with assault and damaging her reproductive organs. The suspect will appear in Kitui court on Monday to face charges. AMID the threat of the 2019-novel coronavirus acute respiratory disease (2019-nCoV ARD), President Rodrigo Duterte expanded Sunday, February 2, 2020, the temporary travel ban covering all tourists coming from Hubei in China to include mainland China and its special administrative regions. Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said the ban is for any nationality, except Filipinos coming directly from China and its special administrative regions Hong Kong and Macau. "We assure the Filipino people that the directives issued by the President, as well as the protocols being implemented as well as succeeding ones are all geared for the safety of our countrymen and will last until the danger of the dreaded disease has ceased," Panelo said. In a statement, Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea said the Inter-agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases approved and recommended the adoption of guidelines for the management of the 2019-nCoV ARD situation. The approved recommendation temporarily bans the entry of any person, regardless of nationality, except Filipino citizens and holders of Permanent Resident Visa issued by the Philippine Government, directly coming from China and its special administrative regions. It also mandates a 14-day quarantine for Filipinos and Permanent Resident Visa holders coming from any place in China, Hong Kong and Macau. Duterte also approved the ban on Filipinos from travel to these countries, and the establishment of a repatriation and quarantine facility. Panelo reminded the public to practice personal hygiene such as regular handwashing and wearing surgical masks when going to crowded areas. On Sunday, February 2, the World Health Organization and the Department of Health confirmed that a 44-year-old man confined in a hospital in Manila had died due to 2019-nCoV ARD. He was the second confirmed case of the 2019-nCoV ARD in the Philippines and the first known death of someone with the virus outside of China. (JGS) There's a reason why Rehna Hai Tere Dil Mein was such a hit. Besides having such a heart-melting movie plot, this film also introduced us to Maddy aka R Madhavan, a heartthrob who still makes all the women go weak in their knees. Even at the age of 49, Madhavan makes an impact and it's not just his charisma but also his fashion game that instantly catches the eye. The last instance made it clear that he is still the zaniest actor in the B-town industry and just when we thought, it couldn't get any better, he stunned us again with his recent sartorial eccentricity. Viral Bhayani Usually, you would see celebrities wearing a striking ensemble for a birthday party or an event. Madhavan, on the other hand, was rather seen in a casual avatar which has been the most chill outfit we've seen till now. Take a look: Viral Bhayani Firstly, let's take a moment and appreciate Madhavan's salt and pepper beard. Time and again we have been talking on how to grow a luscious beard and if you have silver fox strands, there's nothing like it. While Madhavan's fashion sense is spot on, even his grooming game is unmatched. It makes an uber style statement and it's perfect to add a bit of rebellious streak. Viral Bhayani Coming to his outfit, the humble sportswear staple, the sweatshirt has the full potential to instantly up the street creds. Madhavan's outfit is a perfect way to show that comfort and style go hand-in-hand. If you are too lazy to dress up for an event, a sweatshirt will always save you! Viral Bhayani The best part about wearing black pants is that it lets you dress up and down in super quirky ways. You can easily transcend from desk to dinner with this utility-style. The combination of a grey sweatshirt with black pants does an excellent job of adding that dash of leisure to the attire. His black sneakers epitomise the street style appearance even more with its versatility and comfort level. Truly, this is a fail-safe outfit and we've to give it to Maddy for schooling us on how to elevate the casual style, stat! Maldives President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih on Sunday thanked India for expeditiously evacuating seven Maldivians from Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak, saying it was an example of the "outstanding" friendship and camaraderie between the two countries. India has evacuated 647 Indians and seven Maldivian citizens by special flights from Wuhan city. Air India's jumbo B747 made two flights to Wuhan - the ground zero of the coronavirus epidemic. In the first flight on Saturday, 324 Indians were evacuated and on Sunday another 323 Indians and seven Maldivian citizens were flown back. READ: 'Corona Beer Virus' Searches Spike On Google After Deadly Coronavirus Outbreak Expressing his gratitude to India, President Solih tweeted, "My thanks and gratitude to PM @narendramodi, EM @DrSJaishankar and the Government of India for expeditiously evacuating the 7 Maldivians residing in Wuhan, China. This gesture is a fine example of the outstanding friendship and camaraderie between our two countries." Maldivian Foreign Minister Abdulla Shahid also expressed his "deep gratitude" to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Indian counterpart S Jaishankar for the evacuation of Maldivian citizens. He also thanked India's Ambassador to the Maldives Sunjay Sudhir and Indian envoy to China Vikram Misri. The Indian Embassy in Maldives tweeted that the action "reflects historic ties of kinship between us, &, synergy between #NeighbourhoodFirst & #IndiaFirst policies." The evacuated Indians and Maldivians have been quarantined for 14 days in special camps. Air India has done such evacuations earlier also from countries such as Libya, Iraq, Yemen, Kuwait and Nepal. The virus that emerged in early December and traced to a market in Wuhan that sold wild animals has spread to 25 countries and has killed 305 people and infected over 14,000 others. The Philippines on Sunday reported the first death outside China. Several countries have evacuated their nationals from Wuhan by sending special aircraft. The two men arrested yesterday morning in connection with the sickening attack on Keith Greaney in Cork city earlier this month have been charged. Both men were arrested yesterday morning by detective Gardai from Mayfield Garda Station for the attack on Mr Greaney on the Dunard estate in Lotamore, Mayfield The men in their 20s will appear before a Special Sitting of Cork District Court this morning. The Echo revealed on Friday that gardai had informally interviewed Mr Greaney in recent days after he came out of an induced coma at Cork University Hospital. Mr Greaney, aged 23, was with his girlfriend, Nicole O'Leary, when three men broke into his home, dragged him from his bed, beat him with a car exhaust pipe and attacked him with a machete just before 4am on January 20. The assailants then doused him in petrol, set him on fire and then smashed the windscreen of his car. He has suffered life-changing injuries and had been in an induced coma following the attack on January 20. Mr Greaney had initial discussions with investigators who are waiting for an official statement from him when his condition improves further. Gardai had previously spoken to three people in relation to the attack. A growing number of U.S. states are considering a ban on the sale or import of cosmetics that have been tested on animals, as advocates argue using the method for products such as lotions, shampoos and makeup on rabbits, mice and rats is cruel and outdated. California, Nevada and Illinois all saw new laws take effect this year that ban the sale or import of cosmetics in tested on animals after January 1, and legislation has been introduced or will soon be made public in Hawaii, Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Virginia, according to Cruelty Free International. It piles on further pressure to pass a nationwide ban introduced in Congress 2014 to follow in the footsteps of Europe, India and elsewhere. A ban in the United States, one of the world's largest economies, means further global pressure for Chinese cosmetics companies to rely on non-animal tests if they want to sell their products in the U.S. China is a 'big complicating factor,' said Monica Engebretson, who leads public affairs for Cruelty Free International in North America. 'That's put companies that want to enter that Chinese market in a real bind.' A growing number of U.S. states are considering a ban on the sale or import of cosmetics that have been tested on animals It would still allow those products to be sold in U.S. states as long as sellers relied on additional, non-animal tests to show they are safe. In this Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2020, photo scientist and study director Jennifer Molignano prepared for testing on living human skin tissue at a MatTek Corporation lab, in Ashland, Massachusetts China's policy applies to all imported cosmetics, including makeup, perfume and hair care products, along with some 'special use' goods produced in China, such as hair dye, sunscreen and whitening products that make functional claims. A national ban introduced in Congress six years ago has been slow to advance. Animal-rights groups like Cruelty Free International and the Humane Society of the United States hope to get more states to pass bans this year. November marked the first time the country's leading cosmetics trade group, the Personal Care Products Council, became a vocal backer of the ban, support that should ease lawmaker concerns about business opposition. The laws, aren't expected to cause much disruption for the industry because many companies already use non-animal testing. California was first to pass the legislation in 2018, a move that's part of the state's pattern of wielding its status as the world's fifth-largest economy to push change. The California, Nevada and Illinois laws create exemptions for any cosmetics that were tested on animals to comply with regulations of a foreign government - an exception that acknowledges the reality that most companies will see their products tested on animals if they sell in China. The bans in all three states require cosmetics sellers to use non-animal tests to prove their products are safe. 'That's the beauty of doing things in California,' said Judie Mancuso with the group Social Compassion in Legislation who pressed for that states ban. 'You set the stage, you set the standard, and others grab it and grow.' Some of the biggest names in personal care and beauty, including Avon, Unilever and Procter & Gamble, have used MatTek's tissues for testing MatTek is a tissue engineering company that performs non-animal testing on cosmetics, skin care products and pharmaceuticals Similar to the state laws, the proposed ban before Congress would exempt cosmetics required to undergo testing in China. It would allow those products to be sold in the U.S. as long as sellers relied on additional, non-animal tests to show they are safe. Supporters of new US legislation note that science has advanced, allowing companies in most cases to use non-animal alternatives - such as human cell cultures or lab-grown human skin and eye tissue - to test whether a product or ingredient is safe. Many international companies are already doing that after the European Union passed a series of similar bans on animal testing, culminating with a 2013 ban on the sale of animal-tested products. Bianca Estelle, founder of two cosmetics lines, Vitamin Injections London Skin Care and bea Skin Care, told DailyMail.com the new US legislation is a 'step in the right direction' but argued there's no need to test on animals at all nowadays. Estelle - a multi-award-winning skin specialist - began testing on synthetic skin in 2012, prior to the European animal testing ban. Estelle's formulas are tested in a lab in Korea then at the second stage tested on a database of over 4,000 clients. EpiDerm, a synthetic skin tissue made by Massachusetts-based MatTek Corp., is created from cells taken from skin donated during procedures such as breast reduction surgery, circumcision and tummy tuck procedures. Products can be applied to synthetic tissue to determine whether they cause skin irritation, damage, sensitivity or other issues. That can be used in place of a testing a product on the back of a shaved rabbit, animal rights supporters say. Some of the biggest names in personal care and beauty, including Avon, Unilever and Procter & Gamble, have used MatTek's tissues for testing. In this Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2020, photo, scientist and study director Jennifer Molignano places living human skin tissue samples into a 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit incubator during a demonstration of experiments on the tissues at a MatTek Corporation lab Carl Westmoreland, a safety scientist with Unilever, said the European Union ban drove more innovation in non-animal testing. Companies like Unilever, trade groups and advocates are among those working with Chinese regulators and scientists to push for new rules, helping to familiarize them with procedures and results from non-animal tests. 'They have been changing and are continuing to change,' he said, noting China in recent years has allowed some cosmetics produced within the country to avoid animal testing. Nevada Sen. Melanie Scheible said her aim was not to punish those multinational corporations but to raise awareness and put pressure on other governments, like China, to act. 'A lot of people thought that we no longer tested on animals at all,' she said. 'They thought that this was already a thing of the past. 'We're not trying to create an island out here in Nevada. We are trying to join a group of other communities that have stood up and said, 'We don't support animal testing.'' The Personal Care Products Council supports most of the state legislation but is pushing for a nationwide law instead of a patchwork of rules across the country. Francine Lamoriello, executive vice president for global strategies at the Personal Care Products Council said it's a slow process, but Chinese regulators are working to accept non-animal tests. 'They're having conferences. They really seem to be quite motivated to do as best as they can to accept and validate certain methods,' she said. She enjoyed 14 years of marriage to the love of her life, Steve Irwin, before he was tragically killed when a stingray barb pierced his chest in 2006. On Sunday, Terri Irwin took to Twitter to reminisce about the moment her late husband proposed to her in Queensland. Sharing a throwback snap of the couple, the 55-year-old wrote: 'It was 28 years ago today, here at Australia Zoo, that Steve asked me to marry him. Life is constantly changing. Love is forever.' 'Life is constantly changing. Love is forever': On Sunday, Terri Irwin took to Twitter to recall the moment her late husband, Steve Irwin, proposed to her at Australia Zoo 27 years ago In the picture, Steve looks longingly at Terri as she hugs him from behind while perched on a rock. It comes after the conservationist shared an unseen photo of her late husband Steve holding their son Robert as a baby, to commemorate his sixteenth birthday in December. She captioned the image: 'Your dad would be so proud of you. He has loved you since the moment you were born.' Robert was just two years old when his father died at age 44. 'Your dad would be so proud of you': Terri Irwin shares unseen photo of late Crocodile Hunter Steve in emotional tribute to son Robert on 16th birthday In the emotional photograph, Steve could be seen cradling baby Robert's head as he lovingly stared down at him. Robert re-shared the image, writing: 'Thank you Mum. This means so much to me!' Terri's sweet memory comes as her daughter Bindi prepares to marry Chandler Powell. Sweet! Bindi and Chandler adopted a dog named Piggy last month Last year, Bindi revealed she plans on marrying the American wakeboarder at her home in Australia Zoo sometime in 2020. The couple became engaged on Bindi's 21st birthday. They are proud parents to an adopted dog named Piggy. A U.S. soldier stands while bulldozers clear rubble and debris at Ain al-Asad air base in Anbar, Iraq, Monday, Jan. 13, 2020. AP Photo/Ali Abdul Hassan The number of US service members diagnosed with mild traumatic brain injuries following the Jan. 8 Iranian missile attack has jumped from 11 a figure reported one week after the president said "no Americans were harmed" to 64. "There's nothing mild about a brain injury," Michael Kaplen, a brain injury expert, told Insider, adding that these types of injuries can easily become chronic conditions that require long-term support. While President Donald Trump characterized the injuries as "not very serious," the Pentagon said Thursday it is taking them seriously. "We'll continue to monitor them the rest of their lives and continue to provide whatever treatment is necessary," Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley explained. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. Dozens of US service members suffered traumatic brain injuries in an Iranian missile attack in Iraq, and it's possible these invisible injuries will haunt some for the rest of their lives. The Department of Defense revealed Thursday that a total of 64 US service members have been diagnosed with concussions, characterized as a mild traumatic brain injury, in the wake of the Iranian missile attack on US and coalition forces at two bases in Iraq earlier this month. During the Iranian missile attack, US positions were rocked by the blasts from 1,000- to 2,000-pound munitions, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said Thursday. "These things have bursting radiuses of 50 to 100 feet, and that's just the shrapnel in the actual blast. These are very, very significant, serious weapons." Officers who survived the barrage described it as nothing short of a miracle there was no loss of life. In this Monday, Jan. 13, 2020 photo, U.S. Soldiers stand near their residence area that was destroyed by Iranian bombing at Ain al-Asad air base, in Anbar, Iraq. AP Photo/Qassim Abdul-Zahra 'A very serious and significant injury' As for the injured, while the diagnosis is a mild TBI, "there's nothing mild about a brain injury," Michael Kaplen, a brain injury lawyer and a lecturer at The George Washington University Law School, told Insider. Story continues "The term mild is really a misnomer when it comes to traumatic brain injury," he explained. "It trivializes a very serious and significant injury." The common use of the word "mild" to characterize a TBI has its genesis in the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS), a basic tool for emergency trauma care which ranks head injuries as mild, moderate, and severe. "It has become misused to characterize what a brain injury is in terms of its consequences," Kaplen said. Any brain injury can have certain troubling physical, cognitive, emotional and behavioral repercussions, some of which may last a lifetime. Milley acknowledged this potential for affected service members, telling reporters: "We'll continue to monitor them the rest of their lives and continue to provide whatever treatment is necessary." U.S. soldiers stand at the spot hit by Iranian bombing at Ain al-Asad air base, in Anbar, Iraq. AP Photo/Qassim Abdul-Zahra 'I can report that it's not very serious' In the short term, signs of a brain injury, which may appear immediately or possibly even days or weeks later, can be headaches, dizziness, nausea, balance problems, memory loss, sensitivity to light and sound and concentration problems. Some observers may fixate on these issues, and ignore the invisible neurological scars, problems that may persist for years. "I heard that they had headaches and a couple of other things, but I would say and I can report that it's not very serious," Trump, who initially said that "no Americans were harmed" in the Iranian retaliation for a general's killing, said once the number of injured service members had risen to 34. "It's deeply troubling when the president of the United States minimizes the seriousness of the injury," Kaplen, who served as the president of the Brain Injury Association of New York State, said. "It does a significant disservice to members of the military with this condition." He described the president's comments as "unfortunate," "ignorant," insulting," and "disrespectful." U.S. soldiers stand at spot hit by Iranian bombing at Ain al-Asad air base, in Anbar, Iraq. AP Photo/Qassim Abdul-Zahra Brain injuries can easily become chronic conditions that require long-term support for the affected individual, who may experience more severe control, language, concentration, memory, and behavioral problems as time goes on. And, because the injury is internal, it may be difficult for others to understand their struggles. Depression can be a side effect of a brain injury, and, Kaplen explained, "people suffering the long-term consequences of a brain injury have much greater rates of suicide" already a serious problem for US service members and veterans. In instances where an individual suffers multiple traumatic brain injuries, they can develop chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease that can only be properly diagnosed during autopsy. The US military puts battlefield injuries into one of three simple categories: very serious injuries (VSI), serious injuries (SI), and non-serious injuries (NSI), with more severe injuries being wounds like loss of limb. The service members injured in the Jan. 8 attack "are in the NSI category at this time," Milley said Thursday, adding that this might change. "We're early in the stage of diagnosis," he said. "We're early in the stage of therapy for these troops." Thirty-nine service members have already returned to duty, the Department of Defense said Thursday. Eight have been evacuated to the US, and nine others are awaiting transport to the US. Others are still being assessed and treated in Iraq, Kuwait, and Germany. Read the original article on Business Insider Source: Xinhua| 2020-02-02 19:49:51|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close COPENHAGEN, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- Danish featherweight Sarah Mahfoud extended her unbeaten professional career with the IBF interim title following her victory against reigning world champion Brenda Karen Carabajal at Frederiksberg Halls, Copenhagen on Saturday. The challenger comprehensively outboxed her Argentinian opponent while being cheered on by strong local support, and the three judges were also in agreement, scoring the match 98-92, 97-93 and 100-90 in Mahfoud's favor. "It was a cool atmosphere in the hall, and it went well. I'm a world champion," Mahfoud told Danish tabloid BT. Following Saturday's victory, the Danish fighter, of Faroese and Syrian descent, remains unbeaten in her 10 professional bouts and is now the undisputed world number one in the IBF world rankings. Special report: Revisiting the Nightmare Copyright 2020 Albuquerque Journal Speaking to a room of about 75 people gathered in the Journal auditorium for a panel discussion on the deadly 1980 prison riot at the New Mexico State Penitentiary in Santa Fe, former Corrections Department Secretary Gregg Marcantel recounted the story of a man at his gym who asked him why were still talking about something that happened 40 years ago. We perhaps dont see every day behind those big thick walls and the concertina wire, the same way we see every day what a policeman does in the streets, Marcantel said. We dont understand it. What we dont understand, we dont tend to value. What we dont value, we dont prioritize. The only way to get past that is to make sure were taking the lessons of the past and taking the opportunities to keep talking about when it has been its worst. Marcantel was one of seven participants in a panel discussion moderated by Journal senior editor Kent Walz. Others included Journal investigative reporter Mike Gallagher, who wrote a three-day series about the riot and its aftermath published in the Journal last week; Peter Cubra, an attorney who represented inmates after the riot; Dirk Lee, president of the Correctional Officers Association; Alisha Tafoya Lucero, secretary of the Corrections Department; Rep. Antonio Moe Maestas, an Albuquerque attorney and the nephew of an inmate who was instrumental in pushing prison reform; and pollster Brian Sanderoff, who was a key aide to then-Gov. Bruce King. The two-hour forum was attended by members of the public, as well as those who had a personal connection to the riot and its aftermath, including a New Mexico National Guardsman, corrections officers and attorneys who worked on prison reforms. It was also broadcast over KANW, 89.1-FM. It followed the series, Revisiting the Nightmare, which looked back at the brutality of the prison riot, what led to it and how things have since changed. For one thing, few officials and elected leaders were prioritizing the states prison system in the years before the riot, Sanderoff said. The general public was focused on the front end of crime, he said. We were talking about more police officers needed, tougher sentences, mandatory minimum sentences and the like, and less time was spent focusing on the spending and resources necessary to update the prison, increase the salaries of correction officers and improve their benefits. There was little debate about the effectiveness of incarceration. In the aftermath of the riot, the Attorney General and Citizens Advisory Panels studied the conditions at the prison to determine what led up to the rampage and what the Corrections Department could do differently to prevent the same tragedy in the future. Cubra said that, at the time, conditions in the penitentiary then the states only prison were basically cruel and unusual punishment and fostered an environment in which oppressed inmates simmered in resentment against the corrections officers and administration. He said that, after the riot even after the brutal, gruesome details of what happened inside the prison walls reached the public consciousness the jurors who heard the cases of inmates tried for their crimes decided not to give them the death penalty. They said it was terrible, horrible. They deserve severe punishment, but it was in fact the government whose malfeasance led to this and because of that, thats a form of mitigation, Cubra said. One of those inmates who had been fighting against the system from the inside before the riot happened was the uncle of Rep. Maestas. Maestas said he was less than 8 years old when Dwight Duran, whom he called Uncle Man, began making progress fighting for prison reform from the inside. Durans case became the Duran Consent Decree, a settlement agreement that governed the mandated reform and governed the way the prisons were run. What he would tell me was in 1979 he would say guys were making progress, Maestas said. But at the same time, hes telling the governor and the higher-ups this place is going to explode. This place is a powder keg. Sure enough, it did explode, and the morning of the riot, Maestas said, Gov. King called Duran who had been paroled 12 days before the riot began and asked him to help out. By the end of the rampage, 33 inmates had been killed and several guards had been taken hostage and tortured. Gov. King called him to go to the site and try to alleviate some of the pain and even talk some sense into folks, Maestas said. I think that his political leadership during 1978 and 79 and the respect he had played a strong role in the guards not being killed. In the years leading up to the riot, the prison system was understaffed and the corrections officers who were employed werent properly trained. Guards described being hired and told to figure out the job as they worked. Corrections Secretary Tafoya Lucero said although understaffing persists, the department has changed the way it trains corrections officers and more tools are available to them than in 1980. In general the world has changed in 40 years and corrections is no exception, Tafoya Lucero said. At the time of the riot, staff had no training; they were just given keys and a uniform and told to do your job. Thats not how business is done anymore. We have an eight-week academy right now, and we focus on de-escalation techniques. She said that, in an effort to boost staffing at remote and rural prisons throughout the state, corrections officials are now traveling to towns to hold screenings and training academies rather than asking prospective employees to take time from their lives and travel to Santa Fe. Lee, a current corrections officer in Grants, said that, despite these efforts, understaffing persists. Neither he nor Tafoya Lucero could say how many officers work in the prison system or how many are needed bring it up to full staffing. A spokesman later told the Journal there are 882 officers across all state prison facilities, and there is a vacancy rate of 26%. To be fully staffed, Corrections would need 211 more officers. Lee, when asked if corrections officers feel safe these days, said, No, we dont. Classification of inmates is one of the biggest problems we have, Lee said. Until we get this system under control and until we figure out what we need to do, were going to have problems. He said some inmates are classified at incorrect risk levels because of overcrowding at certain levels. Many of the panelists stressed a need for more programs, including educational opportunities and work assignments, as well as treatment for substance abuse and mental health issues. They pointed out that 96% of people in prison will one day be released and will be part of society. Sanderoff said national polls from the past couple of years show that about 91% of respondents believe the criminal justice system needs to be reformed, and that about 85% believe rehabilitation should be the goal rather than punishment. Attitudes are changing, and its a good thing, but we have to do a better job of educating people that, when we talk about criminal justice reform, we actually believe that if done properly with the right evidence-based programs that crime rates can actually go down, Sanderoff said. People can become safer when it comes to rehabilitation programs. Marcantel echoed this statement, saying his views changed during his time as the secretary of Corrections. He said the goal cant simply be to never have another riot, but rather should be to rehabilitate people in order to make the community safer in general. If our lens is that everyone is violent, then were going to go about shaping up what we do in that regard, Marcantel said. Instead of a more balanced approach between understanding that there are people who have to be held accountable, but a great many of those who walk through those prison gates have the capacity to change. A man surrendered to police in North Trenton late Saturday following a seven-hour standoff that began with gunfire in front of a residence, and hours later included shots being fired from the house, Mercer County Prosecutor Angelo Onofri said. The incident began about 4 p.m. on Middle Rose Street when the subject entered the the first floor of a home following a shooting outside, Onofri and Trenton police said. At 11:20 p.m., Onofri reported the suspect was in police custody after police fired tear gas into the residence. The suspects identity was not immediately made public. At one point, a repeating message calling for the suspect to come out was heard by an NJ Advance Media photographer. Saturday, February 1, 2020 - Trenton Police have Middle Rose Street blocked off during a standoff with two apparently armed subjects who climbed into the first floor of a home at 41 Middle Rose Street. Photo is at the intersection of MLK Blvd and Cavell Street.Michael Mancuso | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com The report that drew police to the block was a man firing a gun outside a residence, Trenton police spokesman Capt. Stephen Varn said. The circumstances of the original shooting are under investigation, Onofri and Varn said. Varn said several tactical teams were put in place on the block while police officials spent hours trying to communicate with the man. Middle Rose is a one-block street runs between two main roads, Brunswick Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. Staff photographer Michael Mancuso contributed to this report. Kevin Shea may be reached at kshea@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @kevintshea. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. Within the walls of Jeju City, circa 1900-1910. Robert Neff Collection By Robert Neff An excellent book of Jeju Island legends in English and Korean by Hyun Yong-joon and translated by Richard J. Pretti Governor Lee Hyeong-sang (1702-1704) is often blamed for the destruction of the shamanistic shrines and Buddhist temples of Jeju Island. He especially seems to have disliked snakes slaying the snake at Gwangjeong Shrine and, according to one legend, the great serpent at Sa Gol Cave at Gimnyeong. Unlike the snake at Gwangjeong, the serpent at Sa Gol Cave was huge and responsible for the well-being of Gimnyeong village. It demanded an annual sacrifice of a young female virgin. A feast of food and alcohol would be set before its cave, along with the bound virgin which he would devour alive. If this tribute was not provided, the "rains would not fall, strong winds would begin to blow, horses and cattle would die and sickness and other calamities would befall the people." Lee wasn't the only one credited with slaying this ravenous serpent. In the first half of the 16th century, Yeon Seo, a 19-year-old, was sent to the island as an official (some accounts say judge, others say governor). He was appalled when he heard of this annual sacrifice and was determined to put a stop to it. When the sacrifice was to be made, he and a group of soldiers hid themselves around the cave. When the snake slithered toward the virgin, Seo and his men pounced on the serpent and slew it with their swords and spears. The entrance of Sa Gol Cave, circa 2015. Robert Neff Collection A shaman, who witnessed the incident, told Seo to flee to Jeju City and never look back at the cave. Seo and his soldiers mounted their horses and raced back toward the city but just before they passed through the gate, one of his soldiers called out that blood was raining down on Seo's back. Startled, Seo stopped his horse and turned around inadvertently looking back in the direction of Sa Gol Cave and fell from his horse. He was dead. According to the legend, "When the snake died, its blood had risen up into the sky, mixed with the rain and gone chasing after Judge Seo." However, another version of the legend claims that Seo managed to get to the safety of the city and soon afterward set sail for the mainland aboard a small ship. He didn't get far. Near the uninhabited island of Saseokoji (between Chuja and Jeju), the ship sank. According to "Legends of Jeju Island," sailors, to this day, still offer a pig's head to the snake's spirit when they are near Saseokoji. Another tale claims the snake was killed by a young officer who desired to be the governor of Jeju Island. After he killed the snake, he was warned by a shaman not to turn around but he felt compelled to do so and was horrified to see the soul of the serpent rising up from its carcass. It was too much for the man and he immediately died. The monuments in front of Sa Gol Cave, circa 2015. Robert Neff Collection According to Prof. Maria Silvia Codecasa: "The serpent's soul then transformed itself into two baduk (Korean board game) pieces and teleported itself to Seoul where they were discovered by two Jeju envoys. Apparently they were plagued with bad luck and their dreams were haunted by the serpent. They tried to sell the pieces but no one would buy them. When it came time for them to return to Jeju, the captain of the ship refused to sail until a mudang [shaman] had been summoned and another gut held to appease the serpent's soul. "Eventually, they did set sail but the dreams of the envoys continued to be haunted. As the ship neared the island, the envoys dreamed that the stones transformed into two beautiful women who made their way to the beach where they encountered a man and begged for food. The man refused and then began to beat them, so they fled to nearby Tosan village and hid themselves amongst the village's women and to this day the women of the village are said to possess the serpent's spirit." Prof. Codecasa claimed it was for this reason the women of Tosan village have a hard time marrying as few people are willing to take the chance of marrying a woman with the spirit of the serpent in them. There are other tales including that of a monk named Lee Sam-man. He took the place of the young virgin and when the serpent came to eat him, he suddenly jumped up and shot it with three arrows, and then cut its head off with his knife. Like Seo, he had been warned to ride to Jeju City as quickly as possible and to never look back. He managed to get into the gates and thought he was safe. A sudden wind howled through the city and rain began to pour. Lee Sam-man turned and looked back toward the cave and immediately fell dead. Fred Dustin with one of the descendants of the Sa Gol Cave slayers, circa October 1971. Robert Neff Collection It is said that you can drive away snakes from places they normally congregate if, during the first month of the lunar year, you write Lee Sam-man's name on a piece of paper and place it there. Unlike the others, Lee Hyeong-sang was able to avoid the snakes' vengeance while he lived, but not in death according to legend, his tomb was covered by a huge serpent. Even up until the 1970s, snakes were still thought to have some control of the weather. In a letter to his parents on July 4, 1975, Fred Dustin a long time resident of Jeju Island wrote: "The spring has been miserable in fact. We have had no warm weather. Old people on [Jeju] jokingly blame the weather on the government saying that if the shrines devoted to Snake Worship had not been replaced by the New Village Movement signs (the government has been trying to eradicate snake worship and other forms of what it calls 'superstitious time wasters') then we would have normal weather. "Regardless of where the problem stems from, it has been miserable. Crops have taken a beating. Insufficient warm weather did not set the young oranges well and many are dropping. All kinds of bugs are around eating things up. A mess." And, in case you didn't know, the first of February was "Serpent Day." Fred Dustin paying respect at the memorial at Sa Gol Cave, circa October 1971. Robert Neff Collection Through Low, Jeet Thayil takes us on a darkly comic, irreverent journey of processing grief and loss. Told in the third person, the book attempts to articulate the impossibility of processing grief in any certain manner or form. Zadie Smith writes in White Teeth: "You are never strongerthan when you land on the other side of despair". In Low, Jeet Thayils latest novelisation of a part of his life, this thought is put to the test, both as a commitment to memory, and as the substantive effect of a piece of literature on its reader. Dominic Ullis returns to his house in Delhi's Defence Colony, where his wife committed suicide. Unable to reconcile with the familiarity of their home, Ullis leaves town in haste, with the last remains of his wife, Aki, in hand. "In half an hour he was at a reservation desk where he bought himself a ticket to the city he knew best, where oblivion could be purchased cheaply and without consequence", Thayil writes. With Ullis, Thayil returns to the city of Mumbai, the drug dens of which made up for a large part of his first novel Narcopolis. Through Low, Thayil takes us on a darkly comic, irreverent journey of processing grief and loss. Told in the third person, Low attempts to articulate the impossibility of processing grief in any certain manner or form. Ullis, a tragically self-aware widower, blames himself for pushing his wife to take her life. Low is a word she often used to vaguely define the indeterminate amount of depression and unhappiness she felt. Through flashbacks, Thayil establishes the brittle, yet wildly romantic foundation of the relationship. "Well help each other stay alive," Ullis tells Aki after she informs him of having come down with "a heavy case of the low". The present, however, is unromantically revealing and "where his wife was ashes in a box clutched in his unworthy hands. It was intolerable". Thayils commentary as a narrator often gives the impression of two books within one. In one, he seems to be taking this journey, while in the other, he is trying to locate it in his conscience, with the intention to reprimand the protagonist for all that births regret. After Ullis arrives in Mumbai, he bumps into drug-addicts, dancers, politicians, and ends up at parties, and in one instance on a boat ride from Alibag to South Bombay. All this, while Ullis gets high on cocaine (the new Meow Meow) reflects and reminiscences dimly about Aki. There is a fair amount of accreditation to the role people around him play in helping him process this grief, as if inured to its permanence. Is that what addiction does to a person? Low is fairly tragicomic. It persists upon the mundane, the egotistical wrapping of time around the bends of loss, in the sense that Ullis, however dejected or guilty he feels, must respond to the inevitability of what next, to which he often ends up saying why not, without thinking twice. So, he hops from one situation to another, doing lines of powder in one place, to discussing politics with a conservative all without will or want. There is nothing proprietary about grief, except the lengths to which it pierces you, or questions it leaves you with. Low is fairly current, in that its political references are recent. From the MeToo movement, to Trump, from the planned statue of Shivaji in Mumbai to Prime Minister Narendra Modis Yoga theatrics, Thayil melds the farce of the bigger picture to the tragedy of a personal one. In a drug-addled mix-up, Payal, an heiress, mistakes Akis ashes for powder. Incredibly, the writer naturalises this calamity, in a way that only Thayil can. On the boat, Thayil declares Ullis undeserving of forgiveness, as his "self-destruction was assured". It is as troubling a thought as it is impossible to fault Ullis for "not being there", because he is someone who acts in the moment, and reflects later. "He was facing the wrong way. He was turned towards the past", Thayil writes. An overwhelming moment presents itself on the jetty, when, to the consternation of those accompanying him, Ullis decides to suddenly perform the last rites of Aki. Even at this juncture, Ullis despair fails to translate into anything cogent or cohesive. Even at this significant bend of the journey, Thayil refuses to douse the candle or dim the lights for dramatisation. "Just say something," a woman frustratingly tells Ullis, before visibly giving up. Low might be one of the funniest books on grief that Ive read, if that is even a thing. In a way, Jeet Thayil evidences how getting through loss is a personal journey, encrusted by the tokenism of concern or lack thereof. Also, Low is a different route, in as most Indians are usually mobbed by relatives, friends and others to the extent that the process, while still personal, becomes an exhibit. Solitude, in this country at least, is a privilege not many can enjoy or afford. While there is scope for comic reflection in that space, Thayil is certainly more adept on this side of the fence, where mobility and space, at least in a tactile sense are unrestricted. Through Low, Thayil finds fresh territory to erect an effigy of his past, only this time, it crackles and glows playfully, as it slowly turns to ghostly ash. While Sri Lanka is facing numerous challenges as a result of the outbreak of the disease, the country and its healthcare system seems to be responding to the situation satisfactorily. by Javid Yusuf The novel Coronavirus (or Wuhan Coronavirus as it is sometimes called) has emerged to pose a threat to the health of thousands all over the world. It has today reached a sufficient level of threat for the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare the outbreak sparked by the Coronavirus a Global Emergency. According to WHO, a Global Emergency is defined as an extraordinary event that constitutes a risk to other countries and requires a coordinated international response. WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom has stated that the main reason for this declaration is not because of what is happening in China but because of what is happening in other countries. One of the concerns that the WHO Chief has expressed, is the potential for the virus to spread to countries with weaker healthcare systems. We must all act together now to limit further spread. We can only stop it together. One of the countries where patients afflicted with Coronavirus have been detected in Sri Lanka. A 43-year-old female Chinese tourist who has been in the country since January 19 has been tested positive for the virus and is receiving treatment at the Infectious Diseases Hospital, Angoda. However, reports indicate that she is responding well to treatment and her condition is improving. While Sri Lanka is facing numerous challenges as a result of the outbreak of the disease, the country and its healthcare system seems to be responding to the situation satisfactorily. Several welcome preventive measures have been put in place by the Government to curb the spread of the disease as well as to ease the difficulties of those who may be exposed to situations that pose a health risk. Tracing the places where the Chinese national, afflicted with the Coronavirus, had visited and testing the persons who may have come into contact with her was a positive step in this direction. Identifying a separate gate for passengers who arrive from China was another measure taken in order to curb the spread of the disease. According to the Civil Aviation Authority, Airport authorities continue to remain on alert with regard to inbound and transit passengers coming from China and measures have been put in place to refer passengers with symptoms of illness to the relevant authorities for examination and report. Efforts made to airlift students and other Lankan nationals back home must also be commended. These measures would have helped to ease the anxieties of parents and loved ones of those Sri Lankans who had gone to China for education and other work. It is also necessary to commend the efforts of the Sri Lankan Embassy in Beijing who must have had their work cut out to look after the interests of Lankan nationals in China. Negotiating and coordinating with the Chinese authorities in the midst of competing claims on the latters time by other often more powerful or influential countries would have taxed the Embassy officials including the acting Ambassador no end. There is also a useful lesson for the Foreign Ministry to ponder on for the future. When the Ministry recalls a Head of Mission from their post, should they not be asked to remain in the station until their successor arrives and takes over duties? In this instance, the Sri Lankan Embassy was left with an Acting-Head of Mission to face the situation (probably because the Ambassador had been recalled to Colombo along with other political appointees). However, according to all reports, the Acting-Head of Mission K Yoganathan, together with his fellow officials, had risen to the occasion and worked hard to meet the needs of the situation. The designation of several hospitals in the districts to cater to the needs of any situation arising from the detection of any potential patient afflicted from the virus, as well as the decision to quarantine the students returning from Wuhan Province in a special set-up at the Diyatalawa Army Camp are also welcome measures. The tightening of visa procedures for Chinese Nationals arriving in the country as well as the individual medical examinations of Chinese workers who had returned to the country after the Chinese New Year are also steps in the right direction. Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa struck the right note in stating that politics can take a back seat in the face of the national crisis and has put forward several suggestions to the Government to address the situation. The WHO has expressed satisfaction at Sri Lankas handling of the situation. According to a Health Ministry official, Sri Lanka has from the initial stages implemented very strict measures to prevent the spread of the disease. In fact, the one person who has been infected with the Coronavirus is stable and recovering well. So the WHO is very happy at the measures taken by us. The only black mark is the attempt by unscrupulous traders to sell face masks at prices well above the usual amount and thereby cash in on the panic and fears generated by the situation. All in all, it can be said that despite criticisms of the system on different occasions in the past, the countrys healthcare system has coped well with the emergency situation that has arisen. (The writer can be reached at javidyusuf@gmail.com) Representative image Air India evacuated 323 more Indians from Wuhan, China in its second special flight. The flight landed at the airport in New Delhi on February 2 morning. Earlier, a special Air India Boeing 747 aircraft carrying 324 Indians had landed in the national capital on February 1. Wuhan is the epicentre of novel coronavirus outbreak, which has killed over 300 people in China. An Air India spokesperson was quoted by news agency PTI as saying that at 9.45 am, "323 passengers were there in the second special flight, which landed at Delhi airport just now." Reports suggest that besides Indians, the special flight also carried seven people from Maldives. COVID-19 Vaccine Frequently Asked Questions View more How does a vaccine work? A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine. How many types of vaccines are there? There are broadly four types of vaccine one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine. What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind? Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time. View more Show Delhi: 323 Indian nationals and 7 Maldives nationals who arrived in Delhi by the second Air India special flight from Wuhan, China today, underwent #coronavirus screening soon after they de-boarded from the aircraft. pic.twitter.com/YafdBYS9xY ANI (@ANI) February 2, 2020 Meanwhile, Indias second positive case of novel coronavirus has been reported in Kerala. The patient has a travel history from China and been kept in isolation in a hospital. Reports suggest that the patient is stable and is being closely monitored. Also read - In-Depth | Coronavirus: The spread, the danger, the symptoms and the social cost This comes at a time when the death toll in China, related to the novel coronavirus jumped to 304 on February 2. Chinese health officials have said that the total number of cases in China has climbed to 14,380. Another 4,562 new suspected cases were reported on February 1 in China, the countrys national health commission has said. (With inputs from PTI) Blood shortage in hospitals as coronavirus fears keep donors away Vietnamese hospitals are reporting blood and platelet shortages as new coronavirus keeps fearful donors away. The National Institute of Hematology & Blood Transfusion in Hanoi received 226 units of blood in 10 days from January 23 - February 1, a fraction of the 1,500 units it needs each day. "There is severe shortage of red blood cells and platelets, and the situation could prolong for weeks, affecting blood supply to 170 hospitals in 25 localities," said Pham Tuan Duong, deputy director of the institute. Other localities like Ho Chi Minh City, the central cities of Hue and Da Nang and the southern Can Tho have also reported blood supply shortages. The HCMC Blood Transfusion Hematology Hospital only had 4,000 units of blood left in stock, though it needs up to 1,000 a day. The shortage became pronounced after the recent seven-day Tet holiday with scheduled donations being cancelled over fears of the deadly 2019-nCoV spreading at crowded places. Doctors estimate that only a few hundreds of blood units will be donated in upcoming days, while hospitals in Hanoi and HCMC alone demand up to 3,000 units a day. "nCoV has affected the blood donation schedule of many organizations," deputy director Duong said. "If there are no more donations, there will not be enough blood for the rising number of patients hospitalized for medical examination and treatment after Tet." The blood transfusion institute has requested the Ministry of Healths permission to continue urging more people to donate blood while implementing safety measures to limit the spread of nCoV. Vietnam has so far confirmed seven cases of nCoV infection: a 73-year-old American, two Chinese nationals and four Vietnamese citizens. Three of the Vietnamese citizens were returning from Wuhan, and a female hotel receptionist caught the coronavirus infection from the two Chinese nationals presently quarantined in Saigon. As of Sunday, the country has reported 92 suspected cases with symptoms like high fever and cough, including some who visited infected areas in China. Of these, 27 remain quarantined pending test results. The death toll from the coronavirus outbreak in China had reached 304 by Saturday, according to Chinas National Health Commission. The virus claimed the first life outside China on Saturday, with a 44-year-old Chinese man succumbing in the Philippines. Medical officials waiting for people who want to be tested for the novel coronavirus at Myeongdong shopping district in Seoul, South Korea, on Jan. 31, 2020. (Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images) US Military in South Korea Imposes Quarantine for Troops Returning From China SEOULThe U.S. military command in South Korea said it has instituted a 14-day self quarantine effective Sunday for any troops who recently traveled to China, adding that an outbreak in that country of a new coronavirus could harm military readiness. United States Forces Korea (USFK) said it knew of no troops who had been in the hardest hit provinces of China, and that its quarantine measures were a precaution. USFK continues to stress the overall risk to USFK personnel remains low, but that the quarantine measures implemented are out of an abundance of caution to mitigate risk to the USFK population, the command said in a statement. We are taking precautionary measures & implementing a self-quarantine for servicemembers returning from mainland China to South Korea on or after Jan. 19, effective today at noon. The overall risk to USFK personnel remains low. https://t.co/jCIaAoGl2i U.S. Forces Korea (@USForcesKorea) February 2, 2020 Below is information on USFKs directed self-quarantine for U.S. servicemembers. Please note the USFK Novel Coronavirus 24-hour hotline at Brian D. Allgood Community Hospital is 050-3337-2556, or DSN 737-2556. pic.twitter.com/PFwM9houpM U.S. Forces Korea (@USForcesKorea) February 2, 2020 The policy only applies to U.S. troops, but the command encouraged military family members, Defense Department civilians, contractors and others to take similar voluntary steps. In another statement on Saturday, USFK commander General Robert Abrams also said the military assesses the new virus as a low threat, but that it is closely monitoring the spread. We must do our best to prevent the spread or it will have a significant impact on our Fight Tonight readiness! he wrote. On Sunday South Korea reported three more confirmed cases of the new virus, bringing the total in the country to 15. A further 87 people are being tested for possible infection. By Josh Smith Two people have been stabbed in a terrorist attack in south London which police believe to be Islamist-related. Scotland Yard said armed officers shot dead a man as part of a proactive Counter Terrorism operation on Streatham High Road that unfolded at 2pm on Sunday. Three victims were taken to a south London hospital, with one mans condition said to be life-threatening and one woman being treated for non-life threatening injuries. Police said a second woman received minor injuries believed to have been caused by glass following the discharge of a police firearm. A device found strapped to the body of the suspect was a hoax, the Metropolitan Police added in a statement. It said: The situation has been contained and officers from the Mets Counter Terrorism Command are now leading an investigation into the incident. The incident was quickly declared as a terrorist incident and we believe it to be Islamist-related. One witness described seeing the man apparently carrying a weapon with silver canisters on his chest being shot in front of a Boots store. Another said members of the public came to the aid of victims, with one saying she had been stabbed. People took shelter in nearby shops as the incident unfolded on the busy south London high street. A 19-year-old student from Streatham, who did not want to be named, told the PA news agency: I was crossing the road when I saw a man with a machete and silver canisters on his chest being chased by what I assume was an undercover police officer, as they were in civilian clothing. The man was then shot. I think I heard three gunshots but I cant quite remember. After that, I ran into the library to get to safety. From the library, I saw a load of ambulances and armed police officers arrive on the scene. Expand Close (PA Graphics) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp (PA Graphics) Jonathan Bartley, co-leader of the Green Party and councillor for the St Leonards ward on Lambeth Council, told PA: Theres absolute shock and disbelief from residents that are around. There was an immediate sense of panic and fear when it happened. He added: The emergency services seemed to have reacted incredibly quickly, I mean so quickly that you wonder whether they had some advance warning about this because they were here in such great numbers so quickly. Nardos Mulugeta, 52, a mechanical engineer who lives in Streatham, said he heard gunshots before seeing one victim lying in the street. He told PA: I heard a shot and then there was a 20-second gap. Then there were three or four shots together. I went over and I saw the first victim, a male victim on the ground, near the White Lion Pub, and people were helping him. Then five minutes later, a woman came over and said, Ive been stabbed too in the back. And then people started helping her. I saw one body lying down further away. He was face-down between Argos and Iceland. Its really scary. Expand Close A police forensics officer works at the scene in Streatham (Victoria Jones/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A police forensics officer works at the scene in Streatham (Victoria Jones/PA) Rafe Askem, 21, was having a cigarette outside Maemes takeaway when he heard a commotion coming from the Lidl supermarket. He told PA: It looked like three boys but Im not sure. I heard a shout, like an ahhh! shout. The next thing I saw was a guy on the floor with blood round him. I didnt see a fight or anything, it seemed quite spontaneous. The others were legging it round the other way. I saw police coming so I went straight into the pub. I definitely didnt hear any gunshots. A lot of people messaged me saying theres gunshots but I didnt hear any. On Sunday evening, forensics officers could be seen near Superdrug and Boots examining the area for clues. Families could be heard asking police how they would be able to access their homes in light of the incident. Streatham High Road remains closed with cordons in place, police said. In a statement, London Mayor Sadiq Khan praised the emergency services as the best of us, adding: Terrorists seek to divide us and to destroy our way of life here in London we will never let them succeed. Thank you to all emergency services responding to the incident in Streatham, which the police have now declared as terrorism-related. My thoughts are with the injured and all those affected. Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) February 2, 2020 Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Home Secretary Priti Patel and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said their thoughts were with the injured. The London Ambulance Service said the first medics arrived at the scene of the attack four minutes after being called just before 2pm. The British Red Cross said it was ready to make the UK Solidarity Fund available to those affected by the attack. The fund was set up in 2017 following the attacks in Manchester and London and offers financial support to victims of terror attacks in need anywhere in the UK. Source: Xinhua| 2020-02-02 23:40:15|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close China has built a makeshift hospital in 10 days to combat the novel strain of coronavirus in Wuhan, the epicenter of the virus outbreak in central China's Hubei Province. The project was deemed "mission impossible," but with the efforts of experts and thousands of workers working around the clock, Huoshenshan (Fire God Mountain) Hospital was delivered Sunday, bringing hope to many patients. WUHAN, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- China has built a makeshift hospital in 10 days to battle against the novel strain of coronavirus in Wuhan, the epicenter of the virus outbreak in central China's Hubei Province. Huoshenshan (Fire God Mountain) Hospital was delivered Sunday in Wuhan. It is dedicated to treating patients infected with the virus. A total of 1,400 medical staff from the armed forces are tasked with treating patients in Huoshenshan Hospital starting from Monday. The medics consist of 950 people from hospitals affiliated to the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Joint Logistic Support Force, and 450 from medical universities of the army, navy and air force of the PLA who were sent to Wuhan earlier. Replicating Beijing's SARS treatment model in 2003, Wuhan started building two makeshift hospitals: Leishenshan (Thunder God Mountain) and Huoshenshan. On Jan. 23, workers broke ground on Huoshenshan Hospital, with a capacity of 1,000 beds. Aerial photo taken on Feb. 2, 2020 shows the Huoshenshan (Fire God Mountain) Hospital in Wuhan, the epicenter of the virus outbreak in central China's Hubei Province. (Xinhua/Cheng Min) "MISSION IMPOSSIBLE" MADE POSSIBLE Chinese health authorities Sunday said it received reports of 2,590 new confirmed cases of novel coronavirus infection and 45 deaths on Saturday from 31 provincial-level regions and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps. All the deaths are in Hubei Province, according to China's National Health Commission. As China feels the pinch of the outbreak, authorities have decided to replicate Xiaotangshan Hospital, a temporary medical center in the northern suburb of Beijing built in 2003. Beijing built Xiaotangshan Hospital in just a week in the treatment and control of SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. When Fang Xiang knew he and his team had to finish the hospital in Wuhan in 10 days, he thought it was "mission impossible." "For a project of this scale, it usually takes at least two years," said Fang, project manager of the Third Construction Co. Ltd of China Construction Third Engineering Bureau. "It takes at least a month to construct a temporary building, not to mention a new hospital for infectious diseases." In addition, with a big number of migrant workers partaking, it is difficult to provide adequate food and shelter on-site, according to a staff member of Wuhan Urban and Rural Construction Bureau. Combo photo shows an aerial view of the Huoshenshan Hospital during the past 10 days from Jan. 24 to Feb. 2, 2020 in Wuhan. (Xinhua/Xiao Yijiu) But the "mission impossible" had to be implemented under severe circumstances. From Jan. 23 to Feb. 1, Wuhan's confirmed cases of infection rose from 495 to a staggering 4,109. This has put huge pressure on local medical facilities, which failed to supply enough beds. A good many patients had to stay home for quarantine and treatment. If not handled properly, the epidemic could exacerbate. Located in a sanatorium near Zhiyin Lake in southwestern Wuhan, the hospital is far away from downtown areas where people converge. The area has sufficient transportation and pipeline systems, and existing dining halls and dormitories are ready to provide services. Authorities spent five hours on the designing plan and created a designing draft within 24 hours. Three companies received an order to build the "Fire God Mountain" under the Third Construction Co., Ltd. of China Construction Third Engineering Bureau. "I have never participated in such an urgent task, and I have never seen so many companies involved in a single project," said Fang Xiang's colleague Shen Kai. "It is a tough job, but we need to give it our best shot." Thousands of workers were operating more than 800 equipment simultaneously as they rushed against time to save lives. They vowed to fight against the virus and worked in shifts to complete the construction. Some people only slept for four hours a day, Shen said. Staff members use a mechanical vehicle to transfer medical equipment at the Huoshenshan Hospital in Wuhan, the epicenter of the virus outbreak in central China's Hubei Province, Feb. 2, 2020. (Xinhua/Li He) Ma Jiaqiang, 47, volunteered for the project when he read about the recruitment ad for Huoshenshan Hospital on social media. "I have been working in Wuhan. It is my home," Ma said. "I just had to take part." Ma operated a digging machine for eight hours a day at the construction site. "I feel honored to be able to part of this," Ma said. CHEER UP CHINA! After the hospital work began, the Chinese public went out of their way to supervise the construction of Huoshenshan. China's state broadcaster has been live-streaming the around-the-clock construction progress, which instantly went viral online. With no narration or background music, the livestream videos provide audiences a real-time bird's-eye view of the construction site. Photo taken on Feb. 2, 2020 shows the interior view of a ward of Huoshenshan Hospital in Wuhan, the epicenter of the virus outbreak in central China's Hubei Province. (Xinhua/Chen Yehua) Calling themselves "online supervisors," Chinese citizens have been keeping a close eye on the projects and exchanging their ideas and feelings in the comment section. They cheered when the hospital was delivered. "Cheer up, China! I believe we can curb the epidemic," read a typical online comment. "Salute to the workers working around the clock," read another comment. Aerial photo taken on Feb. 2, 2020 shows the Huoshenshan Hospital in Wuhan, the epicenter of the virus outbreak in central China's Hubei Province. (Xinhua/Cheng Min) The project is bringing hope to patients like Zhang Yue, a Wuhan resident, who has been suffering from fever for days. "It feels like seeing the sunlight shining through the dark clouds," Zhang said. (Reporting by Zhong Qun, Li Jinfeng, Jia Qilong, Li Yun, Wang Zuokui, Cheng Lu, Cheng Min, Xiao Yijiu, Li He and Chen Yehua; Video reporters: Yu Guoqing, Xu Yang, Rao Rao, Jia Qilong and Pan Zhiwei; Video editor: Liu Yuting.) Sea surface temperatures off the coast of Tasmania on November 23, 2010-2017. Data: Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS). Graphic: The Sydney Morning Herald By Royce Millar and Chris Vedelago 31 January 2020 (The Sydney Morning Herald) Rising temperatures and climate change have been blamed for the failure of stocks of some of the most popular eating fish in Australias Southern Ocean to recover from declines despite more than a decade of protection. The troubling findings come as new modelling from the CSIRO shows further temperature rises already locked in by past emissions could see fish stocks fall by another 20 per cent within the next two decades. Dr Alistair Hobday, a principal research scientist at the CSIRO, said there was no doubt climate change was an important factor in the failure of some over-fished species to recover. A report by the governments Fisheries Research and Development Corporation has found ocean temperatures increased by nearly 2 degrees over the past 80 years in the Southern and Eastern Scalefish and Shark Fishery, a global hotspot that was warming at almost four times the global average. Total catches and total allowable catch in the Southern Ocean, 2005-2017. Data: Fishwell Consulting and Fisheries Research and Development Corporation. Graphic: The Sydney Morning Herald The affected region sweeps from the lower east coast of Western Australia across Victoria and Tasmania to the Queensland-NSW border one of the most productive ocean zones in the country. Stringent new controls were introduced in 2005 to try and reverse the effects of long-term over-fishing in the area but new data shows that by 2015-16, commercial fishing operators were still catching less than half their allowed quota for more than two-thirds of species. When you reduce pressure [from fishing] you expect the stocks to improve. If you are catching fish and then you stop catching fish, the numbers of fish should come back. But they havent, and climate change is stopping that recovery in some cases, such as for jackass morwong, eastern gemfish, and blue warehou, Dr Hobday said. Historically over-fished species (eastern gemfish, school shark, blue warehou and most recently redfish) have shown little sign of recovery despite over a decade of the lowest catches on record resulting from significant management changes under rebuilding strategies, the research report found. [more] Empty nets and tropical fish in Tasmania as climate change hits Southern Ocean